Neat video about the National Archives preservation work

Paula Stuart-Warren  National Archives  Leave a comment

One of today’s press releases from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration tells about a short video that takes us behind the scenes at NARA.

March 21, 2012

New National Archives Video Short Peeks Inside Archives State-of-the-Art Preservation Lab
Washington, DC… The National Archives today is releasing its latest Inside the Vaults video short, Boxing our Treasures, which takes viewers inside the National Archives preservation lab to see how archival treasures are lovingly and carefully housed in custom-made encasements. The three-minute video is part of the ongoing “Inside the Vaults” series and can be viewed on the National Archives YouTube channel:  http://tiny.cc/BoxesA2.

Every researcher should watch this. It’s now one of my favorites in the NARA videos. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbnanuMhErU&feature=relmfu.

1940 Census St. Paul, Minnesota Focus for me.

Paula Stuart-Warren  census  Leave a comment

I won’t be on the 1940 U.S. census when it is released on April 2d but both my parents will be on there. My dad will be among the workforce in St. Paul and my mother will be in the 8th grade at St. James grade school in St. Paul. The picture above is her 8th grade class. She is the girl with the longer hair and dress with jacket standing to the left of the George Washington picture. My high school Latin teacher is in the photo, too. The names of the students are listed on the reverse of the photo.

All four of my grandparents (Stuart & Hanley) will be in St. Paul as will five of my great grandparents (Stuart, Carlsen, Hanley, and Cook). Two of my other three great grandparents were on the 1930 census but died in 1932 and 1937. They died in St. Paul and one had died in 1905 in Winona, Minnesota. None of my great great grandparents are on the 1920, 1930, or 1940 censuses.

How many ancestors do you have alive then and who should be on the 1940 census? I look forward to all 11 of mine.

NGS Conference early-bird deadline is tomorrow!

Paula Stuart-Warren  National Genealogical Society, NGS  Leave a comment

I am registered. Are you? It’s time to register for the 2012 NGS Family History Conference if you want to save some money! The deadline for the early-bird price is March 20. That is tomorrow, Tuesday. A

fter that, the cost for NGS members will increase from $175 to $210 for all four days. For non-NGS members, the  cost will increase from $210 to $245. If you wish to purchase a paper copy of the syllabus, that must be done no later than March 20th. You will still receive the syllabus on flash drive even if you order a print syllabus. After that date, only the flash drive syllabus will be available.

If you plan to sign up for a luncheon or other meal event, that has a deadline of April 24.

To register for the May 9-12 conference which will be held in Cincinnati, visit www.ngsgenealogy.org

2 weeks/3 weeks: A Genealogist’s and Fan’s Delight

Paula Stuart-Warren  Baseball, census  1 Comment

I am looking forward to April. April 2 and April 9 to be exact. Two and three weeks from today.

April 2d
This is the day the 1940 U.S. decennial census is open for research. Not only does it open on Monday, April 2d, but it will be online and free. I mentioned this earlier but now that it’s just two weeks away I am getting more excited. Was my maternal grandfather in the U.S. or was he in another country? Was his brother in jail? Was my father-in-law in New Mexico, Montana, Minnesota, or where? For more info on the census and the website to view it, check the National Archives website. I signed up to be a volunteer indexer and I hope that all my readers will join me in this. How quickly can we accomplish this task and how accurately? Sign up here. This project is sponsored by FamilySearch, brightsolid, and Archives.com.

Click here for a detailed listing of the questions asked on this census and for special explanatory notes. I am looking forward to seeing how many children each of my grandmothers had given birth to but it won’t include
any stillbirths. I want to see the notes that tell where my relatives were living in 1935. Another neat detail is that I will be able to see their 1939 income and compare it to others in the area.

I am checking city directories, vital records, my own files, and other material to determine the 1939-1941 addresses for my family. The 1941 city directory information was likely collected in 1940 and that might be where they lived when the census was taken in 1940. I have some family members who did not own property and moved a lot. Next I will be determining in which Enumeration District they likely resided. Steve Morse’s website will be a great help in that.

April 9th
Once I calm down from viewing various parts of the 1940 census, this will be my next important date! This is the 2012 home opener for the Minnesota Twins and I will be in the stands. The L.A. Angels will be in town. Baseball means spring is truly here. Just hope I don’t have to wear a winter jacket! Once in a while I need to drag myself away from the computer other than time spent with my kids and grandkids.

Current Plat Book for St. Louis County, Minnesota

Paula Stuart-Warren  Maps, Minnesota  Leave a comment

The 2012 editions of the St. Louis County Minnesota Land Atlas and Plat Books are now available. This county is in Northeastern Minnesota and runs north to the Canadian border. Duluth, Hibbing, Hermantown, Chisholm, Ely, Eveleth, and the famous Embarass are some of the cities in this beautiful county. It also includes parts of Superior National Forest, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, and Voyageurs National Park. The southeast part of the county borders Lake Superior.

Because of the vast land that this county covers, there are two parts, one for the northern half and another for the southern half. The books show detailed land ownership and property size, along with roads, lakes, section boundaries, and other reference data.

For purchase details in today’s Duluth News-Tribune click here. Or visit the county website here.

Spell it out. Pls. Thx.

Paula Stuart-Warren  Abbreviations, Writing  6 Comments

While working on some family history research today while writing an article I was frustrated by abbreviations that I find online and in books. So, here comes my soapbox for the day. Please spell out the words. Isn’t your family history important enough to do that? If someone is looking for ancestors in a specific state but your abbreviation makes them think it’s the wrong state, you may have just missed out on meeting the person who has the family bible.

  • NE is the postal abbreviation for Nebraska, not Nevada 
  • AK is the postal abbreviation for Alaska, not Arkansas
  • Do you mean city or county when you state “cty” and this does cause geographic angst.
  • Do you and whoever reads your material in the future know the difference between ms, mss, Miss? [In my world, mss is an abbreviation for manuscript; ms is the postal abbreviation for the state of Mississippi, not Massachusetts; and Miss is a designation for a a non-married female]
  • In the rest of my world, b mean born, not baptized. Bap could mean baptized or the person is a Baptist.
  • Did you mean buried when you said b 8 May 1901? Or did that mean born? Heck, I think those are very different things. 
  • Does bp mean birthplace, baptized, or that an ancestor owned stock in a certain fuel company?
  • Does an M or m mean married, male or maybe mad at you?
  • b by MD? Born by Maryland? A doctor was at the birth? Is MD an abbreviation for someone’s name such as Mary Dill, Marvin Dougherty? 
  • Is Margt an abbreviation for Margaret, Margaretta, or Margaretha? 
  • What about M. Jos. Lecompte? Marie Josephine? Monsieur Joseph? 

All this said, if you are transcribing something you definitely need to do that the way something was written. In that case, what you see is what you get. You might add an interpretation in brackets if you have some other knowledge that makes this reliable. [Margaretta?].

You could put a key to abbreviations on your website or in your book or you could avoid abbreviations whenever possible. It’s only a few more keystrokes.

FYI, it’s not TMI to spell out words. BTW, it’s just helping each other. FWIW, remind me if I don’t explain an abbreviation. 1ce you do it, it’s easy.  2day is OK.

Yes, I do abbreviate words at time, but I am going to strive to be a better non-abbreviator in 2012. 2013? Who knows. ROTFL.

FamilySearch keeps growing by giant steps

Paula Stuart-Warren  Databases, FamilySearch  Leave a comment

Today’s press release from FamilySearch relates that “FamilySearch added 31 million new, free records online this past week for Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Hungary, Italy, Micronesia, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, and the U.S. What a bonus for those with California roots—over 24 million California birth records were added from 1905 to 1995. Search these and 2.5 billion other records now for free at FamilySearch.org.”

When you arrive at the main page, scroll down to “Browse by Location” and click on a country name. That opens up a long list of digitized records and many indexes that are free for anyone to use. You may need to sign in to view some. It doesn’t cost anything to become a registered user. While there you might consider signing up to help index some of the records that are images only!

I keep wondering about statistics of the FamilySearch website and I found what I needed on the bottom of this page: https://www.familysearch.org/news. It doesn’t say when the statistics were last updated, but they are still fascinating. The  date the FamilySearch website made its debut was 24 May 1999. I remember that well.

Number of names in searchable databases:  Over 1 billion
Number of hits since launch:  Over 15 billion
Number of visitors since launch:  Over 150 million
Number of pages viewed since launch:  Over 5 billion
Number of hits per day:  Over 10 million
Number of visitors per day:  Over 50,000
Number of pages viewed per day:  Over 1 million
Number of registered users:  Over 1 million

FGS Radio March 3d: Technology & Marketing

Paula Stuart-Warren  Federation of Genealogical Societies, FGS, FGS Radio  Leave a comment

Join us for the next episode of FGS Radio – My Society, an Internet radio show on Blog talk Radio presented by the Federation of Genealogical Societies. The Saturday, March 3d show is “Technology & Marketing Workshop for Genealogy Societies.”

This week’s host is Thomas MacEntee and he will answer your questions about the latest in technology and marketing for your genealogy society. Call in your questions during the show at  +1 (619) 638-8565 or email
your questions ahead of time to [email protected] or join in the helpful online chat room during the show. Afterwards, there’ll be a list of resources discussed during the show on the FGS Voice website (http://voice.fgs.org).

The Delaware Genealogical Society, an FGS Member Society, is the featured organization in the weekly Society Spotlight.

Tune in to FGS Radio – My Society each week to learn more about genealogy societies and join in a discussion of the issues impacting the genealogical community.

Click this link to set a reminder or to tune in at 2:00 EST, 1:00 CST, Noon MST, and 11:00 PST. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mysociety/2012/03/03/technology-marketing-workshop-for-genealogy-societies 

Last post for Black History Month

Paula Stuart-Warren  African American, Newspaper Indexes, Newspapers  Leave a comment

By chance this morning I came across a wonderful Minnesota Black Newspaper Index. It was compiled in 2002 by Brendan Henehan. He wrote: “This is an informal index of newspapers that I have compiled over the past several years. It is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of topics. I have looked at each of the newspapers listed in the Newspaper Key of this index, quickly scanning them for topics of interest to me. You’ll notice particular passions of mine: baseball, media and the law. Yet I have tried to be general in my interests as well. Each of the papers listed in the key are available at the Minnesota Historical Society except for the New York Age, which is available at the University of Minnesota’s Wilson Library.”

He indexed 15 newspaper titles and the index is on the Minnesota Historical Society’s website. The index includes a key to the newspaper titles that are abbreviated in the index.

I found several items I want to check based on my own research and lecture interests:

Adams, J. Q.: Founder of St. Paul Afro-American League, AP 11-9-1889 p1 c2
Advertisement:  Wanted: 10 good colored families for N. Dakota TCG 1-17-1920 p1 c3
WPA: Transient camp in Mendota has 108 Black men MSP 3-6-1936 p1 c6
WP:A Twin Cities survey of Blacks TCH 4-4-1936 p1 c5
Bundrant, J. W:. Forms Black World War I unit TCS 4-14-1917 p2 c2
Carey, Talmadge: To wed Theresa Ray 8-8 at St. Peter Claver MSP 8-10-1945 p7 c3
Carey, Talmadge: Photo of wedding to Theresa Ray MSP 8-24-1945 p3 c3
Carter, Charles: Former slave dies, came to Mpls in 1883 TCL 8-24-1940 p2 c5
Goins, Homer Former St. Paul officer dies at 42 TCH 8-27-1932 p4 c1
Goins, Homer Obituary of former St. Paul police officer TCH 9-3-1932 p1 c2

And that’s just the beginning of the articles that interest me!

University of Iowa yearbooks now online

Paula Stuart-Warren  Iowa, Yearbooks  Leave a comment

Do you have an ancestor who attended the University of Iowa? The Iowa City institution has recently completed a project to digitize the Hawkeye yearbooks from 1892-1992. One hundred year’s worth of great information for genealogists. Access this great resource here: http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/yearbooks. The website warns that the year book was a project of the junior class and reflects the year of graduation, not the year of publication. Confusing? Yes.

This is part of the greater Iowa Digital Library project.