Indianapolis Research on Your Way to FGS in Fort Wayne

Besides containing one of the premier genealogy libraries -- the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center -- and hosting next year's Federation of Genealogical Societies conference, Fort Wayne is also surrounded in every direction by other useful repositories. The following (by me) was just posted on the FGS 2013 conference blog, second in a series of short posts on ways to pack in extra research on your way to or from the conference in Fort Wayne.

Indiana's capital city, a little over two hours southwest of Fort Wayne, is a great place for a quick strike
in libraries or archives on your way to the FGS conference. The downtown canals and state capitol make
for plenty of photo and recreational opportunities as well.

Indiana State Library, 315 West Ohio Street, http://www.in.gov/library/index.htm. The microfilm
room on the second floor houses the world's best collection of Indiana newspapers along with the
state's most complete collection of Indiana county records. On another wing of the second floor are the
manuscript collections, with finding aids and a card catalog.

Indiana Historical Society, 450 West Ohio Street, http://www.indianahistory.org. Investigate their
massive manuscript and visual holdings at http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/manuscript-
and-visual-collections. Their store and “Indiana Experience” shows may be just the thing for any non-
researchers on board.

These two buildings are across the street and less than a block apart. Bring quarters for IHS lockers,
ISL copiers, and street parking. If you haven't been to Indianapolis in a while, allocate some time to
adjust to the higher on-street parking fees and the computerized payment system. IHS parking is free
with library use; its downstairs cafe looks out on the canals.

Indiana State Archives, 6440 East 30th Street, http://www.in.gov/icpr/2358.htm, with an auxiliary
on-line digital archive at http://www.indianadigitalarchives.org. Seven miles east of downtown, this is
an archive, not a library, so figure out what records you're looking for and call ahead to arrange to see
them. Parking not a problem.

Crown Hill Cemetery, 700 West 38th Street, http://www.crownhill.org, makes a great out-of-the-
car break with a genealogical and historical flavor. The beautiful pictures on the site do not lie. Burial
locator at http://www.crownhill.org/locate.

Every city deserves a blogger who's old enough to know the secrets and young enough to tell them.
Check out Ron Darrah's IndyGenealogy blog at http://indygenealogy.blogspot.com.


Harold Henderson, "Indianapolis Research on Your Way to FGS in Fort Wayne," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 3 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

ROAD TRIP! The Things We Carry

Last week members of the APG members and TGF lists talked about what people take with them when researching at the repository or the cemetery. My fourteen-item list remains a work in progress and it reflects the fact that I straddle the physical/digital divide. Of course, it is possible to purchase, or to make do without almost everything on this list -- except the final two items. But "making do" takes precious time.

* Maintenance materials: water to drink, aspirin or equivalent, a snack depending on schedule, a book to read in case there's an unpredicted long wait.

* Shoulder bag to contain pretty much everything else listed below. Sometimes this will be my laptop bag, with the power cord and everything else crammed into it, sometimes another bag in addition or instead of that. This has a compartment for storing photocopies where (once labeled) they can lie flat, in order, and in peace during the trip.

* Laptop and power cord. I don't use it much on courthouse trips (often there's no space) but if I'm going to a library or other place with wi-fi I'll at least catch up on email.

* Blank spiral-bound notebook. For use where space is limited or when I don't have time to boot up the laptop. My computer notes are more legible and more easily uploaded to Dropbox, but sometimes the old way works best. Pages are perforated so that they can be removed and placed in binders by subject and thus promptly reunited with any photocopies or computer notes that belong with them.

* Pens -- and pencils, just in case. In my experience, archives that (wisely) require pencils also provide them.

* Calendar containing itinerary (and directions if needed).

* Relevant maps or directions. GPS is fine but I try not to be without the appropriate state atlas (we use DeLorme) because I usually want to have an overview, not just a path. If it's a county I've been to before I may have a really detailed local map in my map drawer!

* Thumb drive(s). Bring more than one if there's any possibility that you absent-mindedly filled up one! Digital images straight from microfilm (whether there's a charge or not) are a wonderful thing.

* Cell phone and charger. Sometimes the phone doesn't realize it's short of power until I actually try to make a call.

* Change purse packed with mainly dimes and quarters. My local library has good microfilm printers that ONLY accept dimes. Those at the Indiana State Library ONLY accept quarters. The copiers at Allen County Public Library ONLY accept special cards that are filled by using bills, not change. And sometimes I'm headed for a repository or a parking situation where I don't know the quirks.

* Digital camera with battery charger. Useful for documents in some situations, and it's rarely a mistake to take pictures of courthouses etc.

* Hat, coat, raincoat, umbrella as dictated by the weather. In my experience, extreme weather is much commoner in cemeteries than anywhere else.

* Most importantly, my "shopping list" of questions to be answered and relevant resources to be sought, organized first by repository and then by project. For places with good on-line catalogs this can get very specific.

* Of equal importance, as much information as possible to consult in case of surprises during the day -- such as names and dates of the research target's family members and other contextual information that suddenly turns out to be important. The best and most compact such companion may be the actual research report in progress and (hopefully) up to date. At less organized times it may have to be a couple of binders, or relevant files and images and emails downloaded to the laptop (in case of need when wi-fi isn't around).

What would you add or subtract?



Photo credit: darastar's photostream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/darastar/1253839973/ : accessed 7 October 2012, per Creative Commons.

Harold Henderson, "ROAD TRIP! The Things We Carry," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Valparaiso, Your #3 Genealogy Library Stop in Indiana?

Larry Clark has done a lot at Valparaiso. He oversees the genealogy room there, part of the Porter County (Indiana) Public Library System. The most visible thing about the room is that it's ringed with marriage and court records from the county clerk's office, in the process of being indexed. Next most visible are the impressive array of periodicals, including four of the five best in the field: The American Genealogist, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, and the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. (And you can read the current issues!) Also visible are the extensive book collections for many states besides Indiana. Also visible, but expected, are good microfilm collections of local newspapers.

Less visible but highly valued are microfilmed records of the Gary Diocese, covering many years between 1850 and 1991, including births, deaths, confirmations, marriages, and christenings. Least visible but especially interesting to me is the large collection of city directories, with microfilms for 24 cities in Indiana, 14 in Illinois, 10 in Ohio, 4 in western New York 3 in western Pennsylvania, 3 in Michigan, and one in Wisconsin. These are not complete runs but they are way more than you'll find in most local genealogy collections. I have posted a list of the cities and dates at Midwest Roots -- part of my ongoing series there of "unfindables," undercatalogued collections in various libraries, including microfilms of old Indiana newspapers in Mishawaka and of small-city directories in Fort Wayne.

After Allen County and the Indiana State Library, this could well be the third best public library for genealogy in Indiana. Check it out!



Harold Henderson, "Valparaiso, Your #3 Genealogy Library Stop in Indiana?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 8 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

IGHR Samford Day 0, resting briefly in the shade

If you've been to IGHR (the week-long Institute for Genealogical and Historical Research) at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, you don't need my description. And if you haven't been there, you may not understand it when I call it a cross between a conference and a homecoming, in which the party comes the evening before the work begins.

For me, the advent is a two-day car trip, this year solo. Saturday I stopped off at the Indiana State Library and wound up hitting almost every research target I aimed at. (More on that later.) Sunday I drove and listened to recordings of talks given by Tom Jones and Elizabeth Shown Mills at the National Genealogical Society conference last month. Tom managed to condense documentation into five questions and then into two basic principles; Elizabeth laid out a plan for organizing research so that you won't have to go back and do it over. I need to recheck the syllabus material in order to get the most out of them.

And there was no time for that once I arrived on the hillside campus, what with getting registered, getting settled, greeting friends old and new, telling newcomers where to go next (it's my fourth year here so I can pass for an old-timer), checking out the used books for sale in the library, and even selling a few of my wife's heavy-duty coffee mugs emblazoned with trees.

Debra Hoffman filled in ably for the absent ProGen Study Group leader Angela McGhie at the study group reunion and recognition. Afterwards the conversation devolved into small groups. Mine got into stories and advice about writing genealogical articles, and we were far from the last to leave.

Director Lori Northrup borrowed the best line of the evening when she quoted Samford's president: "We rest in the shade of trees we did not plant." At the end of a long day that's a good thought to mull over in the calm before the storm of genealogical activity set to begin at 8 am sharp Monday morning.


Harold Henderson, "IGHR Samford Day 0," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 June 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

To finish the job, go off-line

Experienced genealogists frequently admonish novices, "Not everything is on line." We're usually thinking of manuscripts, or the wall-high shelves of books in county offices, many not even microfilmed yet. But we can't even complete as simple a task as locating old newspapers entirely on line.

Recently I needed to locate newspapers published in November 1915 in three adjacent Indiana counties: Blackford, Delaware, and Jay. None of these are on line anywhere that I have looked.

Always my first place to check is the Indiana State Library's "Indiana Newspapers Holdings Guide," and I found a total of FOUR titles, just waiting for me the next time I get to visit the biggest collection of Indiana newspapers on earth.

Piece of cake, right? Not if I had stopped there.

Next I went "across the street" (as if I were in Indy!) and found a FIFTH title at the Indiana Historical Society.

Then I went to my own listing of newspaper microfilms held at the Mishawaka Penn Harris Public Library Heritage Center and found a SIXTH (significantly closer to home than Indianapolis for me).

Nothing more at the Library of Congress.

Done yet? Not so much. Then I went off-line.

I remembered that in her new book on Indiana research (part of the NGS series on Genealogy in the States) Dawne Slater-Putt mentioned a book, Indiana Newspaper Bibliography. This book is not on line; I had to check it out of my local public library. Sure enough, the compilers had located a SEVENTH title, held only at the Blackford County Historical Society (whose web site is not specific about what dates they hold) -- and an EIGHTH, held only at the Jay County Recorder's office.

Of course, Indiana Newspaper Bibliography was published in 1982, and the papers may have migrated since. But as far as I know, no on-line resource for Indiana newspapers matches this 30-year-old book.

Genealogy doesn't get a lot simpler than looking up where old newspapers are. But in order to do the job right -- in order to find 100% of what I was looking for instead of just 75% -- I couldn't rest content with the information available on line.



John W. Miller, Indiana Newspaper Bibliography (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1982).


Harold Henderson, "To finish the job, go off-line," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 24 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Microfilm in Mishawaka! Indiana newspapers uncatalogued

The Indiana State Library has the best collection of Indiana newspapers in the world – check out their guide.

What may well be the second most extensive such collection is in the Heritage Center at the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library in St. Joseph County, much more conveniently located for those living in northern Indiana (and for those who approach the state from the north). But it is not enumerated on their web site. I have posted my personal list at Midwest Roots.

Good news for Indiana genealogists

If you've hung around Indiana genealogy much at all, you've probably seen, met, and heard Ron Darrah. Now you can keep up even from a distance, with his new blog IndyGenealogy.

In my experience the genealogy world is somewhat short of folks like Ron who will speak their minds and let the chips fall where they may. In one recent post he notes that the Indiana State Library appears to be suffering from underfunding as to printers and microfilm readers, and doesn't seem to have a plan for digitizing its marvelous but obsolescent newspaper microfilm collection. In another he introduces us to a lesser-known Indianapolis facility, the American Legion library. And more recently, check out his restrained but devastating analysis of the much-hyped Indiana Digital Archives.

Indiana resources in Michigan

(Please forgive the cross-posting.)

If you had a genealogical problem in La Porte County, Indiana, the first place you'd look would be Kalamazoo, Michigan, right? No, but it should be somewhere on your list.

The Western Michigan University Archives & Regional History Collections' on-line catalog reveals two resources for "LaPorte":

* LaPorte County News Collection, 1902-1908, collection no. A1274, three reels of microfilm of the Union Mills La Porte County News from Union Mills. The Indiana State Library's excellent collection holds only one issue of this newspaper.

* Minnesota Historical Society Collection, 1834-1926, no collection number, containing papers of James Mandigo 1834-1891,with a scrapbook that at least mentions his attendance at Indiana Medical College in La Porte.

In this index as in many others, the search term "LaPorte" brings up different results from "La Porte." It's all part of our incompletely digested French heritage.

working in Indianapolis

Indianapolis is not my native habitat -- it's farther away than Chicago, and the only reasonable way to get there is to drive -- but nevertheless I wind up there at least once a month. It contains three of the four premier genealogical repositories in the state, and two of them are just across Ohio Street from each other: the Indiana State Library with its arsenal of microfilmed Indiana newspapers and county records (including many FHL films on permanent loan), and the Indiana Historical Society with its own living history presentations for the public (complete with a clock that runs backwards) and an archive of primary source collections. Just being able to cross the street from one to the other is somewhat intoxicating.

Hopefully some day the third member of this research trinity, the Indiana State Archives -- currently relegated to a leaky warehouse on the east side of town -- will return to its original downtown neighborhood and a facility worthy of its own remarkable and irreplaceable holdings.

Context Files: Indiana Sheet Music on line

What were your ancestors singing?

Four institutions have partnered to produce the web site IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana, with about 10,000 items of sheet music from 1800 to 1990. Indiana University's Lilly Library, the Indiana State Library, the Indiana Historical Society, and the Indiana State Museum between them hold close to 200,000 pieces of sheet music. The items on line are searchable and browseable. For the decade 1820-1829 there are seven items, and for the decate 1910-1919 there are over 5,000. Selections include "Ah Grammachree Molly" from 200 years ago to the "11th Indiana Quickstep" from 1863. The title refers to a military unit, not to ten previous iterations of the dance.

Hat tip to the University of Wisconsin's Scout Report.

Watchdog Wednesday with Genealogy Bank in Cincinnati

[A series dedicated to keeping up with the quirks of the indispensable big indexing companies, and suggesting workarounds or even actual changes to deal with them...]

Late last month I searched for a man who might well have been mentioned in a Cincinnati newspaper during 1856. I examined the list of six Cincinnati newspapers at Genealogy Bank's Historical Newspapers, and found two with the right coverage -- "Cincinnati Daily Gazette (1835-1883)" and the "Whig (1802-1882)." (Since the coverage varies between the library subscription and the individual subscription, I'm not sure you'll find the same listings on the library version.)

No results for his surname, no results for common surnames, and no results when I left all the search terms blank and hit the search key. I had been prepared not to find him, but I had not been prepared to find nobody at all. Hmmm...

Eventually I found that a blank search on these two papers for the years 1845-1866 yielded 77 hits, and a blank search for the years 1846-1867 yielded 29,074 hits. But a blank search of 1846-1866 yielded -- nothing.

Am I doing something wrong? Or is GenealogyBank claiming to index 20 years' worth of two newspapers when they don't have a single issue up?

I posted the above on a mailing list earlier, and received two helpful suggestions but no answers to the main question. The Library of Congress's newspaper directory suggests that GB may suffer in part from a typo problem, as there doesn't seem to be any Whig paper of those dates in Cincinnati (and in fact since the Whig Party disintegrated in the 1850s we shouldn't expect there to be one).

Meanwhile, it looks like I should follow this trail the old-fashioned way: my Indiana State Library appears to have relevant issues of the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, and their account of what they hold appears to be much more specific, showing the gaps.

Indianapolis City Directories online, two sources

As I've probably said before, the best city directory collections, on or off line, are those that have a steady run so that you can check and correlate from year to year (tedious as that may be sometimes). It's now possible to do a good bit of that work from home for Indianapolis research targets, although nobody has full online coverage yet that I know of. (See the Indiana State Library's catalog for what that would look like.)

For older directories, Internet Archive has a nice collection of images (not transcriptions!) which as of last week included 1857, 1858, 1860-1, 1862, 1865-6, 1867, 1875, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1894, 1896*, 1899, 1902*, 1904, 1906, 1911*, 1912, 1916, 1919, 1921, and 1922. They aren't arranged in any particular order, and the starred* ones are not labeled by year in the search results. Worse, when you click on them to see what the surprise package is, they all three claim to be 1855! You have to look at an actual page (flip book loads a lot faster than the PDF version) to learn each volume's true identity.

For more recent information, visit the fanatically symmetrical IUPUI libraries' Indianapolis City Directory Collection (if you're not local, that stands for Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis), which has images for 1858-9, 1880, 1914 (in 4 parts), 1915 (4), 1916 (4), 1917 (4), 1918 (4), 1920 (4), 1930 (4), 1940 (4), 1951 (3), 1960 (4), 1970 (4), and 1980 (3). If your folks never left 'Naptown, you have a nifty set of census substitutes here!

As you can see, the overlap between these two sources is minimal. My pet peeve is that digital publication sites don't always label their directories exactly as to the year(s) covered. The volume that Internet Archive calls 1858 and IUPUI calls 1858-9 is actually 1858-9, or, in full, McEvoy's Indianapolis City Directory and Business Mirror for 1858-9.

Both Internet Archive and IUPUI's digital collections have lots of other good stuff, so stick around and browse a while.

Midwestern Roots in Indianapolis in August

One of Indiana's two genealogy associations, the Indiana Historical Society, will put on Midwestern Roots 2008 on the east side of Indianapolis Friday and Saturday August 15-16, with a full slate of pre-conference activities on Thursday the 14. Speakers of national renown will include Christine Rose ("Using Little-Known and Neglected Sources" and more), Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak ("Cases That Make My Brain Hurt" and more). Also I hope to hear Betty Warren on Indiana marriage laws 1791-1891, Alan January on state hospital records, and Curt Witcher on directories. Pre-conference workshops will include internet research, history lab, library resources, and preparing your family history for publication -- or you can revel in the resources of the Indiana State Archives, the genealogy division of the Indiana State Library, and the IHS's own William Henry Smith Memorial Library. This is the perfect venue for those of us who hesitate to spend the time and money to go to the week-long national extravaganzas (which I also love).

Midwestern Newspaper Indices

Joe Beine's Genealogy Roots Blog points to the updated Historical Newspapers and Indexes On The Internet - USA, which has useful listings for Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

But it's not complete. It refers to the Chicago Tribune 1870-1877 index on Footnote, but if you go directly to the Tribune's own archives you can search 1852-1984. (In both cases you have to pay to see more than a sentence or two.) Also, the Indiana State Library site is supposed to have limited indices for Logansport and New Albany (currently inoperative).

Indiana Genealogist for December

The current issue of the quarterly publication of the Indiana Genealogical Society runs heavily to military and religious sources:

"The True Story of Arthur Andrews, A Soldier of the Revolution," by F. W. (Bill) Farnsworth -- a fascinating disambiguation of two (or three?) same-name patriots.

"Introduction of DePauw University's United Methodist Archives," by Wesley W. Wilson

"Hoosier Soldiers in 29th Infantry Division, WWI, Part II," by Thomas P. Jones

"Case Study: The Travels of John Jansen," by Ron Darrah

"Researching Your Family History at the Indiana State Library: An Overview," by Autumn C. Gonzalez

"Lineage Societies: The SAR," by Robert D. Howell, Sr.

I can't think of a state magazine so careful to distribute the shorter articles equitably: eight of the nine districts of Indiana has a few short items like "Dubois County Court Cases, 1898," and "Danville Woman Dies Three Times." The two most significant list Earlham College faculty 1859-1922, and Allen County veterans of the Spanish-American War.