Fall 2015 talks

In between the sloth of summer and the hibernation of winter are the seasons where it's actually fun to get things done. This fall I have five speaking engagements coming up.

Tuesday evening September 8, La Porte County Genealogical Society, La Porte, Indiana:
"Probate Will Not Be the Death of You" (digest version).

Saturday September 19, Willard Library, Evansville, Indiana:
"Why We Don't Write and How We Can"
"Indirect Evidence: When Perry Mason Isn't on Your Side"
"Probate Will Not Be the Death of You"
" 'Are We There Yet?' Proof and the Genealogy Police," a case study

Saturday October 17, Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society, Valparaiso, Indiana:
"Land and Property: The Records No Genealogist Can Do Without"

Tuesday evening October 20, Marshall County Genealogical Society, Plymouth, Indiana:
"Ten Commandments for Being a Good Genealogy Client"

Tuesday evening November 17, Board for Certification of Genealogists public online webinar:
"Do You Have the Reflexes You Need to Become Certified? Fifteen Things Your Grandfather Would Tell You . . . If I Were Your Grandfather"

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April speaking engagements

I'm looking forward to talking genealogy with folks in and around Plymouth, Indiana, and then Kalamazoo, Michigan!


April 15, 6 pm EDT -- Plymouth IN, Marshall County Historical Society: "Beyond Fort Wayne, Madison, and the Newberry: Welcome to the Other Midwestern Archives"

April 21, 7 pm EDT -- Kalamazoo MI, Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society: "Land and Property: The Records No Genealogist Can Do Without"




Harold Henderson, "April speaking engagements," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 5 April 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Is the story everything in genealogy?

Is it true that in genealogy the story is everything?

Yes -- in a way, up to a point.

I totally believe in stories, especially since they were at the core of my previous (journalistic) life. But loving and seeking family stories is not a good excuse to evade research and proof, or to disregard standards. Two thoughts:

(1) The story is not much good if it's attached to the wrong person or the wrong family. My grandfather thought that his maternal grandfather had watched and waited for a tax sale and bought a nice farm at a good price that way. I've never found any evidence that this happened (although I'm not done looking), but I have found evidence that his paternal great-grandfather did just that, probably more than once.

(2) Often hard-core research in property and probate and more obscure records can reveal stories no one remembers today. I found one while working on a case study for my BCG certification portfolio. I was struggling to trace a family headed by an agricultural laborer who owned no land. I thought they were in Marshall County, Indiana, and I worked all the records I could find and found only three traces there: a census entry, an entry in a book of chattel mortgages, and a brief court record. He had to borrow $90, and to secure the loan he put up "one dark brown medium sized horse, having small head and small ears, and supposed to be eight years old in the spring of 1881. Name of said horse is Frank." The court record came when he couldn't repay the loan and had to forfeit Frank, as well as a set of work harnesses and a wagon. (The story didn't contribute to the solving of that case, but it's burned into my memory even though I'm no relation to that family.)

Standards don't require anyone to suppress stories that are dubious or even proven false. Just be clear about what they are and are not. In fact it may be useful to preserve them. Sometimes a false story or a false piece of information conveys a nugget of truth either in the way it is told, or the kind of mistake it makes, or when it is correlated with documentary evidence. But that's a story for another day . . .


Harold Henderson, "Is the story everything in genealogy? ," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 20 January 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

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

July South Bend Area newsletter

Articles in the July 2008 issue of the South Bend Area Genealogical Society Quarterly Newsletter (Volume 33, issue 3):

"The Thompson Family Journey," by Barbara Weiler, a firsthand account of a covered wagon journey from Ohio to Iowa in 1861: "During the trip we were very careful not to discuss the war as we often met folks who were southern sympathizers."

"Obituaries of St. Joseph Co. natives found in the Los Angeles Times and the Orange Co. Register (California)," comp. Eleanor E. Borkenhagen

"1862 Civil War Letter Found in Rafters of Old Minish House," by Bill Minish with reprints from 1999 articles

"Blackrobe: Father Benjamin Petit and the Potawatomi Trail of Death," by Ken Reising:

"Fr. Petit was on the scene at Menominee's village [Marshall County, near Twin Lakes] as his parishioners were being rounded up and prepared to move. On the morning of September 4, 1838 orders were given to move .... As the Indians were marched off from what had been their village they could see white settlers already harvesting the corn that the Indians had been forced to leave behind."

"1910 Index of Heads of Households for River Park, Indiana"