Isanti County Historical Society rises from the ashes

Paula Stuart-Warren  Historical Societies  Leave a comment

Back in 2011, I wrote about the arson destruction of the historical society building and contents in Isanti County, Minnesota. An article in yesterday’s Isanti County News tells the story of the rebuilding, the future, and the hopes for this building and society that is physically located in Cambridge, Minnesota

“Our main focus is now going to be a resource center for genealogy and family history. We want our focus to be on pictures and stories and information on Isanti County”

“Isanti County Historical Society Heritage Center is a place to not only conduct research and learn about our past and the people who made us what we are today, but also a place to create new memories.”

Read the balance of the informative and uplifting article here.

Visit the society’s website here.

Minnsota Historical Society adds Tuesday morning research hours

Paula Stuart-Warren  Minnesoa Historical Society  1 Comment

It’s official. The research hours at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul are being expanded to include Tuesday morning. Now the Tuesday hours will be 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. beginning this fall. Wednesday – Saturday hours remain 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Hours are also being expanded at several historic sites.

Other research changes are afoot at MHS, too. Reader and printer repair and cleaning, perhaps? More accessible outlets for plugging in computers in both rooms? Fingers crossed! I hate crawling around on the floor to plug in my computer when the row of accessible plugs is filled in the Hubbs Room.

Thank you, Minnesota Legislature and all who championed this change.

Read the full press release here.

State archives newsletters hold value for genealogists

Paula Stuart-Warren  Archives, Electronic newsletters, Newsletters  Leave a comment

Have you checked the newsletters produced by the state archives in your ancestral states? The content varies, but may include:

  • list of recent acquisitions
  • bios of staff members (may tell you which person is familiar with specific collections)
  • descriptions of collections
  • notes on state history
  • indexing projects
  • digitization projects

Both the current and past issue are valuable. Many are in paper format but some have older issues online. Some archives deliver their newsletters electronically today. 

These are some you might want to check:

Genealogy articles indexed in PERSI to be digitized?

Paula Stuart-Warren  Allen County Public Library, Conferences, Federation of Genealogical Societies, PERSI  Leave a comment

I love visiting the Genealogy Center at the main Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. My first visit there was in the early 1980s and I have been back there many times. One of the joys of researching there is accessing all those current, older and out-of-print genealogy and historical periodicals that are indexed in the Periodical Source Index (PERSI). This is not an every name index to all articles but a subject index.

For about a year I have known something was afoot about the future of this wonderful resource and now we know something about that. Today’s Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne) has a story about the history of PERSI and that all those periodicals may be coming to a computer screen near us! Even better, the plan is to link the index to the actual article.

As the online article states, the index covers about 12,000 periodicals, some of which are no longer published. All hold genealogy gold. “The library’s collection is so big, the index now contains about 2.5 million citations, and ACPL adds about 100,000 more a year.”

U.K. based brightsolid is behind this great project.

Read the full story here.

In the meantime, why not do some personal searching in all those periodicals while you attend this year’s fantastic genealogy conference in Fort Wayne. I am co-chair of this Federation of Genealogical Societies August 21-24 event. Learn more and register at https://www.fgsconference.org/

FamilySearch U.S. Immigration Project

Paula Stuart-Warren  FamilySearch, Immigration  Leave a comment

Have you checked out the latest indexing projects at FamilySearch? One of the neat ones is the U.S. Immigration project. Volunteer indexers are indexing U.S. passenger arrival lists and naturalization records.

“In June, the project reached a significant milestone of 50 million passenger ship and naturalization records indexed! Add that to the 25 million Ellis Island records indexed years ago—before FamilySearch indexing started—and you’ve got 75 MILLION free immigration and naturalization records ready (or nearly ready) to search to your heart’s content.”

Read the full FamilySearch blog post about it here.

Have you helped with FamilySearch indexing projects?

NARA Regional Fellowship research project winners

Paula Stuart-Warren  American Indian, National Archives, Native American  Leave a comment

he National Archives announced the recipients and research topics for the 2013 Regional Fellowship Program. The winners will research at specific National Archives locations. The topics include several that intrigue me due to the connection to American Indian research which is one of my specialties.

  • The Northern Cheyenne Homesteaders of Southeast Montana’s Tongue River and Otter Creek Valleys
  • Dislocated Removals, Institutions, and Community Lives in America History. This is about the Hiawatha Indian Asylum in Canton, South Dakota. I have worked in the records of this and of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, DC where Canton residents were sent when that institution closed.
  • Moving Towards the Mainstream: Native America, 1890-1940

The researchers will complete a research project for publication. They will also write a report about the research experience that the archives will publish.

Read the full press release on the NARA website.

Hennepin County, Minnesota new consolidated Records Center

Paula Stuart-Warren  Hennepin County, Minnesota  3 Comments

I love progress! The Hennepin County (Minnesota) government is finally announcing the consolidation of court cases. A plus is that records once stored offsite will be more readily available once the project is finished.

“The new Records Center allows citizens to look up records from various cases in one place, ranging from civil and conciliation to criminal, housing and probate/mental health. The center is located in the B Vault in the lower level of the Hennepin County Government Center, 300 S. 6th St., in Minneapolis.”
“Hennepin County is still in the process of digitizing the equivalent of 180 semitrailer truck loads of record accumulated over 130 years.”
Read the full StarTribune article here. 
Learn more about hours, access and pricing (gulp!) here. 
Don’t forget to check FamilySearch.org (FamilySearch catalog) and the Minnesota Historical Society catalog for some Hennepin County records.

FamilySearch adds 50.1+ million record images

Paula Stuart-Warren  FamilySearch  Leave a comment

From a press release just received from FamilySearch:

View the full announcement online at FamilySearch News and Press.

“July 3, 2013

FamilySearch Adds More Than 50.1 Million Images from Belgium, BillionGraves, Brazil, England, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States

FamilySearch has recently added more than 50.1 million images from Belgium, BillionGraves, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, England, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 10,242,324 images from the Belgium Civil Registration collections between 1582-1912, the 6,993,483 index records and images from the Spain Municipal Records collections between 1251-1966, and the 29,532,624 index records from the new United States, Public Records Index collection . See the table below for the full list of updates. Search these diverse collections and more than 3.5 billion other records for free at FamilySearch.org.”

Free Access to Irish Records on findmypast.com June 27-30

Paula Stuart-Warren  Databases, findmypast.com  Leave a comment

Have you investigated the offerings of findmypast.com? Here’s a chance to research part of that website for FREE. This is from a press release provided courtesy of findmypast.com.

“On June 30, 1922, the Public Records Office of Ireland, located at the historic Four Courts in Dublin,

The fire has had lasting effects – still felt today – as Irish family history requires a unique approach to research than other heritages. To commemorate this anniversary and encourage exploration of Irish genealogy, findmypast.com will offer its full collection of Irish Birth, Marriage and Death indexes free of charge from June 27 to June 30. Anyone searching for their Irish ancestors can access the full Irish record collection by registering for free at findmypast.com.

Despite a great loss of records in the historic fire, there are still many opportunities to discover Irish heritage, with countless fascinating stories to be found from the records that survived.”
caught fire during the Irish Civil War. Tragically a considerable amount of Irish records were destroyed.

The Harvey Girls and the railroads

Paula Stuart-Warren  National Archives, Railroads  3 Comments

In my lecture about finding railroad records that might relate to an ancestor, I discuss some of the railroad-connected jobs in which the workers were not directly employed by the railroads. I love to do this lecture and open the eyes of researchers eagerly looking for records, sharing tactics to take in “tracking” them down, and tell about the myriad of finding aids that are available. My handout for this lecture includes many websites.

One of the occupations I discuss is the Harvey Girls. You may have seen the 1940s movie with Judy Garland or read the book from that era. These women worked in the hotels and restaurants of Fred Harvey that served various stops along the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. Did you know about Lesley Poling-Kemps 1994 book, The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West?

My news feed today showed a link to an article about a new exhibit and a documentary film at the U.S. National Archives at Kansas City, Missouri.  “A documentary capturing first-person accounts of the famous Harvey Girls will premiere Friday at the National Archives in Kansas City in conjunction with an ongoing exhibit there. The free film, “The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound,” will be followed by a panel discussion by the film’s producers and other scholars.” Oh, do I wish I could be there in-person. The exhibit runs till next January 4th. I see a road trip in my future.

ad more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/19/4301648/harvey-house-documentary-premieres.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/06/19/4301648/harvey-house-documentary-premieres.html#storylink=cpy

To read the full articles in the online edition of the Kansas City Star, click here.