Our Blog

By Dawne

I once heard it called “bulldog genealogy,” the tendency not to give up when the answer didn’t come easily, but to keep chewing on the problem from different directions until success was achieved. The worth of this technique was proved for a patron and me one evening recently in The Genealogy Center.

He came into The Center looking for information about the death of his much older sister in a house fire back in the late 1940s here in Fort Wayne. He thought the year was about 1947, because she was born in 1931 and he believed she died at age 16. He was nearly certain that she was buried in Lindenwood Cemetery, because he remembered his father and mother going out to the cemetery to visit his sister’s grave when he was small. But he had been to Lindenwood and the cemetery had no record of someone with his sister’s name buried there.

We checked the Lindenwood interment books here, even though those records are taken from the cemetery’s records and so likely would not be different. We also checked the obituary index with no luck. “Could she have gone by any other name?” I asked ...

by Delia

I always get a bit excited on May 1st. Many people do. Yes, there are holidays, both religious and cultural on that day, but for me, it was always school's-almost-out excitement. Whether I might have been looking forward to long days of play and fighting with my sister (elementary school), reading and learning to drive (high school), or a summer job (college), doing something different was always fun, especially if my parents had planned a vacation somewhere, which was usually in August.

As an adult, summer signaled that I had not only extra time to enjoy with my family, but also the influx of customers that we, at The Genealogy Center, attracted in the summer months. New people, mixing with our regular friends, intriguing research questions, and chatting with folks from far away.

As you plan your summer, work in some time to come and see us. There's a lot of research material on the Internet, but we have many unique sources that aren't online. Plan a quick trip or change your route to spend a day or two or three with us.

And then, of course, in August, right when my family took vacations, plan to ...

by Delia

We love it when a group arrives to use The Genealogy Center. The first thing we do when a group presents itself at the Ask Desk is to check our "Talks, Tours & Groups" notebook to see whether the group leader requested a tour when he or she called to schedule the visit. Tours are fun! And any of our librarians may give a group tour. Although we cover a lot of territory, this helps our visitors get a feel for how large the Center is, plus we can demonstrate some of the equipment and make a few jokes along the way. Afterward, everyone settles down to work, but group members are encouraged to approach the desk at any time to ask questions that vary from in-depth research queries to questions on which button to press to make a copy.

The tips we've passed along previously in this blog for individual visitors also apply to people coming in groups or on bus tours. Those include bringing a USB drive to download images of census, passenger lists and other documents; bringing $1 and $5 bills to charge copy cards; and bringing enough information to do research without bringing ...

by Melissa

Technology is moving at such a rapid pace, it sometimes feel like it is a full time job to keep up with all of our electronic devices. Moore's law states that technology doubles every eighteen months. Think about the fact that the first iPhone was released in 2007 and the most current edition, iPhone 5, which had an inception date of 2012 will soon become obsolete.

With this ever-evolving cycle of expanding technology, how do you keep up? Do you read technology journals or blogs or buy products based on advertising or word of mouth? With every new edition of a product, how compatible is your first generation techno device? If we have a printer from two years ago, we have to download drivers to connect with our new Windows 8 laptops. How do we maneuver these waters?

And can the next generation relate to our experiences or those of the generations before us? I remember accessing video games by typing in the c:/run command. Today, we can play video games on our touch-screen phones or other handheld devices. Try explaining a typewriter's corrective tape to a teenager who regularly uses a voice-command tablet.

While navigating the waves of technology, ...

by Delia

Back in the mid-1990s, when The Genealogy Center was still the Genealogy Department, staff members were trying to add material to our collection. We realized that there were some areas in the United States for which we had very little -- or nothing at all -- as research sources. So my colleagues and I began writing letters (before email!) to various archives and societies, seeking information about sources they had, for donation, if possible.

We received some really nifty stuff in return. Some we had to purchase, but many were gifts from different locales, schools, churches, historical societies and businesses.

A few days ago, there was a package addressed to me, and inside were two volumes for us as donations, a very nice letter telling me that the archives to which I'd sent a request more than 15 years ago was now able to send material, and a copy of my original letter! It was great to know that the requests I had sent then were still bearing fruit!

And, of course, this is also a reminder that we are still looking for those local items that make our collection such a great resource: church directories and histories; ...

by Delia

Recently, I had a customer ask what The Genealogy Center has on the computers. She said she always comes for the extensive collection of books, some of which are one of a kind, and the microfilm collections, but she was noticing more people coming in and spending the whole day on the computer, so she wondered what we had that she couldn't get at home.

We have an excellent collection of subscription databases, including Ancestry, Fold 3, American Ancestors, Origins Network, Slavery and Anti-Slavery Archive, and Archives Unbound. I showed her their location on our On-Site Databases page and explained each of them. She was happy to know what we had and said she'd try them on her next visit.

But her question made me think. We all love having information instantly, just sitting at the glowing screen and pulling data from various wide-flung archives and databases. But we need to be careful about neglecting the book and microfilm collection as we research. Yes, Ancestry does have all of the Federal Census online and it's searchable. But sometimes it's just better to browse the pages using microfilm. Yes, Fold 3 does have many military records, but not everything. ...

by Melissa & Delia

Recently, a researcher was bemoaning the fact that one of the recent natural disasters that have befallen this country destroyed the county facility where she had hoped to search for records on one of her families. Imagine her happiness when it was pointed out to her that the original records may have been destroyed, but various organizations and authors had already published books and articles which indexed and transcribed the marriage, probate and deed records that she needed and that we had those books here in The Genealogy Center!

While examining original records is always preferable, in many cases where floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and other events have made that impossible, the past and current activities of local genealogical and historical societies, lineage societies like the D.A.R., the W.P.A., and individual authors have recorded this precious information.

Of course, preservation activities within the community are always advisable. Libraries or local societies can make contact with the court clerk and investigate scanning or microfilming the records for storage elsewhere. But for records lost in the past 20 to 30 years, don't forget our genealogical predecessors who have already paved the preservation way.

by Delia

Congratulations! You found your ancestor in the 1880 census, a 14-year-old boy living with his parents and several siblings, both older and younger! You gleefully place these new names on your family chart and proceed on with your research. Right?

No, of course not! You realize that this young man may well be the son of the head of the household (he's listed as the man's son, after all), but that woman might be his mother, or may be someone his widowed (or divorced) father may have married after the boy's mother died.

Since you've already tried getting a full death record to see if his parents are listed (no, the space is blank), and his obituary (not mentioned), you know you have to try another few tricks. You look for will and/or probate records, but, although the father's will mentioned his children by name, the woman died before her husband.

You look for marriage records and find a record for the father marrying a woman of the correct first name a year before the oldest child in the family was born. But as you check further and discover the father married again, in 1872, to a woman ...

by Delia

When I first started researching, I would make up my New Year's goals for genealogy. Initially, the list was full of "Find great-grandmother's brother's wife's maiden name," and "Figure out what happened to Harry." Those were all great goals, but, really, I was going to work on those anyway. New Year's goals should encourage us to do something different, to make a change for the better in our research techniques, our documentation standards, or our policies about sharing material. So here are a few goals you might want to consider:

Pledge to investigate new information thoroughly, and evaluate the source for authenticity and accuracy.

Pledge to add the new information to your research compilation along with detailed citations that include the source person or document, and where the source is located.

Pledge to submit something of your research to posterity, such as write and submit a well-documented article to a genealogical society journal or scan old family photos to a disk and submit to a historical society or to The Genealogy Center's Family Resources.

Pledge to talk to an older relative and really listen, learning more about his or her life experiences, and record or transcribe ...