WCAGS

June WCAGS meeting: Sunday June 13, 2010 This is your life, Dad!

2010-06-06T17:18:00.001-05:00

June 13, 2010: Washington County AR Genealogical Society Members to Observe Father's Day," This is Your Life, Dad":

Those who enjoy family history often work really hard in collecting data from generations long since gone, and that can be so exciting when new discoveries are made. But often, we fail to collect and organize the information which is close at hand: namely the story of our parent's lives. Several years ago, the WCAGS members observed "Mother's Day" by collecting everything they had relating to their mother's lives and organizing the information in scrapbooks, notebooks, and picture albums.

This year, for "Father's Day", WCAGS is inviting members and guests to do something similar for their fathers. The form in which the photographs, memorabilia, family stories, and genealogical information is organized is not as important as focusing on the stories of our father's lives. By bringing and sharing what members and guests have been able to put together about their fathers will inspire and perhaps offer new insights to fellow researchers.

" If nothing else, preparing for this meeting could be the first step in a project many members have intended to begin in earnest, "said Carol Reel, Program Chairperson of WCAGS.

The meeting will begin at 2:00 PM on Sunday, June 13, 2010, at Headquarters House, 118 E. Dickson St., Fayetteville , AR. The public is cordially invited to come, participate in the program and have refreshments. Registration is not required and no fee is charged for attendance.

For questions or additional information, please check WCAGS website: http://www.rootsweb.com/~arwcags/

Updated: Shiloh Museum June eNews

2010-05-23T22:30:00.001-05:00

Two changes on this notice: Second session of history camp is July 12-16 and Photo ID group is June 19.

JUNE at the MUSEUM

1800s History Camp for Kids
It's not too late to sign up kids ages 6-9 for one of two sessions: June 21-25 and July 12-26, from 9:00 a.m. to noon each day. Campers will enjoy games, crafts, and food from the 1800s. Each day will feature a different theme, including Native Americans, pioneers, the Civil War, railroads, and Victorian fun. Cost for the camp is $45 for museum members and $50 for non-members. Preregistration and payment is required.

Meet A Firefighter Summer Saturday Program
Saturday, June 12, 12:30-3:00 p.m.

Help us celebrate the history of the Springdale Fire Department!
12:30 p.m.   Mayor's Proclamation

12:35 p.m.   Reminiscing with former chief Mickey Jackson

12:50 p.m.   "Today's Springdale Fire Department," by Chief Duane Atha

1:00-3:00 p.m.
• Visit with members of the Springdale Fire Department and see a modern fire engine
• Tour the Fire Safety House
• Meet "Old Betsy," the department's historic 1931 pumper truck
• Kids can make a fire hat and an edible fire truck
• Watch the 1916 Charlie Chaplin classic, The Fireman
• See Answering the Call, an exhibit on the history of the Springdale Fire Department

Public Access Television:
The Quilt of Community Diversity
Wednesday, June 16, noon
Independent journalist and author Richard Drake of Fayetteville will discuss the history of public access TV in Northwest Arkansas . Bring a sack lunch if you like; we'll provide cookies, lemonade, and coffee.

Photo Identification
Saturday, June 24, 10 a.m.-noon
Come help us identify people, places, and events in newspaper photos taken over the last 40 years.

Current Exhibits
Through January 22, 2011. All Dressed Up, an exhibit of men's, women's, and children's finery.

Through September 18. Answering the Call, an exhibit on the history of the Springdale Fire Department.

Through August 21. Carl Smith's Fayetteville, a photo exhibit featuring images from the 1910s through the 1950s.

New Podcasts
• Our Natural Heritage, volumes 2 and 3, by members of LifeWriters memoirists.

• My Fayetteville, by Deryl Powers, Shirley Lucas, Kim Agee, and Charlie Alison.

Find these and more on our podcast page.

Monthly Meetings at the Museum
Arkansas Boston Mountain Chapter, National Railway Historical Society
3rd Thursday, 7 p.m.

Life Writers
1st and 3rd Mondays, 10 a.m.

Northwest Arkansas Civil War Roundtable
4th Thursday, 7 p.m.

Ozark Wireless Society
4th Saturday, 10 a.m.

Shiloh Sacred Harp Singers
4th Sunday, 1:30 p.m.

Sons of Confederate Veterans
3rd Tuesday, 7 p.m.

Tellers of Tales
3rd Saturday, 10:30 a.m. (every other month)

FYI: Smith surname

2010-05-23T22:27:00.001-05:00

Are You a Smith?

Though Smith is the most common last name in the United States and the United Kingdom, fewer than 5 million people worldwide

bear the name (it ranks far behind the name Li held by 108 million people). But you might be a Smith and not even know it.

These surnames are based on various languages' words for the metal working profession:

De Smet Dutch

Ferraro Italian

Haddad Arabic

Herrera Spanish

Kovacs Hungarian

Kovalenko Ukrainian

Kovalev Russian

Kowai Polish

Lefèvre French

Lohar Punjabi

Schmieder Yiddish

Sedaris Greek

Seppä Finnish

Excert from Familytreemagazine.com

WCAGS: Next Meeting: May 16, 2010 at 2pm at Headquarters House in Fayetteville, Arkansas

2010-05-16T00:51:00.001-05:00

FINDING GENEALOGICAL GOLD IN SCHOOL RECORDS

The Washington County Arkansas Genealogical Society Meeting scheduled May 16, 2010 at 2:00PM at Headquarters House, 118 E. Dickson St., Fayetteville. The program will be "Finding the "gold" in County School Records." For researchers looking for facts about their family who were school age in the 1920's through the 1940's, school records can be a surprising source of information about the student and the family members. We will be using Washington County records as an example of what can be available in Washington County and elsewhere.

The program will begin at 2:00 PM on Sunday at Headquarters House 118 E. Dickson St., Fayetteville, AR.

The public is cordially invited to come, participate in the program and have refreshments. Registration is not required and no fee is charged for attendance.

For questions or additional information, please check our website: http://www.rootsweb.com/~arwcags/ , contact Carol Reel at carolreel@yahoo.com, or La Nita McKinney at 479-521-3480.

Come and join us!

WCAGS Meeting will not be this Sunday, May 8th due to Mothers' Day

2010-05-16T00:50:00.001-05:00

Just a reminder our next meeting will not be Sunday, May 8, 2010 due to Mother’s Day. Instead it will be delayed one week until next Sunday!

FINDING GENEALOGICAL GOLD IN SCHOOL RECORDS

The Washington County Arkansas Genealogical Society Meeting scheduled May 16, 2010 at 2:00PM at Headquarters House, 118 E. Dickson St., Fayetteville program will be “Finding the “gold” in County School Records.” For researchers looking for facts about their family who were school age in the 1920’s through the 1940’s, school records can be a surprising source of information about the student and the family members. We will be using Washington County records as an example of what can be available in Washington County and elsewhere.

The program will begin at 2:00 PM on Sunday at Headquarters House 118 E. Dickson St., Fayetteville, AR.

The public is cordially invited to come, participate in the program and have refreshments. Registration is not required and no fee is charged for attendance.

For questions or additional information, please check our website: http://www.rootsweb.com/~arwcags/ , contact Carol Reel at carolreel@yahoo.com, or La Nita McKinney at 479-521-3480.

Shiloh Museum May Events

2010-04-27T00:31:00.000-05:00

MAY at the MUSEUM Events

History Day Camp

Registration begins May 3 for the Shiloh Museum ’s 1800s History Day Camp for children ages 6-9. Two week-long sessions will be offered: June 21-25 and July 19-23, from 9:00 a.m. to noon each day. Campers will enjoy games, crafts, and food from the 1800s. Each day will feature a different theme, including Native Americans, pioneers, the Civil War, railroads, and Victorian fun. Cost for the camp is $45 for museum members and $50 for non-members. Space is limited, preregistration and payment is required. Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics

Tom Dillard, author of Statesmen, Scoundrels, and Eccentrics: A Gallery of Amazing Arkansans, will discuss his book during a program and booksigning Saturday, May 8 at 2:00 p.m. The book includes 74 biographical sketches from Dillard’s “Remembering Arkansas” columns published in the Arkansas Gazette. Dillard is head of Special Collections at the University of Arkansas Libraries and founding editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History& Culture. Books will be available for purchase. The Making of Sundance Winner Winter’s Bone

The making of Winter’s Bone, winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival’s grand jury prize for drama, will be discussed during a program Sunday, May 16 at

2:00 p.m. Based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, Winter’s Bone is the story of a poor teen (played by Jennifer Lawrence) who searches for her missing, meth-making father in the wooded Missouri Ozarks. The cast of Winter’s Bone includes Fayetteville native Lauren Sweetser along with several actors from the Ozarks. Director Debra Granik, Sweetser, and others will discuss the film, and a number of the film’s musicians and singers will perform, including singers Marideth Sisco and Linda Stoffel, bass player Tedi May, fiddler Billy Ward, guitar player Dennis Crider, banjo player Van Colbert, and mandolin player Bo Brown. The film’s production company first learned of the Shiloh Museum through its podcast series. Executive producer Jonathan Scheuer discovered the podcasts when he was doing research for the film, which was shot in Christian and Taney counties, Missouri . Several of the film’s non-Ozark-native cast members found some of the museum’s podcasts helpful in their voice preparation. Funeral Customs of the Ozarks

“Gone to the Grave,” a program on funeral customs of the Ozarks from 1850 to 1950, will be presented by independent researcher and author Abby Burnett Wednesday, May 19 at noon. Burnett was recently featured in Silent Storytellers, a documentary produced by the Arkansas Educational Television Network about the history and culture of Arkansas cemeteries. While Burnett is interested in documenting the early days of the professional undertaker, the main focus of her research has been to study all of the ways in which people once helped one another when there was a death. Her talk will cover the role of the community in nursing the sick, laying out the body, building the casket, sitting up with the body, digging the grave and holding the burial. Current Exhibits

Through January 22, 2011. All Dressed Up, an exhibit of men's, women's, and children's finery. Through September 18. Answering the Call, an exhibit on the history of the Springdale Fire Department. Through August 21. Carl Smith’s Fayetteville, a photo exhibit featuring images from the 1910s through the 1950s. New Podcasts

• Amateur Archeology by Arkansas state archeologist emerita Hester Davis • Our Natural Heritage, Vol. 1, by members of LifeWriters • Caring for Heirloom Textiles by museum collections manager Carolyn Reno

Find these and more on our podcast page. Monthly Meetings at the Museum

Arkansas Boston Mountain Chapter, National Railway Historical Society

3rd Thursday, 7 p.m. Life Writers

1st and 3rd Mondays, 10 a.m. Northwest Arkansas Civil War Roundtable

4th Thursday, 7 p.m. Ozark Wireless Society

4th Saturday, 10 a.m. Shiloh Sacred Harp Singers

4th Sunday, 1:30 p.m. Sons of Confederate Veterans

3rd Tuesday, 7 p.m. Tellers of Tales

3rd Saturday, 10:30 a.m. (every other month)

Rensselaer County New York Marriages online

2010-04-26T00:24:00.000-05:00

Rensselaer County Marriage Index Online

The following was written by Bill McGrath, Troy Irish Genealogy Society Project Coordinator:

Announcing New Database
Vol. X - Marriage Index
Rensselaer County, New York

APRIL 1933 - DECEMBER 1935

A. Volume X, of the Rensselaer County Marriage Index, with its 4,974 names, has now been added to the Troy Irish Genealogy (TIGS) website. This is the final volume in this wonderful series of records that TIGS started automating back in September, 2005. This project could not have been completed without the help of numerous volunteer transcribers from all across the United States.

B. The 10 volumes of the index now on line cover 60,000 names, mostly of Rensselaer County residents. However, in working with these records over the years we have found individuals in the index with places of birth or residence addresses from nearly all counties throughout New York State. There were also large numbers of Massachusetts residents listed in the index as well as a sprinkling of individuals from many other states throughout the country and even a few foreign countries. This notice is being posted to numerous genealogy mailing lists since knowledge of the index may benefit researchers outside the Rensselaer County area.

C. To view these marriage records go to the Troy Irish Genealogy website at: www.rootsweb.com/~nytigs/ and click on TIGS PROJECTS and then click on RENSSELAER COUNTY MARRIAGE INDEX. It should be noted that these records, like most of the TIGS data series, cover the general population in the area and are NOT restricted to Irish surnames.

D. The TIGS website has a PRINTABLE FORM that can be used to request copies of the marriage documents from the Rensselaer County Clerk's Office. Mailing instructions and fees (only $5.00) are on the request form. There are SEPARATE request forms for EACH volume.
Some of the items on the available documents will be:
Name, address, occupation, age, and place of birth (city & state or country) of bride and groom.
If marriage for each is first, or second. If second, was first ended by death or divorce and when.
Names of parents of bride and groom, including maiden name of females, and country of birth.
Names of witnesses to wedding.
Date and place of wedding and name of clergyman, minister, rabbi, etc.
Race of bride and groom.
Hopefully you will find some of your ancestors listed in the Marriage Index or in the 13 other data series on the Troy Irish Genealogy website.

Cherokee Ancestry Conference in June

2010-04-22T00:26:00.000-05:00

Cherokee Ancestry Conference in June

The ninth annual Cherokee Ancestry Conference will be June 11-12 in the Osiyo Training Room, 17725 S Muskogee Ave., Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Speakers will include Marybelle Chase, Cherokee author, genealogist and historian; Linda Donelson, Cherokee Nation Real Estate Services director; Catherine Foreman Gray, Cherokee Nation cultural tourism interpretive supervisor, and Gene Norris, certified genealogist, Cherokee National Historical Society Inc.

Topics will be "Beginning Cherokee Family Research," "American Outlaws, Cherokee Patriots," "Using Footnote.com and other Web Sites for Cherokee Research," "Land Allotments & Policies in the Cherokee Nation" and "The Dawes Final Roll & Public Misconceptions."

Registration is $60 for members and $75 for nonmembers if received by May 28 and $70 for members and $85 for nonmembers after May 28.

For more information and a registration form, call Gene Norris, at (888) 999-6007, ext. 6159, or e-mail genealogy@cherokeeheritage.org.

Digitizing 1778 HMS Somerset shipwreck

2010-04-19T00:38:00.000-05:00

Digitizing a 1778 Shipwreck on Cape Cod

The mighty British man-of-war HMS Somerset was wrecked off Truro, Massachusetts in 1778 during the Revolutionary War. With 64 mounted guns and a crew of about 400, the Somerset was was a very large British warship. It was involved in several notable battles of the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War.

On the night of 18 April 1775, Paul Revere rowed across Boston's Back Bay, quietly passing the anchored HMS Somerset in the darkness. Once he reached land, Revere jumped on a horse, and rode to spread the alarm of the next day's battles in Lexington and Concord. Had the night sentry on board the HMS Somerset been more alert to the nearby rowboat, the course of American history could have been dramatically different.

The HMS Somerset also served as the flagship of Admiral Samuel Graves at the Battle of Bunker Hill. During the battle, the Somerset fired its guns toward the American's newly constructed fortification. However, the vessel's cannons could not be elevated high enough to reach the hilltop ramparts and proved little more than a loud nuisance to the Americans preparing for battle.

The HMS Somerset was wrecked when she ran aground on Cape Cod in a storm in 1778. At least 21 sailors perished attempting to escape the foundering ship via long boat. However, many of the crew survived the violent grounding. As the sky cleared the following day, a detachment of militia marched to the site and, under the command of Captain Enoch Hallett, the survivors of Somerset were taken as prisoners of war.

The ship was visible for some years but eventually was swallowed by the shifting sands of Cape Cod. A few days ago, the currents on Cape Cod uncovered the wreck of H.M.S. Somerset. More than a dozen heavy, water-soaked ship timbers were sticking out of the sand at low tide recently. The timbers, most likely uncovered by the heavy winter storms, last poked up out of the sand about five years ago. They also appeared once in the 1970s and once in the 1870s.

The National Park Service is taking the opportunity to have the wreck scanned.

Land surveyors hired by the Cape Cod National Seashore created the first digital archive of the remaining visible timbers of the wreck using a three-dimensional laser scanner. The surveyors also identified the wreck's exact longitude and latitude measurements using global positioning, according to the Cape Cod Times.

The idea is to create the first permanent digital archive of the wreck of a ship that played a critical role along the East Coast during the War of American Independence. The digital archive can be used by future researchers and historians. It provides precise, 3-D images of the wreck if it were to ever be destroyed — or disappear, never to return.

You can read more at http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/04/_by_stefanie_ge.html

Tax Day wasn't always April 15

2010-04-15T00:38:00.000-05:00

Tax Day Was Not Always April 15

Taxpayers in the United States are very aware of one date on the calendar: April 15. It is the day when most of us have to pay our income taxes. (I'll ignore the extension given this year to some residents in the northeastern states who have been victims of the storms and flooding that began March 12.) However, April 15th has not always been the filing deadline. March 1st was the date specified by Congress in 1913. In 1918 Congress pushed the date out to March 15th, where it remained until the tax overhaul of 1954, when the date was moved to April 15th.

Going back further in time, many of our ancestors never heard of an income tax. The first U.S. income tax was created during the Civil War, when Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1861 which included a tax on personal incomes to help pay war expenses. The tax was repealed ten years later.

Can you imagine today's income taxes being repealed?

In 1894 Congress enacted a flat rate Federal income tax, which was ruled unconstitutional the following year by the U.S. Supreme Court because it was a direct tax, not apportioned according to the population of each state.

The 16th amendment, ratified in 1913, removed this objection by allowing the Federal government to tax the income of individuals without regard to the population of each state. United States residents have been saddled with an income tax ever since.

You can read more at "History of the U.S. Tax System" at http://www.treas.gov/education/fact-sheets/taxes/ustax.shtml

Niagara Falls Runs Dry

2010-03-30T00:40:00.000-05:00

Today in History: Niagara Falls Runs Dry

On March 30, 1848, Niagara Falls stopped. No water would flow over the great falls for 30 or 40 hours. People freaked out. For many hours, nobody knew why the water stopped.

An American farmer out for a stroll shortly before midnight on March 29 was the first to notice something. Actually, he noticed the absence of something: the thundering roar of the falls. When he went to the river's edge, he saw hardly any water.

Came the dawn of March 30, people awoke to an unaccustomed silence. The mighty Niagara was a mere trickle. Mills and factories had to shut down, because the waterwheels had stopped.

Was it the end of the world? Divine retribution for what some folks thought was a U.S. war of aggression against Mexico? Theological explanations abounded, because western New York state had been a Burned-Over District for half a century, with recurring waves of religious revivals and the rise of several new denominations and religions.

Thousands of people filled the churches to attend special services. They prayed for the falls to start flowing and the world to continue, or for salvation and forgiveness of their sins as the Last Judgment approached.

The telegraph had not yet been invented so news traveled slowly. Eventually, local residents learned that strong southwest gale winds had pushed a huge chunks of lake ice to the extreme northeastern tip of Lake Erie, blocking the lake's outlet into the head of the Niagara River. The ice jam had become an ice dam. The flow of water had stopped.

You can read more at http://tinyurl.com/ydsus7s

Event-Nominating a property to the National Register of Historic Places

2010-03-24T09:22:00.000-05:00

The Fayetteville Historic District Commission will host an Arkansas Historic Preservation Program training session 5:30-7:30pm Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at the Fayetteville Public Library's Walker Community Room

The seminar will focus on how to nominate a property to the National Register of Historic places. The event is free and open to the public.

For more information you can contact me (Cheri Coley)

Advanced genealogy workshop

2010-03-24T08:07:00.000-05:00

The Fayetteville Public Library and the Marion Chapter "DAR Library Ladies" will be holding a advanced genealogy workshop on Saturday, April 3, 2010 from 10:00 to 11:30am. Advanced regristration is required.

Family history library Classes Free

2010-03-18T09:24:00.000-05:00

Family History Library Classes Now Available on Internet

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

Free Classes Make Genealogy Expertise Accessible Anywhere
SALT LAKE CITY–It is rare that Marcia Covington can make the trip from her home in State College, Pennsylvania, to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now, however, people like Covington can take classes from the world-famous library without ever leaving home.
The FamilySearch Family History Library is now making its popular classes available at FamilySearch.org, where anyone anywhere in the world can access them for free at a time that is convenient for them. The classes have been offered on-site in Salt Lake City for years. Until now, attendance has been limited to those patrons who are fortunate to live in the surrounding community or happen to be visiting the library as part of a research trip. Making the classes available online allows access to many more patrons.

“Most people do family history whenever they can fit it in their busy lives, on evenings, holidays, weekends, and so forth. Whether you are a beginner or experienced researcher, you can choose subjects of interest to you from the available classes and watch them anytime and anywhere,” said FamilySearch Community Services Manager Diane Loosle.
The online classes are a great complement to the free personal research assistance the Family History Library offers to its patrons in Utah and through its family history centers worldwide. According to Loosle, the free online classes are one part of the growing number of tools FamilySearch is building for its online patrons. That is great news to people like Covington.
“Very few people have the opportunity to come to Salt Lake City, but these classes give me the same access at home as I can get in Utah,” Covington said. “Our distances here are pretty long, and for some people it is a 40-minute drive to the nearest family history center. These classes make it possible to get training in your home whenever you want, and it is so nice that it is free.”
There are currently 23 Family History Library classes available online, with subjects ranging from European research to United States military records. The most popular offerings are the Beginning Research Series for Ireland and England and a class on descendancy research.
The classes vary in length from 6 to 58 minutes, with most lasting about 25 minutes. The format of the class varies, depending on the content being presented. One type of class shows a video that alternates between the teacher and the PowerPoint slides. Another kind of class integrates video of the presenter, the accompanying PowerPoint slides, and links to supplemental materials all in one screen.
Several of the classes are interactive, such as a course on reading German handwriting. In these classes, the teacher is represented with still photographs and audio narration, and the student can actively participate in learning activities, such as matching English and German characters or transcribing selected words from a document. As a student types, the correct text appears in green and incorrect answers appear in red, providing immediate feedback.
FamilySearch is continually adding new online offerings; classes on how to read English handwritten records are currently in development. All of the classes can be accessed on www.familysearch.org by clicking on Free Online Classes on the home page.
ABOUT FAMILYSEARCH INTERNATIONAL
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

1930 US Census Free

2010-03-18T09:15:00.000-05:00

1930 US Census Available Free of Charge on the Internet Archive

Here is a pleasant surprise: the Internet Archive is placing the 1930 U.S. Census online and is making it available at no charge. This is a "work in progress;" but, the census records from many states are available now, and the remaining states will be added in the near future.
The records are offered in exactly the same format as the microfilms created by the U.S. Government. In fact, the online images appear to be copies of the microfilms. The images are being offered "as is." That is, there is no index available, only the images. If you already know where your ancestor lived and (hopefully) the enumeration district, you can view the images one at a time until you find the information you seek.

You can find enumeration districts on FamilySearch at http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=subjectdetails&subject=870702&subject_disp=Census+districts+-+United+States&columns=*,0,0. Once you know the enumeration district, return to the Internet Archive at http://www.archive.org/details/1930_census to conduct your search.
If your ancestors lived in a small town, you can probably find them without determining an enumeration district in advance. However, for those who resided in cities, the enumeration district is a valuable piece of information that allows you to zoom in on the correct neighborhood quickly although you will still need to look at a lot of images to find what you seek.
While it is nice to see a free version of the census available, I doubt if this will have much impact on the commercial companies that also offer census images online for a fee. The commercial companies have indexed most of their records, and finding someone in an index first is much, much easier than manually looking at hundreds of images in search of the right family.
While I appreciate the free, unindexed images, I'll still gladly pay a few dollars a month to have an index available. I suspect most others will do the same, especially after trying to find someone in the free records.
Of course, now is an excellent time for your genealogy society or historical society to index the records for your area and place your own index online, with each entry pointing to an original record on the Internet Archive.
To find the 1930 U.S. Census records on the Internet Archive, start at: http://www.archive.org/details/1930_census to conduct your search.

Family Tree Maker Webinar

2010-03-18T09:03:00.000-05:00

Family Tree Maker Webinar on March 24th

The following is from the Ancestry.com Blog:

If you’ve mastered the basics of Family Tree Maker and you’re ready to learn more, join us for a free webinar on March 24th at 8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Watch as the experts demonstrate some of the advanced features available in Family Tree Maker 2010. You’ll learn how to work with the Web Merge feature, resolve unidentified place names, export different branches of your family tree, and much more. To attend the Advanced Topics webinar, click here to register.

And if you have questions you’d like answered, please enter them in the Comments section [at http://blogs.ancestry.com]. We’ll try to respond to them during the webinar or on the blog. (Please limit your questions to functionality available in Family Tree Maker 2010.) We appreciate your questions and look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks!
Have you missed past webinars? You can view them any time at FamilyTreeMaker.com.

Quilts of Tennessee

2010-03-18T08:59:00.000-05:00

Tennessee State Library and Archives Sets Workshop on "Quilts of Tennessee"

The Tennessee State Library and Archives will host the latest in a series of workshops and seminars titled, “Quilts of Tennessee: What they Can Tell Us About Our Ancestors,” April 17. The workshop will be held from 9 a.m. until 11 a.m. at the State Library and Archives building, located at 403 Seventh Ave. N. in Nashville.
Lori D. Lockhart, a fourth generation Tennessee quilter and archivist at TSLA, will conduct the workshop, which is free and open to the public.

The Quilts of Tennessee Collection at the Tennessee State Library and Archives contains photographs and images of quilts made in Tennessee from the 1820s through the 1970s as well as information - sometimes spanning several generations - about quilt makers.
You can read more in the Daily News Journal at http://www.tennessean.com/article/D4/20100316/NEWS01/100316024/State+Library+and+Archives+sets+workshop+on+‘Quilts+of+Tennessee’

National Archives at NYC

2010-03-18T08:56:00.000-05:00

The National Archives at New York City is Moving

The following announcement was written by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:

The National Archives at New York City is pleased to announce that within the next two years we will move our office to the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House at One Bowling Green in New York City. Our new home will be located in the same building as the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. The building is currently known as the Custom House building, designed by Cass Gilbert in the Beaux Arts style and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

After extensive renovation, our new space will be ready in the fall of 2011. We will announce the exact dates of the move as soon as possible.

At One Bowling Green our patrons will continue to receive the same great service they have come to expect from the experienced National Archives staff. We will continue to provide access to all of our holdings. An increase in our public and outreach programs, and our new proximity to other important New York cultural institutions including the Museum of the American Indian and Ellis Island, will enable us to reach a wider audience.

At One Bowling Green we will:

Occupy space on the 3rd and 4th floor of this historic building.
Store our most used original records and most popular microfilm holdings.
Provide access to all of our records (including records stored offsite).
Continue to provide certified copies of National Archives holdings.
Increase the number of public access computers so that patrons can access online resources.
Continue to make available online subscription services including Ancestry, Footnote, Heritage Quest, ProQuest, free of charge.
Provide additional outreach programs to increase awareness of National Archives resources in New York, the Northeast Region, and nationwide.

Please note, we will hold two public meetings on May 4th to discuss these and additional details about the move. Times and locations of these meetings will be posted shortly

FYI: Family history library Classes Free

2010-03-18T00:42:00.000-05:00

Family History Library Classes Now Available on Internet

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

Free Classes Make Genealogy Expertise Accessible Anywhere

SALT LAKE CITY–It is rare that Marcia Covington can make the trip from her home in State College, Pennsylvania, to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. Now, however, people like Covington can take classes from the world-famous library without ever leaving home.

The FamilySearch Family History Library is now making its popular classes available at FamilySearch.org, where anyone anywhere in the world can access them for free at a time that is convenient for them. The classes have been offered on-site in Salt Lake City for years. Until now, attendance has been limited to those patrons who are fortunate to live in the surrounding community or happen to be visiting the library as part of a research trip. Making the classes available online allows access to many more patrons.

"Most people do family history whenever they can fit it in their busy lives, on evenings, holidays, weekends, and so forth. Whether you are a beginner or experienced researcher, you can choose subjects of interest to you from the available classes and watch them anytime and anywhere," said FamilySearch Community Services Manager Diane Loosle.
The online classes are a great complement to the free personal research assistance the Family History Library offers to its patrons in Utah and through its family history centers worldwide. According to Loosle, the free online classes are one part of the growing number of tools FamilySearch is building for its online patrons. That is great news to people like Covington.
"Very few people have the opportunity to come to Salt Lake City, but these classes give me the same access at home as I can get in Utah," Covington said. "Our distances here are pretty long, and for some people it is a 40-minute drive to the nearest family history center. These classes make it possible to get training in your home whenever you want, and it is so nice that it is free."

There are currently 23 Family History Library classes available online, with subjects ranging from European research to United States military records. The most popular offerings are the Beginning Research Series for Ireland and England and a class on descendancy research.

The classes vary in length from 6 to 58 minutes, with most lasting about 25 minutes. The format of the class varies, depending on the content being presented. One type of class shows a video that alternates between the teacher and the PowerPoint slides. Another kind of class integrates video of the presenter, the accompanying PowerPoint slides, and links to supplemental materials all in one screen.

Several of the classes are interactive, such as a course on reading German handwriting. In these classes, the teacher is represented with still photographs and audio narration, and the student can actively participate in learning activities, such as matching English and German characters or transcribing selected words from a document. As a student types, the correct text appears in green and incorrect answers appear in red, providing immediate feedback.

FamilySearch is continually adding new online offerings; classes on how to read English handwritten records are currently in development. All of the classes can be accessed on http://www.familysearch.org/ by clicking on Free Online Classes on the home page.

ABOUT FAMILYSEARCH INTERNATIONAL
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the renowned Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Cemetery Symposium II, Saturday, March 27, 2010, in Little Rock

2010-03-17T15:43:00.000-05:00

Hello All,

We’ve set up Cemetery Symposium II

Date: Saturday, March 27^th - 10 am until 4 pm

Where: Mosaic Templars Cultural Center in Little Rock, 501 West 9^th St., Little Rock

(For details and directions, see http://www.mosaictemplarscenter.com/)

Presenters: We’ve scheduled the ever-popular Skip Stewart-Abernathy, ground sonar specialist Jami Lockhart, and erudite Don Ott, along with a couple of others

Purpose: We want to explore the feasibility of forming a state-wide cemetery alliance. In an upcoming e-mail, we’ll send links to more information about this topic.

Lunch: There’s a McDonald’s and Wendy’s and other fast-food restaurants within a few blocks.

Cost: None – we’re after your ideas and participation.

Please forward this e-mail to your friends and relatives. We want everyone to come who’s interested in preserving our Arkansas cemeteries.

See you there!

Desmond

Desmond Walls Allen

Arkansas Research, Inc.

PO Box 303

Conway, AR 72033

501/470-1120

www.ArkansasResearch.com

WCAGS Meeting: Sunday, March 14, 2010 2pm at Headquarters

2010-03-11T20:49:00.000-06:00

Hello Everyone!

Mark your calendars: On March 14th we will celebrate International Women’s Day with our program on “Tips and tricks for identifying and finding Female Ancestors” presented by Cheri Coley. Our female ancestors can present some of our most challenging problems. Cheri will show us some methods for dealing with the special challenges of identifying our Female Ancestors.

We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Special Note: Don’t forget about the time change this weekend!! It’s time to spring forward – Hopefully we will actually have some spring weather this weekend too!!

Civil War Genealogy workshop

2010-03-05T19:20:00.000-06:00

Alan Thompson, museum registrar at Prairie Grove Battlefield Historic State Park , will lead a workshop on “Researching Your Civil War Ancestors,” Saturday, May 8, from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. at the Prairie Grove Public Library, 123 Neal Street in downtown Prairie Grove. Cost for the workshop is $5. Space is limited; preregistration is required. To register, or for more information, call the Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park at 479-846-2990 or email alan.thompson@arkansas.gov

Susan Young

Outreach Coordinator

Shiloh Museum of Ozark History

118 W. Johnson Avenue

Springdale, AR, 72764

479-750-8165

www.springdalear.gov/shiloh

Great website for Chesapeake Indentured Servants

2010-02-10T23:00:00.000-06:00

Origins of Colonial Chesapeake Indentured Servants: American and

English Sources

http://pricegen.com/immigrantservants/origins.htm

Stagecoach Mary: the Black Cowgirl

2010-02-10T22:35:00.001-06:00

America's Old West was undoubtedly a Wild West before an ex-slave named Mary Fields arrived in 1885 at a small railroad town in present-day Montana. Yet she certainly made things more interesting.

Miss Fields, who came to be known as "Stagecoach Mary," stood tall and brawny by even frontier standards, weighing more than 200 pounds. Though she preferred men's clothes to women's, beneath her work apron she sometimes packed a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver. She was the only woman the local mayor permitted to drink in the saloons, where she favored hard liquor, smoked black cigars, and didn't shy from arguments, fistfights, or at least one confirmed duel.

As an EBONY magazine article later described that duel (authored in 1959 by actor Gary Cooper), "No one remembers how it turned out, but Mary was still around when it was over."

Whether out of fear or respect, Indians knew not to mess with Miss Fields' stagecoach. She was likely the first black person - man or woman - they had seen. There were many blacks in the Southwest but few in Montana.

According to The Adventures of the Negro Cowboys, Miss Fields was "perhaps the most remarkable" of the black women in western towns.

JC Reindl has published an interesting story about Stagecoach Mary, including a picture, in the Toledo Blade. You can read the article at http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100208/NEWS16/2080304.

You can also find a complete web site dedicate to Stagecoach Mary at http://www.stagecoachmary.net, and many more articles about her can be found if you start at http://tinyurl.com/ya4frhv.

Collins History Workshop Begins February 2

2010-02-09T22:37:00.000-06:00

Marilyn Collins, author of

Write History Right, will be conducting a five-part series on the writing of local history at the Bentonville Public

Library on Tuesday evenings, February 2-March 2.

Called "Let's Write History," the workshop will cover the following material:

Session 1. What Makes a Good Story

Session 2. Easy Ways to Structure a Story

Session 3. Tips for Successful Interviews and Site Visits

Session 4. Tips for Writing a Great Story

Session 5. Writing, Publishing, and Marketing (optional)

The optional session is for those participants who wish to analyze ways to publish their work. Participants may bring any writing

question to this session and receive individual attention regarding their work.

The workshop is based on the step-by-step guide, Write History Right by "mailto:hswc1@cox.net">M.H. Collins.

Location: Bentonville Public Library 405 South Main Street, Bentonville, AR.

Contact: Heather Bullock, 479-271-5976.

Converting English money into American terms for Research

2010-02-09T08:58:00.000-06:00

The Pounds Sterling in Family History

Feb 6th, 2010 by Charles Rice Bourland, Jr.

As one's research approaches those ancestors living in the 17, 18 and 19th centuries, one faces monetary numbers no longer in use in the United States.

In order to create a reasonable description of the lives and times of those ancestors it is often useful to describe their wealth or lack thereof, to envisage what a particular cost in earlier times and to relate those dollars or coin to today's coin. For the latter, a useful site is www.measuringworth.com.

What follows are the uses of coin and their worth in the English world of pounds sterling.

d is the abbreviation for a penny

s is the abbreviation for a shilling

Farthing = 1/4d (1/4 penny)

ha'penny = 1/2d

Penny = 1d

half-groat = 2d

thru'pence = 3d

groat = 4d

tanner = slang term for 6d

shilling = 12d

Florin = slang term for 2s (2 shillings)

Half a Crown = 2s 6d

Crown = 5s

Noble (1344-1464) = 80d (1/3 of a Pound)

Angel (1464-1645) = 80d (1/3 of a Pound)

Mark = 160d (2/3 of a Pound)

Pound = 20 shillings or 240d

Guinea = originally One Pound, in 1717 revalued at 21s

Sovereign = (1489-1605) worth 30 shillings; when reintroduced in 1817 it was worth 20 shillings

New PBS Series, "Faces of America" to air in 2010

2010-01-29T23:14:00.000-06:00

A four-part genealogical series, Faces of America is scheduled to air next year. Written and presented by Harvard scholar, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Faces of America hopes to give an understanding and identity to America's melting pot of immigrants.

The June 30th WNET.org announcement states,

"Since 2006, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr has been helping people find long-buried details of their recent and distant ancestries by restoring the branches of their individual family trees and then analyzing their DNA. Faces of America expands the role of DNA science to take the exploration of identity to an entirely new level. The series will film the sequencing of the full human genome for two of the series' participants - a scientific and filmic first - to reveal detailed information about their ancestral make up.

Currently in production throughout Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia, anticipate broadcast of Faces of America on PBS in 2010. Faces of America is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG - one of America's most prolific and respected public media providers.

"We will reveal in rich detail the fascinating stories about our guests's ancestors, both since their arrival as immigrants to the United States, and before their arrival here, in the countries from which they emigrated," says Professor Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. "We hope to show how immigration of peoples from around the globe so profoundly has reshaped what it means to be 'an American' and continues to affect how we talk about identity throughout our society today."

Shiloh Museum eNews

2010-01-27T23:16:00.000-06:00

The Museum is starting a new eNews monthly mailout (see below). If you are interested in receiving such a thing, please contact syoung@springdalear.gov and she'll be glad to put your address on our mailing list. This is a free service.

Don't worry about your address being abused. We won't share it with folks and we'll only mail this out once a month. You will always be able to unsubscribe should you decide this isn't for you.

Census begins today only in Alaska

2010-01-25T23:19:00.000-06:00

U.S. Census to Begin Monday But Only in Alaska

The U.S. Census Bureau chief is heading to Alaska to formally launch the nation's 2010 count in a remote Inupiat Eskimo village, where residents are planning a huge reception of traditional dancing and a feast of caribou, moose and other subsistence foods.

Bureau Director Robert Groves is scheduled to count the first household in Noorvik at 1 p.m. Monday, after arriving by charter plane at the village not linked by roads to anywhere else. Villagers say the first to be counted will be Clifton Jackson, a World War II veteran and the oldest resident in the community of 650.

But first Groves and other census officials will be greeted by eagerly awaiting residents. For the visitors' sake, locals hope the weather is kinder than the brutal minus-40 temperatures already recorded this month in Noorvik, located north of the Arctic Circle near Alaska's western coast.

Sled dog teams driven by schoolchildren will greet the visitors and ferry them to the school, where festivities will continue into the night after the first enumeration is completed. An Inupiat fashion show, a short film on Noorvik and dancing by school children, other locals and groups from other villages are among the planned events. The school also will serve as lodging for Groves and most of the 50 visitors, who will bunk down in empty classrooms.

Alaskans in rural communities not linked by roads have been the first people counted since the 1990 census. The unlinked communities are the places where the process is first conducted in person by census workers. The bureau makes personal visits to nonresponding residents around the country.

It's easier to get census workers to the Alaska villages before the spring thaw brings a muddy mess, making access more difficult, said Ralph Lee, director of the bureau's Seattle region, which oversees Alaska. Also, residents in many villages still live off the land, hunting and fishing for their food, and it's important to reach them before they set off for fishing camps or hunting expeditions when the weather begins to warm.

You can read more at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35023475/ns/us_news-life/.

Pennsylvania Documents on the Web

2010-01-25T23:17:00.000-06:00

Pennsylvania Historical Society is Putting Documents and Photos on the Web

The Pennsylvania Historical Society has about 21 million items in its collection. Artifacts include photographs, personal diaries, war correspondence, maps, and geological surveys. However it has nowhere near enough resources to scan each one.

Due to the sesquicentennial of the Civil War in 2011, the Society has started hand-picking items that hint at the rest of the collection. Archivist Kathleen Miller recently went through the papers of Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, who not only was a major general in the Civil War, but also a geologist and fought in the Seminole Native American war.

The project is meant to encourage more people to use the collection. Administrators at the Historical Society say about half of their visitors are amateur genealogists looking up their family tree.

You can learn more at http://www.hsp.org/ and especially at http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=976.

Maine Historic Court Documents preserved

2010-01-07T23:21:00.000-06:00

Volunteers Preserve 150,000 Maine Historic Court Documents

It was a daunting task. One hundred boxes of unnamed materials and documents found in the attic, crawl spaces and closets of the Washington County, Maine Courthouse needed to be preserved.

Five years later, a team of volunteers, using grants and small county appropriations, have inventoried, flattened, placed in numbered acid-free file folders, photographed and compiled on CD some 150,000 documents, including transactions and data from as far back as 1791.

The first completed CD inventory was presented to the county commissioners last week. Copies of the inventory CD are available for $10.

One of the documents found was a deposition given in 1839 by then-80-year-old Hannah Watts Weston. In the deposition, Weston tells of her run carrying gunpowder with her sister-in-law Rebecca Weston through the woods between Jonesboro and Machias on June 12, 1775. Hannah Weston was 17 years old and had been married for almost a year.

The gunpowder was intended to help Machias residents capture the British vessel Margaretta, in what was the first naval battle of the American Revolution.

"We carr [sic] between 30 to 40 pounds of powder and ball. Get halfway there and Rebecca gave up and I took her load," the document states.

You can read more in an article by Sharon Kiley Mack in the Bangor Daily News at http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/132400.html.

Washington County Arkansas Marriage Licenses now on line

2010-01-07T22:16:00.001-06:00

http://www.co.washington.ar.us/

Tony Wappel has sent me an email to let us know the Washington County Arkansas marriage records to May 1941 are now on-line. You will need to go to the archives under offices on the left hand side-look in the middle of the page where it says licenses and regristrations-where it says "inactive-county and probate clerk" Scroll down until you see "Index to marriage records"

Have fun!

Cheri Coley

Shiloh Museum of Ozark History January 2010 Events

2010-01-07T20:56:00.002-06:00

JANUARY EVENTS

Orval Faubus Podcast

We will premier a new video podcast on January 7, in observance of that day as the 100th

anniversary of the birth of former Arkansas Governor Orval E. Faubus. The podcast features a speech Faubus gave

in 1993 during Pettigrew Day, an annual celebration in the Madison County community of Pettigrew.

To view the video podcast, visit our website

and click on "Podcasts."

Volunteer Training

Ever thought of becoming a museum volunteer? Now's the time! We'll hold a volunteer orientation session

on Monday, January 11 from 1-3 p.m. for people interested in helping out as front desk

greeters, school tour guides, or collections assistants.

Open House

Our second annual "Cabin Fever Reliever" New Year celebration will take place Saturday,

January 16. Events begin at 10 a.m.

10 a.m. Scenes from The Taming of the Shrew by the George Elementary School Shakespeare Troupe

under the direction of Dianne Kellogg.

10:30 a.m. Stories by Tellers of Tales

10:45 a.m. Screening of Sacred Harp Singing in Northwest Arkansas, a short documentary produced

by the Shiloh Museum and the Northwest Arkansas Sacred Harp Singers, with funding from the Arkansas Humanities

Council.

11 a.m. More scenes from The Taming of the Shrew by the Shaw Elementary School Shakespeare

Troupe, under the direction of LuAnn Little.

Noon. Stories by Tellers of Tales

12:15 p.m. Screening of Sacred Harp Singing in Northwest Arkansas

12:30-2:45 p.m. History Under Your Feet: The Heritage Trail in Northwest Arkansas

Representatives from Heritage Trail Partners will discuss some lesser-known historic sites related to the Trail

of Tears, Butterfield Stagecoach route, and Civil War troop movements in Washington and Benton counties.

12:30-1:15 p.m. The Trail of Tears by John McLarty, president of the Arkansas Chapter of the

Trail of Tears Association. McLarty's session will include a new documentary short film on the Trail of

Tears produced by the National Park Service.

1:15-2:00 p.m. The Butterfield Stagecoach Route by Kirby Sanders, author of Driver's Guide

to the Butterfield Overland Mail Route in Missouri , Arkansas , and Oklahoma .

2:00-2:45 p.m. Civil War Troop Movements by Alan Thompson, museum registrar at Prairie Grove

Battlefield Historic State Park .

Kids of all ages can visit the General Store and make a 2010 Topper hat, and free refreshments will be served

throughout the day.

Derailed!

Mike Sypult of the Boston Mountain Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society will present

"Derailed! Getting Off Track in Northwest Arkansas ," a look at local train wrecks and rail accidents

through the years, Wednesday, January 20, at noon at the museum. The program is presented in

conjunction with our current photo exhibit, Disaster! , which features images of crashes and

catastrophes.

Unsubscribe from this list.

Shiloh Museum of Ozark History • 118 W. Johnson Avenue • Springdale , AR 72764

479-750-8165 • www.springdalear.gov/shiloh

P please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

Allen County Public Library Goes Digital

2009-12-01T23:28:00.000-06:00

The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette has an interesting article about the local library. Indeed, visitors from all over the country visit the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne to use its excellent genealogy collection. It is believed to be the second-largest genealogy collection in the United States with more than 350,000 printed volumes and 513,000 items of microfilm and microfiche. According to the Journal Gazette, some patrons are using the library without visiting the library.

I am interested in the statistics offered:

• The Allen County Public Library provides almost 8,000 titles from its genealogy collection for patrons to browse, view and download to their personal computers for free.

• The genealogy texts are the most popular digital books that the local library offers. More than 1 million digital-text versions of genealogy materials have been downloaded since June 2008.

• The Allen County Public Library web site draws about 1 million visitors a month.

• Currently the most popular download is the "Yorkshire Marriage Registers, West Riding, Vol. 2" from 1914. Internet patrons have downloaded the text more than 3,300 times.

• The five most downloaded genealogy books are related to the British Isles. It appears that many of the people downloading those volumes live in the British Isles and use their computers to access digital volumes on a web server nearly 4,000 miles away.

You can read this interesting story at http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20091129/LOCAL/311299914/1002/LOCAL.

You can read more about the Allen County Public Library at http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Source:Allen_County_Public_Library and visit the library's web site at http://www.acpl.lib.in.us.

Wisconsin County Histories Online

2009-12-01T23:27:00.000-06:00

Wisconsin County Histories Online

The Wisconsin Historical Society recently put more than 80 standard county histories online. The collection totals about 56,000 pages and is being enthusiastically welcomed by genealogists, local historians, archivists and public librarians. These books typically were published 1880-1920 and contain several hundred pages filled with pioneer recollections and other local data that was not recorded anywhere else.

Most of these volumes are several hundred pages long and include detailed accounts of individual cities, townships and villages, as well as biographical sketches of prominent residents.

Every word on their 56,000 pages is searchable, so you can find specific descriptions of people, places, and events. Every volume can be downloaded to your own computer for free as a PDF file (to acquire the PDF when viewing a volume, open the drop-down at the upper left labeled \"document description\"). Because many of these books are very large, be patient when opening or downloading them.

You can find the Wisconsin histories at http://www.wisconsinhistory.org.

NH identify pauper graves

2009-12-01T23:25:00.000-06:00

New Hampshire Inmates Work to Identify those Buried in Paupers' Graves

A half-way house for those convicted of drug and alcohol convictions is now using inmates to recover records of those buried in unmarked graves at the Sullivan County Farm. Counselor Sara Poisson says, "The men here, they're young, primarily here for drug offenses either sales or possession violation of probation and they're kind of at a crossroads right now. Either this is an opportunity to get your life in order or just to keep coming back on the merry-go-round."

The graves are part of a turn-of-the-century cemetery lying just across the road from the county farm. The burial grounds are divided into two parts. The front contains remains of prominent families, the great granite headstones still pristine and proper despite time. They are buried by family. But behind those stones lie the remains of the poor, dropped at the farm for infirmity, poverty, insanity, unwed pregnancy, stealing bread, being an orphan, sometimes just a hernia, back when the farm was the county almshouse.

In better times, the pauper's stone has a name and date of death; in leaner times, just a date or maybe just initials. These people were buried in chronological order by date they died, their stones squat and simple, many toppled or just missing.

You can read more in the (Manchester) Union Leader web site at http://tinyurl.com/y92bfj3.

Community trees

2009-12-01T23:23:00.000-06:00

Community Trees on FamilySearch Labs

Writing in the FamilySearch Labs blog, Ray Madsen describes a newly-added feature:

You may have noticed the Community Trees link that showed up on the FamilySearch Labs home page a few weeks ago. If you're into family history you'll probably want to check it out. The Community Trees project allows FamilySearch to publish lineage-linked genealogies that cover a specific place and time. These trees are a genealogists dream. If you're lucky enough to be doing research in an area covered by one of these trees you've just struck it rich. Each tree is searchable with views of individuals, families, ancestors and descendants. They can be printed and usually can be downloaded in GEDCOM format (sometimes licensing requirements don't allow us to offer GEDCOM downloads). Best of all, each tree is linked to all of the supporting sources.

You can read Ray's entire article at http://labs.familysearch.org/blog/?p=374. There's even an explanatory video available.

The Myth of Family Coats of Arms

2009-11-18T08:38:00.000-06:00

The holiday gift giving season will be here soon and what better personal gift to give than something with the recipient's family coat of arms? I'd suggest that isn't such a great gift. You'd be lying.
Lots of gullible people purchase various trinkets that display the "family coat of arms" without realizing there is no such thing. Coats of arms? Yes. But "family?" No. There is no such thing as a family coat of arms.

NOTE: I do have to point out two exceptions. Several hundred years ago, merchants in Belgium did adopt coats of arms that were similar to the coats of arms displayed by nobility, but with some differences. Those Belgian coats of arms, or family crests, displayed by merchants are assigned to families and are inherited. However, coats of arms displayed by nobility in Belgium are not inherited.
In addition, Samurai soldiers in Japan also have family "insignia" that are assigned to families and are passed down from generation to generation. The Japanese symbols do not look like European coats of arms with shields and helmets, adorned with lions and dragons and birds and such things, however.
If your male line descends from a few families in Belgium or from the Samurai class in Japan, you can ignore the rest of this article. However, if your family comes from the British Isles or any place in Europe, other than a few families in Belgium, this applies to you.

The truth is, except for the exceptions listed, families do not have family crests, correctly known as "coats of arms." The crest is only a small section of the entire design and was usually depicted above the helmet.
Coats of arms were designed for use in battle. If you can imagine wearing a full suit of armor, complete with a helmet with tiny eye slits for vision, the combatants had a difficult time differentiating friend from foe. It was bad form to stick a broadsword into your friend's midsection, although that did happen occasionally in the heat of battle. As a visual aid, the knights and a few other combatants started wearing brightly painted designs on their shields and elsewhere, designs that were known to their fellow combatants. The intent was to help their fellow combatants distinguish friends from foe. The brightly colored insignia was used on shields, on clothing, and on horse dressings.
Occasionally, a knight might have an attendant or two, such as a groomsman who tended the horse or even multiple horses. The attendant also might be a “squire;” a young apprentice who hoped to become a knight on his 21st birthday. The attendant might wear clothing with the same colors as his master, signifying that he was a part of "the team." However, such attendants normally did not wear armor.
If the knight had a close relative in battle as a combatant, such as his son, a brother, a nephew, or other relative, that relative never wore the same insignia as the first knight. In battle, sons never wore the same insignia as their fathers. Each had his own insignia and colors.
Off the battlefield, coats of arms were also used during tournaments to distinguish competitors. Knights, royalty, and a few wealthy individuals displayed their colorful crests and coats of arms as a symbol of themselves. In effect, the coat of arms said, "This is me." Coats of arms were never used to declare, "This is my family."
In fact, the only time that the same coat of arms can be used by more than one person is when the eldest is dead. At that point, the direct heir (typically his oldest son) can petition for the right to bear the same arms that were used by the deceased.
In the case of multiple sons, or when the father was still alive, all the sons could use SIMILAR coats of arms as their father but always added their own variations to the design. Each son created his own variations. These variations are called "cadency" and the son's insignia is referred to as "cadet coat of arms." When the father died, the oldest son removed his personal cadency, reverting the coat of arms back to his father's original design. The other sons kept their cadet coat of arms; they never used the father's original design.
Daughters can also inherit the coat of arms if no sons are living.
In olden times and today, not every coat of arms can be used by everyone with that surname. First of all, not everyone with the same surname is related. I suspect there was more than one knight named Smith, and they certainly didn't want to wear the same coats of arms in battle!
Despite what the man at the pushcart told you at the local shopping mall, the rules always required that a coat of arms was for use by a single living individual, not a family. A coat of arms is similar to an individual's signature and was used as seals on official documents.
Another requirement has been in effect since the 15th century and still applies today: the person who wishes to display a coat of arms must first register the design in a central clearinghouse and obtain permission to display it. Registration was required in the 15th century, and it is still expected today. If you are displaying a coat of arms without written permission, you are guilty of an impolite form of forgery. In the U.S., you won't get arrested for doing so because the U.S. has no laws concerning display of forged coats of arms. Such laws do exist on the books in England and in many other countries, but they are rarely enforced.
The official office regulating coats of arms and the granting of new arms for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is the College of Arms (http://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/). It was founded by King Richard III in 1484. If you would like to display your own personally designed coat of arms, and if your male ancestry is from England, you start at the College of Arms. That would be true even if you now live in the United States. You cannot apply online but you can do so by mail.
To learn more about coat of arms granted in Scotland, visit the Court of the Lord Lyon (http://www.lyon-court.com/lordlyon/CCC_FirstPage.jsp). Scottish descendants would apply to the Court of the Lord Lyon.
Canada has its own heraldic office, the Canadian Heraldic Authority (http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=81). The rules for applying for a coat of arms are slightly different in Canada. Contact the Canadian Heraldic Authority for details.

National Archives Launches New Online Reservation System

2009-11-18T08:31:00.000-06:00

The following announcement was written by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration:

Beat the crowds! Reserved tours and visits are now just a mouse click away!
WASHINGTON, Nov. 11 -- For the first time, the National Archives today launches a new online reservation system to make it easier for individuals, families, and large groups alike to visit National Archives. By simply going online, visitors can reserve their choice of dates and times in a matter of minutes. While reservations are not required to visit the National Archives and admission is free, this new system will eliminate the long lines and often lengthy wait.

"This important step will simplify the vacation planning process for our visitors and provide an opportunity for easy access to the National Archives Experience," said Acting Archivist Adrienne Thomas. Reservations will be handled through the National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS).
Starting today, November 11, visitors to the National Archives Experience can make reservations online at www.archives.gov/nae/visit/reserved-visits.html, from the NRRS website at www.recreation.gov. Reservations can also be made through the NRRS Call Center: 1-877-444-6777, Group Sales Reservations: 1-877-559-6777, or TDD: 1-877-833-6777.
Advance reservations will allow visitors to avoid the exterior portion of the line to see the Charters of Freedom during the height of the tourist season (mid-March through Labor Day) and during holiday seasons such as the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. The convenience fee for online reservations is $1.50 per person and admission to all of the National Archives Experience exhibits is free.
About the National Archives Experience
A "must see" tourist destination, the National Archives Experience houses this nation's true "National Treasures" -- the Charters of Freedom -- the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The National Archives Experience also includes the Public Vaults permanent exhibition, the Lawrence F. O'Brien temporary exhibition gallery, the Boeing Learning Center, and the William G. McGowan Theater. Museum hours are 10 am - 5:30 pm through March 14, and 10 am - 7 pm from March 15 - Labor Day. Closed Thanksgiving and December 25. The National Archives Experience is located in Washington, DC on Constitution Avenue between 7th and 9th Streets, NW, and the building is fully accessible.
About the National Recreation Reservation Service
Reservations will be handled through the National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS), a federal interagency reservation service for recreation facilities and activities.
The NRRS serves numerous other federal agencies including the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Park Service. This reservation system is part of a government initiative to simplify how citizens interact with the government. For more information, see http://www.recreation.gov.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, or What the Pilgrims Really Ate at Thanksgiving

2009-11-18T08:27:00.000-06:00

Millions of American families will sit down to dine together in this month's annual Thanksgiving Day celebration. Menus will vary a bit but most will feature turkey along with stuffing, gravy, squash, cranberries, and other vegetables. Pumpkin pie has always been popular with my family as well. Did you ever wonder what the Pilgrims and their Wampanoag Indian guests ate during their first Thanksgiving in 1621?
Unfortunately, we cannot be certain. The Pilgrims did not print menus for their guests. After all, none of their Indian guests could read, nor could very many of the Pilgrims themselves. Most were illiterate. Luckily, several colonists who were literate wrote personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and those accounts have survived. These accounts give a few hints as to the menu.

While 103 people landed at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620, about half of them died during the first winter. Those who survived managed to plant crops the following spring and reaped a good harvest during the summer and fall. The first Thanksgiving at Plimoth Colony was held to celebrate that harvest.

William Bradford wrote,

“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports."

Edward Winslow wrote,

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty."

The Thanksgiving feast lasted three whole days, providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Indians. While we do not know the exact menu, historians have studied the food supply of the time and have been able to guess the items that likely appeared on the menu those three days.
The Pilgrims and the Indians obviously dined on venison. Winslow wrote, "They went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation." Turkey also was on the menu. As Winslow stated, "They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week." The word "fowl" probably included turkeys although there may have been ducks, geese, swans, and other birds as well.
The turkeys probably were a bit skinnier than today's Butterball turkeys, and probably had a stronger flavor as well. I live about 70 miles from Plymouth and can tell you that today's descendants of the wild turkeys that escaped the Pilgrims certainly look big and fat. They are also plentiful in this area. We can guess that the same was true in 1621.
The turkeys and most other meat dishes undoubtedly were roasted on a spit over an open fire. Someone must have been assigned to turn the spit frequently to make sure the food was not burnt on one side. Gravy was unknown.
The other foods at the table probably included fish, clams, berries, apples, dried fruit, pumpkin, squash, turnips, peas, onions, beans and other vegetables.
Some accounts state that lobster was on the menu, although I have my doubts. It seems unlikely when so many other items were already on the menu. In 1621, lobster was considered to be a "trash fish" and typically was eaten only by the poor, the starving, or by indentured servants. This makes it unlikely that lobster would be served at a feast celebrating a plentiful harvest.
Indeed, lobsters were used as fertilizer to help grow corn; the Pilgrims and the Indians would plant a few corn seeds and then throw a lobster into the ground beside the seeds before covering all of that with soil. What a change we have nearly 400 years later! Lobster is now a major export of the Plymouth area with prices that are far too high for the poorer citizens of today.
Pumpkin pie wasn't on the menu in 1621 because there were no ovens for baking, but the pilgrims probably did eat boiled pumpkin. Due to the diminishing supply of flour, there was no bread of any kind.
Cranberries existed as wild plants in the Plymouth area at the time, and it is possible that the Pilgrims were aware of the food value of these plants. However, cranberries were largely ignored until American Revolutionary War veteran Henry Hall became the first to farm cranberries in the nearby Cape Cod town of Dennis around 1816. Aside from their food value, the Pilgrims would have been eating unsweetened cranberries, a less than tasty sensation without benefit of sugar.
Salt was readily available in Plimoth Colony with the ocean being only a few yards away. Pepper was commonly used in England but probably not available in Plimoth Colony at the time.
Some sugar was transported on the Mayflower but probably had been consumed before the feast of 1621. Sugar could have been made from maple syrup but it is doubtful that the Pilgrims learned these skills the first year. Maple sap has to be collected early in the spring when there is still snow on the ground. In the spring of 1621, the Pilgrims were too weak from disease and starvation to organize efforts to tap maple trees and collect the sap.
The list of beverages served at the three-day feast was not recorded. The Pilgrims had no tea or coffee, as those imported items were missing due to a lack of trade routes at the time.
Beer undoubtedly was served. As the Pilgrims set out for America the previous year, they brought a considerable amount of this beverage with them for the voyage (reportedly more than 28,617 liters = 7,560 gallons). An entry in the diary of a Mayflower passenger explains the unplanned landing at Plymouth Rock: "We could not now take time for further search...our victuals being much spent, especially our beer..."
Once settled, the Pilgrims undoubtedly followed the English customs of the time with most families brewing beer in large quantities. They served it at virtually all functions, including ordinations, funerals, and regular Sabbath meals.
Plenty of clear water was available in the New World but the Pilgrims were largely ignorant of the need for sanitation. As a result, it is believed that many of the wells in Plimoth Colony were polluted. Admittedly, this is all conjecture, since no one today knows for sure.
Serving meals in the seventeenth century was very different from serving today. People weren't served their meals individually. Foods were placed on the table and then people took the food from the table and ate it. In fact, this "family style" of dining was similar to what most families do today.
Pilgrims didn't eat in courses as we do today. All of the different types of foods were placed on the table at the same time, and people ate in any order they chose. Meat dishes, puddings, and sweets were all served at the same time. Desserts were eaten at the same time as the meats and other dishes.
Canning and freezing had not yet been invented. With no method of preserving food, other than salting food for preservation, the Pilgrims ate whatever was fresh. It is unlikely that they ate corn, other than perhaps dried corn. The corn crop had come and gone before the autumn feast. Late season vegetables, such as turnips, onions, pumpkin and squash, certainly would have been available. However, the meal was probably mostly meat, fish, and fowl, with few vegetables.
We can also imagine the table manners of those who dined. The Pilgrims did not use silverware nicely arranged on linen napkins. Napkins were in use although they were usually simple pieces of cloth, often rags. The Pilgrims wiped their hands on the cloth napkins, which they also used to pick up hot morsels of food. Linen was unknown. We can imagine that the Indian guests probably wiped their hands and mouths on whatever was available, such as on the back of the hand or on clothing.
The Pilgrims also did not use forks at the table. As Englishmen and Englishwomen, they had no knowledge of forks. The fork was first described in English by Thomas Coryat in a volume of writings about his Italian travels only ten years earlier (1611). Very few English people had even heard of a fork by 1621. For many years the fork was viewed as an unmanly Italian affectation and was never seen in English homes. Some writers of the Roman Catholic Church expressly disapproved of its use: "God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks — his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating."

While the Pilgrims were not Catholics, we can assume they used the same eating customs as most everyone else in England at the time: they scooped up meat, fish, and boiled peas alike with their fingers. It was not until the 18th century that the fork became commonly used in Great Britain, with the United States following soon after.

Knives were used at the table but were not the same knives that we think of as silverware. The knives of 1621 were multi-purpose tools: any one knife might be used to cut a tree limb, to dissect a deer, or to cut meat at the table.

In short, the Pilgrims had a great meal by their standards. They and their Indian guests ate well for three days. That must have been a great joy for the 53 hardy souls who had watched half of their group die of malnourishment and disease only a few months earlier.
Their table manners didn't match today's standards, but they undoubtedly didn't mind. Their diet was high in protein, especially red meats. They undoubtedly had high cholesterol meals, especially in the months when fresh fruits and vegetables were not available. However, their diet probably met the needs of these people who led rugged, outdoor lifestyles. They had little fear of heart attacks; the more common cause of death was malnutrition and disease.
The Pilgrims of 1621 undoubtedly were delighted with their feast but I don't think I would want to join them.

Harry Houdini Died on Halloween

2009-11-10T15:33:00.000-06:00

It may seem appropriate that the world's greatest escape artist and illusionist, Harry Houdini, died on the day when many people try to portray themselves as something other than what they really are.
Houdini always claimed that he was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, on April 6, 1874. However, a birth certificate found after his death revealed that he was born on March 24, 1874, in Budapest, Hungary. He was the son of Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weisz (1829-1892) and Cecilia Steiner. At birth, his name was Ehrich Weiss (or Weisz). He immigrated at the age of 4 on July 3, 1878, on the SS Fresia with his mother (listed as Cisy), sister Aurine, and brothers Nathan and Willi. At first, the family lived in Appleton, where Rabbi Mayer Samuel Weisz served at the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. In the 1880 U.S. census, the family was living on Appleton Street. His name was listed as Ehrich Weiss, but friends called him "Erie" or "Harry."

On June 6, 1882, Rabbi Weiss became an American citizen. According to the laws at that time, American citizenship was automatically given to all minor children, including young Ehrich, or Harry. The family moved to New York City in 1887.
As a child Ehrich took several jobs, one of which was as a locksmith's apprentice. He made his public debut as a 9-year-old trapeze artist, calling himself, "Ehrich, the prince of the air".
In 1891, Weiss became a professional magician and began calling himself "Harry Houdini" in honor of French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. He first specialized in card tricks, calling himself the "King of Cards." However, he also dabbled at escaping from handcuffs. He soon realized that the audiences were more interested in his escapes than in card tricks. He met fellow performer Wilhelmina Beatrice (Bess) Rahner in 1893 and married her three weeks later. For the rest of his performing career, Bess would work as his stage assistant.
Harry Houdini went on to enjoy success as a performer in the United States and abroad. He would free himself from handcuffs, chains, ropes, and straitjackets, often while hanging from a rope or suspended in water, sometimes in plain sight of the audience. In 1913, he changed his legal name to Harry Houdini.
In October of 1926, while riding in a train from Montreal to Detroit, Houdini complained of severe abdominal pains. Upon arrival in Detroit, he had a temperature of 104. Houdini insisted the show must go on at the Garrick Theatre. His last performance was on October 24, 1926. The next day he was hospitalized at Detroit's Grace Hospital.
On October 25, doctors removed his appendix, which had burst, rupturing far over on the left side of the abdomen, resulting in strepococcic peritonitis. A second operation was performed on October 29 to address the poison that was spreading through his system. Finally, on October 31, 1926, Harry Houdini passed away. After escaping death so many times on stage, Harry Houdini died in a hospital bed.
Houdini always was interested in psychics and spiritualists and their so-called powers. Houdini scoffed at such "powers" and often used his training and insights to expose frauds. Fearing that spiritualists would exploit his legacy by pretending to contact him after his death, Houdini left his wife a secret code - ten words chosen at random from a letter written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - that he would use to contact her from the afterlife. His wife held yearly séances on Halloween for ten years after his death, but Houdini never appeared.

State Historical Society of Missouri Hours and Services Cut

2009-11-10T15:27:00.000-06:00

The following announcement was written by the State Historical Society of Missouri:

Due to a 25 percent withholding in its fiscal year 2010 state appropriation, the State Historical Society of Missouri is decreasing its hours open to the public to Mondays through Thursdays, 8:00 a.m.-4:45 p.m., effective immediately. The Society will no longer be open for research on Fridays or Saturdays. The withholding ($364,010), caused by the continued downturn in Missouri state revenues, was made public last Wednesday, October 28. The State Historical Society’s response to the withholding, determined by its board of trustees, was announced at the annual membership meeting in Columbia on Saturday, October 31.

To continue operations and implement the withholding, the Society’s twenty-two staff members have voluntarily taken a 20 percent pay reduction, and three staff positions have been eliminated. These positions included one unfilled position left temporarily vacant due to a 10 percent reduction in the Society’s FY2010 budget on July 1, 2009, one retirement, and one layoff.
The Society will seek private funds to continue its newspaper microfilming program and to print the award-winning Missouri Historical Review. The microfilming program annually preserves over 250 Missouri newspaper titles and adds these papers to the fine collection available for research at the State Historical Society. Missouri newspaper publishers, libraries, and local historical and genealogical societies also rely on purchasing these microfilmed papers for in-house use and to add to their research collections. The Missouri Historical Review is sent quarterly to over 4,800 members of the State Historical Society in Missouri and throughout the United States. Scholars, students, and the public use the journal for the study of the state’s history.
The popular Missouri History Speakers’ Bureau, which furnishes speakers to local civic, historical, and genealogical groups, will be discontinued. The State Historical Society has sponsored 34 Speakers’ Bureau presentations around the state since the beginning of the fiscal year on July 1. A MoHiP (Missouri History in Performance) Theatre production on the life and times of John William “Blind” Boone already scheduled for March 19, 2010, in Columbia will be held. Future performances by MoHiP, the State Historical Society’s reader’s theatre offering original productions based on historical characters and events, will not be scheduled.
“The reduced hours will have a significant impact on genealogists, students, and scholars who make use of the State Historical Society’s collections,” said Gary R. Kremer, the executive director. “And local organizations that have used scholars well-versed on a variety of historical topics will lose access to a much-needed source for speakers.”
The 25 percent withholding reduces the Society’s state funding to 65 percent of the FY2009 appropriation.

Next WCAGS Meeting: Share Your Christmas Traditions!

2009-11-02T22:55:00.000-06:00

Our next meeting will be held on Sunday, November 8, 2009. The meeting will be as usual at 2pm at the Headquarters House in Fayetteville.

Our topic will be Share Your Christmas Traditions! Members (and Guests) are invited to bring photos and family stories of the Christmas Traditions of their families' ancestors or their own family traditions begun with their children. Everyone is sure to have a great time! Our hostess will be Cheri.

NARA Seeks to Shrink Research Space and Services in D.C.

2009-10-21T08:52:00.000-05:00

The National Genealogical Society's "UpFront" blog is reporting:

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has proposed some major changes that will significantly reduce the space and services available to researchers who wish to use NARA records in Washington, D.C. Specifically, the proposal is to relocate the Finding Aids/ Consultants to a smaller, open space within the library, reduce the number of microfilm readers, and replace self-serve microfilm access with a "pull on demand" process that requires staff to retrieve each film as someone requests it.

The National Genealogical Society is opposed to the changes and is asking genealogists to contact the Acting Archivist of the United States, the Archivist of the United States nominee, and members of Congress to express concerns.

You can read more at the NGS blog at http://upfront.ngsgenealogy.org/2009/10/nara-seeks-to-shrink-research-space-and.html. Make sure you click on the image there to see a larger floor map that illustrates the proposed changes.

2010 Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy

2009-10-21T08:46:00.000-05:00

The following announcement was written by the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy:

For sixteen years, genealogy researchers have basked in an exciting week of in-depth learning. The majority also took the opportunity for personal research at the renowned Family History Library.
In 2010,the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy will take place January 11-15, taught by expert genealogists, such as Paula Stuart-Warren, Thomas W. Jones, Kory Meyerink, John Philip Colletta, Mary E.V. Hill, Barbara Renick, Patricia Law Hatcher, Craig Scott, Elissa Scalise Powell, Karen Clifford, John M. Kitzmiller, Debby Horton, and Kahlile Mehr.

BECOME more effective with:
    Computers and Technology
    Accreditation and Certification Preparation
    Personal Project Problem Solving
EXPLORE the many possibilities of the records of:
    Scotland
    Central and Eastern Europe
    Mid-Atlantic States (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland)
FOCUS on:
    American Records and Research
    Immigrant Origins
    Producing a Quality Family Narrative
    American Land and Court Records
    U.S. Military Records
Choose one of the above courses for an extensive learning experience. Classes finish in the afternoon each day allowing research time at the FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY, located just two blocks away.
In addition, there are 15 optional evening classes on dynamic topics ranging from maximizing Internet searching to solving research problems to organizing what you find. So much to choose from! These classes are open to all for a minimal price.
No matter which course you attend, you will have improved skills by January 15th. Why wait? The early bird special ends November 15, 2009. For more information and to enroll online, visit www.infouga.org.

Co-Workers Discover They Are Brothers

2009-09-22T14:43:00.000-05:00

For weeks, Randy Joubert and Gary Nisbet laughed off customers’ comments that the two furniture deliverymen looked similar enough to be brothers.
It wouldn’t be long before fate would prove the old adage, the customer is always right.

Joubert said something in him clicked after yet another customer asked the same question during a routine delivery in late August.
Prefacing his line of questioning with the statement, “Don’t think I’m weird,” Joubert asked his co-worker a few pointed questions based on names and dates gleaned from his own adoption records.
Seconds later, Joubert realized that the man who had been on the other end of countless couches, mattresses and recliners since July wasn’t just a co-worker. Nisbet was the long-lost brother for whom he had been searching.
You can read the full story in an article written by Kevin Miller in the Bangor Daily News at http://tinyurl.com/ngybyr

Preparing, Protecting, Preserving your Family Treasures

2009-09-17T08:35:00.000-05:00

Many of us possess family heirlooms. They may be old family photographs or marriage certificate or a handmade quilt that is more than 100 years old. Whatever the object(s), they are handed down from generation to generation and are cherished by each new recipient.
What happens if your home is flooded or in a hurricane or tornado or other disaster? Even a simple burst water pipe or a few roof shingles blown off in a thunderstorm can result in damage to all sorts of things, including heirlooms.
No one likes to think about disasters, whether natural or man made, but thinking ahead and preparing, together with knowledge about first steps, can save those family treasures from ruin.

The Library of Congress has a great webpage offering simple instructions and links to more in-depth information regarding preserving family documents. The information provided is often simple but contains a lot of common sense. For instance, the section on where to store heirlooms states:

The single most important decision you can make to mitigate damage from a future disaster is selecting an appropriate location for your most valued family treasures. Avoid basement and attic when possible. Consider the safest location based on the most likely threat; if flooding, avoid the basement; if tornado, avoid attics and outside walls. Are there certain times of the year when you are most vulnerable? Can you store some things offsite during those periods?
Another consideration is small disasters and prevention. Don’t store valuable materials under water pipes and keep materials off the floor. If you must store items in the basement, don’t put materials against an outside wall that may let in dampness. Small leaks that go undetected for a period of time can cause irretrievable damage through mold growth and staining. Be sure to check your storage at least twice a year to be sure there are no problems.

This is but one example of the common sense advice offered. You will also find links to more comprehensive information for many topics. It also contains information about handling damage AFTER a disaster, such as water, smoke, and soot damage.
"Preparing, Protecting, Preserving Family Treasures” may be found at http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/preserv/familytreasures/index.html.
Don't your family heirlooms deserve some protection?

Historic Arkansas Marriage Records Online

2009-09-11T14:47:00.000-05:00

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch: Hundreds of Thousands of Certificates Digitized and Indexed

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS—Where genealogists gather, records are uncovered. The adage is certainly true this week as hundreds of genealogists descend on the Little Rock Statehouse Convention Center in Arkansas as part of the 2009 Federation of Genealogical Societies annual conference. In anticipation of this conference, many volunteers have donated thousands of hours online to create a free online database to hundreds of thousands of historic Arkansas marriage records. The records date from 1837 to 1957. The online database includes a searchable index linked to digital images of the original marriage certificates. The volunteer project is 26 percent complete. The first fruits of the effort can be searched at FamilySearch.org (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot).

The free online collection currently includes 442,058 records linked to 199,431 digital images of the original marriage certificates. The records represent the counties of Ashley, Baxter, Boone, Chicot, Clay, Crittenden, Desha, Drew, Fulton, Jackson, Johnson, Lee, Logan, Madison, Monroe, Montgomery, Nevada, Perry, and Pike.
FamilySearch partnered with the Arkansas Genealogical Society (AGS) to create indexes to county marriages registered in Arkansas between 1837 and 1957. Jan Davenport, 1st vice president of AGS, worked closely with FamilySearch to create the project and help solicit volunteers to index the digital images using FamilySearch’s online indexing program. To date, 20,559 volunteers have helped produce the first sets of indexed data and images now available online.
FamilySearch is the global leader of online indexing. It launched its online indexing program in 2008, and tens of thousands of volunteers donate time online helping to index historic records like the Arkansas marriages collection. FamilySearch currently has 65 online indexing projects underway.
For this project, FamilySearch is creating digital images of the county marriage records and online volunteers worldwide then use FamilySearch’s Web-based indexing tool to view the digital images and extract the desired information from the image. That data is then processed and published online in free searchable indexes linked to the digital images.
Volunteers need only Internet access to contribute to this historic effort. A unique quality-control process ensures a highly accurate, finished index. Each document is transcribed by two different online indexers. Any discrepancies in their two extractions are then forwarded to a third volunteer—an arbitrator—who makes any needed corrections between the two interpretations. A typical downloaded “batch” (group of records) will take a volunteer about 30 to 40 minutes to complete. The indexing utility has built-in tutorials and helps. Anyone interested in volunteering to help complete the Arkansas project can do so at indexing.familysearch.org.

UPCOMING SHILOH MUSEUM EVENTS

2009-09-08T21:22:00.000-05:00

Ozark Quilt Fair

The 32^nd Ozark Quilt Fair will take place Saturday, September 12 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. Quilts and quilt lovers are invited to display both new and antique quilts on the museum grounds. Musical entertainment will be provided from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. by old-time string band Shout Lulu. The Ozark Quilt Fair is sponsored by First Security Bank.

Signal Trees Program

Don Wells of Jasper , Georgia will present “Mystery of the Trees,” Wednesday, September 16 at noon at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History. Wells is president of Mountain Stewards, an organization working to document the occurrence of “signal trees” in the United States . “Signal trees are curiously bent trees which may have been created by Indians as directional markers toward water, shelter, or food,” said Wells. The Shiloh Museum is located at the corner of Johnson and Main in downtown Springdale . For more information, call 750-8165.

Civil War Living History Day

Heritage Trail Partners will sponsor “Hardships on the Home Front: Civilians and Soldiers in the Civil War Ozarks,” a day of living history activities at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History, Saturday, September 19, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The Northwest Arkansas Historical Education Association will stage a Union encampment, and will hold cannon-firing demonstrations at 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. The Sons of Confederate Veterans and Friends will stage a Confederate encampment focusing on the everyday life of a soldier. C. W. and Ann Webb of Springdale will display artifacts from their personal collection of Civil War-era military and domestic goods. Doris and Ron Williams of Cane Hill will demonstrate Dutch oven cooking in the museum’s log cabin. Museum volunteer Debbie Reed will be demonstrating the pioneer skills of rendering bear grease and drying fruit. Old-time string band Shout Lulu will provide musical entertainment from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. At 1:30 p.m., Wendall Beall, history teacher at West Fork High School , will present a program entitled, “They kill a rebel easier than they can kill a chicken”: The First Federal Arkansas Cavalry in Northwest Arkansas .

Heritage Trail Partners is a non-profit organization dedicated to documenting and preserving the history of roads and trails in western Arkansas associated with the Trail of Tears (1837-1839), the Butterfield Stage (1858-1861), and Civil War troop movements (1861-1865). “Our vision is to utilize historic roadways as a part of a regional network of bicycle and walking trails. The Heritage Trail will link Northwest Arkansas cities in a unique way, connecting them through the historic events of the 1800s,” said John McLarty, president of Heritage Trail Partners. He added, “We offer public programs such as “Hardships on the Home Front” as a way to educate the public not only about local history, but about the Heritage Trail project.”

Susan Young

Outreach Coordinator

Shiloh Museum of Ozark History

118 W. Johnson Avenue

Springdale, AR 72764

479-750-8165

www.springdalear.gov/shiloh

The Origins of the Melungeons

2009-09-01T10:36:00.000-05:00

Melungeon is a term applied to many people of the Southeastern United States, mainly in the Cumberland Gap area of central Appalachia: East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and East Kentucky. The most common adjective used to describe the Melungeons is “mysterious;” no one seems to know where the Melungeons originated. The Melungeons often did not fit into any of the racial categories that define an individual or group within American society; their neighbors considered them neither white, black, nor Indian.
The Melungeons appear to be of mixed ancestry, and contradictory claims about the origins of these people have existed for centuries. Most modern-day descendants of Melungeon families are generally Caucasian in appearance, often, although not always, with dark hair and eyes, and a swarthy or olive complexion. Descriptions of Melungeons vary widely from observer to observer, from "Middle Eastern" to "Native American" to "light-skinned African American."

A common belief about the Melungeons of east Tennessee was that they were an indigenous people of Appalachia, existing there before the arrival of the first white settlers. Many Melungeons believed that their ancestors have lived in the hills since the 1500s or early 1600s. Some claimed to be both Indian and Portuguese. One early Melungeon was called "Spanish" ("Spanish Peggy" Gibson, wife of Vardy Collins). Such claims were questionable, however. Because of the social problems associated with race, many Southern families with multiracial ancestry claimed Portuguese and/or American Indian (specifically Cherokee) ancestry as a strategy for denying African ancestry.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, speculation on Melungeon origins produced tales of shipwrecked sailors, lost colonists of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern origin, hoards of silver, and ancient peoples such as the Carthaginians, Turkish, and even Sephardi (Iberian) Jews.
In the past twenty years or so, genealogists have documented through tax, court, census and other colonial, late 18th and early 19th century records that the ancestors of today's Melungeons migrated into the region from Virginia and Kentucky. This evidence seems to refute earlier claims that the Melungeons were a "lost tribe" from Portugal or some other European nation that had arrived in the 1500s or 1600s.
Dr. Kevin Jones carried out a DNA study on Melungeons in 2000, using 130 hair and cheek cell samples. The results were vague: Jones concluded that the Melungeons are mostly Eurasian, a catchall category spanning people from Scandinavia to the Middle East. He also found these people to be a little bit black and a little bit American Indian.
More recently, Jack Goins started a Melungeon DNA Project, with the goal of studying the ancestry of hypothesized Melungeon lines. So far, Y chromosomal DNA testing of male subjects with the Melungeon surnames Collins, Gibson, Gill, Goins, Bunch, Bolin, Goodman, Stowers, Williams, Minor, and Moore has revealed evidence of European and sub-Saharan African ancestry. Such findings appear to verify the early designation of Melungeon ancestors as "mulattos," that is, descendants of white Europeans and Africans. Many of the Melungeons, but not all, have DNA haplogroups that show roots in Portugal, Spain, and Italy. These people likely are descendants of enslaved or servant people in the Chesapeake Bay colony with European fathers connected to the African slave trade run by Spain and Portugal.

You can find much more information about the Melungeons at http://www.melungeons.com, http://melungeon-historical-society.blogspot.com, and at http://www.geocities.com/ourmelungeons/front.html. Information about the Melungeon DNA Project can be found at http://www.jgoins.com/core_melungeon.htm.

Arkansas History Commission extended hours during conference

2009-09-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

The Arkansas History Commission will be open until 8:00 p.m. on the Wednesday on September 2, 2009, to accommodate our friends at the Federation of Genealogical Societies, during the 2009 Annual Conference in Little Rock on September 2-5. While the normal hours of the State Archives are 8:00-4:30 , Monday through Saturday, we will have extended hours on the Wednesday of the conference.

Visitors who arrive at 4:30 or later need to follow our normal Saturday procedures for researching at the State Archives, i.e., sign in at the guard station on the first floor of the building, take a numbered badge, and use the number to sign the register in the research room.

Everyone is welcome to take advantage of the extended hours on this special occasion.

Arkansas History Commission

One Capitol Mall

Little Rock, Arkansas 72201

www.ark-ives.com

state.archives@arkansas.gov

INTRODUCTION TO "FOOTNOTE" by Carol Reel.

2009-08-30T17:57:00.000-05:00

The WCAGS regular meeting, September 13, 2009, 2:00 PM, Headquarters House, Fayetteville:

INTRODUCTION TO "FOOTNOTE" by Carol Reel.

Learn about thousands of original documents available on line and how to access them, in addition to tips on FREE Access, and the DELUXE Access. Carol first used "Footnote" at the LDS Library and now subscribes to it ( $59.00 for a year). By looking at the free pages, it is easy to determine if a subscription is worth it to you. As Carol said, " My subscription was more than paid for by being able to download and copy death certificates and compiled military records.
We will have an online demonstration of just some of the search capabilities of this service.
Come join us!

Annual Genealogical Conference to be held September 25-26 in Springfield

2009-08-27T07:33:00.000-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sally McAlear

August 25, 2009 (417) 887-1699

Annual Genealogical Conference to be held September 25-26 in Springfield

SPRINGFIELD — The Ozarks Genealogical Society will hold its 29^th Annual Conference—“Your Family History . . . Just a Click Away?—September 25-26 at University Plaza Hotel in Springfield , MO .

Thomas W. Jones, Ph.D., nationally-known genealogical researcher, author, editor, and educator, is the featured speaker. His lectures will focus on Internet research, deducing ancestors’ identities, tracing common surnames, and solving problems with original sources. Jones’ research has encompassed records of every state east of the Mississippi , as well as Iowa , Missouri , Texas , France , Germany , Italy , and Ireland . His lectures are known to benefit genealogists of all levels of experience.

The conference begins Friday evening, September 25, and continues throughout the day on Saturday, September 26. The following mini-sessions will be presented on Saturday morning: “Strategies for Success,” “FamilySearch Online,” “Dressed for the Photographer,” and “Searching with GenSmarts.” A vendor showcase will be available, and door prizes—totaling over $900—will be given. Those who cannot attend the full conference can participate in the Friday evening session for $25.00. They would receive a source book and have access to the vendor exhibit room, which will be open for business from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

The Ozarks Genealogical Society, Inc. (OGS) was formally organized in September 1969 by a group of individuals brought together by their common interest in researching family history. It was chartered in 1979 as a not-for-profit organization in the State of Missouri . The goals of the society are to encourage the research and preservation of family history, foster solid genealogical research practices, and preserve records of historical and genealogical interest.

The conference is open to the public. Registration information and additional conference details are available online at http://ozarksgs.org/. Those registering by September 5 can save $5.00. Anyone needing a registration form may call (417) 885-9009.

New York City Birth Records 1901-1907 Now Online

2009-08-25T13:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks to both the German Genealogy Group and the Italian Genealogical Group, an index to New York City births 1901-1907 is now available online. The records were indexed by volunteers representing many different ethnic groups.

The index is a great convenience but, of course, it is only an index. Genealogists should first find the records of interest in the index, then consult the original records on microfilm to obtain all the details. Images of the original birth records are available on microfilm at the New York City Municipal Archives with copies available through the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City and Family History Centers around the world.

You should also realize that many births of these years were not reported simply because many took place at home and were never reported to authorities.
You can find the New York City Birth Records from 1901 through 1907 at both http://www.italiangen.org/NYCBirthsearch.asp and at http://www.germangenealogygroup.com/NYCBirthSearch.asp.
Volunteer efforts are great, but they do not operate without significant funding. If you'd like to support the Italian Genealogical Group in adding even more records in the future, go to http://www.italiangen.org/predblist.stm.

Steve Morse has also created a One-Step search tool for these records that is available at http://stevemorse.org/vital/nybirthigg.html. I tried a search from the One-Step search tool and found it to be super-simple to use. Enter whatever info you have: first name, last name (using "is exactly," "sounds like," starts with," "contains," or "ends with." you may also enter county, certificate number, year for beginning of search, year for end of search, birthday (month and date of the month). Any information you do not have can be left blank. The search will then return all the records that match the parameters you specified.

Great work, Steve!

Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century

2009-04-27T09:51:00.000-05:00

Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century

The title of this web site describes it well: Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century. What else can I say? It has lots of pictures; click on any picture to see a larger image.
Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century can be found at http://mustachesofthenineteenthcentury.blogspot.com.

Black Sheep Ancestors

2009-04-12T03:15:00.000-05:00

WCAGS Members:
Make plans to attend the April 19, 2009 meeting (3rd Sunday because of Easter) Cheri Coley will be presenting a program on "Black Sheep in the Family" The meeting will be at 2pm Headquarters House. Hope to see you there!

Washington County Archives is open!

2009-03-25T20:43:00.000-05:00

Last minute change in location. We are at 208 North College, the former Public Defender's Office. The best place to park is on the corner of Spring and Mill Street near the EOC Building or in the gravel lot behind the old courthouse and then walk. Please do not park in the lots behind our building, as they are not the county's. Again, all we have is our index books and microfilm so be prepared not to be able to use the old books for the next 12-18 months.

Tony Wappel

Washington County Archives

DNA reveals story of dad's disappearance

2009-03-23T03:00:00.000-05:00

Genes are genealogy's new frontier

By Ruth Sheehan - staff writer

Published: Mon, Mar. 23, 2009 02:00AM

John Smithers of Raleigh had spent more than six decades looking for clues about the father who abandoned him, his sister and their mother when he was just a baby. The barrel-chested, brash-talking Smithers had something he wanted to give his old man: a fist in the nose.
At 82, he had about given up on ever learning what happened to James William Smithers. He had long suspected his father got in trouble with the law and fled abroad. Decades ago, it was easy enough to disappear, and Smithers' father had seemingly vanished into thin air.
On the other side of the world, Lucinda Gray had always wondered what her father's life was like before he moved mysteriously from the United States to Australia. She had spent years just trying to find out his real name.

In mid-December, Smithers and Gray learned their elusive fathers were one and the same.
After years of poring over records online and in person, across continents and oceans, it took only a DNA sample from a simple cheek scrape to bring the two branches of the family together.
"I was skeptical at first," said Smithers, a retired insurance company investigator. "But when I talked to my sister, I knew this is what I'd been hoping for my whole life."
The case shows what a "new frontier" DNA has become in genealogical research, said Debbi Blake, a North Carolina state archivist.
DNA has been in genealogical use since 2000, according to Thomas Shawker, a radiologist with the National Institutes of Health who has become a nationally renowned expert on the use of the latest science in genealogy. Its use since then among professional genealogists and family historians has mushroomed.
"Everywhere I go, I am asked to lecture on DNA," he said, "and everywhere I go, the lectures are packed."
But the impact of DNA hasn't been as significant as the Internet, which transformed genealogical research by making records from distant places available at the click of a mouse. Some of the genealogy search sites charge a fee, though many of the raw birth, death, marriage and property records are available free online.
DNA testing has a fairly hefty price tag -- from $99 to well over $700, depending on the type of DNA and the level of research. Until recently, its application has been limited, said Terry Moore, a professional genealogist in Raleigh. Typically, it's used to identify which branch of the family tree to climb -- or which region or nation to zero in on.
"Usually, DNA helps people who have gone through all the records and traced their ancestors back to the 1400s and are stuck," she said.
It is, Moore stressed, simply another tool in the genealogist's box. "This is not CSI," she said. "DNA will not do the work for you. But it can bridge gaps in history."
As more people who share a surname start their own registries, DNA's role is expanding into the modern age -- uniting living relatives. The Smithers-Gray case is a perfect example.
Real name unknown
Like her half-brother John Smithers, Lucinda Gray had been trying to investigate her father's veiled history for many years.
Her dad, John Henderson Gray, who died in 1970, had been a fine father to her and her four siblings, and a good husband to their mother. But even their mother didn't know his true identity.
He had moved from the United States to Australia in 1926; in 1944, at age 51, he had married their mother, Betty, then 22. It was well known that Gray had changed his name when he moved down under. "Our mother always assumed he'd changed his identity because of some strife," Lucinda Gray said.

Stalking the Insanity that Stalks My Family

2009-01-12T00:35:00.000-06:00

Stalking the Insanity that Stalks My Family

A biological disorder of the brain that runs in families, schizophrenia is
the most severe of all the mental illnesses, one characterized by
auditory, visual and even tactile hallucinations.
Patrick Tracey has written an interesting article about inherited
schizophrenia. In this case, it has been handed down from generation to
generation within his family. He even went back to old Ireland to stalk
the madness that stalks his family.
This interesting story can be found in the Providence Journal's web site
at:
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_tracey9_01-09-09_HVCQ
K60_v22.9b9724.html.