Insane persons at large in the archives

The lead article in the Summer 2010 Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly is "Elizabeth Scholfield, an Insane Person," by Mari Margaret McLean, winner of the OGS's third annual writing contest. Scholfield's story is told largely through her probate and guardianship files, census records, and family charts from another researcher.

None of these sources shed any light on why Scholfield was adjudged insane (or whether she may have been one of the women who were put away for other reasons). The article makes no mention of records of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum, where she resided from 1849 to 1854, or the records of the Muskingum County Infirmary, where she lived from 1854 to her death in 1871. Such records, even when they survive, are often suppressed for reasons of the alleged privacy rights of long-deceased people -- which makes it all the more important to tell Scholfield's and other insane people's stories with whatever records are still available.

Ohio summer quarterly

Contents of the Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly for Summer 2009 (volume 49, number 2, if you're counting). If you can't find something to your taste in this varied issue, maybe you need a tastebud transplant!

"Locating Kingdom of Hannover Records for 19th Century German Immigrants in Ohio," by Verna Forbes Willson -- first prize winner in this year's OGS writing contest: "My first and often repeated advice to other researchers is to not put too much faith in what others have told you but try as hard as possible to find the truth and preserve it."

"2008 First Families of Ohio Roster," by Karen Miller Bennett, CG(SM)

"The Reverend Henry Miller Herman," by Kathryn Young Ellis

"1904 Deaths in Cincinnati, Ohio, with Burials Outside of Hamilton County," tr. Kenny R. Burck and Doris Thomson

"Mining for Historical and Genealogical Gems," by Patricia Donaldson-Mills, with an extended transcript from an 1831 Brown County case, James Taylor vs. Duncan McArthur, including depositions from surveyors in the area in the 1790s.

"Elizabeth Scranton," obituary transcribed from the Alliance Review by Lois Adams Bender

"Ohioans on the Move: Portrait and Biographical Album, Sedgwick County, Kansas, Part 2," tr. Dan Spellman

"Lemuel C. Scholfield, Debtor or Deadbeat?" by Mari M. McLean *

"Yearbooks and Reunion Books: Genealogical Windfalls from Former Veterans' Societies," by Eric Johnson

"A Monthly Time Book, Wabash and Erie Canal, 1838-1840," tr. Terri Gorney

"Identification of an Old Soldier: Ira B. Sawyer," by Sandra Sawyer Lawrence: "Ira's story was
so intriguing I sent for his Civil War pension records.... What a surprise I had when I received nearly a ream of paper from the National Archives," most of it about Ora, "a woman I knew nothing about."

* Footnoted.

112 pages, including about 29 pages of written text (stories or articles) as opposed to transcriptions and lists.