The World's Longest Query (Reynolds Family)

My article on Milton Reynolds, husband of Nancy Wise and an inhabitant of North Madison, Jefferson County, Indiana, in 1850, and who knows where thereafter, is in the new (December) issue of Indiana Genealogist, just posted in the members-only portion of the Indiana Genealogical Society web site. IG is a digital-only quarterly and a benefit of membership. (If you have Indiana folks, or think you might, there are almost 1,000 other reasons to join, which are the other databases available on the site, some free to the public and some members-only.)

Some will say I shouldn't have published it, since I still don't know who Milton was, where he came from, or when and where he died. I like to call it "the world's longest query." I review the slim available evidence on Milton as well as various negative searches, and document the three main Reynolds families in Jefferson County to see where he might possibly fit in. There is no conclusion and there's plenty more work to be done in order even to reach the threshold of a "reasonably exhaustive search," let alone to draw any conclusions. But this way at least other Reynolds researchers have a better chance of seeing whether this piece belongs in their puzzle or not.

Thanks to Rachel Popma for editing and for finding that beautiful panorama of Madison in 1866!


Harold Henderson, "The Worlds' Longest Query (Reynolds Family)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 23 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.] 


Harold Henderson, "The Mystery of Milton Reynolds in Jefferson County," Indiana Genealogist vol. 23, no. 4 (December 2012):5-32; http://www.indgensoc.org/membersonly/igs/quarterly/index.php : accessed 23 December 2012.

Look who's blogging

The Indiana Genealogical Society has a blog. Actually it's almost a year old. AFAIK this is a rarity among genealogical societies -- it looks like Indiana is in the lead here. Do you know of others?

So far it's mostly devoted to queries, announcements of local meeting topics, and communications with the volunteers busy on the 1790-1857 Indiana marriage indexing project. (Remember when queries had to be squeezed into the confines of a print newsletter? IGS's policy is generous.)

And in a self-effacing way that Garrison Keillor would appreciate, so far it has scarcely been used to promote IGS's April 4-5 annual conference in Evansville, featuring J. Mark Lowe, CG, FUGA, who will earn his keep by giving four of the eight lectures, covering Kentucky, the internet, bad research, and WWI.