On Line State Resources for Genealogy 3.0

There's an old saying, "When you're tired of London, you're tired of life." Well, when you get tired of browsing this book, you're tired of genealogy.

Earlier this month my friend and colleague Michael Hait released the third edition of his On Line State Resources for Genealogy. It's up to 1140 pages and more than 9000 resources -- hosted at a bewildering variety of web sites, with a much deeper and different reach than the popular free and subscription mega-sites.

Contrary to the title, the book includes on-line resources at the national level including the National Archives. Some sites require sign-in. "Resources" include images of original records; derivative records (such as transcriptions and abstracts); authored works; and finding aids and indexes. As stated in the introductory material, use the finding aids and indexes and derivative sources to lead to the original records when possible.

The table of contents is arranged by state and then by repository in apparently random order within each state. A click on any entry in the table of contents takes you directly to the repository's listings, and a click on the specific repository's link takes you there.

Midwestern researchers will be interested to know that Indiana listings occupy 92 pages, Illinois 61, Ohio 46, and Michigan and Wisconsin each 14.

This undertaking is nothing less than gargantuan. And it includes resources I did not know about but should have. Still it doesn't have everything: absent are La Crosse, Wisconsin, city directories; the Monroe County, Wisconsin, Local History Room; and several name indexes available at the Chicago branch of NARA.

But as the numbers mount up this enterprise faces a deeper problem -- how to organize the resources. Not only are they proliferating daily (the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center just announced eleven new ones). Often the originating agency may be different, or in a different place, than the record itself (such as county records created and listed under the name of a state agency). Equally bothersome, it is also often difficult to discern where one repository ends and another begins, since the same collection may be reached through more than one portal. It certainly helps that this book is searchable and not in print form, but part of its value is that the resources also be rationally browseable.

This compilation is itself an essential part of a "reasonably exhaustive search" as prescribed by BCG's Genealogy Standards, but other searches need to be made both within and outside of it.

Another form of browsing is to follow the compiler's new blog featuring a resource every few days.






Michael Hait, comp., On Line State Resources for Genealogy, third edition (PDF/ebook, privately printed, 2013).


Harold Henderson, "On Line State Resources for Genealogy 3.0," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]







Harold Henderson, "On Line State Records for Genealogy 3.0," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Methodology Monday: Genealogy in bulk? Twelve suggestions

When I have a choice, I prefer to work on one genealogy problem at a time. But there are other times -- such as when the task becomes identifying and documenting all descendants and spouses in three of four generations.

And in order to meet standards, we have to find the people first. Most of the following items work better when working on people who lived on both sides of the Dark Age in the US (that is, before and after 1850). Deep in the Dark Age or well up into the 20th century would be another post, actually several different posts depending on the location.

* When possible, do the work in a good library or archive where it's easy to switch from on line to on paper. Some on-line materials are hard to navigate, and some on-line providers omit crucial material like prefaces and introductions where authors and compilers tell something (intentionally or otherwise) about how they did their work. For me that place is in  Fort Wayne. More info here.  One practical reason to make it the HQ-away-from-home for this work is that it has the world's best collection of genealogical periodicals, indexed on PERSI. Get the basic info from Find My Past and then get the relevant call numbers from the online catalog.

* If this is a perennial project, check the old folders, binders, emails, and notes created long ago and scattered on various web sites or cloud locations for clues that may mean more now than they did at the time.

* Use property and probate records if they are within reasonable driving distance, or if they have been digitized. (Not using property records could land you in trouble. Using probate records will not be the death of you.)

* Don't start by searching broadly. Approximate a birth/marriage/death date and place and look for candidate parents/spouses/children then and there. Check metasites for digital newspaper availability.

* If you have a region or state, search broadly within those confines, for instance New England. Peruse Michael Hait's inevitably incomplete Online State Resources for Genealogy 3.0.

* Ancestry and FamilySearch have some of the same data, but their indexes are not interchangeable. Search both. If you have candidate parents, search Family Search's main site using only their names in the parent boxes.

* Google Books and Internet Archive often harbor old periodicals as well as old genealogy books. A lot of microfilms have been digitized and uploaded to Internet Archive as well.

* Less famous venues can be useful when searching broadly, such as the GLO site for federal-land states. While we're waiting for the master newspaper site to emerge, give a try to the larger collections of on-line city directories on Fold3 and Ancestry as well as local providers. For tips see this metadirectory. (But as you close in on the person, the ability to survey every year of a given city's directory becomes crucial.)

* Find A Grave is the best, but it is not the only cemetery site. Also, it contains random unsourced assertions about unpictured grave markers. Which brings me to . . .

* Don't be a source snob. Put on your hazmat suit and acid-resistant gloves, or whatever you think you need, and dive into genealogical dumpsters. Source-free clues appearing there may be verifiable elsewhere -- or at least may lead back to a contemporary document of some kind.

* Use ArchiveGrid within reason, especially if your target people had literate and gossipy neighbors, or belonged to record-creating institutions or societies.

* Don't forget to write it up! Local, state, or national, genealogy editors everywhere are waiting for you.

Enjoy the bulk-genealogy chase. In my experience, it is likely to provide both surprises and -- a bouquet of interesting problems, each of which will require up-close and personal work to solve.




Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/elisfanclub/6208669725 per Creative Commons


Harold Henderson, "Methodology Monday: Genealogy in bulk? Twelve suggestions," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 June 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

What is happening to libraries -- Michigan and Indiana

The spring issue of the Michigan Genealogical Council newsletter chronicles the ongoing process.

On the positive side, state census films are being indexed by Ancestry, and are expected on SeekingMichigan.org by this fall. Naturalization records from at least 59 of the state's 83 counties are expected on SeekingMichigan.org within a a year. After that, look for "survey notes, plat maps and land state patents." (Note also information on GenealogyWise's Michigan discussion group about changing URLs for some Michigan resources, including cemeteries.)

On the other side, the Library of Michigan now staffs only three service desks 10am-5pm. "If additional information is needed feel free to call the reference desk phone line at 517-373-1300 and they will return your call as time allows." (The Archives of Michigan is already open from just 1-5 weekdays.) And draconian cuts in state help for local libraries will cause the Troy library to close May 1st and Detroit Public to reduce staff by 20 percent.

It's not just Michigan. The Indiana State Archives, although dreadfully understaffed, has put up a number of useful databases on line as the Indiana State Digital Archives, and volunteers there are working on more. But the physical state archives (the vast majority of which are unique records that are not microfilmed or digitized) are located in an old warehouse that would not stand up to a tornado and whose roof leaks. As Indiana librarians and county genealogists were informed at their April seminar, the governor isn't interested in fixing that situation until he can find private contributions for the project.

Just to be clear: this is what's happening, read it as you will.

Personally, I do not think that the expansion of virtual libraries justifies or compensates for the short-sighted cuts being made to physical ones. A library that you can get to easily is a ladder that even a bad student, a nonconformist, an outsider can climb. Cutting and closing them takes rungs off the ladder. No one rung is essential. You can usually find a workaround. But when enough rungs are gone, it's not a ladder any more. It's just some sticks on the ground.

More on line records from Michael Hait

My friend Michael Hait has just published the first edition of his PDF book, Online State Resources for Genealogy, an ambitious undertaking devoted to materials brought on line by states, counties, towns, organizations, and individuals. It has many sites you could easily miss, including vital records but with much more specialized information. Indianapolis or Milwaukee Sanborn Maps, anyone? Inmate case records from the boys' industrial school in Lancaster, Ohio? Poor farm records from Morgan County, Illinois? The WPA index of land and buildings in Hillsdale County, Michigan, 1936-1942? These can be brick-wall breakers if you know about them and know how to use them.

Listings are organized by state and by repository within each state; there is also an index. The book does not include any of the national-level web sites like Ancestry, Footnote, Findagrave, or FamilySearch. It does include many databases not covered in specialized free sites like Joe Beine's or Miriam Midkiff's city directory reference site.

The first edition of Online State Resources runs to 310 pages, and a second edition is anticipated around midyear. I'll be surprised if it isn't twice the size. And I'll be astonished if you don't learn several new things from the current version. In my opinion it's well worth the $15 download, and that price includes the second edition too if you register.

Pretty good news for Kane County Illinois land researchers

Quietly, the Kane County, Illinois, Recorder's office has placed all of its deeds (and several other kinds of documents) on line. Basically this is good news but there are a few qualifiers as described in the following quickie tutorial:

(1) Few genealogists will be using the tab that says "Search Land Records" --the straightforward grantee and grantor search only works for deeds since 1980. The interface for older deeds is somewhat klunky, but structurally it's the same that we go through in person: first find promising entries in the grantee and grantor indexes, then find the deeds themselves in the deed books.

(2) The grantee and grantor indexes are reached by going to the tab "View Miscellaneous Documents," then "All Miscellaneous Documents," and then choosing "Grantee Index" (actually a whole bunch of volumes of grantee indexes) or "Grantor Index" from the resulting menu. Under "Grantee Index" there's a list of books identified by volume number and year. Pick your book and then pay attention to the, um, unique patented method that a previous recorder chose to use for indexing. (It's called "Dennick's Universal Chart System of Indexing, patented in 1893, and explained below ** as it will take a while.)

(3) Once you've found a book and page number to consult in the deed books themselves, go back to the beginning and hit the tab "Books," under that "Document Books," under that "Folders" (actually original deed books), pick the desired volume number, and then within that volume the page.

(4) Once you're there, the images are variable in quality, with many portions of pages overexposed. (In some cases you may want to transcribe from the image rather than print it out.) Many pages are missing at least one line at the bottom. I have usually found FamilySearch's deed images from other states to be of better quality.

All this said, this degree of online access is better to have than not to have. Kane County is a suburban county west of Chicago, and I'm in a suburban county southeast of Chicago. Even living that close it's cheaper to work the deeds this way than in person. And the more people who can use this option, the better the old deeds are saved from extra handling.

** The grantee and grantor indexes are each arranged under one of many supposed 19th-century improvements on the alphabetical-by-first-letter-of-surname-and-then-chronological default system. First, surnames are organized in the following 47 initial-letter-equivalent groups, each beginning with a certain number, as follows:

A 1, Ba 14, Be 27, Br 40, B 53, Ca 66, Co 79, C 92, D 105, E 118, F 131, Gr 144, G 157, Ha 170, Ho 183, H 196, I 209, J 210, K 223, L 236, Ma 249, Mo 262, M 275, Mc 288, N 301, O 314, P 327, Q 340, Ro 341, R 354, Sc 367, Sh 380, Sm 393, St 406, S 419, T 432, U 445, Va 446, Ve 447, V 448, Wa 449, Wh 462, Wi 475, W 488, Young 501, Y 502, Z 503.


Within each surname initial-letter-equivalent, given names are organized according to 13 different initial letter equivalent groups: AB, C, DE, FG, HI, Ja, Jo, J, KL, MN, OPQR, STUV, and WXYZ.

Note that in this system surnames are not in alphabetical order: Grommet will appear ahead of Garofalo because their initial-letter-equivalent groups are in that order. And within each surname letter-equivalent-group, the names are organized by given names.

I looked for Levi Goodrich in the earliest grantee index, beginning in 1837.  Since his surname starts with G (page 157), given names beginning with "L" will be found at the ninth given-name initial letter equivalent group, so 165. (One big advantage of Kane County's system is that its image numbers correspond to the original page numbers, at least where I looked.) On 165 I found an L. D. Goodrich buying property, referring to a deed at volume 35, page 511. Before going to the deed, I carefully scrolled to the bottom of the page and found that this listing was continued on page 130, where I checked for any more.

OK, he turned out to be Lewis D. Goodrich, not Levi, but those are the breaks. Good luck and good hunting!

Note: As I have learned from Michael Hait's on-line state resources book, DeKalb County has what appears to be a similar setup (in beta test and requiring login) which I have not examined in detail.


Harold Henderson, "Pretty good news for Kane County, Illinois, land researchers," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 23 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Hait's Online Resources

The second and greatly expanded edition of Online State Resources for Genealogy is now available (more than twice the repositories and more than triple the links), compiled by my friend and colleague Michael Hait, CG.

Like many good ideas, it seems a wonder nobody thought of it sooner: to collect all the (relatively) small free state and local on-line sources of information and original records that do not show up on Ancestry or FamilySearch. This edition runs from the Alabama Department of Archives and History's "Alabama Loose Records Index" to the Campbell County, Wyoming, Public Library System's "Local History Index." In between, I find Illinois with 21 repositories in 43 pages, Indiana with 17 repositories in 44 pages, Michigan with 9 repositories in 9 pages, Ohio with 23 repositories in 27 pages, and Wisconsin with 9 repositories in 14 pages.

When your work takes you to an unfamiliar state, this will be a comforting companion -- and a jumping-off place, because no compilation of this kind is ever complete.


Michael Hait, compiler, Online State Resources for Genealogy, version 2.0, PDF e-book (N.p.: Michael Hait Family History Research Services, 2012).

Harold Henderson, "Hait's Online Resources," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 26 August 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Three Great Online Resources

It's been a busy research week, so let's cut the cackle and mention three great online resources for the Midwest and beyond:

Genealogy Book Links, a guide -- by state, surname, and type of material -- to books freely available on line. Stop here first and you won't have to hit quite as many sites in your quest! Hat tip to Pro Genealogists' blog.

Miriam Midkiff's metadirectory of on line city directories, also free. I've mentioned this before, but considering how often I use it, I should mention it at least twice a week! (That's not all she's doing, either...)

Ancestry.com's US Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918. Sorry, not everything on line is free, and I don't know if this is available on the version of Ancestry available through many public libraries. The index is by surname as written on the plat books, which can be a headache if you want the plat of some little fly-by-night nineteenth-century boom town, but it's still a great idea. I just used it today, and a quick survey of our five Midwestern states shows that something over 2.5 million landowners' names or initials are indexed here, just in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Enjoy!

More Indiana repositories en route to FGS 2013

[Cross-posted from the FGS 2013 blog with one typo corrected.]

Unless you fly in, you will travel through Indiana on your way to or from the 2013 FGS conference in Fort Wayne. Indiana is the only state I know of with two high-quality general genealogy magazines, and, as this suggests, the state is also full of local societies and libraries with valuable holdings. Here's a sampling, and we could run several lists like this without running out.

Willard Library
21 First Avenue, Evansville
Tri-state resources for Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky, plus an alleged ghost . . .
http://www.willard.lib.in.us/

Friends Collection and Earlham College Archives
Richmond
Extensive manuscript collections and genealogies for Quaker families and meetings.
http://library.earlham.edu/ecarchives or investigate the Willard Heiss Collection list on line.
This is one of several colleges and universities with relevant genealogy material.

Porter County Public Library
This might be the best genealogy library in northern Indiana if Fort Wayne weren't there too! Good periodical selection.
103 Jefferson Street, Valparaiso
http://www.pcpls.lib.in.us/genealogy.html

Marshall County Historical Society
123 North Michigan, Plymouth
A half-block of downtown stores repurposed as a history museum and research center, with
indexes, original records, and knowledgeable helpers.
http://www.mchistoricalsociety.org/ and see also http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~inmarsha/

Alameda McCullough Research Library
1001 South Street, Lafayette
In the Frank Arganbright Genealogy Center. An extensive collection focused on Tippecanoe County.
Admission fee. Check site for hours.
http://www.tcha.mus.in.us/library.htm

More Midwestern Resources

Today I'm mainly aggregating, not creating!

* Writing in NEHGR's "Weekly Genealogist," Valerie Beaudreault calls attention to a new on-line index to the Wisconsin Medical Journal, 1903-2003. Also a work-in-progress, the Appleton, Wisconsin, public library obituary index for various years.

* Most issues 1899-2005 of the Indianapolis Recorder, an African-American newspaper, are now searchable on line thanks to IUPUI.

* Just one of the best genealogy records blog posts I've seen, about the records of the Chicago Lying-In Hospital, a must-see if you have non-wealthy Chicago ancestors.

* If you need microhistorical raw data on the Black Hawk War, the 40-year-old compilations compiled and edited by Ellen M. Whitney and published by the Illinois State Historical Library, The Black Hawk War 1831-1832, remain the gold standard. If you need a microhistorical narrative -- for instance, to track where an ancestor may have participated in this war -- I have been very impressed by Patrick J. Jung's The Black Hawk War of 1832 (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007). I have not read it through or purchased my own copy, but I have used it for research (I know, they should usually be the same thing, but not today). The worst thing I can say about it so far is that he cites like a historian (one footnote per paragraph, no matter how many sources were involved).

ROAD TRIP! The Things We Carry

Last week members of the APG members and TGF lists talked about what people take with them when researching at the repository or the cemetery. My fourteen-item list remains a work in progress and it reflects the fact that I straddle the physical/digital divide. Of course, it is possible to purchase, or to make do without almost everything on this list -- except the final two items. But "making do" takes precious time.

* Maintenance materials: water to drink, aspirin or equivalent, a snack depending on schedule, a book to read in case there's an unpredicted long wait.

* Shoulder bag to contain pretty much everything else listed below. Sometimes this will be my laptop bag, with the power cord and everything else crammed into it, sometimes another bag in addition or instead of that. This has a compartment for storing photocopies where (once labeled) they can lie flat, in order, and in peace during the trip.

* Laptop and power cord. I don't use it much on courthouse trips (often there's no space) but if I'm going to a library or other place with wi-fi I'll at least catch up on email.

* Blank spiral-bound notebook. For use where space is limited or when I don't have time to boot up the laptop. My computer notes are more legible and more easily uploaded to Dropbox, but sometimes the old way works best. Pages are perforated so that they can be removed and placed in binders by subject and thus promptly reunited with any photocopies or computer notes that belong with them.

* Pens -- and pencils, just in case. In my experience, archives that (wisely) require pencils also provide them.

* Calendar containing itinerary (and directions if needed).

* Relevant maps or directions. GPS is fine but I try not to be without the appropriate state atlas (we use DeLorme) because I usually want to have an overview, not just a path. If it's a county I've been to before I may have a really detailed local map in my map drawer!

* Thumb drive(s). Bring more than one if there's any possibility that you absent-mindedly filled up one! Digital images straight from microfilm (whether there's a charge or not) are a wonderful thing.

* Cell phone and charger. Sometimes the phone doesn't realize it's short of power until I actually try to make a call.

* Change purse packed with mainly dimes and quarters. My local library has good microfilm printers that ONLY accept dimes. Those at the Indiana State Library ONLY accept quarters. The copiers at Allen County Public Library ONLY accept special cards that are filled by using bills, not change. And sometimes I'm headed for a repository or a parking situation where I don't know the quirks.

* Digital camera with battery charger. Useful for documents in some situations, and it's rarely a mistake to take pictures of courthouses etc.

* Hat, coat, raincoat, umbrella as dictated by the weather. In my experience, extreme weather is much commoner in cemeteries than anywhere else.

* Most importantly, my "shopping list" of questions to be answered and relevant resources to be sought, organized first by repository and then by project. For places with good on-line catalogs this can get very specific.

* Of equal importance, as much information as possible to consult in case of surprises during the day -- such as names and dates of the research target's family members and other contextual information that suddenly turns out to be important. The best and most compact such companion may be the actual research report in progress and (hopefully) up to date. At less organized times it may have to be a couple of binders, or relevant files and images and emails downloaded to the laptop (in case of need when wi-fi isn't around).

What would you add or subtract?



Photo credit: darastar's photostream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/darastar/1253839973/ : accessed 7 October 2012, per Creative Commons.

Harold Henderson, "ROAD TRIP! The Things We Carry," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 October 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Digging for Ancestors: new book on using land records

Michelle Roos Goodrum. Digging for Ancestors: An In-Depth Guide to Land Records. Utica, OH: The In-Depth Genealogist, 2013. 123 pages. $9.95 Nook, Kindle, or PDF; $29.95 paperback.

Most genealogists don't use land records enough. Most genealogy bloggers don't talk about them enough. And few practical books for beginners focus on them exclusively.

The folks at The In-Depth Genealogist have been doing something about all of these problems, first by publishing regular posts on these records, and now by helping contributor Michelle Roos Goodrum compile and augment the posts into book form for wider distribution. The hope is that this "will motivate the reader to take the necessary steps to utilize their ancestors land records." (page 1, image 8)

Land-record newbies can learn plenty from this book, not just from what it says about the records, but also from the author's visible enthusiasm and positive attitude toward indirect evidence, cluster research, and the Genealogical Proof Standard. Readers will also appreciate its direct and informal style (which carries over from blogging). Best of all are its step-by-step illustrated explanations of how to extract information from particular land records, which occupy about half of the book.

Unfortunately, the book may miss the mark with some readers because the material is poorly organized. It also lacks enticement, overview, information for state-land states, and any mention of what remains the best place to start learning about US land records: the late Sandra Hargreaves Luebking's 65-page chapter in The Source, third edition, available in print and on line at Ancestry.com's wiki.


Newcomers to land records often find them intimidating; I know I did. (They're so -- detailed!) Therefore a book about them needs to give the reader

(a) an incentive to dive in, such as a few quick examples of why land records are worth the trouble, and

(b) a brief clear overview, so that the reader gets some sense of control and won't be constantly surprised.

Instead, Digging for Ancestors begins with ten research tips -- good advice, but only three of the ten have to do with land records. The first chapter follows up by telling how important and complicated land records are, with a list of eleven rather bewildering ways in which land might be transferred. Technical terms (such as "grantor," "grantee," or "aliquot") are used before they are defined. No larger context is provided, either historical (the importance of property ownership from the beginnings of settlement) or logistical (the two main kinds of land descriptions).

The book covers only 30 states. It offers little to those researching in New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Maine, Vermont, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Alaska, or Hawaii. These 20 states or their colonial powers provided original grants of land, and land parcels there are usually described using the metes-and-bounds system, as opposed to the other 30 "federal land" states that usually describe land using the rectangular survey system.

Readers will benefit from the author's decision to explain the practice of transcribing deeds, and to show the use of methods old and new -- transcription and GoogleEarth -- in analyzing them. The book's strongest parts are the step-by-step examinations of a land case, a homestead file, and a bounty-land file. Choice of other subtopics seems a little random -- why a chapter on cemetery deeds rather than, say, mortgages? -- but the subject is endless and one has to stop somewhere.

The list of resources would be improved by annotations. (Newcomers are likely to learn more from Val Greenwood than from E. Wade Hone.) It could also be supplemented by mention of

* Elizabeth Shown Mills's short and straightforward 1995 article, "Analyzing Deeds for Useful Clues," on the BCG web site;

* the blog In Deeds, which has been all-land-records-all-the-time for more than five years; and

* a few outstanding journal articles that show successful use of land records, such as Karen Green and Birdie Monk Holsclaw's contribution to the June 2012 NGS Quarterly.

Lesser issues: Some of the transcriptions shown don't distinguish between the preprinted and the handwritten portions of the forms being transcribed. Neither of the two separate discussions of searching for names on the BLM web site mentions that it allows use of wild-card search terms. For comparing monetary values between years Measuring Worth would be a better choice than The Inflation Calculator. Ideally PDF image numbers would coincide with page numbers, and apostrophes would be used properly. The original land records now appearing on FamilySearch might have been mentioned, as they offer unprecedented access and pose unique issues for researchers.



Harold Henderson, "Digging for Ancestors: New book on using land records," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 12 December 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Meta-resources

Today's topic is "records about records" -- how cool is that?

Midwestern researchers should be familiar with the WPA county records inventories from the late 1930s. They do not exist for all counties but are valuable when they do -- at least you know what was available then and where it was. (If you're not familiar, the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center has the Allen County inventory on line.)

For those who have New York forebears, one of the assets that state has is a set of county-level inventories done out of Cornell University in the 1980s. The generic title is "Guide to Historical Resources in Generic County, New York, Repositories." They are funny-shaped books with an idiosyncratic format, but your time with them will not be wasted. Really good genealogical libraries such as Allen County and the Wisconsin State Historical Society have them, but be careful how you search on WorldCat, as sometimes they are catalogued without the commas.

Genealogy resources for La Porte County, Indiana -- work in progress

Some of the northwest district Indiana county genealogists will be getting together today in La Porte, so I finally got serious about starting to put together a list of research resources for this medium-sized county. (You can either follow the link or go to midwestroots.net and click on "La Porte County Indiana" in the lower right-hand corner of the page.)

It's amazing what local genealogists have accomplished over the years. Except for the obituary indexes, where I got overwhelmed, I have tried to credit the authors/compilers when I could identify them.

The guide at present comes in four unequal-sized sections:

• Local Repositories and Societies (courthouse; libraries, archives, and museums; and on-line)

• Periodicals (two county newsletters and the two state periodicals)

• Indexes and Abstracts (70 and counting: for births, cemeteries, court records, deaths, divorces, funeral homes, land, marriages, military, naturalizations, newspapers, obituaries, periodicals, probates, professionals, and schools)

• Other Guides (the FamilySearch Wiki, the Indiana Genealogical Society's research page, the 1939 WPA Inventory of County Archives, and Linkpendium).

So far it's up to eight pages printed out, and as you can see I've stuck pretty much to indexes and the like, without yet starting to describe the actual records! It is a work in progress, so corrections and additions are welcome.

Harold Henderson, "Genealogy resources for La Porte County, Indiana -- work in progress," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 7 June 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Indiana resources in Michigan

(Please forgive the cross-posting.)

If you had a genealogical problem in La Porte County, Indiana, the first place you'd look would be Kalamazoo, Michigan, right? No, but it should be somewhere on your list.

The Western Michigan University Archives & Regional History Collections' on-line catalog reveals two resources for "LaPorte":

* LaPorte County News Collection, 1902-1908, collection no. A1274, three reels of microfilm of the Union Mills La Porte County News from Union Mills. The Indiana State Library's excellent collection holds only one issue of this newspaper.

* Minnesota Historical Society Collection, 1834-1926, no collection number, containing papers of James Mandigo 1834-1891,with a scrapbook that at least mentions his attendance at Indiana Medical College in La Porte.

In this index as in many others, the search term "LaPorte" brings up different results from "La Porte." It's all part of our incompletely digested French heritage.

New on-line resources

On the Porter County, Indiana, Genweb:

917 records from the Indiana Adjutant General's List of Porter County Civil War Soldiers

11,364 individuals residing in Lake Porter counties in 1916, with their addresses and credit ratings

From the St. Clair County, Illinois, mailing list:

Diane Walsh calls attention to the free online 1926 volumes by Isaac D. Rawlings in the Internet Archive, The Rise and Fall of Disease in Illinois, volume 1 and volume 2. Much of the book culls old medical journals for reports of diseases in specific places and times. With some effort it may be possible to retrieve copies of the original articles themselves for an unusual close-up on your location of interest. He covers the whole state and some adjacent counties as well if they happened to be written up by an Illinois physician.

Live at NGS Charleston: Day 3

Today's report is truncated because I spent most of the day involved with the Association of Professional Genealogists -- meeting, luncheon, and booth duty. Strategic planning is the order of the day there, and the process is NOT intended or expected to last forever, or to languish unimplemented.

I was able to attend Richard Sayre's lecture on the various systems of veterans' homes, mainly established once it became apparent that Civil War amputations and other injuries were overwhelming both private resources and the pension system. Aside from the many underlying individual tragedies of the war, he also noted the destruction of many case files in 1930, although samples do remain, as do indexes to register books that Ancestry.com has digitized. The records of these homes remain a remarkable resource.

I did finally break down and purchased the second edition of Gordon Remington's book on New York state probates, and the Jamb Inc. CD of Tom Jones's afternoon talk on the Genealogical Proof Standard. The talk reportedly succeeded in addressing both those who have barely heard of this kind of GPS and those who know it by heart. The late line at the Jamb table included folks on their way home who were ordering CDs for Saturday talks not yet delivered, as the exodus from Conference World begins.

In informal conversation I learned where and how to look for information on the Holland Land Company -- a must-know for those with interest in early western New York.

More Indiana records online

A hat tip to Jacksonville, Florida, blogger Miles Meyer of "Miles' Genealogy Tips," who serves up a treat of more than a dozen on-line resources for the state of Indiana and the counties of Allen, Clinton, Dekalb, Elkhart, Fulton, La Porte, Madison, Marshall, Montgomery, St. Joseph, and Vanderburgh. Bear in mind that most of these are indexes (without images of the actual records attached), so you shouldn't rely on them until you can get to the real things.

Historical context: timelines are only the beginning

There's nothing wrong with a timeline as long as we don't confuse it with real life or real history. A list of historical events that happened to happen at the same time as our ancestors were going about their business may not be helpful or relevant. Here are some resources I came across recently that go beyond timelines:

• The J. Paul Getty Trust has made some 4689 high-resolution images available as part of its new Open Content Program -- "free to use, modify, and adapt for any purpose," including the above portrait of three unknown women circa 1849. There is a short questionnaire accompanying each download. Some downloads are quite large. Click on "View Record" for a given image to see if it can be used under this program. The images can be browsed in many different ways; 2929 are from Europe, 92 from the United States.

high-resolution images of the Museum’s collection free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose. - See more at: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/open-content-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/#sthash.2lee4UGU.dpuf

roughly 4,600 high-resolution images of the Museum’s collection free to use, modify, and publish for any purpose. - See more at: http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/open-content-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/#sthash.2lee4UGU.dpuf

• Close-up social history -- not free. Two books I recently heard about show promise if you happen to be deep into Athens, Georgia, between 1830 and 1870, or life around the Willow Run bomber plant in exurban Detroit during WW2.

• Internet Scout notes that the University of Chicago has on-line maps of 18 Midwestern cities from Omaha to Cincinnati, mostly of zoning in the 1920s -- a possible supplement to Sanborn maps for urban context.

Photo caption information: Unknown maker, American, daguerreotypist, Portrait of Three Women, about 1849, daguerreotype (1/4 plate Image: 6.7 x 8.4 cm [2 5/8 x 3 5/16 in.] Plate: 7.9 x 9.9 cm [3 1/16 x 3 15/16 in.] Mat: 8.3 x 10 cm [3 1/4 x 3 15/16 in.]); The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Michael Gagnon, Transition to an Industrial South: Athens, Georgia, 1830-1870 (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), reviewed at EH.net by John Majewski.

Sara Jo Peterson, Planning the Home Front: Building Bombers and Communities at Willow Run (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013).

University of Chicago Library, "Planning Maps of Midwestern Cities in the 1920s and 1930s" (http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/collections/maps/midwest/ : viewed 13 August 2013).

Harold Henderson, "Historical context: timelines are only the beginning," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 August 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Good news for Ohio researchers: two lifetimes of newspapers!

These may not be news to you, but they're new to me and in a quick look I didn't find them in Michael Hait's compendium Online State Resources for Genealogy 3.0, nor on James Marks's The Ancestor Hunt:

Newspapers for Johnstown, Licking County, Ohio, have been digitized and are searchable 1884-1987. If you're close enough to wonder, Johnstown is in the northwest quarter of the county, near the Franklin and Delaware County line.

Likewise the Grove City Record in southwestern Franklin County, 1927-2011 with eight outliers in 1908.




Harold Henderson, "Good news for Ohio researchers," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 21 May 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Michigan statewide searches

Every state is different, but Michigan is more different than most. Statewide resources haven't always been easy to find. Thanks to Miriam at the Eastern Washington Genealogical Society Blog for pointing out James Jackson's Michigan Biographical Index (MBI), with 1.5 million-plus citations drawn from a wide variety of sources, literally from a to y (see his FAQ).

Each name is linked to a citation for the source, which may be sought in libraries or on line. The MBI apparently overlaps somewhat with but doesn't completely duplicate Michigan County Histories and Atlases (MCHA) from the University of Michigan. For example, both include the 1892 Portrait and Biographical Record of Kalamazoo County, Allegan and Van Buren Counties, but the MBI doesn't include Weissert's 1928 An Account of Kalamazoo County, which MCHA does.

Run your people through both of them. MCHA has images of the actual pages; MBI has pulled together so many sources (some indexed by him for the first time) that his site can be viewed as a way of locating new sources that you've missed.