2005 CALENDAR
October 22 -----------Seminar, featuring Lloyd Bockstruck.
November 19---------”Preserving Your Photographs and Documents.”
December 16 -------- Holiday Party.

2005 SEMINAR - October 22

Please mark your calendars now for the Forth Annual SOCCGS Genealogy Seminar. Lloyd Bockstruck will be our featured speaker. His featured presentations are: Finding Substitutes for Birth & Death Records, Newspaper Genealogy, Identifying Maiden Names of Females and Lesser Used Genealogical Records.
Mr. Bockstruck, Supervisor of the Genealogy Section of the Dallas, Texas, Public Library, is a nationally known genealogy speaker and author. He has published “Virginia's Colonial Soldiers”, “Genealogical Research in Texas”, and “Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants Awarded by State Governments”.
The day promises to be interesting, informative and fun! There will be food, door prizes and an opportunity drawing for a hand made quilt. Please see the flyer inserted in this newsletter.

QUILT PROJECT

Opportunity tickets are now available for the Opportunity Quilt to be awarded at the Seminar. The quilt is a nine-patch design made with replica Civil War fabrics. Prizes will be awarded to three members who sell the most tickets by the October 22 drawing. First prize will be a table-topper quilt in the same design as the opportunity quilt. Proceeds will benefit the SOCCGS Library. Barbara Wilgus is the quilt chairman: (949) 380-6008 or [email protected].

GENEALOGY SAFARI
The September 28 safari destination will be be announced at the general meeting on August 20.

“Thank You” to our own member, Kathy Mauzey, who gave a wonderful lecture on the research possibilities to be found in the U. S. Federal Censuses. Need to know more? Kathy is the docent on Tuesdays, 5:30 to 7 p.m., except the second Tuesday when she volunteers at the National Archives. Thanks, also, to Hospitality Chairman, Leesola Cannon, who provided the goodies served at the meeting.

NEW MEMBERS & GUESTS

Guests at last week's meeting were: Cliff & Mary Baughman, Haileyville, Oklahoma; Dotty Wilson, Costa Mesa; Barbara Zuccolotto, San Clemente; Bob & Cindie Reilly, Mission Viejo and Christianne Rottenberg, Mission Viejo.

PLEASE SIGN UP
(SOCCGS MAILING LIST)

In order to receive information between meetings and newsletters you need to sign up for the SOCCGS Mailing List. You may also use this list to send out a query, or to pass on genealogical information to the group. To subscribe to the SOCCGS mailing list, send an e-mail to [email protected] with the message: subscribe. Don't put anything in the subject line. To send a message or query to the list address the message to [email protected]. The topic of your query should appear in the subject line.

LIBRARY VOLUNTEERS

Laura Mitchell has volunteered to be the regular Tuesday, 1-4, docent. However, her shift on Sundays, 1 to 3, needs to be filled. How about one Sunday a month? Subs are still needed for regular duty, and to fill the Monday, 3-5, hours. Please think about donating two or three hours a month.

Call Mary Jo McQueen, 581-0690, if you can help.

Ongoing classes for persons considering becoming docents are held on Thursdays (12-3) and Saturdays (10 to 1). These classes are also open to current docents and other members needing help in using the resources available at the library. If this is not convenient, call Mary Jo McQueen, to set up a special time.

USGENWEB’S FAMILY GROUP SHEET PROJECT

We have the opportunity to put family group sheets online at the various state sites that support this project. It is free! Check it out at the USGW FGS home page, https://sites.rootsweb.com/~usfgs/ where you will find links to all the states that have a family group project. Some states have thousands of group sheets online, while other smaller states have as few as 10. Please feel free to send your group sheets to all the states to which they apply. The family group sheets may be submitted directly online or via email.

TV SERIES SEEKS FAMILY HISTORY STORIES

Every person has a history - a heritage which defines and directs that person's character. That history, and the search for, and discovery, of that heritage, provide fascinating stories, giving insight to our own family, culture, country and selves. The television series ACROSS GENERATIONS is about those searches and the stories they uncover.

First Flight Productions, of Harrisonburg, Virginia, is producing the pilot and series episodes for a television show called "Across Generations" that chronicle unusual stories genealogists have uncovered in their
research into their families' history. Its website has examples of what it calls stories with a real "wow factor" along with details and how to submit your family's story. http://www.firstflightproductions.com/

COLORADO STATE ARCHIVES
Colorado Historical Records Index Search - http://kiwi.state.co.us/archive/publicrecordsearch.do

HURON COUNTY, OHIO
Index of Cemetery Inscriptions http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/oh/huron/cemeteries/hu_cemetery.txt

DOMESTIC COTTON FACTORIES appear to be reviving at the eastward in a very rapid manner. Sixteen cotton factories in Patterson N.J. are nearly all said to be now in vigorous operation; and their fabrics meet with a ready sale at a fair price. In Philadelphia, 4000 looms, owned principally by persons of limited means, have been put into operation within the last six months. They find an increasing demand for all the cotton goods they can make. Such accounts are highly gratifying to the friends of American prosperity. We hope soon to see the time when this business will be more generally extended to the western country.

TWO HUNDRED AND NINETY DOLLARS REWARD
Adams Centinel (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania), 17 August 1814, page 4:

Deserted From my Company of the Fifth Detachment of Pennsylvania Militia, commanded by Col. James Fenton, the following persons between 12 March and 8 June 1814: James Stocks, George Sellars, William Blankly, Abraham Sanders, Mathias Bowser, Joseph Ross, Mathew Tagg, William Kennedy, John Ross, John Bush, Jacob Griner, Hugh Kennedy, John Nicholson, William Proctor, Hugh King, James Middleton, Joseph Deardorff, Patrick Logue, John Myers, John McClure, Jacob Bowersock, Jacob Gisler, Conrad Par, Daniel Shilt, Henry Shilt, Jacob Sell, John Fickle, Paul Swartz, Anthony Swartz.

The above Reward will be paid for delivering the above named persons to me at Buffalo or lodging them in any jail in the United States, or Ten Dollars for each of them.

The above named Deserters having (with the exception of two) received a large sum of money to serve as substitutes for draughted men, it is sincerely hoped that the public will be assiduous in apprehending men who would thus deceive their fellow citizens, and desert their country's cause.

Samuel White, Captain 10th Company, Col. Fenton's Regiment of Pennsylvania Militia.

WOMEN GIVEN SUFFRAGE BY TENNESSEE RATIFICATION
Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, New Jersey), 18 August 1920, page 1:

Suffrage Victory Ends Long Battle.
Maryland Woman in 1647 First to Demand Equal Rights with Men.

Ratification of the suffrage amendment to the Constitution ends a struggle which began in this country before the Colonies declared their independence. It will eventually enfranchise 25,000,000.

Woman suffrage first raised its voice in America in Maryland in 1647, when Mistress Margaret Brent, heir of Lord Calvert, demanded a place in the Legislature of the colony as a property holder of wide extent. And in the days of the Revolution, Abigail Adams wrote her husband, John Adams, at the Continental Congress, which was framing the laws of the infant nation that, "if--in the new laws--particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound to obey any laws in which we have no voice."

Organized work for woman suffrage began in the United States with the Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848, which was called by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, early leaders of Massachusetts and New York, in response to the indignation aroused by the refusal to permit women to take part in the anti-slavery convention of 1840. From the date of that convention the suffrage movement in the United States began the fight that lasted seventy years and ended with victory. Another convention followed in 1852, at Syracuse, N.Y., at which delegates from Canada were present, and it was there that Susan B. Anthony assumed leadership of the cause to which she devoted her life.

In tracking a family's movements from place to place, what family historian has not wondered why his or her family moved to that particular town in Illinois or Oklahoma or California at that particular time? We all wonder, justifiably, what could possibly motivate a family to make such a monumental, expensive, physically arduous, and potentially dangerous journey. While the motivations of individuals or families can rarely be known for certain, we can surmise a great deal from studying the large migration trends throughout history.

The great westward migration in the United States was accomplished over time and in many stages. One of the first migration routes was over the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains into Kentucky and Tennessee. Later, the frontier pushed farther west to the plains, and then to the West Coast.

As our pioneer families packed their worldly belongings and bid farewell to friends and kin, they were not only making a very personal decision, but they were also participating in a massive social movement. Frontier theorists believe that the migrations into Kentucky exemplify the complexity of population movements and social change. Therefore, the settlement of Kentucky represents a fascinating and unique opportunity to study in a microcosm the westward movement in United States history. An exploration of this particular westward movement can tell us about the migration experiences of our ancestors—whether they migrated to Kentucky or to the West Coast.

Motivations for Migration - Early settlers were on the move almost as soon as they set foot on the eastern shores, constantly and impatiently pushing the border outward from the European settlements into the western wilderness. Our high school history classes taught us that many of our ancestors came to the New World in pursuit of religious freedom. These pioneers wanted freedom to live and worship the way they believed, surrounded by their loved ones. But such a monumental decision is rarely based on one single factor. Most families migrated for social and economic, as well as religious, reasons.

Settlement of the Kentucky frontier was influenced by a variety of factors. The political environment and economic conditions in Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania made it ripe for such a migration. Virginia’s role in the migratory pattern began early in the eighteenth century as settlement moved steadily westward from the Tidewater into the Piedmont. The rapid increase in settlers set the stage for a great wave of land speculation in western lands. By the mid-eighteenth century, the slow trickle of westward movement began to show signs of a flood. Settlement of Kentucky after the revolution resulted in a very rapid population growth. The number of Kentuckians nearly tripled between 1790 and 1800.
The political stage was also set. Religious differences had grown into factional differences between the upper class Tidewater residents and the yeoman farmers. Land policy was favorable, and the government encouraged settlement through the sale of cheap land in Kentucky.

An expanding population in the eastern states was also a major factor of migration to Kentucky. The influx of Revolutionary War soldiers contributed to the rise in Kentucky’s population as they and their families joined the migration into Kentucky to claim service bounty lands. Many settlers bought land cheaply from Revolutionary War veterans.

Under the primogeniture laws of Virginia, older sons inherited their fathers’ estates and younger sons were forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere. As a result, Kentucky became almost as popular as North Carolina in providing a place for these younger sons to migrate.

The European lifestyle and methods of farming resulted in an economy and population that depended on acquiring new, fertile land to sustain growth. The rapid exhaustion of the Tidewater’s tillable land encouraged movement into healthy land in Kentucky. As a result, there was pressure for new land, not only because of a rapidly expanding population, but because of the deteriorating value of land for agricultural uses. Faced with less productive agricultural lands and the promise of new land in Kentucky, one can understand why thousands of Virginians and North Carolinians set out over the Blue Ridge Mountains into the rich farming areas of the Bluegrass, the Ohio River Basin, and the western regions of Kentucky.

The great migration movement to the West brought many types of people over the mountains. First came the adventurous explorers, trappers, and hunters. They were followed by surveyors who opened the country to settlement. Later, land squatters began the task of taming the wilderness. They cut down trees, burned underbrush, and planted small cornfields. But the squatters were soon supplanted by speculators who sent agents into the new settlements to buy the small farms and develop large plantations. The squatters were forced to move westward to new lands and leave the ever-expanding Kentucky settlements to another set of newcomers.

Kentucky: The Symbol -The promise that drew many of these early frontier families to Kentucky was one of plentiful, cheap, fertile land; in some cases, Kentucky was a promised land. It had become a romantic, nearly mythical paradise of the eighteenth century fueled by extravagant reports from Indian and white explorers. Land speculators naturally used these stories to their advantage in advertisements and booklets in the hopes of driving up the prices of their land.

The early colonists heard all manner of tales about the western frontier. They heard these accounts from land speculators who were motivated by the need to encourage settlement into the area and thus profit financially from heavy demand for their lands. They heard from adventurers and early exploration parties about fertile land for farming, virgin forests, and animal herds that made hunting sound like child’s play. They heard even taller tales about hidden treasures, lost silver mines, gold, and the abundance of other valuable minerals. Later, they heard from their own families and friends about the advantages of the new lands.

Kentucky came to represent, both geographically and socially, the boundary between the old European social order, with its limitations on freedom and restrictions of social mobility, and the wilderness, with all its opportunities for change and a new way of life. In short, Kentucky had come to symbolize paradise, and it retained this image even after the frontier had been pushed far beyond the Mississippi.

Pioneer Routes - Early settlers of Kentucky generally took one of two major routes: the northern route along the Ohio River or the southern route through the Wilderness Gap and its many tributary branches into the eastern and central regions of Kentucky. Both points of entry into the Kentucky wilderness were also important stops on existing trails that may have been used by local wildlife and Native Americans. In large part, the establishment of pioneer stations and forts took place along these pre-existing trails.

The southern Wilderness Road route was taken by a majority of pioneers who came to Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap along the famous Wilderness Road from Virginia through the Appalachian Mountains. The Gap was critical in the settlement of the West because it was the only natural route through the Appalachian Mountains. As a result, the Wilderness Trail continued to be an important route for settlers moving west until the Civil War. Of the approximately 400,000 pioneers who traveled west before 1800, it is estimated that three quarters of them used the Cumberland Gap route. And while those settlers originated from as far north as Pennsylvania, the majority came from Virginia and North Carolina.

In frontier times, the Wilderness Road was a southern loop for connecting pioneer roads reaching from the Potomac River in Virginia to the falls of the Ohio River in western Kentucky. The portion of the road from Kingsport, Tennessee to the bluegrass regions of Kentucky that gave the road its name was no more than a narrow, difficult, hazardous trail winding over mountains. From 1775 to 1796 this segment of the road was nothing more than a horse path. No wagon passed over it during that period of time when more than 200,000 people made their way into Kentucky and beyond. It continued as an important feeder thoroughfare for the western settlements until the Civil War.

Population Trends - By 1820, Kentucky’s population more closely resembled Virginia’s than North Carolina’s, substantiating the popular view that there was a large migration of pioneers from Virginia during these early years. After 1820, Kentucky ceased to attract large numbers of settlers into its borders and thus began the great net migration loss of surplus population that lasted for the next 150 years.

By 1880, eighty percent of Kentucky residents who had been born outside of the state came from just five states: Tennessee, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina. Of the 454,000 who had moved to other states by 1880, nearly seventy-five percent had moved to Missouri, Indiana, Illinois, Texas, Kansas, and Ohio. Thus, Kentucky has been a state that families migrated through.

We need genealogy related items for the sale table at the October 22 Seminar. Any books, periodicals, cds, etc. that you are able to part with will be appreciated. There is a small number of duplicate books and periodicals at the library that will be put out for sale, but we can use more. Please bring items to the September 17th meeting, or call Mary Jo McQueen for pick up. Thank You.

MINNESOTA DEATH CERTIFICATE INDEX

This database indexes the death cards from 1905 to 1907 and the death certificates from 1908 to 1996. There's a link to birth certificates as well as other Minnesota information. http://people.mnhs.org/dci/Search.cfm

DONATIONS:
DIANE WEBB:
Marriages of Rutherford County, Tennessee 1804-1872 by E. R. Whitley
Marriages of Wilson County, Tennessee 1802-1850 by E. R. Whitley
Monroe County, Wisconsin Pictorial History 1976
Monroe County, Wisconsin Heritage book 1984
Harrison County, Kentucky Wills 1795-1834
Harrison County, Kentucky Marriages 1794-1832
Shelby County, Kentucky Marriages 1792-1800 (In Manuscript File)
MARGIE MILLER:
Pennsylvania At Andersonville, Georgia
Pennsylvania At Salisbury, North Carolina

Thank You. Your generous donations are appreciated.

SOCCGS PURCHASES:

The Timetables of American History, Laurence Urdang, Editor

Maryland and Virginia Colonials: Genealogies of Some Colonial Families, Vols. I & II, Sharon J. Doliante

CD: New York Genealogical and Biographical Records, 1940-1960

CD: AniMap Plus 2.6: Just about every researcher deals with the problem of finding an old town that has long-since disappeared from the map. Or, you have a known location but it was not in the same county 100 or 200 years ago. AniMap Plus now has solutions to these problems.
AniMap Plus will display over 2,300 maps to show the changing county boundaries for each of the 48 adjacent United States for every year since colonial times. Includes all years, not just the census years. Maps may be viewed separately, or the program can set them in motion so you can automatically view the boundary changes. Maps of the full U.S. are also included showing all the changes in state and territorial boundaries from 1776 to the present.
Each map includes a listing of the changes from the previous map making it simple to keep track of parent counties. There are four speed adjustments in the "run" mode as well as being able to advance by single frames.

GOOGLE STREAMLINED SEARCHES

Google (and some other search engines) offer searches that you can streamline in several ways. Whatever search engine you decide to use, spend some time becoming familiar with all that it has to offer. If you talk with ten people, you may get several different ideas on what is the best search engine! Here are Google.com features:
* Go to http://toolbar.google.com and you can easily install a Google Toolbar that allows you to add some quick features, including a way to do a Google search no matter what other web page you are presently on.
* This same toolbar also allows some specific searching on the website you are already checking. This feature is called Search Site. I might type in a keyword, keywords, or a phrase in the search box and hit the Search Site button. One reader shared: "If I am visiting Colorado Civil War Casualties Index, I might want to know if there are any Herrick names anywhere on their site. By entering the name "Herrick" in the Google toolbar and clicking "Search Site," I am searching www.colorado.gov for any occurrence of Herrick."
* Google has a page titled "Free Genealogy Search Help for Google." Type in a name, and it relates specific genealogy related sites to check. The first one it lists is Ancestry.com!
(Excerpted from Ancestry Daily News, August 16, 2005, myfamily.com)

The OCCGS New England SIG group meets on the first Saturday of each month, after the general meeting and lecture. The meeting place is in Room D at the Huntington Beach Library. For further information contact Marcia Huntley Maloney, [email protected] or Bob [email protected].