RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine 1 June 2005, Vol. 8, No. 22, Circulation: 804,154+ (c) 1998-2005 RootsWeb.com, Inc. http://www.rootsweb.com/ * * * Editor: Myra Vanderpool Gormley, Certified Genealogist Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com Certification: http://www.bcgcertification.org/certification/ * * * Keep informed about the latest news, new databases, webpages and mailing lists at RootsWeb. Subscribe to the weekly RootsWeb Review. http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/ * * * RootsWeb HelpDesk http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ * * * Search and share family trees at WorldConnect: http://wc.rootsweb.com/ * * * Post and read messages on all relevant surname, locality, and topic Message Boards and Mailing Lists: Message Boards: http://boards.rootsweb.com/ Mailing Lists: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ * * * =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS AND NOTES, AND SITES WORTH SEEING 1a. Editor's Desk: "Sites to See; Classes to Take" 1b. Tips from Readers: "Donating Your Research" 1c. Using RootsWeb: "Marge Messer Fine-tunes Her Family Tree" 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb: "Family Treasures Turn Up Way Out West" 3. New RootsWeb Mailing Lists 4. New Webpages at RootsWeb 5. New/Updated FreePages and HomePages 6. New User-contributed Databases 7. RootsWeb Review's Bottomless Mailbag: "On Genealogical Purists" "Those Marrying Cousins" "Another Look at Consanguinity" "Speaking Up" "What Were They Thinking?" "Casting Clouts" 8. Humor/Humour: "Checking the Weather" 9. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS, NOTES, AND SITES WORTH SEEING 1a. EDITOR'S DESK: Sites to See; Classes to Take DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? This database is of 19th-century Indiana physicians and midwives identified by self-declaration in census or to an organized medical society. Information was gathered from U.S. Indiana censuses of 1850, 1860, and 1870 and some from 1880 state records. Other sources were Indiana State Board of Public Health. county and local histories, obituaries in medical journals and well as other miscellaneous sources. The cutoff date for inclusion is licensure by 1900. http://www.medlib.iupui.edu/hom/19thphysicians/ UK TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS (or 5,000 ways to earn a living). A list of trades and occupations compiled from parish records and census lists in England. http://www.hevanet.com/gladhaus/tradeslist.html THEATRE PERFORMERS IN NORTH AMERICA. Historical vaudeville theatre listings is a website for those searching for ancestors they think may have been working on stage as performers in North America. Information obtained from the Manitoba Free Press of the names of performers, their acts, plus some scanned pictures. Includes transcription of what was playing for most of 1913 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Winnipeg was part of the main vaudeville circuit of North America so many people from all over the world toured through it. http://members.shaw.ca/winnipegvaudeville/ COLONIAL CONNECTICUT RECORDS. Browse and search the public records of the Colony of Connecticut, 1636-1776. http://www.colonialct.uconn.edu/ * * * STUCK IN A SEARCH QUAGMIRE? Take some online classes and learn how to utilize various sources that will enable you to find your ancestors. These upcoming online genealogy classes are available at MyFamily.com. for $29.95 and each class includes: -- Four weeks of lessons and interaction with a genealogy expert. -- 30-day free access to applicable Ancestry.com collections. (For details on which collections will be available, see the individual class descriptions.) -- Tips and advice on how to find ancestors online. -- Lessons through site interaction and worksheets. -- Ability to create your family tree using Online Family Tree software and downloadable genealogy forms. -- Collaboration with other site members to grow your family tree over the course of a year. IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION RESEARCH CLASS. Starts June 9. Your ancestors didn't miss the boat, but what about you? Join expert George G. Morgan in this essential class and learn about your ancestors' migration patterns from various places in Europe to the U.S., to Canada, and to Australia since the mid-1500s. http://ancestry.myfamily.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=3598&sourceid481 INTERMEDIATE GENEALOGY RESEARCH CLASS. Starts June 16. http://ancestry.myfamily.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=3668&sourceid481 NATIVE AMERICAN RESEARCH CLASS. Starts June 23. A new Native American research class with Barbara Benge. Native American ancestry is one of the most difficult to trace. Learn about migration patterns and traditions, how to use maps to determine possible tribes, and what records are available. Class covers all of the U.S. Tribes including the Five Civilized Tribes, the First Americans of Canada, and the Métis. http://ancestry.myfamily.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4551&sourceid=481 GERMAN BASIC RESEARCH CLASS. Starts June 23. Learn how to research your German ancestors. Learn how to identify key words and phrases in German, to search, find, and interpret the different types of German records and so much more. http://ancestry.myfamily.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=3667&sourceid=481 * * * 1b. TIPS FROM READERS: Donating Your Research By Mary Steinkamp I would like to remind people trying to preserve their research to consider sending it to the Family History Library in Salt Lake. If your work is organized, they will put it on microfilm for others to access. I did this with a genealogy of my stepfather. I got permission from the author and mailed it to Salt Lake City, Utah, They did the filming and mailed the book back to me along with a copy of the microfilm. They even paid for the postage. [Editor's note: The Family History Library welcomes gifts of family genealogies, organized collections, and other records that contain genealogical information. Information about donations can be found at: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHL/frameset_library.asp?PAGE=library_donations.asp] * * * 1c. USING ROOTSWEB: Marge Messer Fine-tunes Her Family Tree Marge (GREENWOOD) MESSER had to admit in retrospect that the instant ancestors she'd gathered using the short-cuts of copying others' family trees and merging them with her own and accepting as fact all the information she received from relatives, had not produced an accurate family tree. After looking more closely, she realized the importance of verifying facts and checking sources. Above all, she learned that user-submitted databases such as those she found at RootsWeb's WorldConnect http://wc.rootsweb.com/ were just starting points. While some trees seemingly had been researched carefully, others were riddled with obvious errors and not worth the virtual paper they were printed on. A few of the complaints Marge received had charged that she had "stolen" their ancestors and Hal HOGG had gone so far as to claim Marge had no right to post genealogical information about ancestors to whom she had no blood connection, namely her husband's MESSER line. However, Marge was pretty sure these complaints were not valid as she knew no one could "own" facts and she didn't think she'd be the guest of honor on the next episode of "America's Most Wanted" for stealing ancestors that "belonged" to someone else. Common sense told her no one owns their ancestors or the biographical facts about them. Since Mike MIDDLESWORTH had been so helpful to Marge and kind to her even when pointing out the failings in her methods, she decided to e- mail him and let him know about the nasty messages and get his views on the copyright complaints and charges of ancestor "theft." Mike replied that he had compiled and submitted a GEDCOM file to WorldConnect that included the genealogies he had researched of some of his favorite major league baseball players and none of them were related to him. He advised her to politely reply to those who had complained and, if after her explanation, they were unwilling to accept that there is no law against compiling and publishing genealogical data about ancestors other than your own and that no one can copyright facts, then she had every right to ignore their protests. Marge now realized that she needed to go back to square one with her trees and review each and every entry and make note of sources and where possible obtain original records like birth, death, and marriage certificates. Marge started with herself, her parents and grandparents, and went hunting through the boxes of old family papers she had stored in the basement. As she proved or disproved the names, dates and places for the various events in the lives of her families she was very careful this time around to note exactly where she had found the information she was recording. When she had worked her way back in time to the point at which original vital records were no longer available Marge began to look for church records, wills, deeds, immigration and naturalization records and any other piece of paper that may have been recorded to mark the existence of her forebears. The search for the information was even more fun than she expected. When sources were listed for data Marge had copied from online family trees she sought out the original copies of these records and noted that she had verified the information. Where she found errors she made corrections and where she could find nothing to support the online information, Marge e-mailed the submitter to ask where they had obtained the information. She cited the other researchers in those instances. Where the data didn't seem plausible to her, such as Myrtle (MAKINSON) NEWFIELD having a child at age 74, long after her demise -- which Marge had copied from Sylvia SLACK's database -- she sought the correct information. In this particular case finding the truth wasn't difficult. Marge learned that Nora NEWFIELD, the youngest child of Myrtle and Nathan NEWFIELD was born when Myrtle was 44 years old and not 74. Sylvia SLACK had taken the wrong date from a delayed birth certificate for Nora NEWFIELD and used it as her date of birth when it actually was the date Nora obtained the delayed certificate. Some discrepancies were not that easy to resolve like the age at which Nathan NEWFIELD had married. Marge obtained a copy of the marriage record and it showed Nathan's age as 25, not 5. However, based on the marriage date the age of 25 was still in disagreement with the date of birth, 3 May 1899, that Marge had for Nathan from family sources. He should have been 20 when he married in June 1919 by Marge's calculation. There was no birth or baptismal record for Nathan recorded at or near birth. However, since he was born in the late 1800s Marge decided the 1900 census listing, a source document recorded relatively near birth, might be her next item to check. Since Marge figured she was going to need to check quite a few American census records she opted to subscribe to Ancestry.com's census subscription. She immediately set out to locate Nathan NEWFIELD with his parents. She found the family easily and Nathan was listed as being one year old as of the census date of 1 June 1900. This agreed with the birthdate from Marge's mother's old family Bible recorded near the time of Nathan's birth. Marge felt these early records were sufficient to support a date of birth of 3 May 1899 and to note in her file that the marriage record most likely had the wrong age. Marge made swift progress getting her NEWFIELD data properly cultivated, her GREENWOODs out of the woods, and her MESSERs tidied up. When she finally felt confident with her research, she created a new GEDCOM, obtained her original user code and password from Password Central http://passwordcentral.rootsweb.com/ and headed off to WorldConnect http://wc.rootsweb.com/ where she clicked on START HERE to access the Set-up page and browsed to the path of her updated properly annotated GEDCOM and clicked on upload/update to replace her faulty original file with her sparkling new and meticulously researched family tree. 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb. Thanks for sharing your stories. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Family Treasures Turn Up Way Out West By Carolyn Harman Scott On April 23, 2005 I received the following inquiry: "Thanks for your reply to my e-mail. I am a volunteer librarian at the local genealogical society library. In cleaning out our back room, an envelope was uncovered, full of information, documents, pictures, letters (dated 1895-1905) about this family. There are old Bible pages--full of names and dates. Lewis HARMAN and Ellen PRICE marriage information with a listing of all of their children, plus birth dates. There is a picture of Lewis HARMAN in his West Point cadet uniform. Letters regarding his appointment to the Revenue Service. There are handwritten letters, very hard to read, which are full of information about the CAMPBELL family. They are old and fragile, so we are trying not to handle them too much. There is a lot more information. --Rogue Valley Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 1468, Phoenix, Oregon 97535-1468. P.S. I would love for someone to contact me with similar information on any of my lines! Yours truly, Leona Blankenship." Blankenship found my name and address from a RootsWeb message board. This packet is a real treasure. The picture of Lewis HARMAN (b. 1845 Virginia) actually was taken in his VMI (Virginia Military Institute) Union uniform (just before the Civil War); but VMI had already sent me a picture of him in his Confederate uniform. The contrast between the two pictures in as many years tells a story all by itself. The existence of these Bible pages is miraculous and a fountain of great information. The Bible itself must have fallen apart and someone preserved the vital records pages and the front cover page. This Bible belonged to Lewis HARMAN (b. 1794 Virginia) and his wife, Sarah Jane GARBER (b. 1799 Virginia) and covers multiple generations of the family. I am still trying to find the HARRISON, MORRILL, and ANDREWS family that were also mentioned in this packet. There were a lot of pictures of these families as well as genealogy charts. I can't find the connection to the HARMAN family, but I will keep trying. I've posted lots of messages on the message boards so hopefully one day somebody will contact me. How this packet ended up in the Rogue Valley in Oregon is a real mystery as that would have been the last place I would have looked. I think that this is a great example of the importance of the message boards and I will be forever grateful for RootsWeb's contributions to the genealogy world and a dedicated librarian who took the time to find me. ======================== Advertisements ============================ LOW-COST BRITISH RESEARCH SERVICE WITH FREE ASSESSMENTS Need some help with British research? Try British Ancestors, a British company with researchers throughout England and Scotland. 4,000+ clients worldwide have been helped since 1999 with prices starting from just $70 US. Researchers will search the records of your English and Scottish ancestors stored in archives throughout England and Scotland, most of which are unavailable on the Internet. For a FREE! no-obligation research assessment visit http://www.britishancestors.com/consultrwr/ * * * AFFORDABLE PROFESSIONAL RESEARCH IN TEXAS Small jobs to complex problem solving. Onsite research in Galveston, Brazoria, Fort Bend counties and surrounding areas. Other areas of Texas by flexible schedule. State Library and Archives, Clayton Library, and Rosenburg Library. Digital copies of marriage records for Erath, Galveston and Brazoria Counties $6 each. Digital copies of Erath County obituaries from mid-1980s-present $2 each. Please visit us at http://www.genealogyfinder.com/ * * * THE SCOOTER STORE. Toll-free: 1-866-819-8638. Free Mobility Consultation Call 1-866-819-8638 to start your free, no-pressure, no-obligation consultation. A Mobility Consultant will --Assess your mobility needs --Help you understand your options --Get you on the road to regaining your freedom and independence. The Scooter Store Guarantee: If the Scooter Store pre-qualifies you for a new power chair and Medicare denies your claim, the Scooter Store allows you to keep your power chair at no cost. Some restrictions apply, not available in all locations. Call 1-866-819-8638 to start your Free Mobility Consultation. ====================== End Advertisements ============================== 3. New Mailing Lists at RootsWeb Request a New Mailing List: http://resources.rootsweb.com/adopt/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Due to the list server upgrades, there are no new lists this week. 4. New Webpages at RootsWeb To Request a Free Web Account: http://accounts.rootsweb.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------- Some of these webpages might not yet be accessible. They are created by volunteers, so if one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or next week. http://www.rootsweb.com/~[accountname] Note that the ~[tilde] before the Web account name is required. For example, the Leicestershire OPC website is at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~engleiopc/ England engleiopc -- Leicestershire OPC (Online Parish Clerk) U.S.A. archcrtc -- Court Cases Archives (USGW) mashs -- Stoneham (Massachusetts) Historical Society mnlyon2 -- Lyon County (Minnesota) ncgsdc -- Genealogical Society of Davidson County (North Carolina) njcfcdar -- Crane's Ford (New Jersey) Chapter DAR nybiog -- Biographies Project (New York) wilvhs -- Lodi Valley (Wisconsin) Historical Society Organizations' Abbreviation Key: DAC = Daughters of the American Colonies DAR = Daughters of the American Revolution DUVCW = Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War UDC = United Daughters of the Confederate USD = National Society U.S. Daughters of the War of 1812 ..USGW = United States GenWeb 5. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages -------------------------------------- Has your website ever been mentioned here or do you have a new, updated, or substantially revised website located at RootsWeb (it will have "freepages" or "homepages" in the URL)? Send the URL (Web address), along with a brief description, including the major pertinent surnames and what is available on your site, to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com DICKERSON. Descendants of John Henry DICKERSON (1835-1917) and Margaret SMITH (1849-1912) http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dickerson/ HAVERCROFT. "Hovercrofts Around the World" provides various family trees and lists, such as births, marriages, deaths, events, places, and spouses of every known HAVERCROFT prior to 1906 that have been collected over a number of years. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~havercrofts/Index.html PAXSON, PAXTON. Has narratives with plans to include all Paxson/Paxton lines descended from three 1682 immigrant Quaker brothers for seven generations (currently complete for the first four). Includes links to some collateral lines or short twigs of ADDISON, BALE, BEWLEY, BONSALL, BROOKE, BROWNE, CANBY, DEANE, DENT, DORSEY, DUNNING, ELY, GRIFFITH, HALL, HARTLEY, HATTON, HEATON, HOLLIDAY, HOWARD, ISAAC, JACKSON, KIRKBRIDE, LUPTON, MARK, MOLTON, NORWOOD, OWINGS, PLUMLEY, RANDALL, RICE, RICHARDSON, RIDGELY, SCARBOROUGH, SIM, SMITH, STEVENSON, STONE, TASKER, TWINING, WARFIELD, and WILKINSON. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~paxson/ 6. New User-Contributed Databases at RootsWeb http://userdb.rootsweb.com/submit/ ---------------------------------------------- The following databases have come online recently. They are searchable, but not browseable. Search: To look for specific data or occurrence of text in a file. Browse: To view the entire contents of a file or a group of files. ALASKA. Kenai Peninsula Borough. Ninilchik. American Legion Cemetery. 78 records; Totem Tracers Genealogical Society http://userdb.rootsweb.com/cemeteries/ OREGON. Lane County. Junction City. Advertisers in 1912 High School Yearbook. 48 records; Linda Henson http://userdb.rootsweb.com/groups/ Junction City High School students and faculty, 1912. 92 records; Linda Henson http://userdb.rootsweb.com/alumni/ PENNSYLVANIA. Philadelphia County. Philadelphia. University of Pennsylvania, 1932 basketball squad. 16 records; Paula Lucy Delosh http://userdb.rootsweb.com/alumni/ TEXAS. Wichita County. Wichita Falls. Wichita Falls High School Class of 1907. 13 records. Jane Engbrock http://userdb.rootsweb.com/alumni/ 7. FROM ROOTSWEB REVIEW'S BOTTOMLESS MAILBAG [Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the editor or of RootsWeb.com]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On Genealogical Purists By Thom Stapleton in Casa Grande, Arizona, USA I am 75+ years of age and have been playing with family genealogy for 30 years or more and I am totally sick and tired of these so-called experts crying their eyes out over verification and or getting credit for some nonsensical research they have done over the years. I think they should mind their own business and let other people alone. I will do my genealogy my way -- period and if I want help from some snob, I will ask for and expect to pay for it because this type of person would probably not share any of his precious info. I do genealogy for personal satisfaction and enjoyment not to make others happy. My information may not be 100% correct but I am happy with it and have shared it willingly and happily and freely and most of the people who receive it are happy to get it. So you few that do nothing but complain about other people's way of doing things, just shut up and mind your own business. Genealogy should be enjoyed and shared freely and if it is not verified to your satisfaction, do it your own self and let it go at that. * * * Those Marrying Cousins By Dick Zwaschka I also had to laugh while reading "Too Many Kissing Cousins" in a recent RootsWeb Review. Searching for the birthplace of my g-g-grandfather in Bohemia, a family tree was discovered in the Pilsen archives. In 1862, two first cousins wanted to marry and before the church would bless the marriage, their ancestry had to be documented. Because the fathers of both cousins had the same first and last name, the priest listed them as Andreas I and Andreas II. I had previously thought that the first Andreas had died, the next son born received the same name and that he was my ancestor -- wrong. This small tree greatly expanded my knowledge of the family. It also led me the Ortsbetreuer (local village research leader) for the village of Kschakau. He was able to provide additional data which extended my tree back to 1590. * * * Another Look at Consanguinity By Bob Jones I wanted to respond to Judy Payne's comments on consanguineous (cousin) marriage. According to articles by John Tierney (New York Times, 9/28/03) and by Stanley Kurtz (National Review, 1/28/02) this is not an unusual situation in the Middle East, nor is it old-fashioned. It is the preferred and predominant tradition in many of the countries. Both articles are available on the Web; just "Google" the authors. The claim of these articles is that the tradition ensures the strength of patrilineal family/kinship loyalty across marriages, since the wife is part of the same extended family as the husband. This clan/family loyalty is the strongest social factor in these societies, stronger than economic, religious or political loyalty. The authors also link this tradition to that of arranging marriage among cousins when they are children, and the veiling of woman to protect these "engagements." There is also the comment that this was a dominant tradition in Europe until St. Augustine campaigned against it in the 4th century, because the resultant family loyalty was seen as a threat to church authority. (The Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 article on History of Family-medieval, supports this argument.) We live in a world with many different traditions, and part of the fascination with genealogy is learning how people very much like us (genetically) lived and loved. Don't let the kids jump to the conclusion that what is different is automatically wrong. Get them to think about why such things happen, and why they feel as they do. It may make those great-great-grandparents appear as real people and not just oddities of research. Isn't that why we are doing all this stuff? Self-discovery? * * * Speaking Up By Jim Lillie in Costa Mesa, California Years ago my wife and I visited a Veterans Cemetery in Eagle Point, Oregon where a brother-in-law who has served in World War II was buried. This was the first chance we had had to visit the cemetery, due to the fact we lived 800 miles away. Unable to locate a guide. We drove around the cemetery, parked, wandered around for about an hour having no idea where to look and there were so many gravesites, we had almost given up hope and was about to return to our car and then my wife said, "Bob we have come to visit, where are you?" She glanced at the ground and she was standing next to his grave, which was just a few feet from the car. How wonderfully surprised we were. Sometimes it pays to speak up. What Were They Thinking? By Linda Shields I found this unusual name while searching a 1779 Craven County, North Carolina tax list: Fearnolight BEASLEY. Wouldn't you love to learn how this name came to be? * * * Casting Clouts By Garth Fisher The epitaph in a recent issue reminded me of my Scottish immigrant grandmother who used to say: "Never cast a clout until the month of May be out". I'm sure one has to live in Scotland to really appreciate this advice. [Editor's note: Actually a quick search on the Internet provides some light. At The Old Farmer's Almanac: http://www.almanac.com/index.php "Ne'er cast a clout 'til May be out" refers to the month. Clout is from an Old English word for cloth or clothing, and the saying was a reminder not to be too quick to shuck the winter woollies before the chilly days of May were over.] 8. Humor/Humour: Checking the Weather ----------------------------------------------------------- Thanks to Julie in NSW Australia. When I was about 12 years old, a friend of mine had a friend from another school whose name was Stormie. Stormie had two sisters -- Rainie and Hayley. Their brother's name was Sonny. Perhaps their father was a meteorologist? * * * Found a humorous sign or entry in census, parish, church, etc. records? Send to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com 9. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints ----------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIPTIONS. To manage your e-mail communications (i.e. to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, or to sign up for others), visit our newsletter management center any time at: http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/ If you use a spam-filtering program, in order to receive the RootsWeb Review please make sure that you're allowing e-mail from: newsletter@reply.myfamilyinc.com The RootsWeb Review is a free publication of MyFamily.com, Inc., 360 West 4800 North, Provo, UT, 84604 * * * The RootsWeb Review does not publish or answer genealogical queries, and the editor regrets that she is unable to provide any personal research assistance or advice. RootsWeb Review welcomes short (500 words or less) articles, humor, stories, or letters, and reserves the right to edit all submissions. The announcement of books and products is provided as a community service and is not an endorsement in any way. All mail sent to the RootsWeb Review editor is considered to be for publication — send in plain text (please, no attachments) to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com * * * ROOTSWEB REVIEW ADVERTISING CONTACTS. Ad Sales Worldwide: Shana Davis, creative@myfamilyinc.com * * * REPRINTS. Permission to reprint articles from RootsWeb Review is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, provided: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice appears at the end of the article: Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 1 June 2005, Vol. 8, No. 22. * * * *