2013 Ohio Writing Contest!

 The largest state genealogy organization in the country will sponsor its sixth annual writing contest in 2013, open for entries beginning January 1 and closing February 28. Details, rules, and categories are in the Winter 2012 issue of Ohio Genealogy News and on the OGS web site. The print version also includes a lot more detail about how and what to write for the organization's quarterly and the News.

My quick take: Yes, your entry or entries do need to have an Ohio tie-in; top prize is a year's free membership in OGS; and anything more than ten single-spaced pages is too long (some categories must be shorter). Those of us who have been wrestling with Ohio families for years need to get off the dime and write up at least some of them.

I have heard that there are some people who have been tragically deprived of Ohio ancestry. In that case, check out Kimberly Powell's list of 22 genealogy competitions and scholarships at About.com. (If you're wondering whether to let me know that I am in part repeating my post of October 4, yes, I am.) Also, Michael Hait is promising a new list soon.

This issue of OGN also includes the program and information for OGS's April conference in Cincinnati, where I will give one talk at 8 am Friday morning on Indiana research.


 
Sunny Morton and Susan Lee, "How to Write Your Family History...And Publish It With OGS," Ohio Genealogy News, Winter 2012 (43:4): 12-14.


Harold Henderson, "2013 Ohio Writing Contest!," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 19 December 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Bittner's Bavarians in the September NGSQ

F. Warren Bittner was co-winner of the National Genealogical Society's 2011 Family History Writing Contest, and his article leads off the September issue of the NGS's Quarterly. His paternal-line great-grandfather and two brothers are pictured on the cover.

Most "Q" articles are proof arguments of one sort or another, highlighting surprises, methodological innovations, or usually reliable records shown to be unreliable in particular cases. Contest winners are usually different.

The story of the Büttner family has many lessons for researchers of German families on both sides of the Atlantic, but the main lesson here is how different times and places make different ways. The main fact in their lives was Bavarian law, which "forbade 'frivolous marriage' between 'slovenly people who will breed only beggars and idlers.'" Legal marriage required substantial property holdings, "adequate" savings, and the consent of the village council.

As is often the case when such accusations are made, the Büttners were neither beggars nor idlers, they were oppressed by rich insiders. They had children out of wedlock because there was no other way. It took ten years for Leonhard Büttner and Margaretha Weiss to get permission to marry. No wonder three of their sons left for America.

The author also has several lectures based on this family's experiences. Don't miss a chance to hear the story in person!



F. Warren Bittner, "Without Land, Occupation, Rights, or Marriage Privilege: The Büttner Family from Bavaria to New York," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 100 (September 2012): 165-187.


Harold Henderson, "Bittner's Bavarians in the September NGSQ," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 16 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Words from Ohio -- Fall OGN

I learned several things from the Fall 2012 Ohio Genealogy News:

* The Ohio Genealogical Society writing contest will be open during January and February 2013, up to four entries per person. Winners will be published in either OGN or the flagship Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly, so pay attention to the rules, which reflect their length and formatting requirements. Writers whose  potential subjects evaded Ohio (not an easy thing to do!) should consult Kimberly Powell's listing of writing contests at About.com.

* Aubrey Brown chased a series of scattered records to learn more about the forgotten residents of the Knox County Infirmary, AKA Knox County Poorhouse, AKA Mount Vernon Bible College: two ledgers of monthly expenditures preserved in the county archives; microfilmed newspapers with occasional notes mentioning the place; County Commissioners' Journals; and the US Census. The changeability of the name, the scarcity and dispersion of records, and the value of county commissioners' records are all themes that extend beyond Ohio.

* Shelley Bishop's article on finding, reading, and researching with blogs includes a list of "20 Great Ohio Genealogy Blogs." Chances are you'll find some you didn't know about -- I did.

* Like laws, library acquisition notes are a nifty "secret entrance" to genealogy. Thomas Stephen Neel, who directs the OGS Library, reports that the library has acquired Kenneth Weant's ten volumes of newspaper abstracts covering '49ers who passed through Missouri during the Gold Rush (1849-1853), including of course many Ohioans and other Midwesterners. Researching these folks has much in common with researching infirmary residents, so all help is welcome. The library is also aware that the 20th century is now history, having purchase digitized records of Warren County, Ohio, marriages 1963-1979. As Neel writes, "The time period is after LDS stopped filming and these folks already have grandchildren."

NGS Day One (Wednesday the 9th)

Some folks sleep through the opening plenary session; today they missed the amazing story of the 1848 Cincinnati panoramic daguerreotype and the details of everyday life it captured -- now that it can be digitally and microscopically examined. Check it out.

Later on . . .

. . . Jeanne Bloom explained proof arguments. “If you want to break through a brick wall, write down what you know and it will reveal the holes in your argument." In an interesting analogy she also compared the elements of a proof argument to the loom, warp, and woof that go together to make up a tapestry.

. . . Marie Melchiori gave an always-helpful introduction and review of ways of accessing military medial records in the National Archives, followed by a series of examples that left us wanting to camp in the National Archives for a year or two. "You don't ever use one set of records as an end result, you use them as a stepping-stone to others." Thus the file of a US medical officer who later served for the Confederacy included a postwar request for amnesty, opening up a new record set for investigation.

. . . The annual writing contest of the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors (ISFHWE, nevertheless frequently pronounced "Ifshwee") remains open until June 3. Visit ISFHWE for more information and to download the PDF informational package.

. . . I haven't heard and haven't asked about the conference attendance this year. But at the two booths where I'm volunteering, the Indiana Genealogical Society and the Association of Professional Genealogists both had successful days making new friends and acquiring new members too.

. . . in my continuing series of scheduling train wrecks, the Ancestry "VIP Reception" came at the same time as the Geneabloggers' meetup. I finally ended up at Ancestry, where I heard that they now have 10 billion records on line. Their $99 autosomal DNA program is coordinated with Ancestry trees, so the results may (for example) actually name your (alleged) fourth cousin. Their new semantic index for city directories is a major improvement over OCR in that the computers can now understand which words are names, which occupations, etc. Among newly added collections is a 1798 London land tax never microfilmed or digitized. They're emphasizing mobile devices more and more. Their 1940 census indexing reportedly continues to involve "select offshore vendors" who are indexing "almost every field."



Harold Henderson, "NGS Day One (Wednesday the 9th)," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Midwest in NGSQ

The 2009 winner of the National Genealogical Society's writing contest, Kay Haviland Freilich, CG, systematically checks out her ancestor's three-page life story and finds it mostly accurate in the December issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly: "Verifying the Autobiography of Mary (Seeds) Haviland." The family moved back and forth in a dizzying fashion, starting and ending in eastern Pennsylvania, but in the meantime frequenting Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and southern California.

As NGSQ articles go this is a relaxing read in that there are no mind-bending methodologies or convoluted problems of identity. I learned that I had better never assume that when anybody moves, they move west! A nice touch is the agricultural information for the Paschal Seeds family from the 1885 Kansas state census; I would love to have seen how the Seeds family's farm (including a significant orchard) compared to their neighbors'.