RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine 13 July 2005, Vol. 8, No. 28, 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/ * * * 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/ * * * RootsWeb HelpDesk http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ * * * =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS, NOTES, AND SITES WORTH SEEING 1a. Editor's Desk: "FreeBMD Passes 120 Million Mark" "Caswell County (NC) Historical Association" "Monuments in East Anglia" "Now Where's That?" 1b. Tips from Readers: "Preserving Your Family's History" 1c. Using RootsWeb: "Sharing Its Secrets" 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb: "Finding Navy Buddy in Army Uniform" 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: "Forever Wrong -- Officially" "Untangling My Lines From Yours" "By George I've Found Him" "Changing Ethnicity" "Explain This" "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary" 8. Humor/Humour: "Doc Moves Up" 9. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS, NOTES, AND SITES WORTH SEEING 1a. EDITOR'S DESK: FREEBMD PASSES 120 MILLION MARK Congratulations to all the volunteers whose efforts enabled the total unique records uploaded to FreeBMD to pass the 120 million mark recently. Just under 90,000 records are added every day, which is equivalent to 2.7 million every month. A magnificent total of 122 million records have now been uploaded to FreeBMD. FreeBMD is an ongoing project whose aim is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages, and deaths for England and Wales and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records. RootsWeb is the proud host of this project. http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/ http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/news.html * * * CASWELL COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION This is the very first website for the 50+-year-old Caswell County (North Carolina) Historical Association. Organized in 1954, the association operates the Caswell County History Museum in the Florance- Gatewood House (former home of artist Maud Gatewood), promotes the study of local history and genealogy, the collection and interpretation of local historical artifacts, and the preservation of local historical structures. Projects include Thomas Day workshops, the history of John W. Stephens and the Kirk-Holden War, preserving and interpreting the history and architecture of the 1861 Caswell County Courthouse, providing information on famous local artist Maud Gatewood, preserving local agricultural history, and collecting local family histories. http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncccha/ MONUMENTS IN EAST ANGLIA (ENGLAND). See this Gravestone Photographic Resource at http://www.gravestonephotos.com/index.php * * * Now Where's That? By Vern Oxley vern@oxleyuk.co.uk I have found, during several years of genealogy research that one often comes up against what should be a familiar place name, but it looks completely different, why is that? Well, until the advent of the printing press there was no "standard" form of English and the few people who could read and write spelt things as they heard them. On top of that place names could change through the ages, for example when a new family became Lord of the Manor it might change a village's name to its family name. Now when this happens in your research what do you do? Probably you will spend several hours going over various documents and books trying to trace the old place names back. My project is to build a searchable database to try to eliminate all those tedious hours that could be used researching your family. I have already compiled lists, from various sources, which form the basis of the project, and what I now need is input from other researchers who may have run across odd place names in the course of their research. A short e-mail giving the details is what is needed and it could save somebody else many hours of work. I must stress I am only interested in place names -- not family names (unless they coincide with the name of a place). Preferably they should be in the following format: Modern Name -- Medieval name or names -- County (if in Great Britain) Country (if NOT Great Britain) -- any additional notes. The names may refer to anything from a single house to a large city or even country (for example Ethiopia was known as Ethiopie in the 13th century). Whilst I am, at present, concentrating on Great Britain, place names from other countries are also welcome, these I hope to incorporate into a separate database(s) using the same format. Once I reach a reasonable number I will upload the results to RootsWeb. 1b. TIPS FROM READERS: Preserving Your Family's History By Carol Cason, President, the Manakin Huguenot Society http://www.huguenot-manakin.org/ Seeing the RENO story reminded me that we need to get the word out when we are a resource for family history. RENO (RENAULT, et al.) information is available at the Manakin Huguenot Society Library. You can make contact at http://www.huguenot-manakin.org/ Any of you whose families go back to Colonial Virginia should look for family in this area. These French Protestants--who didn't use the word "Huguenot"--fled France to avoid religious persecution of the worst kinds and went to Protestant countries such as England, Holland, Ireland, and others. Many of them came to Virginia via land grants from the English king who needed to populate, and therefore lay claim to, Virginia and surrounding areas. There were a good many French families, but business was done in English, so the names got changed every which way, with some names getting a different spelling in every document! RENO is a perfect example, along with REVERE (REVOIRE), PEROT or PARROT (PERREAU) and many others. When you find help at an organization such as ours, you have three ways to say "thank you." You can join the organization; you can make a donation; and you can send your family records to become part of the library. At Manakin, we have wonderful documents that exist only there. You can also find hundreds of surnames of those who share this heritage. You might have guessed Maupin, but you might have missed Depp, for example. We urge you to support all your related family societies. They are working hard to preserve your history for generations to come. Your membership is a way to have your lineage ready whenever your descendants finally come to treasure family history. 1c. USING ROOTSWEB: Sharing Its Secrets Pssst! Wanna know a s-e-c-r-e-t? In researching our family history, what better secrets can we share than the hidden, or often overlooked, features at RootsWeb that assist us in the exploration of our roots? The common starting points in using RootsWeb's many resources are surname and locality mailing lists and message boards as well as searching WorldConnect family trees. But what additional tools that can be found beyond these resources? RootsWeb offers a wide variety of ethnic mailing lists and message boards, which can teach us about our heritage beyond the basics of names, dates, and places. Ethnic lists and boards enable us to discuss languages and dialects, common migration and immigration patterns of ancestors of a specific ethnic group as well as dialects, customs, culture, and even recipes, legends, and superstitions. Ethnic mailing lists can be found by starting here http://lists.rootsweb.com/ and scrolling down to the Other category. Click on the links to the various ethnic sub-categories. The ethnic message boards can be found here: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=topics.ethnic Another well-hidden secret at RootsWeb is the fact that ethnic lists and boards, as well as other RootsWeb resources, are not all centered around European groups that immigrated to America. There are message boards and/or mailing lists for Maori, Ainu of Japan, Danube-Swabian German, as well as Cross-Race, Hispanic, Celtic, and Gypsy heritage. The scope is international and only limited by the bounds of your interests and imagination. If you want to brush up on your knowledge of wars and uprisings that influenced the lives of your ancestors, RootsWeb has an international array of military subject message boards: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=topics.military Military board topics are as diverse as the Boer War, the Austro- Hungarian Military, and the Mexican Revolution. Military mailing lists of equally broad subject matter can be found here: http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Military/ Military history we may have forgotten from school days comes alive when viewed within the context of our ancestors' lives and participation. What role did religion play in the lives of your ancestors? Perhaps religious persecution was a major force behind your ancestors' migration patterns. We can learn all about the role of religion by using the Religion and Religious message boards located here: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=topics.religious Topics range from Quaker to Jewish, and Shaker to Shinto. And don't forget the wide selection of mailing lists on this topic: http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Religion/ Perhaps your ancestors followed a specific occupation or trade -- or have some family members have been diagnosed with an inherited genetic disease so you would like to explore more about your family's genes and health concerns. See the RootsWeb's Topic message boards and look under the Other category of mailing lists for those of interest to you. Saving the best secret for last, once you have uploaded your family tree to WorldConnect: http://wc.rootsweb.com/ in addition to knowing that the results of your research can now be viewed and searched by others so that your cousins will be able to find you -- you can also rest assured that your complete, unaltered, family tree database will be available for you to download by using the original user code and password -- should you ever need to replace lost data on your own computers. And it happens every day -- computers crash, files become corrupted, and hurricanes, floods, and storms can strike anyone any time. These are but a few secrets to using RootsWeb -- use them to help you overcome your brickwalls. These features are often eclipsed by the more popular, widely touted, surname and locality lists and boards, but success in genealogy often requires exploring the roads less traveled. Side benefits, such as WorldConnect's archiving of your unedited genealogy file, often goes unnoticed and unappreciated -- until disaster strikes. Can you think of some other secrets you have discovered while using RootsWeb? If so, would you like to share them? Just send to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb. Thanks for sharing your stories. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Finding Navy Buddy in Army Uniform By Ed Spaeth Recently, I found an old Navy buddy via RootsWeb. He had a one-line response to a query on his surname message board. It was an old posting -- several years old, but through a search using his home state at the time of enlistment (North Dakota) as a search parameter, I found the posting giving the poster's name (a similar first and last name) but an odd e-mail address -- (xfirstsergeant). In Navy hierarchy there are no sergeants, just petty officers, etc. I was a little leery of this being him, but I wrote to the e-mail address anyway. Voilà! It was my old Navy buddy and I discovered that he also had been active in the Army reserve, thus the first sergeant NOMEN. He now lives in Washington state where I would not have thought to search. So, follow every lead, you will eventually succeed. ======================== Advertisements ============================ BOOK NOTES: "Joseph Washington McCOY (1766-1840) of Coshocton County, Ohio, His Descendants and Related Families," by Isabel Lockard. 315 pages, 8 1/2"x11" paperback (2002). 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For a FREE! no-obligation research assessment visit http://www.britishancestors.com/consultrwr/ ====================== End Advertisements ============================== 3. New Mailing Lists at RootsWeb Request a New Mailing List: http://resources.rootsweb.com/adopt/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- MAILING LISTS. Brand-new mailing lists can be found under OTHER/MISCELLANEOUS until moved to their proper categories. For information and an index to the more than 29,200 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy Mailing Lists and for easy subscribing (joining) options go to: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ NEW SURNAME MAILING LISTS BRATTAIN BAKEWELL-AUSTRALIA -- The BAKEWELL surname in or from Australia BEITH-AUSTRALIA -- The BEITH surname in or from Australia CRAMOND-AUSTRALIA -- The CRAMOND surname in or from Australia DEFOUW, DORNING, DOWNMAN GASCOYNE HEISSENBUTTEL JOESPH KRASTING LEGOURDE NUNAMAKER PROCASCO PEISLEY-AUSTRALIA -- The PEISLEY surname in or from Australia SHKRELI TRUBA VANHYNING -- Van HYNING (surname) WOLTZEN NEW ETHNIC AND SPECIAL INTEREST MAILING LISTS RECORD-PRESERVATION -- For the preservation of historical records RIC -- Pertaining to Royal Irish Constabulary TX-GSGS -- The Greater Saginaw (Texas) Genealogy Society (GSGS) forum NEW REGIONAL MAILING LISTS BERMUDA -- Bermuda (country) BOLIVIA -- Bolivia (country) BULGARIA -- Bulgaria (country) ROMANIA -- ROMANIA (country) UKR-TALNOYE -- Talnoye (town), Ukraine UKR-ZAKARPATSKA -- Zakarpatska (province in Ukraine) (Zaporiz'ka Oblast) 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 Ottawa County, Ohio website is at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ohottawa/ NEW ZEALAND nzhb -- Hawke's Bay U.S.A. azgccdar -- Grand Canyon Chapter (Arizona) DAR iagcgs -- Greene County (Iowa) Genealogical Society ilbmcdar -- Benjamin Mills Chapter (Illinois) DAR ilnecdar -- Ninian Edwards Chapter (Illinois) DAR ilwscdar -- Whiteside Station Chapter (Illinois) DAR inmario2 -- Marion County (Indiana) ksbarber -- Barber County (Kansas) kycampb2 -- Campbell County (Kentucky) kykento2 -- Kenton County (Kentucky) mihsjdu -- Henry S. Jenks Chapter (Michigan) Daughters of the Union 1861-1865 msstcdar -- Shuk-ho-ta Tom-a-ha Chapter (Mississippi) DAR ncccha -- Caswell County (North Carolina) Historical Association nhghs -- Goffstown (New Hampshire) Historical Society nyggbs -- Guyana Genealogy and Biographical Society (New York) ohottawa -- Ottawa County (Ohio) txdcgs -- Denton County (Texas) Genealogical Society Key: DAR — Daughters of the American Revolution 5. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages -------------------------------------- Can your cousins find your website at RootsWeb? Has it ever been mentioned here or do you have a new, updated, or substantially revised website 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 BOWLES, BOLES. The BOWLES (Boles and other spelling variants) families in Canada and their roots in England and Ireland. The surname in Canada is arranged by province and by county. Families are shown in family tree format with more than 1,000 descendants listed. Includes several pages on the family's origins in Ireland and England. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~bowlesfamily/ BUERCKNER. This is a family tree for BUERCKNERS in Australia. BUERCKNER originated in Prussia. Carl Wilhelm BUERCKNER, son of Carl August Ferdinand BUERCKNER and Augusta Friedericka NEUMANN was the first BUERCKNER to come to Australia arriving in 1849 on the "Emmy." Also includes stories and photos. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mckiegen/buerckner/ ENGLAND. Lower Dove Valley. Selection page to browse 1836+ tithe maps and apportionments on Derbyshire/Staffordshire border. New maps and apportionments being added all the time, with thousands of names. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~laetoli/lowerdovevalleytitheviewer.html NEW ZEALAND. Roll of Honour for the First World War. This list includes names from the 1923 Roll of Honour book as well as those not in the book but included on the Commonwealth War Graves (CWGC) website. It is now searchable by surname and also by date. CWGC cut-off date is 1 September 1921; the Roll of Honour book's is 31 December 1923. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~sooty/rohtitlepage.html TENNESSEE. Maury County Cemeteries. Transcriptions, photos and genealogy for many of the cemeteries in this county. Not all cemeteries are 100% photographed and emphasis is on the photographing of older endangered tombstones and cemeteries. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~maury/cemetery/ WISCONSIN, MICHIGAN (Upper Peninsula). Courthouse hours, rules, statistics on completion of vital records, directions to courthouses, hints on quick index scanning, indexes in various Wisconsin and Michigan counties, what to take to the courthouse and what to expect. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jharr/court.html 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. ALABAMA. Jefferson County. Liberty-Minter Cemetery; 291 records. Robin Miner http://userdb.rootsweb.com/cemeteries/ CALIFORNIA. Lassen County. 1948 City Directory--Lassen County included in the directory for Lassen, Modoc, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties; 1,464 records. Plumas County. 1948 City Directory--Sections of Plumas County; 107 records. Shasta County. 1948 City Directory-Burney; 84 records; 1948 City Directory--Sections of Shasta County; 304 records. Tehama County. 1948 City Directory -- Parts of Tehama County; 25 records. Janece Carter Streig http://userdb.rootsweb.com/citydir/ FLORIDA. Brevard County. Cocoa. Cocoa Tribune, deaths, 1930-1934; 395 records. Jim and Bonnie Garmon http://userdb.rootsweb.com/obituaries/ TEXAS. Carson County. Panhandle Elementary, 1976-1977; 355 records. Panhandle Elementary, 1977-1978; 367 records. Panhandle Junior High, 1977-1978; 203 records. Panhandle Junior High, 1979-1980; 181 records. Stacy (Smith) Esquibel 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]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forever Wrong -- Officially By J. Jones in Clinton, New York, USA Bobbie Blair's "Officially Incorrect" tale in the June 22 issue reminded me of a photocopy of an OFFICIAL CERTIFICATE of DEATH we received from State of New York. The top has all the correct information about the 1 January 1881 death of Thomas J. JONES, my husband's great-grandfather, but the bottom, with certification of "cause of death" and "duration of disease" refers to a "SHE" and "HER" who died 24 October 1881. In a follow-up call to the Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, we were told that this was exactly what was on the original certificate and they had no explanation of how it happened or who the other person was. * * * Untangling My Lines From Yours By Helen Simons Not in my direct line? How often I regret my decision to begin my ancestral search for extended-family members not "in my direct line" only as far back as my four-great-grandfathers in Texas. So, when I'm searching for a Zachariah, a Benjamin or a Norris amongst the FENLEY/ FINLEY family, I have to try to eliminate all of the wrong ones -- not in my direct line, which means that I have to look for a lot of them. Another disadvantage is that I don't have information on how all of my distant CHANDLER and COURTNEY kin in Mississippi and my FENLEYS in Alabama were related to other families that later came to Texas. And, of course, some later descendants also married into these same families. Some of these people are my distant double cousins, who are not as distant as they may at first appear when one considers that we share common ancestors in both families. Because many of these people lived in isolated communities, it was not uncommon for a brother and sister to marry brother and sister in a neighboring family. No problem, since they weren't related, but their children are double first cousins, who genetically are about as kin as brothers and sisters. However, since I have bitten off about as much as I can comfortably chew, I'm not going to go back and look for five-greats and all of their other descendants. But, oh how I understand the temptation to just download GEDCOMs. Sometimes I think it would so easy just to copy a lot of someone else's work from the Internet, hook it all up to my own research in a family history program, and just let it be. No double- checking census records, no pondering undecipherable names, no wondering about whether William CHANDLER of Mississippi really is related to that old John CHANDLER back in Virginia or wherever. And I wouldn't know or care how much of the information is tentative, based on someone's assumption that they had absolutely found the right Zack P. (one of whom, by the way, was a female). * * * By George I've Found Him By Jeanne Hlavac My father was born at midnight 31 May/1 June 1880. The census taker put down his name as George and his age as 1/365 days old. Also in tiny print it says "Midnight." My father has always been named Julius, not George. All other censuses say Julius. That is the only record I have of his birth after years of searching -- and it says George! * * * Changing Ethnicity By Dori Wegehaupt in Michigan, USA Both my husband and I are primarily of German heritage, so imagine my surprise when I picked up copies of my daughter's death certificate last week and found her ancestry listed as French-Canadian. Evidently the person who filled out the form just picked at random one of the secondary ancestries we mentioned to fill in that space. Anyone finding that information would incorrectly assume that they had the wrong person because there is no one in my genealogy of French- Canadian descent and I haven't researched my husband's ancestry. * * * Explain This By Marylon Brake For those who post GEDCOMs on the Internet, but don't like or want "their" information to be used by others, I have a question: What is your reason for making it available for others to read? * * * Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary By Karen Holst in Manson, Washington, USA My mother, Mary Lou, had always said she was named after both of her grandmothers, therefore, both grandmothers' names were Mary. She also stated that her middle name on her birth certificate had been spelled wrong. I quickly found her maternal grandmother in census and death records and verified her name as Mary. To no avail, I searched and searched for her paternal grandmother and grandfather with the names she had given me. After many years of fruitless searching I was able to obtain her father's Social Security number application that contain his mother's name. It was not even close to the name she had given me. Through my mother's grandfather's records, I was able to determine her grandmother's name was Lula. My mother wasn't very happy to hear my report and when I asked to see her birth certificate, she would not show it to me. While going through my mother's papers after her death, we found her birth certificate. I have to say I was not surprised to see it read "Mary Lula." 8. Humor/Humour: Doc Moves Up --------------------------------- Thanks to: D. Terry Huff of Woodcrest, California While attending my mother-in-law's graveside services at the cemetery in Banning, California, we noticed a tombstone for a medical doctor who was buried nearby. The inscription read, "Office Upstairs." * * * 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: 13 July 2005, Vol. 8, No. 28. * * * *