Randolph County (Indiana) Relatives: Ina (Smith) Burdick

In the March National Genealogical Society Quarterly I traced a Smith family from central Iowa in 1870 back to eastern Indiana in 1850. It turned out that the parents of Ina (Smith) Burdick (1862-1932) were John Smith of Wayne County and Elizabeth (Smith) Smith of Randolph County, who were near neighbors.

(Ina married in Kansas City, Missouri, my wife's maternal grandfather's second cousin, Frank Burdick. He was one of the focus persons in the first portfolio I submitted to BCG for certification. So for those who are working on their own portfolios, remember that you may be able to reuse this material later on!)

Ina's relatives on both sides were crucial to identifying her parents and making a convincing case for their relationship, but it's in the nature of proof arguments that they only get mentioned, not described. The new (June) Indiana Genealogist fills in the picture by telling some of the stories of Ina's mother's extended Randolph County family, starting with Temple (1806-1885) and Priscilla (Crossley) Smith (1808-1890), who came up from Adair County, Kentucky, in the early days. Next issue will describe John's somewhat smaller family.

Together their descendants married into more than forty families:
Adams, Addington, Bias, Brake, Burdick, Chapman, Cox, Elliott, Engle (twice), Escher, Fetters, Getter, Hathaway, Hiatt, Hicks, Hildreth, Hill, Jennings, Johnson, Kinert, King, Kolp, Martin, Mason, McCurdy, Miller, Mundhenk, Newman, Pearson, Phillips, Piper, Ramsey, Ranson, Schwepe, Smith (again!), Summers, Swangle, Weaver, West, and Woodcock.

Members of the Indiana Genealogical Society can read it on line.



“Randolph County Relatives: Ina (Smith) Burdick’s Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins, Part One,” Indiana Genealogist 26(2) (June 2015): 5-29.

“Crossing the Continent with Common Names: Indiana Natives John and Elizabeth (Smith) Smith,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 105 (March 2015): 29-35.

April 2015 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record!

Some Empire State reasons why I don't blog here as often as in the past . . .


If you have New York interests, don't hesitate -- go out and buy the NYGBS's new research guide and gazetteer! I reviewed it in the April NYGBR.


Also in the April issue is the third installment of "A Missing Heir" involving the intertwined families of Lewis and Dorcas (Hoxie) Bassett and  John S. and Zerviah (Hawkins?) Porter. This installment follows descendants of

* Lucy (Bassett) Hoffman and husband Matthew, whose trails lead to Genesee County, New York;, Lake County, Illinois; Chicago; and St. Louis;

* Harriet (Bassett) Burdick and husband Rodman, who also went to Lake County and Chicago; and

* Nathan Lee Bassett and wife Adelia S. (Reed) Bassett, whose trails lead to Jefferson County, New York; Walworth County, Wisconsin; Freeborn County, Minnesota; Larimer County, Colorado; and Chippewa County, Wisconsin.

More descendants to come.


Meanwhile I have had the privilege of joining NYGBR's editorial board as well.

Analyze or Else! guest post on BCG blog Springboard

Earlier this week I had a guest blog post on analysis on BCG's blog Springboard. Unusually, this is a blog that is edited, so hopefully this post will stand the test of time better than some others. And, yes, the editors helped make it better.

BCG Will Make Two Changes to the Certification Process in 2016

BCG Will Make Two Changes to the Certification Process in 2016

            At the May meeting, the trustees of the Board for Certification of Genealogists authorized two significant changes in the certification process for new applicants. These changes will go into effect in 2016, when the new Application Guide is published. Briefly, for the first time (1) new applicants will be evaluated on their genealogically educational activities, and (2) new applications will be limited to 150 pages.

            Genealogy standards 82 and 83 state that genealogists regularly engage in formal and informal development activities for four reasons: to better meet the standards, to learn more about useful materials, to enhance skills in reconstructing relationships and events, and to better present their findings to others. Years of data also show that applicants with more genealogy education are more likely to produce successful portfolios for certification.

Accordingly, as is currently the case, applicants will be required to briefly describe the genealogy-related activities that help prepare them for certification. However, as is not currently the case, this section will now be evaluated. Genealogical-education activities will meet the evaluation criteria if they show that the applicant “has engaged in a variety of development activities aimed at improving genealogical standards attainment.”

This change adds one rubric to the evaluations of portfolios. The new rubric emphasizes the need for ongoing genealogy education. Failure to meet one specific rubric does not disqualify an application. Other questions currently asked in the resume will be eliminated.

            The second change will reduce the size limit for new portfolios to a maximum of 150 pages total. The current limits were established when BCG had more requirements for certification than now. The new size limit provides ample room for applicants to demonstrate their abilities.

            “These changes are part of BCG’s ongoing analyzing, evaluating, and refining the certification process,” said BCG president Jeanne Larzalere Bloom. “We hope that these two changes will streamline the process, make it more manageable for applicants, and encourage applicants to engage in a variety of genealogical-development activities before assembling a portfolio.”

            For questions or more information, please visit http://www.bcgcertification.org  or contact Nicki Birch, CG, at office@BCGcertification.org.

            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 evaluation.

Good news for researchers with Missouri black sheep!

Missouri now has arguably the best on-line information about prisoners, including PDFs of the log book including any identifying scars. Two other Midwestern states have transcriptions which may or may not be complete: Illinois and Indiana. (For Indiana, choose "Institution" from the drop-down menu "Record Series," then choose one of several correctional institutions from the drop-down menu "Collections." The resulting search form can be tailored for county and span of years. A null search will not work, so just go through the vowels to develop your own custom list for a given county and period.) Cyndi's List has numerous links but the actual pickings are slim.

So you definitely want your ancestral miscreants to have been caught in the Show-Me State. And while you're there, check out all the other good records Missouri is putting on line. If you state's prison records can better Missouri's, let us know in the comments.

Underhill, Chittenden County, Vermont, on FamilySearch -- and other odd partial indexes

In order to use the relevant part of the FamilySearch collection of Vermont town records -- specifically those from Underhill, Chittenden County -- I have ascertained where the various volumes begin. This collection is browse-only, not indexed. But finding where individual volumes begin and end can make the browsing process far more efficient.

Volume 1, page 1 = image 13 of 649. It is preceded by some handwritten notes, and followed by a table of contents covering the first 64 pages of volume 1. This includes minutes of the first town meeting in 1795.

Either volume 2 is continuously paginated with volume 1, or it is missing.

Volume 3, cover = image 193 of 649. Reportedly 1805-1810.

Volume 4, cover page = image 286 of 649. Reportedly 1808-1814.

Volume 5, page 1 = image 476 of 649. Reportedly 1815-1820. Last entry is February 1820.

Several other off-the-beaten-path indexes are on Midwest Roots: a FamilySearch file of Allegany County, New York, probates; the 1857 assessor's list for Porter County, Indiana; and microfilmed small-town directories from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Since there are no in-book indexes, this is all browsing all the time. I have so many relatives here that I'm just working backwards from the end of volume 5 and have already found some goodies. It appears that most items are deeds. (Volume 1 may be more variable.) There is at least one tax list.

Someday no doubt there will be an every-name index to this collection, but I don't think it would be wise to wait!

Three ways to get your genealogy material out there without actually publishing

A recent discussion on the Transitional Genealogists Forum got into the question of how we can get our research findings "out there" without actually publishing them. I myself am a big advocate of getting stuff published, but it's worth knowing that there are alternatives. The first two came up in the discussion, and the third didn't occur to me until it was over.

(1) FamilySearch accepts various kinds of record donations.

(2) The Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center has a "photocopy exchange" program, where if you send them a manuscript, they'll bind one copy for you and one for their shelves.

(3) National Genealogical Society writing contest winner gets published in the NGS Quarterly, but other entries can end up in the NGS book loan collection at the St. Louis County Public Library. I was surprised and mostly pleased when I heard from someone who had located and read my non-winning submission on a Wisconsin family from back in 2008. "Mostly" pleased because that work had some deficiencies that I've always intended to fix . . .

The good thing about publishing in journals, instead of the above, is that some of them have editors who will help us improve our reasoning and writing. (And all of them need more material!) So I'm still a big advocate of that; the only way I'll become a lesser advocate would be if I went on a diet.

What all these options require is that we Actually. Write. Something. Do it! It's the best method of preservation.