The Top Five MWM Posts for August 2012

Once again it's time for the monthly popularity contest, listing the most-viewed blog posts made during August. Once again, #1 was far in the lead. I'll report on September in early November when the dust of that month will have settled.

1. Eight Tips for Those Considering Certification (August 15)

2. Is an Obituary an Original Source? Does It Matter? (August 2)

3. Writing: The Ten Suggestions (August 7)

4. Book Review: How History and Genealogy Fit -- or Not (August 24)

5. Why Ambitious Genealogists Need Credentials (August 14)


Least viewed:

Halfway home: map of the 46 Indiana counties with marriages indexed on FamilySearch (August 25)


Harold Henderson, "Top Five MWM Posts for August 2012," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 30 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

It's not too late to listen to the Forget-Me-Not writing show

Jane E. Wilcox, host of the Forget-Me-Not hour, reports on the show from two weeks ago where we talked about writing for genealogy publications. On Monday we were over 1000 listeners and Friday we were up to 1436. Those are good numbers in my world, but last I heard there was still room to listen ;-)   Jane has the link on her blog.

If you still have questions after that hour, you know where to find me.

While we're on the subject, some brief thoughts here by a non-genealogist who blogs once a week. I think I like his fourth realization best.


Harold Henderson, "It's not too late to listen to the Forget-Me-Not writing show," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 29 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Genealogy in Other Parts of the Library

Genealogists who visit the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center from out of town, such as me, may make the mistake of thinking that the genealogy part is the whole library. Even those of us who notice the other departments may miss the fact that they contain useful genealogical material too. Here are three from my experience:

Microfilmed editions of the Methodist publication Western Christian Advocate (published 1834-1929) are held in the reference division of Readers' Service Reference (on the first floor).

Physical copies of early local laws passed by the Indiana General Assembly (1828-1835, 1839, 1844-1852) are in the Indiana Documents part of Business and Technology Reference, at the opposite end of the second floor from genealogy. They are not uniformly catalogued in the library catalog, however.

The monumental compilation of summary figures of the agriculture schedule of the 1860 US census, J. C. G. Kennedy's Agriculture of the United States in 1860, 317.3 F51GA, is also in the business department. It's a good tool for comparing ancestors and others at that time. (It's also available on Google Books if that format is manageable for you.)



Harold Henderson, "Genealogy in Other Parts of the Library," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 28 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Talking about Professionalism

Genealogists are like journalists: many of us want to think of ourselves as professionals (and many don't), but we are often not thought of that way. The problem is exacerbated by the triple ambiguity of the term, which can mean doing it for money, doing it well, or just doing it in a calm and collected way.

The Transitional Genealogists Forum has just had a non-flaming discussion of the subject. If you're interested but in a hurry, I recommend visiting the archives for September and seeking out the thoughtful posts by Jillaine Smith, John Yates, and Connie Sheets.(Yes, I am outsourcing this post!)

I am well aware that some people want this topic to go away. It never will, as long as we individually and collectively have a reach that sometimes exceeds our grasp.

What can we do to make things better, raise standards in fact, and raise our collective reputation? Surely continuing education is paramount. Whether any group should require it is debatable. What kind of "best practices" any group should put forth is also debatable. But it's sure necessary, because the field is changing constantly, and newbies are coming through all the time.


Harold Henderson, "Talking about Professionalism," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 27 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

BCG portfolio Q & A

Some folks have asked questions about my recent BCG portfolio posts. They may be of interest to others who don't go back and look for comments!

Please observe my usual caveat: read the rubrics and the 2011 edition of the Application Guide, ask the authoritative folks on BCG ACTION list once you are on the clock, and don't take my unsupported word for anything. When necessary consult the key underlying document, the 2000 (current) BCG Standards Manual as well. In other words, use your research skills to get the best information available on certification just as you already do in genealogy itself.

Q1: In the Kinship Determination Project (requirement #7), is the applicant required to name every child -- for instance, if a record states that a woman had eleven children, two living, but information cannot be found for most of them?

The rubrics and the Application Guide appear to disagree on this point, but my non-authoritative opinion is that if you explain the situation and show that you consulted a wide variety of sources and correlated and analyzed them, and convincingly concluded (for instance) that the woman did have nine children but names of only five can be ascertained, then you would be meeting standards. In such a quest one would not limit oneself to direct evidence either.

Such a sub-problem in the KDP would certainly allow the applicant to display ability to locate, correlate, and analyze a wide variety of relevant sources, perhaps including business accounts, military records, and siblings' vital records among many more (some Cook County, Illinois, birth records gave the number of the birth to that mother). If an authoritative answer to this question were not forthcoming, however, I might choose a different family or a different set of generations in the same family. The point is to show what you can do (reread the rubrics!), not to tread on gray areas that might prove to be quicksand.

Q2: Does the Case Study (requirement #6) have to be a solved problem, or could it be "a no-stone-unturned study that did not answer the main question as to the end of a person's life-path"?

My answer: You have to solve the problem. The Application Guide asks applicants to "supply a case study (proof argument) drawn from your own research that (a) demonstrates application of the Genealogical Proof Standard and (b) resolves, in your opinion, a problem of relationship or identity that cannot be resolved from uncontested direct evidence."

Note that determining a date or place of death or burial, in itself, would not constitute a problem of relationship or identity IMO.

Note also that you can define the problem's scope. For my case study I defined the scope so that I was able to solve it. I sought the mother of a child born out of wedlock, not both parents. (It was still plenty hard.)

Finally, be wary of thinking that "no stone unturned" refers to a search only for direct evidence (that tells you the answer). Most hard problems require indirect evidence (clues) in order to resolve them: either there is no direct evidence at all,  as in many NGSQ articles blogged about here earlier, or you have to use indirect evidence to get to the unindexed, unmicrofilmed, undigitized direct evidence. Often consultation with a more experienced researcher (or reading an article on a similar problem) will open up additional possibilities for building such a case. For portfolio purposes, I personally prefer to select cases where there is conflicting direct evidence to start with.

Harold Henderson, "BCG Portfolio Q and A," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 26 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Indiana Resources and Events

Back from a trip, and a lot of genealogy has been happening "back home in Indiana":

* The September issue of Indiana Genealogist is out! This may be the only state quarterly published exclusively online, available to Indiana Genealogical Society members. The color image potential of the web is being used well. More than half the issue is devoted to David C. Bailey Sr.'s intriguing listing of Indiana Civil War veterans who were members of California posts of the Grand Army of the Republic organization in 1886, based in part on a published source. Clearly there's still room for those with Indiana relatives to write their family histories for publication.

* The Indiana Historical Society has unveiled its collection of 495 documents totaling 3910 pages in its digital "Civil War Military Front" collection (scroll down to 5th item). The collection uses CONTENTdm, not a very user-friendly interface in my experience, but I was able to access seven soldiers' diaries without much trouble using the advanced-search feature. They are James M. Witt (39th Indiana Infantry), Lancelot C. Ewbank (31st Infantry), Andrew Jackson Smith (2nd Cavalry), Albert S. Underwood (9th Light Artillery), James F. Elliott (8th Infantry), David H. Reynolds (43rd Infantry), and Alva C. Griest (72nd Infantry).

* IHS has also published M. Teresa Baer's Indianapolis: A City of Immigrants. An earlier publication, Herman B. Wells: The Promise of the American University by James H. Capshew, got a quizzical review at History News Network, which got me thinking about how a certain kind of Midwesterner just likes to be nice . . . and opaque.

* The September Indiana Magazine of History has features on black women workers in WW2 jobs, and concrete houses in Gary a century ago, and a review of Murder in Their Hearts: The Fall Creek Massacre, that makes me think I'd better read about the 1825 Madison County case where three white men were -- unusually for the times -- hanged for premeditated murder of nine friendly Indians (two men, three women, and four children).

* On a lighter note, the Summer 2012 issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History (also from IHS -- do these people sleep?) includes an article about old-time cartoonist Bill Holman and his "screwball comic strip Smokey Stover." New to me was the claim that Crawfordsville (Montgomery County) and Nappanee (Elkhart County) were especially productive of 20th-century comic-strip authors. Holman was born near Crawfordsville and reared in Nappanee, so there you are.

* Upcoming: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center has daily events in honor of Family History Month during October. Also, Geneabloggers get together there October 13. (I've been trying for 13 years and I still haven't used that library up.)


Harold Henderson, "Indiana Resources and Events," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 25 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodists in Meadville

Those who have research targets who were Methodists in western Pennsylvania need to know about the denominational archives at Allegheny College's Pelletier Library in Meadville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania. It would be a good destination anyway, but given the absence of early vital records from Pennsylvania it's a great one.

First of all, it's an archive, so don't try just dropping in. Use the contact information. Volunteer archivist William L. Waybright is very knowledgeable and helpful, but he can't be there all the time. It's by appointment only.

Second, don't expect the archives to be able to tell you whether your ancestor was a Methodist (or an allied denomination, such as Evangelical United Brethren).

Third, check the ancestor's own church first. As in most denominations, records reside at the local level. If a local church ceases to exist, its records may find their way to a denominational archive.

Fourth, be prepared to use a particular variant of cluster genealogy: what ministers were your research targets associated with? The archives will normally have much better records for those who carried the church's message than anyone else.

Fifth, don't be overly focused on western Pennsylvania. The archives has records and published reminiscences that cover adjoining conferences as well.

Sixth, when visiting, don't expect lots of space to spread out. We had the good fortune to meet other researchers who knew the area and resources better than we did, and we met them over what would be a normal-sized kitchen table.

Seventh, be alert to finding aids that area Methodist historians have prepared over the years. Pittsburgh-area Methodists published a weekly newspaper for about a century beginning in 1834, usually under the title of Pittsburgh Christian Advocate. Abstracts and indexes to its marriage and death notices have been published from through 1870. The newspaper itself has been microfilmed, but Meadville holds the films only up to 1890.

Finally, in the likely event that your Methodists went past Pittsburgh into the Midwest and West, additional regional resources do exist. The Chicago Genealogical Society's new blog recently posted on their instructional visit to Garrett Evangelical United Library in Evanston.


Harold Henderson, "Methodists in Meadville," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 24 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]