Arlene Eakle’s New York Blog

You know how genealogy and family history newsletters usually include columns of tips and short cuts.  BEWARE.  Not all short cuts are created equal.

And if your computer knowledge is somewhat limited, as mine is, you may end up with your data not preserved–as happens to me more often than I want to  discover.  My back-ups are good and frequent.  And I finally found out how to retrieve when I think I have lost the data.  My webmaster is very indulgent to troubleshoot for me when I need her help.  Sometimes I am on my own and I have to search for online help.

Short cuts in research are also included in tip columns.  And again I say, BEWARE.  Not all of these are created equal either.

1. When you discover a name on a list–use caution.  Lists are favorite things to put online–they usually supply a date (that may fit your time period).  They may supply a place (that may match where your ancestor resided).  They may include an occupation (which matches the occupation on the census for the person you think is your ancestor).  The list may even name family members which match.  The person on the list may not be your ancestor!  The list is not proof of relationship to you.
2. Spelling is never proof of  ancestry.  Think about it.  I went to pick up some tractor parts at a supply house in Spanish Fork UT for my husband.  It took me two and 1/2 hours one way to get there.  While I waited for my order to be processed and filled, I read the announcements and fliers taped to the posts in the store.  One was especially interesting–the owner had posted 73 different spellings of his European surname! And since my surname is Eakle–most people who don’t know me cannot pronounce it, let alone spell it correctly.  Even my own mother spelled it wrong her whole lifetime.  Work out a surname list of possible spellings.  Double-check it in more than one large database to see what other spellings are also grouped with your spelling.  FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com are two easily checked databases.  And update your surname list.  Now add surnames of other people who were intimately associated with your ancestors–as controls.  Search them all.  If those surnames appear in the lists as well as your surnames, stop and check the sources associated with the lists.  Otherwise, use a little caution.
3. If you are interrupted while searching a record, make a note.  Who you were looking for–specific names.  Where you got to by page, and line, as well as call number and record.  If it is a book, give the full citation so you can find it again.
4. Proof-read your entries. Even when you make a photocopy of a page, check to see that you got it all.  That the entry you need is not continued on the next page.  That you spelled the words and the names exactly as they appear in the record.  That the dates have not been transposed.  That the places are written as they are in the record.  And check especially for the relationships–does the record say gson and you missed the small g?  I watch people typing the entries from books and microfilms onto their laptops at libraries and archives all the time.  Few re-check the entries for accuracy.
5. Before using an index, check the Foreword and the Introduction with any lists of abbreviations and source codes.  And always check for multiple indexes–at front and throughout the record, as well as at the end.  Table of contents may not identify other indexes.  If lists are alphabetical, they often are not indexed.  If lists are short, they can be omitted.  If sketches are alphabetical, they may not be included in the index.
6. Watch for more than one child in a family with the same given name.  Lots of reasons for this–cultural background, use of Saints’ names as christening names, family tradition, and on and on.  So don’t stop with the first entry in a family history or genealogy.  Check them all out.
7. Do the math–always do the math.  People live different lengths of time.  They marry at different ages.  Their birth-cycles differ.  Even so, a normal generation if 20-35 years long.  With normal overlap from one generation to another.  Check those for your family.  If girls appear to marry young, state this in your notes. But do the math.  Men can inherit property at the age set by the father under English law.  But the legal age is the age at which the son can defend his title. So when in doubt, search more records!

Good searching.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Stay tuned for a list of Jefferson County NY materials and where you can find them.

On the new book shelf today at the Family History Library is a very interesting volume that is announced as the first of a series–compiled by Sherida K. Eddlemon and Rhena A.V. Eddlemon:  Our Brooklyn New York Ancestors 1796 and Beyond.

1. Irish immigrants between 1840-45 who came to escape the famine
2. Germans who came to escape the revolutions of the 1840′s
3. A wave of Arab immigrants in the 1870′s  who carried Turkish passports and called themselves Syrians
4. Italians arriving in the 1880′s
5. And other: Poles, Russians, Danes, Finns, Swedes, and Norwegians

What is so remarkable about this volume are the sources used to document these immigrants–

__directories

__sheet music

__event programs

__newspapers

__receipts

__ship manifests

__cemetery tombstones

__college  graduation lists

__professional registries

__birth certificates

__patent applications

In short, what are often called ephemera by librarians!  Imagine sheet music dedicated to people and many times giving their exact residence.  Amherst, Dartmouth, and Princeton–schools where the second generation moved up and out of the immigrant neighborhoods.  

This little gem was published by Closson Press, 257 Delilah Street, Apollo PA 15613-1933  http://www.clossonpress.com  Order or check their catalog online for other “goodies” that your pedigree could benefit from.  

Break your losing streak!  Watch for sources like the checklist above that document your own New York immigrant ancestors.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  And read the Introductions, footnotes, and lists of sources in the books you consult.  That’s where I got the checklist.

Webmaster Kathryn here – Arlene asked me to let you know that she has new phone numbers.

I discovered an old book treasure in a used book store a while back–The American Revolution in New York:  It’s Political, Social, and Economic Significance written by a group of scholars at University of the State of New York (Albany: 1926).  And this little volume is truly a treasure for understanding the impact of the Revolutionary War on New York ancestors.

New York was a Loyalist stronghold.  Between 1776 and 1780, New York City was a mecca for Loyalists–from all over the Colonies.  The city was the headquarters of the British High Command and a place where the officers and men of the British Army congregated–for entertainment, for supplies, and for orders.  Civilian loyalists were fed, protected, clothed, granted annuities, and appointed to specific offices.  They were able to live a semblance of a normal life–within the boundaries of the City.

In other parts of New York, the exodus of persons loyal to the British Crown began as early as 1774–when war seemed imminent–to Canada, to New Brunswick, to Nova Scotia, to the West Indies, and to England.  A few left for South America as well.  About 35,000 Americans left the state.  The British Parliament appointed 5 commissioners, in 1783, to classify the thousands of petitions for compensation and help.

By 1784, ten years later, The whole area changed substantially:  2/3rds of the voters were disfranchised in New York, Richmond, and King counties.  All of the Borough of Westchester, 1/5th of Suffolk County.  Lawyers could not practice; physicians were boycotted. Those known to support the British often had to flee in the night to avoid arrest and imprisonment.

Patriots were organized into committees for each county–committee members paid bills for the poor, offered bounties to the soldiers, recruited additional troops, bought supplies, repaired guns, secured wagons and sleds for transportation of men and guns, guarded stores, advanced cash to pay for food, fuel, and ammunition, regulated prices, conducted local elections and  local legal business like the probating of wills and appointing of guardians.

Committee System which fought and won the American Revolution:

Continental Congress (whole country)

Provincial Congress (New York)

County Committees                              Emergency Committees

Committee of Correspondence           Committee of Observation

Local Boards                                           Sons of Liberty, Daughters of Liberty

Committee Minutes for some counties have been printed; some are available only in manuscript at the New York State Archives. Newspapers of the time include ads and articles on these activities–loyalist and patriot.  Most of these sources are still to be abstracted and indexed before you can fully understand and document the impact of this war of wars on your ancestors.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Is this fun or what?  The more you learn, the more you still have to discover.  Stay tuned.

New York genealogy research is among the most challenging tasks a professional genealogist has.  Finding vital records–births, marriages, deaths, divorces, adoptions–is especially difficult. 

1. Cemetery inscriptions, and on occcasion sexton’s entries, are indexed on 4×5 cards available on microfilm through Family History Centers of the LDS Church. 
2. Church registers, kept by even very early congregations, are episodic.  Some years are well covered, some denominations are more consistent than others.  
3. Newspaper announcements, where the English tradition of publishing intent to marry as well as descriptions of the actual marriage itself, often are the most accessible. 
4. Family bibles, best discovered in the typed volumes of the New York Daughters of the American Revolution, can be researched at the New York State Archives.  The grandfather papers, typed into volumes and indexed on 3×5 cards at the New York State Archives, are often overlooked.  And since they are not included in the main Grandfather Papers of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (on microfilm through your nearest Family History Center of the LDS Church), they are easily missed.
5. Even the census records are difficult–some cities are omitted from the microfilmed schedules.  And although original county schedules exist for parts of the 1850 census in local county archives, the version available on microfilm in most libraries is a copy made for the National Government–which may or may not include all the entries in the originals.  To see the originals you have to visit the local archives or send an agent in your behalf.  The 1855 New York State census gives county of birth if your ancestor was born in the state of New York.  Every once and a while, the clerk includes counties of birth for persons not born in New York!  So not all is dark.
6. Ancestry.com has captured many births, marriages, and deaths for New York City among their databases–one of the first places to search if you have City ancestors. 
7. And then, some public-minded individuals record deaths of persons around their own area of residence.  These entries can be found in genealogy collections deposited in public and private libraries all across the state.  Best place to find these is in the “classic” version of the Family History Library catalog online or at the Family History Center nearest you.  And recorded in lists published in county and town histories or in genealogical and historical society periodicals.  Their quarterlies and sometimes their newspetters include vital records–some in each volume.

Most of these New York sources are printed, with printed letter; few are in cursive characters.

In 2012, a new threat to genealogy access–

Elementary and junior high schools are phasing out teaching cursive writing to students.  My 7-year-old grandson cannot read cursive; his school district has quit teaching cursive writing and reading.  New technologies are taking over in the classroom–some schools now issue IPAD’s and other digital devices to students as they begin classes.  These tablets are to replace textbooks published with printed letters–cheaper year-by-year and costs are driving education in the same way they seem to be driving medicine.  The need for cursive learning is being questioned by state departments of education.

Brigham Young University-Idaho still requires elementary education students–future teachers–to take handwriting as a special class.  It is required for graduation.  How long can they sustain support for such skills?

What does cursive writing have to do with your genealogy?

Just when we convince libraries and archives, as well as commercial companies who cater to genealogists to supply images of the original documents in which our ancestors are recorded..

Just when we can finely document an ancestor’s life from original records…

Some 43 states have adopted the national standard to begin in the 2013-14 school year, that eliminates cursive writing as a required skill.   Keyboard prowess will be instituted as the national standard.

The generations who follow us will not be able to read these images!

Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Remember when we complained about pedigrees built only on printed sources? A genealogy dilemma

Arlene’s webmaster Kathryn posting today. If you have recently emailed Arlene and not received an answer, she’s not ignoring you. The computer she used for email has recently been giving her more and more problems, to the point she can’t download email. Her grandson is going to update the computer soon, hopefully by the end of the month, and then she will start catching up. So please be patient.

Today, at the Family History Expo, Arlene was speaking on documenting your common ancestors in Congressional Records. She talked about Peter Force’s “American Archives”, a Documentary History of the early days of the United States. The set is comprised of 6 volumes in the Fourth Series, and 3 volumes in the Fifth Series for a total of 9 volumes. She has access to one of the volumes in physical format and said that because of the computer problem, she hadn’t yet Googled to see if they had been digitized. So I did that while she was talking and found that all 9 volumes are available at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22Peter%20Force%22 for free, and can be read online or downloaded in a variety of formats (PDF, text, Kindle, etc).

With the computer problem, she won’t be blogging either. I’ll keep you posted if it looks like it will take longer than the end of the month.

Kathryn Bassett, webmaster for our favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle

When you depend on search engines to find the genealogy stuff you need to prove your ancestry, your success depends on your knowledge of how to use a search engines to good advantage.

Even when you know there has to be an entry in the record.  Or even when you have clicked on a link to a record category.  And if you check a whole list of spelling variants in the search bar without success–it is the search engine that finds your data.

So I went looking for online help.  And BINGO!

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~clifflamere/Computer/SearchEngines.htm Cliff Lamere of Albany NY has prepared an online Tutorial on website search engines for genealogists.

This 6 page guide is easy to understand and follow and apply to your research.  When the website has a search box–you now can get better results.  I recommend that you study  and apply it too.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Many thanks, Cliff Lamere.

Genealogy is Ancestors, not Sources.  Sources are just the means to the pedigree you seek.  When you build your research plan around your ancestors and their relationships, you ensure you follow the right pedigree line!

First, determine what you know:  Use Personal Records (Documents of Personal Identity), Family Records (Documents of Family Identity:  father, mother, and all the kids), Compiled Records (Documents of Extended Family Identity: grandparents, aunts, uncles, and their family units).  This step used to be called The Survey because you examined what had already been collected, and in some cases printed, about your family and those ancestors already traced.  These searches focus your attention on where your pedigree becomes slim and where you can begin, without unnecessarily duplicating the work of the past.

Chart your family data as you go–let proven family relationships guide your research.

Map your family movements as you research–plot your family lore on the ground.

Create an Ancestor Profile–a chronology summarizing what you know about these first ancestors.  You will add to this profile as you continue through the records–providing a running list of facts always at your fingertips.  Share this profile with everyone–librarians, archivists, friends and family on your social media networks, correspondents by email and postal mail.  Print copies and scatter them like confetti.  The more you share, the more your will learn.

The second step is to Identify the Gaps in your Genealogy–missing names both surnames and given names, dates, places, relationships, and migrations.  These are your beginning points on each lineage.  You can begin with what you know.  You can search first where you know your ancestors resided.  And you can place your ancestors in the context of whole family units that are tied together by real facts. 

Third, search each place your ancestors resided starting with the date you know they lived there.  Build a complete structure as you go through the records for that place. 

At all levels of jurisdiction.  Examine  each person with the same “m.o.” as your ancestor–the same surname, same given name, or combinations of names you find in your own families; same place of birth or death and  same residence; same river, same ship, same occupation, same church, same military unit, same whatever–shared by your ancestor. 

Like looking for shapes and colors and designs or forms on the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, you can watch for similar aspects of life shared by your ancestors and the people  surrounding your family members.  Those who share the same “m.o.” exactly are all potential relatives to be added into your lineage.

If you only look at the ancestors you already know, you will miss the majority of relatives who live nearby!  Few people live and move alone–”they take their father, their mother, their sister, and their brother–oh, you never see your ancestor alone.”

Repeat the research cycle.  With each new ancestor that you add to your pedigree and in each new place you discover your ancestors resided, you repeat the process. 

The Jurisdictional Approach (R) is more that just searching one jurisdiction after another. You study your ancestors and use what you know about them to direct your searches. 

You place your own family in their jurisdictions and their time period:  Their religions, their occupations, their accomplishments, their military service.–in short, the life they lived. 

Chart the relationships they have with others and create a mini-census, a list of names and residences directly connected to your own family.  Include spouses, witnesses, bondsmen, neighbors.   Who did they know? 

What did they do?  Where did they travel?  Who traveled with them?  Map these moves, residences, and origins.  The research you do in the records and sources created by jurisdictions exercising control over your ancestor’s life, liberty of movement, and property holdings–the sources of power and wealth– will disclose the facts you need to build a proven and complete lineage. 

Chart, Map, Record, Copy as you go  through the records.  Add the new information to your Ancestor Profiles.  And share the up-dated versions as widely as you can.  Avoid waiting until you collect all you want or need.

This approach guides you in a focused way to facts about your own family you don’t yet have.  And ensures against inaccurate, incomplete, and often nonexistent pedigrees!  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  And if you need my help solving a really tough research problem–and New York research is about as tough as it gets–you can provide copies of your charts and maps and copies of documents and Ancestor Profiles so I can benefit from the research you have already completed.  I won’t have to duplicate your searches because your mini-census list is missing.

I have wowed audiences from the platform with my local knowledge for many years (did I just write “wowed”–how unlike me!)–knowledge essential to tracing a pedigree accurately.

And almost every Family History Expo or genealogy seminar where I speak, someone asks me how I know so much about local areas which I tell about in my presentations and use finding family connections.  So I decided to give you a blow-by-blow description of just how I gather local knowledge–the kind that solves difficult pedigree problems.

You see, solving difficult problems is often a matter of jurisdiction.  Or, discovering an unusual migration pattern.  Or, finding a hidden record tucked away in a place you would never think to look.

Disclaimer–I did not begin my genealogy research career using the internet as a tool.  I learned to do research up close and personal–in libraries and on the ground talking to people who had lived in that place for a long time.  Someone who was born there is best.  Although someone with a keen interest in the history and development of the place is also a good informant.

Among the first  sources I check are local newspapers that publish nostalgic or retrospective issues built around anniversaries and historical happenings.  You know the kind, newsprint size filled with local ads often slanted toward the theme of the piece.

Let me share with you one that I discovered on the oversize bookshelf at the Family History Library on Tuesday–

Arsenal of the Revolution:  The First History of the 14th Colony, edited by Edward Fales, Jr., a local artist, with local historians of the 17 Iron Country Towns .  This 100-page gem was published by the Lakeville Journal and The News.  The 17 Iron Towns of the Berkshire-Taconic area are:  Amenia, Ancram, Canaan, Copake, Cornwall, Dover, Egremont, Falls Village, Hillsdale, Kent, Mount Washington, Norfolk, Northeast, Pine Plains, Salisbury, Sharon, and Sheffield–located where Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York come together.  The manors of Livingston and Van Rensselear are also included.

Stories and lore, maps, photographs, and drawings galore.  Town historians wrote short histories of each town or dramatic event that occurred during the early days of settlement and the months leading up to the War.  Featured events in this publication were focused on or near the American Revolution.  And the editor narrated additional facts about the people and places mentioned.

Several times in the past few years, I have driven through these settlements in Eastern New York.  And reading Arsenal of the Revolution answered questions I had about the jurisdictions, the people, and the settlements themselves.  I also had taken the road that General Knox created to carry the cannon to the battlefront–almost straight up over the Berkshire mountains and down the other side.  Fales and his group of historians described this trek and mapped the reason Knox selected the route in the first place.

And I am currently researching five rather tough genealogy cases through these valleys east of the Hudson River, along the New York boundary:  Foster, Finch, Forbes, Woodward, and Wilcox.  All five families are referenced among these towns.  So this information gained by reading Arsenal of the Revolution is especially helpful:

1. Who settled there? Dutch from west of the Hudson River; English and Scots-Irish from New England; English and Scots from Connecticut and Long Island–crossing to the mainland referred to as “The Continent”; Scots directly from Scotland; Huguenots from Netherlands and Germany; Quakers settling in the “Oblong Patent”; Palatines from Germany who settled in East Camp and West Camp along the Hudson;  French down the river valleys from Canada.  And peaceable Indians.
2. Most of the towns wrote their own statements of Liberty and Property–which local residents  signed as the Revolutionary War seemed imminent:  The Canaan Resolves, the Amenian Pledge, Sheffield’s 14 Declarations, and the  Stockbridge Resolutions.
3. Roads of today may follow the paths of ancient use.  Some were parts of swamps.  And bridges constructed early on had to be expanded to handle later traffic.  Hand-drawn maps show where the roads were and how they changed over time.
4. The settlers brought with them three mighty weapons:  a love of freedom, willingness to work, and a firm belief that God was their ally.
5. Under British rule, the Americans were prohibited from developing ironworks to render the metal into useful products.  With their declarations of  independence, they could forge the rich ore into cannon and balls to defend forts, arm ships, and keep the British away from shoreline and river.
6. Tenants on the manors of Livingston and Van Rensselear forgot, for a time, their dislike of paying rent and serving for nothing more than the right to live on the land long enough to shoulder muskets in a greater cause.
7. Hessian mercenaries kept diaries, when as prisoners of war, as they marched through the towns ogling the comely American girls–whose faces showed few pock-marks since inoculation against small pox was common.  Up to half these German soldier elected to  stay behind as husbands for these girls of the “pretty lips and laughing eyes.”

This is the story of the other Cradle of Freedom–the one the history books forgot.  Wherever history is still taught, children learn that America was forged at Trenton and Ticonderoga, Boston and Brooklyn, Valley Forge and Yorktown–and of course, on Mr Freemans’ farm at Saratoga.  But few have ever been told about the furious “steel works” or the ox-teamsters who smuggled steady trains of cannon from these hills to the troops, hiding them by day in the notches and often traveling only by night.

Few know about the great herds of cattle that were driven south to feed the army–south through Sheffield, Amenia and Dover or the cattle that stumbled west straining Mr. Bull’s shiny new bridge at Kent.  On dry days, the cattle often disappeared wrapped in their own clouds of dust.

Few were told that George Washington moved back and forth in the shelter of these hills negotiating for arms to fight the British with and paying for them with money raised by his own officers; or that the hills hid the bookseller Knox on his incredible “cannon march” through Egremont–a march that may have saved the new nation…

The grain to be processed at the gristmill in Sharon was in such demand that farmers  hauled their  grain from as far as Poughkeepsie and Rhinebeck traveling by night and hiding their oxen and carts by day.

What clearly emerges is a tremendously vital land, almost in its strength a fourteenth Original Colony. The Dutch and the English were vastly different.  The German Palatine refugees who came in were unlike either.  But what they created was a natural American Gibraltar, a small inner Kingdom that stabilized the whole war effort.  Without the iron courage of the farmers and the stubborn determination of the steelmakers resident in this multi-national Iron Country, the American Revolution might never have been won at all.  Edward Fales, Jr.

History, laced with patriotism and fact, makes believers of us all.  Your favorite New York genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS Stay tuned for the next steps I take to learn about the local areas.

Hi ya’all, after several months, I am back–and live in New York!  Hadn’t meant to leave you hanging for so long.  Just got so busy going to Family History Expos.  Writing new handouts, and preparing checklists,  and up-dating previously written white papers.  And getting ready to turn my overhead presentations into power points.

I have resisted going to power point presentations for a number of reasons:

1. Sheer number of  hours it takes to change from one media to another.  The power point I did with the help of Barry Ewell took over 35 hours.  And although it was a special program, the time investment was immense.  And I have more than 50 presentations!
2. Overhead presentations seem to be more flexible; I can shift from one example to another easily without getting lost or  racing through a series of slides to get t0 another place in the sequence of slides.  I always worry that I will lose my place–I do not write out my presentations–they come from my head and from my heart.
3. My computer skills still seem to be more limited than I need to make the conversions.  Even with the practice I am getting from continued computer input.

However…

Technology is on the move–replacement overhead projectors are hard to find and repairs f0r the ones we have non-existent.  So if I want my audiences to see examples of actual genealogy documents, learn to read them correctly, and evaluate their evidence  fully–convert my presentations I must.

“Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks,” 2011 theme for Family History Expos events across the United States.  Come see your favorite New York  genealogist, Arlene Eakle make the jump into reality–it may be more entertaining than your actual genealogy research–watching this old d0g do new tricks.

PS  I still talk about New York sources and research strategies that make New York genealogy successful–when other genealogists are ready to give up, my research suggestions are just getting started.  Please keep tuned to this blog for special research help in New York.

PPS  This blog is coming to you from Lockport, New York.  After stops in Connecticut, Vermont, and various places across New York State!