3 Mother’s Day Things To Do

No matter how many mothers you study about in history, to you the most famous Mother will probably be your own. There is no time like the present to tap her repository of genealogical information. If that is not possible, tap into your and other’s store of genealogical memories about her.

 

1. Take this time to interview your Mother

Bring a recorder, or use your iPhone, to record a chat with your Mom this Mother’s Day. Alternately, if you live too far away for a visit, record your phone call. (Always make sure Mom agrees to this.)

Undoubtedly your Mother will be thinking of her Mother on this day, so this might be a good time to talk about the women in your family and extract the information that is at the forefront of your mind.

If this is not an option for you, consider interviewing your siblings or other family members about your Mom. Even if you grew up in the same home, with the same parents, family members may have quite different recollections about the family’s history.

 

2. Transcribe the interview with your Mother

Whether the interview is new or old, take the time to type out the words that passed between you.

When I began to pursue genealogy in earnest, my son was a toddler. Taking notes proved to be too difficult, so I recorded conversations with my Mom about her family as well as what she knew about my late Father’s people. My Mom passed away soon after that, so these recordings have been a treasure to me, both to remind me of the facts and to hear her voice.

At the time, I made sure that the electronic files were backed up. Although it was a long while before I was ready to listen to them, they contained a number of key facts to unlock some mysteries about her family history as well as my Father’s childhood.

Transcribing the conversations will take time, but having the words on a page is worth the effort. You can print out (or photocopy) the transcriptions. You can also annotate the transcriptions to include full names, places and corrections to the information generated in the conversation.

 

3. Do a Mother’s Day Worksheet about your Mother

Click this link to download the custom worksheet from a A Week Of Genealogy to capture information about your Mom. Call and ask her the answers. Or compare your recollections with hers. Better yet, wouldn’t it be great to get her to do a sheet about her Mother? Or ask your Grandmother to do one about her Mother? How about getting your children to do one about you (or their Mother)?

This form is in Word format, so you can print it out to write in it or type your answers. Feel free to attach more pages if you have more memories about the items on the sheet. If you are working on the form on your computer, just keep typing. If you use the paper copy, be sure to note that the answers are continued on additional pages.

This post is dedicated to Susan A., who is one of those great Moms.

5 Ancestry.com Databases for WWI Research

Among Ancestry.com’s databases, are some really interesting ones that will help you to research your WWI ancestors. This post covers five of the United States databases.

 

1. Whether or not your ancestor fought in World War I, this is a go-to database for finding men between 18 and 45 years old. The information includes a man’s birth date and place, occupation, address, physical description, and the name and address of the next of kin. The information on these cards will not tell you if the ancestor served, but can help you to verify if the military records you find are for the same man.

This database was updated on 4/6/2017. I know it is hard not to just jump in and search, but make some time to read the helpful hints in the database description.

U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918

 

2. If your ancestor served, there may be an application for a military headstone. These applications include information about the military unit in which your ancestor served, which is key to continuing research into his military life.

U.S., Headstone Applications for Military Veterans, 1925-1963

 

3. Over ten percent of the soldiers who served in WWI were from New York State, making this is an important database for many researchers. New York state created these abstracts from the military records that were ultimately destroyed in the National Personnel Records Center fire in 1973. They contain information about service organization(s) with assignment dates and transfers, ranks and promotion, dates of oversea service and injuries These cards typically had a front and a back, so be sure to select the next page to see the back of the card (if it is included). You can even find female ancestors in this database.

New York, Abstracts of World War I Military Service, 1917-1919

 

4. This database contains records for officers in the New York National Guard. It contains cards for the officers, and it contains more than WWI records. According to the database description, there may be cards for some Non-Commissioned Officers and Enlisted personnel, but I have yet to find any.

New York, Military Service Cards, 1816-1979

 

5. If you had a Jewish soldier, The American Jewish Committee (AJC) Office of Jewish War Records sent out surveys to soldiers that were assumed to be Jewish to the service of Jews in the American armed forces. Be sure to look at the pages after the questionnaire in case supporting documents were included.

U.S., WWI Jewish Servicemen Questionnaires, 1918-1921

 

Searching the Card Catalog for keywords “WWI” will bring up more databases, including British and U.K. records. Searching for “World War I” brought up records for both WWI and WWII.

3 Great WWI Research Resources

Since the beginning of the centennial of U.S. involvement in World War I, I have been on the lookout for more material about the Great War. Not only is it a part of the world’s history, it is part of our family’s history. Learning about the conflict deepens our understanding of the ancestors who lived through these events.

1. The New England Historic Genealogical Society has a great webpage that combines resources for both World War I & World War II U.S. Veteran Research.

 

 

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2. The Delaware Public Archives has A Guide to World War I Records. This is great resource because of the depth of the material it offers. The tabs on the page lead you to resources for topics such as: Service Records and Pension Records; Genealogical Sources; and Social History and Context. You can start at World War I: Service Records and Pension Records.

 

 

Click the other tabs to check out more material.

 

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3. The third resource is Chronicling America. Rather than search by newspaper or location, this time you will search Topics by Subject. Start on the Topics by Subject page to see the topics that have an associated webpage.

 

 

Scroll down to find the War Topics. In that section, you will find WWI topics:

 

 

On each topic page there is basic information about the topic, links to sample articles and suggested research strategies.The topic page for Planes in WWI (1908-1917) is shown below.

 

 

Enjoy using these resources to learn more about the life and times of your WWI ancestors!

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RootsTech 2017 Videos and Syllabi

Rootstech 2017 has come and gone, but we can all still enjoy it!

Have you wanted to watch the videos and download the syllabi from RootsTech 2017? Whether or not you attended this year’s RootsTech, watching the videos is educational and the syllabi can be a great resource.

To watch the videos for each day of RootsTech, go to:

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-wed

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-thu

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-fri

https://www.rootstech.org/videos-sat

You can also switch between the days by using the menu in the upper right corner of the webpage.

(2016 videos can be found at: https://www.rootstech.org/videos.)

The syllabi are not posted on the RootsTech website; you will need to use an app to access them. The good news is that will stay available indefinitely on that app. The better news is that you can view the app on a webpage: http://app.core-apps.com/rootstech2017/

 

 

Click on Conference Schedule. From there, you can browse by Day or by Track.

 

 

After you select the way you want to view the sessions, you will see the lists of sessions.

Look at the star next to the title of the class. If there is a PDF icon to the right of the star, then the speaker did provide a syllabus for the class.

 

 

Click on the arrow to the right to view the information for the session and scroll to the bottom. At the bottom is a Resources section, you will see the “Handouts”. Click on the arrow next to Handouts to view the titles of the handouts.

 

 

Click on the title and the PDF opens up. You can read, print or save the handout (syllabus).

 

 

If there is more than one handout, use the browser’s back arrow to repeat the process, clicking on the second handout.

 

 

When I wrote to the folks at RootTech tech support, they responded that the handouts (syllabi) will be posted online soon. But you do not have to wait until they are!

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National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair

Are you looking for an easy way to learn about using the National Archives? Would you like to know more about researching your genealogy at NARA?

The 2016 National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair has come and gone, but the videos have been posted on YouTube, and the handouts are still available. You can learn directly from NARA personnel in the videos and have the handouts for reference.

Check out the 2016 National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair webpage for the topics and links to the videos and handouts. You can follow the links on that page to watch presentations from both days on YouTube.

 

 

You can also download the handouts.

But wait…there’s more! You can access the videos and handouts for the 2015 Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair.

From that webpage you can follow the links to view the Sessions Videos and Handouts. This page also contains links to information about the 2013 and 2014 Virtual Genealogy Fairs.

So, check out the presentations and attend sessions from a NARA Virtual Genealogy Fair right in your own home!

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Get Your Irish Civil Records Online!

If you have Irish ancestors, you need to be using the Civil Records at IrishGenealogy.ie This website will be a major boon to your research. Using this website, I was able to look up and download records that would have cost quite a bit to order from overseas.

The Civil Records that are online are:

• Births: 1864 to 1915
• Marriages: 1882 to 1940
• Deaths: 1891 to 1965

A good place to start is the page about the Civil Records:

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/civil-records/help/what-are-the-civil-records

 

 

To search, go to https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp

 

 

Give the simple search form a try. In fact, I found this form to be the most useful.

The first thing I did was to download the images for my Grandfather’s and his siblings birth records. I knew the Civil Registration District/Office, and their dates of birth. The children were born between 1882 and 1902.

When you begin to type into that field a drop down menu appears. You can always leave that field blank to search all the counties.

 

 

After pressing the Search button, I had to check a box to prove that I was not a robot.

Then I had to give my name to search the archives.

 

 

When I used 1894 with no end to the range, the results ranged from 1894 through to the last year of the database.

 

 

The records before 1900 did not have the Mother’s Birth Surname indexed. From 1900 on, the search results show the Mother’s Birth Surname.

You can select “More search options” to use additional search options.

The additional search options restrict the search.

 

 

I clicked on the result that was my Grandfather’s.

 

 

I clicked on the image button to see the whole page of the register.

 

 

My Grandfather was listed as entry number 59. The section on the right was used for comments in other entries.

 

 

For one of his siblings there was an image of the record, and the certified record.

Then I downloaded his Mother’s birth record.

Next came his parent’s marriage record. For the end of the session, I downloaded the death record for his Father and Sister.

 

A Broader Search

For some ancestors, their county of birth is not yet known. I left the District/Registration field blank. I can now search each record to see if I could find the ancestor.

 

 

I knew the ancestor’s mother’s name from her death certificate, so I searched a timeframe around her birth year. There were two birth records that matched the mother’s name. One of those two had a father’s name that matched the name of one of her sons. However, he son’s father had the same name, so it is not firm evidence.

 

 

There is more work to be done, but this is a good lead. I am going to review my atDNA test results to see if any clues are hiding in the matches.

An interesting article by John Grenham can be found here: https://www.johngrenham.com/blog/2016/10/03/roadmap-of-the-promised-land/

Give this a try, and let me know how you do!

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