Our Blog

by Delia

We genealogists love cemeteries, don’t we? Our friends and family might think we are a bit strange in our enthusiasm for these cities of the dead. We wander among tombstones, seeking ancestors or just reading interesting inscriptions. We note ages and dates, letting them suggest a story. It might be when several children in a family died at the same time, suggesting illness or disaster. Or maybe we marvel at an older woman buried beside a young husband who died many years before her. We visit long-deceased ancestors, allowing them to speak to us concerning their lives. And sometimes we seek in vain to locate those final resting places.

But what will happen in the future, when there are no resting places? Although cremation has long been a part of the funeral customs of many cultures, modern cremation in the western world is less than 150 years old. For many years, a majority of those who were cremated were placed in niches in mausoleums in local cemeteries, which still provided a place of memorial. But the scattering of ashes removed the probability of a physical memorial and record for future generations to determine just where someone ended up.

I’ve known a number of people through the years who have had their ashes scattered. One couple had their ashes scattered in the enclosed garden of their church, and had very small metal memorial plaques placed there. This was fine until part of the garden was repurposed and one of the plaques was lost. Another man I know hired a small plane to take him up over the mountains near where his mother had lived so he could scatter her ashes. He did not realize that one is supposed to toss the ashes in their plastic bag out of the plane’s door so that the force of the wind would break open the bag, allowing the ashes to descend. He opened the bag to pour the ashes out, and the draft blew most of them back into the plane. I am not sure what he did after vacuuming his mother from the inside of the plane, but there’s no marker.

This has all come to mind recently because my father-in-law died. He wanted to be cremated and his ashes placed, with no stone or marker and no ceremony, at the graveside of his second wife. However, they had separated before their deaths and her family really did not want my father-in-law in their family plot. So my husband and his sisters decided to place his ashes at the graveside of a sibling who died long ago, but, as per his wishes, with no marker. This disturbs the genealogist in me and I finally decided that once they placed the ashes, I would add him to the Find a Grave website within that cemetery, with a notation that his remains are with his child. While looking on the website to see how it might be done, I discovered that the website organizers already have a part of their site dedicated to Cremated or Cemetery Unknown. I browsed through the 167 entries and noted that most provided more information than many entries in Find a Grave, often including obituaries.

So if you know someone who has been cremated, you might want to take a few minutes to add that information to this website, so that future researchers will know where all of their ancestors rest.

Learn the basics of Adobe Elements. Discover how to restore images of old photographs using techniques similar to those in Adobe Photoshop. Participants are encouraged to bring copies of their own family photographs on a flash drive for hands-on instruction in applying what they have learned to their photos.

This is a two part series. Come for the first class two-hour class on November 3rd, practice at home, then return with your questions for the second part on November 10th. Space is limited, registration required. To register, call 260-421-1225 or send an email. Both sessions will be held in the Computer Classroom, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

For more information, see the brochure.

The Genealogy Center's Free Databases have long hosted an index to the yearbooks of Central High School (1914-1971), Central Catholic High School (1915-1972) and South Side High School (1923-1974 and 1976-1994). Through the work of volunteers from the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, more than 72,000 records have been added to the database from the North Side High School "Legend," covering the years of 1929-1936, 1938-1939, 1941-1946, 1948-1950 and 1953-1956. The index supplies names of students and faculty, school and yearbook title, year and page numbers. Surnames are also searchable from the Free Database's federated search on The Center's homepage.

To celebrate the end of another great Family History Month, The Genealogy Center is again offering Extended Research Hours on Halloween, Friday, October 31st. You know you've always wanted to stay to research after everyone else leaves! So stay until Midnight to research and celebrate.

As an added bones this year. we are also offering are three mini-programs:
 6:30 p.m. - How to Use the FamilySearch Wiki
 7:30 p.m. - Using WeRelate to Post Your Family Tree to the Internet
 8:30 p.m. - A Brief Tour of the U.S. GenWeb.

 Note: No preregistration is necessary, but you must be in The Center by 6 p.m. You may leave any time, but there is no re-admittance. Call 260-421-1225 or email Genealogy@ACPL.Info for more information.

Transcriptions of loose pages from the Carmel Congregation of the Associate Presbyterian Church, near Hanover, Jefferson County, Indiana have been added to The Genealogy Center's Free Databases. Photocopies of these pages, which had been removed from the original congregation record book are at Indiana State Library, Indianapolis, Indiana, Genealogy Department. These loose pages, all that remain of the church's record books, were transcribed from the originals by Lt. Colonel John M. Anderson, USAF, in 1975, and entered into digital format by by Janeane Luby in 2007. The searchable index provides events such as deaths and removals, as well as baptisms which supply parents' names. This database illustrates how easily information can be added to our collections and made available to researchers everywhere.

Do you have ancestors who passed though or lived in Indiana or one of the states that surround it? The Genealogy Center is presenting a week's worth of events with your Great Lakes area research in mind:

Sunday, October 19, 2014, 1:00pm to 2:00pm, Meeting Room A
Curt Witcher
"Researching in the Great Lakes Area Series: Finding Records in the States You’re Researching."

Monday, October 20, 2014, 7:00pm to 8:00pm, Meeting Room A
Delia Bourne
"Researching in the Great Lakes Area Series: Researching in Kentucky"

Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 7:00pm to 8:00pm, Meeting Room A
Sara Allen
"Researching in the Great Lakes Area Series: Tracking Your Illinois Ancestors"

Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 7:00pm to 8:00pm, Meeting Room A
Curt Witcher
"Researching in the Great Lakes Area Series: Hunting Ancestors in the Hoosier
State"

Thursday, October 23, 2014, 7:00pm to 8:00pm, Meeting Room A
Cynthia Theusch
"Researching in the Great Lakes Area Series: Researching in Michigan"

Friday, October 24, 2014, 10:00am to 11:00am, Meeting Room A
Dawne Slater-Putt
"Researching in the Great Lakes Area Series: Researching in Ohio"

For more information, see the Family History Month brochure. To register for any of these sessions, call 260-421-1225 or send us an email.

For Family History Month, The Genealogy Center is organizing an Archives Tour encompassing several locations in Fort Wayne that you might like to visit or in which to research. These tours will help you break the ice, seeing what each repository might have for you, how you might best access the information, and in general, just to see inside these fascinating places without having to have a really good reason.

The fun starts on Wednesday, October 15th, at the Walther Library on the grounds of Concordia Theological Seminary. Archivist Robert Smith will be our guide. Be at 6600 North Clinton Street, Fort Wayne, at 2:00pm to take the tour. Park on the south side of the gym.

Thursday, October 16th will find us at the History Center, 302 East Berry Street, Fort Wayne, where archivist Walter Font will show us some of the treasures of the Allen County-Fort Wayne Historical Society. The tour starts at 2:00pm.

We will be back in the Main Library, 900 Library Plaza, on Friday, October 17th, touring the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection. Archivists Jane Gastineau and Adriana Maynard will show us some really interesting Lincoln material starting at 2:00pm.

And we are out and about again on Saturday, October 18th, as we visit the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic Archives. Archivist Janice Cantrell will start at 11:00am at the Archbishop Noll Catholic Center, 915 South Clinton Street, Fort Wayne.

For more information, see the Family History Month brochure.

Attendance at all of these are limited to the first 30 who register. To register for any or all of these free tours, call 260-421-1225 or send  us an email. Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to see these treasure troves!

by Dawne

I have touched on this topic in The Genealogy Center’s blog previously: Family stories – oral tradition – is something virtually every family has. We might grow up hearing the same old stories whenever the family is gathered. We might even have repeated those stories to our children and grandchildren. But often it was when we first began doing genealogy and tried to pin down older relatives about specific details, or to substantiate the stories with records, that we realized there might be a difference in what we thought we knew about the family and what was actually true.

Many patrons come to The Genealogy Center with a family tradition that they have Native American ancestry. In some cases this might be true. But Great-Grandma usually wasn’t a Cherokee princess. The Native American blood might be further back than the family story holds. The connection might be Miami or Chickasaw or some other tribe and not the more well-known Cherokee. And the relative might be one by marriage, rather than by blood. It’s also quite common that the patron is able to trace his or her ancestry back to an immigrant without ever finding a trace of Native American blood. In this case, it could be that the family story was in error about which ancestral line had that ethnicity. And DNA tests might indicate that there is no Native American ancestry at all. For some reason, it is a very popular family tradition to be part Native American.

So should we dismiss all those family stories we learned on our grandparents’ laps as bunk? Not necessarily. It has been said – and I believe it – that many, if not most family stories have some element of truth to them. A folklore professor I had in graduate school maintained that family stories are told for a reason – they represent some quality that is important to the storytellers and to the family. That reason alone might be enough to write them down for future generations.

Consider the information a friend of mine, Rhonda Stoffer, head of Indiana History and Genealogy Services at Marion Public Library in Marion, Indiana, received from her mother-in-law. Rhonda’s mother-in-law had never met her grandfather and asked Rhonda to find out more about him. She told Rhonda that his name was George Brown and he was a baker from Joliet, Illinois. She knew he was a baker because she remembered seeing a photograph of him wearing a baker’s hat. Rhonda found the right George Brown in the 1900 and 1910 census schedules, but in both cases, he was shown as a tin plate worker and not a baker.

Rhonda continued to research the family and discovered that George Brown’s father had died in the 1880s and his mother remarried twice – the second time to a man with the surname BAKER. Baker was the surname that George Brown’s mother was using when she died, and the one she is buried under. The family now believes that someone’s comment “and he was a Baker” about the mother’s third husband is how the family story of George Brown being a baker by trade began. The identity of the man wearing a baker’s hat in the photograph seen by Rhonda’s mother-in-law is unknown.

Genealogy Center Librarian Delia Bourne has a lecture on attempting to substantiate family stories that is titled “Did It Really Happen that Way? Documenting Oral History.”  While waiting for Delia’s talk to come back around in our programming circuit, take a look at a recent post by Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, in Quick Tips: The Blog @ Evidence Explained titled “Finding the ‘Core Truth’ in a Tradition.” Her article provides tips for analyzing family stories to get to their possible elements of truth. 

by Sara
   
Last fall, I embarked on a genealogical road trip with my mom and her brother to New York State. Apart from observing lovely scenery along the way and the autumnal colors peeking through the trees in the Finger Lakes Region, we spent our time visiting the usual genealogical tourist attractions of court houses, libraries, museums and graveyards. Because we had done some (but not all) of our homework before we left, we also knew that New York has county or town historians that should be visited as well.

The New York County historian usually has an office in the county office buildings with regularly scheduled hours (but be sure to call ahead), while town historians may work out of their homes at irregular hours. In general, county and town historians often have published and manuscript copies of genealogical print materials, as well as original county or town records such as deeds, wills, marriage records, and so on. Our experience was very positive, though it did vary from office to office. We gained copies of county records, and we also accessed family files for several ancestral families, which contained good clues for us to follow up on. Many of the historians were knowledgeable about the immediate area and its records, and could refer us to other useful repositories if needed. A list of historians is available online.

We did not do all of our homework, however, before embarking on this trip. I am embarrassed to say that we showed up at two repositories with mistaken information about the hours they were open to the public. As a genealogy librarian myself, I should know better! We drove through Syracuse on our way out and found out that the Onondaga Historical Museum was closed on Tuesdays, so we missed out that day. On the way back, we got there at 2:30 p.m. and found out the archives had closed at 2, while the museum stayed open until 4. We were able to gain access for a few minutes because the librarian was still in the building, but were very rushed, and felt terrible for inconveniencing the staff. A few days later, we had another incident of bad planning. I did not realize that the Historic Huguenot Street in New Paltz had separate archives and library buildings, with different hours and staffing, both of which required advanced appointments. We were able to use the library by virtue of an appointment set up a few days before, but missed out on the Archives, which was very disappointing.

We were very lucky that in two of the three situations, it worked out that we were able to access the materials that we driven cross-country to view. You might not always be that lucky. A thorough perusal of the websites of these organizations would have provided us with the necessary information, although sometimes hours of operation can be hidden several pages deep on a website. In addition, it is a good idea to find a telephone number and call ahead, just to be sure. Also, you might peruse a guidebook about genealogical research in the particular state you intend to visit so that you are informed of any research peculiarities of that area before you arrive. So, take a lesson from my sad experiences and be sure to plan ahead for your research trips to avoid disappointment.

by Delia

I just had a customer regale me with a story! Since I don't have permission, I can't share it here, but suffice it to say that it involved a woman, her soldier husband and a state governor. It was a short tale, but very amusing. I'm lucky that I get to hear so many family tales.

I was reminded that my father, who was 55 years of when I was born, told and re-told numerous stories while I was growing up. These stories were related so many times that I can repeat them with my father's verbiage and inflections. I've tried to pass many of them along to my own daughter and I hope to tell my grandchildren, too, maybe even adding a  few anecdotes of my own.

We family historians are the keepers of the family stories, but so often we relegate ourselves to being the keepers of the family statistics: who, what, when and where, without bothering to add the why or how. There are more to our stories than just the facts, ma'm, and we need to tell the tales as well as the data.

To get you in the mood, join us Wednesday evening, October 1st, for An Evening of Storytelling for a selection of inspiring stories and music. The evening starts at 7:00pm in the Theater of the Main Library. Don't miss this great event!

Family History Month offers two fantastic opportunities to learn more about Polish people in recent history, both in Europe and in the United States, and the subjects are not limited to those interested in Polish history and ancestry.

The first is Sunday, October 5, 2014. Millie Zygmunt Rytel will provide a first-hand account of her "Four Continents to Freedom." Millie was born in Poland 90 years ago. In 1940, the Russians forced the family to leave their farm for a "temporary" journey which ended up as 18 months in a slave labor camp in Siberia. When released, she, her mother and sisters worked hard to make their way to freedom in America. Millie's story will be that of a twentieth century refugee. Take advantage of this unique event that starts at 1:00pm in Meeting Room C.

Sunday, October 12, 2014, brings the opportunity to see The Fourth Partition
“Cwarta Dzielnica." In the early 1900s, Chicago was the second largest American city and home to many of the nation's four million Polish immigrants. These immigrants worked hard establishing communities in Chicago and remained active in the fight for Poland's independence. This film will provide history of interest to any interested in Chicago's history, the Polish people in America, and the immigrant experience as a whole. Director Adrian Prawica and Associate Producer Rafał Muskała will attend and will be available after the screening. We invite you to join us at 1:00pm in the Theater of the Main Library.

Both events are sponsored by the Polish National Alliance.

Please call 260-421-1225 or send us an email to register for either of these free events.

The Genealogy Center, like other Allen County Public Library facilities, will be closed on Friday, October 3, 2014 for Staff Development Day. The Allen County Public Library Board is sponsoring the day to inspire and educate the 300+ employees. Classes include a wide variety, such as use of Freegal, and hoopla!, tours of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection and the Maker Lab, a presentation on African American pioneers in Fort Wayne, a class in CPR, a short history of the library itself and much more. Our hardest part, aside from choosing which classes to attend, will be that we will miss our wonderful research customers, but will be back and ready to assist on Saturday, October 4th, at 9 AM.

So please, do not come to visit on Friday October 3rd, but do return on Saturday!

October, Family History Month, is just a few days away, and The Genealogy Center has a fantastic slate of events for your entertainment and education.

October 1st brings An Evening of Storytelling at 7:00 PM in the Library Theater. Storytelling is a great way to engage relatives in the saga of your family. Join us for an evening of stories and music to be inspired to start storytelling!

Sundays, October 5th and 12th bring two opportunities to learn about Polish history. Millie Rytel shares her journey over Four Continents to Freedom on Sunday. October 5, 2014 in Meeting Room C at 1:00 PM. Then, take a look at Chicago when it was the center of Polish culture and political activism in The Fourth Partition “Cwarta Dzielnica” on Sunday, October 12, 2014, at 1:00 PM in the Theater.

October 15th through the18th brings The Genealogy Center's Archives Crawl! Meet us for tours of Concordia Theological Seminary's Walther Library, the History Center, the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection and the Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic Archives. For times and meeting locations, see the Family History Month brochure.

We also have a week of research resources for the Great Lakes states October 19th through the 24th, many opportunities for One-on-One Consultations and the month will end with Midnight Madness, our extended research hours, on Friday, October 31st. Treat yourself to six extra hours of research and take in one or more of our mini-programs: "How to Use the FamilySearch Wiki" at 6:30 PM, "Using WeRelate to Post Your Family Tree to the Internet" at 7:30 PM and "A Brief Tour of the U.S. GenWeb" at 8:30 PM.

For more information about any of these programs, see the brochure. Get ready to celebrate Family History Month!

by Dawne

A few weeks ago, I attended the McHenry County (IL) Genealogical Society’s seminar on the same day that my colleague, Cynthia, attended Abrams Foundation Family History Seminar in Lansing, Michigan. Both took place on a Saturday and both featured some nationally-known genealogy speakers as well as some talented and knowledgeable local or regional speakers. Then a week or two later, our manager spoke at Midwestern Roots down in Indianapolis and Cynthia attended that seminar. That was three superb learning opportunities less than a day’s drive away within a couple of weeks.

This is not an unusual occurrence. Especially from Spring to Fall, local, regional and state genealogical societies around the country sponsor partial day or day-long seminars and bring in one or more of the nationally-known genealogy speakers to anchor their programs. What this means for you and me is the opportunity to learn from these national experts, as well as hear from local experts on a variety of topics with which they have familiarity, commune with other like-minded individuals (our fellow genealogists), and get motivated by new ideas, techniques, sources and technology!

National conferences are terrific! I would always recommend that if you have the opportunity to go to one, you do so! But sometimes it is difficult to clear the calendar for about a week’s worth of time and travel to a distant location for a national conference. Or the personal budget doesn’t allow a week’s worth of hotel nights and meals out, combined with the registration fee for a national conference and the airline or gasoline expense to get there. That’s where these regional events can shine. There are many of them. Chances are good there have been several of them within a day’s drive of you this summer. Registration fees usually are modest. Sometimes a box lunch is included. You might need to get up very early on seminar day to drive there, or pay for a hotel room the night before, but you won’t have the expense of multiple hotel nights.

To find a seminar near you, consult the following resources:

•    Federation of Genealogical Societies/Society Events listings
•    Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter/Calendar of Genealogy Events
•    Conference Keeper

by Delia

When I moved to Indiana in the mid-1970s, I was amazed to learn that most of Indiana (like the states of Arizona and Hawaii) did not adhere to Daylight Saving Time. Each spring, the world shifted around Indiana going from Standard Time to Daylight Saving, with Indiana remaining on Eastern Standard Time, then, each fall, the country shifted again and Indiana stayed put. In effect, however, it seemed to non-residents that Indiana switched time zones twice a year: Eastern Standard Time from October to April and Central Daylight Saving Time from April to October. It was very confusing to my parents in Arkansas, since sometimes time in Indiana was the same as theirs, and the rest of the year it wasn’t.

Once I started working in the Genealogy Department, the precursor to The Genealogy Center, I realized that many of our customers had the same problem: What time was it in Fort Wayne? Many got here too early, and had to cool their heels for 60 minutes before we opened at 9 a.m., or got here at 10 a.m., and wasted a whole hour when they could have been researching. A frustrating situation indeed. We tried our best to educate everyone who called, wrote or emailed, but there were still people who didn’t get the message.

Then, in 2006, most of Indiana (except those areas around Evansville and Gary, which stay on Central/Central Daylight Saving Time all year) started following the rest of the country into Daylight Saving Time. Now we are Eastern/Eastern Daylight Saving Time, and one would think that that would solve the people of our customers being early or late for researching. However, we educated some of our customers all too well. There are still folks who show up early or late and are confused (still!) by Indiana’s time.

So, you just think of what time it would be in New York or Ohio. That’s what time it is here. Or just call or email! We’ll be happy to give you the time of day!

For more information on Indiana time, see timeanddate.com's Indiana's Time Zones and Daylight Savings Time.

There is still time to register for The 29th Annual Lincoln Colloquium, “Amid the Din of Arms: The Election of 1864,” in the Main Library Theater of the Allen County Public Library on Saturday, September 27 from 9:00 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The Lincoln Colloquium is a national conference at which Lincoln scholars and enthusiasts meet for presentations and discussion regarding Abraham Lincoln and his place in history, and this will be the first time it will be held here in Fort Wayne. 

Sponsored by the Allen County Public Library, the Friends of the Allen County Public Library, and the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Colloquium will offer four views of the contentious election of 1864 by an array of experts, and will conclude with a panel discussion with audience question and a tour of the Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection.

For a better description of the day’s events, speakers and lunch selections, as well as the registration form is available online. For questions, email Lincoln@acpl.info or call 260-421-1378 or 260-421-1379.

And start the day the night before by attending the 34th annual R. Gerald McMurtry Lecture “The Emancipation of Abraham Lincoln,” on Friday, September 26, 2014 at 7 pm in the Theater. This event, sponsored by the Lupke Foundation, Parkview Health, and Steel Dynamics, is free and open to the public.

Don’t miss this unique opportunity in northeast Indiana!

The Genealogy Center is hosting a table at the Senior Information Fair this year on September 18th at the Allen County Public Library. There will be information on discovering your family stories and on getting started finding your ancestors. Curt Witcher will be doing a presentation at 10:30 a.m. that day in the library’s computer training room on the first floor entitled, “Telling the Stories of Our Lives.” Bring your friends who are interested in getting started with their family history!

Our summer series, Digital Discoveries, ends with Sara Allen’s presentation, “Discovering Newspaper Databases,” on Wednesday, September 10, 2014, in Meeting Room A, from 3 to 4 p.m. Many genealogists know that newspapers provide a wealth of information about their ancestors, including vital records notices, probate notices, land and tax records, personal items, gossip, and – oh, yes – actual news. How can you find this material? You can access a variety of newspaper titles and from many locations through our online databases, including Newspaper Archive, Newspapers.com, African American Historical Newspapers, The Journal Gazette Online and others. Learn more about why newspapers are wonderful resources for family history research and how to use our databases to find articles you want. For more information, see the “Discovering Newspaper Databases” program flyer. To register for this free class, call 260-421-1225 or send an email to Genealogy@ACPL.info.

by Delia

On this Labor Day, we as genealogists might want to give some thought to the occupations of our ancestors, and how those occupations may be reflected in the surnames we search. Some occupational surnames come readily to mind, such as Archer, Baker, Bowman, Brewer, Butcher, Carpenter, Farmer, Fisher, Hunter, Mason, Miller, Miner, Singer, and the ubiquitous Smith. But there are many more like Buller (a scribe), Chandler (a candlemaker), Gage (an assayer), Nadler (one who made needles), Pease (a grower of peas), Plowright (a maker of plows), and Slater (person who covered roofs with slate), which also defined someone by their labor.

When you encounter a new surname in your research, take a few minutes to examine the meaning of the name to see if it reflects a progenitor’s work life. Many occupations were passed down through generations, so the meaning of the name might provide clues to the family origins.

In the meantime, enjoy your Labor Day holiday!

We invite you to capture a day in Allen County, Indiana! Sunday, September 21, 2014—the last official full day of summer—take pictures of anything and everything that is happening in our county in that twenty-four hour time period, and send them to us! What is your view of Allen County that day?
 
These pictures are not limited to marquee events. We want to capture what is going on throughout the entire community, so pictures can be of people at work, children at play, baseball games and sporting events, weather and blooming flowers, homes and buildings, traffic scenes, hikers and bikers, and people just hanging out. Include a description you would like put with the picture. If it’s happening in the twenty-four hours of September 21st, it’s worth capturing!

 Send pictures:
• Email them to Genealogy@ACPL.Info
• Upload pictures on our Facebook
• Twitter #DayinAllenCo2014