Meeting Times and Locations
The club meets in the Newton Free Library on the second Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm, usually in Room A on the
first floor. During our first two years, meetings included discussion of the following topics. Notes for each meeting appear
below the topic list.
10 September 2008 -- Introduction/Vital Records
8 October 2008 -- Federal Census Records
12 November 2008 -- Evidence Principles
10 December 2008 -- Probate Records
14 January 2009 -- Military Records
11 February 2009 -- Open Discussion
11 March 2009 -- FamilySearch.org
8 April 2009 -- Online Sharing
13 May 2009 -- Newspaper Research
10 June 2009 -- Land Records
8 July 2009 -- Church Records
(No August meeting)
9 September 2009 -- City Directories
14 October 2009 -- Immigrant Origins
4 November 2009 -- Source Citations
9 December 2009 -- Cemetery Research
13 January 2010 -- DNA Testing
10 February 2010 -- Maps
10 March 2010 -- Identifying Women
14 April 2010 -- Genealogy Blogs
12 May 2010 -- Open Discussion
9 June 2010 -- Standards and Codes of Practice
14 July 2010 -- Genealogical Periodicals
(No August meeting)
Contact Information
For questions about the club, contact me by email at ruygenealogy@yahoo.com or by phone at 617-332-2351. Meeting notes
appear below in chronological order.
We began with each attendee providing a five-minute introduction about his/her genealogical areas of interest, which were
greatly varied. Within the US, there was interest at least in some of the New England states, SC/TN, and PA/OH, but several
other countries were also mentioned, including Albania, Canada (both French and English), China, Costa Rica, and Lithuania.
Experience ranged from very little to many years. Because of this wide variety, the subjects of future meetings will probably
focus on topics with the widest appeal: federal census records, genealogical software, and the large online record sources
were all suggested.
I proposed a tentative format for future meetings: (1) Topic of the day (e.g., census records), with instruction provided by
anyone with experience in the area, (2) discussion of the topic of the day, and (3) presentation of particular problems brought
by the participants, whether or not related to the topic of the day. The topic of the day for each meeting will be announced by
email a day or two before each meeting date.
Since no topic of the day had been chosen in advance of this first meeting, we discussed available sources for Massachusetts
vital records, including the following:
(1) Individual town web sites. As an example, the city of Newton provides PDF images of the following records on its
website: birth records 1635-1843 and 1877-1899, marriage records 1635-1843 and 1856-1877, death records 1635-1843 and
1863-1877. To see them, go to www.ci.newton.ma.us, click on Departments at the upper left, then City Clerk, then
Genealogical Research. At the least, many town web sites provide the contact information for a town clerk who can provide
vital records for most years. Some clerks provide the information on a form; others will photocopy pages from a record
book. Fees are usually reasonable.
(2) MA Archives web site (www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcidx.htm). This link provides an online index to vital records from
1841 to 1910 for all towns. While it provides no detail beyond names and years, it does provide information allowing you to
request photocopies from the Archives at modest cost. Go to the link, click on Vital Records in the center of the page, then
Index to Vital Records, then Search at the bottom of the page. Be sure to read the description of the search database first.
Instructions for ordering copies are at a link there. Archives records go to 1915 but the online index does not yet cover the
last five years.
(3) New England Historic and Genealogical Society (www.newenglandancestors.org). Images of vital records from 1841 to
1910 are available here either to subscribers or at no cost using the computers at the Newton Free Library. Go to the link,
click on Databases & Research, then Databases, then Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910. Note, however, that there are
still some kinks in obtaining the images in this database.
(4) Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records (www.mass.gov/dph, click on Registry of Vital Records near bottom of left-
hand margin). For records after 1915, records can be obtained from this source by mail ($28 per record, with a 20-30 day
turnaround), fax/phone/internet ($42.50 per record, with a 7-10 day turnaround) or in person ($18 per record, or at a rate of
$9 per hour to examine records yourself, with a two-hour closing from noon to 2pm either way). Given the expense, it is
usually better to request these more recent records from individual towns instead of the Registry.
(4) The "tan books". Massachusetts vital records prior to 1850 for most towns were published in book form in the early
1900s, and most of these books are available at the Newton Free Library as well as other libraries in the area. Online images
from many of these books are available at numerous sites, as follows.
For many towns, particularly in Essex County and Middlesex County, one place they can be found is at ma-vitalrecords.
org/TownIndices.shtml.
Holders of Boston Public Library cards (available to all Massachusetts residents) can also use Heritage Quest Online from
home to see the published records prior to 1850. (Note: The BPL no longer subscribes to HQ as of July 2009.) To see
the Newton book using your BPL card, go to www.bpl.org/electronic/biography.asp, then click on Heritage Quest Online
about halfway down the page (under Genealogy), enter your BPL library card number, then click on Search Books, then
Publications, enter "Vital Records of New" in the search box (but without using quotation marks), click on the little triangle to
the left of the title, then click on the link to the records you are interested in.
Others sources of these pre-1850 vital records include Ancestry.com and NewEnglandAncestors.org (both available at no
cost using the computers at the Newton Free Library). Many are also displayed in Google Books (books.google.com --
search "Vital Records of Newton", for example ). CDs containing the images for all towns in a county can be purchased
from Search & Research (www.searchresearchpub.com), though the accompanying software can be a bit awkward to use
and some of the image scanning seems to have been done quickly. Quality of images varies both across and within all these
sources.
Meeting Notes -- 8 October 2008
Topic of the day was federal census records. The notes below provide brief descriptions of the available federal censuses
along with places to find them. A very nice discussion of the census appears in The Researcher's Guide to American
Genealogy, by Val D. Greenwood, and a handy set of blank census forms by year is at http://www.genealogy.com/00000023.
html (population schedule only).
Population Schedules
The most commonly used portions of the census are the population schedules for the various years, i.e., the lists of all
households. These are currently available for every tenth year from 1790 to 1930, except for 1890 (mostly destroyed by
fire). Occasionally individual towns or counties are missing; see Greenwood for a list. The 1940 census will not be available
until 2012, or 72 years after the census was taken.
The various population schedules include the following basic information, which may or may not be accurate in any given
case. Some miscellaneous items in various later censuses are not listed here (home ownership and education, for example).
1790 to 1840: Name of head of household along with counts of other people in age/sex categories and a separate category for
slaves. These age/sex categories generally become more refined over time, with the 1840 census including five- and ten-year
age ranges. Various other data appears in certain censuses, e.g., the 1840 census includes a listing by name and age of
Revolutionary War pensioners.
1850 to 1870: For each individual in the household, the census includes (among other items): name, age, sex, occupation,
state/territory/country of birth, and an indication of marriage within the previous year. The 1870 census also includes an
indication of foreign birth for the parents of each listed person. No relationships between members of the household are
specified.
1880: In addition to the basic information above, this census includes relationships to the head of the household (only!),
marital status, and parents' state/territory/country of birth.
1900: This census adds month and year of birth for everyone (1880 includes it for people born within the previous year),
number of years married, number of children (total and living) for mothers, year of immigration, number of years in the US
(often redundant with the previous item), and naturalization status.
1910: Similar to 1900, but drops month and year of birth.
1920: This census adds street address and year of naturalization, but drops number of years married and number of children
for mothers.
1930: This census adds age at first marriage (which may not be the current one) and military veteran status, but drops year
of naturalization (though still keeping year of immigration).
The population schedules are available on microfilm at the local office of the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) over on Trapelo Road in Waltham, but there are several online sources available as well. These include:
Ancestry.com. Subscription service, but available for free at Newton Free Library. Indexes all names and all years, but
sometimes poorly (IN = India?), and with some index entries pointing to incorrect images. Image quality varies.
Heritage Quest Online. Available through the Boston Public Library website if you have a Boston Public Library card. (Note:
The BPL no longer subscribes to HQ as of July 2009.) Go to http://bpl.org/electronic/biography.asp, click on Heritage
Quest Online about halfway down the page (under Genealogy), then enter your library card number. Only indexes heads of
household (and people with different surnames in the same household), and not every year is yet indexed. But you can
browse all images, the image quality on average is probably a little better than that at Ancestry, and you can view the images
from home for free.
FamilySearch.org. For the 1880 census only, the genealogy website of the Mormon Church provides another full-name index,
but no images. To search that index, go to www.familysearch.org, then click on Search Records towards the upper left
corner of the page, then Census on the menu at the left, then choose 1880 United States Census from the drop-down menu,
then enter the name and other information for the person you're looking for. Additional indexes are in progress through a
large volunteer effort, and a number of states/years have already been completed. See www.familysearchindexing.org for
more information.
Footnote.com. Another subscription service whose primary focus is on other documents, but most of the 1860 census is
included, both index and images.
Various other sources of indexes and images are scattered around the web. Googling a state name of interest along with
"federal census" will help you find these. In addition, the US GenWeb project has a number of indexes and images at http:
//www.us-census.org/inventory. The subscription site www.genealogy.com also has census records indexed by head of
household for certain years, but the site is not receiving as much attention as it once did under its current ownership (which
also owns Ancestry.com).
Mortality Schedules
A second sometimes-useful portion of the federal census is the set of mortality schedules for census years 1850 to 1880.
These include information on people who died in the year prior to the census, including age, month of death, cause of death,
and state of birth. At least some of the corresponding images are available at Ancestry.com; others may be in the hands of
various state archives, libraries, or historical societies. Indexes to many of the mortality schedules are also scattered online,
but images appear somewhat harder to find. Again, Google is your friend.
Veterans Schedules
As mentioned above, the 1840 census includes a listing by name and age of Revolutionary War pensioners, and that
information has been separately published. In addition, the 1890 census included a similar listing with more detailed
information, though a number of states are missing (A through Kansas and part of Kentucky). These schedules may point
you in the direction of military records that provide more genealogical details than the schedules themselves do.
Other Schedules
There are a number of other schedules that might help you fill in information about a family you are researching. These
include slave schedules, agricultural schedules, and manufacturing schedules. Like the veterans schedules, these do not
include any direct genealogical information but may provide clues that are otherwise useful.
Meeting Notes -- 12 November 2008
Topic of the day was the set of principles underlying genealogical evidence. The notes below provide brief descriptions of
some relevant major concepts. Some are broadly known, others are used primarily by more serious genealogists.
The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) offers a five-part way of measuring the credibility of genealogical
statements. It is referred to as the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS). A short version of this standard is as follows:
(1) Reasonably exhaustive search in reliable sources
(2) Complete and accurate citations
(3) Analysis and correlation of all collected information
(4) Resolution of conflicting and contrary information
(5) Soundly reasoned coherently written conclusion
More explanation and expansion of this standard can be found in the BCG Genealogical Standards Manual, with a short
version at www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standard.html. Several of the five parts require judgment in their application,
though. People can and do disagree about what constitutes "reasonably exhaustive" or "soundly reasoned". For example,
should a low probability of finding a record in a given source be considered in evaluating whether a search has been
reasonably exhaustive?
Note that the GPS does not really define proof, which is intentional – "proved" genealogical statements have a way of later
being disproved. Some older standards attempt to label proof by various legal terms (e.g., beyond a reasonable doubt,
preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing). These terms are less used today than they once were, perhaps because
they imply that a genealogical case can be closed in the same way that a lawsuit can be settled or a criminal convicted.
Many other key evidence and analysis concepts are described in more detail in the manual, including:
Original source vs. derivative source. In essence, a derivative source is based on a repetition or reproduction of information
stated elsewhere while an original source not. Truly original sources are difficult to find since so much genealogical work is
based on transcriptions, microfilms, digital images, and abstracts. Even commonly used records such as town vital records
might be copies from an earlier record, and microfilmed census records may be of copies made from the census takers
original record. (Images may also hide clues to forged records such as a suspiciously different color of ink or quality of
paper.) Derivative sources can be one or many steps removed from the original, with each step offering exposure to error.
The closer to original, the better, though it is often difficult to ascertain the true degree of closeness.
Primary information vs. secondary information. Primary information is that provided by someone who witnessed an event or
was charged with recording it, preferably at or close to the time. Secondary information is provided by someone more distant
from the event, and it can also be one or many steps removed. Note that a single document may contain both types of
information. For example, a death record generally includes primary information on the death itself (name of the deceased and
date of death) but may include secondary information on other events or relationships (the decedent's date of birth or the
name of his or her parents). Secondary information is by its nature more likely to contain error; as an example, stated ages at
death can often be incorrect by several years.
Direct evidence vs. indirect evidence. Direct evidence answers a specific question without any need for underlying
assumptions. To take a common instance, a birth certificate indicates when a particular person was born but not when his or
her parents married. Indirect evidence, on the other hand, does not answer a specific question by itself, though it can be
combined with other evidence to lead to a reasoned conclusion. (Some people use the term "circumstantial evidence" to mean
pretty much the same thing.) For example, the presence of a male and female of about the same age and with the same last
name in a given household in an 1870 census record provides no direct evidence that the couple was married – they could be
brother and sister instead (among other possibilities). But other records might, in conjunction with that census record, lead to
a reasoned conclusion that the two are husband and wife. Even direct evidence, however, can be incorrect, either
intentionally or inadvertently.
The book Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian, by Elizabeth Shown Mills also provides examples of a few
useful concepts, including:
Quantity vs. quality. A given statement that is made in or can be inferred from multiple sources is not necessarily any more
likely to be accurate. What matters is the quality of the individual sources, and it is particularly important that they be
independent. Mills mentions a hypothetical case of fraudulent testimony in a court case that is subsequently reported in a
town history and then repeated in an account by a later genealogist. Three sources, zero independence.
Reliability as a function of a record's purpose, timeliness, and custodial history. Affidavits, for example, may not be the whole
truth if the witness has some interest in an outcome affected by the affidavit. A family bible record may misstate a marriage
or birth date to cover up the scandal of premarital sex in an earlier time. A military pension application made long after the
relevant war may have incorrect information because of the applicant's forgetfulness. An old book of vital records may
contain information written in (or changed) by someone other than a public official if the book was not kept secured.
There are several other books worth reading in whole or in part to get a better sense of how evidence can be interpreted,
though some were written quite a few years ago. For example, Applied Genealogy, by Eugene A. Stratton (out of print)
includes several chapters on evaluating evidence, and they are a very enjoyable read. Here's an excerpt from his Appendix A
in which he describes how appalling the evidence and analysis offered by lineage society applicants could be:
"They might not trust their slightly dotty Great Aunt Minnie to make change for a dollar, but if she wrote a family history, that
part of her image would become transported to become worthy of abiding in the Hall of Fame for Historians […] That there
might be two or more people in a given state with the name of Lydia Jones or Ebenezer Jackson was a far-fetched notion […]
[T]hey would become perturbed, angry, and antagonistic if the approving official wrote back to point out that they had a child
born thirty years before the parent. Likely ages for marrying or child-bearing were so much trivia, and they found nothing
wrong in a man marrying at age ten or a woman giving birth at age sixty. And they would become indignant if the approving
genealogist observed that the Anna Smith getting married in Louisiana in 1830 might not be the same Anna Smith born in
Maine in 1795."
A few other books worth consulting include a much expanded version of the book mentioned above, Evidence Explained, by
the same author; Genealogical Evidence, by Noel C. Stevenson (somewhat dry and legalistic in parts, but with a number of
useful chapters); Pitfalls in Genealogical Research, by Milton Rubincam (a quick and light read with some interesting examples
of identity and chronology confusion); and the "Evaluation of Evidence" chapter in The Researcher's Guide to American
Genealogy, by Val D. Greenwood (the book is primarily useful for learning about different types of genealogical records, but
this chapter is a quick overview of some evidence concepts).
Meeting Notes -- 10 December 2008
Topic of the day was probate records. The notes below provide some brief description of their content and use.
Almost by definition, probate records are one of the best record types for genealogy since they so often refer to a decedent's
immediate family (and sometimes the extended family). Wills, of course, usually provide the most direct statements of family
relationships ("I give to four of my daughters (viz.) Susanna the wife of James George, Sarah the wife of Theophilous
Clough, Mahittable the wife of Benja. Smith, & Ruth the wife of John Currier"). But they are not the only type of probate
record that can provide useful information. Administrations (particularly of intestate estates) and guardianships can provide
statements (or implications) of relationship, and inventories can provide some color to dry genealogical facts. One of my
wife's ancestors, for example, wrote a will in the 1750s that left a silver hilted sword to his eldest son and a brass hilted
sword to his youngest son; the eldest son's will nearly 50 years later again refers to a silver hilted sword – it would be
interesting to find out what happened to that particular artifact.
In addition, probate files are usually straightforward to obtain from the appropriate probate offices. In most states, these are
organized by county, though the name of the relevant court can vary (Probate Court, District Court, and Superior Court are
the most common). But not every state aligns their probate districts with counties, so you will need to learn where to find the
records for each state that you are researching. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy (Greenwood) has a
convenient summary by state, and no doubt other references have similar information.
Many probate records (particularly early wills) have been published for various jurisdictions, usually in book form but
sometimes online as well. Two online examples in New England include early Maine wills at http://www.mainegenealogy.
net/maine_wills.asp (covering 1640 to 1760) or colonial NH wills at http://www.sos.nh.gov/archives/nhstatepapers.html
(Volumes 31 to 39). Abstracts and indexes are available for even more places; see http://www.cyndislist.com/wills.htm for a
list covering North American places from Texas to Nova Scotia along with some overseas locations. As always, it is wise to
check Ancestry and Heritage Quest for the sources they may have available; one easy way to do this is to search the book
titles at HQ for the words "wills" or "probates" along with a state name. Naturally the quality of published transcriptions,
abstracts, and indexes can vary, so the usual caveats apply.
Earlier probate records are more useful than later ones in at least one way: they can fill in the gaps left by a lack of vital and
census records decades ago. Further, because more recent probate records are of interest to fewer people – someone dying
in the 1700s is likely to have more descendants today than someone dying in the 1900s – you are also less likely to find
published probate records after, say, the mid-1800s. But even relatively recent probate records can be helpful, especially in
places where vital records were lacking into the 1900s. I have, for example, a petition to administer an estate from 1922, and
it provides information on the decedent's relationship to a daughter who was alive until 1970.
On the other hand, probate records do suffer from some problems as well. For example, not all of the decedent's children
may be named since some may already have died themselves or may have been provided for while the parent was still alive.
Sometimes beneficiaries are named but without mention of explicitly stated relationships; less often a relationship is specified
but without a name (like the alleged world's shortest will translating as "All to wife"). As is the case today, not everyone left
wills (particularly if they owned no real estate or had disposed of all their property before death). And in much of US and
colonial history, women had little authority to even leave estates while they were married, leaving out close to half your
ancestors from the probate process (though widows sometimes could and did leave estates).
Apart from the explicit statements of relationship that are most valuable, probate records also offer other genealogical clues.
For example, the time between the signing of a will and its subsequent probate obviously narrows down a date of death. The
location of the probate proceeding is nearly always the place of death (i.e., in the same probate district, often the same as a
county). Daughters who are mentioned with a different surname (at least under earlier American conventions) are naturally
likely to have been married to someone with that surname. Witnesses to a will sometimes turn out to be relatives, particularly
of a wife named in that will, and executors are relatives even more often. Receipts appearing with administrative documents
are usually signed by heirs, though the relationships are not specified in the receipts themselves. Land descriptions often
provide a way to link to land records. Shares of an estate may indicate which son is eldest (since he often received a double
share). The order in which children are named often corresponds to birth order, though it is common for sons to be named
(in order) first, followed by the naming of the daughters (in order).
It can also be important to examine probate records for your ancestor's siblings (especially if the sibling was unmarried or
childless, in which case your ancestor might have been an heir). Explicit relationships might well be specified in a sibling's
will and nowhere else. For example, one of my wife's collateral ancestors left a will with a bequest as follows: "unto my well
beloved nephew Jonathan Ring Junr son of my well beloved sister Esther, now the wife of Jonathan Ring of Salisbury",
providing evidence of a marriage that might not have been documented anywhere else.
Finally, keep in mind that the copy of a probate file you receive may itself be a copy of some earlier (i.e., original) document.
If you research probate records at the Massachusetts Archives, for example, you will almost always be required to use
microfilms of record books made by the relevant probate clerk, and the information included in those books may not be
identical to that included in an actual file of probate papers.
Meeting Notes -- 14 January 2009
Topic of the day was military records. The notes below provide brief descriptions of some of the records available.
Military records can provide any amount of genealogical information from a great deal (a complete family record in a pension
file, for example) to very little (a name and a unit from a service record, for example). The types of records available vary
depend on era/branch and are available through a variety of sources: Ancestry.com, Footnote.com, and the National Archives
(NARA) are probably the largest, with Heritage Quest also offering Revolutionary War pension files (selected pages). (Note:
The BPL no longer subscribes to HQ as of July 2009.) Even though some of these sites require subscription fees, their
indexes and title lists are usually available for free and are worth perusing in detail. The NARA web site alone is worth
spending a few hours with; see http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/military/ as a good starting point.
Note that most of the comments below pertain to federal armed forces of the United States, not those of individual states or of
the Confederacy. (There are, however, other sources for both of these, typically through the relevant state archives.)
Further, there are many other genealogically useful military records that are not mentioned here. As usual, check references
like The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy or The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy for additional details.
Wars Before 1776
The available records in this period are primarily lists of soldiers by unit with very little of genealogical substance, and even
those are relatively sparse. But if you have an ancestor from the period, particularly one with an uncommon name, even these
lists can provide clues about where the ancestor lived. It is not unusual to find early military rosters in town histories as well,
though of course one needs to have a particular town in mind.
Revolutionary War
The service records from this war are similar to those above, though sometimes with a greater level of detail such as ages,
places of residence, or physical descriptions. Many of these have been published in book form. For example, there is a 17-
volume set of Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War available at local libraries (also available online at
Ancestry.com). These service records are also available on microfilm at NARA (which also provides access to online sources
at their Waltham location).
Pension (and bounty land) records from the Revolution can contain very detailed information if you are lucky enough to have
an ancestor who applied, even if unsuccessfully. Because of various fires and delays in creating pension benefits, there are
relatively few of these records before 1800, so the ancestor (or his widow) usually had to have lived well beyond the end of
the Revolution in order to apply for benefits. While the individual pension applications vary, most include a detailed affidavit
concerning the applicant's military service (units served in, dates, unit movements from location to location, commanding
officers, battles fought in, etc.). Further, applicants often provided an overview of their financial circumstances, including the
names of spouses and children they had to support and sometimes a copy of a marriage record or a transcription of records
from a family Bible.
It is important to note, however, that there are two distinct microfilm series of Revolutionary pension records held by the
National Archives. The first, the M-804 series, includes copies of all papers in the files, while the second, the M-805 series,
only includes copies of selected pages. Hence it is better to look at the M-804 series if possible. It is, however, the M-805
series that is available at Heritage Quest, while the M-804 series is available at Footnote.com. Both are available as microfilm
at the local NARA location on Trapelo Road in Waltham, as is access to the major online sources, as mentioned above
Post-Revolution
For most wars prior to World War I, NARA typically has service records of some kind (often of more than one kind) as well
as pension indexes. But the pension files themselves have not generally been microfilmed and so do not appear at any online
sites. They must be ordered from NARA using the NATF-85 form; see http://www.archives.gov/forms/pdf/natf-85.pdf. Be
aware that ordering full pension files can be expensive ($75 for a full Civil War pension file, for example, though a more
limited version is available for $25).
Some pension indexes, however, do appear on line. For example, see:
http://www.footnote.com/page/75_civil_war_pensions_index/ for a description of an item that Footnote calls the Civil War
Pension Index (NARA publication T-289)
The description notes:
"If you wish to order copies of a serviceman's complete pension file, you will need most of the information displayed on the
index card, and most particularly the certificate number. Then visit the National Archives webpage for "Requesting Copies of
Older (pre-WWI) Military Service Records" at http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/pre-ww-1-records.
html. There you can order the pension file online or request to have NATF Form 85 mailed to you."
Similarly, Ancestry offers a different item that they also call the Civil War Pension Index, but this one uses uses a different
NARA publication (T-288). Information available from NARA (http://www.archives.gov/research/microfilm/t288.pdf)
indicates that the T-288 series covers pension applications for Army, Navy, and Marine Corps service between 1861 and
1916. A NARA publication available at http://www.footnote.com/pdf/T289.pdf indicates that the T-289 series covers Army
service between 1861 and 1917. This last publication also says that the information in the T-289 series is virtually the same as
that in T-288 except that the T-289 index groups the applicants according to the units in which they served.
World War I
Ancestry offers an extensive series of draft registration card images that can be very useful (though I've not had great luck
with legibility of these images). The cards include the following information: name, address, date and place of birth, father's
birthplace, place of employment, and name and address of nearest relative. These records are also available on microfilm at
NARA in Waltham, but only for the New England states.
World War II
Similarly, Ancestry offers a series of draft registration cards for this war as well, but only those from the fourth registration
(men born between 1877 and 1897 registering in 1942, hence the nickname "old man's draft"). These images tend to be more
legible and offer a somewhat different set of information: name, address, date and place of birth, place of employment, name
and address of "person who will always know your address", and physical description. As with the World War I records,
these are also available on microfilm at NARA in Waltham, but only for the New England states.
Finally, a handy list of military records available at the local NARA office in Waltham appears at http://www.archives.
gov/northeast/boston/public/military-records-waltham.html.
Meeting Notes -- 11 February 2009
No notes for this meeting -- open discussion.
Meeting Notes -- 11 March 2009
Topic of the day was the FamilySearch.org web site. The notes below provide brief descriptions of some key parts of the
site.
The FamilySearch.org site has a number of potentially useful features for research (as opposed to sharing or organizing data),
including the name search at the main page and the newer record search at the pilot site (http://pilot.familysearch.org). Both
of these are discussed in further detail below. (These comments do not apply to the upcoming New FamilySearch, which is
not yet available to the general public.) In addition, the Research Helps and the Library Catalog are useful for learning about
what types of records may be available for a given place and time.
Main Page
Typing in a name at the main page leads to search results from several different sources, including Ancestral File, the 1880
federal census (along with the 1881 British and Canadian censuses), the International Genealogical Index (IGI), the Pedigree
Resource File, and the Social Security Death Index. Brief descriptions of each of these follow.
Ancestral File: Per the FamilySearch website, Ancestral File is "a collection of genealogical information taken from Pedigree
Charts and Family Group Records submitted to the Family History Department since 1978. The information has not been
verified against any official records. Since the information in Ancestral File is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who
use the file to verify its accuracy."
In addition, names and addresses of the submitters are often provided for individual entries (click on Details at the right of the
Submitter(s) line near the bottom of the record), though these may be long out of date. The submission dates themselves are
not provided, and it is entirely possible that submitters are no longer alive. You can also view purported pedigrees and family
groups for the various entries in Ancestral File, but these also require verification. No source documentation appears in
Ancestral File, though some may appear on the underlying sheets from which the information was taken. In short, use
Ancestral File for clues, nothing more, unless of course you can track down the submitter (in which case you may be able to
get more information). The Ancestral File has been closed to new submissions since 2001, being replaced by the Pedigree
Resource File (see below).
1880 federal census: Reasonably detailed information appears in these transcribed census results (name, relationship to head
of household, marital status, sex, race, age, birthplace, occupation, and parents' birthplaces), and it is possible to view an
entire household at once and to move from household to household in the order they were listed. Since these are
transcriptions, they are easy to use, but they no doubt vary in accuracy. The underlying images are not displayed but links to
them at Ancestry.com are provided (assuming you are a subscriber).
International Genealogical Index (IGI): There are really two different types of IGI records, with different accompanying
messages when you examine the entry. The first (and preferable) type is a record that was typically extracted from
underlying birth, christening, or marriage records in systematic fashion (though the accuracy of the extraction can vary).
These records will display a message like "Extracted birth or christening record for the locality listed in the record. The source
records are usually arranged chronologically by the birth or christening date." The entry will also display a linked Source Call
Number that refers to a particular LDS microfilm or fiche. Click on the link and you will see a description of the information
on that film or fiche, and you can order it through a local Family History Center to examine it directly. Page 84 of The Source
(Third Edition) has some information about finding an IGI entry on the particular film, which involves the use of the "batch
number" that is displayed for the entry.
Records of the other type are more like those in the Ancestral File and will display a message like, "Record submitted after
1991 by a member of the LDS Church. No additional information is available. Ancestral File may list the same family and the
submitter." This type of record will display no link to a source, not even a submitter. Obviously such records are of limited
value. There is also a variant of this second type that will include a message like, "Record submitted by a member of the LDS
Church. The record often shows the name of the individual and his or her relationship to a descendant, shown as the heir,
family representative, or relative." While a film number will also appear, it will typically be a film of records of the Mormon
church itself (sealings), not a film of underlying vital records, for example.
Pedigree Resource File: Again per the FamilySearch website, the Pedigree Resource File is "a new lineage linked database of
records available on compact disc containing family history records submitted by individuals through FamilySearch Internet
Genealogy Service. Family information is organized in family groups and pedigrees and includes submitted notes and sources.
Many charts and reports can be printed from this data. Each disc contains about 1.1 million names. With the publication of
every five discs, a master index for those discs will be published and packaged with that set of discs. With the publication of
every 25 discs, a master index for those discs will also be published and packaged with that volume of discs. Discs may be
purchased as sets or volumes." Information on submitters may be provided, but pedigrees and family groups (except for
parents and spouse) are not displayed on the web site, only on the discs.
Social Security Death Index: Entries under this index display similar information to that displayed by other versions of the
SSDI (for example, the one at ssdi.rootsweb.com). To search multiple versions of the SSDI, try http://stevemorse.
org/ssdi/ssdi.html (be sure to read the FAQ at that site).
Pilot Site (http://pilot.familysearch.org)
This page includes indexes and images (sometimes just one or the other) for a variety of records. For the United States, there
are currently 56 different databases, in varying degrees of completeness, with a focus on censuses (including some state
censuses) and vital records. The image viewer is a little slow to load but provides good zooming and panning capability. The
state censuses included are for Massachusetts (Boston only), Wisconsin, Florida, and South Dakota, while various vital
records appear for Arizona, Georgia, Illinois (Cook County only), Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia only), Texas,
Utah, Washington, and West Virginia. There are also a few databases for other parts of the world, 30 for Europe and 6 for
South America.
You can see a list of other databases currently being indexed (and which will eventually migrate to the Pilot Site) at http:
//www.familysearchindexing.org/projects/current_projects.jsf. Again, the focus is primarily on censuses and vital records.
Research Helps
The Research Helps tab at the main page (particular under Articles in the dropdown menu) has some useful background
articles, though there is a lot of repetition across the different listed places. But the items titled [State] Research Outline
provide extensive listings of reference materials for many kinds of genealogical records. Most of the listed items have been
filmed, but you may also be able to find them in libraries or through genealogical booksellers (or online bookseller sites like
addall.com).
Library Catalog
The Library Catalog appears under the Library tab at the main page, and the first search option at the catalog page (Place
Search) is especially useful for learning what records are available in the area you are researching. Even if you never order a
film to use at a Family History Center, knowing what is available can suggest other research avenues to pursue. Be sure to
click through several links to get the details on a particular item, right down to "View Film Notes" if necessary. Note the
slight search quirks described at the catalog page (not to use "United States" or "Canada" as the larger area you are searching
in, and not to use the word "county" if searching for county records in a given state).Topic of the day was military records.
The notes below provide brief descriptions of some of the records available.
Meeting Notes -- 8 April 2009
Topic of the day was online sharing of genealogical information. The notes below provide brief descriptions of some the
available online applications to do so.
Assuming you're interested in sharing some of your collected and well-documented genealogy information online – names,
relationships, dates, places, photographs, images, relevant book or article excerpts no longer under copyright – there are a
number of sites and approaches that allow you to do just that. (You can also build your own website, of course, as some of
our participants have done, though that may require some expertise to set up properly.) But the tools you use will depend on
exactly what you want to share.
For example, if you are only interested in sharing GEDCOM files of your compiled genealogy (a file type that virtually all
genealogy software can produce), there are several sites to upload them and make them available for searching or browsing.
(Note: I am using the term GEDCOM in a very narrow way, referring only to names, places, dates, and relationships, but not
including image files or various extensions that are sometimes applied to the GEDCOM standard.)
The World Connect Project at RootsWeb (http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com), for example, is easy to use and enables you to
prevent others from downloading your information, though of course they can still see it and copy it by other less efficient
means. Ancestry.com offers a similar approach, though the current main Ancestry page seems to point people towards filling
in each relative one at a time instead – the GEDCOM upload instructions are not at all obvious.
In addition, Ancestry includes the following language in its Submission Agreement: "Ancestry may reproduce, compile, and
distribute, all information about non-living individuals in your submitted GEDCOM file." Whether RootsWeb can reproduce,
compile, or distribute your information is not clear, though they explicitly allow for deleting submitted trees.
Further, it was true at one time (and may still be) that Ancestry treated revised submissions as new trees rather than as
revisions, resulting in tremendous duplication and difficulties in making corrections. RootsWeb, on the other hand, explicitly
allows you to write over a previous submission.
FamilySearch.org is another site at which you can submit a GEDCOM, though the terms are in spirit similar to those of
Ancestry: "You give us permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute any of the information included in your submission."
"You agree that once you submit your genealogy to us, it becomes our property and cannot be retracted or returned."
"Currently, the submitted files are being compiled and published in a CD-ROM product called Pedigree Resource File."
Finally, another site worth looking at for GEDCOM uploads is Geni.com, which functions somewhat like a social networking
site as well. Among its claims: "Only your relatives and your invited friends can see your individual profile." "You can block
individual relatives from viewing your individual profile or messaging you." "You can further restrict what information appears
on your profile in your account settings." The site also allows for the uploading of images and video. On the other hand, the
site does request email addresses for family members in order to invite them to join even while saying the email addresses are
"never shared, never spammed". A list of other sites similar to Geni.com is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family2.0.
A more flexible form of sharing your genealogy information is through a blog. Postings to your blog can be short or long; can
include text, images, videos, and links; can allow for other people to comment or not; and can allow for other people to
contribute or note. While some genealogy blogs are concerned with more general topics, there are many that focus just on a
single surname or all descendants of a particular person. You can find, for example, 89 different surname blogs listed at the
Genealogy Blog Finder (http://blogfinder.genealogue.com), with perhaps 50 of those updated sometime in 2009. There are
many more devoted to a single place or ethnicity.
There are a number of services that provide blogging tools, all of which have their adherents: Blogger.com, WordPress.com
(and its sister site WordPress.org, which requires you to find a hosting service), LiveJournal.com (free for a Basic account
only), TypePad.com (fee-based), and MovableType.com (fee-based). You can probably find genealogy blogs on all of these
services. A brief (and recent) comparison of the first two services (Blogger and WordPress) appears at http://pulsed.blogspot.
com/2007/07/blogger-wordpress-chart.html. All of the services differ in their ease of use, flexibility, use of layout templates,
advertising, restrictions (on image storage, for example), and ability to import blogs from other services (if you eventually
decide to change). Note that blogs by themselves are not generally useful for displaying large family trees or descendant lists,
though many people include links at their blogs to their WorldConnect pages at RootsWeb, for example.
A third approach to sharing genealogy information is through document-sharing websites such as Scribd.com, Issuu.com,
Google Docs (docs.google.com), and others, many of which are free. As with the blogging tools, each service has its
adherents. A somewhat dated (May 2008) description of several of these services appears at http://mashable.
com/2008/05/02/sites-to-share-documents-online, but new ones have appeared since then. The services vary in terms of the
types of documents you can share, with some only allowing PDF files and others allowing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and
various types of image files. Google Docs (and perhaps other services) allows for selected people to edit your documents
rather than just view them; Scribd.com, on the other hand, does not allow editing (though it does allow replacement of earlier
versions with newer ones). Which service is best depends on the purpose you are using it for.
Finally, there is a new book dealing with these topics (and more) called Social Networking for Genealogists, by Drew Smith
(available through genealogical.com). The book, while covering a wide variety of online services, tends to focus only on one
of each type, but it is good for getting an overview of the services it does discuss. You can hear a discussion with the author
in the most recent podcast by the Genealogy Guys at http://genealogyguys.com. But note that, even though this book was
just published, the online services are always evolving.
Meeting Notes -- 13 May 2009
Topic of the day was newspaper research. The notes below provide brief descriptions of the information that can be found
and some of the principal websites for finding it.
Much newspaper research used to have something of a Catch-22 flavor to it – in order to find the date of a specific event, for
example, you wanted a news account, but in order to find the news account, you needed the date. More and more sites,
however, are incorporating search capabilities on digitized newspapers, usually on search terms, geography, and time period.
Apart from making it easier to find the typical news items of genealogical interest (obituaries, for example), these search
capabilities are making it possible to stumble on relevant items in places you never would have thought to look or to learn a
small detail that adds a bit of color to the records. For example, I have found a brief item about the fiftieth wedding
anniversary of a Newbury couple in the pages of the Worcester Daily Spy. Apart from providing more evidence about the
wedding date (albeit long after the fact), the item mentions the reading of a poem by a minister as part of the celebration.
Apart from their references to births, marriages, and deaths, newspapers can provide information on a wide variety of events
that can yield useful genealogical clues. These include anniversaries, legal notices, property sales, criminal actions, divorces,
unusual deaths from accident or disease, local gossip and social items, individuals' movements into or out of town, religious
events, school information, business openings and closings, tax lists, and many others. You won't know what you'll find until
you look. Further, the news is usually reported quite soon after the event, increasing its evidentiary value relative to later
recollections (though newspapers, then as now, were not always accurate in their reporting).
For the typical ancestor, small town newspapers tend to have much more genealogical detail, though you can find occasional
references to them in big city newspapers, particularly if they were associated with some more newsworthy event. For
example, a February 1945 account of a lost fishing vessel merited several paragraphs over multiple days in the local paper of
Gloucester, Massachusetts – but only a few lines in the Boston Globe. The death of an Italian immigrant in upstate New York
was noted in the New York Times of 13 December 1895 – but only because the man died in a mine collapse and was the last
person to be pulled from the rubble.
Fortunately, many of the online sites seem to focus on those smaller papers. Listed below are several sites that cover a
variety of papers from around the country, or at least in multiple states. While there may be some overlap in the papers
covered by each, they do differ in the areas and time periods in which their coverage is strongest. One drawback of some of
these sites, however, is that they display only the specific news item of interest corresponding to your search result – you
can't generally browse through the paper as if you were reading it, or at least it's not readily apparent how to do so in some
cases.
GenealogyBank.com – The focus of this subscription site is on newspapers, but it includes some other useful material as well
(though some can be found elsewhere for free such as the SSDI and America's Obituaries). You can see a complete (and
long!) list of available titles at the site and can use the search function without subscribing, though you will only see a tiny
piece of the resulting images. There is a corresponding blog at blog.genealogybank.com that lists additions, updates, and
search tips.
ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov – This free site, part of the Library of Congress web site, is limited to about ten states and to a
fairly narrow period (1880 to 1910). As with Genealogy Bank above, you can see a list of available titles.
America's Obituaries and Death Notices – This collection is available for free through the Newton Free Library web site in the
Online Databases section, and you can access it from home if you have a Newton library card. Most of the coverage is for
very recent years (since the early 2000s). The information is provided by News Bank, which also owns Genealogy Bank
above.
America's Historical Newspapers – This collection is available for free through the Boston Public Library in the Electronic
Resources section and is accessible from home if you have a Boston library card. The information provider is named Readex,
a division of (you guessed it) News Bank. According to the site, the coverage through the BPL is from their Early American
Newspapers Series 1 - 3, 1690-1922; there are additional series that are apparently not included here. As you might expect for
a collection covering such early years, the geographical concentration is heavily tilted towards New England and New York.
NewspaperArchive.com – This is another subscription site, though with a limited free membership that allows the viewing of
three images per day. Coverage in New England is modest, but the site includes hundreds of papers in Ohio and some of the
adjacent states.
Ancestry.com – The Ancestry newspaper collection includes about 1,200 papers, again with modest coverage in New
England but significant numbers of titles in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Access is by subscription or onsite at
the Newton library.
Apart from these broad-based sites, there are others that concentrate on specific states, often associated with libraries and
universities. A Google search on the name of the state and "historical newspapers" can reveal many of these, though access
may sometimes require a specific library card or university identification. For Massachusetts, a number of recent papers are
available online through both the Newton and Boston libraries, and both the Boston Globe (1872-1925) and New York Times
(1851-2005) are both available online through the Boston library. In addition, a large number of newspapers are available on
microfilm in the Boston library's microtext department. See the links at www.bpl.org/research/microtext/news.htm for
listings.
As always, the reference book The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy is useful to consult for additional
information on newspaper research. It provides numerous examples of many different types of records from newspapers,
including some brief discussion of religious and ethnic newspapers.
Meeting Notes -- 10 June 2009
Topic of the day was land records.
Like many other records, land records are not created to provide data about family relationships. But they can be
genealogically useful in several ways. First, they can obviously place a person with a particular name in a specific location
and time. (Whether the person is the right person of that name is another question, but land records can help answer it.)
Second, they can state explicit relationships, particularly in older records. Third, they can provide significant indirect evidence
of relationships. Fourth, they can refer to other records (such as probate records, local tax records, or court records) that
may also be useful. Fifth, the land records may include such other records mixed right in with them – not all records in the
land record books are deeds.
Among other things, the land record books can include mortgages, leases, various kinds of releases (most commonly a wife's
release of her dower rights), and short affidavits or depositions. I once found a deposition of one man referring to another
having been taken prisoner by the Spanish down near Mexico, the prisoner having asked the deponent to let the prisoner's
wife know what had happened. Any of these types of documents can provide genealogical clues.
As an example of a deed that states relationships, consider the following one from 1706 in Essex County, Massachusetts: "To
all Christiane people to whome this present Deed of Sale shall comme Jonathan Thomas Nathaniel & James Bayley in their
own behalf and said Jonathan in behalfe of & as Guardian for his Brother John Bayley and Sisters Mary Elizabeth & Lydia
Bayley all the children of John & Mary Bayley late of Rowley… said children had an Interest in & rights to a parcel of Land…
which fell to them by the death of their grandmother Mrs Anna Mighill Late of Rowley Deceasd & by the death of their uncle
Mr Ezekiel Mighill Late of Rowley Deceasd… ."
Obviously there is a great deal of direct genealogical information in this deed, including the stated relationships as well as the
clue to search for probate records concerning Anna Mighill, Ezekiel Mighill, and John and Mary Bayley, along with a
guardianship record concerning John, Mary, Elizabeth, and Lydia Bayley.
Contrast the above deed with a much more recent one (1869) from Grafton County, New Hampshire, in which Austin Palmer
of Haverhill and Sarah C. Palmer wife of Austin give four acres of land in Haverhill to Alonzo Gordon of Haverhill in exchange
for $600. Apart from stating that Sarah is the wife of Austin, there is no direct evidence of any relationships in this deed –
though other evidence indicates that Austin and Alonzo are brothers-in-law, with each having married one of a pair of sisters.
Even the most direct relationships often go unstated in deeds. For example, an 1823 deed from Orange County, Vermont
documents the sale of land from John Carrier of Vershire to Lebbeus Carrier of Vershire without noting that John is father to
Lebbeus. On the other hand, occasionally relationships are explicitly mentioned that have nothing to do with either the seller
or the buyer. A transaction between Daniel Smith and Robert Jones, for example, might refer to land that is described as
bounded by property that John Doe inherited from his father James Doe.
Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing what you will find until you look, and you will realistically not be able to look
without the help of indexes. The deed registries in most jurisdictions will at least have grantor (seller) indexes; many will also
have grantee (buyer) indexes. The same types of cautions that apply to using any index also apply to using land record
indexes – alternate spellings might be used, only the first person named in a deed might be indexed (many deeds involve
married couples or groups of siblings), the transaction might be indexed under a name other than the grantor or grantee (a
local sheriff selling the land to settle debts, for example), or a record might just have been missed. Further, non-deed records
might not be indexed at all, and incidental parties such as the neighbors will certainly not – though you can research them
independently under their own names.
While some of these indexes are starting to appear on line – Rockingham County, New Hampshire, for example, has online
grantor and grantee indexes that cover the years from 1643 to present – in many cases it will be necessary to visit the deed
registry to consult the indexes or, in the case of indexes that have been microfilmed, to order the films. (Occasionally a kind
registry staffer will be willing to send copies of an index page or two, but that will not always be the case.) The land records
themselves almost never appear online except for records in the past few years, so again it will be necessary to either visit a
deed registry or to view microfilms. Note also that some ancestors may have engaged in dozens of land transactions, and it
can take a while to read the corresponding records and to prepare brief abstracts.
In some cases, it is important to understand a land description in great detail, usually in order to trace the string of owners
associated with the parcel. Val Greenwood's book (The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy) gives a concise
explanation why: "If you find your ancestor, John X, selling 100 acres of land of the same description as William X sold to his
son John sixteen years earlier, you have a pretty good case [that your ancestor John is the same John as the son of William]."
Tracing land in this way requires its own set of skills for preparing a plat map (software is available to assist with this),
finding all the records that document the land transfers (some may be in probates or court records rather than deeds, for
example, and some transfers might not have been recorded at all), and accounting for all of the partitions and combinations
that may have occurred along the way.
Finally, it is important to note that recording practices can vary both from place to place and over time. (It may be safe to say
that earlier records are more likely to state explicit relationships, but there may not be many other such general rules.) Being
familiar with the recording practices in eastern Massachusetts may not be that much help in understanding those of western
New York or southern Ohio (except for the legal terminology common to most land records), and practices in rural areas can
differ from those in urban areas.
Meeting Notes -- 8 July 2009
Topic of the day was church records.
Church records can be extremely useful in genealogical research, particularly in places where vital statistics were not recorded
until recently. Even in New England, where vital records go back quite far, not every birth and marriage was recorded in the
local town hall – but they may appear in the local church records. In fact, church records are often mentioned in the "Tan
Books" series of Massachusetts vitals before 1850, usually in those cases for which no civil record was found.
In addition, church records can include other types of records besides those roughly corresponding to vital records – they
may include information on confirmations, or admissions to (or dismissals from) the church, or financial contributions to or
from members. The published Catalogue of Members, 1730-1858, for the First Congregational Church of North Yarmouth,
Maine, for example, lists a Mrs. Joanna (Locke) Favor, received in the church on 6 December 1841 from the Second Church
of North Yarmouth and removed by her death at age 61 on 4 October 1845, with the Remarks columns including the name
Mrs. Jacob Favor (presumably a reference to her husband's name). Just this one record provides several types of
genealogically relevant information.
Whether a particular church's records are useful, however, largely depends on the practices of the relevant denomination. For
example, a church that practices adult baptism is not likely to provide parents' names in the baptism records (and of course
the baptism would be taking place long after the corresponding birth). Marriage records may or may not name parents.
Death or burial records may or may not provide ages (though they will usually provide parents' names for the death of a
child). Further, the practices of a particular church in the US may not be the same as those of the corresponding church in a
foreign country. The only way to find out what information is recorded is to look.
But you can't look at the records until you find them, and finding them may be difficult – among other reasons, churches
disappear (as do their records). But even for churches that still exist, learning which one an ancestor was a member of can
be tricky, particularly in cities where many churches might have been in a relatively small area. One approach is to use maps,
assuming you know exactly where the ancestor lived – then as now, convenience was a concern, and a close-by church was
a natural option. Clues may appear in other records as well, particularly death records or obituaries.
Assuming you have narrowed down the possible churches, you may be fortunate enough to be searching for records that
have been published, and those are usually the easiest to use if you can find them. Note, however, that they may have been
published in a genealogical periodical rather than a book.
If the church still exists, a call to the church office can often provide information on where the records may be. In some
cases, they may still be at the church itself. (As a practical note, it is a courtesy to send along a small donation to a church if
someone there is kind enough to look up or copy records for you.) In other cases, the records may be at a regional or
national church archive of some kind, many of which have websites. As usual, the reference book The Source: A Guidebook
to American Genealogy lists many possible contacts (organized by denomination), and Ancestry's Red Book provides a few as
well for individual states, as does Val Greenwood's book The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy.
Another place to check is in the Family History Library catalog (search by location, then click on a link for church records).
The city of Newton, for example, has five different churches listed, with the oldest records being those for St. Mary's Church
(Episcopal), going back to 1812. The microfilm description reads: "Contains records of baptisms, confirmations,
communicants, marriages, burials, offerings, correspondence, historical notes, and lists of families." Obviously there is a lot
of potentially useful information there.
Keep in mind, however, that the Family History Library certainly has not filmed all available church records. Among other
possible reasons, the records may not have been sufficiently centralized, or the records may have been temporarily lost, or a
particular denomination may not have permitted its records to be filmed as a matter of policy (or sometime because of
disagreements with the aims and practices of the Mormon Church). Church records are, after all, not public records.
Finally, a state or local historical society might also have church records that are found nowhere else. At a guess, this is
probably more likely for denominations that are not governed in a hierarchical manner and for which the local church was
integrated almost exclusively with the community rather than being part of a larger system. But even for these, it is still wise
to search for archives. For example, there is a significant Congregational library in Boston, though their web site provides
some appropriate cautions: "Because Congregational churches are not ruled by an overseeing body, each local church is
responsible for the maintenance of their own records, year in year out. It is likely, therefore, that old baptismal certificates,
marriage records, and similar information are still located on site with the church itself. If a church closes, they may choose
to send their records to our repository. We organize what we are given, but more often than not, because of the ravages of
time, there are gaps in the collection. Records from extinct churches may also be found in a local historical society, public
library, or town clerk's office."
Meeting Notes -- 9 September 2009
Topic of the day was city/town directories.
For genealogical research, city/town directories have one obvious use and several more subtle ones. The obvious use is to
locate given people in particular towns and years, though you should note that many directories were only compiled every
other year or so. It pays to look at all the years that the people might have been in the place of concern in order to determine
when they moved in and moved out. But keep in mind that people are occasionally missing from one directory in a series only
to show up at the same address in the next one. In all likelihood they did not move away and come back but were simply
missed in that one directory. Most directories were compiled by commercial firms such as R. L. Polk, and certainly no one
was under any compulsion to provide information to the compiler.
City/town directories often have two major sections along with some minor ones. The major sections are a names directory
(residents in alphabetical order by last name and then first name) and a street directory (streets in alphabetical order and then
by house number, often with cross streets mentioned). The minor sections will often include listings of local government
officials, schools, churches, and similar items of general and commercial interest; notes and abbreviations; and descriptions of
relevant town divisions (such as villages or wards). Examining the table of contents is always a good idea, as is reading any
introductory material; not all firms compiled directories in exactly the same way, and even a given firm could change the
included information over time.
Within the names directory, a typical listing (for adults and sometimes for older children) will provide a name, an occupation
(including student), a home address (usually denoted by "h" or "res"), and sometimes a business address or employer name.
(Coincidentally, a 1919 resident of my own house was listed as an assistant at the Newton Free Library.) For a surname that
is not too common in a given town or for a town that is small, it is usually easy enough to find all people of that surname at a
given address.
The street directory, on the other hand, orders the information differently and sometimes includes less of it (no occupations,
for example). But it is useful: (1) for finding other relatives with different surnames living at the same address, and (2) as a
check to make sure no one of a particular surname was missed in reviewing the names directory. Because cross streets are
often also mentioned, this section can be helpful in narrowing down the location of a particular residence in cases where the
street numbering has changed over time. (Of course, street names also change, which can cause different problems.)
Of particular value are references to former residents in the names directory. For example, a John Smith who lived at a
particular address in one directory might still be listed in the names section of the next directory but with a notation along the
lines of "rem Gloucester Mass." meaning that he had moved to the specified place. Obviously this information can be of great
help in trying to determine where to search for census or vital records pertaining to the person who had moved.
Occasionally a husband's name disappears while a wife's name remains, with the wife now listed as a widow of the husband.
In those cases, the death date of the husband can therefore be narrowed down to roughly a two-year period, making his death
or probate records easier to find or helping to distinguish him from another man of the same name. (In some cases, however,
a divorce rather than a death may have been involved even if the wife is referred to as a widow.) It is unusual, however, for a
husband to be listed as a widower, though a wife's name can of course disappear from the directory in the same way that a
husband's can. Occasionally, the name of a person who has died in between compilations is accompanied by an exact death
date, which makes it much easier to locate a death record or an obituary for the person.
The mention of certain occupations such as law or medicine, if not previously known, can point the researcher to professional
directories for those fields, which might in turn provide information on professional schools attended and the like. Mention of
employers' names might similarly point the researcher to employment records of some kind.
City/town directories are also useful for finding ancestors who appear in the proper federal (or state) census at the time of
interest but who are incorrectly indexed (perhaps because their names were difficult for the indexer to read). Even though
census indexes are far more prevalent today than they were a few years ago, they are still imperfect, and researchers must
still sometimes resort to searching page by page through a particular census in order to find the person of interest and thereby
obtain all the other useful census information. For large cities in particular, this is much easier to do when the residence can
be narrowed down to a particular neighborhood or ward.
The Boston Public Library has a very extensive collection of city directories on microfilm, not just for Massachusetts and
New England, but for many places ranging widely throughout the United States. Probably the majority of these cover the
very early 1900s to at least the 1930s, with many coming up to the 1960s, and a surprisingly large number go back into the
1800s. The full listing of holdings (http://bpl.org/research/microtext/City Directory Holdings.pdf) takes up 75 pages.
Ancestry.com also has a good number of directories online, though for some towns only the street directories are included.
See http://www.ancestry.com/search/DB.aspx?dbid=1540 and scroll down to the state listing at the bottom of the page.
Finally, libraries in the town of concern may hold directories covering even more years or that are otherwise more complete;
these should also be checked if necessary.
Meeting Notes -- 14 October 2009
Topic of the day was finding immigrant origins.
For research further back on American families whose genealogical origins are in foreign countries, it is almost always
necessary to identify a precise place of origin. This can often be done with at least a half dozen different American record
sources, many of which we have discussed in prior meetings. In addition, many books have been published on various
immigrant groups that can provide good leads if not exact locations, though most of these (not all) concern earlier families.
Greenwood's Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy provides a partial list of several dozen such books.
For families that immigrated recently (in the 1900s, say), family records, recollections, or even artifacts may solve the
problem immediately. But if those are not available, here are several types of American documents may reveal the answer.
Note that census records are not included as they typically will only indicate the country of origin, which is usually not precise
enough for further research.
Social Security applications (if the ancestor is deceased)
Passenger lists (particularly from the 1910s to the mid-1940s)
American vital records for the ancestor and other family members
Newspapers (particularly detailed obituaries)
Military records
Naturalization records (if the ancestor applied for American citizenship)
Keep in mind that you may need to expand your search for these records to siblings, cousins, or even close friends of the
person you are researching. Many immigrant groups traveled and settled together once they arrived in the United States, so
the lack of a record for one person might be dealt with by finding a similar record for another person likely to be from the
same place. Further, other records might not specifically name a place of origin but may provide other clues that can help
you find one that does (e.g., year of immigration as stated on a census record may help with searching for passenger lists).
Social Security applications (SS-5) – An easy way to obtain the Social Security application is to search the Social Security
Death Index for the relevant name at ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com, click on "SS-5 letter" in the Tools column (next to the
name in the search results), send your letter and check ($27) to the Social Security Administration, and wait several weeks for
what may be a fairly bad photocopy. But assuming it is legible, the application may well include the exact place of origin
along with other information such as birth date and parents' names (though parents' names may be redacted for people who
were born relatively recently). The application, however, might include the name of a nearby larger town instead, just as we
might tell someone in another part of the country that we are from Boston even though we might not live within the city
limits. (The same possibility can occur for any other American record that names a place of origin.) Online ordering of the
SS-5 is now possible through the SSA website, which may speed up the process somewhat. Note that the applications are
generally only available for people who have died since the early 1960s and who, of course, had a Social Security number.
Passenger lists – While ship passenger lists are often available well back into the 1800s (and, of course, some lists from
colonial times also survive), it is only those from about 1893 onward that are likely to contain a place of origin. According to
The Source's chapter on immigration records, standard forms mentioning last residence were introduced in 1893, with
birthplace added in 1906 and address of nearest home country relative in 1907. Many passenger lists are available through
Ancestry, at NARA, and sometimes for individual ports on particular web sites such as EllisIsland.org, CastleGarden.org, and,
for Boston, the Massachusetts Archives site at http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcsrch/PassengerManifestSearchContents.
html. Apart from places of origin, these records also can provide ages, occupations, brief physical descriptions, marital
status, and other useful information.
American vital records – Birth, marriage, and death records, especially recent ones, can all provide places of origin, though of
course they may be suspect depending on who provided the underlying information. My own birth record, though older than
I would like, lists birthplaces for both of my parents, but in this case the listed location is the larger municipality rather than
the more precise location.
Newspapers – Like vital records, information on places of origin in newspaper articles can be suspect. At the same time,
something like a detailed obituary is likely to provide far more information than a death record, such as survivors' names and
information on church memberships, social activities, and the like. In addition, newspapers record a broader spectrum of
events and, if you are lucky, might include some kind of feature article on the person you are researching.
Military records – Both WWI and WWII draft records (available through Ancestry) can provide places of origin, though the
WWI records are generally difficult to read and the WWII records are only available for a limited number of registrants (the
"old man's draft"). The WWII records, however, also provide dates of birth, employers, and often the name and address of a
close relative ("person who will always know your address").
Naturalization records – While citizenship certificates do not directly provide places of origin (though they can provide age,
physical description, and even a photograph), they can serve as an entry for ordering a person's declaration of intention and
petition for naturalization, both of which might have a great amount of detail beyond birthplace and birth date (for example,
spouse's name and birth information, marriage date and location, children's names, the date the applicant first immigrated, the
name of the ship, and dates of subsequent voyages to and from the United States. At least in Massachusetts, these documents
can be ordered through the Supreme Judicial Court Archives in Boston for a nominal sum and a self-addressed stamped
envelope.
Other sources may exist beyond the ones listed above. For example, an American church serving an immigrant population
might mention places of origin in its records, as might various organization records.
Meeting Notes -- 4 November 2009
Topic of the day was source citations.
There are really two main purposes to citing the sources for every genealogical statement you make – to help others find the
source themselves (including yourself at a later time), and to help others evaluate its likely quality (and thus your reasoning
and conclusions). Yet people can get entirely too hung up with the exact form of their citations rather than keeping these
purposes in mind. Some of the conventions used in citations can seem (and often are) arbitrary, specifically with respect to
the order of citation elements (e.g., author, title, page numbers) and stylistic concerns (e.g., use of abbreviations, placement
of punctuation). The Source (3rd edition, p. 25) puts it well: "Unless you are meeting the requirements of a publisher, it is far
more important to be consistent, complete, and efficient than it is to use any given style."
Further, the acceptable format of citations can vary by time period and by context, including within and between genealogical
periodicals. The NEHGR, for example, often refers to itself in citations simply as "Register" along with the year and volume
cited; other publications would probably include the full name of the journal and the month along with the year. Genealogies
published in the early 1900s often include no citations at all, leaving the reader to guess where claimed names, dates, and
relationships came from.
By far the most comprehensive text on genealogical citations is the 800-page tome, "Evidence Explained," by Elizabeth Shown
Mills. This is primarily a reference work in which to look up citation formats for a wide variety of genealogical sources, but
the introductory material is well worth reading. A far slimmer version ("Evidence!") is useful for more common sources such
as books, article, vital records, and census records, but the larger version includes far more, with plenty of coverage of online
sources.
One general principle that comes up over and over is to cite a source for every statement that is not common knowledge.
Clearly some items are common knowledge (the dates of the American Civil War, say, which can easily be looked up in many
places) and clearly some are not (the date your great-great-grandmother was born). Others fall into a gray area – for
example, are neighborhood names common knowledge? The answer might be yes for Midtown Manhattan but no for
Newtonville. How about less-important battles that an ancestor may have fought in? Certainly a low-ranking soldier's
presence at the battle would not be common knowledge.
Most genealogical statements, however, are not common knowledge and therefore do require citation. The elements to be
included in the citation of course depend on the type of record being cited. A book will include at least author, title, publisher,
and page numbers, for example, while a gravestone obviously will not. Page 62 of Evidence! provides a table of 20 different
elements that cover 7 different record types (e.g., books, articles, censuses, manuscripts), with anywhere from 6 to 15
elements applying to a single record type.
Of course, not every source is a document. Among other possibilities, sources can include gravestones, other physical
artifacts, and recorded conversations. (Eugene Stratton mentions a funny story on page 55 of his book "Applied Genealogy",
in which an applicant to a lineage society provided the same source citation for all the generations included on the application
form: "My father told me.") Both of the Mills books referred to above provide citation examples for such non-document
sources.
Now clearly some contexts do not lend themselves readily to citations – for example, a quick email to someone researching
the same family – but many people neglect to include them even when the context is right. Granted, they do take time to
prepare, but having to re-research a family because you didn't sufficiently cite a source also takes time, with this being even
more likely if you are working on a family that you had put aside for months or years.
There are a few recommended practices worth mentioning here, as follows.
(1) Be sparing with abbreviations. We may be familiar with the postal abbreviations for US states, for example, but people in
other countries are less likely to be.
(2) On document copies, put the source citation on the front rather than the back in order to avoid separating the citation from
the document on any future copies.
(3) In an article or family write-up in which footnotes are used for the citations, do not use one footnote to refer to another –
it's too easy for later footnote renumbering to destroy the link. The NEHGR, however, does not seem to adhere to this
practice. Note that using endnotes instead of footnotes also is likely to result in separation of the citation and the statement to
which it applies.
(4) Footnotes should be reserved almost exclusively for source citations rather than parenthetical comments that can either be
integrated into the text or that are insufficiently relevant to include at all. There are no doubt some reasonable exceptions, but
they should be rare. It can, however, be appropriate and helpful to include some additional description of the source with the
citation (comments on the legibility of a document, for example).
(5) It is easy to confuse superscript footnote numbers with superscript generation numbers, but generation numbers should
always come immediately after a name while footnote numbers usually come at the end of a sentence. Some publications
include footnote numbers in brackets as a way of further distinguishing them.
(6) Citing online sources can be particularly tricky since the underlying URLs can change (especially if they are dynamic
rather than static), as can the entire structure of the website where you obtained the information. If possible, the underlying
source should be cited as well, not just a website. The date at which a particular record was accessed can also be useful in
tracking it down if earlier versions of a site exist on a web archive.
Meeting Notes -- 9 December 2009
Topic of the day was cemetery research.
Donald Lines Jacobus writes in his classic _Genealogy as Pastime and Profession_ (p.73): "Graveyards may not appeal to
everyone as pleasant places for research, but stooping to read stones is excellent exercise for the genealogist who is growing
stout at his desk." Cemetery research can quite literally be field work, with a number of consequent hazards such as uneven
ground, insects, snakes, and poison ivy. But apart from the emotions that go with finding a relative's grave, there are many
good reasons to track down those stones.
One reason, particularly in older cemeteries, is that family members were often buried near each other, which can be a useful
clue in research. (The famous "Sedgwick Pie" in Stockbridge, Massachusetts is a famous and excellent example.) Naturally,
the relationships will not always be spelled out, as they often are in a probate record or a family listing in a town's vital
records. But the circumstantial evidence of relationship can be strong when two people share a last name, have heavily
overlapping lifetimes, and are buried right next to each other. Of course, in many cases the relationships are spelled out,
particularly when more than one name appears on a stone. This is often the case in more modern cemeteries as well as older
ones, though in both situations, there is certainly no guarantee that the inscription on a shared stone will specify the
relationship of the people buried there.
A second reason is that gravestones may contain information that you have not yet found anywhere else and that in turn can
lead you to other records. (Note also that information might appear in the form of symbols, not just text.) Suppose, for
example, that you are researching the husband in a married couple but know little about the wife except her name. Finding a
death record for the wife can be made much easier by knowing approximately when she died, and that information (at least a
year) will usually be found on a stone. If the wife died in the 20th century, then her death record could well name her
parents, which in turn might help locate the wife's birth record or relevant census records. Finding a stone in a church
cemetery naturally indicates that a search of church records could be helpful. In addition, older stones might also be the only
record of some people, e.g., children who died young and whose births and deaths were never recorded elsewhere.
A third reason to visit cemeteries is that (with some unfortunate exceptions) the stones are a reasonably permanent record, not
subject to loss in a town hall fire or illegible handwriting or any of the other problems that paper can suffer from. Stones, of
course, do weather over time, particularly if they are made of a softer material; they are sometimes broken or sunken; they do
occasionally get moved for either legitimate or illegitimate reasons; and they can even be flooded away. But on the whole,
stone is a pretty solid material (and you don't have to pay for a certified copy of what it says). It's amazing how well-carved
slate stones from the 1700s have lasted and retained their legibility.
Of course, finding a grave is not always so easy, particularly older graves. Modern death records and obituaries often state
the name of a cemetery, and finding a cemetery once you have its name is usually straightforward. A number of websites
have information on cemeteries all over the country (e.g., findagrave.com and interment.net) and often include transcriptions
or photographs of stones that researchers have uploaded, and transcriptions from individual cemeteries might appear
elsewhere online or in published books or periodicals. Online maps can also be searched for more modern cemeteries if you
at least know the relevant town (there are large numbers of cemeteries that have the same name such as Evergreen or Pine
Grove). But finding an old family cemetery in some obscure corner of an apple orchard is a different matter and may require
finding a local old-timer who takes an interest in such things.
While a more modern cemetery may be easy to find, on the other hand, it may also be quite large, and you will almost always
need to contact a cemetery office in order to obtain the location of a given plot. Even if you know where a given grave is or
luckily stumble upon it, you should still contact the cemetery office – it may well have information not recorded on the
gravestone itself as well as information on other members of the same family.
Once you have found a stone, of course, you can't take a photocopy. But you can certainly take a photograph (and even
record the stone's GPS coordinates). There are various recommended techniques for cleaning a stone, improving the legibility
of its inscription, and getting a good picture. But it is important to note that anything you do to a stone could damage it. It is
probably best to do nothing at all except to position yourself well and to take advantage of sunlight at the right time of day to
case the inscription into sharp relief.
Finally, note that information on gravestones, in records from a cemetery office, or in transcriptions can be as inaccurate as
that on any paper record. Some stones were erected long after the person died or are replacements for earlier damaged
stones, increasing the probability of error. Even death dates can be incorrect, as can birth dates, spelling of names, middle
initials, and so on.
Meeting Notes -- 13 January 2010
Topic of the day was DNA testing.
The two types of DNA testing currently most popular in genealogy are: (1) Y-DNA testing (i.e., using information on the Y
chromosome, which is passed strictly down the paternal line from fathers to sons), and (2) mtDNA testing (i.e., using
information on mitochondrial DNA, which is passed strictly from mothers to children of either sex). While the two types
have some significant differences in how they work, both deal with various forms of benign mutations that occur with
reasonably well-known frequencies, and both can be used to determine whether two people are likely or unlikely to share
descent from a common ancestor.
Though some people obtain test results primarily out of curiosity (including an interest in pre-genealogy ancestry), it is
probably best to have a hypothesis in mind before testing. For one thing, testing can be expensive. For another, having a
hypothesis may mentally prepare you for surprising and sometimes unwanted results, unexpected paternity somewhere along
the line being the most common.
To refresh your memory of biology, the DNA molecule essentially consists of a very long string of four different components
known as bases: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). In some portions of the DNA molecule, a
particular pattern of two to five of these bases (GATA, for example) can be repeated any number of times from a handful to
two or three dozen. These repetitions are a glitch that results from the process by which DNA replicates itself. They are
known as short tandem repeats (STRs) and are the key to Y-DNA testing in particular, though STRs occur in other forms of
DNA as well.
The number of repetitions for such a pattern is usually identical between father and son, but every once in a while the number
of repetitions changes when going from father to son (roughly 1/500 of the time for an individual STR, though that rate is
frequently being revised by further research). Over the course of many generations and many different STRs, these changes
accumulate, so the number of repetitions can serve as a kind of code to distinguish one male line of descent from another.
The numbers for a given set of STRs is referred to as a haplotype.
As a very rough analogy, we might say that a given pair of people sharing several characteristics (long noses, brown hair,
green eyes, dark skin, small ears, and less-than-average height, for example) look like they are related. Further, the more
characteristics they share, the more alike they look. So it is with STRs on the Y-chromosome, except that they are invisible,
non-functional, and only passed from father to son. We might observe, for example, that two men have the same number of
repeats at thirty or forty different locations on the Y-chromosome.
With a mutation rate of about 1/500 per generation (with some variation by STR), we would expect to find the same number
of repetitions between fathers and sons at most locations. Differences would only be likely to show up if we looked at a very
large number of STRs. One of the largest testing companies, Family Tree DNA, offers a test of 67 locations (also known as
markers). Even testing that many locations would show a difference between father and son (and usually exactly one
difference) only 12% of the time.
Of course, testing fathers and sons would be a waste of money if the goal is to determine the likely existence of a common
ancestor – the answer is obvious (ignoring the possibility of a different father than expected). More typical is to test
suspected distant cousins, and the expected number of differences in the STRs is of course greater in that case than between
fathers and sons. Based on the mutation probabilities and the number of locations tested, there are various rules of thumb for
how many differences to expect between relatives; more differences indicate that there is likely no common ancestor within
the time typically covered by genealogy. Note, however, that eliminating connections can often be very useful for narrowing
down families and areas to research.
Y-DNA testing is, of course, particularly convenient for researching families with the same or similar surnames, at least under
typical American naming conventions. On the maternal side of the family tree, on the other hand, surnames do not usually
follow the descent. But the general ideas above still apply to mtDNA testing, though with some important differences.
First, STRs are not used in mtDNA testing, which instead uses a different type of mutation called a single nucleotide
polymorphism (SNP). Instead of a repeated pattern of bases, an SNP is a substitution of one base for another somewhere
along the mtDNA string. Insertions and deletions of bases are also possible.
Second, this type of substitution is far rarer than changes in STR lengths, happening only 1/100,000 of the time for a given
base. While the full mtDNA molecule is 16,569 bases long, only a relatively small number of them are usually used in testing
(up to about 1,100, depending on the test). Even under the largest number of bases typically tested, the probability of a
difference between mother and child is only about 1%. As a result, more distant relatives sharing a common maternal-line
ancestor may well have identical sets of mtDNA mutations, unlike the case for Y-chromosome STR lengths. On the other
hand, it only takes a small number of differences to indicate that two people are not related along their maternal lines.
Third, because so many bases are used in mtDNA testing – hundreds rather than dozens – only differences compared to a
standard sequence (the Cambridge Reference Sequence) are reported in test results. (This list of differences is also referred
to as a haplotype.) For Y-DNA testing, on the other hand, STR lengths for all the tested locations will be reported.
There are several different testing companies that specialize in DNA testing for genealogy, and some that run more specialized
tests than the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests discussed above (such as SNP testing on the Y chromosome and STR testing on the
X chromosome). Probably the largest is Family Tree DNA (with over 278,000 records according to their website). They
offer Y-DNA tests for as few as 12 markers ($119) to as many as 67 markers ($268) and mtDNA tests covering one section
of the molecule ($99), two sections ($149), or the entire molecule ($279). The rates are discounted if you join one of their
existing surname or geographical projects, of which there are many, and they also offer discounts for combinations of tests as
well as occasional specials. Testing involves taking a cheek scraping using a brush and mailing it back. The company also
provides many tools for project administrators and maintains a large database of test results.
A second company is GeneTree, which offers Y-DNA tests for 33 markers ($149) and 46 markers ($179) and a single test
for three sections of the mtDNA molecule ($299). GeneTree is affiliated with the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation,
which used to offer free testing (though without results being directly provided) but no longer does so. They do not seem to
have the same sort of project orientation as Family Tree DNA nor do they appear to offer discounts. Testing involves
swishing with a mouthwash and mailing it back.
A third company is DNA Heritage, which has an unusual pricing system for Y-DNA. While they test 43 markers, they allow
the customer to purchase the results for any number from 23 ($138) to all 43 ($199), though the pricing structure makes it
silly to purchase a number between 33 and 43 markers. They also offer a single test for three sections of the mtDNA
molecule ($159).
Ancestry also offers DNA testing, including Y-DNA tests for 33 markers ($99) and 46 markers ($149) and a single test of
unspecified sections of the mtDNA molecule ($179). Their website still appears to be a work in progress, however, so it is
unclear exactly what other features they provide.
There is a great deal of information available online concerning DNA testing for genealogy, including explanatory information
and academic articles at the websites of the testing companies, publicly accessible databases of results, mailing lists and
groups with various focuses, and even a free online Journal of Genetic Genealogy. As you can see from the varied offerings
of the testing companies, it would be prudent to spend some time learning additional details before deciding to test.
Meeting Notes -- 10 February 2010
Topic of the day was maps.
Apart from their intrinsic interest, maps have multiple uses in genealogy. For example, suppose a name is so badly spelled in a
census index that it is impossible to find. But suppose also that a city directory shows the person of concern at a particular
address. You could then determine neighbors' names from that same city directory (using the street section that is often
included) and search for them instead. With luck, you will then find the person of interest in a neighboring household.
Alternatively, suppose a particular census page has somewhat difficult handwriting for the names but is more legible for the
street names that are often written in the margin, at least on 1880 and later censuses. By finding what enumeration district
corresponds to the relevant street (a given street may span multiple enumeration districts), you can then limit your search to
just that enumeration district until you find the street of concern. Reviewing the names might then yield the one you are
searching for – it is generally easier to recognize a name in bad handwriting than to decipher the handwriting without knowing
the name. There are several valuable tools for finding enumeration districts and street names at stevemorse.org.
Even for censuses prior to 1880 (which did not use enumeration districts), it was typical for the census in cities to be divided
by wards. If you can find an early-enough city directory for the place you are researching – residential directories for Boston
go back at least to the 1860s – then that directory may include a ward map that again can help you limit your search to a
subset of the census.
Though every-name census indexes are of course becoming more widely available, they are still imperfect, and using city or
town maps as described above can help get past those imperfections. Further, currently available indexes are largely focused
on federal censuses. There are, however, many unindexed state censuses that can be handled using the same sorts of tricks.
As a counterpart to the city maps discussed above, maps of more rural areas (or even moderately sized towns) can be used to
get an overview of neighbors if the maps include the names of property owners. Given the way in which land historically
passed from one generation to the next, seeing the neighbors often means seeing the relatives, including the in-laws. This is
naturally more likely in rural areas since more big-city residents are transient or recent immigrants rather than part of a family
that owned the same land decade after decade.
But finding the person of interest on such a map often requires either a good amount of patience or a physical description of
the land that the person owned. The latter usually requires some research in deeds, in which you can hopefully find a
description that refers to easily identifiable landmarks such as a river or a main road, which in turn will make it easier to
search the map.
Some maps with property owners' names are available online, most commonly from county or city atlases prepared in the
1870s and 1880s. One good free source for New England (and a few other areas in the Northeast) is a commercial site called
wardmaps.com. This site allows you to zoom in on or scroll around thousands of map images, though with only a small area
available for viewing at one time. You can, however, purchase full size reproductions of any of the maps. The site does have
maps for other parts of the country, but these tend to be panoramic or bird's-eye-view maps, which are of limited use in
genealogy.
Ancestry also has a good collection of these types of maps in its database "U.S. County Land Ownership Atlases, c. 1864-
1918," which in turn comes from microfilm created by the Library of Congress. These maps cover a broader geographical
range than just New England, though the image quality is not nearly as good as that at the wardmaps.com site. A separate
Ancestry database is "Historic Land Ownership and Reference Atlases, 1507-2000," which may have some overlap with the
first database, though its source is unspecified.
Maps (or actually a series of them) can also be helpful in determining boundary changes over time. This is not typically a big
problem for recent research in New England, where most boundaries have been in place for a long time. But it can be an
issue in other parts of the country. Though I have not seen an example myself, I have certainly read of families appearing in
successive censuses for two different states while never actually moving. Tracking boundary changes for such a family
could obviously help narrow down exactly where it lived.
Apart from the sources mentioned above, online maps of various types can often be found at websites of universities or
libraries. A local example is the Norman B. Leventhal map collection at the Boston Public Library (maps.bpl.org), which
includes a variety of historical maps. It is always worth googling the term "historical maps" and the location you are
researching just to see what turns up. In this way, you might find something like the collection of atlases displayed within the
Newton city web site: www.ci.newton.ma.us/MIS/Gis/maplist/HistoricMaps.htm (see the bottom of the page). These
Newton maps include property owners' names for various years from 1874 to 1929.
In addition, there are many historical maps that are not online, typically tucked away in the collections of local libraries and
historical societies. Even though images of these maps are usually not available online, the maps themselves are often
described in online catalogs, and occasionally copies can be purchased from a historical society at modest cost. There are
also a number of other commercial entities that specialize in selling reproductions (or even originals) of historic maps, though
sometimes at high prices. But even their online catalogs can indicate what maps are available for a particular area, and you
might be able to find those maps elsewhere.
Meeting Notes -- 10 March 2010
Topic of the day was identifying women.
While recent records concerning women are nearly as varied and detailed as those concerning men, it was not long ago that
women's identities were largely subordinate to those of their husbands or fathers. As a result, women in earlier generations
are decidedly more difficult to research. Consider the following observations about several different record types important to
genealogy:
(1) Traditional genealogies written in the 1800s and 1900s were oriented towards male lines.
(2) If she married, a woman's maiden name was not often used in vital or other records concerning her after the marriage.
(3) Because women were not usually heads of households, they were only rarely named at all in federal censuses prior to
1850.
(4) Married women historically had little power to buy or sell property in their own names.
(5) Relatively few women left probate records at their deaths.
(6) Married women were often not mentioned at all in city directories, though their first names were sometimes provided in
more recent ones.
(7) Women did not generally serve in the military until the twentieth century – and even then their numbers were small
compared to the number of men – and so did not usually appear in earlier military records.
As a result of these limitations on records naming women, information about our female ancestors often only appears on
records that primarily concern someone else – husbands, fathers, and children. Thus researching women often requires
researching whole families.
For women who lived into the 1900s, it is of course possible that their death records will provide their maiden names and even
the names of their parents, though that will depend on how recent the death was and the recording practices in the relevant
jurisdiction – the more recent, the better. Further, there may be an obituary or cemetery record that provides the
information. But records concerning their children, particularly their marriages or deaths, may be a better source since those
records would be more recent still.
But for women who lived earlier, those routes are likely closed and more indirect paths are required. In the simplest case, you
may know a woman's maiden name from her marriage record but not be sure of her parents. If the age at marriage and place
of birth is given on the marriage record (or if they can be estimated based on other evidence) and if it is reasonably certain
that the marriage was the bride's first, then it may be easy to find candidates born at the right place and time. But there may
be multiple possibilities – for example, the published vital records of Newton show two Abigail Jacksons born in 1783 and
two Hannah Bartletts baptized in 1823.
In a situation like the one above, there are several possible ways to determine which one of multiple candidates is the correct
woman, or at least to see which is the most likely. For example, census or land records may show that the bride's father was
an immediate neighbor of the groom's father, and census records may indicate the presence of a boy and a girl of the right
ages in the respective households. (This approach naturally works best in rural areas or small towns.) A census record for
1850 or later may show someone in the couple's household who could be the wife's brother, sister, mother, or father. Estate
documents for one of the possible fathers may, if the timing is right, refer to the daughter by her married name or to her
children if the daughter is herself no longer alive.
Some other possibilities are as follows. If the potential father was notable enough to merit a short biography in a local town
history or a detailed obituary in a local newspaper, such an item may mention the daughter and her husband. If one of the
bride's siblings left an estate, the documents might also mention the bride by her married name, particularly if the sibling was
unmarried or was widowed with no children. The bride and groom might have named some of their children after the bride's
parents. A land record might show the husband selling land specified as having been previously given him by his wife's
father, or the husband's will may refer to land the same way. The married couple could also be buried close to the wife's
parents. Of course, it is also possible that no records will help, but they are certainly all worth checking.
A more difficult case occurs when no marriage record can be found in civil, church, or even military pension records –
obviously there could be many girls named Elizabeth, say, who were born in the right place and time to be the bride. But
some of the same approaches can still be used. For example, if a long-term neighbor had a daughter of the right name and
age, probate records or short biographies for that neighbor may provide the answer. Names of the couple's children can again
offer clues, as can the names of other people in the couple's household. A land record or the husband's will may just as easily
refer to the husband's father-in-law as in the case when the bride's maiden name is known.
The worst case of all occurs when even the wife's first name is unknown. If she predeceased her husband, for example, the
husband's probate documents may not mention her at all. Her gravestone, if it can be found, may only refer to her as "wife."
In such a case, it will take some decided luck to find the parents, though it can still happen. For example, a well-indexed book
of probate abstracts might name the husband as he appears in his father-in-law's will (if one exists), and the complete will or
other probate documents may name the unknown wife. It is also common for land sales by the husband to require consent
by the wife, and her name may thus appear on deeds.
In addition to the above approaches, there may be other record types not mentioned here than could provide clues or
answers. Records in a cemetery office, bible records, and court records are all possibilities, as are other more obscure record
types, though these may require a bit more tenacity to find.
Meeting Notes -- 14 April 2010
Topic of the day was genealogy blogs.
Because they are updated so frequently, blogs are one of the best sources for keeping up with genealogy news, including
upcoming talks and conferences, publication of new databases, legal changes affecting access to records, software updates,
and more. Consider, for example, a few recent headlines from the popular Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter at http:
//blog.eogn.com:
Maine State Legislature Passes Limits on Vital Records Access
WorldVitalRecords adds Italian Passenger Lists
Free Online 19th Century Pennsylvania Landowner Maps and Atlases
Of course, there are so many blogs that finding the ones of greatest interest can itself be difficult. One good starting point is
the Genealogy Blog Finder at http://blogfinder.genealogue.com, which tracks about 1600 blogs and sorts them into categories
such as genealogy news, technology, and surname-, location-, or ethnicity-specific blogs. Within each category, it's best to
sort the listings by the date each blog was last updated; not all of the blogs that the site follows are currently maintained.
In addition, some bloggers maintain their own blogrolls (lists of other blogs that they follow), even highlighting specific entries
from time to time. For example, Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog at http://www.geneamusings.com includes a long
blogroll in the right-hand margin as well as a weekly feature that Randy calls Best of the Genea-Blogs. (Randy also includes
numerous stories and tidbits from his own research.)
Not all blogs are written by independents, though those that are not seem careful to disclose the relationships they may have.
For example, Diane Haddad's Genealogy Insider at http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider is clearly associated with Family
Tree Magazine, though the entries only rarely refer to the magazine itself. The association does not diminish this blog's value
as a news source. In addition, some of the well-known genealogy database sites maintain their own blogs, two examples
being http://blogs.ancestry.com and http://blog.footnote.com. Those are more likely to just concern the sponsoring site. The
Footnote blog, however, is not updated very often.
If you prefer to listen rather than read blogs, you can find a few genealogy podcasts online as well. These, of course, are not
updated daily, though the Genealogy Guys podcast at http://genealogyguys.com puts up a new episode weekly, typically a half-
hour long. The most recent episode is number 200, so there is quite a backlog of material to listen to if you find this format
appealing.
While not quite oriented to current events, the 700 or so videos at http://rootstelevision.com offer yet another approach to
online learning. This site, run by the DNA genealogist Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, was nearly discontinued a few weeks
ago, but the outcry of support apparently convinced Megan to keep the site going, albeit with advertising. The "Browse
Videos" menu at the upper right, the category headings in the right-hand margin, and the search box offer a few ways to
explore the contents of the site.
All of these formats can refer to each other – for example, the near-disappearance of RootsTelevision was mentioned in more
than one blog and may have been covered in a Genealogy Guys podcast. So apart from following blogs that pertain to your
specific areas of interest, it is probably wise to follow two or three more general blogs as well.
Meeting Notes -- 12 May 2010
No notes for this meeting -- open discussion.
Meeting Notes -- 9 June 2010
Topic of the day was genealogical standards and codes of practice.
Several genealogical organizations publish various standards, guidelines, and codes. In the US, there are at least three: the
Board for Certification of Genealogists, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and the National Genealogical Society.
While portions of these standards and codes are aimed at genealogists who serve clients, many elements are relevant to all,
and they merit review by researchers who only study their own families. As you might expect, there are some common
elements across all the different publications, but there are also decided differences in their styles and emphases. All are
worth reading.
The largest collection of standards is that issued by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), which publishes them
in _The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual_ (available for purchase at http://www.bcgcertification.org/catalog/stdmanual.
html). There are a total of 74 standards, with subsets devoted to research, teaching, and continuing education. Within the
research subset, the standards are further grouped into those applicable to data collection, evidence evaluation, and
compilation. As you might expect, many of the points are common sense, though the Manual takes pains to explain and
expand on each one. The 18 data collection standards, for example, can really be boiled down to: (1) treat records,
custodians, and other people's work products with respect; (2) collect information accurately, efficiently, and without bias;
(3) cite, transcribe, and abstract thoroughly and accurately. Similarly, the 16 evidence evaluation standards boil down to: (1)
research extensively; (2) distinguish between original/derivative sources and primary/secondary information; (3) consider
background, relevance, assumptions, and inconsistencies.
The BCG publishes its code of ethics at http://www.bcgcertification.org/aboutbcg/code.html. While not nearly as lengthy as
the Standards Manual, the code still includes more than two dozen points, though about half of them pertain to research done
for others. All applicants for the credential of Certified Genealogist sign a copy of this code, which focuses on accuracy and
completeness in all work products and on respect for other genealogists, clients, and genealogy as a field. Some examples of
specific items in the code are:
"I will identify my sources for all information and cite only those I have personally used."
"I will furnish only facts I can substantiate with adequate documentation; and I will not withhold any data necessary for the
consumer's purpose."
"I will participate in exposing genealogical fraud; but I will not otherwise knowingly injure or attempt to injure the reputation,
prospects, or practice of another genealogist."
The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is much terser in its recommendations -- its eight-point code of ethics
appears at the APG website (http://www.apgen.org/ethics/). As expected given the purpose of the organization, some points
of the code focus on treatment of clients, but a majority are broader in scope and again emphasize both the proper treatment
of records and custodians and the accurate reporting of research results. The code also specifically requires APG members
to "[s]upport initiatives that preserve public records and access to them" and to "encourage applicable education, accreditation,
and certification," elements that are not explicit in the other organizations' standards and codes.
Finally, the standards and guidelines produced by the National Genealogical Society (NGS) are in some ways the most
interesting, practical, and detailed, though with something of a schoolmarmish tone. The organization publishes standards and
guidelines in six different areas: research, records and repositories, technology, sharing information, publishing web pages,
and self-improvement (all at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/ngs_standards_and_guidelines).
The first of these ("Standards for Sound Genealogical Research") strongly emphasizes the use of original records and the need
to rely on credible and convincing evidence. It also differs from the other sets of standards in its recommendation to make
one's work available for critical comment through publication. The second ("Guidelines for Using Records Repositories and
Libraries) goes beyond general statements of treating records and custodians with respect, going so far as to recommend
appropriate dress and proper supervision of children.
The third ("Standards for Use of Technology in Genealogical Research") emphasizes the need for a critical eye in one's own
use of software and digital data, particularly noting the need to tie source citations to digital records and to "actively oppose
the proliferation of error, rumor, and fraud." The fourth ("Standards for Sharing Information with Others") stresses respect
for copyright and privacy, getting very specific in some cases – for example, responsible researchers should "convey personal
identifying information about living people—like age, home address, occupation or activities—only in ways that those
concerned have expressly agreed to" and should be "sensitive to the hurt that revelations of criminal, immoral, bizarre or
irresponsible behavior may bring to family members."
The fifth ("Guidelines for Publishing Web Pages on the Internet") continues the specificity of the earlier standards and
guidelines. For example, it includes recommendations to "provide website access to all potential visitors by avoiding enhanced
technical capabilities that may not be available to all users" and to "avoid using features that distract from the productive use of
the website, like ones that reduce legibility, strain the eyes, dazzle the vision, or otherwise detract from the visitor's ability to
easily read, study, comprehend or print the online publication." Finally, the sixth ("Guidelines for Genealogical Self-
Improvement and Growth") recommends various forms of study and development, such as: reading at least two peer-
reviewed journals; regular participation in genealogical societies, workshops, and conferences; and occasional critical review
of others' work.
Meeting Notes -- 14 July 2010
There is a wide variety of genealogy periodicals, ranging from family association or local society newsletters to informal
popular magazines to peer-reviewed journals. While any of these can offer genealogical information or instructional tips, the
content and quality will of course differ from one publication to another, particularly since they are aimed at different
audiences.
Newsletters are typically only available to members of the relevant association or society, of which there are probably
hundreds. The contents of such newsletters can be all over the place. The latest copy of the Niagara County Genealogical
Society newsletter, for example, has twenty pages that include (among other items) a 1908 group photograph with
accompanying names; excerpts from an old newspaper, a county history, and a business directory; a short biography of a
notable citizen of the area written by a current member of the NCGS; and a genealogical queries section. If you are
researching a very specific area or family of interest, it may be worth finding and joining a corresponding group just to get a
decent-quality newsletter, especially since membership fees are usually quite low (on the order of $20 a year) and will usually
cover some other benefits. Note that some societies may publish multiple newsletters, for example, one that focuses on
upcoming meetings and other administrative announcements and another that focuses on more traditional genealogical or
historical information (this latter type will often be called a journal instead of a newsletter). Publication is typically quarterly,
and it is no doubt becoming common for groups to send these materials out electronically rather than through the mail. Back
issues are often also available for purchase, and some groups provide tables of contents for those back issues on their
websites.
Popular genealogical magazines are usually just available by subscription (online or mail), though there are exceptions – for
example, the recently discontinued Ancestry magazine from 1994 to 2009 is available through Google Books. Some local
libraries also hold back issues of this type of magazine. These publications are, however, becoming somewhat scarce due to
the poor economics of magazine production, and it should not be surprising if others are eventually discontinued as well
(though some may survive in online form). Some other titles in this category include Family Tree Magazine, Everton's
Genealogical Helper (now discontinued), Family Chronicle, and Internet Genealogy. Subscription prices are in the range of
$25-$30 a year, with issues typically published every other month. Individual issues can sometimes be found at bookstores
with large magazine sections, and the publishers often include tables of contents and a few sample articles at their websites.
These magazines are generally pitched to an audience between beginning and intermediate and are written in a light informal
style, but they can still include articles useful at any level of experience: lists of recommended websites, product reviews,
refreshers on familiar record types (or information on new ones), and special interest articles on such topics as preserving
photographs or international research.
In this category are glossies published by national-level genealogical societies that also publish peer-reviewed journals. Two
examples are American Ancestors (published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society) and NGS magazine
(published by the National Genealogical Society). These are something of a mix of society newsletters (including fundraising
results and other administrative information, for example) and the popular magazines described above, with columns or
articles offering research guidance, case studies, or record descriptions. A few of these articles may be pitched to a slightly
more advanced audience, but they are overall still meant to be fairly light reading.
Finally, there are the peer-reviewed journals, of which there are several. Probably the best-known are the New England
Historical and Genealogical Register (NEHGR), the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (NGSQ), The American
Genealogist (TAG), The Genealogist (TG), and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (NYGBR). There are
also others that focus on a single geographical area, typically a state, including some that are no longer published. Some also
focus on a particular group such as Mayflower descendants.
The peer-reviewed journals are available by subscription or included with membership in the applicable society, if any. Many
are also available at local libraries (Waltham has a good collection). Collections of back issues have sometimes been published
on CD-ROM at various times, though this seems to be a distribution approach that publishers are moving away from. Back
issues are also usually available through the organization websites where applicable, though that of course will usually entail
paying an annual subscription fee or visiting a library that has such a subscription. NEHGS does include several journals
besides its own Register at its website, though the issues for the others will not necessarily come up to the most recent years
in order to prevent cannibalization of subscription revenue for the other publishers.
Nearly all of these journals are published quarterly (TG only twice a year). Though they all have an academic style, there are
still variations in their approaches. For example, a typical issue of NEHGR will have 8 to 10 articles and will focus on family
accounts (usually of New England families, of course). NGSQ, on the other hand, might only have a half dozen articles, and
they can cover any part of the country. Many NGSQ articles also illustrate research methods rather than provide lengthy
family accounts. TAG will often have a full dozen articles written in a slightly less formal style, with the articles often being
reasonably short and zeroing in on a narrower point of interest. Geographically, TAG does focus somewhat on the
northeastern part of the country, with occasional forays elsewhere, even Europe.
Apart from their feature articles, the peer-reviewed journals are particularly useful for their reviews, usually of books but
sometimes of other types of publications. These reviews can both provide ideas for items that might help in your research
and prevent you from wasting money on ones that will not. Further, the peer-reviewed journals differ from the genealogical
magazines in one important respect – they do not go stale, or at least not quickly. An article in a popular magazine about, say,
a particular website will only be useful as long as that website exists, but an article about a particular family or research
method can be useful almost indefinitely.
Copyright 2010 Ruy A. Cardoso. All rights reserved.
The club meets in the Newton Free Library on the second Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm, usually in Room A on the
first floor. During our first two years, meetings included discussion of the following topics. Notes for each meeting appear
below the topic list.
10 September 2008 -- Introduction/Vital Records
8 October 2008 -- Federal Census Records
12 November 2008 -- Evidence Principles
10 December 2008 -- Probate Records
14 January 2009 -- Military Records
11 February 2009 -- Open Discussion
11 March 2009 -- FamilySearch.org
8 April 2009 -- Online Sharing
13 May 2009 -- Newspaper Research
10 June 2009 -- Land Records
8 July 2009 -- Church Records
(No August meeting)
9 September 2009 -- City Directories
14 October 2009 -- Immigrant Origins
4 November 2009 -- Source Citations
9 December 2009 -- Cemetery Research
13 January 2010 -- DNA Testing
10 February 2010 -- Maps
10 March 2010 -- Identifying Women
14 April 2010 -- Genealogy Blogs
12 May 2010 -- Open Discussion
9 June 2010 -- Standards and Codes of Practice
14 July 2010 -- Genealogical Periodicals
(No August meeting)
Contact Information
For questions about the club, contact me by email at ruygenealogy@yahoo.com or by phone at 617-332-2351. Meeting notes
appear below in chronological order.
We began with each attendee providing a five-minute introduction about his/her genealogical areas of interest, which were
greatly varied. Within the US, there was interest at least in some of the New England states, SC/TN, and PA/OH, but several
other countries were also mentioned, including Albania, Canada (both French and English), China, Costa Rica, and Lithuania.
Experience ranged from very little to many years. Because of this wide variety, the subjects of future meetings will probably
focus on topics with the widest appeal: federal census records, genealogical software, and the large online record sources
were all suggested.
I proposed a tentative format for future meetings: (1) Topic of the day (e.g., census records), with instruction provided by
anyone with experience in the area, (2) discussion of the topic of the day, and (3) presentation of particular problems brought
by the participants, whether or not related to the topic of the day. The topic of the day for each meeting will be announced by
email a day or two before each meeting date.
Since no topic of the day had been chosen in advance of this first meeting, we discussed available sources for Massachusetts
vital records, including the following:
(1) Individual town web sites. As an example, the city of Newton provides PDF images of the following records on its
website: birth records 1635-1843 and 1877-1899, marriage records 1635-1843 and 1856-1877, death records 1635-1843 and
1863-1877. To see them, go to www.ci.newton.ma.us, click on Departments at the upper left, then City Clerk, then
Genealogical Research. At the least, many town web sites provide the contact information for a town clerk who can provide
vital records for most years. Some clerks provide the information on a form; others will photocopy pages from a record
book. Fees are usually reasonable.
(2) MA Archives web site (www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcidx.htm). This link provides an online index to vital records from
1841 to 1910 for all towns. While it provides no detail beyond names and years, it does provide information allowing you to
request photocopies from the Archives at modest cost. Go to the link, click on Vital Records in the center of the page, then
Index to Vital Records, then Search at the bottom of the page. Be sure to read the description of the search database first.
Instructions for ordering copies are at a link there. Archives records go to 1915 but the online index does not yet cover the
last five years.
(3) New England Historic and Genealogical Society (www.newenglandancestors.org). Images of vital records from 1841 to
1910 are available here either to subscribers or at no cost using the computers at the Newton Free Library. Go to the link,
click on Databases & Research, then Databases, then Massachusetts Vital Records, 1841-1910. Note, however, that there are
still some kinks in obtaining the images in this database.
(4) Massachusetts Registry of Vital Records (www.mass.gov/dph, click on Registry of Vital Records near bottom of left-
hand margin). For records after 1915, records can be obtained from this source by mail ($28 per record, with a 20-30 day
turnaround), fax/phone/internet ($42.50 per record, with a 7-10 day turnaround) or in person ($18 per record, or at a rate of
$9 per hour to examine records yourself, with a two-hour closing from noon to 2pm either way). Given the expense, it is
usually better to request these more recent records from individual towns instead of the Registry.
(4) The "tan books". Massachusetts vital records prior to 1850 for most towns were published in book form in the early
1900s, and most of these books are available at the Newton Free Library as well as other libraries in the area. Online images
from many of these books are available at numerous sites, as follows.
For many towns, particularly in Essex County and Middlesex County, one place they can be found is at ma-vitalrecords.
org/TownIndices.shtml.
Holders of Boston Public Library cards (available to all Massachusetts residents) can also use Heritage Quest Online from
home to see the published records prior to 1850. (Note: The BPL no longer subscribes to HQ as of July 2009.) To see
the Newton book using your BPL card, go to www.bpl.org/electronic/biography.asp, then click on Heritage Quest Online
about halfway down the page (under Genealogy), enter your BPL library card number, then click on Search Books, then
Publications, enter "Vital Records of New" in the search box (but without using quotation marks), click on the little triangle to
the left of the title, then click on the link to the records you are interested in.
Others sources of these pre-1850 vital records include Ancestry.com and NewEnglandAncestors.org (both available at no
cost using the computers at the Newton Free Library). Many are also displayed in Google Books (books.google.com --
search "Vital Records of Newton", for example ). CDs containing the images for all towns in a county can be purchased
from Search & Research (www.searchresearchpub.com), though the accompanying software can be a bit awkward to use
and some of the image scanning seems to have been done quickly. Quality of images varies both across and within all these
sources.
Meeting Notes -- 8 October 2008
Topic of the day was federal census records. The notes below provide brief descriptions of the available federal censuses
along with places to find them. A very nice discussion of the census appears in The Researcher's Guide to American
Genealogy, by Val D. Greenwood, and a handy set of blank census forms by year is at http://www.genealogy.com/00000023.
html (population schedule only).
Population Schedules
The most commonly used portions of the census are the population schedules for the various years, i.e., the lists of all
households. These are currently available for every tenth year from 1790 to 1930, except for 1890 (mostly destroyed by
fire). Occasionally individual towns or counties are missing; see Greenwood for a list. The 1940 census will not be available
until 2012, or 72 years after the census was taken.
The various population schedules include the following basic information, which may or may not be accurate in any given
case. Some miscellaneous items in various later censuses are not listed here (home ownership and education, for example).
1790 to 1840: Name of head of household along with counts of other people in age/sex categories and a separate category for
slaves. These age/sex categories generally become more refined over time, with the 1840 census including five- and ten-year
age ranges. Various other data appears in certain censuses, e.g., the 1840 census includes a listing by name and age of
Revolutionary War pensioners.
1850 to 1870: For each individual in the household, the census includes (among other items): name, age, sex, occupation,
state/territory/country of birth, and an indication of marriage within the previous year. The 1870 census also includes an
indication of foreign birth for the parents of each listed person. No relationships between members of the household are
specified.
1880: In addition to the basic information above, this census includes relationships to the head of the household (only!),
marital status, and parents' state/territory/country of birth.
1900: This census adds month and year of birth for everyone (1880 includes it for people born within the previous year),
number of years married, number of children (total and living) for mothers, year of immigration, number of years in the US
(often redundant with the previous item), and naturalization status.
1910: Similar to 1900, but drops month and year of birth.
1920: This census adds street address and year of naturalization, but drops number of years married and number of children
for mothers.
1930: This census adds age at first marriage (which may not be the current one) and military veteran status, but drops year
of naturalization (though still keeping year of immigration).
The population schedules are available on microfilm at the local office of the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) over on Trapelo Road in Waltham, but there are several online sources available as well. These include:
Ancestry.com. Subscription service, but available for free at Newton Free Library. Indexes all names and all years, but
sometimes poorly (IN = India?), and with some index entries pointing to incorrect images. Image quality varies.
Heritage Quest Online. Available through the Boston Public Library website if you have a Boston Public Library card. (Note:
The BPL no longer subscribes to HQ as of July 2009.) Go to http://bpl.org/electronic/biography.asp, click on Heritage
Quest Online about halfway down the page (under Genealogy), then enter your library card number. Only indexes heads of
household (and people with different surnames in the same household), and not every year is yet indexed. But you can
browse all images, the image quality on average is probably a little better than that at Ancestry, and you can view the images
from home for free.
FamilySearch.org. For the 1880 census only, the genealogy website of the Mormon Church provides another full-name index,
but no images. To search that index, go to www.familysearch.org, then click on Search Records towards the upper left
corner of the page, then Census on the menu at the left, then choose 1880 United States Census from the drop-down menu,
then enter the name and other information for the person you're looking for. Additional indexes are in progress through a
large volunteer effort, and a number of states/years have already been completed. See www.familysearchindexing.org for
more information.
Footnote.com. Another subscription service whose primary focus is on other documents, but most of the 1860 census is
included, both index and images.
Various other sources of indexes and images are scattered around the web. Googling a state name of interest along with
"federal census" will help you find these. In addition, the US GenWeb project has a number of indexes and images at http:
//www.us-census.org/inventory. The subscription site www.genealogy.com also has census records indexed by head of
household for certain years, but the site is not receiving as much attention as it once did under its current ownership (which
also owns Ancestry.com).
Mortality Schedules
A second sometimes-useful portion of the federal census is the set of mortality schedules for census years 1850 to 1880.
These include information on people who died in the year prior to the census, including age, month of death, cause of death,
and state of birth. At least some of the corresponding images are available at Ancestry.com; others may be in the hands of
various state archives, libraries, or historical societies. Indexes to many of the mortality schedules are also scattered online,
but images appear somewhat harder to find. Again, Google is your friend.
Veterans Schedules
As mentioned above, the 1840 census includes a listing by name and age of Revolutionary War pensioners, and that
information has been separately published. In addition, the 1890 census included a similar listing with more detailed
information, though a number of states are missing (A through Kansas and part of Kentucky). These schedules may point
you in the direction of military records that provide more genealogical details than the schedules themselves do.
Other Schedules
There are a number of other schedules that might help you fill in information about a family you are researching. These
include slave schedules, agricultural schedules, and manufacturing schedules. Like the veterans schedules, these do not
include any direct genealogical information but may provide clues that are otherwise useful.
Meeting Notes -- 12 November 2008
Topic of the day was the set of principles underlying genealogical evidence. The notes below provide brief descriptions of
some relevant major concepts. Some are broadly known, others are used primarily by more serious genealogists.
The Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) offers a five-part way of measuring the credibility of genealogical
statements. It is referred to as the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS). A short version of this standard is as follows:
(1) Reasonably exhaustive search in reliable sources
(2) Complete and accurate citations
(3) Analysis and correlation of all collected information
(4) Resolution of conflicting and contrary information
(5) Soundly reasoned coherently written conclusion
More explanation and expansion of this standard can be found in the BCG Genealogical Standards Manual, with a short
version at www.bcgcertification.org/resources/standard.html. Several of the five parts require judgment in their application,
though. People can and do disagree about what constitutes "reasonably exhaustive" or "soundly reasoned". For example,
should a low probability of finding a record in a given source be considered in evaluating whether a search has been
reasonably exhaustive?
Note that the GPS does not really define proof, which is intentional – "proved" genealogical statements have a way of later
being disproved. Some older standards attempt to label proof by various legal terms (e.g., beyond a reasonable doubt,
preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing). These terms are less used today than they once were, perhaps because
they imply that a genealogical case can be closed in the same way that a lawsuit can be settled or a criminal convicted.
Many other key evidence and analysis concepts are described in more detail in the manual, including:
Original source vs. derivative source. In essence, a derivative source is based on a repetition or reproduction of information
stated elsewhere while an original source not. Truly original sources are difficult to find since so much genealogical work is
based on transcriptions, microfilms, digital images, and abstracts. Even commonly used records such as town vital records
might be copies from an earlier record, and microfilmed census records may be of copies made from the census takers
original record. (Images may also hide clues to forged records such as a suspiciously different color of ink or quality of
paper.) Derivative sources can be one or many steps removed from the original, with each step offering exposure to error.
The closer to original, the better, though it is often difficult to ascertain the true degree of closeness.
Primary information vs. secondary information. Primary information is that provided by someone who witnessed an event or
was charged with recording it, preferably at or close to the time. Secondary information is provided by someone more distant
from the event, and it can also be one or many steps removed. Note that a single document may contain both types of
information. For example, a death record generally includes primary information on the death itself (name of the deceased and
date of death) but may include secondary information on other events or relationships (the decedent's date of birth or the
name of his or her parents). Secondary information is by its nature more likely to contain error; as an example, stated ages at
death can often be incorrect by several years.
Direct evidence vs. indirect evidence. Direct evidence answers a specific question without any need for underlying
assumptions. To take a common instance, a birth certificate indicates when a particular person was born but not when his or
her parents married. Indirect evidence, on the other hand, does not answer a specific question by itself, though it can be
combined with other evidence to lead to a reasoned conclusion. (Some people use the term "circumstantial evidence" to mean
pretty much the same thing.) For example, the presence of a male and female of about the same age and with the same last
name in a given household in an 1870 census record provides no direct evidence that the couple was married – they could be
brother and sister instead (among other possibilities). But other records might, in conjunction with that census record, lead to
a reasoned conclusion that the two are husband and wife. Even direct evidence, however, can be incorrect, either
intentionally or inadvertently.
The book Evidence! Citation and Analysis for the Family Historian, by Elizabeth Shown Mills also provides examples of a few
useful concepts, including:
Quantity vs. quality. A given statement that is made in or can be inferred from multiple sources is not necessarily any more
likely to be accurate. What matters is the quality of the individual sources, and it is particularly important that they be
independent. Mills mentions a hypothetical case of fraudulent testimony in a court case that is subsequently reported in a
town history and then repeated in an account by a later genealogist. Three sources, zero independence.
Reliability as a function of a record's purpose, timeliness, and custodial history. Affidavits, for example, may not be the whole
truth if the witness has some interest in an outcome affected by the affidavit. A family bible record may misstate a marriage
or birth date to cover up the scandal of premarital sex in an earlier time. A military pension application made long after the
relevant war may have incorrect information because of the applicant's forgetfulness. An old book of vital records may
contain information written in (or changed) by someone other than a public official if the book was not kept secured.
There are several other books worth reading in whole or in part to get a better sense of how evidence can be interpreted,
though some were written quite a few years ago. For example, Applied Genealogy, by Eugene A. Stratton (out of print)
includes several chapters on evaluating evidence, and they are a very enjoyable read. Here's an excerpt from his Appendix A
in which he describes how appalling the evidence and analysis offered by lineage society applicants could be:
"They might not trust their slightly dotty Great Aunt Minnie to make change for a dollar, but if she wrote a family history, that
part of her image would become transported to become worthy of abiding in the Hall of Fame for Historians […] That there
might be two or more people in a given state with the name of Lydia Jones or Ebenezer Jackson was a far-fetched notion […]
[T]hey would become perturbed, angry, and antagonistic if the approving official wrote back to point out that they had a child
born thirty years before the parent. Likely ages for marrying or child-bearing were so much trivia, and they found nothing
wrong in a man marrying at age ten or a woman giving birth at age sixty. And they would become indignant if the approving
genealogist observed that the Anna Smith getting married in Louisiana in 1830 might not be the same Anna Smith born in
Maine in 1795."
A few other books worth consulting include a much expanded version of the book mentioned above, Evidence Explained, by
the same author; Genealogical Evidence, by Noel C. Stevenson (somewhat dry and legalistic in parts, but with a number of
useful chapters); Pitfalls in Genealogical Research, by Milton Rubincam (a quick and light read with some interesting examples
of identity and chronology confusion); and the "Evaluation of Evidence" chapter in The Researcher's Guide to American
Genealogy, by Val D. Greenwood (the book is primarily useful for learning about different types of genealogical records, but
this chapter is a quick overview of some evidence concepts).
Meeting Notes -- 10 December 2008
Topic of the day was probate records. The notes below provide some brief description of their content and use.
Almost by definition, probate records are one of the best record types for genealogy since they so often refer to a decedent's
immediate family (and sometimes the extended family). Wills, of course, usually provide the most direct statements of family
relationships ("I give to four of my daughters (viz.) Susanna the wife of James George, Sarah the wife of Theophilous
Clough, Mahittable the wife of Benja. Smith, & Ruth the wife of John Currier"). But they are not the only type of probate
record that can provide useful information. Administrations (particularly of intestate estates) and guardianships can provide
statements (or implications) of relationship, and inventories can provide some color to dry genealogical facts. One of my
wife's ancestors, for example, wrote a will in the 1750s that left a silver hilted sword to his eldest son and a brass hilted
sword to his youngest son; the eldest son's will nearly 50 years later again refers to a silver hilted sword – it would be
interesting to find out what happened to that particular artifact.
In addition, probate files are usually straightforward to obtain from the appropriate probate offices. In most states, these are
organized by county, though the name of the relevant court can vary (Probate Court, District Court, and Superior Court are
the most common). But not every state aligns their probate districts with counties, so you will need to learn where to find the
records for each state that you are researching. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy (Greenwood) has a
convenient summary by state, and no doubt other references have similar information.
Many probate records (particularly early wills) have been published for various jurisdictions, usually in book form but
sometimes online as well. Two online examples in New England include early Maine wills at http://www.mainegenealogy.
net/maine_wills.asp (covering 1640 to 1760) or colonial NH wills at http://www.sos.nh.gov/archives/nhstatepapers.html
(Volumes 31 to 39). Abstracts and indexes are available for even more places; see http://www.cyndislist.com/wills.htm for a
list covering North American places from Texas to Nova Scotia along with some overseas locations. As always, it is wise to
check Ancestry and Heritage Quest for the sources they may have available; one easy way to do this is to search the book
titles at HQ for the words "wills" or "probates" along with a state name. Naturally the quality of published transcriptions,
abstracts, and indexes can vary, so the usual caveats apply.
Earlier probate records are more useful than later ones in at least one way: they can fill in the gaps left by a lack of vital and
census records decades ago. Further, because more recent probate records are of interest to fewer people – someone dying
in the 1700s is likely to have more descendants today than someone dying in the 1900s – you are also less likely to find
published probate records after, say, the mid-1800s. But even relatively recent probate records can be helpful, especially in
places where vital records were lacking into the 1900s. I have, for example, a petition to administer an estate from 1922, and
it provides information on the decedent's relationship to a daughter who was alive until 1970.
On the other hand, probate records do suffer from some problems as well. For example, not all of the decedent's children
may be named since some may already have died themselves or may have been provided for while the parent was still alive.
Sometimes beneficiaries are named but without mention of explicitly stated relationships; less often a relationship is specified
but without a name (like the alleged world's shortest will translating as "All to wife"). As is the case today, not everyone left
wills (particularly if they owned no real estate or had disposed of all their property before death). And in much of US and
colonial history, women had little authority to even leave estates while they were married, leaving out close to half your
ancestors from the probate process (though widows sometimes could and did leave estates).
Apart from the explicit statements of relationship that are most valuable, probate records also offer other genealogical clues.
For example, the time between the signing of a will and its subsequent probate obviously narrows down a date of death. The
location of the probate proceeding is nearly always the place of death (i.e., in the same probate district, often the same as a
county). Daughters who are mentioned with a different surname (at least under earlier American conventions) are naturally
likely to have been married to someone with that surname. Witnesses to a will sometimes turn out to be relatives, particularly
of a wife named in that will, and executors are relatives even more often. Receipts appearing with administrative documents
are usually signed by heirs, though the relationships are not specified in the receipts themselves. Land descriptions often
provide a way to link to land records. Shares of an estate may indicate which son is eldest (since he often received a double
share). The order in which children are named often corresponds to birth order, though it is common for sons to be named
(in order) first, followed by the naming of the daughters (in order).
It can also be important to examine probate records for your ancestor's siblings (especially if the sibling was unmarried or
childless, in which case your ancestor might have been an heir). Explicit relationships might well be specified in a sibling's
will and nowhere else. For example, one of my wife's collateral ancestors left a will with a bequest as follows: "unto my well
beloved nephew Jonathan Ring Junr son of my well beloved sister Esther, now the wife of Jonathan Ring of Salisbury",
providing evidence of a marriage that might not have been documented anywhere else.
Finally, keep in mind that the copy of a probate file you receive may itself be a copy of some earlier (i.e., original) document.
If you research probate records at the Massachusetts Archives, for example, you will almost always be required to use
microfilms of record books made by the relevant probate clerk, and the information included in those books may not be
identical to that included in an actual file of probate papers.
Meeting Notes -- 14 January 2009
Topic of the day was military records. The notes below provide brief descriptions of some of the records available.
Military records can provide any amount of genealogical information from a great deal (a complete family record in a pension
file, for example) to very little (a name and a unit from a service record, for example). The types of records available vary
depend on era/branch and are available through a variety of sources: Ancestry.com, Footnote.com, and the National Archives
(NARA) are probably the largest, with Heritage Quest also offering Revolutionary War pension files (selected pages). (Note:
The BPL no longer subscribes to HQ as of July 2009.) Even though some of these sites require subscription fees, their
indexes and title lists are usually available for free and are worth perusing in detail. The NARA web site alone is worth
spending a few hours with; see http://www.archives.gov/genealogy/military/ as a good starting point.
Note that most of the comments below pertain to federal armed forces of the United States, not those of individual states or of
the Confederacy. (There are, however, other sources for both of these, typically through the relevant state archives.)
Further, there are many other genealogically useful military records that are not mentioned here. As usual, check references
like The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy or The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy for additional details.
Wars Before 1776
The available records in this period are primarily lists of soldiers by unit with very little of genealogical substance, and even
those are relatively sparse. But if you have an ancestor from the period, particularly one with an uncommon name, even these
lists can provide clues about where the ancestor lived. It is not unusual to find early military rosters in town histories as well,
though of course one needs to have a particular town in mind.
Revolutionary War
The service records from this war are similar to those above, though sometimes with a greater level of detail such as ages,
places of residence, or physical descriptions. Many of these have been published in book form. For example, there is a 17-
volume set of Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War available at local libraries (also available online at
Ancestry.com). These service records are also available on microfilm at NARA (which also provides access to online sources
at their Waltham location).
Pension (and bounty land) records from the Revolution can contain very detailed information if you are lucky enough to have
an ancestor who applied, even if unsuccessfully. Because of various fires and delays in creating pension benefits, there are
relatively few of these records before 1800, so the ancestor (or his widow) usually had to have lived well beyond the end of
the Revolution in order to apply for benefits. While the individual pension applications vary, most include a detailed affidavit
concerning the applicant's military service (units served in, dates, unit movements from location to location, commanding
officers, battles fought in, etc.). Further, applicants often provided an overview of their financial circumstances, including the
names of spouses and children they had to support and sometimes a copy of a marriage record or a transcription of records
from a family Bible.
It is important to note, however, that there are two distinct microfilm series of Revolutionary pension records held by the
National Archives. The first, the M-804 series, includes copies of all papers in the files, while the second, the M-805 series,
only includes copies of selected pages. Hence it is better to look at the M-804 series if possible. It is, however, the M-805
series that is available at Heritage Quest, while the M-804 series is available at Footnote.com. Both are available as microfilm
at the local NARA location on Trapelo Road in Waltham, as is access to the major online sources, as mentioned above
Post-Revolution
For most wars prior to World War I, NARA typically has service records of some kind (often of more than one kind) as well
as pension indexes. But the pension files themselves have not generally been microfilmed and so do not appear at any online
sites. They must be ordered from NARA using the NATF-85 form; see http://www.archives.gov/forms/pdf/natf-85.pdf. Be
aware that ordering full pension files can be expensive ($75 for a full Civil War pension file, for example, though a more
limited version is available for $25).
Some pension indexes, however, do appear on line. For example, see:
http://www.footnote.com/page/75_civil_war_pensions_index/ for a description of an item that Footnote calls the Civil War
Pension Index (NARA publication T-289)
The description notes:
"If you wish to order copies of a serviceman's complete pension file, you will need most of the information displayed on the
index card, and most particularly the certificate number. Then visit the National Archives webpage for "Requesting Copies of
Older (pre-WWI) Military Service Records" at http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/pre-ww-1-records.
html. There you can order the pension file online or request to have NATF Form 85 mailed to you."
Similarly, Ancestry offers a different item that they also call the Civil War Pension Index, but this one uses uses a different
NARA publication (T-288). Information available from NARA (http://www.archives.gov/research/microfilm/t288.pdf)
indicates that the T-288 series covers pension applications for Army, Navy, and Marine Corps service between 1861 and
1916. A NARA publication available at http://www.footnote.com/pdf/T289.pdf indicates that the T-289 series covers Army
service between 1861 and 1917. This last publication also says that the information in the T-289 series is virtually the same as
that in T-288 except that the T-289 index groups the applicants according to the units in which they served.
World War I
Ancestry offers an extensive series of draft registration card images that can be very useful (though I've not had great luck
with legibility of these images). The cards include the following information: name, address, date and place of birth, father's
birthplace, place of employment, and name and address of nearest relative. These records are also available on microfilm at
NARA in Waltham, but only for the New England states.
World War II
Similarly, Ancestry offers a series of draft registration cards for this war as well, but only those from the fourth registration
(men born between 1877 and 1897 registering in 1942, hence the nickname "old man's draft"). These images tend to be more
legible and offer a somewhat different set of information: name, address, date and place of birth, place of employment, name
and address of "person who will always know your address", and physical description. As with the World War I records,
these are also available on microfilm at NARA in Waltham, but only for the New England states.
Finally, a handy list of military records available at the local NARA office in Waltham appears at http://www.archives.
gov/northeast/boston/public/military-records-waltham.html.
Meeting Notes -- 11 February 2009
No notes for this meeting -- open discussion.
Meeting Notes -- 11 March 2009
Topic of the day was the FamilySearch.org web site. The notes below provide brief descriptions of some key parts of the
site.
The FamilySearch.org site has a number of potentially useful features for research (as opposed to sharing or organizing data),
including the name search at the main page and the newer record search at the pilot site (http://pilot.familysearch.org). Both
of these are discussed in further detail below. (These comments do not apply to the upcoming New FamilySearch, which is
not yet available to the general public.) In addition, the Research Helps and the Library Catalog are useful for learning about
what types of records may be available for a given place and time.
Main Page
Typing in a name at the main page leads to search results from several different sources, including Ancestral File, the 1880
federal census (along with the 1881 British and Canadian censuses), the International Genealogical Index (IGI), the Pedigree
Resource File, and the Social Security Death Index. Brief descriptions of each of these follow.
Ancestral File: Per the FamilySearch website, Ancestral File is "a collection of genealogical information taken from Pedigree
Charts and Family Group Records submitted to the Family History Department since 1978. The information has not been
verified against any official records. Since the information in Ancestral File is contributed, it is the responsibility of those who
use the file to verify its accuracy."
In addition, names and addresses of the submitters are often provided for individual entries (click on Details at the right of the
Submitter(s) line near the bottom of the record), though these may be long out of date. The submission dates themselves are
not provided, and it is entirely possible that submitters are no longer alive. You can also view purported pedigrees and family
groups for the various entries in Ancestral File, but these also require verification. No source documentation appears in
Ancestral File, though some may appear on the underlying sheets from which the information was taken. In short, use
Ancestral File for clues, nothing more, unless of course you can track down the submitter (in which case you may be able to
get more information). The Ancestral File has been closed to new submissions since 2001, being replaced by the Pedigree
Resource File (see below).
1880 federal census: Reasonably detailed information appears in these transcribed census results (name, relationship to head
of household, marital status, sex, race, age, birthplace, occupation, and parents' birthplaces), and it is possible to view an
entire household at once and to move from household to household in the order they were listed. Since these are
transcriptions, they are easy to use, but they no doubt vary in accuracy. The underlying images are not displayed but links to
them at Ancestry.com are provided (assuming you are a subscriber).
International Genealogical Index (IGI): There are really two different types of IGI records, with different accompanying
messages when you examine the entry. The first (and preferable) type is a record that was typically extracted from
underlying birth, christening, or marriage records in systematic fashion (though the accuracy of the extraction can vary).
These records will display a message like "Extracted birth or christening record for the locality listed in the record. The source
records are usually arranged chronologically by the birth or christening date." The entry will also display a linked Source Call
Number that refers to a particular LDS microfilm or fiche. Click on the link and you will see a description of the information
on that film or fiche, and you can order it through a local Family History Center to examine it directly. Page 84 of The Source
(Third Edition) has some information about finding an IGI entry on the particular film, which involves the use of the "batch
number" that is displayed for the entry.
Records of the other type are more like those in the Ancestral File and will display a message like, "Record submitted after
1991 by a member of the LDS Church. No additional information is available. Ancestral File may list the same family and the
submitter." This type of record will display no link to a source, not even a submitter. Obviously such records are of limited
value. There is also a variant of this second type that will include a message like, "Record submitted by a member of the LDS
Church. The record often shows the name of the individual and his or her relationship to a descendant, shown as the heir,
family representative, or relative." While a film number will also appear, it will typically be a film of records of the Mormon
church itself (sealings), not a film of underlying vital records, for example.
Pedigree Resource File: Again per the FamilySearch website, the Pedigree Resource File is "a new lineage linked database of
records available on compact disc containing family history records submitted by individuals through FamilySearch Internet
Genealogy Service. Family information is organized in family groups and pedigrees and includes submitted notes and sources.
Many charts and reports can be printed from this data. Each disc contains about 1.1 million names. With the publication of
every five discs, a master index for those discs will be published and packaged with that set of discs. With the publication of
every 25 discs, a master index for those discs will also be published and packaged with that volume of discs. Discs may be
purchased as sets or volumes." Information on submitters may be provided, but pedigrees and family groups (except for
parents and spouse) are not displayed on the web site, only on the discs.
Social Security Death Index: Entries under this index display similar information to that displayed by other versions of the
SSDI (for example, the one at ssdi.rootsweb.com). To search multiple versions of the SSDI, try http://stevemorse.
org/ssdi/ssdi.html (be sure to read the FAQ at that site).
Pilot Site (http://pilot.familysearch.org)
This page includes indexes and images (sometimes just one or the other) for a variety of records. For the United States, there
are currently 56 different databases, in varying degrees of completeness, with a focus on censuses (including some state
censuses) and vital records. The image viewer is a little slow to load but provides good zooming and panning capability. The
state censuses included are for Massachusetts (Boston only), Wisconsin, Florida, and South Dakota, while various vital
records appear for Arizona, Georgia, Illinois (Cook County only), Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia only), Texas,
Utah, Washington, and West Virginia. There are also a few databases for other parts of the world, 30 for Europe and 6 for
South America.
You can see a list of other databases currently being indexed (and which will eventually migrate to the Pilot Site) at http:
//www.familysearchindexing.org/projects/current_projects.jsf. Again, the focus is primarily on censuses and vital records.
Research Helps
The Research Helps tab at the main page (particular under Articles in the dropdown menu) has some useful background
articles, though there is a lot of repetition across the different listed places. But the items titled [State] Research Outline
provide extensive listings of reference materials for many kinds of genealogical records. Most of the listed items have been
filmed, but you may also be able to find them in libraries or through genealogical booksellers (or online bookseller sites like
addall.com).
Library Catalog
The Library Catalog appears under the Library tab at the main page, and the first search option at the catalog page (Place
Search) is especially useful for learning what records are available in the area you are researching. Even if you never order a
film to use at a Family History Center, knowing what is available can suggest other research avenues to pursue. Be sure to
click through several links to get the details on a particular item, right down to "View Film Notes" if necessary. Note the
slight search quirks described at the catalog page (not to use "United States" or "Canada" as the larger area you are searching
in, and not to use the word "county" if searching for county records in a given state).Topic of the day was military records.
The notes below provide brief descriptions of some of the records available.
Meeting Notes -- 8 April 2009
Topic of the day was online sharing of genealogical information. The notes below provide brief descriptions of some the
available online applications to do so.
Assuming you're interested in sharing some of your collected and well-documented genealogy information online – names,
relationships, dates, places, photographs, images, relevant book or article excerpts no longer under copyright – there are a
number of sites and approaches that allow you to do just that. (You can also build your own website, of course, as some of
our participants have done, though that may require some expertise to set up properly.) But the tools you use will depend on
exactly what you want to share.
For example, if you are only interested in sharing GEDCOM files of your compiled genealogy (a file type that virtually all
genealogy software can produce), there are several sites to upload them and make them available for searching or browsing.
(Note: I am using the term GEDCOM in a very narrow way, referring only to names, places, dates, and relationships, but not
including image files or various extensions that are sometimes applied to the GEDCOM standard.)
The World Connect Project at RootsWeb (http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com), for example, is easy to use and enables you to
prevent others from downloading your information, though of course they can still see it and copy it by other less efficient
means. Ancestry.com offers a similar approach, though the current main Ancestry page seems to point people towards filling
in each relative one at a time instead – the GEDCOM upload instructions are not at all obvious.
In addition, Ancestry includes the following language in its Submission Agreement: "Ancestry may reproduce, compile, and
distribute, all information about non-living individuals in your submitted GEDCOM file." Whether RootsWeb can reproduce,
compile, or distribute your information is not clear, though they explicitly allow for deleting submitted trees.
Further, it was true at one time (and may still be) that Ancestry treated revised submissions as new trees rather than as
revisions, resulting in tremendous duplication and difficulties in making corrections. RootsWeb, on the other hand, explicitly
allows you to write over a previous submission.
FamilySearch.org is another site at which you can submit a GEDCOM, though the terms are in spirit similar to those of
Ancestry: "You give us permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute any of the information included in your submission."
"You agree that once you submit your genealogy to us, it becomes our property and cannot be retracted or returned."
"Currently, the submitted files are being compiled and published in a CD-ROM product called Pedigree Resource File."
Finally, another site worth looking at for GEDCOM uploads is Geni.com, which functions somewhat like a social networking
site as well. Among its claims: "Only your relatives and your invited friends can see your individual profile." "You can block
individual relatives from viewing your individual profile or messaging you." "You can further restrict what information appears
on your profile in your account settings." The site also allows for the uploading of images and video. On the other hand, the
site does request email addresses for family members in order to invite them to join even while saying the email addresses are
"never shared, never spammed". A list of other sites similar to Geni.com is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family2.0.
A more flexible form of sharing your genealogy information is through a blog. Postings to your blog can be short or long; can
include text, images, videos, and links; can allow for other people to comment or not; and can allow for other people to
contribute or note. While some genealogy blogs are concerned with more general topics, there are many that focus just on a
single surname or all descendants of a particular person. You can find, for example, 89 different surname blogs listed at the
Genealogy Blog Finder (http://blogfinder.genealogue.com), with perhaps 50 of those updated sometime in 2009. There are
many more devoted to a single place or ethnicity.
There are a number of services that provide blogging tools, all of which have their adherents: Blogger.com, WordPress.com
(and its sister site WordPress.org, which requires you to find a hosting service), LiveJournal.com (free for a Basic account
only), TypePad.com (fee-based), and MovableType.com (fee-based). You can probably find genealogy blogs on all of these
services. A brief (and recent) comparison of the first two services (Blogger and WordPress) appears at http://pulsed.blogspot.
com/2007/07/blogger-wordpress-chart.html. All of the services differ in their ease of use, flexibility, use of layout templates,
advertising, restrictions (on image storage, for example), and ability to import blogs from other services (if you eventually
decide to change). Note that blogs by themselves are not generally useful for displaying large family trees or descendant lists,
though many people include links at their blogs to their WorldConnect pages at RootsWeb, for example.
A third approach to sharing genealogy information is through document-sharing websites such as Scribd.com, Issuu.com,
Google Docs (docs.google.com), and others, many of which are free. As with the blogging tools, each service has its
adherents. A somewhat dated (May 2008) description of several of these services appears at http://mashable.
com/2008/05/02/sites-to-share-documents-online, but new ones have appeared since then. The services vary in terms of the
types of documents you can share, with some only allowing PDF files and others allowing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and
various types of image files. Google Docs (and perhaps other services) allows for selected people to edit your documents
rather than just view them; Scribd.com, on the other hand, does not allow editing (though it does allow replacement of earlier
versions with newer ones). Which service is best depends on the purpose you are using it for.
Finally, there is a new book dealing with these topics (and more) called Social Networking for Genealogists, by Drew Smith
(available through genealogical.com). The book, while covering a wide variety of online services, tends to focus only on one
of each type, but it is good for getting an overview of the services it does discuss. You can hear a discussion with the author
in the most recent podcast by the Genealogy Guys at http://genealogyguys.com. But note that, even though this book was
just published, the online services are always evolving.
Meeting Notes -- 13 May 2009
Topic of the day was newspaper research. The notes below provide brief descriptions of the information that can be found
and some of the principal websites for finding it.
Much newspaper research used to have something of a Catch-22 flavor to it – in order to find the date of a specific event, for
example, you wanted a news account, but in order to find the news account, you needed the date. More and more sites,
however, are incorporating search capabilities on digitized newspapers, usually on search terms, geography, and time period.
Apart from making it easier to find the typical news items of genealogical interest (obituaries, for example), these search
capabilities are making it possible to stumble on relevant items in places you never would have thought to look or to learn a
small detail that adds a bit of color to the records. For example, I have found a brief item about the fiftieth wedding
anniversary of a Newbury couple in the pages of the Worcester Daily Spy. Apart from providing more evidence about the
wedding date (albeit long after the fact), the item mentions the reading of a poem by a minister as part of the celebration.
Apart from their references to births, marriages, and deaths, newspapers can provide information on a wide variety of events
that can yield useful genealogical clues. These include anniversaries, legal notices, property sales, criminal actions, divorces,
unusual deaths from accident or disease, local gossip and social items, individuals' movements into or out of town, religious
events, school information, business openings and closings, tax lists, and many others. You won't know what you'll find until
you look. Further, the news is usually reported quite soon after the event, increasing its evidentiary value relative to later
recollections (though newspapers, then as now, were not always accurate in their reporting).
For the typical ancestor, small town newspapers tend to have much more genealogical detail, though you can find occasional
references to them in big city newspapers, particularly if they were associated with some more newsworthy event. For
example, a February 1945 account of a lost fishing vessel merited several paragraphs over multiple days in the local paper of
Gloucester, Massachusetts – but only a few lines in the Boston Globe. The death of an Italian immigrant in upstate New York
was noted in the New York Times of 13 December 1895 – but only because the man died in a mine collapse and was the last
person to be pulled from the rubble.
Fortunately, many of the online sites seem to focus on those smaller papers. Listed below are several sites that cover a
variety of papers from around the country, or at least in multiple states. While there may be some overlap in the papers
covered by each, they do differ in the areas and time periods in which their coverage is strongest. One drawback of some of
these sites, however, is that they display only the specific news item of interest corresponding to your search result – you
can't generally browse through the paper as if you were reading it, or at least it's not readily apparent how to do so in some
cases.
GenealogyBank.com – The focus of this subscription site is on newspapers, but it includes some other useful material as well
(though some can be found elsewhere for free such as the SSDI and America's Obituaries). You can see a complete (and
long!) list of available titles at the site and can use the search function without subscribing, though you will only see a tiny
piece of the resulting images. There is a corresponding blog at blog.genealogybank.com that lists additions, updates, and
search tips.
ChroniclingAmerica.loc.gov – This free site, part of the Library of Congress web site, is limited to about ten states and to a
fairly narrow period (1880 to 1910). As with Genealogy Bank above, you can see a list of available titles.
America's Obituaries and Death Notices – This collection is available for free through the Newton Free Library web site in the
Online Databases section, and you can access it from home if you have a Newton library card. Most of the coverage is for
very recent years (since the early 2000s). The information is provided by News Bank, which also owns Genealogy Bank
above.
America's Historical Newspapers – This collection is available for free through the Boston Public Library in the Electronic
Resources section and is accessible from home if you have a Boston library card. The information provider is named Readex,
a division of (you guessed it) News Bank. According to the site, the coverage through the BPL is from their Early American
Newspapers Series 1 - 3, 1690-1922; there are additional series that are apparently not included here. As you might expect for
a collection covering such early years, the geographical concentration is heavily tilted towards New England and New York.
NewspaperArchive.com – This is another subscription site, though with a limited free membership that allows the viewing of
three images per day. Coverage in New England is modest, but the site includes hundreds of papers in Ohio and some of the
adjacent states.
Ancestry.com – The Ancestry newspaper collection includes about 1,200 papers, again with modest coverage in New
England but significant numbers of titles in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Access is by subscription or onsite at
the Newton library.
Apart from these broad-based sites, there are others that concentrate on specific states, often associated with libraries and
universities. A Google search on the name of the state and "historical newspapers" can reveal many of these, though access
may sometimes require a specific library card or university identification. For Massachusetts, a number of recent papers are
available online through both the Newton and Boston libraries, and both the Boston Globe (1872-1925) and New York Times
(1851-2005) are both available online through the Boston library. In addition, a large number of newspapers are available on
microfilm in the Boston library's microtext department. See the links at www.bpl.org/research/microtext/news.htm for
listings.
As always, the reference book The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy is useful to consult for additional
information on newspaper research. It provides numerous examples of many different types of records from newspapers,
including some brief discussion of religious and ethnic newspapers.
Meeting Notes -- 10 June 2009
Topic of the day was land records.
Like many other records, land records are not created to provide data about family relationships. But they can be
genealogically useful in several ways. First, they can obviously place a person with a particular name in a specific location
and time. (Whether the person is the right person of that name is another question, but land records can help answer it.)
Second, they can state explicit relationships, particularly in older records. Third, they can provide significant indirect evidence
of relationships. Fourth, they can refer to other records (such as probate records, local tax records, or court records) that
may also be useful. Fifth, the land records may include such other records mixed right in with them – not all records in the
land record books are deeds.
Among other things, the land record books can include mortgages, leases, various kinds of releases (most commonly a wife's
release of her dower rights), and short affidavits or depositions. I once found a deposition of one man referring to another
having been taken prisoner by the Spanish down near Mexico, the prisoner having asked the deponent to let the prisoner's
wife know what had happened. Any of these types of documents can provide genealogical clues.
As an example of a deed that states relationships, consider the following one from 1706 in Essex County, Massachusetts: "To
all Christiane people to whome this present Deed of Sale shall comme Jonathan Thomas Nathaniel & James Bayley in their
own behalf and said Jonathan in behalfe of & as Guardian for his Brother John Bayley and Sisters Mary Elizabeth & Lydia
Bayley all the children of John & Mary Bayley late of Rowley… said children had an Interest in & rights to a parcel of Land…
which fell to them by the death of their grandmother Mrs Anna Mighill Late of Rowley Deceasd & by the death of their uncle
Mr Ezekiel Mighill Late of Rowley Deceasd… ."
Obviously there is a great deal of direct genealogical information in this deed, including the stated relationships as well as the
clue to search for probate records concerning Anna Mighill, Ezekiel Mighill, and John and Mary Bayley, along with a
guardianship record concerning John, Mary, Elizabeth, and Lydia Bayley.
Contrast the above deed with a much more recent one (1869) from Grafton County, New Hampshire, in which Austin Palmer
of Haverhill and Sarah C. Palmer wife of Austin give four acres of land in Haverhill to Alonzo Gordon of Haverhill in exchange
for $600. Apart from stating that Sarah is the wife of Austin, there is no direct evidence of any relationships in this deed –
though other evidence indicates that Austin and Alonzo are brothers-in-law, with each having married one of a pair of sisters.
Even the most direct relationships often go unstated in deeds. For example, an 1823 deed from Orange County, Vermont
documents the sale of land from John Carrier of Vershire to Lebbeus Carrier of Vershire without noting that John is father to
Lebbeus. On the other hand, occasionally relationships are explicitly mentioned that have nothing to do with either the seller
or the buyer. A transaction between Daniel Smith and Robert Jones, for example, might refer to land that is described as
bounded by property that John Doe inherited from his father James Doe.
Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing what you will find until you look, and you will realistically not be able to look
without the help of indexes. The deed registries in most jurisdictions will at least have grantor (seller) indexes; many will also
have grantee (buyer) indexes. The same types of cautions that apply to using any index also apply to using land record
indexes – alternate spellings might be used, only the first person named in a deed might be indexed (many deeds involve
married couples or groups of siblings), the transaction might be indexed under a name other than the grantor or grantee (a
local sheriff selling the land to settle debts, for example), or a record might just have been missed. Further, non-deed records
might not be indexed at all, and incidental parties such as the neighbors will certainly not – though you can research them
independently under their own names.
While some of these indexes are starting to appear on line – Rockingham County, New Hampshire, for example, has online
grantor and grantee indexes that cover the years from 1643 to present – in many cases it will be necessary to visit the deed
registry to consult the indexes or, in the case of indexes that have been microfilmed, to order the films. (Occasionally a kind
registry staffer will be willing to send copies of an index page or two, but that will not always be the case.) The land records
themselves almost never appear online except for records in the past few years, so again it will be necessary to either visit a
deed registry or to view microfilms. Note also that some ancestors may have engaged in dozens of land transactions, and it
can take a while to read the corresponding records and to prepare brief abstracts.
In some cases, it is important to understand a land description in great detail, usually in order to trace the string of owners
associated with the parcel. Val Greenwood's book (The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy) gives a concise
explanation why: "If you find your ancestor, John X, selling 100 acres of land of the same description as William X sold to his
son John sixteen years earlier, you have a pretty good case [that your ancestor John is the same John as the son of William]."
Tracing land in this way requires its own set of skills for preparing a plat map (software is available to assist with this),
finding all the records that document the land transfers (some may be in probates or court records rather than deeds, for
example, and some transfers might not have been recorded at all), and accounting for all of the partitions and combinations
that may have occurred along the way.
Finally, it is important to note that recording practices can vary both from place to place and over time. (It may be safe to say
that earlier records are more likely to state explicit relationships, but there may not be many other such general rules.) Being
familiar with the recording practices in eastern Massachusetts may not be that much help in understanding those of western
New York or southern Ohio (except for the legal terminology common to most land records), and practices in rural areas can
differ from those in urban areas.
Meeting Notes -- 8 July 2009
Topic of the day was church records.
Church records can be extremely useful in genealogical research, particularly in places where vital statistics were not recorded
until recently. Even in New England, where vital records go back quite far, not every birth and marriage was recorded in the
local town hall – but they may appear in the local church records. In fact, church records are often mentioned in the "Tan
Books" series of Massachusetts vitals before 1850, usually in those cases for which no civil record was found.
In addition, church records can include other types of records besides those roughly corresponding to vital records – they
may include information on confirmations, or admissions to (or dismissals from) the church, or financial contributions to or
from members. The published Catalogue of Members, 1730-1858, for the First Congregational Church of North Yarmouth,
Maine, for example, lists a Mrs. Joanna (Locke) Favor, received in the church on 6 December 1841 from the Second Church
of North Yarmouth and removed by her death at age 61 on 4 October 1845, with the Remarks columns including the name
Mrs. Jacob Favor (presumably a reference to her husband's name). Just this one record provides several types of
genealogically relevant information.
Whether a particular church's records are useful, however, largely depends on the practices of the relevant denomination. For
example, a church that practices adult baptism is not likely to provide parents' names in the baptism records (and of course
the baptism would be taking place long after the corresponding birth). Marriage records may or may not name parents.
Death or burial records may or may not provide ages (though they will usually provide parents' names for the death of a
child). Further, the practices of a particular church in the US may not be the same as those of the corresponding church in a
foreign country. The only way to find out what information is recorded is to look.
But you can't look at the records until you find them, and finding them may be difficult – among other reasons, churches
disappear (as do their records). But even for churches that still exist, learning which one an ancestor was a member of can
be tricky, particularly in cities where many churches might have been in a relatively small area. One approach is to use maps,
assuming you know exactly where the ancestor lived – then as now, convenience was a concern, and a close-by church was
a natural option. Clues may appear in other records as well, particularly death records or obituaries.
Assuming you have narrowed down the possible churches, you may be fortunate enough to be searching for records that
have been published, and those are usually the easiest to use if you can find them. Note, however, that they may have been
published in a genealogical periodical rather than a book.
If the church still exists, a call to the church office can often provide information on where the records may be. In some
cases, they may still be at the church itself. (As a practical note, it is a courtesy to send along a small donation to a church if
someone there is kind enough to look up or copy records for you.) In other cases, the records may be at a regional or
national church archive of some kind, many of which have websites. As usual, the reference book The Source: A Guidebook
to American Genealogy lists many possible contacts (organized by denomination), and Ancestry's Red Book provides a few as
well for individual states, as does Val Greenwood's book The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy.
Another place to check is in the Family History Library catalog (search by location, then click on a link for church records).
The city of Newton, for example, has five different churches listed, with the oldest records being those for St. Mary's Church
(Episcopal), going back to 1812. The microfilm description reads: "Contains records of baptisms, confirmations,
communicants, marriages, burials, offerings, correspondence, historical notes, and lists of families." Obviously there is a lot
of potentially useful information there.
Keep in mind, however, that the Family History Library certainly has not filmed all available church records. Among other
possible reasons, the records may not have been sufficiently centralized, or the records may have been temporarily lost, or a
particular denomination may not have permitted its records to be filmed as a matter of policy (or sometime because of
disagreements with the aims and practices of the Mormon Church). Church records are, after all, not public records.
Finally, a state or local historical society might also have church records that are found nowhere else. At a guess, this is
probably more likely for denominations that are not governed in a hierarchical manner and for which the local church was
integrated almost exclusively with the community rather than being part of a larger system. But even for these, it is still wise
to search for archives. For example, there is a significant Congregational library in Boston, though their web site provides
some appropriate cautions: "Because Congregational churches are not ruled by an overseeing body, each local church is
responsible for the maintenance of their own records, year in year out. It is likely, therefore, that old baptismal certificates,
marriage records, and similar information are still located on site with the church itself. If a church closes, they may choose
to send their records to our repository. We organize what we are given, but more often than not, because of the ravages of
time, there are gaps in the collection. Records from extinct churches may also be found in a local historical society, public
library, or town clerk's office."
Meeting Notes -- 9 September 2009
Topic of the day was city/town directories.
For genealogical research, city/town directories have one obvious use and several more subtle ones. The obvious use is to
locate given people in particular towns and years, though you should note that many directories were only compiled every
other year or so. It pays to look at all the years that the people might have been in the place of concern in order to determine
when they moved in and moved out. But keep in mind that people are occasionally missing from one directory in a series only
to show up at the same address in the next one. In all likelihood they did not move away and come back but were simply
missed in that one directory. Most directories were compiled by commercial firms such as R. L. Polk, and certainly no one
was under any compulsion to provide information to the compiler.
City/town directories often have two major sections along with some minor ones. The major sections are a names directory
(residents in alphabetical order by last name and then first name) and a street directory (streets in alphabetical order and then
by house number, often with cross streets mentioned). The minor sections will often include listings of local government
officials, schools, churches, and similar items of general and commercial interest; notes and abbreviations; and descriptions of
relevant town divisions (such as villages or wards). Examining the table of contents is always a good idea, as is reading any
introductory material; not all firms compiled directories in exactly the same way, and even a given firm could change the
included information over time.
Within the names directory, a typical listing (for adults and sometimes for older children) will provide a name, an occupation
(including student), a home address (usually denoted by "h" or "res"), and sometimes a business address or employer name.
(Coincidentally, a 1919 resident of my own house was listed as an assistant at the Newton Free Library.) For a surname that
is not too common in a given town or for a town that is small, it is usually easy enough to find all people of that surname at a
given address.
The street directory, on the other hand, orders the information differently and sometimes includes less of it (no occupations,
for example). But it is useful: (1) for finding other relatives with different surnames living at the same address, and (2) as a
check to make sure no one of a particular surname was missed in reviewing the names directory. Because cross streets are
often also mentioned, this section can be helpful in narrowing down the location of a particular residence in cases where the
street numbering has changed over time. (Of course, street names also change, which can cause different problems.)
Of particular value are references to former residents in the names directory. For example, a John Smith who lived at a
particular address in one directory might still be listed in the names section of the next directory but with a notation along the
lines of "rem Gloucester Mass." meaning that he had moved to the specified place. Obviously this information can be of great
help in trying to determine where to search for census or vital records pertaining to the person who had moved.
Occasionally a husband's name disappears while a wife's name remains, with the wife now listed as a widow of the husband.
In those cases, the death date of the husband can therefore be narrowed down to roughly a two-year period, making his death
or probate records easier to find or helping to distinguish him from another man of the same name. (In some cases, however,
a divorce rather than a death may have been involved even if the wife is referred to as a widow.) It is unusual, however, for a
husband to be listed as a widower, though a wife's name can of course disappear from the directory in the same way that a
husband's can. Occasionally, the name of a person who has died in between compilations is accompanied by an exact death
date, which makes it much easier to locate a death record or an obituary for the person.
The mention of certain occupations such as law or medicine, if not previously known, can point the researcher to professional
directories for those fields, which might in turn provide information on professional schools attended and the like. Mention of
employers' names might similarly point the researcher to employment records of some kind.
City/town directories are also useful for finding ancestors who appear in the proper federal (or state) census at the time of
interest but who are incorrectly indexed (perhaps because their names were difficult for the indexer to read). Even though
census indexes are far more prevalent today than they were a few years ago, they are still imperfect, and researchers must
still sometimes resort to searching page by page through a particular census in order to find the person of interest and thereby
obtain all the other useful census information. For large cities in particular, this is much easier to do when the residence can
be narrowed down to a particular neighborhood or ward.
The Boston Public Library has a very extensive collection of city directories on microfilm, not just for Massachusetts and
New England, but for many places ranging widely throughout the United States. Probably the majority of these cover the
very early 1900s to at least the 1930s, with many coming up to the 1960s, and a surprisingly large number go back into the
1800s. The full listing of holdings (http://bpl.org/research/microtext/City Directory Holdings.pdf) takes up 75 pages.
Ancestry.com also has a good number of directories online, though for some towns only the street directories are included.
See http://www.ancestry.com/search/DB.aspx?dbid=1540 and scroll down to the state listing at the bottom of the page.
Finally, libraries in the town of concern may hold directories covering even more years or that are otherwise more complete;
these should also be checked if necessary.
Meeting Notes -- 14 October 2009
Topic of the day was finding immigrant origins.
For research further back on American families whose genealogical origins are in foreign countries, it is almost always
necessary to identify a precise place of origin. This can often be done with at least a half dozen different American record
sources, many of which we have discussed in prior meetings. In addition, many books have been published on various
immigrant groups that can provide good leads if not exact locations, though most of these (not all) concern earlier families.
Greenwood's Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy provides a partial list of several dozen such books.
For families that immigrated recently (in the 1900s, say), family records, recollections, or even artifacts may solve the
problem immediately. But if those are not available, here are several types of American documents may reveal the answer.
Note that census records are not included as they typically will only indicate the country of origin, which is usually not precise
enough for further research.
Social Security applications (if the ancestor is deceased)
Passenger lists (particularly from the 1910s to the mid-1940s)
American vital records for the ancestor and other family members
Newspapers (particularly detailed obituaries)
Military records
Naturalization records (if the ancestor applied for American citizenship)
Keep in mind that you may need to expand your search for these records to siblings, cousins, or even close friends of the
person you are researching. Many immigrant groups traveled and settled together once they arrived in the United States, so
the lack of a record for one person might be dealt with by finding a similar record for another person likely to be from the
same place. Further, other records might not specifically name a place of origin but may provide other clues that can help
you find one that does (e.g., year of immigration as stated on a census record may help with searching for passenger lists).
Social Security applications (SS-5) – An easy way to obtain the Social Security application is to search the Social Security
Death Index for the relevant name at ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com, click on "SS-5 letter" in the Tools column (next to the
name in the search results), send your letter and check ($27) to the Social Security Administration, and wait several weeks for
what may be a fairly bad photocopy. But assuming it is legible, the application may well include the exact place of origin
along with other information such as birth date and parents' names (though parents' names may be redacted for people who
were born relatively recently). The application, however, might include the name of a nearby larger town instead, just as we
might tell someone in another part of the country that we are from Boston even though we might not live within the city
limits. (The same possibility can occur for any other American record that names a place of origin.) Online ordering of the
SS-5 is now possible through the SSA website, which may speed up the process somewhat. Note that the applications are
generally only available for people who have died since the early 1960s and who, of course, had a Social Security number.
Passenger lists – While ship passenger lists are often available well back into the 1800s (and, of course, some lists from
colonial times also survive), it is only those from about 1893 onward that are likely to contain a place of origin. According to
The Source's chapter on immigration records, standard forms mentioning last residence were introduced in 1893, with
birthplace added in 1906 and address of nearest home country relative in 1907. Many passenger lists are available through
Ancestry, at NARA, and sometimes for individual ports on particular web sites such as EllisIsland.org, CastleGarden.org, and,
for Boston, the Massachusetts Archives site at http://www.sec.state.ma.us/arc/arcsrch/PassengerManifestSearchContents.
html. Apart from places of origin, these records also can provide ages, occupations, brief physical descriptions, marital
status, and other useful information.
American vital records – Birth, marriage, and death records, especially recent ones, can all provide places of origin, though of
course they may be suspect depending on who provided the underlying information. My own birth record, though older than
I would like, lists birthplaces for both of my parents, but in this case the listed location is the larger municipality rather than
the more precise location.
Newspapers – Like vital records, information on places of origin in newspaper articles can be suspect. At the same time,
something like a detailed obituary is likely to provide far more information than a death record, such as survivors' names and
information on church memberships, social activities, and the like. In addition, newspapers record a broader spectrum of
events and, if you are lucky, might include some kind of feature article on the person you are researching.
Military records – Both WWI and WWII draft records (available through Ancestry) can provide places of origin, though the
WWI records are generally difficult to read and the WWII records are only available for a limited number of registrants (the
"old man's draft"). The WWII records, however, also provide dates of birth, employers, and often the name and address of a
close relative ("person who will always know your address").
Naturalization records – While citizenship certificates do not directly provide places of origin (though they can provide age,
physical description, and even a photograph), they can serve as an entry for ordering a person's declaration of intention and
petition for naturalization, both of which might have a great amount of detail beyond birthplace and birth date (for example,
spouse's name and birth information, marriage date and location, children's names, the date the applicant first immigrated, the
name of the ship, and dates of subsequent voyages to and from the United States. At least in Massachusetts, these documents
can be ordered through the Supreme Judicial Court Archives in Boston for a nominal sum and a self-addressed stamped
envelope.
Other sources may exist beyond the ones listed above. For example, an American church serving an immigrant population
might mention places of origin in its records, as might various organization records.
Meeting Notes -- 4 November 2009
Topic of the day was source citations.
There are really two main purposes to citing the sources for every genealogical statement you make – to help others find the
source themselves (including yourself at a later time), and to help others evaluate its likely quality (and thus your reasoning
and conclusions). Yet people can get entirely too hung up with the exact form of their citations rather than keeping these
purposes in mind. Some of the conventions used in citations can seem (and often are) arbitrary, specifically with respect to
the order of citation elements (e.g., author, title, page numbers) and stylistic concerns (e.g., use of abbreviations, placement
of punctuation). The Source (3rd edition, p. 25) puts it well: "Unless you are meeting the requirements of a publisher, it is far
more important to be consistent, complete, and efficient than it is to use any given style."
Further, the acceptable format of citations can vary by time period and by context, including within and between genealogical
periodicals. The NEHGR, for example, often refers to itself in citations simply as "Register" along with the year and volume
cited; other publications would probably include the full name of the journal and the month along with the year. Genealogies
published in the early 1900s often include no citations at all, leaving the reader to guess where claimed names, dates, and
relationships came from.
By far the most comprehensive text on genealogical citations is the 800-page tome, "Evidence Explained," by Elizabeth Shown
Mills. This is primarily a reference work in which to look up citation formats for a wide variety of genealogical sources, but
the introductory material is well worth reading. A far slimmer version ("Evidence!") is useful for more common sources such
as books, article, vital records, and census records, but the larger version includes far more, with plenty of coverage of online
sources.
One general principle that comes up over and over is to cite a source for every statement that is not common knowledge.
Clearly some items are common knowledge (the dates of the American Civil War, say, which can easily be looked up in many
places) and clearly some are not (the date your great-great-grandmother was born). Others fall into a gray area – for
example, are neighborhood names common knowledge? The answer might be yes for Midtown Manhattan but no for
Newtonville. How about less-important battles that an ancestor may have fought in? Certainly a low-ranking soldier's
presence at the battle would not be common knowledge.
Most genealogical statements, however, are not common knowledge and therefore do require citation. The elements to be
included in the citation of course depend on the type of record being cited. A book will include at least author, title, publisher,
and page numbers, for example, while a gravestone obviously will not. Page 62 of Evidence! provides a table of 20 different
elements that cover 7 different record types (e.g., books, articles, censuses, manuscripts), with anywhere from 6 to 15
elements applying to a single record type.
Of course, not every source is a document. Among other possibilities, sources can include gravestones, other physical
artifacts, and recorded conversations. (Eugene Stratton mentions a funny story on page 55 of his book "Applied Genealogy",
in which an applicant to a lineage society provided the same source citation for all the generations included on the application
form: "My father told me.") Both of the Mills books referred to above provide citation examples for such non-document
sources.
Now clearly some contexts do not lend themselves readily to citations – for example, a quick email to someone researching
the same family – but many people neglect to include them even when the context is right. Granted, they do take time to
prepare, but having to re-research a family because you didn't sufficiently cite a source also takes time, with this being even
more likely if you are working on a family that you had put aside for months or years.
There are a few recommended practices worth mentioning here, as follows.
(1) Be sparing with abbreviations. We may be familiar with the postal abbreviations for US states, for example, but people in
other countries are less likely to be.
(2) On document copies, put the source citation on the front rather than the back in order to avoid separating the citation from
the document on any future copies.
(3) In an article or family write-up in which footnotes are used for the citations, do not use one footnote to refer to another –
it's too easy for later footnote renumbering to destroy the link. The NEHGR, however, does not seem to adhere to this
practice. Note that using endnotes instead of footnotes also is likely to result in separation of the citation and the statement to
which it applies.
(4) Footnotes should be reserved almost exclusively for source citations rather than parenthetical comments that can either be
integrated into the text or that are insufficiently relevant to include at all. There are no doubt some reasonable exceptions, but
they should be rare. It can, however, be appropriate and helpful to include some additional description of the source with the
citation (comments on the legibility of a document, for example).
(5) It is easy to confuse superscript footnote numbers with superscript generation numbers, but generation numbers should
always come immediately after a name while footnote numbers usually come at the end of a sentence. Some publications
include footnote numbers in brackets as a way of further distinguishing them.
(6) Citing online sources can be particularly tricky since the underlying URLs can change (especially if they are dynamic
rather than static), as can the entire structure of the website where you obtained the information. If possible, the underlying
source should be cited as well, not just a website. The date at which a particular record was accessed can also be useful in
tracking it down if earlier versions of a site exist on a web archive.
Meeting Notes -- 9 December 2009
Topic of the day was cemetery research.
Donald Lines Jacobus writes in his classic _Genealogy as Pastime and Profession_ (p.73): "Graveyards may not appeal to
everyone as pleasant places for research, but stooping to read stones is excellent exercise for the genealogist who is growing
stout at his desk." Cemetery research can quite literally be field work, with a number of consequent hazards such as uneven
ground, insects, snakes, and poison ivy. But apart from the emotions that go with finding a relative's grave, there are many
good reasons to track down those stones.
One reason, particularly in older cemeteries, is that family members were often buried near each other, which can be a useful
clue in research. (The famous "Sedgwick Pie" in Stockbridge, Massachusetts is a famous and excellent example.) Naturally,
the relationships will not always be spelled out, as they often are in a probate record or a family listing in a town's vital
records. But the circumstantial evidence of relationship can be strong when two people share a last name, have heavily
overlapping lifetimes, and are buried right next to each other. Of course, in many cases the relationships are spelled out,
particularly when more than one name appears on a stone. This is often the case in more modern cemeteries as well as older
ones, though in both situations, there is certainly no guarantee that the inscription on a shared stone will specify the
relationship of the people buried there.
A second reason is that gravestones may contain information that you have not yet found anywhere else and that in turn can
lead you to other records. (Note also that information might appear in the form of symbols, not just text.) Suppose, for
example, that you are researching the husband in a married couple but know little about the wife except her name. Finding a
death record for the wife can be made much easier by knowing approximately when she died, and that information (at least a
year) will usually be found on a stone. If the wife died in the 20th century, then her death record could well name her
parents, which in turn might help locate the wife's birth record or relevant census records. Finding a stone in a church
cemetery naturally indicates that a search of church records could be helpful. In addition, older stones might also be the only
record of some people, e.g., children who died young and whose births and deaths were never recorded elsewhere.
A third reason to visit cemeteries is that (with some unfortunate exceptions) the stones are a reasonably permanent record, not
subject to loss in a town hall fire or illegible handwriting or any of the other problems that paper can suffer from. Stones, of
course, do weather over time, particularly if they are made of a softer material; they are sometimes broken or sunken; they do
occasionally get moved for either legitimate or illegitimate reasons; and they can even be flooded away. But on the whole,
stone is a pretty solid material (and you don't have to pay for a certified copy of what it says). It's amazing how well-carved
slate stones from the 1700s have lasted and retained their legibility.
Of course, finding a grave is not always so easy, particularly older graves. Modern death records and obituaries often state
the name of a cemetery, and finding a cemetery once you have its name is usually straightforward. A number of websites
have information on cemeteries all over the country (e.g., findagrave.com and interment.net) and often include transcriptions
or photographs of stones that researchers have uploaded, and transcriptions from individual cemeteries might appear
elsewhere online or in published books or periodicals. Online maps can also be searched for more modern cemeteries if you
at least know the relevant town (there are large numbers of cemeteries that have the same name such as Evergreen or Pine
Grove). But finding an old family cemetery in some obscure corner of an apple orchard is a different matter and may require
finding a local old-timer who takes an interest in such things.
While a more modern cemetery may be easy to find, on the other hand, it may also be quite large, and you will almost always
need to contact a cemetery office in order to obtain the location of a given plot. Even if you know where a given grave is or
luckily stumble upon it, you should still contact the cemetery office – it may well have information not recorded on the
gravestone itself as well as information on other members of the same family.
Once you have found a stone, of course, you can't take a photocopy. But you can certainly take a photograph (and even
record the stone's GPS coordinates). There are various recommended techniques for cleaning a stone, improving the legibility
of its inscription, and getting a good picture. But it is important to note that anything you do to a stone could damage it. It is
probably best to do nothing at all except to position yourself well and to take advantage of sunlight at the right time of day to
case the inscription into sharp relief.
Finally, note that information on gravestones, in records from a cemetery office, or in transcriptions can be as inaccurate as
that on any paper record. Some stones were erected long after the person died or are replacements for earlier damaged
stones, increasing the probability of error. Even death dates can be incorrect, as can birth dates, spelling of names, middle
initials, and so on.
Meeting Notes -- 13 January 2010
Topic of the day was DNA testing.
The two types of DNA testing currently most popular in genealogy are: (1) Y-DNA testing (i.e., using information on the Y
chromosome, which is passed strictly down the paternal line from fathers to sons), and (2) mtDNA testing (i.e., using
information on mitochondrial DNA, which is passed strictly from mothers to children of either sex). While the two types
have some significant differences in how they work, both deal with various forms of benign mutations that occur with
reasonably well-known frequencies, and both can be used to determine whether two people are likely or unlikely to share
descent from a common ancestor.
Though some people obtain test results primarily out of curiosity (including an interest in pre-genealogy ancestry), it is
probably best to have a hypothesis in mind before testing. For one thing, testing can be expensive. For another, having a
hypothesis may mentally prepare you for surprising and sometimes unwanted results, unexpected paternity somewhere along
the line being the most common.
To refresh your memory of biology, the DNA molecule essentially consists of a very long string of four different components
known as bases: adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and thymine (T). In some portions of the DNA molecule, a
particular pattern of two to five of these bases (GATA, for example) can be repeated any number of times from a handful to
two or three dozen. These repetitions are a glitch that results from the process by which DNA replicates itself. They are
known as short tandem repeats (STRs) and are the key to Y-DNA testing in particular, though STRs occur in other forms of
DNA as well.
The number of repetitions for such a pattern is usually identical between father and son, but every once in a while the number
of repetitions changes when going from father to son (roughly 1/500 of the time for an individual STR, though that rate is
frequently being revised by further research). Over the course of many generations and many different STRs, these changes
accumulate, so the number of repetitions can serve as a kind of code to distinguish one male line of descent from another.
The numbers for a given set of STRs is referred to as a haplotype.
As a very rough analogy, we might say that a given pair of people sharing several characteristics (long noses, brown hair,
green eyes, dark skin, small ears, and less-than-average height, for example) look like they are related. Further, the more
characteristics they share, the more alike they look. So it is with STRs on the Y-chromosome, except that they are invisible,
non-functional, and only passed from father to son. We might observe, for example, that two men have the same number of
repeats at thirty or forty different locations on the Y-chromosome.
With a mutation rate of about 1/500 per generation (with some variation by STR), we would expect to find the same number
of repetitions between fathers and sons at most locations. Differences would only be likely to show up if we looked at a very
large number of STRs. One of the largest testing companies, Family Tree DNA, offers a test of 67 locations (also known as
markers). Even testing that many locations would show a difference between father and son (and usually exactly one
difference) only 12% of the time.
Of course, testing fathers and sons would be a waste of money if the goal is to determine the likely existence of a common
ancestor – the answer is obvious (ignoring the possibility of a different father than expected). More typical is to test
suspected distant cousins, and the expected number of differences in the STRs is of course greater in that case than between
fathers and sons. Based on the mutation probabilities and the number of locations tested, there are various rules of thumb for
how many differences to expect between relatives; more differences indicate that there is likely no common ancestor within
the time typically covered by genealogy. Note, however, that eliminating connections can often be very useful for narrowing
down families and areas to research.
Y-DNA testing is, of course, particularly convenient for researching families with the same or similar surnames, at least under
typical American naming conventions. On the maternal side of the family tree, on the other hand, surnames do not usually
follow the descent. But the general ideas above still apply to mtDNA testing, though with some important differences.
First, STRs are not used in mtDNA testing, which instead uses a different type of mutation called a single nucleotide
polymorphism (SNP). Instead of a repeated pattern of bases, an SNP is a substitution of one base for another somewhere
along the mtDNA string. Insertions and deletions of bases are also possible.
Second, this type of substitution is far rarer than changes in STR lengths, happening only 1/100,000 of the time for a given
base. While the full mtDNA molecule is 16,569 bases long, only a relatively small number of them are usually used in testing
(up to about 1,100, depending on the test). Even under the largest number of bases typically tested, the probability of a
difference between mother and child is only about 1%. As a result, more distant relatives sharing a common maternal-line
ancestor may well have identical sets of mtDNA mutations, unlike the case for Y-chromosome STR lengths. On the other
hand, it only takes a small number of differences to indicate that two people are not related along their maternal lines.
Third, because so many bases are used in mtDNA testing – hundreds rather than dozens – only differences compared to a
standard sequence (the Cambridge Reference Sequence) are reported in test results. (This list of differences is also referred
to as a haplotype.) For Y-DNA testing, on the other hand, STR lengths for all the tested locations will be reported.
There are several different testing companies that specialize in DNA testing for genealogy, and some that run more specialized
tests than the Y-DNA and mtDNA tests discussed above (such as SNP testing on the Y chromosome and STR testing on the
X chromosome). Probably the largest is Family Tree DNA (with over 278,000 records according to their website). They
offer Y-DNA tests for as few as 12 markers ($119) to as many as 67 markers ($268) and mtDNA tests covering one section
of the molecule ($99), two sections ($149), or the entire molecule ($279). The rates are discounted if you join one of their
existing surname or geographical projects, of which there are many, and they also offer discounts for combinations of tests as
well as occasional specials. Testing involves taking a cheek scraping using a brush and mailing it back. The company also
provides many tools for project administrators and maintains a large database of test results.
A second company is GeneTree, which offers Y-DNA tests for 33 markers ($149) and 46 markers ($179) and a single test
for three sections of the mtDNA molecule ($299). GeneTree is affiliated with the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation,
which used to offer free testing (though without results being directly provided) but no longer does so. They do not seem to
have the same sort of project orientation as Family Tree DNA nor do they appear to offer discounts. Testing involves
swishing with a mouthwash and mailing it back.
A third company is DNA Heritage, which has an unusual pricing system for Y-DNA. While they test 43 markers, they allow
the customer to purchase the results for any number from 23 ($138) to all 43 ($199), though the pricing structure makes it
silly to purchase a number between 33 and 43 markers. They also offer a single test for three sections of the mtDNA
molecule ($159).
Ancestry also offers DNA testing, including Y-DNA tests for 33 markers ($99) and 46 markers ($149) and a single test of
unspecified sections of the mtDNA molecule ($179). Their website still appears to be a work in progress, however, so it is
unclear exactly what other features they provide.
There is a great deal of information available online concerning DNA testing for genealogy, including explanatory information
and academic articles at the websites of the testing companies, publicly accessible databases of results, mailing lists and
groups with various focuses, and even a free online Journal of Genetic Genealogy. As you can see from the varied offerings
of the testing companies, it would be prudent to spend some time learning additional details before deciding to test.
Meeting Notes -- 10 February 2010
Topic of the day was maps.
Apart from their intrinsic interest, maps have multiple uses in genealogy. For example, suppose a name is so badly spelled in a
census index that it is impossible to find. But suppose also that a city directory shows the person of concern at a particular
address. You could then determine neighbors' names from that same city directory (using the street section that is often
included) and search for them instead. With luck, you will then find the person of interest in a neighboring household.
Alternatively, suppose a particular census page has somewhat difficult handwriting for the names but is more legible for the
street names that are often written in the margin, at least on 1880 and later censuses. By finding what enumeration district
corresponds to the relevant street (a given street may span multiple enumeration districts), you can then limit your search to
just that enumeration district until you find the street of concern. Reviewing the names might then yield the one you are
searching for – it is generally easier to recognize a name in bad handwriting than to decipher the handwriting without knowing
the name. There are several valuable tools for finding enumeration districts and street names at stevemorse.org.
Even for censuses prior to 1880 (which did not use enumeration districts), it was typical for the census in cities to be divided
by wards. If you can find an early-enough city directory for the place you are researching – residential directories for Boston
go back at least to the 1860s – then that directory may include a ward map that again can help you limit your search to a
subset of the census.
Though every-name census indexes are of course becoming more widely available, they are still imperfect, and using city or
town maps as described above can help get past those imperfections. Further, currently available indexes are largely focused
on federal censuses. There are, however, many unindexed state censuses that can be handled using the same sorts of tricks.
As a counterpart to the city maps discussed above, maps of more rural areas (or even moderately sized towns) can be used to
get an overview of neighbors if the maps include the names of property owners. Given the way in which land historically
passed from one generation to the next, seeing the neighbors often means seeing the relatives, including the in-laws. This is
naturally more likely in rural areas since more big-city residents are transient or recent immigrants rather than part of a family
that owned the same land decade after decade.
But finding the person of interest on such a map often requires either a good amount of patience or a physical description of
the land that the person owned. The latter usually requires some research in deeds, in which you can hopefully find a
description that refers to easily identifiable landmarks such as a river or a main road, which in turn will make it easier to
search the map.
Some maps with property owners' names are available online, most commonly from county or city atlases prepared in the
1870s and 1880s. One good free source for New England (and a few other areas in the Northeast) is a commercial site called
wardmaps.com. This site allows you to zoom in on or scroll around thousands of map images, though with only a small area
available for viewing at one time. You can, however, purchase full size reproductions of any of the maps. The site does have
maps for other parts of the country, but these tend to be panoramic or bird's-eye-view maps, which are of limited use in
genealogy.
Ancestry also has a good collection of these types of maps in its database "U.S. County Land Ownership Atlases, c. 1864-
1918," which in turn comes from microfilm created by the Library of Congress. These maps cover a broader geographical
range than just New England, though the image quality is not nearly as good as that at the wardmaps.com site. A separate
Ancestry database is "Historic Land Ownership and Reference Atlases, 1507-2000," which may have some overlap with the
first database, though its source is unspecified.
Maps (or actually a series of them) can also be helpful in determining boundary changes over time. This is not typically a big
problem for recent research in New England, where most boundaries have been in place for a long time. But it can be an
issue in other parts of the country. Though I have not seen an example myself, I have certainly read of families appearing in
successive censuses for two different states while never actually moving. Tracking boundary changes for such a family
could obviously help narrow down exactly where it lived.
Apart from the sources mentioned above, online maps of various types can often be found at websites of universities or
libraries. A local example is the Norman B. Leventhal map collection at the Boston Public Library (maps.bpl.org), which
includes a variety of historical maps. It is always worth googling the term "historical maps" and the location you are
researching just to see what turns up. In this way, you might find something like the collection of atlases displayed within the
Newton city web site: www.ci.newton.ma.us/MIS/Gis/maplist/HistoricMaps.htm (see the bottom of the page). These
Newton maps include property owners' names for various years from 1874 to 1929.
In addition, there are many historical maps that are not online, typically tucked away in the collections of local libraries and
historical societies. Even though images of these maps are usually not available online, the maps themselves are often
described in online catalogs, and occasionally copies can be purchased from a historical society at modest cost. There are
also a number of other commercial entities that specialize in selling reproductions (or even originals) of historic maps, though
sometimes at high prices. But even their online catalogs can indicate what maps are available for a particular area, and you
might be able to find those maps elsewhere.
Meeting Notes -- 10 March 2010
Topic of the day was identifying women.
While recent records concerning women are nearly as varied and detailed as those concerning men, it was not long ago that
women's identities were largely subordinate to those of their husbands or fathers. As a result, women in earlier generations
are decidedly more difficult to research. Consider the following observations about several different record types important to
genealogy:
(1) Traditional genealogies written in the 1800s and 1900s were oriented towards male lines.
(2) If she married, a woman's maiden name was not often used in vital or other records concerning her after the marriage.
(3) Because women were not usually heads of households, they were only rarely named at all in federal censuses prior to
1850.
(4) Married women historically had little power to buy or sell property in their own names.
(5) Relatively few women left probate records at their deaths.
(6) Married women were often not mentioned at all in city directories, though their first names were sometimes provided in
more recent ones.
(7) Women did not generally serve in the military until the twentieth century – and even then their numbers were small
compared to the number of men – and so did not usually appear in earlier military records.
As a result of these limitations on records naming women, information about our female ancestors often only appears on
records that primarily concern someone else – husbands, fathers, and children. Thus researching women often requires
researching whole families.
For women who lived into the 1900s, it is of course possible that their death records will provide their maiden names and even
the names of their parents, though that will depend on how recent the death was and the recording practices in the relevant
jurisdiction – the more recent, the better. Further, there may be an obituary or cemetery record that provides the
information. But records concerning their children, particularly their marriages or deaths, may be a better source since those
records would be more recent still.
But for women who lived earlier, those routes are likely closed and more indirect paths are required. In the simplest case, you
may know a woman's maiden name from her marriage record but not be sure of her parents. If the age at marriage and place
of birth is given on the marriage record (or if they can be estimated based on other evidence) and if it is reasonably certain
that the marriage was the bride's first, then it may be easy to find candidates born at the right place and time. But there may
be multiple possibilities – for example, the published vital records of Newton show two Abigail Jacksons born in 1783 and
two Hannah Bartletts baptized in 1823.
In a situation like the one above, there are several possible ways to determine which one of multiple candidates is the correct
woman, or at least to see which is the most likely. For example, census or land records may show that the bride's father was
an immediate neighbor of the groom's father, and census records may indicate the presence of a boy and a girl of the right
ages in the respective households. (This approach naturally works best in rural areas or small towns.) A census record for
1850 or later may show someone in the couple's household who could be the wife's brother, sister, mother, or father. Estate
documents for one of the possible fathers may, if the timing is right, refer to the daughter by her married name or to her
children if the daughter is herself no longer alive.
Some other possibilities are as follows. If the potential father was notable enough to merit a short biography in a local town
history or a detailed obituary in a local newspaper, such an item may mention the daughter and her husband. If one of the
bride's siblings left an estate, the documents might also mention the bride by her married name, particularly if the sibling was
unmarried or was widowed with no children. The bride and groom might have named some of their children after the bride's
parents. A land record might show the husband selling land specified as having been previously given him by his wife's
father, or the husband's will may refer to land the same way. The married couple could also be buried close to the wife's
parents. Of course, it is also possible that no records will help, but they are certainly all worth checking.
A more difficult case occurs when no marriage record can be found in civil, church, or even military pension records –
obviously there could be many girls named Elizabeth, say, who were born in the right place and time to be the bride. But
some of the same approaches can still be used. For example, if a long-term neighbor had a daughter of the right name and
age, probate records or short biographies for that neighbor may provide the answer. Names of the couple's children can again
offer clues, as can the names of other people in the couple's household. A land record or the husband's will may just as easily
refer to the husband's father-in-law as in the case when the bride's maiden name is known.
The worst case of all occurs when even the wife's first name is unknown. If she predeceased her husband, for example, the
husband's probate documents may not mention her at all. Her gravestone, if it can be found, may only refer to her as "wife."
In such a case, it will take some decided luck to find the parents, though it can still happen. For example, a well-indexed book
of probate abstracts might name the husband as he appears in his father-in-law's will (if one exists), and the complete will or
other probate documents may name the unknown wife. It is also common for land sales by the husband to require consent
by the wife, and her name may thus appear on deeds.
In addition to the above approaches, there may be other record types not mentioned here than could provide clues or
answers. Records in a cemetery office, bible records, and court records are all possibilities, as are other more obscure record
types, though these may require a bit more tenacity to find.
Meeting Notes -- 14 April 2010
Topic of the day was genealogy blogs.
Because they are updated so frequently, blogs are one of the best sources for keeping up with genealogy news, including
upcoming talks and conferences, publication of new databases, legal changes affecting access to records, software updates,
and more. Consider, for example, a few recent headlines from the popular Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter at http:
//blog.eogn.com:
Maine State Legislature Passes Limits on Vital Records Access
WorldVitalRecords adds Italian Passenger Lists
Free Online 19th Century Pennsylvania Landowner Maps and Atlases
Of course, there are so many blogs that finding the ones of greatest interest can itself be difficult. One good starting point is
the Genealogy Blog Finder at http://blogfinder.genealogue.com, which tracks about 1600 blogs and sorts them into categories
such as genealogy news, technology, and surname-, location-, or ethnicity-specific blogs. Within each category, it's best to
sort the listings by the date each blog was last updated; not all of the blogs that the site follows are currently maintained.
In addition, some bloggers maintain their own blogrolls (lists of other blogs that they follow), even highlighting specific entries
from time to time. For example, Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog at http://www.geneamusings.com includes a long
blogroll in the right-hand margin as well as a weekly feature that Randy calls Best of the Genea-Blogs. (Randy also includes
numerous stories and tidbits from his own research.)
Not all blogs are written by independents, though those that are not seem careful to disclose the relationships they may have.
For example, Diane Haddad's Genealogy Insider at http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider is clearly associated with Family
Tree Magazine, though the entries only rarely refer to the magazine itself. The association does not diminish this blog's value
as a news source. In addition, some of the well-known genealogy database sites maintain their own blogs, two examples
being http://blogs.ancestry.com and http://blog.footnote.com. Those are more likely to just concern the sponsoring site. The
Footnote blog, however, is not updated very often.
If you prefer to listen rather than read blogs, you can find a few genealogy podcasts online as well. These, of course, are not
updated daily, though the Genealogy Guys podcast at http://genealogyguys.com puts up a new episode weekly, typically a half-
hour long. The most recent episode is number 200, so there is quite a backlog of material to listen to if you find this format
appealing.
While not quite oriented to current events, the 700 or so videos at http://rootstelevision.com offer yet another approach to
online learning. This site, run by the DNA genealogist Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, was nearly discontinued a few weeks
ago, but the outcry of support apparently convinced Megan to keep the site going, albeit with advertising. The "Browse
Videos" menu at the upper right, the category headings in the right-hand margin, and the search box offer a few ways to
explore the contents of the site.
All of these formats can refer to each other – for example, the near-disappearance of RootsTelevision was mentioned in more
than one blog and may have been covered in a Genealogy Guys podcast. So apart from following blogs that pertain to your
specific areas of interest, it is probably wise to follow two or three more general blogs as well.
Meeting Notes -- 12 May 2010
No notes for this meeting -- open discussion.
Meeting Notes -- 9 June 2010
Topic of the day was genealogical standards and codes of practice.
Several genealogical organizations publish various standards, guidelines, and codes. In the US, there are at least three: the
Board for Certification of Genealogists, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and the National Genealogical Society.
While portions of these standards and codes are aimed at genealogists who serve clients, many elements are relevant to all,
and they merit review by researchers who only study their own families. As you might expect, there are some common
elements across all the different publications, but there are also decided differences in their styles and emphases. All are
worth reading.
The largest collection of standards is that issued by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), which publishes them
in _The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual_ (available for purchase at http://www.bcgcertification.org/catalog/stdmanual.
html). There are a total of 74 standards, with subsets devoted to research, teaching, and continuing education. Within the
research subset, the standards are further grouped into those applicable to data collection, evidence evaluation, and
compilation. As you might expect, many of the points are common sense, though the Manual takes pains to explain and
expand on each one. The 18 data collection standards, for example, can really be boiled down to: (1) treat records,
custodians, and other people's work products with respect; (2) collect information accurately, efficiently, and without bias;
(3) cite, transcribe, and abstract thoroughly and accurately. Similarly, the 16 evidence evaluation standards boil down to: (1)
research extensively; (2) distinguish between original/derivative sources and primary/secondary information; (3) consider
background, relevance, assumptions, and inconsistencies.
The BCG publishes its code of ethics at http://www.bcgcertification.org/aboutbcg/code.html. While not nearly as lengthy as
the Standards Manual, the code still includes more than two dozen points, though about half of them pertain to research done
for others. All applicants for the credential of Certified Genealogist sign a copy of this code, which focuses on accuracy and
completeness in all work products and on respect for other genealogists, clients, and genealogy as a field. Some examples of
specific items in the code are:
"I will identify my sources for all information and cite only those I have personally used."
"I will furnish only facts I can substantiate with adequate documentation; and I will not withhold any data necessary for the
consumer's purpose."
"I will participate in exposing genealogical fraud; but I will not otherwise knowingly injure or attempt to injure the reputation,
prospects, or practice of another genealogist."
The Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) is much terser in its recommendations -- its eight-point code of ethics
appears at the APG website (http://www.apgen.org/ethics/). As expected given the purpose of the organization, some points
of the code focus on treatment of clients, but a majority are broader in scope and again emphasize both the proper treatment
of records and custodians and the accurate reporting of research results. The code also specifically requires APG members
to "[s]upport initiatives that preserve public records and access to them" and to "encourage applicable education, accreditation,
and certification," elements that are not explicit in the other organizations' standards and codes.
Finally, the standards and guidelines produced by the National Genealogical Society (NGS) are in some ways the most
interesting, practical, and detailed, though with something of a schoolmarmish tone. The organization publishes standards and
guidelines in six different areas: research, records and repositories, technology, sharing information, publishing web pages,
and self-improvement (all at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/ngs_standards_and_guidelines).
The first of these ("Standards for Sound Genealogical Research") strongly emphasizes the use of original records and the need
to rely on credible and convincing evidence. It also differs from the other sets of standards in its recommendation to make
one's work available for critical comment through publication. The second ("Guidelines for Using Records Repositories and
Libraries) goes beyond general statements of treating records and custodians with respect, going so far as to recommend
appropriate dress and proper supervision of children.
The third ("Standards for Use of Technology in Genealogical Research") emphasizes the need for a critical eye in one's own
use of software and digital data, particularly noting the need to tie source citations to digital records and to "actively oppose
the proliferation of error, rumor, and fraud." The fourth ("Standards for Sharing Information with Others") stresses respect
for copyright and privacy, getting very specific in some cases – for example, responsible researchers should "convey personal
identifying information about living people—like age, home address, occupation or activities—only in ways that those
concerned have expressly agreed to" and should be "sensitive to the hurt that revelations of criminal, immoral, bizarre or
irresponsible behavior may bring to family members."
The fifth ("Guidelines for Publishing Web Pages on the Internet") continues the specificity of the earlier standards and
guidelines. For example, it includes recommendations to "provide website access to all potential visitors by avoiding enhanced
technical capabilities that may not be available to all users" and to "avoid using features that distract from the productive use of
the website, like ones that reduce legibility, strain the eyes, dazzle the vision, or otherwise detract from the visitor's ability to
easily read, study, comprehend or print the online publication." Finally, the sixth ("Guidelines for Genealogical Self-
Improvement and Growth") recommends various forms of study and development, such as: reading at least two peer-
reviewed journals; regular participation in genealogical societies, workshops, and conferences; and occasional critical review
of others' work.
Meeting Notes -- 14 July 2010
There is a wide variety of genealogy periodicals, ranging from family association or local society newsletters to informal
popular magazines to peer-reviewed journals. While any of these can offer genealogical information or instructional tips, the
content and quality will of course differ from one publication to another, particularly since they are aimed at different
audiences.
Newsletters are typically only available to members of the relevant association or society, of which there are probably
hundreds. The contents of such newsletters can be all over the place. The latest copy of the Niagara County Genealogical
Society newsletter, for example, has twenty pages that include (among other items) a 1908 group photograph with
accompanying names; excerpts from an old newspaper, a county history, and a business directory; a short biography of a
notable citizen of the area written by a current member of the NCGS; and a genealogical queries section. If you are
researching a very specific area or family of interest, it may be worth finding and joining a corresponding group just to get a
decent-quality newsletter, especially since membership fees are usually quite low (on the order of $20 a year) and will usually
cover some other benefits. Note that some societies may publish multiple newsletters, for example, one that focuses on
upcoming meetings and other administrative announcements and another that focuses on more traditional genealogical or
historical information (this latter type will often be called a journal instead of a newsletter). Publication is typically quarterly,
and it is no doubt becoming common for groups to send these materials out electronically rather than through the mail. Back
issues are often also available for purchase, and some groups provide tables of contents for those back issues on their
websites.
Popular genealogical magazines are usually just available by subscription (online or mail), though there are exceptions – for
example, the recently discontinued Ancestry magazine from 1994 to 2009 is available through Google Books. Some local
libraries also hold back issues of this type of magazine. These publications are, however, becoming somewhat scarce due to
the poor economics of magazine production, and it should not be surprising if others are eventually discontinued as well
(though some may survive in online form). Some other titles in this category include Family Tree Magazine, Everton's
Genealogical Helper (now discontinued), Family Chronicle, and Internet Genealogy. Subscription prices are in the range of
$25-$30 a year, with issues typically published every other month. Individual issues can sometimes be found at bookstores
with large magazine sections, and the publishers often include tables of contents and a few sample articles at their websites.
These magazines are generally pitched to an audience between beginning and intermediate and are written in a light informal
style, but they can still include articles useful at any level of experience: lists of recommended websites, product reviews,
refreshers on familiar record types (or information on new ones), and special interest articles on such topics as preserving
photographs or international research.
In this category are glossies published by national-level genealogical societies that also publish peer-reviewed journals. Two
examples are American Ancestors (published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society) and NGS magazine
(published by the National Genealogical Society). These are something of a mix of society newsletters (including fundraising
results and other administrative information, for example) and the popular magazines described above, with columns or
articles offering research guidance, case studies, or record descriptions. A few of these articles may be pitched to a slightly
more advanced audience, but they are overall still meant to be fairly light reading.
Finally, there are the peer-reviewed journals, of which there are several. Probably the best-known are the New England
Historical and Genealogical Register (NEHGR), the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (NGSQ), The American
Genealogist (TAG), The Genealogist (TG), and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (NYGBR). There are
also others that focus on a single geographical area, typically a state, including some that are no longer published. Some also
focus on a particular group such as Mayflower descendants.
The peer-reviewed journals are available by subscription or included with membership in the applicable society, if any. Many
are also available at local libraries (Waltham has a good collection). Collections of back issues have sometimes been published
on CD-ROM at various times, though this seems to be a distribution approach that publishers are moving away from. Back
issues are also usually available through the organization websites where applicable, though that of course will usually entail
paying an annual subscription fee or visiting a library that has such a subscription. NEHGS does include several journals
besides its own Register at its website, though the issues for the others will not necessarily come up to the most recent years
in order to prevent cannibalization of subscription revenue for the other publishers.
Nearly all of these journals are published quarterly (TG only twice a year). Though they all have an academic style, there are
still variations in their approaches. For example, a typical issue of NEHGR will have 8 to 10 articles and will focus on family
accounts (usually of New England families, of course). NGSQ, on the other hand, might only have a half dozen articles, and
they can cover any part of the country. Many NGSQ articles also illustrate research methods rather than provide lengthy
family accounts. TAG will often have a full dozen articles written in a slightly less formal style, with the articles often being
reasonably short and zeroing in on a narrower point of interest. Geographically, TAG does focus somewhat on the
northeastern part of the country, with occasional forays elsewhere, even Europe.
Apart from their feature articles, the peer-reviewed journals are particularly useful for their reviews, usually of books but
sometimes of other types of publications. These reviews can both provide ideas for items that might help in your research
and prevent you from wasting money on ones that will not. Further, the peer-reviewed journals differ from the genealogical
magazines in one important respect – they do not go stale, or at least not quickly. An article in a popular magazine about, say,
a particular website will only be useful as long as that website exists, but an article about a particular family or research
method can be useful almost indefinitely.
Copyright 2010 Ruy A. Cardoso. All rights reserved.
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