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.]

Sanborn maps in Cincinnati!

I blogged about Sanborn fire insurance maps, a great resource for buildings up close and personal, in May and June. Now the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has digitized two volumes with more to come. They're in color, 1904-1917 and 1904-1930. Even if they cover the same area (not a given), the distinction is important because these were working maps and often changes were pasted right over the original version.

While you're there, enjoy their excellent collection of Cincinnati city directories, beginning in 1819 and covering pretty much every year 1849-1895. That kind of close coverage is what researchers need.

Cincinnati city directories online

I don't get to Cincinnati nearly often enough. But now their well-reputed library is coming to me...and to those of you lucky enough to have ancestors in the lower left-hand corner of Ohio. The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County has PDF images of Cincy city directories 1819-1894 in their Digital Library. As far as I can tell, they have done everything right: reproduced a steady run of directories so that researchers can cross-correlate finds from one to the next; made images rather than transcriptions; and carefully distinguished between different directory publishers and date styles.

Ohio Genealogy News spring issue

OGS always has a lot going on:

"Ohio, the Gateway to the West: Genealogy Resources at the Columbus Metropolitan Library," by Russ Pollitt

"Ohio Death Certificate Images Online, 1908-1953," by Deb Cyprych

"2009 OGS Conference Call for Papers"

"Cemetery Chronicles," by Lolita (Thayer) Guthrie

"More Accessible Resources in the Cincinnati Public Library's Genealogy Department," by Patrician Van Skaik -- including an RSS feed, the River History Collection, "the leading African American research collection in the nation," and digitized Cincinnati city directories for many of the years 1819-1866.

Ohio libraries smackdown

The spring 2008 issue of Ohio Genealogy News pushes the upcoming annual conference (April 17-19 in Cincinnati) and describes the online images of state death certificates 1908-1953 now available, but most of the issue is devoted to three libraries: Columbus Metropolitan, Cincinnati Public, and new acquisitions by the Ohio Genealogical Society's own library in Mansfield (and the capital campaign to build a new one).

Columbus now holds the State Library of Ohio's genealogy collection as well as its own. (I should add that SLO still holds some relevant historical materials and the agricultural schedules of the US Census, as well as a very occasional genealogy blog.) Columbus also has the Ohio Huguenot Society collection and a microfilm every-name index to 130 Ohio county histories.

The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, long famed for the quality of its genealogy collection, has the River History Collection (including the Rivers photograph wiki), and what it describes as "the leading African American research collection in the nation, including Antebellum Southern Plantation Records, Regimental Histories of U.S. Colored Troops, and more. Its virtual library includes scanned images of Cincinnati city directories as early as 1819.

In short? It's hard to make a wrong turn in this state.