RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine 10 August 2005, Vol. 8, No. 32, 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/ * * * RootsWeb HelpDesk http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ * * * =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS, NOTES, AND SITES WORTH SEEING 1a. Editor's Desk: "Louisiana Parish Offers Some Public Records Online" "NTL Activates Spam Filtering" "German-American Roots: More than Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pandowdy" 1b. Tips from Readers: "Use FTM Book Feature to Create Index" 1c. Using RootsWeb: "Making Connections via the Message Board Gateway" 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb: "Bringing the Living Together via Death Records" 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: "Emily's Journey Appreciated" "Lack of Male Relatives Thwarts DNA Options" "Mowing Cemetery Successful Project in South Dakota" "RootsWeb Review Saves Desperate Reader" "Are You Who Think You Are?" 8. Humor/Humour: "Ah, Shucks!" 9. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS, NOTES, AND SITES WORTH SEEING 1a. EDITOR'S DESK: LOUISIANA PARISH OFFERS SOME PUBLIC RECORDS ONLINE Caddo Parish in northwest Louisiana offers a free search in some of its marriage license indices. Searches can be by the name (or partial name) of the bridegroom, the bride and the bride's maiden name. You can search by book and page or by date. While this parish's marriage licenses date back to 1838, those currently available to search online date back only to the early 1930s, but earlier years will be added as time and personnel permit. "So if you want to see the names of everyone who got a license on December 8, 1941, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the rush of folks to get married before going off to war, they are there," according to a 31 July story in the Shreveport Times. Online access helps people who otherwise would have to make special trips downtown, whether from in the parish or, as can be the case with people doing family research, from halfway around the world, Caddo Clerk of Court Gary Loftin said. To search go to http://www.caddoclerk.com/ and follow the instructions on the website. The user name is muser; the password is caddo. http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID= /20050731/NEWS01/507310315/1060/NEWS01 * * * NTL ACTIVATES SPAM FILTERING Mailing list subscribers whose Internet Service Provider (ISP) is NTL (ntlworld.com) should be aware that it recently activated spam filtering on its e-mail service. The default setting is to delete everything (permanently) that NTL consider spam -- so if you are missing your favorite mailing list messages, it is possible that they have been blocked or erased. However, no accounts of widespread problems with RootsWeb mailing lists have been reported. There's comprehensive information about the spam blocker available at: http://www.ntlworld.com/helpsupport/spam/index.php?page_zone=219.4.1 You can alter your account to a more suitable setting by going to: http://webmail.ntlworld.com and then log in to your account. Select Options, then Spam and click on another radio button, such as "forward to your inbox labeled as spam." Then you can run a rule to place such mail in a spam folder for later inspection. * * * GERMAN-AMERICAN ROOTS: More than Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pandowdy. Can't find your ancestors among the Pennsylvania Dutch? Perhaps they were part of the Germanna Colonies of Virginia. Germanna Colonies Family History. http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/ http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/who_is_a_germannan.html Read and search John Blankenbaker's outstanding "Germanna Notes" at: http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhis1.html * * * 1b. TIPS FROM READERS: Use FTM Book Feature to Create Index By Lou Hicks Nelson in Salem, Oregon, USA Please pass on to Jeanne Park ("Saving Our Genealogies" in last week's RootsWeb Review) that if you use Family Tree Maker [genealogy software] and create a "Book" that it has a feature that will create a name index that tells on which page(s) of the book that a name appears. It works wonderfully and I have used it several times to create "books" for relatives from certain parts of my family files. I am also assisting a relative in composing a narrative book about the history of part of my family. I am using Family Tree Maker's "Book" feature there also. * * * 1c. USING ROOTSWEB: Making Connections via the Message Board Gateway Lana LISTER is subscribed to many RootsWeb mailing lists (http://lists.rootsweb.com) even though she completed her genealogical research years ago -- to the extent that anyone can ever call genealogical research "completed." Lana is quite proud of the fact that she was able to trace all of her ancestors back to the immigrants who came to Canada where Lana was born and raised. She traced ancestors to England, Scotland, and Ireland, and she has filing cabinets chock full of records on all of her families -- including documents she gathered many years ago on a trip to the British Isles. Lana is a valuable and knowledgeable mentor/helper on her subscribed lists as she possesses numerous books and publications about her surnames and is well informed on various aspects of Canadian research and resources. One thing Lana really likes about the RootsWeb mailing lists is that many of the lists to which she subscribes not only include messages posted by other subscribers to the list but also have messages coming in from "the outside" that have been posted on the same-topic message board at RootsWeb/Ancestry. Now Lana will be the first one to tell you that she isn't all that familiar with message boards. She prefers the familiarity of her mailing lists and likes being able to just open up her e-mail and find the list messages waiting for her. She also likes the protection against spam and viruses on the RootsWeb lists because only list subscribers can post and only plain text messages are permitted with no attachments. But she does enjoy seeing the "outside" messages posted on the message boards that come through to her in e-mail on the lists and she often finds new cousins through the magic of this resource they call the "message board gateway." However, try as she may Lana couldn't quite figure out how this "gateway" works. She wondered why she seldom got a response from her new "cousins" when she replied to these "gatewayed" messages and she wondered why no one ever thanked her for her assistance. Lana began to suspect that the original posters were not receiving her replies and she couldn't figure out what to do with the gatewayed messages to get her message through to the person who posted on the board. She always replied to the list with her information for the poster and yet her responses were ignored. Was she doing something wrong? Why didn't the message board posters reply to her when she responded on the list? Lana dropped a note to the list administrator for one the busier lists she frequently uses. The admin replied letting her know that she is making the same mistake made by many people who are more familiar with mailing lists than boards. Message board posters are often not subscribed to the mailing list and won't see responses posted only to the list. The correct method of replying to a gatewayed message is to click on the link included in the body of the message. This takes you directly to the post in its original location on the board. There you can click on "Post Reply" and type in your response. That way the board poster will be notified of the response and will be able to view it on the board. Additionally, the list subscriber's reply will be gatewayed back to the mailing list so a separate response need not be posted there. Of course, there may be some instances when it is not convenient or possible for mailing list users to post their responses on the message boards as described above. For example, if you have an e-mail only service and/or limited access to the Internet, and as a result read and compose e-mail for mailing lists while offline then clicking on the URL link in the message is inconvenient or impossible. To reply to gatewayed message under such circumstances, remember to include a private response to the poster when you reply to the list. To accomplish this, make sure that the posters' e-mail address, which is included in the gatewayed list post, appears in the "Send To" box of your e-mail message. Lana Lister wishes she had asked this question sooner, but being a list mentor she is used to knowing the answers and posting responses rather than asking questions. She had assumed her question might appear "stupid." But, she wonders how many potential cousins she has missed out on contacting, all because she never knew the correct method of replying to a gatewayed post on her mailing lists. She vows that won't be happening in the future now that she is sure her replies will reach their intended recipients. 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb. Thanks for sharing your stories. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Bringing the Living Together via Death Records By William L. Richards, Jr. When my son-in-law, Chuck, was just a baby, his father deserted his mother and took Chuck's two older sisters with him. Chuck had not seen or heard from his father or his sisters since then. When my daughter, Lynda, who lives in Arizona, was visiting me this past spring, she asked if it was possible to find Chuck's father in the SSDI. (http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/). I assured her that it should be no problem provided he was dead and that the death had been reported. As it turned out, Chuck's father had passed away in 1992 in a little town in Arizona about a three-hour drive from where Lynda and Chuck live. Several weeks ago, Lynda drove to the town and visited the one and only funeral home to see if it could provide any information about the sisters. As it so happened, the father's second wife, now a widow, still lived in the town and the funeral director helped my daughter locate her address and telephone number in the phone book. My daughter visited the widow who, after some confusion as to who Lynda was, welcomed my daughter, literally, with open arms. One of Chuck's sisters also lives in that town (the other lives in the Northwest) and she was called to "come see who's here." Two weeks later my son-in-law drove to the town to share a joyful reunion with his sister that he hadn't seen in 47 years. He and my daughter are planning a trip to visit Chuck's other sister later this year. I know the SSDI has been used to locate missing relatives who have passed on, but this time it also helped find missing relatives who are still living. ======================== Advertisement ============================ GET HELP WITH YOUR BRITISH GENEALOGY British Ancestors, a British company with researchers throughout England and Scotland has helped more than 4,500 satisfied clients worldwide since 1999. 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. Friendly service, affordable prices and free research assessments. For a FREE! no-obligation research assessment visit http://www.britishancestors.com/consultrwr/ ====================== End Advertisement ============================== 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 29,350 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy Mailing Lists and for easy subscribing (joining) options go to: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ NEW SURNAME MAILING LISTS ABERY, ARANDA CHOULES GROVESTEEN MATHIA, McCARTIN, McCARTON ORNELAS PONCE SMITH-ENG-CON -- Discussing SMITH (surname) in Cornwall, England SPLUDE VILLALOBOS NEW ETHNIC AND SPECIAL INTEREST MAILING LISTS GA-DEUTSCH -- German-speaking settlers of Colonial Georgia SD-LandRecords -- Land records and deed queries for all counties of South Dakota 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 Webster County, Mississippi website is at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~mswebst1/ U.S.A. macmidd2 -- Middleton (Massachusetts) mecsabat -- Sabattus (Maine) mimahs -- Milan Area Historical Society (Michigan) mswebst1 -- Webster County (Mississippi) nyoswego -- Oswego County (New York) ohsccogs -- Stark County (Ohio) Chapter Ohio Genealogical Society okchero3 -- Cherokee Nation (Oklahoma) oksequoy -- Sequoyah County (Oklahoma) tnjames -- James County (Tennessee) txtpcdac -- Thomas Poe (Texas) Chapter DAC waclacem -- Clark County (Washington) Cemeteries UKRAINE ukrchern Chernigov (Ukraine) Key: DAC — Daughters of the American Colonies OGS — Ohio Genealogical Society 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 (its Web address), along with a brief description, including the major pertinent surnames and what is available on your site, to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com CANADIAN CEMETERY SIGNS. Photos of cemetery entrance signs from cemeteries all over Canada -- submitted by volunteers. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cemsigns/ McVICKAR. McVickar Family in America, 1906. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mcvicker/Mcvickar/mcvickar/ WOOD, WOODS. WOODEN SEEDS -- Wood-Woods cousins of Choctaw and Webster counties, Mississippi. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mississippiwoods/ 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. DISTRICT of COLUMBIA. Military records for soldiers in 1880 stationed around the area; 95 records. Paula Lucy Delosh http://userdb.rootsweb.com/military/ FLORIDA. Brevard County. Cocoa. Cocoa Tribune, deaths 1925-1929; 299 records. Jim and Bonnie Garmon http://userdb.rootsweb.com/obituaries/ NEW JERSEY. Passaic County. Obituaries for surname Breen in 1900s; 75 records. Terri Fabiano http://userdb.rootsweb.com/obituaries/ Wills for surname Breen in 1900s; 98 records. Terri Fabiano http://userdb.rootsweb.com/deaths/ OKLAHOMA. Wagoner County. Coweta. 1939 Sophomore class picture; 33 records. Barbara Hunt for Council Grove DAR http://userdb.rootsweb.com/alumni/ VIRGINIA. Stafford County. Boy Scout troop #176 from 1942. 27 records. Paula Lucy Delosh http://userdb.rootsweb.com/groups/ 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]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Emily's Journey Appreciated By Lorna Brandt I would like to thank Douglas Storie, Sr., the author of the story "Emily's Journey to America," for sharing this sweet story. My father, at age 3 1/2, came to this country with his family, also traveling steerage, and coming through Ellis Island. He died when I was nine, and my grandparents both died before I was five, so I never had the opportunity to learn directly from them any remembrances of their journey. It was so neat to find my ancestors on the Ellis Island website a few years ago. I could only imagine what it must have been like to leave family and friends in Sweden and come to a strange country, knowing they would probably never again see those left behind. * * * Lack of Male Relatives Thwarts DNA Options By Cornelia Fenenga Warner (fenenga@connpoint.net) I've been watching and reading the DNA discussions with great interest, long before DNA itself was discovered -- back when cancer genes and blue and brown eyes were all we discussed. Anyway, I've absorbed some of the information, and something's been emerging for a while and is starting to come to a head to my mind, DNA is a wonderful tool. Not perfect, but neither is any research. It's just a tool to be used to get where we need to be, but I have an issue, and for me, it's a big issue -- what do those of us who are female and have no male relatives do? On my mother's side, there were three children, my mother, her sister, and her brother. Her brother had a single child, a daughter. He died young, of cancer. The next generation back, their parents were both only children. Allan John WAGNER was the only child of Charles J. WAGNER and Annie McDONALD. We have no siblings for Charles and Annie's siblings elude my research. Florence Ardell WYRUCK was the only child of Francis John WYRUCK and Alice Augusta COLLINS. I may find a living male WYROUGH cousin someday, but none of Francis' children by his first wife had any children of their own. Alice had several siblings. Two were brothers. one never married, the other had a son, but I cannot trace a child of his as they come into the mid-1900s and I am unable to access the records necessary to know if there is a child alive today. From there I must go outside of my branch of the tree, which is really no help whatsoever in the area of DNA. Being female, I have no hope of using my own DNA to identify which of two apparent brothers with the surname COLLINS we descend from -- or what their ancestry is. The funny thing is, I have the female line documented back to 1776. I don't need the mitochondrial DNA until I get to that period. It's all and every one of my maternal male lines, my WAGNERs, McDONALDs, WEYRAUCHs and COLLINS, and a few of my paternal male lines (but not the father's father's father, etc, which I have back into the mid-1600s! -- my ROSSes and CHITTENDENs,) It's very frustrating not to be able to share in the research or find out what lines of descent are truly mine once the records peter out. So, does anyone know of a solution or another way for us to find our male ancestors when DNA isn't the answer? * * * Mowing Cemetery Successful Project in South Dakota By Richard Pence (richardpence@pipeline.com) Over the weekend I attended a 75th birthday party for a former colleague and a fellow South Dakotan. Another colleague, also a South Dakotan, was there and he told me what his project has been over the past few months. This gentleman is a World War II Marine carrier pilot and well past 80. He and his wife still own the family farm in South Dakota, which was homesteaded by his grandfather. The little Norwegian Lutheran church they attended is long gone but the cemetery remains, although it hasn't always been kept up. With the help of others with family members buried at the cemetery they solicited all the others with relatives there they could find. Remarkably, they raised $36,000 -- one mailing! I think he said this was from 47 families. Mowing is the main expense in keeping up the cemetery and that is but a few hundred dollars a year, so there will be upkeep at the cemetery for a long time. My friend and his wife, who have lived near George Washington's Mount Vernon for 50 years, say they plan to be buried there and just wanted the place to look nice. My friend is also lucky in family history. A few years ago he visited relatives in Norway and upon leaving a second cousin presented him with a large packet of letters my friend's grandfather had written to his brother back in Norway in the 1880s. Besides the recounting of their life and times, the two main themes were the crushing oppression of the grasshopper plagues and how great America was. Too often we hear about cemeteries that get no upkeep at all, so I thought perhaps you would enjoy hearing a warm fuzzy. * * * RootsWeb Review Saves Desperate Reader By Nancy Thompson I have been a big supporter of RootsWeb for many years -- especially WorldConnect. I tell everybody to search there first and I have a database --"npt"-- there with 1,154 entries. Much to my surprise, I found the answer to a desperate problem by doing a Google search for "retrieve GEDCOM." It called up the article "Retrieving and Fetching Your GEDCOMS" in the 16 March 2005 issue of RootsWeb Review. Early in January 2004, after I loaded Family Tree Maker (FTM) 2005 (version 12) software on my laptop. I was able to download a GEDCOM from FTM that I had uploaded previously on version 7 on a desktop with no problem. Since then, I had to restore my laptop a few months ago and reloaded FTM 2005 (version 12) software (the desktop is in another state with problems). However, this time when it came to downloading the GEDCOM from FTM, nothing would work. I spent countless hours e-mailing and talking on the phone back and forth with the FTM help desk and was told I had to manually input ALL my entries to FTM! But, I knew if the info I entered was on my GEDCOM trees (149KB) on my FTM Family Page online, and a family page on RootsWeb's WorldConnect with 1,154 entries, there HAD to be a way to recover it. I first went to my Henry/Crawford/Pickett/Hamilton Family Page at WorldConnect and found I could download taking one person at a time, and download a GEDCOM with six generations. I thought maybe I could do this with many various individuals, and come up with all 1,154 individuals, and then merge the files. Luckily, I thought of doing the Google search for "retrieve GEDCOM" as "download GEDCOM" phrase did not come up with anything I could use. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for this article. It will be awhile before I edit and add info, then upload the revised GEDCOM to RootsWeb. Meanwhile, I'll remember to save my family tree data to a CD. Thank everybody on your staff for me. Also, I'll start reading the weekly e-zine! * * * Are You Who Think You Are? By Charles Lawson My original birth certificate misspelled my surname as LAWTON instead of LAWSON. My parents filed an amendment to the birth certificate correcting the spelling with the Harris County Clerk's office a short time later. I have a copy of the amendment with the county clerk's registration on it. However, if anyone requests a copy of my certificate from the State of Texas, they will only get the original certificate with the misspelled name. When I contacted the state vital records office about it, it said that it did not have a copy of the amendment on file. This just goes to show that even when records are corrected, they can still remain in the official records with the errors intact. 8. Humor/Humour: Ah, Shucks! ---------------------------- Thanks to: Barbara Chisler in Vibbard, Missouri, USA who writes that she found this wedding announcement in the Excelsior Springs (Missouri) Weekly Call newspaper, dated 11 November 1915: MR. COBB WEDS MISS CORN Miss Margaret Corn was married to Mr. Stanley Cobb recently at El Paso, Texas at the home of the bride's parents. The marriage license clerk at the courthouse refused to issue the license, thinking it was a joke. When he convinced the clerk that it was on the level, Cobb shelled out for the license. * * * 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: 10 August 2005, Vol. 8, No. 32. * * * *