Methodology Monday with shared addresses in Philadelphia

Do you check the whereabouts of friends, associates, and neighbors in the censuses and forget the cemeteries?

"Cemeteries are neighborhoods too." That staying has stuck in my mind ever since I first heard it from Elissa Scalise Powell. It could be the tagline for Kay Haviland Freilich's article in the March 2014 National Genealogical Society Quarterly identifying the parents of Philadelphia native Harry Harding (1852-1894).

The 1860 census provided a hypothesis as to Harry's parentage. But it might have remained a hypothesis if Freilich had not found a significant cemetery discrepancy. Harry, his wife, and two children are buried in one Philadelphia cemetery. But their first (stillborn) son is buried elsewhere -- in the same lot as Harry's hypothetical parents.

Read the whole thing, including an elegant two-page table of joint locations of various family members between 1850 and 1906 that support the connection.




Kay Haviland Freilich, "A Family for Harry Harding of Philadelphia," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 102 (March 2014): 11-20.

Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday with shared addresses in Philadelphia," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 28 April 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Saturday in Lafayette

Tami Pelling and Barbara Fitzpatrick put together a nice one-day genealogy gathering called "History Begins with You" in downtown Lafayette this past weekend. Ron Darrah of Indianapolis (and of the IndyGenealogy blog) alternated giving talks. The audience had lots of thoughts and questions.

Ron totally persuaded me to spend more research time on fraternal and similar organizations that became especially common after the Civil War. After church and school, they were often the main thing in small towns and ethnic neighborhoods, and even those groups that no longer exist left many traces in obituaries and on tombstones. Their records, if you can find them, are not just context-providers but potential alternative sources of vital records -- especially since many of these gruops were insurance organizations as well.

Do catch Ron's talk ("The Fraternal Order of Everyone") if you get a chance. And if you don't, check out Kay Haviland Freilich's article in The Source on "Business, Institution, and Organization Records."


Harold Henderson, "Saturday in Lafayette," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 8 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]