We've posted two articles on our site on searching the 1870 census. The discussion is applicable to other years as well and focuses on alternate spellings for names, variant last names, places of birth, and other issues with locating people in the census. The focus is on organizing and thinking about what you want to search before you start mindlessly entering names in search boxes.

• Ready to Try 1870
• 1870 Census Finds

The second article centers on an analysis of entries located while trying to search for Johann Ufkes (born 1838 Ostfriesland, Germany) in the 1870 census and provides some ways to analyze entries.

Unfortunately I have not found either person (Johann Ufkes or Ira Sargent) I was looking for in 1870. But the search continues.

Labels: 1870 census, census, sargent, tips, ufkes

1. I could have written the name of the paper and the date on the original and then my scan would have included that information.


2. I could have used my photoediting software to add the same information in text format on the document.


3. I could have included the source in the file name of the document--without being too long.

Probably the best option is 1 or 2 and 3. File names are not always included with printouts, so that is a limitation of only using option three. Including the source in the file name (along with the name of the person on the scan), makes it easier to search the hard drive or media for specific words or phrases.

My attempt to date and locate the source would require using contextual clues from the document. I already know the paper is one in the Chiago area, which could have been determined using the place names and addresses. Had the year not been known already, a perpetual calendar and contextual clues would have given a good guess as to the paper's date. The real problem would be in determining in which newspaper the obituary actually appeared.

The desired obituary on this page was that of Peter Verikios. He's my wife's step-great-grandfather. At least I copied more than his obituary which helped to provide additional contextual references. It is usually a good idea to copy a little more than you think you will need.

Labels: tips

Spring is a busy time in "genealogyland" as we sometimes call it and we are still accepting participants in several of our upcoming workshops and events.

• Genealogy Computing Week-March 2008-Galesburg, Illinois
• Footnote.com in St. Charles, Missouri--April 2008
• Research Trip to Salt Lake City, Utah--May 2008
• Research Trip to Ft. Wayne, Indiana--May/June 2008

Visit our above pages for more information.

Contact me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com with questions or to schedule your own workshop or event.

Back issues of the Helper from 1947 have been digitized and placed on the World Vital Records website.

Of course, my contact information has changed. And it turns out the last name I thought was Leghin is actually Lichtsinn. I'm still researching these families and any interested relatives are welcome to send me an email at mjnrootdig@gmail.com.

Labels: maryland

Reuters is reporting that a New York State Department of Education Archivist has been arrested for stealing documents from the New York State Archives and stealing them on Ebay.

In some places it is extremely easy to walk out with original documents, particularly when they are not documents on famous people or events.

Leland Meitzler on Genealogyblog.com dug up a picture of the guy and posted it to his blog.

I will be the featured lecturer at the Village Genealogical Society's biannual conference on 21 March 2009 in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. We will post more details here as they become available. The society's website will also have updated information as well.

I'm still booking seminars in late 2008 and later--interested groups can contact me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com.

Labels: speaking

Many of us write our genealogical citations on the source, particularly if we are in a facility where we are making photocopies or receive photocopies in the mail. As mentioned earlier, black ink works best.

There is an article on the Board for Certification of Genealogists' website on this very topic. Those who are concerned about tracking their sources (as we all should be) may want to take a look at Amy Johnson Crow's article from the May 2000 issue of On Board, published by the Board for Certification of Genealogists.

Labels: tips

My continuing work into the Neely-Rathbone scandal located two references in Meekel's Weekly Stamp News as mentioned in a previous post.

Fortunately my librarian was able to quickly and easily obtain copies of the articles. Unfortunately the library supplying the material to me did not write an issue date on my copy [nor was it on the newspaper itself]. I was lucky that the article request form was sent to me along with the articles and I was able to determine the date of each reference. But always make certain you have dates and other relevant sourcing information for any copies of materials you make.

And don't write in green ink. It doesn't always copy or scan well ;-)

The image in this post is from Meekel's Weekly Stamp News on 24 May 1900.

Labels: tips

Like many genealogists, I use the online newspapers at:
World Vital Records
Genealogy Bank
Ancestry.com

However it is worth remembering that these newspaper collections are sometimes incomplete and that other sites may have newspapers on them as well, in some cases for free.

The Quincy, Illinois, Public Library is a good case in point. They have scanned old Quincy area newspapers from the microfilm, and created a digital database that can be searched. The interesting thing is that I KNOW I have searched this database for the last name Trautvetter several years ago and already viewed all the small number of hits. Today a search for that name again (on a whim) resulted in two new hits, including the one that is shown in this post. I would have remembered seeing this reference.

The Quincy Daily Journal from Quincy, Illinois 22 March 1918 listed those who had taken their teacher exams for second and third grade. A surprise to me was the listing of Luella Trautvetter from Mendon, Illinois. I never knew my great aunt had taken the teacher exam. She would have been 17 and a half years old at the time she took the exam.

If not for the digital version of the newspaper, I would never have located this reference.

The digital archives of the Quincy [Illinois] Public Library can be found on their site.

Labels: tips, trautvetter

A post to the Association of Professional Genealogists mailing list included links to scans of articles from Modern Mechanix on the 1940-1960 census enumerations. Not a complete discussion to be certain, but an interesting one nonetheless.

• 1940
• 1950
• 1960

Labels: census

I have mentioned before that I wish there were a way on a database site itself to track "results" that have already been viewed and analyzed. On sites where databases are "in progress" wading through the same results gets tiresome.

Another added feature I'd like to see (particularly on these databases that are updated) is the ability to send me an email when there are new results for surnames or searches in which I am interested. While I don't need an email every time there is a new Smith, I certainly would be interested in an email telling me there was a new Rampley, Trautvetter, or Ufkes result.

Labels: suggestions

Just because two individuals have the same last name does not mean that they are related. Researchers working on a Smith family know that two people with this common last name are not related, but what about a more unusual surname?

Well it depends on the origination of the name (and that even is not a guarantee) and jumping to conclusions makes for bad research.

One of my ancestral surnames is Habben--a somewhat unusual name. In Ostfriesland, Germany, where many of these families originate the surname is somewhat more common. However, the name is a patronym actually meaning "child of Habbe." While patronymics was practiced, two men with the first name Habbe would have children with the last name of Habben--though there might have been no relationship.

Sweden is full of Larsons, Carlsons, etc. for exactly the same reason--patronymics.

Even surnames that are not patronymical in origin may be shared by two unrelated individuals. This is especially true with surnames such as Baker, Farmer, Lake and other names that may have been derived from occupations or nearby geographical features.

There may be cases where all individuals with the same surname are related, but let research, not your gut, be your guide. My tentative hypothesis is that all or most individuals with the last name of Trautvetter are related. However, research is not complete and just because the name is concentrated in a certain area of Germany does not mean there was one common ancestor.

Last names can be used as clues to relationships. But a last name only means it was that person's last name, not that he (or she) had to be related to someone else.

Labels: tips

I have set up the website for our research trip to Salt Lake City in May 2008. If you have signed up for the trip, but have not received information about the website we are using, please let me know (mjnrootdig@gmail.com). You might also want to check your spam folder in case the invitation got stuck in there.

I'm looking forward to the trip and hope those who are attending are as well. And we have room for a few more if you've been waiting to make a decision.

Labels: slc2008

Carl Sandburg College will be offering a full-day workshop on Overview of Free Genealogy Online at the Branch Campus in Carthage, Illinois.

The workshop will be held on 26 April 2008 and runs from 8:30 until 3:00.

Registration is only $35 and is limited. Lunch is not included.

More information is available on our website. Questions can be addressed to me at mneill@sandburg.edu.

Labels: speaking

Carl Sandburg College will be offering a full-day workshop on Family Tree Maker 2008 at the Branch Campus in Carthage, Illinois.

The workshop will be held on 29 March 2008 and runs from 8:30 until 3:00.

Registration is only $35 and is limited. Lunch is not included.

More information is available on our website. Questions can be addressed to me at mneill@sandburg.edu.

Labels: speaking

It seems like if my ancestors are involved in anything, it wasn't "big" enough to make the history books in school. In some cases that is probably just as well.



I have been using the newspapers at:

• World Vital Records

• Genealogy Bank

• Ancestry.com
  

Of course, these collections are not complete, but they are an excellent starting point and much easier than manually reading papers myself. Google searches have turned up several references to the Neely-Rathbone scandal, including several references in the New York Times that I could view for free. But I did have quite a bit of success with World Vital Records and Genealogy Bank, both of which have monthly subscription plans that are relatively inexpensive.

One of my google searches referenced a blibliography of Cuban Philatelic history. Why? Because part of the fraud in the Neely-Rathbone scandal involved the supposed desctruction of Cuban stamps. My librarian is trying to obtain copies of the two magazine articles referenced in the bibliography.

Another place to search is Worldcat...the worldwide online library card catalog. There may be references to the scandal there as well.

Labels: rathbone

My family has lived in Illinois for generations.

Yet my parents were born in Iowa. My grandfather died in Iowa. My great-grandmother died in Iowa. The reasons is simple: the county where I grew up did not have a hospital until the 1950s. The nearest hospital for many was in Keokuk, Iowa, across the Mississippi River.

When researching in a time period when births and deaths typically took place "at home," the location of the nearest hospital is not as much of a concern. However, during that era, the location of the nearest hospital is important as the death or birth record will be filed there, not where the person was living.

Regardless of the time period, it is always important to remember that birth and death records are filed where they took place. If Grandma moved during the last six months of her life to live with her daughter that's where it will be recorded.

And that's also why later sources providing secondary information may be incorrect.

Just something to think about.

Labels: tips

Online images and databases are nice, but it is worth noting that there are still vast quantities of information that are available only in paper form. Local county records housed in the original courthouse come to mind as records that are occasionally overlooked (and do not assume that the Family History Library filmed EVERYTHING if they "filmed a courthouse.").

Another overlooked source are manuscript collections, materials that may be housed in a library or a private archives, with letters, files and other documents that may have been donated at some point in time.

A google search was how I located information on Philip Troutfetter in a manuscript collection at the Kansas Historical Society. I was fortunate that the finding aid to this Bristow collection was online. If it had not been I would have been unable to locate the reference as easily as I did. I'm working on locating additional papers regarding the investigation into Troutfetter.

Searching World Cat (http://www.worldcat.org) may also bring up some manuscript collection,but bear in mind that only the "main" names in a collection are indexed--not every name. And the material has to have been cataloged and uploaded to OCLC in order to appear in Worldcat. That it not true of every item in every collection.

Labels: tips

There is an interesting blog on upstate New York Genealogy maintained by Dick Hillenbrand. It is nice to have a site for New York that focuses on areas outside the city for those of us whose work in New York does not usually require information on NYC.

My wife's great-grandmother was born in 1895 in Clinton County, New York, which I think is about as upstate as one can get. I found a few hits for "Clinton County" when I did a search of his blog. And there's general research advice and information on his site as well.

Labels: tips

I have known about this score for some time, but just recently found it digitized and placed on the internet at the Indiana Historical Society. It is amazing what a google search will turn up.

The "Dan Patch Two-Step" was published by the International Stock Food Company in Minneapolis in the early 1900s. Dan Patch was a world famous race horse and the song was written in his honor.

I'm still trying to find out who H. G. Trautvetter was. I do not think he is a member of "my" Trautvetter/Troutfetter family which settled in Hancock County, Illinois, and who were descendants of Erasmus and Anna Gross Trautvetter of Thuringen, Germany. I'm of the mind that all the Trautvetters are related, it is just a matter of making the connections.

Maybe I'll get someone to play the song and we'll place the tune on on the site.

Labels: trautvetter

Labels: trautvetter

Ancestry.com released a version of a database of land patent data from the land patent database at the Bureau of Land Management. The Ancestry.com Land Patent Database currently does not contain information on as many states as the database at the Bureau of Land Management does.

I was excited however as the Ancestry.com version allows users to search based upon keywords. That search apparently does not function in the way I think or it does not function. Searches of keywords for "smith" and "johnson" resulted in no hits, yet there are obviously names such as those in the actual database.

The Bureau of Land Management contains more states, is free to use and contains a Visitor's Center that provides a background on the patents and the land description process followed in federal land states. Understanding how land is described is crucial to searching effectively.

Some time ago I made an extended post about using the Bureau of Land Management site.

Labels: ancestry, land, tips

The Ancestry Blog published my article on using their new United States passport database.

There are several hints there in using the database as well as some examples of the information I found in applications for several family members. The article also includes some tips on using the database and search strategies. Reading and using the blog at Ancestry.com is free and those with additional tips can post responses on the blog there for others to read.

A search of the 1910 census index at Ancestry.com resulted in 4342 hits when searching for natives of Antarctica. Some of these are very difficult to read and others are probably typographical errors.

Just remember to consider leaving out place of birth when doing a census search.

I did not look to see whether or not these Antarctica natives were living in warm or cold US climes.

Labels: tips

I will be presenting an all-day hands-on workshop on "Using Footnote.Com" for the St. Charles County Genealogical Society (Missouri) and the St. Charles Community College. More details on this workshop are available on our website. Attendees will have access to Footnote.com for the duration of the workshop.

Labels: footnote, speaking

I'll be the featured speaker at the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society's annual workshop on April 5, 2008 in Omaha, Nebraska. Details are still be finalized, but will be posted here when we have them.

Labels: speaking

Labels: trautvetter

We have finally posted details of our research trip to the Allen
County Public Library 28 May-3 June 2008.

Our main trip page is http://www.rootdig.com/acpltrip.html.
Links to registration brochures is at
http://www.rootdig.com/acpl/trip_details.html.

Brochures are available in Word, Rich Text and Adobe Portable Document Format. Questions about our annual Ft. Wayne Library trip can be sent to me at mjnrootdig@gmail.com. This trip is co-sponsored by the St. Charles County, Missouri, Genealogical Society and St. Charles Community College. We always have a great time and find as many ancestors as possible.

Labels: acpltrip

Juliana Smith at the Ancestry.com Blog recently posted my article "Avoiding Assumptions."
It contains a list of suggested assumptions that we have to make sometimes and discusses when these assumptions should be dropped and the importance of realizing that you have made assumptions. There are times when we have made our own brick walls.

The complete article "Avoiding Assumptions" can be viewed on the Ancestry.com blog for free.

Labels: articles, tips

Rarely is all genealogical information consistent. This is one of the reasons that most genealogical software programs allow for multiple dates of birth, multiple places of birth, etc. This way one can accurately record what each record indicates. It is up to the researcher to determine which location or date is most accurate. This largely is dependent upon the perceived accuracy of the individual sources, etc. Then one can choose the "preferred" date or location. It is always important to include your reasoning as to WHY that date or location was chosen.

Another way to analyze conflicting information is to create a discrepancy chart, listing each different date or place and where that information was obtained. I wrote an article some time ago on using these charts. Unfortunately, I am no closer to learning about great-grandma's parents than when the article was written several years ago.

Labels: tips

There are several genealogical data vendors who release databases as they are "in progress." This is fine and good. However, it would be nice if those databases allowed us to somehow search the "new" material or data uploaded since a certain point in time. If that cannot be done, at least the ability to mark results that we have already viewed would be nice. Wading through the same results can be tiresome.

Just a suggestion.