Heritage Quest Training for Tennessee Residents

If you are a resident of Tennessee, you may be interested in webinars on the use of Heritage Quest being offered by the Tennessee Electronic Library on March 16 and March 18, 2010. Beginner and advanced workshops are being offered. You must register in advance.

All of U.S. History Will Be Taught in NC High Schools

I'm really glad to see that the state of North Carolina changed its mind because of folks who complained. All of U.S. history will be taught in North Carolina high schools, not just 1877 to the present.

U.S. History in High Schools

Apparently there is a proposal in North Carolina to cut pre-1877 United States history from the high school curriculum. As a genealogist, I find this distubring.

2010 FGS Conference Registration is Open

Registration for the 2010 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference, scheduled for 18-21 August 2010 in beautiful Knoxville, Tennessee, is now open. This year’s conference theme is “Rediscovering America’s First Frontier,” and is co-hosted by the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Kentucky Historical Society.

The conference schedule includes 173 presentations by 73 noted speakers, including a large number of sponsored luncheons with speakers. There will be two exciting evening events: “Come Sit a Spell: Ballads, Mountain Stories, and Country Fare,” organized by the host societies; and the annual gala FGS banquet, “An Evening in Old Appalachia,” which will be held at the fascinating Museum of Appalachia.

The exciting program includes a completely redesigned “Focus on Societies” day that will present societies’ officers, as well as their members and volunteers, with all new programs and focus group sessions to help improve their operations and effectiveness.

ProQuest is sponsoring Librarians Day, a full day of free sessions for librarians and archivists that includes a tour of the outstanding McClung Historical Collection of the Knox County Public Library.

FamilySearch will present an extensive track of sessions about its resources and projects that you won’t want to miss. Ancestry.com will present a free day of classes for the public and conference attendees on Saturday, plus they will offer free document scanning sessions to attendees by appointment throughout the conference. The Genealogy Guys Podcast will also be there to record a “live” session at the conference.

The Exhibit Hall will be filled with a wide array of vendors and organizations, and a special Spotlight on Societies area will showcase local and regional genealogical and historical societies. There will be extended Exhibit Hall hours on Friday evening, followed by a gala reception, hosted by FamilySearch, to kick off the 1812 Pension Files Digitization Project.

There are more activities and research opportunities too numerous to list. However, you can learn all about the 2010 FGS Conference and register for this exciting four-day event at http://www.fgs.org/2010conference. Be sure to also visit or subscribe to the FGS Conference Blog at http://www.fgsconferenceblog.org for lots more information and travel advice.

We look forward to seeing you in Knoxville in August!

Cherel Henderson and Pat Oxley

National Conference Co-Chairs

2010 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference

National Park Service Brochures and Genealogical Research

As I was cataloging, one of the folded brochures that individuals often pick up at various places in the National Park Service, I was impressed with the amount of background information that the brochure presented that would be useful for genealogists. This particular brochure was for the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York. It's SUDOC classification is I 29.21:AF 8. Unfortunately this brochure is not available electronically so you'll have to visit a government documents repository to locate it. Here's a partial listing of some of the items a genealogical researcher might find in this brochure:

• Partial listing of countries from which early Africans came to colonial America
• Brief description of the rights of "company slaves" in 1626 in New Amsterdam
• Information on a 1644 petition which granted a limited amount of "freedom" to some
• Effect of the English taking control of New Amsterdam in 1664 on slavery
• Description of typical duties of men, women, and children enslaved in New York
• Information on the "Negros Buriel Ground" (as it was called on a 1755 map)
• Laws regarding burial of blacks, African funerals, etc.
• Information on the archaeological finds that brought this location and its "residents" back into prominence

A First Time for Everything

Today I was cataloging some recent arrivals for our government documents collection for which we had failed to receive (at least to date) records from Marcive. One of these documents was a map of the Holly Springs and Tombigbee National Forests in Mississippi which is near the area in which I grew up. As I began to look at the map, I noticed that they had labeled U.S. 78 not only U.S. 78 but also Interstate 22. Now, those of us who have travelled that road frequently know that the corridor is the "Future I-22" so I was a bit surprised to already see its new moniker on an official government map.

As I began to think about this, I thought of all the street name changes I've encountered over the years. For example, the 1930 census of Amory, Mississippi includes the street names for the town, but they do not match up with present-day street names. I was eventually able to pinpoint most of the locations by asking my parents. Even they did not remember the old names for the streets, but they were able to tell me the locations of the streets when I told them who lived on the streets. I'm sure that if I'd gone to the trouble of locating an older map of the town that I might have been able to find the names of the streets and then compare to a newer map to identify the present-day locations. After all, there was a "first time" that the new name appeared on a map.

By the way, this particular national forest map would be useful for persons researching areas near the national forests because it shows the sections, townships, and ranges for of not only the forest itself but also the nearby land. The main part of Holly Springs National Forest shows significant portions of Benton, Marshall, Union, Lafayette, and Pontotoc Counties. The Yalobusha Unit for that county shows a large part of Yalobusha County and a small part of Grenada County. For the Tombigbee National Forest, the Trace Unit map shows a large portion of Chickasaw County, some of Pontotoc County, and a couple of sections in Lee County. The Ackerman Unit map shows a significant amount of Winston County and parts of Choctaw and Oktibbeha Counties. The interesting thing is that landmarks such as churches are also identified on the map as well as bodies of water (down to the creek level).

Reduced Hours for Some South Mississippi Libraries

Resource Shelf blog alerts us to an article that appeared in the Sun Herald. Apparently several libraries in the Pine Forest Regional Library System serving Covington, Greene, Perry, and Stone Counties were closed for most of this month. They will now be reopening with reduced hours. The same article reports the reopening of the Bay St. Louis library in Hancock County (which had been a victim of Hurricane Katrina).

Haiti's Libraries

A librarian friend of mine had family members who were missionaries to Haiti. They have been evacuated from the country, but they have received some news of the situation with the libraries in the country.

The oldest library in Port au Prince collapsed. This is the Bibliothèque Haïtienne des Pères du Saint Esprit. This is located in Saint Martial College.

At least a portion of Haiti's national library has also collapsed.
Many university libraries have collapsed.

The St. Louis de Gonzague Library is weakened structurally but still standing.

This is somewhat bad news for those researching their Haitian roots! The earthquake will rewrite the chapter on doing Haitian genealogical research for generations to come. Let's hope that someone comes up with the funding to digitally preserve what remains of records of interest to future generations of genealogists.

Home Again

I'm finally back home in East Tennessee. I spent over a month in Mississippi caring for my parents. The good news is that Mom's cancer was caught early, and it appears that they have removed all cancerous tissues. She's still got some recovery time, but things are looking good. Thanks to everyone for their prayers during this difficult time. More later.

Quick & Dirty Genealogy Research from the Hospital Room

I've been curious for a long time whether or not the Winsteads in Hamblen County, Tennessee are related to my Winstead line or not. My Winstead line is far enough back that I haven't really researched it very much, but I decided to just look at WorldConnect to see if I could determine if others have thought we have a common ancestor. Please realize that all of this needs to be documented and verified, and I'm not at all convinced that there are not errors in the trees I found on WorldConnect even though they do have a bit of documentation (not very thorough but more than most and with better quality resources than most). However, I did discover that we quite possibly share a common ancestor named Samuel Winstead who was born about 1701 in Northumberland County, Virginia. These sources show that Samuel had four wives. The Hamblen County Winsteads appear to be from one of the later wives whereas mine appear to be from an earlier. I really want to make certain that the sources have not confused multiple Samuels with one another because there is a very wide spread in children's ages.

Football Humor

This morning I was reading the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Tupelo, MS) before we brought Mom to the hospital for her surgery prep. As I was reading, I noticed that Mississippi Valley State University had announced the top candidates for its vacant football coaching position. At the top of the list was Charlie Brown. I immediately began laughing as I pictured Lucy holding that football and jerking it away at the last moment while Charlie Brown once again landed flat on his back. I'm sure that many other readers had the same picture run through their minds as they read that article. I can't find the article in the online edition so I can't share the link.

Thoughts on Libraries and Genealogy

Many persons blogging about genealogy are taking part of a 52 week meme. I may occasionally post a response to one of the weekly themes, but I'm not able to participate in this week's challenge because of my mom's surgery and the fact that I'm nowhere close to home. I could use the Tennessee State Library & Archives catalog feature which allows one to search most of the public libraries in the state of Tennessee, but I can already tell you what the results would be. The challenge is to locate books that would help one become a better genealogist. I can tell you that my personal library is better than the holdings at the Morristown-Hamblen County Public Library or Jefferson City Public Library in neighboring Jefferson County. I would have to go into Knoxville to the McClung Historical Collection to find a better library and then I would not be able to check out any of the materials. The college library where I work has a number of genealogy books, but most of our methodology titles are becoming very dated. In fact, I own more recent editions of several of the titles. There are a number of other types of books or e-books which would be useful in getting background information to add dimensions to an ancestor's story. It is a shame that so many libraries (especially public libraries) do not offer circulating collections of genealogical titles. Some do have a few beginner's books in their circulating collections, but advanced researchers are left out. That's why I have my own genealogical library. I have books on methodology, record groups and their uses, research in various states and countries, standards, etc. I also have many published abstracts, indexes, and other tools. I have many histories of areas in which I do a great deal of research for myself or others. I'm not going to list a few books here because I don't want to pick and choose at this time. I can state that I'll be utilizing many of these books in the upcoming months. I can also state that my collection will continue to grow (even though I really need additional shelving). I also want to state that I often learn more about becoming a better genealogist by reading publications such as National Genealogical Society Quarterly. I enjoy discussing the cases with other professional genealogists who have read them when I have an opportunity. I keep hoping that Tennessee will eventually have its own APG chapter. A few of us discussed the possibility at the FGS conference in Little Rock this fall.

My Genealogical Christmas Present to Myself

I love receiving packages. Right before Christmas, the North Carolina Historical Publications Shop had a sale on many of their titles. I decided that I couldn't go wrong by purchasing their publications in light of how much North Carolina research in which I'm now involved -- either for others or for myself.

Here are the titles I ordered:

William P. Cumming - Mapping the North Carolina Coast: Sixteenth-Century Cartography and the Roanoke Voyages
Russell S. Koonts - North Carolina Petitions for Presidential Pardon, 1865-1868: (An Index)
Alan D. Watson - Bath: The First Town in North Carolina
Alan D. Watson - An Index to North Carolina Newspapers, 1784-1789
A. R. Newsome - Records of Emigrants from England and Scotland to North Carolina, 1774-1775
Marcus B. Simpson, Jr. & Sallie W. Simpson - Whaling on the North Carolina Coast
Catherine W. Bishir - The "Unpainted Aristocracy": The Beach Cottages of Old Nags Head
Alan D. Watson - Bertie County: A Brief History
Edward W. Phifer, Jr. - Burke County: A Brief History
David Stick - Dare County: A Brief History
James W. Wall - Davie County: A Brief History
S. Kent Schwarzkopf - A History of Mt. Mitchell and the Black Mountains: Exploration, Development, and Preservation
Lawrence Lee - New Hanover County: A Brief History
Alan D. Watson - Onslow County: A Brief History
Joe A. Mobley - Palmico County: A Brief History
Lindley S. Butler - Rockingham County: A Brief History
Roy Parker, Jr. - Cumberland County: A Brief History

I'm very happy with my genealogical Christmas present to myself. As I was adding them into LibraryThing, I discovered that the author Diana Gabaldon had the title about emigrants from England and Scotland as well as a book on North Carolina county formation. I was excited to see that such a popular fiction author had "genealogy" books in her library!

November & December

November and December were extremely busy months for me. I really just didn't have time to blog. I can't promise that I'll be much better this next month. We got the news a few days before Christmas that my mother has a form of stomach cancer. They will be operating next week to remove part of the esophagus, the upper part of the stomach, and then rejoining them together. She's going to have a long recovery period, and I appreciate your prayers.

SNGF: Most Memorable Halloween

Tonight's Saturday night genealogy fun question is to tell about a memorable Halloween. I'm going to attempt to do that and am hoping that I'm not mixing more than one year in my memory, but I think I am not. My most memorable Halloween would have been the year that all of us neighborhood kids actually managed to con enough parents into taking us out trick or treating that we spent most of the night engaged in Halloween activities. We started out in our own neighborhood. We went house to house up and down the streets of the Love Subdivision. Love Subdivision was so-named because it was built on the site of the former Love's Cow Pasture. The little white house at the corner of Boulevard Drive and Hatley Road had been the home of the Loves, according to my Mom. Our home was built in 1959. I'm sure a few of the houses in the subdivision were a little older than ours, but I really don't know when the subdivision began. I guess I've just come up with a question to research that will add a little to the background of one event in our family's lives.

After we went there, we talked my Mom into taking us to Easthaven subdivision. A lot of our school friends lived in Easthaven. My Mom would only take us to the "safe" neighborhoods, and this was one that she deemed to be so. After we got back, we talked another Mom into taking us to the Meadowbrook subdivision. We had a lot of friends who lived in that subdivision as well.

Our next stop was the East Amory Community Center. This particular year is the only year that I really remember going to the "carnival" going on there. There was a cake walk. I won a caramel cake. We bobbed for apples. I believe they had a haunted house in one of the rooms there. I think you could "fish" for candy and other things like that. We didn't stay a really long time there. However, there was one house that David and Delores wanted to go to. It was a house that I'd never trick-or-treated at before so I really didn't know what to expect when we knocked. Mrs. Hodo opened the door. She lived across from St. Andrews Methodist Church on Town and Country Lane. She invited us into her home which was dark and eery. I remember that she had us hold our hands in a dish. The texture of the item in the dish was "gross" to a youngster in the late 1960s. She told us it was eyeballs. (They were really peeled grapes.) I began to wonder what was in store for me. I was scared. She continued to take us through her incredibly spooky home which even had a casket with a skeleton. I wanted nothing more than to get out of there and fast. Delores, however, kept insisting that we stick with it because the reward at the end was worth it. I had my doubts that anything could be worth the fright we were getting, but I was too scared to leave the others in my group so I stuck with it. At the end, Mrs. Hodo took us into her kitchen where she had candy apples or caramel apples as our "treat." To be honest, I think I still wasn't sure that the fright I'd had was worth it when I would have just as soon gone to another house or two on that street and received candy instead.
However, I will admit that the apple was good.

That was my most memorable Halloween as a child.

Music, Music, Music

The theme for the Carnival of Genealogy is Musical Instruments.

Musical Instruments! Do you play a musical instrument or did one of your family members? What instrument did you or they play? If no one in the family played an instrument, tell what is your favorite instrument or band and what is your least favorite one.

I do play several instruments. I began playing the piano when I was in the second grade. My first piano teacher was a lady named Mrs. Price. I really don't remember much about her. I only took from her one or two years. I later took piano lessons from Margaret Oliver who had been my elementary school music teacher until her retirement. All of us loved Mrs. Oliver. I remember the year after she left that we had a young music teacher named Miss West that we really didn't like that much. She just didn't measure up to Mrs. Oliver's standards. I took piano for several years from Mrs. Oliver. Something I've been told since I've been doing genealogy is that Mrs. Oliver's husband was part of the Oliver family who had lived in Cades Cove when the Great Smoky Mountains National Park was created. I really want to research his family when I get a chance since I live so close. Many records will be in Knoxville or at the park library in the visitor center. I never knew him because she was a widow when I first met her in elementary school. When the opportunity came to take from a pastor in a nearby town who played beautifully by ear arose, I took lessons from him. He was an excellent teacher, and I learned more about accompanying and techniques from him than I'd learned up to that point from my previous teachers. After he went to the mission field, I did take from one other lady, but that was short-lived because I was learning nothing from her that I couldn't do on my own.

I also play the organ. When I finished my seminary studies, I went to work for a church in Nashville, Tennessee as a director of children's education. The organist had a habit of running late on Sunday evenings because of his job selling musical instruments in one of the mall stores. I began going into the sanctuary and practicing during breaks during the day and with extra time on my lunch break. One night the organist wasn't there by 6 p.m. so the pastor had me play. I was scared to death since I really had not played the organ that much, but I made it through the service fine. I continued to practice and gained some confidence before I had to do it again in the next week or two. I still play the organ about once a year for a service.

Band was a big thing in Amory, Mississippi where I grew up. We joined the band in the 6th grade. There was never a question of what instrument I would be playing. I had been given my sister-in-law's flute and piccolo. When we got to the 8th grade, we had to audition to be able to continue in the high school band. Our high school had traditionally received all superior ratings in the band contests, so it was a big deal to be able to continue. My sister-in-law died of cancer during my middle school years. I still have her flute and piccolo. I did get a newer flute when I got into high school. I think that I can still play the Panther Fight Song and the Stars and Stripes Forever by memory on the piccolo. The disadvantage of playing the piccolo during marching season was that your fingers on your gloves had to be cut way back. During those Christmas parades where the temperature was below freezing, that was a rather frigid experience on those metal keys.

I also should not neglect to mention that the voice can be a musical instrument. I sing a lot. At one time, I might have said that I sing "all the time." I generally sing tenor in our church choir. I sing tenor or alto in ensembles. I have been known to sing soprano, baritone, and bass as well. I can't hit really high notes, and I have to use a technique I learned from a bass singer to hit notes below a certain point to reach them, but I can stretch that range an extra half octave lower with that technique if needed. The tenor range is the most comfortable for me.

My favorite instruments are probably the tenor saxophone or the oboe. I love the tenor sax on jazz tunes. Actually I like any saxophone. I love the oboe on classical.

I love music. I've been told that my Cockrell family ancestors were very musical. Bob Franks wrote an article about the musical talents in his Cockrell branch which is from the same family as mine. I'm happy to say that one of my nephews is also very talented musically. He plays guitar and piano.

Odds & Ends

About a week and a half ago as I was working on FGS stuff during fall break, my computer suddenly "turned off." It appeared to be a power issue, and when I couldn't get it to come back on after about an hour, I decided that I'd better try to go to Knoxville and get a new power cord. I wasn't sure it was the power cord, and I certainly had no previous symptoms to indicate that I'd had an issue with it. When I got to Best Buy, I decided to go to the Geek Squad counter just to get them to check to see if another power cord would work before I purchased a new one. The "geek" looked and said he was pretty sure that it was the jack into which the cord plugs that was the issue. He tested my cord and determined that nothing was wrong with it. He was pretty sure that the jack could be sauntered and recommended someone at Shields Electronics to do it. I had just enough time to get it to Shields before they closed for the day. I was given an estimate of two days because of computers ahead of mine with the same issue. When the tech there got to it, he discovered the jack was actually split in two and would need to be replaced. The replacement wouldn't arrive (due to the weekend) until the following week, but he thought it would arrive Monday and that he would be done by Tuesday. When he got the jack replaced, the computer still wouldn't power up so we realized that the jack was probably not the big issue (although it did need to be replaced) and that the motherboard was the problem. No warning -- just gone. I had him take out the hard drive and put it in a case so I could get to everything easily. I also had an online backup of all my files. I'm thankful for that. I had to use an old computer that has a tendency to overheat as a backup while I was without my usual machine. I also was very grateful for my iPhone which was my most reliable computer at the time! I now have a new computer with Windows 7. I've managed to get most of my software reinstalled on the new computer. I am still trying to locate my download of Paint Shop Pro's latest version's installer file. I know that I put that on either a CD or a USB drive, but I can't find it at the moment. In the meantime, I'm trying some of the free graphics editing programs out there. I downloaded Gimp, Photoscape, and Picasa. I'll see how I like those. I really don't want to pay another $70 if I can't locate the installer file. I have my product code!

Now . . . there were some interesting developments while I did not have a reliable computer to use. Many of you know that I enjoy reading. I've been pondering a Kindle purchase for some time. Sony has improved its ebook reader in the last few months, but Barnes & Noble has just come out with the Nook also. I think all of these are interesting. Right now, I've got an ebook reader called Stanza that is an iPhone application. I'm able to download public domain books with it for free. I have also learned that there is a Kindle application for iPhone which is very intriguing. One of these days, I'm sure I'll bite the bullet and get one, but since I had to purchase a new computer 1.5 years before the planned replacement, I simply can't afford one right now.

Another interesting development is the announcement of Footnote.com's interactive census. How many times have those of us researching on Ancestry.com wished that we had a similar feature rather than just the "corrections" feature? At the same time I'm excited about the interactivity of this, I'm also concerned that we'll end up with a lot of problems by persons who jump to erroneous conclusions. These would be the same types of errors that many online trees have. I specifically think back to a case in which most of the data on my Harris family was incorrect in Ancestral File. One brother had lived apart from the rest of the family and really had not kept in touch with his brothers and sisters who had moved on from the family's earlier residence (where he remained). The person who had submitted information was from this brother's line. The erroneous conclusions were reached because the person was searching for full names instead of initials which had been used by the enumerator for the census in which wrong conclusions had been made. While I realize that we will be able to interact and correct those errors, the fact that they may be there before we realize that they are there concerns me. I just don't go back and review online censuses that often. I tend to print a copy for my personal records which is filed for future consultations. If I'm not at home, I may look at an online census using the citation in my database. You also have to realize that until the last few years, most of my census research was done on microfilm. I have tons of print-outs which predate Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest census records. I even still have those 1880 CDs that the LDS issued. About the only time I've used those in the last few years though has been to consult an image which was hard to read in the other sources.

I need to get back to work. I'm working on FGS stuff and on a presentation I'm making in North Carolina next weekend. I also need to write a blog post for the carnival later today. I haven't participated in a long time, and I need to get back on track!

Blowing Off Steam

Recently I've been attempting to follow a discussion that has been occurring among members of a professional organization to which I belong. It's a trend that I've seen in other professional organizations to which I belong when voting migrates from a paper ballot that is mailed out to an electronic ballot. For years, members have been content with the brief sketches provided in a publication about each candidate. When the balloting moves to an online situation, those persons are no longer content with basic candidate information. They want to know more -- including the position each candidate would take on any individual position. (The suggested lists of questions were really somewhat amusing to read because many were "petty" questions that had nothing to do with the candidate's qualifications to serve in elected office.) I really disagreed with their statement that we knew nothing about the candidates. By having attended national conferences in that field, I knew each candidate who was running for an office, and I knew which ones I thought were the best persons to serve the organization. I also think that the committee responsible for elections did an excellent job of screening potential candidates for the positions. I think most of those listed as candidates would do an excellent job in advancing the organization. I know that in tough economic situations that it is sometimes not possible to attend a national professional conference each year, but when I see persons who claim to know nothing of the candidates, I question whether they've ever attended such a conference to enhance their own professional development. I have been purposefully vague on the discipline because I've seen the same thing repeated in others. I don't want to single out any organization because this statement applies to multiple ones to which I belong.

Has it been 6 weeks?

I just noticed that it has been six weeks since I've posted anything here. My apologies to my readers. Sometimes life just gets busy! I managed to say "yes" to something that has taken most of my free time during that period. Things will get slower in about another month, but in the meantime, I'm afraid my posting will continue to be erratic as I compile some information needed soon and attend to a couple of other duties with this new responsibility.

FGS 2009 Is History

The 2009 FGS conference has come and gone. It was sad to say goodbye to friends, but my cat appreciated seeing me when I finally got home shortly before midnight last night. A lot of people have already blogged their conference experiences. I won't bore you too much with my experience which was quite different than most of the others simply because I was presenting and also working. I'm sure that I must have walked 10,000 miles each day. That may be a slight exaggeration, but my feet sure felt that I had! Little Rock had an abundance of places to get good food at a reasonable price within walking distance of the conference. Saturday night I ventured further afield with some genealogists who drove to the Whole Hog Cafe where I had some barbecue. When I came back, I hung out with a friend in her room for awhile before heading down to the hotel's piano lounge to hang out with my fellow genealogists. We stayed there until after midnight which must have been really hard on those with early flights on Sunday. Since my flight wasn't until 4 p.m., it wasn't a hardship for me. I've done as little as possible today so that I can be rested for my return to work tomorrow.

Make plans now to attend the 2010 FGS Conference in Knoxville. It will be held August 18-21.