When I was living in a scholarship house at Florida State University back in the mid-1960s, one of the other girls in the house would say that something had her "surprised and pleased."
Tonight's debut episode of Who Do You Think You Are? has me "surprised and pleased." They have done it the way I wish Henry Louis Gates had done it! They stuck with one person through the hour, the person herself -- Sarah Jessica Parker -- did actual travel on the trail of her ancestors, from New Jersey to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Eldorado, California, to Salem, Massachusetts. They had real genealogists and real librarians and real historians showing a little bit of the process (you cannot show the entire process in one television hour) of research, and they had Ms. Parker making the acutal discoveries in some instances, rather than just sitting at a table and being handed a book. Sorry, Dr. Gates -- I think WDYTYA has it right.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether this level will continue, but I think it has a good chance. As my husband observed, they "de-celebritied" the thing pretty quickly, taking the right tack and concentrating on the search for ancestors. I still would like to see them use plain people, too, but for a show using a celebrity, this one was well and intelligently done.
I would like to see more emphasis on the correct use of records and the correct citation of sources, but that's pretty dull stuff for the TV audience, I guess. (I also wish that every census sheet had the gorgeous handwriting of that 1850 Eldorado census!). They did rather gloss over the establishment of connection between her ancestors John E. and John S. Hodge, but again, they just can't show the entire process in a television hour.
I am, indeed, surprised and pleased.
.
Showing posts with label research methods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research methods. Show all posts
Friday, March 5, 2010
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Some Thoughts on School Records
Today is my first day of classes at the University of North Florida, so I thought I would take the time I have before I need to go to class to post some thoughts on school records, and my experiences with them. Let's start with items you might find at home, in your family papers.
I have to be grateful for the packrat gene in my family, especially on my husband's side. Not only do we have his elementary and high school report cards, we have his father's. I am only semi-packrat, as I have only my high school report cards. Report cards can provide some good information about an ancestor, such as possibly the home address (depending on the form the school used and how fully they filled it out), the name of the school, the town or county where the school was located, the years the student attended the school, what courses the student took and, of course, the student's grades. There will also generally be signatures of one or both parents.
My husband and I also have our college transcripts. These show, again, the name of the institution and the city in which it was located, the student's campus address and sometimes the home address, the courses the student took, the academic term (months and year), and the student's grades and grade point average.
Another good source of information is the school or college yearbook. This will show, again, the name of the institution and where it was located, the year of the book and the grade-level of the student, and will usually have at least one photograph of the student, with a list of extra-curricular activities and perhaps a chosen quotation or other bit of trivia. If the student participated in extra-curricular activities, there may be more photos. My husband and I attended rival high schools, and we each have the yearbook from our senior year. I also have two high school yearbooks from the 1920s, which were my uncle's, and I have my father's senior yearbook. Extra-curricular activities can give insight into an ancestor's character and aspirations. My father, for example, was a member of his high school's Aero Club (students interested in learning to fly), and later, as a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he took flight training and became a Naval aviator.
College yearbooks are also a good source of information, with much the same information as the high school yearbooks. I have my senior yearbook from Florida State University, which was the 1968-1969 year, and my husband has one or two of his college yearbooks. I have my grandfather's yearbook from Wabash College in Indiana, and my father's yearbook from the Naval Academy, the 1934 Lucky Bag.
If you are fortunate enough to have had an ancestor who was a big packrat, you may also find some of his or her high school or college papers. You may determine from this the subjects your ancestor was most interested in, and may also see what sort of writer he or she was!
Another good source is photographs, both the "official" photos and candids. I have photos ranging from elementary school field trips, showing me and my friends and the places we visited, to college foolery -- being dunked in the fountain at the student union, or clowning around in the scholarship house. The official graduation photos may be in folders or frames with the name of the institution and the year, and possibly the name of the student, printed on them. At the very least, hope that the photo has been identified on the back!
Finally, there may be among your family papers degree or diploma certificates. These, again, show the name of the institution, the student's name, and the year, along with the degree granted (A.A., B.A., Ph.D., etc.) and possibly the course of study.
After exhausting the family sources, the next stop might be the public library. Look for yearbooks from the years your ancestor attended the school. These may be found in the general collection, or in a special local or state history collection. Check newspaper indexes for news of your ancestor's school years. He or she may have been an accomplished athlete, or may have participated in organizations or activities that caught the attention of the local paper. A county or town history might have general background information on the school the ancestor attended.
The county school board or even the particular school, if it is still open, may have information on your ancestor. Information availability might be governed by regulations concerning privacy in this age of identity-theft paranoia, but presenting your case pleasantly can go far. The farther back the record is, possibly the easier it will be to obtain. It may be more productive to go in person to the school board or school, rather than trying to conduct the search by telephone or letter. Physical presence can count for a lot. I hope one day to go to Logansport, Indiana, to Logansport High School, which my maternal grandfather and possibly my grandmother attended, to find the yearbook. I hope it will have photographs of them, because copies of such photographs will be the only photos I would ever have of my maternal grandparents.
Those are some possible avenues for research in school records. Now it is time for me to get ready for class.
I have to be grateful for the packrat gene in my family, especially on my husband's side. Not only do we have his elementary and high school report cards, we have his father's. I am only semi-packrat, as I have only my high school report cards. Report cards can provide some good information about an ancestor, such as possibly the home address (depending on the form the school used and how fully they filled it out), the name of the school, the town or county where the school was located, the years the student attended the school, what courses the student took and, of course, the student's grades. There will also generally be signatures of one or both parents.
My husband and I also have our college transcripts. These show, again, the name of the institution and the city in which it was located, the student's campus address and sometimes the home address, the courses the student took, the academic term (months and year), and the student's grades and grade point average.
Another good source of information is the school or college yearbook. This will show, again, the name of the institution and where it was located, the year of the book and the grade-level of the student, and will usually have at least one photograph of the student, with a list of extra-curricular activities and perhaps a chosen quotation or other bit of trivia. If the student participated in extra-curricular activities, there may be more photos. My husband and I attended rival high schools, and we each have the yearbook from our senior year. I also have two high school yearbooks from the 1920s, which were my uncle's, and I have my father's senior yearbook. Extra-curricular activities can give insight into an ancestor's character and aspirations. My father, for example, was a member of his high school's Aero Club (students interested in learning to fly), and later, as a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he took flight training and became a Naval aviator.
College yearbooks are also a good source of information, with much the same information as the high school yearbooks. I have my senior yearbook from Florida State University, which was the 1968-1969 year, and my husband has one or two of his college yearbooks. I have my grandfather's yearbook from Wabash College in Indiana, and my father's yearbook from the Naval Academy, the 1934 Lucky Bag.
If you are fortunate enough to have had an ancestor who was a big packrat, you may also find some of his or her high school or college papers. You may determine from this the subjects your ancestor was most interested in, and may also see what sort of writer he or she was!
Another good source is photographs, both the "official" photos and candids. I have photos ranging from elementary school field trips, showing me and my friends and the places we visited, to college foolery -- being dunked in the fountain at the student union, or clowning around in the scholarship house. The official graduation photos may be in folders or frames with the name of the institution and the year, and possibly the name of the student, printed on them. At the very least, hope that the photo has been identified on the back!
Finally, there may be among your family papers degree or diploma certificates. These, again, show the name of the institution, the student's name, and the year, along with the degree granted (A.A., B.A., Ph.D., etc.) and possibly the course of study.
After exhausting the family sources, the next stop might be the public library. Look for yearbooks from the years your ancestor attended the school. These may be found in the general collection, or in a special local or state history collection. Check newspaper indexes for news of your ancestor's school years. He or she may have been an accomplished athlete, or may have participated in organizations or activities that caught the attention of the local paper. A county or town history might have general background information on the school the ancestor attended.
The county school board or even the particular school, if it is still open, may have information on your ancestor. Information availability might be governed by regulations concerning privacy in this age of identity-theft paranoia, but presenting your case pleasantly can go far. The farther back the record is, possibly the easier it will be to obtain. It may be more productive to go in person to the school board or school, rather than trying to conduct the search by telephone or letter. Physical presence can count for a lot. I hope one day to go to Logansport, Indiana, to Logansport High School, which my maternal grandfather and possibly my grandmother attended, to find the yearbook. I hope it will have photographs of them, because copies of such photographs will be the only photos I would ever have of my maternal grandparents.
Those are some possible avenues for research in school records. Now it is time for me to get ready for class.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Barking up the Wrong Family Tree
(In this post, the names have been changed to protect the innocent, as they used to say on each episode of "Dragnet.")
I just signed up for Ancestry.com, and have spent a goodly amount of time in various researches. For one thing, I am doing some more of that pro bono work for the National Park Service, for Doughton Park up in North Carolina.
For another, I have spent an inordinate amount of time doing some of my own genealogy, for a change! And I ran into something that bears mentioning: how easy it is to go barking up the wrong Family Tree.
I have an ancestor, whom we'll call XYZ. I'm disguising, because I am certainly not out to embarrass anyone, but rather to illustrate a point that all of us need to be aware of. Now, the birthplace of ol' XYZ is in doubt. Some think he was born on one side of a border, and some on the other. I have been searching all over the place, and cannot find squat to give evidence of where he was actually born. I have a suspicion, supported by some rather flimsy circumstantial evidence, at this point. I am putting my suspicion down on my forms for now, but it is only a working hypothesis. When new facts come to light, if they destroy that hypothesis, it will be discarded in favor of one that does fit the facts. If they support it, I will be happy as a clam at high tide for having solved that little mystery.
However, probably based on family legend and lore, which an uncle of mine apparently was not alone in believing, some think that XYZ was born in place A. I do not happen to agree, because I have found no evidence that XYZ was ever in place A. There is someone, though, who does, and who has found a U.S. census to support that. He has our old pal as "Xavier Zed" in a certain place, with a sibling with a name that is not in the family. Now, I know that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," but I happen to have a census on XYZ for the same year in a very different location, which I'll call Place B. This census puts him in place B in the household of his known father and mother, with his known siblings (from other censuses, both state and federal). On that census he is listed as "X. Y. Zed."
And that's the trap. Our ancestors did not always use their names, but rather their initials. XYZ's father is on some censuses as "Abelard B. Zed" and on some as "Box Zed" and on some as "A.B. Zed." I am as guilty of this as the next person of searching on names and forgetting to search under initials. So to the list of variant spellings -- something else I'm having a fit with on my husband's side of the family -- we now also have to add various combinations of initials, as well as considering those who sometimes go by their middle names.
My husband goes by his middle name, not his first name. His father did the same thing. I have careful records of their name preferences and their full names, so our descendants will be saved the stress I'm going through right now!
Now, if I could only find out where XYZ was really born . . .
I just signed up for Ancestry.com, and have spent a goodly amount of time in various researches. For one thing, I am doing some more of that pro bono work for the National Park Service, for Doughton Park up in North Carolina.
For another, I have spent an inordinate amount of time doing some of my own genealogy, for a change! And I ran into something that bears mentioning: how easy it is to go barking up the wrong Family Tree.
I have an ancestor, whom we'll call XYZ. I'm disguising, because I am certainly not out to embarrass anyone, but rather to illustrate a point that all of us need to be aware of. Now, the birthplace of ol' XYZ is in doubt. Some think he was born on one side of a border, and some on the other. I have been searching all over the place, and cannot find squat to give evidence of where he was actually born. I have a suspicion, supported by some rather flimsy circumstantial evidence, at this point. I am putting my suspicion down on my forms for now, but it is only a working hypothesis. When new facts come to light, if they destroy that hypothesis, it will be discarded in favor of one that does fit the facts. If they support it, I will be happy as a clam at high tide for having solved that little mystery.
However, probably based on family legend and lore, which an uncle of mine apparently was not alone in believing, some think that XYZ was born in place A. I do not happen to agree, because I have found no evidence that XYZ was ever in place A. There is someone, though, who does, and who has found a U.S. census to support that. He has our old pal as "Xavier Zed" in a certain place, with a sibling with a name that is not in the family. Now, I know that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," but I happen to have a census on XYZ for the same year in a very different location, which I'll call Place B. This census puts him in place B in the household of his known father and mother, with his known siblings (from other censuses, both state and federal). On that census he is listed as "X. Y. Zed."
And that's the trap. Our ancestors did not always use their names, but rather their initials. XYZ's father is on some censuses as "Abelard B. Zed" and on some as "Box Zed" and on some as "A.B. Zed." I am as guilty of this as the next person of searching on names and forgetting to search under initials. So to the list of variant spellings -- something else I'm having a fit with on my husband's side of the family -- we now also have to add various combinations of initials, as well as considering those who sometimes go by their middle names.
My husband goes by his middle name, not his first name. His father did the same thing. I have careful records of their name preferences and their full names, so our descendants will be saved the stress I'm going through right now!
Now, if I could only find out where XYZ was really born . . .
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