Smithsonian preserving languages including Native American dialects

Paula Stuart-Warren  Languages, Smithsonian  Leave a comment

Yesterday’s Washington Post carried an interesting article about the preservation of languages including Native American languages. I can’t read or write any of these languages but often need to translate documents. I can use word lists and ask others for advice. The article “Smithsonian archives preserve lost and dying languages” is informative and exciting.

“The archives had been accumulating for more than 150 years, the findings of scholars, explorers, soldiers and travelers  . . .” It includes a “immense hoard of recorded voices, documents and other materials describing more than 250 languages from all over the world.”

The collection is more comprehensive than I thought it was. You may read the article here. 

Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy 2013 goes out with a bang

Paula Stuart-Warren  Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, SLIG, Utah Genealogical Association  Leave a comment

A week ago I was finished with the first day of teaching at the 2013 edition of SLIG. The week flew by and it now seems like a distant memory. That is sad because it was a fantastic week. I had a classroom full of wonderful adult students who participate in discussions, questions and the small group project. The Room Monitor, Phyllis Codling McLaughlin, was always attentive.

Christy Fillerup and her fellow Utah Genealogical Association SLIG staff greeted us warmly, answered any questions, and as always were cool, calm, and collected. Thank you all!

New Location
The 2015 SLIG will be the 20th Anniversary! I have taught and/or coordinated classes since the second year of SLIG. SLIG is so successful it has outgrown two hotels. In 2015 it will move to the Salt Lake Hilton for the week of January 11-16. Instructors and coordinators had a great tour of the Hilton meeting space last Friday afternoon. Impressive! It will give students more space in the classroom and provide room for consultations, small group discussions, and will be such an improvement.SLIG will run a shuttle to and from the Family History Library in the afternoons.

New title for Course I

At the request of SLIG Director, Christy Fillerup, I have changed the title of my course to United States Records and Research, Part I and Part II. The 2015 Part I will not be the same lineup as what students had in 2014. What was offered in 2014 will be offered again in 2016.

The new description: This beyond- the-basics course provides in-depth learning on 19th-21st century U.S. resources and the methodology for using them. Probe deeper into the content, origin, location, and interpretation of records. Informative and interactive classroom hours delve into significant records and strategies that take you beyond basic research tools both online and off. On-site Family History Library support and a computer lab from course instructors provide one-on-one assistance and guidance with your own research. Suggested prerequisites: experience researching in a variety of repositories, familiarity with FamilySearch.org and other family history websites, and previous class room learning related to family history.

See you next January!

Joy Reisinger, RIP my friend

Paula Stuart-Warren  Colleagues  4 Comments

It was 1982 or 1983. I was in the audience here in Minnesota listening to a genealogy lecture by a woman dressed in pink. All pink. That aside, she knew her stuff! Thirty years later, that lady, a special friend is gone.

Joy Reisinger was her name. One of her specialties in the field was French-Canadian and Canadian research. Her serial publication Lost in Canada takes up a bunch of space on my bookshelves and I am so grateful for her dedication to that publication. Of course we were cousins a lot of generations back on our French-Canadian lines, but that’s common.

We bonded over research, talking about our kids, and having fun together. She encouraged me to take many big steps in the genealogy world. Way back in 1988 when I was working toward my certification by the Board for Certification of Genealogists, she encouraged me and kept repeating this mantra: document, document, document. Always three times. The meaning was to be dang sure I had the proper documentation aka citations in what I submitted. I got the hint! She was a great mentor. I was tickled when BCG granted her the title of Certified Genealogist Emeritus, a well-deserved honor.

About that time in 1988 she gave me my first opportunity to lecture at a national conference when the National Genealogical Society held the event here in my hometown of St. Paul. I turned down the opportunity because I knew I wasn’t ready.

When my husband received a life-threatening diagnosis of a heart condition, she was there for us. She put us in contact with a relative with the same heart condition. When we felt too shocked by all this to make a planned visit to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, she practically commanded that we still go. She was right. That trip got us motivated to keep on living and enjoying the friendship of others.

I served on the Association of Professional Genealogists Executive Committee with her and her follow Wisconsinites, Jim Hansen and Beth Stahr. We had great meetings and the friendship grew.

I watched her topically index the syllabi from the Federation of Genealogical Societies and NGS conference. We would chat about how to index some of the lectures that just didn’t fit the parameters she had set up. I wonder if I still have some of her early editions of that indexing?

When my personal life fell apart in 2003 she was there to bolster me. She was the conduit between me and a minister who helped me immensely. I am grateful to her for bringing the Reverend Doctor David McDonald into my life. In the last several months, he has kept me informed of Joy’s condition and about the recent death of her daughter, Jane.

If you never saw Joy’s home library and the wonderful working space her husband, Jim, made for her, you missed some real gems. I coveted that space.

As time went one, we had some other common interests as professionals in our chosen field. Then when we became grandmothers it was fun to talk about the new generations in our families. Then she became a great-grandmother and I teased her about that.

The last few times we were in Salt Lake City together I watched her struggle with breathing in the high altitude and due to her own physical issues. We even had one hospital visit there when she was suffering too much. She wanted to go alone but I told her it was my turn to help her. I was so scared we were losing her then.

There’s so much more I could tell you about Joy and what she has done for the field of family history but I should get back to working on my own renewal portfolio for BCG. I am sure she is waving her finger at me and telling me to do so!

Goodbye my friend. Thank you for letting me join you in so many parts of your journey in this life.

Minnesota Genealogy: Finding Divorce Records

Paula Stuart-Warren  Archives, Divorce Records, Minnesota Historical Society, Newberry Library  4 Comments

Learning that a family member may have been divorced 50, 75, or 150 years ago might yield a temporary shock to your system. It might also yield a plethora of family history details.

Divorce in the past is different from divorce today in some ways. Societal and family pressures may have caused a family or individual to hide the fact that a divorce took place. An abandoned woman may have listed herself as still married or as a widow and never filed for a legal divorce. Some couples just lived apart without benefit of a legal divorce. In Native American communities, tribal culture often considered divorce as simple as the couple separating and being involved in a new relationship. This practice veered toward official court proceedings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

The impetus for consulting divorce or marriage dissolution files varies. For most family historians, the reason is not salacious, but to gain additional family details and to help understand family relationships. I once had a
client who wanted divorce files for several living family members. My immediate reaction was an uncomfortable feeling. My reason was strengthened by the fact that I knew some of the family members. When working on locating current people in legal matters such as research involving current probate, land, tribal enrollment, or mineral rights, I would look at the files but chose not to do so for that client.

Reasons for a divorce
A cause for the divorce cause was usually listed in the proceedings before no-fault divorce became common. It might have been a situation where spousal abuse occurred, adultery, one spouse deserted the other, one may have been intemperate in drink or financial matters, or one or more of many other reasons for the split. The details may be painful to read, but often explain family stories and problems. In my own family, I was 26 when I found out that my father had been previously married.

In the 1970s, the reasons given for filing divorce underwent a dramatic change. According to a 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal, “California adopted the first no-fault divorce bill in 1970; by 1985, every other state in the nation—but one—had passed similar laws. In New York, the miserably married must still charge each other with cruel and inhuman treatment, adultery or abandonment—or wait one year after a mutually agreed legal separation—in order to divorce.”(1) Minnesota’s no-fault divorce became law in 1974.(2)

The information shared in the balance of this article pertains mainly to historical divorce records, with a focus on Minnesota. The Constitution of the State of Minnesota states “Divorces shall not be granted by the Legislature.”(3) Previous to the adoption of the constitution, the territorial legislature granted a handful of marriage dissolutions.(4)

Keep in mind that one party to a divorce may have moved beyond Minnesota and filed in that location after meeting any residency requirements.

Case Files
Since enactment of the state constitution, divorce in Minnesota is generally a District Court matter. For past years, this equates to a county level civil court proceeding. In recent years some rural county courts no longer operate separately, but may have a court system combined with one or more counties. However, the divorce should still be recorded in the county where it was filed. The historical case files for many counties have been transferred to the Minnesota State Archives and are housed at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. This is the home of the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS).

In some places, the name or “jurisdiction” of the court in which the divorce proceeding took place may have been different in early years of a county. For example, in Ramsey County in the time period of the 1860s and 1870s some divorces also occurred in the Court of Common Pleas.(5)

Pay attention to historical county boundary changes in Minnesota. One great source for this is the Newberry Library’s Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.(6)

The most interesting part is the case file that generally contains details including the names of the parties, names and birth dates of minor children, place and date of marriage, current place of residence for each party, affidavits from relatives, and decisions regarding custody and financial care of any children. In some cases, you will find paternity discussions. Those were the days before DNA testing. The content will vary depending upon the time period and the reason for the divorce. Other pertinent records, but with less details, may include a court docket, court minutes, judgment books, final decrees, and may vary depending on the county and state where the divorce occurred. Don’t stop researching if you only have a copy of a divorce decree. If you aren’t sure of what all these terms mean or what the records might contain, check Black’s Law Dictionary or a Works Progress Administration inventory of county records.(7)
                   
Indexes
Civil court case files are in numerical order. The case file number was assigned when the court action was initiated; thus the number is basically chronological. We might guess the approximate date range yet we may not be sure of the actual filing date due to many factors. Some cases were not settled quickly and that could give us a problematic sense of the date. A spouse may have delayed filing in hope that a reconciliation would occur. In the 19th century civil case files may be mixed with criminal case files and other civil matters. Don’t be surprised if not all civil case files have been retained. Generally it’s a storage space issue in either the county or the state archives.

Unfortunately, the indexes for some of these are not part of the county record collections at the state archives. If you are onsite at MHS, other county records such as judgment books, minute books, registers of actions, or court dockets may have an index and lead you to a case file number. Then it’s a matter of ordering the box which contains that case file number. MHS has extensive finding aids with such details. MHS also fills requests for persons out of the area, and it would be wise to first contact the probable county for the case file number. The MHS website has details on ordering records.

In civil court indexes whether at the courthouse or MHS, you should be able to find one of the spouses in the Plaintiff Index and the other in the Defendant Index. For the majority of women that means you must have their married name.

“Modern” Divorce records
The Minnesota Department of Health kept an index to Minnesota divorce records from 1970-1995. It is searchable online at Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.

Beginning in 1980 it is Family Court that should be contacted. For example, in Ramsey County, Minnesota, the jurisdiction changed in 1980.(8) Records through 1979 are a Civil Court matter. Some Family Court files are at MHS, but there may be access restrictions. The MHS online catalog states such cases.

The bottom line is to look for Minnesota historical divorce records in county level court records. In other states, learn more about the court system and where the divorce file may be found. As with other court records and terminology, it varies from place to place. For more recent divorces, the location to check is usually Family Court.

Then there are the Minnesota relatives who went to Nevada or to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to get divorced (or just married). That’s fodder for a future article as is my father’s divorce story.

_______________________________________________
(1) “Breaking Up is Hard to Do,” Wall Street Journal [online], 13 August 2010, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704901104575423341295531582. Viewed 1 November 2013.

(2)  Minnesota Legislative Reference Library. “Minnesota Women’s Legislative Timeline Significant Legislation Passed by the Minnesota Legislature Since Suffrage” (1919-2010)  http://www.leg.state.mn.us/lrl/womenstimeline/details.aspx?recid=20. Viewed 1 November 2013.

(3)  “The Constitution of the State of Minnesota Republican Version Signed August 29, 1857, Article 4th, Sec. 28.” Viewed 1 November 2013 at http://www.mnhs.org/library/constitution/pdf/republicanversion.pdf

(4)  An Act to Dissolve the Marriage Contract Between George Wells and Catherine Wells, His Wife. Session Laws of the Territory of Minnesota Passed by the Legislative Assembly at the Session Commencing Wednesday Jan. 1, 1851. (St. Paul: James H. Goodhue, 1851). Chapter 22, March 28, 1851. Viewed 1 November 2013 at http://books.google.com.

(5)  Minnesota Historical Society, Minnesota State Archives, Ramsey County Court of Common Pleas, “An Inventory of Its Civil Case Files,” page 5. http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/ram-ct05.pdf. Viewed 1 November 2013.

(6)  Newberry Library. Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. A Project of the William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture at The Newberry Library in Chicago. Accessible at http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/. Address current as of 1 November 2013.

(7)  Bryan A. Garner, editor. Black’s Law Dictionary. 9th ed. St. Paul: Thomson West, 2009. Also available in various electronic formats. The early editions of Black’s are usually better for older  terminology. An example of a county records inventory is Minnesota Historical Records Survey. Inventory of the County Archives of Minnesota: No. 87 Yellow Medicine County (Granite Falls). St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Records Survey, 1941. Surveys were published for 44 of the 87 counties in Minnesota. They were also published for many counties in other states. The unpublished manuscript surveys for other Minnesota counties may be found in the extensive collection of Works Progress Administration files at MHS. These surveys are described here: http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00695c.xml. MHS also has some published county archives surveys for other states. A list is here: http://www.mnhs.org/genealogy/family/genieguide/wpa_county02.htm. Viewed 1 November 2013.Many of these county level record inventories have been digitized and may be seen at http://www.hathitrust.org/.

(8)  Ramsey County Divorce Records. http://www.co.ramsey.mn.us/ph/vr/divorce_records.htm. Viewed 1 November 2013.

Cafes in cemeteries: will the idea come to the U.S.?

Paula Stuart-Warren  Cemeteries  1 Comment

I love this idea. A story on the ABC News website “Dead Good Coffee: Cemetery Cafes Gain Popularity” tells about a new trend in Europe. Coffee cafes in cemeteries are attracting a wide variety of customers. A visit before or after visiting the graves of our ancestors might soothe the nerves. A group of genealogists transcribing the words on tombstones could have a mid-morning coffee break together. When the other customers ask what the group is doing, we could spread the word about our society.

I haven’t heard of any such cafes in the U.S. but I can think of some perfect places for them. Many cemeteries are extremely picturesque and would provide a perfect backdrop while sipping a hot drink. It might even bring in some extra funds for struggling cemeteries. Okay, Roselawn, Calvary, Resurrection,
Elmhurst, and Forest Lawn here in the St. Paul area, how about it? I want to visit my relatives in your cemeteries, and stop for a cup of hot tea and think good thoughts about them. Somehow I don’t see the national cemeteries such as Fort Snelling doing this but maybe my parents and my in-laws can put in a good word with the workers cutting the grass and shoveling snow around their resting places.

The article tells how the cafes are pretty much home-spun and not interfering with the solemnity of the cemetery. They provide rest rooms, a place for mourners to meet, and just might make a cemetery visit less traumatic for some.

To read the story, click here.

$2.3 Million in National Archives Grants for Historical Records Projects

Paula Stuart-Warren  National Archives  Leave a comment

I received this press release from the National Archives yesterday. The projects include some wonderful one that will aid family historians!

Washington, DC… Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero has awarded 44 grants totaling $2,283,079 in Federal funds for archives and publishing projects in 32 states, territories, and the District of Columbia.  The National Archives grants program is carried out through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).  A complete list of the new grants is online at www.archives.gov/nhprc/awards/awards-11-13.html

Publishing grants totaling $1.1 million went to nine publishing projects from the U.S. Colonial and Early National Period, including the papers of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, Dolley Madison, and John Jay.  Projects to record the Documentary History of the Ratification of the U.S. Constitution and the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress also received funding.

Grants totaling nearly $700,000 went for State and National Archives Partnership (SNAP) grants to enable 28 state historical records advisory boards to carry out their mission to support archival education and strengthen the nation’s archival network.

Digitizing Historical Records grants, totaling over $500,000, went to seven projects to digitize World War II Oral History files; the papers of Leo Szilard, the nuclear physicist; the papers of General Oliver Otis Howard,  Civil War general, Commissioner of the Freedman’s Bureau, and third president of Howard University; Historical Collective Bargaining Agreements from the 1880s through the 1980s; the Center for Jewish History’s American Soviet Jewry Movement collections; Early Connecticut manuscripts; and 19th century trademark files in the California Archives, including the original trademarks and specimens from Levi Strauss & Co. jeans, 19th century medicines and tonics, and the original trademark registered to Anheuser Busch for its Budweiser lager. 

The Archivist also announced that the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference has awarded its 2013 Herbert C. Finch Online Publication Award to the NHPRC for the development of Founders Online (founders.archives.gov), an innovative database of the papers of America’s Founders. The Finch Award was established to honor the memory of the former Assistant Director of Cornell University Libraries.

A family genealogical connection to Chicago’s Soldier Field

Paula Stuart-Warren  Chicago, Stuart  Leave a comment

One of my favorite lectures to present during seminars is “Your Anytime Library: Success in the Virtual Stacks.” It’s about finding digitized records, books, pamphlets, and periodicals while lounging in your own home. So much has been placed online that we get excited about it. The number of websites with such material is growing by the day as are the individual collections already online. Each time I present it, the handout needs to be extensively updated to keep up with all the changes. As I say in my preface to the lecture: “Peruse books at any hour without starting the car or breaking into the library? Add newspapers, documents, family trees, pension records, periodicals, and more to the accessible items and you might be housebound for days (months?).”

I periodically check these sites for my family surnames and localities to see if anything new has been added. Tonight I spent extra time on one specific person, my Great Granduncle James Edward Stuart (1842-1931). I have posted about him before. At times he seems to be everywhere online. He was a Brigadier General, served on active duty in three wars, and was Chief Inspector for the Postal Service in Chicago. I have stories about him that don’t appear online and I may not share them for a long time!

Tonight I found a connection that would have thrilled my late father. Ol’ Jim Stuart was part of the ceremony when Soldier Field in Chicago received its current name. Soldier Field is the home of the Chicago Bears. It seems particularly fitting to find this bit of history in a week when the Chicago Bears will be playing the Minnesota Vikings. Alas, they are playing here at the Metrodome and not at Soldier Field. On a future trip to Chicago, I just might take a tour of Soldier Field now that I have a connection and know more about its name.

I found this on Hathitrust.org and the digitized and searchable book is Chicago’s Great Century, 1833-1933, by Henry Justin Smith. (page 176, Chicago: Consolidated Publishers, 1933).

Appalachian research collection accepted at University of Kentucky

Paula Stuart-Warren  Appalachia, Kentucky  Leave a comment

National Public Radio station WUKY at the University of Kentucky is reporting that the papers of  “distinguished Appalachian history professor, Ron Eller who’s retiring from UK at the end of the academic year” have been accepted in the Special Collections Library.

Click here to read the story. I imagine it will be some time before the collection is open to researchers. In the meantime, I will just dream of the Kentucky gems I might find in his papers.

Local historical society blogs are gems

Paula Stuart-Warren  Blogs, Historical Societies  Leave a comment

Have you checked for blogs written by staff at the city and county historical societies in ancestral localities? You might find one for a place where you lived as a child. These cover a variety of topics including photos of people and places, overviews of research collections, local historical events, biographical notes on local families, historical sites, history of area buildings, cemeteries, churches, and  local disasters.

Recent FamilySearch Digital Updates

Paula Stuart-Warren  FamilySearch  Leave a comment

Every time I look at the digitized images on FamilySearch.org I find something new. A recent press release reported “FamilySearch has added more than 135 million indexed records and images from Brazil, Canada, England, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 1,227,603 indexed records from the new Canada Census, 1911, collection, the 949,214 indexed records and images from the Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965, collection, and the 132,330,416 indexed records from the United States Public Records Index .”

The updates also include material from England, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, and from Indiana and other states. Search these collections and more than 3.5 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org. I find a lot of current day connections via the Public Records Index.