Genealogical Tidbits Help You Get The Facts
Today’s column is a collection of genealogical bits and pieces. If you have an interesting bit of genealogical trivia to share, I would be pleased to receive it and maybe use it in a future column. Send it to me c/o this paper.
A few months ago I wrote about the impending destruction of the Railroad Retirement Board Pension Files. Due in part to the pressure applied by genealogists, this destruction is now on hold while the National Archives reviews the records to determine an appropriate retention schedule. So our letter writing did some good.
The Family History Library has published two new research outlines that describe the methodology, major resources and archives used for doing research in Ireland and Germany. The Library has also published two brief letter-writing guides to help researchers obtain records from the non-English speaking countries of France and Germany. These guides are available at any Family History Center or at Ancestors Plus at Shadle Center in Spokane.
Folks researching their Italian roots have hit the jackpot with “Italian Genealogical Records,” by Trafford Cole, just published by Ancestry, Inc.
This 265-page book covers absolutely everything you need to know to successfully find your ancestors’ names in Italian records. Cole explains all the various civil and parish records, along with alternate ecclesiastical records and record sources. The book is illustrated with copies of actual records.
“Italian Genealogical Records” will surely become a standard for those seeking to connect with their Italian forebears. Cost is $34.95; call Ancestry at 800 262-3787 to order.
Alfred O. Gray, a Spokane reader, wrote regarding my June 25 column about the fire in the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis that destroyed a good many U.S. Army records:
“I wrote to the Personnel Records Center and found that my file with my WWII records indeed had been destroyed. I asked whether I could photocopy the files that I hold and so reconstruct my file in their headquarters. I was told yes, and that is what I did. I was later informed that my file had been reconstructed.”
“Perhaps,” Gray wrote, you could recommend to your readers with former military service that they, too, would be able to do the same. The address is: General Services Administration, National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Blvd., St. Louis, MI 63132.”
I hope others will follow Gray’s good example.
Jo Anne Gemmrig of Spokane spends considerable time surfing the Internet, and has passed along a very different sort of message that originated in Iowa City, Iowa:
“APSGM will provide the opportunity for recorded information to be permanently left at the grave site. Information will be provided by the deceased and intended for the living, or by the living, telling the story or history of the deceased. The standard playback unit will be surface or recess mounted in the grave marker. Units will use a solar panel to recharge the batteries, and a weatherproof speaker to provide a permanent digitally recorded message of almost any length.”
The Internet message also explained several different options planned for this unit, and ended by saying that a patent is forthcoming and to look forward to seeing this device for sale soon.
More about this, anybody?
The Native Daughters of the Golden West, 543 Baker St., San Francisco, CA 94117-1405, seeks to honor those who came to California before 1870, or to those born in California prior to that day, by giving certificates to descendants.
So far, the organization has collected more than 33,000 one-page biographies on pioneers and early settlers, and will share this information with any interested person. Write to them at the address above.
Marsha Hoffman Rising, national genealogical speaker and author, asks our help. She wants to document the origins of the first 1,000 pioneers who purchased land from the Springfield (Mo.) Federal Land Office between 1835 and 1939.
She has located more than 650 trailblazers and has a list of those she is still seeking. Photocopy and postage expenses will be reimbursed. If you would like a copy of the list, write to Rising at 2324 E. Nottingham, Springfield, MO 65804, FAX: (417) 887-5901.
At the National Genealogical Society conference last May in San Diego, I met Ronald W. Higgins, president of the California African-American Genealogical Society. He told me about the aims and programs of the California group and gave me sample newsletters from the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Inc., P.O. Box 73086, Washington, DC 20056-3086.
The newsletter is filled with tips to help those researching their African-American heritage, and would be well worth the society membership of $25. The California group offers a book on Beginning Genealogy for $7, which includes a research bibliography. Write to them at P.O. Box 8442, Los Angeles CA 90008-0442.
Making a trip to Tennessee next May? Why not plan to be in Nashville, May 8 to 11 for the 1996 National Genealogical Society conference. The conference will be in a downtown hotel near the state library and archives. Contact NGS at 4527 - 17th St. N., Arlington VA 22207-2399, to be placed on the mailing list for information on this conference (NGS members receive automatic mailings.)
Mendenhall Matters is a newsletter for members of that family; write to 400 - 20th Ave. So., Great Falls MT 59405. The Hudsoniana is the bulletin of the Hudson Family Association. Write to them at 232 Loop Drive, Slidell, LA 70458.
Today’s smile: The following isn’t really funny, but if you found it on a family group sheet, you would smile. Seems that Eleanor Barry, a 70-year-old woman living alone on Long Island, paid the ultimate price for being overly literate. For years she surrounded herself with every morsel of reading material she could lay her hands on. Books, newspapers, magazines and department store catalogs were piled from floor to ceiling throughout her modest home. As she lay sleeping one night, one of these huge paper piles teetered and swayed in the darkness, tumbled and crushed her to death.
xxxx