Required reading for those who don't use deeds

Among its many other offerings, the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center has a blog. Recently librarian Dawne Slater-Putt, CG, contributed a two-part post, "Digging into Deed Records," full of examples of genealogical information of all kinds that can be found in deeds -- and in some cases can only be found there.

IMO -- she didn't put it this way at all! -- genealogists who don't use this readily available record type are cheating themselves, and quite possibly creating their own brick walls.

passing along Midwestern topics for FGS

Even though I just registered to attend it, I've been delinquent in mentioning that we have a national genealogy conference coming to the Midwest -- the Federation of Genealogical Societies in Springfield, Sangamon County, Illinois, September 7-10. Now Paula Stuart-Warren has given me a prompt in her conference news blog, listing the fifteen presentations with Midwestern content!

Compulsory reading for Michigan researchers

I don't know why it took me so long to notice the Van Buren District Library Local History Collection's blog, Southwest Michigan Genealogy & Local History. The current series, "My Great-Grandfather Had Three Death Certificates!" is enough to justify the cost of admission (time only, of course) all by itself. This blog focuses on the southwest quadrant of the state but contains information of value to all Michigan researchers. Enjoy!

Noir in Lawrence County Pennsylvania

Thanks to Kerry Scott for mentioning Diarmid Mogg's Small Town Noir blog on Facebook for us slowpokes to notice. It focuses on small-time criminals, complete with mug shots, from the small Rust Belt city of New Castle, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania -- northwest of Pittsburgh and right next to Ohio, so I hereby nominate it as an honorary portion of the Midwest. But it goes beyond the rap sheet to chronicle what he finds about "the rest of the story."

Needless to say, this is not your grandmother's genealogy (unless she was picked up for forging checks). But it's a real and little-noticed part of history. I'm not aware of comparable blogs from other places, although the Chicago Homicide database (blogged here in 2009) has some similar qualities.

Spring 2011 American Ancestors: SDBs, methods, and more

The current (spring 2011) issue of the New England Historic Genealogical Society's popular publication, American Ancestors: New England, New York, and Beyond, heralds the addition of back issues of the Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine to the NEHGS web site. Inside are numerous articles. I was struck by two with Midwestern angles, and one of methodological interest:

Shellee A. Morehead provides "A Genealogist's Guide to Seventh Day Baptists," a branch of the Baptists from Rhode Island founded in 1671. Many members settled in or near Milton, Rock County, Wisconsin as they moved west from New York and New Jersey; today their historical center is in Janesville. Although never large, this sect was exceptionally cohesive and generated good records. Those who stuck to their conviction that worship should be held on Saturday also found it convenient to live in clusters. So there was a good deal of intermarriage as well as an early well-developed system of national newspaper communication. You could have SDBs in your tree without knowing it, and Morehead provides a table of surnames and locations (although at least one later location in North Loup, Nebraska, is absent).

Sherill Baldwin outlines the hard-to discover life of Rev. E. W. Dunbar (1823-1893), an effective preacher and popular hymn author, who also did time in Minnesota for bigamy.

Even those without Huguenot ancestry will find methodological interest in Oliver Popenoe's research chronology explaining how he managed to break a brick wall and add generations of prosperous French ancestors to his tree. Two intertwined strategies are noteworthy: he spent a lot of time researching the papers of an unrelated patron of his known ancestor; and early on in his research push he established a web site to document it. Together the classic broaden-the-search strategy and the 21st-century approach got the job done.

Free biographies from National Academies Press

I'm still on the National Academies Press mailing list -- relic of a former life -- and today received this email. Anything that's free is worth a look, right?

As of June 2, 2011, all PDF versions of books [URL added by me] published by the National Academies Press (NAP) will be downloadable free of charge to anyone. This includes our current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports published by NAP.*

Free access to our online content supports the mission of NAP--publisher for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council--to improve government decision making and public policy, increase public education and understanding, and promote the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in matters involving science, engineering, technology, and health. In 1994, we began offering free content online. Before today's announcement, all PDFs were free to download in developing countries, and 65 percent of them were available for free to any user.

And it turns out that they have a section of "Biographical Memoirs" -- more than 90 volumes. I sampled George Ledyard Stebbins (who shares a surname with a distant ancestor of my wife) in Volume 85 (2004). His biography included useful mention of his parents. It was one of 20 in that volume. The description of the series is also hopeful:

Biographical Memoirs is series of essays containing the life histories and selected bibliographies of deceased members of the National Academy of Sciences. The series provides a record of the life and work of some of the most distinguished leaders in the sciences, as witnessed and interpreted by their colleagues and peers. They form a biographical history of science in the United States.

Even if NAP has nothing else for genealogists and historians (which I doubt -- happy hunting!), this looks like a resource for people with accomplished ancestors or relatives.

NGS magazine

The Midwestern items in the current NGS Magazine include some examples in my evidence article and Carol Cooke Darrow's "Why was Joseph Gosling buried in Ann Arbor?" which reveals an unusual Michigan source for researchers.

Some other articles of methodological interest in this issue:

Jessica Albert's "Using OCR to search city directories by address" (applicable only to on-line images);

John P. Deeben on using unit records of combat organizations to overcome WWI veterans' record loss;

Claire Prechtel-Kluskens on innovative ways of using Soundex codes in searching; and

Robert Erland's case study of researching an unknown frequent witness on known relatives' records.