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: "North Carolina Research: Genealogy and Local History" by Helen F. Leary

One of my mom's AncestryDNA Migrations is "Eastern North Carolina Settlers".  I have a ton to learn about this state and the history of its early settlers.  I hope that will help me get through some brick walls on both sides of Mom's ancestry.

A few weeks ago I linked to Mary Hill's very informative webinar on overcoming record loss in genealogical research.  She highly recommended "North Carolina Research: Genealogy and Local History" by Helen F. Leary as a great source.  I immediately ordered a copy (not cheap: $55 at Amazon) and am waiting for it to arrive.  It was supposed to arrive by yesterday but Amazon did notify me that it was indeed late.

I'm a bit peeved since I am excited to start using it and wanted to do a legitimate book shelf post on it.  Hopefully it comes tomorrow!

By the time this map was done in 1755 I already had a huge portion of my ancestors running around in these areas, particularly Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. "A Map of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland with part of New Jersey etc.," paper, Printed for R. Baldwin in pater Noster Row, 1755; digital image, North Carolina Maps (http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ncmaps/id/123 : 20 Mar 2018).

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Free Limited Time Webinar: "The Case of the Broken Link: Decoding the URL" by Cyndi Ingle

This happens a lot to me--I find something great on the internet and then the URL changes, or has changed before I can even look at it!  Sometimes I can figure out where it has been moved.  Thankfully Cyndi Ingle (from Cyndi's List!) demonstrates some strategies around this common problem in "The Case of the Broken Link: Decoding the URL":

Web site addresses appear to be long, complicated, and mysterious. Navigating through the web leads you from link to link, web page to web page, site to site, and server to server all in a matter of a few clicks. How can you sort out separate web sites? How can you track down a new URL for a broken link or a broken bookmark? What happens when your source citation for a web site contains a URL  that suddenly disappears? We will break down this technical topic to help you easily hunt down the URL you need.

1 hour 33 minutes
Free to non-subscribers through March 21, 2018


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Limited Time Free Webinar: "Quality, Time and Completion: Developing a Research Plan (Part One)" by J. Mark Lowe

Is part of your New Year's resolutions to research more effectively?  Whether you are new to the process or just need a refresher on good methods, "Quality, Time and Completion: Developing a Research Plan (Part One)" by J. Mark Lowe is a great place to start (I'm not sure when Part Two is being presented):

This session will focus on the effort to balance time, quality and completion of a research project. The first segment will look at the process from research concept to logistics including the conflicting issues between the researcher and previous research. This will include the movement from basic data collection, evaluation and analysis to the development of a direction and specific actions.

1 hour 36 minutes
Free to non-subscribers through January 17, 2018



© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Planning to Plan: Mahlon Hibbs

I know this isn't Mahlon Hibbs' origin story, but it sometimes feels like it.  "Athena is "born" from Zeus's forehead as a result of him having swallowed her mother Metis, as he grasps the clothing of Eileithyia on the right; black-figured amphora, 550–525 BC, Louvre."  By Wikipedia User:Bibi Saint-Pol (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.  

I have a lot of "brick walls" in my tree.  They are likely brick walls for me because I am still too disorganized and unexperienced a genealogist to break them down yet.  Mahlon Hibbs is one of my most vexing "brick walls."

He emerges fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus, in his 50s, in eastern Tennessee (Anderson County) about 1802.  A few years later some local records indicated that he petitioned to be exempt from paying taxes due to his advanced age.  He had a large family, participated in some land sales and road work, and moved to Putnam County, Indiana in the early 1820s.  He either died there or in Iowa some time after 1850, well over 100 years old.  His birth place in the 1850 Census indicates that he was born in Virginia.

This guy had lived an entire life already by the time I find his first record.  I need a plan!

I need to review the records I've gathered so far:

• some early Anderson County, Tennessee tax records
• early Anderson County, Tennesse court minutes
• Anderson County, Tennessee land records
• BLM record for Putnam County, Indiana
• Federal census records 1830-1850 (before 1830 he was in areas where the federal census no longer exists)

I already have a fully developed tree for his children, and I need to review his family and neighbors using the FAN club method:

Right away I see that I have only focused on very particular areas, not the surrounding counties in either Tennessee or Indiana.  I also know that I lack knowledge in general of the formation of Tennessee and the role North Carolina in Tennessee history (and where to find those records).  I am also not very skilled at research in Virginia.

The above shows how Tennessee was when Mahlon Hibbs likely first came on the scene.  The area in what is now Clinton, Anderson County (close to where Anderson and Knox counties meet) was in Spencer County (State of Franklin).  Before it became Anderson County in 1801 it was part of a series of other counties, including Knox, Grainger, Hawkins, Spencer and Sullivan counties.  It is possible that Mahlon was actually in Washington ("Was") county until about 1802. (from the Tennessee mapofus which uses AniMap Plus 3.0, permission of the Goldbug Company).

The above shows how Tennessee was when Mahlon Hibbs starts showing up in records in Anderson County (shown above as "An") around 1803.(from the Tennessee mapofus which uses AniMap Plus 3.0, permission of the Goldbug Company).

The above shows how Tennessee looked when Mahlon Hibbs and family moved out from Anderson County ("An"). (from the Tennessee mapofus which uses AniMap Plus 3.0, permission of the Goldbug Company).

The above is how Indiana looked when Mahlon and his extended family moved to Putnam county (shown above as "Put") (from the Indiana mapofus which uses AniMap Plus 3.0, permission of the Goldbug Company).

The above shows how Indiana looked when Mahlon Hibbs last appears on a record in Putnam County, Indiana (1850 Census). (from the Indiana mapofus which uses AniMap Plus 3.0, permission of the Goldbug Company).

Reviewing these maps, I see I need to create mini locality guides for Anderson County, Tennessee (and surrounding/previous counties), and Putnam County, Indiana (and surrounding counties), with a table including the following categories:
Vital records
Land records
Probate records
Cemetery records
Church records (Quaker and Baptist denominations would take priority as those the the most likely from what I already know).
Census records



I also need to review my own blog posts:

• Monday Madness: Mahlon Hibbs
• Diary of James Milo Nosler: Introduction, part I  (Mahlon Hibbs was his grandfather)
• Land Genealogy Gleanings: Focus on early Hibbs in Anderson County, Tennessee
• Hibbs Trajectory I had Not Considered

Finally, I need to review my father's DNA cousin matches (particularly at Ancestry.com, where there are the most amount of trees to compare).  He has steadily been gaining Hibbs related cousins, and they have yielded a number of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky Hibbs lines that might help me (maybe Mahlon was in those places at some point).



© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Thursday Night Webinar from Legacy Family Tree Webinars: "Be Your Own Digital Archivist: Preserve Your Research"

The vast majority of my research resides at my tree on Ancestry.com.  Not printed out.  Not really saved elsewhere.

Bad, bad genealogist!

Cyndi Ingle (of the amazing Cyndi's List, which was already around when I first started my research in 1997) has some ideas in her webinar "Be Your Own Digital Archivist: Preserve Your Research" that I can start using to preserve my work for future generations to use:

Are you doing everything you can to safeguard your genealogical research? Your documents? Your data? Your scanned images? We will talk about the importance of taking charge of your own materials and making sure they aren't going to disappear.

Originally aired February 15, 2017.  Runs 1 hour 46 minutes.  Free to non-subscribers through February 22, 2017.


© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Free Saturday Night Webinar from Legacy Family Tree: "Digital Research Guidance, Research Logs, and To Do Lists: FamilySearch, Research Wiki, and Legacy Family Tree" by Geoff Rasmussen

Don't have a human research assistant to help you with all the information you juggle?  Me neither!

In "Digital Research Guidance, Research Logs, and To Do Lists: FamilySearch, Research Wiki, and Legacy Family Tree" Geoff Rasmussen has some great ideas on using all the amazing tools available to the modern genealogist for organizing research.

Everyone can use a little research help every now and then, right? Learn about best practices in using the latest technology to organize and plan your research strategies. Call on these digital research assistants 24/7.

Geoff Rasmussen will educate, compare, and contrast two major research guidance tools: FamilySearch's Research Wiki, and Legacy Family Tree's Research Guidance. You will learn how to easily keep track of what you've previously researched, as well as plan your research To Do List.

The webinar was originally recorded on August 14, 2013 (1 hour, 21 minutes).  Most of Legacy Family Tree Webinars are not free and I recommend subscribing to their site for full access to all their amazing, affordable genealogy webinars.



© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Tuesday Tip: Don't Forget to Use WorldCat for Making Lists of Sources

Why didn't I think of starting this sooner?

The video "WorldCat Lists" above is from 2008, but it gives some great ideas on organizing searches on WorldCat, for genealogy or any other area of study.  What is WorldCat?:

WorldCat is the world's largest network of library-based content and services. WorldCat is a "master" catalog of library materials. It's a way for you to locate a book, video or other item of interest and discover which libraries near you own the item. Individual member libraries in your community and elsewhere provide the actual services, such as loaning you a book or providing access to online articles.
WorldCat lets you search the collections of libraries in your community and thousands of other libraries around the world.

So yesterday I set up my own free account with WorldCat, and started looking for materials relating to early Anderson County, Tennessee history.

This snapshot of my newly created WorldCat account profile gives an indication of the types of ways you can organize your lists, as well as saving searches and favorite libraries.

I've just created an account, so I didn't create a customized list yet.  I did throw a bunch of materials that relate to early records in Anderson County, Tennessee in the default list "Things to Check Out".  I'll have to make a list called Anderson County TN to make it more organized for later viewing.

You can look at the generated Citation View (I chose Chicago, naturally).

------------------------

BTW: Slightly off-topic, but many (most?) public and university libraries now have the ability for you to add lists to your account online if you are a member.  For example, I know there is a journal on Connecticut genealogy called the Connecticut Nutmegger, but it is not available online for free, but I found that the Downtown branch of my local library (San Diego Public Library) carries a run of the title in its reference section.  So I have made a list on my account called Genealogy to put the titles I am interested in looking at when I go down there next time (particularly reference).

I can click on the "Connecticut Nutmegger" to view the call number.

I may be 10 years behind on using lists to improve my searching effectiveness, but I'm getting there!  I'll eventually make it into the 21st century LOL




© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Free Newspaper Archives

[Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library. "Woman reading a newspaper in the living room." New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed March 20, 2016. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e2-f85e-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99]

David Sarokin at XooxleAnswers, a professional research service website, has done the work so we don't have to. Here's what he has to say about his collection of online newspapers:

Increasingly, there are digital archives of old newspapers available to everyone at no charge…if you know where to look. That’s what my collection of resources is all about: free historical newspapers on the Internet. Here are those links again.

• US state and regional newspaper archives

• College and student newspapers

• Historical magazine archives

• European archives

• Other international archives, including numerous foreign language sources

Thank you David!

© 2016 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.

Starting 2016 with a New Attitude

Finally, after 2 weeks of being sick, and being sick while on dialysis, I am turning a corner.  It is amazing how much that can sap your mental energy.

Thomas MacEntee of GeneaBloggers has a program called "Genealogy Do-Over".  While I am not going to start over, I am finding inspiration in his January post, particularly because I tend to do the "ooh bright and shiny" approach to research, which ends up being haphazard and incomplete:

It may sound odd for many of us to do “prep work” before researching. However, I found that if I took time to prepare my workspace and my mind for research, I had much better results. 

For me, this means I will no longer research at 2:00 am if I am tired or half-asleep. It also means that I will no longer say to myself, “Oh I have 15 minutes before the roast in the oven is done, I’ll look for Grandpa some more.” One of my biggest problems in the past was not starting or finishing the research process properly. Moreover, the finish turned out to be just as important for me: with a good ending to a research session, I would know exactly where to pick up the next time I started. 

So over the next month, think about how you have researched in the past in terms of time, location, tools used, etc. Consider making some changes. Write down some research “warm up” exercises and try them once we get to the research phase. Make a list of items that you must have available when you are researching (a copy of Evidence Explained, a spiral notebook, your copy of Evernote open on screen, etc.).

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.