On Tuesday, May 7, three NEHGS publications were honored with New England Book Show Awards: Genealogist’s Handbook for New England Research, 5th Edition;Western Massachusetts Families in 1790; and the NEHGS Book & Gift Catalog 2012/2013. The New England Book Show is an annual juried show that recognizes the year’s most outstanding work by New England publishers, printers, and graphic designers. Winning books are selected for their design, quality of materials, and workmanship.

Last week, at the 2013 NGS Family History Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Helen Schatvet Ullmann received the National Genealogical Society’s Award for Excellence: Genealogy and Family History for her book, Some Descendants of Roger Billings of Dorchester, Massachusetts (Newbury Street Press, an imprint of NEHGS, 2012). This award recognizes a significant contribution to genealogy that serves to foster scholarship and advance excellence in family history.

Alice E. Kober, 43 — Lost to History No More
Margalit Fox, a senior obituary writer at the New York Times, brings the story of Alice Kober, who worked tirelessly to crack an ancient Aegean code, Linear B, out of obscurity.

Last week’s survey asked how many generations of your maternal line you have researched. 4,010 people responded to this survey. The results are:

• <1%, One (you)
• <1%, Two (you and your mother)
• 3%, Three (you, your mother, and grandmother)
• 13%, Four
• 18%, Five
• 15%, Six
• 9%, Seven
• 6%, Eight
• 4%, Nine
• 5%, Ten
• 3%, Eleven
• 4%, Twelve
• 18%, Thirteen or more
• <1%, I don’t know

This week’s survey asks when your first immigrant ancestor arrived in North America. Take the survey now!

LAVINIA (f): Female form of a Roman family name. In Roman legend, Lavinia was the daughter of King Latinus, king of Latium [the area around Rome: modern Lazio]. She married the Trojan newcomer Aeneas, hero of Vergil’s Aeneid. Her name springs from the same root as the ancient city of Lavinium, about seventeen miles south of Rome. In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s bloodiest play, the eponymous hero has a daughter by this name (Clarence L. Barnhart, William D. Halsey et al., The New Century Cyclopedia of Names, 3 vols. [New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954], 2:2399).

Familiar forms often seen in New England are VINEY or VINNY. Lavinia Dickinson (1833–1899) of Amherst, Mass., sister of the poet Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830–1886), arranged for publication of Emily’s poems after the poet’s death. In the 1850 census, 5,195 women named Lavinia were enumerated. The 1940 census listed 4,436 women with that name.

Brewster Public Library, New York

rewster is a village in the town of Southeast, which is located in the southeastern part of Putnam County, New York. The Brewster Public Library has made a newspaper database available on its website. Click on the Databases tab and select Brewster Standard from the drop down list to access it.

The Brewster Standard was a weekly newspaper that covered the news of Brewster, Southeast, Tilly Foster, Sodom, Patterson, Carmel, Mahopac, Somers, North Salem, and Croton Falls, New York, and Danbury, Connecticut. The database covers the period from 1870 through 1982.Click on the “on line edition” link to open the search page. Enter keywords in the search box, and, to search for a phrase, place quotes around the words. Instructions are given for advanced searches. I offer an additional search tip: to search a particular year, be sure to include the year in your keywords. Click on the title link in the search results to display the corresponding newspaper page as a PDF. You can search within the document for key words or phrases by clicking the icon at the top left of the viewable page — the icon may be a magnifying glass or binoculars, depending on your version of Adobe Reader.

Sadie Pope Dowdell Library, New Jersey

The Sadie Pope Dowdell Library is located in South Amboy, which is on Raritan Bay in Middlesex County, New Jersey. The library has made a digital version of the South Amboy Citizen newspaper, from 1910 to 2000, available on its website. The database is split into two parts. The first covers 1910 through 1943. To begin a search in this time period, select a year from the drop down list. Then select the month and date to access a PDF file containing the issue. Click on The South Amboy Citizen (1944–2000) link to access files for this later period. Click on a year to access a PDF file of an individual issue.The issues may be searched by clicking on the binoculars icon on the left side of the page or by using the Find function under the Edit menu. Please note that the library’s website states that you will need the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the files properly.

If genealogists researching Boston ancestors aren’t familiar with the work of Annie Haven Thwing (1851-1940), they should be. Born in Roxbury (now part of Boston), Thwing “devoted over thirty years of her life to painstaking historical research on early Boston. According to Thwing, her interest was sparked by a desire ‘to find out where my ancestors lived, who were their neighbors, and what the neighborhood was like.’ Only Thwing did not stop with her own ancestors; she set out to answer these questions for all of Boston. Focusing on analysis and synthesis of primary sources, Annie Haven Thwing created several indispensable and accessible resources for historians.”^[1]

“When Annie presented her research collection to the Massachusetts Historical Society in December 1916, it consisted of twenty-two typewritten volumes of Boston deed extracts entitled ‘Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston, 1630–1800,’ a two-volume ‘History of the Streets of Boston, 1630–1800,’ and the Thwing Card Index. This last comprised approximately 125,000 index cards, with all the ‘items of interest of each inhabitant’ she had compiled arranged alphabetically by name. That index, still much used by researchers and now the foundation of an electronic database, fills seventy-four library drawers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.”^[2]

In 1920, Thwing drew on her research to publish the book for which she is best known today, The Crooked and Narrow Streets of Boston, 1630–1822. In 2001, the Massachusetts Historical Society and the New England Historic Genealogical Society collaborated on a CD, Inhabitants and Estates of the Town of Boston, 1630–1800 and The Crooked and Narrow Streets of Boston, 1630–1822, that includes the Thwing Index and contains more than 62,000 records. (The CD is available for purchase here.)

While many genealogists are familiar with Annie Haven Thwing’s scholarship, they might not be aware that she also created a model of Boston that can still be viewed today. “In 1900, the Massachusetts Infant Asylum, a charitable organization for which Annie served as one of the directors, planned a fundraising fair. Typically, Annie decided upon an ambitious project for exhibition: an accurate scale model of the town of Boston, ca. 1775, based largely on the information she had amassed…Annie was no modeler, however, and time was short, so the model had to be reduced to a…modest five and a half feet by four and a half feet. The outline and topographical features were drawn from a map Annie had commissioned for the book she planned to write. For the model buildings, Annie turned to a carpenter named Munsey living on Orr’s Island, Maine, where she passed her summers…Munsey worked from pictures supplied by Annie Thwing…[and her] model featured the eighteenth-century street pattern she had so carefully reconstructed and nearly 120 handcarved building replicas. In addition to the acclaim it received for its appearance at the fair for the Infant Asylum, the Thwing model also received appreciation in a city exposition in 1909. In December of that year, Annie gave the model to the Old South Association, where it resides as a popular exhibit to this day.”^[3]

Built in 1729 as a Puritan meeting house, the Old South Meeting House is best known as the site of lively public meetings in the years leading to the American Revolution, including the meeting that led to the Boston Tea Party. At the time, Old South was the largest building in Boston. Today, Old South is a museum, a Freedom Trail site, and an active gathering place. (Old South is also a center for history education, as I witnessed last week when my children and their third grade classmates took on the roles of Loyalists and Patriots and debated the tax on tea.)

Annie Haven Thwing left a rich and invaluable legacy for Boston genealogists, historians, and institutions — and it all began with a simple desire “to find out where my ancestors lived.” For a detailed look at Thwing’s life, I highly recommend Len Travers’s article, cited below.

¹Lynn Betlock, “Annie Haven Thwing: Guardian of the Crooked and Narrow Street.” The Dial of the Old South Clock 7 (spring 1995): 1.↩

²Len Travers, “‘You see I am addicted to facts’: Annie Haven Thwing and The Crooked and Narrow Streets of Boston,” The Massachusetts Historical Review 1 (1999): 121–122.↩

³Ibid., 120–21.↩

Last week’s survey asked how long you've been conducting genealogical research. 4,399 people responded to this survey. The results are:

• <1%, Less than 1 year
• 9%, 1 to 5 years
• 11%, 6 to 10 years
• 15%, 11 to 15 years.
• 13%, 16 to 20 years
• 10%, 21 to 25 years.
• 9%, 26 to 30 years
• 16%, 31 to 40 years
• 16%, More than 40 years
• <1%, I am not certain how long I've been conducting genealogical research.

This week’s survey asks how many generations of your maternal line you have researched. Take the survey now!

ETHELBERT (m): Derived from a compound of Anglo-Saxon æthel- "royal," "noble" + beohrt/berht "bright," this last derived from an Indo-European root *bherəg- "to shine," "bright," "white" (Calvert Watkins, The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 2nd ed., 2000, p. 11). Æthelberht I of Wessex (ruled 860-865, a brief reign bedeviled by Viking raids) was the third son of Æthelwulf of Wessex. Æthelbert was preceded by an older brother Æthelbald (co-king with his father ca. 855-858, then full king 858-860), and was succeeded by his younger brothers Æthelred I (ruled 866-871), and, finally, Alfred [Ælfred] the Great (ruled 871-899). Alfred's grandson Æthelstan (ruled 924-939), the victor of Brunanburh, is the first king of all England (rather than Wessex).

The history of the Anglo-Saxon period was not much studied until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but New England does have the example of Ethelbert Child Lyon (1744-1787) of Woodstock, Conn., and Holland, Mass., a son of Moses and Grace (Child) Lyon of Woodstock. Moses Lyon, a Yale graduate, apparently enjoyed choosing learned names for his numerous offspring. The 1850 census shows 216 men with the name Ethelbert.

The name ALBERT developed from ADELBERT, a cognate Germanic form of both elements of this name. (Speak "Adelbert" fast, say five times, and you'll see how that first consonant falls out; ALICE evolved in much the same way from forms such as ADELICIA.)

Grosse Pointe Public Library, Michigan

Grosse Pointe is a small city that borders Detroit. It is located in Wayne County, Michigan. The Grosse Pointe Public Library has made a number of resources available on its website. The resources include a local history archive and an obituary index. Click on the Local History Archives icon on the homepage to access them.

There are a number of resources in the Local History Archives. They include books, photographs, maps, and newspapers, among other resources. Click on the Books icon to access three local histories. The following volumes have been digitized and are available as PDFs: A History of Agricultural School District 1; Grosse Pointe Guide and index; and The Mansions of Grosse Pointe. Click on the Photographs icon and then the Library thumbnail to view the nearly 50 historical photographs of the Grosse Pointe Public Library. There are a dozen historical images under the Maps link.

Click on the Grosse Pointe Obituary Index link to access the index main page. The database is an index to obituaries and other articles associated with deaths found in two local newspapers, the Grosse Pointe News and the Grosse Pointe Review. The index covers the period from 1940 through 2009 with a few records from 1930. Beginning with 1940, each segment of the index comprises a five-year period. Each section of the index is organized alphabetically. The data fields are last name, first name, middle name, date of death, printed (publication) date, newspaper title, and page.

On the Local History Archives page, you will find a link to Grosse Pointe newspapers that have been digitized and uploaded to the library's website. The digital collection includes Grosse Pointe News (1940–present), Grosse Pointe Review (1930–1952), and Grosse Pointe Civic News (1923–1934). You can find the full text of an obituary by using the information found in the index. First, click on the thumbnail link one of the newspapers. Click on the year, then the date of publication. This will open a PDF file of the complete issue of the selected newspaper. Instructions on the website provide information on how to search for specific items. You can also search the entire database by entering a single word or an exact phrase in the search box. You can limit your search to a specific time period by selecting a decade from the drop down list.

The Dorr Rebellion was a watershed event in Rhode Island history. Events began in 1841, when Providence native Thomas Wilson Dorr sought to expand the numbers of Rhode Islanders eligible to vote. At the time, with the Charter of 1663 still in force, less than fifty percent of white male Rhode Islanders were eligible to vote. Historian Marvin E. Gettleman, author of The Dorr Rebellion: A Study in American Radicalism (1973), wrote that "The most dramatic and bitter battle of the antebellum period took place in Rhode Island, where the movement for political reform took a radical and even revolutionary character."

The fall 2011 issue of American Ancestors magazine featured an article on the Dorr Rebellion: "Echoes from the Dorr Rebellion: the 1842 Aplin / Carpenter Correspondence," by John D. Tew. (NEHGS members can read the article online.)

I recently became aware of the Dorr Rebellion Project website, which is a terrific resource for anyone interested in the crisis. The website includes a nineteen-minute documentary, interviews with expert scholars, an image gallery, and links to relevant articles. Organizations and individuals involved with the project include Providence College; The John Hay Library, Brown University; The Rhode Island Historical Society; The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History; The Rhode Island School of Design; and Russell DeSimone.

Junk Drawer Jesus and the “Flotsam” that Defines a Family

A daughter reflects on the process of cleaning out her parents’ home in East Boston.

Leaving Cloister of Dusty Offices, Young Archivists Meet Like Minds

This profile of the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York, a group with over 500 members, highlights some of the archivists and their collections.

Study: Moon to Blame in Civil War Death

A new study concludes that the light from a full moon played apart in the accidental shooting of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

Last week's survey asked which major U.S. genealogical repositories readers have visited. 4,040 people responded to this survey. The results are:

15%, Allen County Public Library,Ft. Wayne, Indiana
4%, Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research, Houston,Texas
4%, Dallas Public Library, Dallas,Texas
22%, Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library,Washington, D.C.
35%, Family History Library (FHL), Salt Lake City, Utah
23%, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
3%, Midwest Genealogy Center, Independence, Missouri
26%, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
30%, National Archives facilities outside of Washington, D.C.
43%, New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) Research Library, Boston, Mass.
15%, New York Public Library, New York, N.Y
9%, Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill.
6%, Sutro Library, San Francisco, California
23%, I have not visited any of the above repositories.

This week's survey asks how long you've been conducting genealogical research. Take the survey now!

CEPHAS (m.) - Cephas is another name for Simon Peter [St. Peter] - fisherman, disciple, apostle and first bishop of Rome. CEPHAS is the Syriac or Aramaic word for ’rock.’ PETER (PETROS) is thus the same idea in Greek.

A quick look at the Bellingham, Mass., VRs reveals a branch of the Rockwood family that used this name: Cephas Rockwood, b. 25 May 1766, son of Joseph and Alice (Thompson) Rockwood; he was lost at sea 10 Dec. 1786 off Lovell’s Island (which the Bellingham town clerk, a notoriously bad speller, styled ’louvels eilon’) (Bellingham VRs, pp. 55, 207); and his nephew Cephas Rockwood, b. 12 March 1786, son of John and Eunice (____) (Smith) Rockwood (Bellingham VRs, p. 55); later known as Cephas Leland Rockwood (the middle name apparently honors his stepfather Aaron Leland), he lived many years at Chester, Vermont, later at Canton, N.Y., and died at Pewaukee, Wisconsin, 3 May 1844 (Vivian VaLera Rockwood, Four Centuries of American Descendants of Richard Rockwood of Dorchester 1633, Braintree 1636, Massachusetts, 2 vols. [Johnson City, Tenn.: The Overmountain Press, 2000], 1:176, 262, 367). The 1850 census lists 692 men with the name Cephas.

City of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

Regina is the capital of the province of Saskatchewan. It is located in the southern part of the province. The City of Regina owns and maintains two cemeteries - Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery and Regina Cemetery. City officials have uploaded a burial database for these cemeteries to the city’s website. The information in the database has been extracted from the official cemetery records held at the Cemetery Administration Office. The Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery database contains more than 34,000 records and the Regina Cemetery database contains nearly 10,000 records. Click on the Locate a Loved One link to access the cemetery database. Click on the Cemetery Database link to open the search page. You will also find links to cemetery maps in PDF format on the Locate a Loved One page.

The Online Cemeteries Database can be searched by last name, first name, year of death, age at death, and year interred. The search can be limited to a specific cemetery or you can search both cemeteries at the same time. The data fields in the search results are last name, first name(s), age at death, date of birth, date of death, date of burial, cemetery, and block-plot lot.

Neepawa, Manitoba, Canada

Neepawa is a town of about 4,000 residents, located in southern Manitoba. It was incorporated in 1883. The town of Neepawa has made the database for Riverside Cemetery available on its website. The earliest burial I found in the database occurred in 1877, and the most recent was in February 2013. According to the website, Riverside Cemetery is the furthest west location where a victim of the Titanic disaster was buried. Click on the search link. You may enter first names, last names, or a burial year in the search box. The data fields in the search results are last name, first/middle name, lot/block/range, and the interment date. If the deceased was an infant, it is noted on the name line. The search results are sorted by date.

Last week’s survey asked what location you prefer to focus your genealogical research efforts on. 3,967 people responded to the survey. The results are:

• 39%, New England
• 8%, New York
• 4%, The Mid-Atlantic
• 3%, The South
• 5%, The Central United States
• <1%, The Western United States
• 3%, Canada
• 4%, England
• 5%, Ireland
• 1%, Scotland
• <1%, Wales
• 2%, Germany
• <1%, Italy
• 2%, Other European country
• <1%, Other location not listed above
• 21%, I don’t have a preferred geographic location for my research

This week’s survey asks which major U.S. genealogical repositories you’ve visited. Take the survey now!

ANANIAS (m): In the Bible, this name is found only in the Book of Acts, where it is borne by at least three people of notably differing character:

(1) Ananias, husband of Sapphira. This covetous couple, members of an early Christian church in Jerusalem, sold land and kept back the proceeds, and when rebuked by St. Peter, were struck dead (5:1-5).
(2) Acts 23:2 and 24:1 mention Ananias the High Priest, who in 23:2 ordered that Paul be struck on the mouth, and in 24:2, "descended with the elders, and with a certain orator named Tertullus, who informed the governor against Paul."

Probably the Long Island families (especially the Conklins) who favored this name were thinking of

(3) “a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias” who, acting on a vision from God, laid hands on the blinded Saul/St. Paul and restored his sight, after the latter’s conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:10-17), or (4) “one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good report of all the Jews which dwelt there” (Acts 22:12) [perhaps the same as (3)].

Ananias Conklin of Kings Swynford, Staffordshire; Nottingham; Salem, Mass.; and Southold, L.I. (TAG 21 [1944-45]: 48-58 had grandsons Ananias Conklin “Jr.” (East Hampton, L.I. ca. 1674-by 22 Oct. 1730) (Jeremiah and Mary [Gardiner] Conklin (TAG 21:58, 142-43); Ananias Conklin “Sr.” (Benjamin and Hannah [Mulford] Conklin (East Hampton, L.I. ca. 1672/3-by 26 Aug. 1740) (21:135), father (by wife Hannah Ludlam) of Ananias Conklin [Jr.], bp. East Hampton 21 Aug. 1708.

Omaha Public Library, Nebraska

The city of Omaha is located in the eastern part of the state about midway along the Nebraska-Iowa border. It is the seat of Douglas County. On the genealogy page of the Omaha Public Library’s website are a number of unique online resources. Most of the following are projects of the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society. These include:

Omaha Births
This database comprises a list of births in Omaha extracted from area newspapers. In some cases, children were born in Omaha to families who lived in areas outside of Douglas County, including Iowa. Nebraska did not mandate the registration of births until 1910, making this information particularly valuable. The data fields in the database include name of parents, date, newspaper abbreviation, page number, and child’s name or sex, in cases where there is no given name for the child.

Omaha Obits
This index contains more than 120,000 obituaries and death notices extracted from pre-1977 Omaha newspapers. The database includes records that appeared in Omaha newspapers for individuals who lived within an hour to an hour and a half from the city. Civil War veterans from a further distance have also been included. The information has been drawn from obituaries, funeral stories, personal coverage, and death notices. The data provided includes name, age, date of publication, newspaper abbreviation, edition, page, and burial location, which is preceded by an @ symbol. There is a link to information on obtaining copies of the obituaries.

Marriage License Indexes for Douglas County, Nebraska
This link takes researchers to the Douglas County Clerk/Comptroller’s Office website, where you can search the county’s database of marriage license applications. Enter the name of the bride or groom into the search box. You must enter the full last name and at least the first letter of the first name. While the webpage states that only marriage licenses since 1988 are online, I found records with earlier dates listed in the Marriage License Archives section of the search results. The data fields include name, spouse name, marriage date, application date/year, and license number.

Last week’s survey asked what century is the greatest interest to you in your genealogical research. 3,686 people responded to this survey. The results are:

• 3%, The sixteenth century or earlier (prior to 1600).
• 15%, The seventeenth century.
• 22%, The eighteenth century.
• 26%, The nineteenth century.
• 2%, The twentieth century.
• 33%, I don’t have a preferred century for my research efforts.

This week’s survey asks what region or country is of the greatest interest to you in your genealogical research. Take the survey now!

Our latest blog profile features AncestryInk, written by Jane Sweetland. Here, Jane introduces her blog:

As an adult, busy raising my family on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, I wasn’t interested in local history or family ancestral stories. An avid interest in maritime history, however, pulled me into other branches of historical research. Eventually I became associated with an underwater salvage team out of Provincetown searching for the wreck of a silver-laden ship belonging to Charles I that went down in the Firth of Forth. Researching shipwrecks in Edinburgh and St. Andrew’s in Scotland captivated me. As I discovered, history and genealogical research are inseparable. And the tales provided by captain’s logs, church records, and old cemeteries are exciting! I relentlessly pursued connecting the dots, closing circles, and finding how the lives of quiet, local people intertwined or made a difference as larger historical events unfolded around them.

An unresolved family mystery ultimately led to the creation of my blog AncestryInk: I had no idea who my great-grandfather was. Everyone in the family refused to talk about him. He was like Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter books: “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” My great-grandfather was a Scot from Maine, a man of the sea who reportedly had “a woman in every port.” That was all I knew. My research took me well over two years. I drew from the resources of Facebook, original family letters, the NEHGS research library, NEHGS and Ancestry online databases, Maine libraries and historical societies, Maine cemeteries, Family History Library microfilm, and much, much more.

I found that my great-grandfather, a master mariner who sailed between Nova Scotia, Maine, and Pennsylvania, married three times, and fathered ten children between 1882 and 1920 - even though he was on the high seas almost continuously! One of his wives divorced him, his second and third marriages may have been bigamous, and he abandoned many of his children. I found plenty of evidence for why he might not have been spoken of.

A desire to expand my research skills during this process prompted me to enroll in the Boston University Genealogical Research Program. I gained so much valuable information that I felt moved to share what I was learning by creating AncestryInk. A secondary interest in photography seems to mesh nicely with blog writing and, I hope, enlivens the experiences and information shared there. I discovered I come from a long line of seagoing folks and island inhabitants, and I am currently working on a project about an 1846 shipwreck off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard involving my ancestors.

Last week’s survey asked how you share your genealogical information. 3,898 people responded to the survey. The results are:

• 94%, Email
• 63%, Postal mail
• 54%, Telephone calls
• 46%, Online message boards or forums
• 49%, Genealogical or historical website
• 18%, Published book or article
• 18%, Commercial website
• 12%, Lectures and presentations
• 10%, Personal website
• 11%, Social media website
• 5%, Personal blog
• 2%, Someone else’s blog
• 2%, Instant messages
• <1%, Twitter
• 14%, Other

This week’s survey asks what century is of the greatest interest to you in your genealogical research. Take the survey now!

Crandon Public Library, Wisconsin

Crandon is located in Forest County, in northeastern Wisconsin. It is the county seat. The Crandon Public Library has made local history resources available on its website. The links to these collections are located in the Local History Holdings contents list on the right side of the webpage.

The library created and maintains the online Local History Obituary Database. The obituary data was extracted from the local newspaper, The Forest Republican. The database covers the following years: 1890–1925, 1992–1994, 2001–2003, and 2005– more recent years. Currently, there are 2,286 records in the database.

Scroll down to find the database search box, and enter a surname. The search results will appear below it. The data fields in the search results include last name, first name, age, newspaper, date of publication, and page and column number. Click on the up or down arrow in the column header to change the sort order. Select the number of records per page from the Show Entries drop down list. You may order photocopies of obituaries from the library by mail for a fee.

The library also has a digital collection of Crandon High School yearbooks on its website. Click on the Yearbook Collection link to access them. The collection contains yearbooks for the following years: 1938, 1943, 1945–1948, 1950–1951, 1953, 1955, 1958–1961, and 1963–1964. Click on the thumbnail images to view the entire yearbook page by page.

Door County Library Newspaper Archive

Door County is located in eastern Wisconsin. Its county seat is Sturgeon Bay. The county lies entirely on the Door Peninsula, which separates the southern part of Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The Door County Library has digitized and uploaded to its website more than sixty years of local newspapers. There are more than 6,300 issues from twelve newspapers published between 1862 and 1923. Select the Click Here to Continue link to access the database.

You can view the collections by clicking on the newspaper title link under the Browse Collections tab or by selecting a title from the Browse Titles link. Next, click on the thumbnail image of an issue. This will open the image viewer that will allow you to read the newspaper page by page. Click on the Simple Search tab to open the search page. Enter a keyword in the search box and click the search button. You can limit your search to a specific newspaper by selecting a title from the dropdown list. You can increase the number of search boxes to three by clicking on the + sign. Remove them by clicking on the – sign. Again, you need to click on the thumbnail image of the issue to read it.

Last week’s survey asked about your relationship to New York. More than one answer could be selected. 4,256 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 12%, I was born in New York.
• 18%, I used to live in New York.
• 6%, I currently live in New York.
• 66%, One or more of my ancestors was born in New York.
• 73%, One or more of my ancestors lived in New York.
• 15%, I have no New York ancestry.
• 6%, I don't know if I have any New York ancestry.

This week’s survey asks whether you have written an autobiographical account of your life. Take the survey now!

McHenry County Genealogical Society, Illinois

McHenry County is located in northeast Illinois. Woodstock is the county seat. The McHenry County Genealogical Society has made a number of resources available on its website. Click on the Search Ancestors tab and choose from the drop down list to access them.

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church Records
Volume 1 of the Early Records of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, which covers the years 1852 to 1868, contains records from the registers of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and burials. In 1841 German immigrants organized the church in Johnsburg, Illinois. A permanent priest was not appointed until 1852, when official recordkeeping began. The registers have been translated from ecclesiastical Latin. Select the database from the drop down list and scroll through the records, which are in chronological order. There is also an online surname index. Click on the link to view it.

Newspaper Indexes

The Herald
The Herald newspaper began as the Nunda Herald and became the Crystal Lake Herald in 1908. There are two databases. The first is an index to death notices found in the newspaper from 1880 through 1979. (Issues from July 10, 1891, to July 14, 1893, and July 13, 1894, through July 4, 1895, are missing.) Clicking on the title link will allow you to access the records by selecting the first letter link of the deceased’s surname. This will open a new page with the alphabetical index. The fields in the database are name, age, death date, and information about the issue in which the notice was published. The second database is an index to marriage announcements for the same period; however, you must be a member of the McHenry County Genealogical Society to access the indexes after 1919. There are both brides and grooms indexes. Click on the title link to access the records by selecting the first letter link of the bride’s or groom’s surname.

Woodstock Sentinel
According to the website, the Woodstock Sentinel, which began publication in 1856, is the oldest newspaper being published in McHenry County. The database is an index to death notices that appeared in the newspaper between 1856 and 1894. Click on the first letter link of the deceased’s surname to open a new page with an alphabetical list. The data fields are surname, age, date of death, and date of issue.

Marengo Republican
This weekly newspaper began in 1867, then moved to Marengo a year later and took the name Marengo Republican. It ran until it was purchased in 1987. The index begins in 1872 and covers the remainder of the run. Click on the first letter link of the deceased’s surname to open a new page with an alphabetical list. The data fields are surname, age, date of death, and date of issue.

McHenry Plaindealer
The McHenry Plaindealer was first published in 1875. The database is an index to the death notices published from 1875 through 1880. A number of issues are missing between July 23, 1879 and May 12, 1880, and are not included in the index. Click on the first letter link of the deceased’s surname to open a new page with an alphabetical list. The data fields are surname, age, date of death, and date of issue.

You may purchase copies of the newspaper notices from the McHenry County Historical Society for a small fee.

In addition, the website includes other resources, such as every name indexes to the 1880 and 1930 federal censuses for McHenry County and names indexes to the MCIGS Connection Quarterly, the society’s publication.

Are you ready to explore your British ancestry “across the pond”? Whether your ancestors arrived on the Mayflower or in early 20th-century steerage, London offers endless research opportunities. The Society of Genealogists and The National Archives will be the main focus of our upcoming NEHGS tour for good reason, and other nearby repositories also have a lot to offer.

The Society of Genealogists (SoG) is the largest genealogical library in the U.K. The SoG has an enormous collection of published, transcribed, and filmed parish registers and local and family histories. In addition, the SoG also has U.K. census records, city directories, poll lists, wills and probate records, and many specialized collections. Users have access to the SoG’s rich collection of microfilmed and fiched source materials, including English, Welsh, Scottish, and some Irish census returns and indexes, indexes to England and Wales births, marriages, and deaths from 1837 onwards, and Scotland indexes to births, marriages, and deaths (1855–1920), plus earlier births and marriages (1553–1854). The library also has the Document Collections of family history research and original documents. The SoG holds published and transcribed local history records, including parish registers and gravestone inscriptions, for every county in the U.K. and thousands of parishes. Also available are family histories and one-name studies, multi-county will indexes, marriage licenses, and much more.

The National Archives is located by the banks of the Thames just outside London in Kew. TNA’s holdings are vast, and include military records for all branches of the service (War Office and Admiralty) up to and including World War I, census schedules for England and Wales, wills and probate records (Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1383–1858), Death Duty registers, documents from the central courts of law from the 12th century onwards, including the Courts of Chancery, Exchequer, the Central Criminal Court and the Assizes, and records of the Home Office, Foreign Office and Colonial Office, plus much more.

Until some time later in 2013, the London Family History Centre operated by the LDS Church, is located temporarily at TNA while their building is being refurbished. The London FHC has the largest collection of microfilmed genealogical records in the U.K. (Note that all are also available at the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City.) Among the highlights of the microfilmed collection are parish records from more than 9,500 parishes, non-conformist records, parish chest and poor law records, post-1858 record copy wills, Prerogative Court of York record copy wills, and probate records from hundreds of ecclesiastical courts (pre-1858).

The London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) is the place to go if you have ancestors who lived in or around London itself. With more than 70 km of shelves, the LMA holdings include parish registers, electoral registers, land tax records, parish poor relief and Boards of Guardians records, and workhouse records. The Archives also contains records of marriage licenses and wills from the Diocese of London and wills from the Archdeaconry of Surrey. In addition, the LMA has a collection of photographs and prints arranged topographically and by subject, as well as maps and plans including parish maps and bomb damage maps.

The British Library holds the India Office Records that include church records, wills and pension records of British and European residents of India between 1600 and 1947.

The Principal Probate Registry, located in First Avenue House, contains probate records for England and Wales from 1858 to the present. (Note that the Family History Library has microfilmed these records for the period 1858–1925.)

Of course, London has more repositories and resources than we can list here; this is just a sampling of London’s many genealogical offerings.

The NEHGS London Research Tour will be held from May 19 to 26. NEHGS experts David Dearborn and Christopher Child and their counterparts at the SoG and TNA will help participants navigate the vast resources available in London. Daily activities will include expert lectures and tours. Then, from May 27-31, we will travel to the county record offices of Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk with local experts. Join us for one or both tours and explore records only available in the U.K.!

Getting Married in Israel: Why It So Often Means Hiring a Detective

“Jews [in Israel] who want a marriage license must first prove they are Jewish in accordance with Orthodox tradition, which means they need to have been born to an uninterrupted line of Jewish mothers. Such a pedigree can be difficult to prove, especially for the children of Israel's largest immigrant community, the former denizens of the Soviet Union, many of whom spent years obscuring their Jewish roots to avoid discrimination.”

Last week’s survey asked about your relationship to New England. More than one answer could be selected. 4,118 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 32%, I was born in New England.
• 20%, I used to live in New England.
• 27%, I currently live in New England.
• 91%, One or more of my ancestors was born in New England.
• 88%, One or more of my ancestors lived in New England.
• 8%, I have never been to New England.
• 3%, I have no New England ancestry.
• 2%, I don't know if I have any New England ancestry.

 This week’s survey asks about your relationship to New York. Take the survey now!

In honor of Valentine’s Day tomorrow, we present links to several valentine collections held by historical societies.

The Wisconsin Historical Society presents a Valentine’s Day card gallery featuring 99 valentines from 1840 to 1980. An accompanying brief history of Valentine’s Day greeting cards highlights the role of Worcester, Massachusetts, native Esther Howland in popularizing the exchange of valentines.

WBUR, Boston’s public radio station, told the story of Esther Howland for a Valentine’s Day segment last year. You can listen to an audio clip and view a slideshow of valentines created by Esther Howland that are now part of the collections of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester.

The American Antiquarian Society also features an online exhibit, Making Valentines: A Tradition in America, which includes five sections: origins, early valentines, Esther Howland, George Whitney, and Victorian valentines.

The Maine Historical Society’s Maine Memory Network showcases valentines from its collections in an online slideshow.

A brief podcast from the Minnesota Historical Society entitled “Believe Me True: Victorian Valentines, 1840–1890," highlights valentines from the Society’s collections. An article about valentines in the Minnesota Historical Society collections, published in Minnesota History in 1981, is available online. 

Last week’s survey asked what potential NEHGS tours readers would be the most interested in. 2,527 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 32%, Albany, New York
• 28%, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana
• 19%, Nova Scotia
• 5%, Newfoundland
• 14%, Quebec
• 9%, Ontario
• 17%, Belfast, Northern Ireland
• 25%, Dublin, Ireland
• 25%, Edinburgh, Scotland
• 35%, London, England

 This week’s survey asks about ancestral valentines and love letters. Take the survey now! 

The Historic Union Cemetery, Redwood City, California

The Union Cemetery is located in Redwood City, California, which is on the San Francisco Peninsula. It is the county seat of San Mateo County. The cemetery was established by May of 1859. By 1878 there had been nearly 400 interments, and specific large lots were designated for fraternal organizations and the Grand Army of The Republic (GAR). On the website’s main page you will find questions about an individual buried in the cemetery. Click on the Answer link to open the burial record page containing the answer to the question.

People
Click on the People link to open a new page to search for individuals buried in the cemetery. Then click on the Search the People Database. The database may be searched by first name, last name, year of death, and burial plot identifier. The search results include the name of the deceased, date of death, burial/plot identifier, and source of the information in the record. The date of death information varies. In many cases you will find only the year of death. Click on the name link to open a new page with more detailed information. The view location link will take you to a map showing the location of the plot. You will also find a list containing the names of individuals buried nearby and a list of individuals with the same last name buried there. In some cases you will find a transcription of the deceased’s obituary, links to external sites, photographs, and stories.

There are a number of other links on the main People page. These include People with Stories, People with Pictures, People with Find-A-Grave pages, and “All the People with Extra Information.” Click on the links to access lists with name links. Click on an individual’s name to view his or her webpage. The Find-A-Grave list includes links to each individual’s Find-A-Grave page. You can use the Fraternal Groups with Plots in the Union Cemetery link to access the following organizations: Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF), People in the Free and Accepted Masons (Masons), United Ancient Order of Druids (Druids), and Improved Order of Red Men (RedMen). Clicking on these links will take you to each group’s pages, which contain a description of the organization, photographs, and name links for the members. Click on the link to view the members’ webpages.

Markers
This database catalogs many of the markers in the cemetery. The data fields include marker name, exists, photos, plot, people listed, and source. The data can be sorted by any of the fields just by clicking on the heading. Click on the “P” in the photos column to view the photograph. Each “P” is a link to a different image of the gravestone.

Archives
The Archives page contains links to a variety of resources, including maps of Redwood City, burial lists, newspapers and research, documents, The Journal of Local History, stories, and photographs.

Historical Newspaper Archives, Torrance Public Library, California

The city of Torrance is located in the southwestern region of Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1921. The Torrance Public Library has made available on its website a collection of resources related to the city’s history. This collaborative project involves the Torrance Historical Society, the Friends of the Library, and the City of Torrance.

The library’s website contains a newspaper database and a city/phone directory database. Both databases, which contain more than 100,000 digitized images, are full-text searchable via the same search function. Enter a keyword in the search box; choose the database to search, and number of results per page. The library staff has provided search strategies to help you get the best results. Click on the Advanced Search Tips to access them. You can also browse the individual newspapers and city/phone directories by date. Browse links may be found below the search box.

Historic Newspaper Archive
The newspaper database covers the period from 1913 through 1969. The database includes the following newspapers: The Torrance Press, originally The Peninsula Press (1949–1964), and The Torrance Herald (1914–1969). Click on the link in the search results to open a full-page image of the original newspaper in PDF format.

Historic City and Phone Directories
The Torrance and South Bay area city/phone directory databases cover various years between 1922 and 1975. Click on the link in the search results to open a full-page image of the original directory in PDF format.

Local History, La Crosse Public Library Archives, Wisconsin

The city of La Crosse is located in the southwestern part of Wisconsin, along the Mississippi River. It is the county seat of La Crosse County. The La Crosse Public Library Archives has many genealogy-related resources in its collections. Indexes to a number of them have been made available through a library database. Click on the local genealogy database to access the database. The resources include obituaries (1904–1960; 1968–1969; 1983–present); births (1987–present); marriages (1987–present); divorces (1992–present); and cemeteries.

The index is searchable by first name and last name. (Note that parents’ names should be used when searching births.) Select the database or databases that you want to search. You can also choose sort order, gender, and number of results returned from drop down lists. The data fields in the search results are name(s), event date, report date, and source. In the source field the data also includes the residence of the individual named in the record. The data fields in the cemeteries search results are name, birth, death, and cemetery. Click on the browse link to view a more detailed record, including remarks. Click on the cemetery name to open a new page with a brief history of the cemetery, including a map showing its location.

Last week we featured an article by Jason Newton, an NEHGS member, on his Old Connecticut Path project. Jason reported great interest in the topic from Weekly Genealogist readers. In the past week, his Old Connecticut Path website was visited by over 4,000 first time visitors and the project’s YouTube videos were viewed by visitors from 47 U.S. states and the District of Columbia!

Here are excerpts from just a few of the many comments sent to Jason Newton:

Jan Welch of Clifton, Virginia:
Just yesterday my husband and I drove from Westborough, Mass., through Hartford on our way to Virginia, where we live, and as we were driving I wondered if anyone had been or was able to trace the path. My family connections are many, and include Stephen Hart, Anthony Howkins, John Lee, Nathaniel Foote, William Buell, Josiah Churchill, and dozens of others. Thank you for tracing the path. Now I will make it a priority to follow as much of the path as much as possible from the material you have provided. Perhaps next summer.

Martin Marix Evans of Towcester, Northamptonshire, England:
I was very interested to see your announcement in the NEHGS enewsletter, as I live five miles from Towcester where Thomas Hooker met up with Samuel Stone, then a resident of the town, before setting off for Boston in 1633. I admire your enterprise in rediscovering the Old Connecticut Path. People are very interested in buildings but, here in the UK, find it harder to engage with landscapes. The tracing of ancient pathways reveals so much in history.

Donna Brock of Wayland, Mass.:
I saw the information about your Old Connecticut Path project on the NEHGS Weekly Genealogist newsletter and felt compelled to write. I live on the Old Connecticut Path in Wayland, Massachusetts. At the end of our street, on a small island right before the road intersects with Boston Post Road, is a rock with a plaque to mark the significance of the road and Rev. Hooker. [Readers might find a 2010 New York Times article on the Boston Post Road (between Boston and New York) to be of interest. — LB]

Ric Skinner, GISP, of Sturbridge, Mass.:
Your research into the Old Connecticut Path is fascinating! I completed a project in 2009 with a small grant from The Last Green Valley to map the route of the Indian Bay Path through Sturbridge. The report is available online. My primary source document was Levi Badger Chase’s field map, used when he walked the route across Massachusetts, and his book, The Bay Path and Along the Way.

David W. Chester of Sherborn, Mass.: I had always wondered about the Old Connecticut Path but then dismissed it as undoubtedly long lost to interstates, state highways, malls, developments, and suburban blight. Now you have rekindled my interest in the path, the famous trek, and perhaps, as you suggest, catching a glimpse into our distant past. The Rev. Thomas Hooker was the brother of my ancestor, Dorothy (Hooker) Chester. 

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked whether any of your ancestors earned a living on the water. 3,636 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 25%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors was a fisherman, lobsterman, or oysterman.
• 10%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors was a whaler.
• 37%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors was on the crew of a merchant ship or commercial vessel.
• 9%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors was on the crew of a passenger ship.
• 32%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors served on a Navy or Coast Guard ship.
• 27%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors was employed in a maritime-related trade on land. (ex. shipbuilder)
• 19%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors was a "boatman" — a rather ambiguous term that could encompass a range of maritime-related activities.
• 11%, Yes, at least one of my ancestors earned a living on the water through another occupation.
• 10%, I don't know.
• 18%, No, none of my ancestors earned a living on the water. 

This week’s survey asks whether you or any of your ancestors have traveled on the Old Connecticut Path. Take the survey now!

Last week’s survey asked about whether any of your ancestors worked on a railroad or mass transit system. 3,358 people answered this survey. The results are:

48%, Yes, one or more of my ancestors worked for a railroad.

7%, Yes, one or more of my ancestors worked for an urban area’s transit system (subway, trolley, streetcar, cable car, etc.)

7%, Yes, one or more of my ancestors helped to build a railroad or urban transit system.

15%, I don’t know if I have any ancestors who worked for a railroad or transit system.

22%, No, I have no ancestors who worked for a railroad or transit system.

This week’s survey asks about maritime ancestors. Take the survey now!

A lavish and substantial volume, The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine, edited by Joseph Crowley, William J. Smyth, and Mike Murphy was published in Ireland in August 2012 by Cork University Press; it was published later in the year in the United States by New York University. The work was the winner of the Best Irish Published Book of the year for 2012. For those interested in Irish history, and especially those interested in knowing more about what pushed their ancestors to emigrate, this is a book well worth reading and becoming immersed in.

The December 9, 2012, Boston Sunday Globe offered a summary: “For decades following the famine, little was said or written about it. Today it is the subject of a monumental study. Atlas of the Great Irish Famine . . . is aimed at general readers as well as academics. It analyzes the famine on a parish-by-parish basis, contemplating the details of daily life, and it situates the Famine in the context of others throughout the world. It includes essays by more than fifty scholars — examining, among other subjects, relief measures and land reform — as well as maps, period illustrations, and archival documents."

During the Great Famine, between 1845 and 1852, over a million Irish people died and nearly one and a half million fled the country, most to North America. The facts and poignant details behind those impossibly hard-to-grasp numbers are all in the atlas. An Amazon.com user gave his review of the book the title, “An Atlas Made Me Cry,” and I think that comment probably provides the best short summary of how powerful this volume is.

The Atlas of the Great Irish Famine has its own website. The book is available for patrons to use at the NEHGS Library, and it is currently offered for purchase on Amazon.com for $66.45.

Last week’s survey asked about what kind of information you thought would be the most helpful for writing your family history. 2,967 people answered this survey. The results are:

44%, How to narrow my focus and determine the appropriate scope
50%, How to organize my materials into a book or article
23%, How to export my data from a genealogical software program
31%, How to apply genealogical style and numbering to my writing
31%, How to use Microsoft Word in the most efficient way
28%, How to format my text into pleasing-looking pages
19%, How to select appropriate illustrations
29%, How to create an index
27%, How to get from a draft manuscript to a printed book or article
25%, How to choose a printer or publisher
18%, I am not thinking of writing a family history

This week’s survey asks if you have ancestors who worked on the railroad. Take the survey now!

Fayetteville Public Library, Arkansas

Fayetteville is located in northwest Arkansas. It is the county seat of Washington County and home to the University of Arkansas. The Fayetteville Public Library has made resources from its Grace Keith Genealogical Collection available online. Click on the designated links in the center of the homepage to access them.

Fayetteville Public Library Genealogy Database
The Fayetteville Public Library genealogy database comprises three separate indexes. They are: Obituary Records, School Records, and Land Records. The Obituary Records index covers the period from 1868 through 2010. Click on the link to access the search page. Three newspapers have been indexed — Northwest Arkansas Times, Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, and Fayetteville Daily Democrat. The database can be searched by last name, first name, middle name/initial, date of birth, and date of death. The data fields are the same as the search fields plus newspaper title abbreviation and date. The School Records index covers the early years of the twentieth century. The database can be searched by surname and given name of the student and the surname and given name of the enroller. The data fields are surname and given name of the student, age/date of birth of the student, school name, district number, and the surname and given name of the enroller. The Land Records index covers the years 1830 through 1903. The database can be searched by grantor name (surname or full name), grantee name (surname or full name), and date. The data fields are grantor name, grantee name, claim type, date, and book and page number.

Washington County Land Records
Using this database, researchers can search Washington County land records for the period from 1834 to 1891. Select a search type — grantor or grantee — and enter a name in the search boxes. You can limit the search by document type — deeds, land, mortgages — or search all types at once. It is also possible to search the database by book and page numbers, if you know them. You can also choose to have the search results sorted by name or number. The data fields in the search results contain the document type, grantee’s name, grantor’s name, and book and page number. The book and page number field is an active link. Click on it to view the digitized document. Use the Return to Search Page link to return to the search results. Click on the volume and page number links at the bottom of the page to view the previous or next page in the volume.

Washington County Marriage Record Search
Washington County marriage records can be searched for the years 1845 to 1941. Select a search type — bride or groom — then enter a name in the search boxes. It is also possible to search the database by book and page numbers, if you know them. You can also choose to have the search results sorted by name or number. The data fields in the search results contain the bride’s full name, the groom’s full name, and the book letter and page number. The book and page field is an active link. Click on it to view the digitized document. Use the Return to Search Page link to return to the search results. Click on the volume and page links at the bottom of the page to view the previous or next page in the volume.

Our latest blog profile features Forgotten New England, written by Ryan W. Owen. Here, Ryan introduces his blog:

My blog, Forgotten New England, went live in September 2011, more than twenty years after I started researching my family history. I started Forgotten New England to explore genealogy and regional history, but most of my entries explore the history of Lowell, Massachusetts, and my ancestors' relationship with the city. Five generations of my family were born in Lowell. I use Forgotten New England to document their stories and the minutiae that likely shaped and affected their lives. The research helps me to add leaves to the names, dates, and places forming the branches and limbs of my family tree.

Growing up, history, to me, meant names I recognized through municipal landmarks, faces I had encountered on currency, and places I had seen on maps. I, like my grade school peers, was generally uninterested in history. That changed in the sixth grade, when I created a family tree for class. Some classmates had interesting connections — including a cousinship with the teacher. In my family, I learned about ancestors named McNamara, Lannon, Hare, and Machado, which the world seemed to have forgotten. In the following years, I studied my ancestors’ photographs and learned their stories. I studied their eras, their neighborhoods, the personalities that fascinated them, and the gripes that irritated them. Forgotten New England is history that recreates the world of our ancestors, as they lived it, with all the dirt, sweat, worries, fears, dreams, and fascinations that consumed them.

My work on Forgotten New England led me to become a board member of the Lowell Historical Society. I also write Forgotten Billerica, a local history column that runs in the Billerica Minuteman twice monthly.

Last week’s survey asked about your genealogical resolutions for 2013. 3,138 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 69%, I will organize research papers and files that I have accumulated.
• 52%, I will write up some of my family history.
• 43%, I will share genealogy stories with my family.
• 10%, I will join a new society.
• 28%, I will attend a conference or other genealogical education program.
• 22%, I will take a research trip to a distant repository I have been meaning to visit.
• 34%, I will take a research trip to a location where my ancestors lived.
• 15%, I will take a DNA test for genealogical purposes.
• 22%, I have other genealogical resolutions not listed above.
• 10%, I am not making any genealogical resolutions this year.

 This week’s survey asks about what information you would find helpful in writing your family history. Take the survey now!

North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is a statewide digitization and digital publishing program. It is part of the North Carolina Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Center’s online collections come from cultural heritage institutions across North Carolina. Click on the Collections link in the menu bar to access them. Select the collection you would like to view from the dropdown list.

Images of North Carolina
The Images of North Carolina collection contains more than 4,500 items from nearly thirty different repositories. There are photos and postcards of people and places in more than forty North Carolina counties from the late nineteenth century to the present. You can search by keyword, view all items, and browse by location or subject.

North Carolina City Directories
City directories for nearly sixty North Carolina cities and towns located in about forty counties have been digitized and uploaded to the website. They cover the period from 1860 through 1953. You can search by keywords and browse by city, county, or date.

North Carolina Memory
The North Carolina Memory collection contains more than 2,000 digitized items related to North Carolinians past and present. The collection can be searched by keywords or browsed by item type or location. The types of items in the collection include account books, bills of lading, correspondence, death registers, funeral programs, indentures, land grants, pamphlets, financial records, and many more. The items are primarily from (or related to) North Carolina, but some items also have connections to other places, including South Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, Virginia, Connecticut, Georgia, and Africa.

North Carolina Newspapers
This collection comprises nearly forty community and twenty student newspapers from towns and schools throughout North Carolina. The collection can be searched by keyword and location and limited by title and date range. You can also browse through the newspapers by location and by title.

North Carolina Yearbooks
The North Carolina Yearbooks collection contains nearly seventy college and university yearbooks and fifty high school yearbooks from fourteen counties. They cover the period from the 1890s to the present and include both public and private schools. Clicking on the North Carolina Yearbooks link in the menu bar will open the College & University main page. Enter the institution’s name in the search box to begin your search or click on the institution’s name to browse. To view the high school yearbooks collection click on the High School Yearbooks button at the top of the page. As noted on the website, many of the yearbooks in the high school collection are from schools that no longer exist. Enter the institution’s name in the search box to begin your search or click on the county’s name in the list and select a school.

This week, at the end of the holiday season, we share reader comments made in response to recent surveys, a name origin column, and a story of interest.

Responses to surveys on saving holiday cards and genealogical gift-giving:

Jeannette Maxey of Kalamazoo, Michigan: I had a card that my parents and I exchanged for well over twenty years, each year telling the other how cheap we were that we could only afford “this ratty, old Christmas card.” Beginning in 1960, the card went back and forth between my house in Midland and then Kalamazoo, Michigan, and their home in Bloomington, Indiana. It was great fun, but the post office lost it; one year it never arrived.

Anne B. Wagner of Portsmouth, Rhode Island: No genealogical presents are on my list for Santa. However, I am giving genealogical presents in the form of old family movies from 1927 to about 1954, which have been transferred to DVD, as well as a representative sampling of our children's childhood snapshots, scanned to DVD.

A response to the Christmas name origin column:

Leslie Nutbrown of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada: I thought you might find it interesting to know that I have several ancestors in several generations with the name Christmas. Christmas Warren was born in 1848 in Marnhull, Dorset, England. His grandfather was Christmas Kendall, born in 1774. His father was Christmas Kendall, born in 1730. His grandfather was Christmas Keinell, born December 25, 1650, in Marnhull. So the name Christmas spanned almost 200 years in this family and only the first one to bear the name was born on Christmas Day.

[On the topic of the Christmas surname, readers might enjoy an article in The Hamilton [Ontario] Spectator, “Don’t Call Her Merry Christmas,” which features a profile of Hamilton resident Mary Christmas and a brief discussion of the Christmas surname.]

A response to the story of interest on the daughter of a Civil War veteran (Kearney Woman is a Living Link to the Civil War):

Aline (Grandier) Hornaday: I was interested to read the story about the daughter of a Civil War veteran, a living link with her father's long-ago war service. Perhaps you'd also be interested to know that I am the daughter of a Franco-Prussian War [1870–71] veteran, who is now long gone but still sorely missed! I am a proud American citizen by birth — I was born in San Diego, California. My father became an American citizen and was very pleased to vote and carry out the responsibilities of citizenship. I am sure there must be many others with the same sort of historical connections with the past!

Cemetery of Bethlehem Steltz Reformed Church, Pennsylvania

The Bethlehem Steltz Reformed Church, which was founded in 1794, is located in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania. Glen Rock is a borough in York County on the state’s southern border with Maryland. Click on the Our Heritage link to learn about the church’s history. The church’s cemetery index available online. It is a Microsoft Excel document, which must be downloaded to your computer to be read. There are nearly 2,400 records in the file. It should be noted that the database is sorted by section/plot number and includes reserved plots and those still for sale. Click on the Cemetery Information link to download the file. The data fields in the database are last name, first name, middle name, date of birth, date of death, section/plot, receipts/deed/perpetual care/transferred, death certificate, and notes. A separate listing of burials in the Old Cemetery follows the listing of burials in the newer cemetery. The earliest dated burial in the Old Cemetery took place in 1801. The last burial was in 1956.

Last week I wrote about John S. Goodwin’s two pamphlets, Christmas Questions and Christmas Answers, which were published in 1892 and 1893. I admired Goodwin’s creative appeal for genealogical information, and thought his questions and methods contained good advice for today’s researchers.

This week I’m focusing on two slim volumes in the NEHGS Library that may serve as models, even today, for how family history can be shared during the holiday season, and then preserved. Both books were written and privately published by Charles Henry Dalton (1826–1908), a native of Chelmsford, Massachusetts, who lived most of his life in Boston. According to the BOSarchitecture website, “Dalton was a merchant and businessman. During his career, he served in a variety of positions, including as president of several railroads, president of the Consolidated Coal Company, treasurer of the Manchester Print Works, and treasurer of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company. He also was the first treasurer of MIT, serving from 1865 to 1867, and was president of Massachusetts General Hospital for many years.”

The first book, A Wintersnight Tale, published in 1904, opens with the words “Told on Christmas Evening, 1903” and follows with a list of the names of seventeen people — including ten Daltons — who had spent the holiday together. Charles Dalton and his wife, Mary (McGregor), had no children so the Daltons listed were probably the children and grandchildren of his brothers. What follows is twenty-two pages of history, genealogy, and especially reminiscences about the family of his mother, Julia (Spaulding) Dalton, whose roots in Chelmsford dated to at least the mid-1600s. Dalton wrote about the Chelmsford homestead where he was born and which had been in the family for 160 years. After his family moved from Chelmsford when he was a child, he returned to spend summers there, and in his story confided, “It seemed to me the pleasantest of all possible places. I liked it better than going to school.” He described the rhythms of life on the farm, and changes that had taken place during his lifetime, especially in transportation.

He closed with the following words: “You young folks will doubtless live to see even greater changes, such as, for example, flying machines, to which I do not doubt you will contribute your full share. [The flight at Kitty Hawk had just occurred on December 17, 1903.] And I trust you will take your revenge on somebody by telling your stories, as a recompense for what you have so politely endured listening to mine.”

Charles Dalton must have been pleased at the reception of his reminiscences, because the following year he published another volume, titled, A Christmas Eve Family Story. Sixteen people were in attendance for Christmas Eve 1904. That year’s reminiscences were about Dalton’s paternal ancestors, back to his great-grandfather, “Captain James Dalton, mariner and merchant of Boston,” who was born in 1718.

Both of these books were handsomely printed on nice paper with attractive marbled covers. Fifty copies of A Christmas Eve Family Story were ordered, and the same number may well have been purchased of A Wintersnight Tale. The books were likely to have been fairly costly to produce. The easy and inexpensive options for creating and disseminating books that exist today were still about one hundred years in the future.

Charles Dalton clearly felt it was important to document and preserve his recollections of his early life, his memories of his parents and grandparents, and his knowledge of his family history. He might well have simply regaled the company with his stories on those Christmas Eves and done nothing further. But he went that extra vital step and, by publishing his stories, enabled them to live on, long after those present were no longer living. Over a century later, Charles Dalton provides us with a model for leaving a genealogical legacy.

First Girl in a Century for Carmarthenshire Family
“A family in south-west Wales are celebrating the birth of the first baby girl in their family for 103 years.”

Last week’s survey asked whether you were hoping for any genealogically-related presents this year. The results are:

• 7%, Membership to a genealogical society
• 11%, Subscription to a genealogical website
• 7%, Genealogical education program or conference
• 10%, Other genealogical trip
• 23%, Genealogical books
• 5%, Genealogical research assistance from a professional
• 11%, DNA testing
• 14%, Other genealogical present.
• 51%, I do not have any genealogy-related items on my wish list.

This week’s survey asks if about the ways in which you have made your family history available. Take the survey now!

In the NEHGS online library catalog, I came across a pamphlet with a title that piqued my curiosity: Christmas Questions for the Goodwins of Virginia; Christmas Answers for the Goodwins of Virginia. After locating the pamphlet in the library’s vertical file, I found that it consists of two four-page sections published in 1892 and 1893 by John S. Goodwin (b. 1858). 

One hundred and twenty years ago, Goodwin attempted to use the holiday season to make progress on his stalled Goodwin research. The first part, Christmas Questions, opens with these words, “'We cannot help having ancestors,’ and there is no better time to talk about them and their lives than when we are gathered together in family groups during the festivities.” Goodwin then tries to establish the importance of the Goodwins of Virginia — a group “proud of probably the longest line of American ancestry of which any family can boast — and dismisses the Massachusetts, Maine, and Connecticut Goodwins as late arrivals. (He notes that Goodwins were already in Virginia “when the timbers of the famous Mayflower were still growing in their native forests.”)

Then, Goodwin made his appeal: “As a Christmas greeting this suggestion is sent to you. The writer is a busy Chicago Lawyer not at all imaginative enough to create a line of descent or to manufacture facts. You are in the old homes, have the old Bibles, church and churchyard records and the records of your county seats and as you meet and talk the old traditions come to mind, together with ‘many a quaint and curious legend of forgotten lore.’ Write down these traditions; send me your own family data; send copies of your Bible records; look through the county seat records and send everything pertaining to the early Goodwins and the writer will so arrange and collate the matter sent as to put our lineage beyond danger of loss. Many have already responded but all can do more.” Next, Goodwin detailed what he knew of Bartholomew Goodwin, the immigrant to Virginia, who he thought probably arrived between 1600 and 1625, and presented his research questions.

In 1893, in Christmas Answers, Goodwin reported a good deal of success. “Just one year ago the ‘Christmas Questions’ were sent out and so prompt and full have been the replies that their mission is virtually accomplished, only three groups still being unconnected with the immigrant ancestor.” (Sadly, though, he admitted that “[my] own branch is still unidentified and I will gratefully appreciate any assistance which can be rendered me on that question.”) Goodwin then described the research breakthroughs and included a two-page table of descent. The fourth and final page of the pamphlet advertised that the author’s book, The Goodwin Families in America, was in preparation and posed a few more questions.

I enjoyed Christmas Questions and Christmas Answers. I appreciated John S. Goodwin’s goals, his willingness to cast a wide net to find answers to his genealogical problems, and his creative plea to his fellow Goodwins. Although 120 years have passed, I think his appeal continues to have a lot of resonance. Goodwin’s requests to his readers — to search home and local sources, ask questions of relatives, write down what you know, and share and preserve your data — still provide a good blueprint for genealogists.       

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked whether you save holiday cards sent by previous generations of your family. 2,956 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 6%, Yes, I have family holiday cards from the nineteenth century.
• 22%, Yes, I have family holiday cards from 1900 to 1950.
• 31%, Yes, I have family holiday cards from 1951 to 1975.
• 37%, Yes, I have family holiday cards from 1976 to 2000.
• 38%, Yes, I have family holiday cards from 2001 to the present.
• 40%, No, I do not save family holiday cards. 

This week’s survey asks whether you are hoping for any genealogically-related presents this year. Take the survey now!

The Cambridge Room, Cambridge Public Library, Massachusetts

The City of Cambridge is located in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The Cambridge Public Library has made some resources available through The Cambridge Room website. Click on the Online Resources link to access them.

Historic Cambridge Newspapers
The Cambridge Public Library has made available on its website all of the historic newspapers in its collection that are not copyright restricted. The digitization of historic Cambridge newspapers is a project of the Cambridge Public Library Archives and Special Collections. The newspapers are full-text searchable and available to all researchers for free. The database can also be browsed by title or by date. The newspapers in the database are as follows: Cambridge Chronicle (1846–1923), the Cambridge Press (1887–1889), the Cambridge Sentinel (1903–1912), and the Cambridge Tribune (1887–1923). More than 6,300 issues have been digitized.

Click on the Cambridge Historic Newspapers link to open the search page. Click on the Search link in the menu bar at the top of the page. Enter a keyword or keywords in the search box. This will open a new page with search results. At this point the search can be refined by publication, category, decade, and word count. With Advanced Search researchers can limit a search to a specific date range and/or a specific publication. Searches can be full text or headlines only. Click on the article title link to view a digitized image of the newspaper page, with the article highlighted. To the left of the image you will find a transcription of the article with your keyword(s) highlighted.

Cambridge Buildings and Architects
Another resource available through the library’s website is the Cambridge Buildings and Architects database. Christopher Hail created the database during his time as a librarian at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. As noted in the introduction the “focus of the list is the history of the design of Cambridge buildings.” This database may also prove useful to family history researchers with an interest in the buildings in which their ancestors lived.

Cambridge buildings are listed by street. Entries are listed by the style of the building, when it was built, and by whom. You can view the database street by street by clicking on the first letter of the street name in the alphabetical list at the top of the page. There is also a list of Harvard University buildings outside of Cambridge, an index of personal names of the architects and names of buildings, and an index of street names. It is noted in the introduction to the index of street names that references for discontinued street names can be found in the alphabetical street files. “(F)or example: "Fourth street: see Sciarappa street" follows Fountain Terrace in the Streets - F file.” For some properties high-quality color images are available for downloading. Click on the List of Images link to access them. Consult the User’s Guide to learn more about the database and how it functions.

A Note from the Editor: Early Shaker Christmases

The United Society of Believers was founded in Manchester, England, in 1747. Their nickname, Shakers, was a shortened version of the derisive term “Shaking Quakers,” which was bestowed because of the group’s vigorous movement during worship. Their leader, Mother Ann Lee, and eight followers established themselves in New York State in 1774. According to the Hancock Shaker Village website, the group was “seeking the freedom to live, work, and worship according to their main religious tenets: celibacy, communal life, and confession of sin. The Shakers also believed in racial and gender equality, simplicity, and pacifism. They dedicated their lives to creating a working Heaven on Earth amidst the boundless opportunities presented by settlement of the New World.” Eventually, the Shakers founded eighteen communities in ten states, and in the decade prior to the Civil War, the Shakers reached their numerical height with approximately 5,000 believers.

I have long enjoyed learning about Shaker history and culture. For a portion of my childhood, I lived less than two miles from the Hancock Shaker Village in Hancock, Massachusetts, and I have visited the fine museum there a number of times. I’ve toured the Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury, New Hampshire, and the Enfield Shaker Museum in Enfield, N.H. I've also visited the museum at Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester, Maine, which is home to the only remaining active Shaker community. (Eight primary Shaker sites in the United States are open to the public.) 

I receive The United Society of Shakers Newsletter by email, and I was intrigued by what I learned about how early Shakers observed Christmas in the November-December 2012 issue. Below is an excerpt: 

[Y]ou might find it interesting to step back in Shaker history and learn how differently Christmas was marked by earlier Shakers. Not until 1876 did the Shakers here in Maine celebrate Christmas with a decorated tree and gifts and Christmas carols. What were those earlier years like for the Shakers? Daniel W. Patterson, the pre-eminent scholar of Shaker music, writes in his major work, The Shaker Spiritual, “In the earliest years, Believers (Shakers) were agreed that Christmas was not to be kept ‘after the manner of the world,’ but ‘had a labor’ to know whether to observe the day at all, and whether to reckon it by the old- or new-style calendar. Mother Ann (the founder of the Shaker church), left others to discover the proper order. One good Believer, Hannah Hocknell, did not ‘feel satisfied’ as to the ‘propriety’ of observing the day, so she rose on Christmas morning intending to set about her business. As she dressed, ‘some unaccountable operation’ repeatedly prevented her from putting on her shoes. Mother Ann then pointed out that this was ‘the most prominent sign recorded in the scripture of holy and sacred ground and purposes.’ As Hannah had intended to wash clothes and clean up the house, the sign meant that the ‘spiritual house ought first to be cleansed in a special manner’ on Christmas.

Father Joseph (Meacham, Mother Ann's American successor) built on this teaching in the 1790s, when he set Christmas as a ‘central time’ for ‘confessing and putting away sins, and all wrongs from the camps of the Saints, and cleansing the spiritual house.’ His ordinance had the implication, later specifically stated in the Millennial Laws of 1845, that ‘on Christmas day Believers should make perfect reconciliation, one with an other; and leave all grudges, hard feelings, and disaffections, one towards an other . . . and to forgive, as we would be forgiven; and nothing which is this day settled, or which has been settled previous to this, may hereafter be brought forward against an other.’

Christmas was for the Shakers therefore for almost 100 years a Fast Day. Maybe the traditions of those early Shakers and more specifically the words that framed those traditions can be useful today.”

For those interested in learning more about the Shakers, you can view the websites hyperlinked in the second paragraph or peruse several Shaker-related articles featured in the holiday 2006 issue of New England Ancestors. 

Last week’s survey asked what you consider to be your genealogical skill level. 3,541 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 3%, Beginner
• 50%, Intermediate
• 40%, Advanced
• 4%, Professional
• 2%, I’m not sure.

This week’s survey asks if you save holiday cards sent by previous generations of your family. Take the survey now!

Alexander Funeral Home Records, Tennessee

The Alexander Funeral Home was established in Gallatin, Tennessee, in 1921, and later opened several branches in the surrounding area. The business is still in existence and, having merged with another institution, operates as the Alexander-Newby Funeral Home. The city of Gallatin is located in Sumner County in the north central part of the state.

The records in this database are from two of the funeral home’s locations. The records from the Alexander Funeral Home in Gallatin cover the period from 1928 through 1968. The records from the Alexander Westmoreland Funeral Home in Westmoreland cover the period from 1958 through 1991. The records have been indexed by year. Select the Click Here to View the Individual Funeral Home Records Indexed by Years link to open a page with date range links. Click on the desired date range to open a new page with a chronological listing of records for that period. The data fields may include some or all of the following: full name, place of death, color/sex, marital status, date of birth, birthplace, date of death, age, occupation, name of father, birthplace of father, maiden name of mother, birthplace of mother, physician, cause of death, date, time, place of service, name of cemetery, clergyman, pall bearers, near relatives, and informant’s name and address.

The records of additional Tennessee funeral homes, including the Newby Funeral Home, the Wilkinson and Wiseman Funeral Home, and Cole and Garrett Funeral Home, can be searched by entering a surname in the search box on the left side of the page.

Bastian-Maneval Funeral Home Records, Pennsylvania

This funeral home records database is found on the Tri-Counties Genealogy and History website, which was founded in 1996 to create a local history library for three counties located on the New York-Pennsylvania border. They are Bradford and Tioga Counties in Pennsylvania and Chemung County in New York.

The Bastian-Maneval Funeral Home is actually located in Williamsport, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, but, according to the website, there are many individuals in the records who have ties to Bradford and Tioga Counties. The records in the alphabetical databases cover the years 1933 through 1936 and 1948 to 1954. Click on a letter and scroll down to view a list of names of individuals with surnames beginning with that letter. Continue to scroll down the page to view the detailed records for each individual. The data fields in the detailed record are name, residence, spouse, occupation, employer and address, date of death, date of birth, date of funeral, services at, clergyman, religion of deceased, birthplace, place of death, cause of death, contributory cause, certifying physician, name of father, his birthplace, name of mother, her birthplace, cemetery, funeral cost, and newspaper article (obituary).

Researchers tracing Irish ancestors will be pleased to note that new Irish resources have recently been made available online

National Archives of Ireland Website

In November, the National Archives of Ireland launched a new genealogy website, which offers access to Census Records for 1901 and 1911, Soldiers’ Wills from 1914 to 1917, and Tithe Applotment Books (head-of-household substitutes) from 1823 to 1837. (FamilySearch has Tithe Applotment Books from 1814 through 1855.) In years to come, the Archives plans to add the following collections: Calendars of Wills and Administrations, 1858–1922; nineteenth-century census survivals, 1821–51; Valuation Office House and Field Books, 1848–60; and census search forms for the 1841 and 1851 censuses.

Irish Military Records

The Military Archives is responsible for the records of Ireland’s Department of Defence, the Defence Forces, and the Army Pensions Board. The website features the Military Archives Image Identification Project and the Irish Army Census Collection, 1922 (which is in its third and final phase). (An Irish Times article provides background information on the 1922 census.) According to the website, “the Military Archives holds only the personnel records of those who served in the military of the Irish Free State from 1922, as well as material pertaining to the Irish Volunteers and the Independence movement, 1913–1921.”

British Army records, including those for Irish regiments, can be obtained at the National Archives of England. An article entitled “Information Document on the Irish Regiments of the British Army up to 31st July 1922” can be a useful guide. Other sources of military records in Ireland are “The National Library, which holds a number of lists of Irish Personnel in the British Army from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, or Dublin City Library and Archive . . . which is the point of contact for the Royal Dublin Fusiliers Association." 

Last week’s survey asked whether family history was part of your Thanksgiving. 2,904 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 31%, Yes, we did or discussed genealogical research.
• 4%, Yes, we discussed DNA findings.
• 44%, Yes, we shared family stories.
• 15%, Yes, we shared family photos or home movies.
• 39%, Yes, we shared family recipes and/or ate foods made from traditional family recipes.
• 37%, No, family history was not part of my Thanksgiving this year.

This week’s survey asks how you would characterize your genealogical skill level. Take the survey now!

In response to last week’s Thanksgiving-related stories and food survey, many readers wrote to share their own Thanksgiving traditions. Below is a selection:

Betsey Heath Howes of Plainfield, Massachusetts: This week’s discussion on Thanksgiving made me think of the differences in the Thanksgivings of my youth, held at my grandmother's farm in Huntington, Mass., and the family reunion Thanksgivings I now attend with my husband's family in Whately, Mass. My Grandmother Heath served a turkey every year that was provided by my cousin's husband, a WWII vet and expert marksman who won many turkeys at the turkey shoots that were ubiquitous in our part of Western Mass. in the 1950s and 60s. The turkey — with dressing, cranberry sauce, peas, squash, onions cooked in cream, potatoes and gravy, and various home canned pickles and homemade pies — made up the bulk of the meal. But my grandmother always made a huge chicken pie in her milk pan and everyone got a bit of that. In Whately, the basic foods are the same: turkey, squash, potatoes, onions, and dressing — but turnip and cranberry relish are on this menu. The Howes came from the Cape and there are always one or two cranberry pies — a thing I had never encountered before I married my husband — as well as squash, pumpkin, maple walnut, pecan, apple, blueberry, and real mincemeat pie made with venison. Pies are carefully cut into small slices so people can have a taste of many pies. Thanks for helping me go down memory lane.

David Ojerholm of Sydney, Australia: My wife, Janet, makes pumpkin cheesecakes for Thanksgiving. People hardly touch or have room for the pumpkin pies! We celebrate Thanksgiving here "down-under" on the Sunday before or after the actual day so other people can join us.

Roseanne Bloom of Kalispell, Montana: You didn't have a space for my family's traditional Thanksgiving food: sauerkraut! For me, it is not Thanksgiving without it, although now that I live in Montana, no one's ever heard of having it for Thanksgiving. I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and it was always on the table for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if it's a regional thing, or related to some German heritage we have.

Frederick M. Dittmar of Norman, Oklahoma: Greetings and Thanksgiving tidings from Oklahoma by a displaced Plymouthian! I grew up in Plymouth and in 1921 my mother, B. Edwina Canning-Dittmar, was in the first Pilgrim Progress. [The Pilgrim Progress began as part of the tercentenary commemoration of the Pilgrims’ arrival.] If you have one of the first postcards of the Pilgrim Progress taken with the group at the base of Burial Hill, she is the lady in the lightest costume. My mother went on to work with Rose Briggs and Joan Doll in making many of the first costumes for the Progress — for Mayflower passengers, speakers at the Rock, and characters at the first fort and the Pilgrim houses on the waterfront. In my youth, our house was always full of costume production and people trying on costumes for fittings. It’s a sad and happy time of year for me as I do miss Plymouth and all the historical activity.

PRISCILLA (f): The name Priscilla is said to be derived from the Latin Prīscilla, a feminine diminutive of prīscus, meaning ancient. (Note the long “i.”) [Calvert Watkins, American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, 3rd ed., 2011.] Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible indicates that in the Bible Priscilla is the wife of Aquila and is a co-worker with St. Paul. She’s referred to five times (Acts 18:2, 18:18, 18:26; Romans 16:3, 1 Corinthians 16:19) as Priscilla, and once as Prisca (2 Timothy 4:19). This woman must be the model for the Puritan name. Mayflower passenger Priscilla (Mullins) Alden (born circa 1602) was immortalized in The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Some of the history and lore behind the story of Priscilla Mullins, Miles Standish, and John Alden is available on the website of the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts.)

Porter County Public Library, Indiana

Porter County is located in northwestern Indiana. Valparaiso is its county seat. The Porter County Public Library has made a number of genealogy resources available online.

Obituary Index
The Obituary Index, which covers 1938 through January 2011, is searchable by first and last name. Names must be entered in both search boxes to perform a search. The information has been extracted from the Vidette-Messenger and Vidette Times newspapers. The data fields are last name, first name, middle initial, maiden name, age, death date, paper (date published in the newspaper), from (where the deceased is from), and index number.

Marriage Index
The Marriage Index, which covers 1921 through 1946, is searchable by first and last name. Names must be entered in both search boxes to perform a search. The data fields are bride or groom, last name, first name, marriage date, and book and page numbers

Porter County Herald Index
The Porter County Herald was published in Hebron, Indiana. Vital records and articles for 1933 through 1938 are included in this database. (Issues for some dates are missing.) It is searchable by first and last name, both of which are required to perform a search. The data fields are last name, first name, newspaper date, and page number.

1920–21 Milk Producers Association in Porter County
This alphabetical database contains a list of members of the association. The data fields are first name, last name, and page number.

Index to Divorces
The Index to Divorce contains more than 8,000 records. They are organized alphabetically by surname. The data fields are last name, first name, entity, dependents, court, case number, and case type. The entity field contains information about whether the individual in the record is the plaintiff or the defendant.

Guardianship Court Cases
There are over 5,000 records in the Guardianship Court Cases index. The data fields in this alphabetical index are surname, given name, entity, “guardianship for,” court, case number and case type. Data in the entity field lists the status of the named individual – guardian, person, decedent, defendant, or respondent.

Combined Probate Estates
There are nearly 12,500 records in this database, which is organized alphabetically by surname and covers from the early twentieth century to the early 1960s. The data fields are surname, given name, date of death, entity, court, case number, and date filed. “Entity” refers to whether the individual is the administrator or the decedent.

Genealogy Digital Library
Click on the Genealogy Digital Library on the homepage, then click the Enter Here link, which will bring you to the search page. The Genealogy Digital Library contains two volumes — The City of Homes, Schools and Churches: a Pictorial Story of Valparaiso, Its People and Its Environs (1905) and Souvenir Book of Valparaiso, Indiana (1911). Search the database by entering a keyword or browse by subject or title. Clicking on the browse by subjects link will provide you with an alphabetical subject list. Clicking on the browse by titles link will give you access to the two digitized volumes. Click the book's image to the left of the title to select individual pages

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked whether any of your ancestors served in major American military conflicts. 3,940 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 84%, The American Revolution (1775-1783)
• 54%, War of 1812 (1812-1815)
• 10%, Mexican War (1846-1848)
• 79%, Civil War (1861-1865)
• 17%, Spanish-American War (1898)
• 53%, World War I (1914-1918)
• 72%, World War II (1939-1945)
• 27%, Korean War (1950-1953)
• 24%, Vietnam War (1959-1975)
• 1%, None of my ancestors served in any of the conflicts listed above.
• >1%, I don't know if any of my ancestors served in any of the conflicts listed above

This week’s survey asks what traditional Thanksgiving dishes will appear on your table this year. Take the survey now!

Vigo County Public Library, Indiana

Vigo County is located in southwestern Indiana, and is in the center of the Wabash Valley region. This region includes counties in two states — Indiana and Illinois. Terre Haute is the county seat and home to the Vigo County Public Library. The library has made some of its resources available on its website. These include Vigo County Marriage Records and the Wabash Valley Obituary Index, about which I wrote in 2010. Click on the title links to access these resources.

Click on the Local History tab and choose Local History Books Online to open a new page to access the resources. The resources include digitized versions of ten general histories, ten pictorial histories, and four periodicals. In addition, there are specialized materials in the following areas: African American histories (two speeches); architecture (an 1875 description of plans for a new state capitol); two biographies; a volume on natural disasters; a history of public school education; fire department, hospital, and library histories; school publications, including a large number of yearbooks; travel accounts; women’s history; and an index to a 1858 Vigo County map, among other resources.

Another resource available on the Vigo County Library website is a collection of more than fifty oral history interview transcripts. Select the Vigo County Oral History Project link to access this resource. Click on an individual’s name to read a transcript of that person’s interview.

Fosdick Funeral Home Records, Union County, Indiana

Union County is located in southeastern Indiana. Its county seat is the town of Liberty. An index to the records of the Fosdick Funeral Home has been made available via the Union County Public Library website. The funeral home was located in Liberty, and the records cover the period from 1915 through 1971. The data fields in this alphabetical index include the full name of the deceased and the year of death.

Obituary Database, St. Joseph County Public Library, South Bend, Indiana

St. Joseph County is located in northern Indiana. Its county seat is South Bend.

This database indexes obituaries from the South Bend Tribune from 1913 to the present. The index includes obituaries, death records, arrangements pending notices, funeral notes, news items/articles, legal notices, and memorial announcements for individuals who had ties to St. Joseph County. (These include people who lived or had lived in the county, worked or had worked there, died, were buried, or had relatives there.)

To search for an obituary, type the deceased’s name in the search box. The search results can be sorted by name, address, city, state, or year published. Use the dropdown list to select your sort order. The data fields in the search results are last name, address, city, state, and year. Click on the name link to open a new page with detailed search results, which may include some or all of the following: source, full publication date, article type, section and/or page, date of birth, date of death, age at death, and notes. The notes field includes information such as spouse’s name(s), names of other family members in South Bend, and South Bend residential status.

Last week’s survey asked whether any of your ancestors emigrated from Ireland due to the Great Famine (1845–1852). 2,953 people answered this survey. The results are:

30%, Yes
55%, No
15%, I don’t know.

This week’s survey asks whether any of your ancestors served in major American military conflicts. Take the survey now!

Herkimer County is located in central New York State. Its county seat is the Village of Herkimer.

Herkimer County Tombstone Inscriptions

The Herkimer County Tombstone Inscriptions webpage contains burial information from cemeteries located in a number of different towns, including Columbia, Danube, Fairfield, Frankfort, German Flatts, Herkimer, Litchfield, Little Falls, Manheim, Newport, Norway, Ohio, Russia, Salisbury, Schuyler, Stark, Warren, Webb/Wilmurt, and Winfield.

The website offers links to more than 100 burial and/or cemetery databases. Some of the links will take you to databases on other websites. (Please note that some of the external links to other sites no longer work.) Click on the cemetery name link to view the list of individuals buried in the cemetery. In some cases you will also find brief histories and/or photographs of the cemetery. A few of the databases, such as those for the town of Norway, index burial permits rather than tombstones. Some cemeteries have more than one burial database, and some have only partial listings while others are more complete.

In addition to the town-specific cemetery databases, you will find four databases containing countywide burial records. The information for three of them was taken from the Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Herkimer for 1903, 1910, and 1911. The fourth database was created from a volume titled Abstracts of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots.

Herkimer County Historical Society

The Herkimer County Historical Society is located in Herkimer. The society has made some resources available online. Click on the links in the contents list on the left side of the page to view them.

Town Histories
Brief histories of the county’s twenty towns (stated above) were extracted from Nathaniel Benton's 1856 History of Herkimer County.

Family Histories
Click on the Family Sketches link to open a new page that provides alphabetical links to the sketches. The biographical information comes from History of Herkimer County by George A. Hardin and Frank H. Willard, published in 1893.

On the society’s website you will also find a brief history of Herkimer County, some stories of interest, and the contact information for Herkimer County town historians.

Last week’s article about how disasters may have affected our ancestors prompted a number of reader emails. Below is a selection:

John D. Tew of Purcellville, Virginia: Even before the frequent mention this past week of the infamous hurricane of September 1938, I knew about that storm from family stories. Like Sandy, that hurricane occurred during a full moon and a higher tide than usual because of the autumnal equinox. The storm roared up Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, wreaking havoc and taking lives as it went. The Bay caused a funneling effect and the surge rose to sixteen feet above normal tides, and more than thirteen feet of water was left in some parts of downtown Providence. More than 600 people were killed. When I was a pre-teen I often looked at my grandmother's special edition photo magazine that showed the utter destruction that occurred in Providence, elsewhere in Rhode Island, other parts of New England, and Long Island. My father was sixteen at the time and his parents were out of town when the storm arrived. He came home from school and when he couldn’t find his younger brother he went out into gale force winds to find him. He had the foresight to put on a football helmet before he left and it gave some protection from flying debris. He finally found his brother at a friend's home playing in the cellar, completely oblivious to the danger raging outside. My father grabbed his brother and, without wasting time for explanation, almost dragged him home.

LaBeth Hayden Pondish of Prescott Valley, Arizona: As a native of Texas City, I have been aware of the 1947 explosion from my early childhood. I was three and a half years old and living two miles from the explosion when it occurred, and the concussion of the explosion and the black smoke filling the skies are my earliest childhood memories. My father, L. M. Hayden, who passed away last year at the age of 96, had vivid memories of helping to pick up bodies and body parts after the explosion. His story is published in the memorial volume, We Were There: A Collection of the Personal Stories of Survivors of the 1947 Ship Explosions in Texas City, Texas. When I was growing up, most people who had survived the explosion spoke about it very little. When I attended the fiftieth anniversary observation in 1997, I found it gratifying to find that these people became celebrated eyewitnesses who were given a chance to tell their stories to an appreciative audience.

DeAnna B. Jernigan of Alabama: I am surprised you didn't mention "the year with no summer" (1816) which prompted many in New England to leave for the Northwest Territory and other places west. My own Chase ancestors left Maine for Ohio after that disaster.

Grant Hayter-Menzies of Sidney, British Columbia: The only family disaster story that comes to my mind is that of my great-great-grand uncle Peter Walker. Described as a gambler by the more severe members of his Scottish family, he was the first of my Scottish relatives to come to California, to invest in oil wells. He happened to be in San Francisco, sleeping in his hotel room, when the 1906 earthquake struck. He later remembered coming to on the street — the hotel was a shambles — and just began walking, he didn't know where, surrounded by fire and smoke and mayhem. It was then he realized that exactly half his clothes had been torn off. I wish we knew more about his adventures.

Mary Gilchrist of Solon, Iowa: Your survey about ancestral experiences with natural disasters caused me to check most of the boxes. I have actively sought natural disasters and astrophysical phenomena to add color to thumbnail sketches of ancestors. One of my ancestors lived through the infamous hurricane in Galveston in 1900 by having the entire family lean on the door while the water washed through the crack underneath. Another moved to Tennessee from South Carolina in 1833, "the year the meteorites fell," and that knowledge inspired me to learn that the November Leonid meteor showers were spectacular in 1833, 1866, and 1900. Although meteor showers were not disasters, the populace was afraid that the world was coming to an end because it was so light and there were so many flashes and fireballs. And some of my ancestors’ relatives were killed in tornados with some pretty extraordinary stories. I also have speculated about the experiences ancestors must have had living in places and times where I know disasters occurred. These include Iowa County, Iowa, where a huge meteorite struck in the 1870s and southwestern Ohio in 1812, at the time of the New Madrid earthquake. I urge other genealogists to examine locations and dates to find out what disasters their ancestors might have experienced. I speculate that my ancestors had resilience because of their trials and tribulations.

Last week’s survey asked what natural disasters significantly affected your ancestors’ lives. 2,909 people answered this survey. The results are: 28%, Blizzard 

14%, Drought 
9%, Earthquake 
17%, Fire 
18%, Flood 
21%, Hurricane 
9%, Tornado 
<1%, Tsunami
2%, Volcanic Eruption 
8%, Other 
39%, I am not aware of a natural disaster significantly affecting my ancestors.

This week’s survey asks if your ancestors emigrated from Ireland due to the Great Famine (1845–1852). Take the survey now!

Pownal Historical Society, Vermont 

The town of Pownal is located in Bennington County, Vermont. It comprises the villages of Pownal, North Pownal, and Pownal Center. The Pownal Historical Society has made a number of resources available on its website. Links to the resources are located in the contents list on the left side of the homepage.

Maps
Resources in this section include two eighteenth-century and a number of nineteenth-century maps — many with property owners identified. Topographical maps of the town are also available.

Cemeteries
Burial information is included for about twenty Pownal cemeteries, from family lots to larger cemeteries. In some cases, you will see gravestone photographs and in others you will find a list of individuals buried there.

Churches
This section contains resources related to Pownal’s churches, drawn from a variety of sources. A chapter on the development of the town’s churches, extracted from a local history, covers the early period. For the post-1840 period, brief church histories are available.

Military Resources
Here you will find databases containing the names of Pownal’s Green Mountain Boys, Revolutionary War soldiers, and Civil War soldiers.

Census
A transcription of the 1791 federal census for Pownal is available. The transcription has been annotated to include vital statistics and other information known about the head of household. This data was gathered from a number of sources and may include date of birth, place of birth, date of death, place of death and cemetery, age at death, and lot/division where lived.

City Directory
A list of the residents of Pownal was extracted from Child’s Bennington County Directory, 1880–81. The information is organized alphabetically by surname and then alphabetically by street address. A small map is included.

Early Families
The database included here is basically an alphabetical index to Pownal’s early town record books. The types of records indexed here are primarily land records, with some warnings out and surveys. Click on a letter tab at the bottom of the page to open a list of names for that letter. The data fields in the index are family name, husband’s first name, record (type), book number, page number, wife’s name, and notes.

Vital Statistics
Two vital records databases are included. The first is Marriages to 1850, taken from Books 1 and 2 of the Pownal Town Records. Elmer I. Shepard, who extracted these records in 1941, noted that many people from neighboring towns, particularly from Western Massachusetts, were married in Pownal, and for that reason he wanted to make the records more widely available. The records are arranged first by place of residence — Pownal, other Vermont towns, Massachusetts, New York, and other states — and then alphabetically by surname. The second vital records database is Deaths 1921–1980, compiled from the Pownal Town Reports for that period. The data fields include the name of the deceased, age, death date, and parents’ names.

The Pownal Historical Society website also includes a collection of photographs, a transcription of the town’s charter, and a list of town officials, as well as other resources.

This week, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, it is hard to think of anything other than disasters. Here at NEHGS we closed down early, at 1 p.m., on Monday and remained closed on Tuesday. Various staff members experienced power outages and broken tree limbs at home but the NEHGS building was unaffected. I think we feel fortunate here in the Boston area to have escaped mostly unscathed, and our sympathies and thoughts are with those who were more directly impacted further south.

Over the weekend, as I prepared for Sandy, I thought about what disasters my ancestors might have experienced. My grandparents’ house on the Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minnesota, was flooded in July 1972, but I couldn’t recall any other major natural or man-made disasters affecting my family. Perhaps my family has been fairly lucky — or perhaps I need to do some more research!

I called my mom to get her input. When I mentioned the Flood of 1972, she put her husband, Don Kuchinski, on the line. He remembered it well. Don recalled that it just poured and poured, and over a foot of rain came down. On the local radio station, KLTF, he heard that volunteers were needed to build a sandbag dike along the Mississippi to safeguard a boat works and area homes. Don, being a good citizen and a hard worker, showed up at about 1 p.m., and started sandbagging — in water four to five feet deep! He and another man ended up rescuing a man who stumbled, fell into the water, and started going through a culvert. Don worked on until 2:30 in the morning, when he went home to milk the cows. I hadn’t heard this story before, and I think it provides a good snapshot of Don’s character. Sometimes the right questions just need to be asked in order to elicit the stories.

When I asked my husband if he had any family disaster stories, he had a vague sense that relatives were affected by the 1900 and 1915 floods in Galveston, Texas. While he didn’t have any ancestors living in Galveston, extended family members lived there and in surrounding communities. He knew a bit more about family involvement with an ammonium nitrate explosion in Texas City, Texas, in 1946. His great-aunt, Frances Loock, a dentist, answered the call for trained medical volunteers, and saw some horrific sights during her time in Texas City.

I also recall someone telling me that the Blizzard of 1978 made such an impact on her parents that they decided to move their family from New Hampshire to Florida later that year, thus altering the course of their family’s history.

Disaster stories can explain how an extraordinary event could affect a family and even profoundly alter their lives. Or a disaster story might simply illuminate an incident at one moment in time, and offer insight into the challenges our ancestors faced and how they responded. For the same reasons, our own experiences with disasters are also certainly worth recording for posterity.

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked whether you have Irish ancestors. 4,056 people answered this survey. The results are:

• 28%, Yes, I have Irish ancestors but I don't know from where in Ireland they originated.
• 26%, Yes, I have Irish ancestors and I know the county in Ireland from which at least one of these ancestors originated.
• 22%, Yes, I have Irish ancestors and I know the home parish and county in Ireland from which at least one of these ancestors originated.
• 16%, No, I don't have Irish ancestors.
• 8%, I don't know whether I have Irish ancestors.

 This week's survey asks whether your ancestors were affected by a disaster. Take the survey now!

Gorham Historical Society, Maine

The town of Gorham is located in southeastern Maine. The Gorham Historical Society has made a number of resources available on its website. You must download these databases, in Microsoft Excel format, to your computer before opening them. Click on the Databases tab to open a new page with links to the society’s databases. The online resources include the following:

Vital Records from Town Reports
There are three vital records databases — births, marriages, and deaths. The databases cover the period from 1893 through 1944. There are about 2,500 birth records in the Town Report Births database. The data fields include family name, father, mother, date of birth, and son or daughter. The Town Report Deaths database contains nearly 3,500 records. The data fields include last name, first name, date of death, age, and cause of death. The Town Reports Marriage database contains 1,860 records. The data fields include groom’s last and first name, groom’s residence, bride’s last and first name, bride’s residence, date of marriage, and name of officiant.

Early Records of Gorham
The information in this database appears to have been extracted from Gorham’s early town records. It covers only surnames beginning with the letters A, B, and C. The data fields include last name, first name, event (birth/death/marriage), date of event, father’s name, mother’s name, spouse name, volume and page, and miscellaneous. Information found in the miscellaneous field includes information about where the individual came from, age, where born, spouse’s name, who married, and where married.

Town of Gorham Cemetery Records
This database contains more than 8,000 records of burials in Gorham cemeteries. The data fields include last name, first name, cemetery name, section, lot, gravesite, date of burial, and comments. Information found in the comments field includes lot ownership data, birth date, age, where buried when the burial took place outside of Gorham, name of spouse or parents, name of person the individual is buried next to, cremation, and location within the lot.

First Parish Church Membership Records
This database contains records of the membership of the First Parish Church in Gorham. There are nearly 5,000 individual records. The earliest record of admission dates from 1803 and the latest date of dismissal is in 2008. The data fields include last name, first name, date of admission, date of dismissal, reason for dismissal, record book or report information, and comments. Information included in the comments field most often contains names of individuals related to the church member. Data in the dismissal field may include the location to which dismissed members moved.

There is also a brief chronology of historical events that occurred in the town of Gorham between 1736 and 2007. Click on the Events tab to access it.

This marks the third national or regional award for the Lowell genealogy

 The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) announced today that its Newbury Street Press book, The Descendants of Judge John Lowell of Newburyport, Massachusetts, by Scott C. Steward and Christopher C. Child, has won another top honor.  The American Society of Genealogists (ASG) awarded the Lowell book the Donald Lines Jacobus Award.

 The prestigious Donald Lines Jacobus Award was established in 1972 to encourage sound scholarship in genealogical writing. It is presented to a model genealogical work published within the previous five years. Nominations for the Jacobus Award are made by Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists who edit journals that run book reviews.

 This marks the third award in 2012 for the Lowell genealogy. Earlier this year, the book won the National Genealogical Society Award for Excellence, Genealogy and Family History, and the Connecticut Society of Genealogists' Grand Prize, Literary Awards Contest in Genealogy.

 NEHGS Director of Publications and book co-author Scott C. Steward said, “We had hoped to make the Lowell book a model, both as a genealogy and as an example of book production at Newbury Street Press, so having our work recognized by NGS and CSG – and now the ASG – is extremely rewarding.”

 The book marks the first full treatment of the Lowell family since an 1899 genealogy written by Delmar R. Lowell. This new book traces descendants of Judge John Lowell (1743-1802) to the present day, and includes famous descendants Francis Cabot Lowell, for whom the city of Lowell, Massachusetts is named; John Lowell, Jr., founder of the Lowell Institute in Boston; James Russell Lowell, the poet and diplomat; astronomer Percival Lowell; Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell; the poets Amy Lowell and Robert Traill Spence Lowell; architect Guy Lowell; and Isabella Stewart Gardner, art patron and museum founder. The book comprises more than one thousand entries for heads of families. Because of several early cousin marriages, many Lowell descendants have two or even three lines of descent from Judge John Lowell.

I recently learned about the Ireland Reaching Out (Ireland XO) Diaspora project. According to the group’s website, “the Ireland XO project is based on a simple idea; instead of waiting for Irish-Americans and their global counterparts to come to Ireland to trace their roots, we go the other way. Working through voluntary effort at a townland, village and parish level, we identify who left, and trace them and their descendants worldwide, proactively engaging with them and inviting them to become part of an extended ‘virtual’ community with their place of origin. In this way, the entire Irish Diaspora of 70 million can be systematically reunified online and invited back to engage with their ancestral parish for the benefit of all. . . . ”

“While Ireland XO parish volunteers are reaching out around the world, the project’s website provides a landing point in Ireland for people abroad who have some detail about where their emigrant ancestors come from in Ireland. By joining any parish community online, they can seek direct genealogical research assistance from local people in the area who also volunteer to meet them on their return. This “Meet/Greet/Connect” offer from parish communities across Ireland has been identified as a missing element from developing the Irish Diaspora in times past.” A successful pilot already occurred in South-East Galway and the project was launched as a “National Diaspora Programme” in March 2012.

I’m very intrigued by this project. Instead of a descendant tracing one ancestor back to a place of origin, this model has the impetus for the search coming from the place of origin, with a goal of reconstructing the essence of a long-vanished community. This effort reminds me of the numerous and very popular old settlers organizations and Old Home weeks held in New England and elsewhere in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (For an article on this topic, see “Tracking Migrating Families: The Records of Old Settlers Organizations,” by Paula Stuart Warren in the winter 2010 issue of American Ancestors.) In the Internet age, it will be fascinating to see what kinds of genealogical and historical connections can be made on a group level across time and distance.

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked whether you had ancestors who lived in Connecticut. The results are:

74%, Yes, I have ancestors who lived in Connecticut.
20%, No, I don’t have ancestors who lived in Connecticut.
6%, I don’t know if I have ancestors who lived in Connecticut.

This week's survey asks if you have Irish ancestors. Take the survey now!

Sevier County Public Library System, Tennessee

Sevier County is located in eastern Tennessee. Its county seat is Sevierville. The Sevier County Public Library System has made a number of genealogical and local history resources available through the Sevier County History Center. Click on the tabs in the contents list near the top of the page to access them.

Before Fire
A fire in Sevierville in 1856 destroyed the county’s new courthouse and nearly all of its records. On this webpage the library has collected resources on families, businesses, and records in existence prior to 1856. There are links to land records, birth and death records, marriage records, store accounts and records, soldiers' records, and warrants.

Churches
This section contains more than sixty church histories.

Court Records
This section contains a variety of items. There is an article about the Sevier County Poor Farm and a list of individuals buried in the Poor Farm Cemetery. There are marriage records for individuals in the 1812 pensions list who married in Sevier County, the 1856–1900 and 1900–1914 bride and groom combined indexes, and bride and groom indexes for 1914–1920. There are also four Chancery Court databases: a Chancery Court divorces index, deeds recorded after the 1856 fire, pre-1900 Chancery Court files in the Sevier County archive, and Sevier County deeds for 1820–1911.

Families
Here you will find links to websites that feature Sevier County families. There are also links to nearly twenty family Bible records, some to scanned images of the pages and some to transcriptions of the records.

History
Several different collections are available here. Click on the “Articles done by Ms. Linn” link to read biographical information about the late county historian and some of her articles. One of the articles covers Sevier County officials since 1794. There are also links to local histories, birth records for 1908–1912, and a cemetery index. The data fields in the birth record files include child’s name, birth date, sex, race, birthplace, father’s name, father’s birthplace, mother’s name, mother’s birthplace, name of the person who delivered the baby, and certificate number.

Schools
This section includes an article on the Sevier County Community Schools, a list of former Sevier County schools, and school superintendents.

Great Smoky Mountains Property Purchase Database
When the federal government purchased land to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1920s and 1930s, records were kept about the properties that were acquired. Index cards were created to record information about each property at the time of purchase. The amount of information varies. (The cards do not provide information about who was living on the properties at the time of purchase.) Click on the GSM Land tab in the contents list to access the alphabetical-by-surname database. The data fields in the index are Government Tract number, name, number of acres, and deed number. Click on the data in the record to view the scanned index card. Click on the Maps link to view maps with the properties identified by tract number.

Last Friday I attended a meeting at the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, and had the pleasure of viewing the exhibits and exploring the library. Founded in 1825, CHS has served as a repository for the state’s artifacts and archives for nearly two hundred years. If you have Connecticut ancestors — and even if you don’t — you will likely find much to engage your interest here.

CHS, located in Hartford’s West End in a mansion built in 1928 by Curtis Veeder, offers plenty of free parking. The main exhibit, Making Connecticut, “is the story of all the people of Connecticut, from the 1500s through today. Themes of daily life, clothing, transportation, sports and leisure, work, and social change run throughout the exhibit.” Don’t miss the gallery of inn and tavern signs; the CHS collection is the largest in the country. My favorites were the early toll road signs. There are also changing exhibits. The CHS website features some interesting collection highlights.

Genealogists will feel right at home in the cozy Research Center. The website’s research page provides a good introduction to the collection, and includes links to online catalogs, finding aids, and subject guides. Open shelves contain Connecticut city directories, genealogies, and local histories. The local histories aren’t limited to Connecticut locations; I saw many Massachusetts county and town resources, as well as material for the other New England states. Also available are Connecticut atlases, genealogical and historical reference books, and general reference notebooks on various collections available in the Research Center, including many paintings and photographs.

Other resources in closed stacks can be retrieved upon request. Of particular interest are the genealogical manuscripts — hundreds of boxes and files containing material on particular families and towns compiled by family researchers and professional genealogists. The information within the files “includes compiled family histories, data sheets, notes, copies of Bible records, miscellaneous abstracts of probate, land, church, and vital records.” The work of genealogists such as Lucius B. Barbour and Donald Lines Jacobus, among others, is represented. To access this collection, speak to a librarian.

Additional information about family history resources at CHS is available online.

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked where you currently reside.

27%, I live in New England (CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT).
12%, I live in the Mid-Atlantic (DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA, DC).
15%, I live in the South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV).
14%, I live in the Midwest (IL, IN, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, WI).
7%, I live in the Southwest (AZ, OK, NM, TX).
22%, I live in the West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY).
2%, I live in Canada.
<1%, I live elsewhere in North America.
<1%, I live in the British Isles.
<1%, I live in Europe.
<1%, I live in Asia.
<1%, I live in Australia or New Zealand.
<1%, I do not live in any of the regions listed above.

This week's survey asks if you have ancestors who lived in Connecticut. Take the survey now!

Hillside Cemetery, Silverton, Colorado

Originally a mining camp, the town of Silverton is the county seat of San Juan County. It is located in the southwestern part of the state. The Hillside Cemetery website is the result of the work of Freda Carley Peterson, who spent years researching and compiling the burial records of San Juan County. She has written books about burials in Hillside Cemetery and stories about those buried there. Excerpts from her book, The Story of Hillside, may be viewed by clicking on the Excerpts link in the contents list.

The website contains two databases that are alphabetical indexes to more than 3,000 documented burials in San Juan County. (As noted on the site, the earliest known county burial took place in 1872.) Click on the Burial Surnames tab in the contents list to open a new page with links to the burial listings. The first is Burial Surnames at Hillside Cemetery. Click to choose a letter link which will lead you to a PDF file containing burial information for individuals whose surnames begin with that letter. The data in the records may include the following information: name of the deceased, cause of death, spouse’s name, parent’s name(s), age, date of birth, date of death, veteran status, occupation, and place of burial. Click on the Burial Surnames outside of Hillside Cemetery link to open a new page with a short list of individuals buried in two other cemeteries in San Juan County.

The website also has a photo gallery that contains 100 captioned images of gravestones in the Silverton Hillside Cemetery. Click on the Photo Gallery link to access them.

Brush Memorial Cemetery, Brush, Colorado

The City of Brush is in Morgan County, which is located in northwest Colorado. It was incorporated in 1884. The city was named to honor a cattleman named Jared L. Brush, who served as Lieutenant Governor of Colorado. Jared Brush sold the land for the cemetery to the city in 1893. The Jared L. Brush Cemetery was established in 1895. The cemetery is divided into three sections — North Cemetery, South Cemetery, New North Cemetery — and a columbarium.

Click on the Interment Directory link to download a PDF file containing a list with more than 7,000 records of burials in the cemetery. The list is organized alphabetically by the surname of the owner/deceased. The remaining data fields in the index are section-block, lot, grave, born, deceased, and comments. The comments field includes the names of other related individuals, removals, veteran status, and inscriptions.

You will also find links to PDF maps of each section and the columbarium. Each map sheet has a section for recording grave location information. There is also a link to the cemetery’sFind A Grave webpage. You will also find photographs of many of the cemetery’s gravestones on this site.

Our latest blog profile features “I Think We’re Related” by Sally Mack. Here Sally introduces her blog:

I have been blogging since 2008, mostly sharing the things I love — photography, writing, lampworking, and building a kayak. But, by far, my most favorite blog is the genealogy blog that I started early in 2011 after my father passed away. I wanted to make sure that all the information that I found on his family would be available to my family and those who are seeking it.

I started researching my father's family seriously in 2000, when the family got together to celebrate my father's 80th birthday in Nova Scotia, the birthplace of his father. In 2010 I attended Boston University's Genealogical Research Certificate Program online. That definitely turned me into a much better researcher. Nowadays I practice the art of genealogical research as often as I can, and sometimes it appears in my blog. I do enjoy the standard research — town records, libraries and archives — but I really get a thrill when I find things that belonged to my relatives, or stories and photographs on the Internet. I am a big fan of researching with Google. 

The journey into the past is never ending for me — there will always be questions and, hopefully, corresponding answers. I really enjoy sharing my searches and my discoveries through my blog. I know that my children will have the family information at their fingertips, and will hopefully continue the tradition. 

As an extra bonus, I have met new relatives through my blog that I probably would never have known. That is a thrill — to have contact with a relative who read my blog and wanted to share what they knew, too.

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked if you have any ancestors in common with U.S. presidents.

12%, Yes, I have ancestors in common with one U.S. president.

26%Yes, I have ancestors in common with 2 to 4 U.S. presidents.

11%, Yes, I have ancestors in common with 5 to 9 U.S. presidents.

6%, Yes, I have ancestors in common with 10 or more U.S. presidents.

16%, No, I do not have any ancestors in common with U.S. presidents.

29%, I don't know if I have any ancestors in common with U.S. presidents.

This week's survey asks where you currently reside. Take the survey now!

In response to last week’s note on ancestral political affiliations, several readers wrote in with some stories and useful tips:

John D. Tew of Purcellville, Virginia: Don Benoit, a cousin who I found through genealogical research – our great-grandfathers were brothers — related a family story that helped me determine someone’s politics. When Don's father was born in 1933 in Oneco, Connecticut, Don's great-grandfather, Elisha Tew, age 76 or 77, reportedly walked the six miles to Oneco from his home in Rhode Island. Upon seeing his new grandson, Elisha announced, "I can now die a happy man because I have a grandson and there is a Democrat as president!" The story provided a pretty good indication about where Elisha's political loyalties rested.

Ann Andersen of Aurora, Colorado: You can sometimes find your ancestor’s political affiliation by determining which newspaper printed their obituary. A number of towns had at least two newspapers with different political leanings.

Janet Pease of Arvada, Colorado: You might also be able to tell ancestral political affiliations by the names of children. My grandfather, born in 1880, had the middle name Garfield, and his older brother's middle name was Fremont — both "Republican" names. Grandpa, however, became a Roosevelt Democrat during the Great Depression and never wavered from his choice!

An interesting article, “Would a Rose by Any Other Name Still Be a Democrat? How Your First Name Can Predict Your Politics,” based on lists of donors to the Obama and Romney campaigns, argues that "names are a strong predictor of support for one party or the other.” Here are some of the findings: “People named William have a 57 percent chance of supporting the Republicans, while Willies are the most Democratic name on the list at 93 percent. . . People named Liz are extremely Democratic, with only 11 percent donating to Republicans. But 26 percent of Elizabeths give to the GOP, and Betty is one of the most Republican women’s names on the list.” You can also enter your own name and view the results.

Last week’s survey asked if any of your ancestors were elected to public office.

68%, Yes.
15%, No.
17%, I don’t know.

This week's survey asks whether you have any ancestors in common with U.S. presidents. Take the survey now!

Montgomery County Archives, Tennessee

Montgomery County is located in northern Tennessee, in the western part of the state. Clarksville is the county seat.

The Montgomery County Department of Preservation of Records, more commonly known as the Archives, was created in January 1995. The Archives “houses the historic, permanent records of Montgomery County Government and manuscript special collections” and the Records Center “stores the non-current records of various county government agencies.” Nearly all pre-1950 Montgomery County records have been transferred to the Archives. A number of collections have been made available online. Click on the database title link to open a search page.

Deed Index
Montgomery County’s deeds index covers the period from 1788 through 1797. It is an every name index. You can search the database by name or select search criteria from title, role, and date drop-down lists. The data fields in the results are surname, given name, title, role, date, and book/page number. Roles include grantee, adjacent, assignor by heirs, surveyor, and grantor.

Marriage Index
The recording of marriages began in 1838 in Montgomery County. This database is an every name index. You can search the database by name or select a role from the drop-down list. In addition to bride and groom, roles include bondsman, mother of the bride or groom, father of the bride or groom, official, and more. The index currently includes official county marriage records from 1838 recorded in Book 1, the bride and groom index through 1888 (Book 10), and also records from four other sources detailed on the website. When completed, the index will include marriages through 1953. The data fields in the search results are surname, given name, title, role, and record date.

Voter’s List, 1891
Because the 1890 census for Tennessee no longer exists, this database can be of use to individuals whose ancestors lived in Montgomery County in 1891. An act of the General Assembly of Tennessee authorized the “enumeration of male inhabitants of twenty-one years of age and upward, citizens of Tennessee” on 1 January 1891. You can search the database by name or select a district or age from the drop down lists. The data fields in the search results are surname, first name, district, age, race, and page number.

Obituary Collection
The Obituary Collection database covers the period from 1995 to 2009, with some records from earlier dates. The obituaries indexed are from various newspapers. You can search the database by name, birth date, deceased date, and city or state, or select criteria from the drop-down list containing cemetery names. The data fields in the search results are name, birth date, deceased date, city/state, and cemetery. You may purchase a copy of an obituary from the Archives for a small fee.

Probate or Will Book
This database in an index to early Montgomery County probate books for the years 1785 to 1813, In addition to wills and administrations the records include “bills of sale, ferry bonds, bonds of county officials, sales regarding judgments, apprenticeships, emancipations, and bastardy bonds, to name only a few.” You can search the database by name or select a person’s role or year of the case from the drop-down lists. The data fields in the search results are name, role, year, and book letter/page number.

If someone were to ask me to state the political affiliations of my nineteenth and twentieth-century ancestors, I’d be certain about only a few of them. I do know that my paternal great-grandfather, who spent his working life as a conductor on the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad, was a union member and a staunch Democrat. His son, my grandfather, who seems to have been determined to be his father’s polar opposite, was very much a Republican. I know about several other ancestors’ political preferences from mentions in local newspapers — in small town news items, club columns, and obituaries. Even yearbooks have provided clues about nascent political preferences. I can make educated guesses about other ancestors, based on their ethnicities, professions, and the political leanings of their communities and states. But I think the example of my grandfather and his father is instructive: although it is tempting, I’ve learned not to expect that what was true of one individual was true of an entire family. Figuring out the differences — and the reasons behind them — always provides a richer and more interesting account.

An article by D. Josh Taylor, “How Did Great-Grandfather Vote?: Uncovering Your Ancestors’ Political Affiliations,” from the fall 2008 issue of New England Ancestors, offers ideas about identifying your ancestors’ party preferences.

And, on a related note, we present links to two online exhibits on past Presidential campaigns.

Presidential Campaign Poster Gallery from the Library of Congress:
“The presidential campaign posters in this slide show — taken from Presidential Campaign Posters From the Library of Congress: Two Hundred Years of Election Art — collect the best election images going back to the 1828 race between Democrat Andrew Jackson and incumbent John Quincy Adams of the National Republican party, which many historians consider the beginning of modern American politics, in part for its savagery.”

Presidents and Campaigns from the Maine Memory Network:
This slideshow “capture[s] some of the excitement of past presidential campaigns and presidential visits to the state — enthusiasm that transcends political affiliation and eras.”

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked how many paid genealogical websites you subscribe to, including websites you receive access to as a benefit of membership in a genealogical organization.

8%, I subscribe to no paid genealogical websites.
45%, I subscribe to 1 to 2 paid genealogical websites.
39%, I subscribe to 3 to 5 paid genealogical websites.
7%, I subscribe to 6 to 9 paid genealogical websites.
<1%, I subscribe to more than 10 paid genealogical websites.

This week's survey asks if any of your ancestors were elected to public office. Take the survey now!

Long Beach Public Library, California

Long Beach is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. The Long Beach Public Library has made resources available on its website, including the LBPL Digital Archive, which contains Long Beach City directories, high school yearbooks, and photographs from the library’s Long Beach History Collection. Click on the LBPL Digital Archive link to access the resources. Next, choose a collection by clicking on an icon.

Long Beach City Directories

The city directory collection covers the period from 1899 through 1969. Click on the thumbnail of a directory to open a new screen that allows for page by page browsing. You can look through the volume by clicking on the “previous” and “next” page links, which are located on the right side of the page. Click on the thumbnail of the page in the box in the center of the webpage to zoom in. Click on the PDF icon in the box to download the entire directory, which you can then browse at your leisure. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the downloaded file.

Long Beach High School Yearbooks

The yearbook collection ranges from the 1900s through the 1950s. The high schools represented are David Starr Jordan, Polytechnic, and Woodrow Wilson. This collection is fully keyword and name searchable. The search box is in the upper right corner of each page. The browse function operates as described above in the city directories collection.

Long Beach Photos

This collection, containing nearly 5,000 images, covers more than 100 years of the history of Long Beach. The collection can be searched by keywords and names, using the search box in the upper right corner of each page. You can also browse through the collection, which is organized alphabetically. Click on the thumbnail to open a new page with detailed information about the image. Click on the image to enlarge it. You can share, save, and print the images, as long as you credit the Long Beach Public Library. If you would like high resolution copies of images, you may purchase then from the library. Ordering information is available on the website.

Long Beach History Index

This database is an index to citations related to Long Beach history found in local newspapers. The newspapers include the Long Beach Press Telegram, the Press, the Press Telegram, and several weekly newspapers as well as selected magazine articles, pamphlets, and documents. You will find references for obituaries, events, some family histories, and more. You can search the index by keyword.

You can also research an address in the city of Long Beach through the history index database. Click on the Research a Long Beach Address link, and read the instructions on how to conduct a search. You will need to enter keywords in the search box that include the street number and street name. Do not include words such as street, drive, avenue, boulevard, etc.

Register style, a specific format for organizing genealogical data, was first introduced in the January 1870 Register. Editor Albert Harrison Hoyt explained “for the benefit of future contributors to the Register, and perhaps of those about to publish family-genealogies, we have arranged the Sherman Genealogy, a portion of which appears in this number of the Register, on a plan easily understood, and convenient for reference.” In the July 1883 Register, John Ward Dean reported on the ‘Register plan for genealogical records.’ “It has now been in use thirteen years and has given satisfaction. The Publishing Committee will continue to require genealogies intended for the Register to be arranged on this plan.”

Modifications have been made to this style over the last 140+ years to account for changing tastes and technologies, but the format remains flexible, effective, and popular. In the Publications Department we regularly receive enquiries from people seeking guidelines for writing their genealogical information in Register style. We refer them to “Writing a Family Sketch in Register Style,” by Helen Schatvet Ullmann, CG, FASG, associate editor of the Register, which appeared in the summer 2007 issue of New England Ancestors and is available online. Here is an excerpt:

“Whether you just want to write about your grandparents or compile a whole book, the basic building block is the family sketch, treating a couple and their children in an organized and interesting way.”

“What is a family sketch? It’s just a story with a beginning, middle and end. The beginning is the first paragraph that contains the vital information about the parents — all of it. So, if the reader later wants to check back to see just when your great-grandmother married her second husband, it’s easy to find.

“The middle is whatever you want, usually a biography in chronological order. It could include funny stories or a serious analysis distinguishing between your grandfather and another fellow who bore the same name.

“At the end is a list of children with their vital data. You may have mentioned each child as he or she joined the family, married, or died, in the biography above, but it’s still important to have a straightforward list of children at the end. Children for whom there is a lot of information may be continued in their own sketches.”

AmericanAncestors.org also offers “A Template and Suggestions for Writing in Register Style in Microsoft Word”, also by Helen Ullmann, and “A Guide to Basic Register Citation Formats”. In addition, the NEHGS book Genealogical Writing in the 21st Century: A Guide to Register Style and More, 2nd Edition is a useful resource.

Last week’s survey asked how many print genealogical journals and magazines you subscribe to, including periodicals you receive as a benefit of membership in a genealogical organization.

12%, I subscribe to no genealogical journals and magazines.
41%, I subscribe to 1 to 2 genealogical journals and magazines.
35%, I subscribe to 3 to 5 genealogical journals and magazines.
10%, I subscribe to 6 to 9 genealogical journals and magazines.
2%, I subscribe to over 10 genealogical journals and magazines.

This week's survey asks how many paid genealogical websites you subscribe to. Take the survey now!

Dallas Genealogical Society, Texas

Dallas is a large city in northeastern Texas. The Dallas Genealogical Society has made a number of resources available on its website. Click on the Resources tab in the contents list near the top of the homepage to access them.

Cemeteries

Click on the Cemeteries link in the contents list to open the Cemeteries main page. Nearly thirty cemeteries can be accessed, most through a unified database. Click on the name of one of the cemeteries included in the unified database for the cemetery location and other pertinent information. Click on the Search Database link in the contents list to access the database search page. The database can be searched by name. You can search the entire database or select a particular cemetery from the dropdown list. There is a search box for cemetery section and a dropdown list for military service. The data fields in the search results include cemetery, stone type, last name, first, middle, and maiden names, date born, date died, section, subsection, subsection number, part of lot, grave number, and more info. Click on the More Info button to open a detailed record page containing additional information such as spouse’s name, date buried, lot owner’s name, funeral home, tombstone inscription, notes, and military service. The notes field may include the names of other relatives.

The records of the five cemeteries that have not yet been migrated to the unified database may also be accessed from the cemeteries main page. They are the Farmers Branch (also know as Keenan), Marsh and Webb Chapel Cemeteries, Pioneer Cemetery, and Wood Creek Cemetery. Clicking on these cemetery names in the contents list will allow you to view burial listings.

As noted on the website, the Dallas Genealogical Society does not plan to transcribe the records for some area cemeteries because they are available by contacting the cemetery directly. The cemeteries are Forest Lawn Cemetery, Greenwood Cemetery, Laurel Land Memorial Park, Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial Park, Restland Cemetery, Rose Lawn Cemetery, and Sparkman-Hillcrest Cemetery and Mausoleum.

Local Records Databases

Click on the Local Records link in the contents list to open the local records main page. The resources here include the following databases.

Mortality Schedules: This database contains extracted mortality schedule data for Dallas for 1850, 1860 and 1870. The data fields include some or all of the following: name, age, sex, marital status, place of birth, month died, occupation of the deceased, cause of death, and length of illness.

14th District Court Records: This database comprises abstracts from the 14th District Court Minute Book A, for 1846 through 1855. Page numbers are cited in the transcription.

County Tax Records: The tax records in this database were transcribed from reel 1 of the Dallas County Tax Records, and cover 1846 and 1847. The database is searchable by last name and first name. Searches can be limited by stream (name of a creek, etc.) and year. The data fields include last name, first name, acres, grantee, stream, total value, page, roll, and year.

Marriage Records: The genealogical society has transcribed Dallas County Marriage Books A through W, covering 1846 to 1899. Only Marriage Book O, which covers the period from August 6, 1895 through November 26, 1896, is available online. The database can be searched by groom’s last name, bridge’s last name, and officiate’s last name. You can also select the officiate’s name from a dropdown list. The data fields in the results returned include the groom’s full name, bride’s full name, officiate’s full name, marriage date, book, page, and ID number.

Last week NEHGS staff posted a new message on the Society’s Facebook page: “My favorite ancestor is . . . because . . .” Many people found those five words to be quite evocative because they prompted eighty-three comments on the topic as of Wednesday morning.

Here are some of the responses:

Roxanne Richardson: My favorite ancestor is my second great-grandmother Emily (Emma) Forder, b. 1849, in Indiana to her English immigrant parents, William and Maria (Wells) Forder. Emma has given me more genealogical fun for my money than any other ancestor. She lived to be just a few months short of 100 years, had four husbands, migrated a total of 6,000 miles over the course of her lifetime, and had six children, one of whom died and another of whom she gave up for adoption.

Laurie Davis: My great-grandmother, Chessell Abigail Bryant Davis. She raised 16 kids and was named Maine Mother of the Year in 1959.

Becky Mascari: I have way too many to count but here are two: My second great-grandmother, Angelica Fritcher, for running me around in circles for years thinking her maiden name was really Fletcher. Bless her for naming one of her sons John Fritcher Davis. My second one is Encyclopedia Britannica Dewey, because who can't love a name like that?

Debora Norton: My great-grandparents — Dr. John Billings and Jessie Wheldon — she for being strong enough to march in front of a May Day parade wearing men's pants, demanding women be able to vote and he, for loving her and standing by her in an era where men did not allow their women to exhibit such reckless behavior.

Lynda Gutierrez: My great-great-grandmother Rachel Mary (Westcott) Trefry (1833–1920), who accompanied her sea captain husband on tall ships throughout much of the world from their Nova Scotia home. She even gave birth to two children while at sea! Her evident spirit of adventure and joy for life is inspirational.

Joyce Chambers: My favorite is Joanna Williams, born 1838 in Wales and buried in a tiny cemetery in Kansas. After searching for her grave and almost giving up, I felt her spirit standing beside me and telling me to turn around — and there was her headstone.

Darlene Hill Burbine: Henry Bozyol Hill (born Nov. 1823 in Salem, Mass., died 4 Aug. 1913, East Boston, Mass.) was an amazing man who helped his mother support his four younger siblings when he was about thirteen, after his father fell overboard and was killed by a shark ! He was an author, business owner, politician, Vice President of the MSPCA, and helped start a national bank in East Boston. He had setbacks, but never gave up.

Karon Towns: My mom, Donna Lorraine (Bowens) Aldrich. She introduced me to the rest of my ancestors.

If you’d like to read more favorite ancestor stories and share your own, please visit the NEHGS Facebook page.

The Weekly Genealogist Survey

Last week’s survey asked what role, if any, your ancestor played in the Salem witchcraft trials. (More than one answer could be selected.)

7%, Yes, one (or more) of my ancestors was executed as a witch.
20%, Yes, one (or more) of my ancestors was tried as a witch.
22%, Yes, one (or more) of my ancestors was accused as a witch.
8%, Yes, one (or more) of my ancestors served as a judge during the witchcraft trials.
5%, Yes, one (or more) of my ancestors served as a juror during the witchcraft trials.
16%, Yes, one (or more) of my ancestors testified in court during the witchcraft trials.
11%, Yes, one (or more) of my ancestors accused someone of witchcraft.
57%, No, as far as I know none of my ancestors were involved in the 1692 Salem witchcraft hysteria.

This week's survey asks about your print genealogical journal and magazine subscriptions. Take the survey now!

Last week’s survey question on ancestors accused of witchcraft prompted many reader emails on the Salem witchcraft trials and the genealogical connections of those who were affected. Given the interest in the topic, this week we present some resources for further study.

Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project
A collaborative effort undertaken by the University of Virginia and various partners, this website contains seventeenth-century documents, historical maps, biographical sketches, full-text volumes, and more.

Salem Witchcraft Trials 1692
The Salem witchcraft trials are among those profiled in the Famous Trials series by Douglas O. Linder of the University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law.

Salem Witchcraft Hysteria
Presented by National Geographic, this interactive site allows users to “experience the trials.”

The Salem Witch Museum’s 1692 Sites Tour
Users can click on a modern map of Essex County to find out more about witchcraft-related sites in Salem and ten other area towns.

The Comprehensive Salem Guide
A guide to today’s Salem.

"A Genealogical Perspective on the Salem Witchcraft Trials" by Marilynne K. Roach
This spring 2008 New England Ancestors cover story “presents four cases that illustrate how genealogical analysis proved useful in adding detail and identifying key people.” The article includes over a page of suggested resources that cites genealogical articles for specific individuals and families, including Bishop, English, Bridges, Burroughs, Corey, How, Jacobs, Martin, Proctor, Putnam, Tyler, and Wilkins.

"Hunting for Salem 'Witches” in Your Family Tree" by Maureen A. Taylor
This article on AmericanAncestors.org describes a number of Salem witchcraft trial resources.

 A tale of two windows originally installed in the Los Gatos, California, Methodist Church in 1881.

Last week’s survey asked whether you have an ancestor who was tried for witchcraft. (More than one answer could be selected.)

25%, I have an ancestor who was tried for witchcraft in Salem.
11%, I have an ancestor who was tried for witchcraft elsewhere.
66%, None of my ancestors were tried for witchcraft.

Due to popular demand, this week's survey asks about a wider range of roles ancestors may have played in the 1692 Salem witchcraft hysteria. Take the survey now!

Cemetery Records, Amherst, Massachusetts

The town of Amherst is located in Hampshire County in western Massachusetts. This database comprises burial records from the North and West Cemeteries. Much of the historical information and the photographs of gravestones were contributed to the project by The Association for Gravestone Studies. To find a burial in the database choose a surname from the dropdown list. This will open a new page with the names of all individuals with that surname buried in the cemeteries. The data fields in the search results are “Map It!,” cemetery name, grave location, full name, lifespan (birth and death years), age, and deed. The deed field contains the name of the lot owner, if known. Click on the “Map It!” link to view the location of the burial plot on a GIS map.

Spring Grove Cemetery, Andover, Massachusetts

Spring Grove Cemetery is located in Andover, a town in Essex County. There is a burial database on the town’s website. Click "Spring Grove Cemetery Lot Search" to launch the surname-searchable database. Data fields in the search results include last name, first name, middle initial, age, sex, interment date, section, lot, and an active link to burial information for all individuals in a particular lot.

St. Patrick Cemetery, Lowell, Massachusetts

St. Patrick’s Cemetery is located in Lowell, a city in Middlesex County. The cemetery, originally known as the Catholic Burial Ground, was established in 1832. Many of the city’s Irish residents were buried there (click the History link to learn more).

Click the Genealogy link to access the burial database, which covers 1895 to 2011. The records from 1832 to 1894 are incomplete and are not online at this time. Click the first letter of a surname to open a PDF of search results. The data fields in the search results are last name, first name, middle initial, age, date interred, century, yard, range, section, lot, grave, and funeral director. The numbers entered in the century field are the first two numbers of the century — 18 indicates the 1800s, not the eighteenth century. The burial listings database is a work in progress and will be updated from time to time.

St. Mary Cemetery, Tewksbury, Massachusetts

Tewksbury is located in Middlesex County. St. Mary’s Cemetery was established in 1961. Click on the Genealogy link to access the burial database, covering 1961 to 2011. Click the page image to open the alphabetical database in PDF format. The data fields in the search results are last name, first name, middle initial, age, date interred, section, lot, grave, and funeral director. The burial listings database is a work in progress, and it will be updated from time to time.

Recent Weekly Genealogist surveys have asked about summer houses, family reunions, and family associations. Here are some reader comments on these topics:

Pam Tice of New York, N.Y.: My family’s been vacationing in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts, for more than 100 years. I've been researching the area and the families that have lived there for some time, and now I have started a blog (www.southwellfleet.wordpress.com) to share my research. I'm focusing on the five miles or so surrounding the old cottages, and am using my interest in history combined with skills I’ve developed researching various family histories.

Mildred Clough of Redwood City, California: I am a part owner of a summer home bought 103 years ago by my grandfather on the shores of Lake Champlain in Vermont. I put the history together in a book with pictures and a bit of genealogy of the five generations that have enjoyed it. The house was about nineteen years old when my grandparents bought it and it has grown in all directions to accommodate the growing family in the years since then.

Marlene Case of Foxboro, Wisconsin: My son, daughter, grandson, and I attended a family reunion in Westerville, Ohio, this summer, which celebrated the 100th birthday of my cousin, Arlene Edwards Melander. Through discussions with family members, and some research at the Ohio Genealogical Society, near Westerville, I connected with a heretofore unknown cousin in Illinois, who helped me not only break through a brick wall to find my grandfather's grandfather, but to find a patriot in my grandfather's mother's Lipe line. Not only was I able to scan lots of photos of our Edwards and Lipe ancestors, but I am now eligible to join the DAR! It was a most enjoyable and productive reunion.

Kari Lemons of Mountain View, California: We attend a different kind of reunion every summer in the Colorado Rockies. My two children are adopted from Cambodia. We attend Colorado Cambodian Heritage Camp, which this year included 69 adoptive families representing all the states, 41 college-age Cambodian counselors, and a group of 30 Cambodian-Americans who assist the camp with cooking, music, native dance, native art projects, and in many other ways. During the five years we have attended my children have stopped hating their brown skin, gained pride for their birth country, and now as teens are learning what it means to be Cambodian-American. This is our family reunion every summer.

Karen Festa of Byfield, Massachusetts: I thought I would share how my "family association" came to be. I first started gathering information about my family in 2000, and when I retired from teaching in 2009, I was able to pick up the small threads I had and begin to develop them. I reconnected with a cousin and we shared information. This led to contacting other cousins and getting together periodically to share information, stories, pictures, and food. I began to put together a picture history of the family with some basic facts about each person and his or her individual family, and we decided to expand this into a book. The information and photographs cover our parents, grandparents, and the names of our great-grandparents, as well as our generation and our children’s generation. My personal journey has developed through the interest of my cousins, finding relatives in our families, and gaining enough confidence in my research methods to begin delving into the possibility of researching in Poland. It's been quite an adventure.

Fairmount Cemetery, Presque Isle, Maine

Fairmount Cemetery, established in 1864, is south of Presque Isle, Maine. Presque Isle is located in Aroostook County in far northern Maine. According to the website, Fairmount is the largest cemetery in northern Maine. More than 6,000 individuals are buried in the cemetery, 700 of whom were war veterans.

The following is a simplified description of the burial-recording process for this cemetery. A research team from the University of Maine at Presque Isle has conducted a project to develop a burial database and map the cemetery using GPS, GIS, and web GIS technologies. The project involved faculty and students, and community associations such as the Fairmont Cemetery Association and the Northern Maine Historical Society. For a complete description of the project, click the “About the Project” tab.

Click “Explore the Cemetery” to open the search page. There are two ways to search for a burial. You can scroll to the dropdown list at the bottom of the page. When you choose a name from the alphabetical list, the individual’s plot will be highlighted in red on the map (you may need to zoom in). Click the plot to open a window with information about the person interred there and a photograph of the gravestone. The information provided includes personal information, military/civil service, plot site information, and GPS coordinates. Plots with gravestones showing no year of death have been excluded, with the exception of those showing a birth year prior to 1925.

Municipal Cemeteries, Bangor, Maine

Bangor, in Penobscot County, Maine, is home to four municipal cemeteries. Three are maintained by the city — Pinegrove, Oakgrove, and Maplegrove. The Mt. Hope Cemetery Corporation maintains the city section of the fourth, Mt. Hope Cemetery.

At thirteen acres, Pinegrove Cemetery, established in the nineteenth cemetery, is the largest of the three city-maintained cemeteries. Oakgrove Cemetery was also established during the nineteenth century. At four acres, Maplegrove Cemetery is the smallest. Mt. Hope Cemetery was established in 1834, the year Bangor was incorporated.

Click the “Cemetery Interment Listing” link in the “Cemetery Links” to download an alphabetical listing of individuals interred in Pinegrove, Oakgrove, and Maplegrove Cemeteries. There are more than 6,500 records in the database. The data fields include ID number, name of the deceased, cemetery abbreviation, lot number, grave number, and date of death.

Click the “Mount Hope Cemetery” link to open the cemetery’s webpage. There are nearly 29,000 records in the burial database, which comprises the city-owned section as well as a private cemetery. To open the search page, click “Interment Records.”

The database can be searched by name, death year, and birth year. The data in the immediate search results includes full name, date born, where born, when died, where died, and when buried. Click a name for additional information about the deceased, including parents’ names (if known), age at death, lot information, and funeral director’s name. An annotated cemetery map provides information on some well-known individuals buried in the cemetery, as well as a photo gallery.

Our latest blog profile features Marian’s Roots and Rambles, written by New England genealogist and house historian Marian Pierre-Louis. (You may already be familiar with Marian through her role as a regular webinar presenter for Legacy Family Tree Webinars and Family Tree University.) Here, Marian introduces her blog:

Roots and Rambles is a general interest blog that covers a broad range of topics including interviews, book reviews, technology, social media, speaker tips, family memoirs, and the latest goings on in the genealogical community. It's a refreshing blog that will give you advice on getting organized or make you think about what it means to be a family historian. Marian's Roots and Rambles has a strong following, and some of the best discussions happen in the comments. As a full-time historical researcher, I wanted a place to write about all the things I encounter on my daily journey through history. My blog gives me the opportunity to share my passion for genealogy and history with the world at large.

Last week’s survey asked whether you attended (or will attend) a family reunion in 2012.
28%, Yes, I will attend a family reunion in 2012.
72%, No, I will not attend a family reunion in 2012.

This week's survey asks whether you belong to a family association. Take the survey now!

Onondaga County Public Library Local History and Genealogy Databases

Onondaga County is located in the west central part of the state of New York. Its county seat is Syracuse. The Onondaga County Public Library Local History and Genealogy Department has produced and uploaded a number of “one-of-a-kind” searchable databases to its website. Several have been added since I last profiled this website in 2008.

1855 and 1865 New York State Census for Onondaga County
The 1855 index includes the city of Syracuse and some or all of the towns of Clay, Cicero, Dewitt, Geddes, Manlius, and Salina. The index contains 5,432 records. The 1865 index, which contains 8,143 records, includes the city of Syracuse and some or all of the towns of Geddes, Lysander, Manlius, Onondaga, Salina, and Van Buren. Both census databases can be searched by: last name, first name, middle name, title, visitation number, and “town-ward-district number.”

Necrology
This database serves as an index to deaths of residents of Onondaga County. The list was derived from a number of sources, which include WPA records, “Minnie Kellogg’s deaths from Syracuse newspapers and directories between 1850-1880,” and obituaries found in Syracuse newspapers. Most of the deaths occurred prior to 1900. The database may be searched by last name, first name, maiden/other name, age, death year, month, day, source, citation, notes, cemetery, mother, father, spouse, event date, date, and record number. The data fields in the search results vary depending upon the search terms used.

Obituary Clippings
This index to obituary clippings from Syracuse newspapers covers 1862 through 1992. The clippings are from the library’s Local History/Genealogy Department. The collection also includes clippings related to other types of records, such as marriages and probate. You can search the index by last name, first name, and/or record number. The data fields in the search results are last name, first name, call number, volume and page number, note, and record number. You may order a copy of the clipping from the Local History/Genealogy Department.

Timeline
Using various sources, the timeline covers major local events from 1654 through 1994. You can search the timeline by record number, event, date, year, notes, and citation. The data fields in the search results include record number, event, date, and year. To view all records for a particular year, search by year only.

Woodlawn Cemetery
Woodlawn Cemetery, on the east side of Syracuse, is one of the largest in the county. There are more than 46,000 records in the index. The search fields are last name, first name, year, month, day of death, section, lot, grave number, mausoleum code, row, tier number, block number, and record number. The data fields in the results returned include last name, first name, section and lot number, and year, month, and day of death.

Onondaga County WPA Files
Individuals working for the Works Progress Administration during the Depression compiled a card index for items of general and historic value to the region from the newspaper files of the Syracuse Public Library and the Historical Scrap Books of the Onondaga Historical Association. The original index has been digitized and uploaded to the library’s website. It covers 1814 through 1900 and contains nearly 53,000 records. The index can be searched by the following: last name, first name, notes, event date, source, and date of appearance in the source document. The data fields include event (type), last name, first name, notes, event date, source, page citation, date of publication, and record number.

On my recent Minnesota vacation, my family and I spent a day at my aunt and uncle’s cabin on Fish Trap Lake, near Cushing, Morrison County, Minnesota. The cabin was purchased by my aunt’s parents in the mid-1960s, and by now many generations of extended family members have spent time at the house. I remember being there as a child, and now I’ve brought my own children. Revisiting the lake house made me realize how summer homes have the potential to remain more firmly rooted in the past than a permanent residence. While families may move their year-round home many times over the decades — in the process weeding out possessions and clearing out estates after deaths — the family summer home can remain more or less the same. And a summer place is much more likely to be occupied over time by many generations of extended family. Pictures on the wall, books on the shelves, and even spices in the kitchen cabinet might stretch back a number of years into a family’s past. My aunt’s parents died many years ago now, but the road to the cabin is still signposted with her father’s first and last names.

For more than fifty years, my husband’s family has enjoyed the hospitality of friends who own a lake home — a Quonset hut on Lake Travis, near Lago Vista, Texas. I made my first trip there in 1988, and our annual Labor Day visits are still highlight of our year. The patio features names and hand prints in the cement from 1947, and we can do puzzles and play board games that might be considered antique. Much of our weekend menu is predetermined: Saturday always features barbeque that has smoked all day long and breakfast is always accompanied by Sally’s coffee cake.

For a New England perspective, The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt, has been recommended to me. The author contemplates his family’s house, built in 1903 on Cape Cod, and the generations of family that it held during the summer prior to it being sold. 

In examining the history of a family, summer home histories, events, and activities are probably easy to overlook since they are somewhat removed from normal life. But it is precisely because these houses are out of step with ordinary time that summer places can become repositories for valued family artifacts, stories, and traditions. If you are fortunate enough to have a special summer place, think about mining this information for your family history the next time you visit.

Here are some stories shared by readers:

Lori Miranda of Fernandina Beach, Florida:
My great-grandmother bought a house in 1912 on Cape Cod which allowed me to check the “100 years or more” box in last week’s survey. While the world may have changed a good deal in that century, the house still exists at a slower pace; until two years ago, it still had a two-seater outhouse. And we still do the dishes by first boiling water.

Nancy (Hickman) Eldblom of Ojai, California:
My Boston great-grandfather, Alden E. Viles, built a summer home in the Phillips Beach section of Swampscott, Mass., about 1905. Alden died ten years later, but his wife Carrie Ella Simonds, daughter Barbara Viles, and her husband, Arthur Payne Crosby, lived in the house from Memorial Day through Labor Day each year until Carrie died in 1944 and the house was sold. Younger members of the family spent varying amounts of vacation time in that grand home over the years.

Nancy Buell of Brookline, Massachusetts:
I've vacationed in Georgetown, Maine, every summer since 1955. My grandfather, Sewall Webster, Sr., helped develop Indian Point there as a summer community. My family lived in Seattle and we visited my grandparents in Indian Point in the 1940s for a couple of summers while still living there. Then, in the fall of 1954, we moved back east, and my parents bought their own cottage. Now there are ten cottages belonging to relatives of mine on the Point. We love seeing extended family every summer.

Last week’s survey asked whether your family has (or had) a special summertime vacation spot. The results are:

21%, Yes, my family visited the same vacation destination for 1 to 10 years.
16%, Yes, my family visited the same vacation destination for 11 to 25 years.
11%, Yes, my family visited the same vacation destination for 26 to 50 years.
6%, Yes, my family visited same vacation destination for 51 to 75 years.
2%, Yes, my family visited the same vacation destination for 76 to 99 years.
2%, Yes, my family visited the same vacation destination for 100 years or more.
42%, No, my family does not return to a particular vacation destination.

This week's survey asks whether you have attended (or will attend) a family reunion in 2012. Take the survey now!

Hancock County Historical Society, Mississippi

Hancock County is in southern Mississippi. It is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico to the south and by Louisiana to the west. The Hancock County Historical Society has made a number of resources available on its website. Go to the Research/Reference tab and choose an option from the drop down list.

Hancock County Cemeteries
The Hancock County Historical Society has created an online inventory of individuals buried in more than fifty county cemeteries. Click on the Hancock County Cemetery Index to browse the consolidated database by last name. There are more than 13,500 records in the index. The data fields in the index are last name, first name, birth, death, cemetery, and grave location. Click on the individual record to open the specific cemetery page. The data fields for the listings contain a comments field. Information found in this field includes military service, age and more. You may also click on the cemetery name and go directly to the alphabetical burial list.

Hancock County census records
This database is an index of the 1820, 1830 and 1840 censuses. (The 1820 census is the earliest one taken for Mississippi.) To browse the index, click on a letter to view all last names starting with that letter, or click on the census year to view the records in the order in which they were recorded. The data fields include last name, first name, year, page, and record number.

Catholic Church Records
This database includes digitized marriage and baptismal books from Our Lady of the Gulf Church in Bay Saint Louis, and the Church of the Annunciation in Kiln. There are nearly 53,000 records in this database, covering the years 1847 through 1911. “The names of all parties involved have been extracted individually, so anyone who is mentioned in these records, be they a parent, a godparent, a witness, or else, is included in this index.” Click the database link to browse the index by last name. Click on the record of an individual to view all of the information available for that person.

Hancock County Marriage Index
This index includes marriages recorded from 1849 to 1956. To browse the index, click on a letter to view all last names starting with that letter. The names of the bride, the groom, and witnesses are included. Brides are listed under their maiden and married names. Beginning in 1938, the names of the parents of both the bride and groom were recorded by the Court and are included in the database. Click on the record to view detailed information.

Hancock County Divorce Index
This database indexes of all Hancock County divorces from 1916 to 1950. To browse the index, click on a letter to view all last names starting with that letter. The data fields in the database include last name, first name, plaintiff / defendant, case number and year.

Hancock County Obituary Index
This database includes the obituaries on file at the Hancock County Historical Society. To browse the index, click on a letter to view all last names starting with that letter. Click on a record to view a transcription of the individual’s published obituary.

Early Hancock County Land Records
Early Hancock County land records were destroyed in a courthouse fire in 1853. Following the fire there was an effort to re-register the previously registered deeds and claims. There were three deed books – A, B and C. The website contains a transcription of the records recorded in Deed Book B. Copies of the original deeds are at the Historical Society.

1%, 1 to 5 states.
5%, 6 to 10 states.
18%, 11 to 20 states.
22%, 21 to 30 states.
20%, 31 to 40 states.
29%, 41 to 49 states.
5%, All 50 states!

This week's survey asks whether your family has (or had) a special summertime vacation spot. Take the survey now!

Lexington County Probate Court Records, South Carolina

Lexington County is located in central South Carolina. The town of Lexington is its county seat. The Lexington County Probate Court has made estate and marriage license databases available on its website. To access the databases click on the links at the end of the page. 

Estate (1865 – 1994) and Marriage Indexes (1911 – 1987)
The indexes in this section have been scanned from the original paper indexes and uploaded to the site as PDF files. Estate records indexes are organized alphabetically and separated by year. Data fields in the estate records include date, name of deceased, executor or administrator, box, parcel, will book and page number. Marriage license records are organized alphabetically by bride’s surname or groom’s surname, and separated by year. Data fields in the index include license number, name and residence of man, name and residence of woman, their ages, race, date of application / license, date of marriage, by whom married and where, and comments.

The probate court has added two databases indexing more recent records. One indexes estate records from 1995 through the present. Data fields for the estate records are case number, case type, decedent's name, date of birth, date of death, date opened, case status, and Personal Representative & Attorney Information. The last field is a "view" button -- click to learn the names of the personal representative and attorney on the case. The other database is a marriage license index from 1986 through the present, which can be searched by bride or groom. Data fields for this index are license number, bride's name, groom's name, issue date, and marriage date.

Death Indexes, Spartanburg County Public Library, South Carolina – Update from 2006

Spartanburg, located in northwestern South Carolina, is the county seat of Spartanburg County. The Spartanburg County Public Library has made a number of obituary and death indexes available on its website.

Each index is formatted alphabetically; many are grouped by year. They include the name of the deceased as it appeared in the obituary, age, place of death or residence, name of spouse, and date and page on which the obituary appeared. Obituaries for individuals with clear local connections only have been included in the index. Search by keyword, name, or place of death, or browse alphabetical lists. Copies of obituaries can be ordered from the library for a small fee.

The databases are:

Spartanburg Herald and Herald-Journal Death Index – 1920 – 1922 and 1930 – 2011
This database indexes obituaries and death notices found in the above named newspapers. Indexing for the period from 1923 – 1929 is in progress.

Spartanburg Herald / Herald Journal Death Index – 1902 – 1919
The primary source for this obituary and death notice index is the Spartanburg Herald, with additional information from the Spartanburg Journal or the Spartanburg Weekly Herald. There are gaps in this database.

Carolina Spartan / Spartanburg Herald Death Index – roughly 1849 - 1893
These indexes contain obituaries from the Carolina Spartan and Spartanburg Herald newspapers. There are gaps throughout and the following years are missing: 1852, 1865, and 1877-78. The date in the record is the publication date of the death notice.

Register of Deaths of Spartanburg, South Carolina
This alphabetical index was compiled from the Register of Deaths of Spartanburg, an early attempt by the city to record deaths. These records span October 1, 1895, through October 21, 1897, and August 3,1903, through December 31, 1915. The index contains death records for residents of the city of Spartanburg only. Data fields include name of the deceased, sex, race, cause of death and date of death.

Miscellaneous Death Index
This death index is drawn from more than a half-dozen Spartanburg newspapers. It ranges from 1844 into the early 1900s; however, there are large time gaps in this database.

We received a number of additional interesting house history stories this week so we present one more look at this topic.

Bill Powers of Rutland, Vermont:
I wrote an article for the current summer issue of Rutland Magazine, "100 Summers at Lake Dunmore," which chronicles the history of my family’s 100-year old camp. The story combines a history of the camp along with a bit of family genealogy since the 1950s. 

Margaret G. Fish of Reno, Nevada:
In about 1980, my daughter and her family were transferred to New Hampshire, and they bought a house in Madbury (once part of Dover). While living with them, I started genealogy (thanks to NEHGS!) and discovered that the land on which the house was built was owned by a direct ancestor way back in 1650! This was after I had lived for seventy years in thirteen other states, from Massachusetts to Florida to California.

Jane Thompson of Scituate, Massachusetts:
I am writing a history of the First Cliff neighborhood in Scituate. I have researched the ownership of about 55 properties back to the 1600s, and I am also writing biographies of most of the homeowners. It will probably be published after about three years of research. It was NOT as difficult as I thought it would be!

Henry Karl Voigt of Newark, Delaware:
My grandmother was raised on Mystic Street in Medford, Mass., in a house previously owned by her great-grandmother, Louise Campbell Fowler Pierpont, and her second husband, John Pierpont, the fiery abolitionist writer and preacher. The home was, unfortunately, taken down in 1951 to make room for six postwar "tract" houses, which would normally render a house history moot. However, my grandmother's father — Boston architect Lyman Sise — had fortuitously built a scale model of the house back in the 1930s, and the model survives to this day.

Jeff Hecht of Auburndale, Massachusetts:
A few years ago, I got a call from a lawyer trying to pin down title to a house previously owned by my grandmother in Saratoga Springs, New York. I knew family ownership went back to at least her grandfather, who had built, bought, or expanded it in the 1840s. (She claimed that the house was built about 1828, but city records only date to the 1840s.) My late father sold the house in 1978 or 1979, after my grandmother's death. (When I checked the house’s title then, we found — to our amazement — that the owner was still listed as my great-grandfather, who had died in 1932.) The current owner was having title problems because of ambiguities in a 1935 will. I explained enough of the tangle to satisfy the lawyer, and in the process learned some things I had not known — starting with the fact that the house was the oldest surviving one in town. Genealogists should check title records of family homes, which might reveal some surprises. No one had ever mentioned that my grandmother had lost title to the house in the late 1940s, for nonpayment of taxes, and had somehow gotten it back.

Margaret B. MacNeill of Indialantic, Florida: 
House history researchers should remember that many cities and towns have either renamed or renumbered streets, and all those carefully notated labels on snapshots, letters, and other records may not be applicable anymore.

Janet Doerr of Augusta, Maine:
I am lucky that my research on my family's properties has been easy: they've been in the family since 1789. My brother's house was built by our great-great-great-great grandfather, George Reed, in 1789, and has been in the family ever since. I own the property next to his, the oldest unaltered residence in Augusta, built by a cousin in 1789. Only four families have lived my house, which was passed from the original builder, Asa Williams, to his son to another cousin and on to my parents. I inherited the property from them. I don't know how unusual this "familial chain of title" is, but it makes for easy research and a very lengthy family history; I'm working on the stories!

<1%, Before 1700.
1%, Between 1701 and 1799.
3%, Between 1800 and 1849.
5%, Between 1850 and 1899.
17%, Between 1900 and 1949.
61%, Between 1950 and 1999.
13%, Between 2000 and 2012.

This week's survey asks how many states you have visited. Take the survey now!

Update on Historic Pittsburgh

The Historic Pittsburgh website, managed and hosted by the University of Pittsburgh's Digital Research Library, allows users to explore the archival and manuscript collections of a number of Pittsburgh-area cultural heritage institutions. Its collections have grown since I first profiled this site in 2005. They now include:

Full-Text Collection: This collection contains over 1,200 works from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and includes the Historic Pittsburgh General Text Collection (general histories and historical overviews) and historic Pittsburgh city directories published between 1815 and 1945. Enter a keyword in the search box to execute a Quick Search of the collections. Click on the “More search options” link to open a new page with advanced options for searching the collections. With the basic search you can search the database for keywords found in the full text, author name, work’s title, or subject. Boolean, proximity, and bibliographic searches are also available. Your search history is recorded under the History tab. Click on the collection’s title link to open a new page with an option to browse through the complete list of books. The General Text collection can be browsed by author or by title. The City Directories collection can be browsed by date or by title.

Maps Collection: There are five series of maps in the Historic Pittsburgh Maps collection. These include:

Darlington Digital Library Maps: More than seventy maps “created in the mid-18th through early-20th centuries [that] depict Pittsburgh or Allegheny County, including maps of Fort Pitt, plans of Pittsburgh, maps of Pittsburgh and Allegheny cities, Bird's-eye maps of Carnegie, Duquesne, Glassport, Homestead, and other western Pennsylvania cities.”

G. M. Hopkins Company Maps, 1872–1940: More than 1,800 map plates from forty-seven volumes are available in this collection. Originally published by the G. M. Hopkins Company, the maps cover the greater Pittsburgh area from 1872 to 1940 and show lot and block numbers, dimensions, street widths, and names of property owners, as well as churches, cemeteries, mills, schools, roads, and railroads. The collection is searchable by street name, building name, and building type. You can download map plate images as 200 dpi JPEG files for noncommercial and educational purposes. Reproductions of the map plates are available for purchase.

Warrantee Atlas of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, 1914: Shows original land grants that settlers in what is now Allegheny County received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Includes the name of the grantee, the date the land was warranted and surveyed, the property dimensions, and patent information. The atlas can be browsed by plate number or the last name of the original owner. You can download map plate images as 200 dpi JPEG files. Reproductions of the maps are available for purchase.

Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections: Offers access to nearly 28,000 visual images from 59 collections held by eleven Pittsburgh-area institutions. Click on the Explore link to browse by theme, time, location, or collection. Themes include Pittsburgh at Work, Pittsburgh at Play, Pittsburgh at Home, and Pittsburgh Personalities. You can execute a quick search by entering a keyword in the search box on the Images main page. Click on the Search link to access the site’s advanced search capabilities. Keyword searches of the image database are limited to image title, creator, description date, subject, image identifier, or file name. Searches can be restricted to a particular collection or set of collections.

Other resources include census schedules for Pittsburgh for 1850–1880 and Allegheny County for 1850–1870, an online chronology of Pittsburgh from 1717 through 2011, and brief film clips by a local filmmaker, Bill Beal, that document Pittsburgh life between 1968 and 1983.

Last week’s survey on whether readers ever researched a house history prompted a number of readers to share their stories.

Joan Schacht of Chesterfield, Missouri:
When my daughter purchased a house in St. Louis, I discovered that city records stated it was built in 1910, but city directories and Sanborn maps listed the lot as empty until 1951. The all-brick house appeared to be about 100 years old but the cinder block basement didn’t seem to fit. After spending six hours researching at city hall, I learned it was the house that was out of place. The house was moved from a location across the street onto a new foundation in 1950. Now I get to research the history of the house on its original plot, and I have already learned online that the 1950 sellers had purchased the house in 1912.

Jane Potyondy of Contoocook, New Hampshire:
I remember doing a project in high school tracing the history of my 1830 home in Winchester, Massachusetts. We had in our possession the original floor plans, copies of the bills for labor costs and building supplies, and more. My mother and I went to the county courthouse in Cambridge where we pored through all the grantor/grantee books, tracing the ownership of the house. Paging through the old tomes, looking through the stacks . . . perhaps this was what triggered my interest in tracing the family. I had forgotten about this until you posed the question. Thanks for the memory!

Gene Hullinghorst of Ann Arbor, Michigan:
The Collins C. Diboll Vieux Carré Digital Survey, a project of The Historic New Orleans Collection, allows users to search for the history, images, and prior owners of structures and lots in the French Quarter, from the French colonial period to the present. Unfortunately, my ancestors did not own a building in the Quarter but other family members did.

Renee Pizzo of Scappose, Oregon:
We are only the fourth owners of our 1885 house in Columbia County, Oregon. The granddaughter of the second owner lives down the road, and was born in the house across the road from ours. Our road was even named after the original owner of the house. In 2010, when we purchased and refurbished the house, we found several interesting items — newspapers from 1928, shipping labels addressed to the second owner for linoleum shipped to the house, and a tintype of an unidentified young man — in the wall below a window. As time permits, I will continue my research.

49%, No, I have never researched a house history.
32%, Yes, I have researched the history of at least one house that I did not live in.
31%, Yes, I have researched the history of at least one house I lived in.

This week's survey asks you the age of your current residence. Take the survey now!

Carson City, Nevada
Carson City is the capital of Nevada. It is located at about the midpoint on Nevada’s western border. The Carson City Clerk-Recorder’s Office has made available on its website a database comprising a number of resources. The original records from which the database was compiled are available in the Clerk-Recorder’s Office. Click on the "Browse Our Files" bar to open the search page and view the following records:

Birth Records
Birth records from 1867 through 1957 are indexed under both the parents’ names and that of the child. If the children do not have first names, they are listed as son or daughter.

Death Records
Death records from 1887 through 1957 include coroner's report records, burial records, physicians' certificates of death, and other types of documents.

Public Health Officer Reporting
The records in the index contain data from the Public Health Officer reports from 1911 through 1941. The County’s Public Health Officer was required to file a monthly report related to the health status of the county. These reports included monthly listings of births, deaths, burial and removal permits, diseases, and other health conditions, such as identified epidemics or contagious diseases.

Citizenship Documents
This database covers the period from 1868 through 1926. Sources include Declarations of Intention, Oaths of Loss of Declaration of Intention, Oaths of Minority, Oaths of Allegiance, and Certificates of Citizenship.

Cemetery Indexing
This database contains the names of people buried at Lone Mountain Cemetery and Empire Cemetery from 1850 to the present. The detailed records in the database do not name the cemetery in which the individual is buried, just the plot location. Click here for more information about Lone Mountain Cemetery and other Carson City cemeteries.

The Carson City Clerk-Recorder’s Office database can be searched by surname or date. You may enter a partial surname to include spelling variations in the results. For the date search you must enter month, day, and year. Searches may be limited by record type. Unusual names have been indexed as written. For example, there is a death record for "One Arm Jim (Indian)" who died in 1915 at age 109. A description of how Chinese names have been indexed is provided.

The data fields in the search results include name, person type, document type, and date. "Person type" may include status information such as parent(s), child, deceased, and citizen. Click on the "Open" button on the left to view the detailed record. The data fields in the "details" record include file number, document type, reference location, document date, and comments. The information found in the "reference location" field includes volume and page numbers for original records and cemetery plot locations. The "comments" field contains information such as age at death, birth and death dates for cemetery records, country of origin, and date of birth on a Declaration of Intention.

Last week’s survey asked readers if they had ever debunked a family myth. About 70% had, and several readers shared their stories.

Mary Brochu of Hardwick, Vermont:
I was always told that my great-grandmother left her husband, took their ten kids, and immigrated to the U.S. from Canada at the turn of the century. She settled in Vermont and died of pneumonia a few years later — leaving children ranging in age from five to eighteen alone. The younger children were "farmed out" to relatives and neighbors while the older boys lived in boarding houses. Imagine my surprise when I was browsing the 1900 census and found the entire family — father, mother, children, and grandmother — all living in Vermont in the same house! When I approached my mother's cousin with this information, she insisted that it was wrong, that the father never came to the U.S. I even showed her the mother's obituary stating that the entire family came from Canada in 1899. My cousin never believed that the father ever came to the U.S. with his family — until her dying day!

Jennifer Thurber Willis of Cincinnati, Ohio:
I have debunked more than a few family myths in the ten years since I began researching our family, and nobody is too happy about it! Especially the myth — apparently believed by many descendants — that early New Jersey settler Albrecht Zabriskie was descended from the noble Sobieski family of Poland. (My grandmother wrote an article that was published in the Paramus, N.J., newspaper in 1925 containing this "fact.") Also, it turns out our Thurbers did not have a firearm business with Ethan Allen's family — instead an Ethan Allen possibly completely unrelated to THE Ethan Allen did have a gun manufacturing business with another branch of the Thurber family in the 19th century. But these and other “losses” have been offset with new discoveries so, all in all, I would say we are about even.

Last week’s survey asked whether you had ever debunked a family myth. The results are:

69%, Yes, I have debunked a family myth.
31%, No, I have not debunked a family myth.

This week's survey asks if you have ever researched a house history. Take the survey now!

Burlington Public Library, Iowa

The city of Burlington is the county seat of Des Moines County, which is located in southeastern Iowa. The Burlington Public Library has made a number of genealogical resources available on its website, including the following:

Cemeteries
Click the first link in this section for an alphabetical list of cemeteries in Des Moines County. The second link is to cemetery databases on the Iowa GenWeb website. There are ninety-one cemeteries in this online collection. Scroll to the bottom of the page to view a list of alternate names of some cemeteries.

Click the cemetery name to view collected information, which may include a description of the cemetery and its history, a list of individuals buried there, photographs, and census images. The burials databases may include surname, first name, birth, death, and notes. The notes field includes spouse and parent names, number of years the individual was married, age of the deceased, place of birth, military service, and description of gravestone. A camera icon in the “notes” field links to a photograph of the gravestone.

Newspapers
There are three newspaper databases on the website. The second [Burlington] Hawk Eye index, covering the 1830s to 1897, is likely the most useful for family history researchers. This database indexes birth, marriage, and death notices from local newspapers. You can search the database by name. If you would like to limit your search to a particular event type or a specific date of publication, click “more search options.” In addition, you can browse the alphabetical index by clicking the first letter of the surname. The data fields in the index include full name, event (birth, marriage, or death), newspaper title, date of publication, and page number. Copies of newspaper articles may be ordered from the library.

The Hawk Eye database covering 1985 to the present indexes articles and photographs appearing in the newspaper, but does not contain birth, marriage, or death notices. (I was not able to connect to this index.) The third newspaper link connects researchers to the Hawk Eye Online Archives. Full-text articles may be purchased for a fee.

Photographs
The library provides a link to “Daily Life Along the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad,” a searchable collection of more than 700 photographs, including more than sixty of Burlington during the 1940s, on the Newberry Library website. Click the image to view an enlarged photograph or detailed information.

In addition, you will find on this website a list of the Civil War units raised in Des Moines County.

This week we continue an occasional feature designed to familiarize readers with the many departments at NEHGS. This week’s profile of Special Collections is written by department director Timothy Salls.

The NEHGS Special Collections consists of the Society's manuscript holdings, visual materials, and institutional archives. Named in 2008 for R. Stanton Avery (1907–1997), the department is staffed by Manager of Manuscript Collections Timothy Salls; Archivist Judith Lucey; Archives Assistant Robert Shaw; and Special Collections Assistant Sally Benny; as well as a dedicated team of volunteers and college interns.

The NEHGS R. Stanton Avery Special Collections complements the print, microform, and electronic holdings of the Society’s Research Library by collecting, organizing, preserving, and providing access to manuscripts and visual material that support the research of American families and local history. A manuscript is an unpublished manually produced document such as a handwritten letter, Bible record, or a diary. The Society's holdings of visual materials include photographs, prints, broadsides, and other graphics.

Donations to the Special Collections are solicited through articles and announcements in American Ancestors magazine and website, staff discussions with patrons; lectures; and the Preserving New England Records initiative led by Ralph Crandall. Recently some capital raised through the Society’s "Connecting Families, Advancing History" campaign has been used to establish a new fund to acquire manuscripts, visual materials, and other items that enhance the Society holdings. 

Appraisals of potential donations to ensure a fit with the Society’s collection guidelines are usually accomplished by email or telephone. Some appraisals require the staff to travel and review the items in person. Although most donations are either delivered or shipped to NEHGS, special collections staff have traveled to various locations throughout New England to pack and transfer collections to NEHGS. Once the manuscript arrives at NEHGS, an acknowledgement letter and deed of gift (for primary source material) are produced for the donor. A deed of gift transfers intellectual and physical ownership to NEHGS, which is necessary for the long-term stewardship of a collection.

Discrete manuscript items that fit in a single archival folder are immediately placed in the queue for cataloging. Large collections are sent to an offsite storage facility until retrieved and assigned to an intern or staff member for processing. Processing prepares collections for researcher access while supporting their long-term survival. The collection is arranged in a logical and useful order, if one does not already exist, and a collection guide is produced. A list of finding aids available through the library database catalog (as well as manuscript items with images in the digital archive) is available on our website. Once the finding aid is completed, a catalog record for the collection is produced for the OCLC WorldCat database and NEHGS library database catalog.

NEHGS members may request manuscripts at the reference desk, Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The reference desk staff member or volunteer calls the Special Collections office for the items to be pulled and brought to the reading room for the patron, assists with use of the collection, supervises the proper handling of documents, and records details concerning the manuscript’s use.

Access to the R. Stanton Avery Special Collections is a benefit of NEHGS membership. For more information on the Special Collections, please visit our website or email Tim Salls.

* * *

eBooks update

In response to the June 27 article by George McKinney on “Free eBooks for Genealogy Research,” two Weekly Genealogist readers shared their own recommendations for eBook sources.

Mollie Lynch of Clarkston, Michigan:
As a retired librarian, I needed a hobby and wanted to assist people doing genealogical research so I started genealogybooklinks.com. I began locating and providing links to freely available digital books, focusing on American biographies, genealogies, and history books. Today there are over 30,000 links from more than 35 sources (only the top sources are listed on the site). The current focus is on surnames, directories, vital records, and identifying smaller sites with local area-specific books. 

Dee Grimsrud, a retired Wisconsin Historical Society archivist from Madison, Wisconsin:
The Wisconsin Historical Society has numerous county histories scanned, searchable, and free.

92%, Yes.
8%, No.

This week's survey asks if your research has debunked a family myth. Take the survey now!

LIBERTY (usually m): Even before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, idealistic parents who suspected they were living in historic times named children (mostly boys, but the occasional girl) for the precious concept of freedom. Dr. James Potter of New Fairfield, Conn., had a son Libertas Potter (1769–1770) (whose name, the Latin nominative singular for liberty, was botched in transcription to “Libartis” in C.E. Potter, The Potter Genealogies [1888], section five, #98). After the Lexington Alarm, the name became popular as fathers and older brothers marched off to battle. Some other bearers of the name, seen in Bellingham, Mass., were Liberty Partridge, b. Bellingham, Mass. 13 Jan. 1776, son of Joseph and Catherine (Richardson) Partridge (Bellingham, Mass., VRs to 1850, p. 51); a Westminster, Mass., person of this name m. Bellingham 31 Jan. 1814 Rachel Holbrook (Bellingham VRs, p. 132). Liberty Bates, b. Bellingham 16 July 1775, was a son of Laban and Olive (Wheelock) Bates (Bellingham VRs, p. 14). The name was, of course, not confined to Bellingham. Liberty Judd, son of Philip and Mary (Peters) Judd, was born August 27, 1775 in Hebron, Connecticut; he married Abigail Everest and moved to Genesee Co., N.Y. 

(Fortunately for bearers of this name, the Patriot cause prevailed.)

Idaho Cemetery and Obituary Databases

City of Nampa, Idaho

The city of Nampa is located in Canyon County on the western border of Idaho. To assist genealogical researchers the city has placed a cemetery database on its website. Click on the “I Agree” link at the end of the application disclaimer to open a new page and access the database.

The database may be searched by first name, middle and last name, date of birth (range of years), date of death (range of years), interment date (range of years), and burial location (section, lot, and space). Click on the map link to download a map of the cemetery. The file is in PDF format. You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it.

The data fields in the search results include full name, section, lot space, photo available, birth, death, and interment date. Click on the word SELECT in the first column to view a detailed record, which also includes the name of the undertaker, GSP coordinates, and a photo of the gravestone, if available.

In addition to the general burial search there are search pages for veterans and citizens of distinction. For the veterans’ search there are a number of check boxes which will help you narrow your search by rank, branch, war, honors, and more. Citizens of distinction may be searched by type, including: centenarian citizens, died on birthday, Nampa’s fallen heroes, Daughters of the American Revolution, and notables. Both the veterans and citizens of distinction categories contain additional information about the deceased, including articles and obituaries that have been uploaded to the website. Please note that the files are in PDF format.

Gooding County Historical Society, Idaho

Gooding County is located in south central Idaho. The Gooding County Historical Society has made a collection of obituaries available on its website. The online obituary collection is a work in progress with new indexes being added each year. Currently, the years covered are 1946, 1947, and 1980 through 2011. For the earlier years the data fields are surname, given name, age, sex, date of birth, date of death, military status, and residence. For the later indexes there are additional fields: place of interment and details regarding military service — branch, war, and rank. The historical society will provide you with a copy of an obituary for a small fee.

Twin Rivers Genealogy Society (TRGS), Idaho

Twin Rivers Genealogy Society is located in Lewiston, Idaho. Lewiston, in the northwestern part of the state, is the county seat of Nez Perce County. Many of the obituaries in this online collection were taken from old scrapbooks that were saved from being thrown away. The individuals memorialized in these obituaries had connections to Lewiston, Idaho; Clarkston, Washington; and “outlying areas.” As noted on the website, in cases where the full obituary is not listed due to privacy restrictions, you will have to contact the TRGS webmaster to request a copy of the complete obituary.

Click on the first letter of the surname of the person whose obituary you are seeking. This will open a new page with a list of names. Select a name from the list and click on the link to open a new page containing a transcription of that individual’s obituary. If two obituaries were published, both will appear on the page. If the newspaper title and/or date of publication are known they follow the obituary text.

This week we present an interesting article by NEHGS member Philip Hermann of Melrose, Mass., on using digital cameras for genealogical purposes.

Digital Cameras and Genealogy
by Philip Hermann

Today’s genealogist is faced with the challenge of digitally storing records. I have tried to use limited financial resources on equipment that will perform a variety of tasks — such as copying vital records and photographing tombstones. I started looking at cameras as a way of preserving important information. 

Some genealogical applications of a good camera:

1. Tombstone photos — Early morning or evening provides the best light for pictures of tombstones. Make sure to check both the front and back of the tombstone since there could be information on both sides. I also take pictures of the name of the cemetery at the front gate and the plot markers to help identify the tombstone location. You can use www.findagrave.com to make a virtual memorial at no cost.

2. Photos of documents — Preserve significant documents such as vital records, newspaper articles, mass cards, and school records by photographing and downloading them to a computer photo storage program such as Picasa. This free program allows the user to manipulate a duplicate of the photo without permanently altering the original. I use the text function to write names and dates on the copy of the photo.

3. Photos of photos — Many of my old photos are stored in albums with “magnetic pages.” The adhesive chemicals in these pages speed the rate of deterioration. All printed photographs are affected by handling, light, moisture, and chemicals. Digital storage of photographs on computers and portable memory devices will preserve them for future generations. When photographing photos, I find it helps to use a table lamp to provide lighting from different directions.

4. Family History — Use your camera to record the current members of your family. At family reunions, take pictures of the different generations. After downloading the images, use your photo program to label the names of family members.

My requirements for a camera would include the following:

1. Less than $300 and easy to use
2. Takes pictures in low light (in archives and libraries)
3. Fits into my pocket (I hate carrying equipment.)
4. Image stabilization function (reduces blurring)
5. Excellent close-up functionality
6. Large LCD screen display (3 inches)
7. Preview photos quickly on LCD screen
8. Useful for different types of shots (indoor and outdoor)
9. Easy process to download to computer
10. MP greater than 10MP (# of mega pixels = greater detail, larger prints) 

There are some outstanding digital cameras on the market that will meet all these requirements, including the Nikon Coolpix P310 Digital Camera, which features 16.1 MP (excellent detail), ultra-fast f/1.8 aperture glass lens for low light, and handheld image stabilization. There are other manufacturers that make good, easy to use cameras. Search the web particularly for cameras that take high quality pictures in low light. These cameras are constantly improving and their prices are decreasing!

85%, Yes, I am a member of NEHGS.
15%, No, I am not a member of NEHGS.

This week's survey asks if any of your ancestors were living in the thirteen American colonies on July 4, 1776. Take the survey now!

ZERUIAH / ZERVIAH: (Zeruiah is the original name but in earlier centuries U and V — if not pronounced alike — were often written with the same letter, thus ZERVIAH [zer-VYE-ah or zer-VEE-ah] is also seen.) A ZERUAH was the mother of King Jeroboam I, but the American colonial name seems to be derived from an earlier woman, King David’s sister ZERUIAH, mother of Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Jeroboam’s mother’s name is derived from the Hebrew for “having a skin disease” (which, one would think, might limit its popularity), while David’s sister’s name means “YHWH [God] has let flow” (Carol Meyers, Toni Craven and Ross S. Kraemer, eds., Women and Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2000), p. 168).

Zerviah Gould, born 15 April 1780, recorded in Cumberland, R.I., was the eighth child of Jabez Gould and Esther Sweetland who were married in Attleboro, 2 September 1766. Zerviah was likely named for her mother's sister, Zerviah Sweetland. Jabez, who was of Wrentham, Mass., at the time of the Revolution, removed to Hallowell, Maine, in 1787, and later settled in Belgrade, Maine. “Sophia" Gould married (intention) 26 April 1808, Fayette, Maine, Aaron Bachelder. In the 1850 census for Fayette, Sophia Bacheller is listed as age 69, born Massachusetts. A wider context of circumstantial evidence points to her being one and the same as Zerviah.

SOPHIA can be pronounced with either long or short “I,” depending on the time and the person, so one can see how the name Zerviah might have evolved into Sophia. “Sophia” [Greek for ‘wisdom’ and very popular from the middle/late eighteenth century] may have struck an individual Zerviah’s ear and seemed more fashionable than her own (phonetically somewhat similar) Biblical name. Context (how time, place, wider cultural, social and/or religious currents, and individual quirks combine) is everything with names. Ultimately, it hinges on that most mysterious factor, individual personal taste of long ago.

The Missoula Cemetery, Missoula, Montana

The city of Missoula is located in western Montana. It is the county seat of Missoula County. A group of Missoula businessmen formed the Missoula Valley Improvement Company in December 1884. Not long thereafter land was surveyed for a cemetery. In 1901, the cemetery was sold to the city of Missoula. There have been nearly 21,000 burials in the cemetery. Missoula Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries in the state.

Click on the first letter of the last name of the deceased to open a PDF file containing a list of all individuals buried in the cemetery whose surname begins with that letter. The data fields in the index include last name, first name, age, date of death, grave location (grave #, lot #, block #), and interment number. Please note that you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the files. You may order a copy of the record by completing a Release Form. There is a link to the form on the Interment Listing page.

Parmly Billings Library, Billings, Montana

The City of Billings is located in south central Montana. It is the county seat of Yellowstone County. The Parmly Billings Library has made resources available on its website. They include the following:

Newspaper Indexes

There are two indexes to the Billings Gazette newspaper. The first is a vital statistics index of over 13,000 names, which covers the period from 1882 through 1902. It is organized alphabetically by last name. Click on the set of letters that includes the first letter of the surname of interest. The data fields in the index are full name, date, type of event, place, and newspaper title. As I looked through the index, I realized that it is an index of much more than just vital statistics. In addition to births, marriages, deaths (obituaries), and divorces, there are references to delinquent taxes, registered voters, students, naturalizations, business licenses, prisoners, pardons, and more. Please note that the index files are in PDF format and you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the files.

The second Billings Gazette index covers 1930 through 1939. The typed index pages were scanned and uploaded to the site. The files are in PDF format. One file covers the entire period, and is extremely large. I had difficulty downloading it. There are three smaller files, each containing a portion of the index, that did not cause me any problems.

City Directories

The library has digitized and uploaded four Billings city directories for 1883, 1894, 1900–1901, and 1903–1904. These files are also in PDF format.

Petroleum County Cemeteries, Montana

Petroleum County is located in central Montana. Winnett is the county seat. It is about 95 miles north of Billings. According to the 2010 federal census, the county’s population was 494. This website contains a number of databases listing burials in Petroleum County cemeteries, including Ashley Cemetery, Flatwillow Cemetery, Shay Cemetery, Wallview Cemetery, Winnett Cemetery, and a number of private cemeteries. The data included in most records is full name, date of birth, and date of death. In some instances, there are photographs of the gravestones.

A recent survey question on eBooks prompted member George McKinney of Santa Rosa, California, to write an article about the availability of free eBooks.

Free eBooks for Genealogy Research

eBooks — or electronic books — exist in a variety of digital formats and can be read on your computer, smart phone, or eReader (Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc.). Different eReaders utilize different digital formats, but, in most cases, an eBook can be converted to work on your device by using calibre-ebook.com.

A number of websites offer free eBooks — generally out-of-copyright books or works made available by their authors. Categories of particular interest to the family historian are family genealogies, compendiums of genealogical facts (such as military records), directories, and local histories.

Here are some examples of free eBooks I’ve used in my own research:

History of the Families of McKinney-Brady-Quigley, 1905
History of Southwest Virginia, 1746–1786, Washington County, 1777–1870, 1903
Commemorative Biographical Record of Tolland and Windham Counties, Connecticut, 1903
San Francisco City Directory, 1850

Sources of free eBooks for genealogical research

Family History Books is a collection of over 40,000 books made available by FamilySearch. All books on this site are free and relate to genealogy.

Google Books is provided by Google. This site contains literally millions of books. After you enter your search terms, you can limit your search to free books by clicking “Free Google eBooks” halfway down the left side of the page. Further down the column, you can also select a custom date range, or choose a 19th, 20th, or 21st century search.

The non-profit Internet Archive offers a wide range of volumes. To limit a search to books, select “Texts” from the drop-down menu labeled “All Media Types.” 

The NEHGS website, AmericanAncestors.org, offers free eBooks for members. From the homepage, click on Library, then Library Catalog, and then enter your search terms in the "Search the Digital Library & Archive only" box. You can also browse through available eBooks by clicking the "Browse the Digital Library" link found at the bottom of the library catalog pages.

62%, Yes, I plan to visit a library, archive, historical society, or cemetery to do research..
40%, Yes, I plan to visit an ancestral town or city.
30%, No, I do not plan to travel for genealogical purposes.
30%, Yes, I plan to visit with relatives who share my interest in genealogy.
12%, Yes, I plan to attend a genealogical conference.

This week's survey asks if you are a member of NEHGS. Take the survey now!

MONIMIA (f): Heroine of The Old Manor House (1792) by Mrs. Charlotte (Turner) Smith (1749–1806). This novel was a huge bestseller in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and likely led to the name being bestowed upon some daughters; Hortensia Monemia (Penniman) Brayton (1795-1827) of Colchester and Burlington, Vermont, was a great-great-great aunt of the writer. Her mother, Frances (“Montezuma” / “Montresor” alias Brush) (Buchanan) (Allen) Penniman, widow of Ethan Allen, was an enthusiastic novel reader who was known to walk from her home in Colchester to the subscription library in downtown Burlington for the latest fiction.

The 1850 census shows about forty women and girls with variants of this name. The name MONIMIA was used as early as 1680 for by Nathaniel Otway in his play The Orphan and by Tobias Smollett in The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753), also for an orphan character. The name has lost popularity over time, however, probably due to the unrelated Greek suffix –emia, meaning a blood disease.

Lanark County Genealogical Society (LCGS), Ontario, Canada

Lanark County is located in eastern Ontario. Its county seat is Perth. The Lanark County Genealogical Society has made a number of resources available on its website. Click on the Documents link at the top of the home page to access them.

On the left side of the Documents main page you will find links to the resources that have been made available, which include:

Articles
This section of the website contains articles from the LCGS newsletter, Lanark Log, and some submissions from website users. They are organized by place. There are articles about Almonte, Bathurst Township, Darling Township, Lanark County General, Town of Perth, and so on.

Family Bibles
This section contains genealogical information transcribed from family registers within Bibles. The families lived in or had some relation to Lanark County or Eastern Ontario. Most of the Bible owners are identified, and many of the Bibles are in the Perth Museum collection.

Family Histories
There are twenty-five family history-related documents in this section. They range from memoirs to transcribed obituaries to specific family history articles.

Personal Letters
In this section you will find transcriptions of personal letters. The letters date from the 1820s to the mid-1930s. The surnames mentioned in the correspondence are listed.

Mostly Names
This section contains information about people who lived in or had some relationship to Lanark County. The topics vary. The sources include funeral cards, broadsides in the Perth Museum, lists from gossip columns in local newspapers, transcribed land patent indexes, a published list of teachers, a church membership list, wedding guest logs, names found in a World War I autograph book, and much more.

1905 Old Home Week
The transcribed articles in this section, originally published in the Perth Courier between September 1904 and August 1905, report on activities related to the 1905 Perth Old Home Week. Among them is a special edition of the newspaper with sixteen pages devoted to Old Home Week. This is a great resource for family history researchers whose families lived in the Perth area.

Mostly Photographs
This section contains twenty-five historical photographs of Lanark County residents, submitted by various individuals. Most include information about the people pictured. There is also a collection of twenty photographs taken by Robert J. Stead, a local photographer, who died in 1919.

Voter’s Lists — Directories
More than ten voter lists and city directories for area cities and towns, dating from 1875 to 1940, are available.

Mary S. Dobard of Katy, Texas:
Several years ago I purchased four copies of The Youth's Companion, published in the 1920s. My mother, Mary Eames, was one of the illustrators of stories on "The Children's Page." What a delight it was to find these wonderful magazines on eBay!

Tracey Toms of Norristown, Pennsylvania:
I haven't been lucky enough to find photographs of my ancestors, but I did have some luck in searching for a business-related item. My paternal ancestors were involved in Kuhl’s Dairy in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and I realized that materials from the dairy may still be around, and people collect such things. I put an automatic search into eBay, and am now the proud owner of bottle caps that came from the dairy farm my ancestors ran.

Adrienne Fuss of Larchmont, New York:
I found two postcards on eBay for a production of The Quaker Girl, a play that my great-great uncle, John Palmer Slocum, produced about 1911 — with his name on one of them. That was a great find!

Last week’s survey asked whether you have purchased an ancestral possession on eBay or other online site. The results are:

73%, No, I have not purchased any items connected to my family online.
23%, Yes, I have purchased one or more items.
4%, No, I tried to purchase one or more items but was not successful.

This week's survey asks whether you plan any genealogical travels this summer. Take the survey now!

CREUSA/CRUSA (f): There were several Creusas in Greek mythology, including one of the less well-known daughters of Priam, King of Troy, by his wife Hecuba. Probably the best known, however, was Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, King of Athens in legendary times. Seduced by the god Apollo, she bore a son, Ion, whom she tried to kill to conceal her shame, but without success. It was fortunate that she failed — Ion gave his name to Ionia (a region in Greece/Asia Minor); the Ionian Sea and Ionian Islands (including Ithaca), off Greece; the Ionian column, dear to our Greek-Revival ancestors; Ionia Co., Michigan; and towns of this name in Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, and elsewhere, to name a few. Creusa married a lord named Xuthus, by whom she bore a son Achaicus — whose name sounds derived from the same root as Achaia/Achaea(n), first defined as a district in the Peloponnesus bordering on the Gulf of Corinth, north on Elis and Arcadia; later as a Roman province “corresponding approximately to modern Greece.” (Clarence L. Barnhart, William D. Halsey et al., New Century Encyclopedia of Names, 3 vols. (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1954) 1:1127-28 (Creusa); 28 (Achaea, etc.).

Crusa Cook, daughter of Stephen and Joanna (Scott) Cook, was born at Bellingham, Mass. 14 March 1775 (Bellingham VRs, p. 24). The late eighteenth century saw a great revival of the classical tradition in all branches of the arts and letters, including popular culture.