After an unrestful nights sleep I got up about 6:30, showered, dressed and went to breakfast and prepared for a good day. Three out of the four days we had a keynote speaker and Tuesday's Keynote Speaker was Elder Allen F. Packer He talked about discovering the history of our families. He urged us to create history by living in the present. We shape history of the future by what we do now. He also wanted us to be aware that we can help break down the excuses for not doing family history. Some of the excuses are "the work is done or there are no more names to be done". If you take 1 individuals ancestors out to 10 generations there are 2,047 people, and take that same individual and look at his/her descendants out to 10 generations there are 16,384 people ( add those together and you get 2,047 + 16,384 = 18, 431), then you can see the number of people to do genealogy for is significant. He taught that we need to change the sequence of how we introduce people to family history. We as Family History Consultants need to help them discover themselves and their family. Encourage them to learn stories and gather pictures.
Simplify the process of doing your Family History. Family History is more than a pedigree, it is the stories and pictures of your family that make it come alive. We need to be instrumental in turning the hearts the the children to the fathers and the heart of the fathers to the children.
Following the keynote speaker there were five classes each day, the ones I took were on Tuesday were:
HOW TO CREATE AND USE SUCCESSFUL ORAL HISTORIES by STEPHEN KENT EHAT, FOUND! BUT IS SHE THE RIGHT ANCESTOR? A CASE STUDY by NANCY WATERS LAUER, MIGRATORY ANCESTORS by KORY L. MEYERINK, MLS, AG, FUGA, DESCENDANCY RESEARCH IS A MUST—THE WHYS AND THE HOWS by STEPHEN KENT EHAT, FINDING BAPTIST ANCESTORS IN SOUTHERN MANUSCRIPTS, by J. MARK LOWE CG, FUGA
Following are just the basics of what their classes were about which were gleaned from their syllabuses.
HOW TO CREATE AND USE SUCCESSFUL ORAL HISTORIES
STEPHEN KENT EHAT
You may record oral histories both with relatives and with
non-relatives who knew your family.
You can record them with a digital recorder, or audio onto a cassette tape, or
videotaped either digitally or onto videotape.
Record them in a quiet place they are comfortable in.
You may want to break the interview up into several sessions so it is not too long.
Make sure you give them advance notice so they have time to prepare and permission to record them.
Some of the questions he went over were as follows:
FOUND! BUT IS SHE THE RIGHT ANCESTOR? A CASE STUDY
NANCY WATERS LAUER
Conduct a reasonably exhaustive search
Make sure you have complete and accurate source citations
Analyze all of your collected information
Resolve conflicting evidence
Be a “Doubting Thomas” question everything.
Figure out what your brick wall is. Is it a common surname, an elusive maiden name, a missing record, a burned courthouse, the missing 1890 census?
Take time to examine and analyze each piece of information thoroughly.
After searching, census, birth, death, etc., start researching other sources such
as:
MIGRATORY ANCESTORS
KORY L. MEYERINK, MLS, AG, FUGA
Why did they Migrate
What were some of the things that may have pushed them away to a new place and what was the draw to the new place.
Think about the Broad American Migration Patterns, people were migrating East to west and big cities were magnets to many. A lot went to California in the gold rush.
It is important to learn a state’s settlement and growth patterns, it's chronology and history.
What is the time period (What’s going on there?). Who were the early settlers (Who’s there first?)
Patterns
1. Majority of migrants go only a short distance
2. Migration proceeds step by step
3. Each migration current produces a counter current
6. Migrants going long distances generally prefer to go to a large center of commerce or industry
10. Major direction is from agricultural to industrial or commercial centers
Characteristics of Migrants
4. Females are more migratory within their county of birth;
males more frequently venture beyond county boundaries
5. Most are [young] adults; families rarely migrate out of birth county
7. Natives of towns migrate less than those of rural areas
11. Major causes of migration are economic
Volume
8. Large towns grow more by migration than birth rate
9. Migration increases as industry and commerce develop, and transportation improves
DESCENDANCY RESEARCH IS A MUST—THE WHYS AND THE HOWS
STEPHEN KENT EHAT
Why? You perform this type of research so you can learn information about descendants, including many who are now alive, and possibly obtain from them information you have not otherwise been able to find about a common ancestor. Those descendants may know information from relatives in their own line of descent that you do not know from relatives in your line of descent. Records about your common ancestor may have been destroyed or lost in places where your ancestors lived but not in places where the other line’s ancestors lived. You can contact those who descend through those other lines and possibly learn from them what you may not have been able to discover from closer relatives in your own descendancy line. You can share with those other descendants information that you may have had access to that they may not have been able to learn. And you and they can possibly begin to coordinate efforts to make research progress on the ancestral line you share in common.
What resources to use for your research
• All of the resources of the Family History Library and its Family History Centers (see FamilySearch.org), and information available at Rootsweb.com, Ancestry.com, and other lineage-linked database Web sites, including, of course, the following (much of which is available in the Family History Library system and some of which may not yet be but which you can seek to access in other ways):
• Maps and property records;
• Tax records;
• Court records; probate records;
• Digitized newspapers at:
Footnote.com;
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov; etc.;
• Digitized newspapers referenced at:
libguides.bgsu.edu/newspapers;
http://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/ne
wspapers/historical.php
• Other digitized newspapers can be found by searching in Google.com for “digitized newspapers” followed by the name of the stateor country you are interested in);
• Family records, personal histories, family bibles, diaries, and the like, in the possession of descendants you identify in your research;
• Social Security Death Indexes (such as at
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com);
• Blogs, family history Web sites;
• Cemetery records;
• Online phone books (switchboard.com;
whitepages.com; etc.)
• Photographs;
• Social networking sites (facebook.com)
Helpful tools are located at: http://www.stevemorse.org/
Helpful guidance can be found in the following publication: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/lessons/L1_Descendancy_Research.pdf
Helpful guidelines are found at the following site: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/How_to_Find_Descendants_in_the_United_States
FINDING BAPTIST ANCESTORS IN SOUTHERN MANUSCRIPTS
J. MARK LOWE CG, FUGA
Simplify the process of doing your Family History. Family History is more than a pedigree, it is the stories and pictures of your family that make it come alive. We need to be instrumental in turning the hearts the the children to the fathers and the heart of the fathers to the children.
Following the keynote speaker there were five classes each day, the ones I took were on Tuesday were:
HOW TO CREATE AND USE SUCCESSFUL ORAL HISTORIES by STEPHEN KENT EHAT, FOUND! BUT IS SHE THE RIGHT ANCESTOR? A CASE STUDY by NANCY WATERS LAUER, MIGRATORY ANCESTORS by KORY L. MEYERINK, MLS, AG, FUGA, DESCENDANCY RESEARCH IS A MUST—THE WHYS AND THE HOWS by STEPHEN KENT EHAT, FINDING BAPTIST ANCESTORS IN SOUTHERN MANUSCRIPTS, by J. MARK LOWE CG, FUGA
Following are just the basics of what their classes were about which were gleaned from their syllabuses.
HOW TO CREATE AND USE SUCCESSFUL ORAL HISTORIES
STEPHEN KENT EHAT
You may record oral histories both with relatives and with
non-relatives who knew your family.
You can record them with a digital recorder, or audio onto a cassette tape, or
videotaped either digitally or onto videotape.
Record them in a quiet place they are comfortable in.
You may want to break the interview up into several sessions so it is not too long.
Make sure you give them advance notice so they have time to prepare and permission to record them.
Some of the questions he went over were as follows:
- Should I conduct more than one interview?
- What do I ask?
- How do I ask questions?
- What are good ways
- to phrase questions?
- How do I create questions to ask?
- How do I record the interview?
- How do I conduct the interview?
- How do I preserve the Oral Interview?
- What kind of editing is appropriate?
- What copies should I make?
- How do I transcribe the interviews?
FOUND! BUT IS SHE THE RIGHT ANCESTOR? A CASE STUDY
NANCY WATERS LAUER
Conduct a reasonably exhaustive search
Make sure you have complete and accurate source citations
Analyze all of your collected information
Resolve conflicting evidence
Be a “Doubting Thomas” question everything.
Figure out what your brick wall is. Is it a common surname, an elusive maiden name, a missing record, a burned courthouse, the missing 1890 census?
Take time to examine and analyze each piece of information thoroughly.
After searching, census, birth, death, etc., start researching other sources such
as:
- Business records
- Court records
- Criminal records
- Estate records including inventories
- Fraternal organization records
- State and local census records
- Tax records
- Voting records
- Relatives, friends, and associates
- Baptismal sponsors
- Business associates
- Depositions
- Executors of wills
- Fellow passengers on immigration lists
- Naturalization sponsors
- Neighbors
- Persons buried in same cemetery plot
- Persons who purchased estate items (listed on inventories)
Understand the environment and localities you are researching can help unravel mysteries. What is its history?
What unique records exist that aren’t available elsewhere?
What was the socio-economic status during the life of your ancestor?
Is this a rural area, coastal area, or metropolitan area?
Timelines are good gages for identifying gaps and missing information.
Never stop looking. Always investigate.
Never stop verifying information. Always cite your sources.
Never accept anything without verifying. Always verify.
MIGRATORY ANCESTORS
KORY L. MEYERINK, MLS, AG, FUGA
Why did they Migrate
What were some of the things that may have pushed them away to a new place and what was the draw to the new place.
Think about the Broad American Migration Patterns, people were migrating East to west and big cities were magnets to many. A lot went to California in the gold rush.
It is important to learn a state’s settlement and growth patterns, it's chronology and history.
What is the time period (What’s going on there?). Who were the early settlers (Who’s there first?)
- Sources of Migration Clues
- Compiled records
- Family and local histories
- Original records
- Census, land, death records, military pensions, obituaries
- Major indexes
- Tactics for Tracing Migration
- Whole family research
- Surname pockets
- Transportation routes: rivers and roads
- Ethnic and religious settlement patterns
- Neighbors
- Use of compiled sources
Patterns
1. Majority of migrants go only a short distance
2. Migration proceeds step by step
3. Each migration current produces a counter current
6. Migrants going long distances generally prefer to go to a large center of commerce or industry
10. Major direction is from agricultural to industrial or commercial centers
Characteristics of Migrants
4. Females are more migratory within their county of birth;
males more frequently venture beyond county boundaries
5. Most are [young] adults; families rarely migrate out of birth county
7. Natives of towns migrate less than those of rural areas
11. Major causes of migration are economic
Volume
8. Large towns grow more by migration than birth rate
9. Migration increases as industry and commerce develop, and transportation improves
DESCENDANCY RESEARCH IS A MUST—THE WHYS AND THE HOWS
STEPHEN KENT EHAT
Why? You perform this type of research so you can learn information about descendants, including many who are now alive, and possibly obtain from them information you have not otherwise been able to find about a common ancestor. Those descendants may know information from relatives in their own line of descent that you do not know from relatives in your line of descent. Records about your common ancestor may have been destroyed or lost in places where your ancestors lived but not in places where the other line’s ancestors lived. You can contact those who descend through those other lines and possibly learn from them what you may not have been able to discover from closer relatives in your own descendancy line. You can share with those other descendants information that you may have had access to that they may not have been able to learn. And you and they can possibly begin to coordinate efforts to make research progress on the ancestral line you share in common.
What resources to use for your research
• All of the resources of the Family History Library and its Family History Centers (see FamilySearch.org), and information available at Rootsweb.com, Ancestry.com, and other lineage-linked database Web sites, including, of course, the following (much of which is available in the Family History Library system and some of which may not yet be but which you can seek to access in other ways):
• Maps and property records;
• Tax records;
• Court records; probate records;
• Digitized newspapers at:
Footnote.com;
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov; etc.;
• Digitized newspapers referenced at:
libguides.bgsu.edu/newspapers;
http://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/ne
wspapers/historical.php
• Other digitized newspapers can be found by searching in Google.com for “digitized newspapers” followed by the name of the stateor country you are interested in);
• Family records, personal histories, family bibles, diaries, and the like, in the possession of descendants you identify in your research;
• Social Security Death Indexes (such as at
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com);
• Blogs, family history Web sites;
• Cemetery records;
• Online phone books (switchboard.com;
whitepages.com; etc.)
• Photographs;
• Social networking sites (facebook.com)
Helpful tools are located at: http://www.stevemorse.org/
Helpful guidance can be found in the following publication: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/lessons/L1_Descendancy_Research.pdf
Helpful guidelines are found at the following site: https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/How_to_Find_Descendants_in_the_United_States
FINDING BAPTIST ANCESTORS IN SOUTHERN MANUSCRIPTS
J. MARK LOWE CG, FUGA
- What are we likely to find? Family Bibles, photographs, letters,
diaries, legal documents, furniture, household
articles, clothing, and other items.
- Where would they be located?
- National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC)
www.loc.gov/coll/nucmc/oclcsearch.html - ARC: Archival Research Catalog
www.archives.gov/research/arc/ - Archival and Manuscript Repositories of
Primary Sources www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/Other.Repositories.html - ArchivesUSA®
archives.chadwyck.com/ - Periodical Source Index (PERSI)
http://tntel.tnsos.org/index.htm - General Search Engines
- Southern Historical Collection – University of North Carolina
- www.lib.unc.edu/mss/shc/index.html
- Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution Through the
Civil War
www.lexisnexis.com/academic/2upa/Ash/AnteBellumSouthernPlantations.asp - www.lexisnexis.com/academic/guides/southern_hist/south.asp
