Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - A Prolific Dad

Hey genea-funsters, it's Saturday Night! Time for more Genealogy Fun.

Your mission for Father's Day, if you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Determine who is one of the most prolific fathers in your genealogy database or in your ancestry. By prolific, I mean the one who fathered the most children.

2) Tell us about him in your own blog post, in comments to this blog post, or in comments on Facebook.

Here's mine:

I tried to find a way in Family Tree Maker 2010, Family Tree Maker 16, RootsMagic 4 and Legacy Family Tree 7 to do this in the software, but I could not.

One of the most prolific fathers in my ancestry is Zachariah Hildreth (1754-1828), who had 9 children by his first wife, Elizabeth Keyes (1759-1793) whom he married in 1777, and 8 more by his second wife, Abigail Hart (1775-1846) whom he married in 1794. The children by each wife were:

by Elizabeth Keyes: Aaron Hildreth (born 1778), Elizabeth Fletcher Hildreth, Hannah Hildreth, Zachariah Hildreth, Lucy Hildreth, Patty Hildreth, Fanny Hildreth, Nabby Hildreth, James Hildreth (born 1793).

By Abigail Hart: Abigail Hildreth (born 1795), James Hildreth, Joseph Hart Hildreth, Mary Hildreth, Jonathan Stowe Hildreth, Elizabeth Hildreth, John Hildreth, Levi Hildreth (born 1808)

Of course, not all 17 children lived to adulthood. Four of the children born to Elizabeth Keyes died in infancy or childhood, and 3 of those born to Abigail Hart died young.

The family story is that Abigail Hart was helping Elizabeth (Keyes) Fletcher care for all of her children when Elizabeth died after childbirth, and then stepped into the mother, and wife, role.

It looks like poor Abigail cut Zachariah off after child #8 was born in 1808. She was only 43, but he was 54. I wonder how many descendants Zachariah Hildreth has? Perhaps another SNGF topic sometime!

Happy Father's Day!!!

Surname Saturday - PLIMPTON (ENG > MA)

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It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week. I'm up to number 69, who is Mercy Plimpton (1772-1850), one of my 4th-great-grandparents.

My ancestral line back through nine generations of KNOWLTONs is:

1. Randall J. Seaver

2. Frederick W. Seaver (1911-1983)
3. Betty V. Carringer (1919-2002)

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

8. Frank W. Seaver (1852-1922)
9. Harriet Hildreth (1857-1920)

16. Isaac Seaver (1823-1901)
17. Lucretia Townsend Smith (1827-1884)

34. Alpheus B. Smith (1802-1840)
35. Elizabeth Horton Dill (1794-1869)

68. Aaron Smith , born 29 May 1765 in Walpole, Norfolk County, MA, and died 04 December 1841 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. He was the son of Moses Smith and Patience Hamant. He married 06 October 1795 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA.
69. Mercy Plimpton, born 09 September 1772 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA; died 13 April 1850 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA.

Children of Aaron Smith and Mercy Plimpton are: Susanna Smith, Patience Smith, Mary Plimpton Smith; Alpheus B. Smith; Lucy Smith; Elizabeth Smith; Nancy Smith; Aaron Smith.th; Patience Smith;

138. Amos Plimpton, born before 16 June 1735 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA; died 20 August 1808 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. He married 1756 in Norfolk County, MA.
139. Mary Guild, born 1735 in Walpole, Norfolk County, MA; died 20 March 1800 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. She was the daughter of 278. Nathaniel Guild and 279. Mary Boyden.

Children of Amos Plimpton and Mary Guild are: Molly Plimpton, Elizabeth Plimpton, John Plimpton, Amos Plimpton, Mercy Plimpton.

276. John Plimpton, born 18 August 1708 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA; died 08 May 1756 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. He married 03 May 1731 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA.
277. Abigail Fisher, born 10 September 1711 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA; died 19 February 1785 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. She was the daughter of 554. John Fisher and 555. Abigail Smith.

Children of John Plimpton and Abigail Fisher are: John Plimpton; Amos Plimpton; Olive Plimpton; Abner Plimpton; Unity Plimpton.

552. John Plimpton, born 17 March 1679/80 in Dedham, Norfolk County, MA; died 19 January 1729/30 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. He married 13 November 1707 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA.
553. Susanna Draper, born 01 August 1688 in Dedham, Norfolk County, MA. She was the daughter of 1106. John Draper and 1107. Abigail Mason.

Children of John Plimpton and Susanna Draper are: John Plimpton; James Plimpton; Daniel Plimpton; Elizabeth Plimpton.

1104. John Plimpton, born 16 June 1649 in Dedham, Norfolk County, MA; died 30 January 1703/04 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. He married 02 January 1677/78 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA.
1105. Elizabeth Fisher, born 06 February 1658/59 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA; died 13 May 1694 in Medfield, Norfolk County, MA. She was the daughter of 2210. John Fisher and 2211. Elizabeth Boylston.

Children of John Plimpton and Elizabeth Fisher are: John Plimpton; Henry Plimpton; Joseph Plimpton.

2208. John Plimpton, born 1620 in ENGLAND; died 19 September 1677 in Dedham, Norfolk County, MA. He married 13 March 1643/44 in Dedham, Norfolk County, MA.
2209. Jane Dammant, born 1626 in prob. Faversham, Kent, ENGLAND; died Aft. 1680 in Dedham, Norfolk County, MA. She was the daughter of 4418. Richard Dammant and 4419. Abigail.

Children of John Plimpton and Jane Dammant are: Hannah Plimpton; John Plimpton; Mary Plimpton; John Plimpton; Peter Plimpton; Joseph Plimpton; Mehitable Plimpton; Jonathan Plimpton; Eleazer Plimpton; Eleazer Plimpton; Lydia Plimpton; Jane Plimpton; Henry Plimpton;

4416. John Plumpton, born About 1579 in of Waterton, Lincolnshire, ENGLAND.

Child of John Plumpton is: John Plimpton.

There are five consecutive generations of John Plimptons on that ancestral name list of mine!

Are any of my readers descended from this Plimpton line? If so, tell me where you fit in.

Finding Nathaniel Wade's Wife's Name Online - Post 3

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In the first post of this series, Nathaniel Wade (1709-1754) married Ruth (who?) in 1731? I described my evidence and conclusions that the maiden name of Ruth was Hawkins rather than Hopkins, which appeared in Volume 3 of James Arnold's Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850. In the second post, Finding Nathaniel Wade's Wife's Name Online - Post 2, I went through trying to find online text and database information about the marriage.

In this post, I'm going to survey the online commercial database services for the marriage of Nathaniel Wade in the 21 volumes of James Arnold's Vital Records of Rhode Island.

My first thought was that the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) (www.NewEnglandAncestors.org) would have the database, and I was right. However, they have transcriptions of the entries, and not images. I put Nathaniel Wade in the search fields, then selected Vital Records, and then Vital Records of Rhode Island, and saw this screen:




The marriage of Nathaniel Wade and Ruth Hopkins is the fourth item on the list. If you click on the "More" link in the screen above you can see all of the entries on the specific page with the search result entry. You can also advance page by page in the book.

Next, I checked World Vital Records. I put Nathaniel Wade in the search fields, and selected the Vital Records of Rhode Island from the list, and then found the match for Nathaniel Wade. The specific page from the book was displayed as an image. I could go backwards or forwards in the book using the arrows next to the page number:




Next was Ancestry.com. I used the Card Catalog to find the Vital Records of Rhode Island by Arnold (it wasn't easy, I finally searched the site for "Vital Record of Rhode Island" - the database book title is not spelled correctly!), then searched for Nathaniel Wade (exact, including similar meanings and spelling). There were 12 matches - the screen below shows some of them:




None of the 12 matches were for the marriage record of Nathaniel Wade and Ruth Hopkins in Scituate, RI. I know it's there, because I've found it in the NEHGS and WVR sites! I clicked on the fourth one down (the children of Nathaniel and Ruth in Scituate) and then used the page number field to browse until I found the record on page 30 of the book:

I wonder why it didn't find this page in the search, because the type is very clear. Did they not index every name in the book? I put "Ruth Hopkins" in the search fields and got:

Two matches, and it did not find the marriage record for Ruth Hopkins and Nathaniel Wade. What's up with this? It appears that the ONLY way to find reliable information in this particular database is to browse the 21 volumes rather than search them. That works fine, but is pretty slow. Are these index and/or search problems only for this database? Or is it worse than that - and nobody knows which databases have complete indexes?

The database page for the "Vital Record of Rhode Island, 1636-1850" is here. There is a nice list of the volumes and their subject areas on the right hand panel, as shown in the screen below:

So Ancestry.com does have the page images, but the index doesn't find all instances of a name. Therefore, the index is pretty useless, at least for this particular database.

In summary, for James Arnold's 21 volume series on Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850:

* www.WorldVitalRecords.com has an accurate index and page images

* www.Ancestry.com has the book page images, but the index is useless.

* www.NewEnglandAncestors.org (NEHGS) has an accurate index and transcriptions, but no book page images.

Are there other online searchable databases for James Arnold's Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850 volumes? If so, please tell me!

The lesson learned here is that researchers need to beware of Ancestry.com book databases - this may not be the only one that has index problems.

Finding Nathaniel Wade's Wife's Name Online - Post 2

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In the post Nathaniel Wade (1709-1754) married Ruth (who?) in 1731? I described my evidence and conclusions that the maiden name of Ruth was Hawkins rather than Hopkins, which appeared in Volume 3 of James Arnold's Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850.

This work by James Arnold is a set of 21 volumes that encompasses many town records (but not all), some historical newspapers, and other Rhode Island resources. The full set of these red-covered books are on the shelves of many libraries across the country. I've used them many times at the San Diego Family History Center.

I wondered if they were online, so I Googled ["vital records of rhode island" arnold] and found that there are no volumes of this work on Google Books. At least some of them are on the Internet Archive. [When I try to access Internet Archive files, my Internet Explorer freezes up and I end up having to shut IE down. Anyone else have that problem?] There does not appear to be another free website with all of the book volumes online.

I am going to search for the marriage of Nathaniel Wade to Ruth in all of the sites mentioned below.

There is one free database site with information about Nathaniel Wade, but without online images, and without any reference to the Arnold volumes. That site is the LDS FamilySearch site.

The "classic" site at http://www.familysearch.org/ has entries for the marriage of Nathaniel Wade and Ruth Hopkins in the Pedigree Resource File (31 entries for Nathaniel Wade, 4 with Ruth Hopkins, 22 with Ruth Hawkins, 4 for Ruth Howkins, and 1 for Ruth without a surname). All of these records were submitted by LDS members after 1990 (if I recall correctly). Here is a screen shot for one of the entries:

In the LDS International Genealogical Index, there are 7 entries for the Nathaniel Wade born in 1709 (2 name Ruth Hawkins, 5 name Ruth Hopkins). All of these records were submitted by LDS members - I didn't find one with a source of the Scituate RI records. A screen shot from one of the entries with a microfilm number (it's for LDS sealings of the dead - poor Nathaniel, he's sealed to the wrong person):

The LDS Ancestral File has only one entry for Nathaniel Wade. The screen shot is below:

On this record, Nathaniel is listed as being married to Ruth Hopkins on 26 June 1731 in Providence and to Ruth Hawkins on 26 June 1731 with no town named. There were four submissions for Nathaniel Wade. The Ruth Hopkins information lists no parents for her and all six children. The Ruth Hawkins information lists her parents but no children.

This study points out the problems with the large mass of classic LDS FamilySearch records - there are many errors. But there are many researchers that got it right too! Perhaps the new Family Tree database will get it right and attach Ruth Hawkins as the wife of Nathaniel Wade.

I checked the LDS FamilySearch Record Search site for Nathaniel Wade records, and this was the list of matches:

There is a Rhode Island Marriages database, but the only Nathaniel Wade listed is not the right marriage.

In online family trees, there are 28 entries in the Rootsweb WorldConnect database for Nathaniel Wade born ca 1709 - 20 list Ruth Hawkins, 2 list Ruth Hopkins, 4 list both Hawkins and Hopkins, and 2 list no spouse. I'm not going to go into all of the other online family trees (e.g., Ancestry Member Trees, MyHeritage, Geni, etc.). My guess is that they will have both Hawkins and Hopkins for Ruth's surname.

Other genealogy websites with the marriage of Nathaniel Wade include:

* the Pane-Joyce Genealogy site - lists Ruth Hawkins

* the Hopkins Clearing House RI Marriages pages - lists Ruth Hopkins

* an RIGENWEB essage board post by Bonnie that says she has an image from the original Scituate town records book - says Ruth Hawkins

* David Conover's Famous Cousins page - lists Ruth Hawkins as spouse, but notes she was also known as Ruth Hopkins.

* the Lineage Book of Hereditary Order of Colonial Governors - lists her as Ruth (Hopkins) Hawkins

* a page for Descendants of Eleazer Arnold - lists her as Ruth Hawkins

The next post will display some of the results of a search for the marriage of Nathaniel Wade and Ruth from three commercial websites.

Finding Nathaniel Wade's Wife's Name Online - Post 1

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I posted the probate records of Nathaniel Wade (1709-1754) of Scituate, Rhode Island here and here, the will of his wife Ruth (Hawkins) (Wade) Hopkins here, and my Wade ancestral line here.

Reader Pam sent me an email this past week asking me what evidence I have that Nathaniel Wade's wife, and the mother of his children, was Ruth Hawkins, rather than Ruth Hopkins as stated in the 21 Volumes by James Arnold, the Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850.

On the surface, there is a case to be made for both names, based on the records available in books and online. Volume 3 of Arnold's work, for Scituate marriages clearly states that she was Ruth Hopkins. Web sites and family trees are about equally split between the two women.

Here is my evidence collection trail and conclusion:

Ruth Hawkins was born 14 March 1711 in Providence, Rhode Island to William and Elizabeth (Arnold) Hawkins. She married Nathaniel Wade (1709-1754) in Scituate, Providence County, Rhode Island on 26 June 1731 and they had six children - Simon, Dudley, Mercy, Ruth, Deborah, and John; all of them are listed in the Scituate, Rhode Island entries in the Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850 Volume III..

Nathaniel Wade died on 29 June 1754, according to his probate records. Ruth (Hawkins) Wade married Zebedee Hopkins on 9 February 1758 in Scituate, Rhode Island. They moved to Glocester, Providence County, Rhode Island, where Ruth Hopkins died on 7 December 1789, according to her probate records. In her will, Ruth's heirs were her sons John Wade, Dudley Wade and Simon Wade, and her cousin Sarah Hawkins, daughter of Uriah Hawkins. So it is evident that Ruth was married to a Wade.

The critical piece of evidence is found in the will of Elizabeth (Arnold) (Hawkins) Smith. Elizabeth Arnold married William Hawkins on 14 December 1704 in Providence, RI, and they had children Elijah, Uriah, Joseph, Ruth and Deborah Hawkins. William Hawkins died intestate on 8 October 1712 in Providence, leaving Elizabeth with five children. She married Israel Smith on 3 June 1718 in Providence, and they had four children, Stephen, Naomi, Elizabeth and Israel Smith.

Elizabeth (Arnold) (Hawkins) Smith wrote her will on 1 July 1758 and it was proved 17 July 1758 in Glocester, Providence County, Rhode Island. In her will, she names six children, including Ruth Hopkins, Deborah Waid, Elijah Hawking (deceased), Stephen Smith, Elizabeth Man and Neomia Angell. [By the way, Deborah Hawkins married Nathaniel' Wade's brother, Nathan Wade.]

Ruth (Hawkins) Wade married Zebedee Hopkins on 1 February 1758, and her mother, Elizabeth Smith, wrote her will on 1 July 1758, five months later. Good timing, eh? Of course, if she had written it a year earlier, she would have named Ruth Wade, and it would have been an obvious link.

So how or why did James Arnold put Ruth Hopkins as the wife of Nathaniel Wade in the Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850 book for Scituate marriages? I don't know - it may be that the Scituate town records has the erroneous entry, written by the town clerk based on what the informant - either Justice Stephen Hopkins who married them, or Nathaniel Wade. It may be that the town record is correct and that James Arnold transcribed it incorrectly. I have not searched the Scituate town records for the entry, and I don't believe that any other researcher has posted a transcription of that record online. It may have been published in books or periodicals, but I haven't seen it.

Where can you find the 21 Volumes of James Arnold's Vital Records of Rhode Island, 1636-1850? Many libraries have these books on the shelf. I'll tell you where you can find them online in the next posts in this series, with comments about the process on each web site.

The "lesson learned" here is that published books, even those done by careful researchers, are occasionally imperfect. Genealogy researchers need to consult all available resources - manuscript, book, periodical and online - in order to conduct a "Reasonably Exhaustive Search" as part of proving names, facts and relationships.

Thank you, Pam, for the question and for making me review the available resources. I had a fine time this week reviewing my notes, my records and online resources in order to answer your challenge. In the process, I found an excellent resource for information about the Hawkins and Wade families in Rhode Island - at the Pane-Joyce Genealogy website.

Follow Friday - The Family Curator

It's Follow Friday time - where I highlight one of my favorite genealogy blogs.

This week's selection is The Family Curator written by Denise Levenick:



Denise describes her blog as:

"In every family, someone ends up with “the stuff.” It is the goal of The Family Curator to inspire, enlighten, and encourage other family curators in their efforts to preserve and share their own family treasures."

Denise's recent posts highlight her experiences at the SCGS Genealogy Jamboree, but she writes extensively about finding, preserving and sharing your family artifacts and papers - your "stuff." She also provides a free monthly Blogger's Almanac (see here for the June 2010 issue).

To top it off, Denise is a gifted writer - read her articles, under the nom-de-plume of Penelope Dreadful, in footnoteMaven's online Shades of the Departed Magazine. If you want to read all of them in one sitting, there is a compendium of Penelope Dreadful stories are online at http://www.penelopedreadful.com/.

I look forward to seeing Denise at every SCGS Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank - it's in her back yard, and her smiling face and friendly demeanor brighten the long, hard blogging days of all genealogy bloggers in attendance.

If you are not reading The Family Curator, I encourage you to add it to your blog reader or favorites.

WTFGDFIWS - why are some websites so dumb?

[Rant on]

You don't want to know what the code words in my blog title are...I'm really, um, upset.

Here is a screen shot why:

I had a great plan to visit a web site and blog about it. I got there, and two, um, freaking popup windows appeared, and wouldn't go away until I closed the Windows tab. To make matters worse, the smaller popup changed from a static picture to a short video every ten seconds or so. When I tried to click on either of the popups, the ad underneath the popup opened up. I couldn't make the popup windows go away! In the end, I just closed the tab and refuse to go back.

In the mean time:

* I wasted about five minutes trying to make the, um, %& things go away

* it sucked up some of my precious RAM, never to get it back until I reboot (?). It almost hit the max...the level is down now, about 300 mb below where it was.

* I didn't get to blog about what looked like an interesting site - it's their loss - %$#&* idiots!

There. I have to get it out somehow, you know! I feel better now.

[Rant off...]

FamilySearch Advanced Search Capabilities

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FamilySearch is gradually adding features to their Beta site at http://fsbeta.familysearch.org. A user can search for records on the FamilySearch Record Search site using the simple search fields on the Beta home page, shown below:




Notice the "Show Advanced" link below the "Death Year" field. If you click on the "Show Advanced" link, you see many more search fields to help you with your search:

The search fields in this Advanced Search page include:

* A check box to "Match all terms exactly"

* First and Middle Names (with an Exact check box)

* Last Name (with an Exact check box)

* Birth Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)

* Birth Place (with an Exact check box)

* Death Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)
* Death Place (with an Exact check box)

* Residence Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)
* Residence Place (with an Exact check box)

* Father first and middle name(s) (with an Exact check box)

* Father last name (with an Exact check box)

* Mother first and middle name(s) (with an Exact check box)
* Mother last name (with an Exact check box)

* Spouse first and middle name(s) (with an Exact check box)
* Spouse last name (with an Exact check box)

* Marriage Year (with a selection of ranges - plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 are available)

* Marriage Place (with an Exact check box)

I entered First Name = "benjamin", Last Name = "seaver," Birth Year = 1791 +/- 2 years, Birth Place = "massachusetts" in order to see how the search worked. I checked no Exact Match boxes. The top of the search results looks like this:

There were 1,880 matches for my search terms, including many that were obviously not a Benjamin Seaver born in 1791. There were no matches for my Benjamin Seaver, born 1791 and died 1825 (which I didn't add to the search field). Presumably, that means that FamilySearch has no historical records for this particular Benjamin Seaver.

One of the matches was interesting to me - a match in the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Application Files. I clicked on that and saw:

The match is a mention of Benjamin Seaver in the Revolutionary War Pension application for Nathaniel Houghton. The link to the record is to www.Footnote.com. The reference to Benjamin Seaver in that record is for the father of Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825), also named Benjamin Seaver, who did serve in the War.

What about the "Exact Match" feature? I clicked on the "Match all terms exactly" back on the Advanced Search screen, and received one match:

While this match in the 1865 Massachusetts State Census is for a Benjamin Seaver, it is not the one born in 1791. It is for his grandson, born in 1854. The birth year, or age, for this person apparently was not indexed for the 1865 Massachusetts State Census on the FamilySearch Record Search site.

At the bottom of the screen above is a link for "Trees." If Benjamin Seaver had been included in a Family Tree available on the FamilySearch Beta site, then it would have been listed. I will look at the current Trees feature in the next post.

Treasure Chest Thursday - an Account Statement

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It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to find some record or artifact in my computer files or the big box of family treasures handed down by my ancestors.

I've mentioned the Della (Smith) Carringer scrapbook before. On one of the pages was this "Statement of Account:"

From this scrap of paper, I can infer that D.J. Smith had a livery, feed and sale stable in Concordia, Cloud County, Kansas before 1880. I say "before 1880" because the date is set up for the 1870s. This is my second great-grandfather, Devier J. Smith, who owned a horse stable in several places, including Concordia, Kansas.

I am not clear if this was used by Devier Smith to give to a customer as a receipt for payments made, or as a reminder of the account balance owed by the customer. There is no dedicated space for a monetary amount, but it easily could have been written on the paper on the second line.

Financial transactions, including barter transactions, in the 1880 time frame were recorded in the personal or business account books of both the proprietor and the customer, and between individuals. I have one of my ancestor's business account books that has newspaper articles pasted over most of the handwritten entries, which is unfortunate. It would have been an excellent record of individuals living in a specific place at specific times.

Online Periodical Indexes - Maryland Historical Magazine

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Browsing through the blogs, I ran across a link to the Maryland Historical Society's web page for the online copies of the Maryland Historical Magazine for 1906 to 2005. These are in PDF format - each issue is one file. And freely accessible to any researcher.

On the Maryland Historical Society website, I had to sign up with an email address, name and postal contact information:




Once I was logged in (without a confirmation email), I saw the list of the issues of the Maryland Historical Magazine. There was a search box so I entered "mcknew" in the box and clicked on the gold arrow to the right of the box:




There were only two matches:




I clicked on the second one, and the issue containing the search term opened:

The issue opened on the front cover of the magazine. I could have scrolled up and down. I chose to search for "mcknew" in the search box for this issue and was quickly shown:

This is the index for Volume 58 in 1963, and it refers to Page 149 of this volume. That is not in this particular issue, because this issue contains the index for the volume.

I guessed that page 149 would be in Volume 58, Number 2 so I went back to the list of volumes and selected that issue. The page shows:

This is a wonderful resource for Maryland historians and genealogists. While the search engine is relatively primitive, it is functional and easily understood and used.

I was happy to find this - it's one good example for other genealogical and historical societies. Hooray for the Maryland Historical Society -- they understand that having a forward-looking and searcher friendly policy, relative to its complete magazine run, will lure more members and readers than hiding it behind a firewall.