Army Historical Foundation’s Genealogy Seminar

On 11 May 2024 I attended The Army Historical Foundation’s Genealogy Seminar, hosted at the National Museum of the United States Army. The seminar was entitled “Unlock your military legacy.” There were attendees both in person and online, and I was able to attend in person.

The speaker lineup was impressive: Richard G. Sayre, COL (USA-Ret.), Pamela Boyer Sayre, and Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG, CGL. Many of you know Rick and Pam from their outstanding presentations. Among her many accomplishments and extensive service to the genealogical community, Rebecca currently works as Executive Director of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® and is the Director of the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed) which is held annually at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Rebecca began the seminar with an excellent presentation about “Records of the U.S. Army held by the National Archives and Records Administration.” Sharing her hands-on experience, she demonstrated the types of records and how and where to locate them. Demonstrations of how to use the NARA Catalog are always beneficial. She also shared examples with us of records she had found about her ancestors.

“Map Repositories in the Washington D.C. Area” was next, and in that presentation Rick discussed more than the repositories; he explained the history of mapping in the US. It is significant to know about the maps, including who created them and their purpose. He showed what was on the maps and their usefulness for using them in the context of an ancestor’s war experience. He shared so many great examples!

After a delightful lunch, and having been inspired by the two previous presentations, I was ready for the next presentation. Pam presented “Tracking an Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century Soldier.” She showed us how to time travel using Google Earth Pro. First she demonstrating what could be done, then she explained the steps in detail for how to use those features to document your military ancestor’s life in a visual and engaging format. Not only is this a great way to share information with non-genealogists, but this is also a great technique for immersion into the context of an ancestor’s service. This is something I had been considering, and using her approach will make the task straightforward and manageable.

The last presentation was by Rick and Pam, “Learning About a Twentieth Century Soldier.” This session presented resources and brief case studies about researching the service of twentieth-century soldiers at NARA facilities. Rick and Pam decided to focus on WWI, and a follow-up presentation for learning about WWII soldiers will be recorded and distributed to attendees at a later date. After the resources were discussed, a clear methodology was presented. Of course that methodology included the use of one of my favorite tools, timelines. Rick clearly described the homework that a researcher needs to do before contacting and visiting a NARA facility.

The presentations were very practical in nature. While it is great to find out about resources and how to use them in your research, it is also important to know where and how to find them. Being able to use them and share them is also incredibly valuable. The NARA Catalog can be awkward to navigate, so insights that the speakers shared were appreciated. There are always things to learn from such distinguished genealogists.  

The final presentation held a couple of surprises for me. Two of my books were listed in the bibliography for the final presentation. Of course I was delighted to be included. The real surprise is that Rick and Pam showed a slide that contained the cover of my recent book, “Researching U.S. WWI Military Members, Military Organizations and Overseas Noncombatants: A Research Guide for Historians and Genealogists” I was happy for my book to receive a shout out. (They had no idea I would be in the audience!) I was even happier to see that the Pioneer Infantry Regiments were also mentioned in the presentation. If that was not enough, I was delighted when Rick asked me unexpectedly to say a few words about the Pioneer Infantry Regiments. What a privilege, and how great to see the Pioneers’ stories being told.

This all-star line-up held an informative seminar and disseminated actionable information! Thank you!

In the next blog post I share more about my visit to the Museum after the seminars concluded.

You can find out more about these two books, and others, on this website. They are available on Amazon.

“Researching U.S. WWI Military Members, Military Organizations and Overseas Noncombatants: A Research Guide for Historians and Genealogists”

“A Guide to the U.S. Pioneer infantry Regiments in WWI”

Book Review: Evidence Explained, Fourth Edition

It is difficult to tackle a review of such a definitive classic tome, but this newest edition does warrant the work involved in such an undertaking. Elizabeth Shown Mills has certainly invested the time to document what can be a daunting process to many, and to eliminate confusion about the topic with clear explanations.

New technology means more and different sources to cite, and the book has been expanded to conquer them all. It is difficult to imagine how this magic has been done, given that the page count of the book has been reduced from the 892 pages of the Third Edition (Revised) to 739 pages. Ms. Mills has accomplished this seeming legerdemain, not with a slight of hand, but through the use of templates.

The Fourth Edition now contains 14 templates, which are more general and concise than the Quickcheck Models of the previous edition. In each template, there is a first reference note, followed by construction notes explaining each part of the citation. These templates allow a user to build up their citation in a way that makes sense for their source, and for other sources that may not even exist yet.

While other reviewers have shared their views about the undeniable strengths of the evidence analysis process presented in this book, this engineer proposes to evaluate it under actual use conditions. For a book like the newest edition Evidence Explained, the best way to review it is to spend a little time using it.

The first thing I did was make sure I could still locate the straightforward information about which part of ships’ names are and are not italicized. For some reason, this is something I always need to double check. This small piece has remained the same between versions.

On a couple of recent occasions, I needed citation support that was beyond other sources, so I had good opportunities to work with the newer elements of the book.

I found myself needing to cite a college newsletter and yearbook for a very brief project. Wanting to make a good impression on the recipient, I needed Ms. Mills help, and her book did not disappoint me. Undoubtedly investing time in reading the book from cover to cover will yield a good return, but prior to completing that task I searched in the index for help.

Although I first thought to cite the yearbook and school newsletters, it was clear that this approach was flawed. The items requiring citations were in an online virtual archive, which is a Digital Collection. Using Section 4.15 and its examples within Online Images: Empasis on Document was the help I needed. This led me to more help offered by Template 10, Online Image (No Named Database), which was immediately bookmarked (with a sticky note).

Another case was the need to cite a private message sent to me via Facebook. Messages like this are interesting sources. Of course, they do not have the benefit of peer review or public review. They are unrecoverable by a reader. In this case, I needed to use a quote from the private message, and it was clear from the context and the subject area that it contained subjective data.  

Checking the index for social media led me to explore the complexities of citing social media posts, but that was not what I needed for this citation. So, I located correspondence, personal in the index and investigated. This led me to Section 4.41 about Email & Instant Messages. One of the examples was for a Facebook direct message, which was exactly what I needed. Even though the example was sufficient for me to build the citation, this whole section sent me to Template 7 Private Holdings (Artifact or Manuscript Document) where further explanation could be found.

Citations accomplished!

I recommend checking out Section 2.10 for the Symbols & Terms that are used to flag citations. The symbols are good flags for the types of citations that I often use, and knowing where to start can be confusing without a reference. As we learn in the footnote, there are fewer examples for type CD-ROM, which makes sense because we are using them far less than we might have in the past in favor of their online replacements.

The sticky notes that were accrued in the Third Edition during my ProGen days have now been migrated to the Fourth Edition, and new sticky notes have joined them. I often return to my most used templates and the chapters that I seem to be needing a lot lately, Archives & Artifacts and Business & Institutional Records.

The Templates are a very useful update for this classic work, and the section about Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) is one more way that Ms. Mills demonstrates that this reference does support you from artifacts all the way to cyberspace.

The book is available at Genealogical.com and other booksellers.

Notes: A review copy of the book was provided by the publisher. Like many other genealogists, I am a fan of Ms. Mills and recognize her service to the genealogical community.

The Postmaster Finder

The Postmaster Finder is a useful database if you are researching U.S. Postmasters or Post Offices. You can look up a Postmaster by city or search the database by Postmaster name. This database has entries from 1971 or in some cases, earlier. Another interesting part of this website is links to other useful resources for researching the postal service at the National Archives.

The Postmaster Finder database can be found at: https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/

To find the Postmaster in a city, select the link Postmasters by City

I searched for New York, New York.

And was rewarded with 96 entries (on 5 pages of results), going back to 1775.

If you know the name of the Postmaster and not where their Post Office was, you find out where they served by selecting the link Where Served to search for Postmasters by name.

The link for County and the link for State will let you search for Post Offices in those locations. Be sure to read the notes to the right of the search fields because they give helpful hints about how to search and what may not be included.

Another feature allows searching for locations by a range of ZIP Codes. To search by ZIP Code use the first 3 digits of the from ZIP Code and to ZIP Code. In the example below, I searched using the first three digits of a ZIP Code where I had lived in both the From and To fields.

The FAQ is worth exploring for suggestions to learn additional information about Post Offices, such as the origin of their name or their original locations. https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/postmaster-finder/postmaster-finder-faq.htm

One answer has a reference to the paper ” What’s in a (Post Office) Name?” found at:

https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/pdf/post-office-names.pdf

“Sources of Historical Information on Post Offices, Postal Employees, Mail Routes, and Mail Contractors” can be found at: https://about.usps.com/publications/pub119.pdf

Enjoy researching your Postmaster ancestors!

Finding Single Irish Women Immigrants to New York City

In our extended family, a group of cousins work together to bring the stories of our shared Irish immigrant family, as well as the families they left behind in Ireland, back to life. In the chain migration of a family unit, the older siblings often come first, with others following. In the family unit from which most of us descend, the oldest siblings traveled to the US first, followed by the widowed mother and all the younger siblings, traveling after the death of their father. A shared goal is to bring the stories of our shared Irish immigrant family back to life.

Ships’ manifests are great records, but the older they are, the less helpful they are. This is where other records are needed to confirm an identity that appears on the manifest. Several censuses collected information about immigration, but these may be estimates or the best recollection of the person who gave the enumerator the information. Some vital records may list the number of years a person was in the US, but these might be filled out by a decedent’s child who did not have firsthand knowledge of the event. Naturalization records can help by sharing a date, but depending on the timeframe, women would derive their citizenship from their husband and not seek citizenship on their own.

For the 300,000 young unmarried Irish women who traveled to the US, it may be difficult to pinpoint their arrival date and ship. The repetition of names within an Irish family can compound this difficulty. If your unmarried Irish female ancestor came to New York City between 1883-1954, the records of the Irish Mission at Watson House might help. For us, this database confirmed the ship of one of those older siblings, a single female, who arrived alone as a link in that chain of immigration.

Multiple members of our group had searched for Delia’s arrival, and we converged on the most probably being the one shown below. Delia is a nickname for Bridget, so we had searched using both names. In the manifest below, there is a Bridget McMahon and a Delia McMahon, but our McMahon is known to come from Kilrush. The date of this manifest fit into the timeline for her life events; we knew that she was no longer with her family in Kilrush, Clare, Ireland at the time of the 1901 Irish Census.

Manifest of the Germanic, arriving 10 Mar 1901 (lines 12 through 16, columns 1 through 9)

Column 16 of the manifest is “Whether going to join a relative, and if so, what relative, their name and address.” Bridget McMahon shown in line 12 was going to meet her Uncle D. McMahon. We did know that siblings arrived ahead of her, but not recognize the address from our previous work.

Manifest of the Germanic, arriving 10 Mar 1901 (Column 16)

The Irish Mission at Watson House helped over 100,000 of these women who arrived in New York City. The ledgers are dated between 1883-1954, and on the search page we are told to check back, as there will be more additions to the website. I learned about this database from a great webinar given at The Genealogy Center, reviewed at: https://aweekofgenealogy.com/webinar-review-irish-immigrant-women-in-the-us/

The home page gives the history and the context for the Mission, so it is worth browsing. From the home page you select Digital Archives, or you can search or browse from: https://archives.irishmissionatwatsonhouse.org

(I could have selected SEARCH from the menu at the top of the screen to use the search page.)

The first result was our ancestor.

From the search result you can viewer the ledger, its transcription, and download a pdf of the page.

There was a ledger entry for Bridget McMahon, from County Clare, who came in on the Germanic on that date. (The entry on the Passenger Manifest gave Kilrush as the place of origin.)

Ledger entry (left) for Bridget McMahon

In that entry it showed that she was meeting Denis McMahon. Although the avenue name was misindexed, it is an abbreviation for “Broadway.” There was a Denis McMahon on Broadway in our research, but the address had conflicted with what we knew about Delia’s brother, Denis. Now we know the connection between Delia and Denis McMahon of Broadway, extended our chain of migration and our understanding of the family structure back to another generation.

Ledger entry (right) for Bridget McMahon

You can also browse the collection from the Digital Archives page. Be flexible when you browse this way. When I browsed by county it appeared that the spelling of the counties was taken from the records. For example, when browsing for entries for County Clare, there were entries for: Calre, Clare, Co. Clare, Clara and “Clare.”

If you research any of the young women who traveled alone from Ireland to New York City between 1883-1954, try searching this database. It may provide the clue you have been needing. Let me know how you do with this database!

Webinar Review: Irish Immigrant Women in the US

As you know, this blog reviews. It is probably time to review webinars! Or at least one webinar that I found incredibly interesting which shared very insightful resources. The webinar was “A Lonely Voyage: Finding Irish Immigrant Women in the United States” given by Elizabeth Hodges, an expert in Irish and Irish American Studies.

Elizabeth Hodges is a Senior Genealogy Library at the Allen County Public Library, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is the home of The Genealogy Center. You can read about her and the other librarians who are genealogists at: https://www.genealogy.acpl.lib.in.us/about-genealogy-center. She has an amazing combination of skills as historian, genealogist and educator.

In this webinar, Ms. Hodges provides an insightful social history about the women who traveled alone from Ireland to the United States, sharing the reasons for immigration and the challenges they faced at all steps of this journey. She explains the history and context of why so many Irish women traveled alone to the United States. Additionally, she outlines how they traveled, which ports were common departure and arrival ports, and how US laws influenced their immigration experience. She also describes what life and work were like in the US after their arrival. By looking at combined experiences of the time, we can definitely see life through the eyes of our Irish female immigrant ancestors.

As a bonus, wonderful resources were shared. One that was especially useful in my research was The Irish Mission at Watson House website, which will be featured in this blog soon.

“A Lonely Voyage: Finding Irish Immigrant Women in the United States” is now on the YouTube channel for The Genealogy Center at Allen County Public Library https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8AE558B5D8661B31

While you are at the YouTube Channel, you can look for other presentations by Ms. Hodges, additional Irish presentations, and hundreds of other presentations in their playlist.