NGS Day Two (Thursday the 10th)

Games conferencegoers play: Many vendors and groups have little ribbons that can be stuck on in layers so that they trail down from your NGS nametags. Some folks compete to get the longest string of ribbons. My friend Michael Hait doesn't go for that, but he does have two ribbons that you don't see the same person wearing very often: one identifis him as a speaker (two talks Saturday), the other identifies him as attending his first national conference!

Other things that came my way today:

Jana Sloan Broglin explained Ohio's fantastically complex systems of distributing land in the state. I believe sixteen different systems were tried out. She gave accompanying glimpses of the relevant American history and idiosyncratic Ohio pronunciations (Newark = Nurk, Putnam = Putman). In some counties you need to know both the metes-and-bounds land system AND the rectangular survey system (or an experimental variant) in order to research land records. In her home county of Fulton (as well as Williams and Lucas), early deeds in the northern part of the county have to be sought in Michigan, a result of the Ohio-Michigan War ("a cow died"). If you love land records -- and genealogists pretty much have to -- you'll love Ohio!

Stefani Evans carefully described an ongoing project under the title "Red Herrings and a Stroke of the Dead Palsy," which included a monumental red herring in which a Revolutionary War regiment's record somehow migrated 500 miles! I took away this quote: "If we don't look at each detail in each document, we're going to reach wrong conclusions." Stefani's reflective style itself was a reminder that, as researchers, we need to remain calm in the midst of conflicting and ambiguous records.

The Association of Professional Genealogists' "Gathering of the Chapters" had representatives from all over the US. Many chapters cover a wide area, and the new availability of GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar should make it easier to meet and greet without enduring long car trips. We even had a five-week-old "member" in attendance.

The "night at the library" -- the renowned Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County -- was in full swing when I left early, having located one of my coveted obscure articles. The genealogists outnumbered the staff, who were good-natured about the crowd, and in my case went the extra mile to find a periodical that the regular retrievers couldn't.

Tomorrow's my turn to do some talking instead of listening, with a talk in the 9:30 am slot (Indianapolis Orphan Asylum), so it's early to bed...


Harold Henderson, "NGS Day Two (Thursday the 8th)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

More Midwestern deaths on line

Joe Beine's recent blog post of newly added online death indexes includes the following Midwestern entries:

Illinois -- Vermilion County

Indiana -- Knox County and Southern Indiana

Michigan -- Detroit area (recent)

Ohio -- Cuyahoga, Lucas, and Trumbull counties

Wisconsin -- Wisconsin Medical Journal (WMJ) Physician Obituary Database 1903-2008

Toledo Treasures

(Whew -- 18,000 words later, it's good to be back!)

If you have research targets in the tri-state area, specifically Toledo, Old Toledo Yearbooks is for you. In form it's a blog, but if you click on the tabs or the items in the right-hand menu called "pages," you can see six entire scanned yearbooks from various schools from 1907, 1918, 1922, 1936, 1940, and 1942. "The Scroll" yearbook for St. Ursula Academy includes handwritten notations that appear to be the jobs or engagements the young women had following graduation. Questions? You can leave a comment on the blog.

The unnamed blogger also appears to have another Toledo-related blog/site, Life with Blue Grandma, with entries from the daily diary of Mary Helen Harris of Toledo. She kept a diary from 1931 to 1972; unfortunately only five months have been posted, and none since last January.