| FHC Info | |
Hours of Operation:
Mon: Closed
Fri: 9:30 am-1:00 pm
Saturday:
9:30 am-4:30 pm
Tues, Wed, Thurs:
9:30am-4:30pm, & 7-9:30 pm
Directors: Linda & Kurt Christensen Washington DC Stake Carol & Gary Petranek, Silver Spring MDStake |
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WDC FHC News
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In Memorium
We sadly announce the passing of Cheryl Singhal, a long-time staff member, outstanding genealogist, and dear friend. There will be a viewing at Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home (11800 New Hampshire Ave, Silver Spring) on Saturday 10 January 2015 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. A notice will appear in the newspapers on Thursday, Friday, & Saturday. Our deepest condolences to Cheryl's family. She will be greatly missed by so many.
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Thursday Night Workshops & Saturday Classes
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Starting January 8, we will be holding workshops every Thursday evening at 7:30 pm to provide one-on-one assistance to help you improve your skills in using FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, RootsMagic, FindAGrave, Billion Graves, Puzzilla.
Sessions will begin with a brief demonstration of a specific website feature. After the training module, you will have the opportunity to receive personal help with skills you would like to develop on any of the websites mentioned above.
The focus website in January is Ancestry.com.
To extend this learning to those who cannot attend on Thursday nights, the 3rd Saturday class of each month in January, February, March will review the materials covered on Thursday nights.
Saturday Class on January 17 at 9:30 a.m.
will be Ancestry.com.
We invite you to join us! No registration is required. For further information, call the FHC at 301-587-0042 or email: info@wdcfhc.org.
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WDC FHC Focus Group Schedule
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Join a Focus Group to Enhance Your Research Skills
African-American: weekly on Monday mornings at 10:00.
Beginning Genealogy: weekly on Tuesday mornings at 10:00. Contact Lorraine Minor at ldgene@verizon.net for further information.
DNA Group: January 14 & 28 at 7:00 p.m.
Eastern European Group: monthly on the 4th Saturday at noon; focus countries: Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
Irish Group: bi-weekly meetings on the 1st, 3rd & 5th Tuesday evenings at 7:00.
RootsMagic Users Group: Monthly meetings on the 2nd Saturday at 9:30 a.m.
All are welcome - no registration needed.
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Free African-American Conference
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In commemoration of Black History Month, the WDCFHC has partnered with local AAGHS chapters and our own African-American Focus Group to sponsor a free conference on Saturday, February 7 from 8:30-5:00 at the Laurel Family History Center, 7200 Contee Road, Laurel, Maryland.
Information and registration can be found here:
http://www.wdcfhc.org/AAHGS-Conf/index.html
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Discovering An Ancestor's Occupation
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by Kimberly Powell
Do you know what your ancestors did for a living? Researching ancestral jobs and occupations can teach you a great deal about the people who make up your family tree, and what life was like for them.
An individual's occupation may give insight into their social status or to their place of origin. Occupations can also be used to distinguish between two individuals of the same name, often an essential requirement in genealogy research. Certain skilled occupations or trades may have been passed down from father to son, providing indirect evidence of a family relationship. It's even possible that your surname derives from the occupation of a distant ancestor.
The full article, including links to resources, can be found here.
Source: About.com Genealogy, January 6, 2015
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Ahnentafel Explained
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by Dick Eastman
Ahnentafel is a word commonly used in genealogy although it probably confuses most newcomers. Ahnentafel is a German word that literally translates as "ancestor table". It is a list of all known ancestors of an individual and includes the full name of each ancestor as well as dates and places of birth, marriage, and death whenever possible. It also has a strict numbering scheme.
Once the reader is accustomed to ahnentafels, it becomes very easy to read these lists, to move up and down from parent to child and back again, and to understand the relationships of the listed people. Ahnentafels are very good at presenting a lot of information in a compact format. However, the numbering system is the key to understanding ahnentafels.
To read the full article, click here.
Source: Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, December 16, 2014.
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FindAGrave: Linking Families
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FindAGrave is becoming an important genealogy resource for finding family links as well as individual tombstones. This video explains how and why.
 | | Find A Grave: Linking Families |
Source: Ancestry.com YouTube, December 16, 2014
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Native American: Researching Outside the 5 Civilized Tribes
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by Amy Crow Johnson
Some of the largest collections of Native American records are for the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole). The reason is that these five tribes had the most regulated interaction with the federal government. That interaction created a lot of records. But what if your ancestor wasn't a member of one of these tribes?
Before you do anything, work on identifying the tribe. Also consider any tradition (oral or written) that your family has about your Native American heritage. Do you know if your ancestors lived on a reservation at some point? Did your family try to hide its heritage and "blend in?" If your family assimilated, they likely aren't going to be in many collections that are specifically Native American.
To read this article in full, which includes tips on each resource listed, click here.
Source: Ancestry.com Blog, November 13, 2014
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33 Types of Old County Court Records to Search for Your Ancestors
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by Diane Haddad
Depending on the time and place your ancestor lived, you might find these types of records at his or her county courthouse:
- adoption records
- bastardy cases
- civil records
- coroners' files
- criminal case files
- custody papers
- deeds
- divorce case files
- estate inventories
- guardianship papers
- indenture contracts
- insanity/commitment orders
- jury lists
- justice of the peace records
- licenses
- livestock brands and marks
- manumissions
- marriage bonds, licenses and certificates
- military discharges
- minute books
- mortgages and leases
- name changes
- naturalizations
- oaths of allegiance
- permits
- prenuptial agreements
- probate files
- property foreclosures
- registers of births or deaths
- tax records
- voter registrations
- wills
- wolf-scalp bounties
In some states, old county records are sent to the state archives. A visit to the court's website or a call before you visit should tell you if this is the case.
To read the full article and to access its resources, click here.
Source: Genealogy Insider Blog, October 29, 2014
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Finding A Revolutionary War Patriot
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by Dick Eastman
After earlier skirmishes, the American Revolutionary War started with the battle between British troops and local Massachusetts militia at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, on 19 April 1775. It ended eight years later with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. If you have been able to trace your ancestry in America back to those years, you have an excellent chance of finding at least one ancestor who had some type of service related to the Revolutionary War effort....
If you have already documented your U.S. ancestry to 1760 or earlier, you already have an excellent chance of finding either a Patriot or a Loyalist in the family tree. Boys as young as 16 were allowed to serve, so any male ancestors born in 1760 or earlier are possible veterans. You can even find a few younger boys who served as drummers or assistants in the Revolutionary War and later were credited as veterans, even though they were not considered soldiers during the war itself.
To read the full article and to access its resources, click here.
Source:
Eastman's Online Genealogy Blog, November 10, 2014
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Genealogy Tip of the Day
| | | by Michael John Neill
In a State Hospital? If you can't find where your relative died, is it possible that she died in a state hospital several counties away? During the late 19th and early 20th century, it was not uncommon to institutionalize family members that relatives could no longer care for. They may have died in a state institution several counties away in a place where you have not thought to look for a death certificate. And, if the family was of very limited means, the person of interest may have been buried in an unmarked grave on the facility's grounds.
Was That Really Her Maiden Name? What someone indicated was great-grandma's "maiden" name may not have been the last name of her biological father. It could also have been the last name of her:
- step-father
- adopted father
- first husband
Sometimes what someone thinks is someone's maiden name may not be, especially if the person in question (or her mother) was married more than once.
Final Accounting. Final receipts and accountings in court and probate records may mention last names that married females did not have when the case was initiated. Daughters get married and widows find new husbands. Court accountings may mention these new names and explain why someone "disappears." These references can be especially helpful in time periods and locations where marriage records are not extant.
Buried Separately. One of my ancestral families and all their children and their children's spouses are buried in the same rural cemetery. The only exception is their daughter who died in her teens and is buried in a separate cemetery. The parents died in the 1880s and the other children died between 1895 and 1920. The daughter died in the 1860s before the cemetery where the others are buried was established. Never assume just because it looks like all of a family is buried in one cemetery that that they all are buried in one cemetery. There could be another child or sibling permanently lurking nearby.
Dead For How Long? In older court records, a petition to begin the probate process won't always indicate when the deceased passed away. However state statute dictates how soon a will must be presented to probate and various time restrictions. Usually a will is brought within thirty days of the day the person passed away, but there can easily be exceptions. Contemporary state statute should lay out the time frame. But never use the date a will was proved in court as a death date. It can and should be used as a "dead by" date.
Do Documents Suggest Child Order? In some families, it can be difficult to determine the order in which children are born. The problem is exacerbated in places where there are no vital records. Children may be listed in wills in order or age (or they may not). Children all signing off on a quit claim deed after the surviving parent dies may be listed in order (or they may not). And always ask yourself "how crucial is it that I know the birth order." Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't--it really depends on the family and what records are available and how detailed they are in terms of relationships.
If you've assigned children to a family in an order that you are not certain is the birth order, make a note that effect in your genealogy database.
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Research Tips & Resources
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Danish Genealogy. MyHeritage.com will be digitizing Danish civil and church records. Read more here.
Polish Gravestones Searchable Online.
Dick Eastman posted: As a result of a historic agreement between Jewish Records Indexing - Poland and the Foundation for Documentation of (Polish) Jewish Cemeteries (FDJC), a search of the JRI-Poland database links to the Foundation's Database with more than 200,000 gravestones from 81 towns. Read more here.
Ancestry Research Guides.
Ancestry.com has research guides that are free to use. A list can be found here.
Genealogy Resource List. This website has an extensive list of types of resources used in genealogical research and links. This is very helpful to ensure you don't overlook a possible record collection.
Genealogy "Do-Over".
Genealogist Thomas MacEntee is starting the new year with a fresh look at his research methodology. He is seeking "a collaborative community effort to re-examine the way in which each of us has personally pursued our genealogical research." Follow along or join his efforts:
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Thank you for subscribing to Generations. We hope this publication will motivate you to successfully begin or continue your family history research. We would like to hear from you! Please submit your questions, research tips, and favorite websites to us at info@wdcfhc.org
Sincerely,
Carol Petranek, Newsletter Editor
Linda & Kurt Christensen
Gary Petranek
Co-Directors, Washington DC Family History Center
10000 Stoneybrook Drive, PO Box 49
Kensington, MD 20895
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