Project advice from a veteran researcher

In my current work assignment, I have the opportunity to listen to quite a lot of audio as I edit photographs for an online retailer.  One of the podcast episodes I listened to this week, although not specifically about family history or genealogy research, should be required listening for every genealogist that is working to create a narrative document for future generations.  The show was Stuff You Missed In History Class and the episode (get the mp3) was the second part of an interview with multiple Pulitzer Prize winning history author David McCullough.

A little more on today’s Mystery Monday…

So I did a little more digging around to see what other records I could find on Francis Lamb and Anne Quinn and family today.  I came across the family listed in the 1850 U.S. census as well, without any Thorntons in the same household.  However, there were Thorntons elsewhere in the building in 1850…

Mystery Monday–Who was Mary Thornton?

So I know that my Lamb ancestry traces through New York City, specifically Harlem, back to Ireland.  The family legend is that my ancestors emigrated during the great potato famine.  The 1860 U.S. census for New York supports all of this, but adds a mystery that I have yet to solve.

Another record set of note

Yeah, it’s been a while since my last post.  As usual, life got in the way, but things are settling a little again (just in time for another disaster, but more on that later), so it’s time to update the blog.  I was listening to Genealogy Gems episode 114 this week and heard about all the new record sets available to search.  In the discussion on the British Library digitizing a massive amount of public domain materials (news: Reuters, Engadget, Guardian, HuffPost), I was reminded of another project that was mentioned recently on the BBC History Magazine podcast this month - the fine rolls from King Henry III's reign.

The fallacy of patronymics

Yes, I've missed a couple Saturday posts, this was mostly due to serving as the model contest chairman for the National Model Railroad Association's Midwest Region at the recent Badgerland Express region convention.  The delay is also due to some last minute findings on the surname that I was going to post about next.  I'm still digesting the information that I've found for it and will post it at a later date, but in the meantime, I've made another observation that is important to remember when researching family history.

D minus 365 days

Today is April Fool's Day, or as I saw it on another site early this morning, Lirpa Sloof Yad.  There are plenty of pranks going around like the story about Minnesota DOT tunneling under Wisconsin to implement high-speed rail service or the attack on an Improv Everywhere actor on the New York Subway (and there are a number of lists of this year's pranks online to help alleviate your boredom).  But one story that is not a joke is that we are now officially one year away from the public release of the 1940 U.S. census enumeration.  There is quite a lot of interesting information at the U.S. Census Bureau's official website, but I don't see anything obvious about how the original 1940 documents will be released yet.  One site making the rounds today among my genealogy friends on Facebook is 1940census.net; they've got a bit of information and seem to be a gathering place of sorts for links to more information about the enumeration and the era in which it was made.

It will probably be a little while after the release next year before the entire 1940 enumeration is online as scans of the original pages, but there again, based on the explosive growth in indexing at FamilySearch (which is one project where I participate), I don't think we'll have to wait too long.  I guess the best task for me to do right now to prepare for the release would be to look through my databases to find out who was alive and would have been counted in 1940 so I know where to concentrate my searches.

Surname Saturday: Curtis

So we get to look at another of the more common surnames in my research.  Although it is not among the top 100 surnames in the United States today (according to the Wikipedia article linked in a previous post), it is one that is still pretty easy to recognize and even at the closest relation, was among the earlier settlers of New England.  The youngest in this line in my research was my sixth great grandmother, Jemima Curtis.

A healthy skepticism

In my current work assignment, I am able to listen to a wide variety of podcasts.  I recently started listening to the BBC History Magazine podcast and heard a line there that easily sums up my opinions toward most historical sources.  In the October 2007 episode, there was an interview with Laurence Rees.  He was talking about his experiences interviewing World War II veterans and survivors as part of a BBC Television production about the war (some of which is now online at WW2History.com) and the reception that he got for the interviews from other historians.  He said:

"Historians are skeptical of all sources -- everything, not just oral sources, but written sources as well."

He's not saying that historians think all sources are wrong, he's saying that historians are always willing to accept that the documentation could be incorrect.  Since we don't yet have time machines and can't go back to witness events first-hand, we have to rely on documentation.  But, how many of us have written checks in early January and wrote the previous year's number instead of the new year's number?  Even on the day of an event, when the person writing the document is physically present at the event and writing things down immediately, errors can and will be made.  Then when the events are researched later, the errors are copied and subsequently propagated to new research and eventually there are more references with the error than without.  As researchers, we have to keep a healthy dose of skepticism when we read documents and continually remind ourselves that there could be errors in what we are reading.  It is only through a complete analysis of all the source materials we collect that we can build a truly representative picture of the lives we are researching.

Surname Saturday: Cook

Okay, another week, another surname.  Today's surname is a fairly common name in North America, in fact Wikipedia cites this surname at 60th place in the list of most common surnames in the United States, belonging to just under 295,000 people in the U.S. (according to 2000 U.S. census figures).  I know about five generations of Cooks in my wife's ancestry, and all of them were born in the United States with the first that I know of born way back in 1781 in Pennsylvania.  So, let's find out more about the Cook line...

Surname Saturday: Cranston

It's another Saturday, so it's time for another surname study.  This week we'll take a look at another line where I only know of one person with the surname.  Today's surname is Cranston, as in Margaret Cranston of Ireland.