If I Knew Then . . .

If I Knew Then . . . I was fortunate to be in Florida when MyHeritage genealogy expert Daniel Horowitz was touring the state and giving free lectures. The Manatee Genealogical Society hosted Daniel Horowitz’s lecture at the State College of Florida’s lovely “Together Manatee Community Room” in the college’s Library & Learning Center. 1. Back Up -The first thing on Daniel’s list of “If I Knew Then What I Know Now” presentation was Dick Eastman’s reminder: Back up. Mr. Eastman posted this reminder on the first of every month. Mr. Horowitz expanded on this suggesting backing up to multiple media. 2. Naming Documents – This slide was the first of how he names and stores his digital files. Make sure the document, image, or photo is identified so it can be easily found. 3. You See It – You Get It – How often have we seen documents or images online, but continue to search because we are hot on the trail? The document or image is forgotten for now, but when we need it later it can’t be found. Daniel Horowitz reminds us to stop and capture the item by either downloading or photographing it. 4. Dates – He posted several familiar ways to record dates that we either said no to or yes, that’s the way. Not. For sorting purposes, start with the year, then the month and date. Make sure you include the zero. i.e. 1980 07 05 5. Facts – He showed a photo of a family photo of a tombstone in Israel he’d found on Billion Graves. The photo showed a bit of the next stone which turned out to be another family member. A reminder to check cemeteries for other relatives as they tend to be buried near each other. Check the dates. He showed an example of a stone with a death date of April 20, but when he checked the death certificate, the person died on April 17, and the burial date was the 20th. 6. Source – Goes without saying, but do your best to get to the original source. 7. Associations – When you have documents, images, and photos of ancestors, look closely to see how they relate to each other. 8. Google Maps – He showed a photo of his aunt standing in from of her grocery store. The sign above the store had the number 722. He figured that was the address, so mapping where his relatives lived in Brooklyn, he looked for that number. They would not have traveled far to work like some do today. He put in 722 in Google Maps and it gave him several addresses with that number. He found one within a couple of blocks from his aunt’s home. Then he found a photo of what the store looks like today. He ended his presentation by sharing all the free opportunities that MyHeritage provides. They have a free Genealogy Course, you can upload your DNA results taken with other companies to the MyHeritage website, and you can have a free tree with a limit of 255 people, though you can transfer a Gedcom file with a larger tree. Daniel Horowitz covered a lot of ground in an hour, interspersed with a few laughs, and he spent another thirty minutes answering questions. I’m glad I took notes! After his Florida tour, he will be on his way to RootsTech. I’ve developed my schedule for the online courses. Have you?

Irish Ancestors - Patrick and Margaret (Conlon) Doyle

I've broken down two brick walls over the last week. I found the death certificates for my greatgrandparents, Patrick and Margaret (Maggie) Doyle. Identifying their exact birth and death dates had been frustrating for me over the years, but now those records are digitized. Patrick Doyle was born 17 May 1858 in Ireland. He died 31 May 1924 at 1948 Cruger Avenue, Bronx, New York. I know this is "my" Patrick, because my grandparents, my father and his siblings lived at that address. It gives his occupation as a Street Cleaner, which I knew. What I didn't know was his parents names, John and Mary Doyle. Margaret (Conlon) Doyle was born abt 1867 (no exact date), and died 1 January 1928 at 1948 Cruger Street, Bronx, New York. What I didn't know were her parents Michael and Catherine Conlon. The executor is listed as Mary Nunn (incorrectly listed as Neenn), who is my grandmother. When I found these folks I jumped up and did a happy dance. But these documents did not tell me where they were from in Ireland. Information I want to learn before I attend the Irish SIG hosted by the Manatee Genealogical Society on December 12. This new SIG is being offered due to the generousity of Irish genealogy expert Donna Moughty. Through the census years I had documented the "cousins" who had lived with the Doyles. One set of "cousins" were the Gormley brothers. I had researched them at an earlier date and found they emigrated from Ballinclee, Ireland. Maggie Doyle had Conlon cousins that I knew about, in fact I met two of them when I was small, but so far have not been able to find documentation of the relationship to Maggie. Those cousins weren't helpful because they were all born in the U.S. I remembered I had noted a woman, Margaret Hoey, who lived with my grandparents in the 1930 census. I searched Margaret Hoey in the Ancestry database and Bam! She was really easy to find. The immigration database showed her birth date as 13 Sepetember 1908, her birthplace Ballinclee, Co, Longford, Cobh, Ireland. She arrived in New York on 29 March 1926. Then the cincher: Her parents were listed as Ernest Hoey and Catherine (Conlon) Hoey. Could Margaret's mother be Maggie's sister, named for their mother? I will have to make a trip over to the Godfrey Library and use their International Ancestry subscription to work on that angle. She listed the person in the U.S. as John Conlon, but she stayed with the Nunn family (my grandparents) at 1948 Cruger Avenue, Bronx, New York. Margaret Hoey married Michael Lennon, of County Monaghan, Ireland. They lived at 1807 Archer St. Bronx, New York. With this research, I'm pretty certain my Patrick and Maggie Doyle were from the Ballinclee area of Ireland.

Military Conflicts, War and Genealogical Research

At yesterday’s Manatee Genealogical Society meeting we were fortunate to hear one of Lee County Library’s Reference Librarian and avid genealogist, Bryan Mulcahy’s presentations. The link will take you to the society’s web page. Bryan’s presentation is there in PDF form, click on his March 3, 2015 presentation.  It is in several parts.

Bryan totally believes in NOT recreating the wheel. In that vein he has developed 120 study guides that he will email to you upon request. He is also open to any and all questions regarding genealogy research. He says he specializes in “silly” questions – don’t be afraid to ask.

His handout was a two and a half page listing of wars in America from 1565 through 1975. Another page and a half was a bibliography list of military resources.

Some notes of interest:

Don’t start with military research.  When you have a pretty good research foundation, military research can fill in important information;

Military service was a fast tract to citizenship;

Utilize Regimental histories. When trying to find a regiment, check a 50-100 mile radius from your ancestor’s home;

County histories. Often veterans registered with the county in order to qualify for special programs.  In some states/counties, this was mandatory. In others, voluntary;

Veterans sometimes stored documents behind old pictures.  When cleaning out a deceased relative’s house, take the frames off those old photos. You may be surprised at what you find;

Check with Veterans’ organizations to see what information they might have;

Read carbon paper.  When cleaning out, if you find a box of used carbon paper, hold it up to the light. You might find a resume, or important letters imprinted into the carbon. There is technology today that can translate;

Read the back of tombstones. Sometimes there will be a mini-biography located there;

National Archives at St. Louis fire 12 July 1973.  Indeed a tragedy.   But, some military personnel records can be reconstructed.  Some military personnel resubmitted their information. So, if the NPRC responds the records were destroyed, if you go there and search, you might find that your ancestor’s records were not.  The NPRC has very strict guidelines about who they release personnel information to.

Using the G word.  In doing library research you might have better luck asking for the societal history and statistics section rather than the genealogy section.  Not all libraries have the benefit of a dedicated genealogy research librarian like Bryan Mulcahy.

Archived Newspapers – Part II

Drew Smith, in his presentation to the Manatee Genealogical Society, shared key newspaper date information, free online sites as well as a couple of paid sites.

Key dates.  The earliest American newspaper published was in 1690, with the first daily in 1784. The most important date to remember is 1922, which is the latest date where newspaper articles are in the public domain. First “born digital” date is 1970s, with some not digitized until 1990s.  That means earlier issues have been digitized using OCR. OCR accuracy is about 70% correct.  This impacts spelling of names. Beware.

Blame Mickey Mouse.  According to Mr. Smith, the reason later newspaper articles are not in the public domain is because Disney and other Hollywood movie producers have provided incentive to congress so that copyrights to movies are not lost.  To me, it seems like common sense could be applied.  Movie companies, publishers, etc. could request to be grandfathered in for certain productions/products, and then the date for public domain use could be pushed further into the future.

Chronicling America, the Library of Congress is a great resource.  The site lists over 150,000 titles and identifies those that are digitized.  Remember the 1922 date. 

Newspapers changed name with mergers, sometimes combining the names so subscribers are not lost.  Keep an eye out for combinations.  Not all issues are available.  Learn how to use the site before jumping in.

Google Newspaper Archive has papers from 1700s-2009. You can also search Google by putting variation of Site: [your search term/s] Can even search year range using this option. Don’t have to remember the 1922 date for Google, guess they are big enough they aren’t worried!

Fulton History is one of our personal favorites, though Mr. Smith feels this site is a little “weird” to use.  He prefers to access Fulton History through Google using Site: Fultonhistory.com [your search term]  As mentioned in previous posts, Fulton History is a one-man show that has digitized as of this date (2/4/2015) 29,140,000 newspaper articles from the U.S. and Canada, at a fraction of the cost of the Library of Congress!  Fulton History began as the go-to site for Upstate New York ancestor research, but soon papers from the New York City/Hudson Valley area were available.  He has expanded to other states and Canada.

Paid Sites: Genealogy Bank (personal subscription $19.95/month-$69.95/annual) Over 7,000 titles 1690-present.  (OCR)

ProQuest Historical Newspapers can be accessed through local library subscription. This stie has major U.S. cities, African-American papers and Jewish newspapers. (OCR)

Beware of NewspaperARCHIVE.com (personal subscription $72). Mr. Smith has heard some complaints about this site.  (OCR)