OGS Quarterly Fall 2011

Documented articles and research guides from the Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly, from the nation's largest state genealogical society:

Sharon Alwart, "Thomas and Jane Stephens, Coshocton County Pioneers." This article provoked me to reflect on how and why we attribute emotions to people living 200 years ago who left no record of how they felt. It is difficult for us to imagine a time when personal feelings may not have been the most important things.

Rachel Dilley, "Pietism's Last Stand," an account of Crawford County's Chatfield Evangelical Pietist Church.

Mary Jo Howard, "The Untold Story of Eugene and Kittie Howard" -- a terrible and long-suppressed tale of Cleveland in 1902. Looks like OGSQ is on a roll with tales that go "beyond the black sheep." (I'm thinking of Kathleen Reed's research tale in the summer issue.)

Deborah Crowdy, "Coshocton County Locality Guide." This listing goes both ways, listing eight repositories in the county and information about five kinds of records. UGA's Crossroads has also been publishing some of these as well.

Thomas Stephen Neel, "Richland County, Ohio, Road Petitions, 1817-1820." Road records in general are underused, but when they contain the names of all the petitioners, I'd say they're scandalously underused!

Fort Wayne and Chicago digitized newspapers

When you ask to "browse collections" on Fold3.com these days, you can choose among the records of seven wars and -- "other records."

The site's new focus on on military records has many upsides, but one downside is that researchers might forget that the former Footnote.com has marvelous collections of city directories -- and digitized newspapers. For researchers working the Midwest, Fold3 has both the Chicago Tribune (1849-1923) and seven titles from Fort Wayne:

Daily Gazette 1882-1898

Gazette 1899

Journal Gazette 1899-1923

News 1874-1917

Sentinel 1870-1923

Weekly Journal 1890-1899

Weekly Journal Gazette 1899-1914

Put 'em together and that's more than half a century.

Revolutionary patriot William Berry in NEHGR/AAJ

William Berry declared for a Revolutionary War pension in 1832 and made a detailed will shortly before his death in Allegany County, New York, in 1839. A probate and many deeds among his descendants followed, all carefully preserved in the Belmont courthouse.

Together these documents provide enough information to identify his seven children, some of their spouses, and more than 30 grandchildren. The first half of my article laying out the evidence and reasoning has just been published in the American Ancestors Journal supplement #3 to the October 2011 issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register.

William was the great-grandfather of my mother-in-law Eloise's great-grandmother Sarah Mehitabel Humphrey Coleman Bliss. Eloise would always ask for any news of ancestors when we came to visit; I'm sorry I didn't get this done in time for her to see it in print.

December Indiana Genealogist

The December issue of the Indiana Genealogical Society's all-virtual quarterly, Indiana Genealogist, is just out and has the usual collection of short items from all around the state, as well as two longer ones:

* John J. Weidner of Lake County explains his research into his ancestral Kolling family, who were early settlers in the county, and

* I describe some time-machine-like land records for Gibson County (and other counties) that are available in the National Archives branch in Chicago (near Midway Airport).

If you have Indiana people, do consider writing them up for this publication.

More Midwesterners in NYGBR

For those who enjoy national-level publications -- but enjoy them even more when they contain Midwesterners! -- the October issue of The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (vol. 142, no. 4) includes the second and final installment of Dawne Slater-Putt's "John and Elizabeth (Halbert) Blair of Ontario and Yates Counties, New York." Descendants of theirs are identified in Michigan (Lapeer and Wayne counties), Ohio (Williams, Portage, and Summit counties), and Illinois (Henry County) -- as well as in the California Gold Rush.

New Midwestern research resources

From Rootsweb's Cook County mailing list, a listing and map of current Chicago Catholic parishes. It's more than a year old and I didn't observe a source, but I may not have looked in all the right nooks and crannies.

From ChicagoGenealogy.com, Ancestry's new index for Chicago marriages 1912-1924, also apparently unsourced. Cynthia also has the latest on Sam Fink's index, and if that's an unfamiliar name to you, check out the post.

From the University of South Carolina Libraries Digital Collections via the Scout Report, an indexed and mapped version of the Spring 1956 edition of Victor H. Green's The Negro Traveler's Green Book -- a necessary guide for safe travels in the Midwest and everywhere else during the later days of Jim Crow.

From Southwest Michigan Genealogy and Local History, a print resource available only in person at the Van Buren District Library in Decatur, Michigan: a seven-year run of the Tri-County Telephone Company's Sales News, published from South Haven 1932-1939, complete with employee biographies and more.

Two of the Best Genealogy Blogs Going

The Demanding Genealogist by Barbara J. Mathews of Connecticut (methodology) -- for instance, "Playing Dominos: The Illumination of the Non-Authoritative."

Deb's Delvings by Debbie Parker Wayne of Texas (specializing in law and genetics) -- for instance, "Research, Proof Standards, and DNA Testing" -- also her posts on these topics on the Transitional Genealogists Forum.

Both blogs are by Certified Genealogists, but the reason they're both high up on my home page is that I never read them without learning something.