St. Clair County Illinois Quarterly #4 of 2008

Like most ambitious state and regional publications, the St. Clair County Genealogical Society Quarterly welcomes actual articles, but still subsists largely on a diet of transcribed records. Why not write up your southwestern Illinois ancestors for them?

In issue #4 of 2008:

"Extracts from Death Register Book II, 2 January 1886 - 6 July 1886, tr. Melinda Cahill and Diane Walsh

"Marriage Index 1911," tr. Judy Phelps

"Document Conservation," an information-packed one-page summary of a recent society meeting where former Belleville Public Library archivist Patricia Hamilton spoke.

"Military Discharges 'L'," tr. Art Rubeck and Sheila Kronenberger

"Plan, Analyze, Begin Again: A Davis Family Example," by Diane Walsh. At the Salt Lake Institute last month I complained a bit about the lack of information about how to do research planning beyond the stage of brainstorming and list-making; this article is the beginning of an answer, as the quarterly editor takes us through an actual research situation and shows how to respond to new information, when to focus on the task at hand and when to draw back and make a note of an alternative path to perhaps be followed later.

December's OGSQ

In the December 2008 Ohio Genealogical Society Quarterly:

"The Family of William H. Fyffe of Champaign County," by Martha Orsborn Gerdeman*

"Society of Civil War Families of Ohio Roster 2008"

"Ohio Genealogical Society 2008 Writing Competition" [closing 28 February 2009]

"Nathan L. Glover, Akron's Premier Music Educator," by Rena Glover Goss

"1903 Deaths in Cincinnati, Ohio, with Burials Outside of Hamilton County," comp. Kenny R. Burck and Doris Thomson

"Rose's Research," by Mary Alice Austermiller Betley

"The Smiths of Champaign County, Ohio, with connections to Epps, Hall, Stoddard" by Nancy Wright Brennan, CG*

"Decennial Tax Valuation, Cincinnati Real Estate 1892," comp. Jean Overmeier Nathan

"Hulda Emilie (King) Richholt Harris Otterbach," by Joanne Richholt Allison

*Footnoted.

Ohio Records and Pioneer Families #4, 2008

The last 2008 issue of Ohio Records and Pioneer Families has material from a good half of the state's counties, with special focus on the counties of Wood, Mercer, Montgomery, and Hamilton.

"The Service and Pensions of William McCleary in the War of 1812," by Daniel H. Reigle

"John Wilson Langdon -- Letters Home, Cincinnati to Wilbraham, Massachusetts" tr. Kay Ballantyne Hudson *

"First Families of Ohio: The Early Years," abstr. Kay Ballantyne Hudson

"Revolutionary War Pension Application Abstracts," abstr. Lois Wheeler

"Official Register of Physicians by County, 1896 Wood County"

"Merchants, Manufacturers & Traders of Ohio, 1885"

"Ohio's Lost Militia Companies of the War of 1812," by Eric Johnson* (Twelve that aren't included in some usual references.)

"Ohio Governors Who Served in the War of 1812," by Eric Johnson (There were eight!)

"William Dickman, His Story," by Cecelia A. Anderson-Carvalho

*Footnoted

Genealogy in South Bend

The new (January) quarterly newsletter of the South Bend Area Genealogical Society is out. The big news is the annual one-day Michiana Genealogy Fair will be Saturday, March 14, at the Mishawaka-Penn-Harris Public Library in downtown Mishawaka (SB's twin city to the east), featuring Jeff Bockman from Illinois on "Using Maps for Genealogical Research" and "No Birth Certificat, No Problem." Exhibitors (including my local society from the next county west) will be hawking our wares and talking with visitors.

Meanwhile here's the other stuff in the newsletter:

Minutes of the 27 October and 24 November 2008 programs: Don Litzer of the Allen County Public Library on "Networking Genealogically," and Garry Harrington of the Rum Village Nature Center on the topographical-geographical-ecological early history of St. Joseph County, respectively.

"World War I and World War II Draft Registration Cards: A Genealogical Treasure Trove," by Eric Craig

"George Milburn, Captain of Industry," by Ken Reising -- an active businessman who helped fossster Studebaker and Oliver manufactureres "during critical periods, when they expanded from job shops to major manufacturers," but who is little known locally in part because he moved his wagon firm to Toledo, Ohio, in 1874.

"Thomas McCartney 1809-1861 Biography," by John E. McCartney

"The Johnsons: The Swedish Connection," by Jack R. Newman

"New Books on the Shelf" at the St. Joseph County Public Library, including as well the bad news that the Indiana state legislature's ill-advised 2007 property tax cap will require the Local and Family History and microfilm rooms to close on Sundays when the rest of the library is open.

Illinois Civil and Congressional Township Maps

Woops -- I should have posted on this months ago. (Hat tip to Melissa Barker in the Transitional Genealogists forum for getting the ball rolling about maps the other day.) There's a central although well-hidden on line resource for maps of each Illinois county showing townships. If you're visiting in person, you have a good chance of finding such a map at the courthouse or library, one that will also include roads and landmarks, as I did in northwestern Illinois' Whiteside County last fall. If you're visiting virtually, you can get there in six easy steps:

(1) Visit the Illinois State Archives regional depositories page, maintained by the office of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

(2) On the left-hand menu, click on the second tab down for "IRAD region map."

(3) That will bring up a colorful map of Illinois divided into seven regions, each festooned with the initials of the depository university. Click on your region of choice.

(4) That will bring up a close-up map of the region and its counties. Click on your county of choice.

(5) That will bring up a "_____ County Fact Sheet." Enjoy the facts; don't get too focused; but then scroll down a few screens to a thumbnail outline map of the county with subdivisions, which are the townships. (Hey, it's a big thumbnail.)

(6) Click on the thumbnail and presto, you have a printable map of the county and its townships. And when I say townships, I mean BOTH KINDS, the civil townships (with names you are or soon will become familiar with) and the congressional townships, with names like T36N R5E in La Salle County, which due to rivers that disobey the rectangular survey system, is not quite the same as the civil township of Northville.

NGSQ touches on Michigan

The cover of the December issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly portrays Ann (Pratt) Snowden who emigrated from England in 1833 and settled with her family in Kent County, Michigan, in 1842. She figures in Ronald A. Hill's article involving conflicting evidence, a seaman who went by various names, and the ambiguous use of "brother" and "sister" in correspondence: "Siblings, Religious Brotherhoods, or Neither: Oliver, Pratt, and Fowler or Foley Families of Whitehaven, England."

It should go without saying that this article and the three accompanying it -- Elizabeth Shown Mills on documenting a slave's birth, parentage and origins; George R. Ryskamp on Basque genealogy; and Arliss Shaffer Monk on "Five Edmund Jeningses of Virginia and Maryland" -- are the haute cuisine of the genealogy world. You can't read them without learning something, and you can't read them fast.

Insurance and Bankruptcy in Chicago

Cynthia has an intriguing post over at Chicago Genealogy -- "The Chicago Fire: Was Your Ancestor Insured?" about the possibilities of using insurance records to learn more about your research targets. Interestingly, most of the materials she's found are in the Minnesota Historical Society. (Hat tip to the Newberry Library blog.)

Locally the treasure trove is at the National Archives Great Lakes Region. Bankruptcy cases are federal cases, and most Illinois-based insurers were bankrupted by the Chicago Fire (and not just because it was a big one -- they had been conducting business recklessly as well). So one entry point to insurance matters is through bankruptcy cases in 1871, 1872, and thereabouts.

One of my research targets was in the insurance business, so I had occasion to pay a very pleasant visit to NARA Great Lakes, out on South Pulaski, last summer. (None of what I say below should in any way replace your calling an archivist there before showing up -- they are very helpful, and these records are not simple to deal with. I'm not blowing smoke; check out the on line info on Record Group 21, Records of the U.S. Circuit and District Courts, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, Chicago. Learn from it, but this ain't DIY territory.)

The more you already know about your research target, the better. Using the historical index to the Chicago Tribune at ProQuest newspapers (in your better libraries) may help you latch on to a case or a company that your research target was mixed up with. Many of the bankruptcy files are not indexed. But I got good results -- YMMV -- by coming in through a side door and working my way through the early years of the Defendant's General Index to Equity & Law 1871-1911, in five volumes (so you have to look for each surname in up to five places) but on one microfilm. Many of these are bankruptcy cases, and if your luck holds you can learn a lot about your people if they're involved. But this is not an every-name index; your best shot may be to find a company that you know your people were connected with, and follow that lead.

One final repetitive caution: this is not the place to start if all you have is a name and a handful of census lookups. Get to know your people before you start in on this fascinating and rarely-taken research journey -- who they worked and lived with, who they associated with. As Tom Jones says, it's about identities, not names.

The above has to do largely with post-1871 Chicago research, but Martin Tuohy of NARA Great Lakes has a thorough and inspiring article, "Federal Court Records: Researching Hoosier Family History at the National Archives-Great Lakes Region, Chicago, 1817-1859," if you can lay hands on the Spring/Summer 2008 issue of The Hoosier Genealogist: Connections (volume 48 issue 1), published by the Indiana Historical Society.