Awesome Library of Congress Documentary

Paula Stuart-Warren  Library of Congress  1 Comment

I really need to get back to my client work this morning, but something else has captured my interest. It’s a 91 minute documentary about the Library of Congress by C-SPAN. I assume it must have been broadcast on C-SPAN but I have missed it.

“The Library of Congress, is a behind-the-scenes look at the national repository, providing the history of the institution, a tour of its iconic Jefferson Building, and glimpses of some of the library’s rare book, photo, and map collections. The film also featured some of the presidential papers housed at the Library of Congress, ranging from George Washington through Calvin Coolidge. Viewers learned how the library uses technology to preserve its holdings and expand public access to them, as well as how technology is helping to uncover new information about some of the items in its collections.”

The images, the history (of the library and the country), the statistics, and all the rest are enlightening. It’s been a long time since I researched or visited the LOC and now I am itching to go back.

Is it worth your 91 minutes? I am not finished yet, but am enthralled by it. Click here to view it.

Minnesota Normal Schools publications

Paula Stuart-Warren  Minnesota Discovery Center, Schools  Leave a comment

That’s Normal School as in teacher’s colleges. Many such schools across the country had newsletters and that includes those in Minnesota. These provide great insight into the school, curriculum, faculty, students, alumni, and education in general. In Minnesota most of these became state universities. Some of these school publications had literary offerings, ads from local businesses, famous quotations, community information and other details. These are great research resources.

Those from two of the state normal schools have been digitized and are available online for free.

  • The Mankatonian: published monthly by students at the Mankato Normal School; 1891-1913 digitized.
     
  • Normalia: published by the St. Cloud Normal School; 1892 – 1904 digitized.

Both newspapers are searchable by keyword but don’t neglect to do some browsing page by page to get a feel for the time period.

These are part of Minnesota Reflections which has nearly 62,000 images and documents shared by more than 120 cultural heritage organizations across the state. This site offers a variety of resources on Minnesota’s history for researchers, educators, students and the public.” The main page lists recent additions and upcoming digital images. The photographs on this site are phenomenal and give great insight into the state’s history and include images of the schools, faculty, and students.

Be ready to spend some time on the websites browsing through the collections. I keep finding things I missed previously or maybe they were just added!

The image above is from The Mankatonian, Volume 2, Issue 2, October 1892.

FamilySearch updates

Paula Stuart-Warren  FamilySearch  Leave a comment

1.8 Million Records and Images Added to 23 U.S. Collections

Additions Made to Collections from Seven Other Countries
 

2 August 2011

Historic records from eight countries have been digitized and added to FamilySearch.org. In addition to 1.8 million new U.S. records, collections from seven other countries were added: Canada, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Mexico, Philippines, and Poland. There are many gems for curious minds, such as the updates to the South Dakota 1945 State Census, New York court records, Indiana marriage records, or how about the service affidavits of Utahans who served in the militia during the Indian Wars from 1909-1917. Begin searching now at FamilySearch.org.

New adoptees support service in Minnesota

Paula Stuart-Warren  Adoption  Leave a comment

The Minneapolis StarTribune carried a story today about adult adoptees and a new support service: “Adoptees Have Answers opened last year to offer services for and about adult adoptees, including support groups, public events and webinars.”

Quoting from the article: The group aims to support adoptees but also to promote a better understanding of what it’s like to be adopted. The hope is that parents, social workers, adoption professionals, therapists and lawmakers will be listening. “We believe there is a basic underlying situation, when a child and her original mother are separated, that has lifelong consequences,” said Kate Maloney, manager of Adoptees Have Answers. “We need to be really, really sensitive to those lifelong issues.”

Services and support aside, it’s still a struggle for adult adoptees to find out more about their birth families and it’s costly as the article alludes to. Costly to learn about themselves. Still this way in 2011. Sad.

Click here to read the full story.

Genealogy library electronic news

Paula Stuart-Warren  Allen County Public Library, Libraries, Mid-Continent Public Library, Newberry Library  Leave a comment

These are three examples of helpful electronic publications from libraries that have extensive genealogical research collections. I have researched in all three libraries and highly recommend them and their publications.

Sympathy Saturday: Johanna Walsh Hanley

Paula Stuart-Warren  Hanley, Walsh, Welch  Leave a comment

My maternal Great Grandmother Johanna Walsh/Welch Hanley was born on the beautiful Dingle peninsula in Ireland. She was born 12 June 1859 and her baptism on that same date is recorded in the parish of Ballyferriter. She arrived in the U.S. by September 1889 as on 3 September 1889 in Winona, Winona County, Minnesota, she married widower Michael Hanley. Michael and his first wife Margaret had six children who were left motherless when Margaret died on 14 March 1888 in Winona.

Michael and Johanna then had six children and I descend from their son Maurice Michael Hanley. Johanna raised a whole household of kids by herself after her husband died in 1905.

I never knew Johanna. She died 11 April 1937. The only story I ever heard about her was from my mother, Patricia Margaret Hanley Stuart, and it explained a lot about why my mother avoided funerals. As a child and as a teenager it was rare that I even heard of family funerals. I did go to a couple funerals and as I got older I wondered why we never went to them for other relatives and family friends. It took my getting bitten by the genealogy bug to learn why. My mom didn’t share a lot of family info with me, but she did tell a story about when her Grandmother Hanley died. My mom remembered being forced to go to the casket at age 10 and kiss her dead grandmother. It traumatized her and unfortunately she passed that on to her own children.

MN family digs grave for their own gravedigger father

Paula Stuart-Warren  Cemeteries, Minnesota  1 Comment

What a tribute to their deceased father.

“RICHMOND, Minn. — On Wednesday afternoon at Sts. Peter and Paul cemetery in Richmond, Harold Hemmesch’s family gathered to dig his grave.It wasn’t the first time Hemmesch’s children dug into the ground of the cemetery. Their father had been a gravedigger for 50 years, and they had all grown up helping him dig graves.”  Richmond is in the St. Cloud, Minnesota area in central Minnesota.

The other heartwarming part of this story is the wonderful care that Harold gave to this cemetery. Click here to read the full story on the website of the Twin Cities’ TV station, KARE11.

If you have St. Cloud area ancestry (Benton, Sherburne, and Stearns counties), you might be interested in the cemetery compilation of the St. Cloud Area Genealogists. It was very helpful in researching my brother-in-law’s ancestry.

Take the bus to FGS Springfield!

Paula Stuart-Warren  Conferences/Institutes, FGS, MGS, Minnesota Genealogical Society, Wisconsin State Genealogical Society  Leave a comment

If you live in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa or Illinois and are planning to attend the September 2011 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Springfield, Illinois, you need to know about two bus trips!

The Minnesota Genealogical Society and the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society are both sponsoring coach bus trips to Springfield. It’s more fun to travel as a group, make new friends, maybe take a nap, and save on gas!

The Minnesota route will go through Iowa and the Wisconsin route will go south from Wisconsin. 

It’s also a great way to talk with others as you plan which lectures to attend and on the way home you can all compare notes!

MGS trip: http://www.mngs.org/programs.htm#springfield

WSGS trip: http://wsgs.wetpaint.com/

Is that obituary totally factual?

Paula Stuart-Warren  Newspapers, Obituaries  1 Comment

How many obituaries have you read in recent years that had some sort of error? Sometimes you see the newspaper print a correction but that is rare and usually separate from obituaries or death/funeral notices. Any time such an announcement is prepared, several chances for errors loom. The same applies to all such notices in newspapers in any time period. I love the names, places, relationships, and other details but remember that these need to be verified.

  • Is the person compiling the notice in shock at the loss of a relative or friend? 
  • Did a family member give the information orally and someone at the newspaper or funeral home wrote up the notice?
  • Was the notice written by someone at the newspaper who did not consult with the family?
  • Maybe Aunt Sally only guessed at the places of residence of her sister’s children and grandchildren. 
  • Mispelling of names could be a product of almost anyone.
  • Typos are not purposely done but do happen. It might be the original typist or that newspaper typesetter.
  • Did the person compiling the notice double check the person’s birth date or year?
  • In the rush to get the notice published, was one of the children omitted?
  • Perhaps the deceased’s brother Samuel was incorrectly listed as an Uncle. 
  • A follow up story that lists who attended the funeral and from where may have errors in the names and places of residence.

Now if I could only find one of those full page length obituaries I see in older newspapers for a member of my own family. How can we get descendants of those families interested in family history research? They have gold mines of clues waiting for them. 

56 Days till the FGS Genealogy Conference begins!

Paula Stuart-Warren  Conferences/Institutes, Federation of Genealogical Societies, FGS  Leave a comment

You read that correctly. The Federation of Genealogical Societies 2011 Conference begins on September 7th in Springfield, Illinois. The local host, the Illinois State Genealogical Society is helping to pull out all the stops to make this a great educational, fun, prize winning, memorable, and all-around great event.

If you haven’t checked the FGS Conference News Blog in the last couple of weeks, you have missed almost 30 blog posts with conference news, insights, reminders, and tips. I am the editor of that blog and co-chair of the conference and the blog posts contain info from many of the conference staff.

At this point, registrants are coming from 46 states plus the District of Columbia. That includes Alaska and Hawaii. Then there are Canada, England, Israel, and Sweden represented among the registrants. 

Helpful websites:
FGS Conference News Blog: http://www.fgsconferenceblog.org/
FGS Conference Website: www.fgs.org/2011conference/
Illinois State Genealogical Society: www.ilgensoc.org