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 Thursday, May 05, 2011
Resources for Finding Your Female Ancestors
Posted by Diane
Happy Mother's Day to the moms out there and those on my family tree, including my great-grandma (here in the early 30s, holding one of her little ones) and my grandma (the little girl with her hands folded in front of her).
One of your biggest brick walls, you tell us, is finding the women in your family tree. That’s because historical records tend to name men more often, and women generally changed their names when they married (though those from some cultures, such as Italians, usually used their maiden names on official records).
This Mother’s Day, we want to help you learn more about your female ancestors’ lives. These free articles on FamilyTreeMagazine.com give tips and resources to aid your search: And here are some resources for finding female ancestors from ShopFamilyTree.com:
Remember: Order anything from ShopFamilyTree.com and get FREE our "Memories of Mom" digital download from the forthcoming book My Life & Times by Sunny Jane Morton (available October 2011). This offer ends Monday, May 9.
Female ancestors
Thursday, May 05, 2011 9:39:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) 
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Thursday, April 28, 2011
Ideas for Mom on Mother's Day
Posted by Diane
I have Anna Marie Jarvis to thank for my upcoming breakfast in bed this Mother's Day (my first as a mom). She established the day in 1908 with backing from Philadelphia merchant John Wanamaker. The state of West Virginia declared the holiday in 1910, and the rest of the states followed suit.
Mother’s Day is coming right up on May 8, so I’ve been dreaming up gift ideas a family history-minded mom might go for. Here are some I’ve come up with:
Framed photo: If you have one of those three- or four- (or more) generation photos of moms in your family, that would be perfect. Or a picture of you and your mom. Or maybe find pictures of you, your mom and her mom at about the same age, and frame them together.
Photo gifts: Use a digital photo and a website such as Shutterfly or Snapfish to create anything from coffee mugs to mousepads.
Family Tree: Create a decorative family tree with photos. You can use your genealogy software to do this, or download a decorative tree from a site such as FamilySearch, then print and fill it out. Several sites let you fill out a tree online and either print it for free or order a professionally printed version. Here’s our roundup of sites for generating or ordering a decorative family tree.
Family history or memoir book: Try the fill-in book Family Tree Legacies or Grandma’s Memories, which has prompts to help mom share her life stories. Mom advice: Books such as 150 Tips and Tricks for New Moms, All About Mom or A Cup of Comfort for New Mothers might have just the advice or inspiration a mom in your life needs.
Genealogy helps: You can find all kinds of items at ShopFamilyTree.com to help mom discover her roots. If you're not sure where to start, try a State Research Collection for a state she’s searching in, or our Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD to help her keep her research shipshape. How are you honoring your mom this year?
Female ancestors | Genealogy fun
Thursday, April 28, 2011 4:37:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Celebrate Women's History Month By Finding Female Ancestors
Posted by jamie
March marks National Women's History Month, a celebration of the often overlooked contributions women have made to history. The month evolved from National Women's History Week, established in 1978 by the Education Task Force of Sonoma County, Calif., to coincide with International Women’s Day.
In 1981, Congress issued a joint resolution supporting Women’s History Week. In 1987, the National Women’s History Project
petitioned Congress to expand the celebration to the entire month of
March. Since then, the National Women’s History Month resolution has
been approved every year with bipartisan support in both the House and
Senate. Celebrate Women's History Month by researching your female ancestors. Here are a few of our online resources:
Female ancestors
Tuesday, March 01, 2011 12:12:14 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
"Who Do You Think You Are?" Episode 3 Recap
Posted by jamie
Spoiler Alert: If you don't already know what happened during Rosie O'Donnell's episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” you are about to find out.
Rosie O'Donnell often asked her grandmother about a specific photo hanging in her house, but her grandmother was tight lipped about the woman. O'Donnell knew she was somehow related to her, but didn't know much beyond that. So she began her "Who Do You Think You Are?" journey by researching the mystery woman.
She starts looking in the 1900 census, finding her great-grandparents Michael and Ellen Murtha. The census indicates Michael was born in French Canada and his parents were born in Ireland. O'Donnell steps back father to the 1880, but shows Michael living in Brooklyn with a different woman — his first wife Anna.
This leads O'Donnell to Manhattan, where she finds the death certificate for Anna Murtaugh, a variation of the Murtha surname. The cause of death is listed as an explosion of an oil lamp. O'Donnell searches neighborhood newspapers for write-ups about the incident, discovering Anna was holding her infant daughter during the explosion.
Catholic church baptismal records revealed Anna's daughter to be Elizabeth Murtha, who lived through the accident and eventually had many children and grandchildren. Tracing the line forward, O'Donnell is reunited with Elizabeth's grandchildren, her second cousins. They confirm that the mysterious photo is Elizabeth's mother Anna.
After solving that mystery, she travels to Quebec to search parish records for Anna's husband and O'Donnell's great-grandfather Michael Murtha, listed as Michael Murtaugh in baptismal records. Michael's parents are listed as Andrew Murtaugh and Anne Doyle. O'Donnell searches a local newspaper to find the obituary for Anne, which lists her birthplace as Kildare, Ireland. For more on searching newspapers, see our Finding You Family in Old Newspapers on-demand webinar.
O'Donnell then heads to Ireland to find out more about the Murtaughs. Many people emigrated from Ireland at the height of the potato feminine, and Andrew and Anne were among them.
Searching Poor Law Union minute books for a mention of the family, O'Donnell discovers two men sponsored the Murtaughs passage to Canada. The Poor Law Union only provided assisted immigration for severely impoverished families during the feminine. To qualify for assisted immigration, a family would have to live in a work house for at least a year. For more on tracing your Irish roots, see our Irish heritage research guide.
"WDYTYA" airs Fridays at 8pm EST on NBC. Check the Genealogy Insider
blog for a brief recap of each episode, and post a comment to be entered
to win in our Discover Who You Are sweepstakes!
"Who Do You Think You Are?" | Church records | Female ancestors | Newspapers
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 10:48:38 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
Happy 90th to the 19th Amendment!
Posted by Diane
Yesterday was the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment to the US constitution. I’m especially partial to this one because it granted women the right to vote, declaring “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Tennessee, where we are right now for the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference, is the state whose General Assembly passed the suffrage amendment by one vote Aug. 18, 1920. By becoming the 36th state to ratify the amendment, Tennessee assured the approval of the three-fourths of the states—the final requirement necessary for ratification.
Assemblyman Henry T. Burn from McMinn County provided the tie-breaking vote. He originally planned to vote against the 19th amendment, but a letter from his mother changed his mind.
“I notice some of the speeches against," she wrote. "They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. [Carrie Chapman] Catt put the "rat" in ratification.”
The next day, Burn told the Assembly that he changed his vote because "a good boy always does what his mother asks him to do."
Read about the long struggle for women’s suffrage and the passage of the 19th amendment on these sites:
Female ancestors | Social History
Thursday, August 19, 2010 9:28:10 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, August 12, 2010
Genealogy Q&A From Our Ask the Editors Webinar
Posted by Diane
Thanks to everyone who attended last night's free “Ask the Editors” webinar! We had a blast, and we hope to do it again.
I wanted to share the questions attendees asked—and our answers, of course, enhanced with links to resources we mentioned and a few new ones. But first, because Allison, Grace, Lindsay and I started the webinar with an introduction, blog readers can “meet” most of us on our FamilyTreeMagazine.com staff page. Get to know Lindsay here. And now for the main event:
Q. How would I find a 1905 death certificate from Mexico?
A. Civil registrations in Mexico (akin to vital records in the United States) started in the mid- to late-1860s, though records may not be complete. In most cases, records were kept on the municipio level and you can request copies from the local civil registry (addresses are in FamilySearch’s Mexico research outline). Older records may have been transferred to a local or state archive.
Before writing, see if the record is in an online index or on microfilm. Many Mexican death records are indexed on the FamilySearch Record Search Pilot Site. Search the Family History Library online catalog for microfilmed civil registration records or indexes, as well.
You’ll find more advice in our Mexico Research Guide digital download, available from ShopFamilyTree.com.
Q. I can't find my ancestor’s birthplace. Different censuses give different locations, and I don’t know his parents’ names. Where should I look?
A. It’s not unusual for a person’s birthplace to be inconsistent from one census to the next. The trick is to go beyond census records. Many sources will give a place of birth, so continue researching the person in any record you can get your hands on. Bibles, baptismal records, newspaper birth announcements, military records, passports, naturalizations and death records are a few sources that often name a person’s birthplace.
See which places are mentioned most often, and focus there. You may find online birth indexes such as those for Arizona, Minnesota, Missouri or South Dakota. Websites such as Ancestry.com and FamilySearch often have vital records indexes, too.
Get in-depth information and online search demos in our recorded webinar Vital Records: Researching Your US Ancestors' Births, Marriages and Deaths, available from ShopFamilyTree.com.
Q. How do you trace a child named Jane Doe who was a foundling, and was adopted?
A. Adoptions weren’t always formalized in courts—sometimes a relative or neighbor would take in the child. For a formalized adoption, look into guardianship records (court records of hearings to determine who would care for a minor). Also look for an amended birth certificate, changed to reflect the child’s adoptive rather than biological parents.
Another good resource is newspapers. Finding an abandoned child would be a newsworthy event and may have received press coverage and follow-up articles. Also see the resources in our adoption toolkit and the “Early Adopters” article in the February 2007 Family Tree Magazine (available as a digital issue).
Q. How do you find a grave site when the cemetery doesn’t know where the stone is?
A. Try looking in the cemetery for plots of relatives and those of the same last name, since family members are often buried together. Also search for burial indexes, many of which were created years ago—perhaps before the cemetery lost track of the burial record or the stone was overgrown. In the 1930s and early ‘40s, the Works Progress Administration indexed cemeteries in many communities; you’ll find a free WPA cemetery database at Access Genealogy and printed indexes at public libraries and the Family History Library. The Daughters of the American Revolution also has collected cemetery and other records for years.
A webinar attendee suggested the researcher look for burial permits, which many counties would issue before a grave could be dug, as well as funeral home records. Just this week, I got a letter from a reader who found a permit that a deceased’s relative's second husband had obtained to have the remains moved to his own family plot.
Q. Several of my lines have “daughtered out.” What is your advice for researching women?
A. Our female ancestors just don’t show up in as many records as our male ancestors did, so sometimes you get to a point where you can’t trace a family line back past a woman. Allison emphasized the importance of not focusing just on the female ancestor, but also researching her husband, children, siblings, parents and neighbors. Records of these people may lead you to a maiden name and other information about the woman. Because people often married those who lived nearby, researching the husband’s family may lead to records of interactions, such as land transactions, with your female ancestor’s family.
See our list of records that often reveal details about female ancestors.
Q. What will increase my chances of success in your photo calls?
A. As Allison explained in the webinar, which photos end up in the magazine or another project is partly luck, for example, say we need a wintry photo for a January calendar page, and you’ve sent in a photo of kids sled-riding on a snowy day. Or sometimes a project calls for a vertical or horizontal orientation.
Another thing we look for is a photo with a clear focal point to draw the viewer’s eye. “Compelling” is a good word to describe a photo that makes someone want to pick it up and look at it longer. (We’re always happy when someone picks up the magazine!) Pleasant, open expressions on faces (we know outright smiles are rare in old pictures), a steady gaze, or cute kids are often compelling. Photos with unusual or surprising subject matter also can be compelling.
If we’ll be reprinting the photo at a relatively small size, we’ll want to make sure viewers can still easily discern the subject matter in the pictures (in this respect, photos of large groups of people might be at a disadvantage). But we hope you’ll upload your photos to our Flickr pools regardless—we love seeing them, as do others.
Cemeteries | census records | Female ancestors | International Genealogy | Photos | Vital Records
Thursday, August 12, 2010 3:30:10 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, October 08, 2009
Genealogist Finds Michelle Obama's Slave Ancestor
Posted by Grace
Family Tree Magazine contributor Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and The New York Times have uncovered documents revealing first lady Michelle Obama's great-great-great-grandmother, a slave named Melvinia. Through probate records, photographs and local histories, the sleuths have pieced together a picture of the life of Melvinia, who labored on farms in Georgia and South Carolina, and her first son, Dolphus—Obama's great-great-grandfather—who became a carpenter and owned his own business in Birmingham, Ala.
The story is absolutely fascinating. You can learn more about it in The New York Times, in ABC's news report, and make sure you watch the below video from Roots Television.
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Monday, March 16, 2009 Friday, March 13, 2009
Can You Guess This All-American Girls League Player?
Posted by Diane
Yesterday, a woman who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) stopped in the store where my husband works. They got to talking, and she signed a baseball card for him, which he gave to me. The AAGPBL started in 1943 in Chicago to keep ballparks in business, as young men (and potential fan favorites) were being drafted into the military. Cities in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin had teams. Players wore skirted uniforms and, in the first few years, attended charm school at night. Before I show you this player’s card, can you guess who she is? She signed in 1948 with the Springfield Sallies, left briefly, then returned in 1951 to the Fort Wayne Daisies. She was the winning pitcher against the Rockford Peaches to give the Daisies their first pennant in 1952. Bonus hint: She’s in this Sallies team photo and this Daisies photo. Click Comments to make a guess. I'll post the card on Monday. Was your relative in the AAGPBL? Start your search at the league Web site, try local newspapers and check the Northern Indiana Center for History.
Female ancestors | Research Tips | Social History
Friday, March 13, 2009 7:32:24 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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