Genealogy is everywhere

Cynthia doesn't post real often at ChicagoGenealogy, but when she does you can be sure it's a good one. Yesterday guest blogger Barbara offered a finding aid under the title, "Adoption Research: Using the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin to Find Birth Names." Check it out -- it looks like it will be more useful the closer you know the date.

During my years of actual employment on the near north side, I often saw bundles of the latest CDLB being wheeled hither and yon on the sidewalks, and occasionally browsed an issue. It never dawned on me what a useful resource it might be for adoption and other Chicago legal matters relating to genealogy. Do you have an item in your past, long taken for granted, that might be as useful as this one?

Scarce Adoption Resource on line

Let's briefly break out of the all-Midwest-all-the-time-groove and note that the classic 1981 adoption resource, Reg Niles' Adoption Agencies, Orphanages and Maternity Homes: An Historical Directory: Volumes 1 and 2, is on line -- for personal use only: "No more than one or two states is to be printed by any individual, organization, company, or entity. No portion, nor the whole, may be duplicated or distributed in any manner, saved in any way, or for any reason, without [the author's] express written permission."

The listings themselves are alphabetical by state, then alphabetical by town. This is a US and Canada resource, with 9,262 entries in almost 500 pages. (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin listings cover 68 pages.) The author endeavored to cover every 20th-century adoption agency, every maternity home, and every orphanage or children's home with more than 15 beds -- all as of about 30 years ago, of course. Also included are adoptive parents' groups and adoptees' rights groups. Different names for the same institution are cross-referenced, and relations between institutions explained when known. Information is dated so that the reader can judge its currency. I can see why pre-digital researchers would have guarded their copies carefully.

(Hat tips to Reg Niles, Deb Mieszala, and Jeanne Larzalere Bloom.)

December 2008 Indiana Genealogist

I don't know how they shoehorn all this stuff into the Indiana state genealogical quarterly! But here's the December crop. (That link is also good if you want to check out the every-name index to the 2008 issues.)

"Is My Other Family Out There? Case Study of an Adoption Search," by Betty L. Warren

"Indiana University Board of Trustees 1820-1890," tr. Meredith Thompson from Indiana University: Its History from 1820, when Founded, to 1890," by Theophilus A. Wylie (Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1890) [Woops! If you can use the whole thing, it's on Google Book Search.]

"Sisters of St. Francis," by Marjorie Weiler-Powell

"Items from Marion County Mail," tr. Elizabeth Hague from 3 January 1913

"Indiana Expert Riflemen," tr. Meredith Thompson, from Report of the Adjutant-General of the State of Indiana for the Fiscal Year ending December 31, 1907 (Indianapolis: Wm. B. Burford, 1910)

"Indiana Civil War Soldier Lorenzo Judkins," by Annette Harper

"Indiana Civil War Surgeons, 6th Cavalry, 7th Cavalry, 8th Cavalry," tr. Wayne C. Klusman from Alphabetical List of Battles and Roster of Regimental Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons during the War of the Rebellion (Washington, DC: GM Van Buren, 1883)

"Commission on Public Records," by Shirley Fields