Genealogy Works on Stubborn Stains

From the Medfield (Mass.) Press:

Soiled name restored for Stain
By Amanda J. Mantone/ Staff Writer
Thursday, June 30, 2005

One of Medfield's most famed criminals is getting a long-due redemption.

David Leighton Stain, wrongly convicted of murder and then shunned the rest of his life because of it, lies in an unmarked grave in Vine Lake Cemetery. Next week, he'll get a headstone for the first time since his death in 1915, thanks to a long-lost descendant who became unexpectedly entwined in his story while mapping her genealogy.

"It really started when I had my own child. As I was trying to fill in my son's baby book, I asked my mother what her grandfather's name was, and she didn't know," said Rhoda Boutin, a Pittsburgh native who now lives in Florida. "I was president of a small neighborhood women's club, and one day we had a genealogy specialist to a lunch meeting. She came to talk to us about how to research our roots, and that kind of sparked me."

That was five years ago. She could barely use a computer, but by typing the only thing she knew about her grandfather, his last name - Stain - into www.ancestry.com, she hit upon a murder trial from 1888, Stain and Cromwell v. the State of Maine.

"I said to myself, 'hmm, my grandmother must have had some relatives that got in trouble,'" said Boutin.

She traced the case to a magazine article from the 1890's, where she read about an unknown chapter of her family's past: David Stain, her great-grandfather and a longtime Medfield resident, and his son-in-law Oliver Cromwell, were charged with a murder in Maine in 1887, for which they were later pardoned and released from prison in 1901. Armed with that basic information, Boutin called Medfield Town Clerk Carol Mayer to help trace the family.

[snip]

Stain was released when his son Charlie, later thought to be mentally ill, confessed that he had lied about Stain's involvement while testifying, spilling the scoop to a sensationalist New York newspaper reporter that wined and dined him in exchange for the story. Barron's death was never resolved.

[snip]

On Thursday, July 7 Rhoda and her husband Mike will unveil the long-awaited gravestone, next to the stone that marks Stain's wife's grave in Vine Lake Cemetery. It's cut in the same style as other markers from that period in the cemetery, and sits shaded by a tree on a hill overlooking route 109. It reads simply, "David Leighton Stain, born Jan. 20, 1830, died July 7, 1915. An innocent shoemaker."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Leave Genealogy Out of It

A recent court case in New Jersey concerning same-sex marriage may not at first blush seem relevant to genealogy, but one citation should draw genealogists into the discussion.

In his concurring opinion, Judge Anthony J. Parillo cites Daniel Cere, the Director of the Institute for the Study of Marriage, Law, and Culture at McGill University, who argues for "the rich genealogical nature of heterosexual family ties." Setting aside the more contentious issues, is the implication of this phrase true? Do the children of heterosexual couples have a genealogical advantage?

One can certainly argue that same-sex marriage makes genealogy more complicated. Numbering systems and GEDCOM formats presuppose heterosexual marriages—try to enter a same-sex marriage into your favorite genealogy database program, and you'll likely earn a stern rebuke from the software. Of course, there have been other biases in these programs that have required modifications or work-arounds in the past, including biases toward the Western ordering of names (not all cultures place the surname last) and patrilineal descent.

Genealogy is, technically, the study of one's genetic descent—tracing one's genes from their sources. The child of a same-sex couple cannot trace her genetic descent through both parents. The same can be said of adopted children, step-children, and children conceived through donor-contributed sperm or eggs. All of these children are at a genealogical disadvantage, but only if we consider it advantageous to have regular contact with the people who share genes with us (an odd notion, I think).

In the real world, people are just as interested in their family history as in their genetic history. This is especially true when speaking of the recent generations of one's family. If I were adopted, I might want to trace the roots only of my adoptive parents. But if my great-grandfather's great-grandfather were adopted, I might want to trace only his birth family.

If we consider genealogy in the loose sense of "family history," a child need not be penalized for illegitimacy, adoption, or the sexes of her parents. As to the question whether "heterosexual family ties" possess a richer "genealogical nature" than those of same-sex couples, we must ask why having two patrilineal or two matrilineal lines is any less interesting than having one of each.

Whatever we think of their parents, every child has a family worth investigating.

Genealogist Aroused by Dowser

From The Wichita (Ks.) Eagle of June 29, 2005:

For him, grave dowsing is no myth

Associated Press

SOLOMON - Whether a person believes grave dowsing is just speculation or whether someone is a true believer, Ron Britt of Abilene is convinced that the method works.

Britt, president of Genealogy Researchers, was among several members of the group who recently met at Prairie Mound Cemetery in Solomon to experience the phenomenon of grave dowsing.

Dowsing is the practice of finding water or minerals by holding a forked stick in a way that allows the stick to swing up or down when walking over an area where the materials, such as water, are believed to be.

[snip]

Since beginning his quest, [Lee Modrow of Lincoln, Kan.] has helped locate 250 unmarked graves. Most date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s.

[snip]

As Modrow walked a straight line with the dowsing rods pointing straight forward, the rods would move outward as he passed over what he believed to be an unmarked grave. Modrow claimed four bodies -- three adults and one baby -- were buried at that spot.

"If you enter over a body and it's an adult, the rods will either both swing out or cross over each other," he said. "If it is a young child, one rod or the other will swing outward."

Modrow said the way to tell the body's gender is by using one rod and holding it straight in front of you.

If the body is a male, the rod will swing outward toward the back of the investigating person's foot. If the body is a female, the rod will remain straight or go inward toward the head.

"My goal now is to place stones on the graves," he said.

[Read the whole story]

My hackles have been raised. Placing stones on graves without good evidence of what lies beneath is like slipping extra documents into a file at the National Archives.

Two points about dowsing:

(1) You can't swing a dead cat in an old cemetery without finding an unmarked grave. The easiest way to find one: go to those parts of the cemetery where there are no markers, and look down. (BTW, do not swing a dead cat in an old cemetery. You will be arrested.)

(2) Who is confirming that he found these graves? Do they follow him around with a backhoe?

There are better ways of confirming a burial, including: sextons' records; contemporary newspaper accounts; previous transcriptions (to find if the grave was ever marked); and, as a last resort, excavation. I've seen a 19th-century diary entry which describes the exact location of an unmarked grave ("He was buried in the northeast corner of the yard. . ."). Ground penetrating radar is a great (if expensive) way of finding graves (though the sex and age of the occupant will remain a mystery).

Don't resort to pseudo-science until every other method has been exhausted.

And even then don't resort to it.

Elective Surgery in Victorian England

From Reuters:

New Jack the Ripper theories put sleuths in a spin
Sun Jun 26, 2005

By Elizabeth Fullerton

LONDON (Reuters) - A mental patient, a butcher, the artist Walter Sickert, a serial wife poisoner and even Queen Victoria's grandson have all been touted as Jack the Ripper suspects in one of the greatest whodunits in history.

[snip]

A . . . new book, "Uncle Jack" by Tony Williams, proposes the killer was the author's ancestor, Sir John Williams -- a gynaecologist to Queen Victoria's children and the founder of the National Library of Wales.

Williams had set out to explore his family history when he stumbled upon a box of Sir John's personal effects, including a knife, three medical slides and diaries with the 1888 entries ripped out.

He discovered that besides his posh Harley Street surgery, Sir John had a clinic in Whitechapel, giving him access to the prostitutes who thronged the area.

[snip]

Williams believes Sir John was enraged by the prostitutes he saw getting pregnant while his own wife was unable to have children and killed them either out of vengeance or to use their organs for researching a cure for infertility.

"These women were having children left, right and center and he wanted this cure," said Williams.

However, shortly after the killings stopped, Sir John had something akin to a nervous breakdown, gave up medicine and returned to Wales for good.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Is it appropriate to include the occupation "serial killer" in a GEDCOM file? (By the way, an uncle, however "great", is not generally considered an ancestor.)

History Defectives

History Detectives on PBS is a show I really want to enjoy. The premise is one that should hearten any genealogist: follow four researchers as they use "traditional investigative techniques, modern technologies, and plenty of legwork" to solve mysteries submitted by viewers. In fact, some of the mysteries entail genealogical research—like last year's episode featuring an detained Chinese immigrant, and a case two years ago involving letters written by abolitionist John Brown.

But inevitably the four researchers miss important clues, skip obvious steps, or jump to shaky conclusions. Last night's episode was par for the course. Mystery number one required that they find out whether the uncle of two viewers built the engine for Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis. After some false starts, the researcher consulted an aviation expert, who pointed him toward an article published in 1970. The subject of the article was the uncle in question, who, as it turns out, did build Lindbergh's engine.

Granted, the article was published in some obscure journal. But the first rule of genealogy (or maybe it's the fourth or fifth) is this: Find out if someone else has already published an article on the mystery you're trying to solve.

The second mystery solved on the show—concerning a poison pin commissioned by the CIA—was handled pretty well, and was solved to my satisfaction. Since this doesn't fit with my thesis that the History Detectives are nitwits, I will ignore it.

The third was the worst of the bunch. A woman had found a blurry photograph of men on horseback, inscribed with the words "Geronimo saluting a crowd of 100,000 people and surrounded by U.S. soldiers at Ranch 101." The woman supposed that "Ranch 101" was the one owned by her ancestor in New Mexico, which sent the History Detective assigned to the case off to Santa Fe in hot pursuit. There she ran smack into a dead end, but was quickly rerouted by a fellow researcher to Oklahoma, where she discovered that the photograph depicted a staged event at a Wild-West-themed ranch, at which Geronimo was a main attraction.

The mystery was solved, certainly, but one important step was skipped. Try this experiment yourself. Go to Google, and type in the following query:

"Ranch 101" Geronimo soldiers -"history detectives"

(The last phrase needs to be excluded, because of recent publicity about the PBS program.) Only one search result is found: a page from Oklahoma Historical Resources—Miller Brothers' 101 Ranch. Browse the site for a while and you will find another page, which describes how in 1905 the War Department gave "consent to allow the old Apache chief [Geronimo] to be used for exhibition purposes at the '101'." This Googling wouldn't have closed the case, but it certainly should have kept PBS from funding a plane ride to Santa Fe.

Of course, the researchers and their producers might follow false leads intentionally, to heighten the drama and exaggerate the "legwork" involved. The Detectives almost always suggest the most obvious and least convenient place to find information. Have a baseball card you're curious about? Drive to Cooperstown! Wonder if your grandfather's brother was Harry S. Truman's butcher? Call David McCullough! Instead of suggesting good research strategies, the History Detectives are trying to make good television.

And failing.

Colonial Family Stalls Development

From NewsZap.com:

State seeking descendants, Bowers Beach family plot holds up to 150 burials

By Kate House-Layton, Delaware State News

LITTLE HEAVEN - When someone dies, typically the next of kin is notified.

But try notifying them more than 100 to 200 years after a person's death and burial. That's the task the state Historic Preservation office is facing as it seeks out descendants of those buried in a family plot along Bowers Beach.

The office is searching for descendents of the Newell family who once owned and occupied a farm south of Mulberrie Point Road, east of Skeeter Neck Road and west of Old Bowers road near Little Heaven. A legal notice was placed in the Delaware State News June 12.

The family cemetery was discovered a few years ago when landowner and Wilmington attorney L. Vincent Ramunno sought development of the 202-acre property into Bowers Landing, which has since been approved for 202 homes along Skeeter Neck and Old Bowers roads.

[snip]

Mr. Ramunno said he was glad the cemetery was found.

"It was rather, frankly, interesting although expensive," Mr. Ramunno said. "The last thing you want to do is dig it up and have a problem."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Yet another real-estate developer who should heed the lessons of Poltergeist.

What Lewis and Clark Left Behind

From the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune of June 26, 2005:

Corps of Discovery descendants abound

By ERIC NEWHOUSE
Tribune Projects Editor

Darlene Fassler of Great Falls has known all her life that she was the great-great-great granddaughter of Pvt. Patrick Gass of Lewis and Clark Expedition fame.

But last summer at a family reunion in Astoria, Ore., Fassler discovered Gass had 1,061 descendants over nine generations.

"I met 167 relatives in one day," said Fassler, who also volunteers at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

Fassler's not the only one with lots of famous relatives.

The members of the Corps of Discovery have thousands of descendants — both from their later lives and from sexual encounters during their passage two centuries ago, including many Native Americans with strong evidence of family ties.

The Clatsop Genealogical Society, a key repository of expedition records in Oregon, has identified 1,669 descendents of about half the expedition's 32 permanent members.

Many may not know of their heritage.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

I guess they'd try anything to win over the natives.

Indian Pauper Inherits Taj Mahal

From The Times of India:

Mera Taj!
NONA WALIA

TIMES NEWS NETWORK [SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2005 08:35:24 PM]

And you always thought the Taj Mahal was a national monument maintained by the ASI? Think again. Prince Yakub Habeebuddin Tucy says he is the last direct descendant of Bahadur Shah Zafar and, consequently, the rightful owner of the Taj. Delhi Times on monumental claims...

His story sounds as bi-zarre as Rani and Abhishek leasing out the Taj Mahal in Bunty Aur Babli. However, Prince Yakub Habeebuddin Tucy's story isn't a movie script.

Tucy claims he is the last of the living Moguls. His truth is simple: "Taj Mahal mera hai!" Why? "I'm the great-great grandson of the last Mogul ruler Bahadur Shah Zafar. I'm staking my claim to the ownership of the Taj. When I'm alive, why should anyone else be allowed to take care of my inheritance?"

Why didn't Tucy stake such a claim earlier? "The ASI takes care of the Taj and I was happy with that. But then, when a person called Irfan Bedar of Agra, who has nothing to do with my royal lineage, laid claim to the Taj, I felt annoyed. If ownership of the Taj has to be transferred to anyone, that person must be a direct descendant of Shah Jahan, the emperor who erected the monument."

For now, Tucy lives "in extreme poverty in Hyderabad" and introduces himself as "The second son Yaqub Arifuddin Tucy, who in turn is the son of Laila Ummani, "a great-granddaughter of Bahadur Shah Zafar, who had 49 sons and daughters. Thereby, I'm the great-great grandson of Bahadur Shah Zafar."

Tucy has a genealogy chart to prove his claim. In the chart, there are pictures of Babar, Akbar... and Tucy himself, ‘the last living descendant of the Moguls'. "It's ironic that, today, I have to buy a ticket to see the Taj," says Tucy.

[Read the whole story]

And we all know a genealogy chart can't possibly be faked. . .

Woman Touches Leg of Civil War Veteran

From MyrtleBeachOnline.com of June 25, 2005:

Civil War soldier's wooden leg is prized possession at museum

LINDA MCNATT

Associated Press

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. - Slowly, carefully, Christine Brooks Young slipped her fingers into the white cotton gloves and pulled the protective covering over her hands.

Hesitantly, her hand moved to the dark, aged wood lying on the table at the Museum of the Albemarle in Elizabeth City.

Seemingly reaching across the generations, Young touched the artificial leg of Isaac Byrum Jr., her great-grandfather.

"It just makes me very proud, after hearing what he accomplished," said Young, a Suffolk resident who started researching her family history recently and found out about the leg.

"I remember, early on in my life, hearing about a relative who had served in the Civil War."

Byrum, a hardworking farmer from eastern North Carolina, lost his left leg in the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the bloody exchange that many consider the turning point of the war.

Fitted with a wooden leg at a Richmond hospital once he was released from a Union prison camp, the 24-year-old Byrum walked home and resumed his life. He would clear 55 acres of farmland, marry and have several children.

And, when the first wooden leg wore out, he carved two more - one for everyday use and one for church. In 1916, Byrum was buried in his "good" leg, said Don Pendergraft, museum exhibits chief.

"It really does have its own aura, doesn't it?"

[snip]

Young, a Suffolk businesswoman and wife of a local lawyer, said she thought little about her ancestry when she was younger. But, as she got older, she said, it became more important.

Once she became a grandmother, she wanted to know more about her own family history so she could pass it on to her granddaughter.

She learned about the leg when a cousin, who still lives in North Carolina, stopped by her office one afternoon and announced: "Your great-grandfather's leg is in the Albemarle Museum."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

That's Too Much Information!

Genealogists researching Maine families sometimes run into a problem using the International Genealogical Index (IGI). When searching for a marriage record, they will sometimes find two records for the same couple, each bearing a different date, each recorded in a different town, and each transcribed from an original record. How can this be?

We in New England are spoiled with excellent town records of births, deaths, and marriages, dating back to the 17th century. Genealogists living elsewhere in the country, where jurisdiction over vital records lay with the county, and where recording requirements were lax in early years, should be envious. But, there is a price for this. Let's call it matrimonial overdetermination (or, on the other hand, let's not).

Here's an example. Charles B. Brooks of Oxford, Maine, and Roxana A. Cordwell of Greenwood, Maine, were betrothed in the spring of 1842. They were required by law to publish their intentions to marry in their towns of residence. So, in Greenwood a publishment—a publication of intentions—was entered on the books:

Intentions of Marriage between Mr Charles B Brooks of Oxford and Miss Roxana A Cordwell of Greenwood were Published in Greenwood April 26^th 1842.

A similar notice was entered on the town books in Oxford, on April 30.

A couple of weeks passed, and no one objected to the marriage, so the town clerk in each town certified the couple's intentions—i.e. gave them a marriage certificate. In Greenwood, this happened on May 14, in Oxford on May 18.

The couple was married in Greenwood on May 22, 1842.

Here we have five different dates associated with the same event, only one of which is a marriage date. And it gets worse. Ministers were required to return a record of each marriage they performed to the clerk of the town where the ceremony took place. The marriage return was often dated (a sixth date) before it was recorded, at which time the clerk could affix another date (a seventh).

The Brooks marriage is also recorded in county marriage returns. Records of hundreds of other Maine marriages were returned to the state, and are now available on microfilm. And let's not forget contemporary newspaper accounts, Bible records, the records of ministers and Justices of the Peace, divorce records, pension files, etc.—all of them possible sources of marriage dates. Further, some marriages were recorded in more than one town, and could be returned to the county or state by any or all of those towns.

So, when different marriage dates appear in the IGI, recorded in different towns, often one of the records is a date of publishment or certification of intentions. One great flaw in the IGI is its failure to distinguish between actual marriage dates and dates preliminary to this (also a fault of the contributors, I suppose, who substituted an intention date wherever a marriage date couldn't be found).

There is one great advantage to finding and jotting down an ancestral couple's marriage intentions: intentions were almost always recorded chronologically, while marriage records were recorded as they filtered in from ministers and JPs in the community. Intentions are truly primary records—written down at the time of the event, probably with one or both of the marrying parties standing in the room. Marriage records, though legal and official, were copies of records kept by the officiators. (Charles and Roxana's marriage record is perhaps more authoritative than some others; they were married by the Greenwood town clerk.)

As genealogists, which should we prefer: many, possibly conflicting, records of a marriage; or one record, perhaps inaccurate, but also irrefutable? There should be no question. Despite the possibility of conflict, it's always better to have more data than less.

Missing Any Irish Friends?

Serious researchers of Irish genealogy have long depended on the eight volumes of The Search for Missing Friends: Irish Immigrant Advertisements Placed in the Boston Pilot, edited by Ruth-Ann Mellish Harris, Donald M. Jacobs, and B. Emer O'Keeffe (Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1989-). Now these records are coming to the Internet, albeit in abstracted form, through Information Wanted, a website of the Boston College Irish Studies Program.

The Missing Friends advertisements, dating from 1831 to 1921, were placed by those seeking information about an Irish immigrant to America, and contain a varying amount of identifying data.

The advertisements contain the ordinary but revealing details about the missing person’s life: the county and parish of their birth, when they left Ireland, the believed port of arrival in North America, their occupation, and a range of other personal information. Some records may have as many as 50 different data fields, while others may offer only a few details. The people who placed ads were often anxious family members in Ireland, or the wives, siblings, or parents of men who followed construction jobs on railroads or canals.

Anyone finding a relative will still want to consult the original text, but the online index will surely help speed their research in the right direction.

George Bush Not That Offensive to Muslims

From The (Calcutta, India) Telegraph:

Bush 'ancestor' book

Cairo, June 23 (Reuters): Censors at al-Azhar, Cairo’s centre of Islamic learning, today passed a 19th century biography of Prophet Mohammad by a scholar portrayed in the Arabic media as an ancestor of President George W. Bush.

The Academy for Islamic Studies, which censors religious books, had recommended last year that the government ban The Life of Mohammad by American scholar George Bush, first published in 1830 and reissued in the US in 2002.

[snip]

The censors did not give a reason for retracting the ban.

Last year, newspaper articles had criticised the book’s account of early Islamic history and quoted Bush as saying Muslims spread Islam by force and persecuted Christians, for example. At least one of the newspaper articles came with large photographs of George W. Bush and his father, former President George Bush, and references to the Bush family.

The genealogical link between the author of the book and the President could not be confirmed by the book’s US publishers or the Bush family. Family trees of the Bush family on the Internet do not include the author, who was a prominent biblical scholar and preacher.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

A book released last year argued that both George W. Bush and John Kerry are descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. Small world.

"Geneology," and Other Crimes Against Genealogy

I once received an email about a family history I had posted online, the purpose of which was to inform me that I had misspelled geneology. The message was written in a cordial tone, so I resisted the urge to respond. I rarely welcome unsolicited advice, especially when it's incorrect.

Anyone can misspell a word, and "genealogy" is a doozy. We all had to learn the correct spelling as newbies, and we all should forgive the beginner who mistakenly spells the word like it sounds (a foolish mistake in the English language). But what of those who profess to know what they're talking about, and yet persist in the mistake?

A search in Google for "geneology" turns up 748,000 results. Many of these are intentional misspellings—I myself have placed "geneology" among the hidden keywords of a website, knowing that people will be searching for it. The sponsored ads to the right of the Google search results belong to companies who have paid cash for the term "geneology." After all, even poor spellers might subscribe to Ancestry.com.

Some of the top search results, though, belong to websites that are not targeting the orthographically impaired. Take, for example, Genealogylinks.net, a site which claims to have been in service since 1997. The titlebar of the main page reads "Over 30,000 Genealogy Links; geneology for US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, NZ" [emphasis added]. Dozens of pages within the website repeat the misspelling. Another website, Genealogy-Geneology.net, attempts to turn the mistake into an acceptable, alternate spelling.

There are worse crimes against genealogy—plagiarism, failure to cite sources, dependence on secondary or tertiary sources. But writing "geneology" on a message board or personal website will broadcast to the world that you are inexperienced. Nobody wants that—even if it's true.

Kimberly Powell suggests a mnemonic device:

Genealogists
Evidently
Needing
Endless
Ancestors
Look
Obsessively in
Grave
Yards

Mark Howell's device is similar:

Genealogists
Examine
Needed
Evidence
At
Lots
Of
Grave
Yards

Or, you can try my trick. Learn the correct spelling.

More Censuswhacking

In my first experiment in censuswhacking, I tried to find individuals or families in the 1880 census each with a unique first or last name. This time, I've looked for unique and unusual combinations of first and last names.

Fictional characters: Clark Kent (there were four Lois Lanes in 1880), Marcia Brady, and Harry Lime (for those who remember the Third Man). There was also a Chris Kringle, whose first name was undoubtedly misspelled by the enumerator.

Musicians: Paul McCartney, Hank Williams, and Patsy Cline.

Actors: Richard Gere, James Spader, and Linda Lovelace (really).

Literary figures: George Orwell and Virginia Woolf.

It is rather disturbing to find that there were four women in 1880 named Fanny Large, and two named Fanny Grumbles. Fortunately, there was only one Fanny Poker then living in America.

One wonders if the Nice Dame living in Mississippi ever met the Mean Beavers living in Alabama.

Harry Chin lived in Louisiana, while Harry Knee lived with his folks in Pennsylvania. (Before you ask, there were five Harry Butts spread across the country.)

Essential Sites: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

An interest in genealogy inevitably leads to other interests: whether Civil War re-enactment, tin-type photography, or, as in my case, cartography. I have found, both on- and off-line, dozens of historical maps of my corner of Maine, each of which adds something to my understanding of the region. Historical USGS Maps of New England and New York provides free topographical maps (often more than one for a particular area), while Old Maps of New England, New York & Pennsylania sells matted reproductions of 19th-century town maps which show exactly where each resident lived, where he went to church, and where his children went to school. The map collection at American Memory includes panoramic maps of many American towns.

And then there is the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, which "has over 11,000 maps online."

The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century North and South America maps and other cartographic materials. Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also represented. Collection categories include antique atlas, globe, school geography, maritime chart, state, county, city, pocket, wall, childrens and manuscript maps. The collection can be used to study history, genealogy and family history.

Indeed, it can. The site allows four different ways to view the maps, the easiest of which is the Insight Browser, the coolest of which is the 3d GIS Viewer that "lets you fly through historic maps in three dimensions." The scanned maps are of the highest quality, and may be manipulated and printed.

The collection includes Moses Greenleaf's famous 1829 maps of Maine, showing town and county lines, grants and purchases, and topography. Comparing maps from 1795 through 1860 shows how the counties of Maine evolved. Farther afield, there is an 1857 map of Los Angeles, an 1874 map of Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and a 1795 plan of the future "City of Washington." Wherever your ancestors lived in the U. S., there will be at least one map in the Rumsey Collection that lends new understanding of their state, county, town or city.

They Always Seemed Like Such Nice Folks

From The Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal of June 22, 2005:

Residents used to questions about roads with Hitler in name

KRISTY ECKERT

Associated Press

CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio - When he refers to his street address, Larry Harris always waits for the pause.

"Bitler?" people sometimes respond, thinking they've misunderstood.

No, the name begins with an H.

"Like Adolf," Harris says. "But he doesn't live in our neighborhood."

His wife said she often ends up spelling it out: H-I-T-L-E-R.

Otherwise, they're hardly bothered by their association with the Nazi dictator of World War II. After about 30 years here, the Harrises said they're accustomed to strange looks and questions. Their neighbors are, too.

Long before Adolf came to power in Germany, the Pickaway County Hitlers were well-known farmers in Circleville, where three rural roads are named for them: Hitler No. 1 Road, Hitler No. 2 Road and Huber-Hitler Road.

[snip]

Down the lane from [Idabelle White's] home, several Hitlers are buried at the Hitler-Ludwig Cemetery. The cemetery caretaker said he also fields his share of questions - and pranks.

"I get some weird calls on the answering machine," said Duane Howard, as he walked among tombstones on Hitler graves from as early as the 1800s.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

British Vital Records Outsourced

From the (Manchester, England) Guardian Unlimited:

Population database will move to India

Protests at offshore move for lists of births, marriages and deaths

David Hencke, Westminster correspondent
Thursday June 23, 2005
The Guardian

A database containing details of every birth, marriage and death in England and Wales since 1837 - all 250m of them - is to be transferred to India in one of the biggest offshore contracting deals ever to be signed by the government.

The controversial deal - due to be signed in a fortnight - is going ahead despite criticism from MPs, peers and trade unions that to transfer the information could be illegal, could put people's personal data at risk and could lead to inaccuracies in historical registers.

[snip]

The MPs also questioned whether the move was lawful without a new act of parliament because the Births and Deaths Registration Act forbids the information leaving England and Wales. Evidence was also given to them suggesting that an Indian workforce may have difficulty spelling complex Welsh and English names.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

How hard could it be for them to spell English names? Could it be any harder than spelling Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam?

Top Five Poems for Genealogists

5. Emily Dickinson, "I died for beauty. . ." It always makes me want to recommend techniques for cleaning tombstones.

I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, — the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.

4. Elizabeth Jennings, In Memory of Anyone Unknown to Me. A beautiful poem, but the author obviously lacks the curiosity to make a good genealogist.

At this particular time I have no one
Particular person to grieve for, though there must
Be many, many unknown ones going to dust
Slowly, not remembered for what they have done
Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve
Being impartial, unable to deceive.

How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,
And, by that fact gives my grief purity—
An important person quite apart from me
Or one obscure who drifted down alone.
Both or all I remember, have a place.
For these I never encountered face to face.

Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out
Wishing to give these classical repose,
No epitaph, no poppy and no rose
From me, and certainly no wish to learn about
The way they lived or died. In earth or fire
They are gone. Simply because they were human, I admire.

3. Walt Whitman, With Antecedents, from Leaves of Grass. Not his best work, but certainly relevant.

[Excerpted]
WITH antecedents;
With my fathers and mothers, and the accumulations of past ages;
With all which, had it not been, I would not now be here, as I am:

                .       .       .

With the small shores we look back to from our own large and present shores;
With countless years drawing themselves onward, and arrived at these years;
You and Me arrived—America arrived, and making this year;
This year! sending itself ahead countless years to come.

2. Edgar Lee Masters, Cassius Hueffer, part of his Spoon River Anthology, a collection of free verse epitaphs contributed by the deceased. It was difficult to choose just one.

They have Chiseled on my stone the words:
'His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him
That nature might stand up and say to all the world,
This was a man.'
Those who knew me smile
As they read this empty rhetoric.
My epitaph should have been:
'Life was not gentle to him,
And the elements so mixed in him
That he made warfare on life,
In the which he was slain.'
While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues,
Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph
Graven by a fool!

1. Robert Frost, The Generations of Men. He describes well a typical family reunion in New England. (I'll pass up the chance to include in this list his infamous epitaph, "Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.")

[Excerpted]
Someone had literally run to earth
In an old cellar hole in a by-road
The origin of all the family there.
Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe
That now not all the houses left in town
Made shift to shelter them without the help
Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard.

Genealogists at Risk of Cancer?

From WKYC in Cleveland, Ohio:

New evidence suggests that family history may lead to lung cancer
Wednesday, June 22, 2005

CLEVELAND -- New evidence suggests that family history, not just smoking, may lead to lung cancer.

Researchers found a two-fold increase in risk among people related to someone fighting early onset lung cancer. . .

Okay, the headline got me worried.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the GenForum

Though there are dozens of forums and message boards available for the genealogically inclined (see Cyndi's List for a good number of them), I frequent only two—GenForum and the message boards of Ancestry.com/Rootsweb.com. Both are now owned by mega-company MyFamily.com, but aside from past misguided attempts to place pop-up ads on the Ancestry boards, and the occasional page-size ad in the GenForum header, the forums seem to function independent of the for-fee portions of the sites.

So which is better? I have always found GenForum easier to navigate. The "Jump to Forum" feature makes it easy to surf from one surname to another, while on the Ancestry boards the same action requires two clicks: one to search for the surname, and then another to reach the forum.

In GenForum one can search within any forum, but don't try to "Search all of GenForum." The search engine hasn't worked for years (though, curiously, the powers-that-be have continued to keep the search box on each page). There once was a way around this, when Google indexed every message on the forum. By limiting your Google search to the GenForum site, you could find any message you needed. Now, though, it is predominantly the index pages which are spidered and appear in Google search results, undoubtedly because MyFamily.com prohibits large-scale spidering of individual messages.

The Ancestry.com global search engine works, but even its "Advanced Search" doesn't permit searching for phrases. So, if I search for "John Smith," the results are messages in which both first and last names appear—whether together or apart (127,878 of them in all). A better way to search: use Google. Individual Ancestry.com messages are spidered (though not cached). Searching for "John Smith" with Google: 193 results.

Which forum is better may depend on what surname, topic or locality you're interested in, and how active the community is in that area. Ancestry.com has more categories of topics than GenForum, but you may find that your topic is not visited often by serious, helpful researchers. And a forum is only as good as the help given.

Rest in Peace (After a Cheek Swab)

From M & C News:

New service preserves DNA of deceased
By Steve Mitchell Jun 21, 2005, 1:53 GMT

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- Families can hang on to their departed loved one's DNA through a new profile preservation service offered to funeral homes by genetic-testing company Orchid Cellmark.

The company, based in Princeton, N.J., said the DNA information would be useful for medical, legal and genealogy issues.

"A record of an individual's DNA can provide a number of safeguards to families -- as a possible protection against future estate or lineage issues, as a way to trace family genealogy and identify ancestry, and so families may be able to track more detailed information about their medical history as technology advances," Orchid said in a statement.

Orchid's President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Paul J. Kelly told United Press International the service was launched "in response to a lot of research we've done with the funeral industry" indicating there is a heavy demand for this type of product.

Bob Vandenbergh, past president of the National Funeral Directors Association, told UPI that demand may increase in the future, but in his experience almost no clients are requesting the service.

[snip]

The procedure involves taking a cheek swab to obtain a sample of the deceased's DNA, which then is preserved on Orchid's trademarked Heritage card, a long-term storage device. The family also receives a written profile of the person's DNA.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

I suppose it's better than what they did to Ted Williams.