GenealogyClassBlog

Kevin Meehan and Joe Becker

Since my last post my family and I have experienced deaths of two or our loved ones.

First, I lost my husband and best friend, Kevin John Meehan on June 16. He was also a friend to many at church and through sailing, and he will be sorely missed.

Then, on June 23 I lost my father, Joe A. Becker, about whom my most recent posts have been focused. At 95, he had outlived many of his contemporaries, but the sailing community remembered him and came out for his funeral service earlier this week.

I have family and friends who were unable to attend the services of one or the other and who would like to have access to the recordings, which were made by Boston Avenue United Methodist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. To make the recordings available through this site, I have uploaded the two files, which are in .mp3 format.

Click here to listen to the recordings:

For Kevin John Thomas Meehan, 1957-2013.

For Joseph Aloysius “Joe” Becker, Jr., 1918-2013.

Memorials for each of them are currently available for viewing at ninde.com, the website of Ninde Funeral Service in Tulsa.

I have been creating a huge body of work on the topic of organizing genealogy records, a topic that has just about always interested me. I have given presentations on the topic of organization in the past, usually titling it, “Information Overload.” Information is what we are trying to organize, after all. Genealogists have collected and generated information in the form of paper, for the most part, for decades. And now that we have digital capabilities (or at least most of us do) we are probably all working with a hybrid of systems – part filing cabinet, boxes, or three-ring binders, and part computer files – JPEGs, PDFs, .Docs, some created in databases, and some audio or video files. The electronic files could be on our personal computers, our mobile devices, or online.

2012 FGS Conference Logo

I am working toward presentation of a lecture at the upcoming, 2012 Federation of Genealogical Societies’ Conference in Birmingham, Alabama, “Indians, Squatter, Settlers, and Soldiers in the ‘Old Southwest,’” to be held August 29-September 1. My lecture, “Information Overload: Organizing Your Genealogy Records,” is scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday, August 30, and is intended for the beginner level genealogist. Download the Conference Brochure here: fgs_2012registrationbooklettopress.

In anticipation of my need to organize (”reign in”) the myriad of ideas and techniques that I have assembled on the topic, I scheduled a preliminary presentation for the Tulsa City-County Library’s Family History Month, organized by Kathy Huber, MLS, the genealogy librarian, for Saturday, July 7 – last Saturday. The turnout was overwhelming. There were 150 attendees for this afternoon session of a Saturday for which two other programs were also presented – all were appropriate for all levels, but helpful for even those who had been researching their families for decades. I saw faces of some that I know are not new to genealogy, but from a show of hands there were probably at least 30 there who were newcomers. Frossard Auditorium at Hardesty Library was packed – making for the kind of venue where, instead of having an empty chair between you and the stranger next to you, there is hardly an empty seat. This was, I think, indicative of a desire of many to get started, especially with the current attraction and potential effectiveness of online searching – something that was certainly not a part of my own beginning interested in my family’s history. Of course the cool library (take that either way) was the place to be on such a hot, Oklahoma day, and it accounted for some attendance, but so did the scores of area residents, as well as those who made the drive from outside Tulsa, because they had experienced TCCL’s successful programming during its Family History Month in previous years. Download a PDF guide to July’s Family History Month programming here.

Because of the crowds, not everyone present received the handout, and so Liz Walker of the Genealogy Center has made a PDF version available on the Genealogy Center’s section of the TCCL website. To download the file, click on the link to Information Overload. You’ll have the option to print it out, or read and save it on your computer or mobile device – just as you often will have with your genealogy records going forward.

During the presentation, which is in definite need of improvement before the FGS Conference, I mentioned a plan to post some links here on my blog. I had been developing a list using my account on Evernote.com, posting the links and a brief description into a “note” in Evernote as I encountered them as I followed various leads online. Here is the list:

I hope to write again soon with tips on organization of your genealogy records. To sign up to receive an email of future blog posts, enter your email address in the second box on the left (Feed My Inbox will be sending the emails).

Click here to go to the National Archives census training video on YouTube.

I have my calendar marked for April 2, 2012. Do you?

I plan to be ready by that day to search the 1940 census online for free at the National Archives website, www.archives.gov. Since the U.S. Federal Census cannot be seen by the public until it is released 72 years after the 1940 enumeration date, no one will be able to begin indexing the entries until April 2, 2012. Visit the 1940 Census Records page of the National Archives site for ideas about how to do some sleuthing in advance to narrow down a search to only the pages covering your ancestor’s (or your) neighborhood. While there, you will also find just about everything you ever wanted to know and everything you will ever need to know about the 1940 census.

Constance Potter, of the National Archives gave a detailed introduction to the 1940 census at the Federation of Genealogical Societies National Conference in September 2011, and it was very interesting to hear the about what questions were asked back in 1940. Kathy Huber, the Tulsa City-County Library’s genealogy librarian introduced it last July in Tulsa as well (download her handout from the TCCL Genealogy website).

While in each of the censuses 1880-1930, the census taker asked for not only the place of birth of each person on the census, he (or she) also asked for the place of birth of the parents. That information won’t appear on the 1940 census except for one person out of every 20. The U. S. Census Bureau was more interested in 1940 to study the workforce, so the census taker asked questions about what kind of work, how many weeks unemployed, etc. One question that intrigues me is where each person was living on 1 April 1935. The answer could be “Same House,” “Same Place” (if the same town but a different house), or the town, county, and state or country where the person lived.

To get an idea of the nature of the instructions to the enumerators, or just to get a glimpse back to 72 years ago, watch the training film now on YouTube or at the National Archives website. The mock interview of a housewife by a census taker will help to put the census taker’s job perspective, and you can hear about some of the more tricky census questions in anticipation of your look at the census when it is released.

Thanks to Dick Eastman for blogging about this today.

On Wednesday I introduced the class to the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, which is a free resource offered online by the Newberry Library in Chicago. In trying to research your ancestor’s experience with the local court, especially the county court, you will need to determine which county would have recorded your ancestor’s business. Even if your ancestor was living in one place for several decades, if the time period was during the formation of the state’s county boundaries, it is possible that he or she lived in different counties. Add that to the possibility that your ancestor may have done business in the closest courthouse rather than his or her county seat, and things may not be as simple as you’d expect. The Atlas of Historical County Boundaries shows the county boundaries as of any date you select in the Interactive Map. The URL for this resource is http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/index.html. Enjoy exploring!

I think that we are going to have a great class this year. I enjoyed getting to know you during class, and then reading your student profiles after class. It was interesting to see what your interests are. I will be using the information to help develop the direction of the rest of the course.

I have located the details about the webinar scheduled for this Monday at 6:00 CDT. The Friends of the National Archives-Southeast Region is making this available for free. They describe webinars as “a Web-based seminar, lecture, or presentation delivered via the Internet. Audience my register and attend (using their computer) from the comfort of their home.”

The speaker will be Meg Hacker, Archival Operations Director at the Southwest Region in Fort Worth. There is a link to register on this website:  http://friendsnas.org/webinarSch.htm. Her topic will be “Researching Records Relating to the Five Tribes of Oklahoma… made a little bit easier.” A large portion of the federal records for the Cherokee, Muscogee/Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes may be found in the National Archives – Southwest in Fort Worth, Texas, and trying to use them can be confusing. Some have been microfilmed and are available at various libraries and archives; some have been digitized and are available online; others have not been filmed, digitized, or indexed and can only be used in person.

Meg is a fun and engaging speaker and is an expert on this topic. I encourage you to register and check out the technical details at the site, where I found the following system requirements:

PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Attendees will be able to ask questions, but will need to have a microphone (and they recommend a headset) to do so. It has been my experience with other webinars that you will not need to have a voice in their forum – you can simply listen. There are more webinars scheduled for the months ahead. If you aren’t interested in this topic, you might make a note of their later webinars.

I have updated the Genealogy Bibliography – the one that I told you to bring back each week – and you can download the updated file here – Bibliography11, and then print yourself a new one (but the one you picked up on Wednesday will be fine). I added Marsha Hoffman Rising’s book, The Family Tree Problem Solver, which is one of the books I mentioned in class available at the Tulsa City County Library.

I also added links to the Association of Professional Genealogists (www.apgen.org) and the Board for Certification of Genealogists (www.bcgcertification.org). And I replaced the URL for this blog with the new one – www.genealogyclassblog.com.

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See you next Wednesday!