| 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 - 2016
African-American Genealogy Conference
February 20, 2016
"Hallowed Grounds: Sites of African American Memory"
Laurel Maryland Family History Center, 9:00-5:00
Keynote Speaker: Angela Walton-Raji
Registration information on website: click here.
March 19, 9:30 a.m.
Social Media and Genealogy
Presented by: Carol Petranek
If you think Facebook is for cat videos and Twitter is for politicians, you are missing out on valuable genealogical resources! This presentation will cover how today's family historians are using social media and blogs to further their own research and connect with new cousins.
April 16, 9:30 a.m.
Writing Your Narrative with Social History
Presented by: Rebecca Koford
Rebecca will demonstrate how to enhance and enrich your family's stories by grounding them within the events of their times.
May 7, all-day
WDC FHC Annual Conference
Please join us to enhance your research skills
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WDC FHC Special Interest Group Schedule
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Join a Special Interest 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. There will be NO meetings in February or March. Next meetings will be April 6 & 13.
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.
Hispanic Group: Formal meetings with lectures/presentations on the 2nd Thursday evening of each month; bilingual staff member works every Thursday evening from 7-9:30.
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.
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School Records, Even if Your Ancestor Didn't Attend School
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One of the more interesting sources of records available in a lot of archives are school records. Even if your ancestor didn't attend school as a child, you might be surprised by what can be found in the various types of school records.
- School transcripts or attendance and grade reports.
- School Board Minute Books
- Yearbooks and school newspapers
- Photographs
- Teachers
Read the full article here.
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Guardianship: A Misunderstood Probate Term
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By Amy Johnson Crowe
f you've searched in the probate collections and skipped over a result for a guardianship because you know one of the parents was still alive, you should go back and look at that record. Guardianship is an often-misunderstood concept in probate.
What Guardianship Is and Is Not
Guardianship is when the court appoints someone to represent the legal interests of a child or an adult who has been deemed incapable of representing themselves. Guardianship is NOT custody....
A Parent Could Still Be Living
Many people skip guardianship records because one of the parents was still living at the time. A child did not need to be an orphan to need a guardian. All that was needed was that they had a legal interest that needed protecting....
Using Guardianship Records
Guardianship records, at a minimum, include the name of the guardian and the ward (the child or incompetent adult).
- Relationship to the deceased (if the guardianship is part of an estate)
- Date the guardianship ended, which can signify either the settlement of the legal interests or the child reaching age of majority
- References to related court records
- Names of people providing surety or bond; these people might be related....
The full article with examples can be read here.
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Cluster Genealogy
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By Kimberly Powell
Our ancestors did not live in isolation, although we often research them as if they did. They were part of a family, with siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins and other relatives. They were also part of a community, with friends, neighbors, classmates, and co-workers. This "cluster" of family, friends and neighbors can provide valuable clues to the lives of our ancestors.
Cluster genealogy, sometimes referred to as whole family or extended family genealogy, is the practice of extending your research on a person to the individuals and families to which he was connected.
These connections could range from his brother or spouse, to the neighbor who appeared as a witness on a land deed.
The full article can be read here.
Source: About:Genealogy: January 12, 2016
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Going Back and Forth and Mushroom Hunting
| | by Michael John Neill
Whenever I locate a record, I look at adjacent records to see if there are other records that may be on the same family or may mention ancestral associates. It's not just one type of record where this may help as:
- families may record several deeds at the courthouse on the same day causing the records to appear page after page;
- the census may include other relatives on the same pages or on pages in close proximity to the desired entry;
- tax records may include other family members living nearby on an adjacent page;
- siblings may marry on the same day and appear consecutively in the marriage records;
- family members may die a few days apart (either due to illness or a mother and child who do not survive) and appear adjacent to each other in the death records.
And so it goes. An incomplete index may only direct you to one of these entries. Sometimes It's up to us to find the other one. Remember:
If you are lucky enough to find a mushroom in the woods in the springtime, there may be more nearby. Don't stop at just one.
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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.]
Endogamy PART I - Shared DNA
This blogpost looks at the amount of shared DNA from endogamy. It does not address the genealogy of endogamy, but instead establishes some terminology and reference material.
First let's define endogamy: the custom of marrying within the limits of a local community, clan or tribe [Oxford Dictionaries online]. This means cousins marry each other; and those two cousins have at least one ancestor who is the same. In others words an ancestor is in our tree more than once. The same individual occupies two (or more) blocks (or positions) in our tree, and their respective descendants (cousins) marry each other.
Classic examples of endogamous populations include Ashkenazi Jews and Low German Mennonites. In genealogy, endogamy is also used to describe multiple cousin marriages in limited population area such as those found in various areas of Colonial America, for instance [c.f. ISOGG wiki]. Let's take a more in depth look at how DNA is passed down, how much DNA is shared between cousins, and examine the impact of endogamy. How does endogamy affect the total amount of DNA shared between cousins and the size of the shared segments?
To read Jim's detailed article, click here.
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Find Family History in Funeral Home Records
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by Kimberly Powell
Funeral home records can be a valuable, but often underutilized, resource for family historians and other researchers trying to identify a date of death, or the names of relatives, for a particular individual. This is especially true in localities where funeral home records may pre-date state or local laws requiring the recording of deaths. While funeral homes are generally private businesses, their records can still often be accessed for family history research, if you know where to look and who to ask.
- What Can I Expect to Find in Funeral Home Records?
- How to Locate the Funeral Home
- How to Get Information from a Funeral Home
- What if the Funeral Home is Out of Business?
- Was a Funeral Home Even Used?
To read the full article, click here.
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Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs
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| | Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs |
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A Date is a Date, is a Date
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by Esther Yu Sumner
Most of us are familiar with a single calendar-the Gregorian calendar, the one we use today. But, depending on the country, not all that long ago, your loved ones might have been living with the Julian calendar. Setting a Date Just like our current Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar was based on the vernal (spring) equinox. But the Julian calendar listed March as the first month of the year. Leap years were employed to help keep months aligned with the seasons, but one leap year every four years wasn't sufficiently accurate.
The Gregorian calendar, on the other hand, ensured that dates would be more accurately aligned with seasons. The Gregorian calendar also fine-tuned the leap year idea by removing three leap years out of every 400 years and by switching the first day of the year to 1 January rather than 25 March. Confusing? Well the good thing is that calendar changes probably won't affect you today-unless you're a family historian. That's when all of those date discrepancies and shifting numbers add up to a lot of confusion.
To read the full article, which describes Julian, Gregorian, and Quaker dating, as well as the dates that countries worldwide changed calendars, click here.
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How Blogging Can Help Your Family History
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by Jake Fletcher
I entered the blogging world well before it had entered the mainstream lexicon. Back then, I only had a vague idea of what blogs were and certainly no idea as to their usefulness as a tool in our social network. For me, it was a way to demonstrate to myself and my teachers, what I had done as a product.
As a senior in high school, we were required to complete a year-long independent project and I set out to learn about my family history and the world of genealogy. At the same time, I learned about the world of blogging and would like to offer some reasons blogging about your family history can enhance your overall experience in genealogy, no matter what level of involvement in the field you decide to take.
- Blogging allows you to tell your story in your way
- Bring your own perspective to the table
- Having a web presence brings in great connections, distant cousins, and more
- Better your research process and your skills
- Turn your blog into a book; save the stories for future generations
To read the full article, click here.
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6 Ways to Use YouTube for Genealogy
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by Lisa Louise Cook
YouTube is the world's most popular online video channel and the second-largest search engine in the world. It's now owned by Google. That means you can harness the power and flexibility of Google searching to find exactly what you're looking for on YouTube.
Can you use YouTube for family history? Yes, in so many ways! A recent YouTube search for "genealogy" brought up 124,000 results, and "family history" brought up just slightly less. The ways you'll use YouTube for family history are a little different than the ways you might use other search engine and "big data" genealogy websites, since every result you're looking for is a video. But because video is such a powerful tool, when you do find something you need, it can often become one of your most valuable finds on that topic.
#1 Learn more about your ancestor's world.
#2 Find your ancestors in action.
#3 Get quick answers to specific genealogy research questions.
#4 Participate in online genealogy conferences from the comfort of home.
#5 Make and share your own family history videos right on YouTube.
#6 Learn new craft techniques and display ideas for sharing your family history.
To read the full article, click here.
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Genealogy Tip of the Day
| | | by Michael John Neill
Men Were Not Always Widowed
An earlier tip referenced women lying about their marital status in census records. Men also gave incorrect marital status accounts to avoid mentioning their divorce. In 1900, Conrad Haase in Hancock County, Illinois' Appanoose Township, indicated he was widowed. He wasn't. He was divorced. Always take those marital status entries with a grain of salt.
Not Really Widowed
Many divorced women in the 19th and early 20th century found it easier to say they were widowed instead of saying they were divorced. This individual's 1900 census enumeration indicated she was a widow when in fact she was divorced and her ex-husband was very much alive. Sometimes divorcees would refer to themselves as "grass widows," but that term was not approved by the census department.
Read Those Estate Payments
When you find a probate case file for a relative, look closely at the people to whom he owed money and the people who owed him money. There's a reasonable chance that some of them are relatives. The relationships won't be stated in the record (as that's not their purpose). But those names could be clues as to potential relatives. You may even find that the court determined if was doubtful your ancestor's brother-in-law would pay him the $25 he owed him in 1889, like I discovered.
Every Paper You Can Find
Never be satisfied with just one or two obituaries for a person of interest. Obtain as many as you can. There's always a chance that that "extra" one you find contains a detail not given in the others.
[A] 1912 obituary for Samuel Neill of West Point, Hancock County, Illinois, provided a county of birth for his wife. It may not be correct, but at least it is a clue.
A Legal Infant
The word infant is often used in legal documents. When it is used in legal documents (court records, land records, probate records, etc.) is is being used in the legal sense-someone under the age of majority. This historically has been twenty-one years of age, but US states typically now end the legal definition of infancy at eighteen. Readers who have questions about use of the word at a certain point in time should search contemporary state statute.
The key to remember is that someone referred to as an infant in a legal document can easily be sixteen years old.
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Research Tips & Resources
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ScotlandsPeople Website
One of the clues to taming the monster of wasted credits on the ScotlandsPeople website is to use the information the statutory documents give you. Read article here.
Source: Indepth Genealogist, January 20, 2016
Russian State Archives
Post on records available and how to access them; click here.
Using Timelines to Plot Your Ancestor's LifePlotting out the events of an ancestor's life on a timeline can help you gain a fuller picture of them as a person. Read tips here.
SanFrancisco Genealogy Links Access here: http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/sfdata.htm |
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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