Where Do I Start?

So you've heard about this genealogy craze and how much fun it is. Or maybe you have some burning questions about your ancestors that you just HAVE to answer. The desire to find your ancestors is there, but where do you start?

There are as many answers to this question as there are genealogists. Here are my thoughts.

1. Make a pedigree chart and write down what you know or what you think you know. Start with yourself, add your parents, their parents, and so on. Work backwards through time.

2. Collect names, dates, and places, the building blocks of genealogy. Find and document as many births, marriages and deaths as you can. These are called vital records, and they are vital to doing genealogy!

3. Use the census. Starting with the most recent census in which your ancestor would have lived (1940 is the most recent U.S. census available today) and find every census with him/her in it. Study them with a fine tooth comb. Each census asked different questions so you will find different clues in each one.

These first steps should get you started on your genealogical journey. Once you've gone through these records, you'll find more clues and questions to take you further.
~Sonia

More Chicago Genealogy

While helping a patron with her Chicago genealogy recently, I came across a few other very helpful websites that anyone doing Chicago genealogy should know about and use.

• The Newberry Library has a great page on Chicago Genealogy. But don't overlook their research guides page, either, which has many helpful links to researching Chicago history.
• Anyone researching Chicago ancestors should make a trip to the Wilmette Family History Center. They have an extensive collection of Chicago-related resources. Take a look at their "Research Tools" on the bottom right of their webpage.
• Many of you with Chicago ancestors also have Polish backgrounds. You will find the website of the Polish Genealogical Society of America (located in Chicago) to be a wealth of information.

Happy Researching!
~Sonia

Newspaper basics

Finding an obituary, marriage notice, or news article about your ancestor in a newspaper can be thrilling, giving details to an event that the official record doesn't convey. But where and how can you find these gems?

The answer is three-fold:

• Some newspapers have been digitized and are available through subscription databases
• Some newspapers have been digitized and are available free on Internet websites
• Some newspapers are not digitized but have been microfilmed and are available at libraries across the country.

Cook Library subscribes to the following newspaper databases: Access Newspaper Archives (in library use only), Chicago Tribune Historical Databases, and New York Times Historical Databases (both available from home with a Cook Library card).

Here are a few of the free sites to keep in your toolbox.

• Google News Archive (Google has dropped their newspaper digitization project but they have kept what they already digitized.)
• Chronicling America (hosted by the Library of Congress)
• Elephind (a portal that leads to sites with digitized newspapers. Use the browse feature to find a specific paper or search to cast a wide net).
• Old Fulton New York Post Cards (Not just New York papers! Use the Excel spreadsheet for an easier view of what is available)

Please realize that there is no one-stop shop for newspaper articles. Every site, whether fee or free, has different newspapers and different time frames. And new items are being added to every site every day. Both of the images on this post were found in newspapers, the first from 1932 and the second from 1961. I'll post more later. Try out the sites and let me know if you find anything!
~Sonia

Free, Free, Free!

I hope some of you out there will be able to take advantage of some free databases this weekend: Find My Past, which is primarily English records, and ArkivDigial, which is Swedish records.

Read Dick Eastman's blog with more details on FindMyPast and ArkivDigital.

Have a happy and successful genealogy weekend!
~Sonia

Social Security Applications Forms

At our Networking Group last night the conversation turned to Social Security Application cards. You can send away for an ancestor's application for a Social Security number (Form SS-5). This application can reveal helpful facts such as the ancestor's birthdate, place of birth, and parents' names, even your ancestor's signature.

Here's a copy of a Social Security Application form from one of our group members:

You can request an application by mail or online. Prices can differ, but you can save a few dollars if you know your ancestor's Social Security number. This can be found on a death certificate.

 

When you think about Social Security numbers and what they were used for, you will know when it is appropriate to order an ancestor's application. Social Security Administration came into being during the Depression, so if your ancestor died before then he will not have an application form on file. Also, women who did not work outside the home rarely had Social Security numbers in the early days of the SSA, so don't look for an application for them, either.

 

Two addition blog posts that may be helpful and entertaining are the Legal Genealogist's post on Ordering the SS-5 and Dick Eastman's humorous post on Social Security Cards Issued by Woolworth's.

 

Remember what we learned about Social Security numbers issued by the railroad? See my earlier post for more details.

 

Happy hunting!

~Sonia





Passenger Lists

At our last Genealogy Writing Group we also talked about passenger lists, immigration, and finding the "holy grail" of genealogy: the home town or parish in the country of origin. I don't have any magic tricks for answering this question; usually finding immigration information is the result of lots of hard, diligent work.

But we can always use more tools in our toolbox, right? In our discussion we mentioned the Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild website. The name pretty much says it all: the website is made up of transcribed passenger lists from immigrant ships. There is a search box or you can look by year through "volumes" for your immigrant's name.

I'm sure we will have additional posts regarding immigration. If you have any good immigration research sites you have used, let us know. And by all means, if you find someone on the passenger list, share your good news in the comment section. We'd love to hear about it!

~Sonia

Post cards

At our Genealogy Writing Group yesterday our discussion centered around adding images, specifically post cards, to our writing. One of our group had post cards of sites of places important to her family history.

If you want to look for post cards to buy, here are a couple of post card shows in the area to check out:
- The Grayslake Antiques Market appears monthly at the Lake County Fairgrounds and has a large post card selection.
- The Greater Chicago Post Card and Paper Show is this weekend (November 7 and 8) in Countryside, IL. If you can't make it on such short notice, they will come back on April 17 and 18, 2015 and in the fall on November 6 and 7, 2015. Click here for more details on this and other shows across the country.
- Antique stores of any kind will often have a section or a few boxes of post cards for sale. Take a minute to browse, you never know when you'll find a treasure.

If you'd rather not travel or buy post cards, here are some other sources of images you might use:
- Ancestry.com and Ancestry Library Edition have several sections with images: Pictures; Schools, Directories & Church Histories; and pictures on Public Member Trees.
- Search on eBay, post cards come up for sale all the time
- The Curt Teich Postcard Collection of the Lake County Archives has many post cards with images from around the state and the country. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the links to different regions.
- Illinois Digital Archives houses the digital collections of institutions across the state including public libraries, colleges and universities, and state government.
- see the CyndisList category on postcards
- Contact the local historical society or public library to see if they have images that you can use or download. You may have to pay for the use of them. Use Linkpendium or USGenWeb to find societies and libraries.

Have you found a good source for images to use in your family history writing? Let us know, and we'll all be the wiser!
~Sonia

City Directories

 

Earlier this week I noticed several genealogy patrons looking at city directories. Have you tried finding your ancestor in such a directory? Larger cities often had city directories which contained lists of businesses and residents, sort of like a phone book except that you didn't have to own a phone to be included in one. This is a real plus for the late 1800s and early 1900s when many households did not have telephones.

But where do you find these directories? More and more are being digitized and made accessible through the Internet. Online sources include:
- Ancestry.com and Ancestry Library Edition (available in the library or from home through TryIt! Illinois until November 30).
-Fold3 (available from home with a Cook Library card through the library's website)
- The Online Historical Directories Website claims to list all online city directories in one place.
- Search Google Books
- Try HathiTrust or Internet Archives

And if you can't find city directories for your ancestor's hometown online, see if a bricks-and-mortar library has a collection of their city's directories. The Newberry Library has many city directories in their collection. It may be worth a visit!

Have you found another source for city directories? Let us know!

~Sonia

Researching Chicago ancestors

Grace DuMelle of the Newberry Library joined us last night for an interesting and informative presentation on Chicago genealogy. She emphasized the address changes that took place in 1909 and the wealth of newspapers available for our area--there's more than just the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Grace mentioned several databases that Cook Library subscribes to, including Sanborn Maps and Newspaper Archives. (Both of these must be used in the library, but they are available through the end of November through the TryIt! Illinois program. See previous post for more information.) She also mentioned Fold3 and the Chicago city directories it contains. Fold3 can be accessed from home with your Cook Library card.

Following are some "must-have" websites for researching Chicago ancestors. Make sure you read through the websites thoroughly. They are information rich.

• ChicagoAncestors. Use this for finding churches, schools, and businesses near a specific address. You'll also find good reference material on street name changes and address changes, among other details.
• Illinois Regional Archives Depository at Northeastern University has original records from Chicago and Cook County.
• Chicago History Museum
• Use the Cook County's FOIA page and fill out a request form for inquest files. (Include the name you're searching and the date of death)
• Illinois Newspaper Project for finding newspapers from suburbs and neighborhoods. Request the microfilm through Interlibrary Loan!

And don't forget Grace's book, Finding Your Chicago Ancestors. You can check it out from the library or purchase it from Amazon.

Happy researching!
~Sonia

Searching Digital Books, Part 2

There certainly is a lot of overlap in the world of digital book collections. Today's topic, the Digital Public Library of America, claims to be a site that brings different online collections together into a single platform and portal. Translation: they are a website that points to other sites containing digital collections.

How could you use the Digital Public Library of America in your genealogy research? You will find digitized books, digital images and even sound and moving pictures here. Search for places your ancestor lived, occupations, names (it's always worth a try!), or events that your ancestor lived through. 

The Digital Public Library of America has connected with digital collection sites like the Connecticut Digital Archive, Indiana Memory, and the Minnesota Digital Library, as well as institutions such as the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Archives. Click HERE to see a list of their partners.

I was surprised to see Internet Archive and Hathitrust listed among DPLA's partners, or "hubs." We have discussed each of these sites earlier. You can see how interconnected these digital book sites are.

So why would you want to use the Digital Public Library?

• The home page is crisp and clean and each of the components of the home page is inviting. 
• The main search box is easy to find, 
• You can limit your search results to different formats (books, images, sound, or movies), time periods, places, subjects, or language. 
• The timeline and geographic search features are fun to use. 
• I also like their digital exhibits section; the exhibition called Leaving Europe: A New Life in America looks particularly interesting for us genealogists. 
• They have a wide and varied collection of images, drawing from the New York Public Library and the National Archives among other impressive sources.

Why would you use a different site?

• I didn't find their book collection to be as complete as either the Internet Archive or Hathitrust, even though DPA has partnered with each of them.
• While their collection is growing, my feeling is that other sites are adding continuously, while DPLA adds large collections of images and books less often. I will monitor their "Announcements" section to keep up with this.

As always, there's no "one-stop-shop" site for digital books or other digital materials. Put the Digital Public Library of America in your genealogy tool box as one more place to keep an eye on, and let me know what gems you find!
~Sonia

TryIt! Illinois

www.finditillinois.org/tryit

At our last Genealogy Networking Group, we explored some of the TryIt! Illinois databases. I should say, we attempted to explore the databases. We were unable to access some databases, most notable those databases produced by ProQuest. I intended to email the State Library the next time I came in to work, but you Cook Genealogists were too quick for me! One of our intrepid members, who will remain nameless, quickly got out an email and Gwen Harrison from the State Library emailed back with hopeful news: ProQuest was indeed participating in TryIt! Illinois but hadn't yet gotten their computers configured (or something like that). By Saturday afternoon, when I tried again, the ProQuest databases were up and running. Hooray!

Here are some more important bits to know about TryIt! Illinois:

• We have been asked not to post the login and password on archived websites. If you did not get the login and password from the meeting Thursday night, you may call the Cook Library reference desk (847-362-2330 x1302) and ask for them.
• I am still having trouble accessing the MyHeritage/World Vital Records database, as well as some of the history databases. I have emailed Gwen Harrison back to let her know. Hopefully they all will become functional before too long.
• The Sanborn Maps database includes other states besides Illinois. Click on "Browse to a location," find your city, then click on "See all --- atlases" to get to the Sanborn maps.
• Important! When you click on a ProQuest database to try, you will be taken to a list of ALL the ProQuest databases. Take note: some of the databases will only be available through the month of October. Sanborn Maps is one of these.
• TryIt! Illinois will give you access to some genealogy databases that Cook Library subscribes to but can only offer in the library. Use the TryIt! Illinois trial to use Ancestry Library Edition and NewspaperArchive at home.

Enjoy these databases while you can, and be sure to let the library know if there are some we should consider subscribing to, whether they are genealogy databases or not.
~Sonia

Searching Digital Books, Part 1

Imagine having access to books from academic libraries across the country: no library card needed, and as close as your computer keyboard. Several websites offer exactly this. Read on to find out what they offer and how to access them.

Internet Archive is the largest digital library out there to date. Their ambitious and lofty goal is "universal access to all knowledge." While they may not have reached that goal yet, their site has lots of books and documents available, not to mention audio and video content. One section of Internet Archive is called "The Wayback Machine" and it preserves websites as they were years ago.

Here's what Internet Archive's home page looks like:

For best results in finding books, use the Search box in the upper left corner area, then choose "Texts" instead of "All Media Types" from the drop down menu. Good terms to search on are

• geographic areas such as towns, states, or geographic regions. A search on my hometown of Muncie, Indiana brought up an 1893 city directory, a souvenir history of the city with pictures, a 1915 Normal College yearbook, and a book called The Family Register of Gerret Van Sweringen and descendants.
• occupations. Searching on "harness makers," my great-grandfather's occupation, yields manuals and guides for the practitioner.
• events. The search term "Chicago fire" results in many first-hand accounts of the Great Conflagration.

Audio offers a different way to explore the lives of our ancestors. Try searching on

• a musician's name. I heard a lovely cello concerto performed by Pablo Casals. Internet Archive also has a huge collection of Grateful Dead concerts, in case there are any fans out there.
• an old-time radio program. You can listen to "Little Orphan Annie" along with your ancestors, complete with pops and crackles.
• a politician. I heard Joseph McCarthy responding to the Edward R. Murrow.

And check out the video component. You can see footage of John F. Kennedy, the Hindenburg, or a short movie called "The Preparation of Teachers" which shows how teachers were educated in (you guessed it) Muncie, Indiana.

I'll give you time to explore this fantastic resource before I tell you about other digital book sites. Have fun with Internet Archives and tell me what YOU find.
~Sonia

Delicious-ly Saving Your Bookmarks

I have mentioned this web site several times at our Networking Group meetings and I think it's worth a post here. Delicious.com is a very useful and helpful website that will let you keep track of your important web pages and give you access to them wherever you are.

It works like this: Go to www.delicious.com and register for a free account: provide your name, email, make up a username and password, and you are ready to go.

• Whenever you come across a website that you want to come back to, save the link in Delicious.
• Add "tags" that describe the website so you can find it again.
• You can make comments that will remind you why you liked this site in the first place or that will help you use the site.
• You can make a site public or private. Public bookmarks can be seen by other Delicious users. I use the private feature when I bookmark a site that has a password, and I put the password in the comments section.

So how can this help with genealogy?

• When you bookmark a website with Delicious, you will be able to access it from any computer, whether you're at home, at the library, or at any computer anywhere.
• Many digitized books (such as are found on the HathiTrust website) do not allow printing, but you can save the link. I add notes in the comments of my bookmarks to remind me which pages are relevant or why the book is important to my research.
• Public bookmarks are searchable so you can search other people's bookmarks and find sites that were helpful to them.

Give Delicious a try today and report back on how you use it. Happy bookmarking!
-Sonia

Railroad Records

This past week the ever-popular Craig Pfannkuche came to our Aspen Drive Library and spoke to us about how to find and use railroad records in our family history research. Here are a few takeaways from his entertaining program:

• The railroad industry was a HUGE employer, especially of immigrants who might have had no special skill but were willing and able to work hard.
• If your ancestor had a Social Security number that started with a 700 number, that ancestor was probably employed by the railroad. You can write to the Railroad Retirement Board, give them the Social Security number, and ask politely for information on your ancestor. Railroad Retirement Board, 844 Rush Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60611.
• Many railroad lines have historical societies and archives. Craig is the Archivist for the Chicago & North Western Historical Society. He described the wealth of information available in their archives and encouraged everyone to seek out archives and historical societies for their ancestors' rail lines.
• The Newberry Library in Chicago has a good collection of railroad archives as well.

My great-grandfather Erik Falk worked as a machinist in the Aurora, Ilinois shop of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy rail road. I located the Burlington Route Historical Society, the historical society for the CBQ (thank you, Google!) and plan to follow up on some of the information I saw there. I found pictures of machinists at work in shops of the CBQ in the Newberry's online photograph collection. None of these men is my great-grandfather, but the pictures give me an idea of what his work was like.

What rail lines did your ancestors work for? What can you find out about them, or the railroad? Share your research finds with us!
-Sonia

Of Female Ancestors

At our Genealogy Networking Group meeting on September 4, we discussed how to research our female ancestors. Here are some tips, gathered from the book A Genealogist's Guide to Researching Your Female Ancestors by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack.*

Find records created BY your female ancestor:

• letters
• diaries
• home sources and artifacts
• oral history gathered by you or someone else

Use the website Hathitrust to find diaries in academic libraries. If your female ancestor didn't keep a diary, look for one by a woman in a similar geographical area or by someone who shared an experience similar to your ancestor's.

Find records created ABOUT your female ancestor:

• marriage certificate
• birth certificate and/or baptismal record of children 
• death certificate
• husband's death certificate
• marriage or death certificate of children
• obituary
• wills of parents

Look for indirect clues:

• repetition of names in family or unusual names of sons might point to the female ancestor's father's name
• surnames used as middle names could be the elusive maiden name
• look for older members of the household in the census who could be related to the female ancestor, thus pointing to the previous generation

Finally, think of your female ancestor in all her different roles and search for documents that might include her. Your female ancestor may have been a:

• wife or widow
• daughter or granddaughter
• mother or grandmother
• sister
• niece
• aunt
• friend or neighbor

How else would you look for a female ancestor? Leave your comments below.
-Sonia

*Check out the book A Genealogist's Guide to Researching Your Female Ancestors by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack from Cook Memorial Public Library District.

The Beginning

Nothing fancy here. Stay in touch with the genealogy scene at Cook Memorial Public Library District. You will find links and recaps of meetings and speakers, as well as reminders of upcoming programs. Please comment and make this a dynamic, useful blog.
-Sonia