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.]

Good news for Midwestern researchers!

Admit it -- you turned your back on FamilySearch for a few minutes, just to do your taxes or watch the snow fall. And now you find that they've put up browseable images of:

• Chicago Catholic Churches 1833-1925, and 
• Ohio Probates 1789-1996.

67 Allegany County NY decedents

FamilySearch's uploading of more than 14 million New York probate images from 1629 to1971 is an immeasurable boon to genealogists with research targets in the Empire State. It can, however, be immeasurably frustrating to find any particular person in the browse-only collection! It's divided by counties, and within counties by type of record and within that by volume or box. The boxed loose papers, organized by decedent, are among the most valuable probate records, and they don't even have page numbers!

Since I had to root through one of these virtual boxes anyway, in order to find my wife's ancestor William Berry, I kept track of all the other decedents whose estate papers had lodged in Box #2 from rugged Allegany County. The list of 67, with initial image number for each, is now on my web site. They are in order of appearance; if you don't have time to read all the names, use control-F to search them. They appeared to me to all be in the 1830s-1860s time range, where such records are most valuable. There are way plenty more materials in this one collection that would benefit from any sort of finding aid.

Here's a May 1845 summons to the next of kin of the late Gideon Hayward. James Hayward was living in Vigo County, Indiana, and Jane Davis nearby in Clay County. These are not just "New York records."

Gideon Hayward estate, Estate Papers 1807-1930, Box 2, Allegany County, New York; image 755 of 770, “New York, Probate Records, 1629-1972,” FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 10 April 2013), citing FHL microfilm 594,806.

Harold Henderson, "67 Allegany County NY decedents," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 12 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

In praise of research travelogues

It can't do everything, but a research chronicle can teach as much as a logical reconstruction. Two of my favorite genealogy periodicals reminded of this recently.

Malissa Ruffner, "The perfect puzzle piece," NGS Magazine vol. 39, no. 1 (January-March 2013), 40-43. "Recently I found a piece that didn't belong to my puzzle but it was so unique and well-defined that I was compelled to look for a puzzle that needed it" -- in the Green and Lanterman families.

Tami K. Pelling, "In Search of Medda," Crossroads vol. 8, no. 1 (Winter 2013), 26-30. "To prove or disprove Medda Sissie Hay as a child of Rubin and Mary, a timeline for the family was created, and the quest for Medda began" -- in Vigo and Vermillion counties, Indiana.

NGS Magazine is a benefit of membership in the National Genealogical Society. Crossroads is a benefit of membership in the Utah Genealogical Association.




Harold Henderson, "In praise of research travelogues," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 10 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Saturday in Lafayette

Tami Pelling and Barbara Fitzpatrick put together a nice one-day genealogy gathering called "History Begins with You" in downtown Lafayette this past weekend. Ron Darrah of Indianapolis (and of the IndyGenealogy blog) alternated giving talks. The audience had lots of thoughts and questions.

Ron totally persuaded me to spend more research time on fraternal and similar organizations that became especially common after the Civil War. After church and school, they were often the main thing in small towns and ethnic neighborhoods, and even those groups that no longer exist left many traces in obituaries and on tombstones. Their records, if you can find them, are not just context-providers but potential alternative sources of vital records -- especially since many of these gruops were insurance organizations as well.

Do catch Ron's talk ("The Fraternal Order of Everyone") if you get a chance. And if you don't, check out Kay Haviland Freilich's article in The Source on "Business, Institution, and Organization Records."


Harold Henderson, "Saturday in Lafayette," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 8 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Your Unsourced Undated Newspaper Clipping, Blogging, and Michigan State Censuses

Sometimes other genealogists provoke us to remember things we had forgotten.

* I once had one of those classic unlabeled newspaper clippings, one that would gain credibility if it could be properly sourced. And there is one often distinctive identifier that even the most clueless newspaper-clipper can't erase: the font, typeface, and layout. Fortunately I had reason to think that it belonged to a particular town and an approximate point in time. I made a copy of it and took it to the local library, and compared it to the two local newspapers being published then. One of them matched, reducing the search time required to find the original -- but not to zero!

* Wondering what to blog about, or whether even to start? Although I don't use them, Geneabloggers offers a myriad of "blogging prompts" keyed to days of the week. There are some basic decisions to make: do you want mainly to contribute original material, or be an aggregator of others (by mentioning and linking, not wholesale copying!)? In either case, what really "gets you going" about genealogy: a particular region? methodology? theory? family stories? technology? conferences and institutes? Start out with a focus based on the passion within your passion; over time you will find that it changes, as this blog has. Finally, plan a schedule and work far enough ahead of it so that you can read your draft posts "cold" one more time before publishing them. That way you can be a perfectionist within reason and still get it done.

* I've said this before, and now I'm saying it again: if you have Michigan people, you should be reading Bushwhacking Genealogy, which just reported on progress in digitizing early Michigan state censuses.




Harold Henderson, "Your Unsourced Undated Newspaper Clipping, Blogging, and Michigan State Censuses," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 4 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Speaking Saturday in Lafayette, Indiana

It's not too late to drive over to Lafayette Saturday and hear Ron Darrah and me talk about genealogy all day (we alternate so as not to get out of breath).

He'll speak on the "Fraternal Order of Everyone" and "Show Me the Money." I'll be talking about indirect evidence in "Finding Berrys in New York Property and Probate Records" and "Indirect Evidence: When Perry Mason Isn't on Your Side." See you there? Check it out at History Begins With You.