Midwest in major journals

This is the blog post where we pick up top genealogical journals, in which skilled genealogists scrupulously apply recondite methodologies to obscure records -- and ask only whether they discuss anyone from the Midwest.

Fortunately for this post, they do. (And all deal with people from the difficult pre-1850 period.) In the March 2011 National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Judy G. Russell's account of Josias Baker (1787-1870) includes his lengthy sojourn in Monroe County, Indiana, en route from North Carolina to Texas. Indiana's being a free state helped create one piece of evidence connecting Josias to his home, in that he chose to sell a slave in Burke County, North Carolina, in 1835, rather than in nearby Kentucky. And B. Darrell Jackson applies both DNA and documentary evidence to the ancestry of George Craig (1782/3-1868) of Howard County, Missouri.

In the April 2011 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Perry Streeter concludes his article, "Streeter Immigrants of Greene and Steuben Counties," with a genealogical summary that documents Ann "Nancy" Streeter (1814-early 1860s), child of Thomas and Louisa, who was born in Steuben County, New York; married Michael Buchanan; and later lived in Tuscola, Saginaw, and Genesee counties, Michigan.

Indiana Genealogist December 2010

The current issue of the Indiana Genealogist quarterly is the last one you'll see in print, unless you print it out from your computer, reports editor Rebecca E. Tomerlin of Valparaiso. Indiana Genealogical Society members can view this issue and later ones in PDF format.

The issue contains more than twenty items, including a number of good pictures of Indiana soldiers' graves and memorials in Tennessee, and much more. My eye was caught by two footnoted articles and a "lost" record retrieved:

Dawne Slater-Putt, "Establishing a Possible Identity of Ford Myers: a Fort Wayne Photo Subject," an especially good detective story if you've ever sighed over an orphaned photo in an antique shop.

Penelope Mathiesen, "Burgoon Church and the Burgoon Family in Monroe County, Indiana" -- the family donated land to the Baptist church but were not members; the children moved and married elsewhere but several returned for burial.

Marjorie Weiler-Powell's find of a complete family record of James and Grace (Cade) Davis in the Dearborn County Circuit Court records for 14 July 1829, under the heading, "Register of Free Persons of Color."