Monday, February 28, 2011

An interesting record - has anyone used it?

One of my students in my Beginning Computer Genealogy senior adult class today asked me if i'd seen the book about miscreant deeds o f women, abused wives and unfortunate children in the Family History Library Catalog.

I admitted that I had not, but was ecstatic that she was using the FHLC and had found something so obscure.  It sounded interesting, so I went looking for it.

It is in the "Pennsylvania, Philadelphia" section of the FHLC in the "Social life and customs" and the "History" subject.  Here is the record description:

Elopements and other miscreant deeds of women as advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette together with a few abused wives and unfortunate children
 
stmt. resp.:compiled by Judith Ann Meier
authors:Meier, Judith Ann Highley (Main Author)
Pennsylvania gazette (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), (Added Author)
format:Books/Monographs
language:English
publications:Norristown, Pennsylvania : J.A. Meier, c1986
physical:1 v. in various foliations
subject class:974.811 B3

Notes

Includes indexes.
Records cover 1730-1789.

It's on the shelf at the Family History Library.  Has anybody found a family member in this book? 

Are there works like this available in other large cities?  A book like this might be really useful for researchers dealing with large cities with a significant immigrant population, like Philadelphia was in the 18th century.

I looked for repositories for this work on http://worldcat.org/ and did not find any.  Apparently, the FHL is not on WorldCat!  I didn't know that, and am disappointed that it is not. 

3 comments:

Connie said...

Randy,

I'm not sure how you searched WorldCat, but it tells me there are 2 editions of this book (1986 and 1993) and it is available in several libraries around the country. Looks like the closest to you is probably the Escondido Public Library.

Connie said...

p.s.

Looking more closely, I see the same book is listed at least 5 times on Worldcat.

I tend to use only a couple of words from titles, or the author's name, when searching so if you used more restrictive search terms you may have pulled up fewer results. Using the search terms "miscreant women" (without the quotes) will also get you a couple of other titles that look interesting.

Andrea said...

Hi, Randy. I found it on Mar. 2, 2011 on Googlebooks by searching for the author (Judith Ann Meier). It's an article (or at least a healthy-sized sampling) in the The Pennsylvania genealogical magazine, Volume 41 By Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. Great reading. Hope you enjoy it, too.