NCGS Fall Conference 2025

Recently I had the pleasure of presenting at, and attending, the North Carolina Genealogical Society Fall Conference 2025. The Conference was very well planned and organized at a wonderful venue with great food. As much as I appreciate the reach of virtual presentations to give presentations at many places far from where I am based, it was nice to be with a group of genealogists, learning and chatting.  

At the Conference, I presented sessions about Military Research and Artificial Intelligence (AI). When speaking about military research, I always customize my presentation to include finding military records for the location of the audience. North Carolina has great resources, both in person and online!

With a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, I am always reaching deep into the technology of AI to learn its inner workings, and to then share an understanding of how it works and how to use it. As a graduate school professor in cybersecurity, and having tested computer code used on military aircraft for years, I also have a perspective about what we should be concerned about and what can go wrong.

What was also fantastic about the Conference was that people could attend the lectures virtually. The NCGS members and technical staff streamed the presentations and recorded them for attendees to watch later. I knew everything was working when questions from online viewers came during the lectures and insightful questions via email were waiting when I returned to my hotel.

Even though my research in North Carolina is limited to a few months during WWII at Camp Davis, I did attend J. Mark Lowe’s presentation, “Creating North Carolina Local and Regional Locality Guides.” (Mark’s smile is even bigger in person!) The presentation definitely had information that I will carry forward to the places where I do research. I will never look at detailed maps the same way again.

I attended another terrific presentation about using DNA to solve maternal surnames by Kate Penney Howard. Jon Smith’s workshop about using AI for creating locality guides certainly shifted my mindset from the free form text I have been using, and his tips about using Gemini in Chrome tabs were game changers. Thankfully the presentations were recorded so that I can enjoy Diane L. Richard’s presentation about Researching Your Ancestors as Kids. (Diane and I share an educational experience: Go RPI Engineers!)

The beginning-to-intermediate artificial intelligence presentation I gave on the first morning may have provided a warm-up for Steve Little’s intermediate artificial intelligence presentation. It is always interesting to see how other genealogists are using AI tools, and how its use is gaining acceptance. Promise to keep checking your output and stay sensitive to privacy concerns!

Thank you to everyone who planned and worked on making the 2025 North Carolina Genealogical Society Annual Conference such a great experience, to the audience members who shared their time with me, and all the other instructors and attendees for a rewarding and fun time!

NCGS 2025 Fall Conference

Will I see you there?

I am excited to be invited to present in person and online!

On Friday, I will be presenting Ancestors, AI, and Prompt Engineering.

On Saturday, I will be presenting a Crash Course in Researching Ancestors in the US Military.

There are great speakers, and great talks, Friday and Saturday. There is also an optional Beginner Day on Thursday, featuring four lectures just for beginners!

Researching Morning Reports

Have you every heard that you should be using Morning Reports?

A book has finally arrived to show how you can travel back in time through locations and events, day by day, with a U.S. Army soldier or organization during WWI or WWII military service.  With Morning Reports, you can overcome and potentially go beyond burned Army personnel files! Pursue references for a specific soldier, then leverage daily records when not named or identified.

This book introduces techniques for locating Morning Reports and what is and is not included. WWI and WWII formats are described in detail, with examples allowing the reader to experience the WWII Morning Report language and abbreviations by utilizing the web, Fold3 (WWI) and the NARA catalog (WWII). The reader will discover tips for locating elusive reports and strategies for working around missing records. Useful case studies combine reports across parts of a military organization and place a soldier into the context of history.

This book contains a bonus chapter about the daily reporting for other branches of the military!

Historians will find the search techniques and pointers to additional records useful as they track a soldier or organization through a world war.

Our new book is available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Using-U-S-Morning-Reports/dp/B0FPBDVN9M

If you are interested in having Dr. McMahon speak at your society about Morning Reports, or other presentations, please contact us: https://aweekofgenealogy.com/contact-us/

Topics at: https://aweekofgenealogy.com/presentations/

Reviews are at: https://aweekofgenealogy.com/comments/

US Navy Log Book for Pearl Harbor 1941

If you have read our WWI military research book, Researching U.S. WWI Military Members, Military Organizations and Overseas Noncombatants: A Research Guide for Historians and Genealogists (Research Guides for Historians and Genealogists), you know that the Navy uses Log Books. The Log Book for the U.S. Naval Navy Yard at Pearl Harbor that includes 7 Dec 1941 has been located! Apparently it was found in a dumpster in California, then held by a family for many years. A digital copy of the Log book can be found at: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/552663772. On Image 286, at the bottom of the page for 6 Dec 1941 you can see the beginning of the notes about the attack.

Remember that it is best to use a browser other than Firefox to see the image pages in order. If you choose to download the PDF file, know that it is over 1GB in size. You might want to read it online and download only the pages of interest.

Read accounts from the ships’ Log Books in NARA’s Prologue Magazine at https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2011/winter/ph-decklogs.html

An article about Log Book can be read at: https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/military-history/2025/08/18/navy-logbook-that-recounted-pearl-harbor-recovered-after-84-years/

You can see our other books at: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Margaret-M-McMahon-PhD/author/B01EMD8J62 (Always look for the latest versions.)

Book Review: Greetings from Camp Davis

Greetings from Camp Davis: The History of a WWII Army Base, now in its 2nd Edition, is described by the author as a general history of Camp Davis. It hits the mark. Although the Camp’s operational history only spans a short time, its story is large. Its contribution to the Army and its impact on the local area was immense. The effort to build such a large base quickly on property that had no infrastructure echoed the ambitions of the United States Army to expand from 9 antiaircraft regiments in 1939 to a goal of having 46 regiments by 1942.

Mr. Tyndall takes us on a well-researched tour through Camp Davis from its inception, through WWII, to its last occupants after training activities ceased. To take this guided tour, I recommend reading the book from cover to cover. After a timeline of the Camp, travel with the author to observe how the location was chosen, constructed and operated. You will learn how the sleepy hamlet of Holly Ridge, North Carolina, emerged to become the premier Antiarcraft Artillery (AAA) Training Center for basic and unit training, and about its associated AAA School courses. As the tour progresses through time, you will view Camp Davis from various aspects in different parts of the book. Continue along to walk through the details of the daily lives of the personnel at the Camp, and even those who visited it. A scrapbook of images from the activities and times at the Camp are collected in an engaging appendix.

Those interested in the local history of Wilmington, North Carolina, as well as readers of World War II history will enjoy this book. This book is also incredibly valuable to those who had ancestors who were stationed, trained, or employed at Camp Davis. Mr. Tyndall’s tour is as close as we can get to visiting Camp Davis in WWII.

The book is also of value to those interested in the roots of today’s Air Defense Artillery (ADA). For a brief time starting in 1941, Camp Davis was home to the three branches of the Coast Artillery: seacoast, anti-aircraft, and barrage balloons. From the perspective of one Army base, readers can follow when and how the Coastal Artillery, tasked with the mission of protecting our shores, gave rise to the antiaircraft artillery that accomplished both anti-aircraft and ground support functions.

My favorite chapter may be Chapter 3, about Training and Organization.  This chapter explained what happened to the new recruits as they arrived. It described their daily routine and the technical aspects of the equipment the AAA trainees would master. The technical descriptions certainly help us to understand the duties and challenges that these soldiers would face during their operational assignments. As in the other chapters, the personal reflections of those who were at the Camp are also included along with the results of extensive research. Appendix D holds a summary of the AAA weapons’ specifications. In this way, I was able to learn more about my father’s time in training. Knowing that my father was trained at Camp Davis, the appendix listing the units trained there will be useful when combined with Morning Reports from his next organization, for insight into when he moved to Camp Stewart.

Through the other chapters I also learned about what the buildings and food were like at the Camp, and how the lack of transportation and the isolation of the location made recreational facilities so important. For a young man from Brooklyn, New York, such as my father, this had to be a significant adjustment.

Stories about the roles of women and racial integration at Camp Davis hinted at future changes to the military. As expected during that time, there were racially segregated training, barracks, and entertainment facilities; what was unexpected were examples of some fully integrated training and billeting at the Officer Candidate School (OCS) and at certain specialty AAA courses. The groundwork for women’s future roles in military service was paved at Camp Davis. In August 1943, some of the first women who were WAACs (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps) became female soldiers of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). The Women’s Air Service Pilots (WASPs) learned how to fly tow targets at the Camp, then supported the AAA training.

Your tour of Camp Davis through time finishes in the current day, showing the few remnants of the disassembled Camp that still remain after its deconstruction and the surplusing of everything in it.

The 2024 Addendum includes additional research done since the book’s first edition. Among the topics are more about the construction and labor unrest, the Camp’s post exchange and its Newspapers. We also learn that at least one of the ten female officers (WACs) who were trained in antiaircraft artillery techniques was stationed at Camp Davis.

The book represents Mr. Tyndall’s passion and commitment to telling the story of Camp Davis. The personal stories he gathered through extensive oral interviews add an additional dimension to his wide-ranging research to uncover details of Camp Davis’ story. The chapter notes document the plethora of sources used, and when combined with the selected bibliography, may inspire your own research.

Books such as this make me grateful for the rise of independent publishing, so that valuable information can get into the hands of interested readers.

The 2nd edition of Greetings from Camp Davis is available at local museums and bookstores in Southeast North Carolina and via the author’s book website: www.greetingsfromcampdavis.com. A Kindle version of the 2nd edition is planned for some time in the future.

Note: A review copy of the book was provided by the publisher.

Thomas Kennedy as a Clergyman

In previous posts I have been relating my searches for and research about the Rev. Fr. Thomas Kennedy. I learned of his existence and connection to my family through a FamilySearch Full-Text Search Finding Amelia Small in FamilySearch Full-Text Search. First, I looked into records about his life in Tracking the Rev. Fr. Thomas Kennedy and then I followed the trail to learn about The Military Service of Thomas Kennedy. Now it is time to see what I can find about his life as a clergyman.

After searching Brooklyn City Directories (both by name, and by Municipal Registers for clergy assigned to Catholic Churches) and censuses, and not finding anything that seemed to fit definitely, it was time try Google. Through Google, I learned about the Diocese of Brooklyn, and its archives. Those archives contained a list of historic churches. These were were good resources, but at this point they did not help me tune into this ancestor.

From the Google results, I followed a link to the text of Priests and Parishes of the Diocese of Brooklyn: 1820 to 1944 which is where I found a big break. There was only one Thomas Kennedy in the alphabetical listing, and his time as a priest fit with what I had learned about him. The entry for him with abbreviations and dates:

Kennedy, Thomas J., ––-, -–– (SBA 6-22-1873) 9-26-01 S John Evangelist-73; S Malachy-74; S Francis Col -78; ILR-83; S Joseph, Hewlett-84; 0 L Sorrows, Corona-85; S Malachy Home -01

I decoded several of the abbreviations, then decided to copy the text that contained the explanation of the coding of the entries into ChatGPT, and told it to use those instructions to decode the Thomas Kennedy entry. Between us, we had a history of his religious life.

• Name: Kennedy, Thomas J.
• Birth date, Birthplace: Unknown/unrecorded
• Death date: 26 Sept 1901 [this is one day different than what I had]
• Seminary: St. Bonaventure, Alleghany [Allegany], Pennsylvania [this is in New York State]
• Ordination: 22 June 1873

His assignments were listed by year (approximately). The entry for “ILL” is for Illness, Leave, Resignation. Presumably it was for illness as he resumed his service as a priest after it. The instructions in decoding the entries included a note that his ordination may not have been at the seminary.

Later in the book his order is given as the Society of Fathers of Mercy (S.P.M.).

With what I learned from the Office of Diocesan Archives for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, I knew that Diocese covered Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. That helped to make sense of where the churches were (and are). I also learned that their archives contains deceased priest personnel files.

His last assignment was at St. Malachy’s Home, in Rockaway, Queens, New York.

The next stop was the webpage for St. Bonaventure’s University, and their archives. In their digital archives I located an Alumni directory of Saint Bonaventure’s College and Seminary, 1859- published in 1928 (with no copyright restrictions). On page 123 there were several Rev. Thomas Kennedy entries, but the years and Diocese matched what I knew:

In the Catalog of St. Bonaventure’s College there were several other mentions of a Thomas Kennedy who distinguished himself in Logic, Natural Philosophy, and Rhetoric, but I will have to analyze these more to be certain it is our Thomas Kennedy.

With all the knowledge I now had, it was time to go back to the newspapers. Newspapers are one of my favorite resources. They were the social media of past times. I located articles about the Rev. Thomas J. Kennedy in the Brooklyn Eagle.

One article from 1873 how Thomas Kennedy of this city [Brooklyn] was among those receiving orders at St. Bonaventure’s College.

Another article in 1897 celebrating his silver jubilee as a priest included a biographical sketch, which discussed how he turned to religion when being nursed by the Sisters of St. Vincent in a Washington hospital after his left arm was wounded at the Second Battle of Bull Run. He had been ordained by the Bishop Ryan of Buffalo. Due to his wound and his health, he had resigned and was stationed at Malachy’s orphanage. (See picture above.)

Then, in 1901, an article titled “Father Kennedy Dying” appeared. (The link to the clipping may not require a free account at Newspapers.com to view.) This column held the answers to so many questions. Some were about details of his service in the military, and why he was absent without leave (his wound). It included other facts, like his studies at and graduation from Notre Dame before attending seminary at St. Bonaventure’s College. He was a member of the Great Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Post No. 569, which had the distinction of being composed of all priests. Sadly, his health had deteriorated, and in his retirement he had moved to Kentucky to spend his final days in the monastery [the Abbey of Gethsemani].

It also included the fact that he was born in County Longford, Ireland, and immigrated with his parents. This points to where his sister (my great-great-grandmother), as well as my great-great-great-grandparents, came from in Ireland. They lived in Harlem [Manhattan, New York County] after arriving in the United States.

There are many more avenues to follow about his education, his service the military, and his time as a priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn. Other avenues come with limitations in the passenger lists of the time, and the scarce records in Ireland during the mid-1800’s. But finding a county or origin in Ireland is a start!

Without a doubt, I had won the genealogical lottery. You can be sure that I immediately called family members to come into my office to view the column, and his picture!