| 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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Saturday Classes
Saturday, October 17, 9:30 a.m.
Charles Howard: City Directories
Often overlooked by researchers, city directories can offer more than just an address. Charles will demonstrate the many hidden clues found in this record collection.
Saturday, November 21, 9:30 a.m.
Denise Nelson: Precious Heirlooms, a Voice from the Past.
Items our ancestors treasured can tell us surprising facs about who they were, who hey associated with, their status, their ethnicity, their surroundings and their personal thoughts. Often neglected as a research tool, examining Gems and Jewelry owned by our ancestors provide us with a rather personal glimpse at our ancestors and their stories.
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: Meets weekly on Monday mornings at 10:00. Every 2nd Monday, there is special training to learn how to index Freedmen's Bureau records.
Beginning Genealogy: Meets weekly on Tuesday mornings at 10:00. Contact Lorraine Minor at ldgene@verizon.net for further information.
DNA Group: Meets bi-weekly the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of the month at 7:00. Next meetings will be October 14 & 28.
Eastern European Group: Meets monthly on the 4th Saturday at noon; focus countries: Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
Irish Group: Meets bi-weekly on the 1st, 3rd & 5th Tuesday evenings at 7:00.
RootsMagic Users Group: Meets monthly on the 2nd Saturday at 9:30 a.m.
All are welcome - no registration needed.
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Chronicling America Reaches 10 Million Pages
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The Library of Congress announces that the Chronicling America Web site now offers more than 10 million pages from more than 1,900 newspapers in 38 states and territories, and the District of Columbia. The site provides free and open access to historic American newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. More information on the milestone and the National Digital Newspaper Program can be found here.
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Upcoming Genealogy Fairs
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National Archives Virtual Fair - October 21 & 22
The National Archives will host a live, two-day,
virtual Genealogy Fair  via webcast on YouTube. The free program offers family history research tools for all skill levels on Federal records dealing with immigration, military and civilian personnel, and bankruptcy. Sessions include "how tos" on genealogical research using traditional and electronic records. The National Archives' lead preservation expert will hold a special question and answer session on how to preserve family records. Sessions and handouts will be available free of charge during and after the event. For complete schedule and participation instructions, visit the Virtual Genealogy Fair web page.
Maryland Archives Fair - November 7, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Tracing Your Maryland Roots:
lectures, workshops, and representatives from genealogical and historical societies from around the state.
Location: Maryland State Archives, 350 Rowe Blvd, Annapolis, MD 21401 |
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by Jim Bartlett, DNA Specialist
[Note: To help readers better understand the use of DNA in genealogy research, this newsletter will feature extracts of monthly posts from Jim Bartlett's new blog, Segment-ology.]
Pile-Ups
What's all the buzz about "pile-ups"? In my mind there are three kinds of pile-ups:small, medium and large. They are different, so it's important to understand each one. In this case Goldilocks should prefer the large pile-ups, but let me go through my views of all three kinds.
Alert: This post contains my opinions about small pile-ups and AncestryDNA (based on my own experience) so you should make your own judgments.
To read Jim's detailed article, click here.
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Finding Vital Record Information
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by Kenneth R. Marks
Kenneth R. Marks writes the website and corresponding blog, The Ancestor Hunt, which hosts tutorials, links, and much research information. Kenneth focuses on newspaper research and has thousands of links on his website.
He recently posted a series of very helpful articles on tips for finding birth, marriage and death information. While some suggestions may be familiar, there are many that you may not have considered. Be sure to read the "Comments" associated with each article, as people have added additional information.
15 Ways to Find Ancestors' Death Information - access here.
21 Ways to Find Ancestors' Birth Information - access here.
23 Ways to Find Ancestors' Marriage Information - access here.
14 Ways to Find Ancestors' Addresses - access here.
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What's a Second Cousin Once Removed?
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5 Tips to Prepare for Your Visit to the Archives
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Even in the era of rapid digitization, the record might still only exist at the archives. In the event that you have to do on-site research and visit a particular historical library, I am providing some tips. These will be particularly helpful for researchers who have mostly worked online and have decided to visit a local repository to seek out more genealogical information.
1. Become acquainted with their online catalog.
2. Using the search engine.
3. Create a "to-do" list for onsite research.
4. Technology in the Research Room.
5. Working with the collections and the staff.
Each of these tips is detailed in the full article here.
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Scanning Your Family History
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There is both good news and bad news about the upsurge in interest about scanning your documents to upload to an online family tree or for preservation or simply to get rid of a lot of paper. The good news is that many of the documents are preserved and become more available to other family members, the downside is that the scanned images must be curated and maintained like any other historical artifact and in many cases, this is not happening. The recent huge wildfires in California point out that home-stored paper documents can be lost almost instantly. But the reality is that so can digitized documents. Those fires destroyed computers and computers files, just as completely as they did the paper copies. Only those digitized documents that had been shared with others, either online, or by physically providing a digital copy were likely spared. Digitizing changes the format of the documents, but does not eliminate the need for conservation and curation.
I have been scanning documents since computers and scanners were hooked together about thirty years ago. I have scanned hundreds of thousands of documents. The technology has gone from bad quality and cranky operation, to very high quality and simple operation. The prices have dropped from high to ridiculously low. Every so often, I review the prices and models of good scanners.
To read the full article, click here.
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Obtaining Alien Case Files
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by Vera Miller
Hitting the jackpot on researching WWII-era immigrants takes a few simple steps. It will cost around $20-$55 per immigrant being researched. That's a price well below the value of the documents filled in the U.S. Alien Case Files.
This blog post answers these general questions on obtaining these files:
- What information will I need to obtain the files on my relative?
- What is the importance of the Alien Number?
- Is there an online database for the Alien Case Files?
- If I find files of relatives in the index, where can I get the files?
- If my relatives are not found in the index, where I can send my search request?
- My relatives were born after 1910 and are not eligible to be included in the genealogy program. How do I get their files?
- How long does it take to get the files?
- Do I have to prove ancestry to the immigrant whose file I am requesting?
- Can living people get their own Alien Case Files?
To read this article, click here.
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Tips to Decipher Old Handwriting
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by Amanda, GeniBlog
While researching your family history, you may come across many old handwritten records that are hard to read. Although genealogists would love to see clear, easy-to-read penmanship, you'll find that that is not always the case. From the census enumerator with the sloppy cursive to your ancestors' flourished writings in old journals, handwritten documents can sometimes feel impossible to decipher.
Time and patience are key to understanding exactly what is written on the page. Check out these five quick tips to make deciphering old handwriting a little bit easier:
Read the document in its entirety a few times and make note of what words look familiar. This will help you get a feel of the person's writing style.
2. Put it in your own handwriting
Transcribe the document yourself and leave blanks for any words you can't make out. Once you're done, read it over a few times and see if you can figure out the missing pieces. Compare hard-to-make-out words to other words on the document for reference. See if any of the letters look the same. Getting a handle on some of the letters can help you fill in the bigger blanks.
4. Keep an eye on stylistic variations
Look out for stylistic variations in the lettering and grammar. In the 19th century, double s in words were often written with a long s, which often looked like an f or p. What kind of words or phrases would likely be found in that type of document? Reading the document in context can help you decipher some of the more difficult pieces.
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How to Label Digital Photographs
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by Kimberly Powell
How many times have you exclaimed in delight over the discovery of an old family photograph, only to turn it over and find out that absolutely nothing is written on the back? I can hear your groan of disappointment all the way from here. Wouldn't you give just about anything to have ancestors and relatives who took the time to label their family photographs?
Whether you own a digital camera or use a scanner to digitize traditional family photographs, it is important to take some time and label your digital photos.
This can be a bit more tricky than getting out a pen, but if you learn to use something called image metadata to label your digital photos, your future descendants will thank you.
To access the full article, click here.
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Genealogy Tip of the Day
| | | by Michael John Neill
Plats in the Recorder's Office?
Deeds and other land transactions are usually recorded in the local county recorder's office. This office may have other land-related records as well, particularly records of surveys and plats. These maps created by surveyors may have been done when an area was first being settled, when a new subdivision or a town or village was created, or when heirs were partitioning out an estate..
Abbreviations
Some abbreviations still make sense 200 years later. Others do not. If there's an abbreviation that makes no sense to you, Google it, ask someone what it could mean, look for it in genealogical references, etc. But make certain you find out what it meant at the time the document was written. And avoid using abbreviations yourself.
Indexes
Many journals, registers, and ledgers maintained in local records offices have an index to the main individuals mentioned in those records. Is it possible that the handwriting for the name in the index is easier to read than the handwriting for the name in the record?
Reasons to Browse at the Front of the Book
The problem with websites that take us "right to the name we want" is that we miss things. To create a citation, I needed view the front of a marriage book from Coshocton County, Ohio. In the inside front cover was a note that there was a list of ministers further on in the book. The first few pages of a record book can contain unexpected surprises.
Search for Patronyms and Father's Last Name
When querying databases for individuals who hailed from regions were patronyms were used, make certain you query for the father's actual last name and the last name his child would have had. In some cases when immigrants entered a country where patronyms were not used, they would "take" their father's last name as their last name instead of the patronymic name they had used earlier. So Hinrich Jacobs son of Jacob Gerdes may appear in databases in the "new country" as Hinrich Jacobs (using his patronymic last name) or Hinrich Gerdes (using his father's last name as his own).
Reverted to a Prior Name?
I have a relative who was married three times, having survived all three husbands. She was married to her third husband some twenty years before she died and she survived him by several years. For reasons unknown to me when she died in 2012 she is listed in the statewide death index under her second husband's name. She was married to him for five years and they had no children. She continued to use her third husband's last name after his death. Took me forever to find her.
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Research Tips & Resources
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Finding Your Family in Wills and Probate Records
Free pdf guide from Ancestry.com: access here.
Genealogy Gophers
Find your ancestors in 80,000 digital genealogy books for free.
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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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