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We invite you to capture a day in Allen County, Indiana! On Sunday, February 14, 2016, 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, 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. for more information, see the brochure.

Email pictures to Genealogy@ACPL.Info
Twitter #DayinAllenCo2016
Upload pictures at www.Facebook.com/GenealogyCenter
Instagram @GenealogyCenter

A few new Family Resources have appeared on our Free Databases lately!

Genealogical Research of Tyler Calhoun, Jr., Ida Calhoun Burritt, and Ida Calhoun Scott begins with Hugh Calhoun, born at sea in route to the United States in 1789. He and his family lived in York County, Pennsylvania, Montgomery County, Ohio, and Wabash County, Indiana and continues through seventeen generations with approximately two thousand individuals.

The William Adelbert Craker Diaries covers family and neighbors in Leelanau County, Michigan from 1919 to 1952, concentrating on daily activities and neighbors’ lives and deaths.
 
Our Parks Family in America: Joseph and Ruth Parks of East Tennessee and Their Descendants is available through the generosity of Janet Bliss Parks, and includes photos, an every name index as well as a general index of churches, cemeteries, companies, geographic places and  more.
 
Rhodes Family History was generously donated by Robin Rhodes and includes Rhodes, Ayres, Weiss, Patterson, McDuffie, Stallard, Williams, Teeter, Robinson Nellans, Hibray, Clifton, Percell, Weaver, Rutledge, Richards families. One can read through the various sections or do a search by first or last name, birth, christening, death or burial place, or spouse’s name.
 
Treece and Related Families includes 40 years of research by Mary Lou Treece Cless special emphasis on the Treece family. It also concentrates on the surnames Place, Hicks, Coleman, French, Thrapp, Patee, Pattee, Riggenbach, and Blunier.

Lastly is an update to Michael Clegg’s Kincaid Family File. We thank all of these researchers and authors for their contributions.

We have a number of new records on Our Military Heritage to share with you.

Dennis McClurg has transcribed the Civil War letters of Sgt. Isaac McFadden. McFadden was born in 1834 in Ohio, but moved with his family to Wabash County, Indiana, where he attended school with Samuel Ferguson and his sister, Martha. Isaac was living in St. Louis and courting Martha through the mail, though she was also interested in other young men, when Isaac and Samuel joined the 101st Indiana Infantry. Isaac was with Samuel when the latter died of disease in 1863. A few months later, Isaac died at Chickamauga and is buried in Chattanooga. During this time, the letters Isaac sent to Martha were detailed, illustrating a soldier’s life and mentions mutual acquaintances. This database includes both scans of the original letters and transcriptions for Isaac’s letters to Martha and others. Thanks to Dennis McClurg for this fabulous source.
 
Born in Ireland in 1873, Michael Joseph O’Brien joined his brother in America in 1896, and joined the Ninth U.S. Infantry later that same year. He served in the Spanish American War in Cuba, the Philippine Insurrection, the Boxer Rebellion in China, and later in the Texas-Mexican border conflict. He left the Ninth to become a first lieutenant during World War I. Michael Joseph O'Brien of Bartoose, Ireland and Sackets Harbor, New York: an Irish Immigrant's Odyssey tells Michael’s story and was donated to us by the author Stephan P. Clarke, who had generously allowed us to post it.
 
Stephen Clarke has also allowed us to post his work about his uncle, Paul S. Grieb with the 709th Tank Battalion in World War II. This item includes a biography of Paul Grieb, along with a calendar of movements of the 709th Tank Battalion and its activities, notes about the Battle of the Huertgen Forest, and other documents Grieb collected during the war.
 
We Too Were There: Company C, 353rd Infantry is a company history written by Sgt. Ralph Brach and illustrated by Captain Clarence Hughes. It is a history of the company written shortly after the war and includes memorial and awards list and a directory of all of the unit members.

We also have the autobiographical work The Unique Navy Career of Sheldon H. Hine, Lt. Comdr., U.S.N.R. 1942-1948. This Fort Wayne resident worked with the Special Devices Division of the Bureau of Aeronautics and his story is fascinating.World War II

Last but not least is the file that contains George V. Myers’ World War II discharge papers and oral interview. Myers, of Michigan, served in the 353rd Infantry and served in Europe and Africa as a military Policeman. Take a bit of time and have a listen!

by Allison

Whether you are a novice or an expert, your genealogy start-story is one to be proud of and to share.  As the newest librarian on the ACPL Genealogy Center staff, I would like to introduce myself by sharing my own start-story.  

Like many youngsters, I often went to pay my respects at the cemetery with my family.  Perhaps unlike most people, my maternal grandmother would take me for hours just to wander the local cemetery in Plymouth, Indiana, the town where my mother was raised.  She wanted to show me the names, dates, and symbols.  While she had no interest in genealogy, she instilled a love of cemeteries in me at a very young age. They are places to love, respect, learn, and be at peace.  While death is never a happy subject, having the ability to retain a connection with deceased friends and family is a good thing.  My parents were not as enthralled with cemeteries as my grandmother and I, but they would go and clean out the family plot in the Catholic Cemetery of Fort Wayne and put fresh silk flowers out every season.  

At age sixteen and I went to the cemetery with my parents and other relatives to perform the annual change of the silk flowers.  Since there were more than enough people helping with the family plot, I began to wander through the section to look at the different stones.  I was astonished when I discovered a grave stone with my father’s name on it!  My father, Edward, was named after his grandfather, Edward.  My father is alive and well while his grandfather had been buried since 1955.  I had no idea who the third Edward could have been.  After my initial shock, I realized that the dates were off.  This Edward was only 9 years old when he passed away!  He was also born almost twenty years after my great-grandfather.  Something did not add up.  

I went back to the family plot and asked my family members if they knew anything about it.  They were all surprised and went back to the grave to see for themselves.  None of them had any idea who the child was and how he was related to our family.  That was the day I became a novice genealogist.  I wanted to know everything about this child and why he wasn’t in our family plot if he was a relative.  Unfortunately, my paternal grandparents were deceased by this time.  I could not ask them any questions.  I had to turn to the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center for help.

I still remember walking into the library and being overwhelmed.  I had no idea where to start.  Luckily for me, there was a librarian at the desk who was willing to assist me in my beginning search.  The interesting thing was that I did not want to start with me, which is the recommended way to begin genealogy.  I was bound and determined to figure out who the child with my father’s name was and how he was related to us.  Thankfully, the librarian helped me find information on the child’s death.  This led me to his parents’ names.  The grand mystery was solved.  The third Edward was the nephew of my great-grandfather with the same name.  His brother honored him by naming his son after him.  It was easy to link the brother to my family since he died the same year as the child and is buried in our family plot.  It was also interesting to discover that the child was buried next to his mother who died long after the child.  In fact, she remarried and had a long life before finally settling next to her little boy.  

While I was able to solve the family mystery, it opened up a door of many more mysteries.  Why did my great-grandfather’s brother die so young?  Who were these family members?  What did they do?  What other family members can I find?  The simple family mystery in a cemetery many years ago has led me to spending over half of my life doing genealogy research.  I was hooked!  

What is your genealogy start-story?  Have you shared it with your family?  Sometimes learning about the family mysteries and skeletons in the closet are the best ways to pique someone’s interest in learning more about genealogy.  I look forward to working with all of you!

(We welcome Allison to The Genealogy Center! Read more about her and the rest of the public service staff.)

We invite you to capture a day in Allen County, Indiana! On Sunday, February 14, 2016, 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, 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. for more information, see the brochure.

Email pictures to Genealogy@ACPL.Info
Twitter #DayinAllenCo2016
Upload pictures at www.Facebook.com/GenealogyCenter
Instagram @GenealogyCenter

A number of obituary and other point of death records have been added to our Free Databases recently.

One of our most popular databases is our Fort Wayne and Allen County Area Obituary Index, and local volunteer John Lawrence has filled in a number of gaps in that database by reviewing 19th and early 20th century newspapers and adding a total of 18,951 obituaries recently! One may search the database by first or last name (exact, Soundex and fuzzy search) or by date.

The Daviess County, Indiana Obituary Index has 2013 and 2014 entries added by Kay Hedrick, bringing the run from 1984 to 2014. This index also includes many entries from Martin, Pike and Knox Counties, as well as Daviess.

And the Genealogy Tracers African American Homegoing Programs continue to expand, now containing 4048 memorials with 19, 761 images, thanks to the Genealogy Tracers of Cleveland, Ohio, whose members are Alfreda Spratlen Barnes, Clancy Ware-Simpson, David Simpson, Carmine Vaughn Stewart.

Thanks to everyone for their time and effort! These databases would not exist without them!

Cynthia Theusch will present January’s entry in the WinterTech series with “Technology Tour of The Genealogy Center,” on Wednesday, January 13, 2016, 2:30–3:30 p.m., in Meeting Rooms B&C. Cynthia will demonstrate all the technology available for our customers to use including scanners, printers and more! Remember that WinterTech is offered in the afternoons of the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana’s monthly meeting, so stay until 7 p.m. to hear ACGSI members “Sharing Unique Finds during Genealogical Research.” To register for any of these free events, call 260-421-1225 or send us an email.

We have a fabulous “new” map for your viewing pleasure on our free Allen County, Indiana Resources page. It is a 1935 Business Loop map of downtown Fort Wayne, bordered by Brackenridge on the south, Webster on the west, Columbia and the railroad on the north and Barr on the east. From the whole map which serves as an overview, one may click on sections to see enlargements, to view the locations of theaters, churches, stores and residences all over downtown. Most businesses are specified, such as Patterson Fletcher, Stag Cigar, Bon Ton Bakery, Kroger Market, Baltes hotel and more, although some are just identified as barber or filling station. Buildings are identified by street number and trolley tracks are shown, as is Transfer Corner at Calhoun and Berry. At the top is a statistical summary of the types of businesses, including 18 shoe stores, 40 clothing stores, 22 barbers, 10 hotels, 12 markets, and 9 beer parlors. Residences are not identified by name. The map can be a bit confusing at first, as west is at the top, and a strong knowledge of the streets of Fort Wayne’s downtown or a current map may serve as an aid to browsing.

by Delia

People are already sending photos for the Who’s a Hoosier? Who and What Makes Indiana Great Bicentennial Image Collection. This one comes from Kevin Roe of Fort Wayne. Kevin has lived most of his life in Fort Wayne. Some of us here in The Genealogy Center knew him as an Allen County Public Library Page-turned Clerk-turned Librarian in the 1970s and 1980s as he worked his way through college and graduate school, then began his career. He’s now with Fort Wayne Community Schools, but keeps in touch with us. Kevin is sending a number of family and group photos, but this one shows Kevin (a great Hoosier) with Santa in 1963, when Kevin was 3½ years old.

This Santa is Phil Steigerwald, the famous Wolf & Dessauer Santa Claus. Born in 1927 to Phil E. and Vera Hurst Steigerwald, Phil began his Santa career in 1943, when he was still in high school. In the mid-1950s, his service became a profession at the Sears Store on Rudisill. He became Wolf & Dessauer’s Santa several years later and remained there until W&D closed in 1979. Along the way, he was a realtor and a Fort Wayne City Council member from 1963 to 1971. Phil died in 2004, but his legacy lives with the many children who still treasure their pictures with Santa.

Join us in defining Who's a Hoosier? Who and What Makes Indiana Great by submitting images for the collection!

It is a wonder how one person's contributions to our Free Databases can expand research possibilities! The following material has all been donated for your use here by one generous researcher.

The Four Mile Church was the first Church of the Brethren (German Baptist) in Indiana. It was 1809 and the area was known as “The Gore.” The Upper Four Mile Church was in Wayne County, and the Lower Four Mile Church was in Franklin County, but when Union County was formed in 1821, both churches were in that county. Four Mile Church, 200th Anniversary discusses the history of the church with brief family histories of members, along with many photos, and a map showing the locations of early Brethren Churches in Indiana.

Virginia Colony: History and Record of the Early Families and Times of the Four Mile Church of the Brethren is a history of the church and area, along with family histories and a name index to this material. Together, these two items provide  a wonderful history of the church and its people.
 
The Frontier Brethren provides a study of the early migration of the Brethren to Kentucky and the Ohio River Valley. It contains historical and biographical material, as well as a map of Brethren churches in Kentucky, and southern Indiana and Ohio.
 
Southern Ohio, Highland and Adams County Churches also deals with Brethren churches, this time on Ohio. A history of the Church in that region is accompanied by an index of Dunkard families listed in the 1820 and 1830 census of the area.
 
Obannon Baptist Brethren Church book deals with the Brethren who came to Ohio in the 1790s, and provides a history and information on the families.  
 
All of these were generously provided by Merle Rummel and all can be searched using the search feature on each home page.

The last item, also provided by Mr. Rummel, is Brethren Migration Roads, a PowerPoint file that is not searchable, but contain 264 images that include maps and photographs of the trails as they exist now and images of what might have existed when our ancestors traversed these routes. Whether your ancestors were Brethren or not, this final selection is a wonderful resource.

Our Free Databases keep expanding, this time with some new family materials and a couple of military records.

Eleanor Wallace of Fort Wayne submitted several items of Family Resources. Pragoff Progenitors: Gorin Line, Franklin Extensions, Bowman Extensions and
Pragoff Progenitors: Pragoff Line, Plasket Extensions, Chambers Extensions. These two items delve deeply into the various connecting branches of her Pragoff family.

Loretta Luce Evans donated Luse Family Reunion Book: Record of the Minutes and Doings of the Reunions of the Children Cousins of Serenus B. Luse. It includes images of the Reunion ledger from 1893 to 1905 and 1915, as well as pages of family records, an index and notes of the accuracy of some of the entries.

We also have the World War I Discharge paper of Harold Frary, of the Hoboken Casual Company #246 and Company F of the 316th Engineers. He left the United States in July 1918 and returned in March 1919.
 
Alexander Morris was born in New York in 1889 and, after his parents died, he and his siblings were placed in an orphan asylum. When it closed, he transferred to a Catholic Reform School, then later, to a better orphan home where he studied music for the first time. He joined the Navy in 1907 and served for the next 47 years until retirement, then died in 1962. His career in the Navy was as a musician and bandmaster. His Peacetime & Multiple Engagements details his career through the first half of the Twentieth Century and is a fascinating read about a young man who worked hard and achieved success.

The last item is the Butler-McDonald-Mazanec Photograph Collection. All of the information we have is the three family names associated with it, and the few notes attached to the photos. It is like looking though a family scrapbook, with formal portraits and snapshots, postcards of locations important to the family, photographs of gravestones and Christmas cards. Take a stroll through the pictures and enjoy!

Have you been wondering what's happened to PERSI? Do you wonder what PERSI is, and how to use it? Join Melissa Tennant at 2:30 p.m., on Wednesday, December 9, 2015 in Meeting Room B&C, as she discusses  where one can find PERSI, the differences between the sites, how to get copies of articles cited in the periodical index, and the dramatic things that are happening with PERSI at FindMyPast. To register for this free program, call 260-421-1225 or send an email.

And stay until 7 p.m. for the monthly meeting of the Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana for Marge Graham's presentation "Wills and Probate Records," in Meeting Room A.

On the 150th anniversary of the thirteenth amendment's ratification by the states, Professor Brian Dirck of Anderson University will discuss the amendment and Lincoln's role in its success. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Allen County Public Library. Join us Sunday, December 6, 2015, at 2:00 p.m., in Meeting Room A for this free event. For more information, visit The Lincoln Collection.

We have a nice potpourri of new church and cemetery listings in our Free Databases for you to enjoy, staring with Marriage Surname Index to Maryland German Church Records and supplied by compiler Dale W. Morrow. This is a marriage index for the counties of Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick and Washington in Frederick Weiser's Maryland German Church Records.
 
Joann Wasson supplied “If This Plot Had Ears: The Stories of the Old Liberty Cemetery,” of Hardin County, Illinois. This 30-page document details the restoration of this cemetery and brief biographies of those who are known to be buried there.
 
Rhonda Stoffer, Head of Indiana History and Genealogy Services at the Marion Public Library, and a local Grant County customer, James Campbell made the Corey's Cemetery Map, Van Buren Township, Grant County, Indiana. One can click anywhere on the map to view an enlargement of that section, and a brief history of the cemetery is on the image.
 
Finally, we have a Lutheran Bible Institute, Minneapolis photo, dated February 11, 1941. The photograph is scanned in such a way that you can click on a section to view the attendees more closely. We have no names associated with the photo, so if you recognize anyone, please let us know.

The great American holiday of Thanksgiving is nearly upon us. It is a time traditionally when families gather together to share a feast, give thanks for their bounty, and watch football. It is also one of the few times of the year that multiple generations of a family assemble under one roof. It is thus a great time for sharing family stories, looking at photographs, and remembering the past.

This year, why not participate in the Great Thanksgiving Listen, taking place from November 26 to November 29? The sponsor of this event is StoryCorps, a nationally-known oral history project whose mission is to capture the stories of thousands of people across our country. You may have heard excerpts of StoryCorps sessions on National Public Radio. They have made it easy by providing an app that is easily downloaded to a cell phone. This is a convenient way to record the stories of family members and preserve them forever.

Everyone has a story tell, whether it is a family tradition, a childhood memory, a military service experience, or a recollection about a particular place or event. What is the earliest memory that you can recall? Where were you when you heard about President Kennedy's assassination? Did you watch the Apollo 11 moon landing on television in 1969? Where were you on 9/11? What stories have you heard about your family's history?

Let's pause a moment from our feasting this week and take time to remember and record. You'll be glad you did.

by Cynthia Theusch

This past summer, The Genealogy Center acquired two new microfilm and microfiche reader/scanner/printer machines. With their new technological features and updated scanning software, you will definitely want to make use of these machines during your next visit.

New features include:

• Larger monitor to display microfilm page or microfiche file.
• Digitally zoom in where the smaller print can be easily read.
• Subtract (remove) unwanted articles and/or paragraphs from a 2-column scan image.
• Merge 2 or more images together which is a great feature to use when your article has been divided into 2 or more pages.
• Digitizing your film negatives and slides.
  • Black and white
  • Color negatives

The new Microtext Machines are a great way to capture images from microfilm, microfiche, negatives and slides; and add them to your group of displayed photos or in your family history files and stories.

Have a brick wall in your research? Would you like a greater understanding of some aspect of your research? The Genealogy Center is offering 30-minute personal research consultations with a staff member on some troublesome aspect of your research. The Consultations will be offered on Wednesday, December 2nd and Tuesday, December 8th, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Call 260-421-1225 or email Genealogy@ACPL.Info for an appointment, requesting a Consultation and providing basic information concerning the nature of your quandary. A staff member will be assigned and a time established for your consultation. Be sure to bring your research notes to your consultation.

Space is limited, and pre-registration is required. Register today!

 

As you visit The Genealogy Center in the coming weeks, you may notice a bit of unusual activity, especially in the Microtext Reading Room. When we reopened our expanded and renovated building in 2007, we had a large space devoted to using our extensive microtext collection—a collection that included census and military records, newspapers, city directories, and documents from many states and countries. However, digital copies of these important documents continue to grow exponentially in use.  Microtext usage, on the other hand, continues to diminish greatly.

What has grown in the last decade is our dedication to expand service to include more classes and consultations, as well as meeting our customers’ desires to collaborate with us and one another. In response, we are repurposing more than half of the former Microtext Reading Room into our new Discovery Center, a space for presentations, panel discussions, group activities, pop-up demonstrations, collaborative dialog, and one-on-one consultations.

We also have become increasingly aware that in this digital age, people’s stories are slipping away. Email and texting have replaced written correspondence between friends and family members so much so that information that had been preserved in the past on paper is now being lost. Headliners and other “big” stories get preserved in other forms, but the day-to-day lives of firemen, teachers, industrial workers, veterans, emigrants, attorneys and the histories of communities, churches, businesses and ethnic groups get lost in the shuffle. To preserve and present these every-day stories, we are repurposing our former Orientation Area into a Life Stories Center. We want to better facilitate the preservation of everyone’s experiences, memories, and life stories.

While all of this activity is occurring, we hope that you will tolerate the small inconveniences caused by a limited amount of noise and some dust. We are looking forward to the great possibilities that our new spaces will bring. Thank you for your understanding.

There are some new or expanded Allen County items available for use online!

At one time, Bass Foundry was one of Fort Wayne’s largest employers, with more than a thousand employees. Among other product lines, the Foundry made boilers for railroads, businesses and homes. Bass Steel Heating Boilers is a six-page brochure showing photos and descriptions of some of the products available for residential use.
 
The North Side Yearbook Index is now complete from 1929 to 1024, with more than 187,000 entries and has an updated the search page.

We now have issues of Wayne High School’s newspaper “The Dispatch,” “The Wayne Dispatch,” or “The Wayne High School Dispatch,” from 1971-1991.

And, finally, The Allen County Courthouse was an architectural gem when it opened in 1902, with statues, murals and stained glass, but the next ninety years took their toll. In 1994, Allen County Courthouse Preservation Trust, Inc. began a project to restore and preserve the building, which was completed in 2002. The Genealogy Center now has 792 images of this restoration available through our ContentDM link. The photographs are divided into sections: Circuit Court, First Floor, Second Floor, Superior Court One,  Superior Court Three, and Third Floor. Treat yourself to some browsing today!

The Genealogy Center, like all facilities of the Allen County Public Library, will be closed on Thursday, November 26th, for Thanksgiving. We will be open our regular hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25th, and reopen on Friday, November 27th, at 9 a.m.

As your family and friends gather, participate in the Great Thanksgiving Listen on Thursday and the National Day of Listening on Friday, as an alternative to shopping. This holiday, feed your mind as well as your stomach!