ANCESTRY GENEALOGY DATABASE - U.S. SLAVE ERA INSURANCE POLICIES 1640-1865

I check the Ancestry card catalogue to see what is new and also use it to search for databases I don't know about. I never thought that slave owners would take out insurance on their slaves. and as early as 1640!  Since using the ProQuest History Vault brought up Delaware, I thought I'd try this one for the city of Pittsburgh.  While Pittsburgh did not come up there were lists of slaves including some surnames, the place of residence, and the slave holder's name.

An example is Henry Clay a slave in Louisville Kentucky whose holder was James McDowell.

It says he was a steamboat hand and the policy on him was number 1686.

Now the links to the policy information go to the Internet, so be sure you're on a computer that will do that. Some library computers will not. This one went to the state of Illinois.

I take it that Northern insurance companies sold policies to people who held slaves in other  states even if slavery was illegal in theirs.  What an eye opener.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpor

TRYING THE 1950 CENSUS SEARCH ON ANCESTRY TM GENEALOGY - SOME SUCCESS SOME FAILURE

I've been trying the Ancestry TM genealogy databases once a week to see what progress that big database company is making on indexing the 1950 census, which came out on the NARA web site on April first.  (Disclosure:  The title of this blog is not in reference to that site.  Ancestry TM is one of many databases that I use.)

Having found some, but not all of the people I sought to find, I kept trying Ancestry TM to see what, if anything, would come up that I had not found on the NARA web site.  Yesterday I was pleased to have brought up one of the people who I sought, and indeed the surname was spelled incorrectly enough that I might have played games with it a dozen or more different ways in hopes of finding it. So in this case, Ancestry's implied soundex did make a difference.

Interestingly, however,  the person's son,  living independently, who I did find on a NARA exploration, did not come up on Ancestry, though I spelled that surname the same way as it had come up on NARA. And he was living in the same town, not far away. 

A further surprise was that a relative of mine was counted TWICE, at two different locations in the same small town, listed as a 'lodger.'  In one it says she is 24, in the other that she is 30.  The 24 is closer to the mark, making me think that the family where she is listed as 30 years old might have talked to the census taker rather than the census taker talking to her.  Had she been in the process of moving?  Neither family is related to her, so ???

Ancestry TM is suggesting that you send them your e-mail address in order to be informed about the 1950 census.  I simply looked at the numbers and saw that about one and a half million had been indexed. About 151 million people were counted that  1950 census and no doubt about it, there must be many people working on it. So, I think I must have just been lucky enough to have been searching for a surname that comes up within the count.

Another surprise was learning that a person who I knew to have been divorced three times had two more children with the third, brief, husband. They were born after the 1940, and I know the husband was living in a boarding house that year.  I do wonder what the arrangement was.  This woman had a very hard life.  Her age is a little off on the 1950, and it says she was born in the United States, though I have her coming into New York Harbor in her mother's arms, and thus believe she was born in Europe.  Did she perhaps not know where she was born?  Since I cannot find any baptismal for her in Europe but also cannot find any baptismal for her two siblings who were born in the United States, I wonder...

The other pleasure was finding two individuals who had middle initials listed.  I had been told that the M for one stood for Mary, and that is was an honorific for her mother.  That has pretty much been proven.  However, it was only a childhood memory - I must have been ten years old -  when I asked an adult what the middle name of the man was.  I was told Peter and that makes sense of the P.

I'll be reporting on 1950 census progress again.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy

FIND A GRAVE CHANGES POLICY TO BE MORE SENSITIVE : OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

FIND A GRAVE, the web site that features volunteers and others posting private information on where a human has been buried, has changed its policy, giving some credence to the sensitivity of living family.  It is not enough.  They have determined that they will allow family to grieve for three months before posting the location of the burial. (FIND A GRAVE WILL GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO OBJECT, if you register with them, then they will hold off for a YEAR.)

The lack of privacy in death that the deceased person and their loved ones has makes me feel some outrage at the whole situation - costly burials and the whole lousy funeral industry included. 

Apparently if you are living in the United States, you have about 70 years of privacy when it comes to census records, but almost none in death, and since most people who are alive have family who have died THIS ERODES THEIR PRIVACY TOO.  It is no wonder that fraudsters, including people who call up old widows and try to get their money, operate so easily. They see an obit, do a little research, and soon they have the person's address and phone number thanks to some of the most popular genealogy databases.  It's shameful.

I know someone whose parents were robbed of their life savings by such a fraudster and he knew all sorts of things about them and their children, which the criminal used in his story.  

Someone else I knew, who was in very deep grief over the death of his wife, was solicited by some lonely widows!  (To his credit he joked that he could not move to Florida because there would be even more of them after him there!  He had no interest in dating or remarrying.)

I had this experience years ago when a loved one died after a long, horrible illness. I was still in grief when I found out that the expensively paid for funeral and grave site - supposed to be on HOLY GROUND in a RELIGION-BOUND CEMETERY YET, was posted on FIND A GRAVE.  I recall seeing this on the Internet and a sick feeling spread through my stomach.

Apparently, the whole cemetery had been tramped on as a couple went around taking down information about the tombstones but when? I called the cemetery and tried to express my displeasure and got a snotty person on the phone who did not give a damn. She sure wasn't going to contact these people for me.

This person, who I was calling long distance, previously also did not want to reveal to me where my very own ancestors were buried in the cemetery - apparently it would take a visit to find out. Since then I have to wonder how many cemetery workers just think "go look at the FIND A GRAVE web site!" Since then others have died and been buried in that cemetery and the same thing - the information is exposed to the world! 

It was at that time that I decided if I myself was buried I would NEVER WANT A TOMBSTONE. (We really need to rethink why we need to have a tombstone at all. I don't think too many people actually visit cemeteries and the whole kneeling on the grave, looking at the tombstone and saying prayers thing, which I've witnessed others doing, is something I will not do. That person is gone. The best embalming and the heaviest locked up casket will not stop a body from decaying, be it in the ground or above ground.)  

Though the couple who did this outrageous privacy invading reportage did post that if you objected you could contact them and they would take the information down, I had to wonder how many people even knew what they had done and who they were! Latter Day Saints in a Catholic cemetery?  People who were with the local historical society?  Did they have any family buried in the cemetery?  What about the cemetery management and the church that claims this is Holy Ground - a great place for co-religionists to wait it out until The Second Coming resurrects them?  Maybe Jesus has his own database?

The idea that someone will offend you first, and then if you object, they will backtrack on the Internet yet, which is after all is world-wide, is sort of like when some man you're out on a first date with grabs your breast (or worse) and only if you object will he remove it. In other words, FIND A GRAVE and their cohorts seem to be, like some social networks with empire building agendas, speculatively depend on being caught and you making a fuss rather that ASKING YOUR PERMISSION IN THE FIRST PLACE. That is simply NOT DECENT.  

Further, FIND A GRAVE has turned into a place where people are posting private genealogy information as well: this is something I NEVER do as a professional. It is one thing to find out someone who died in 1906 in Austria is buried at a certain place, another to find out your mother's grave has been revealed. 

Privacy Rules for the Deceased and Their Families should be the same across the board.  Leave the dead to rest in peace and their loved ones alone too! 

There are many other privacy deprivations in place in the world of genealogy including in databases, and you can be sure FIND A GRAVE INFORMATION IS SHOWING UP ON ANCESTRY (The genealogy database: This blog has no relationship with it.) and well, lots of other places, including FAMILY SEARCH. 

I do wonder if FIND A GRAVE just decided to foist all that free, volunteer-given work over to ANCESTRY or if ANCESTRY PAID THEM?  FAMILYSEARCH? There is nothing wrong with contributing your free time and knowledge to a database but they need to be held accountable for privacy invasion. I await the day when someone who has been a victim of crime can point to these sites as to how the criminal found them and hold them accountable.)

Can cemetery sites help you with genealogy?  Certainly.  But let's get PRIVACY LAWS IN PLACE to show respect. Let the person rest in their grave without the world knowing where to locate them until decades have passed.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy.

(By the way, you are under no obligation to publish an obituary, and the funeral businesses putting obits and a plea for commentary and soliciting people to buy flowers and so on the internet, can also be insensitive. If someone has died and you have been informed, the thing to do is make a personal contact with the loved ones, not post on the Internet. If they are not personal enough to you to have been notified, you're just minding other people's business. This solicitation of posting remarks on Internet obits has become a sort of pressured activity, and funeral businesses are behind it.  If you want your privacy in death, be sure that your contract with the funeral home and cemetery include a contract in which they will not post and will not allow your burial site to be revealed!)

 

WORKHOUSES - REFORMATORIES- PRISON RECORDS - LATEST ON ANCESTRY.COM DATABASES - CRIMINAL USE

As you know, this BlogSpot is not owned, operated, or related to the ANCESTRY.COM databases, and though I do use those databases, I also use others, as well as microfilms, books, and much else.

I do check to see what is new or updated on ANCESTRY.COM every few months, even if I'm not working on a genealogy research project in which I would use those databases.  I feel that I should always be current with knowledge of resources, just in case.
 
I recently discovered one called  PENNSYLVANIA PRISON, REFORMATORY, and WORKHOUSE RECORDS 1829-1971.  To me the 1971 is MUCH TOO RECENT TO BE PUBLISHED as it might OUT PEOPLE WHO ARE ALIVE. 

I'm concerned about the lack of discrimination and the use of these databases by both Ancestry and the State of Pennsylvania... but I'll have to check and see if such records have always been, like marriage and divorce records, open to the public in Pennsylvania.  In California arrest records are, but I'm not aware of the public easily learning about sentences, and other details.

At this point I'm very concerned about the use of genealogy databases by criminals, in this era in which other countries are hacking our e-mails, web sites, even voters registrations in order to ID THEFT.  Identity theft is not just about ruining a person's credit and financial reputation, but in ASSUMING IDENTITIES.
 
Criminals doing this targeted a senior citizen couple in my neighborhood, calling them with knowledge of their children's names and even a grandchild's name.  They had their address and phone number - easy enough.  They claimed that they were calling from Mexico, with a made up story about how their beloved grandson had gone there for a wedding, drank too much, acted crazy, and was in a Mexican prison.  For a sum of $40,000 (their life savings) he could be bailed out of jail and returned to the United States and no one need to know.  His young life would not need to be ruined with an arrest record.  So much did the criminals know about this family that the seniors wired the money to Mexico, only to learn their grandson had never left the United States and was alive and well (and not at all criminal) at his college...

Never the less I did look at the database, which names people, the reason why they were arrested, the time or fine they were sentenced to, their prison job, and any amount of money they had earned while in the prison, reformatory (reform school - indicative of a juvenile delinquent), or workhouse (place a person works off their debts), from a historical point of view.

These places were frightening to the people who were put into them, and the offences are quite telling.

For instance, I came across men who were put into prison for sodomy and women who were called Com Prost  (Common Prostitute).  The Com Prost must have not been an Uncommon Prostitute, but maybe this was to indicated that the woman walked the street, or had a pimp, rather than that they worked in a Bordello with a Madam, or perhaps were the Mistress of a Rich man!  I saw one that, I think - because the handwriting was so bad - was in the institution for  "dice and cards."  (Could it be that this was considered minor gambling?) Vagrancy, in other words homelessness, was punishable by being put into one of these places.  Selling liquor became a crime during prohibition.

I ran a number of family names from Pennsylvania and was relieved not to discover that anyone I'm familiar with through my research was put into any of these places.

However, let's face the facts that some people have not and do not live privileged or charmed lives and that poverty or mental illness could condemn them to activities that might have meant their survival, that is if the conditions they found themselves in didn't hurt their health or even kill them in the mean time.

C 2016 Ancestry Worship Genealogy Blogspot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

AN OLD POST ON ANCESTRY BOARDS BRINGS UP A STRANGE STORY

The other night I was trolling through some old posts I put up on Ancestry years ago, not knowing that they were actually going to be on the INTERNET (I thought only on the innards of the then small genealogy database) and which, frankly, I deeply regret posting.  I lost the password in to delete these myself and have to write to Ancestry to have them all taken down.

NOT ONE POST IN ALL THOSE YEARS EVER RESULTED IN ANY GOOD INFORMATION SHARING, just a lot of new researchers speculating and hoping that the social networking aspect of the site would bring them other people's research for no effort on their part, sad to say.  Which is why I think there are a lot of people willing to give subscription databases a spin, without being willing to put the time and effort in, and terribly ignorant that you still often have to use the OLD FASHIONED methods like books, microfiche, films, and writing away to governmental archives.

But strange - someone did post about a year or so ago on one of these many posts I made and it was a story about someone whose surname was similar to the person I posted about.  This poster said that the person I posted about was said to have brought with them (on a steamship) enough GOLD to last THREE GENERATIONS. 

I had to laugh.

My research on this line is now EXTENSIVE and HARD WON, as well as EXPENSIVE, but I have never found ANY evidence that there was even enough GOLD to live well in the first, immigrant, generation.  There isn't one person in the entire family who hasn't worked until they were sick or dead.

THAT MEANS IF THERE WAS GOLD it was buried or lost.

The tale might even have some PIRATES in it!

GENEAOLOGY NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS!

This year I have to look through years of research and make sure that it's better organized and protected.

This year I'm going to send away the old fashioned way for some marriage and death records that still are not available on FamilySearch or Ancestry.com.

This year I'm going to photograph old pictures and upload the images onto an electronic resource, though probably not a "Cloud."

This year I'm going to think more about which of the youngest members of the family will actually inherit originals and copies of my research when I die.

This year I will take all the links that I sent myself on my cell phone off the phone but store those links in my research file.

This year I will help at least one other person with their research when they ask me in person.

This year I will continue to post about genealogy research and resources, and related topics such as DNA discoveries to ANCESTRYWORSHIP.BLOGSPOT.COM

Happy New Year Everyone!

RUMORS OF WAR ON BETWEEN LATTER DAY SAINTS FAMILYSEARCH.ORG and ANCESTRY.COM? IS IT HOT? OPINION BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

RUMORS OF WAR ON BETWEEN LATTER DAY SAINTS FAMILYSEARCH.ORG

and ANCESTRY.COM?  IS IT HOT?

 

By Ancestry Worship Genealogy

 

Have a seat in a comfortable chair to read this one!

Since I've heard about this "war" between the Latter Day Saints, who have the currently free genealogy research database called FamilySearch.org, and the popular Ancestry.com databases, which are generally paid subscriptions, but offered free at many libraries that pay the fees involved, including Family History Centers owned by the Latter Day Saints Church, and genealogy societies and clubs, and including a couple of the city public libraries I use, I thought I'd make some commentary.

According to one LDS missionary I spoke to, Bishops throughout the country have been and are organizing church members to read and input data into the FamilySearch databases, and that this effort has the air of both competition between Stakes and cooperation.  Some of the individual volunteers have personally imputed a hundred thousand names from census records, for example. The LDS Church members historically have pulled together and been as busy as bees and this is the latest project they are working on, you could say collectively and as a Church. 

To understand the LDS's great on-going and eternal interest in genealogy information, you must understand their religion, something I won't get into here at length.  The need to know the identity of ancestors is tied in with Temple Ordinances as well as the emphasis on family life.  As I understand it members must submit to the church their family tree back to the great-grandparents but many go far beyond that.  Since the Church sends missionaries out all over the earth and have many converts, while older historical members of the church are up to date, new converts have genealogy research and Temple Ordinances ahead of them.

Considering the vast amount of documents currently on microfilm and books, and the vast amount of documents that are yet to be microfilmed or published or even found, it's difficult for me to believe that in my lifetime such a project will ever be complete.  Also, I have to emphasize that I periodically try to duplicate some of my personal research on these and other databases, and have yet to be able to do it, even when trying popular misspellings to pull up information.  My  personal research, going back over a decade, was and would still be dependent on the use of microfilms provided by LDS for rent.  I simply love to get to as original a resource I can and I hope and pray that LDS does not stop renting the films after they are turned into text databases when the text databases do not suffice.

Ancestry.com has been, no doubt, a business, and a profitable one. They are a com - commercial. FamilySearch.org is an organization.  Currently it aims to provide the same, more, and better information, including better organized information, than Ancestry.com.

Meanwhile Ancestry.com has always had competitors in the genealogy information business.  There have been many upstarts.  All of these databases that you pay to use also pay employees. I don't know how well.  So is the focus by the LDS Church only to compete with Ancestry.com or all of the paid databases?  (Or is the aim to put the professional genealogists out of business with all the hobbyists doing the work themselves?  I can say that many hobbyists need coaching.)

I find this difficult to say, know, or find out. 

One question would be, has the LDS Church found genealogy information profitable or do they want it to be?

While the cost of renting film has generally been low, if you need to use the same film for several weeks or continually, or you find yourself ordering many films over time, it can get pricy.   But probably not as pricey as hiring a professional or traveling the old fashioned way to archives and so on all over the country or world.  (That said, genealogy as a hobby is not for everyone.  It requires certain character as well as skills and talents.  There are very good reason to hire someone who charges for research, interviewing, and creating a book for a client.)

I can't say the rental of films has always been or is not for profit.  Family History Centers have many resources that are entirely free to use while there, including some microfilms, many books and maps, but lately a few databases including Ancestry, Fold3, and others.  I researched for years without ever walking into a Family History Center, went through a period where I was at one weekly, and currently find less need to go to one than before unless I am ordering in and using microfilms.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF A BATTLE FOR DOMINANCE IN THE GENEALOGY INFORMATION WAR? 

According to some missionaries I spoke with, originally there was an agreement that all such genealogy information would be SHARED and FREE.  Thus, some feel that Ancestry.com is becoming a monopoly for profit, gobbling up everything it can, and that the LDS church does not feel they have been sharing with the Church - playing fair.

Now, I use Ancestry.com and many other resources, including FamilySearch.org. I've reached out for help to volunteers at the LDS Church locally and at Salt Lake and I've also donated some books they didn't have at the time to the library and Church as a way of giving back. 

I hear complaints that the Family History Centers missionaries are so preoccupied with entering information into databases that the research assistance one used to count on is no longer available.

Sometimes I switch between the two databases, back and forth, in a quest for information and I research often enough that I sometimes notice that FamilySearch has something up that Ancestry.com does not and visa versa.  But Ancestry seems to have something new frequently.

At the same time, I have been frustrated with both sites because I think they have both gotten to the point where the amount of information they are hosting has become unwieldy, if not disorganized.  I've heard a lot of grumbling about how many more clicks it takes to get to so called "Advanced Search" on Ancestry.com than it used to be. 

Also...

 * On FamilySearch.org I've found that some online collections with what I'll call Grand Titles need to be retitled and referenced on their start pages rather than clicking around to find that information because THE TITLE IS INCORRECT FOR WHAT THE COLLECTION ACTUALLY CONTAINS.  You really have to hunt to find out that there are huge gaps in the information and what those gaps are.  Rather than a Grand Title, instead I think the online information needs to be akin to the original microfilm in title and in organization.  If I failed to find out what was really in a collection by clicking, calling local or Salt Lake volunteers did not provide me the answers.  They were as confused as I was and simply wanted to follow my moves on a computer long distance as if that would take them somewhere different than where I went.

* I've noticed, being a member of JewishGen.org for research purposes, that JewishGen.org information that was compiled by volunteers, is now appearing on Ancestry.com, but meanwhile the begging for money by JewishGen.org has become so unending and guilt tripping I would say the word "pathetic" is spot on.  I'm annoyed by the constant e-mails and the assumption that I'm Jewish and celebrate all those Jewish holidays just because I'm a member.  Did JewishGen.org just fork over the information to Ancestry.com at no charge or sell information that was also supposed to be done by volunteers for free use? (Donations were to be used only for the purposes of keeping the web site and databases up on the Internet, as I remember it, the original idea.)  

If JewishGen.org or any other database that is the work of volunteers and for free use did sell out like that, then they deserve, in my opinion, to be vamoosh!  (Your word to your volunteers should count.)

* SEEMS TO ME NO "ORG" should be providing a "COM" with free information.

* I do not know if LDS plans to start charging to use their databases as they have their micro-films and the issue is FREE INFORMATION FOR EVERYONE AS PROVIDED FREE VIA VOLUNTEERS OF THE LDS CHRCH, if the "war" is economic.   Obviously if the Church succeeded in dominating the genealogy information business and providing it free to everyone, that would put Ancestry.com and all other paid subscriptions out of business.

* Genealogy associates tell me that Ancestry.com is owned by Latter Day Saints and that they tithe the Church with their income.

* National Archives of the United States information is appearing in collaboration with both sites.  I have no idea if this sharing was free or there is a financial transaction going on.

* We as researches must not forget that we can still go to original sources such as County, State, and City, as well as National Archives for information.  That stamps and envelopes still work so long as the U.S. Mail Service is in operation, though some of these allow you to order on line and use PayPal type electronic money transfers.

C 2014 Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot.com  AKA Ancestry Worship Genealogy
 All Rights Reserved Including International and Internet Rights.  Please contact me for permissions prior to use.

HOW CAN I FIND MY GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S SLAVE SHIP AND PLACE OF BIRTH?

QUESTION for ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

HOW CAN I FIND MY GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S SLAVE SHIP AND PLACE OF BIRTH IN AFRICA?

ANSWER

There is no one way this is done, when it is possible.  Learning the actual nation can be about DNA rather than following documentation as the documentation may not exist.  Slave Ship databases may help you learn about what ships went where but do not have slave names.  But in order to gather information to set you on the right path you still have to methodically go back in time and learn as much as you can about the history and culture of that time and place. Don't take wild leaps going back 100 years or more. Also expect to research around her, following her children and other relations you may have never met.

You have shown me your great great great grandmother is on the 1870 census and so let's take a good look at that census page.

Here is what I think:

First this is only five years after Emancipation and yet she is living in a farmstead with a planter and her daughter and their family where she is listed as being the mother in law of the head of household.  The value of this farmstead is such I believe that this planter did not earn a huge sum of money in five years.  I also see that the neighbors are listed as W while he and his family are listed as B.  They are not living in a B ghetto.  I believe that pre emancipation this person was free so look at the regular U.S.  census (free person's rather than slave registers) and continue backward as far as you can, to come up with a possible date of freedom.  Maybe the planter was born free.  Maybe he bought the freedom of his wife and mother in law.  If so there may be records of the transactions or court hearings.

Then there is the issue of his wife who would be a child of your GGG Grandmother.   I see based on children that they have been together for a good 10 years before Emancipation. I want you to follow her and her family forward.  I want you to see if you can get a possible death era or date for her.  Then check with the present day county of their location to find out where any possible death records might be kept.  it is possible that if the daughter lived as many years as her mother than she just might be on a civil register.  If they didn't have civil records in this time and place, perhaps church records.  You want to find the daughter's death record because it may name her parents even if it is a notation by a priest at her funeral Mass.  Likewise following the GGG Grandmother forward  you may try for a record of her death, hoping that there is familial information on it.

Obituaries are not out of the question and local Louisiana historical societies and libraries may help.

You show that on the 1870 your GGG Grandmother is listed as coming from Africa and family history is that she came into New Orleans.  You want to check New Orleans resources.  Make some phone calls and find out what they have or know that might help you.

Additionally the surname of the family group in 1870 is not the surname spelling that was brought forward.  Be sensitive to that.  I ran a Freedman's bank record check for this surname and came up with nothing.  However the English variant had many records.  My sense is that this family had no Freedman Bank account because they were already free.

Ancestry has some New Orleans slave ship manifests.

Here is the SLAVE VOYAGES (TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE SHIP DATABASE)  it lists ship names and captains.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (who is of Russian and Polish Jewish ancestry and a historian) is highly respected for what became a life's work and great contribution to slave research.  This is a link  about her work:

THE LOUISIANA SLAVE DATABASE AND THE LOUISIANA FREE DATABASE: NPS GOV GUIDE   (I believe this is a compact disk for purchase.)

A couple years ago another database became available from the Archdiocese of New Orleans.   ARCHIVES LOUISIANA - CATHOLIC CHURCH -BAPTISMALS SLAVE AND FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR   It begins with a note about how it was written in Spanish and to convert French names into their Spanish equivalents - or at least be sensitive that this may have happened.  Try for her daughter first since you know her birth year from the census.

GOOD LUCK!  Check in with me after you've done all this!

DO I USE THE ANCESTRY GENEALOGY DATBASES? YES BUT NOT TO THE EXCLUSION OF MANY OTHERS!

DO I USE THE ANCESTRY GENEALOGY DATBASES?

I was asked recently what I think of the ANCESTRY.COM databases.  Well, I can say that I use that database and have over many years, but I also use Fold3, and many other databases,  and resources that are local, city, state, county, and federal. I probably will never give up using "old fashioned" resources like talking to people at historical societies.  I like interaction with other people too much to be isolated and computer bound at home all the time.

At the LATTER DAY SAINTS FAMILY HISTORY CENTERS around the country, volunteers and missionaries are very busy moving information that is presently on other databases and microfilms into FREE USE GENEALOGY DATABASES at their FAMILYSEARCH site. It's their indexing project.

Someone at one of the FAMILY HISTORY CENTERS told me that originally all these databases companies, non-profit and otherwise, once agreed to share all information.  That is why you see information original to JEWISH GEN on ANCESTRY.  I use JewishGen once in a while but must say that their constant begging for donations, which seemingly has increased significantly in the last year, has really gotten on my nerves.  But why should they go begging when they have either turned over or sold all their information to Ancestry? 

This person at the LDS Family History Center told me that the sharing as promised may not be in all cases two sided anymore, since there is a fortune to be made selling subscriptions, etc.

I've used FAMILY HISTORY CENTER RESOURCES FOR YEARS!  I actually love spinning film and find it easier on the eyes and the hands than databases.  I also have greatly enjoyed talking to other genealogy enthusiasts and have experienced some synchronicity in doing so!

I've also found information that was not microfilmed or microfilmed only in part on some of the databases I use.  I know this because I have the photocopies OF THE BACKS OF INDEX CARDS that provided extra good information other than the fronts.  Then there is the long time problem of typists who have produced misspellings despite their best efforts.  As I understand it, at the FAMILY HISTORY CENTER when a volunteer comes across a questionable handwritten name, they will call in a couple other people to give an opinion, and they may also assign people who understand something about the language or names in that language to contribute.

I've had my fair share of encountering sloppy handwriting and misspellings in my years as a researcher, though I'm usually pretty good at making it out, better than most people I would say.  Still, this is a good reason to obtain a copy of the microfilm so that you can go back and check.

Since I'm not associated with the ANCESTRY.COM company, I can't do them an advert. 

HERE IS THE LINK TO FAMILYSEARCH.ORG

ANCESTRY PAID DATABASES RELEASES BURIAL RECORDS FOR MILITARY BURIALS IN TIME FOR VETERANS DAY

National Cemeteries Administration released records of thousands of military personnel which through the paid genealogy database Ancestry (not related to this blog) and what's special is that your ancestor's burial record may include interesting notes.  The Rueters news service, which released the story that was picked up in papers around the country : RUETERS STORY : MILITARY BURIAL RECORDS RELEASED THROUGH ANCESTRY

"They were posted on Ancestry.com through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the National Archives and Records Administration, said Todd Godfrey, the Utah-based company's senior director for U.S. content."

LIFE OF THE PARTY by CHRISTOPHER OGDEN

Excerpt: page 31

"The numbers were phenomenal, but huge numbers of domestics worked in houses throughout Britain. The 1931 census showed that 1.3 million women and 80,000 men were working as household servants, an increase of 100,000 over 1911. Wages rose after the war but were still remarkably low, ranging from twenty five to fifty pounds a year for parlor maids and cooks."

ANCESTRY FAMILY TREE SUBMISSIONS PROVE TO BE UNRELIABLE BUT INTERESTING

Today I spent some time on the Ancestry Genealogy databases at the Family History Center in Los Angeles, which carried this at no charge, so long as you use it on premisis.

I did something I have never done before: I checked to see if anyone had posted a family tree on some of the lines I'm working on that have lead to brick walls.

I found a LOT of information, but almost none of it was proofed. This means that people were posting what they "knew" or without a tie to a source. So people were posting what they were told or had in their memories or based on things they have at home - such as Wedding Invitations or Funeral cards, or maybe information written in the Family Bible.

I did find some interesting information which needs to be proofed. To do that, I will take a marriage date that was listed and look for a document on microfilm or from an city, state, or county, archive to see if for myself.

The best of all the family trees I found was totally based on census. This person included all the terrible mispellings from the census.

I also found several people who had posted on the same trees that were missing a lot of information, but if these people had contacted each other, they might have been able to fill in the blanks, and decide among themselves who was going to proof information and correct all the assumptions.

What was it they used to say about assumptions? They make an as* of you and me!

CENSUS OF THE BLACKFEET MONTANA and ELECTRONIC DATABASES

Recently someone asked me for some advice on researching their BLACKFEET Native American roots. At the Los Angeles Public Library genealogy section - downtown- I checked to see if any books were available on this subject.

I found CENSUS OF THE BLACKFEET - MONTANA 1897-1898
The book was put out by Jeff Bower C 2004 and it leans on the original census taking by
George B. McLaughlin and Thomas P Fuller who were "Indian agents" and also on NATIONAL ARCHIVES FILM COLLECTION ROLL M595-4

I learned that there were four reservations and that this census is one of them. (One of the four reservations is in Canada.) Looking over the census, I saw that the names were translated into English. There was also a great number of family groups that included two wives, which makes knowing which wife is a child's mother a question. As usual, I greatly enjoyed the names such as Morning Plume (a husband), a family group headed by husband Shoots At Another and his wife Martha Shoots at Another and their children Martha and Josephine Weather Wax, Longtime Sleeping, and so on.

I learned that the Blackfeet name comes from the look of ashes on their moccasins. (But as I understand it, there were other not-related tribes called Blackfoot or Blackfeet so be sure you want this Algonquian speaking group found in Montana!)

I decided to see if I could bring up the 1900 census with some of these names using Heritage Quest and Ancestry Genealogy Databases. After all this census was just a couple years after these special counts.

THE PROBLEM WAS, if you have a name such as "Shoots At Another", is your given name "Shoots" or "Shoots At" or is" Another" a surname or is "At Another" a surname?

I was completely unsuccessful using my short list on Heritage Quest and almost completely unsuccessful using Ancestry. But I was able to bring up SOME OF THE NAMES IN THIS AREA OF MONTANA by using the word BLACKFEET!

So here is my advice should you wish to proceed electronically! Just get to THE Enumeration District (ED) THAT CONTAINS SOME OF THE NAMES that do come up through standard given and surname searches (non-native names) so that you are in the neighborhood and then read the census page by page - just as you would if you used GOOD OLD MICROFILM!

GREEK POLISH CATHOLIC RECORDS GIVEN NAMES GIVE YOU A CLUE!

Maybe you are not sure if your "Polish" (Galician/Ruthenian/Austrian) ancestors are Roman or Greek Catholic. (They might also be Jewish or Uniate or Protestant).

Recently I posted about SAINTS NAMES DAYS as the means for naming children.

NAMING PATTERNS (or RELIGIOUS BELIEFS) may help you determine what religion your ancestors practiced in the Old Country. So here are some names that I wrote down after reading through a GREEK CATHOLIC PARISH film at LDS that are 18th and 19th century! (In LATIN)


SOPHIA
MAGDALENA
PARAVKEVIA
TATIANA
EVA
XENIA

BASILIUS
DEMETRIUS

PELAGNIA and PELAGIA
MELANIA
LUDMILLA

POLICARPEUS
HEMILIAN
AMBROSUS
CONSTANINUES
PATALEON
THECLA



And here are some that you also see in POLISH CATHOLIC RECORDS



THADDEUS and THEODORUS
CATHARINA
ANNA
ANTONINA
ROZALIA and ROSALIA
LAURENTIS

MAJOR ERROR on ANCESTRY GENEALOGY DATBASES BEGS CORRECTION

I recently looked at 44 ship manifests which came up when I used a certain surname in the ANCESTRY genealogy database. I was watching to see if there was any pattern I could follow to put relatives together from the old country to the new.

I believe you must read the manifest yourself and not take the text version for granted because there have been all sorts of transcribing errors.I REALIZED THAT THIS DATBASE has A MISLEADING ERROR BUILT IN on the FORM used for the TEXT VERSION of the New York ship manifests! When you read the text version you see the word BIRTH as if the immigrant was being asked in New York " Where Were you Born?" when the actual question asked on the manifests is not "Where were you born" but where was your last permanent address?

I wonder how many family historians have been mislead and repeated this error, or even gone on a useless quest because they assumed that the Ancestry database was right in reporting a location as a BIRTH location?

Simply, many immigrants did not leave HOME! Some did, and usually you will see that they are saying they left a parent or a husband or wife.

But sometimes they simply went to stay with a relative - a sibling or aunt or uncle - in another location. They gave up their own address (as we would do if say an apartment lease was up before we were ready to move to another city). There they stayed until maybe a baby was born or money promised from America came in and until it was time to get to the rail station and then the ship port. Some did not go directly onto a ship but stayed somewhere else, such as near the very port they planned to leave, for a time to earn money, or got off the ship in South Hampton and tried England for a while!

Please be very careful with this one! As you know the words "Permanent Address" are also not always taken seriously.

Q: What's a permanent address today?
A: Anywhere you stay when you are not traveling!

ANCESTRY DATABASES - THE POSITIVES and THE NEGATIVES : WE NEED TO USE BOOKS AND MICROFILM TOO

Although the Internet and Databases are increasingly valuable to researchers, I don't believe that in my lifetime either will eliminate the need for good "old fashioned" research skills. THE WORST PART OF RELYING on EITHER databases or Internet is that your expectations of how fast you can do research and reality will part ways. That's because there is so much that is not available and some "instant" results may spoil you when what genealogy really takes is PATIENCE!

THERE ARE STILL AREAS OF THE UNITED STATES and THE WORLD that will not give what is considered private information to databases or for microfilming. In those places there are sometimes fees or the information can only be given if you already know the details.


I may have mentioned this before but most of my personal research was done without the use of Internet or databases such as Ancestry. When Ancestry came out I was eager to see how fast the same research would take and learned I was NOT able to duplicate it USING ANCESTRY !

Recently I noticed that corrections were coming up on ANCESTRY. Some of these are provided by subscriber-members.


Every few months I look to see what is new on ANCESTRY and other databases and sometimes I find bits and pieces of information that I did not have, or that would have required archive or library fees or to pay a local researcher. So to me that is worth the exploration.


This is one of the things I did recently when I visited LDS in person; I spent time on each of their database offerings to see what would or would not come up.


To be fair in my review, there were a few pieces of information that I WAS NOT ABLE TO FIND the old fashioned way that did come up on Ancestry. The reason is that while the databases are often of no use where typists have interpreted difficult last names (bad handwriting and no knowledge of surnames in various ethnic languages, especially Slavic names) on the other hand you can SEARCH using first names or other details which may then bring up a family group (and you can see just how horribly spelled the surname was).


This is how I busted a difficult problem for a student of mine who was seeking an African American with an unusual first name and for a student of mine who was seeking his Polish great-grandfather in the state of New York.