Saturday, February 18, 2012

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Ancestral Name Roulette

It's Saturday Night again - time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1) What year was your paternal grandfather born?  Divide this number by 100 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an "ahnentafel"). Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the "roulette number."

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick a grandmother, or yourself, a parent, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!


Here's mine:  


1)  My paternal grandfather, Frederick Walton Seaver,  was born in 1876.  Divided by 100, that makes 18.76, rounded up to 19.


2)  Number 19 on my ancestral name list is Julia White (1848-1913), daughter of Henry and Amy (Oatley) White, who married Thomas Richmond in 1868.


3)  Three facts about Julia White;


*  She went by the name "Juliett" for some reason...the early records all say "Julia."  Was this an affectation after Romeo and Juliet?


*  One of her ancestors was Peregrine White (1620-1704), a 7th-great-grandfather and the first baby born in Plymouth Colony.  My grandmother said that Juliett was very proud of that.


*  Juliett (White) Richmond was a faithful communicant at St. Phillip's Episcopal Church in Putnam, Connecticut.  I have a newspaper clipping that mentions a Bible that honors her in the church (probably donated in 1914):



"The Women's Auxiliary (of St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Putnam CT) will meet with Mrs. George L. Padgett, 87 Fremont street, Thursday afternoon, April 16.


"On Easter morning was used for the first time the lecture Bible, given in memory of Juliett (White) Richmond, late wife of Thomas Richmond, Lay Chairman of the Executive Committee.  The book is according to the American Revised Version, the most accurate translation ever made into any language, and recently authorized for use in the Church.  It is bound in full leather, purple in color, with the inscription in gilt on the front cover.  Mrs. Richmond was a faithful communicant of St. Philip's, constant in attendance at services, and active in the work of the church."


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-ancestral.html


Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012

Surname Saturday - CHASE (England > Massachusetts)

It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week.  I am now up to number 365, who is Mary Chase (1695-1732), one of my 6th-great-grandparents. [Note: The 6th great-grandfathers have been covered in earlier posts] 

My ancestral line back through three generations of CHASE ancestors is:

1. Randall J. Seaver

2. Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty Virginia Carringer (1919-2002)

4. Frederick Walton Seaver (1876-1942)
5. Alma Bessie Richmond (1882-1962)

10. Thomas Richmond (1848-1917)
11. Julia White (1848-1913)

22. Henry Arnold White ((1824-1885)
23. Amy Frances Oatley (1826-before 1870)

44. Jonathan White (1806-1850)
45. Miranda Wade (1806-1850)


90.  Simon Wade (1767-1857)

91.  Phebe Horton (1772-????)


182.  Nathaniel Horton (1730-1819)
183.  Sarah Pray (1734-????)


364.  John Horton, born 21 March 1696 in Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States; died 10 January 1796 in Glocester, Providence, Rhode Island, United States.  He was the son of 728. John Horton and 729. Mehitable Garnsey.  He married  09 July 1719 in Swansea, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States.

365.  Mary Chase, born 15 January 1695 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States; died 09 March 1732 in Rehoboth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States.  

Children of John Horton and Mary Chase are:  Ruth Horton (1720-????); Mehitable Horton (1723-1806); Mary Horton (1725-????); John Horton (1728-1776); Nathaniel Horton (1730-1819).


730. Thomas Chase, born 25 July 1654 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States; died before 25 February 1734 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.    He married 22 November 1677 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.
751.  Rebecca Follansbee, born about 1658 in probably Portsmouth, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States; died 27 December 1711 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.  She was the daughter of 1502. Thomas Follansbee and 1503. Mary.

Children of Thomas Chase and Rebecca Follansbee are:  Thomas Chase (1680-1756); Jonathan Chase (1683-1756); James Chase (1685-1753); Aquila Chase (1688-1714); Ruth Chase (1691-1758); Mary Chase (1695-1732); Josiah Chase (1697-1723); Rebecca Chase (1700-1769); Nathan Chase (1702-1784); Judith Chase (1704-1747).


1260.  Aquila Chase, born about 1618 in England; died 27 December 1670 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.  He married before 1645 in Hampton, Rockingham, New Hampshire, United States.
1261.  Ann Wheeler, born before 13 May 1621 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England; died 21 April 1687 in Newbury, Essex, Massachusetts, United States.  She was the daughter of 2522. John Wheeler and 2523. Agnes Yeoman.

Children of Aquila Chase and Ann Wheeler are:  Sarah Chase (1645-1726); Anne Chase (1647-1690); Priscilla Chase (1649-1697); Mary Chase (1651-1725); Aquila Chase (1652-1720); Thomas Chase (1654-1734); John Chase (1655-1739); Elizabeth Chase (1657-1696); Ruth Chase (1660-1676); Daniel Chase (1661-1707); Moses Chase (1663-1743).


Information about these early Chase families was included in a number of recent and authoritative works:


1)  Dean Crawford Smith and Melinde Lutz Sanborn (editor), The Ancestry of Samuel Blanchard Ordway 1844-1916 (Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1990).


2)  John Carroll Chase and George Walter Chamberlain, Seven Generations of the Descendants of Aquila and Thomas Chase (Camden, Maine: Picton Press, 1993).


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/surname-saturday-chase-england.html


copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Follow-Up Friday - Some Interesting Reader Comments

For Follow-Up Friday, I'm delving into the comments left on recent blog posts over the past week that might have helpful hints from readers or asked for my comments:


1)  The post Answers to Questions from Ancestry.com on 10 February elicited some interesting comments:


*  Anonymous wrote:


"LOL!! Too Much! Like a Press Relations Coordinator has *real* answers!  His answer to the 'working with BetterGEDCOM group or the GEDCOM X Group' is misleading- if not an out and out lie!  Ancestry hasn't had *ANY* engagement with the BetterGEDCOM Goup whatsoever, periodic or otherwise."


My comment:  I think that Matt coordinated the responses with other Ancestry.com employees, so I doubt that Matt wrote these himself.   


*  Anonymous wrote (don't know if it's the same Anonymous or not!):


"Ance$try, like Micro$oft, is a company we love to hate. Unfortunately, interviews like this only reinforce the negative. A PR person is there to put a good spin on what the corp has already decided to do (or not to do, in this case. . .). As users, we are really told what they will do, when they will do it, and how it will be done. Our input is basically ignored, or else we would have CMS or ESM citations already---among other things."


My comment:  I wonder if Ancestry.com has a "source citation department?"  If so, why aren't they using an accepted genealogical source citation format like Evidence! Explained?  If not, will they ever do them to the EE standard, and will they ever "fix" all of the source citations currently on their databases that get put into Ancestry Member Trees and FTM 2012 Web Search results?  Another question to ask of them!


*  Tessa noted (relating to Geolover's 1930 census source citation question):


"Quick follow up Randy - not only did the citations change in the 1930 Census but they also dropped the reference to the enumeration district - making it a bit more difficult to find it for purposes of the 1940 census - if you only copy the citation and don't remember to get the ED yourself off the page - just another step. Wondering why?"


My comment:  To help understand what Tessa means, here is the source citation from ancestry.com for one of my ancestral families in the 1930 U.S. Census:


Source Citation: Year: 1930; Census Place: San Diego, San Diego, California; Roll: 192; Page: 1A


Image: 680.0; Family History Library Film: 2339927.




So there is no NARA  Microfilm Publication number (it was T626 for 1930) and no ED number (it was 37-116) from the sheet.

2)  The post California Death Index, 1905 to 1939 on FamilySearch! on 10 February had this comment from Leah:

"Just FYI, even when zoomed in all the way, the record layout is difficult to read. I used this:
http://www.vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ca/_vitals/ca___de930dat1.htm to decipher the different fields. CA County Codes are listed here:  http://www.vitalsearch-ca.com/gen/ca/_vitals/cacodes.htm#CO

My comment:  The VitalSearch-ca.com site is a subscription site.  Very helpful County Code link, thanks, Leah!

3)  In my post Jeffrey Bockman on the Future of Genealogy on 12 February, Anonymous commented on the idea of an interconnected family tree:

" The BIG BIG BIG problem with a unified world tree, as others pointed out in your previous post, is junk genealogy duplicated over and over and over clogging up the works.

"As a non-LDS volunteer at my local FHC, I currently have access to trees which will shortly be rolled out to the general public. But even the public, like LDS members, will be allowed to upload Gedcoms. That is simply horrible. The end result is never ending whack-a-mole, i.e trying to merge duplicate individuals.

"And merging duplicates is not necessarily easy. I have plenty of distant ancestors who are on multiple times with different vital dates and places and spouses. This forces one to spend orders of magnitude more time to merge, including having to contact those who uploaded junk genealogy trees with thousands of individuals they have name collected off the net, successively rolling it into one giant snowball of junk.

'Naturally the LDS church wishes to make the system easy for their members to use. But making them and the general public hand key in each individual after being forced to first check well for duplicates, is the only way to avoid this quagmire. The general authorities of the church however feel otherwise. Added to software problems that are clearly traceable to allowing programmers to drive too many specifications, and the it becomes too unwieldy for a serious genealogist to want to spend time on. I know I won't past minimal familiarization so that I can help patrons at the FHC."

My comment:  I think that any unified tree will be a challenge...but I also think that a wiki-like format has the best chance to work, as long as contributors participate in it.  

4)  In my post Are You Prepared to Research Without the SSDI? on 13 February, Judy G. Russell commented:

"FYI, The Social Security Administration is now blacking out parents' names on SS-5s for persons born less than 120 years ago. I have two on order now, expect them to be redacted and at this point plan to file an FOIA appeal to the agency on those. But before you spend tons of money, be aware of that issue."

My comment:  Thank you, Judy, for the FYI.  The Social Security website says:

"We will not disclose information about any person in our records who is under 120 years old, except in those cases where we have acceptable proof of death (e.g., death certificate, obituary, newspaper article, or police report). 

"Also, under our current policy, we do not release the parents’ names on an SS-5 application unless the parents' are proven deceased, have a birth date more than 120 years ago, or the number holder on the SS-5 is at least 100 years of age."


Does this mean that the requester has to send a death certificate, or other document, to the SSA as part of the request?  Is an entry in the SSDI not good enough?  does the last paragraph imply that if the SSN holder was born before 1912 that the parents names will not be redacted?  Is the "proof" of parents deaths the same as in the first paragraph?

5)  In my post My Software Wish List - A Historical Place Name Jurisdiction Catalog (HPJNC) on 14 February, there were a number of comments, including:

*  Banai Feldstein noted:

"There is also the JewishGen Gazetteer that has some of this.
http://www.jewishgen.org/communities/loctown.asp


"We have similar place name issues outside of the US too. ShtetlSeeker started for Eastern Europe and has expanded and been renamed. If there is a page for the town, then it lists the town names, district, province, and country by time periods, but it's very generalized about the time periods as many locations changed hands more times."

*  Dallan Quass noted:

" I'd like to see this as well. :-) WeRelate has the ability to store historical relationships like you mention ( I just added Suffolk as a historical county for Medfield: http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Place:Medfield%2C_Norfolk%2C_Massachusetts%2C_United_States ) but we have a long way to go to get to the level of detail that you're talking about. This would be a huge job, but I believe it would have a lot of value for the genealogy community.

"And I agree -- Eastern Europe (and Germany) have got to be the most difficult for tracking to changes to places over time."

*  Banai added:

" Have you seen Animap and Centennia? They sound like what you might be looking for, but I haven't used them yet. I just learned about Centennia, which covers Europe plus. "

*  testuser commented:

" Have you seen the "GOV: The Historic Gazeteer" for Germany and quite a bit of the rest of middle Europe?  The search form is here:  http://gov.genealogy.net/search

"More info (and a picture showing the area covered, about 355.000 entries in the database) can be found starting here:  http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/GOV.  Sadly, the wiki pages seem to be in German only.   A page for a place looks like this: http://gov.genealogy.net/item/show/DEVVAUKO04GR



"Of course it's still far from perfect, some areas and places have lots of details and hierarchies, others are pretty basic. But it is already a great resource, and will get better the more people know it and contribute."

*  Geolover commented:

"I wish for abandonment of the practice of truncating place-names endemic in the GEDCOM format. I want:

"1) as many fields as it takes to properly describe a place; this is necessary in much of Europe and Asia as well as the USA;

"2a) geopolitical descriptors: "Mannington, Mannington District, Marion County, West Virginia" as well as "Mannington District, Marion County, West Virginia" because the majority of people did not live in even small cities until the 1930s or so. Collapsing both of the above into "Mannington, Marion, West Virginia" incorrectly suggests that most of the people who lived in the Magisterial District actually lived in the village. The same goes for New England Towns, Beats, Judicial Districts, etc.

"2b) on the other hand, the genealogical service providers should quit adding 'city' when not part of an actual placename.
"3) The genealogical database providers need to ~look at~ the valuable existing place guides, such as genuki.org and (for Wales) http://homepage.ntlworld.com/geogdata/ngw/fulllist.htm



"4) The internet map service providers are quite inadequate regarding locating present geopolitical subdivisions. They are years away from dealing with historical transformations." 


My comments:  These are all very helpful comments about websites that currently have, or are trying to have, historical location jurisdiction tables.  I agree that this is a challenging task to do, but I think that the genealogical community has the resources and knowledge to do it if they can be mobilized and encouraged to do it.

My thanks to all of my readers for their comments on my blog posts.  


Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

Follow Friday - This Weekend's Radio Shows

There are two genealogy-related radio shows on Blog Talk Radio (www.blogtalkradio.com) this weekend.  They are:

1)  GeneaBloggers Radio Episode 55 -- DearMYRTLE hosts the show this week,  titled "
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor: 19th Century US Immigration."   This show is on:

Friday, February 17, 2012
*  9 pm-10:30 pm Eastern US
*  8-9:30 pm Central US
*  7-8:30 pm Mountain US
*  6-7:30 pm Pacific US
*  2 am London UK

*  1pm Saturday Sydney AUS  

The show guests are:
*    Marian Smith, Chief of the Historical Research Branch of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS); 
*  Audrey Collins, Blogger and Family Historian at The National Archives (UK)
*  Angela Walton-Raji, genealogist and host of the African Roots Podcast. 

You can read more information about the guests at 
"Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor: 19th Century US Immigration." 

Don’t forget that there is a chat room where all the “cool kids” hang out on Friday night! Sign in to BlogTalkRadio with your Facebook account or set up a free BlogTalkRadio account to join in the fun.

2)  FGS Radio - My Society, an Internet radio show on Blog Talk Radio presented by the Federation of Genealogical Societies.  This week's show is 
"Strategic Planning for Genealogy Societies."    It will be hosted by Drew Smith.  The show airs at:

Saturday, February 18, 2012
*  2-3 pm Eastern US
*  1-2 pm Central US
*  12-1 pm Mountain US
*  11 am-12pm Pacific US 


The special guests and features include:

*   
Kenyatta D. Berry, President of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG). Kenyatta will discuss APG’s recent strategic planning efforts and how similar efforts can benefit any and all genealogy societies.
*   In addition, we’ll be featuring FGS member society, Santa Barbara County Genealogical Society, in our weekly Society Spotlight feature. 


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. 

You can also listen to the archived shows on Blog Talk Radio by going to the two show sites:

*  Geneabloggers Radio:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/geneabloggers/

*  FGS Radio - MySociety: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mysociety/   



The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/follow-friday-this-weekends-radio-shows.html

Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

Review - "QuickSheet: The Historical Biographer's Guide to Finding People in Databases & Indexes"

The Genealogical Publishing Company in Baltimore has published another in its series of "QuickSheet" laminated research guides - this time for The Historical Biographer's Guide to Finding People in Databases & Indexes by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

This QuickSheet booklet has four laminated pages on one 11" x 17" paper (folded). It is designed to give the user the basic guidelines for genealogy research in the allotted space, and provide an overview of the facts a researcher needs to know in order to begin and proceed successfully with research in the subject.


The premise of this QuickSheet is that while databases and indexes are valuable tools for research, they can actually impede the research process. We all know that databases and indexes can shortcut the process of discovery, and many search engines offer wildcard and Boolean options, as well as phonetic indexing systems to help researchers contend with clerical carelessness and data-entry errors. But historical records involve vagaries that defy technical formulas. Databases and indexes then become obstacles that actually block discoveries. Enter Elizabeth Mills, who in this QuickSheet shows how to adopt pro-active strategies to overcome this problem and thus get the full benefit of databases and indexes.


The  QuickSheet: The Historical Biographer's Guide to Finding People in Databases & Indexes folder has these major subjects:

*  The Basic Premise
*  Pro-Active Strategies for using databases and indexes
*  Major Considerations - including Erratic spelling, Family names vs. surnames, Female name usage, Penmanship, Regional dialects, Translations and adaptations, Composition of finding aids, including Arrangement of entries and Selection criteria applied.
*  Common Anomalies and Errors - a table of record types with the typical problems encountered and examples.


This booklet is designed primarily for the historical biographer who is trying to use online or offline databases and indexes to find historical records to help reconstruct a person's life. The information included in this QuickSheet embraces the well-known Genealogical Proof Standard, and extends the user's knowledge by offering examples of the anomalies and errors that may occur when searching many different record types.

For someone like me that teaches and talks about genealogy a bit, the QuickSheet format is invaluable because I can pull it out and provide some guidance to my student or colleague interested in the subject.

The beauty of these QuickSheet folders is that they are very light and portable in a briefcase or laptop case. They are fixtures in my research case.

This four-page laminated booklet costs $8.95, plus postage and handling (4th Class Mail $5.50; FedEx Ground Service in the USA, $7.50). You can order it through the Genealogical  Store, or use the link for the 
QuickSheet: The Historical Biographer's Guide to Finding People in Databases & Indexes folder and click on the "Add to Cart" link. 


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/review-quicksheet-historical_17.html


Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

Disclosure: Genealogical.com contacted me recently and asked me to provide a review of this booklet. They mailed me a review copy for my personal use as remuneration for this review.

How the World Views Genealogists...

My CVGS colleague, Susi, sent along these links to pages that add Genealogists to the popular "How the world Views ..." meme::


*  How the World Views Ggenealogists:   http://www.owston.com/image/genealogists.jpg

*  How the World Views Genetic Genealogists:   
http://www.owston.com/image/genetic_genealogists.jpg



Good job by someone with time on their hands.  Thanks, Susi!


Another one (thanks to Tamura Jones for the link):  http://twitpic.com/8jyrf2

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/how-world-views-genealogists.html


Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012

Thursday, February 16, 2012

"Searching Ancestry.com Effectively" at South Orange County, California Genealogical Society on Saturday, 18 February

I am giving my "Searching Ancestry.com Effectively" presentation on Saturday, 18 February 2012 at the South Orange County, California Genealogical Society (SOCCGS) meeting in Mission Viejo, California.  The society business meeting starts at 10 a.m. and the presentation starts at 11 a.m.

The program description is:


Ancestry.com has many wonderful features--a lavish buffet where it is hard to choose what to use and
how to use it. Randy will discuss the effective use of such features as new or old search algorithms,
basic or advanced search forms, exact or ranked matches, full names or wild cards, specific or all
databases, restricted or whole collection, and site navigation.


Information about SOCCGS:

SOCCGS was founded in 1994 in Mission Viejo, Orange, California with the purpose to preserve and disseminate knowledge about, and to stimulate interest and provide instruction in genealogical research. Meetings are held the third Saturday of each month from 10 a.m. to noon at the LDS Church Building at 27978 Marguerite Parkway (Between Medical Center Drive and Hillcrest).


I hope that my readers in Orange County will attend this meeting.  Be sure to say hello to me at the meeting!


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/searching-ancestry-com-effectively-at-south.html


Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

Review - "QuickSheet: The Historical Biographer's Guide to Cluster Research (the FAN Principle)"

The Genealogical Publishing Company in Baltimore has published another in its series of "QuickSheet" laminated research guides - this time for The Historical Biographer's Guide to Cluster Research (the FAN Principle) by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

This QuickSheet booklet has four laminated pages on one 11" x 17" paper (folded). It is designed to give the user the basic guidelines for genealogy research in the allotted space, and provide an overview of the facts a researcher needs to know in order to begin and proceed successfully with research in the subject.

In this QuickSheet, Elizabeth Mills introduces us to the concept of “Cluster Research” based on the FAN principle, the idea being that to prove identity, origin, and parentage individuals must be studied in the context of their FAN club--Family, Associates, and Neighbors. 


The QuickSheet: The Historical Biographer's Guide to the Research Process folder has these major subjects:


*  The FAN Principle defined

*  The Starting Point - information about the target person and his/her FAN club
*  Major Problems and Work-Arounds - including Gaps in the evidentiary trail, Merged identities, Direct evidence vs. clues, Geo-historical frameworks, Legal contexts and Female identifications.
*  applying the Principle to Common Resources - including a list of record types that should be considered
*  The Problem-Solving Spiral - from objective to analysis to planning research to doing research to correlating information to assembling a proof argument.
*  Targeted Research Using the FAN Principle - starting with the target person, gradually expand the research to known relatives and in-laws, others of the same surname, associates and neighbors of the target person, and associates of the associates.


This booklet is designed primarily for the historical biographer who is trying to reconstruct a person's life by using a structured research process.  It provides a summary of the process of finding the identity, origin, and parentage of elusive ancestors using the FAN Principle (also known as "Cluster genealogy").  The information included in this QuickSheet embraces the well-known Genealogical Proof Standard, and extends the user's knowledge by offering ideas for attacking major research problems, using common resources, defining the research spiral and the idea of targeted research.  This FAN Principle is the usual method that professional genealogists use to resolve thorny research problems.

For someone like me that teaches and talks about genealogy a bit, the QuickSheet format is invaluable because I can pull it out and provide some guidance to my student or colleague interested in the subject.

The beauty of these "QuickSheet" folders is that they are very light and portable in a briefcase or laptop case. They are fixtures in my research case.

This four-page laminated booklet costs $8.95, plus postage and handling (4th Class Mail $5.50; FedEx Ground Service in the USA, $7.50). You can order it through the Genealogical  Store, or use the link for the 
QuickSheet: The Historical Biographer's Guide to the Cluster Research (the FAN Principle) and click on the "Add to Cart" link. 


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/review-quicksheet-historical_16.html


Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

Disclosure: Genealogical.com contacted me recently and asked me to provide a review of this booklet. They mailed me a review copy for my personal use as remuneration for this review.

Treasure Chest Thursday - World War II Draft Registration of Lyle L. Carringer

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - a time to reveal another gem in my treasure chest of family history. 


The treasure this week is the World War II Draft Registration form of my maternal grandfather, Lyle Lawrence Carringer (1891-1976).  




The transcription of this record is (handwritten information in italics):


REGISTRATION CARD -- (Men born on or after April 23, 1877 and on or before February 16, 1897)


SERIAL NUMBER:  U 3
1.  NAME (Print):  Lyle L. Carringer
ORDER NUMBER:
2.  PLACE OF RESIDENCE (Print):  2130 Fern St  San Diego, San Diego  Calif
3.  MAILING ADDRESS:  Same
4.  TELEPHONE: R3683
5.  AGE IN YEARS:  50  DATE OF BIRTH: Nov 2 1891
6.  PLACE OF BIRTH: San Diego Calif.
7.  NAME AND ADDRESS OF PERSON WHO WILL ALWAYS KNOW YOUR ADDRESS:  Mrs. Emily K. Carringer  2130 Fern St  San Diego Calif
8.  EMPLOYER'S NAME AND ADDRESS:  Marston & Co.  6th & C St  San Diego Calif.
9.  PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT OR BUSINESS:  6th & C Sts  San Diego  San Diego Calif.


I AFFIRM THAT I HAVE VERIFIED ABOVE ANSWERS AND THAT THEY ARE TRUE.
Lyle L. Carringer (Registrant's Signature)


There is not much new for me in this record, but the information in it provides primary information about his birth date, birth place, residence, employment, and telephone number at the time of his registration in 1942.  If a researcher does not have these bits of information for a relative, this record may provide it (not unlike the world War I Draft Registration cards).


This historical record collection is on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org.  On FamilySearch, there are records for these states - Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York Bronx, New York Kings, New York Manhattan, New York Queens, New York Staten Island, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.  Ancestry.com also has records from Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.  The records for Arkansas, California, Indiana, New York, and Ohio are incomplete.  The records for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee were destroyed and are not available.


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/treasure-chest-thursday-world-war-ii.html


Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

1940 U.S. Census "I'm In It" Video

A short 1940 United States Census video is on the FamilySearch YouTube site here.



The theme is "I'm In It."

I'm not in it...but my parents, all four of my grandparents, and three of my great-grandparents are "in it."

Are your folks "in it?"

Enjoy!

My thanks to FamilySearch for making it available to us.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/02/1940-us-census-im-in-it-video.html

Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.

City Directories Added on Ancestry.com

I complained about the San Diego city directory collection on Ancestry.com two years ago in 

Using Ancestry.com's City Directory Collection.  It was difficult to navigate and the directories were not always in files for specific years.


While I was at RootsTech 2012, I spoke to Tony Macklin of Ancestry.com and he showed me how they are improving the City Directories collection.  I was impressed that they have really improved the search experience, and it appears that they have added additional volumes to the collection.

The current collection is called "U.S. City Directories (Beta)."  Why is it called a "Beta" collection?  The answer is on the collection page:

"This collection was created using a new OCR indexing method that improves searching and results. We believe that this version of the U.S. City Directories database is substantially better than the collection that has been available on Ancestry for several years under the same name. Over the upcoming months, we will be adding more titles from the old database to this collection until it is complete. At that point we will remove the old collection and the “Beta” tag on this one.
"Because this collection uses OCR technology, we encourage you to correct any errors you find in the data by going to the image and editing the name in the correction panel at the bottom of the page."
The home page for the  "U.S. City Directories (Beta)." collection looks like this:


In the right column is the Browse area.  I clicked on "State" and there were listings for California, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.  For each state, there are listings for the cities covered.  Once the user has selected the city of interest, the user can click on the "Year" down arrow and see the directory years available.  


I wanted to see what listings they had for my Carringer family in San Diego, so I decided to Search instead of Browse the collection.  I entered "carringer" in the last name field above, chose "San Diego County, California" from the "Lived In" dropdown menu, and made sure all settings were "Exact."  I clicked on the "Search" button:



There were 97 entries in the results list, dating from 1897.  I clicked on the entry for "David J. Carringer" in 1901 and saw the record summary page:



David J. Carringer resided at Horton and Ella in San Diego, and was a "rancher" according to the indexed information.


I clicked on the "View original image" link and saw the page image for David J. Carringer:



There are three Carringers listed on the right-hand page in this image - David J. Carringer, but also H. A. Carringer, a millman at Russ L. & M. Co., owning a home at 30th and Watkins; and also Harvey E. Carringer, a photogr., residing at Horton and Ella.  


From this screen, I can also navigate to browse a directory for another year by clicking on the "San Diego" link in the line above the green menu bar.  I can then see the years available for San Diego:



The years currently available for San Diego are:  1897, 1899, 1901, 1903 to 1943, 1947, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1955 to 1960, 1975, and 1977.  This is many more years than were available two years ago, and they are all in files by year, which makes it easier to browse within a given year.
One of the neat features of the Browse feature is the city information and maps that may be on the front pages of the directories.  In the 1901 San Diego City Directory, the street names are defined based on certain baseline streets.  The screen below shows the information for the street names in the area where the Carringers lived:

From this page, I learned that:
"East of the City Park and north of A Street, the east and west streets are: Harvard, Dartmouth, Amherst, Seaman, Choate, Van Ness, North, Watkins, Horton, Biddle, Union, Tufts, and Oberlin.
"The north and south streets are:  Park, Bay, Cliff, Dale, Ella, Fern, Grove, Hyde and Ida."
I knew before that the Henry Carringer family resided at 30th and Hawthorn Streets later in the 20th century (which was Horton and Watkins in 1901) and that the David J. Carringer residence was at 30th and Ivy Streets (Horton and Ella in the 1901 directory).  Some of the names listed in 1901 are still used today - namely Dale, Fern and Grove Streets (which are currently in between 29th (Cliff), 30th (Horton), 31st, and 32nd Streets respectively). I would love to see a map of this area from this time frame!
I appreciate that Ancestry.com has improved the coverage of city directories for the six states provided to date, and has significantly improved the OCR search results for the collection.  In the case of San Diego, they have provided a broad range of the available city directories online - not all are here, but almost all between 18978 and 1960 are provided.  This will enable San Diego area researchers, and distant researchers too, to do online research in these important resources rather than have to find a collection at a repository.
Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2012.