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Archive for March, 2009

Press Release: National Archives Hosts Fifth Genealogy Fair, April 22-23, 2009

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009

WASHINGTON, March 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Archives will host its fifth annual Genealogy Fair. This year’s two-day program will showcase Federal records located at the National Archives and professional genealogy organizations’ resources for family history research. Sessions include introductions to genealogy research, census records, Freedman’s Bureau records, immigration records, Congressional records, Native American records, and much more. National Archives staff will demonstrate how to use databases including the Archival Research Catalog (ARC) and Access to Archival Databases (AAD). The fair will provide information and guidance for experienced genealogy professionals and novices alike. Winners of the National Archives Awards for Excellence in Genealogy will be announced at a ceremony during the fair. The fair is free and open to the public, and presented in partnership with the Foundation for the National Archives and The Generations Network. For a schedule of lectures and demonstrations, see: http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/know-your-records/genealogy-fair.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080925/DC35252LOGO)

WHEN: Wednesday and Thursday, April 22-23, 2009, 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

WHERE: Research Center, National Archives Building, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. Government-issued photo ID or student ID is required to enter the building. The closest Metro stop is the Archives/Navy Memorial stop on the Yellow and Green lines. The National Archives is fully accessible. To request an accommodation (e.g., sign language interpreter) please email reservations.nwe@nara.gov or call 202-357-5000 at least two weeks prior to the event.

WHO: Speakers include historian at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Marian Smith; professional genealogists and National Archives volunteers Claire Bettag and Susannah Brooks; and National Archives experts Juliette Arai, Rebecca Crawford, Damani Davis, John Deeben, Tom Eisinger, Lynn Goodsell, Jeffery Hartley, Jill James, Claire Prechtel Kluskens, Daniel Law, Trevor Plante, Constance Potter, Rebecca Sharp, Katherine Vollen, and Reginald Washington.

BACKGROUND: The National Archives holds the permanently valuable records of the Federal government. These include records of interest to genealogists, such as pension files, census and Freedmen’s Bureau materials. For information on National Archives holdings see www.archives.gov.

For more information, email KYR@nara.gov.

SOURCE National Archives

Posted in Genealogy, Genealogy Sites, News | No Comments »

“Expertise” day

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Thanks to We Tree (http://wetree.blogspot.com/2009/01/jump-start-your-genealogy-blog-52-ideas.html) for the inspiration of this week’s blog prompt: Have expertise in a specific area of study? Share your knowledge! If you’ve lived in the same town for 60 years, you have something to share. If you’re a librarian in your day job, you have something to share. If you read Civil War history books for fun, you have something to share. If you’re walking on this Earth, you have something to share.

I think my area of expertise, besides Powell and Spencer family history, would be online research techniques. Of course, I cover this extensively in my book, Genealogy Online, 8th Edition.

But to share briefly some pointers on this blog, here are some general tips on searching the Web for genealogy:

Use phrases instead of single words in your searches. Type everal words that are relevant to your search. Typing Spencer genealogy Ohio will narrow a search well.

Enclose phrases in quotes. Searching on the phrase Spencer family history without quotation marks will match all pages that have any of those three words included somewhere on the page, in any order, and not necessarily adjacent to each other.

Searching with the phrase “Spencer family history” (with quotation marks) will usually get hits only on those pages that have those three words together.

The more specific you are, the better. Searching for Irish genealogy databases will give you fewer, but closer, matches than searching for Irish genealogy. Use plus and minus signs in your searches. A word preceded by a plus sign (+) must appear on the page to be considered a match. A word preceded by a minus sign (–) must not appear on the page to be considered a match. No spaces can be between the plus and minus signs and the words they apply to. For example, entering
+Spencer -royal genealogy
would ask the search engine to find pages that contain the word “Spencer,” but not the word “royal,” with the word “genealogy” preferred, but optional. Most search engines would get some Spencer genealogy pages but leave out those that include Lady Diana, Princess of Wales.

Every now and then, search for “geneology” instead of “genealogy.” You will be amazed at how many pages out there use this misspelling!

Posted in Genealogy | 1 Comment »

Brick Wall #1

Friday, March 27th, 2009

Thanks to We Tree (http://wetree.blogspot.com/2009/01/jump-start-your-genealogy-blog-52-ideas.html) for this prompt: use your blog to break down a brick wall. Posting a name may ring a bell with a reader. Maybe you’ll make a connection in 5 minutes. May be it will take 2 years. Either way, asking for help is the first step to knocking down that wall.

I’ve mentioned it before, but here goes:

William Reason POWELL was born in 1802 in Edgefield, South Carolina. He died in 1879 in Lauderdale County, Mississippi. He married Louisa FOSTER.
Mother never found out who his father was before she died. Once, long ago, on an Ancestry board someone posted a message stating flatly that his father is “Peter”, but when I emailed for more details I never got a response. I know lots of folks descended from “Reese” (his nickname in the family) but never found anyone who knows his father and mother.
I have access to Ancestry.com through my library, and haven’t come up with anything yet on “Reese”. I’d be glad to look up someone else’s mystery, though!

Who was Reese Powell’s father?

Posted in Genealogy, Genealogy Online, Genealogy Sites | No Comments »

Bookshelf: The Sleuth Book for Genealogists-Emily Anne Croom

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Another good book for your genealogy bookshelf is

Genealogy is great fun, but you’d never know it from reading about 80 percent of genealogy how-to books. This one is different: using quotes from various mystery novels from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, Croom helps the reader feel the joy, the intrigue, the puzzle-solving rush of genealogy. In reading this book, you understand that it’s not the ”research” as in writing a dull, dry term paper…it’s the evidence and clue finding that makes genealogy so addictive. Just like good detectives, we must look for the information by asking the right questions and looking in the right places, carefully collecting and documenting as we go. It’s like living your own mystery novel!

Just one example of how well this metaphor works: Chapter Three, “Broadening the Scope: Cluster Genealogy” uses quotes from various fictional detectives to make the point that our ancestors did not exist in a vacuum: they were part of communities, churches, clubs and more. Looking at the records of their neighbors, friends, cousins and business partners might help you find that next chink in the brick wall. Wills, deeds, court records, even being “called out in church for selling spirits on the Sabbath” hold clues to who are ancestors were.

Great information, great fun to read, this is a must have to add to your genealogy book collection!

Posted in Bookshelf, Genealogy, News | 1 Comment »

Wordless Wednesday: A godmother is as good as family sometimes

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Posted in Genealogy | No Comments »

Tombstone Tuesday: Columbarium

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

At St. Augustine’s, we have a columbarium. So far, John Paul Jones is the only member interred there.

Posted in And More..., Genealogy | No Comments »

Madness Monday : Abraham

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Amy Crook of Untangled Family Roots (http://untangledfamilyroots.blogspot.com) is starting a new meme for those of us researching our ancestors. This will occur each Monday as a recurring meme similar to Tombstone Tuesday and Wordless Wednesday.

For mad ancestors, maybe you had a black sheep in the family that drove everyone else mad. How about the ancestors that were called mad because of their eccentric personality? Maybe you had an ancestor that lived through the horrors of the old insane asylums. Maybe you have a funny one about an ancestor that just went off on a rampage because someone inflicted temporary insanity. I’m sure you can come up with other stories of madness. The more creative the better.

Now of course there are those ancestors who “drive us mad.” These are the ones that the family lost contact with. No one knows anything about them or where they disappeared to. Or maybe you know the last part of their lives, but not where it began. Tell us about your ancestors that are a triple layer brick wall. Post what you know, what you’ve heard from family, and what you suspect may be the truth. But please differentiate each category because what you’ve been told may not be fact, or what you suspect may not pan out either. So help your readers to help you separate fact from fiction in order to solve your puzzle. Posting about our brick walls may help bring some sanity back to our research.

——————–
So here’s my first posting: Abraham Spencer. For years and years we could not find his parents. He was born in that corner that was maybe New York, maybe Ohio, maybe Pennsylvania at time. No birth records, no mention of his parents in his obit.

At one time I horrified my mother by suggesting he committed some crime or scandal and changed his name. She nearly hit me for even thinking it!

We did the DNA test with my Uncle Marion and someone proven to descend from Abner Spencer….and it matched! That satisfied my mother, and I’m so glad she felt she had a solution before she died. But. That’s not documentary evidence. So I’m still hoping to find that one elusive document that would PROVE descent from Abner, and thence back to the original Gerard Spencer….

Posted in And More..., Genealogy | 2 Comments »

Birthday Calculator

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

A friend sent me a link to the Birthday Calculator. This might be fun to try on some of your ancestors!

19 March 1955

The moon’s phase on the day you were
born was waning crescent.
Your date of conception was on or about 26 June 1954 which was a Saturday.

You were born on a Saturday
under the astrological sign Pisces.
Your Life path number is 6.

Your fortune cookie reads:
You will be invited to an exciting event.

Life Path Compatibility:
You are most compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 3, 6 & 9.
You should get along well with those with the Life Path numbers 2, 4, 8, 11 & 22.
You are least compatible with those with the Life Path numbers 1, 5 & 7.

The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2435185.5.
The golden number for 1955 is 18.
The epact number for 1955 is 6.
The year 1955 was not a leap year.

Your birthday falls into the Chinese year beginning 1/24/1955 and ending 2/11/1956.
You were born in the Chinese year of the Goat.

Your Native American Zodiac sign is Wolf; your plant is Plantain.

You were born in the Egyptian month of Pachons, the first month of the season of Shomu (Harvest).

Your date of birth on the Hebrew calendar is 25 AdarI 5715.
Or if you were born after sundown then the date is 26 AdarI 5715.

The Mayan Calendar long count date of your birthday is 12.17.1.7.1 which is
12 baktun 17 katun 1 tun 7 uinal 1 kin

The Hijra (Islamic Calendar) date of your birth is Saturday, 25 Rajab 1374 (1374-7-25).

The date of Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 10 April 1955.
The date of Orthodox Easter on your birth year was Sunday, 17 April 1955.
The date of Ash Wednesday (the first day of Lent) on your birth year was Wednesday 23 February 1955.
The date of Whitsun (Pentecost Sunday) in the year of your birth was Sunday 29 May 1955.
The date of Whisuntide in the year of your birth was Sunday 5 June 1955.
The date of Rosh Hashanah in the year of your birth was Saturday, 17 September 1955.
The date of Passover in the year of your birth was Thursday, 7 April 1955.
The date of Mardi Gras on your birth year was Tuesday 22 February 1955.

As of 3/19/2009 1:38:06 PM EDT
You are 54 years old.
You are 648 months old.
You are 2,818 weeks old.
You are 19,724 days old.
You are 473,389 hours old.
You are 28,403,378 minutes old.
You are 1,704,202,686 seconds old.

Celebrities who share your birthday:

Bruce Willis (1955)	Glenn Close (1947)	Ursula Andress (1936)
Phyllis Newman (1935)	Patrick McGoohan (1928)	Wyatt Earp (1848)

Top songs of 1955

Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets	Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing by Four Aces	The Yellow Rose of Texas by Mitch Miller
Autumn Leaves by Roger Williams	Learnin’ the Blues by Frank Sinatra
Ain’t That a Shame by Fats Domino	Moments to Remember by Four Lads
I Hear You Knocking by Gale Storm	A Blossom Fell by Nat King Cole

Your age is the equivalent of a dog that is 7.71976516634051 years old. (You old hound dog, you!)

Your lucky day is Thursday.
Your lucky number is 3 & 7.
Your ruling planet(s) is Jupiter & Neptune.
Your lucky dates are 1st, 10th, 19th, 28th.
Your opposition sign is Virgo.
Your opposition number(s) is 5.

Today is not one of your lucky days!

There are 365 days till your next birthday
on which your cake will have 55 candles.

Those 55 candles produce 55 BTUs,
or 13,860 calories of heat (that’s only 13.8600 food Calories!) .
You can boil 6.29 US ounces of water with that many candles.

In 1955 there were approximately 4.0 million births in the US.
In 1955 the US population was approximately 150,697,361 people, 50.7 persons per square mile.
In 1955 in the US there were approximately 1,667,231 marriages (11.1%) and 385,144 divorces (2.6%)
In 1955 in the US there were approximately 1,452,000 deaths (9.6 per 1000)
In the US a new person is born approximately every 8 seconds.
In the US one person dies approximately every 12 seconds.

In 1955 the population of Australia was approximately 9,311,825.
In 1955 there were approximately 207,677 births in Australia.
In 1955 in Australia there were approximately 72,172 marriages and 6,724 divorces.
In 1955 in Australia there were approximately 82,036 deaths.

Your birth flower is DAFFODIL

Your birthstone is Aquamarine

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