Saddleback Valley Trails

At the April meeting, we welcomed new member Sol Shenker of Laguna Woods. Guests included Judy Kammon, Tom Fangrow, Mervie Beam, L. A. Chamblin, J. Katz, and Nancy Perez.

by Dorothy Miller

presented by North San Diego County Genealogical Society

Saturday, June 7, 2003

9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Carlsbad City Council Chambers, 1200 Carlsbad Drive, Carlsbad, CA

Cost - $12.50 if registered by June 1, 2003, $17.50 for registration received after June 1, 2003

For an additional $5 you may order lunch for that day. For more information email Dorothy Miller at [email protected]

About the Presenter: Dorothy Miller retired from California State University, Northridge in 1998. She has had 30 years experience in education; the majority of those years teaching computer science. She has also consulted for private industry and educational institutions, but is now very much involved in genealogical research. This is a repeat of her popular class held in February.

from the South-Central-Kentucky Mailing List - author unknown

(1) Thou shalt name your male children: James, John, Joseph, David, Robert, Richard, Thomas, William.

(2) Thou shalt name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, and Sarah.

(3) Thou shalt leave NO trace of your female children.

(4) Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above lists, call them by strange nicknames such as, Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, Sukey, making them difficult to trace.

(5) Thou shalt NOT use any middle names on any legal documents or census reports, and only where necessary, you may use only initials on legal documents.

(6) Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or misspelled, in various ways.

(7) Thou shalt, after no more than 3 generations, make sure that all family records are lost, misplaced, burned in a court house fire, or buried so that NO future trace of them can be found.

(8) Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors, & vague innuendo regarding your place origination.

A. You may have come from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales...or Iran.

B. You may have American Indian ancestry of the ________tribe.....

C. You may have descended from one of three brothers that came over from _____.

(9) Thou shalt leave NO cemetery records, or headstones with legible names.

(10) Thou shalt leave NO family Bible with records of birth, marriages or deaths.

(11) Thou shalt ALWAYS flip thy name around. If born James Albert, thou must make all the rest of thy records in the names of Albert, AJ, JA, Al, Bert, Bart, or Alfred.

(12) Thou must also flip thy parent's names when making reference to them, although "Unknown" or a blank line is an acceptable alternative.

(13) Thou shalt name at least 5 generations of males, and dozens of their cousins with identical names in order to totally confuse researchers.

Reprinted from the CSGA Newsletter, Vol. 21, No. 4, April 2003

The Southern California Genealogical Society has a new project, "The 1890 Project." They will be attempting to re-create the population of Los Angeles County in 1890.

Volunteers will combine every resource available into a searchable database on CD. Resources will include an every name index of the Los Angeles Times of 1890, vital records, court records, voter rolls, church and cemetery records and business and civic rosters.

If you have anyone who you know was in Los Angeles County in 1890, they would appreciate your contribution. All information must be documented.

If you would like to volunteer to help, contact the SCGS Library, 4127 Irving Drive, Burbank, CA, (818) 843-7247.

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DOCENTS NEEDED! We desperately need docents for one Friday and one Saturday a month, 1 to 4. Also, it is increasingly difficult to find someone to fill in when a docent needs to be gone....Please sign up to be a substitute. Thanks, Janet & Mary Jo

Donated by Jackie Hanson - books

Colonial Familiesof the Southern States of America by Hardy

Rambles About Portsmouth, by Brewster

Genealogies of Virginia Families, Vol. N-T, Wm. & Mary Quarterly

Quaker Arrivals at Philadelphia, 1682-1750

Donated by Jackie Hanson - periodicals

200 copies early NEHGS Registers 1930-1970

Genealogical Research: Methods and Sources, ASG

California Mayflower Society Quarterlies

The American Genealogist, Vol. 19: 1,2,4; Vol. 40; 1,2,3,4

Donated by Ron Tovsen

Assorted Family Tree Magazines

Donated by Diane Webb

Grant County, KY Marriages, 1820-1850

Pendleton County Kentucky Marriages, 1799-1843

Society of Kentucky Pioneers, 1983 Yearbook

B. O. Gaines History of Scott County, KY Vols. I & II

Muscatine County Iowa Marriage Records, 1880-1910

Muscatine County Iowa Marriage Records, 1837-1879

Genealogical Branches from Monroe County, Wisconsin, Vol. III (2 copies)

Kentucky Cemetery Records, Vol. V

Early Shelby County, Indiana Marriage Returns, 1822-1839

Piedmont North Carolina Cemeteries, Vol. I

McDaniel Family

Rock County, Wisconsin Index - 1879, 1889

by George G. Morgan "Along Those Lines"

We all encounter pitfalls in our research. Sometimesthese are brick walls that result from lack of resources, lost or destroyed data, uncommunicative relatives, uncooperative courthouse clerks, and other obstacles. Unfortunately though, we somtimes do it to ourselves. I'm the first to admit that I also am guilty of undermining my own research by not working as effectively as I should. However, over the years, I've learned how to 'work smarter' in conducting my own research. In this week's "Along Those Lines..." column, I'd like to share some ways that you can improve your work approach to genealogical and family history research.

We collect informational fragments of our ancestors' and families' lives over time, and these seldom are discovered in any particular order. It is always helpful to organize the facts of an individual's life, and the documentary evidence, in chronological sequence, and then REREAD everything as if you've never seen it before. It's easy to just scan or browse through it because you think you 'know' it, but I'll wager that by rereading all the material in chronological order you'll see something new. And don't make the mistake of just doing this exercise once. Over time you will have collected more information on a person, his or her family members, information about the local history and geography, and a host of other pertinent information. And while the facts you have uncovered about other people's lives may not ring a bell at that time, when you reread your ancestor's records, these other facts may assert themselves and add a new insight or clarity.

Create a timeline for your ancestor or what I prefer to call an 'Ancestor Profile' (http://www.ancestry.com/rd/prodredir. asp?sourceid=831&key=A092106) which helps bring information about your ancestor, his or her family members, and a variety of other data together in outline format. At that juncture, you begin to see the person's life as a whole. Sometimes this provides the perspective you need to look for missing information.

Every genealogist should be using maps, both contemporary and historical, in his or her research. There are several reasons for this.

1) You need to know what governmental entity had jurisdiction over the area in which your ancestors lived at that particular time in order to know WHO created the records, WHY they were created, and potentailly WHERE the records may now reside.

2) If you are a member of AAA, use your membership to obtain maps of all the areas in which you are researching. AAA can provide maps at different levels of detail - from country to state/province to county/parish to city. Then, purchase felt tip markers of different colors and establish a color code scheme for your different families or branches. Use the markers to indicate who lived where at what time. Make notes on the map or type labels (which also are available in different colors) and affix them to the map. A favorite tactic I use is to draw the migration path of a family from Point A to Point B, using historical information about migration routes at the time. You may find that your ancestors stopped for a while along the route and there may be records in the intermediate counties.

3) Use maps to undersand the locations in which your ancestors lived for purposes of evaluating land records, locating census records, determining, voting precincts, determining the towns where they transacted business, and narrowing the list of possible religious institutions with which they might have been involved.

Professional genealogical researchers, before they begin working on a project for a client, do advance work to set their goals. They gather all the information they have and organize it, usually sequentially as discussed above, and then prepare a list of their research goals. Using this methodical approach, you can conduct your research in a much more time-and cost-effective manner.

For example, let's say you are working on one family line and you know there are a number of things you want to learn. If you determine that you want to obtain proof of marriage for several family members, prepare a list of the couples' full names, the probable locations where they were married and possible dates, and then determine where those records might be located. You also might want to obtain death certificates for all your great-uncles and -aunts in a particular place. Prepare a similar list with full names, locations where they lived (and/or died), and the probable dates of death.

Next, perform some additional, preliminary research to confirm

A) that the records you seek really exist,

B) where those records are now stored, and

C) how you can access the records or obtain copies. You can do much of this by checking websites, but always make a phone call to verify access the data. (Imagine the dismay of a researcher arriving at the county courthouse only to find that all the records she sought were in off-site storage and required several days advance notice to recall the box containing those she wanted to access.)

Few genealogists I know maintain research logs for the persons and lines they are tracing. As a result, they often waste time researching the same materials again and again and waste money photocopying the same book pages. Author Brent Holcomb has produced any number of books about South Carolina records. Imagine my excitement-on at least three occasions-to have found a book containing extracts from one of my Revolutionary War ancestors who lived in South Carolina, only to return home and find that I already had that material.

The use of a structured log sheet detailing what resources you have accessed, where you accessed them, what you researched, and what the results were, can eliminate redundant and wateful research. It also can help you retrace your own research for materials you may once have thought useless but which you suddenly may want to locate and access again.