Back from Ohio Genealogical Society in Toledo

The biggest state genealogy organization in the country wound up its annual conference yesterday in Toledo. High points for me were working with fellow Great Lakes APG members in the meeting, roundtable, and Ancestors Road Show; meeting old, new, and prospective ProGen Study Group members at lunch Friday; and hearing Connie Reik on farm sources, and Craig Scott on World War I and colonial wars. The syllabus has plenty of material to catch up on, and to make me sorry I couldn't go to more.

Saturday's variable weather gave me an opening to walk over to the Toledo-Lucas County public library. Newcomers are well advised to study the library's web site before going. I didn't, and wound up getting lost (there are two different third floors -- for local history you want the elevators at the back of the building, not the front). The library has great resources for its locality (which I didn't get to work with), and the very busy librarians were kind and helpful. For out-of-towners with Lucas County roots, the web site has an index to Toledo Blade obituaries, 1970-present.

But for Ohio counties and other states, the collection is saddled with a peculiar cataloging decision. Within each Ohio county and each other state, books are ordered by author or title, rather than by subject! This works fine if you happen to know the authors of all the books pertaining to, say, Green County, Kentucky, but most of us don't conduct our research that way. A glance at the online catalog ("classic catalog" allows search by subject) would have helped me make the most of the situation.

One last thing: the ongoing tragedy of inadequate library funding was much in evidence. The library's hours are limited, and the joint was jumping midday Saturday, with a lot of folks hoping to be able to use local history computers for general purposes and not being able to do so. We as genealogists need to step up to the plate and say it straight out: free public libraries are a resource provided by the community for the community, an investment in equal opportunity. Taxes paid for libraries are a good thing. Period.

One other last thing: I took the scenic route home in order to take some cemetery photos. If you fail to associate "scenic drive" with Toledo, try taking Ohio 25 and US 24 southwest out of the city in mid-spring, with enough flaming purple redbuds along the river to light up the gloomiest day.

Methodology Monday with Basil Williams

"Perhaps more frequently and firmly than many genealogical sources, land records enable kinship determination." That's Nicki Peak Birch, CG, writing in her article, "Tracking Basil Williams of Maryland and Pennsylvania Through Changing Residences and Multiple Marriages," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 96:23-37, March 2008. Some members of the Great Lakes Chapter of APG discussed it a couple of weeks ago.

One of the article's basic questions is whether the Basil Williams of Frederick County and Anne Arundel counties in Maryland and Washington County in Pennsylvania are the same man. The answer is, yes and no. "Debt books" recording land in Maryland help show that there was only one Basil Williams there, but Revolutionary War pension files show that there were two Basils later. The argument is not simple, and it may get another workout in a discussion session at the spring Ohio Genealogical Society conference in Toledo.

In any case, Birch's message could use some repetition. I find county land offices (by whatever name) some of the easiest places to work -- they're used to people coming in and going about their business -- but rarely are my elbows jostled by fellow genealogists.

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.

Not just remembering the respectable

Dick Eastman blogs about northwestern Ohio genealogist Jana Sloan Broglin's new books but doesn't link to them. Parts 1 and 2 of Hookers, Crooks, and Kooks are available here.

Broglin, CG, is at least a triple threat: in addition to extracting this, um, out-of-the-way information from the 1880 US Census, she's an engaging lecturer, and now as "Aunt Merle" she's a blogger. (Aunt Merle was the real-life inspiration for Broglin's new books, as she was the madame of a house in Toledo.)

I've always thought genealogy is at its best when it finds the people who have been most thoroughly forgotten by respectable, successful society. The carefully pruned family trees and selective autobiographies in the Victorian-era county histories are useful and easy to find, but they aren't the whole story.