Visiting the San Diego Public Library

I'm still on holiday, but had planned to visit the SD Library this morning to search for an obituary in the San Diego Union from 1940 in order to help answer a recent query to CVGS.

I "knew" that SDPL opened at 10 AM, so at 9:45 I kissed Linda good bye and took off on my 9 block jaunt to the Library. Oops - I violated the first rule of visiting repositories -- check the hours it is open! On Mondays, it is open from 12 noon to 8 PM. Argggh. So I hiked back to the hotel (through an empty Petco Park) and will spend two hours online before I go meet Linda for lunch at Horton Plaza, and then I will try the library again.

BTW, my daily Padres' reports are on my http://randysbusylife.blogspot.com blog if you want to read my pithy comments about my favorite baseball team.

UPDATE, 9 April, 2:30 PM: I met Linda at Horton Plaza for lunch, then hiked to the library to finish my mission.

The San Diego Public Library (central downtown branch) is located downtown at 820 E Street, San Diego CA 92101, 619-236-5800. The hours are noon to 8 PM on MW, 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM on TTFS, and 1 PM to 5 PM on Sunday. Parking is a problem - I usually take the trolley or park at Horton Plaza. There is a small lot between Broadway and E on 8th but it is usually full, except early on Saturday.

San Diego Public Library has microfilms of some of the early San Diego newspapers (indexed 1851-1903), and the San Diego Union newspaper since 1868 (indexed 1930-1983). The indexes are on microfiche in the California Room (second floor, west end). I had one obituary to find for Burley Starr in June 1940, and found him in the index as B.H. Starr. I decided to get "clean" copies of my San Diego ancestors obituaries, and the 1937 article about the 50th wedding anniversary of Austin and Della Carringer.

After the index work, I went to the Newspaper Room (right next to the California Room) and requested the five microfilms I needed. The helpful attendant quickly brought them out, showed me how to use the machine, and gave me nickels for the copy machine (only 15 cents per page!). I found the obituaries, made the copies, and handed the microfilms back to the attendant.

I decided that I would make a list of the important genealogy resources at SDPL, especially the ones unique to the San Diego area. I requested access to the Genealogy Room, and was admitted after showing my ID. I've been there before, so I knew where to find what I was looking for.

The highlights of the SDPL collection include:

1) Full set of the American Genealogical and Biographical Index - 206 volumes plus 20 supplemental volumes.

2) Full set of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register (1847-current)

3) Full set of the Domesday Book - 35 volumes, by English shire.

4) Full set of Germans to America - 66 volumes.

5) Full set of Italians to America - 12 volumes.

6) Full set of the Pennsylvania Archives - 21 volumes.

7) PERiodical Source Index (PERSI) books, through 1997.

8) DAR Patriot Index books - 166 volumes, through 1922.

9) Encyclopedia of American Biography - 40 volumes.

10) Full set of Filby's Immigration and Passenger Lists

11) Microfiche of Boston Transcript genealogy columns (up to 1934). This set is indexed in the AGBI, and located in the California Room.

The Genealogy Room also has over 400 linear-feet of surname and local history books. The emphasis is the USA, and focused on the Eastern states. About 1/3 of the collection is on loan from the San Diego Chapter of the DAR. There is a collection of surname and locality periodicals in a file cabinet in the Genealogy Room.

There are also over 100 CDROMs available in the California Room. Ancestry Library Edition, the Biographical and Genealogical Master Index (BGMI), the NY Times Archive 1851-2001, and the Proquest Newspaper collection (from 1980) are available on all of the library computers, as well as from home (with the exception of Ancestry Library Edition) with a SDPL library card.

I always enjoy my time at SDPL because they have a good collection, and because they have knowledgeable genealogy/history librarians. I told them about www.Footnote.com and www.GenealogyBank.com today, and also touted my San Diego genealogy blog.

I had forgotten that SDPL has the Boston Transcript on microfiche, and have had a long list of items that I want to copy. I need to find my list.

Whew - I've hiked about 3 miles today and it's time for my nap! Tonight is the Padres game - I'll post again tomorrow.

Light blogging this weekend

First of all - I want to wish my Christian readers a Happy Easter.

I have spared you the ordeal of reading about funny or strange Easter and Bunny related census records. Somehow, it didn't seem appropriate.

Angel Linda and I are celebrating our anniversary (it was 2 weeks ago when we were at our daughters house) this weekend - hanging out in downtown San Diego for 3 days. We went to the Padres' home opening night last night (they lost 4-3 to the Rockies) . This afternoon we will go to the Omni Hotel right next to Petco Park and play tourist and fan for 3 nights (kind of our own version of spring training, only a lot closer to home!). We have tickets for the Saturday night and Monday night games. We hope to go to the Midway (aircraft carrier) Museum on San Diego Bay on Monday. I will try to work on a query or two at the SD Public Library on Monday. Then there are the Gaslamp restaurants, antique shops and shopping at Horton Plaza.

I will have the laptop with me, access to email, and wireless internet access at the hotel. I'm not sure how much free time I'll have to do research or post notes.
I'll be back in the Genea-Musings saddle on Tuesday night.

While I'm gone, consider commenting on some of my recent posts concerning society blogs, use of computers in genealogy, etc.

UPDATE: Sunday, 7 PM: We checked into our hotel on Saturday afternoon, took a nap (!), went to dinner at the corner fish and chips restaurant, and went to the game - my Padres won 3-2 in the 9th over the Rockies. It was cold in the stands - 55 F... It was nice walking just one block to our bedroom instead of taking the trolley and getting home about 45 minutes after the game ends.

Today, we had our breakfast in bed, and went to the Midway aircraft carrier museum. The ship has been here for about two years, and they have done a wonderful job displaying it. There is a self-paced walking tour where you listen to an audio narrative on earphones - about 70 stations in all. There are docents on the flight deck that actually catapulted or landed airplanes on the deck - they were great. It was cool and misty today, and we had a sandwich at the carrier's Fantail Cafe. We got back to the hotel at 1 PM and watched the Padres game on TV - I napped for an hour, woke up to find it still 0-0, and my Padres won again in the 10th, 2-1. We went out to dinner, walking among the crowds leaving the game, and ended up at Trophy's, a sports bar. Melissa was a wonderful waitress and we had a nice meal. We topped it off with a visit to the Marble slab ice cream parlor and a walk around the Gaslamp District, looking for a place for dinner tomorrow. We got back at 6 PM, and Linda went for a swim while I checked my email, Bloglines and decided to tell the weekend story here. Absolutely no genealogy done today....yet! Tomorrow shows promise, though!

www.LostCousins.com may be useful

Have you checked out www.LostCousins.com? They have an interesting concept here - you enter your family members that are in the 1880 US, 1881 UK or 1881 Canada census, and they will tell you if you have a distant cousin who also have these people in their ancestry. They use those census records because they are free to access on the LDS www.FamilySearch.org site.

The potential benefit here is tremendous - it is probable that you don't know of these cousins, and they may hold vital information that could help you in your genealogy research.

The basic membership is free - the site says:

"Basic membership of LostCousins is free, and will remain so indefinitely provided that we can continue to grow through word of mouth recommendations. Not paying for advertising keeps our costs low, and enables us to offer free basic membership."

If you subscribe (10 pounds for one year), you can initiate contact with a lost cousin, benefit from extended matching, and access to member support functions. You can enter the code 1776 when you register and receive a free upgrade to subscriber status until 30 April 2007.

They have a Buddy system to help new members:

"The LostCousins 'buddies' give their time and make use of their knowledge and experience to help other members. This free service has already solved problems and provided new leads for numerous members - perhaps you could be next!"

They recommend that you input this data to the site:

* Don't just focus on one line - enter all your ancestors who were recorded in the censuses we support
* Enter blood relatives too, especially if they're living in a different household
* Looking back at earlier censuses will help you identify other relatives who you can then find in 1880 or 1881
* Encourage your friends and relatives to join - the more members we have the more matches there will be

The data that you enter for each person in the 1880 US, 1881 UK or 1881 Canada census includes:

From the census records:

* Census Film/Roll number
* Page Number
* Forename
* Surname
* Middle initial or name
* Age

From your own data:

* Corrected surname
* Corrected forename
* Corrected middle names or initials
* Corrected birth day/month/year
* Baptism date/month/year
* Maiden name
* Relation (direct ancestor, blood relative, etc)
* Certificates held - BMD

After you have entered your data for the direct ancestors and blood relatives in your database, then you can go to the "My Cousins" link and the site checks the available data to see if anybody else in their system has the same people. If they do, then you have found some Lost Cousins.

I signed up for a Basic membership - you fill out a form and receive an email with a password, then go back and Login (you can change the password if you wish). I used the code 1776 and am a subscriber for free until 30 April 2007.

I entered 8 of my ancestors, including several with English birth. The process is pretty simple - you fill out a form, submit it, and confirm it. You can correct it any time. You can see a list of all the people you have entered.

I clicked on "My Cousins" to see if any other member has submitted the same people to Lost Cousins, but I had no matches. I will add more persons later - I've only just begun!

I think that this site has tremendous potential, but it needs to reach a critical mass before it will be really helpful. That means that many of us need to use it and perhaps it will then help us.

Try it - you may get lucky and find a Lost Cousin or two.

Bringing Society members into the Online world

Our recent CVGS member survey asked 26 questions about the experience, knowledge and skills of the members. We had 24 responses (about 30% of the membership). Of the ones who responded (mainly "active" members who attend meetings and programs regularly), 50% have been doing genealogy for more than 10 years. My best estimate, based on knowledge of the members who didn't respond, is that probably 75% of our members have been doing genealogy more than 10 years, and probably 40% for more than 20 years.

Every one of our respondents have a computer - 87.5% with a PC, 12.5% with a Mac. My guess is, based on my knowledge of the membership, that about 75% have a computer of some sort, and they have email access (our email list is about 70% of our membership).

Our respondents claimed that their "Internet skill level" was:

None - 0%
Poor - 12.5%
Fair - 50%
Good - 25%
Great - 12.5%
Expert - 0%

We asked how often they go on the Internet to pursue genealogy research, with these responses:

Daily - 20%
Several/week - 12%
Weekly - 32%
Monthly - 32%
Rarely - 4%

I guess one conclusion here is that many of our members have a life outside of genealogy! I also think that perhaps 50% of our members do no online research at all.

One of the questions we should have asked, but didn't, was "How would you describe your overall Computer skills?" Meaning, dealing with files, folders, Windows or other operating system, etc. We held a 4-session "Computer Basic Skills for Genealogists" class last year, and just started another one last week. The attendees were all, I think, survey respondents. I was surprised by the low level of computer skills demonstrated by the class attendees. In the main, these members struggle to do basic computer tasks. They can get on the Internet, they can do email, they can write documents, they can run their genealogy software, but they don't know how to create folders, save web pages, or put web info into a document using Copy and Paste. Our Basics class should help with that.

The conclusion I draw from our survey results, and my own observations, is that only about 20% of our membership have the computer skills to effectively work online. In addition, another 20% or so go online occasionally and try to do research, but are hampered by their lack of computer or Internet skills.

We are trying to improve our members research skills, by doing the following:

1) Teaching Basic Computer Skills in a special class
2) Using the www.learnwebskills.com/family/ online genealogy tutorial to help them learn how to use web sites, databases, message boards, etc.
3) Using our Computer and Research Groups to model effective online research and introduce new databases
4) Bringing in program speakers for specific online research presentations
5) Demonstrating/teaching genealogy software capabilities (60% of our respondents have FamilyTreeMaker)
6) Hosting an all-day seminar on Online Genealogy Research using our society members.

The hope is that this plan will "grow" more of our members into effective online researchers, able to mentor new members or members wanting to improve their skills. We hope that the planned classes and programs will bring in new members from the community if we can market them effectively.

One benefit of being a fairly small society is that we can know almost every member, and therefore can have personal contacts with them and offer specific help to them. Larger societies don't have that luxury.

Do these survey results match your experience in your local society? What else should CVGS be doing to improve the research capabilities of our members? What has worked for you?

Hall of Randy's Genealogy Heroes

I posted yesterday about my Genealogy Hall of Shame, so I wanted to post about my own Genealogy Hall of Fame.

There is already a National Genealogy Hall of Fame at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comhallmembers.cfm. They are selected by the profession based on their life's work serving genealogy - researching, writing, teaching, leading, etc. I greatly appreciate these people who dedicated their life's work to genealogy and family history.

My candidates for my own Genealogy Hall of Fame - I'm going to call it the Hall of Randy's Genealogy Heroes - are those who serve the profession and hobby of genealogy selflessly - they give of their time and knowledge to help others.

The Hall of Randy's Genealogy Heroes includes:

1) People who volunteer at a local, regional or national society - the ones that do the work to make programs and events happen.

2) People who try to help other researchers improve their knowledge and skills - mentors, teachers, writers, etc.

3) The long list of volunteers at the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness web site (http://www.raogk.org/)

4) The many volunteers who host and manage USGenWeb and WorldGenWeb sites.

5) The volunteers who monitor Rootsweb mailing lists and administer Rootsweb message boards.

6) The people who transcribe, abstract and index records at repositories or cemeteries.

7) The people who rescue family Bibles and other treasures at estate sales or bookstores, and try to hook them up with family.

8) The people working on the FamilySearch Indexing projects.

9) The people transcribing public domain books and/or records for free online posting - people like Janice Farnsworth, Ray Sears, Jane Devlin, John Slaughter, and others.

10) The many people who have done family research over the past 160 years - and documented their research in books, periodicals and web sites.

11) The many LDS people who have entered data into the IGI extracted from primary source documents.

Who else? I am quite sure that I have overlooked many people on my list - please tell me who I should add and I will consider it.

Do Blogs "Work" for Genealogy Societies?

One of the topics that my local society Board of Directors has discussed is "Would a society blog do a better job of informing and helping our members?"

Theoretically, a genealogy society blog might post information about:

1) Society programs and meetings
2) Society classes and special events
3) Local genealogy repositories
4) Member profiles or biographies
5) Member questions and queries
6) Local, regional or national genealogy news
7) Research Articles by members
8) etc.

The questions that need to be answered include:

1) Would our members read it and use it?
2) How is this different from a society web site?
3) Does it replace a society newsletter?
4) Who will do the work?
5) how much personal information should we include?
6) Should the blog be accessible to members only?
7) What should be included on a genealogy society blog?
8) etc.

We recently surveyed our membership about their genealogy experience, use of traditional and online resources, and asking for ideas on how to better serve them. The results are instructive to these questions, and I will post some of them in later posts.

I went looking for blogs already online for other genealogy societies. Chris Dunham's Blogfinder has a list of about 25 genealogical, historical and surname societies at http://blogfinder.genealogue.com/societies.asp. Many of the ones on this list have had few posts for awhile. There are some that are posting regularly. The best one I found was the Birmingham Genealogical Society . They have program announcements, program news, information about local resources, etc. Are there other genealogy society blogs that are active and not on Chris' list? Please tell us about them!

Do you have opinions about this? What is the best way to transmit society information to society members? What is the best way to help all of a society's members with their research? I would appreciate hearing from you on this topic.

National City Library Local History Room

One of the hidden gems on the list of San Diego genealogy/history repositories is the Local History room at the National City Public Library. National City is a city of about 60,000 people tucked between San Diego (population of about 1.2 million) and Chula Vista (city of about 220,000 people) with no room to grow. The city built a new library several years ago, and with extraordinary foresight, they included a large Local History Room to house the historical material.

Unfortunately, the Room is only open Tuesday through Thursday from 2 to 5 PM, so people need to plan their trip there.

In addition to the National City historical material there (quite a bit, including diaries and notebooks about the founding Kimball family), the Room has several vital databases, including:

1) San Diego City Directories - almost complete from about 1900 to 1984. They also have several San Diego Suburban directories but nowhere near all of them - too bad!

2) Card file to the National City Record newspaper, and the National City Star-News newspaper from about 1900 to 2000 (approximately). There is a separate card file for obituaries. You can search microfilms of the newspapers and print the page images. Since the NC Star-News differs from the Chula Vista Star-News only on the front page - the card catalog serves as an index to the CV paper as well (except for front page news).

There are a number of large maps and pictures in the Room. One of the neat maps they have is a photo of National City from about 1950 - it measures about 6 feet tall and 8 feet wide. You can see every house on every street. I mentioned to Matt, the docent, that he might be able to figure out the date of the map by finding blocks with only a few houses on them, getting the addresses for those houses, and checking the city directories to see when newer nearby houses were built.

I went there today to try to find information for three queries received recently by CVGS. Unfortunately, I struck out on all of them, but I enjoyed the search, marveled at the resources in this wonderful room, and appreciated the help from Matt.

The Chula Vista Library has a small local history room with some of the City Directories, and the Chula Vista Star-News on microfilm, but there is no index. There are also microfilms of the San Diego Union-Tribune from about 1975, but there is no index after 1980. There is a small Chula Vista Historical Society with limited hours - I haven't visited them, but I need to.

The downtown San Diego Library has more city directories, and the San Diego Union newspaper on microfilm, with an index for 1930 to 1980, but it is difficult to park during the week in an undesirable section of town. The San Diego Historical Society in Balboa Park has wonderful resources for the whole county, but costs money to enter and has parking problems.

I am very appreciative of the work that National City has done to protect and preserve the heritage of the city, and I love the easy access to the library and the Local History Room resources.

The Genealogists Hall of Shame

One of my CVGS colleagues suggested that a special place in Heck be reserved for certain people who make genealogy research too difficult, do stupid or damaging things, or embarrass the profession/interest/hobby/obsession.

After thinking for a few minutes, I wrote down a few candidates for my version of the Genealogy Hall of Shame:

1) People who throw out official original records without letting repositories claim them or copy them.

2) People who publish research based on the research of others without asking or crediting the original researcher.

3) People who close access to old records while claiming identity theft concerns.

4) People who discard family papers, Bibles and photographs without considering donating them to a local society.

5) People who ask for "all of your data" on a surname or ancestry

6) People (census-takers, court clerks, etc.) with very poor handwriting.

7) Repositories that practice poor housekeeping and don't protect their records

8) People who practice "extreme genealogy" - by harassing or attacking people, stealing DNA, etc.

9) People who steal, hide or or damage books, records, tombstones, artifacts or ephemera that cannot be replaced.

10) People who invent or distort historical records for the purpose of embellishng a genealogy or family history.

What have I missed? What can be said better? Tell me in the Comments and I'll add or edit the list above.

Have you had experience with any of the above? Were you able to save some records from the Shame-folks? Tell us about that too!

Accessing Ancestry at the FHC/FHL

As feared and anticipated, access to Ancestry.com at the LDS FHL and the FHCs was restricted on Monday, April 2. In addition, people with personal Ancestry subscriptions could not access Ancestry using an LDS network, since the IP Addresses of the LDS wireless networks were being used. Needless to say, an uproar ensued.

Leland Meitzler at the Everton's GenealogyBlog reports that Ancestry.com and the LDS are working on permitting access to Ancestry.com using personal subscriptions at the FHL or in the FHCs. Leland's post is at http://genealogyblog.com/ancestrycom/anecstrycom-says-were-working-on-it-5902.

The last paragraph of the Ancestry release reads:

"Ancestry and the FHL are currently exploring solutions to allow people to gain access to their personal accounts at the Family History Library while still protecting the privacy of customers. Rest assured that we (Ancestry and the FHL) are working on a resolution–but there is not yet a timetable for its completion."

Previously, on the APG list, several work-arounds were suggested. I thought that the most promising was to use an "Anonymizer" - a program that hides the IP address of the user. I tried two of them -- IDZap.com and Anonymouse.org and could not get to the http://www.ancestry.com login! www.IDZap.com told me my Internet Explorer was not recent enough (I'm using IE7.0) and www.Anonymouse.org said the URL I input (http://www.ancestry.com/) was not a good URL. On the APG list, someone suggested using Tor (http://tor.eff.org/) - which is free, but requires a download to use it. I did not try that before I saw Leland's post.

I think we all need to wait until Ancestry and the LDS get this sorted out. I hope that Ancestry subscribers will be able to use their personal subscription in an LDS building in the near future. That is the RIGHT thing for Ancestry to do, and I think they will get it done.

Have you visited Forensic Genealogy?

I posted yesterday about the "Live Man with a Dead Horse" picture, and provided a link to Colleen Fitzpatrick's web site at http://www.forensicgenealogy.info/.

Colleen has a weekly quiz on her web site - it's always a photograph of a person or a place and the challenge is to answer the questions she asks about the photograph. The idea is to hone your forensic skills by analyzing the picture, trying to find it on the web using search engines, and using your knowledge and experience of history, geography, society or other areas.

I try to read the quiz every week or so, but have slacked off in analyzing them. The quiz page is http://www.forensicgenealogy.info/contest.html.

For example, the quiz question this week is "What is the zodiac sign of the passenger?" You will have to go to the web site to see the picture since I don't have permission to post it here.

While you are on the quiz page, take the opportunity to read some (or all) of the previous quiz pictures and questions. The research that Colleen and the quiz masters put in to analyze the picture is amazing. This is a wonderful web site and pastime! The thing I like most about it is that it is unique - there are no others like it - and it presents an intellectual challenge that is fun to work on and solve.

Colleen presents a great program to genealogy societies and conferences - if you haven't heard her, please try to attend her presentations some time soon.