Genealogy Christmas Idea

My husband and I were trying to figure out what to give his elderly grandmother for Christmas. It occurred to us that she might love seeing the old family photos. So hubby scanned them and we transferred them to a digital photo frame

If you haven't seen those, check them out. You can get one that takes your camera memory stick or one that allows you to transfer photos using a flash drive

There are even some that allow you to upload photos to a website, then the frame automatically dials in nightly using a phone line to download new photos that you have put there.

We chose the simpler and less pricey frame, simply because it has fewer buttons and gadgets. We didn't want Gramma to be confused by any technology. With this one we leave our camera memory stick in, and the frame rotates through the photos. We'll be able to switch out memory sticks by sending a new one which can be switched for the first one. Then the first one can be sent back to us for new photos. That way she will have new photos every so often.

It's also a great way to preserve your family photos from the 1800s or early 1900s if you have any. We're even thinking about scanning some of the documents we have found in our research and adding those to the photo display.

Military Naturalization Records - Finding a Soldier Ancestor

An 1862 law allowed honorably discharged Army veterans of any war to petition for naturalization, without having filed a declaration of intent, after only 1 year of residence in the United States.

Variations of this special treatment continued throughout the years.

The wording of the 1862 Act stated that any alien, age 21 or up "...who has enlisted, or may enlist in the armies of the United States...."

It was designed to encourage enlistment during the Civil War. Aliens serving in the US military did not gain citizenship through service alone.

The naturalization of soldiers was performed under certain provisions of nationality law facilitating the naturalization of members of the US armed forces. These provisions waived the Declaration of Intention requirement and waived or reduced the residency requirement. Many soldiers filed petitions and were naturalized the same day.

See SPECIAL CASES: Military for more details

Instead of naturalization "first papers", some courts filed military discharges. Sometimes you will have to consult separate military indexes but you should start looking in the usual places first. Military naturalizations were included in the WPA Project indexes (You can read about the WPA Project and naturalization indexes, and view an online one for all of Arkansas for 1809-1906

If the naturalization took place in a Federal court, naturalization indexes, declarations of intent, and petitions will usually be in the NARA regional facility serving the State in which the Federal court is located. Some of these indexes and records have been microfilmed.

Naturalization records from county courts may be at the county court, in a county or State archives, or at a regional archives serving several counties within a State.

Some county court naturalization records have been donated to the National Archives and are available as National Archives microfilm publications. These are listed under the state in which they occurred, at NaturalizationRecords.com
Scroll down to the state list at the bottom of the page.

What Genealogy Records Does Footnote Have?

After my announcement yesterday about the special 20% off discount for visitors who go to Footnote.com from OliveTreeGenealogy.com, readers wrote with questions. I goofed in assuming that readers would know exactly what Footnote has!

Footnote has NARA documents that no other site has online. Footnote has Civil War Records including Confederate Soldiers. They have Navy Widows Certificates. They have so much I can't list all the databases here but to start, on Footnote you can search
« Naturalization Documents &
Naturalization Indexes

« Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783

« War of 1812

« Newspapers & Town Records

« Civil War Documents


Another thing I really like about Footnote.com is their Spotlights section. Spotlights are an easy way for visitors to highlight interesting images that you find on Footnote and share them with other people. I see that subscribers to Footnote are starting to Spotlight their own ancestors' records that they find. That's an intriguing way to use the Spotlight feature.

You can also add a Story Page where you become and author, and tell the rest of us something about a topic you find interesting. Free Masonry, Naturalization, Immigration Records, you name it, you can create a Story Page for it.

I hope this helps answer the questions I had about Footnote but there is lots more to discover on the site than what I've listed here

20% off on Footnote.com!

Most of you know how much I like the website Footnote.com. It has NARA records that no one else has, plus much much more.

OliveTreeGenealogy.com has been given the okay to offer its visitors Footnote memberships for 20% off for a limited time! I've got links up for this special deal so if you are interested,now's the time to jump in and search for ancestors.

This offer is exclusive to Olive Tree Genealogy and one other site only. You can enjoy what Footnote has to offer by clicking on the banner for the special price at Genealogy Specials

Primary Records are NOT always Accurate

We all want our genealogy to be accurate.

We search and search for that primary record, the one that we've been told is "THE" record to find -- a death certificate, a church baptismal record, marriage record....

But - beware! Not all primary records are accurate. As good genealogists we must consider that there can be errors. The informant (person giving the information) may not know the answers and may thus provide incorrect details. The clerk recording the information may not hear the response correctly and may enter it incorrectly. The person giving the information may lie, especially about their age.

In my own family tree, my great-grandmother's official government death registration is incorrect. Her parents' names are wrong. Since I already knew who her parents were (Isaac Vollick & Lydia Jamieson) from other genealogy sources, I was completely bewildered at first by seeing her parents given as Stephen Vollick and Mary.

Then it dawned on me - Stephen was my great grandmother's husband's first name (Stephen Peer). Mary was my great grandmother's own name. (Mary Vollick)

So I looked at the informant's name. AHA! The informant was Mary's 17 year old son. Her husband having died long before Mary, and her older children married and gone, the task of answering the official questions fell to her 17 year old son who had cared for her in her final days.

It is easy to see how the young boy, when asked by a government clerk "Father's name?" (meaning father of the deceased), would have replied "Stephen", for in fact Stephen WAS his own father's name.

The question "Mother's name?" referring to the mother of the deceased, would be answered by the boy "Mary" which was HIS mother's name.

And thus the official death registration for parents of Mary (Peer) Vollick daughter of Isaac and Lydia Vollick, is forever rendered as Stephen and Mary Vollick.

So be cautious when you encounter a primary source that simply doesn't match other reliable sources. Investigate! Think! Don't just accept the new "facts" without further legwork to prove or disprove them.

Searching Siblings in Family Tree Research

Why search siblings? You're only interested in YOUR ancestor, right? WRONG!

Researching and tracking siblings, finding their marriages, children, deaths etc can provide you with answers to questions about your own ancestor.

Let's assume you have not been able to find your great great grandfather's mother's surname before marriage. You know her first name is Mary but that's it. You find great great grandpa's death record and view it in anticipation. But sadly the informant (great great grandpa's second wife) didn't provide a surname for her mother-in-law.

You can't find great great grandpa's marriage record so no help there. But - what about a sibling? Hunt for great great grandpa's youngest sister's marriage record. Look for one of his brothers' death records. Don't overlook turning any stone available to you in your hunt for your own ancestor - remember your ancestor and his siblings shared the same parents, and those parents are your next generation back.

Why Review Old Genealogy Research?

I've been working hard lately on a McGinnis Family book. McGinnis is my maiden name and for more than 30 years I've researched the 7 sons of the immigrant McGinnis line I am interested in. I've followed the sons (and one daughter) down through the generations, tracking their children and grandchildren. All in hopes of finding out where in Ireland my great-great-grandfather was born.

This past month I've been busy entering data I had found and filed away in my overflowing McGinnis filing drawer. Yes that's right - an entire drawer is devoted to this family. I could have sworn I had covered all my bases, found every scrap of evidence there was to be found on each of those 7 sons. Census? Done. I'd sent for death records, church records, looked for obituaries, and thought about where else I might find a record of an origin in Ireland.

But as I looked over my old research (which I hadn't really looked at in almost 10 years) something jumped out at me - several years ago I had found the names of 3 of the sons in Michigan Naturalization records indexes. But I had never sent for the full record! What an oversight - although the records are not apt to provide an exact location of birth, there is a small chance they might give a county in Ireland. We don't even know that much so anything would be a bonus.

I also realized I hadn't put a few clues together - that one of the grand-daughters of the original immigrant had been living (at the age of 6) with an unknown couple and a teenage girl in 1851 Waterloo County Ontario. Re-reading the teenager's surname I saw that it was the same as the granddaughter's mother (Cokely) - and the teen was likely granddaughter's aunt. A great clue that I had not seen first time around because I had not known her mother's surname at the time. This little clue led me to research the couple the granddaughter was living with and sure enough the wife was another aunt.

Reviewing my old material gave me fresh insight into the family and another path to follow. Now I am working on a chart to show where every son (and the daughter) lived at every land record, census record and assessment record I have already found. Hopefully that chart when complete will give me better insight into the family's movements and migration patterns. This in turn might help me find my missing great-great grandpa after 1871.

Taking the plunge with Scanfest

What's Scanfest? It's something I stumbled on last month, created by Miriam Midkiff of AnceStories: The Stories of My Ancestors (and other blogs and websites).

Miriam organized a group of people (genealogists, family historians, archivists etc) to join her every month in scanning their family research or other important documents. That's right - everyone gets together in virtual space and scans for a few hours once a month while chatting online.

What a great way to pass the time while scanning - a task that I always put off as long as possible. With Miriam's group you get a chance to organize and preserve your documents while meeting and chatting with others who quite likely share your interests. It sounded like a terrific idea so I contacted Miriam and said I'd like to join in.

The next Scanfest will be held Sunday, October 28th from 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Pacific Daylight Time. In the wake of the terrible fires recently, it seems a good time to take stock of genealogy research and get those all-important documents scanned and preserved, make duplicate copies and store them safely away from home - just in case.

I'll let you know how I made out and how many documents I managed to get scanned after Sunday's meeting. I'm looking forward to meeting new people and getting some work done at the same time.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) NEW Search Tools

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) today [Oct 15] announced three new online products to assist genealogists and family historians to access information on their ancestors in both LAC and other Canadian collections.

Chief among these is the newly redesigned Canadian Genealogy Centre website. The website makes available Canadian collections of immigration, military, public service, land and census records and provides advice and guidance to researchers. It was voted one of the world's 100-best genealogy websites by Family Tree magazine.

Two new powerful search tools are now available on the Canadian Genealogy Centre website:

Ancestors Search, developed by LAC, combines 18 genealogical databases into one search

That's My Family, developed by Bibliotheque et Archives nationales du Quebec, in partnership with LAC and supported by the Council of Provincial and Territorial Archivists of Canada.

The latter search tool accesses various federal, provincial and territorial genealogy and family history databases.

Medieval Cemetery Yields 1,300 Skeletons

A large medieval cemetery containing around 1,300 skeletons has been discovered in the central English city of Leicester, the find promises to shed new light on the way people lived and died in the Middle Ages.

The graveyard was probably used from the 12th century until the demolition of a church at the site in 1573.

"We think, probably outside London, this must be one of the largest parish graveyards ever excavated,'' said Richard Buckley, director of University of Leicester Archaeology Services.

Continue reading Medieval Cemetery Yields 1,300 Skeletons

Ships Passenger Lists Project 1624-1664 updated

As many of you know, I have had an ongoing project to reconstruct names of passengers on ships from Netherlands to New Netherland 1624-1664 on Olive Tree Genealogy for several years.

The index to this reconstruction project is at Ships to New Netherland

For those new to the Project, several primary sources were used to reconstruct passenger names (all sources are noted online) - and others continue to be found

Thanks to Peter Christoph for discussing Harmen Myndertse Van de Bogart with me, and Charles Gehring for spending his time hunting down the source for Harmen's arrival, another name has been added to a specific ship - Harmen Myndertse Van de Bogart who arrived in 1630.

You'll find Harmen's name and source references on De Eendracht

I hope others will share findings with me so we can add to this project. Please remember it must be a primary source used for proof.

Musings on Genealogy, Life & Death

A good friend was killed in an accident on Thursday evening. His unexpected death made me think about how suddenly life can twist and turn on us. John lived life to the fullest, and was on one of his introspective journeys through North America on his motorcycle when he was killed.

Losing such a good friend so suddenly made me pause to reflect on the unfinished things in life. I thought about all the half-finished genealogy projects I have on the go. The books uncompleted. The exciting genealogy finds written out or photocopied but stuffed in a drawer, not yet entered in my genealogy program....

All the unsorted and unfiled piles of paper, both personal and genealogy-related... the ones I keep saying "Gee one day I MUST get those put away..."

All the unlabelled photographs tossed into storage tubs or stuck in those dreadful sticky clear paper pages of albums of 20 years ago...

I asked my husband if he would get the facts straight if he had to suddenly write an obituary for me. Nope, he mixed up where I was born with where I lived as a child. He wasn't positive what my mother's maiden name was....

It's not the end of the world that hubby had things slightly wrong, but it occurred to me that as a genealogist, if I want it right I better do it myself. And do it now.

Yesterday I spent most of the day sorting old photos. As the family keeper of the photographs, I have photos going back to the 1860s. I have photo albums from cousins who have passed on. From Aunts and Uncles no longer with us. I'm probably one of the few people in my family who know the identity of many of the indidividuals in those photos. But have I labelled them? Nope, of course not....

This morning I started carefully writing (in pencil) on the backs of the thousands of photos I have. I removed hundreds from those photo-destroying old albums. Hubby is busy scanning them for me.

Action was a huge part of John's life. He lived to the fullest - windsurfing, skiing, playing hockey, boating, riding his motorcyle. John pushed me to start my website Olive Tree Genealogy back in 1996. I'd like to think that he would be pleased to know that even in death he spurred me on to get off my (ahem) and take some action instead of sitting around saying "one day..."

John will be missed but every time I look at my sorted and labelled photos, I'll smile as I think about him.

Minorcans to Florida 1768

Thanks to the hard work of Lucie Servole Myers, Olive Tree Genealogy has an original research project reconstructing names of colonists of Greek, Italian, Minorcan and Turkish origins to Florida in May 1768.

Eight ships sailed under the direction of Andrew Turnbull. Lucie has reconstructed the names of 431 passengers on board the 8 ships. This is a wonderful database and I owe a big thank you to Lucie for allowing OTG to publish this online for all to use.

The ships are organized in the following immigrant groups:

Passengers from Spain

Passengers from Greece

Passengers from Corsica

Passengers from Canary Islands

Passengers from Italy

Passengers from Balearic Islands

Good luck to everyone looking for an ancestor! As always, this Olive Tree database is available for free for all researchers.

National Registration File 1940-1946 (a Census Substitute)

A good census substitute is The National Registration File of 1940 in Canada

This was the registration of all people 16 years of age or olde, from 1940 to 1946. There is a great deal of information on this Registration. This is another way to
find an ancestor in that time period.

Statistics Canada holds these records and for a fee they will search on your behalf. See the explanation and an online order form

Ships Outbound from USA to Europe & United Kingdom

Neither U.S. A. nor Canada maintained outbound ships passenger lists.

ShipsListsOnline is pleased to announce a new project to transcribe ships passenger lists leaving USA, bound for Europe and United Kingdom.

Our ShipsListsOnline Team is hard at work on these lists so please watch this page or join the free Olive Tree Genealogy Newsletter for updates on this and other Ship Passenger List Indexing Projects

Additions this week:

* Added List of Passengers on Steamship Cherokee for Chagres from New York November 1851

* Added List of Passengers on Steamship Iowa Sailing for Glasgow Scotland from New York 4 May 1867

*Added R. M. S. Saxonia Cunard Line: List of Saloon Passengers sailing from Boston Massachusetts to Liverpool England 24 July 1906 (A-C Surnames)

*Added S.S. Furst Bismarck Hamburg-America Line from New York to Southampton and Hamburg Germany 9 July 1896 (A-E Surnames)

Vermont Vital Stats at Bennington Co. Musuem

Bennington County Museum has recently acquired 128 rolls of microfilm containing birth, marriage and death records for all of Vermont from the period 1908 to 1941.

The records complete a collection that dates to the 1760s, allowing genealogy buffs, historians and people interested in their heritage to hunt for ancestors.

Although these records are not online, at least it is available for those seeking their Vermont Roots.

United Kingdom Nonconformist birth, marriage and death records online

Nonconformist birth, marriage and death records online

The National Archives (United Kingdom) collection of nonconformist birth, marriage and death records from 1567 went online 14 September 2007 for the first time.

A new partnership project between The National Archives and S&N Genealogy Supplies means that you can now access images of these records online. BMD Registers provides access to the non-parochial and nonconformist registers 1567-1840 held in RG 4 and RG 5.

Birth, marriage and death records are crucial tools for anyone researching their family history. Before 1837, when civil registration was introduced in England and Wales, church registers provided an important source of information on births, baptisms, marriages and burials.

The National Archives holds 5,000 registers of a huge variety of nonconformist congregations, including Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Protestant Dissenters (known as 'Dr Williams Library') and Independents. There are also registers from a small number of Roman Catholic communities. Basic searching is free of charge, but there is a fee for advanced searching and to download images.

For free United Kingdom genealogy records online vist AllEnglishRecords.com

The Confusing Maze of Genealogy Mixups in Names

Several years ago I spotted this Q & A online and I tucked it away thinking one day I wanted to write about names and the perils of genealogy research if you are not open minded enough ....

Question: What do Sean Gough, Jean Lefevre, Giovanni Ferrari, Juan Herrero, Ivan Kowalski, Hans Schmidt, Jan Kowalski and Janos Kovacs have in common?

Answer: In Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, respectively, all are John Smith.

What a great reinforcer of the idea that as genealogists we need to look beyond what we are familiar with. We need to think outside the box. Coming from a North American culture we might assume if we find an ancestor named Janos Kovacs that it's an unusual name. Not so!

What about spelling? How often have you found a name in a census or other genealogy record, that was close but not exactly the name you were looking for? Don't discard it! Look at other clues - spouse, children, ages, occupation, location - could it be your ancestor? Remember spelling didn't "count". Census takers and other clerks wrote what they heard (phonetically). Accents confused the ears.

My own ancestor's surname was Vollick. Sometimes it was rendered as Follick. Other variations I have found in documents are Valck, Volk, Valic, Falic, Folic. Why "V" and "F" interchangeably? Because the Dutch-German "V" can sound like "F" to English speaker's ears.

My immigrant ancestor's 'real' name was Van Valkenburg! How would I ever have found my ancestor if I hadn't kept an open mind and looked at other clues? And much to my initial surprise, Van Valkenburg is not an unusual name.

Another true example from my own ancestry - when Leonard-Tremi Le Roy left Quebec for New York, his name was misinterpreted by Dutch recorders as "Jonar" and then "Jonas". His surname Le Roy (pronounced Le Raw) was misinterpreted as Larrowa which evolved into Larroway.

So be aware that bad handwriting, inability to spell, accents, and other events can change an ancestor's name - and don't be so quick to assume, for example, that Leonard-Tremi Le Roy is not your 5x great grandfather Jonas Larroway. If both men have the same wives and children, same birth year, same place of birth, and name siblings who are identical, you can be pretty sure that you've just stumbled into the confusing maze of names in genealogy research.

New York Times FREE 1851-1980

Yesterday at midnight the New York Times stopped charging for access to parts of its Web site

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also open its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.

There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

This is great news for genealogists searching for older records in newspapers

Naturalizaton Records and Passport Records

The following Passports & Naturalization Records have been added to NaturalizationRecords.com

As always these records are FREE.

Thank you to all who submitted a record! Please consider submitting your ancestor Citizenship Records to NaturalizationRecords.com You will help others searching
the same ancestor, and can make contact with them.

Submissions remain the property of the submitter, and are free for all to view.

It is easiest to go to the index pages to view these newest ancestor records.

Naturalizations

Passports

Records added today are:

1939 American Passport for Ida Katharyn Waltz of Indiana

1920 Passport & American Red Cross American Expeditionary Force ID Card for Raymond J. Thomas, M.D of Chicago Illinois

1924 Passport for Ramona E. Wulff of Sacremento California

1948 Passport Leonardo & Michael Cazzorla of New York

1922 Passport for Gustav & Betty Stiefel, New York City New York

1917 Naturalization Hearing for Gustav Stiefel, New York City New York

1919 Naturalization Certificate for Gustav Stiefel, New York City New York

1897 Russian Passport for Barnet Kreit aka Berko Kraid of New York

1915 Naturalization Declaration of Intent for Barnet Kreit aka Berko Kraid , Brooklyn New York

1941 Naturalization Certificate Jessie Boyd, Chicago Illinois

1939 Naturalization Certificate Southern District of NewYork for Pavlina Sansky

Feel free to pass this message on to others who might be interested