Methodology Monday with Calvin Snell

Most of us have learned how ancestors can be proved -- sometimes have to be proved -- by combining a wide range of documented indirect evidence into a case and writing out the argument, when no document appears stating the relationship in question straight out. But what happens when there is such a direct-evidence document, and the less formal sources all contradict it?

In the March 1995 issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Tom Jones documented just such a situation in the case of Calvin Snell of Lake County, Ohio, and concluded that the will was wrong or at best misleading. First he had to establish that there was no evidence of two different Calvin Snells in the area at that time. Then he had to correlate the various kinds of secondary information and indirect evidence that contradicted the will. The tables systematically comparing what different sources said are worth some study.

Those of us who have just worked our way out of the habit of trusting everything we find tend to become "evidence snobs." It's interesting to note that some of the information the author ferrets out and analyzes comes from what looks to be, and is, a fairly low-quality source: sketchy material on the Snell family compiled by an unknown person at an unknown time from unknown sources. The point is that good genealogists don't believe anything without reservation -- even an original signed will -- and they also don't decline to examine anything either. You just have to document its character as well as possible and weigh it in the balance along with all the other clues gathered.

Read the whole thing. This was the first article discussed by the Transitional Genealogists Study Group last year.

Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal #2 of 2009

Contents of the second issue of volume 13, more proof if any was needed of the inexhaustibility of just one period of one state's genealogy and history:

Harryette Mullen, "'Freedom for All': Sgt. William Wallace Strange"

Gwendolyn Mayer and Michael Elliott, "Marcus C. Horton Post #515, GAR, Garrettsville OH"

Leslie Korenko, "Jacob Rush: 3rd OVC at Munfordville KY"

Rev. David J. Endres, "An Ohio 'Holy Joe': Chaplain William T. O'Higgins," with letters*

Sheri Taylor Bockelman, "First, They Were Men: My Ancestors in the Civil War"*

"Ask the Experts," including discussions of Ohio casualties and the 47th, 101st, and 6th OVI

Dorene Paul, "General Henry A. Axline, Father of the National Guard of Ohio"

Michael Elliott, comp., "1883 Census of Pensioners, Auglaize County, Ohio"

*footnoted

New sources for Wisconsin

The March-April issue of the Wisconsin Historical Society newsletter Columns notes two batches of documents recently placed on line at Turning Points in Wisconsin History:

300 pages of a total of around 3000 pages of records of the Anti-Saloon League focusing on the league's "secret infiltration of taverns in 1917-18," including "private investigators' reports of drinking in Delavan and Oconto Falls." (Query: can we see the PIs' expense reports?)

documents on Hispanic history in Wisconsin, including a history of migrant farm workers a century ago, "a social worker's mimeographed report on the Mexican-American community in Milwaukee in 1930, and a 1968 account of the founding of Obreros Unidos, a migrant workers' labor union."

Are You Looking for a 1950s Motorcycle Geek?

ResearchBuzz reports that Google Book Search has just the research tool you need to look for a mid-twentieth-century motorcycle enthusiast or dealer, or anybody who might get his or her name in the magazine known first as American Motorcycling (January 1955 to June 1970), then as AMA News (July 1970 to August 1977), and finally as American Motorcyclist (September 1977 to December 2007) -- published from central Ohio by the American Motorcycle (now Motorcyclist) Association.

The first issue on the site is called volume 9, number 1, and the issues for 1980 and 1981 are missing, so perhaps there is more to come. Also I can confirm ResearchBuzz's statement that the search across all issues is wonky. Search within a given issue seems OK. Researchers, let's ride.

Can you get by with the library version...

...of Genealogy Bank? On the official blog, Tom Kemp advises a questioner that the individual subscription version ("Genealogy Bank") has more than 3800 newspaper titles [most, of course, are not full runs], whereas the library version ("America's Genealogy Bank") has about 2200 titles in its "Historical Newspapers" section.

I compared the Genealogy Bank newspaper source list as of 2 May with my local library's newspaper source list from America's Genealogy Bank, for Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Overall GB has 35 titles in those five states, AGB 79. Both have weaker coverage of Michigan than the other states.

Let's make that specific. If you're like me and try to cheap out by using the library version, as of 2 May you would miss the following titles (date ranges vary and are at the site linked above) --

in Illinois, Centralia Sentinel, Chicago Herald, Chicago Times, Daily Inter Ocean, Illinois Advocate, Illinois Emigrant, Latin Times, Nauvoo Expositor (one issue only), Noticia Mundial, Quincy Whig, Sol de Chicago (one issue only), Sunday Times, Vida Latina, and Vorbote.

in Indiana, Amigo del Hogar, Indiana Centinel, Indiana Democrat, Indianapolis Sentinel, New Albany Daily Ledger, Terre Haute Express, and Wabash Courier.

in Michigan, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, and Kalamazoo Gazette, and Weekly Detroit Free Press and supp...The Household.

in Ohio, Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Democratic Herald, Elyria Republican, Greene County Torch-Light, Ohio Republican, Painesville Telegraph, Plain-Dealer, Spirit of the West, Supporter, Western Herald, Wooster Republican.

in Wisconsin, Guardia, Jeffersonian Democrat, Milwaukee Journal of Commerce, Milwaukee Sentinel, Wisconsin Chief, Wisconsin Free Democrat.

Obviously this list will change, and obviously not all titles are of equal interest or cover comparable date ranges. Where the two services overlap I didn't see any differences in the date ranges covered. I don't own stock in this company, I don't work for them, and at present I'm not even a subscriber. But if you're watching the pennies now you can better judge what the effect may be on your research, and of course you can compare the two sites for your areas of interest.

Methodology Monday in Indiana Courthouses

Not all evidence analysis takes place after we've found it. In 1981 Indiana State Archivist John J. Newman gave a talk at the state historical society's spring family history symposium. The society still sells the text for $1 as a 16-page pamphlet. How many of today's PowerPoint lectures could be translated into this lasting format, or would hold up as well a generation after they were given?

Newman's unsparing indictment is that "genealogists usually fail to manage their research." His recommendation, from the pre-internet days, is to plan to spend "several hours in your home [county's] law library" in order to save "many more hours in the field." {1, 8}

If, as he suggests, you learn what's in the "order books, entry dockets, issue dockets, appearance dockets, general entry, claim and allowance docket, complete order books, civil pleadings, probate proceedings," and more, then you'll be in a position to ask the clerk "for a location of a record, not where information can be found." And that's a big difference.

Newman, John J. "Research in Indiana Courthouses: Judicial and Other Records." Indianapolis: Indiana State Historical Society [1981]. Includes material from a 1979 presentation on county records as well.

Antiwar records?

Regardless of personal beliefs, genealogists depend on records created by the actions of intrusive governments, paternalistic churches, and wars. If US history had been more peaceful, we'd have fewer documented ancestors; if the country had had a state church, we might have more.

In this context it's interesting to read Ron Briley's review at History News Network of We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now, an anthology edited by Murray Polner and Thomas A. Woods, Jr. I haven't seen the book. Briley generally approves of the editors' documentary work, and their observation the opposition to war historically has come from all points in the political and regional spectrum. Briley notes that the editors failed to collect much material on the opposition to two significant military episodes: the series of expansionist wars against various Indian tribes, and the Korean conflict (evidently still the "forgotten war").

Are there genealogically useful records to be quarried from this tradition? I don't know. Chicago was not a hotbed of support for the Union cause in the Civil War, nor for US entry into World War I. And if memory serves, the Midwest leaned isolationist in the runup to World War II.