Century Farms in Minnesota

Paula Stuart-Warren  Century Farms  1 Comment

The Century Farms program in Minnesota began 35 years ago in 1976 and a list of them is now online. Depending upon which website or news article you look at, it’s of 8,000-9,000 farms that have been recognized as a Century Farm since the program began.The application forms through the 2009 designees are at the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul.

A farm must meet three requirements to be designated a Century Farm and complete the application:

  • be at least 100 years old according to authentic land records [Yep, the ones genealogists love to use such as deeds, land patent, abstract of title.]
  • have been in continuous family ownership for at least 100 years (continuous residence on the farm is not required). [Family means cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, grandchildren.]
  • the size must be at least 50 acres.

The Sesquicentennial Farms program honors families that have “owned their farms for at least 150 years, are at least 50 acres in size and are currently involved in agricultural production.” This program began in 2009.

Back in December of 2009, I blogged more about Century Farms, website, and publications. Click here to read that post.

Click here to see the Farm Bureau’s lists of Century and Sesquicentennial farms in Minnesota. A search may be done by name or county.

Only 3 more days to save $50.00 on FGS Genealogy Conference

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

If you still haven’t registered for the FGS genealogy conference, do it now! Why? 11:59 Friday evening, July 1st, is the end of the discount period. That means your online registration must be completed by 11:59 p.m. (your computer time) or a regular mail registration must be postmarked no later than that time.

Click here to see the full details. 

    The FGS registration team for the 2011 conference welcomes your registration after July 1st, but they want to make sure you know about the discounted registration opportunity.

    Even the St. Paul police need genealogists

    Paula Stuart-Warren  Ancestry.com, Cemeteries, Minnesoa Historical Society  1 Comment


    On Wednesday evening I saw an article at Twincities.com that told of a tombstone being found in St. Paul and that the police had been unable to determine where it belonged. It read “Marie Olsen 1879-1932.” The article stated police had done a search of birth and death indexes but had not found her. I called the phone number that was in the article and left a comment that I had found at least two possibilities for this Marie doing some online searches.

    Additionally, I wonder what birth index they checked? The statewide Minnesota birth indexes at Ancestry.com and the Minnesota Historical Society’s website do not include 1879 era births. If she was born in Minnesota, there might be a city, township, or county level birth record. However, most births in that time period were not registered. Marie may not have been born in St. Paul or even in Minnesota and a death record might provide that clue as would censuses. 

    I checked the Minnesota death indexes at Ancestry.com and on the Minnesota Historical Society’s (MHS) website. One possibility at Ancestry.com was a woman listed “Marie Andrew Olsen” who died in Ramsey County on November 21, 1932. Then I found a “Mrs. Marie Andrew Olsen” on the MHS website with a death date of November 21, 1932 in Ramsey County.

    My next check was the 1930 census at Ancestry.com using the name Marie Olsen, born 1879 and with a spouse Andrew and living in Minnesota. I didn’t hit pay dirt this way so searched for a Mar* Olsen, born 1879, husband Andrew, living in Minnesota. I tried several different search strategies but didn’t spend much time on it as I have some work deadlines to tackle.

    The online newspaper article was upated at 11:17 P.M on Wednesday and this was added: (yes, it really did say ancestory instead of ancestry). 

    “A Pioneer Press search of ancestory.com Wednesday found a woman named Marie Andrew Olsen died in Ramsey County on Nov. 21, 1932. It could not be determined where she was buried. In addition, a city directory showed that in 1931, Andrew A. Olsen, a carpenter, lived with his wife on Bradley Street.” 

    Next steps? Just several ways to continue the search:

    • Visit the Minnesota Historical Society and check city directories to see if a wife is listed in 1931 and what her name is.
    • Then check the next few years of directories to see if this Andrew no longer has a wife if the wife had been listed as Marie or Mary.
    • While at MHS obtain a copy of the death record for just 35 cents to see if the cemetery is listed.
    • At MHS also check the St. Paul Pioneer Press and St. Paul Dispatch on microfilm for an obituary or death notice for Marie that will hopefully list survivors.
    • Bring those survivors forward in the city directories and other records to maybe find living descendants.
    • If that didn’t yield some people to contact, I would also check at the Ramsey County Courthouse to see if a probate was filed for either Marie or Andrew.   

    Blogtalk Radio this Saturday features Paula Stuart-Warren and Josh Taylor

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

    As some of you may know, I came on board in January as co-chair of the Federation of Genealogical Societies 2011 Conference that is being held September 7-10 in Springfield, Illinois. This Saturday you have a chance to listen to me and my co-chair, Josh Taylor, on FGS “My Society” talk radio.

    It’s as simple as booting up your computer and listening to the show Saturday, June 18th. It’s on at 2:00 p.m. EDT, 1:00 p.m. CDT, Noon MDT, and 11:00 a.m. PDT. The show is one hour long and once you are logged on to the blogtalk radio site you can also participate in the Chat Room, make comments, and ask questions. That’s also the place where you’ll find links to online information that we talk about. We also welcome your input on the importance of attending these FGS Conferences.

    Josh will be talking from the East coast and I will be at home in the Midwest. The full highlights will be published on the FGS Conference News Blog and on FGS’ Facebook page tomorrow. Among the things to be covered will be what to expect if you are coming to an FGS conference for the first time, one speaker will be featured, some not yet publicized door prizes will be announced, and we will talk about special new features of this year’s conference. One of the FGS Member Societies will also be featured.

    Mark it on your calendars, visit the FGS website. and click on the blogtalk radio detail. Our fellow FGS board member and show host, Thomas MacEntee, has posted an easy to follow set of directions there so that you may join us on Saturday.

    Sentimental Sunday: Thinking about on-site family history searches

    Paula Stuart-Warren  Family, Research, Research trips  Leave a comment

    I love to sit at my computer checking Ancestry.com, Facebook, NewspaperArchives, American Ancestors and a bunch of other websites. Today I was thinking about some other research ventures that involved on-site researching. I find it exhilarating to touch original records, get my fingers dirty paging through an old volume of court records, view an original will, or whatever the sought after record might be.

    City directories at the St. Paul Public Library: discovering other people with the same surname (Cook) as my maiden grandaunts living at the same address in St. Paul. I had never heard their father or brother’s names before.

    Civil court records at the county courthouse: finding my father’s divorce papers from his first wife. Yes, she did run off while he was overseas during WWII. There were no children. 

    Correspondence with a distant cousin: finding out that our mutual ancestral surname was not Dow and was not English or Irish, but was Daoust and French-Canadian.

    Family History Library in Salt Lake City: reading deeds from Arkansas on microfilm and finally connecting some Warren relatives of my father-in-law’s. 

    Genealogical society meeting: shared something about a 1st cousin twice removed and a fellow attendee ended up giving me a box full of clippings and stories about MY cousin who had lived in the same town with her aunt.

    Newspapers at the Minnesota Historical Society: finding the 50th wedding anniversary story about Nils Christian Carlsen and Betsy Peterson, a set of my maternal great grandparents.

    Newspaper clipping file at the St. Paul Public Library: finding the clippings about my mother-in-law’s cousin Eddie Green that told us he was an associate of John Dillinger’s.

    File at the public library in Clarksville, Arkansas: seeing the names of other people also researching my father-in-law’s family.

    Civil war pension reading at the National Archives in Washington, DC: viewing the complete pension files of ancestors and siblings. 

    Area Research Center in Wisconsin: seeing the signature of my own great grandfather in the papers of the St. Andrew Society.

    Cemeteries in Wisconsin: seeing the stones for my German ancestors in Fort Atkinson and Watertown.

    Illinois adoptions: more access soon

    Paula Stuart-Warren  Adoption, Illinois  Leave a comment

    “Illinois Department of Public Health officials are bracing for a flood of requests in November when a new law will allow thousands of adult adoptees to obtain their birth certificates. The law passed in Illinois last year could give some adoptees the names of their birth parents for the first time. Birth parents can remain anonymous and have their names redacted from any released birth certificate by filling out a form by Nov. 1.”

    This is from an article posted by the Chicago Tribune this evening.  A year ago I blogged about an earlier Tribune post that allowed those born before 1946 easier access to their original birth certificates. This new round takes place beginning this coming November and those born after 1946 will now get that same access unless the birth parents notified the state otherwise. The article states, “If biological parents fail to do so, the state will assume that the information is fair to release.”

    The article quotes Chicago radio personality Steve Cochran who is an adoptee himself who has made contact with his birth mother. At one time Steve was on radio station KDWB-FM here in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Wouldn’t this be a great type of legislation to spread from state to state? There are a few other states that allow some access to the original record.

    FGS genealogy conference blog update

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

    If you are thinking about registering for the 2011 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference for the Nations’ Genealogists you might want to look at all the recent news. The FGS Conference News Blog has been busy lately and many more exciting posts are on the way between now and early September.

    The conference takes place in the Land of Lincoln, Illinois — Springfield to be exact. The dates are September 7-10, 2011. When you look at the conference website, you will see that it’s less than 90 days till the conference begins!

    Wish for an index to the blog?
    Scroll way down and see the “Labels” section in the right hand column

    Want to look over the full conference list of sessions?
    Click here or here to see two different layouts of the sessions.

    FGS Conference News Blog  http://www.fgsconferenceblog.org/
    FGS Conference Website  http://fgs.org/2011conference/

    Disclosure — I am the editor of the FGS Conference News Blog and Co-Chair of the 2011 Conference.

    Cyndi’s List Launches a New Web Site

    Paula Stuart-Warren  Cyndi's List  Leave a comment

    In case you haven’t heard the great news! Cyndi Ingle Howells has done a major upgrade of Cyndislist.com to celebrate 15 years of service to the genealogical community. As I blogged earlier, she does this by herself and I bless her everytime I make use of a link from her site.

    EDGEWOOD, WASHINGTON (June 6, 2011) – Cyndi’s List is proud to announce a newly upgraded web site. With improved navigation, a custom database, and a custom administrative interface, the upgrade means that everything will be quicker and easier for both visitors and for the site’s owner and administrator, Cyndi Ingle Howells. The upgrade has been done by fusionSpan of Maryland. Their staff worked closely with Cyndi to make improvements and to implement new technology and new ideas designed specifically for Cyndi’s List and for the genealogical community.

    Part of the upgrade was made possible by donations from generous users of Cyndi’s List. To date, 20% of what was accomplished in the project was thanks to them. Donors have been listed on the web site.

    What’s New with the Upgrade:

    * The front page of the Cyndi’s List site has a rolling genealogy news feed and a link to The Cyndi’s List Daily, a daily dose of family history news as tagged in Twitter and Facebook. Start each day with the
    front page of Cyndi’s List and read the current genealogy news stories.

    * The links are now contained within a database and pages will be dynamically loaded on each visit.

    * The custom database and administration interface means that maintaining the link list will be much easier for Cyndi, which ultimately benefits the user with faster and more frequent updates.

    * The new interface means that the backlog of uncategorized links can be processed much faster. The goal is to get the entire backlog done by the end of this year.

    * New links will be reviewed, approved, and categorized within 24-72 hours after submission by visitors.

    * Updates made to Cyndi’s List will be immediately available to the public.

    * Previous to the upgrade, the “What’s New” page and mailing list post contained only new links submitted by visitors. The new “What’s New” page and e-mail will contain those, as well as links added to the site during the day by Cyndi, *and* existing links that have been updated throughout the site (new addresses, updated descriptions, etc.).

    * Across the site links have been labeled with graphics as “new” or “updated” when appropriate. With the upgrade these will now be text-based notations (easily spotted in green), which means that you can
    search on a page for “new” or “updated” with the Edit>Find function in your web browser.

    * Now sub-categories within a category heading each have their own page. And each page displays 20 links, with pagination in place to go to the next page and so on. This means there will be a lot less scrolling through long pages as in the past. Shorter pages mean faster load time in the browser as well.

    * Intuitive navigation at the top of the category makes it easy to find your way to previous category headings.

    * The number of links within each category/sub-category is displayed at the top right on each page.

    * Each of the U.S. counties (more than 3,100) now has a designated page of its own.

    * URLs (addresses) for the pages have changed so bookmarks, favorites, and links to Cyndi’s List will need to be updated.

    * Opportunities to shop, support, or donate are highlighted on each page.

    What Has Stayed the Same?

    * The category and sub-category names are all the same.

    * Related Categories are highlighted at the top right on each category.

    * The layout and format of the links are the same.

    * The policies, procedures, and disclaimers for maintaining the link list are the same.

    * The Cyndi’s List Mailing List will still distribute a daily What’s New e-mail and a daily Link Activity e-mail. However, the What’s New e-mail will contain information about all new and updated links.

    * You can still follow Cyndi’s List on Facebook and Twitter.

    * The purpose and intent of Cyndi’s List is to be a free jumping-off point for your daily genealogical research.

    * Cyndi’s List remains free for everyone to use just as it has for the past 15 years.

    * This is still just a one-woman show!

    “I started doing genealogy research in earnest back in 1998 and Cyndi’s List has always been one of my very favorite websites. It is on my ‘Go To’ list because I always find so much good information there.” –Kay F.

    “I’ve relied on your website as THE best resource on the ‘net to help with my research…” –Jan J.

    “Where can you get at all things genealogical in one fell swoop? Everyone knows it’s CyndisList.com. Every genealogist who uses the web MUST use Cyndi’s List.” –Polly K.

    About CyndisList.com
    CyndisList.com is the world’s largest one-woman family history resource, with more than 300,000 categorized links for genealogical research. For more than 15 years Cyndi’s List has helped hundreds of thousands of people with their online journey to trace their family history. The site averages 275,000 unique visitors and 5,000,000 page hits every month. Cyndi’s List has won numerous awards and consistently remains one of the top genealogical portals for beginners, intermediate, and veteran researchers.

    Found: Brooklyn, New York guardianship records (1830s-1852)

    Paula Stuart-Warren  Brooklyn, New York  Leave a comment

    Today I have pride in an extremely good deed done by a fellow genealogist. Sandra M. Hewlett (Sandi) returned some missing early Surrogate’s Court records to Brooklyn according to today’s Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The article states, “The record books, Brooklyn’s “Bonds of Guardianship, Vol. 1 through 4,” date back to 1830 and record the details of guardianships through 1852. The historic volumes were found last year at a used bookstore in Philadelphia by professional genealogist Sandra Hewlett.” Sandi is a Board-certified genealogist. 

    I am particularly pleased because there might be some clues in there related to my brother-in-law’s family. 

    Read the full article in the Brooklyn Eagle here.