Repost: Old Genealogies: Research Sources, Book Shelf and a Hat Tip

This was first posted almost three years ago. Since then the Internet Archive has nearly tripled its genealogy resources. (And it's still free.)

Just last week I consulted (via the Internet Archive) an 1868 book whose lengthy title begins "Some records of persons by the name of Worden" where I found a physical description of a sixth great grandfather, so I was excited to read a recent post in Vita Brevis by Emily Baldoni, New England Historical Genealogical Society's Technical Services/Metadata Librarian, about their project to make many of their late 19th and early 20th century genealogical writings available online. This is a big deal because, as Emily explains:

"NEHGS is sometimes the only library that holds a copy of the resource. In these cases, we are particularly happy to be able to preserve a digital copy and put it online so that it can reach a wider audience, now and for years to come."

I will certainly be checking out their collection.

The Internet Archive is also a great resource for books of interest to genealogists* This is how they describe their online holdings:

"The Archive's ever-expanding collection of genealogy resources includes items from the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Robarts Library at the University of Toronto; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library; Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah;, the National Library of Scotland, the Indianapolis City Library's Indianapolis City Directory and Yearbooks Collection, The Leo Baeck Institute Archives of German-speaking Jewry Leo Baeck Institute Archives, and the Boston Public Library.  

Resources include among many things books on surname origins, vital statistics, parish records, census records, passenger lists of vessels, and other historical and biographical documents."

Here's a tiny sample of the titles they have available.

[Source: Internet Archive]

And I found another Worden Book to peruse. (I've heard of it but have never seen a copy before.)

[Worden "a weir in the valley" by Waite W.Worden, 1992.

Source: Internet Archive; original source: Allen County Public Library.]

I've also found old genealogy publications via Google Books but, unlike Internet Archive, not every listing there is available digitally.


*They're claiming 53,534 results from a search for "genealogy."And it's free.

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Book Shelf: "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen" by Daniel Blum

A sample of what this book contains (from the very earliest movies in 1889 to the end of 1930, when movies had fully transitioned to sound).  Here it covers some of the movies that came out in 1918, including Tallulah Bankhead and Theda Bara.

I don't know what happened to my copy of "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen" by Daniel Blum, but as a teenage movie buff in the 1980's I would spend hours looking through it.

A young-looking 21-year-old Daniel C. Blum, posing for his passport photo, filed prior to a world-wide tour he was to make with his father Daniel Blum.  Passport Application Form for Native Citizen, Daniel C. Blum, Washington, D.C., 1 Jun 1921, NARA Passport Applications, January 2, 1906 - March 31, 1925, Roll 1636, Certificate: 45213; digital image, Ancestry.com database U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1174 : 27 Feb 2018).

The author, Daniel Blum (1899-1965), was an editor of Theatre World and Screen World annuals, and compiled various works on show business (an obituary can be found in "Daniel Blum, Editor, Dies," The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD), 25 Feb 1965, page 19, col 2; digital image, Newspapers (https://www.newspapers.com : 27 Feb 2018).

The book is available for free at the Internet Archive.  There are many used and new copies at Amazon.

This must have been a very interesting book for the first generations of people who grew old with the movies.
Only a few years before this book was published the classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) was released, a story of a movie star Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson, superstar of the silent era) who refused to acknowledge the passage of time.

Surely some of our ancestors in the 20th century were movie fans, and I wonder who their favorite actor or actress was?  And did they follow these fashions?

I looked through my various newspaper subscription services, and sure enough many newspapers mentioned or reviewed the book when it originally came out in 1953 (I find reviews in 1953 and 1954), and was mentioned well into the 1980's as a reference work (before the Internet).

An example of the book's mention in a newspaper: in Sarasota, Florida, the wife of Harry Benham (a local who had been in some silent movies) was compelled to buy a copy to see pictures of her husband.  Loveless, Hattie,"City Trailer Park Activities," Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, FL), March 28, 1954, pg 17; digital image, Google News (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=A7-hzOuI2KQC&dat=19540328&printsec=frontpage&hl=en : 27 Feb 2018).

And sure enough, there is Harry Benham (portrait and film clip of him in "Merchant of Venice" (1912).  (page 27)

I need to look through my tree and see which of my actor/actress relations (I have a few) might make an appearance in this work.

Fun fact:  the Harrison Ford of Han Solo fame wasn't even the first famous Harrison Ford!  Here is a clip of Harrison Ford (1884-1957) in 1916 in "The Mysterious Mrs. Musslewhite."  (page 119).

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Monday Is for Mothers: Martha Woodward (1676 - 1775)

My maternal eighth great grandmother Martha Woodward is named in her her father Richard's will and she survived her husband Joseph Baker Jr. by more than 20 years.

It seems there's only one mention of Martha in Quaker records for the Chester Monthly Meeting it doesn't specify what she had done that merited a visitation but Lewis Woodward, the author of a family history of the Woodwards, thought that was likely that the complaint referred to something to do with her marriage.*

[Genealogy of the Woodward family of Chester county, Pennsylvania, with an appendix giving a brief account of the Woodwards of some other portions of the United States by Woodward, Lewis, b. 1848; Publication date 1879. Digitizing sponsor Boston Public Library.

Source: The Internet Archive.]

[From "Our Family Ancestors" by Thomas Maxwell Potts. Cannonsburg, Pennsylvania, 1895.

Source: Internet Archive - original at Allen County Public Library, Ft. Wayne, Indiana ]

*I tried to locate the original of this Chester Monthly Meeting record but didn't have any luck.


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

From the Probate Files: Richard Woodward - Chester County, Pennsylvania - 1706

Ancestry's online databases weren't very helpful in regard to the will of my maternal ninth great grandfather Richard Woodward. All I could find was this:

[Ancestry.com]

And I found nothing at all on FamilySearch.

But I persisted because, as you will note, one of his children was "Martha, wife of --- Baker" and therefore my 8th great grandmother. Fortunately an earlier Woodward published a book in 1879* about the family (available through the Internet Archive) which includes a transcription of Richard's will.

[Genealogy of the Woodward family of Chester county, Pennsylvania, with an appendix giving a brief account of the Woodwards of some other portions of the United States. by Lewis Woodward, b. 1848. From the collection of the Boston Public Library. Internet Archive.com]

(As you can see Martha's bequest was "five pounds in monys or a Cow equivalent to the sum" while her sisters Jane, Mary and Sarah each were to receive twenty pounds, perhaps because Martha was already married which they were not.)**

It appears that the house in Thornbury Township that Richard lived in before he removed to Middletown is still standing and it was documented in the 1930s by the Historic American Buildings Survey which stated that "Significance: This house, although much altered, is of interest because the original section was possibly built in the last decade of the 17th century."

[SOUTH FRONT AND EAST SIDE - Richard Woodward House, Concord Road (Thornbury Township), Westtown, Chester County, PA

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. ]

[ WEST AND NORTH SIDES - Richard Woodward House, Concord Road (Thornbury Township), Westtown, Chester County, PA.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

[FIRST FLOOR, EAST WALL FIREPLACE - Richard Woodward House, Concord Road (Thornbury Township), Westtown, Chester County, PA.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

[SECOND FLOOR, HALL - Richard Woodward House, Concord Road (Thornbury Township), Westtown, Chester County, PA.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.]

Here's how I'm descended from Richard Woodward:

[Ancestry.com]

*Here's the title page:

**Of his sons, only Joseph (not the eldest) inherited property. The others had to settle for "four shillings or a pair of gloves".



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Old Genealogies: Research Sources, Book Shelf and a Hat Tip

Just last week I consulted (via the Internet Archive) an 1868 book whose lengthy title begins "Some records of persons by the name of Worden" where I found a physical description of a sixth great grandfather, so I was excited to read a recent post in Vita Brevis by Emily Baldoni, New England Historical Genealogical Society's Technical Services/Metadata Librarian, about their project to make many of their late 19th and early 20th century genealogical writings available online. This is a big deal because, as Emily explains:

"NEHGS is sometimes the only library that holds a copy of the resource. In these cases, we are particularly happy to be able to preserve a digital copy and put it online so that it can reach a wider audience, now and for years to come."

I will certainly be checking out their collection.

The Internet Archive is also a great resource for books of interest to genealogists* This is how they describe their online holdings:

"The Archive's ever-expanding collection of genealogy resources includes items from the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Robarts Library at the University of Toronto; the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library; Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah;, the National Library of Scotland, the Indianapolis City Library's Indianapolis City Directory and Yearbooks Collection, The Leo Baeck Institute Archives of German-speaking Jewry Leo Baeck Institute Archives, and the Boston Public Library.  

Resources include among many things books on surname origins, vital statistics, parish records, census records, passenger lists of vessels, and other historical and biographical documents."

Here's a tiny sample of the titles they have available.

[Source: Internet Archive]

And I found another Worden Book to peruse. (I've heard of it but have never seen a copy before.)

[Worden "a weir in the valley" by Waite W.Worden, 1992.

Source: Internet Archive; original source: Allen County Public Library.]

I've also found old genealogy publications via Google Books but, unlike Internet Archive, not every listing there is available digitally.




*They're claiming 53,534 results from a search for "genealogy."And it's free.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Book Shelf: Coronado Beach, San Diego, 1900

This 40-page promotional brochure touted the attractions of Coronado Beach (especially The Hotel Del Coronado) in 1900.

[Coronado Beach, California. Source: Internet Archive, Contributor: Library of Congress, Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation]

Note that hunting and fishing were prominently listed among the activities available to visitors.

And golf.

[Coronado Beach, California. Source: Internet Archive, Contributor: Library of Congress, Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation]

To read more about the Hotel Del Coronado, here is the Wikipedia entry.


© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.