• 10 million-plus: The number of indexed Spanish baptisms, marriages and deaths (1500 to 1950) you can search on FamilySearch.org. There are more than a half-million for Portugal. Sunny Jane Morton's guide to researching roots in Europe’s Iberian peninsula has much more advice.

• 2 million (and counting): The number of people profiles on WikiTree. Get a tutorial of the site in the December issue’s Toolkit. 

• 1.7 million: The number of horses in the Confederate states around the start of the Civil War, compared to 3.4 million in the Northern states. But Southerners tended to have more experience on horseback, resulting in better cavalry units in the Confederacy, says Family Tree Magazine contributing editor David A. Fryxell. In this issue’s Now What? column, he answers a reader’s question about ancestors who went out West during the war to capture horses for Union troops. 

• 700-728: If your ancestor’s Social Security Number starts with a number in this range, you know he was eligible to receive benefits from the Railroad Retirement Board. You can request post-1936 records for $27. You’ll find more resources for researching railroad workers, miners, autoworkers and other blue-collar ancestors in this issue.

• 75: Number of great websites especially for state-based ancestor research in this issue. Contributing editor Rick Crume dug up at least one site per state, including such gems as the Indiana State Library Genealogy Collection, the Missouri History Museum and the Wyoming Newspaper Project.  

• 10: Favorite Flickr streams Photo Detective Maureen A. Taylor shares in the Toolkit, including those of the Library of Congress and 19th Century Photographic Images. 

• 4: This is the number of fun facts about breakfast in the History Matters column. Did you know doughnuts were considered snacks, not breakfast, until they were served to soldiers in World War II? We'll explain how the morning meal our ancestors enjoyed came to be.

• 2: The number of family trees everyone has—a genealogical tree and a genetic tree. They’re not necessarily the same: Starting at about your third-great-grandparents, not all of your ancestors are represented in your DNA, says Blaine Bettinger in the December issue. But autosomal DNA testing, among the latest developments in genetic genealogy, can unlock much more of your ancestral DNA than traditional Y-DNA and mtDNA tests can. 

• 1: The December 2011 issue has one index (on the last page) which covers all Family Tree Magazine articles in 2011. Can’t remember which issue had the guide to Family History Centers? Look here to find out it was in the January 2011 issue, page 16.
  

(Seeking indexes from past years of Family Tree Magazines? Download them as pdfs from our website.)  

Want to upgrade from newsstand buyer to subscriber? Visit ShopFamilyTree.com to choose from several subscription options (Digital, or US, Canadian or international print).

Go here to become a VIP, which gets you a subscription and a Plus membership, a discount in the store and other perks. 

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 2:45:21 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

What a find! The article has so much "what was he like?" detail that I wouldn't have found elsewhere. So I wanted to share some resources from contributing editor Rick Crume’s November 2011 Family Tree Magazine cover story on researching ancestors in online newspapers. 

In the article, Rick provides a chart with the essentials on 15 large online historical newspaper collections—some free, some by subscription or with society memberships, some available through libraries—including:

• 19th Century US Newspapers
  
• Accessible Archives 
• Ancestry.com
  
• Chronicling America 
• Early American Newspapers, Series 1, 1690-1876
• Footnote.com
• GenealogyBank 
• Google News and News Archive 
• New York Times Archive 
• NewspaperArchive 
• Old Fulton NY Post Cards  
• Paper of Record  
• Proquest Archiver 
  
• SmallTownPapers 
• World Vital Records 

He also notes where the sites' collections overlap, and offers some advice on finding other, smaller collections of newspapers:

• Your public library might provide online access to newspaper databases or have historical papers on microfilm. Check at the reference desk.
  
  
• Portals that can link you to more online newspaper archives include Cyndi’s List, Free Newspaper Archives, Online Historical Newspapers and XooxleAnswers: Newspaper Archives.
  

• Search the Library of Congress Chronicling America newspaper directory for microfilmed papers you can order via interlibrary loan.

• Surf websites of state archives for their newspaper holdings, which may be available for loan to your local library.

The November 2011 Family Tree Magazine also has articles on using published family histories, researching English roots, finding cultural and ethnic heritage organizations, tracing ancestors in Chicago and Portland, Ore., using Mocavo.com and more. The issue hits newsstands next week, but you can order it now from ShopFamilyTree.com. 

For even more help finding ancestors in old newspapers, check out Family Tree University's Newspaper Research 101 class.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 2:47:03 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

And by “exactly,” I mean “theoretically,” because:

• you never know what proportion of genes you ended up with from each ancestor after the DNA-combining process

• geopolitical developments and population shifts can mean ancestors' ethnicity is different from the country whence they came (Your ancestor from Russia would actually be German, for example, if he was one of the many “Volga Germans” who settled in Russia’s Volga River valley.)
  
  
• nonpaternity events, such as adoption and children fathered—unbeknownst to you—by someone other than the person named in records

• a lack of documentation or incorrect documentation about an ancestor's origins

• all those ancestors yet to be discovered (unless you’ve found ‘em all)

With that caveat, figuring out Leo’s theoretical heritage combo involves first determining Mom’s and Dad’s percentages. Three of my husband's grandparents came from Germany and one from Hungary, so we'll estimate him at 75 percent German and 25 percent Hungarian. I'll go back to my great-grandparents’ origins: I’m half German, a quarter Lebanese (the source for my last name), and one-eighth each English and Irish. 

I just divided each of our percentages, added up the common German heritage, and came up with these numbers for Leo (I generated the pie chart online using Kids Zone): 

He’s pretty typical as far as American ancestry: In the 2000 census, German was the heritage most often claimed by Americans and by his fellow Cincinnatians. He also shares in the second- and fourth-most-commonly reported ancestries: Irish and English, respectively.

Download the Census Bureau’s Ancestry: 2000 report as a PDF here.

What's your theoretical heritage combo? 

Update: Apparently you can order a t-shirt boasting your ancestry pie chart from MeonaTee.com. Great idea! (Thanks to Megan Smolenyak for mentioning.)

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 9:44:05 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [9]

Many genealogy sites (and other sites that aren’t for doing genealogy per se, but are nonetheless handy for family history) have embraced Web 2.0; this year’s 101 Best Websites roundup tilts a bit in their direction. Unlike last year, when we singled out free websites, the 2011 list includes both free and subscription sites.

The 2011 list appears in the September 2011 Family Tree Magazine (which starts mailing to subscribers any day now, and will be available for purchase June 28), and we’ve also posted them free on FamilyTreeMagazine.com so you can click right through to these great tools for family tree research. 

The sites are divided into 11 categories (for “mega-mart” sites, USA-focused sites, tech tools, sites for researching immigrants, etc.). Just click a category name to see the sites in that category.

You’ll soon begin to see the selected sites wearing “101 Best Websites” badges. Congratulations to all of them, and a big thank-you for making it easier to discover our family histories.

For more help researching your family tree on the web, see the Online Genealogy store at ShopFamilyTree.com.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011 4:41:52 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

(I know July seems months away! This issue also covers June.) Other articles in this issue include:

• The Family Tree 40 genealogy blogs, a roundup of the best blogs for keeping up on genealogy news and websites, getting research tips, learning about local records and repositories, and losing yourself in fellow researchers' family stories and photos. (You also can see the list of these blogs free on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.) 
  

• Our research trip survival kit, which you’ll definitely want to take a look at if you’re hitting the road for genealogy this summer

• Presentism and eight other pitfalls to avoid when reading and writing family and local histories. (Presentism, I learned from this article, is drawing conclusions about events and people of the past based on today's norms.) 

• Our pull-out city research guides for Charleston, SC, and Detroit

• Our guide to discovering your Croatian roots

… and lots more. The July 2011 Family Tree Magazine is available in print  or as a digital download. 

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 4:53:11 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

Here’s what my lovely coworkers had waiting for me on my first day back: 

I’ve eaten, slept and breathed family history for the past seven and a half years on staff at Family Tree Magazine. That’s in my job description.

But while I was on maternity leave, my genealogy life was a lot more like yours: Reading news blogs and searching online databases when I had a few minutes, finding someone to watch the baby while I squeezed in trips to the FamilySearch Center (baby Leo even accompanied me on a short microfilm-requesting stop). I'd watch "Who Do You Think You Are?" on Hulu in the middle of the night while I was up with the baby.

I’ll do another post about what I discovered on that FamilySearch microfilm. But I definitely feel more one with you!

I hope you can offer some advice: How do you fit genealogy into your everyday life? When do you squeeze in your online and library research? Thanks!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011 10:04:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [13]

• Getting into Giffith's Valuation
• Ancestral counties in Ireland
• Using church records to learn about your Irish forebears
• Finding your Irish ancestors online
• Search the 1901 Irish Census free online
• Researching Irish Catholic nuns
• Irish immigration through Canada

Thursday, March 17, 2011 8:37:06 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• Embark on your maiden voyage with our guide to researching female ancestors.
• Navigate death certificates, delayed birth certificates, Social Security applications and WWI draft registration cards with the help of the Document Detective.
• Become a census sleuth with charts and clues for each US enumeration.
• Boost your online genealogy with our 101 best free websites roundup, proving some of the best things in life really are free.
• Keep track of all your new-found family history with our genealogy worksheet starter kit and a decorative fold-out family tree chart.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 12:53:18 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

Perhaps most thrilling for Canadian researchers, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), the country’s main repository of historical records, has announced plans to put most of its services online within the next seven years—in time to celebrate the confederation’s 150th anniversary in 2017. That plan includes several goals, among them:

• Starting this year, you'll be able order digital copies of documents in LAC’s collection; paper copies will be phased out by April.

• You’ll be able to access the entire contents of the National Union Catalogue, representing more than 30 million catalog entries, using online search engines. (Learn more about the Catalogue—comparable to Americans’ National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections—on the LAC website.) 

• Over the next year, LAC will double the volume of its already exceptional online content, adding millions of genealogy images in partnership with Ancestry.ca (sister site to Ancestry.com).

The Canadiana Discovery Portal is a beta site that lets you search more than 60 million pages of Canadian content from archive collections in libraries, museums, universities and government agencies across the country. Just type a search term, such as a name, place or topic, into the box on the home page. You’ll get digitized books, photos. audio and video You can sort results by relevance or newest/oldest, and filter by language, media (image, audio or video), contributing archive or date range covered.

You can raise your glass to this: Ancestry.ca is honoring the 225th anniversary of Molson Brewery with “mug-rattling” family stories of the Labatt and Molson families, Canada’s most famous brewers. One such tale you can read about in old newspapers: Harry Markland Molson, great-grandson of John Molson, perished with the Titanic in 1912. 

If you're looking for some guidance in your Candian roots research, here are some of Family Tree Magazine’s resources to check out:

• Canada's Grosse ille immigrants (free article)
• Canadian Immigration Resources (free article)
• 10 Free Canadian Genealogy Sites (free article)
• Canadian Genealogy Toolkit (both free and Plus articles)
• Canadian Genealogy Guide Digital Download (available from ShopFamilyTree.com) 
• May 2009 Family Tree Magazine, with our guide to researching immigrants into Canada, available from ShopFamilyTree.com
  

Wednesday, January 19, 2011 11:55:24 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

It’s not as simple as taking a quick snapshot, though. Before you start a genealogical photography session, create a shot list of the pictures you want. Here’s what we recommend:

Gravestones Shot List

• cemetery entrance
• whole cemetery
• stones of interest, with nearby stones
  
• the whole gravestone, showing the inscription and carving
• close-ups of the inscription and carvings
• any creative shots you want of the beautiful artwork and scenes in graveyards

Ancestral Homes Shot List

• the entrance to the street (a view your ancestor may have seen every day)
• the house with neighboring buildings
• the whole house (we suggest first knocking on the door to let the current resident know why you're taking a picture of his house)
  
• as many sides of the house as you can capture without trespassing
  
• interesting architectural details
• the yard
• any features mentioned in family stories (such as the tree Grandpa fell out of as a boy)

Heirlooms Shot List

• full view of heirloom
• heirloom with a ruler to show size
• all sides of heirloom item
• close-ups of interesting details, such as carving or painting
• close-ups of manufacturer’s marks
• close-ups of damage or other features affecting value

Records And Documents Shot List

• title page of film roll or book
• full record (be sure to get each page)
• close-ups of hard-to-read areas

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 2:20:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [12]

America's No. 1 how-to family history magazine delivers the tips and tools you need to discover your family’s past. Our user-friendly approach to discovering, preserving and celebrating family history makes genealogy a hobby anyone can enjoy.

Check out FamilyTreeMagazine.com to see some of the genealogy advice you’ll find in our pages. Try these for starters:

• 101 Best Web Sites for Genealogy
  
• Free Genealogy Forms 
• Genealogy Glossary 
• Insider’s Guide to Genealogy Acronyms
  

Click here to order a Family Tree Magazine subscription in the United States. 

Click here for a Family Tree Magazine subscription in Canada. 

Click here for an international Family Tree Magazine subscription. 

Monday, December 20, 2010 10:30:13 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• keyword-search the issues to find expert guidance on the family history records, resources and topics you need
  
  
• print any articles you want for quick reference
  
  
• tuck a year’s worth of how-to genealogy advice into your research tote for library trips
  
  
• slip your slim CD case into a mere 1/4 inch of bookshelf space

• Wide Open Spaces (November): 10 ideas for cutting clutter and getting your genealogy stuff under control
  
  
• Census Extravaganza (May): A special section of articles on information censuses collected over the years, getting ready for the release of the 1940 census in 2012, and finding census records from your ancestors’ homeland
  
  
• Undercover Genealogy (July): 10 investigative strategies for locating living relatives
  
  
• Go-Go-Gadgets (March): Seven essential technology tools every genealogist needs, and what features to look for in each
  
  
• Soul Searching (August): Finding your US ancestors in church records
  
  
• Fancy Free (September): Our list of the 101 best free websites for researching your ancestors
  
  
• Heads of State (December): 75 great state websites for finding family across the country
  
  
• Heritage research guides for Scots-Irish, Baltic, Finnish, Italian, Puerto Rican and Dutch roots, as well as tips for crossing the pond to your European forbears

Wednesday, November 17, 2010 5:21:20 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

The May 2010 Family Tree Magazine celebrated this phenomenon with the Family Tree 40, forty genealogy blogs that you all nominated and voted on as the best genealogy blogs. (You can see the 2010 Family Tree 40 list in our free online article.) 

Genealogy blogs are going strong with new ones popping up every day, so we’re doing it again in 2011! You can nominate your favorite genealogy blogs using our online form now through Tuesday, Nov. 30.

When you nominate a blog, you’ll give us the title and URL, optionally tell us why you’re nominating it, and put it into one of these eight categories (a few have changed from last year’s Family Tree 40):

• Local/regional history and genealogy: blogs focusing on research in a specific county, state or region. Most library and archive blogs, as well as many local historical and genealogical society blogs, would go here.

• Heritage groups: Blogs focusing on the family history of a specific ethnic, religious or national background (such as African-American, Jewish, Polish, etc.)

• Research advice and how-to: Blogs that primarily explain how to research, analyze photos or perform various family history tasks. The blogger offers tips, strategies and examples; explains genealogical concepts; and writes about how to use new resources.

• Cemeteries: These blogs feature content primarily about cemetery research and visiting cemeteries. Many feature tombstone photos and transcriptions, with information about those interred.

• “My Family History”: Blogs about the blogger’s own roots, including accounts of personal research, their own family photos and heirlooms, stories, recipes, etc.

• “Everything” blogs: Blogs that cover it all—genealogy news, research advice, opinions, local history, family stories, etc.—go here.

• New blogs: Was the blog you’re nominating launched during the past year? Categorize it here, even if it would also fit into another category.

• Technology: Blogs focusing on genealogy websites, software, DNA testing or other aspects of technology as it relates to genealogy.

Thanks to our Family Tree 40 panelists—Genealogy Gems blogger Lisa Louise Cooke, Genea-Musings blogger Randy Seaver, Myrt of the DearMyrtle blog and Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers—for lending their expertise in formulating the blog categories and qualifications.

Family Tree Magazine editors and Family Tree 40 panelists will winnow out any blogs that aren’t qualified (see below) and, if necessary depending how many blogs are nominated, narrow the list of nominees based on the quality of the blogs’ content.

From Dec. 13 to 20, you all will vote on those finalists for the final Family Tree 40 blogs. The Family Tree 40 blogs, featuring five winners per category, will be revealed in the July 2011 Family Tree Magazine.

Qualifying blogs must:

• be primarily about genealogy.
  
• have original content (aggregators featuring posts from other blogs will be disqualified).
  
• belong to a private individual or individuals, not to a business (a change from last year’s Family Tree 40). They may not exist primarily to market products.
  
• be active, having at least four posts per month for the past three months (or, for blogs newer than three months, four posts per month since the blog has been in existence).
  
• contain or link to information about the blogger(s), such as an “About Me” page.
  
• not be hosted by a Family Tree 40 panelist or by Family Tree Magazine.

Look for reminders and updates on Facebook; on Twitter (we'll use hashtag #FT40), in the Family Tree Magazine free, weekly e-mail newsletter, and, of course, here on the Genealogy Insider blog.

Nominate a Family Tree 40 blog here. 

Genealogy bloggers, feel free to add this badge to your blog to encourage voting! You can link it to the nomination form:

Monday, November 15, 2010 12:38:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

To find more articles, just type the name of the war into the search box in the upper-right corner of any FamilyTreeMagazine.com page or browse our Military Records category. 

General Military

• At Your Service: Military records research guide 
  
  
• 10 Best Web sites for Military Researchers
  
  
• Timeline of US Military Campaigns 
  
  
• Decoding Common Military Abbreviations 
  
  
• Military Records Toolkit
  
  
• NARA microfilmed records for lesser-known wars
  
  
• Wars your ancestor may have served in 

Specific Wars

• Revolutionary War Web Resources 
  
  
• War of 1812 Online Resources 
  
  
• Civil War on the Web
  
  
• Civil War Genealogy Toolkit
  
  
• WWI Genealogy Resources 
  
  
• WWII Ancestors Websites 

Military research articles exclusively for Family Tree Plus members include:

• Military Records for 10 Lesser-Known Wars from the December 2010 Family Tree Magazine
  
  
• Online Military Records Guide from the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine 
  
  
• A House Divided: Civil War research guide from the July 2007 Family Tree Magazine 
  
  
• Over There: WWI research guide from the November 2007 Family Tree Magazine 
  
  
• Deep Roots: Colonial ancestors research guide from the February 2006 Family Tree Magazine
  
  
• Conflicting Information: Military records resources from the September 2005 Family Tree Sourcebook 
  
  
• Photo Detective: Clues in military photos from the December 2004 Family Tree Magazine 

You can find print copies and/or digital downloads of the Family Tree Magazine issues mentioned above at ShopFamilyTree.com. 

Wednesday, November 10, 2010 3:42:59 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• online access to articles from past issues of Family Tree Magazine, right up through the current issue

• guidance on family history research strategies, finding ancestors in the United States and your ancestral homeland, online genealogy, using a wide variety of genealogical records, preserving family photos and heirlooms, new and improved genealogy resources, and more

• US research tips and state and county resource listings from the recently released Family Tree Sourcebook

• the convenience of being able to keyword-search this genealogy knowledge base 
  

(Of course, many of the articles on our site , as well as all the genealogy forms and cheat sheets, are freely accessible by anyone, and we regularly add new free content.) 

If you become a Family Tree Magazine VIP, you get the Plus membership and:

• a subscription to the print Family Tree Magazine
  

• 10 percent off any Family Tree University course registration
  

• a 10 percent discount at ShopFamilyTree.com (log into your store account before you shop)
  

• our exclusive Family Tree Toolkit of genealogy forms and a frameable decorative family tree chart. 

Click here for FAQs about the Plus and VIP programs and how to use your membership. 

Wednesday, November 03, 2010 9:55:07 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• In the early 1900s, lamination—now an archival no-no—was a celebrated new tool at repositories nationwide. Thousands of historical documents were laminated, including the Emancipation Proclamation. Find out how archives are working with these documents in the December 2010 Genealogy Insider column. 

• About 125,000 US troops, both Army regulars and new volunteers, served in the Philippine Insurrection from 1899 to 1902. The 1900 US census has information on military personnel stationed in the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico.
  
  Read more in our December 2010 guide to records from America’s lesser-known military conflicts. 

• The Washington State Digital Archives holds more than 90 million records, with 28 million searchable online. Find more state genealogy resources in our guide to 75 of the best state sites for genealogy research (also online). 

• The Irish National Museum has a firkin of butter buried in a peat bog (once a common storage practice) in the late-17th or eary-18th century. The grayish substance no longer resembles butter. Brush up on butter in the December 2010 History Matters column. 

• To help kids learn about your family’s genealogy, you can get Hearth Song’s stick-on family tree wall mural to personalize with relatives’ names and photos. Get more kid-friendly genealogy ideas in the December 2010 article Legacy Lessons.

• Some 250,000 Scots-Irish are thought to have arrived in the United States between 1717 and the American Revolution, with later waves in the 1740s, around 1754, and between 1771 and 1775. Many headed for central Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and the Carolinas, eventually migrating into and across the Appalachians.
  

Learn how to trace these ancestors (also called Ulster Scots) in our December 2010 guide to Scots-Irish Roots.

• Most PCs come with Window Movie Maker, which makes it easy to turn digital photos and videos into family movies. See a tutorial in the December 2010 Toolkit.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010 12:15:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• filling out forms
• calculating cousin relationships
• myths to avoid
• choosing genealogy software
• using popular websites
• researching at the library, courthouse and cemetery
• using genetic genealogy

• a seven-day free membership to Family Tree Magazine Plus
• a seven-day free trial to genealogy records site Archives.com
• $25 off a Family Tree University course
• 15 percent off a purchase at ShopFamilyTree.com

Thursday, October 14, 2010 9:30:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• our listing of the 101 Best Genealogy Websites for 2010 (which you can check out online, too)
• six ways a DNA surname study can benefit your research
• our Web Guide to USGenWeb
• help with Finnish research
• six new, free genealogy databases
  
• an Evernote tutorial 

Wednesday, July 28, 2010 4:38:02 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 1:43:41 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• September 2009 Family Tree Magazine (print edition)

• September 2009 Family Tree Magazine (digital edition)

• Jewish Genealogy Research Guide download

• Family Tree Plus members can read the "Ties That Bind" article online.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 1:18:47 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

• These are the readers’ momilies featured in the September 2009 Family Tree Magazine.

• … and these are even more sayings that readers submitted to our Forum (anyone can read them, but you must be a registered Forum member to post a reply).
  

• “For crying out loud!”
  
  
• “Hold your horses” (and its close relative, “Don’t lose your britches”)
  
  
• “If [fill in name of childhood friend]’s mom said she could jump off a cliff, would you want to jump off a cliff, too?”
  
  
• “I could’ve yelled from here.”
  
  
• “Do you think someone’s going to steal your dinner?” (when I was hunched over my plate)
  
  
• We were never allowed to eat suckers in the car, because “If I have to stop suddenly, it’ll go through the roof of your mouth.”
  
  
• “You have until the count of three…”
  
  
• “A birdie’s going to come and sit on your lip" (when someone was pouting)
  
  
• “I have eyes in the back of my head.” (My sister says this to her kids, too, and her youngest thought for years that she really did.)
  
  
•  “I don't have a favorite. You’re all my favorites.”

Friday, May 07, 2010 8:58:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

The US and state governments counted veterans a number of times, both during and between regular censuses.

Revolutionary War pensioners: Names and ages of these pensioners were recorded on the backs of 1840 population census sheets. Their names are in A Census of Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services, available free through Google Books.
 
1890 veterans schedule: Although the bulk of the 1890 census was destroyed, the schedules of Union veterans and surviving widows survived for half of Kentucky and the states alphabetically following it. Check this census even if your ancestor fought for the Confederacy. Although enumerators were supposed to count Union veterans, some also recorded those who fought for the South. Officials who reviewed the schedules in Washington, DC, simply drew lines through the Confederates’ names, leaving them still readable. The schedules are online at Ancestry.com and on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL) and National Archives facilities, as well as large genealogical libraries.
 
What can you learn from this enumeration? The name of the veteran or his widow, rank, company, regiment or vessel, dates of enlistment and discharge, length of service, disabilities and remarks such as whether the veteran received a pension. As with population schedules, you don’t know whether James or someone else supplied the information, so look for a military service record to corroborate the data.
 
Special military schedules: During the 1900, 1910 and 1920 federal population censuses, enumerators created separate schedules for military personnel, including those stationed on naval vessels and at US bases overseas. For 1900, these are on National Archives microfilm T623, rolls 1,838 to 1,842 (find a Soundex index on film T1081, rolls 1 to 32). For 1910, military and naval enumerations are on film T624, roll 1,784; there’s no Soundex. The 1920 schedules for overseas military and naval forces are on film T625, rolls 2,040 to 2,041; the Soundex is on film M1600, rolls 1 to 18.
 
The 1930 population census included servicemen, but you’ll find special schedules for merchant seamen serving on vessels. Search them on Ancestry.com, or browse them on microfilm at the FHL and National Archives.

• Census Secrets CD

• Online Census Secrets webinar recording

• The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy by Kimberly Powell

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 10:07:31 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

When Ellis Island launched its database of New York City passenger arrivals from 1892 to 1924, genealogists viewed it as the greatest advancement since pedigree charts. The ability to freely search records of 22 million immigrants, passengers and crew—and view digital images of the lists—was a huge research boon. But as great as the site was, people became frustrated with its limitations: Searching on just first name, last name and gender wasn’t adequate for finding everyone’s immigrant ancestors.

Those limitations inspired the first One-Step tools. Although EllisIsland.org has since expanded its search options (they now include features that debuted on the One-Step site, such as name-spelling flexibility, birth year, ship name, town of origin and ethnicity), Morse’s White and Gold Ellis Island search forms still offer extra options for ferreting out hard-to-find immigrant ancestors. For instance, the Gold Form lets you search for town names that sound like your search term; both forms let you search on port of departure and age.

By default, both forms hunt for matches that start with your search term. That way, if you search on Glasgow in the town field, you'll catch both Glasgow and Glasgow, Scotland—whichever way it was recorded.

A key distinction between the forms: The White Form employs the same search engine as the Ellis Island site. The Gold Form uses a different search engine, which works faster when you search on name fragments.

Morse advises using the Gold Form for most searches, and the White Form when you need a “fresh perspective” for your search.

Morse unveiled the Gold Form to provide maximum flexibility in searching all 25 million people in the Ellis Island database. It melds the best of his old Blue and Gray forms, offering added parameters for searching all the records—including traveling companion, exact arrival date and marital status. Want to search for everyone from a particular village? Specify the town, but leave the name fields blank.

• Best websites for immigration researchers (free article) from last year's list of 101 Best Web Sites for Genealogy
  
  
• Free passenger list transcription forms
  
  
• The Family Tree Guide to Finding Your Ellis Island Ancestors by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, available (and on sale!) from ShopFamilyTree.com
  

• Online Immigration Resources: Retracing Your Ancestor's Journey webinar recording, available from ShopFamilyTree.com

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 1:42:11 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

Follow genetic fingerprints to new theories. DNA can point to a previously unrecognized episode in your family's past. “Oddball” test results sometimes signal nonpaternity events (adoptions, name changes, illegitimacies), which can link you with unexpected people and places.

Take my Fitzpatrick surname study. Although the DNA profiles (haplotypes) are relatively diverse, most of the 75 participants match one another on 20 or so markers out of 26. This shows that we share a common background—it's just far back in the past. Three people don't fit that mold, however: They match the rest of the group on no more than seven markers.

Two of these three men—a Catholic priest from New Jersey and a retired engineer from New South Wales, Australia—match each other exactly. And they've traced their families back to two small towns only 10 miles apart on the west coast of Ireland. The American's Fitzpatrick family immigrated during the Great Famine; the Australian's Fitzpatrick ancestors went “down under” in the early 1900s. How could these men match each other exactly but be so different from the rest of the Fitzpatrick study group?

Our questioning has led to some interesting theories, developed from what we know about the history of western Ireland. One potential explanation is that the men descend from a Viking who made a pit stop on his way around coastal Ireland, leaving behind a genetic souvenir. Another possibility: The pair descends from a survivor of the Spanish Armada's 1588 wreck on the west coast of Ireland.

As online databases grow to include a more diverse collection of haplotypes, we may find more matches to these men. If they match an Erikson or a Peterson, we can further probe the first possibility. If they match a Lopez or Garcia, we can explore the second theory. Or we may devise altogether new theories. But whatever we discover, they'll have a fascinating new chapter to add to their family sagas.

• DNA Toolkit (contains both free and Plus articles)
  

• Genealogy Insider blog Genetic Genealogy category (genetic genealogy news and resources)
  

• December 2009 Family Tree Magazine with our complete guide to genetic genealogy: print edition  or digital edition
  

Wednesday, March 03, 2010 12:20:10 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• data collected for each US enumeration, from 1790 to 1930 that could solve ancestral mysteries
  
  
• What you can do now to be ready to find your ancestors in the 1940 census, set for release in two short (we hope) years
  
  
• How to find and use census records from your ancestral homeland

Thursday, February 25, 2010 11:16:01 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• Creative Gene by Jasia Smasha
• footnoteMaven by footnoteMaven
• GeneaBloggers by Thomas MacEntee
• Genea-Musings by Randy Seaver

• The Association of Graveyard Rabbits by several authors
• Granite in My Blood by Midge Frazel

• Ancestry.com Blog by various authors

• The Genetic Genealogist by Blaine Bettinger

• George Geder by George Geder
• Scottish Genealogy News and Events by Chris Paton
• Small Leaved Shamrock by Lisa
• Steve’s Genealogy Blog by Stephen Danko
• Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog by Schelly Talalay Dardashti

• Family Matters by Denise Barrett Olson
• Genealogy Guys by George G. Morgan and Drew Smith
• Genealogy Tip of the Day by Michael John Neill
• The ProGenealogists Blog by various authors

• California Genealogical Society and Library Blog by Kathryn Doyle
• Sandusky History by the staff of the Sandusky (Ohio) Library Archives Research Center
• Midwestern Microhistory by Harold Henderson

• The Ancestry Insider by theAncestry Insider
• DearMyrtle by Pat Richley-Erickson
• Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter by Dick Eastman
• GenealogyBlog by Leland Meitzler

• The Family Curator by Denise Levenick
• Shades of the Departed by footnoteMaven

• Ancestories: The Stories of My Ancestors by Miriam Midkiff
• Apple’s Tree by anonymous
• BeNotForgot by Vickie Everhart
• Educated Genealogist by Sheri Fenley
• Greta’s Genealogy Blog by Greta Koehl
• Heritage Happens by Cheryl Fleming Palmer
• Herstoryan by Herstoryan
• Janet the Researcher by Janet Iles
• Kinexxions by Becky Wiseman
• Little Bytes of Life by Elizabeth
• Our Georgia Roots by Luckie Daniels
• WeTree by Amy Coffin
• West in New England by Bill West
• What’s Past is Prologue by Donna Pointkouski

Monday, February 22, 2010 12:12:25 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [3]

As Sherlock Holmes liked to lecture Dr. Watson, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” So consider even the most unlikely possibilities when confronting your brick walls: Could there have been two men by the same name in the county at that time? Might your third-great-grandfather have married his cousin? Maybe your great-grandmother remarried in between censuses, thus changing her name.

Admitting to the improbable—but not impossible—is how I finally broke through the brick wall of my frustrating Ekstroms. I had found Olof Ekstrom's widow, Mary A., in an 1892 Rock Island and Moline, Ill., city directory. She matched my great-great-grandmother Anna Maja Pehrsdotter, who'd married Olof back in Sweden—Anna Maja easily could have been flipped and Americanized to Mary A.

I also found her, already a widow, in an 1885 city directory. But where was she—or Olof, for that matter—in the 1880 census, if she'd emigrated in 1873, as Swedish records indicated? The only Mary in the census who seemed to fit was married to a Bernard Vankirkhoon (actually Van Kirkhove, I later learned), a Belgian gent! Looking closer, I saw that the household included several children named not Vankirkhoon, but Ekstrom—with roughly the right first names and ages.

I kept going back to that census page. It didn't fit any of my assumptions, but it did fit the facts, if I looked at them in a completely different way:

• What if Olof had died soon after immigrating and never made it to Illinois—where I couldn't find any record of his death?

• What if Anna Maja, now Mary A., had then married this Belgian guy?

• And what if the Belgian also had died—between 1880 and that 1885 city directory—and Mary decided to return to her previous married name?

• What if the 1880 Olof Ekstrom in the Vankirkhoon household was the same person as the Oliver Eckstrom I'd found at the same address as the widow Ekstrom in the 1892 city directory—making him my great-great-uncle?

Once I was willing to consider this alternate explanation, I soon found obituaries, passenger manifests and loads of other records that matched the scenario. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place. All I had to do, if you will, was try looking at the picture upside-down.

• Family Tree Magazine Plus members can see the archived article with all of Fryxell’s tips on FamilyTreeMagazine.com

• Seven Steps to Studying Ancestral Places, a free article explaining how focusing on places your ancestors lived could lead to genealogy answers

• Brick Wall Strategies: Advice and Ideas for Getting Past Research Dead Ends webinar recording from ShopFamilyTree.com

• Family Tree Problem Solver by Marsha Hoffman Rising (now on sale for $10!)

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 12:58:04 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

At libraries and archives on the state level, you'll find birth, marriage and death records, plus state censuses, tax records, business records, county records, maps, family papers, and photographs and oral histories. Most state archives also have programs to microfilm newspapers dating back to the first issues published in the state.

While they usually focus on their own states, many of these libraries and archives also have important holdings for other states. The Sutro branch of the California State Library, for example, and the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS) house two of the nation's largest collections of genealogical books. WHS also boasts one of the largest collections of newspapers in the United States and extensive holdings of African-American and American Indian newspapers.

Every state has at least one organization in charge of preserving its heritage. Sometimes, a state library houses books, while a separate state archive stores records and artifacts. Other states preserve all these resources in a single facility, often called a state historical society. In addition to official state-run archives, some states, especially in the East, have other repositories operated by private, nonprofit organizations.

To take the best advantage of state libraries and archives, you'll want to visit in person. But even if you can't, you can still access many of these resources from a distance through interlibrary loan, the Internet and the library's reference services.

Almost every state library and archives has a website packed with useful genealogical information. Some sites, such as the Library of Virginia and the Florida State Archives, feature searchable databases and document images—with just a few clicks, you might find an abstract of your ancestor's will or digitized pages from the family Bible.

Before making a trip to the state capital, check the online library catalog for family histories, local histories and manuscripts. The site also may have a listing of newspaper holdings organized by county and town.

Many state libraries and archives make microfilmed newspapers and some books available for a small fee via interlibrary loan. Read the lending policies on the facility's website, then print the references to items you want to borrow and request them at your local public library.

Just like local public libraries, state libraries and archives offer a range of reference services. Staff may accept research requests by phone, mail or e-mail. Usually, there's no charge to answer a simple question, such as “Do you have Clay County court records from the 1880s?” But you may have to pay a fee to get an archivist to check indexes and make photocopies. Keep your question brief, and be sure to include a name, place and date, for example: “Can you check the index to the book Old Tioga Point and Early Athens by Louise Welles Murray for the name William Parry, and copy the pages where he's mentioned? He lived in Athens from 1822 until the 1850s.”

Some state library websites have a form for submitting research questions. If you need more-extensive research than staff can handle, they may have a list of area researchers for hire.

Faced with budget cuts, many state libraries and archives are reducing their services and need your support. Let your elected officials know that you value these services and want them to continue. Of course, the best way to support state libraries is to use them.

• State Libraries Directory, Alabama to Lousiana
  (these directories of state libraries are free articles)

• State Libraries Directory, Maine to Nevada

• State Libraries Directory, New Hampshire to North Dakota

• State Libraries Directory, Ohio to Utah

• State Libraries Directory, Vermont to Wyoming
  
  
• State Research Guides available on ShopFamilyTree.com as digital downloads, in a book or on CD
  

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 9:45:31 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

University libraries are particularly noted for special collections of government documents, microfilm, microfiche, local history materials, ethnic resources, and rare books and manuscripts. Some universities have archives housed separately from the general library. Here's a sampling of microform collections especially interesting to family historians:

• American Culture Series, 1493-1875 (University Microfilms): publications on all aspects of American life. Here you'd find, for example, History of the Old Cheraws, about South Carolina, 1730-1810, originally published in 1867. The American Farrier and Family Medical Companion, published in 1852, gives advice on popular medical remedies.

• Confederate Imprints (Research Publications): official and unofficial publications of the Confederacy. It contains such items as the organization of the army, instructions for mail carriers, hymn books and sheet music.

• History of Women (Research Publications): publications by and about women up to about 1920. An Essay on the Education and Genius of the Female Sex (1795) and The Good Housekeeper (1839) are just two examples.

• Western Americana (Xerox University Microfilms): publications about and contemporary with each successive frontier. The Navigator: Containing Directions for Navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers …, published in 1814, was a guide for travelers. Miners and Business Men's Directory for the Year Commencing January 1st, 1856 could help trace a participant in the gold rush.

Special collections often aren't indexed in the library's catalog. Be sure to ask a reference librarian about any special holdings that may aid your research.

• Links to key online library catalogs, including several academic ones, so you can plan your research session
  

• Finding your ancestors’ college records (for which you’ll want to go to the school's library)
  

• Family Tree Magazine Plus members can access the full college and university libraries article on our website.
  

Thursday, January 28, 2010 8:47:10 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [6]

Leave no stone unturned. Many types of records provide clues that are often overlooked. Take what I call the “Doberman” approach to your genealogy research: Latch on to a fact and don't let go until you've gotten everything out of it. Squeezing every single scrap of information from a record as a clue to other research will pay big dividends. “Ask” every document these questions:

• Why was the document created in the first place?

• Are you looking at the original or a copy?

• To whom does the document pertain?

• How close to the original event was the document created?

• Who are the witnesses, informants or other persons mentioned in the document?

• Are any family relationships stated or implied?

• Did the person executing the document sign with a signature or mark?

• Is the information reliable, usable, or simply a clue to further research?

• What's the full citation for the document?

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 4:53:34 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1]

• It’s our 10th anniversary issue—yes, we’re now in double digits.

• It’s got our pretty new logo on the cover.

• The cover also features a photo of reader Sandra Simon-Rosa’s grandmother Marjorie May-Newell, which we chose from all those submitted for our Ancestral Cover Photo.

• It comes wrapped with a free CD from genealogy website MyHeritage, containing Family Tree Builder software.

• It debuts our new design, which lets us include tips and quick facts in boxes, so they’re easy to find at a glace

• The new design features additional resources with every feature article in a “More Online” box. To keep things simple, they’re categorized into free content, Family Tree Magazine Plus content, and products from ShopFamilyTree.com.

• It has our first Genealogy Insider column (replacing Branching Out), which works with this blog and our e-mail newsletter to take you behind the scenes of family history news and trends.

• The new Document Detective column (replacing Brick Wall Busters) points out clues and next steps to be gleaned from genealogy records.

• A Family Archivist column (replacing Preserving Memories) focuses on ways to preserve and share your family’s stories, artifacts and heirlooms. Each installment has  project card with simple steps for an archival preservation project.

• A Time Capsule on the last page of the issue (replacing Uprooted) gives our ancestors a voicewith excerpts from letters, journals and other historical writings.

Thursday, December 17, 2009 9:37:29 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• Look for our article on midwifery and how our ancestors were born in the March 2010 Family Tree Magazine (on newsstands Jan. 5).
  
  
• Examining clues in old hospital records (free article)
  
  
• Medical Attention: How to find ancestors’ medical records and put their illnesses into historical context (Family Tree Magazine Plus article)

Monday, November 30, 2009 10:01:21 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

Click here to see the ancestral cover photo submissions on Flickr.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:54:31 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]

• Military Records Toolkit: Web sites, books and organizations for military research
• At Your Service: use this chart to determine which conflicts an ancestor may have served in, depending on his birth date
• US Military Campaigns: A timeline of conflicts from the Powhatan Wars through World War II

• A House Divided: Nine steps for researching Civil War soldiers in your family tree
• Over There: How to trace your ancestors in records of World War I
• Operation Online Records: Join the march to military records on the web.

• The Everything Civil War Book, 2nd Edition: Everything You Need to Know About the Conflict That Divided a Nation by Brooke C. Stoddard and Daniel P. Murphy, PhD

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 10:22:36 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

• Perennially popular gifts for genealogists, from inexpensive to a little pricey

• Maureen A. Taylor’s gift ideas for photo fanatics

• How to create a family cookbook

• Family Tree Magazine Plus members can access this article on making photo gifts using online services 

• Our very own how-to books, CDs and other helps for your genealogy friends (or wanna-be genealogy friends). You can sign up for our e-mail newsletter to learn about specials in ShopFamilyTree.com. 

• I’m kinda partial to this one: Family Tree Legacies, a book Family Tree Magazine editor Allison Stacy and I put together for recording all kinds of family history information—not just names and dates, but also family stories, news articles, house history, military service details, where people lived and more.
  

Thursday, November 05, 2009 9:07:21 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [2]

• Ellen Thompson, collecting history of local schools
• Robin Dickson, volunteering and indexing records at her library
• John Jackson, creating a virtual cemetery for Civil War soldiers
• Susan Steele, preserving historical insurance records
• Bennie W. White, compiling records and posting resources free online

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 11:32:14 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

All-around
These bloggers give you a little (or a lot) of everything: news, research advice, their own family stories, photos, opinions and more. There’s no one quite like the Genealogue, so we thought about that blog for awhile. It landed in this category because the Genealogue posts a satirical take on genealogy news, holds occasional research challenges and blogs about his own family history every so often.

Personal/Family
These blogs primarily cover the blogger's (or, in a case or two or more, bloggers') own research and ancestors. Family historians write what they know and what’s important to them, so this is our biggest category.

Local/Regional
Most posts in these blogs cover resources, genealogy events and history for a city, town, state or region.

Cemetery
These blogs focus on cemetery research, gravestone photos and the like.

Photos/Heirlooms
Content on these blogs is primarily about sharing, researching and preserving family photos and/or heirlooms.

Heritage
Here, blog content focuses on a particular heritage group, such as African-American, Jewish or Irish. We had some tough decisions in this category, as some family-related genealogy blogs by nature also examine that family’s ethnic heritage.

News/Resources
Blogs in this category deliver a range of genealogy news and information about new resources.

How-to
These blogs have instructional content on genealogical resources and methodology. In some cases, bloggers wrote about their own research and ancestors, but framed posts in an instructional manner.

Genealogy Companies
Blogs in this category are written on behalf of a genealogy company, and contain helpful (but not overly advertising-oriented) information on the company’s products, as well as other resources.

Genetic Genealogy
Blogs that are primarily about genetic genealogy and family health history.

Monday, October 05, 2009 9:37:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4]

We were thrilled to see your response to our call for photos. With more than 300 submissions (and a few more waiting in our in-boxes), it's definitely going to be a challenge choosing just the right photo for the cover.

Every picture you sent tells a story about your family—such as the three sisters having a tea party, the 1909 off-roaders, this American Indian family whose members were removed to Oklahoma, the young woman in this gorgeous hand-colored portrait, this fun wedding-day photo, this one showing some old-fashioned PhotoShopping  … we could go on.

A few people even sent unidentified photos, hoping someone else will recognize the faces of those pictured.

So all the pictures speak to us. For magazine cover purposes, we’re especially liking photos where you can see the subjects’ faces clearly, they’re making eye contact with the viewer, and their expressions are open and friendly (as if to say, “pick up this magazine!”).

Thanks for sharing your photos with Family Tree Magazine. We're thoroughly enjoying looking through them. And don't worry if your photo doesn't get chosen for the cover—we may use it inside the magazine during the year (we'll contact you in that case).

P.S. Does anyone else see a resemblance between the young woman in this photo and actress Julia Roberts?

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 10:56:19 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]

• To encourage people to check out more blogs, including ones they might not be aware of
• To make the selection process more of a bottom-up effort, not just our editors’ choices
• To get genealogists’ help and input in selecting from the huge blogging universe

• It isn’t primarily about genealogy.
• The blogger doesn’t post original content (for example, if he/she simply aggregates feeds from other blogs).
• The blog is no longer updated, or does not post new content on a regular basis (say, at least once a week).

Thursday, September 10, 2009 1:21:12 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [5]

• Post your entry to the Ancestral Anniversaries thread in the Talk to Us Forum. (To help combat spammers, forum registration is required for posting. You can register by clicking here.)
  
  
• Please keep your entry under 125 words, so we can include more stories in the magazine.
  
  
• Please add your city and state to your entry for publication in the magazine.
  
  
• We'll contact you for your mailing address and possibly for a photo of your anniversary couple, so please keep an eye on your e-mail account.
  
  
• By submitting, you give Family Tree Magazine permission to feature your contribution in all print and electronic media.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009 1:18:42 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

• The image must be dated before 1920 and not show any individuals still living (we don't want to upset any of your more-modest relatives).
  
  
• The image must be high-resolution (at least 300 dots per inch) so it will reproduce well in print.
  
  
• The image must show people (five or fewer is best, that way we'll be able to see everyone).
  
  
• Include your e-mail address and/or phone number with your submission—we'll need to be able to get a hold of you if your image is chosen.

Thursday, August 27, 2009 8:36:48 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]

• Ellen Thompson, for collecting history of local schools
• Robin Dickson, for volunteering and indexing records at her library
  
• John Jackson, for creating a virtual cemetery for Civil War soldiers
• Gail Reynolds, for being a library volunteer and genealogy teacher
• Susan Steele, for preserving historical records
• Bennie W. White, for compiling records and posting resources free online

Monday, August 17, 2009 1:03:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

• “toddler’s crayon”
• “fossilized chocolate cake”
• “worry stone” (over those unsolved brick walls, we presume)
• “paper weight”
• “scrubber to get your pen started” (huh?)
• “thumbprinter thingie”
• “It’s used to help you separate papers. You rub your fingers on it so you can easily rifle through your records”
• "a secret listening device"
  
• “a template for drawing circles for names on your family tree”
• “a starter for the center of your family tree”

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 2:05:30 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2]

Let me know if you guys ever do an article on gruesome heirlooms—my family has this shirt that my great-great grandfather was wearing when he was shot and murdered. (Gross! And weird—who keeps that kind of stuff?)

Basically, all I know is my great-great grandfather was a pig farmer who had a farm in Lockville, Ohio. According to the story, my great-great-grandpa turned to go back into the house after refusing to sell land to this guy, and when he did, the guy shot him in the back. Yikes! And that's how my grandpa ended up with a bloody shirt in a trunk in his basement.

Murder at Lockville.

LANCASTER, June 23.—[Special.]—George (sic) Tisdale, a farm laborer, shot George L. Boyer, a prominent famrer, at Lockville, this county, this morning. As the two sons of Tisdale were quarreling with a son of Boyer about hogs that had trespassed on Boyer's farm, he came up to protect his son, when Tisdale came out of his house and shot Boyer in the right breast, Boyer dying in five minutes after.

• Researching an Ancestor's Murder
• Forum: What did your ancestors die of?

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 10:51:25 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]

• Carol Clemens' family legend was that her great-grandfather Martin Franchetti was accidentally shot and killed by a stray bullet from a saloon brawl in 1902.

After finding references to seven newspaper articles within a couple of months, she discovered her ancestor was shot during an argument with a former boarder who’d developed a crush on Franchetti’s wife. Clemens says help from the Schenectady County Clerk’s office was invaluable in locating the perpetrator's criminal trial records.

• Cheri Adams couldn’t find anything about her the family of her great-great-grandmother’s second husband. A Google search brought up a New York Times article stating that the husband, Elijah Godfrey, was killed while handling dynamite in his cabin. Another article revealed that the medical examiner thought it was murder. “It seems Elijah had been speaking with authorities regarding stills in the area," writes Adams, "and undoubtedly due to his loose lips, the owners of the stills took revenge.”

• Tom Neel of the Ohio Genealogical Society found an account in a 1915 county history about John Gately, his fourth-great-grandfather from North Carolina. “Sometime after the year 1793,” Gately’s father-in-law, thinking the younger man had stolen his money, killed him.

Neel found corroboration in court records while at this year’s National Genealogical Society conference in Raleigh, NC. Turns out the aging father-in-law had misplaced his stash.

• Domenic Parenty, great-grandfather to Janice Gianotti-Zakis, was "gunned down in the street, defending a woman" in Chicago in 1894. In 2002, she confirmed the story in police records from microfiche at Northeastern Illinois University. Now, her ancestor’s case is chronicled on the site Homicide in Chicago: 1870-1930.
  

• Kathleen Anders wasn’t interested in genealogy when she found a tombstone in a Nebraska cemetery with the names of two young people who died on the same day. On a return trip, the caretaker furnished a file of newspaper clippings: Anders' great-grandfather had taken the lives of his brother and sister-in-law in 1903. Over the next two years, she found the trial transcript and interviewed people who remembered her family.
  

With the mystery solved, she’s turned to ancestors whose less sensational lives still deserve to be known. “I now focus on the other lines of the family that have, in their own right, great stories to be researched and written about.”

• Carol Heap’s grandfather Frederick Hirsch, a Nassau County, NY, police officer, was killed in the line of duty May 6, 1931, by a 19-year-old nicknamed "Two Gun Crowley." Crowley was convicted and sent to Sing Sing prison in New York, where he was executed in the electric chair in 1932. Hirsch's wife raised four young children alone; Heap remembers her father saying he really missed having a Dad.

• Connie Parott received a copy of a relative's 1970s school essay detailing her third-great grandfather's efforts to track down the murderer of his brother Thomas at a Sylamore, Ark., Christmas Eve dance in 1877.
  
  She found several news articles, “but to my amazement,” she writes, “the stories favored excessive details about the murderer, but nothing about the victim. The murderer had accidentally shot himself in the leg while hiding in the woods. His leg was amputated, so the newspapers had a field day describing a one-legged man hanging from the gallows.”

Friday, July 31, 2009 3:47:24 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0]