Family Tree Magazine

Transcription

DNA Testing: How to Understand Your Results
W W W. FA M I LY T R E E M AG A Z I N E .CO M
41 WEB
SEARCH
TRICKS
TO FIND YOUR
ANCESTORS
COMPLETE GUIDE TO
CEMETERY RECORDS
DISCOVER AMERICAN
INDIAN ROOTS
4 DIY PROJECTS
FOR OLD PHOTOS
How to “Reconstruct” Your Ancestors’ Neighborhood
Rescue Stuck Photos From Magnetic Albums
Website Tutorial: Digital Public Library of America
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2016
50
OFF
To help you get started, enjoy 50% off a monthly World subscription
Visit: www.findmypast.com/usftmag-british
Offer ends 31st October 2016 - Terms and Conditions apply
%
contents
feature articles
56
cover illustration: Julie Barnett
20
33
october/november 2016 • volume 17, issue 6
42
26
50
16
68
42
50
42
First Families
|
56 DNA Toolbox
| By
By Nancy Shively
20 Search and Recover
| By
David A. Fryxell
Think your ancestors are a lost cause?
Not with our 41 strategies for finding
your family history online.
26
Here Comes
the Neighborhood
| By Sunny Jane Morton
We’ll show you how to use old records,
maps and photos to recreate the place
your family called home—and open a
window into their lives.
Does your family tell of roots among
America’s original residents? Start
researching your American Indian
heritage with these resources and
records.
B l a i n e T. B e t t i n g e r
Solve genealogy mysteries with these
indispensable, free online tools to
analyze your DNA test results.
50
Pixel-Perfect
Photo Projects
| By Denise May Levenick
Don’t keep family photos to yourself!
We’ll show you ways to manage your
image collection for easier sharing
and four fun picture projects featuring your family.
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26
<familytreemagazine.com>
1
contents
columns & departments
4 Out on a Limb
| By Diane Haddad
72
A letter from our editor.
6 Tree Talk
Readers respond to
Family Tree Magazine.
12 History Matters
| By David A. Fryxell
The dirty past of presidential
campaigning.
8 Genealogy Insider
| By
Sunny Jane Morton
33
Workbook:
Cemetery Records
| By
What’s new in discovering, preserving
and celebrating your family history:
Five genealogy website updates
you need to know about
Meet Mike Mansfield, MyHeritage
director of content operations
Infographic: How many of the
world’s books are online?
»
»
»
Rescuing old family photos from
“magnetic” albums.
Sharon DeBartolo Carmack
» Our Genealogy Workbook series
shows you what you need to know
to research your ancestors in
essential family history sources.
66
The Toolkit
|
Edited by Diane Haddad
12
16 Family Archivist
| By Denise May Levenick
Reviews and roundups of the latest
and greatest family history resources:
Resource Roundup: Listen and
learn with genealogy podcasts
Tutorial: Find online resources
with the Digital Public Library of
America website
Tutorial: Export a GEDCOM from
Legacy Family Tree software
»
»
»
18 Now What?
| By David A. Fryxell
Answers to your questions on
Spanish surnames and New Sweden.
63 Research Roadmap
Maps to point your research in the
right direction.
64 Photo Detective
| B y M a u r e e n A . Ta y l o r
Picking out the most important clues
in a German family photo.
72 Photo Finish
Readers’ ancestors in costume.
IN OUR NEXT ISSUE
Family Tree Magazine (ISSN 1529-0298) is published seven times per year: January/February, March/April, May/June, July/
August, September, October/November and December by F+W, A Content + eCommerce Company, 10151 Carver Road, Suite
200, Cincinnati, OH 45242; telephone (513) 531-2690. Copyright ©2016 F+W Media Inc., Vol. 17, No. 6, October/November 2016.
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2
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3
outonalimb
Past-Colored Glasses
OCTOBER /NOVEMBER 2016 •
VOLUME 17, ISSUE 6
3 LIKE ME, YOU’VE probably wished
you could walk along the street where
your ancestors lived wearing special
glasses that let you peer into the past,
to see what the street and the buildings
and the people used to look like. That’s
something like what Sunny Jane Morton did for “Here Comes the Neighborhood” (page 26), an article about using
records, maps and photos to “re-create”
the places your family lived.
My maternal grandfather’s family was
heavily concentrated on Abigail Street
in Cincinnati’s historic German neighborhood, fittingly called Over the Rhine
for its position north of the Miami-Erie
Canal. Like Jones Street in Morton’s
article, it was renamed as addresses
were standardized, to 12th Street.
My great-great-grandfather opened
H.A. Seeger Cigar Manufacturer at
the northwest corner of Abigail and
Pendleton in 1882, and it occupied the
same street corner until 1960, when the
proprietor, my great-granduncle, died
and the business disappeared from city
directory listings.
Before H.A. Seeger moved his family to the corner store, they lived in a
building three doors down. And before
Publisher and Community Leader » Allison Dolan
Editor » Diane Haddad
Art Director » Julie Barnett
Editor/Content Producer » Andrew Koch
Online Community Editor » Vanessa Wieland
Editorial Intern » Madge Maril
Contributing Editors » Lisa A. Alzo, Sharon
DeBartolo Carmack, Rick Crume, David A. Fryxell,
Nancy Hendrickson, Sunny Jane Morton,
Maureen A. Taylor
•••
that, his future wife, my great-greatgrandmother, grew up a block to the
west. They wed at a church across the
street from her house.
Naturally their son, my great-grandfather, also married a girl from just
down the street. They eventually
moved into a home one lot over from
the cigar store.
Understanding the experiences of
those who’ve gone before is one reason
many of us do genealogy. My ancestors’
neighborhood was the setting for their
lives, and I love the idea of using my
research to create a visual story of the
setting. At least until someone invents
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DIANE’S TOP 3 TIPS
from this issue
1 Search without a name on your favorite genealogy site,
instead filling in family members’ names, locations and dates.
2 Explore the websites of county and town recorders’ or auditors’ offices, where you might find information on old deeds
and property photos, sales history and more.
3 Don’t be afraid to convert color to black-and-white images
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treetalk
Readers respond to Family Tree Magazine
Happy Golden Years
I love old family photos. One I
have is my great-grandparents Marion
and Amanda Hoover taken for their
50th wedding anniversary. Marion
was born Dec. 28, 1870, in Richland
County, Ohio. His father, B.F. Hoover,
was a bishop for the Brethren in Christ
Church. While his father was conducting a love feast (tent revival) in West
Milton, Ohio, Marion met Amanda
“
The steps of the Randolph School was the
only place Marion Hoover could fit his whole family,
which included 68 people in all.
Hoke. They were married Dec. 25, 1892.
Marion decided that the steps of the
Randolph School (which I attended)
was the only place he could fit his whole
”
family, which included nine children
and 31 grandchildren—68 people in all.
June, 1942, was the only time all the
family could be present, as some were
in the service. So they gathered in front
of the school, and if you look closely at
the front left, you see a boy of 14 standing with one pant cuff rolled up extra
high. That’s my father, Emmit Maggert,
one of Marion’s grandsons.
I wanted to have a photo taken of
my own family, and when I heard the
Randolph School would be torn down,
I knew I had to hurry. It was a little
chilly out when we met in front of the
school in September 2014. Dad, then 86,
is again standing on the left with that
same pant leg rolled up and his whole
family around him. I often wondered
why the Hoovers celebrated their anniversary in June instead of December
that year. That’s when I realized that
having all their children present was
more important to them than the date.
Rex Maggert » via email
Collecting Must
When Rex Maggert photographed his own family in 2014 on the same steps where his greatgrandparents’ clan had posed 72 years before, Rex’s dad, Emmitt Maggert, re-created his pose from
the earlier photograph—down to the rolled-up left pant leg.
6
2016
The September issue featured a
quick guide to personal library apps by
Dana McCullough (Toolkit). As an avid
book collector, I highly recommend
the program Book Collector offered by
Collectorz.com <www.collectorz.com> .
[Editor’s note: Collectorz.com also offers
the mobile app CLZ Books for iOS and
Android.] I’ve used this site’s programs
since they started many years ago and
they are the absolute best. I’ve never
had any issues and the updates always
execute smoothly. I have had questions
on occasion and their customer service
is very responsive. My personal collection exceeds 3,500 volumes and I can
find any one of them in seconds.
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FACE BOOK FAN MAIL
WHAT FUN GENEALOGY DISCOVERY HAVE YOU MADE RECENTLY?
I spent more than 10 years looking for
my third-great-grandfather’s family in England. Then I happened on a
young girl in his parish who had a son
out of wedlock. That brick wall came
tumbling down. Then I found that she
immigrated to the United States in
1864. None of our family knew any of
this. » Amelia Morgan
My sixth-great-grandfather built a house
near Raleigh, NC, that’s on the National
Register of Historic Places, and has
recently been restored—Hoyle House.
My great-great-grandfather fought at
Gettysburg during the Civil War. » Kimi
Donna Wilkinson Josefowski
Musgrove
I located my second-great-grandfather’s
Emigrant Savings Bank account record.
It confirmed his parents names, wife’s
maiden name and county in Ireland, and
Angelina Jolie Pitt and I share an
ancestor from France. » Manon Jetté
gave the ship he sailed on, date he
arrived in New York City, and the town
he was born in, Nobber, County Meath.
» Karen Zegar Freeman
» Ginny Stuart
I discovered that my father had been a
rodeo champion in his youth. None of
his six children knew this until I came
across it in an old newspaper. » Debbie
My great-great-grandmother was
arrested for fighting with a neighbor.
She was mad because the neighbor’s cat
had come over and eaten her cheese. »
Moskal Grimes
I discovered that a relative, sea Capt.
Robert Hugo, was involved in helping
Confederate Gen. Joseph Lancaster
Brent escape back to the South. » Mary
B. Frombythesea
Join our community at <www.facebook.com/familytreemagazine>.
I read your magazine just as soon as I
get it and have kept all my back issues.
It is a great publication with loads of
good ideas.
Stephen Lorson » Wichita, Kan.
Loyal Following
The September 2016 Family
Tree Magazine is chock-full of good
information. My comment is on the
article “Finding Canadian Kin.” Canadian research always seems to assume
we’re looking for ancestors who immigrated to Canada and then moved to
the United States. What’s ignored are
those English people who left the New
England states during the 1790 time
period to move to Canada, because
they were Loyalists or could get free
land there after the Revolutionary War.
I have yet to find any history about
this movement; how many people did
this, who were Loyalists, or who just
wanted free land.
In my case, relatives moved to Quebec, then later came to Illinois and
Iowa. They didn’t speak French, as far
as I know. Some excellent family histories seem to leave out those families
that moved to Canada. This is a blank
spot in our history that needs to be
covered.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Carl Nollen » Runnells, Iowa
Tour Treats
I enjoyed reading the story “Hot
for Chocolate” (History Matters, September 2016). I recently visited the
Mars/M&M home in Pulaski, Tenn. I
took a wonderful historical tour given
by the new owners to see the many
magnolia trees, learn the stories about
the stone houses with the iron gates
indoors, and the original owner’s burial
plot. It is so beautiful there in the spring
that it’s used as a backdrop for many
weddings. Family Tree Magazine’s online
community editor Vanessa Wieland
recently took to Facebook to share
this family treasure from her
grandfather, a WWII veteran who
was among the 156,000 Allied
troops who landed in Normandy
as part of the D-Day invasion, June
6, 1944. “At the end of the day, my
grandfather had all the surviving
members of his company sign this
dollar bill, which he kept tucked in
his wallet,” she says.
Juanita Dean » via email
TALK TO US
We’d love to hear your research stories, family memories and thoughts about this issue. Email ftmedit@
fwcommunity.com or leave a note on Facebook <www.facebook.com/familytreemagazine>. Letters may be edited for space and clarity.
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7
genealogyinsider
Behind the scenes of family history news and trends
{BY SUNNY JANE MORTON}
Five Things You Need to Know
Software bridges to Findmypast
Users of both Family Historian 6 and
RootsMagic 7 genealogy software can
now access Findmypast.com <www.
findmypast.com> automatic historical record hints right in the software.
It’s not a new concept: RootsMagic 7
already provided hints from FamilySearch and MyHeritage.com, and is
working on even deeper integration
with Ancestry.com by the end of 2016.
Family Historian also has hinting for
MyHeritage <www.myheritage.com>.
But returning hints from Findmypast
is new. Hints display limited details
from Findmypast records; you’ll need
a subscription or pay-per-view credits
to view full details and related images.
Software users must enable the
hints. For RootsMagic 7 and RootsMagic Essentials, download the update
under Help>Check for updates in the
RootsMagic main menu. For Family
Historian 6, look in the Preferences
Q
What's a
favorite
free genealogy
website you
wish every
family history
researcher
knew about?
8
Clicking on a place name in the MyHeritage PedigreeMap view centers the map on that place
and brings into view the people and family events associated with that place.
window. For more information, see
<www.family-historian.co.uk/aidm> and
<blog.rootsmagic.com/?p=2685>.
MyHeritage adds DNA
and Pedigree Maps
In preparation for providing DNA
matches to its members, MyHeritage
has added the ability for family tree
“
“
“
Ethnic genealogy Facebook groups! They’re
super helpful and some members are real
experts. One member broke through one of my brick
walls and found my grandfather’s passenger list.”
» Lynn McLaughlan Barnes
USGenWeb <usgenweb.org> and USGenWeb Archives <usgwarchives.net>. I love the
info I find on there.”
» Carolyn Sloan
Genealogy Trails <genealogytrails.com> is
a free, volunteer-run site that’s updated
regularly.”
» Kathy Stanley
2016
owners to upload their own or relatives’ raw DNA data from Family Tree
DNA’s Family Finder test, 23andMe or
AncestryDNA.
MyHeritage also has introduced the
PedigreeMap tool, which automatically generates an interactive world
map that plots events in your MyHeritage family tree (such as births, marriages and deaths), as well as digitized
images. PedigreeMap is located under
the Apps tab in your MyHeritage tree.
You can zoom in and out on the map,
view a list of all the events and photos
associated with a location or person,
and more.
AncestryDNA expands to new
markets, improves matching
AncestryDNA <dna.ancestry.com> ,
which announced in June it had tested
its 2 millionth customer, now offers its
test in more than 30 countries across
Europe, as well as Turkey and South
Korea. That’s a huge expansion from its
previous markets in the United States,
United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
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The company also has improved the
accuracy and precision of its genetic
matching technology. With the initial rollout, users saw some of their
matches “demoted” in closeness of the
predicted relationship or dropped from
match lists altogether. More than 900
million new connections were added.
Read more about the science behind
the new analysis at <blogs.ancestry.com/
5 Questions With
MIKE MANSFIELD
Mike Mansfield helped pioneer data CD-ROMs
in the 1990s and Ancestry.com’s “shaky leaf ”
hints in the 2000s. Now the director of content operations at MyHeritage, he’s overseen
implementation of that site’s recently launched
technologies. We picked his brain about the
inspiration behind that innovation.
techroots/the-science-behind-a-moreprecise-dna-matching-algorithm>.
Volunteers index 10 million
records in three days
FamilySearch <www.familysearch.org>
blew past its goal to recruit 72,000 volunteer “teammates” to index genealogy
records for its Worldwide Indexing
Event, July 15-17. A total of 116,475 volunteers from all over the world joined
the effort, indexing 10,447,887 records
from “Death Notices from the Transvaal
1869-1958” (in Afrikaans) to Kentucky
marriages. North America provided the
most volunteers at more than 92,000,
followed by Latin America, Europe and
the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific
Rim. The records will be searchable on
the free FamilySearch website.
GENUKI gets a makeover.
GENUKI <www.genuki.org.uk> , a free,
volunteer-maintained online resource
for UK and Irish research, is undergoing a major—and gradual—overhaul.
The site’s pages are being transferred to
a content management system, which
facilitates adding content to the site.
Country-level pages for the United
Kingdom, Ireland, England, Wales and
Scotland have been moved.
Though the site’s appearance is
much the same, GENUKI users can
expect more consistent information
and organization of pages for counties,
as well as improved searching. The new
framework already is enabling richer
data-sharing, including maps and photographs for thousands of parishes. 1
What’s your proudest genealogy
tech development for the 2010s?
Working to reduce language barriers by
bringing non-English content en masse to the market, to help users find their
ancestors in non-English collections.
2
What search strategy do you wish every family historian
used more on MyHeritage?
Consider loading your family tree onto MyHeritage to see what connections you can make in our large and internationally diverse community, and to
see what record matches we can surface for you.
3
Who would win the “most intriguing ancestor” award on
your family tree?
My direct paternal ancestor, Matthew Mansfield (1810–1891). He was
born in Surrey, England, but spent most of his later life in St. George, Utah.
Compared to Surrey, the desert and isolation of 1860s southern Utah must have
felt like being on Mars.
4
Tell us about a time you felt the impact of your work on
other people’s lives.
I’ll always remember one woman’s strong emotional outpouring at a
London genealogy conference when we found her ancestor using new census
collections of England and Wales, which I had helped to bring online. I felt bad
that I didn’t have any tissues for her.
5
What do you keep in your office to inspire you?
A copy of a 2011 India census schedule. This census has incredible information on fully 20 percent of all people alive today. Tragically, these census schedules are routinely destroyed (as required by law), once statistics have
been collected. I use this as a reminder of the problem with record destruction
and loss in many countries around the world.
READ MORE
of our interview with Mike Mansfield of MyHeritage at
<bit.ly/genealogy-bonus-questions>.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
9
genealogyinsider
BY THE BOOKS
Is everything online? Certainly not if you’re talking about books. Consider our comparison
of the numbers of published books to published books that are digitized.
BOOKS
EVER
PUBLISHED
BOOKS
DIGITIZED
IN MAJOR
GENEALOGICAL
LIBRARIES
129,854,880
(as of August 2010)
MyHeritage:
447,870
BOOKS
DIGITIZED AT
THE LARGEST
ONLINE
LIBRARIES
FamilySearch Books:
Google Books:
HeritageQuest
Online:
282,516
30 million
MORE THAN
40,000
HathiTrust:
14,565,910
Internet Archive:
MORE THAN
S o u r c e s : < w w w . m y h e r i t a g e . c o m /r e s e a r c h /
category-8020/books-publications>, ac-
10 MILLION
c e s s e d J u n e 7, 2 0 1 6 ; < w w w . h a t h i t r u s t . o r g /
visualizations_deposited_volumes_
c u r r e n t > , a c c e s s e d J u n e 7, 2 0 1 6 ; < w w w .
p c w o r l d . c o m /a r t i c l e / 2 0 2 8 0 3 /g o o g l e _ 1 2 9 _
million_different_books_have_been_
p u b l i s h e d . h t m l > , a c c e s s e d J u n e 7, 2 0 1 6 ;
< w w w . p r o q u e s t . c o m /p r o d u c t s - s e r v i c e s /
HeritageQuest-Online.html>, accessed
J u n e 7, 2 0 1 6 ; M e l d r u m , D e n n i s , F a m i l y Search.org, email communication, June
7, 2 0 1 6 .
10
2016
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
70%
R 3
OR
D
ER
off
BY D E C E M
What Was the Irish
Renaissance?
Many political and cultural events sent shockwaves through the Irish
world in the 19th and early 20th centuries as Ireland gradually shook
off the shackles of British rule. Alongside a long and painful political
process arose one of the greatest flourishings of literature in modern
times. The Irish Revival that occurred around the turn of the 20th
century fused and elevated aesthetic and civic ambitions, fueling a
cultural climate of masterful artistic creation and resolute political
self-determination reminiscent of the Italian Renaissance.
Delve into this remarkable period with The Irish Identity:
Independence, History, and Literature. Over the course of 36
enthralling lectures, Professor Marc Conner of Washington and Lee
University reveals the complex story of the Irish Renaissance through
an exploration of its complex history and remarkable literature. The
Irish Revival is a powerful, complex period, and this course brings
this riveting history to life.
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The Irish Identity:
Independence, History,
and Literature
LECTURE TITLES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
Roots of Irish Identity: Celts to Monks
Gaelic Ireland’s Fall: Vikings to Cromwell
The Penal Laws and Protestant Ascendancy
Ireland at the Turn of the 19th Century
Daniel O’Connell and the Great Famine
The Celtic Revival
Shaw and Wilde: Irish Wit, London Stage
W. B. Yeats and the Irish Renaissance
Yeats in the 1890s
Lady Gregory: The Woman behind the Revival
J. M. Synge and the Aran Islands
James Joyce: Emerging Genius of Dublin
Joyce’s Dubliners: Anatomy of a City
The Abbey Theatre
Lady Gregory as the People’s Playwright
Early Plays of J. M. Synge
Synge’s Playboy of the Western World
The Dublin Lockout and World War I
The 1916 Easter Rising
Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist
Joyce’s Portrait as Modernist Narrative
Yeats as the Great 20th-Century Poet
Michael Collins and the War of Independence
The Irish Civil War
Ulysses: A Greek Epic in an Irish World
Three Episodes from Ulysses
Molly Bloom: Joyce’s Voice of Love
Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy
Life and Legacy of Lady Gregory
Yeats: The Tower Poems and Beyond
Blasket Island Storytellers
Finnegans Wake: Joyce’s Final Epic
Patrick Kavanagh: After the Renaissance
Modern Ireland in Paint and Glass
De Valera’s Ireland: The 1930s
Seamus Heaney’s Poetry of Remembrance
The Irish Identity: Independence,
History, and Literature
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historymatters
{ B Y D AV I D A . F R Y X E L L }
Library of Congress prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-15780
Innovations and trends that shaped your ancestors’ lives
Playing in the Mud
3 THINK 2016 IS the only year with an outrageous presi- system in place until the 12th amendment passed in 1804, as
dential race? Think again. If you tried to tell your ancestors the second-place finisher, Jefferson became vice president.
that this year’s election was one of the rowdiest yet, they’d
That awkward arrangement led to the even more contenprobably laugh. Historically, American presidential cam- tious campaign of 1800, the only election in which a sitting
paigns have been mighty muddy.
president faced his own vice president. Many historians
Our first two elections were smooth sailing. George
consider this the nastiest campaign ever. While the
Washington was unopposed in 1789 and 1792.
candidates sought to stay above the fray, they slyly
The
The story was different in 1796. Washington’s
employed surrogates and writers to slam the
first campaign
vice president, John Adams, a Federalist, ran
opposition. One Jefferson hired memorably
battle on the airwaves
against the first secretary of state, Thomas
called Adams “a hideous hermaphroditical
was in 1924, between Calvin
Jefferson, leading the new Republican
character which has neither the force and
Coolidge and John W. Davis. An
Party (renamed the Democratic-Repubfirmness of a man, nor the gentleness and
hour of nationwide broadcasting
lican Party in 1798). Neither man actively
sensibility of a woman.”
cost $4,000; Coolidge’s
campaigned for the presidency, viewing
Federalists again accused Jefferson of
campaign outspent Davis’
vying for votes as undignified, but that didn’t
atheism
and having an affair with one of
on radio $120,000 to
stop their supporters from engaging in a vituhis
slaves,
warning voters of the dire conse$40,000.
perative campaign.
quences of a Jefferson victory: “Are you prepared
Republicans accused Adams of favoring a return to
to see your dwellings in flames ... female chastity vioa monarchy and supporting a tyrannical central government. lated ... children writhing on the pike? Great God of compasFederalists branded Jefferson an atheist and a Revolutionary sion and justice, shield my country from destruction.”
War shirker, linking him to the French Revolution. Adams
Even the distinguished president of Yale University
won a narrow victory, 71 to 68 electoral votes. Under the removed his gloves, warning that if Jefferson were elected,
12
2016
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
The 1884 presidential campaign season featured cartoons of Grover
Cleveland’s out-of-wedlock son calling out for his Pa.
“we would see our wives and daughters
the victims of legal prostitution.”
Perhaps most damaging was the
written criticism from Adams’ fellow Federalist, Alexander Hamilton, who instead supported Charles
Pinckney. Hamilton’s 54-page critique of Adams became public after
a copy fell into the hands of a Democratic-Republican.
The nastiness lasted from April to October, because each
state could choose its own election day. By autumn, the Electoral College was tied at 65-all, leaving last-to-vote South
Carolina to deliver the election to Jefferson and running
mate Aaron Burr, 73 to 65.
The Democratic-Republican electors’ plan to avoid giving
Burr the presidency was for one elector not to vote for him.
When that plan fell through, leading to a tie between Jefferson and Burr, the decision went to the House of Representatives. It took 36 votes for one of the candidates—Jefferson—to
achieve a majority.
In 1824, Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams, was involved
in another of America’s nastiest campaigns—and a rematch.
Despite trailing in electoral votes, Adams defeated Andrew
Jackson in the four-way race, again decided by the House.
Adams’ backers pulled out all the stops four years later, distributing what became known as the “Coffin Handbills.” The
papers depicted six black coffins representing soldiers Jackson had executed for desertion. Another handbill accused
Old Hickory of cannibalism. After massacring 500 Indians,
it charged, “the blood thirsty Jackson began again to show
his cannibal propensities, by ordering his Bowman to dress
a dozen of these Indian bodies for his breakfast, which he
devoured without leaving even a fragment.”
The Adams campaign also targeted Jackson’s marriage to
Rachel Donelson, whose unhappy first marriage had ended in
divorce—but not, opponents charged, before she took up with
and married Jackson. She was accused of bigamy, Jackson of
adultery: “Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband to be
The 1908
placed in the highest offices of this
election was fought
free and Christian land?”
in part by phonograph,
In response, Jackson’s camwith recordings of William
paign claimed Adams had acted
Howard Taft and William
as a pimp while in Russia. Adams
Jennings Bryan peddled
was said to have advanced his
to voters.
career and moved up to ambassador by providing the czar with the
In 1860,
despite his later
renown as an orator,
Abraham Lincoln was the
only major candidate
to give no speeches.
IN TIME
1796 | Thomas
Jefferson and
John Adams vie in
the first contested
US presidential
election
1800 | The US
House settles the
Adams-Jefferson
rematch
1824 | The
House elects John
Quincy Adams
1860 |
Campaign buttons
first feature
photographic
images
1924 | Radio
airs the first
presidential
campaign ads
1946 | Kansas
City print shop
owner Fred
Gill invents the
bumper sticker
1952 | The
“Eisenhower
Answers
America” TV ad
campaign runs
1960 | Kennedy
and Nixon debate
on television
1996 |
Presidential
campaign
websites first
appear
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
13
historymatters
Warren G.
Harding’s wife, Florence,
was the first spouse to play
a major role in a campaign. She
recruited Al Jolson to visit the
Harding home in Marion, Ohio,
where her husband conducted
his “front porch
campaign.”
sexual favors of an American woman. Jackson won. He never forgave Adams, whom
he blamed for Rachel’s death from a heart
condition before his inauguration.
The acrimony of the Civil War and its aftermath replaced campaign mudslinging for much
of the mid-19th century, culminating in the contested election of 1876. Although Democrat Samuel
Tilden beat Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular
vote, electoral votes from four states were disputed. In a deal
that made Hayes president, Republicans agreed to end Reconstruction and remove troops from the former Confederacy.
By 1884, campaigns returned to character assassination.
Backers of Republican James Blaine—derided by Democrats
as “the continental liar from the state of Maine”—dug up dirt
on Grover Cleveland: As a bachelor, Cleveland had fathered a
child with a widow, Maria Halpin. Blaine’s backers drafted a
cartoon of a child reaching from his mother’s arms to Cleveland, calling, “Ma! Ma! Where’s my pa?”
The candidates themselves mostly still avoided active politicking, after Martin Van Buren’s 1840 re-election tour was
denounced as undignified and insulting.
Presidential challengers began to stump,
though, with the 1896 campaign, during
which the ultimately unsuccessful William
Jennings Bryan logged 18,000 miles. But
campaigning was thought un-presidential
for incumbents—a nicety Theodore Roosevelt,
during his 1904 re-election bid, likened to being a
Rough Rider and “lying still under shell fire.”
Soon, however, radio, newsreels and television brought
campaigns into Americans’ homes. Dwight Eisenhower was
first to air campaign commercials, 20-second spots showing
the war hero answering questions from ordinary folks. In
1960, the first televised presidential debates helped a glamorous John F. Kennedy squeak past sweaty Richard M. Nixon.
And 1964 saw the famous “Daisy” spot juxtaposing a little
girl with an atomic blast. The Lyndon Baines Johnson ad
didn’t mention opponent Barry Goldwater and ran only once.
Campaigns in 1996 used the internet, but for little more than
online brochures. By 2008, the web was a tool for organizing,
fundraising and the art of winning over voters via Twitter. Capture the Stories
of a Lifetime
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familyarchivist
Tools for taking care of your family’s legacy
{ B Y D E N I S E M AY L E V E N I C K }
Stuck in the Past
3 FAMILY HISTORIANS USED to love those easy, inexpensive “magnetic” photo albums. Peel back the plastic,
place your photo on the waxy page and smooth down the
plastic overlay. Little did we know that the layers would form
a toxic chamber where colors fade, paper weakens and ink
bleeds. Here’s how to deal with the damage from those old
problem albums.
Q. What should I do with my old magnetic photo
albums? Most of the pictures are from the 1970s,
and now have an orange cast. They’re either
falling out of the books or stuck tight to the
pages. I’ve heard freezing might loosen the glue.
Is that safe to try?
A. Almost every family has at least one old magnetic album,
usually filled with deteriorating color prints. The combination of acidic materials, adhesives and plastic work together
to damage whatever was placed between backing and plastic
cover. Prints changed hue; newspapers grew brittle. The
items families meant to preserve deteriorated faster than if
they’d been housed in a simple paper enclosure.
These albums weren’t really magnetic, of course. Instead,
regular acidic paperboard was coated with a grid of sticky
wax. Photos and paper stayed put when pressed onto the
wax lines and covered with a thin plastic overlay. Unfortunately, none of these materials was manufactured for longterm preservation of the contents.
Today, archival-quality albums feature acid-free, ligninfree paper and only plastics that have passed the Photographic Activity Test <www.imagepermanenceinstitute.org/
testing/pat>. This laboratory test assures consumers that the
plastic will not harm photos placed inside. Look for plastics
made of polypropylene labeled “archival.”
Archivists recommend quick action when it comes to old
magnetic photo albums. First, preserve the album contents
and arrangement by photographing or scanning each page
at 600 dpi resolution in full color. This also saves captions or
notes and creates a backup in case any photos can’t be saved.
Peel back the plastic, if you can. To fit the pages on your scanner, you can carefully cut the pages from the binding using a
16
2016
utility knife. (The album itself is so harmful there’s no need to
preserve it.) Next, remove photos a page at a time, maintaining the original order. Try these tricks if photos are stuck to
the page:
Starting at a corner, gently hold the photo with one hand
and work a microspatula blade (see the next page) between
the page and photo. Make your way around the edges of the
photo, working toward the center.
Slide regular dental floss under the photo with a gentle
back-and-forth sawing motion to cut through the wax.
Copy any caption onto the back of the photo if it’s relatively
clean, using a soft No. 2 lead pencil or an archival pen. Use
a light touch to avoid indenting the photo. Or you can place
the photo in an archival paper or plastic sleeve and write the
caption on the outside of the enclosure. If you want to reassemble the album, choose archival materials (see a list of suppliers at <familytreemagazine.com/article/archival-suppliers>)
and mount photos with corners or photo-safe sleeves, rather
than adhesive.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Just Say No
Project Idea: Restore Faded Photos
The Internet is full of advice, not
all of it safe for family treasures. If
you truly want to rescue the vintage
photos from your magnetic albums
and preserve them, digitize them
first and avoid techniques involving
heat, water or solvents. Conservators
don’t recommend these stuck-photo
removal methods:
ironing the album page
heating photos with a hair dryer
(even set on low)
immersing the page in water
“steaming” the page over a
boiling tea kettle
using adhesive remover on the
photos
Simple tools in your scanner software or photo-editing program let you digitally
restore color to old, faded photos. The software that came with my Epson <www.
epson.com> scanner offers a color restoration option that automatically corrects
most color problems. It’s located in the Professional Mode panel. Users of Photoshop Elements photo-editing software <www.photoshop.com/products/photoshop
elements> will find similar options in the Guided Edit menus. Here’s how to fix a picture like my faded, greenish college graduation photo in Elements; check your favorite
software for similar options.
1. Create a high-quality digital image of your faded photo by scanning it with a
resolution of 600 dpi or greater and saving the file in TIFF or JPG format. If you photograph it with your digital camera, check the resolution setting and turn the flash off.
2. Open a copy of the image (save the original untouched) in Photoshop Elements
and go to Guided Edit, then Touchups.
3. Select the option to Remove a Color Cast and follow prompts to use the eyedropper tool to select part of the image that should be pure white. This will adjust all
color in the photo. Click Done.
4. Select the option to Enhance Colors and click Auto Fix to correct color balance
and contrast. Use the sliders for further adjustment as desired. Click Done.
5. Save your edited image with a new file name.
This thin, flexible
tool isn’t for flipping
tiny pancakes. The
long, narrow blade
is an archivist’s best
friend for handling
old photos and fragile
paper: It aids in lifting
photos from albums
without digging
your fingers underneath the edge, slipping pictures out of
photo corners, turning back bent pages,
removing staples and
extracting photos
stuck to the pages
of magnetic albums.
Microspatulas are
available from archival suppliers such
as Gaylord Archival
<www.gaylord.com>.
courtesy of Gaylord Archival
Microspatula
Tip: Recreate History
To share your photos without subjecting them to regular wear and tear, use your
digitized photos in a reproduction book. It’s easy to create one using a digital photo
service such as Shutterfly <www.shutterfly.com> and the step-by-step instructions
in my book How to Archive Family Photos (Family Tree Books) <shopfamilytree.com/
how-to-archive-family-photos>. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
17
nowwhat?
Answers to your genealogy questions
{ B Y D AV I D A . F R Y X E L L }
What is the proper way to list Spanish
surnames (as in Alexandre Manuel de la
Vega Martínez) in family trees?
Surname practices in Spain,
Mexico and other Hispanic
countries can be confusing—but they
also often preserve the maiden names
that genealogists researching other
cultures must hunt for.
Historically, it’s Spanish tradition for
an individual to be known by both the
paternal and maternal surnames in that
order. (In Portugal or Brazil that order
is reversed). When the parents also
have compound names, the surname
passed down to their children is be the
first one, derived from the children’s
grandfathers. These compound surnames often use a y, a dash (-) or a
preposition (de, del, de la), as in your
de la Vega Martínez ancestor or names
such as Rosa María Muñoz y Rodríguez;
Or even in multiple compounds such as
Juan José Ríos-Prado y León.
Until the mid-1800s, women didn’t
take their husbands’ surname upon
marriage. More recently, a woman
who married a Martínez would attach
the married surname de Martínez to
her first single (paternal) surname.
So a woman born María Josefa Torres
Sepúlveda would become María Josefa
Torres de Martínez once she married.
What surname should you use in
family trees? What is the person’s
“real” last name? In phone books, your
ancestor would probably be listed as
Vega Martínez, Alexandre Manuel de la.
Using the first surname (Vega) is a good
general rule. Don’t start with the prepositions, or most of your family tree will
be alphabetized under d or y. Since
genealogists care about maiden names,
women should be entered under their
first surname regardless of whether
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••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
TAKE YOUR
RESEARCH
they changed their names upon marriage: Torres Sepúlveda, María Josefa.
You may have to override your genealogy software to enter these names
correctly, especially if it automatically
supplies children’s surnames. If Alexandre Manuel and María Josefa in our
examples had children, their last names
would be Vega Torres—different from
either parent’s compound surname.
Emmet was hanged on Thomas Street,
and then beheaded for good measure.
A plaque at nearby St. Catherine’s
Church lists the names of 15 tradesmen
and laborers hanged between Sept. 1
and Oct. 3 for their part in the rebellion.
Check a transcription at <www.robert
TO THE
NEXT LEVEL!
emmet.org /1803/tradesmen.patriots.
htm> to see if your ancestor is listed,
and learn more about the rebellion at
<www.robertemmet.org>.
Family lore says my Irish
ancestor participated in
Emmet’s Rebellion and may
have been hanged as a result.
How can I research this?
Named for Robert Emmet (17781803), the rebellion was a small
uprising in Dublin July 23, 1803. Instigators hoped that it would lead to a
nationwide revolt against the British.
Rebels targeted Dublin Castle, which
had represented British rule in Ireland
since the time of King John.
But the main fighting broke out on
Thomas Street, where the sight of a
British dragoon being killed on the spot
so shook Emmet that he tried to call off
the rebellion. Many in the mob ignored
him, choosing instead to drag the Lord
Chief Justice of Ireland, Lord Kilwarden, from his carriage and kill him.
By the time British troops restored
order that night, an estimated 50 Irish
rebels and 20 military had been killed.
Emmet fled but was captured Aug. 25.
Convicted of treason, he delivered “the
Speech from the Dock,” which became
famous among Irish nationalists. He
ended with this famous quote: “When
my country takes her place among the
nations of the earth, then and not till
then, let my epitaph be written.”
How can I learn more
about New Sweden and
whether my ancestors might’ve
been there?
This early Swedish settlement in
America was founded at the site of
today’s Wilmington, Delaware, in March
1638. Two ships, Kalmar Nyckel and
Fogel Grip, arrived under the command
of Peter Minuit (former governor of the
Dutch colony on Manhattan). During
the next 17 years, 11 more ships arrived
with 600 Swedes and Finns, extending the colony along both banks of the
Delaware River. Even after a defeat by
the Dutch in 1654, the colony remained
Swedish until 1681, when William Penn
claimed the area.
Learn about New Sweden from the
Swedish Colonial Society <colonial
swedes.net> and at sites such as <www.
libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/pahistory/
f o l d e r _ 1 . h t m l > and < w w w.f o u n d e r s
patriots.org/articles/swedish.php> . For
genealogy information, including names
of Swedish-American “forefathers,”
see <www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/New_
Swe d e n > , < w w w. ro o t swe b. a n ce s t r y.
com/~nycoloni/nwswdn.html> and <www.
geni.com/projects/New-Sweden-MainProject/9016>. STUMPED? ASK OUR EXPERT!
Send questions to [email protected] or post them on Facebook <www.facebook.
com/familytreemagazine>. Sorry, we can’t respond personally or answer all questions.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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19
SEARCH
and
RECOVER
Think your ancestors
are a lost cause? Not
with our 41 strategies
for finding your family
history online.
B Y D AV I D A . F R Y X E L L
20
3 WHEN TREASURE HUNTERS take
to the sea in search of lost shipwrecks,
they need more than intuition to locate
their finds under the vast depths of
ocean. Expertise, patience and preliminary data guide their initial search.
Along the way, they consult (and reconsult) nautical maps, charts of the
sea floor, eyewitness accounts of the
wreck, insurance paperwork filed by
the ship owner and more. When they
reach the search area, special equipment helps them detect what they can’t
see underwater.
Searching for family history gems
buried in online databases and websites
can feel like searching for underwater
treasure. Rich caches don’t often come
to the surface with simple searches.
More commonly, chests of genealogical
2016
gold will elude you unless you employ
some special search-and-recover techniques of your own.
Cast off for some deep-web diving
with these 41 tips for effective online
searches. Many of these shortcuts and
hacks apply to any search engine or site,
while others are specific to Google or
popular genealogy websites. As you narrow your research grids and dive into
search results, you’ll likely find yourself
combining and re-using these tips in
creative ways—and bringing up those
treasures you just knew were there.
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1 Use advanced search.
For sites that offer it, choose advanced
search options. You can find Google’s
Advanced Search page, which no longer
gets a link on the main page, at <google.
com/advanced_search> . Go advanced
at genealogy websites, too: At Ancestry.com <ancestry.com> , for example,
selecting Show More Options expands
the search options from basic name,
place and birth year to include other life
events, family members, keywords, race/
ethnicity and gender. Note that here, as
at most sites with advanced options, the
choices vary by category. Immigration
and travel searches, for instance, can
include arrival and departure data.
2 Enclose phrases
in quotation marks.
This works on many genealogy-specific
sites as well as search engines such as
Google <google.com> and Bing <www.
bing.com>. The most obvious application of this trick is in searching for
names, as in “George Clough.” But don’t
forget to also search for instances when
an ancestor’s surname comes first
(“Clough, George”).
3 Add keywords to
name searches.
Target your ancestors—especially those
with common names—by adding a
spouse’s name or a location. Try combining the previous quotation-marks
trick with a similarly handled spouse’s
name (“George Clough” “Mary Phillips”) or with a place where your ancestor lived (“George Clough” Virginia).
4 Try proximity searching.
Avoid the uncertainty of name order
by taking advantage of the operator NEAR. Searching Google or Bing
for George NEAR Clough would find
“George Albert Clough” as well as
“Clough, George Albert.” You can even
specify the maximum number of words
by which these terms may be separated.
For example, between two keywords
that should appear no more than three
words apart, use NEAR:3 in Bing and
Avoid the uncertainty
of name order by
taking advantage of
the operator NEAR.
you can try are OR (which may also
be expressed by the pipe symbol | in
Google, Bing and Monster) and parentheses to group search terms as you
would in a math equation. For example,
Montana birth records AND (history
or genealogy) would return matches
for Montana birth records history and
Montana birth records genealogy. Note
that you don’t need to type AND (or +)
in Google—it’s just assumed.
AROUND(3) or w/3 in Google. (Even
without these tricks, Google will give
priority to pages that have your search
terms closer to each other.)
5 Put the most important
search terms first.
Google prioritizes pages that contain
your search terms in the order you’ve
typed them. So Virginia genealogy
resources will produce more useful
hits than searching for resources genealogy Virginia. Similarly, you’ll likely
target your ancestor’s name faster with
“George Clough” Virginia than with Virginia “George Clough.”
6 Don’t sweat the small stuff.
In the previous example, you wouldn’t
actually need to capitalize Virginia.
The only capitalization Google cares
about is in Boolean operators (see next
tip) such as OR. (And there’s no way
to force it to differentiate—too bad if
you’re researching a surname that’s
also a word, like Low or Seal.) Google
also ignores common short words such
as the, a, an and on, as well as most
punctuation including hyphens (e-mail
or email, it doesn’t matter). Apostrophes do count, however (we’re isn’t the
same as were).
7 Use other basic operators.
You probably already know that you
can omit a Google search term by preceding it with NOT or a minus sign (-).
This is the perfect way to avoid results
from a place your ancestor didn’t live,
such as “George Clough” NOT Massachusetts. Other common operators
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8 Take advantage
of “stemming.”
Alas, Google dropped support for the
tilde (~), which automatically searched
for synonyms as well as the term it preceded. However, Google does use a similar technique called “stemming” that
can be useful for genealogy searches.
This means it searches not only for
the word you type but also for variations stemming from it: married might
also return hits for marries and marriage, for example. Not sure whether
the stemming captured all variants? Try
your own “stemming” searches and see
if you get different results. (Note that
you can prevent stemming by enclosing
words in quotation marks.)
9 Search with a date range.
Google lets you specify a numeric range,
such as dates, using two dots with no
spaces between (1850..1900). Ancestry.
com and Archives.com <archives.com>
let you search for specific dates with
ranges of plus or minus 0, 1, 2, 5 or 10
years. Using the advanced search at
MyHeritage <www.myheritage.com> ,
you can choose whether a date should
match exactly, match within a range (1,
2, 5, 10 or 20 years) or whether to rank
all search results by closeness to a date.
Findmypast <www.findmypast.com>
searches can range from 0 to 40 years.
10 Let Google or Bing help
search within a website.
Frustrated by the limitations of a genealogy site’s search capabilities? Unleash
the power of your favorite web search
engine with a site-specific search
21
One way to make your searches more locationspecific is to use that country’s Google site rather
than the default US-centric <google.com>.
using site: as in site:rootsweb.com or
site:usgenweb.org (no space after the
colon). Use this technique for text that
appears on a webpage, not to search for
indexed information in databases.
11 Search for file types.
You can find PDFs, JPGs and other
common file types using the filetype:
search operator in Google or Bing.
Many genealogical organizations publish indexes as PDF documents on their
websites, and a search such as weyer
site:hcgsohio.org filetype:pdf can help
you quickly search them.
12 Limit by language.
Not up to translating (even using online
tools like Google Translate <translate.
google.com> )? Tell your search engine
to stick to English results—or to seek
out sites in your ancestor’s native
tongue—using the Language dropdown
on Google’s Advanced Search page. In
Bing, use the operator language:.
13 Limit by location.
If your ancestor lived in France, maybe
you want to limit your search to French
sites (as opposed to French-language
sites from other French-speaking countries). Try the Region dropdown on
Google’s Advanced Search page or use
the loc: operator in Bing. Another way
to make your searches more locationspecific is to use that country’s Google
site rather than the default, US-centric
<google.com> . Google runs search
engines for most nations, and you’ll get
slightly different results using them. The
UK site, for example, is <www.google.
co.uk>. You can find these “native” sites
by (of course) searching the regular US
Google for google [name of country].
22
14 Find similar sites to search.
If you’ve exhausted a favorite genealogy or local history website, see if there
are similar gold mines out there. Do a
Google search using the related: operator in front of the URL you’ve already
mined, such as related:usgenweb.org.
15 Use an asterisk in Google.
Although Google doesn’t support wildcards within words, you can use a * to
take the place of one word (or multiple
asterisks for that many unknown missing words). This is a handy supplement
to those name searches within quotation marks, to scoop up any instances
with a middle name or initial: George *
Clough. (Note that Bing doesn’t seem to
recognize any wildcards.)
16 Search with wildcards.
Ancestry.com, FamilySearch <www.
familysearch.org> and Findmypast let
you search with a question mark (?)
taking the place of a single character
and/or an asterisk standing in for any
number of unknown characters, including zero. Each has limits, however, on
the minimum number of non-wildcard
characters you must use—no searching for Cl* for Clough, for example.
Archives.com and MyHeritage don’t
support wildcards.
17 Exhaust all name variations.
You probably already know this, but
it’s worth reminding yourself: Leave
no oddball spelling variation or possible typo in your ancestors’ names
unchecked. In researching my Dickinson line, I try Dickinson, Dickenson, Dickerson, Dickeson and even
Dickson and Dixon. The same goes for
first names—try nicknames and initials,
2016
alternate spellings, and middle names
used as first names. The FamilySearch
Standard Finder <www.familysearch.
org/stdfinder/NameStandardLookup.jsp>
can help with variants to try. So can the
Soundex system, but Soundex can miss
some spelling variations. See <archives.
gov/research/census/soundex.html> for
an explanation of how Soundex works
and the converter at <bradandkathy.com/
genealogy/yasc.html>.
18 Be careful with
“exact” check boxes.
Limiting your search results to exact
matches can be tempting when you’re
certain of the data. But this can eliminate whole categories from your
results. Collections lacking first names
or using only initials, for instance, will
be skipped if you search for an exact
first name. In particular, don’t check
Exact for death dates unless you’re
searching for death records. Earlier
records, such as those for births or marriages, may be omitted, since of course
they contain no death date.
19 Know when to use AND.
Although Google assumes you intend
AND when you type more than one
search term, not all sites work that
way. The Library of Congress catalog
<catalog.loc.gov>, for example, requires
Boolean operators (in all caps) to narrow your search. To find wills from Virginia, type Wills AND Virginia. For wills
from Virginia or West Virginia, type
Wills AND Virginia OR “West Virginia.”
20 Try nameless searches.
Sometimes the only way to find an
ancestor online is to search without a
TIP: Search without a name on your
favorite genealogy site, instead
filling in parents’ or spouse’s names,
locations and dates.
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name. This is particularly useful for
census research, but can also work for
vital records. This technique is best
for searching a single database, like
one enumeration, to limit the flood of
hits. Fill in as much as you know—birth
year, birthplace, residence—but leave
the name fields blank. This trick works
in Ancestry.com, Findmypast, MyHeritage and FamilySearch.
21 Search with no surname(s).
If you can fill in enough other details,
including given name(s), key dates and
places, you often can find ancestors
despite transcription errors or spelling
quirks. This works particularly well
on sites that let you include parents’
names and info (try omitting their surnames, too). Again, it’s most effective
when searching a single source, such
as one year’s census, lest you be overwhelmed with results.
22 Leave out the location.
Find peripatetic ancestors by searching without places. Maybe your family
wasn’t where they “ought” to be at
some point—they’d joined the Gold
Rush or staked a homestead claim. See
if you can find them using only names
and dates, adding places back in one at
a time if you get too many hits.
23 Explore one record
collection at a time.
We’ve hinted at this: While it’s convenient to be able to search all of Ancestry.
com or FamilySearch or other database
sites in a single pass, sometimes you
need to focus on one collection. Search
each census separately, working back
once you’ve found everyone in a year.
This approach—also useful for vital
records with separate birth, marriage
and death indexes—lets you leave more
fields blank and experiment with more
workarounds for possible transcription
errors, without being deluged by results.
At Ancestry.com, search for individual
record collections under Search>Card
Catalog; at Findmypast.com, look under
Search> A-Z of Record Sets.
23
Findmypast’s alphabetical collection listing helps you find datasets to search.
24 Work back and forth
<www.worldcat.org> can pinpoint the
between record types.
If you’re stumped in a census search,
try finding an individual in a city directory in the same time period. State
censuses, often taken in years ending
in 5, can also help. Ancestry.com, with
rich collections of both these record
types, makes this easy. You can even
perform each search in a different
browser tab or window, to quickly
click back and forth.
25 Work back and forth
between sites.
Expanding the previous technique to
play one site off against another can
speed up your research and uncover
facts you might otherwise miss. For
example, you might Google a maiden
name in quotes paired with the husband’s surname, then use the results
to search the census in FamilySearch,
then try those facts in Find A Grave
<www.findagrave.com>. Or maybe you’ve
found a book about your family or
their hometown using Google Books
<books.google.com> , but not an online
edition of the volume there. WorldCat
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
libraries with a copy closest to you;
Ancestry.com, FamilySearch or Internet Archive <www.archive.org> might
have a free digital version.
26 Retrieve old web pages.
Speaking of the Internet Archive, that
site’s Wayback Machine <archive.org/
web> makes it easy to recapture web
pages you formerly found useful for
your research but that have since gone
offline. It regularly sweeps the Internet
and saves a snapshot of all the data
found at that point in time—quite possibly including your vanished site.
27 Search in a single step.
Steve Morse’s brilliant One-Step Webpages site <www.stevemorse.org> lets you
drill down into censuses, passenger lists,
vital records and more with a single
click. Just fill in your search terms—
bypassing multiple-step searches you
might encounter on the original site—
and jump straight to results. You’ll need
to be a subscriber to pay sites like Ancestry.com to see full results, but Morse gets
you the hits faster with less fuss.
23
28 Try keyword searches
at genealogy websites.
Most major genealogy sites offer the
option to search by keyword, but it’s
easy to forget to take advantage of
it. You can fill in ship names, church
denominations, occupations, associations (Mason, for example), even titles
like Reverend or Doctor to narrow your
results and zoom in on the right ancestor. Make sure not to click Exact for
keywords if that’s an option, though, so
you don’t miss out on collections without keyword capability.
29 Use names as keywords.
This extreme approach—leaving name
fields blank and typing names as keywords instead—sometimes proves
effective on sites like Fold3 <www.fold3.
com> that scan a lot of “free-form” old
documents that lack neat fields for
names and other data.
30 Search sideways in your tree.
The principle of “cluster genealogy” holds that your ancestors didn’t
migrate across the country in isolation,
but most often in groups—with family members, friends, co-religionists,
neighbors. So if you’re stumped in a
search, try going sideways and searching for members of a missing ancestor’s “cluster.” Don’t limit yourself to
immediate family and collateral kin;
often neighbors from one census, for
example, turn up as neighbors 10 years
before in the place they and your family
left behind. This approach also can help
you sort through similarly named folks:
If you’re weighing two people with the
same name and trying to decide which
is “yours,” the one with the same neighbors as in other records is probably
Mister Right.
created the sort of record you need, but
a sibling or cousin at a slightly different
time and/or place might be attached to
an answer. Suppose your great-greatgrandmother died before the family
moved to Illinois, or before that state’s
index of deaths began in 1916. Search
instead for her younger brother’s death
record in Illinois a few years later, which
might list his mother’s elusive maiden
name, your third-great-grandmother.
31 Focus on unusual names.
Genealogists sometimes overlook the
fact that many women lived much of
their lives—and usually died—under a
husband’s surname. Try to learn both,
as records created under each name
may contain unique clues.
A particularly useful variation on cluster genealogy takes advantage of people
you come across with oddball names,
even if they aren’t your direct kin. Treasure the Zilphas and Jedithans and Florunas in your family tree, especially if
you’re researching common surnames.
Wading through the ocean of John
Smiths might be impossible, but if he
had a sister Jerusha, you can search for
her instead.
32 Dig into collateral relatives.
Sometimes the timing just wasn’t
right for your direct ancestor to have
33 Search for maiden
and married names.
34 Find a Junior or Senior.
Some collections index “Jr” and “Sr” as
though they were part of the last name.
So if you can’t find George Clough Jr. ,
it’s worth trying CloughJr or Clough* to
see if this indexing quirk is hiding him.
On Findmypast (where this can be a
problem), try checking “name variants.”
35 Search by relationship.
A good way to round up an ancestor’s
siblings—or to overcome transcription
errors that are obscuring your direct
kin—is to search by relationship: Leave
the main name and surname fields
blank or fill in only the surname, but
also fill in the parents’ names and/or a
spouse’s name. This works at Ancestry.
com and MyHeritage, but you must
specify the type of relationship. At
FamilySearch, the Spouse/Parents/
Other person field in effect searches
the whole household.
36 Narrow the time frame
of your results.
36
24
Try adding a date in the Any Event field on MyHeritage to narrow the time frame of
matching records.
2016
Sometimes a search retrieves way too
many results and the list includes hits
wildly wrong for the period in which
your target ancestor lived. But if you
don’t know or aren’t sure of any vitalrecords dates, you might not want to
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
limit your search by them. Try instead
filling in a census or residence date (and
optionally location) or other year that’s
in the “sweet spot” of your ancestor’s
life in the Any option on FamilySearch,
Ancestry.com or MyHeritage, or the
Other Event blank for Findmypast. That
should get rid of the 17th-century hits
for your Civil War-era ancestor.
37 Switch database sources.
When genealogical data (such as the
US census) is available from more than
one source, take a search that’s frustrating you at one site and try it on the
alternate. (The free FamilySearch is
a good alternative when subscription
sites come up empty.) Different search
methodologies or transcriptions might
mean that the second resource pops
right up with your elusive ancestor.
38 Don’t get stuck on a “fact.”
You might be certain an ancestor was
born in 1863 or immigrated in 1888, or
that her married name was Belvedere
and her mother was born in Ohio. But
if searches on this data keep misfiring,
consider the possibility that an ancestor fibbed, fudged the truth, forgot or
made a change. Maybe Anne Belvedere
shaved a few years off her age at census
time, and had taken a second husband
you didn’t know about. Try searching
without each key fact in turn to see if the
omission might lead to success.
39 Search someplace else—
literally.
Your California kin may have slipped
over the border to Nevada to get
MORE
ONLINE
40
Use Fold3’s “Watch” feature to save your searches on the site and get automatic
notifications when matching records are added.
hitched. Or county boundary lines
might have changed, putting your
North Carolina ancestor’s records in
a previous parent county. If you can’t
find your immigrant family at Ellis
Island or its predecessor, Castle Garden, consider the possibility that they
arrived through a different US port,
such as Boston or Baltimore, or even
via Canada.
40 Save your searches.
Just because the answers weren’t online
today doesn’t mean they won’t be added
three months or a year from now. Take
advantage of sites like MyHeritage that
let you save searches to rerun them, or
Fold3’s “Watch” feature.
41 Automate your searches.
For that matter, why not outsource
your research to the “bots”? Posting
your family tree at MyHeritage can get
you signed up for regular emails whenever the site finds matches for your
ancestors. Ancestry.com hints appear
as those leaf icons on your tree; click
to explore possible record matches.
(Ancestry.com also now sends out hint
alert emails.) Create Google Alerts
<google.com/alerts> to have Google
automatically repeat your favorite
searches and send you updates. ■
Contributing editor David A . Fryxell searches the web from Tucson.
Free Web Content
For Plus Members
Ellis Island search strategies
Guide to searching Fold3
<familytreemagazine.com/article/
Ellis-Island-Search-Strategies>
Surname web search tips <family
treemagazine.com/article/13Surname-Web-Search-Tips>
Using Google Books search
using-google-books-search>
fold3-web-guide>
Searching for ancestors in online
books <familytreemagazine.com/
article/genealogy-guide-to-onlinebooks>
Research strategies: unusual
surnames <familytreemagazine.com/
article/unusual-last-names>
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
ShopFamilyTree.com
Secrets of Successful Searches ondemand webinar <shopfamilytree.
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25
HERE COMES the
NEIGHBORHOOD
We’ll show you how to use old records, maps and
photos to re-create the place your family called
home—and open a window into their lives.
BY SUNNY JANE MORTON
3 YOU CAN LEARN a lot about people’s lives by strolling
through their neighborhoods. Where’s the nearest school,
church or theater? How are the buildings and streets maintained? Do family or good friends live nearby? What about
others who share their culture, tastes or values? Where can
they shop? How far are they from work and how do they
get there?
Neighborhoods of yesterday also reveal these kinds of
details about your ancestors and offer clues for further family
research. Nearby institutions or organizations may have kept
records that include your family. Old property lines or the
former residents’ ethnicity may solve puzzling genealogical
questions. Even better, some of those old neighbors may turn
out to be kin.
26
2016
Though the people, homes, landscapes and businesses of
your ancestors’ day may be gone or changed, you can virtually reconstruct them. Old documents, maps, photos and stories will provide your blueprints and construction materials.
When I mentally strolled through the neighborhood of
my husband’s ancestor Andrew O’Hotnicky, I realized that
his family spent most of their lives within the two-block
radius of a tiny but vibrant ethnic enclave—and the in-laws
I was hunting were right there, too. But before you break
ground on your own building project, we’ll show you how
to find your relatives’ addresses and where they’re located
today. Then we’ll demonstrate how to put it all together with
records, photos and stories in a step-by-step example centering on the O’Hotnickys. Let construction begin.
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Addressing the past
First, you’ll need to identify a site for your building project.
That means knowing exactly where the neighborhood was.
Of course, old records won’t give you GPS coordinates, and
even full street addresses with ZIP codes are relatively modern inventions.
Before the 20th century, most US mailing addresses were
simply comprised of a name, town and state. Residents
picked up their mail at local post offices. Travelers followed
maps to their general destinations, then asked locals to point
them to a home or business. It worked back when cities were
less populated and more people knew their neighbors.
Home mail delivery began in the Civil War era for some
Northern cities, and gradually spread. That’s why, during the
late 1800s and early 1900s, many older cities changed and
standardized street names and house numbering systems.
By 1902, home mail delivery finally reached suburban and
rural residents, some of the latter via alternative mail carriers
along designated rural or “star” routes. ZIP codes came along
only in 1963, and ZIP+4 codes in the 1980s.
So it can be difficult to determine a home’s location from
an older document. You’ll likely need to follow location clues
through censuses, deeds, maps and other resources. As later
documents more specifically describe places, you’ll be able to
pinpoint the site. You’ll see this principle in action below, as
I trace a family’s residence from an undefined house number
on a street to its (almost) exact location.
Making sense of census addresses
The census is often the first place you find clues to where a
family lived. Initially, census-takers identified residents only
by state and county, township, town or city. Enumerators did
work within geographically defined areas called enumeration districts (EDs), noted at the top of each sheet, which can
help you narrow a person’s location. Find tools for researching enumeration district maps and boundaries from 1880 forward at Steve Morse’s One-Step site <www.stevemorse.com>.
The National Archives has microfilmed descriptions of ED
boundaries for the 1830 to 1890 and 1910 to 1950 censuses, as
well as ED maps for 1900 to 1940. The maps are digitized on
the free FamilySearch site <www.familysearch.org>.
The 1880 census was the first to record street names and
house numbers. The street name is written vertically along
the left edge of the page, and the house number is in the next
column. (Don’t confuse the house number with the “dwelling
house” and family numbers, which numbered each house and
family in order of enumeration.) The 1890 census, now mostly
destroyed, was recorded on family schedules with street
names and house numbers at the top. From 1900 on, censuses
include street names and house numbers on the left edge.
My husband’s ancestors Andrew and Rose O’Hotnicky
first appear as a couple in the 1910 census, residing on Jones
Street in the northeastern Pennsylvania town of Olyphant. In
Rebuilding their surroundings is the
closest I’ll ever get to strolling up
the sidewalk and introducing myself.
1920 and 1930, their growing family lived at 117 West Grant
Street in Olyphant.
The 1930 census, in which Andrew’s widowed mother
Caroline lived with the family (shown on the next page),
includes a detail that caught my eye. Usually, homeownership status is noted only for the heads of household. But in
1930, Caroline was listed as owning her home in the same
household where her son, the head-of-household, is a renter.
According to the census instructions, Caroline’s homeownership was to be noted only if she lived at the property
she owned. If the enumerator followed those instructions,
then Andrew and Rose were renting their home from his
mother. Their rent was $20 a month, 20 percent lower than
three neighbors paid. Were they getting a family discount?
That census page offered other insights into their surroundings. Most men were miners, though Andrew drove a
fire truck. Neighbors were born in Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Galicia. Nuns of Czech descent lived around the
corner. I wanted to flesh out a meaningful story from these
details. First, I sought a deed to the West Grant Street house
to confirm Caroline’s ownership and when she acquired it.
Drilling into deed descriptions
Deeds are legal documents that record the description of
properties and their transfer from one owner to the next.
Generally, you can find them in county offices where the
property is located (or in town offices, in New England).
Some are imaged on microfilm, with copies at a historical society or local library, and fewer are digitized and/or
indexed online. Most of the time, you’ll need to get them from
the county recorder’s office. Because most deed research is
more complicated than a simple photocopy request, you may
need to hire a local researcher or go there yourself. (Get our
in-depth guide to researching deeds at <shopfamilytree.com/
research-strategies-land-deeds-u4009>.)
Accessing deeds works differently at different recorders’
offices. The deeds themselves are usually in large, chronological volumes. To find the correct volume and page number,
you’ll hope indexes exist for grantees (buyers) and grantors
(sellers). If you don’t know when a property was purchased—
or exactly under whose name—scan all the indexes looking
for familiar surnames. If indexes don’t exist or don’t cover
the places and time periods you need, you’ll have to know the
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27
specific location of the property. This usually means finding
the subdivision name and lot number assigned when the area
was surveyed or developed (not the same as the house number). See the next page for more on this.
First, I found an 1892 purchase by Caroline and her
husband Andreas for lot 10 on Jones Street, with no house
number. This wasn’t 117 West Grant Street, but Andrew and
Rose did live on Jones Street in the 1910 census. I traced the
deed forward to the next sale of that property, in 1945. That
deed explained that Jones Street had been renamed Grant
Street, but it still didn’t give me a house number. Some cities,
especially major ones, have published guides to street and
address changes, or included this information in city directories printed when the changes occurred. Ask at historical and
genealogical societies.
The 1945 deed also revealed other important facts. The
property changed hands within the family between 1892
and 1945. At Andreas’ death in 1898, Caroline became
the sole owner. At her death in 1937, the lot passed to all
the children jointly. The deed stated death dates for both
parents and listed their children with their spouses and
residences. It’s not unusual to find family information in
property transactions. After all, property is often inherited
by or sold to relatives.
NEIGHBORHOOD SNAPSHOT
The census offers clues to your ancestors’ households and
their neighborhoods. Re-examine census records with this
1930 example—the Andrew and Rose O’Hotnicky household in
Olyphant, Lackawanna County, Pa.—in mind.
The dwelling number is a running tally of all dwellings in
that enumeration district. They were numbered by front
doors: An apartment building was one dwelling; a duplex
with separate front entrances was two dwellings. Families
in the same house have the same dwelling number.
The house number
(address number)
isn’t always filled
in. “R1” indicates
a dwelling at the
rear of the property.
Rural areas might
note “farm.”
In the first column,
the enumerator
wrote the street
name vertically.
The family number counted the
number of families or households
in an enumeration district. Separate
households in tenements or
apartment buildings were defined
as those with their own tables for
eating. Boarders were included with
a household. Residents of a facility,
such as an orphanage or convent,
comprised one household unless they
had separate or detached homes
(such as a prison warden’s family).
A line marked across
the column shows
where the census
taker started along
a different street.
Census takers didn’t
often complete one
street at a time. One
might cover part of
a street, turn onto a
side street, back to
the original street,
and so on.
28
2016
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In addition to deeds, you may find yourself researching
land acquired from the federal or state government. The
Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office has millions of online patents <www.glorecords.blm.gov> documenting transfers of public lands. Learn more about locating land
patents in our tutorial, available from <shopfamilytree.com/
tutorial-map-your-ancestors-land-online-pdf>.
Mapping out the street
Next, I turned to maps to help me determine whether Caroline’s lot 10 was indeed No. 117 Grant Street. Neighborhood
maps made before, during and after an ancestor’s era are
An O in this column stands for homeowner.
Homeownership didn’t mean the mortgage was
paid off. R indicates renter, but it technically
means the person didn’t own his residence (no
matter whether he actually paid rent).
This is where you see actual monthly rental
amounts paid. For homeowners, this column
shows the current market value of the home.
valuable for the unique (and occasionally conflicting) details
you can compare and compile. Some maps show just roads,
rivers, mills, churches and perhaps homesteads; others have
landowners’ names. Look for maps, atlases and regional histories (which might contain maps) in free online collections
such as David Rumsey Historical Maps <www.davidrumsey.
com> , the Library of Congress <loc.gov/maps> , Internet
Archive <www.archive.org>, Google Books <books.google.com>
or HathiTrust Digital Library <www.hathitrust.org>. Search
for the name of the neighborhood, town or city, township,
county and/or state. Also look for maps at major libraries
near the place of interest.
For the O’Hotnicky home, I needed maps that reference
lot numbers—most likely to be the maps created and filed by
the original developers in town or county offices. Local governments also may have maps showing property boundaries,
dimensions and more.
At the Olyphant borough (town) hall, I found blueprintsized maps of the neighborhood made in 1973. In addition
to the aforementioned details, the maps also labeled some
businesses and churches. Lot 10 is on the west side of Grant
Street, backing up to Holy Ghost Catholic church (see the
next page). The lot’s original dimensions and neighboring
lots fit the deed description. The church eventually annexed
the rear of lot 10 and the next lot over.
Then I turned to Sanborn insurance maps. Published from
the late 1800s and into the 1900s, these detailed renderings
of cities include building footprints and construction details,
street names and house numbers, businesses and more.
The Library of Congress has a large collection of Sanborn
maps <loc.gov/rr/geogmap/sanborn>, some of which are digitized. The catalog mentions Olyphant maps for 1893, 1898,
1903 and 1912, but they’re not online. A Google search for
Sanborn maps Olyphant PA brings up digitized versions of
all four maps in the Penn State University Libraries Digital
Collections <www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/digital/sanborn.html>.
The 1893 map, drawn a year after the O’Hotnickys purchased their lot, shows the neighborhood was well developed, with homes and businesses lining the streets. Number
117 is shown on Jones Street, but on the east side of the
street. That lot’s building footprint says “Foundation to be
S.” According to a list of Sanborn map abbreviations <www.
newberry.org/sites/default/files/researchguide-attachments/
sanbornabbrv.pdf>, S means “store.” The smaller building on
TIP: Explore the websites of county and town recorders or
auditors office, where you might find information on old
deeds and property photos, sales history and more.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
29
A STEP BACK IN TIME
A 1912 Sanborn map, Olyphant, Pa.
b 1973 plat map; the O’Hotnicky
house is on lot 10
c Holy Ghost Catholic Church
d Hungarian Hotel, 1926
e Fire house
A
f
f
b
c
c
c
30
2016
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
e
e
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Fire insurance map of Olyphant, Lackawanna County, Pa., including Blakely and Dickson Boroughs: Sanborn Map
Co., April 1912, Penn State University Libraries Digital Collections; Jones Street postcard: courtesy of Michael
Grayson; Hungarian Hotel: courtesy of Genealogical Research Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania; Olyphant
Hose Co. No. 2: courtesy of Sunny Jane Morton; Holy Ghost Catholic Church: Sunny Jane Morton; Olyphant,
Lackawanna County, Pa., proper ty map, district 30, section no 114.06: photo by Sunny Jane Mor ton.
F View of Jones Street (later renamed
D
Grant), likely taken from the north end
looking south, about 1910
D
b
31
the west side of the street, where the lot number puts the
O’Hotnickys, has a D for “dwelling.” The Holy Ghost Church
is labeled “Hungarian church.”
Subsequent Sanborn maps show the neighborhood’s
growth. In 1898, the large building at 117 (still identified as a
store) seems to be completed. A large general store occupies
a spot where, a few years later, the 1903 map shows a vacant
space labeled “ruins of fire.” By 1912, that space has a town
hall and fire station. The 1912 map shows the street name
now called Grant and a parochial school across from the
church (perhaps where the school-teaching nuns worked
during the 1930 census). That map also adds the word tenements (a term for the crowded apartment housing often
associated with immigrant quarters) to the Hungarian Hotel.
Modern Google Maps <maps.google.com> show how Grant
Street appears today. Many buildings are the same. A search
for house number 117 points to Lot 10, on the west side of the
street. You can’t count on Google Maps as a reliable source
for house numbers in years past due to numbering changes,
but it’s worth noting this additional evidence placing the
O’Hotnicky home on the west side of the street.
Whichever side they lived on, all those maps depict old
Grant Street as a vibrant Eastern European enclave. Residents
packed themselves into rear dwellings (which the census
noted with an R under dwelling numbers) and in tenements.
MORE ONLINE
Free Web Content
All about enumeration districts <familytreemagazine.com/article/
Now-What-Enumeration-Districts>
Google Earth: Solve ancestral place puzzles <familytreemagazine.
com/article/solutions-from-space>
Best mapping websites <familytreemagazine.com/article/best-
mapping-websites-2014>
For Plus Members
Finding city directories <familytreemagazine.com/article/
directory-assistance>
Land records guide <familytreemagazine.com/article/good-deeds>
Researching your ancestor’s neighbors <familytreemagazine.com/
article/buddy-system>
ShopFamilyTree.com
Research guide to house histories <shopfamilytree.com/construct-
a-house-history-u6516>
Land Records Research Value Pack <shopfamilytree.com/land-
records-research-value-pack>
5 Ways to Enhance Your Genealogy Research With Old Maps on-
demand webinar <shopfamilytree.com/5-ways-to-enhance-yourgenealogy-research-with-old-maps>
32
2016
The maps identify a meat market, dance hall, “liquors,” hardware and tin shop, general store, notions store and an opera
house, all within walking distance of the O’Hotnickys. Some of
these places I’d soon connect to the family.
Localizing the search
Now, as more neighborhood clues emerged, I could see
where they fit. Relatives told me the O’Hotnickys “always
went to Holy Ghost parish.” Of course! A parish history says
Slovakian families—perhaps including Andrew’s parents—
built the church in 1896. The parish office sent me family
baptismal, marriage and burial records. Their graves were on
a hill outside town, along with other relatives’ burial places.
Local relatives gave me a photo of Andrew driving the Olyphant Hose Company No. 2 fire truck. A visit confirmed that
was the fire station just past Holy Ghost church, a block from
Andrew’s house. The station walls are covered in old photos
(including a copy of Andrew on the truck) and a memorial
plaque names Andrew. From a retired firefighter who lives
on Grant Street, I learned Andrew’s brother, son and maternal relatives volunteered there. It was a Slovakian fire company and apparently, a family tradition.
One of my most interesting finds was a 1926 photo of Grant
Street buildings from the Genealogical Research Society of
Northeastern Pennsylvania <grsnp.org/wordpress> . When
I showed it to the retired firefighter, he pointed to a tall
building in the center. “A Slovakian immigrant named Bosak
owned the bank,” he said. “He made a fortune bringing workers over from the Old Country and connecting them with
jobs.” He added that the alley to the left was the entrance to
Bosak’s court, “his tenement housing for the newest arrivals.”
Local histories confirm that Michael Bosak was indeed
a wealthy bank owner (no mention of immigrant worker
schemes). But I did notice that Google Maps still refers to
that little side street as Bosak Court.
More sources added bits and pieces to my mental picture
of Grant Street. A postcard of Jones Street, taken about
1910, appears to face toward the tree-fronted lot I believe
was 117, on the west side of the street. A city directory for
Olyphant gives an address for another O’Hotnicky relative,
possibly the fire-fighting brother.
Rebuilding the O’Hotnickys’ surroundings is the closest I’ll
get to strolling up the sidewalk to 117 Grant Street and introducing myself. It turns out, my neighborhood reconstruction
project didn’t get shelved with the end of my O’Hotnicky
research. I wanted to identify Rose’s family. Her marriage
license application gave me her maiden name. When I found
her parents in the census, guess where they lived? At 118
Grant Street, right across the street from Andrew and Rose. ■
Contributing editor Sunny Jane Morton is the author
of Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy
<shopfamilytree.com/story-of-my-life>.
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WORKBOOK
Cemetery
Records
BY SHARON DEBARTOLO CARMACK
3 FINDING AN ANCESTOR’S final resting place can be tremendously satisfying. A grave may be the only surviving evidence of that person’s life. It’s a fitting place to honor his or
her memory, whether with flowers or a moment’s reflection.
Additionally, the words carved on a tombstone—a name,
dates of birth and death, the words “son” or “loving wife”—
are important clues to a person’s identity. So are inscriptions
on the graves of family buried nearby. Other records relating
to a burial, whether created by the cemetery or the local
community, may even be richer in genealogical information.
Today, millions of tombstone images and inscriptions are
just a click or two away on your computer. Accompanying
burial records may not be much further out of reach. The following tips and strategies can help you find your way to both,
whether you plan to visit an ancestor’s grave in person or just
take a virtual stroll through the cemetery.
Finding family headstones
You can’t visit final resting places (in person or remotely)
without first learning where relatives are interred. Death
certificates, obituaries, funeral or prayer cards, funeral home
records and other sources usually mention a cemetery. Gathering this information before you start searching for online
gravestone records will help ensure you find your ancestor’s
headstone—not that of someone with a similar name and age
at death. Even if you only know when and where your ancestor died, this will certainly help narrow any options.
Keep in mind that cemeteries, especially in the South, were
subject to segregation just as other institutions were. You
might find African-American relatives in a separate section
of a cemetery, or in a different cemetery altogether. Those of
other ethnicities also were often put to rest alongside their
countrymen. In many towns, genealogists know particular
cemeteries as “the German” or “the Irish” cemetery.
The internet hosts several free collections of gravestone
images and headstone transcriptions; find listings in the
Toolkit box in this guide. Two of the largest databases are
Find A Grave <www.findagrave.com> and BillionGraves <www.
billiongraves.com>, where genealogy volunteers have contributed burial information on hundreds of thousands of gravestones around the world. The sheer size of these sites makes
them good starting points.
On Find A Grave, volunteers may have added a person’s
obituary to his or her tombstone record and provided family members’ names with links to their listings on the site.
This information isn’t independently verified, so always
research these relationships in birth, census, probate and
other records before assuming it’s correct. BillionGraves
tags cemeteries and individual tombstone images with global
positioning coordinates, making them easier to locate (with
help from your smartphone or GPS device) when you visit.
Subscription site Ancestry.com <ancestry.com> and the free
FamilySearch <www.familysearch.org> return search results
from both databases.
If you don’t find your ancestor’s burial on these websites
but you know the name of the cemetery, try browsing listings for that cemetery. On the Find A Grave home page, click
Search for a cemetery and then click on its name. From the
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Online tombstone images are
BillionGraves search page <billiongraves.com/search>, click on
Cemeteries and enter the cemetery name and location. Click
the cemetery name, then click Search records.
If you’re still striking out, try these additional strategies.
First, run a web search on the name and location of the cemetery. If the cemetery has a website, visit it and look for an
index of burials. (Many cemeteries share the same names, so
make sure you’re viewing the right website.) Also watch for
search results from local genealogical websites and libraries,
which may have headstone transcriptions online. Take note
of contact information for the cemetery office. You’ll want it
to inquire about additional records covered below.
Finally, look for printed collections of transcribed headstone inscriptions for a particular cemetery or for multiple
cemeteries in the area where your relative lived. Before the
internet, kind-hearted genealogists would visit cemeteries
and, rather than taking photographs, copy all the headstone
inscriptions and publish them in a book. Some genealogical
societies, cemetery associations and other organizations took
on cemetery transcribing projects as well.
The Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City has
perhaps the largest collection of published cemetery transcriptions. In the FamilySearch catalog <www.familysearch.
org/catalog/search> , search by locale, then look under the
subject heading Cemeteries. If you’re lucky, a catalog listing
will link to a digitized version of the book on the FamilySearch
website. If the FHL has the book only in print (so it doesn’t
FAST FACTS
RECORDS BEGIN: with the earliest burial, in most cases
JURISDICTION WHERE KEPT: for active cemeteries,
in cemetery offices, church offices (for church-owned
cemeteries), veterans association (for veterans’ burials); for
inactive cemeteries, local government offices, libraries and
historical societies
KEY DETAILS: name of the deceased, death date, birth
date or age at death, and burial/reburial date; sometimes a
birthplace, place of death, cause of death, family members’
names, military service, and (through iconography) religious
affiliation, fraternal organization membership and occupation
SEARCH TERMS: Name of cemetery (if known) and the
place. In cemetery databases, search by name or browse by
cemetery.
HOW TO FIND IN THE FAMILYSEARCH CATALOG: Run a
place search for the state, county and/or city or town, then
select the cemeteries category; alternatively, run a keyword
search for the cemetery name
ALTERNATE AND SUBSTITUTE RECORDS: death
certificates, obituaries, funeral home records, home sources
such as funeral cards and letters
just a starting point for your
search for burial records
circulate) search for the title on WorldCat <www.worldcat.
org> to find copies you can borrow from other libraries. Also
try searching online for the county and name of the cemetery
to see if the these transcriptions have been put online.
Beyond the headstone
Several types of records relating to individual burials may
contain additional information about the deceased. These
include records created by the cemetery and additional
permits obtained from county or town offices relating to the
transit or removal of bodies. Look for the following types of
records documenting your ancestors’ burial:
INTERMENT OR BURIAL RECORDS: These are the most
likely cemetery records to survive and to contain genealogical information. Cemetery sextons or caretakers, today
often known as superintendents, kept these, often as cards
or registers. Burial records typically give the name and age
of the deceased, the date of death and burial, cause of death
and sometimes the relationship to a survivor and/or owner
of the cemetery plot. The exact location of the grave in the
cemetery may be noted, perhaps with reference to an accompanying map. Sexton’s records might even include the fee
charged for digging the grave and erecting the tombstone.
CEMETERY PLOT PURCHASE RECORDS: These may state
who bought the plot, when and under what terms. You might
find a list of all those buried in the same plot, which can
prove helpful when headstones are absent or illegible.
Few cemeteries have burial or plot purchase records on
their websites, but it’s worth a look. You’ll likely need to
write, call, email or visit the cemetery office to request copies.
If a cemetery is no longer in use, there’s probably no office
or sexton to consult. Records may have been archived or may
no longer exist. Ask about records at the town hall, county
courthouse and local genealogical and historical societies.
Check the FamilySearch catalog (run a place search and look
for a cemeteries heading) for microfilmed cemetery records
you can rent through a local FamilySearch Center.
BURIAL PERMITS: From about the mid-19th century forward, whenever a body was moved from one place (such as
a hospital or coroner’s office) to another, a permit followed
it and marked its progress. Once the railroad connected the
East and West coasts, transporting bodies became easier. So
if Uncle Harry died while he was on vacation or visiting relatives, his body could be shipped back home for burial. Those
Family Tree Magazine • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
AT A GLANCE:
BURIAL REGISTER
1
Along with
dates of death and
burial and name of
the deceased, this
record gives the
person’s birthplace,
which may help
identify whether
a person is an
ancestor or prove
helpful for further
research.
2
Cause of
death (“Disease”)
is usually the
doctor’s best
diagnosis based
on symptoms in
the days before
modern medicine.
Look up terms in
the online glossary
of archaic medical
terms at <www.
3
Not all listings
have dates or even
months of death
and burial, or
causes of death.
4
In the Remarks
column for the
child, it says the
parents affirmed
that the child was
baptized. Seek a
baptismal record.
5
This record
names the
cemetery and the
priest who handled
the service. Search
for additional
records at the
cemetery and the
priest’s church.
antiquusmorbus.
com>.
CITATION FOR THIS RECORD: Record of interments of the Parish of SS Cyril and Methodius in North Judson, Indiana (Salt Lake City,
Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1989), Family History Library microfilm 1638079, item 18.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
AT A GLANCE:
FIND A GRAVE RECORD
1
The headstone
doesn’t give Maria’s
parents’ or siblings’
names. The person
contributing the
memorial has done
some research or
made connections
based on other
stones. Always
verify these
relationships with
additional research.
2
The name of
the cemetery and
place are given.
Investigate whether
the cemetery has
a website and how
to obtain copies of
burial records.
3
“Created by”
refers to the person
who submitted
the photo and
information.
This person isn’t
necessarily a
relative of the
deceased and
may or may not
have additional
information.
4
Before
you email the
submitter, note
when the photo
was added. If it’s
been a few years,
remember that
email addresses
can change.
5
Include the
Find A Grave
memorial number
in your source
citation.
CITATION FOR THIS RECORD: Find A Grave, database and images (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 6 July 2016), memorial page
for Maria T. Hayden (27 October 1843-28 December 1925), Find A Grave Memorial No. 81509706 created by Vickye Blatherwick, citing
West Rhodes
Creek Cemetery, Hardin County, Ky., photograph by D. Scott Wilcher.
Family
Tree Magazine
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TOOLKIT
who died while serving in the military might be sent home
or buried near where they fell (see the next page for more on
this). Removing a body after interment required a permit, too.
Look for burial removals and permits in town, city or
county court records. These documents might be duplicated in funeral home records, or be available on microfilm
through FamilySearch. The records not only document the
body’s travels, but may be accompanied by a death certificate,
names and addresses of the sending and receiving funeral
homes, and possibly a relative’s name requesting the transit.
When you can’t find a burial place
When you don’t know the cemetery where your ancestor
was buried, start with the place he lived at the time of death.
Look for cemeteries affiliated with nearby churches whose
members share his religion and/or ethnicity. Research where
his family members and neighbors were buried. Search the
US Geological Survey’s Geographic Names Information System <geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic>, entering a state and
county, and selecting cemetery as the feature type.
Special situations arise that may call for a little additional
hunting. These include relocated cemeteries; family cemeteries on private property; institutional burials and military
burials at home or overseas.
RELOCATED CEMETERIES: Some cemeteries have been
relocated because of changes in land use (such as construction of a road) or acts of nature, particularly flooding. If you
suspect this to be the case, ask at the local town hall, courthouse, library or historical society.
Modern re-interment projects generally include painstaking efforts to document the original burials and the
location of each person’s remains in the new cemetery.
Even unmarked graves receive attention, with researchers
attempting to identify the remains from other sources. Once
you confirm when graves in a particular cemetery were relocated, check local newspapers for articles about the project
and notices seeking relatives of those being reinterred. Also
look for permits related to the removals and reburials.
FAMILY PLOTS ON PRIVATE PROPERTY: In newly settled
and rural areas, families often buried their dead in plots on
their own property. Slaves were generally buried separately
from the slaveowning family. The redistribution and repurposing of land over the years means family plots often are
difficult to find and access. If you’re unable to travel to the
area to ask about the cemetery at the local library or historical society, contact the genealogical or historical societies.
They may have done inventories or made transcriptions of
cemeteries in the area. For a small community, you might
also try writing to the local postmaster or mistress. That
person may be able to put you in touch with someone, such
as a town historian or descendant of the family, who knows
where the cemetery is. Each state has laws regarding visiting
cemeteries on private land; most require the landowner to
Websites
Access Genealogy: Cemetery Records
<accessgenealogy.com/cemetery-records>
African American Cemeteries Online
<africanamericancemeteries.com>
American Battle Monuments Commission <abmc.gov>
Arlington National Cemetery: ANC Explorer
<www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/Explore/Find-a-Grave>
Association for Gravestone Studies
<www.gravestonestudies.org>
BillionGraves <billiongraves.com>
TheCemeteryClub.com <www.thecemeteryclub.com>
Find A Grave <www.findagrave.com>
Geographic Names Information System
<geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic>
Histopolis <www.histopolis.com>
Interment.net <www.interment.net>
Names in Stone <www.namesinstone.com>
Nationwide Gravesite Locator
<gravelocator.cem.va.gov>
Online Cemetery Records and Burial Indexes
<www.deathindexes.com/cemeteries.html>
Tombstone Birthday Calculator
<www.searchforancestors.com/utility/birthday.html>
Tombstone Symbols and Their Meanings
<msghn.org/usghn/symbols.html>
US GenWeb Tombstone Transcription Project
<www.usgwtombstones.org>
Publications and Resources
The American Resting Place: 400 Years of History through
Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds by Marilyn Yalom
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Archaeology of American Cemeteries and
Gravemarkers by Sherene Baugher and Richard
Veit (University Press of Florida)
Cemetery Research on the Internet by Nancy
Hendrickson (Green Pony Press, Inc.)
Cemetery Walk: Journey into the Art, History and Society
of the Cemetery and Beyond by Minda Powers-Douglas
(AuthorHouse)
Cemetery and Sexton Records: A Research Guide by
Holly T. Hansen and Arlene H. Eakle (CreateSpace)
A Graveyard Preservation Primer, 2nd Edition
by Lynette Strangstad (AltaMira Press)
Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism
and Iconography by Douglas Keister (Gibbs Smith)
Your Guide to Cemetery Research by Sharon DeBartolo
Carmack (Betterway Books)
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Put It Into Practice
1. Where would you look for the name of the cemetery where
your ancestor was buried?
a. death certificate
b. census
c. Social Security Death Index
d. birth certificate
2. To locate a family burial ground, check with …
a. the local Walmart
b. the local genealogical or historical society
c. the telephone directory
3. After finding an ancestor’s information on a website, you
should then look for …
a. a census record
b. a will
c. a city directory listing
EXERCISE A: Go to Find A Grave <www.findagrave.com> and
search for Mortimer Montgomery of Hillsdale County, Mich.
According to this record:
1. When did Mortimer die?
________________________________________________________
2. How many half-brothers are listed?
________________________________________________________
3. What were the names of his parents?
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
4. Write a citation for this record.
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
EXERCISE B: Pick an ancestor whose headstone you want
to find. Using one of the cemetery database websites in this
article, locate the ancestor’s burial place. What information
does it give you? If relatives are listed, what records would
confirm they’re indeed relatives?
EXERCISE C: Choose an ancestor whose place of burial you
know. Using the tips in this article, search for burial, cemetery
plot purchase and permit records.
provide reasonable access. Your local contact might be able
to help you obtain permission to visit or have headstone photographs taken by a local researcher.
INSTITUTIONAL BURIALS: Many institutions, such as
tuberculosis sanatoriums, state hospitals, poor farms, almshouses, insane asylums, old folks’ homes, orphanages, convents and prisons, had their own cemeteries. Unfortunately,
many of the graves are unmarked or marked only by number,
sometimes to protect the patient’s and family’s privacy,
and sometimes due to lack of careful record-keeping. The
website InstitutionalCemeteries.org <institutionalcemeteries.
org> catalogs known cemeteries established for residents of
such places. The institution’s original records may include
burial registers or mention a burial in individual case file.
For more on finding institutional records, see the January/
February 2016 Family Tree Magazine <shopfamilytree.com/
family-tree-magazine-january-february-2016>.
POTTER’S FIELDS: Those who died without means or
families to arrange burial were interred at public expense in
cemeteries called potter’s fields, sometimes locally known as
“the city cemetery” or by another name. Graves might bear
small or no markers, and similar to institutional records,
might have been poorly kept. Research these online (Google
something like Cincinnati city cemetery) and through local
genealogical societies.
VETERANS CEMETERIES: Military veterans, especially
those killed in combat, may not have been buried in their
hometown cemeteries. Prior to the Civil War, soldiers who
died while on active duty were buried at their posts or forts
or wherever a death occurred. Even after the Civil War, regular Army, Union and some Confederate Army soldiers and
their relatives were often buried on military installations.
Look for records of these burials in the Ancestry.com database US, Military Burial Registers, 1768-1921 .
Some of these military burials were later removed to
national cemeteries. In 1862, Congress enacted legislation
authorizing the purchase of land to be used as national cemeteries for soldiers and their families. Search the Nationwide
Gravesite Locator database <gravelocator.cem.va.gov> for
graves at US national cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries,
and (for deaths in 1997 and later) graves in other cemeteries
with government markers. Find a list of included cemeteries
and their locations at <www.cem.va.gov/cems/listcem.asp>.
TIP: For relatives who were born or died before England and
its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, you’ll
need to convert gravestone dates from Old Style (OS) to
New Style (NS). Find an easy tool at <www.stevemorse.org/
jcal/julian.html>.
MORE
ONLINE
Free Web Content
Finding burial places <familytree
magazine.com/article/finding-thefinal-resting-place>
Podcast: Prepping for a visit to the
cemetery <familytreemagazine.com/
article/episode77>
Q&A: Fraternal symbolism on
gravestones <familytreemagazine.
com/article/now-what-grave-signs>
For Plus Members
How to edit tombstone photos
toolkit-grave-transformations>
What not to do with a tombstone
out-on-a-limb-grave-error>
Graveyard symbolism and history
tombstone-tales>
WWI soldiers who died overseas may have been buried
there temporarily. After the war, the Graves Registration
Service sent a questionnaire to each deceased soldier’s next
of kin, asking whether they wanted the soldier’s remains
returned to the United States for re-interment. While the
majority of remains were returned home, many families
opted to leave their loved ones overseas. More than 30,000
now rest in the many overseas American military cemeteries.
Search those burials the American Battle Monuments Commission database at <www.abmc.gov/database-search>.
Clues in cemetery records
Visit the tombstone if possible to pay your respects, take a
photograph and transcribe the inscription (do this on-site
as a backup, in case your photos don’t turn out). If there’s an
office, stop by for a map and to ask about burial records, if you
haven’t already inquired.
Illuminate hard-to-read gravestones by using a mirror or
foil-covered cardboard to direct sunlight onto the surface.
A spritz of plain water on the inscription also may increase
readability. When you get home, experiment with photoediting software to enhance the inscription. The September
2009 Family Tree Magazine has an example of this.
If the stone is intact, you can gently remove dirt with a
soft brush. But don’t apply shaving cream, chalk, commercial
cleaners or other substances, which will damage the stone.
If you can’t visit the cemetery and a photo isn’t on a site
like Find A Grave, the local genealogical society may offer a
gravestone photo service for a fee. Or you could hire a local
researcher through a site such as Genealogy Freelancers
<www.genealogyfreelancers.com> or Genlighten <genlighten.
com>. Then mine the photo and any burial records for clues:
Transcribe the deceased person’s name, dates of birth
and death, age at death and any other details. Those may
include the hard-to-find place of birth for immigrants or
migrants. Use an age and death date to calculate the birth
date with a tool such as <www.searchforancestors.com/
utility/birthday.html> . Does this agree with your previous
research? A tombstone is a secondary source, created after
a person’s death by those who didn’t necessarily have firsthand knowledge of the inscribed details. And engravers did
ShopFamilyTree.com
Genealogy Research to Go Kit
<shopfamilytree.com/genealogyresearch-to-go-kit>
Cemetery Research 101 independent
study course <shopfamilytree.
com/cemetery-research-101download-w6814>
Cemetery Research Guide
<shopfamilytree.com/americancemetery-research>
PUT IT INTO PRACTICE ANSWERS
1 a. 2b. 3b. EXERCISE A 1 April 26, 1857 2 three 3 William
Rochester Montgomery and Lydia Rosamond Moltroup Montgomery
4 Find A Grave, database and images (http://www.findagrave.com :
accessed [date]), memorial page for Mortimer Montgomery (1856-1857),
Find A Grave Memorial No. 115001788 created by JOT, citing Oak Grove
Cemetery, section 6, row 7, Hillsdale, Hillsdale County, photograph by JOT.
sometimes make mistakes. Look for other records to confirm
what you’ve found.
An immigrants’ gravestone inscription may be in his
native tongue. Figuring out what it says could reveal hardto-find details such as a birthplace and pre-migration name.
A Facebook group such as Genealogy Translations <www.
facebook.com/groups/genealogytranslation> may be able to
help with a translation or recommend someone who can.
The aforementioned lookup sites also can connect you with
genealogical experts in the language. Tools at <stevemorse.
org> can help you with dates on Jewish tombstones.
Gravestone engraving and icons may be clues about
occupation, fraternal organization memberships, religion
and more. An eye in a triangle or sunburst, for example,
symbolizes a Freemason, and the initials FCB indicate membership in the Knights of Pythias. You can look for fraternal
society records or newsletters through the organization (if
it still exists) or at libraries and historical societies. Use the
website <msghn.org/usghn/symbols.html> and resources in the
Toolkit box to “read” symbols on your relatives’ tombstone.
Look at surrounding graves for those of relatives. Photograph the stones even if you don’t recognize the names—they
could later turn out to be related. In online databases, search
your ancestors’ cemetery for family surnames.
Examine burial records for parents’ names and look
carefully at the plot owner. If it’s not a relative, how did your
family come to be buried in his plot? This could be a clue to a
the maiden name of a wife or mother.
As you can see, a person’s burial could create many types of
records with different pieces of information. These clues will
help you learn not just about your relative’s death, but also
about how he lived. •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
GRAVE MARKER TRANSCRIPTION FORM
Cemetery name: _____________________________________________________________ Date visited: ______________________________
Location: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Website: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Caretaker name/contact: ________________________________________________________________________________________________
Families interred here: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Notes _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Section/row/
plot No.
GPS
coordinates
Transcription
Description (type of stone, artwork,
grave decorations, condition,
orientation, etc.)
Photo
taken
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first
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Does your family tell of roots
among America’s original residents?
Start researching your American Indian
heritage with these resources and records.
B Y N A N C Y S H I V E LY
42
2016
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Library of Congress Prints and Photog r a p h s D i v i s i o n , L C - U S Z 6 2 - 1 2 7 6 74
The powerful Iroquois Confederacy, whose influence extended from New York to Canada and the Ohio Valley,
was originally composed of five nations: Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca. The Tuscarora
were added in 1720, leading to the confederation’s name of “Six Nations.” By the time this photo of tribal
members was taken in 1914, about 7,000 Iroquois lived in the United States and Canada.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ds-04366
3 MANY FAMILIES HAVE handed-down stories about
American Indian ancestors. For a family historian, discovering the truth behind these tales and tracking down that
elusive native forebear can be a challenging prospect. That’s
due to several factors:
Native tribes didn’t keep written records until the arrival
of European settlers.
Most surviving records were created only in the late 19th
century or early 20th century. If your Indian ancestor enters
your pedigree in the 1700s, it’ll be extremely difficult for you
to find him.
Indians learned through bitter experience that the US
government often didn’t have their best interests at heart.
They were sometimes denied their heritage by the officials
who created the records you need to search.
Being Indian carried a social stigma in the dominant
culture of the 19th and early 20th centuries. An Indian might
not make an effort to note his heritage or might try to “pass”
as a white person.
Not all Indians had an official tribal affiliation, making
them less likely to appear in tribe records.
Records may be wrong or incomplete. An Indian may be
listed as white or mulatto, and vice versa. Bureau of Indian
Affairs agents may have skipped a remotely located group in
enumerations.
You might have only the oral history passed down in your
family to point you toward Indian ancestry. Or you might
have more substantive information, such as the name of
Great-Grandma’s tribe or even her name on a tribal enrollment. Wherever your starting point, our beginner’s guide to
American Indian genealogy research will help you get going.
To make way for American settlers, many Indian tribes were removed
to other location—some, multiple times. Understanding the history of
your relative’s tribe will help you track down records. Comanche Indians,
for example, originally occupied what’s now eastern New Mexico,
southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, western Oklahoma and
much of northwest Texas. The Comanche Nation is now headquartered in
Oklahoma near Fort Sill, an Army installation built in 1869 and still in use,
where these men were photographed about 1873.
Beginning the journey
As with any research project, it helps to have a plan. Searching for an American Indian ancestor begins the same way
as a search for any other ancestor. Starting with yourself,
complete a pedigree chart going back to at least 1900 with
help from census, vital and other records. It’s particularly
helpful if you can trace your family back into the 1800s, but
you’ll discover that American Indian records become scarce
during this era.
Talk to your family members. Does anyone have memorabilia or records offering insights about Indians in your family
tree? Does the family claim descent from a particular tribe? If
so, research the history of that tribe to verify that its locations
over time match up with where your family lived and when
they lived there.
Then, lacking a time machine or the services of Sherlock
Holmes, look for these clues to suggest that you may have
Indian ancestry:
Your family lived in a place and at a time when they
might’ve come into contact with Indians. If you don’t know
the tribal affiliation of your suspected Indian ancestor, it’s
especially important to learn about the history of your ancestral places. Find out about local Indian nations and their
migrations into and out of the area. The removal of tribes
from their original homelands means records might be in
several different locations.
There’s an I or In, indicating “Indian,” in the race column of a relative’s census records. Take special note of the
1900 and 1910 US censuses. Prior to 1900, few Indians are
listed in the census. Indians living among the general population were identified as such beginning with the 1860 census,
but it wasn’t until 1900 that Indians were enumerated both in
the general population and on reservations. In that year and
in 1910, separate Indian schedules for those living on reservations provide added information. (Indians living off reservations with non-Indian families were enumerated with those
families.) Look for these schedules at the end of the census
pages for the county, though sometimes they’re grouped
together on last roll of microfilm for a state.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
43
Later censuses indicate Indians but not on separate schedules. The 1920 enumeration gives the degree of Indian blood.
An ancestor lived in Indian Territory around 1900.
Indian Territory was formed in 1834, lost half its land to
Oklahoma Territory in 1890, and became part of Oklahoma
(a name that’s Choctaw for “red people”) in 1907. The territory became the home of many tribes that were removed
from the Eastern United States.
You have a known blood relative listed on a tribal roll.
See pthe opposite page for more on these records.
Your DNA test shows markers characteristic of Indian
ancestry (see page 48).
Before you begin researching, though, it’s helpful to identify your goal. Do you simply want to verify a link to the
proud heritage of a Native American culture? Are you interested in pursuing tribal membership? If it’s the latter, keep
that in mind that you’ll need documentation proving you’re a
descendant of a known tribal member. Be extra sure to thoroughly cite the sources of information you find.
Far from home
Once you’ve completed the basic research and have a pedigree chart and some census records in hand, it’s time to dig
a little deeper. Because many families believe their link to
Indian ancestry is through one of the Five Civilized Tribes, in
particular the Cherokee, it’s useful to know about the records
of these tribes.
The Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole—are indigenous to
the southeastern United States, where European settlers’
demand for land pressured native populations out of their
traditional homelands. With the passage of the Indian
Removal Act in 1830, the US government began a series of
forced removals; see a timeline on the Oklahoma Historical
Society (OHS) website <www.okhistory.org /research/airemoval> . Among the most infamous is the Trail of Tears, a
1,200-mile forced march of about 16,500 Cherokee to Indian
Territory from their homelands east of the Mississippi River.
HOW TO USE THE DAWES ROLLS
1 VERIFY YOUR FAMILY LIVED IN INDIAN TERRITORY IN THE 1900 CENSUS. To qualify for enrollment, an
individual had to be living with his or her tribe in Indian Territory in 1900. If your family wasn’t there, it’s unlikely
you’ll find them on the Dawes Rolls. Below is a portion of the 1900 US Census for Indian Territory enumerating
the Willard Bryant family. Notice that Myrtle Bryant is listed as “Ind,” as is her son, Luther.
2 SEARCH THE DAWES ROLLS INDEX. You’ll find it at <www.okhistory.org/research/dawes>. Look for a
married woman under her married name. If you find a person in the index, note the card number. Click on it to
see other family members listed on the card. Do the ages and family members’ names match your records? In
addition to Luther, Myrtle Bryant’s card lists the two sons she’d had since the 1900 census. All have the same
census card number, 4166, but each has a different roll number. You’ll need both numbers for each individual you
research. Her husband, mother-in-law and nephew aren’t on the card; the 1900 census indicates they’re white.
1
2
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2016
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Indian Territory, which existed from 1834 to
1907 in what’s now Oklahoma, became the
home of many tribes that were removed from
the Eastern United States.
Up to 5,000 died of starvation or disease along the way. Different tribes were moved at different times (and some more
than once), but all shared a tragedy of loss—of homes, culture
and lives. To this day in some tribes, any relocation of ceremonial grounds must be to the East. Always and only toward
the East, toward home.
A major genealogical resource for the Five Civilized
Tribes is the Dawes Rolls, officially titled the Final Rolls
of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in
Indian Territory. Between 1898 and 1907, the Dawes Commission identified and registered members of the Five Civilized Tribes to distribute reservation lands to individual
tribal members. The remaining lands were then opened for
settlement. Included in this process were the Freedmen,
African-American former slaves of the tribes who, as stipulated by treaties after the Civil War, were considered tribal
3 OBTAIN THE APPLICATION PACKET. Use the name and/or census card number from the index to search
Native American Applications for Enrollment in Five Civilized Tribes at Ancestry.com or Fold3. Myrtle
Bryant’s packet includes her transcribed interview (which provides her parents’ and spouse’s names,
marriage date and more) and affidavits of each child’s birth. The interview page explains Willard was denied
tribal citizenship because the couple was married “too late under the Cherokee law in 1895.” That law
declared no white person intermarried since Dec. 16, 1895, could participate in tribal property distribution.
3
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45
citizens. Following are the three main types of records in
the Dawes rolls:
CENSUS CARDS, also known as enrollment cards, list each
enrollee’s tribe, blood quantum (the percentage of “Indian
blood” inherited from ancestors), name, age and sometimes
family members. Each person on the card was assigned a
tribal roll number.
ENROLLMENT PACKETS include transcriptions of interviews, application forms and other documentation of a person’s eligibility for tribal membership.
LAND ALLOTMENT PACKETS document the land an
enrollee received. They contain the enrollment number and
name of the applicant, names of his extended family, the
land’s location and legal description, and other documents.
Search an easy-to-use, free index of these records on the
OHS website <www.okhistory.org/research/dawes> or browse
a printed index at <catalog.archives.gov/id/300321> . An
advantage to browsing is that you can spot name variants
and misspellings. The census cards and enrollment packets
are digitized and searchable on subscription sites Ancestry.
com <ancestry.com> and Fold3 <fold3.com> (your library may
offer free access to these sites). Ancestry.com also has land
allotment packets, as does the free FamilySearch <www.family
search.org>. Follow the steps on page 44 to search the Dawes
Rolls. Terms you may see used to describe enrollees include:
46
2016
Your Indian ancestor may have used both a traditional and an American
name. Wis-Ki-Ge-Amatyuk, the Potawatomie ritual leader seated in the
center of this photo, was also known as John Buckshot. Native to the Great
Plains, upper Mississippi River and Western Great Lakes, the Potawatomi
Indians were removed to Indian territory in the 19th century. Federally
recognized tribes today are in Oklahoma, Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana and
Michigan (where this group posed in 1906).
BY BLOOD: The person has some degree of Indian blood.
BY MARRIAGE: The person, usually white, is married to
an Indian applicant.
MINOR OR NEWBORN: A child was born to the applicant
after the initial application was made, but before the rolls
were finalized in 1907.
The commission rejected nearly two-thirds of applicants
for tribal membership, and these applications aren’t part of
the Dawes rolls. An index to rejected cards is on National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA) microfilm
7RA147. NARA’s research facility in Fort Worth, Texas, has
this film, as well as indexes to rejected applications from
several tribes. OHS has many of these indexes as well. To
find copies you can rent from the Family History Library,
run a keyword search of the FamilySearch online catalog for
Dawes <www.familysearch.org/catalog/search>.
In addition to the Dawes Rolls, you’ll find two rolls for
the Eastern Cherokee that also have valuable genealogical
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Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-132033
From 1885 to 1940, Bureau of Indian Affairs
agents were required to conduct annual
censuses of the reservations they oversaw.
information, even if your ancestor’s application wasn’t ultimately approved. These are the Guion-Miller Roll (19061911), available on Fold3, and the Baker Roll (1924-1929),
found on Ancestry.com.
Not all Oklahoma Indians were members of the Five
Civilized Tribes. Today, 38 federally recognized tribes have
headquarters there. For other rolls, tribal censuses and more
resources on Oklahoma Indians, see the OHS website <www.
okhistory.org/research/genealogy>.
Stories to be told
Tribal rolls provide a good way to establish your family’s
Indian roots. But what if you can’t find your Indian ancestor
among the Five Civilized Tribes? You have 562 other places
to look. The federal government recognizes a total of 567
tribes, although these don’t necessarily align with traditional
tribal groups. Research these types of records for Indian
ancestors no matter their tribe:
INDIAN CENSUS ROLLS: From 1885 to 1940, Bureau of
Indian Affairs (BIA) agents were required to conduct annual
censuses of individuals on the reservations they oversaw.
The enumeration process wasn’t standardized and compliance wasn’t always a given; therefore, the information can
vary by year and location. You can search these censuses on
Ancestry.com and Fold3, and browse them at the free Access
Genealogy <www.accessgenealogy.com/native-american>.
TRIBAL ROLLS OR CENSUSES: All tribes have a base roll
(or rolls) used to determine eligibility for tribal membership.
But other rolls or censuses were taken at various times and
places, for various reasons. For example, Paiute on Nevada’s
Walker River Valley reservation were enumerated from 1902
to 1906 (records are on Ancestry.com), and Sioux (Dakota)
were enumerated several times between 1849 and 1935 (the
Minnesota Historical Society has microfilm <www2.mnhs.
org/library/findaids/m0405.xml>).
Many of these rolls are available on microfilm or online at
sites such as Ancestry.com, Fold3, FamilySearch and Access
Genealogy. Also look for film from NARA (see <archives.gov/
research/native-americans/rolls>), the Family History Library
and state archives where a reservation is located. Search websites and online catalogs for the tribe name and roll or census.
Ask at your library about borrowing film via interlibrary loan.
BIA RECORDS: NARA has a comprehensive guide to BIA
records at <archives.gov/research/native-americans/bia-guide>.
These records, arranged by state and agency, vary in content;
most aren’t indexed or digitized (though below, we’ve noted
some that are). Originals are housed at NARA facilities covering the areas where agencies were located. Three main types
of records are:
» EMPLOYMENT: Thousands of government employees
were tasked with administrating Indian reservations and
BIA agencies. In addition, the Civilian Conservation Corps of
the 1930s and ’40s had an Indian Division.
» SCHOOL: The BIA operated “Indian schools” across the
country. Find a listing, along with the affiliated agency for
each school, at <archives.gov/research/native-americans/biaguide/schools.html>. Records may include school censuses,
TOOLKIT
Access Genealogy: Native American
<www.accessgenealogy.com/native>
Ancestry.com: American Indian Records
<search.ancestry.com/search/group/nativeamerican>
Ancestry.com wiki: Overview of Native
American Research <ancestry.com/wiki/index.
Cyndi’s List: Native American
php?title=Overview_of_Native_American_Research>
<cyndislist.com/native-american>
FamilySearch wiki: American Indian Genealogy
<familysearch.org/wiki/en/American_Indian_Genealogy>
Fold3.com: Native American Collection
<go.fold3.com/native_americans_records>
National Archives and Records Administration: Native
Americans <archives.gov/research/native-americans>
National Congress of American Indians: Tribal directory
<www.ncai.org/tribal-directory>
Oklahoma Historical Society: Genealogy
<www.okhistory.org/research/genealogy>
TravelOK.com: Oklahoma genealogy resources
<www.travelok.com/genealogy>
Tulsa City-County Library Genealogy Center: Click American
Indian Research <guides.tulsalibrary.org/genealogy>
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47
student case files and group photos. You’ll find some of these
records online at Ancestry.com and Access Genealogy.
» ALLOTMENTS AND ANNUITIES: An allotment is a piece of
land deeded to an individual Indian as tribal lands traditionally held in common were divided. Annuities are payments
made to tribal members as stipulated in treaties. Related
records document property and financial transactions. You
can find some on Ancestry.com; keyword-search the card
catalog for allotment or annuity <search.ancestry.com/search/
cardcatalog.aspx>.
MILITARY RECORDS: American Indians have been serving in the US military since the Revolutionary War. You can
find them in many of the same service and pension records
as the other soldiers in your family tree. But Indians did
provide some unique services, creating additional records
held at NARA and explained at <archives.gov/publications/
prologue/2009/summer/indian.html>:
» CODE TALKERS: The Navajo “code talkers,” who used
their native language to encrypt military communications
during World War II, are well known. During both world
wars, Lakota, Cherokee, Choctaw and other Indians also
served as code talkers. Learn more at <www.nmai.si.edu/
education/codetalkers/html>.
» SCOUTS: Sometime hired, sometimes enlisted in the
Army, Indian scouts served in the American West from just
after the Civil War until 1947. Read more at <www.army.mil/
article/114646/Native_American_Scouts>.
In your DNA
Genetic genealogy has provided ways to break down longstanding brick walls. But keep in mind that although your
DNA might have markers that indicate Indian ancestry, test
results aren’t accepted as evidence for tribal membership
because they can’t prove affiliation with a specific tribe.
On autosomal DNA tests in particular (offered by Ancestry
DNA <dna.ancestry.com>, 23andMe <23andme.com> and Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder <www.familytreedna.com>), it’s
unlikely that markers indicating American Indian roots will
show up at all if your Indian ancestor is much farther back
than five or so generations. If you do have American Indian
NARA has digitized some BIA records, such as Surveys of Indian Industry,
1922, describing 132 Lac du Flambeau (Wis.) Agency land allotments and
the families that live on them. To find these surveys, search NARA’s online
catalog <catalog.archives.gov> for Lac du Flambeau and click Images
at the top. Originals are at NARA’s Chicago regional research facility.
Search NARA’s online catalog for descriptions of BIA records and digitized
records with terms such as a tribe’s or the BIA agency’s name.
48
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Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division,
pan 6a27004
genetic markers, research further in paper records, use your
percentage of American Indian DNA to estimate your relationship to an Indian ancestor, and search your DNA matches
for cousins who share that ancestor.
If your autosomal DNA test doesn’t reveal American
Indian roots, this doesn’t necessarily disprove Indian ancestry—it’s possible the ancestor lived long ago enough that you
didn’t inherit any of his or her DNA. For information on using
DNA to trace American Indian or other ethnic roots, see The
Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy by
Blaine Bettinger (Family Tree Books) <shopfamilytree.com/
guide-to-dna-testing-and-genetic-genealogy>.
Asking for help
It’s often said that although many records are now available
online, the vast majority still must be obtained on paper or in
person. This is especially true of Indian records. Once you’ve
exhausted online resources and what’s available through
your local library, turn to more-specialized archives and the
archivists who work there. Meg Hacker, archival director
of NARA at Fort Worth (home to many American Indian
records), recommends reaching out to her staff. “We’re not
genealogists,” she says, “but we are archivists and we can
help you get to the records you need.”
Free Web Content
American Indian genealogy websites
MORE
ONLINE
americanindianwebsites >
Podcast: DNA and genealogy
episode78>
Tribal censuses <familytree
magazine.com/article/insidesources-keeping-tabs-on-tribalcensuses>
American Indians’ traditional dress varied by culture, although as tribes
were relocated, members began to adopt other tribes’ and American
settlers’ attire. Chiefs and warriors of some Great Plains tribes wore
eagle feather warbonnets, like those in this 1925 image, for formal
ceremonies. Decorated headbands with one or two feathers are original
to a few Eastern Woodlands tribes. Learn more about American Indian
headdresses at <www.native-languages.org/headdresses.htm>.
The archives is revamping its website to make finding
records easier. A good place to start is <archives.gov/research/
native-americans/index.html>. You can ask research questions
by email ([email protected]), or phone (817-551-2051)
and get updates on Facebook <www.facebook.com/national
archivesfortworth> . Check out local resources in the area
where you’re researching. Ask a local librarian or genealogical society about resources that might be helpful to you.
Your American Indian ancestor may reveal him- or herself
when you least expect it. You can’t tell when some small
piece of the puzzle will turn up and lead to brick walls falling
down like dominos. In the meantime, your research is familiarizing you with resources and records that will enlighten
your knowledge of your entire family tree. ■
A technology trainer and self-professed “genealogy geek,”
Nancy Shively is a native “Okie” who lives and works within
the historical borders of Indian Territory near Tulsa, Okla.
For Plus Members
American Indian genealogy guide
native-sons-daughters>
Tracing an Indian scout
now-what-scouts-honor>
Five steps to find American Indian
Roots <familytreemagazine.com/
article/tribal-ties>
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ShopFamilyTree.com
Digging Into the Dawes Rolls video
class <shopfamilytree.com/digginginto-the-dawes-rolls>
American Indian Genealogy Cheat
Sheet <shopfamilytree.com/
american-indian-genealogy-cheatsheet>
Navigate Native American
Records on Ancestry.com video
class <shopfamilytree.com/
navigatenative-american-recordson-ancestrycom-download>
49
PIXELPERFECT
PHOTO
PROJECTS
50
2016
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Don’t keep family photos to
yourself! We’ll show you ways to
manage your image collection for
easier sharing and four fun picture
projects featuring your family.
B Y D E N I S E M AY L E V E N I C K
3 ANYONE WHO ENJOYS family history and photographs
knows that photos are meant to be shared. But sitting around
a computer or smartphone screen and scrolling past disorganized, unidentified, too-dark photos is even worse than the
endless slideshow of your uncle’s Grand Canyon vacation.
Fortunately, the digital revolution makes it fun and easy to
share photos—and details about them—in projects everyone
will enjoy. Blankets, mugs, mousepads, wall calendars and
more all can be personalized with digital photos or documents from your family history research.
Read on to discover how to take your photos from frumpy
to fabulous with tips for managing your photo projects, plus
step-by-step instructions and inspiration for four projects
you can pull together in a day (or less).
Project management
Photo service websites such as Shutterfly <www.shutterfly.
com> , Snapfish <www.snapfish.com> and Blurb <www.blurb.
com> let you arrange photos on everything from albums to
Facebook cover photo collages, mugs to dishtowels. If you’re
re-creating Grandma’s preserves for the family’s holiday
gifts, you even can make custom jam jar labels at VistaPrint
<www.vistaprint.com>.
The possibilities can make any family photo enthusiast’s
heart race. But the single biggest mistake most people make
when starting a digital photo project is to jump right into creating, without taking time to plan. Spend 10 minutes thinking about the purpose, theme, tone and appearance of your
project. This will make everything else easier, from deciding
which service to use, to choosing templates and colors, to
selecting the photos to include. If you know you want to create a fun and playful photo collage for a family reunion, for
example, you’ll be on the lookout for bright colors and casual
page layouts. You won’t waste time evaluating sober memorial designs, pet layouts and every other template the photo
service offers.
Organize your ideas with our free Photo Project Board
worksheet download from <ftu.familytreemagazine.com/pixelperfect-photo-projects> . It’s excerpted from my book How
to Archive Family Photos (Family Tree Books), available at
<shopfamilytree.com/how-to-archive-family-photos>. The same
download has our Online Photo Service Comparison worksheet to help you decide which service to use. You also can
check reviews of photo sites at <digital-photo-printing-review.
toptenreviews.com>.
Usually, you’ll register for a photo site, select the type of
project you want to create, choose a template, upload photos
and add them to the template, along with text. Having a photo
workflow to efficiently organize, edit and archive images will
help you when it comes time to start a project. How To Archive
Family Photos can help you set up a system that works for you.
You’ll also want to develop a routine for executing a project.
Feel free to borrow mine, refining each step as needed. Include
photo backup and archiving to preserve your original files:
1. REVIEW IMAGES with a project in mind, looking for likely
candidates to include. I may flag images for a second look, or
put copies in a separate folder to review (keeping the original
photos where they were filed).
2. COMPLETE A PHOTO PROJECT PLANNING BOARD with the
project and potential photos in mind. This helps me identify
gaps in available photos and starts me thinking about design,
fonts and colors.
3. CREATE A SEPARATE FOLDER AS A HOLDING ZONE for copies of project photos (if I haven’t already done so) and name
it for the project, for example, “Recipe Cards.” This folder
gets backed up as part of my daily computer backup routine.
Photo gift ideas
Feeling inspired to give photo gifts for the holidays? These
are some of our favorite options for personalized gifts big
and small:
Christmas ornament created on Shutterfly
<www.shutterfly.com/photo-gifts/ornaments>
family recipe book using Blurb <www.blurb.com/cookbooks>
biographical album about an ancestor using MyCanvas
by Alexander’s <www.mycanvas.com>, which can
import images from your Ancestry Member Tree
bracelet, locket or cufflinks from Pictures on Gold
<www.picturesongold.com>
tote bag from Snapfish <www.snapfish.com/
photo-gift/everyday-canvas-tote-details>
magnet from Tiny Prints
<www.tinyprints.com/shop/custom-magnets.htm>
photo Magic mug from Photobox <www.photobox.
co.uk/shop/home-gifts/photo-mug/magic-mug>
puzzle from Pinhole Press
<pinholepress.com/c/photo-puzzles>
calendar from Walgreen’s <photo.walgreens.com/
walgreens/storepage/storePageId=Calendars+-+New>
notepad from Target
<www.targetphoto.com/stationery/notepads.html>
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51
4. FIND ANY PHOTOS OR DOCUMENTS that aren’t already
digitized, and scan or photograph them (read on for tips to do
this). I put the digitized copies in my folder for the project.
5. CHOOSE THE ONLINE SERVICE FOR THE PROJECT, referring
to the Project Planning Board
6. CREATE THE PROJECT. This is the fun part! It’s easy to
upload my photos to the project when they’re all in one place.
7. DOWNLOAD THE FINISHED FILE of the completed project if
that’s an option. I archive it on an external hard drive.
Photo prep
Most photo services give you tools for minor photo editing,
such as cropping and converting color images to sepia or
black and white. For best results, though, I prep my photos
before I upload them by doing the following:
GET A GOOD DIGITAL IMAGE: Use a scanner, smartphone
camera or digital camera to digitize any photo prints or documents. Scanning is a good choice for images that may need
detailed restoration or editing with photo editing software
like Adobe Photoshop <www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.
html> or Photoshop Elements <www.adobe.com/products/
photoshop-elements.html> . Adjust your flatbed scanner settings to photographs, full color and at least 600 dpi (this resolution enables you to print the photo larger than its original
size without losing image quality). If the resulting file size
ends up too large for upload to your photo service (you’ll get
an error message), save a copy at 300 dpi. Although TIFF
files are the ideal format for your digital photo archive, you’ll
Favorite Recipe Cards
Share Grandma’s most famous foods with a collection
n of
o
recipe cards, complete with butter stains. This easy project
rojject is a
great gift for cooks or anyone who loves good cooking.
g.
Supplies
written or typed family recipes
photos related to the recipes (optional)
computer with word processor and printer
white cardstock
self-adhesive laminating sheets
hole punch
metal key ring or ribbon
can
nner
1. Scan each recipe, front and back, with a flatbed scanner
set at 300 dpi and full color. Alternatively, photograph
ph the
card with your digital camera or smartphone.
2. Open a new document in your word processor. Under
Format>Document, set the margins to 3 inches at the top
and bottom, and ¼ inch at each side.
3
3. Insert the digitized recipe and related photo (if using)
by going to Insert>Photo>Picture From File. Adjust the size
of each image and arrange them to fit the document. If the
original recipe was double-sided, place the image of the back
of the card on the second page of your document.
4. Print the design on cardstock. If the original recipe is
double-sided, choose double-sided printing (this varies with
the printer). Cut the card to 5½x8½ inches.
5. Laminate cards. Punch a hole in the corner of each and
assemble into a book with a key ring or ribbon.
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2016
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Pedigree Pennant Bunting
Invite your ancestors to the party with festive family bunting
sshowcasing old images or more recent snapshots. This
30-minute project makes great décor for a birthday party,
30-min
anniversary celebration
cele
or wedding.
3
Supplies
digitized family photos
bunting template (free download from <familytree
magazine.com/article/fun-family-photo-projects>)
computer with word processor and printer
white letter-size cardstock
scissors
ribbon or twine
glue
1. Choose one or more digital photos that will fit the triangular
bunting template and save copies in folder on your desktop
named Bunting.
2. Open the bunting template in your word processor. Choose
Insert>Photo>Picture From File and insert a photo as large as
possible on the page. It will appear below the template.
3. Double-click on the image (Control-click on a Mac) and
Choose Wrap Text>Through (or Behind Text, depending on your
version of Word) to move the photo on top of the template.
Double-click or Control Click on the image again and choose
Arrange>Send to Back, to place the photo behind the template.
Adjust the photo to fill the pennant template.
MORE
ONLINE
4. If you want to apply special effects to the image, such as
soft edges or a color filter, double- or control-click and choose
Format Picture.
5. Print the pennant pages on cardstock. Cut out the pennant
shape and score along the double line between the tab and the
pennant. Fold over ribbon or string and glue. Repeat to make
the bunting as long as desired.
Free Web Content
13 family history DIY projects
family-history-DIY-projects>
For Plus Members
Four steps to create a family archive
create-a-family-archive>
ShopFamilyTree.com
Making Memorable Photo Books
e-book <shopfamilytree.com/
making-memorable-photo-books>
Podcast: Archiving photos
Creative ways to share your research
episode84>
Digital photo filing tips
organize-your-hard-drive-photos>
8-ideas-to-share-family-history>
10 best photo-identification tips
the-big-picture-photo-clues>
How to Archive Family Photos
<shopfamilytree.com/how-toarchive-family-photos>
Story of My Life: A Workbook for
Preserving Your Legacy <shop
familytree.com/story-of-my-life>
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53
need to save copies in JPG format—the file type most photo
services require—for your project.
Smartphones equipped with scanning apps such as TurboScan (Android, iOS) <turboscanapp.com> , Genius Scan
(Android, iOS, Win Phone) <www.thegrizzlylabs.com> and
CamScanner (Android, iOS) <www.camscanner.com> let you
quickly digitize photos and documents, even if you’re at
Grandma’s house. These apps crop, de-skew and adjust lighting for best results to create sharp digital images of heirloom
photos and documents. If possible, output the image as a
JPG; otherwise, you can choose the PDF option and convert
it to JPG on your computer.
When taking pictures with your smartphone or digital
camera, always use the maximum resolution available on
your camera, turn the flash off and position yourself to take
For best results, take the time to
prep your photos before you upload
them to your project.
advantage of good natural light. For the sharpest photos, use
a tripod and remote shutter release.
RENAME IMAGES: Give image files in your project folder
new, simple names. If you have many, number them in
the order you plan to use them for the project: recipe01,
recipe02, and so on. Call your cover image something like
recipe-cover.
Family Faces Collage
Are family get-togethers growing so large that they’ve become
a version of Guess Who? Help everyone match names with
faces by making a quick family collage to print and post at your
next reunion (and share beforehand). You also can upload it to a
photo service to include in a photo book or other project.
Supplies
digitized family photos that show faces clearly
computer with internet access and printer
white cardstock
1. Collect copies of selected digital photos in a desktop folder
labeled Collage.
2. Go to the PicMonkey website <www.picmonkey.com>. (Close
the promotional popup if you see one.) Hover your mouse over
the Collage option at the top and choose Computer in the menu
that appears below. Navigate to your photos and follow the
prompts to upload them.
3. In the editing menu on the far left, click the collage icon to view
template options. Choose Square Deal, then click the template
with a grid of 16 squares. Choose Photos (the picture icon) in the
Editing menu and drag your images to the layout grid where you
want them. Choose Open Photos to upload more photos.
4. Click and drag each image until you like the placement. To
enlarge images or adjust the exposure, hover your mouse pointer
over the photo and click the Edit button in the top corner.
5. Click the artist’s palette icon in the editing menu to adjust the
spacing between photos, round the photo corners or change the
background color.
54
2016
6. To add the title, click Edit collage in the menu bar at the top.
This opens the collage in the editor. Click the text icon (Tt) and
choose a font (I used Lobster Two). Click Add Text at the top of
the font list. Type your text and adjust color, size and alignment.
7. Add the name in a text box under each photo. Preserve the font
and size by right-clicking or Control-clicking to copy a text box,
then paste it under the next photo and replace the name.
8. Close the text edit box and click Save in the top menu bar.
Name the collage, select “Pierce” or “Sean” photo quality for
optimal resolution, and click the green Save to My Computer
button. Open the file and print or use in a photo project.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
EDIT IMAGES: When you need a quick photo filter or
you want to add text or graphics to a photo, look to free
online photo editors like PicMonkey <www.picmonkey.com>
or Canva <www.canva.com>. These web browser-based programs offer font styles and designs to make your images look
fresh and modern. You’ll also find traditional editing features
such as cropping, color adjustment, blemish removal and
resizing. Always work on a copy of the original, and save your
edited version in the highest available quality with a new file
name to preserve the original version.
BE SELECTIVE: Play favorites and choose only the best
photos for your project. If you come up short on pictures, take
more or ask relatives for contributions. You also can consider
alternatives such as photos of gravestones or family homes,
old maps, newspaper clippings or digitized records. When a
less-than-best image is the only option, try using a photo editor to crop it, enhance the color, or other adjustments.
It can be frustrating when your project is humming along
and you get a warning that a photo’s resolution is too low for
printing. If the perfect photo is too small to and re-scanning
isn’t an option, consider a creative solution such as reducing
the size and using it as an inset image for a larger photo or
combining it with other images to create a collage. You also
could try making it transparent and using it as a background.
Also choose photos with aesthetics in mind. One of the
easiest ways to pull together a great collage or group of photos is by selecting images featuring similar colors or style.
Group snapshots of people wearing bright primary colors, or
formal photos with relatives all dressed up.
Odd-duck photos can stick out like the proverbial sore
thumb in a group of pictures. For example, one old blackand-white image will be the focus if it’s surrounded with
1980s color snapshots. Give each photo the same attention by
converting the color images to black and white (most photo
services let you do this within the project), or by saving the
old photo to use on a separate album page.
CONSIDER COPYRIGHT: Family photos, like any other created work, are subject to copyright laws. The right to reprint,
publish, modify and/or sell those works belongs to the creator for a number of years determined by law (most images
produced before 1923, however, are in the public domain).
This means your graduation portrait belongs to the professional photographer who captured it, and reunion snapshots
are the property of Uncle Richard, the gathering’s unofficial
shutterbug. Before using a photo taken by someone other
than you, get permission from that person. In addition to
staying on the right side of the law, you’ll preserve family
relationships. Read more in “Copyright and the Old Family
Photo” on The Legal Genealogist Blog <www.legalgenealogist.
com/2012/03/06/copyright-and-the-old-family-photo>. ■
Denise May Levenick offers more photo-archiving and
project ideas in How to Archive Family Photos (Family Tree
Books) <shopfamilytree.com/how-to-archive-family-photos>.
Got Roots? Scarf
Show your interest in family history using the PicMonkey
<www.picmonkey.com> photo editor and Spoonflower <www.
spoonflower.com> custom fabric service. This simple infinity
scarf uses a yard of custom-printed poly crepe de chine. You
can choose different fabrics (linen/cotton canvas is perfect
for the heirloom recipe dish towels featured in the December
2014 Family Tree Magazine <shopfamilytree.com/family-treemagazine-december-2014-grouped>) or custom gift-wrap.
Supplies
computer with internet access
sewing machine and supplies
1. Log into Spoonflower, choose the Create Fabric option and
select Other Design Options at the bottom of the page. Choose
to design a Fat Quarter 21x18 inches.
2. PicMonkey opens in your browser with a blank design area.
Choose the Text icon, select EcuyerDax and drag the Add Text
box to the design area. Type the text Got Roots? Enlarge the
words to fill the page horizontally by dragging the corner of the
text box to the edge of the design area.
3. Click on the Crop icon and adjust the crop box to enclose
your text. Click Apply. Click Save in the top toolbar.
TIP: Don’t be afraid to convert color to black-and whiteimages or vice-versa. Play with fun color filters to give a
pop art look to a single photo used repeatedly in a collage.
4. The Spoonflower design page opens; select Repeat: HalfBlock. Select poly crepe de chine as the fabric. Choose the size
and product and place the order. Sew your scarf following the
instructions at <www.wikihow.com/Make-an-Infinity-Scarf>.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
55
DNA TOOLBOX
Solve genealogy mysteries with these indispensable,
free online tools to analyze your DNA test results.
B Y B L A I N E T. B E T T I N G E R
3 YOU’VE HAD YOUR DNA tested with a genetic genealogy company (maybe even more than one), you’ve reviewed
your ethnicity estimate and you’ve gone through your match
list. Now what should you do? How do you maximize your
testing dollars to wring every bit of useful genealogical information out of your DNA test results? The answer may be in
tools at third-party websites—so, not the sites of companies
offering DNA testing—which give you new ways to analyze
your test results. That can lead you to revelations about your
family tree.
In this article, excerpted from my book The Family Tree
Guide to DNA Testing and Genetic Genealogy (Family Tree
Books), I’ll show you how to use the best free third-party
tools to analyze your autosomal DNA (atDNA) and make new
genealogy connections.
Analyze this
Each of the major testing companies—23andMe <www.
23andme.com> , AncestryDNA <www.dna.ancestry.com> and
Family Tree DNA <www.familytreedna.com>—offers tools its
customers can use to interpret their results. But separate,
third-party programmers and genetic genealogists have
56
2016
created DNA analysis tools and applications that are independent of the testing companies. They offer additional
capabilities and features you won’t find provided by the
testing companies, boosting what you’re able to accomplish
genealogically with your DNA results.
Usually, you’ll register for a site, upload your raw DNA data
(the numbers and letters assigned to your genomic variants
and their positions on your chromosomes) and perform a
variety of analyses. For example, the only way to compare
raw DNA data from one company’s test to raw data from
another company’s test is to have both sets of data uploaded
to the same third-party tool.
These tools can help you visualize your DNA in different
ways, such as in detailed chromosome browsers that display
which portions, or “segments,” of DNA you have in common
with another user. You can produce spreadsheets that put
the data at your fingertips and show you insightful patterns
and trends in your DNA. They can help you use a complex
research technique known as “triangulation,” in which you
use data from two different sources—in this case, two of your
matches’ genetic information—to draw conclusions about a
third, unknown source (i.e., a shared mystery ancestor).
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Other third-party tools let you expand your research company’s “in-common-with” (ICW) function, sometimes called
shared matches. ICW tools outline which genetic relatives
you and a DNA match both share, providing new research
leads and collaboration opportunities.
Our guide will focus on the two most commonly utilized
third-party tools, hosted by GEDmatch <www.gedmatch.com>
and DNAGedcom <www.dnagedcom.com>. Let’s dig into what
each website can offer.
Getting into GEDmatch
The most popular third-party tool is GEDmatch <www.
GEDmatch.com> , created by Curtis Rogers and John Olson
to help users can upload their raw DNA data and perform
a variety of analyses. In October 2015, genetics news site
GenomeWeb <www.genomeweb.com> reported that GEDmatch “has over 130,000 registered users, over 200,000
samples in its DNA database, and more than 75 million
individuals in its genealogical database.” The samples in the
database are atDNA raw data results users have exported
from 23andMe, AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA, and
uploaded to GEDmatch.
The first step to using GEDmatch is to register for a free
account. The site offers additional tools for paying users, but
the free account is sufficient to start with. Once you have a
profile, you can access the GEDmatch tool and upload a “kit,”
or the raw data results from a test, for processing and inclusion in the GEDmatch database. You’ll be assigned a number
for each kit you upload; be sure to write this down where you
won’t lose it.
As shown in the image below, the main page of GEDmatch
displays several panels, each with different information. In
the File Uploads panel, you’ll find links with step-by-step
instructions for downloading raw data from each testing
company and uploading the data to GEDmatch.
Some of the site’s features are available immediately for
newly updated results. For others, you’ll need to wait a day or
two for your raw DNA data to be processed. The main page,
shown below, gives you access to many free tools available at
GEDmatch. The most important and most commonly used
are indicated on the image:
A “ONE-TO-MANY” MATCHES: This compares the raw
data of a single GEDmatch kit to the raw data of every other
kit in the GEDmatch database in order to identify genetic
cousins who share an amount of DNA above the sharing
threshold. The sharing threshold, which you can manually
adjust higher or lower, is 7 centimorgans (cMs), meaning
that two individuals must share a segment of DNA that’s
GEDmatch
A
B
C
D
E
F
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
57
7 cMs or longer in order to be identified as a genetic cousin
using this tool. See pages 59 and 60 for steps to use this and
the One-to-One tools.
B ONE-TO-ONE COMPARE: This compares the atDNA data
of a single kit to the atDNA data of one other kit to identify
segments of atDNA shared between the kits above the sharing threshold. You can manually adjust the sharing threshold
to be higher or lower than the default 7 cMs.
C X ONE-TO-ONE: This compares the X-chromosomal DNA
(X-DNA) data of a single kit to the X-DNA data of one other
kit in order to identify segments of X-DNA shared between
Adding to Your Toolbox
In addition to GEDmatch and DNAGedcom, many other thirdparty tools can help you maximize your atDNA test results.
Here’s a list of some of the most common tools:
DAVID PIKE’S UTILITIES <www.math.mun.ca/~dapike/
FF23utils> is a free comprehensive suite of tools for analysis.
Unlike other third-party tools, this one operates within your
browser, which may alleviate some privacy concerns of people
hesitant to upload raw data to a third-party site.
DNA LAND <dna.land> is a free tool for analyzing ethnicity
and finding genetic cousins run by academics from Columbia
University and the New York Genome Center.
GENETIC GENEALOGY TOOLS <www.y-str.org> comprises
an impressive list of advanced tools for analyzing raw data,
including Ancestral Cousin Marriages, Autosomal Segment
Analyzer, My-Health and many more.
GENOME MATE PRO <www.genomemate.org> is a
powerful, free computer program that organizes data from
23andMe, AncestryDNA, Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch,
among other sources, into a single working file. Information
is stored locally on your computer, which helps maintain the
privacy of your data.
PROMETHEASE <www.promethease.com> is a literature
retrieval system that creates a personal DNA report based
on scientific literature and the test-taker’s raw data files from
23andMe, AncestryDNA and Family Tree DNA. Reports contain
information about health and ancestry as well as several other
new options. Promethease has a variable cost depending on
which raw data files you use and how many raw data files are
analyzed at once.
SEGMENT MAPPER <www.kittymunson.com/dna/
SegmentMapper.php> is a free, powerful mapping tool that
shows specific DNA segments in a graphic chromosomestyle chart.
Also see the impressive list of free and paid third-party tools
available on the International Society of Genetic Genealogy’s
Wiki <www.isogg.org/wiki/Autosomal_DNA_tools>.
58
2016
TIP: Once you upload a raw data file to GEDmatch, it will
be assigned a kit number. The first letter in a kit number
represents the testing company: M for 23andMe (for
example, kit number M123456), A for AncestryDNA
(A123456), and T for Family Tree DNA (T123456).
the kits above the sharing threshold. Again, the default is 7
cMs, which you can adjust.
X-DNA is on the X-chromosome. Every man has one X
chromosome, inherited from his mother, and every woman
has two X chromosomes, one from each parent. This inheritance pattern can make X-chromosome analysis complicated,
so you’ll want to consult resources such as my aforementioned book The Family Tree Guide to DNA & Genetic Genealogy and the International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki
<isogg.org/wiki/X-chromosome_testing>.
D ADMIXTURE: In this process, the site performs an ethnicity analysis of atDNA data using one of several ethnicity calculators. You can view results in various formats, including as
percentages, in a chromosome browser or as a pie chart.
E PEOPLE WHO MATCH ONE OR BOTH OF TWO KITS: This
analysis uses two kit numbers to identify genetic cousins
above a sharing threshold in three categories:
kits in the GEDmatch database that match both of the
two entered kit numbers
kits in the GEDmatch database that match only the first
of the two entered kit numbers
kits in the GEDmatch database that match only the second of the two entered kit numbers
If you enter kit numbers for yourself and your mother, you
could find 1) matches you both share; 2) people who match
you but not your mom (and thus may be related on your dad’s
side); and 3) people who match your mom but not you.
F ARE YOUR PARENTS RELATED?: This determines whether
a kit has any segments of atDNA that are the same from both
parents, meaning both copies of a chromosome have the
same DNA—and were inherited from the same ancestor—at
that location. This can occur if the parents are related.
Genetic genealogists interested in learning more about
their atDNA test results should experiment with the tools at
GEDmatch and keep checking back as the site continues to
grow and develop new tools and functionality.
Digging into DNAGedcom
Rob Warthen launched DNAGedcom <www.dnagedcom.com>
in February 2013 with tools allowing users to download
important data files from 23andMe and Family Tree DNA.
It also has tools for comparing GEDCOMs (computer files
containing your family tree data), performing ICW analysis
and triangulating DNA results.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
MORE
ONLINE
Free Web Content
DNA glossary <familytreemagazine.
com/article/learning-the-dna-lingo>
Genetic genealogy tips
genetic-genealogy-research-tips>
Genetic genealogy resources
genetic-genealogy-resources>
For Plus Members
Tutorial: Analyze Your DNA with
GEDmatch <familytreemagazine.
com/article/tutorial-analyze-DNAwith-GEDmatch>
Tutorial: How to Use DNALand
how-to-use-dnaland>
Autosomal DNA testing overview
autosomal-dna-genealogy>
ShopFamilyTree.com
The Family Tree Guide to DNA
Testing and Genetic Genealogy
<shopfamilytree.com/guide-to-dnatesting-and-genetic-genealogy>
Genetic Testing: Tools to Anaylze
DNA Results on-demand webinar
<shopfamilytree.com/genetictesting-tools-to-analyze-dnaresults-ondemand-webinar>
Genetic Genealogy Cheat Sheet
<shopfamilytree.com/geneticgenealogy-cheat-sheet>
GEDmatch Quick Guide: One-to-Many Matches
By comparing the atDNA data of one kit to
other kits in the GEDmatch database, the
One-to-many tool lets you look for matches
at other testing companies without having
to test there. It displays up to 2,000
matches from the GEDmatch database.
Once your data has processed, click
One-to-many matches on the main page,
then enter your kit number and select
whether it’s based on atDNA or X-DNA, as
well as the segment threshold. The default
threshold for identifying a genetic cousin
is at least one shared segment of 7 cMs or
more. You can decrease this to a minimum
of 3 cMs to find more-distantly related
matches or increase it up to 30 cMs to find
more-closely related matches.
A
B
The One-to-many analysis creates a
table of every kit in the database that
shares a segment of DNA with the query
kit, ranked from the kit that shares the
most DNA to the kit that shares the least
DNA. Each row in the table is a kit that
shares DNA with the query kit, providing:
A the sex of the kit owner
B a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)
and/or Y-chromosomal DNA (Y-DNA)
haplogroup, if the owner of that matching
kit has provided that information
C the total amount of DNA shared
between the two kits
D the largest segment of DNA the two
kits share and the estimated number of
generations between them
C
D E
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E the total amount of X-DNA shared
between the two kits (if any)
F the largest segment of X-DNA
shared between the two kits (if any); and
the kit owner’s email address
The name and email address for each
match is provided (we’ve obscured
them here), so you can contact them
for help identifying the shared ancestry.
Additionally, you can estimate your
relationship to a match based on the
total amount of DNA you share using
a chart like the one at <isogg.org/wiki/
Autosomal_DNA_statistics>. This table
shows the predicted amount of total
shared DNA for a wide variety of different
relationships.
F
59
GEDmatch Quick Guide: One-to-One Compare
The One-to-one tool compares the atDNA
data of a single “query” kit to the atDNA
data of one other kit to identify each
segment of atDNA the kits share. Start by
clicking One-to-one Compare on the main
page, then enter the kit numbers you want
to compare and select your preferences.
The sharing threshold starts at 7 cMs,
which you can adjust higher or lower.
You can view shared segments as a
table or a graphic display. The table at the
top right shows DNA segments shared
by first cousins once removed, with the
sharing threshold set to 7 cMs. These
cousins share 22 segments of DNA,
ranging from a maximum of 47.3 cMs
to a minimum 8.0 cMs. For each shared
segment, the One-to-one tool provides the
chromosome where the shared segment is
located, and the start and stop location of
that segment on the chromosome.
Another viewing option is a
chromosome browser (right), which shows
where along each of the chromosomes
two people share a segment of DNA. The
image compares chromosomes 12 and 13
for two first cousins once removed, with
the sharing threshold set to 7 cMs.
The colors indicate whether the relatives
share DNA at that place along each
chromosome—and because we all have
two copies of each chromosome (one copy
inherited from each parent), the color on
these chromosome browsers indicates
different levels of match at that location:
Red means the two don’t match on
either copy of their chromosomes at that
location.
Yellow indicates a “half match,” in
which the cousins share DNA on just one
copy of their chromosome at that location.
Green indicates a “full match,” in
which the two cousins share segments of
DNA on both copies of their chromosome
at that location
60
The first cousins once removed
share more DNA on chromosome 13
than on chromosome 12. The segments
underlined with a blue bar on the bottom
chromosome (No. 13) are the segments
of DNA the cousins share above the
matching threshold of 7 cMs.
Closer relatives—such as full siblings—
share much more DNA. Below, brothers
2016
share three segments of DNA (underlined
by blue bars) on chromosome 21. Although
there are only two blue bars, a portion of
the blue bar on the left includes a full match
(in green) where both brothers inherited the
same DNA from each parent. Comparing
their table to the chart, however, shows that
GEDmatch only provides the start and stop
positions of half segments.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Once you’ve created a free DNAGedcom account, you can
perform analyses with data from each of the three testing
companies, plus GEDmatch. Download Family Tree DNA
data from that company’s website by hovering over Family
Tree DNA on the DNAGedcom main menu, clicking Download Family Tree DNA Data, and entering your Kit number and Family Tree DNA password. Similarly, uploading
data from GEDmatch is relatively straightforward—simply
hover over DNA kits on the main page, then click Upload
GEDmatch DNA Data (Beta). The GEDmatch Client, software that downloads your DNA results from AncestryDNA
or 23andMe, however, will require you to have a paid
subscriber account. The subscription ($5/month or $50/
year) grants you access to the DNAGedcom Client. Find it
DNAGedcom Quick Guide: Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer
The Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer
(ADSA) uses data from Family Tree DNA
or GEDmatch to generate a table of
matches and ICW information to help you
triangulate your matches. The manual at
<www.dnagedcom.com/adsa/adsamanual.
html.php> can help you use this tool.
To start, hover over Autosomal Tools
on the main menu, then click Autosomal
DNA Segment Analyzer. The ADSA can
generate five types of reports, but we’ll
focus on the Classic ADSA. In the box
(right), you’ll find options to customize
your results. For example, you can specify
which chromosomes you want to graph or
set a minimum segment length (the site
recommends at least 5 cMs to keep results
manageable and reliable) or the number of
single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)
involved. You also can opt to produce your
data in table form so you can copy it to a
spreadsheet. Next, choose the kit you want
to analyze from the dropdown menu and
click Get Report.
Your results display your match
information in a chart (below) with the
names matches’ names (obscured here
for privacy), the start and end places of
your shared DNA with that match, the
numbers of cMs and SNPs you share,
and the matches’ e-mail addresses. Each
match is assigned a color, and a color in a
match’s ICW column indicates who else
that match shares DNA with.
Furthermore, the segments of DNA you
share with each match are combined and
displayed as a single bar in the Segments
column, so you can visually compare the
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
combined length of your shared segments
of DNA. If you hover over matches’
names, you’ll see information such as
their user-submitted surnames, suggested
relationships, and matching segments.
This tool can be helpful in identifying
potential triangulation groups you can
explore, perhaps by contacting the
appropriate matches. However, in order to
use DNA triangulation, you’ll still need to
identify which DNA you share with these
potential triangulation groups; the ADSA
only shows you how much DNA you share
with your matches.
61
DNA Gedcom
D
A
B
C
by hovering over either DNA Kits or 23andMe. For more on
downloading and using the application, see DNAGedcom’s
guide <www.dnagedcom.com/docs/Welcome_to_the_DNA
Gedcom_Client.pdf>. Once you’ve uploaded your data, you’ll
have access to several tools on the DNAGedcom home page
(shown above), including:
A AUTOSOMAL DNA SEGMENT ANALYZER: The ADSA tool
uses Family Tree DNA or GEDmatch data to generate tables
of information on your matches, DNA segments and ICW
matches. You then can triangulate matching segments among
groups of three or more people, although as explained in the
Autosomal DNA Segment Analyzer quick guide on page 61,
this tool doesn’t provide “perfect triangulation.”
B JWORKS: This downloadable Excel tool creates a
spreadsheet of overlapping segments and your ICW status
among your matches, which helps identify potential groups
for triangulation. ICW status refers to whether one of your
matches shares DNA with another of your matches, usually
indicated by an X. The tool requires three things: (1) chromosome browser data (segment data); (2) a full match list; and
(3) ICW status.
C KWORKS: This tool, the online version of JWorks,
generates a spreadsheet of overlapping segments and ICW
status among your matches, helping you to identify potential
TIP: While DNA companies and services typically have
privacy policies, no company can totally guarantee your
data’s security. As a result, you should upload test result data
or allow a third-party site to access it only if the owner of the
data has provided explicit permission.
62
2016
triangulation groups. KWorks requires the same three components as JWorks.
D GWORKS: This tool compares family tree information to identify shared ancestors. GWorks can also sort and
filter tree information and perform Boolean searches of
the trees. It can use GEDCOMs uploaded by the user, family tree information downloaded from matches at AncestryDNA using the DNAGedcom Client (or the AncestryDNA
Helper <www.itstime.com/AncestryDNAHelper.htm>, another
third-party tool available to test-takers), and family tree
information downloaded from matches at Family Tree DNA
using DNAGedcom’s Download Family Tree DNA Data tool
(located under Family Tree DNA>Download Family Tree
DNA Data). For more information about GWorks, see <www.
dnagedcom.com/docs/GWorks_Howto_Updated.pdf>.
The programmer behind DNAGedcom constantly
improves existing tools and develops new ones. As with
GEDmatch, you’ll want to monitor this and other third-party
tools to stay abreast of changes.
While the analysis tools offered by DNA companies can
sometimes be limited in their scope and utility, applications
created by companies such as GEDmatch and DNAGedcom
can provide valuable information and the ability to compare
your DNA to results from different testing companies. The
new information and connections you uncover might be the
key to unlocking a family mystery. ■
Blaine T. Bettinger is the author of
The Family Tree Guide to DNA Testing and
Genetic Genealogy (Family Tree Books),
from which this article is excerpted.
Order your copy of the book at <shopfamily
tree.com/guide-to-dna-testing-and-geneticgenealogy>.
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researchroadmap
Maps to point your research in the right direction
{BY ANDREW KOCH}
David Rumsey Map Collection, Europe—physical features & population, John
B a r t h o l o m e w a n d S o n , 1 9 2 2 , < w w w . d a v i d r u m s e y . c o m / l u n a /s e r v l e t /s /q s q b 2 m >
Ethnographic Maps
3 WE OFTEN THINK of the United
States as a melting pot, but the Old
World has its own share of ethnic
diversity. Centuries of migration have
led to complicated—and sometimes,
surprising—enclaves in Europe. Ethnic Germans, for example, have lived
for centuries along the Danube River,
which passes through or along what’s
now Germany, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania.
Maps that capture the geographic
distribution of ethnicities are called
ethnographic maps. These maps generally color-code the places various
groups lived at a particular moment in
time. While not a perfect evaluation,
they can give you an idea of the ethnic
makeup of your ancestor’s homeland,
and whether your ancestors were part
of an ethnic majority there.
The usefulness of an ethnographic
map in your research partially depends
on the map’s level of detail. The map
shown here, for example, broadly
indicates Croatians, Serbs, Bosnians,
Herzegovinians, Montenegrins and
Kosovars all in the same shade of yellow, labeled (together with Bulgarians)
“South Slavs.”
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The University of Chicago library
website has several 19th-century ethnographic maps <www.lib.uchicago.edu/
e/collections/maps/ethnographic> . The
collection focuses on the colonial world
(whose ethnic makeups were just beginning to be studied by Western scholars)
as well as areas of Europe and the Middle
East—especially where ethnic boundaries conflicted with contemporary political boundaries. The David Rumsey Map
Collection <www.davidrumsey.com> also
has several ethnographic maps, including this one, originally published in
1922 as part of an English atlas. <familytreemagazine.com>
63
photodetective
Uncovering clues in historical photos
{ B Y M A U R E E N A . TAY L O R }
Foreign Photo Affairs
3 THIS OLD PHOTOGRAPH has
so many clues that they distract the
viewer: the busy architectural background, the plants, the clothing, a tapestry and, of course, the people. Reader
Jan Wenk is convinced they’re relatives
of her German immigrant ancestor,
Henrich Otto Schneider.
Schneider was born in 1862 in the
Hesse-Darmstadt area of Germany, and
immigrated Sept. 14, 1886. Two years
later, he married Anna Marie Bohle, from
Seengen, Canton Argau, Switzerland.
Henrich worked in St. Louis breweries including Anheuser-Busch. The
family’s neighborhood was devastated
by the Great Cyclone of 1896. A fireman
at the time, Henrich was likely involved
in the cleanup. Wenk can tell the story
of his life in America, but hopes this picture holds the key to family in Germany.
The oversized photo was in a box
of images belonging to Wenk’s parents. It has no caption or photographer’s imprint. My search in Ancestry.
com’s German records for Henrich Otto
Schneider, born May 5, 1862, turned
up a new match born in Freiensteinau,
Hessen, Germany. Sharing parents of
the same names, Johann and Margaretha, were Johann (born in 1856), Anna
(1859), Katharina (1865) and an earlier
Henrich (born in 1857, but likely died).
The elderly woman on the left is old
enough to be the grandmother of the
children and mother of at least one
of the adults. A teenage girl stands at
attention in a dress with wide lapels, a
center placket and a banded waist. Her
5
2
3
6
4
64
2016
c o u r t e s y o f J a n We n k
1
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outfit suggests a date about 1897. A man
with bow tie stands poses hand on hip.
The boy on the right wears a jacket,
standing shirt collar and ascot-style tie.
It’s quite possible Wenk has a photo of
Henrich’s family he left behind in Germany. Her mystery is one step closer to
being solved.
Wenk’s next steps include further
research to document ages and birth
dates of German family and find living relatives there. Take a DNA test to
look for cousins, who may have another
copy of this image. There could be a
special family reunion in the future.
1 Take care when estimating ages of the
individuals in a picture. Avoid taking family
stories at face value; instead, use facts to
prove who’s in a picture.
2 The bodice details on this girl’s dress date
the picture to about 1897. In group portraits,
you’ll often see young women wearing the
latest styles and Grandma in clothing a
decade older.
3 The plants could be a prop to decorate
the scene or a clue to someone’s green
thumb. Seek out a horticultural expert to
identify plants in pictures. It could place your
ancestor in a particular region.
4 Leaves on the ground suggest this picture
was taken in the fall.
5 Architectural elements in this picture
point to it being taken overseas. Those
interesting shingles and windows suggest a
structure built in the late 19th century.
Class
is in
Session
Learn how to research your roots
with convenient online courses
from the genealogy experts at
Family Tree Magazine!
<familytreeuniversity.com>
Is your family history
too valuable or too fragile
to send away in a box?
a
specializing in the
digital imaging
of rare and
valuable
materials
42-line.com
Get genealogy
advice from the
experts in the
free Family Tree
MagazinePodcast,
hosted by
Lisa Louise Cooke
6 Props in images taken at a family
home often relate to the family. Perhaps a
descendant in Germany still owns this woven
table cover. Have you found an old mystery photo?
Submit the image and your story by
following the instructions at <familytree
magazine.com/submit-a-mysteryphoto>. It may appear on the Photo
Detective Blog <blog.familytreemagazine.
com/photodetectiveblog>.
Listen in iTunes or at
podcast>
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Get live customer support in
seconds, your price in minutes and
your books printed in 48 hours.
Go to 48hourbooks.com ...
we print books unnaturally fast.
65
thetoolkit
Tech tutorials, reviews and roundups
{EDITED BY DIANE HADDAD}
RESOURCE ROUNDUP
Listen and Learn With
Genealogy Podcasts
3 BEFORE NIGHTLY NEWS and Net-
flix documentaries, we tuned in to the
radio for need-to-know information.
Radio variety shows, soap operas and
comedy programs dominated American
media in the 1940s. But as The Buggles
put it in their 1979 song, “Video killed
the radio star.”
Now podcasts are reviving the art
of informative audio. Edison Research
reported in 2016 that 21 percent of
Americans age 12 and older had listened
to at least one podcast in the past month.
That’s at least 57 million podcasts on
innumerable topics—including genealogy. To acquaint you with this source
for family history tips and resources,
we’ve listed eight of our favorite, free
genealogy-related podcasts.
It’s easy to stream or download a
podcast by visiting the website listed
for each one, or by using iTunes
66
<www.apple.com/itunes> or an app such
as Stitcher Radio <www.stitcher.com> .
Extreme Genes
Listening can turn your commute or
house-cleaning session into an educational opportunity. Be careful though—
you might get hooked: The Americans
who tune in weekly listen to about five
podcasts a week.
TIP: You can use a “podcatcher” app
to download podcasts directly to your
mobile device. Stitcher Radio <www.
stitcher.com> is a free one for iOS
and Android; for a few dollars, you
can get added features in apps such
as Downcast (iOS) <downcastapp.
com> or BeyondPod (Android) <www.
beyondpod.mobi>.
2016
HOST: Scott Fisher and team
FREQUENCY: weekly
LISTEN ON: <extremegenes.com>
With 100 episodes and titles such
as “One Marriage, Nine Kids, Eight
Fathers!” and “Finding A Murder
Victim’s Next of Kin,” Scott Fisher,
self-proclaimed “roots sleuth” and
longtime morning show host, doesn’t
shy away from the intimate or interesting. Extreme Genes delivers weekly
podcasts that highlight the emotional
and sometimes literal journey each
genealogist takes to find his or her family. Team member David Allen Lambert,
Chief Genealogist for the New England
Historic Genealogical Society <www.
americanancestors.org> , hosts “Tech
Tips” that’ll give you new ways to find
family history with social media and
websites. Happily, Fisher has started
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posting transcripts of each podcast on
his site, so the days of rewinding to
catch a minute you missed ago are over.
The Genealogy Guys Podcast
HOST: George G. Morgan and Drew
Smith
FREQUENCY: once or twice per month
LISTEN ON: <genealogyguys.com>
The “Genealogy Guys” are genealogist
and family history author George G.
Morgan and Drew Smith, instructor
for the University of South Florida
School of Library and Information Science. They began podcasting weekly
in 2005, discussing genealogy conferences, books, news and research
destinations. Each episode comes
with a summary on the show website
and links to online resources the guys
and their guests recommend. Keep an
eye out for the notable, fun episodes
recorded in front of live audiences at
genealogy conferences.
Family Tree Magazine Podcast
HOST: Lisa Louise Cooke
FREQUENCY: monthly
LISTEN ON: <familytreemagazine.com/
info/podcasts>
If you enjoy reading Family Tree Magazine, chances are you’ll love our podcast. Genealogist Lisa Louise Cooke,
who also produces the Genealogy Gems
podcast (see below), invites expert contributors to delve into the research and
news featured on these pages.
Each podcast focuses on a theme,
such as maximizing military records
or finding Irish ancestors. The folks
behind Family Tree Magazine, including editor Diane Haddad and publisher
Allison Dolan, also chat about the books
and resources they’re working on, as
well as their own genealogy research.
Show notes for each episode feature
links to recommended websites and
articles on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.
Subscribe to the podcast at <feeds2.feed
burner.com/FamilyTreeMagazinePodcast>.
Genealogy Gems
Genealogy Gold Podcast
HOST: Lisa Louise Cooke
FREQUENCY: monthly
LISTEN ON: <lisalouisecooke.com/
podcasts>
Cooke’s own Genealogy Gems podcast
highlights research techniques that
are accessible to genealogists of any
skill level. She also scores interviews
with fascinating figures such as “Who
Do You Think You Are?” executive
producer Dan Bucatinsky (episode 113)
and Pamela Smith Hill, editor of the
Laura Ingalls Wilder annotated autobiography Pioneer Girl (episode 183). You
also get to hear from other listeners, in
letters sharing their research joys and
frustrations. Podcasts are free, but premium content is available to Genealogy
Gems Premium members.
Featuring not only a podcast, but also
resource articles and a biweekly genealogy newsletter, the Ancestral Findings website <ancestralfindings.com>
(home to the Genealogy Gold Podcast)
has been around almost two decades.
Moneymaker’s bite-sized podcasts are
perfect for busy researchers, clocking
in at around five minutes long with
tightly focused topics such as “How to
Use Family Lore to Discover the Real
Stories” (episode 74) or “WWI Draft
Cards: Where to Find Them and What
They Can Tell You About Your Ancestors” (episode 67). If there’s a particular brick wall you’ve run into, scroll
through Ancestral Findings’ playlist of
almost 100 podcasts to find the one that
might bust through your road block or
at least point you in the right direction.
HOST: Will Moneymaker
FREQUENCY: weekly
LISTEN ON: <www.ancestralfindings.
com/af-podcast>
Genealogy Happy Hour
HOST: Amy Crabill Lay and Penny
Burke Bonawitz
FREQUENCY: once or twice per month
LISTEN ON: <soundcloud.com/
genealogy-happy-hour>
Genealogy News
“Welcome to the Genealogy Happy
Hour, a place where new family historians can learn how to document their
family histories and celebrate their
new discoveries,” begins this monthly
podcast. Genealogy Happy Hour feels
like sitting down with old friends and
a bottle of wine to discuss the pitfalls
and triumphs of genealogical research.
The podcast’s conversational tone
balances out the amount of research
know-how the hosts pack into each
episode (despite their self-proclaimed
“always in training” status) on topics
such as finding female ancestors and
analyzing documents.
Ne we r e p i s o d e s h av e h e l p f u l
descriptions below the podcast links at
<genealogyhappyhour.com> . To browse
descriptions of older episodes, visit
the Soundcloud site. You’ll also enjoy
the hosts’ posts at <genealogyhappyhour.
com/blog-posts>.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
HOST: Patty Roy
FREQUENCY: twice a month
LISTEN ON: <geneatopia.com/category/
genealogy-news>
Genealogy News addresses the breaking family history news of each month,
including what genealogists are talking about on Facebook and reading
about on blogs, as well as upcoming
genealogy events and conferences.
With 15 years of family research
experience, Roy offers 30 minutes of
straightforward information for those
without time to thumb through the
news each week. For each episode,
the Geneatopia website (where the
episodes live) lists the online news
resources mentioned in the podcast.
Find transcripts at <geneatopia.com/
category/transcripts> . You’ll also find
options to subscribe to the podcast via
iTunes, Android and RSS.
» Madge Maril
67
thetoolkit
TUTORIAL
Find Genealogy Resources Online
With the Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America
(DPLA) <dp.la> is a free, searchable
catalog of millions of digital resources
from libraries, archives and museums across the United States. Because
its database holds descriptions of
resources—not the resources themselves—searches for ancestor names
may come up empty. But you still can
find genealogical gold if you approach
searching a bit differently.
Resources cataloged at the DPLA
include published indexes, county histories, marriage record books, photos,
maps, searchable databases and more.
They come from organizations such
as the New York Public Library <www.
nypl.org> , HathiTrust <www.hathitrust.
org> and historical and genealogical
societies. FamilySearch’s <www.family
search.org> online books soon will be
cataloged here, too. Search results give
you a description of the resource and
link to it on the organization’s website.
You can search the DPLA in several
ways, including a basic search or by
time or place. We’ll use the By Place
search option to help you find resources
related to the places your family lived.
Before you begin, sign up for a free user
account so you can save your searches
and items you find.
On the DPLA home page, click
on Explore By Place. Your best
bet is to enter keywords related to your
ancestor’s time and location, as well as
a specific record type or an organization the person was involved with (such
as an employer, school or orphanage).
I’m hoping to find marriage records
for Morgan County, Ga., where James
Anderson was married in 1855. Type
marriage records in the search box
above the map.
The numbers on the map
change from indicating all
DPLA resources from the surrounding geographic area to the number of
resources that match your keyword.
Click on the map to pan around and
use the zoom tools in the upper left to
zoom in on a location of interest. DPLA
1
catalogs 311 resources related to marriage records in Georgia. Click the circled 311 to see a pop-up window with
a scroll-able list of matches to your
search. If you have too many matches,
refine your search using the options to
the left of the map. We’ll enter 1800 to
1900 in the Date section.
This narrows the Georgia
resources from 311 to 64. Back
under Refine search look for Locations
3
2
2
1
68
2016
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3
and click on the More link, then click
the By A-Z tab and look through the list
of places. Click on Morgan County, Ga.
This leaves us one resource titled Morgan County Marriage Records. (If you
prefer to view results in a different way,
such as in a list or in a timeline, click
the icon next to the word “View” by the
search box.)
Click on the title of the item, Morgan County Marriage Records,
to see the DPLA catalog entry with a
description of the database, as well as
the URL to the item at the collecting
institution. Click View on Timeline to
see this resource and others from the
same time period.
The resource DPLA found is
an online database of marriage
records for Morgan County, Ga., so I’ll
need to visit the site to search the database for the name. Click the URL or
the Get Full Text link to go to the site.
Enter James Anderson in the groom’s
name search boxes and hit Search.
This returns an 1855 marriage of James
Anderson to Mary Vinson. Click the
Details link to see the full listing for
this marriage, including marriage date,
bride’s and groom’s middle initials and
race, and officiant’s name.
The resource you find might be a
digitized book rather than a searchable
database. In that case, use the website
of the holding library to search the PDF
for your ancestor’s name or other keywords. You may be able to download a
PDF of the page or the entire book.
If you logged in prior to searching, you can save a DPLA catalog
entry by clicking on the Save To … link
on the upper right of the catalog listing. Share your find via Twitter <www.
t w i t t e r. c o m > o r Fa c e b o o k < w w w.
facebook.com> by clicking the Share
button. You can view the items you
saved by clicking on your username and
then the Saved Items & Lists tab. 4
4
5
5
6
6
» Dana McCullough
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69
thetoolkit
TUTORIAL
Export Your Tree from Legacy Family Tree
Whether you want to share your family
tree with another genealogist or submit
it to an online tree site, you’ll probably
need to create a GEDCOM file. Each
genealogy program has its own proprietary file format, but a GEDCOM file is
a standard format that works with most
genealogy software. So if you use Legacy Family Tree <www.legacyfamilytree.
com>, but your cousin uses RootsMagic
<www.rootsmagic.com> , you can send
her a copy of your Legacy family file as
a GEDCOM and she can open the file in
RootsMagic format.
Because a GEDCOM file includes
only links to images, but not the actual
image files, you have to send the photo
and document image files separately.
That might be tricky if your pictures
are scattered across your computer’s
hard drive or you want to share just
one branch of your family tree. If you
use Legacy Family Tree software, just
follow these steps to share your family
file and pictures (we’ve also included
what the recipient should do with the
files), and you’ll find that it’s really
pretty easy.
Open your family file and create a
new Legacy Family File with just
the people whose information you want
to share. Start by selecting File, Export
and then Export to a new Legacy Family
File. Select a folder and enter a file name.
Under Records to Export, click on
Selected Records Contained in the
Focus Group and click on Edit Focus
Group. Select an option to add people
to the Focus Group, such as someone’s
ancestors or descendants. Then specify
how many generations to include and
click the OK button. You can add multiple sets of people to the focus group.
When you’re done, hit OK and click
the button to Start the Export. In the
AutoSource Reminder window, click
Don’t Assign a Source. When the export
is complete, hit OK. Click Yes when
asked if you’d like to open the file you
just exported to.
To export everyone in the new
Legacy Family file to a GEDCOM file, click on File, Export and then
2
1
2
1
70
GEDCOM File. Select the appropriate
type of GEDCOM file by clicking on the
down arrow beside Produce File For
and selecting an option. GEDCOM 5.5.1
works with most genealogy software.
Click on Compiler to enter your
name, contact information and comments on the file. Click on AutoSource
2016
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to attach a master source citation to
each individual and marriage that is
exported. For example, I could create
a generic source called “Rick Crume’s
genealogy,” with myself as the author
and repository, and attach it to all the
records so people know they came from
me. Click on Select File Name and Start
Export, select a folder and enter a file
name. Optionally, add compiler information in the window and click OK.
Click OK when the export is complete.
Click on the Tools tab and then
on the icon for the link to Gather
my Media Files in the Tools section.
Now, you’ll copy the media files
linked to your family file to a
folder. Click on Click Here to Change,
and create a new folder. Click on Gather
My Media Files, on Yes to confirm and
on OK when it’s done. You can view the
log file, but it’s not necessary. Close the
Media Relinker window. Send copies of
the GEDCOM file and the folder with
the media files to the other researcher
attached to an email message or on a
flash drive or CD-ROM.
The recipient should open her
genealogy software and import
the GEDCOM file into a new family file.
If she uses Legacy, she’d click on File
and Import, then select either GEDCOM File or Use Import Wizard and
follow the steps.
The recipient also needs to copy
the folder with the media files
onto her computer and relink the new
family file in her software to those
images. In Legacy, she’d open the
family file and click on Tools, then on
Media Relinker in the Tools section. An
alert will report how many media files
are “missing” and offer to list them.
Clicking on Relink My Media lets the
program find and relink the missing
files. If Legacy finds more than one
media file with the same name, it will
ask you to choose the one you want to
use. Once it finishes, all the media links
in the family file should be fixed. 3
4
3
4
5
6
5
6
» Rick Crume
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71
photofinish
Reader pictures from the past
{EDITED BY DIANE HADDAD}
All Dressed Up
Whether for Halloween, a costume ball or some other occasion, donning a disguise
is a long-standing tradition. These readers shared fun photos of their costumed ancestors.
Linda Scholer
Turner’s paternal
grandfather Rudolph Emil
Scholer (1897-1964) took a
break from working on his
farm to don a cowboy
hat and breeches.
Sophia Isadora
(Dora) Morris (center,
about 1900 or 1910) sewed
costumes for pageants and plays,
says her great-granddaughter
Dayna Gooch Jacobs. “She had an
outgoing, fun personality and
she is the ancestor I would
most like to meet in the
hereafter.”
Several
relatives of Sally
Clarke appeared in the
local village’s presentation
of Cinderella: Her mom, Hilda
Bristow, was Prince Charming (third
from left), her aunt was Cinderella’s
friend Buttons (next to Hilda)
and her grandfather was a
stepsister (left). 72
2016
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
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DR EW SM ITH

Family Tree Magazine

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