Best of the Genea-Blogs - 19-25 September 2010

Hundreds of genealogy and family history bloggers write thousands of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interests. I appreciate each one of them and their efforts.

My criteria for "Best of ..." are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant. I don't list posts destined for the genealogy carnivals, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week:

*  Confession: I Hired a Genealogy Psychic and Was The Genealogy Psychic Worth It? You Be The Judge. by Kerry Scott on the Clue Wagon blog.  A fun and humorous experiment here on an interesting research problem. 

*  Things to Do When the Pension File Arrives by Liz Haigney Lynch on The Ancestral Archaeologist blog. Liz's inventory list is a winner here, in additon to the sage advice. 

*  Evidence Management and Ancestry.com Member Trees by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog.  Mr. AI had several other posts on this subject several months ago - this post presents some conclusions and an evidence management conclusion table which looks useful.

*  My Second Blogiversary Dedicated to my Son by Becky Jamison on the Grace and Glory blog.  Becky's story is heartwarming and rewarding, plus she has pictures of six generations.  How cool is that?

*  .  My Tangent – Speech Recognition and My Genealogy Transcription Project  by Jim Smith on the A Genealogy Hunt blog.  I've wondered how Jim has been transcribing so many documents so well, and this post tells how. 

*  Have You Looked at Passport Records Yet?  by Carolyn L. Barkley on the GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com blog.  Carolyn shows how useful passport records can be with examples, and notes how to obtain them.

*   Is there an economy of scale in genealogical records? by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog.  James ponders the Ancestry.com acquisition of iArchives (and footnote).  Good analogy and interesting questions here.

*  Grand Genealogy Journey: The Research-Rich Environment of Kansas City by Craig Manson on the Geneablogie blog.  Craig's train finally got to Kansas City where he explores the research centers in the area.

*  Identity, Tradition and Preservation Discussed at Storytellers Conference by Angela Y. Walton-Raji on the African-Native American Genealogy Blog.  Angela's conference summary highlights activites at this Muscogee, Oklahoma conference.

*  Sharing Genealogy by JL on the JLog blog.  JL analyzes her own family situation relating to sharing genealogy.  It sounds like everybody else's!  She has an interesting and simple chart to whet the family's family history appetite. 

Other weekly "Best of..." genealogy blog posts include:

*  Follow Friday: 24 September 2010 by Greta Koehl on the Greta's Genealogy Bog blog.  Greta's weekly reader picks are often differnet from mine and John's.

* Weekly Genealogy Picks by John Newmark on the TransylvanianDutch blog. John highlights blog posts, carnivals, press releases and more, plus he links to several other weekly pick posts.

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blog to your Favorites, Google Reader, RSS feed or email if you like what you read. Please make a comment to them also - all bloggers appreciate feedback on what they write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me! I am currently reading posts from over 670 genealogy bloggers using Google Reader, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Birth Order

Hey, genealogy readers and champions - it's Saturday Night - time for more Genealogy Fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1)  Pick one of your ancestral lines - any one - patrilineal, matrilineal, zigzag, from a famous ancestor, etc.  Pick a long one if you can.

2)  Tell us which position in the birth order that your ancestor was in each generation.  For example "third child, first son."  Also list how many children were born to these parents.

3)  Share your Birth Order work with us on your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, in a comment on Facebook, etc.

Here's mine:

1.  Randall J. Seaver (1943-....) - first child, first son of Frederick and Betty (Carringer) Seaver (3 sons)
2.  Frederick W. Seaver (1911-1983) - fifth child, second son of Frederick W. and Alma Bessie (Richmond) Seaver (3 sons, 4 daughters)
3.  Frederick W. Seaver (1876-1942) - first child, first son of Frank W. and Hattie (Hildreth) Seaver (3 sons)
4.  Frank W. Seaver (1852-1922) - first child, first son of Isaac and Lucretia (Smith) Seaver (2 sons, 2 daughters)
5.  Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) - third child, first son of Benjamin and Abigail (Gates) Seaver (2 sons, 2 daughters)
6.  Benjamin Seaver (1791-1825) - fourth child, second son of Benjamin and Martha (Whitney) Seaver (4 sons, 6 daughters)
7.  Benjamin Seaver (1757-1816) - second child, first son of Norman and Sarah (Read) Seaver (8 sons, 5 daughters)
8.  Norman Seaver (1734-1787) - fourth child, third son of Robert and Eunice (Rayment) Seaver (7 sons, 2 daughters)
9.  Robert Seaver (1702-1752) - first child, first son of Joseph and Mary (Read) Seaver (2 sons, 4 daughters)
10.  Joseph Seaver (1672-1754) - second child, second son of Shubael and Hannah (Wilson) Seaver (3 sons, 3 daughters)
11.  Shubael Seaver (1640-1739) - first child, first son of Robert and Elizabeth (Ballard) Seaver (4 sons, 3 daughters)

One of the interesting facts about this particular line is that every one of the males in this line was the oldest son that had children (some older sons died, and some were single without children).

Surname Saturday - TRIMMER (Germany > NJ)

It's Surname Saturday, and I'm "counting down" my Ancestral Name List each week. I am up to number 113 - Sophia Trimmer (1747 - ca 1811), one of my 4th-great-grandparents.

My ancestral line back through three generations of TRIMMER families is:

1. Randall J. Seaver

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

6. Lyle Lawrence Carringer (1891-1976)
7. Emily Kemp Auble (1899-1977)

14.  Charles Auble (1849-1916)
15.  Georgianna Kemp (1868-1952)

28.  David Auble (1817-1894)
29.  Sarah Knapp (1818-ca1900)

56.  Johannes Auble (1780-1831?)
57.  Anna Row (1787-1860)

112. Johannes Able, born about 1758 in Roxbury, Morris County, NJ; died about 1818 in Sussex County, NJ. He was the son of 224. Michael Able and 225. Christina. He married 30 January 1777 in Oldwick, Hunterdon County, NJ.

113. Sophia Trimmer, born 1747 in Hunterdon County, NJ; died before 1811 in Sussex County, NJ.
Children of Johannes Able and Sophia Trimmer are:  Anna Maria Able (1778-????); Johannes Able (1780-1831?); Anna Maria Able (1784-????); David Able (1787-1858); Elisabeth Able (1789-????); George Able (1789-????); Jacob Able (1796-1837?).

226. Matthias Trimmer, born 1722 in Germany; died before 10 March 1793 in Readington, Morris County, NJ. He married  1742 in NJ.
227. Anna Martha Nachbar, born about 1724 in Germany. She was the daughter of 454. Johann Leonhard Nachbar and 455. Maria Margaretha.

Children of Matthias Trimmer and Anna Nachbar are:  Mary Anna Trimmer (1743-1826); John Trimmer (1745-????); Matthias Trimmer (1746-????); Sophia Trimmer (1747-1811); Elisabeth Trimmer (1750-????); Leonard Erhart Trimmer (1752-1777); Jacob Trimmer (1757-????); David Morris Trimmer (1759-1824).

452. Johannes Trimmer, born about 1700 in Feldkirchen, Palatinate, GERMANY; died January 1748/49 in Amwell, Hunterdon County, NJ. He married  before 1720 in GERMANY.
453. Mary, died 1738 in at sea.

Children of Johannes Trimmer and Mary are:  Matthias Trimmer (1722-1793); Anthonius Trimmer (1725-1754); Andreas Trimmer (1726-1793); Amos Trimmer (1727-????); George Trimmer (1728-1807); Harman Trimmer (1730-1810); Hannah Trimmer (1733-????); Mary Trimmer (1737-????).

If a reader has more, or more accurate, information about these families, please contact me at rjseaver@cox.net.

Dear Randy - Family Tree Information

I love it when readers comment and ask questions - then I can use them as blog fodder on days that I need a blog post - like today!

Kimberly commented on my (Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 121: Georgia (Kemp) Auble in 1898 post, noting that she and I are cousins on two different lines, and noting (Kimberly's comments are in red, my responses in black):

I have a couple of ideas/questions that if you have time to explore in a blog post or point me to places where you have already explored this I would be very interested...

1. What did your tree look like when you were first starting genealogy, ie how many of your ancestors were known from records or memories kept by your own family?

When I first started my research in 1988, I had some of my mother's family papers, including two family Bibles, a Kemp family paper, some Seaver and Richmond family pictures with names on the back, a Seaver genealogy manuscript (later found it was copied from a town history book), and a fanciful story about being descended from Peregrine White of the Mayflower in 1620 up the Richmond line.  So I had information on most of my great-grandparents, but only the Seaver line back to Robert Seaver the immigrant to Roxbury in 1634 before that.

Because I had this fine New England ancestry in the Seaver and Richmond lines, and the incentive to prove the Mayflower connection, and had many of the Seaver wives names, I was able to quickly collect names, dates and places for many lines using books at the local libraries and the LDS IGI and Ancestral File databases.  I had quite a bit of the Seaver/Richmond tree defined by mid-1990 when there was a family reunion in Massachusetts, including the White line.  Then census work, trips to New England and England, contacts with other researchers on Prodigy and by mail, and I was off and running. 

2. What percentage of your ancestors in your tree were in previously published compilations, and what percentage were researched by yourself?

This is really hard to determine for me.  I currently have 39,387 persons in my database.  Of those, I have over 2,000 known ancestors of my own and about 200 of my wife's known ancestors.  I have also performed surname searches on Seaver, Carringer, Auble, Vaux, Dill, and Buck and they are in my database also. 

In general, I have mined published books, published periodicals, manuscripts from the Family History Library, online databases, online family trees (especially Rootsweb WorldConnect), message boards and mailing lists, in order to find information about names, dates, places and family history. 

I researched some of my families extensively since there was nothing published about them - usually back through the great-great-grandparents - finding vital, census, military, land, probate, city directory, and other records.  I have made an effort to find and transcribe probate records for many ancestral families in an effort to "prove" connections.  Fortunately, many of my New England families before 1850 are in the printed vital record books, so I've used those to source names, dates and places for them.  For the surname studies, I've used vital, census and military records to provide information up to the 1930 time frame. 

As you can tell, I've searched and found family information in published works and in online resources for almost all of my ancestral families, and I've researched more deeply for some of my ancestral families.  If I were to guess how many ancestors that I've done original research on (meaning defining family members, doing a reasonably exhaustive search for records, etc.), then I would guess I've done that for maybe 10% of my ancestors (or about 200), which is less than 1% of the persons in my tree.  For the rest, I've relied upon the collective wisdom of other researchers.

What I've done - the name collecting, the family definition, and finding the family history material - has taken me 22 years, and I'm nowhere near done with it.  It;'s been a part time quest also - really only Saturdays and some evenings until I retired in 2002, and then blogging has gotten in the way of doing more of my own research since 2006.

3. As you progressed through your genealogy research, who were the most exciting discoveries? And what was the biggest brick wall overcome? Do you feel a special kinship with any ancestors that were especially difficult to trace?

Good questions, all! 

The most exciting discoveries have been few and far between it seems:

*  Getting back to Peregrine White was exciting early on for me and the extended family. 
*  Figuring out that Isaac Buck (1757-1846) was the illegitimate son of an Isaac Buck in Southborough MA was exciting, and was one brickwall overcome. 
*  Finding that Devier J. Smith was adopted by Ranslow and Mary (Bell) Smith was exciting and deflating - it cost me a nice Dutch ancestry in the Hudson River valley. 
*  Finding the marriage record of my wife's Norwegian great-grandparents in Wisconsin in 1876, with their patronymic names, broke open her Norwegian ancestry - and that was a lot of fun, since we went to Norway soon after.
*  Finding the parents of Jane (Whittle) McKnew has been really fun this month!

I have almost all of my brick walls that I had in 1992, but not because of not trying!  I still have these brick wall ancestors:

*  Thomas J. Newton of Maine (ca1795 - ????) - who were his parents?
*  Elizabeth Horton Dill (1794?-1869) of Eastham MA - who were her parents?  I have conflicting evidence.
*  Hannah Smith (1767-1827), wife of Josiah Sawtell - who were her parents?
*  John Richman (1788-1867) and Ann Marshman (1784-1856) of Hilperton, Wiltshire - who were their parents?
*  Anna Kenyon (1742-????), wife of John Kenyon - who were her parents?
*  Devier J. Lamphier Smith (1839?-1894) of Jefferson county NY - who were his birth parents?
*  Martin Carringer (1758-1835) of Pennsylvania - who were his parents?
*  Mary Hoax (1768-1850) wife of Martin Carringer - who were her parents?
*  William Knapp (1775-1856) of Dutchess County NY and Newton NJ - who were his parents?
*  Sarah Sephrona Fletcher (1802-????), who married Abraham James Kemp - who were her parents?
*  William Hutchinson (1746?-1826) of New Jersey, New Brunswick and Norfolk County, Ontario - who were his parents?

There are plenty more in earlier generations, of course. 

The biggest brickwall overcome would have to be the Norwegian marriage in Wisconsin - that unlocked my wife's Norwegian line.

Do I feel a special kinship to ancestors difficult to trace?  I feel a special kinship to those that have had hardship in their lives and who overcame those hardships.  Isaac Buck, Isaac Seaver, Devier Smith, David Jackson Carringer, James Richman, etc. 

This is one reason I'm so interested in the Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle story and history - there is tremendous heartbreak in their family history, I think. 

Thank you, Kimberly, for the questions!  I hope that I answered them to your satisfaction.

What happened to Rachel (Morley) Whittle?

I've exhausted my English and Australian resources in this research saga about Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle, so we'll try to figure out what happened to Alexander and Rachel Whittle in California.  In the first post in this series, I Found Rachel in the 1852 California Census   I found Rachel "Wadle" and three children in San Francisco in the 1852 California State Census on Ancestry.com. 

I did not find Alexander Whittle in the 1852 California State census, and wondered if he died on the trip from Australia to California, or if he died after he got to California but before Rachel and the children arrived, or if he died after they arrived. 

What happened to Rachel (Morley) Whittle?  If you've been following my research trail, you know that she was born in England, married Alexander Whittle in 1840, migrated to Australia in 1841, had seven children (including my wife's great-grandmother, Jane (Whittle) McKnew), owned a pub in Sydney with her husband, and was in San Francisco in the 1852 census.

I could not find her as Rachel Whittle in the 1860 or 1870 U.S. census records. 

I turned instead to the newspapers to see if I could find more information about Rachel, and perhaps some indication of her death.  I started with the California Digital Newspaper Collection site (http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc) and searched for "Rachel Whittle".  Here are the results:

1)  From the Daily Alta California, Volume 2, Number 339, 16 November 1851

The above article reads:

"Robbery -- Thomas O'Brien, John Foster and Thomas Spencer were charged with having robbed Rachel Whittle of a pistol, a dress, and a petticoat.  By the evidence of the woman herself, it appeared that after she had gone to bed and was asleep, James O'Brien came into her room and got into her bed, and she was awakened by his trying to take a diamond ring off her finger.  She got out of bed and ran into the bar-room.  O'Brien followed her.  She went to the door and screamed, when the police came in and found O'Brien concealed upstairs.  She then missed her dress and petticoat.  The dress contained $54 in the pocket.  The house was searched, and the dress was found under the head of Spencer, and the petticoat in O'Brien's room, they being lodgers in the house.  The parties were all sent to the Court of Sessions on a charge of grand larceny with the bail fixed at $1500 each."

A search using "Whittle" found:

2)  Daily Alta California, Volume 2, Number 363, 10 December 1851

This article reads:

"Court of Sessions -- Before Judges Campbell, Corbett and Shepheard.

People vs. John Foster -- Defendant was charged with grand larceny, in having stolen a ring and $202 in money from Rachael Whittle while she was asleep in her bed.  Foster was a boarder in the house.  Defendant was found not guilty, and Spencer and O'Brien, jointly indicted with Foster, were acquitted."

I searched on "Alex* Whittle" and found this item:

3)  Daily Alta California, Volume 22, Number 7506, 9 October 1870

This article from 1870 reads:

"WANTED
If Mrs. Alexander Whittle, who left Sydney, N.S. Wales, on or about August 1850, and who, it is believed, was afterwards married to Mr. Thomas Spencer, will call at the Post Office, San Francisco, she will find a letter from an old friend, addressed, 'Mrs. Alex. Whittle.'"

She married Thomas Spencer?  Really?  The guy who had her dress under his head?  Does this mean that Alexander Whittle was dead?  Or did she know?

A search for "Rachel Spencer" turned up a whole month's worth of advertisements asking about her whereabouts:

4)  Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 15, Number 2229, 19 May 1858

This 1858 advertisement reads (it ran every day in May 1858):

"WANTED -- Information of the whereabouts of Mrs. Rachel Spencer, who may hear of something to her advantage by applying, without loss of time, to H. Olmerd, Bernard street, between Mason and Jones, San Francisco."

Two search results using "Rachel Spencer":

5)  Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 17, Number 2549, 28 May 1859

This 1859 article from Sacramento reads:

"Rachel Spencer, charged with using obscene and vulgar language on the public street, was adjudged guilty and will be sentenced today.  The defendant was extremely obstreperous (probably on account of inebriation) during the examination of the case, disregarding the frequent warning of the Court, and finally compelling the Court to order that she be committed till 10 o'clock this morning for contempt.  Upon the motion of her counsel and his waiving her presence and promising to remove her to another room, the order was rescinded and the trial proceeded, with the above result."

6)  Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 19, Number 2829, 20 April 1860

This 1860 court notice in Sacramento reads:

"DISTURBING THE PEACE -- Lafayette Andrews, while under the influence of frequent potations, visited the residence of Mrs. Rachel Spencer alias Mrs. Trask, yesterday, and created a disturbance.  He was subsequently arrested by officer Grant, on a warrant issued by Justice Foote, on complaint of the above named Rachel Spencer."

So I've found her as late as 1860 in Sacramento.  And there is another name in the last article - Trask! 

That's all I've found on Rachel (Morley) (Whittle) Spencer so far, but stay tuned.  I now have another lead! 

We still have to figure out what happened to Alexander Whittle.

During the search for Rachel and Alexander in the newspapers, I've also checked the San Francisco Chronicle on Footnote.com, the Ancestry.com newspaper collection, the Early American Newspaper collection available on the AmericanAncestors.org site, and the Chronicling America site at the Library of Congress.  I have not checked GenealogyBank because I don't have a subscription.

The elder Alexander Whittle in English Census Records

I managed to get to the San Diego Family History Center today (first time all year!) and visited the English census records on Ancestry Institution on the computer system.  Talk about really slow... but I digress!

I was after the census records for Alexander and Margaret (Mansley) Whittle - the parents of Alexander Whittle, who married Rachel Morley in 1840 and ran off to Australia to start a new life there.

Here is the 1841 English Census record in Chorley in Lancashire for Alexander Whittle:



In this record (Class: H0107; Piece: 525; Book: 8; Civil Parish: Chorley; County: Lancashire; Enumeration district: 15; Folio: 28; Page: 11; Line: 1; GSU Roll: 306911) the family includes:

*  Alexander Whittle - male, age 60, gardener, born in county
*  Margaret Whittle - female, age 60, born in county
*  Alford Whittle - male, age 15, born in county
*  Charles Brighouse - male, age 20, ????, born in county
*  Margaret Blackburn - female, age 20, born in county
*  Thomas Blackburn - male, age 3 months, born in county
*  John Worthen - male, age 40, Roper, born in county

I wonder if Margaret Blackburn is the daughter of Alexander and Margaret (Mansley) Whittle?

The 1851 English Census record in Chorley in Lancashire for Alexander Whittle:

In this record (Class: H0107; Piece: 2263; Civil Parish: Chorley; County: Lancashire; Folio: 202; Page: 62; Household #198; GSU Roll: 87288) the family resided at Whittle's court #11 and includes:

* Alexander Whittle - head, married, male, age 78, Ag laborer, born Lancaster, Charnock ??
* Margaret Whittle - wife, married, female, age 75, care of house, born Lancaster, Chorley

These ages seem to be pretty accurate - they are only one year off (baptisms in 1774 and 1777 respectively).  Unfortunately, Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle had left England before the 1841 Census day so they were not recorded. 

One piece of useful information in the 1851 census is that Margaret is still living - I found an online tree that said she died in September 1850.  There are several Margaret Whittles that died in Chorley in the 1850s, I think I'll have to access the parish registers in order to figure out when Margaret died.  I think Alexander Whittle died in August 1855. 

I checked all Ancestry.com English databases for Alexander Whittle , Jane Morley and Rachel Morley without finding much more than these two census records.  I did find John Whittle (Alexander's father) and Robert Mansley (Margaret (Mansley) Whittle's father), both of Chorley and died in 1802, are in the Probate Index.  Another record to seek and find!

Ancestry.com Acquisition of iArchives (including Footnote.com)

...
The genealogy world is abuzz today with the news that Ancestry.com has acquired iArchives, Inc. for about $27 million. One of the major holdings of iArchives, Inc. is the Footnote.com genealogy and history website. The press release is here.

The announcement states that iArchives will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Ancestry.com. I think that means that Footnote.com collections will not be incorporated into the Ancestry.com collections, but will operate as a separate entity.

The press release says that Footnote.com has 35,000 subscribers and over 65 million images, which is small compared to Ancestry.com's 1.3 million (worldwide) subscribers and billions of images, not to mention the 19 million family trees.

What else does iArchives have besides Footnote.com? The iArchives Services page notes that:

"We use iArchives’ highly accurate and patented OCR software which consistently produces higher accuracy results when compared to the 'off the shelf' OCR engines. Then we index the text, digitize the images using highly sophisticated software (providing image enhancement among a host of other elements), attach any needed metadata and store the records in a database of your choice. The records are then accessed utilizing a search engine of your preference."

Is that a significant acquisition for Ancestry.com? Compare the image enhancements and annotation capability available on Footnote.com and on Ancestry.com. I think that the iArchives capabilities may enhance Ancestry.com's offerings.

One reason that Ancestry.com may have acquired Footnote.com is for the available Footnote Page capabilities. Footnote permits a FREE creation and editing of Footnote Pages for any person. The ease of use and capabilities of the Footnote Page is much better, in my opinion, than the Person Page in the Ancestry.com Member Trees. I can see a Footnote Page having shaky green leaves to lead a user to Ancestry databases, and an Ancestry Member Tree page linking to a Footnote Page for a person.

I posted The Future of Genealogy Collaboration? at the NGS Conference in Salt Lake City, where a FamilySearch team used Footnote Pages to gather and display facts, stories, images, video, etc. of a specific person. The implication was that the new FamilySearch Family Tree was going to create hundreds of millions (billions?) of Footnote Pages for persons in the nFS Family Tree database. I wondered at the time, to myself, if Footnote.com had the available computer resources necessary to handle the information load. Ancestry.com probably has the financial and physical resources to handle the load.

What does this mean for genealogists like you and me? I have some thoughts:

* Will Footnote.com be a separate entity with its own separate collections? If so, will there be significant additions to these collections? I hope that they will, and there will be, and that the rate of additions may be accelerated due to Ancestry.com investments. If so, that is only good news for genealogists. [the hopeful vision]

* Footnote.com may become stagnant with no new acquisitions similar to what Genealogy.com (also a wholly owned subsidiary of Ancestry.com) has become. If that happens, there will be cries that Ancestry.com is taking over the genealogy world again. [the hopeless vision]

* Ancestry.com may offer a subscription bundle that includes Footnote.com collections. [a hopeful vision]

* Ancestry.com may provide links to search results from Footnote.com, and Footnote.com may link to Ancestry.com search results. [a hopeful vision]

* The Footnote Pages may become the go-to resource for information about a person in history - with attached documents (obtained from all potential sources), images, videos, events, stories, lists of interested researchers, etc. [a hopeful vision]

More to come, I'm sure!

What do you think? Why did this happen? What will happen now?

Disclosure: I am a paid subscriber to both Ancestry.com and Footnote.com. I have not been remunerated in any way to post this information. I have no "inside information" about either company that pertains to this acquisition. The above comments are my own speculation and may be wrong.

Treasure Chest Thursday - 1841 English Census Record for John Richman Family

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to show-and-tell another goodie from my collection of paper and digital images.

Here is the 1841 English Census record for two Richman families residing on Marsh Lane in Hilperton in Wiltshire (obtained from an FHL Microfilm):

The two Richman families are the first two families on the left side of the page (all are born in the county):

* Jno Richman Junior (age 25, Ag Lab)
* Mariah Richman (age 25, weaver)
* Elizabeth Richman (age 5)
* James Richman (age 3)
* David Richman (age 9 months)

* Jno Richman Senior (age 52, coal hauler)

* Ann Richman (age 59, weaver)

* Elizabeth Richman (age 30, weaver)

* James Richman (age 20, Ag Lab)

The second family are my third great-grandparents - John Richman (1788-1867) and Ann (Marshman) Richman (1784-1856), and James Richman (1821-1912) is my second great-grandfather.

New England Historical and Genealogical Register - July 2010 Table of Contents

The July 2010 issue (Volume 164, Number 3, Whole Number 655) of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, published quarterly by the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) has this content:

* page 163 -- Editorial

* page 165 -- The Brothers William2 and Daniel2 Harris of Middletown, Connecticut, by Gale Ion Harris

* page 175 -- Edward1 Breck’s Baptismal Record and Identification of His “Daughter Blake,” by Doris Schreiber Willcox

* page 184 -- Cornelius4 Handy of Sandwich, Massachusetts by Ellen J. O’Flaherty

* page 191 -- Thomas Wiswall of Newton, Massachusetts, and Arundel, Maine: His Parentage and Marriage History, by Elizabeth Goddard

* page 200 -- Some Employees and Suppliers of Services to Thomas Fayerweather of Boston and Cambridge, 1753–1802, by Eric G. Grundset

* page 207 -- The Family of Nathaniel4 and Esther (Carpenter) (Bardeen) Bowen, by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg (continued from 164:134)

* page 219 -- New England Articles in Genealogical Journals in 2008, by Henry B. Hoff

* page 237 -- Reviews of Books, including:

** Newport, Rhode Island, Colonial Burial Grounds, by John Eylers Sterling, Barbara J. Austin, and Letty R. Champion, edited by Cherry Fletcher Bamberg, FASG (Hope, R.I.: Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 2009.

** A Family Becoming American, Volume 1: Krüger, by David Watson Kruger (Boston: Newbury Street Press, 2009.

** Early Families of Bethlehem, New Hampshire, by Kathleen C. Beals (Bradford, N.H.: the author, 2009.

** Discovering Black Vermont: African American Farmers in Hinesburgh, 1790–1890, by Elise A. Guyette (Lebanon, N.H.: University Press of New England, 2010.

** Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation, by Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs (Plymouth, Mass.: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 2009.

** Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt, edited by Bernard Rosenthal and eleven associate editors (Cambridge, England, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

** Crimson Confederates: Harvard Men Who Fought for the South, by Helen P. Trimpi (Knoxville, Tenn: University of Tennessee Press, 2010.

The article I was most interested in was the Henry Hoff article about New England articles in Genealogical Journals. The new book list has several interesting entries also, especially the Jeremy Bangs book.

I now receive the NEHGR by download from the NEHGS website, so I "miss" getting it in the mail;. I decided to go that route because I'm only one major earthquake away from being buried in my genealogy cave by the stacks of periodicals! The drawback is that I get no notice that the issue has been published or is available for downloading, so I have to remember to visit the NEHGS website in the publication months.

Other Records for Jane, Leah and Rachel Morley in Lancashire

It has been good genealogy fun to find more and more records for Rachel (Morley) Whittle in Lancashire in England and Australia, and for her mother, Jane (Haslam) (Bury) Morley in Lancashire.

I've had a lot of help from other genealogists, and I really appreciate the research and suggestions that they have provided. The help just keeps on coming too - and I need all of the help I can get, since I'm pretty much a neophyte when it comes to English and Australian research.

After my post More on Rachel Morley's Parentage yesterday, Lorine McGinnis Schulze (who has the excellent Olive Tree Genealogy website and Olive Tree Genealogy Blog) commented several times on the post, including:

* if Rachel and her sister were bpt the same day, they may have been twins. Why not look for her sister's marriage to see if she named her father?

Excellent suggestion. I didn't find a marriage for Leah Morley in the FamilySearch Beta English Marriages, 1538-1973 (there is one in 1846 in Derbyshire) or in the FreeBMD Marriage Index (three before 1850, none in Lancashire).

* Randy, you might want to check Bastardy Orders and Examinations. Since Rachel was illegitimate there's a very good chance the Parish took her mother and father to task and ordered money given to the parish on a regular basis to support the child. The father would be named in the examination of the mother and in the orders. See Bastardy Orders for more help.

I will follow up on this after I read Lorine's article about it!

* Oh oh oh!! Look what I found! I was just going to write and suggest you check Removal Orders...

Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Jane Morley, widow, and Leah and Rachael her children QSP/2941/37 1830 29 Nov

The docs are at the Lancashire Record Office so you can order them online http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/searches/locresult_details.asp?LR=55

Aha - there is a good lead into the Lancashire Record Office holdings. I followed that, and after a bit of thrashing through links and dead ends, I found that record by going into the Lancashire Online Catalog (LANCAT) and searching for "Jane Morley."

* On Facebook, Lorine commented: "Here's what a Removal Order looks like... mine contained lots of great info! http://www.olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/04/finding-removal-order-for-english.html"

I hope that Jane's removal order has all of that good information!

* On Facebook, Lorine commented: "Also see this record: Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Leah Morley QSP/2945/60 1831 14 Mar These documents are held at Lancashire Record Office" and "and Little Bolton to Blackburn. Order of removal of Rachael Morley QSP/2945/59 1831 14 Mar (held at LRO)"

I also found these items, and tried to find a way to order them online through the Lancashire Record Office website. I downloaded and printed the Copyright Declaration that has to be signed and sent with the letter or email requesting the specific records. I sent a message to their Help Centre asking what the costs and ordering procedure was, and if I could obtain digital images through email or downloading from their site rather than use the postal services.

I searched for information on the Lancashire Online Catalog for "alexander whittle," "thomas morley," "rachel morley," "rachael morley" and "leah morley" and found only the items listed above by Lorine.

* So exciting. I am so curious why Jane and her girls removed one year then only girls next year. Wonder if Jane died? Please keep us informed!

I'm trying! I found a burial record for a Jane Morley on 2 July 1834 buried at Bolton-le-Moors in Lancashire, age 53 (so born about 1781) which may be "our Jane."

Once again, I get by with a little help from my friends! Thank you, Lorine, for doing some fun genealogy work and leading me to the Lancashire Record Office site.

We'll look at some more California records about Alexander and Rachel (Morley) Whittle in the next few days.

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Here are the previous posts in this series - isn't it amazing how much I've found (with help!) over the past two weeks:

* I Found Rachel in the 1852 California Census where I found Rachel "Wadle" and three children in San Francisco in the 1852 California State Census on Ancestry.com

* Jane's Birth Record, and more... - I found out that Jane's parents were Alexander and Rachel Whittle, not Joseph and Rachel.

* Finding the Whittles in Australia highlighted some of the newspaper articles about the family in The Sydney Morning Herald in the 1840 to 1850 time frame from the Historic Australian Newspapers , 1803-1954, Trove website.

* The Whittles Migrating to Australia - a Forrest Gump Genealogy Moment in which the immigration record was found and analyzed.

* Lesson Learned - Check the Image too! in which I learned that not all information on the immigration record was in the FamilySearch index entry.

* Whittle Marriage Record in England - I found the marriage of Alexander Whittle and Rachel Morley in Lancashire in two places online - the English Civil Registrations and the LDS IGI (and on the http://beta.familysearch.org/ site).

* Whittle Birth Records in Australia - birth records for the Whittle children were online in the FamilySearch Beta Australian Birth and Baptism collection

* Whittle Birth and Marriage Records in England - Alexander's birth record and his parent's marriage record were found in the English Birth and Christening Collection

* Rachel Morley's Birth and Parents which finds Rachel Morley's baptism record and her parents marriage.

* More on Rachel Morley's Parentage in which I find a record that indicates Rachel was illegitimate.