What Aaron Goodwin Just Said

The brand-new NGS Monthly for September leads with editor Aaron Goodwin on writing. He puts the arrow right in the bull's eye. 

You'll need to join the National Genealogical Society to read the whole thing, but even the public part makes the point clear: are we trying to create something for posterity, or are we just fooling around?

Good times at the 2017 NGS conference

* Being present Friday when my friend and colleague Karen Stanbary was presented the award for outstanding article published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly in 2016: "Rafael Arriaga, a Mexican Father in Michigan: Autosomal DNA Helps Identify Paternity." Even readers not fluent in DNA will be able to glimpse the power in this technique.

* Hearing LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson's eloquent and nuanced talk at the BCG luncheon Thursday, "Condemnation of Memory: Recalling that African American Genealogy Is American Genealogy" -- which introduced me to some new tools as well.

* Hearing presentations by David Ouimette on Thursday ("Silent Border Crossings: Tracing the Elusive Immigrant Who Left Only Breadcrumbs for Clues") and Thomas W. Jones on Friday ("Converting a Bunch of Information into a Credible Conclusion"). Assemblage is a key intermediate stage between gathering evidence and writing it up. Sometimes we can do it in our heads, but in the more difficult cases we need to lay it all out in plain sight.

* Talking with genealogists, both vintage and new. It seems that is now the main thing I do at national conferences.

* Spending several days within a few blocks of the North Carolina State Archives . . . without ever actually getting there!

* Appreciating the ongoing work to establish good standards for the use of DNA in genealogy.

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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.

Take your own mind-blowing tour at NGS in May: Cahokia Mounds

A thousand years ago in downstate Illinois, across the Mississippi from where St. Louis is now, a world-class engineer designed a 100-foot-tall structure that still stands. He made it out of mud.

I think it's the most amazing destination in the Midwest. I wrote about it 15 years ago.

The latest visitor information is here.







Harold Henderson, "The Rise and Fall of the Mound People," Chicago Reader, 29 June 2000.

Photo per Creative Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/emilyrides/3915222657

Yet another reason to join the National Genealogical Society

"One of the best ways to learn problem-solving techniques is to analyze NGSQ case studies," writes editor Melissa Johnson, CG, in the brand-new first issue of the on-line NGS Monthly. "Case studies demonstrate how challenging genealogical questions can be answered." Since every problem is a little different, stop looking for one-shot cure-alls and rules, and see the examples published quarterly in NGSQ and analyzed monthly in the new magazine.

If you've tried the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and found it tough sledding, NGS Monthly may be your gateway to a whole new level of research and analysis. If you're a member, the February 2015 issue should be in your email. If not, join here.

Unique. Pioneering. Exemplary. Did you know a future Hall of Famer?

The National Genealogical Society is looking for the 29th person to be inducted into the National Genealogy Hall of Fame, at its Richmond conference 7-10 May 2014. To be considered for this honor, the person must:

* be nominated by a genealogical society,

* have been active in genealogy for at least 10 years,

* have been deceased for at least 5 years, and

* have made "unique, pioneering, or exemplary" contributions to the field. Possible examples given by NGS (italics added by me) include having

• authored books or articles that added significantly to the body of published works, and/or that serve as models of genealogical research and writing;
• made genealogical source records more readily available to the public by preserving, transcribing, translating, abstracting, indexing, and/or publishing such records;
• shared with others knowledge of genealogical research methods and sources through teaching and lecturing and/or publication of educational materials; and
• contributed time, labor, and leadership to a genealogical organization or a genealogical periodical publication, thus enabling that organization or publication to make significant contributions to the field of genealogy in the United States.

The first member, elected in 1986, was the indefatigable Donald Lines Jacobus (above), who should need no introduction here; the most recent, elected in 2013, was Earl Gregg Swem, who among other things compiled the Virginia Genealogical Index.

For examples, see the names, pictures, and accomplishments of the 28 honorees to date. I was interested to learn that three Hall of Famers made their contributions from the Midwest: Michigan (Lucy Mary Kellogg 1899-1973), Illinois (Lowell M. Volkel 1936-1992), and Indiana (Willard Calvin Heiss 1921-1988).

Submissions are due January 31. See information on the nominating procedure, the call for nominations, and the nominating form.


Harold Henderson, "Unique. Pioneering. Exemplary. Did you know a future Hall of Famer?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 9 November 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Speaking at NGS in Las Vegas

After a hectic but very enjoyable time at both the Ohio and Indiana genealogical societies' conferences this past weekend, I will be speaking twice at the National Genealogical Society gathering in Las Vegas, "Building New Bridges," next week:

Wednesday, 8 May -- APG luncheon talk on some ways to be advocates and still be genealogists.

Friday,10 May, 4 pm -- A case study, " 'Are We There Yet?' Proof and the Genealogy Police," in the Board for the Certification of Genealogists' BCG Skillbuilding track (go here and then do a search) on a not-too-difficult name-changing ancestor and the lessons we can learn from it for our own research. Is there a place in genealogical methods for the term "flying leap"?

Hope to see y'all there!



Harold Henderson, "Speaking at NGS in Las Vegas," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 29 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

What online catalog?

Librarian Pamela J. Cooper of Indian River County surveyed members of five Florida genealogy societies and got over 600 replies. A majority of those replying said they had never used online catalogs -- whether from home, at their hometown library, or elsewhere. (First posted on the Genealib mailing list, mentioned here by permission.)

What do you think this means?

Find out what she thinks at the National Genealogical Society conference next month, Friday morning at 8 am.


Harold Henderson, "What online catalog?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 15 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

It's Gone! Now What?

Someone asked a good question following my citations webinar last week (still listenable here if you're an Illinois State Genealogical Society member): how do you deal with a situation where the image you have cited is no longer on line?

For me, and I'm sure many others, it's not an academic question. Thanks to a typically non-transparent Chicago contract negotiation, FamilySearch no longer provides images for many Cook County, Illinois, records, including this one which figures in my talk coming up in May at the National Genealogical Society conference in Las Vegas:

City of Chicago, Department of Health, Record of Death no. 2510, George Edw. Chilcote 1914; digital image, “Illinois, Cook County Deaths, 1878-1922,” FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 28 September 2011), citing Family History Library microfilm 1,239,982.

Technically the citation is still accurate, as the image was there on the date of access. But it's no longer available. The index remains, but relying exclusively on indexes is no fun and bad genealogy.

I still have almost three months to make up my mind, but three -- make that four -- courses of action seem appropriate:

(1) At a minimum, add a note saying that the image is no longer available on the site, and possibly not on the internet at all.

(2) Refer to an alternative. In this case, the obvious alternative is the Cook County Clerk's site. This site does have an index and a reasonable open-records policy, but charges $15 per copy and has a notoriously incomplete index. Mr. Chilcote's 1914 death is not indexed there, so at best ordering it will be an adventure.

(3) In my case, since I downloaded the image when the opportunity was there, I can cite it as an item in my own possession, much as I would a family quilt.

(4) If you didn't download the image when the opportunity was there, you could order the microfilm and view and cite that, or view it somewhere that has the microfilm on indefinite loan, or hire someone to do so for you.

Other thoughts welcome . . .


Harold Henderson, "It's Gone! Now What?," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 20 February 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

 

Bittner's Bavarians in the September NGSQ

F. Warren Bittner was co-winner of the National Genealogical Society's 2011 Family History Writing Contest, and his article leads off the September issue of the NGS's Quarterly. His paternal-line great-grandfather and two brothers are pictured on the cover.

Most "Q" articles are proof arguments of one sort or another, highlighting surprises, methodological innovations, or usually reliable records shown to be unreliable in particular cases. Contest winners are usually different.

The story of the Büttner family has many lessons for researchers of German families on both sides of the Atlantic, but the main lesson here is how different times and places make different ways. The main fact in their lives was Bavarian law, which "forbade 'frivolous marriage' between 'slovenly people who will breed only beggars and idlers.'" Legal marriage required substantial property holdings, "adequate" savings, and the consent of the village council.

As is often the case when such accusations are made, the Büttners were neither beggars nor idlers, they were oppressed by rich insiders. They had children out of wedlock because there was no other way. It took ten years for Leonhard Büttner and Margaretha Weiss to get permission to marry. No wonder three of their sons left for America.

The author also has several lectures based on this family's experiences. Don't miss a chance to hear the story in person!



F. Warren Bittner, "Without Land, Occupation, Rights, or Marriage Privilege: The Büttner Family from Bavaria to New York," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 100 (September 2012): 165-187.


Harold Henderson, "Bittner's Bavarians in the September NGSQ," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 16 November 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Top Five MWM Posts for May 2012

I have my favorites, but these were the readers' choices from May:

1. Why We Don't Write (May 6)

2. The toughest genealogy course you can take? (May 28)

3. Proving in-laws without direct evidence (May 7)

4. "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all" (May 17)

5. NGS Day 2 Thursday the 10th (May 11)

The first two were runaways, the remainder pretty closely bunched. I'll post the June rankings in about  a month to let the dust settle.

Least viewed?

So many sources, so little time (May 5)


Harold Henderson, "Top Five MWM Posts for May 2012," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 1 July 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

IGHR Samford Day 0, resting briefly in the shade

If you've been to IGHR (the week-long Institute for Genealogical and Historical Research) at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, you don't need my description. And if you haven't been there, you may not understand it when I call it a cross between a conference and a homecoming, in which the party comes the evening before the work begins.

For me, the advent is a two-day car trip, this year solo. Saturday I stopped off at the Indiana State Library and wound up hitting almost every research target I aimed at. (More on that later.) Sunday I drove and listened to recordings of talks given by Tom Jones and Elizabeth Shown Mills at the National Genealogical Society conference last month. Tom managed to condense documentation into five questions and then into two basic principles; Elizabeth laid out a plan for organizing research so that you won't have to go back and do it over. I need to recheck the syllabus material in order to get the most out of them.

And there was no time for that once I arrived on the hillside campus, what with getting registered, getting settled, greeting friends old and new, telling newcomers where to go next (it's my fourth year here so I can pass for an old-timer), checking out the used books for sale in the library, and even selling a few of my wife's heavy-duty coffee mugs emblazoned with trees.

Debra Hoffman filled in ably for the absent ProGen Study Group leader Angela McGhie at the study group reunion and recognition. Afterwards the conversation devolved into small groups. Mine got into stories and advice about writing genealogical articles, and we were far from the last to leave.

Director Lori Northrup borrowed the best line of the evening when she quoted Samford's president: "We rest in the shade of trees we did not plant." At the end of a long day that's a good thought to mull over in the calm before the storm of genealogical activity set to begin at 8 am sharp Monday morning.


Harold Henderson, "IGHR Samford Day 0," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 June 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Good lessons in NGS Magazine April-June 2012

You could get a darn good genealogical education just by reading every issue of the National Genealogical Society Magazine for a few years. The lessons are readable, bite-size, and engaging. This quarter, four how-to pieces stood out for me:

* Debbie Mieszala on plagiarism and how not to commit it. BTW, although I have heard rumblings to the contrary, there is NOTHING about blogging that makes plagiarism either necessary or acceptable. By linking as well as giving credit, bloggers can if anything credit their sources more easily than pen-and-paper writers can.

* J. H. Fonkert on using newspapers to (almost literally) bring an ancestor back to life. His own grandfather provides the example. I wanted to say that this works best when the ancestor is engaged in work that actually appears in the newspaper, but we won't know until we look!

* Kathy Petlewski on immigration research, a very helpful piece with a sequel promised. I especially appreciated the discussion of oft-neglected ports of entry Galveston and New Orleans. One point I would add: the several "waves" of immigration in US history have had their roots in politics. Going back to the presidency of John Adams, changing tides of political opinion (including episodes of fear and racism) have changed the immigration laws and often determined when a "wave" of immigration began and ended. (Those waves in the pool where we research aren't natural, dude. There's a wave machine out there.)

* Patricia Walls Stamm with a solid article on research planning. I appreciate these, because this is something I struggle with on a daily basis.

I also enjoyed records-oriented pieces by Claire Prechtel-Kluskens (did you know there may be Compiled Military Service Records for your Civil War ancestor that did not get filed in his "jacket"? and how to find them?), Bryna O'Sullivan on using Confederate pension applications in African-American genealogy, and Harold Hinds on autograph books, yet another underused genealogical resource.

This magazine alone is worth NGS's annual dues -- and as readers here know, NGS offers many other benefits as well!



All in NGS Magazine, vol. 38, no. 2 (April-June 2012):
Debbie Mieszala, "Stop, thief! A plagiarism primer," 17-20.
J. H. Fonkert, "The threshing engine: Newspapers breathe life into a photo," 25-31.
Kathy Petlewski, "Reference Desk: An overview of immigration records," 48-53.
Patricia Walls Stamm, "Targeted Research Plans," 44-47.

Harold Henderson, "Good lessons in NGS Magazine April-June 2012," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 21 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Two more tempting books

Published just in time for the National Genealogical Society's gathering earlier this month in Cincinnati is Indiana by Dawne Slater-Putt. It's part of the NGS Research in the States Series. (Actually, it's so new it's not in NGS's on-line store yet.) It starts with accounts of early Indiana history and settlement and account of major archives, libraries and societies. The bulk of the book describes the following two dozen types of resources:

Aids to Research
Atlases, Gazetteers, and Maps
Bibles
Biographical Sources
Business and Occupational Records
Cemetery Records
Censuses and Census Substitutes
Church Records
Court Records
Directories
Ethnic Groups and Records
Genealogical and Historical Periodicals
Institutional and Prison Records
Internal Improvements
Land Records
Military Records
Naturalization and Immigration
Newspapers
Probate Records
School Records
Tax Records
Vital Records
Voter and Election Records
Women

I bought this book at NGS, have already read it from cover to cover, and look forward to referring to it often in the future. It will be available in either hard copy or PDF. I can imagine a few minor improvements for later editions, but I can't imagine having written such a comprehensive book myself.


Reviewed in the online magazine of early American history, Common-Place: David Jaffee's A New Nation of Goods, focusing on pre-Civil-War rural northeast and New England. Emory University historian Jonathan Prude writes,

Jaffee combines the specialized expertise of an antiquarian with the more capacious concerns of an historian. Thus, heeding antiquarian impulses, he recounts precisely how clocks, tables, and chairs were fabricated; he provides biographies of many who did the fabricating; and he traces the provenance of a good number of the resulting artifacts.

"Antiquarian" is rarely a term of praise among historians. But given my microhistorical and genealogical interests, that word puts this book pretty high up on my want list.



Dawne Slater-Putt, Indiana (Arlington VA: National Genealogical Society, 2012).

David Jaffee, A New Nation of Goods: The Material Culture of Early America  (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010).

Harold Henderson, "More tempting books," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 14 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Lecturing -- as if blogging wasn't enough!

My current brochure describing available genealogy lectures is posted at Midwest Roots. We've got orphans, the great research state of Indiana, colliding sources, Sherlock Holmes, death by probate (NOT), and more.

If you want to hear a sample, my web site is not that sophisticated yet. Feel free to drop by the National Genealogical Society conference in Cincinnati at 9:30 AM Friday (Indianapolis Orphan Asylum) and Saturday (Indirect Evidence) . . .



Harold Henderson, “Lecturing -- as if blogging wasn't enough!” Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 2 May 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you mention it on line.]

Where I'll be speaking this spring

My spring talks are all in Ohio! There's plenty of time yet to register for these conferences, but beware: do not under any circumstances confuse April with May, or confuse the city beginning with "C" in the upper-right-hand corner of the state with the one in the lower-left-hand corner.

Friday, April 13, 1 pm, at the Ohio Genealogical Society meeting in Cleveland, on "The Other Midwestern Archives." Some less well-known places to research once you've exhausted the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center, the Newberry Library, and the Wisconsin State Historical Society, or they've exhausted you.

Friday, May 11, 9:30 am, at the National Genealogical Society meeting in Cincinnati, on the records of the Indianapolis Orphan Asylum (1851-1941) held at the Indiana Historical Society. If you're missing a Hoosier in this time period who might have been orphaned, or just had a family living on the edge, these records may be just what you're looking for. And the stories alone would break a stone's heart.

Saturday, May 12, 9:30 am, NGS again, on "Indirect Evidence: What To Do When You Don't Have Perry Mason on Your Side." Nine relatively simple cases show what indirect evidence can do for us if we look for it with the right attitude. If you are hungering for complex cases, take that hour off and read the latest NGSQ instead ;-)

Compared to Rootstech, I would say that these two conferences overall offer more meat for intermediate and advanced genealogists (and better quality control), and less for developers and advanced techies. YMMV.

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.

Live at NGS Charleston: Day 2

[During Blogger's lengthy outage this was first posted on Facebook.]

One of the best and least communicable things about a conference is meeting old friends and making new ones, starting with the folks chowing down on the free breakfast at my out-of-the-way motel. We recognized each other from the new FamilySearch t-shirts.

Living legend Helen Leary spoke on the early (1790-1840) censuses and demonstrated how to wring the maximum information out of them, spiking the instruction with deadpan humor. After showing how one can often estimate many things from ultra-minimal 1790 census, she made an interesting distinction between evidence for proof and evidence for use: "We know that 'close enough' in genealogy is not close enough, but this estimate will help you look for the record you want to look for."

Elizabeth Shown Mills packed several decades of real problems into an unreal will and deed, and took the audience through them line by line. "No skill is as important to a genealogist than the ability to analyze a document."

Laura Murphy de Grazia gave a stunning example of the kind of mistake you can make if you stop researching too soon, in the course of explaining as much as can be explained of the requirement that a genealogical proof include (among other things) a "reasonably exhaustive search."

Engineer Tim Cross of FamilySearch thought out loud with his audience about what is about to happen as cloud computing, mobile applications, geospatial computing, and social media converge -- and genealogical information begins to flow as easily and uniformly as electricity, regardless of its web site of origin. The audience was not entirely on board -- "You don't know if they're right." He surmised that ultimately in the genealogy cloud, there would be both fluid collaborative information changing with new contributions, and a well-document "historic" portion that would remain stable. "It's important to know what's right and can be audited," i.e. the path of evidence and reasoning to conclusion can be followed, "and to know what's false and why. We're still figuring that out." It does sound like documentation and good research practices will continue to be indispensable in the forthcoming faster, mobile-app-intensive, crowd-sourced, geotagged, and Google-Goggled world.

Evidence in NGS Magazine

My short article on evidence, "Will You Answer When Genealogical Opportunity Knocks?" is in the new (April/May/June 2011) issue of the NGS Magazine. You can read it on line if you're a member. (What? You haven't joined yet?) In brief:

Few of the records we use were created with genealogy in mind. They exist to protect health, record ownership, secure a debt, punish an offender, save a soul, or send young people to war. We are already using the records for other purposes. So why allow them to put their questions, and only their questions, into our minds?

I plugged this magazine before I was in it, and I will continue to do so. It's readable and relevant and facts not common knowledge are specifically cited. More on the rest of this issue in a later post.

Not finding Frank Adams

Do you have what it takes to spend 40 years researching a missing grandfather? Don't miss Joseph F. Martin's wonderful story of his search in Michigan and Illinois and beyond, in the National Genealogical Society newsletter "Up Front."

This article is a form of "research travelogue," reviled by some genealogy journal editors for following chronology rather than logic. But it has its place in our literature, if only because it is closer to the actual experience of research and as such provides unique learning opportunities.