November 15 - Nancy Bier: "Everyone Lived on the Land"
December 20 - SOCCGS Tenth Anniversary Celebration & Holiday Party

NOVEMBER 15 MEETING

Nancy Bier’s topic “Everyone Lived on the Land” is a lecture designed to make you aware of the land records and "substitutes" available to you for genealogical research. We often forget or are not aware of records other than deeds that must be used to complete a picture of our forefathers and their lives.

Ms. Bier has been a professional genealogist for over 15 years. She continues to research topics and records that are unusual and sometimes difficult to find. She annually takes researchers on site to Ireland and England as well as Scotland to do family history. Annual trips are taken to Salt Lake with researchers and a new trip to experience the Scotch-Irish traditions along the east coast will take place in the spring of 2004.

Nancy has several new books nearly ready for the publisher that will come out soon after the first of the new year. These are on Irish and American research projects. In addition, Nancy is a respected lecturer and teacher of local history, traditions, and historical records that will help you to locate your ancestors.

GARAGE SALE

SEMINAR

OPPORTUNITY QUILT

Larry Faulkner from Montclair held the winning ticket for the quilt. Thank you to everyone who participated in this project.

It's that time of year to be thinking about giving See's candy to family and friends for the holidays. Leon and Bunny Smith have the order forms if you haven't already picked one up. The order forms need to be returned to Leon or Bunny no later than Saturday, Nov. 22. The Smith’s address and telephone number are 24001 Calle Estilo, Mission Viejo, CA 92691, (949) 472-8046. There will be forms available at the November 15 general meeting.

SOCCGS LIBRARY

Visitors to our library will notice that one of the research computers has been moved to the other side of the counter along with the microfilm and microfiche machines. This has been done to try to alleviate some of the sun glare at different times of the day. The city is going to have an antiglare film applied to the west windows, and that should help also. Another plus to this computer move is that we will have room for more books.

NOMINATING COMMITTEE REPORT

The slate of officers for 2004 was announced at the meeting preceding the seminar. Nominees for the 2004 board are as follows: Joe Barney, president; Mary Jo McQueen, vice president, Bunny Smith, recording secretary, Pat Weeks, corresponding secretary and Mary Jo Nuttall, treasurer. No nominations were made from the floor. Voting will take place at the November 15 meeting. Nominations from the floor will be received, however prior approval must be obtained from the nominee before placing his or her name in nomination. Nominating committee members: Bunny Smith, Mary Jo Nuttall and Sandy Crowley.

GENEALOGY NEWS

The Los Angeles County Records Office is located at 12400 Imperial, Norwalk, 90650, near the junction of I-5 and the 605 Freeway. Parking is free. The office is open Monday-Friday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Telephone (800) 815-2666. The following records are housed at this location: Birth Records, Prior to 1906 & 1964 to present; Death Records, 1877 to present and Marriage Records 1852 to present. They also have many Statewide indexes: Births 1949-1984, Marriages 1949-1977, Deaths 1940-1977 & 1980-1989.

SAFARI NEWS

Due to the holiday season no safaris are planned for November and December. The next research library safari will be January 28, 2004. Location will be announced in the December newsletter.

DONATIONS:
LAURA MITCHELL - Record of Pennsylvania Marriages Prior to 1810, Vol. I and II. These books were listed as SOCCGS purchases in the last newsletter. We apologize to Laura and thank her for her generosity.

SOCCGS BOOK & CD PURCHASES:
North Carolina, South Carolina & Illinois Genealogical Research, 3 books by George K. Schweitzer
7 CDs: 1850 U.S. Federal Census Indexes (AIS) all states: Ohio * New York * IL, IN, MI, MN, WI * DE, DC, MD, NJ, PA * CT, ME, MA, NH, RI, VT * CA, IA, KS, MO, NE, NM, OR, TX, UT * AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV

• The USGenWeb Project Louisiana Archives Index Orleans Parish, New Orleans and Algiers has listed all the birth, marriage, and death indexes for Orleans Parish (New Orleans) held at the State Archives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. https://sites.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/la/orleans.htm
  

• Probate Court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio: Go to www.cuyahoga.oh.us/probate/marriage.htm, click on Marriage License Search Docket and then on Historical Marriage License Index. 1810 - April 1998. A search form will come up. Good luck to the Cleveland searchers!
  http://www.cyndislist.com/photos.htm Photographs & Memories: Preserving Your Family's Heirlooms, Treasures & Genealogical Research
  

• State of Texas Land Grant Database: http://www.glo.state.tx.us/archives/landgrant.html If you don’t have the land grant information simply search by surname.
  http://www.upperstjohn.comHistorical and genealogical information regarding The Upper St. John River Valley also known as The Madawaska Settlement Northern Aroostook County, Maine and Madawaska County, New Brunswick
  http://www.poorhousestory.com/VA_Rogues_17.htm A great story: “Rogues, Vagabonds and Fit Objects, The Treatment of the Poor in Antebellum Virginia” by James D. Watkinson
  http://www.wwiimemorial.com “World War II Registry” Honor members of the World War II generation by enrolling them in the World War II Registry, a list of individual Americans who participated in the war effort. On this site you can search for currently enrolled honorees or enroll a family member.
  

MY BRICK WALL OVERCOME
(Or,"out of the mouths of babes")

My seafaring great grandfather, Captain Peter Caughell came to San Francisco in the mid 1850s along with his brothers James, also a sea Captain, and Benjamin. Benjamin was killed in a landslide a few years later, James ultimately settled in Oregon and Peter in Northern California. They were born in what is now St. Thomas, Ontario.

My father had anecdotal stories about his grandfather Peter, stories that said we were descended from United Empire Loyalists (the name given to those American colonists who were Tories and who fled to Canada after the Revolutionary War. What Dad didn’t have was HOW we were connected. Our "brick wall" was "WHO was Captain Peter Caughell’s father?"

I had tried to trace him through LDS records with no results. There were plenty of Caughells, but none of them were included in our line, or in the Oregon line. I went to a genealogy Elderhostel in Provo one year and the instructor helped me search online, still no results. I finally paid a private genealogical library in Toronto to search although they warned me that early records for the area in question were not indexed and were difficult to search. They sent me a large packet of information, somewhat interesting, but still didn’t answer the question "Who was Captain Peter’s father?”

I must have left my e-mail address on a Canadian site because one day, several years ago, I received a query from a "Kaitlyn", in the St. Thomas, Canada area, asking me what I knew about the Caughell family. I gave her our California information, said I was sure we were connected with the UEL folk but the big mystery was "who was Capt. Peter’s father". Imagine my surprise when her answer came back "Oh that’s easy, his parents were Benjamin and Mary (Ostrander).” She gave me a site where I might get more information. There I found a promising e-mail address, contacted the gentleman and found he was a sixth cousin who promptly sent me pages of data that connected us back to the original family.

I e-mailed "Kaitlyn" thanking her and telling her that she had solved a 100-year-old mystery. She e-mailed back saying, "Your e-mail is a wonderful birthday present, TOMORROW I WILL BE TWELVE YEARS OLD"!

Joan Caughell Thompson (Joan is a member of SOCCGS and we thank her for sharing this wonderful story.)

GENEALOGICAL EVENT CALENDAR

Genealogy brought history and geography to life for me. After my aunt and grandmother infected me with the “family history bug” at an early age, the stories and facts about my relatives and my ancestors raised my interest in these subjects. Whereas some of my friends found history a dull exercise in the memorization of names and dates, and many considered geography a waste of time, I was busy consuming whatever I could find.

In “Along Those Lines. . .” this week, I want to share with you my own perspective about maps and why they have, over the years, become a passion. Perhaps you can already relate to this. If you can’t, I hope you’ll give it another thought.

Maps are Mirrors: Maps are mirrors of the geographic, geologic, historic, political, and social conditions at a specific point in time. Our contemporary road atlases reflect the status of roads and highways at the present. However, you might be surprised to learn that there are hundreds of types of maps available. In fact, maps occupy an essential place in almost every major library and archive in the world. The largest and most comprehensive map collection in the world is the United States’ Library of Congress Geography and Map division http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap which holds “collections numbering over 4.8 million maps including 65,000 atlases, 6,000 reference works, over 350 globes, and numerous plastic relief models, and a large number of cartographic materials in other formats, including electronic.”

Using Maps for Your Family History: Your research into your family and its history is dependent on your skillful use of maps at every turn. In order to make certain that you are seeking records in the right place, you must determine where your ancestor lived at a particular time and what governmental entity was in charge. That helps you access historical references that may define the lifestyle of the residents, the types of formal and informal records created at the time, and where they would have been housed during that period. Once you know that, you can continue your quest to locate where those records may now reside.

For example, if your ancestors settled in the area that is now Burlington, North Carolina, in the early 1830s, you would need to know that they might be included in the census population schedules of 1840 of Orange County, but that they would not be there in the 1850 census. Why? It is because Orange County was divided into two counties in 1849, leaving a portion of Orange County and creating the new Alamance County. Your ancestors in the area mentioned (even though there was no incorporated Burlington until 1893) would have been included in the new county’s federal census schedules. You also might be looking for other family members in the extreme southern end of Alamance County and they may have “disappeared” between the 1880 and 1900 censuses. Further research on your part would reveal that a boundary line dispute between Alamance and Chatham Counties was resolved in a new survey performed in 1895. You would need to know that, between 1849 and 1895, it would be wise to look in the population schedules of BOTH counties to locate your family members because each county claimed ownership of the land between those years.

I refer to maps whenever I am reading the history of an area, either for the United States or any other country. When a place name is mentioned, it helps me to visualize the place in relation to other locations. And by using historical maps of the time about which I am reading, the political boundaries help me understand the jurisdictions being referenced.

Maps are also great visual tools for tracing the migrations of your ancestors and their families. A copy of an historical map of the original thirteen colonies is always near my fingertips.

I have studied my ancestors’ movements and have drawn lines with colored markers on the map to trace their migration maps. Make a legend to paste to the map and you’ll always be able to see at a glance what person or family traveled where. You would be wise to note the year of the migration too. This visual aid is a great tool for inspiring thought and hypothesizing, and it works on world maps as well to help envision emigration (or immigration) routes.

Where to Locate Great Maps: An excellent starting point for your map research can be at your local public library. Many academic libraries at colleges and universities also have fine cartographic collections to explore.

There are any numbers of places on the Internet that I use on a regular basis. Perhaps my favorite is the Map Center at Ancestry.com. You can reach the collection from the Ancestry.com main screen by clicking on the “Search Records” tab and scrolling down to the “Reference & Finding Aids” link, under which is a link to the “Ancestry Map Center.” At that web page are drop-down boxes representing the various areas of the world. You can drop the menu box to obtain an alphabetical list of maps available for viewing. Select the one you want to see and then click the “View” button. The description, author, publisher, dates of depiction and of publication, and bibliographic information are shown.

Another personal favorite of mine is the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas at Austin. The website at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/index.html cannot be praised enough, in my opinion, for its excellent collection of materials. Under the Map Room Guide at the left of the screen, click on the link labeled “Historical” to access the massive collection of maps from many time periods and sources. Also here you will find links to map collections at other websites. I guarantee you that you’ll spend at least one entire evening online viewing these wonderful resources!

As a Florida resident, I have to tout the Publication of Archival Library & Museum Materials (PALMM) website, http://palmm.fcla.edu. PALMM “is a cooperative initiative of the public universities of Florida to provide digital access to important source materials for research and scholarship. PALMM projects may involve a single university or may be collaborative efforts between a university and partners within or outside of the state university system. PALMM projects create high-quality virtual collections relevant to the students, research community and general citizenry of Florida.” Not only are there Florida materials there, but a collection of links to World Map Collections also will lead you to more resources.

Finding Other Maps: If you can’t find the map you want, try using your favorite Web browser and typing in the following: [place name] + map. The place name can be as simple as a single word, such as Poland, or a multiple-word name such as Ontario, Canada, for which you would enter the place name as an exact phrase, enclosed in quotation marks as follows: “ontario canada” + map.

You also can help narrow your search for historic maps by perhaps adding a year or decade as in one of the following two searches: “north carolina” + map + 1775 or “baden germany” + map + 1800s.

It may take a little trial and error, but you may be surprised at the vast quantity and diversity of the digitized map resources available online. You also will want to bookmark your favorite map websites in your Web browser for future reference. Happy Mapping! George "Along Those Lines"
9/26/2003 - Archive, Ancestry Daily News Copyright 2003, MyFamily.com. All rights reserved.

JOSEPH PRESTON YEADON, Revolutionary War Soldier
by Leon Smith

I am a descendant of Joseph Preston Yeadon, a revolutionary war soldier, and I would like to share his story with all of you. Joseph was born 17 Dec 1756 in the County of Down, Ireland. He is found in the muster rolls of the 62nd Regiment of Foot(British Army) on the 21st day of July 1772. He was a drummer stationed at Ballinrobe, Ireland. He was 15 years and 7 months old at the time of this reference. In 1776 Joseph's regiment was shipped to Canada and was part of General Burgoyne's troops. I am going to quote the rest of this story from an internet post by Rudy Evans for Pioneer Families of Camden Co., MO.

"Joseph Preston Yeadon (Yadon) and the 62nd Regiment of Foot formed the center of British General Hamilton's brigade during Burgoyne's campaign down from Canada. This brigade was the second brigade of the [British] right wing of the army. The 62nd was not only at the battle of Freeman's farm on 19 September 1777, but were unarguably the most involved unit. They sustained more casualties (killed, captured, and wounded) that day in battle than any other British unit in battle in the whole war! They had been with the Canadian army since spring 1776 and served till the Convention of Saratoga. Their service was relatively short, but difficult."

The British commanders were repatriated but because of some disagreement with the British conduct following the surrender the ranks were not repatriated. Joseph Yadon was one of these. These prisoners were marched from New York down to Virginia toward the Albemarle Barracks, at Charlottesville, VA. Finally in 1779, Yadon enlisted in the American army at Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia). He was a member of Colonel Joseph Crockett's Western Battalion. In September 1780, Crockett's men were sent to Ft. Pitt(Pittsburgh) where they joined General George Rogers Clark. In June 1781, General George Rogers Clark with a force of 400 men, left Ft. Pitt by boat and headed down the Ohio River to the Falls of the Ohio (now Louisville,KY). They stayed at The Falls until December when Joseph Yadon was discharged."

On January 12, 1782, in Martinsburg, Virginia, Joseph Yadon married Mary Susannah Pennybaker, daughter of Jacob and Christina Dotterer Pennybaker".

Coincidentally, while Joseph Yadon hunkered down in New York state in September and October 1777, back in Pennsylvania, Pennebacker Mills (Pennypacker Mills as it is known today) was being used by General George Washington as his headquarters just prior to and immediately after the Battle of Germantown. Although Jacob Pennybaker's father, Peter Pennebacker, had died in 1770, his mother still lived there with son Samuel to whom the property went following Peter's death...."

CIVIL WAR

There are some interesting facts about “The Life of an Iowa Soldier in the Civil War” in the Spring/Summer, 2002 issue of Hawkeye Heritage. I have excerpted the following:

Clothing: When Corporal Thomas B. Hatton enlisted in Company G. 19th Iowa Infantry, he received $27.05 in clothing. The cost of the clothing would be subtracted from his pay of $13 a month.

Thomas B. Hatton, Company G. 19th Iowa Infantry, Age 25. Residence Wapello, nativity Ohio. Enlisted Aug. 5, 1862, as Seventh Corporal. Mustered Aug. 21, 1862. Promoted Sixth Corporal Dec. 1, a862; Fourth Corporal Dec. 25, 1862; Second Corporal March 1, 1863. Wounded in hand, Yazoo City, Miss. Promoted First Corporal Dec. 9, 1863. Transferred to Invalid Corps July 1, 1864. Mustered out Aug. 11, 1865, Davenport, Iowa.

A soldier should bathe often and change his clothes at least once a week so far as underclothing is concerned to keep Vermin from accumulating. I have seen men literally wear out their underclothes without a change and when they threw them off they would swarm with Vermin like a live anthill when disturbed.

Cyrus F. Boyd, 15th Iowa Infantry
Lake Providence. Louisiana, February 16, 1863

Cyrus F. Boyd, Company G. 15th Iowa Infantry, Age 24. Residence Indianola, nativity Ohio. Enlisted Oct. 19, 1861, as First Sergeant. Mustered Nov. 25, 1861. Appointed First Lieutenant of Thirty-fourth Infantry March 1, 1863. Discharged for promotion March 13, 1863. Mustered March 23, 1863. Mustered out Nov. 12, 1864.

A Soldier’s Daily Ration: 12 oz. pork or bacon or 20 oz. salt or fresh beef; 18 oz. bread or 12 oz. hardtack; A small amount of beans, rice or dried potatoes. In addition, the soldier was provided salt, coffee or tea, vinegar, sugar, candles and soap.

A Soldier’s Question: “Did I fire?”: In the heat of battle, noise, smoke and fear can confuse even the most experienced soldier. A simple mistake in loading makes the gun useless, but because of the confusion the soldier may never know this. After the battle of Gettysburg, the Union Army studied 27,574 guns picked up after the battle. They found: 87% were still loaded; 43% contained two loads; 20% contained 3 to 10 loads; one musket contained 23 loads. In many cases the ball was loaded before the powder while in others the solder loaded correctly but forgot to place the percussion cap on the gun.

Medical Treatment: The Civil War soldier faced the threat of death from Minie-ball, shell and bayonet on the battlefield; and diseases off the battlefield. Smallpox, tetanus, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diarrhea and gangrene were killers more dangerous than combat. Of the men who served from Iowa: 1 in 20 died of wounds, 1 in 9 died of disease, 1 in 9 of the remaining soldiers returned home wounded. No records were kept on those who returned home ill and never regained their health. (SOCCGS Editor’s Note: This was the case for my great-great-great uncle, Joseph Miner, and great-great grandfather, Joshua W. Sheldon, both from the Wisconsin Volunteers.)

African Americans in Iowa Civil War Regiments: African Americans officially served as soldiers only in black regiments. Iowa recruited men from Iowa, Missouri and Illinois to fill 6 companies of the 1st Iowa Regiment of African Decent, later renamed the 60th U.S. Colored Troops. Many other African Americans were hired as wagon drivers, cooks, saddlers, nurses and provided other skilled services. It is known that some African Americans were accepted into regular units. James Crane, son of a free black man, served as a regular soldier with Company B. 7th Iowa Cavalry.

Through the BYU Department of Independent Study, twenty-six, noncredit, family history courses are now available for free. Anyone at anytime can take these online courses from any computer with Internet access.

"Technology has made it possible for us to offer free courses. Our free courses are our regular courses, but we can use the technology to offer those free to an audience that is not requiring credit," said Dwight Laws, Director of Independent Study.

"Last year the department had three family history courses for free, and had 30,000 people finish at least the first lesson. We have no idea what to expect this year where we have many more free courses," mentioned Laws.

The courses cover topics ranging from how to get started to include French, German, Scandinavian and Huguenot research. Each research course is taught by a well-known, accredited genealogist. All course instructional materials are available free online.

There is no time frame required to complete the course. A student could conceivably finish the course in less than twenty-four hours due to a feature called Speedback. Speedback assignments submitted on the course website receive instant feedback.

A person does not need to register for a free course. Anyone can go to the department website at http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/special_offers/famhist.dhtm
Other genealogy web courses are available at: http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/special_offers/freecourses.dhtm