More Indiana repositories en route to FGS 2013

[Cross-posted from the FGS 2013 blog with one typo corrected.]

Unless you fly in, you will travel through Indiana on your way to or from the 2013 FGS conference in Fort Wayne. Indiana is the only state I know of with two high-quality general genealogy magazines, and, as this suggests, the state is also full of local societies and libraries with valuable holdings. Here's a sampling, and we could run several lists like this without running out.

Willard Library
21 First Avenue, Evansville
Tri-state resources for Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky, plus an alleged ghost . . .
http://www.willard.lib.in.us/

Friends Collection and Earlham College Archives
Richmond
Extensive manuscript collections and genealogies for Quaker families and meetings.
http://library.earlham.edu/ecarchives or investigate the Willard Heiss Collection list on line.
This is one of several colleges and universities with relevant genealogy material.

Porter County Public Library
This might be the best genealogy library in northern Indiana if Fort Wayne weren't there too! Good periodical selection.
103 Jefferson Street, Valparaiso
http://www.pcpls.lib.in.us/genealogy.html

Marshall County Historical Society
123 North Michigan, Plymouth
A half-block of downtown stores repurposed as a history museum and research center, with
indexes, original records, and knowledgeable helpers.
http://www.mchistoricalsociety.org/ and see also http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~inmarsha/

Alameda McCullough Research Library
1001 South Street, Lafayette
In the Frank Arganbright Genealogy Center. An extensive collection focused on Tippecanoe County.
Admission fee. Check site for hours.
http://www.tcha.mus.in.us/library.htm

A scattering of free newspapers online

The folks who track free genealogy resources on line have a generous conception of the Midwest, and a nice listing of free newspaper images for:

Illinois -- Barrington, Quincy, Sterling*, and Urbana

Indiana -- Evansville clippings*, Muncie, and Vevay/Switzerland County*

Michigan -- Saugatuck/Douglas

Ohio -- Cleveland Press clippings

Wisconsin -- clippings

*"new"

Methodology Monday in Evansville, Indiana

Tom Jones says we should spend as much time trying to figure out what to do with our sources as we spend finding them in the first place. I agree, while noticing with some embarrassment that almost every post to this blog has been about finding sources, not what to do with them afterwards.

I'll try to spend at least one post a week on interesting examples of methodology in tough cases. They may not all be from the Midwest but this one is. And since I won't unravel every detail of the reasoning, hopefully you'll be inspired to consult the original.

The semiannual Genealogist is perhaps the least well-known of the three or four top-ranked genealogy periodicals. I'm sure Fall 2007 is not its current issue, but it's the most recent one indexed in PERSI. Lead article is a 40-page monster by Stephen Alden Ralls, "The Lost Second Family of Colonel Hugh McGary Jr., Founder of Evansville, Indiana."

Polly (Blevins) McClain McGary had three McGary children in the early 1820s in Indiana. Everyone agrees Hugh McGary was the father, but which one? Hugh McGary Jr. of Evansville, Vanderburgh County, Indiana? His nephew Hugh McGary of Sangamon County, Illinois? Or his other nephew Hugh McGary of Arkasas and Missouri? And for that matter, who was the Hugh McGary who married Polly McClain in Vanderburgh County 7 September 1826...after two of those three McGary children were born?

The nephews had been favored because a fairly reliable 1889 county mug book from Arkansas identified this Huge as one who had served in the Black Hawk War -- both nephews had done so, but their uncle Hugh Jr. hadn't. But one nephew stayed in Sangamon County and his probate mentions children of two other marriages but none of these three. And the other nephew was only 13 at the time of the first McGary child's birth.

So Ralls pieces together a mosaic of evidence that makes the case that Hugh Jr. and Polly had two children born prior to this marriage and a third born after, at least one of these while they were both married to other people. Both were tried separately for adultery in the local court in 1825 (specifics not available) and not convicted. After that episode and one day after her divorce from her first husband, who had been elsewhere for some years, they took out a marriage license.

Ralls analyzes the evidence in the form of five arguments that Polly's first husband McClain was the father of the three children, and ten rather stronger arguments that Hugh Jr. was. He sniffs out a coverup from the very fact that Hugh and Polly's marriage is mentioned in no local history until the year 2000: "Since a marriage is a significant life event, since Hugh had been a very important person, since histories typically document important events of important people, and since this marriage is the last definite record of Hugh's presence in Vanderburgh County before disappearing, then it seems clear that its absence reflects an intent to conceal." (page 159) IOW, Hugh was a good ole boy and the other good ole boys protected him as much as they could.

For a masterful marshaling of indirect evidence to reach a conclusion that no record states in so many words, this story is hard to beat, even with the gaps and uncertainties, and the lack of a letter or other window into the minds of the participants. The genealogical summary traces 24 "new" grandchildren in Hugh Jr.'s descendant lines.

Ralls, Stephen Alden. "The Lost Second Family of Colonel Hugh McGary Jr., Founder of Evansville, Indiana." The Genealogist 21(2): 131-171.

Evansville's Quarterly

Contents of the December 2008 issue of The Tri-State Packet, the Tri-State Genealogical Society's quarterly for southeast Illinois, southwest Indiana, and northwest Kentucky:

"Vanderburgh County, Indiana, in the Mexican War," part 2, by Col. Charles C Schreeder (1847-1930), from the Southwestern Indiana Historical Society Collection at the Willard Library in Evansville

"Abstracts of the 1890 County Enrollment" of US army veterans, tr. Peggy K. Newton

"From A Grave Digger's Journal: Fall Festival & The Rabbit Man," reminiscences by Gilbert Schmitt

"Brady Family Bible Records," from Willard Library Family Files

"German Evangelical and Lutheran Churches in Vanderburgh County Indiana (1838-1865)," by
Karin Marie Kirsch: "The records listed under St. Paul's Evangelical, St. Paul's Evangelical and Reformed, and St. Paul's United Church of Christ may all refer to the same church."

"Bible Records of Ephraim Cox & His Descendants,"from Willard Library Family Files

"Mike Craft Remembers Evansville's Railroad," circa 1910?

"Spencer County, Indiana Deed [recorded in Livingston County, Kentucky] -- Estate of John Karr/William Briscoe," tr. Brenda Joyce Jerome, CG

"WPA Pike County Deaths 1887-1902," tr. Marjorie Malott

Willard Library in Evansville

I can drive to Madison, Wisconsin, or Cleveland, Ohio, faster than I can get to Evansville. But now I have a reason to go: the Willard Public Library's genealogical collection, in a distinctive building at 21 N. First Avenue just north of downtown.

I got a quick glimpse of it (and some fruitful copying done) during a lunch break from the Indiana Genealogical Society conference Saturday. I don't really know if it's the second or third best genealogical library in Indiana, as some claim, but I'd be willing to bet that on an information-per-square-foot basis it's way up there. I am sure that it's a must-see if you're doing anything in SW Indiana or SE Illinois, and after my next trip I'll be able to say more.

War is hell

J. Mark Lowe, CG, of Robertson County, Tennessee, came just far enough north this weekend to touch the tippy-toe of the Midwest -- he gave four informative and engaging lectures at yesterday's Indiana Genealogical Society's 2008 annual meeting in Evansville. (He also blogs occasionally at Keeping The Story Alive.)

If you left early, you missed his most hard-core talk, on World War I records. Years ago he interviewed 44 WWI veterans in his area about their experiences. When asked about their experiences in that war, almost every one began by saying words to this effect: "I've done everything I could in my life to forget it."

Another place you wish your ancestors had died...

...is Evansville, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, home of the Browning Genealogy Database of more than half a million obituary records compiled by the late Charles Browning. (Could you ask for better evidence that all genealogy is local?)

I happened onto this resource years ago because a prolific branch of Morgan cousins of mine moved from SE Illinois to SW Indiana about 1920. Thanks to Mr. Browning's lifelong labors, I know a lot more about them than I ever expected to. And thanks to Arlene Eakle and Nashville librarian Taneya, whose posts reminded me.

Look who's blogging

The Indiana Genealogical Society has a blog. Actually it's almost a year old. AFAIK this is a rarity among genealogical societies -- it looks like Indiana is in the lead here. Do you know of others?

So far it's mostly devoted to queries, announcements of local meeting topics, and communications with the volunteers busy on the 1790-1857 Indiana marriage indexing project. (Remember when queries had to be squeezed into the confines of a print newsletter? IGS's policy is generous.)

And in a self-effacing way that Garrison Keillor would appreciate, so far it has scarcely been used to promote IGS's April 4-5 annual conference in Evansville, featuring J. Mark Lowe, CG, FUGA, who will earn his keep by giving four of the eight lectures, covering Kentucky, the internet, bad research, and WWI.