The Slovak Yankee

Internet Genealogy Is Still Not Scholarly

From the most recent issue of The American Genealogist which just arrived at my door yesterday, p. 157.  Speaking of the Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists:

"The only qualifications for a Fellow are the quality and quantity of his or her published genealogical work, usually compiled genealogy, not abstracts or methodology.  At the meeting this  year, it was proposed that "publications" include those online.  The Society had decided quite a few years ago that digital/online publications did not qualify as permanent contributions to the field.  At this year's meeting, much was said on both sides of the question: Online publication is becoming increasingly common and increasingly excellent, but it remains fluid and its permanence is uncertain."

I do find this sad, but certainly something I agree with.  I've tried to get people to up their games on the Internet and have only been met with indifference to hostility.  For the time being the real work remains in print.

Prince William Gets Engaged

How deeply ironic that four days after the death of Bill Reitwiesner, Prince William of Wales announced his engagement to Kate Middleton.  Bill and Gary Boyd Roberts literally wrote the book on the ancestry of Diana Spencer, Prince William's mother almost 30 years ago when her marriage was announced.  Of course, this current romance has been brewing for a while and it's no surprise that Bill had Kate Middleton's ancestry already online.  So when you next see some Ancestry person note the relationship of Kate and anyone or Diana and anyone, remember it's Bill's (and Gary's) work first, despite the fact you won't see their names given credit.

I will probably not live long enough to see King William V, but on that day, he will be the first British monarch in 300 years to be a descendant of Charles II and James II (the last being Queen Anne who died in 1714).  He will also be the first British monarch descended from George III who will be eligible for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR).  So, there's a historical twist.  Lastly, it seems Kate may descend from Sir Francis Knollys and Catherine Carey.  Catherine's mother was Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife and mother of Elizabeth I.  Catherine's paternity has long been in dispute and she may be the illegitimate daughter of Henry VIII, which would add his blood back into the royal family. [the late Queen Mother may have been descended from this couple as well, and if so, then the current Queen would also be Henry VIII's descendant.]  Kate's closest royal ancestor is Edward III, the same as mine.  Of course, someday she will be Queen Consort.

William Addams Reitwiesner 1954-2010

A fellow researcher died on Friday.  Bill had colon cancer for a while and the cancer won.  He had the same dark sense of humor I have, and tracked his disease through a blog called Malignant Asshole.  Most notably, he was a genealogist who researched famous persons so that the average genealogist might have fun knowing that they shared ancestors (i.e. was a distant cousin of) with a movie star, historical figure, rock star etc.  However, his dark humor was evident there too.  His lists always had the notorious as well as the famous.  Jeffrey Dahmer and Gary Leon Ridgway were on those pages too.  I'm not sure people brag about those two as cousins!

His and Gary Boyd Roberts' book on the Ancestry of the Princess of Wales came out in 1984.  Additionally, he had his web page at WARGS.com.  I contributed research to several trees most notably Jennifer Aniston and Tim Robbins.  Bill was also a contributor on SGM for years (and like me, probably a lurker for much longer).

It's always sad when a good researcher leaves us.  I have no idea how long his web site will continue, so visit now.

 

Dead Fred

Among the pictures I am digitizing and organizing are some of people I cannot identify.  That's one problem that we all face.  What makes it a particular concern is that pictures come down to you from Relative A who may have inherited it from Relative B and it's B's in-laws, and not your family at all.  How do you know?  

Another set are pictures that are not my family but are identified on the back of the photo.  The solution here was advised to me by the Practical Archivist.  She said to upload it to Dead Fred.   Evidently this is an orphaned photo site.  Much like Findagrave, it is operated by volunteers uploading photos.  So I uploaded two that were clearly identified.  You can search Dead Fred on the other side too to find pictures of your long lost ancestors.  I did a broad search for the surname Pinkham and got two hits.  They were both group photos with men named Pinkham identified in the group.  Neither were any close relation to me.  The other surnames I searched all came up empty.  At present there are just over 100,000 photos in Dead Fred according to their website.

From what the Practical Archivist told me and the promos on Dead Fred, people have found pictures of their ancestors that they might not have found any other way.  So Kudos to Dead  Fred.  My next experiment will be to upload a purely unknown photo.

I told the Practical Archivist that I wanted to destroy the pictures I couldn't identify because I didn't want the next generation to be confused as to who might be in the photos.  It was then that she told me about Dead Fred.  I didn't have the heart to tell her my grandmother went through her photo albums and removed and destroyed all the non-family pictures, because she said, they had no meaning to anyone but herself.  I know this because I watched her do it.  Had there been an Internet then, I might have saved them and found out if anyone wanted them.  Now we can.

State Censuses--An Underused Resource

If you don't own it yet, every genealogist needs to have a copy of Ann S. Lainhart's, State Census Records (Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1992).  I believe it has never gone out of print, and rightly so.  It is a directory of all the state census records in the United States, where they are (originals), and what information they contain.  I've had great success using the Massachusetts State Censuses of 1855 and 1865 as well as the Kansas State Censuses, which also ran on the "5" year from 1855 to 1925.  These important genealogical resources may contain additional information not found on the federal censuses, and as you see from the above, you can track a family every five years, rather than every ten.  Not to mention the 1885 and 1895 censuses help the hole created by the lack of an 1890 federal census.  Not all states have state censuses and not all state censuses survive.

As we move in to the digital age more and more, this is a resource I eagerly await being digitized and, more importantly, indexed.  With very few exceptions, these states censuses are not indexed and you always needed to slog through them town by town.  This is why they were seldom used.  However, the Kansas censuses have appeared on Ancestry.com and hopefully more will follow.  The most important state censuses that need to be indexed, in my opinion, are the New York state censuses.  I feel many brick walls will tumble if people can find their ancestors in the 1845 census (which is still head of household, but has birthplace), and the 1855, 1865, and 1875 which are all-name censuses.

As proof of the power of these sources, I direct you to Randy Seaver's Geneamusings blog.  A little while ago, he found his wife's ancestress in the 1852 California census, which is online at Ancestry.com.  This added enough information for him to knock down a brick wall, and get this family back from California to Australia to England.  There he has gone back another two generations, and I would think that after 24 hours at the Family History Library, he could solidify that research and go back even further.  It has been great fun reading the progress of his research and I have been living vicariously dreaming of  such a breakthrough for myself.  This post has a good summary of the posts, but there are many more.  It was all made possible by a state census.

Follow Friday: Amanuensis Monday at Geneabloggers

Geneabloggers is shaking up its blogging meme routine and having several options for each day of the week.  I've been participating in transcribing records on Monday thanks to Transylvanian Dutch's invention of the Amanuensis meme.  Now, there are literally dozens of people transcribing records on Monday. 

The records themselves are interesting to read, but it is the breadth of the types of records that really grab you.  If you are just starting out in genealogy (or even not), look at the types of records you can use: obituaries, letters, court documents, military records, deeds, wills, probate files, oral histories, diaries, and the list goes on and on.  

Mr. MacEntee should catalog the number of different types of documents and use it for his presentations.  It's a wonderful teaching opportunity and certainly can inspire someone to search in several new places.

Family Trees at the National Archives

The National Archives has a website called Docs Teach meant for teachers to have access to thousands of primary documents for teaching purposes.  The site is divided into historical eras and I clicked on the 1754-1820s link.  There are a number of family trees there and imagine my surprise to find my own ancestors Thomas and Bridget Pinkham!  This is the Docs Teach page.  This is my own blog posting on the very same Bible.  I recognized it instantly.  Very cool that my direct matrilineal ancestor is on the National Archives site.  However, you should check some of the other old family trees.  Maybe your ancestor is there too.

The Dollivers and Aunt Ada

After I transcribed the obituary of Ada S. Keene (and I'll be doing a similar one for her husband next Monday), I looked at my notes in my database for her.  She is the sister of my great-great-grandmother and the woman to the far right in this picture.  She had two children, one of whom is mentioned in her obituary.  The other was Annie Bradley Keene, and under her I just had "Aunt Ada's mother."

Those are cryptic notes for anyone else, but I knew what they meant.  Back in the 1920s, for reasons I won't go into because it is not my story to tell, Ada came to live with my great-grandparents Archie and Lila.  Lila and Annie Bradley Keene were first cousins.  So my grandmother and Ada lived together for quite a few years growing up.  They were only a year apart, and naturally became like sisters.  Their friendship lasted their whole lives and my mother grew up calling her Aunt Ada (and then I did).  However, her real relationship with my mother was 2nd cousin, once removed.  Because I knew her and because she was well off to the side collaterally in my family, I had never bothered to do much "real research" on her.

A few years back when the NEHGS launched the Mass. Vital Records Database 1841-1910, I waited and then found Ada Smith's marriage record to Charles Arthur Keene in 1892.  However, after rediscovering the Keenes this time, it only took me only an hour to find everything else.  The NEHGS database now goes to 1915.  That found me the marriage record of Annie Bradley Keene and Amos Dolliver, as well as the birth records of their first two daughters including Aunt Ada.  The 1920 and 1930 censuses gave the names of the rest of the children.  The Social Security Death Index gave me the deaths of the two sons.  I already had Aunt Ada's death record and her obituary.  A simple Google search on the male names revealed the online obituary for one sister (with married name) and that mentioned the other sister with married name.  Both were found in the Social Security Death Index, and Aunt Ada's youngest sister just died in July 2010 here in Massachusetts at age 90.  I got her obituary online too. [Boo Hiss on Genealogybank.com which never seems to have any modern obituaries for me.]

So, I now have a fairly complete family picture of my second cousins, twice removed.  Interestingly, I could do this all from home with two paid databases: NEHGS's Americanancestors.org and Ancestry.com.  The two obituaries however were just on the Internet for free.  The five siblings died in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania and two in Massachusetts.  So, there's no denying the convenience of this type of online research.  I do it so rarely, that I forget that it can be done this way.  

Rotating Your Searches

I was intrigued to read Genealogy's Star's two part posting on Taming the Rise of Digitization.  Although not following his line of reasoning, it did spark a thought of my own.  As someone who's done a fair amount of research and who is waiting for more online resources to open up, how can I methodically touch base from time to time to see what's new?

I guess one could make a list of brick walls or surnames of particular interest and then from time to time, go to specific sites and re-search (that is to search once more), databases already searched.  I would venture that Google Books and Family History Pilot would be two good places to go back to in a set time pattern.  But what?  Every six months?  Once a year?

I may try compiling such a list and testing this out over the next few years.  I'm sure that someday something will pop up and surprise me.  But of course, isn't that the major symptom of the disease?  The never-ending hope that someday something will turn up to help us.  We never really ever declare a search dead and over.  Although I might just start that trend.  It's too bad you can't register certain searches to run over and over again like you can in Westlaw, Lexis, and Google in other genealogical databases.  I'd love an alert for several searches.  

I think some of us "old-timers" need to get a routine going, because at the present I only do off-the-cuff searches when the mood strikes.

Content Wars

Responding to Thom MacEntee's Open Thursday Thread on the Content Wars:

• Once a collection of documents is digitized and indexed, should they be made available to researchers for free or for fee? This means they would either follow the FamilySearch (free) or the Ancestry (fee) models. Note: there are many other vendors and providers both free and fee – I am only using the most recognizable vendors as examples.

My response: I think the digitizers have the right to recoup their expenses of digitizing and providing the documents online in a searchable format.  That said, anyone who has ever paid a toll on a highway knows that although the initial costs may have been repaid, the toll never dies.  There will always be a choice.  You can use it online and pay a fee (for convenience and the opportunity cost of travel) or go to where the actual document is and see it for free.

• Does it matter if the documents themselves are in the public domain when it comes to charging a fee for access? Does a good index and search mechanism add value to the record set, to the point of justifying a fee for access?

My response: No it doesn't matter and an emphatic yes, it matters if there is a good index/search mechanism.  Westlaw and Lexis/Nexis charge an arm and leg for their content, which is law, and in the U.S. the law is owned by no one.  (that is, cases and statutes, etc.)

• Think about the holdings that genealogical or historical societies have.  Should they place access behind a members-only website, even if the documents are in the public domain? What about making the index free but the images members-only?

My response: Yes they should.   Many societies may have debts or overhead to deal with.  Membership is key for those societies.  I think making the index free to entice membership is a great marketing ploy.

• Let’s say that 20 years from now, most records of use to genealogists are digitized and accessible – either free or fee. What will genealogy vendors need to offer consumers to keep them engaged in genealogy? What will genealogical societies need to do to survive if their public domain holdings are made available for free?

My response:  From your mouth to God's ear that most records are digitized within my lifespan.  It's all about the quality-added for the vendors.  Are records responsibly linked between individuals who created them?  Are the search mechanisms robust?  Can you keyword search entire documents or only subject search them?  If genealogical societies give their holdings away for free, they are doomed.  They should fold themselves back into their respective geographical area historical societies.  The content is online and the actual documents are protected in a society.  

Great questions!!!