RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine 14 September 2005, Vol. 8, No. 37, 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: "Halifax Death Registers" "'Lost' Texas Death Certificates" 1b. Tips from Readers: "Toting Files Digitally" 1c. Using RootsWeb: "Awash in JONESes: Finding the Resources" (Part II) 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb: "Overcoming Languages and Miles" 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: "Genealogical Adventures at Home and Abroad" "Tracing an Illusive One" 8. Humor/Humour: "Walking Over the Vicar" 9. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints =============================================================== IN THIS ISSUE: 1. NEWS, NOTES, AND SITES WORTH SEEING 1a. EDITOR'S DESK: Halifax Death Registers By Lois K. Yorke, Manager, Public Services Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management In 1884 the government of Canada began a program to collect death statistics from major Canadian cities. The program continued in Halifax until 1908, when the government of Nova Scotia assumed responsibility for the registration of deaths in the province. Two registers for the City of Halifax have survived from this federal project, totaling 457 pages. They cover the years 1890-1908 and include 17,890 entries. In 2004 they were transferred to Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management (NSARM) from the Vital Statistics Office of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. Records for the years 1884-89 appear not to have survived. Over the winter of 2004-2005, volunteers from the Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia worked with NSARM staff to develop an electronic database index for the two surviving registers. The database index is now available online in fully searchable format, along with the two registers, fully digitized. Names appearing in the database are directly linked to their corresponding pages in the registers. Register pages can be examined in detail using the Viewpoint Media Player and Internet Explorer. Death Registers for the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1890-1908, are now on the Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management website, at: http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/vitalstats/death/halifax/ * * * Texas Death Records An article about "'Lost' Texas Death Certificates," by James Pylant and a list of affidavit, "added," and official (pre-1903 state registration) Texas death records can be found at: http://www.genealogymagazine.com/eatedece.html 1b. TIPS FROM READERS: Toting Files Digitally By Stephanie Carson Feldman Paper backup is great and so are external drives and CDs. But don't forget that digital camera that goes on every vacation. Not everyone may be aware of this, but the card you use for your camera and plug into your computer is a disk like any other. If you can access the contents of the disk, you can drop your GEDCOM on to it and still take and download pictures all you want. This is still my preferred method of transferring files from computer to computer, seeing as I have Mac and PC and some are brand-new and some are more than five years old. The only thing that consistently worked was my digital camera card. 1c. USING ROOTSWEB: Awash in JONESes: Finding the Resources (Part II) [Editor's note: The names are fictitious, but circumstances in the story are based on actual events and real family stories.] Like most American researchers, Jack JONES wanted to learn the name of the ship and date and port of his family's arrival in America. But he discovered immediately that he did not have enough information to conduct such a search online. Ship passenger lists were brimming with JONESes -- and most of them from Wales. So Jack began scouring the resources on the Internet at RootsWeb, Ancestry.com, and Cyndi's List for learning tools in researching his family history. He discovered he had a formidable task ahead of him so he paid close attention to suggestions that might make it easier to search for common surnames such as his JONES line. In addition to find the ship on which his ancestors came to America, he wanted to verify the names, dates, places and events mentioned in handwritten family notes so he took note of locality resources for Glamorgan, Wales and Harlan County, Kentucky USA, which were the two major locations pertaining to his family. In addition, Jack was on the lookout for resources for Australian research so that he could try to verify the claim that his great- grandfather's brother Hugh JONES relocated to Australia after the end of the American Civil War. That was another subject Jack wished to learn more about -- the American Civil War -- especially the factors that might have led two of the brothers from Wales fighting for the Union and the other brother linking up to the Confederacy. Jack also wanted to check out the claim that the other brother, Willie, migrated to the American West and married an Indian princess. So he explored Native American resources also. Jack wanted to learn more about his ancestors' occupation of coalmining as he knew that a better understanding of mining and miners would help in his research -- he might even be able to find information about the specific mining disasters that took the lives of his grandfather and uncles. Then there was that nagging feeling Jack had that the JONES family crest his father had given him one Christmas, purchased at the local shopping mall, might not really be applicable to his JONES family. He wanted to look more deeply into the subject and see what the experts in heraldry had to say about it. Jack had his work cut out for him, but he learned a few things immediately just from reading the RootsWeb Guides ( http://rwguide.rootsweb.com/). He found where to look for the locality, surname, and topical (occupations, military, and heraldry) resources and he also learned a bit about Native American research and heraldry -- both topics being covered in the guides. Coats of Arms were granted to individuals -- not to a surname or a family he found out. So the generic Coat of Arms his father had purchased at the local mall most likely wasn't specifically related to his JONES ancestors after all. Jack learned that stories about having an Indian princess in the family were almost always inaccurate as well in that such European terms were not used within the Native American culture. However, knowing that some of the family information passed down to him was probably inaccurate only encouraged Jack to delve deeper -- looking for evidence to support or refute the other data in the notes. So he turned to experts on RootsWeb mailing lists and message boards. He found the relevant lists from the list index page: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ and the boards from: http://boards.rootsweb.com/ He looked for International locality lists and boards for Glamorgan, Wales and Australia. Under USA lists and boards he found the Harlan County, Kentucky resources. Under topic boards and Other - Occupation lists he found resources for coalmining. Under immigration lists (http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Immigration/) Jack located some lists that might help in his quest to learn about his family's immigration from country to country, including lists which discussed ship arrivals. Jack noted that if he wished to pursue the issue of heraldry and Coats of Arms to a greater extent, there were several lists available too. (http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/other/Heraldry/) Jack made an important discovery. That being, by using the locality lists and boards, the Topic and Other classification resources, he could narrow down his field of study as specifically as possible to hone in on his JONESes. Including full names rather than just surnames in searches and list and board posts really helps when common surnames are being researched. In a short time it was possible to locate information about his family -- even with a common surname like JONES. Soon the lists and boards at RootsWeb were buzzing with information about the JONES boys. Next week: Part III. Separating the Wheat from the Chaff 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb. Thanks for sharing your stories. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Overcoming Languages and Miles By Jeanette Heath in the USA One of my great-grandfathers lived in East Prussia, and was conscripted into the German army in World War I. Family lore told that he died on the Russian Front. I have been researching my family history and use RootsWeb's Prussia Message Board to learn what I could about the area. A person named Marion posted a message about a website http://www.volksbund.de/graebersuche/content_suche.asp -- website that was about German veterans. An uncle of Marion's who died in 1942 was found there. I had one semester of German 30 years ago, but I got to work and between Google Translating, and my German dictionary and a German/English travelers' phrase book in hand, I figured out what to write in each box. To my surprise I got a result. I found my great-grandfather's grave! But where was Montdidier? Where was Frankreich? I found a German World War I Forum, (www.milex.de/forum/sucheShow.html) and posted a request in my best German asking for someone to help me locate this place. Now remember, I don't speak German, so I was blending together phrases from the phrasebook with a few extra words from the dictionary in what I hoped was proper German grammar. It must have been really bad, but I had at least tried. The first response that appeared that told me I was looking in the wrong country. Frankreich is France. So family lore or the information was a little off. Another response came by e-mail from a gentleman named Egbert. He asked for my great-grandfather's name and rank and he volunteered to post it onto a French website. (I don't write or speak French either!) That message was read by a wonderful gentleman named Marc in France who went to Montdidier and took a lot of digital photos, both of the graveyard and the cross on my great-grandfather's grave. Thank you RootsWeb and thank you Marion, Egbert, and Marc! There really are wonderful people out there. ======================== Advertisements ============================ Request a Search for Your Ancestors at the Family History Library Our research consultants at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City will search this vast collection of genealogical records for your ancestors from the US/Canada, Ireland, Germany, Holland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Italy. Let us have the details and we will have one of them give you a FREE email consultation If you commission us to do the work (there's no obligation to do that!) our prices start from $50 US. For a FREE email consultation visit http://www.ancestorseekers.com/research/rwr/ * * * Research in Salt Lake -- Largest Genealogy Library in the World Imagine having your very own professional every day for a week! My Ancestors offers this unique research seminar, November 14-19, 2005 in Salt Lake City. What makes this retreat so effective is what we offer you: --Individualized, professional classes. --Daily research time at the Family History Library. --Seasoned professionals available to work with you eight hours a day in one-on-one sessions to guide you in your research. Sign up with us at http://myancestorsfound.com/retreats.htm today! Be sure to download your Free Research Log at http://www.myancestorsfound.com/forms.htm and check out all of our educational events at http://www.myancestorsfound.com/events.htm ====================== 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 29,400 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy Mailing Lists and for easy subscribing (joining) options go to: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ No new mailing lists this week. 4. New Webpages at RootsWeb To Request a Free Web Account: http://accounts.rootsweb.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------- No new webpages this week. 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 ENGLAND. Newspapers. Richard Heaton has just completed another update, reaching 54,400 names. This includes miscellaneous issues from the Salisbury and Winchester Journal (1757-1813), London Gazette (1707- 1728), and other regional papers (1756-1829). There are now approximately 16,000 Wiltshire names, 9,000 Hampshire, 5,000 Dorset, 5,000 London and Middlesex, 2,000 Ireland, and a hundreds of names for Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Worcestershire, Sussex, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire, with most counties having some representation, and not to ignore a scattering of references for France, America, India, Germany, and Australia. Click on "Local Newspaper Index (excluding Windsor &Eton Express)" and scroll down to surname alpha search. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~dutillieul/index.html HANNA, KELLOGG, HANEY, WHITT, PRATER, GEORGE, CALLOWAY, and ALLEN. Includes family history, headstones, obituaries, photographs, and pedigree charts. http://freepages.family.rootsweb.com/~randyhanna/ TEXAS. Potter County. Amarillo. Rebecca Ann Jordan's grandmother, Lois Erin (DEASON) KEY, graduated from Amarillo High School in 1920. She inherited the scrapbook that Lois created circa 1920. It is a 189-page book with many names, nicknames, photos, sentiments, newspaper clippings, and memorabilia. Unfortunately, nearly all of the photos are unidentified. Fortunately, there are many sentiments written by Lois's teachers, relatives, and fellow students of the classes of 1920 and 1921. Also included are the commencement programs listing the graduates of 1919 and 1920. The compiler has transcribed and published most of the text, complete with a cross-index of names and hopes to identify the people in the photographs through the help of RootsWeb users. 1920 Scrapbook, Amarillo High School. http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~rajordan/ahs/index.html Commencement Program 1920. http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~rajordan/ahs/page150.html Commencement Program 1919. http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~rajordan/ahs/page185.html Index of Names - http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~rajordan/ahs/ndx.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. NEW YORK. Genesee County. Batavia. "The Daily News"; 1934-35; 7,587 records. Leilani Spring, volunteer of the Genesee County, New York, historian http://userdb.rootsweb.com/news/ TEXAS. Terrell County. Marriage records, 1905-1930; 807 records; Jack Martin http://userdb.rootsweb.com/marriages/ VIRGINIA. Fredericksburg (independent city); Fredericksburg High School; 1924 graduates; 38 records. Paula Lucy Delosh http://userdb.rootsweb.com/alumni/ VIRGINIA. Henrico County. Richmond. Confederate Dead in Hollywood Cemetery; 6,783 records. Jim McNeece http://userdb.rootsweb.com/cemeteries/ 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]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Genealogical Adventures at Home and Abroad By Merikay Mestad I had always known the names of my great-grandfather's siblings from grandma's notes, which noted that Maggie died young. Always assuming this meant she had been a child, I was surprised to find her name beneath a picture of an adult when a visit to a third cousin where the family had lived produced a large mat with small ovals of each of great- grandpa's siblings, his parents, and two small children of a widowed sister with the names written in beneath. Taking this surname to the library the next day, I found an article in a county history book that gave the names of the four children she had before she died young. A trip back to the township cemetery where the rest of the family was buried revealed her tombstone. I had been sitting on her grave as I recorded the information on her parents. Margaret had been trying to speak to me it appears. An even stranger occurrence was the situation involving ancestors in Germany. Dad's cousin had looked up records in the small local church and sent the birth record of a great-grandmother, which listed her parents' full names. Then he found a marriage record for that couple, again with their full names. Then he found the woman's death record -- two years before the birth of her daughter. It took me several years to convince him (his English was limited and my German nonexistent) that something was not right because he knew he had copied accurately. What he found surprised us both. I figured he had copied a number wrong in trying to read the old script. Turns out there were two couples by exactly the same names that married about 10 years apart (in a village of about seven farms). The older person would still have been of an age to have given birth to my ancestor, but obviously this wasn't the case. Additional information from other documents helped straighten it out. It reminds me to keep searching when something doesn't seem to be quite right. * * * Tracing an Illusive One By Heather Brain. In Melbourne, Victoria, Australia I have great empathy with Patsy McMillan and read her recent article about her 2-great-grandfather with amusement. I have encountered similar problems when I went about the seemingly innocent task of researching my own father and his genealogy. My father was named Eric John Arnold Phroydon HARLE when we knew him. He landed in Melbourne just prior to World War II in 1938 and appeared to have landed on the earth unencumbered by kith or kin. He was something of an opportunist and looked up the phone books to make contact with fellow HARLES. I don't know who else he made contact with but he did make contact with Elizabeth BARTON HARLE, they met and married in September 1939. On my father's marriage certificate he names as father, Edward Eric HARLE, solicitor, deceased, and Georgina HARLE-COWAN as his mother. He also registered as divorced and as the father of two children. By the time I began family research, which was in 1994, and another story, my father was long dead so I was reliant on a mother fast losing what memory she had and one who didn't want to remember the past anyway. She was the youngest of 12 children born to a man who was 70 and a mother of 42, and all she remembered was a senile old man dribbling away in the corner. I found her forebears very easily and got her family tree organized with no problems, but dad's was another story entirely. You cannot imagine the time and effort I spent searching for births, deaths and marriages for the said Edward Eric HARLE and Georgina HARLE-COWAN. Eventually I applied for my father's full birth certificate, and by the time it arrived I was quite prepared for the fact that he was born illegitimately to Georgina HARLE, an actress, and at the time his name was just Eric. My sister and I spent hours trying to dredge up things he had told us about his life. We remembered that his mother was an actress and that he was raised by his Aunties Gertie and Geogie in Brighton, UK, and his father (a lawyer) loomed large from time to time, as the parents were separated. He also told us his father had been previously married and had an older family and had broken his mother's heart. She actually died in a mental asylum, aged only 52. When I was expecting my first child my father actually asked me to name him Edward, should we produce a son, which I now realize must have been a huge request. I flippantly brushed the suggestion aside as I couldn't stand the name, but when we produced child number four, a daughter, her middle names were Elizabeth, for mum's family and Edwina for dad's. One day my sister asked me whether I ever wondered about our elder half brother and sister. I truthfully answered that I never had, not knowing either their names or ages, which really surprised my sister. She had applied for a full birth certificate 20 years previously when she wanted a passport, but I never had such a copy. She got it out and I found that I had a half sister named Jaqueline FRITZELLA and a half brother named Eric WILLIAM. They were 18 and 16 years my senior. From there it was easy to go and look up births and then the marriage. Again I was surprised as during my father's middle life he had a hyphenated name Harle (------) -- my half siblings are still alive -- and by then he had a second name of Phroydon. I applied for the certificates and found them fascinating, as both parties had raised their ages and my father had named as his father Edward HARLE- COWAN, deceased, solicitor. One day I got brave and went to the Melbourne Post Office and perused all the 40 or so UK telephone books on the assumption that if I found anyone of the name my father adopted they would have to be related. I was so fortunate and there was one entry. I came home totally terrified of calling, judging that they may not be too thrilled to make contact with me, the daughter of someone who abandoned their family. At that point my daughter took over and I sat and wrung my hands and felt totally ill. I need not have done that as the contact proved to be my stunned sister-in-law. When I got on the phone to her I suggested we gather our thoughts and call back in half an hour. She filled me in on so much, telling me her husband had died in his 50s, and that he had been very unhappy. She also told me that his older sister married a colonel in the U.S. army and lived in USA. They did not correspond much and she was "either dead, in a mental institution, or a nursing home." Those details would have kept me going for months, but I was woken the next morning by a call from USA and a woman telling me she was Jaqueline (-----) and I could not possibly be her half sister. We sorted that out and I staggered off to work, going in the afternoon to my sisters, where we rang our U.S. relations and had a four-way conversation. She told me that the Auntie Georgie who raised dad was actually his mother, (something done quite frequently in those days, I have since learnt) and that the Edward named twice, was actually an MP, barrister, knight of the realm and prominent man of the time. I was dubious, as illegitimate people have been known to invent prominent parents, but she told me to go to the library and look at the books and photos of him. This we did, and he was the image of my father, and it transpires of my half brother also. From that time we began planning the overseas adventure and met my American half sister. She was exactly like me in every way. Then we went to UK and met my sister-in-law and her five daughters, all of whom were desperate to meet me and know of my father, as they thought it may assist them to understand their father. They were both exaggerators, clever but not studiers and in stature were so alike. Eventually I got most of the genealogy organized and surprisingly enough have gone back to the 17th century in Northumberland and Durham and found no connection between my maternal or paternal strands yet, and what I know of them the lines are just so different. When I was in UK in 2002 I perused the 1901 census, thinking I may finally solve the mystery of where grandmother Georgina and her sister lived as they had returned to UK from Rockhampton, Queensland when their mother died, having immigrated there as a family in 1876. I should have known that it would not be straightforward -- this family being known for its laxity with the truth. Eventually I found them when I omitted ages and places of birth. They were living in London in an area near the West End, they had reduced their ages from 33 to 26 and 31 to 24 and were living in a street full of actresses, milliners, dressmakers and older women. Grandmother may have aspired to being an actress and may even have done some acting, but we now strongly suspect that in the time of no government assistance or dole they may have supplemented their income in other ways. While my father is no less of an enigma to me now, I have a great sympathy for him and for his making up the "facts" of his life, and if I had not begun to delve 10 years ago it would have all remained like that, (or until another descendant began to dig.) Since then I have learnt that where records are concerned check and double-check everything and then check them again. 8. Humor/Humour: Walking Over the Vicar ---------------------------------------- Thanks to: Nova Gilroy in Perth, Western Australia Seen in the porch of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Bishop's Lydeard, Somerset, England a panel to the memory of John Geal, vicar from 1714-1733. He asked to be buried under the first flagstone of the porch, saying: "My parishioners have tried unsuccessfully to walk over me while I am alive; they shall not be denied this pleasure when I am dead." * * * Found a humorous sign or entry in census, parish, church, etc. records? Send to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com 9. 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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: 14 September 2005, Vol. 8, No. 37. * * * *