Find your secret genealogy weapon -- manuscripts!

(I'll never forget the day I found an original mortgage document, with my four research targets' original signatures in different colors of ink, in an archived collection of unpublished papers.)

BCG OFFERS FREE WEBINAR Tuesday, July 21

“Diamonds in the Rough: 

Finding and Using Manuscript Collections”

Manuscript collections can be a genealogist’s secret weapon. Learn to find and use them!

The Board for Certification of Genealogists (“BCG”) will present a webinar on this subject free to the public at 8:00 PM EDT 21 July 2015. Shellee A. Morehead, Ph.D., CG, will describe collections of unique unpublished materials that may be hiding in plain sight, and how to access them online and in person -- including maps, photographs, diaries, letters, scrapbooks, genealogists’ research notes, unpublished histories, business ledgers, journals, vertical files, and other one-of-a-kind documents and objects that may provide insight into our families’ lives and neighborhoods.

Seating is limited for this webinar. Please register early and sign in early to avoid disappointment.

The BCG is an independent certifying body and author of the 2014 Genealogy Standards.

Shellee Morehead, CG, has a Ph.D. in evolutionary ecology and she has extensive research, writing, and teaching experience. She researches, writes, and lectures on family history. Her most recent article is “Thomas Hamilton -- Progenitor of a Colonial American Family: His Ulster Origins Revealed using DNA” in the Ulster Historical Foundation’s annual Directory of Irish Family History Research. Her recent speaking events include The Genealogy Event in New York. Her specialties include Rhode Island, Italian, and French-Canadian research and genetic genealogy. Shellee is a member of the Rhode Island Genealogical Society, the American-French Genealogical Society, and the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG).

“We are pleased to offer this informative webinar,” said BCG president Jeanne Larzalere Bloom, CG. “The Board for Certification of Genealogists strives to foster public confidence in genealogy by promoting an attainable, uniform standard of competence and ethics. Educating all family historians is part of this mission.”

There is no charge, but space is limited. Please register for Shellee A. Morehead, “Diamonds in the Rough: Finding and Using Manuscript Collections” before 21 July 2015 at: 

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1093371223246598658.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. For more information contact: office@BCGcertification.org.

Please visit http://bcgcertification.org/blog/bcg-webinars to learn about BCG's previous webinars.

CG, Certified Genealogist, CGL, and Certified Genealogical Lecturer are service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, used under license by board certificants after periodic evaluations. The board name is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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Hidden in plain sight: Indiana Historical Society manuscripts

As a member of the Indiana Historical Society, every other month I get a newsletter, INPerspective, in the postal mail from the society. I always turn to the page near the back full of fine print that says, "New in Collections and Library," and look at the manuscript collections that have recently been "processed, cataloged and made available for research," as we say in archive world.

In the May/June issue, my eye fell on "Martindale Family Papers, 1839 to 1948," IHS collection M 1026. I went to the "Manuscripts and Visual Collections" page and then to the on-line finding aid for this collection. Hello, any researchers in Warren County? That was the home base for this family. The bulk of the collection is financial papers and accounts for their farm and business operations, but also some World War I information, including "a panoramic photograph of the all black 317th Trench Mortar Battalion, 92nd Division taken upon their return home."

At this point I took a look at a nearby collection in the M's: "Methodist Episcopal Church Cicero Circuit Records 1845-1861," IHS Collection SC 2553. Of course it helps to know stuff, like where Cicero is. This collection consists of just one notebook, about the circuit centered in Jackson Township, Hamilton County, Indiana: "Minutes are largely concerned with the licensing of preachers and exhorters. In other sections of the book are a list of members; marriages 1845-1849; baptisms 1847-1848; and genealogical records of the Bowman and Gipps (Kipps) families." Anybody got a mid-19th-century brick wall in Hamilton County?

The point? You never know until you look. It's true for books, web sites, and most of all archives.

Note: Many of the collections listed on the IHS web site don't have on-line finding aids. Do yourself a favor and stop by their actual building soon (Tuesday-Saturday). It's also the best parking deal in downtown Indy.


Harold Henderson, "Hidden in plain sight: Indiana Historical Society manuscripts," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 25 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

The Civil War at Notre Dame

Writing in the Fall 2008 (#93) issue of Access: News from the Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame, special collections curator George Rugg highlights a new group of 123 Civil War manuscript letters recently donated to the university -- the Barrier family letters from Cabarrus County, North Carolina. Until recently ND's Civil War collections have come mostly from the Northern side.

But you don't have to come to South Bend to sample ND's Civil War manuscripts. Many are on line -- both original images and transcriptions, with introductory notes and further reading suggestions -- at the Special Collections website. Among those items now online are

the diary of Grant County, Wisconsin, lead miner David B. Arthur (20th Wisconsin Infantry);

the diary of Pike County, Ohio, blacksmith William Cline (73rd Ohio Infantry, including Gettysburg);

29 letters from Lake County, Ohio, farm worker Charles C. Caley (105th Ohio Infantry); and

a 10 July 1864 battle report from Lt. Col. Edward Bloodgood on the march to Atlanta (22nd Wisconsin Infantry).

There are plenty more where these came from, both on and off line, and they're from all over -- I just cherry-picked those from my area of interest.

It's repositories like this that make a mockery of this blog's premise -- when you "specialize in the Midwest," do you also specialize in all the non-Midwestern items held, and meticulously transcribed and annotated (as these are) in a Midwestern repository? (Yes.) More importantly, it's a lesson in how much digging you need to do to find relevant manuscript collections on any subject. They could literally be anywhere, but Notre Dame is an interesting place to start.

(Full disclosure: these days my straight job is in an entirely different part of the university.)

The Hoosier Genealogist: Connections Fall/Winter 2008

If you can't find some new inspiration and new records to investigate from reading the fall/winter 2008 issue of The Hoosier Genealogist: Connections, the semiannual from the Indiana Historical Society, you probably aren't paying attention. The well-written and well-edited articles include:

"After the War: Billy Yank Comes Home to Small-Town America," by Mary Blair Immel, focusing on Civil War veterans in and around Covington, including the unpleasant parts.

"Census Records: Federal Non-Population Schedules," by Curt B. Witcher of the Allen County Public Library. These lesser-known and lesser-used schedules include agricultural, manufactures, social statistics, and mortality. They're all worthy of genealogical attention -- sometimes for basic genealogical information, sometimes to point the way to additional genealogical sources, and sometimes to enlarge our understanding of how our ancestors lived in their place and time.

"'C'est La Guerre': The World War I Correspondence of Kenton Craig Emerson, Steuben County, 1917-1919," by Geneil Breeze

"History in Church Minutes: The Rise and Fall of the Lick Creek Baptist Church, Henry County, 1835-1848," by James B. Cash

"Bank Crash: Legal Papers Gathered in Wake of Bank Failure Tell Stories of Elisha and Martha Hyatt Family and Neighbors in Daviess County, 1885-1896," by Rachel M. Popma

"Servant Cries Foul: Open Letter from Runaway in Indiana Sentinel September 1819, Offers Flavor of Frontier Life," by M. Teresa Baer

"The 'Raintree County' Project: Annotated Transcriptions, Biographical Database and History Compiled through Research of Letters in Grandparents' Attic," by James B. Cash

"The 'Jefferson Chronicles': Statewide Articles from a Nineteenth-Century Indiana Newspaper Correspondent," by George C. Hibben. Rev. William W. Hibben's work as a special correspondent of the Indianapolis Sentinel.

"Civil War Pension File: Some Genealogical Data and Other Gleanings Found in My Great-Great Grandfather's Pension File," by Robert D. Hennon

"Citizens' Petitions: Official Requests to the Governor of Indiana in the Indiana State Archives," by Kurt Jung

"Spanish-American War: United Spanish War Veterans Collection at the Indiana State Archives," by Ron Darrah. A few months of war, a century of records.

Relevant additional material will be posted at Online Connections later this month.

So many manuscripts, so little time

The Ohio Historical Society's more-or-less-monthly blog "Collections" just announced the availability of 28 new manuscript and audio-visual collections. The descriptions are a little terse, but if you plug in any interesting collection's number at the catalog page you can get a better idea of what's there. It turns out that collection #VFM5693, "War with Mexico Muster Rolls," consists of 7 rolls for the 1st Ohio Volunteer Infantry in that war. Collection #VFM 5699 is Civil War muster rolls, but almost all from Clermont County only. Check 'em out, but also check out the OHS's new hours before you head for Columbus. Amy's Genealogy Etc. Blog has the sad story of the ongoing funding disaster that is slowly engulfing OHS.