The Race and Slavery Petitions Project Locates My Virginia Tinsleys in Ft. Wayne, Indiana

Indexes to records are always helpful for the genealogist, even when those indexes are not created by genealogists. Finding aids created for historians and social scientists are one type of aid that family history researchers use. The Race and Slavery Petitions Project is an example of one such project.

The Race and Slavery Petitions Project has created the Digital Library on American Slavery which, according to their website:

"The Digital Library on American Slavery offers data on race and slavery extracted from eighteenth and nineteenth-century documents and processed over a period of eighteen years. The Digital Library contains detailed information on about 150,000 individuals, including slaves, free people of color, and whites. These data have been painstakingly extracted from 2,975 legislative petitions and 14,512 county court petitions, and from a wide range of related documents, including wills, inventories, deeds, bills of sale, depositions, court proceedings, amended petitions, among others."

The Digital Library is a wonderful resource for genealogists with families who lived in areas impacted by slavery. It's wonderful because the database of names that can be searched. Genealogists with slave ancestors or slave-owning ancestors can utilize the index in an attempt to locate records.

One warning--the records that were selected for this project are those that involve slavery in some way. If your slave-owning ancestor was never involved in any type of court action involving slaves, he may not appear in this database. If your slave-owning ancestor was involved in an estate "fight" (as mine was) involving a slave, then their name should appear in this database. Southern ancestors whose only court involvement was for horse thievery will not be in this database. There is a warning, however. Do not assume that because you've searched this database that you've "done" your court research completely for your slave-owning or your slave ancestor. You haven't.

That said, this is still an excellent resource for genealogists.

The database allowed me to locate a court case in the 1830s in Lynchburg, Virginia, involving an "issue" with the estate of a John Tinsley who died in Amherst County, Virginia, in 1820. The screen shot of the abstract follows:

click for larger image

Of course, the genealogist wants the details.

The petitions that were used to create the abstract entries and the index database have been microfilmed in several series of microfilm publications. The microfilm are in many library collections and guides have been created to facilitate locating the actual records within the collection.The website for the Digital Library on American Slavery contains a page listing which libraries have these petitions.

The records for this court case were located in "Race, Slavery and Free Blacks, Series II, Petitions to Southern Courts, 1775-1867, Part C: Virginia (1775-1867) and Kentucky (1790-1864," on Roll 4, Petition Analysis Records - Virginia."

I was fortunate that the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, has the complete set of microfilm. Not all libraries have the complete collection and users of the ACPL, as we fondly call it, are lucky to have complete access to these records--especially when one considers that there is an online full name index to the collection. The library also has the accompanying finding aids that were printed for each microfilm series.

The petitions for Virginia that I needed can be located in the ACPL microtext catalog:

• http://www.genealogycenter.info/detail_mtstate.php?mtid=10009&searchstate=Virginia

The Allen County Public Library has a number of "unknown" genealogy gems. This item is one of them. We will have a blog post on the materials that were a part of this court case and where my research should progress. 

And there's a lesson in all of this as well. You might find the answer to your genealogy question several hundred miles from where your ancestor actually lived. 

New or Updated on FamilySearch

New or updated on FamilySearch since our last post:

Maine, State Archive Collections, 1718-1957

New England, Petitions for Naturalization, 1787-1931

New York, Queens County Probate Records, 1785-1950

Washington, County Records, 1856-2009

$4 Genealogy Webinar Sale

We are excited to offer three of our most popular webinars at a $4 rate--don't wait as the sale ends at 11:59 on 31 May 2013.

All presentations include the media presentation and handout. These are geared towards experienced beginner and intermediate researchers.

Seeing Patterns 

Genealogical research is all about patterns. In this presentation, see ways to see more patterns in the materials you have located and in how your ancestor lived in order to make the most out of the material you have.

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Charts

Organizing information is key to genealogical research. This session is not about making family trees, fan charts, etc. It discusses a variety of charts to help you in your research and makes it clear that there may be a lot of ways you can chart your research that you never even thought about. This lecture is not about how to make "pretty trees with names." It's about helping you with your research

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Creating Research Plans

Organizing your research process is key to finding more information and researching as efficiently as possible. In this session, we will see through example how to create effective research plans and organizing research as it progresses forward.

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Finding Wilhelmina Trautvetter's 1851 St. Louis Marriage

The search for the marriage record of George Rothweiler and Wilhelmina Trautvetter in St. Louis is a good example of why looking in the index created by the record clerk is not always good enough. Manual searches of records are still sometimes necessary.

The first image in this blog post is from the groom's index (the "R" section) of volume 4 of St. Louis marriages. There is only one entry on page 417 beginning with the letter, that entry is for Philipp Rick and Margaretha Morhing. The "index" lists all the "R" entries in page order--keep in mind that this index was created as the records were being created in the 1850s.

According to this index, there is no marriage for George Rothweiler in volume 4 of St. Louis marriage records.

And yet, at the very top of page 417 squeezed into the top of the page is the entry for George Rothweiler and Wilhelmina Trautvetter as shown below (click on the image for a larger view).

Entries such as these, which appear in the record book but are omitted from the index the record book contains, are why genealogists are advised to search records page by page to be certain that the entry of interest is really not there. Genealogists often rely on these indexes in each record book and yet these indexes are not always reliable.

The screen shot below contains the entry for the marriage which appears in the "St. Louis, Missouri Marriages, 1804-76" database on Ancestry.com. This index was created by the St. Louis Genealogical Society who apparently, unlike the clerk, read all the marriage entries. I had searched this database before, but my list of variants did not catch this combination. I'll have to tweak my variant list. 

The problem is that not every book of local records has been indexed by other individuals and, even when they have, those indexers are human and make their own mistakes.

Is It Really Too Much, Ancestry.com? It Must Be.

I've been complaining about searches similar to this one for some time and the only answer I get is to modify my search.

I should not have to modify my search. I cannot be the only researcher with several relatives for whom I have quite a few variants and no precise date of immigration.

I am trying to find an immigrant, Wilhelmina Trautvetter, who likely came to the United States between 1848-1851. I don't know what port and would like to search all the immigration materials for an immigrant as follows:

• first name: wil*
• last name: tra*
• year 1849 +/- 2

As with other similar searches, this generates too many matches. I still am not convinced that there was a mass wave of people named Wilhelm Trautman, Wilhelmina Travers, Wilhelm Trautvetter, etc. coming to the United States between 1847-1851

The last time I mentioned this problem, I was told I needed to search one port at a time. Then why have global searches? 

The last time I mentioned this problem, I got a lecture on how Boolean searching works. With all due respect, I have a master's degree in mathematics, I understand how Boolean searching works.

What I do not understand is why this problem cannot be fixed.  What good are global searches if they are not truly global?

Color Scan of Civil War Pension and Fold3 Image

I've been wanting to compare some color images for National Archives materials  with the grayscale digital scans on Fold3. At long last, here's our first from a Civil War pension. The color image was discussed earlier today in a blog post. Clicking on the images will pull up a larger version of the image. I didn't want to overwhelm this blog post with large images.

Here is the image on  Fold3:

Fold3.com image

Here is the same document's color scan made by at the National Archives:

color scan made at NARA

Of course, both images come from this veteran's file.

What do you think of the differences?

A Little Color on Mary M. Shores Garrett's Pension File

This early 20th century document, from the Civil War widow's pension of Mary M. Shores Garrett, is an excellent example of why color images are preferable to black and white ones. 

Without the color, it would be difficult to see the different handwritings as easily. Pensions are a good example of a record set where one document may have crossed the desks of several people, each of whom wrote something on it. 

It still can be difficult to tell how many people wrote on the document--after all, checkmarks made by different people do tend to look alike. But the color hints that different people might have made the checkmarks. However, the color gives at the very least an appreciation for the number of individuals who took a part in the creation of this document.

The image shows below. Clicking on it will pull up a larger image.

We won't analyze the document in this blog post. John was killed in the Civil War and his surviving child received a pension until he reached the age of 16. Mary received a widow's pension until she married again. After her second husband died in 1903, she applied for, and received, a pension based upon her first husband's service and the fact that she was married to him at the time he was killed during the war. Genealogists should always be aware of pension requirements as those requirements may suggest additional information about the individuals involved.

The image below contains a citation for the pension file in which this document was located. 

New On FamilySearch-Pittsburgh Deaths

New on FamilySearch since our last update:

Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh City Deaths, 1870-1905

Heading to Salt Lake

I'm getting ready to head to Salt Lake for my annual group trip and am looking forward to spending some time in Salt Lake at the Family History Library.

Hopefully I'll be blogging about the research that I'm hoping to squeeze in while I am at the Library.

Stay tuned...

Memorial Day Genealogy Sale

We're offering two sales this Memorial Day Weekend on our genealogical offerings--Webinars and Newsletters.

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There are a wide variety of research topics. Presentations are clear and easy to understand with the goal of helping you find more ancestors and do better research.

124 Issues of Casefile Clues--Save and Grow Your Skills

Give yourself some reading and increase your genealogical skills in the process--we're offering Casefile Clues 124 back issues of for only $30. This is a 25% savings.

Written in an accurate, detailed, and yet easy-to-follow format, Casefile Clues is geared towards the intermediate level research, but we have many beginners and advanced researchers (including some professionals) who subscribe toCasefile Clues. Casefile Clues focuses on genealogical case studies, problem-solving, and the occasional in-depth analysis of one specific document. 

And we always include complete, accurate citations and ideas of where to go next. We also focus on setting goals and keeping on task.

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Enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend and don't forget your living relatives!

Sale ends on 27 May 2013 at 11:59 PM Central Time

Michael

Lemonade is Popular in China in the 1920s

 

Date: Saturday, August 12, 1922  

Paper: Evansville Courier and Press (Evansville, IN) 

from  Genealogybank.com

It has been a while since I wrote about George Drollette and his exploits in Asia, but this 1922 reference from an Evansville, Indiana, newspaper, located on Genealogybank.com gave a little additional detail on their life in China. If I was unaware that Mrs. Drollette's brother was still living in Evansville, that clue would have been helpful as well.

It also mentions that the Drollette family had visited in Indiana "last summer." If I had not already searched passport and passenger lists that reference to their apparent visit would have required additional research. Given the newspaper was dated August of 1922, we will assume that the reference is to a visit in 1921.

The article discusses the apparent popularity of lemonade in China and a letter from a Chinese employee to his apparently non-Chinese employer.

One just never knows what one will find in the newspaper.

Those Were "L"s and Not "T"s

An earlier post included this image which some readers assumed were lower-case "t"s with a cross. They were not.

The image above is a summary of the grantor/grantee information for those using the record copy of the deed. The actual deed record, shown partially in the image below clearly indicates that the first names of both men were intended to be William.

This image comes from FamilySearch's "Massachusetts, Land Records, 1620-1986" and is actually from Middlesex County Deeds  vol 1, pp. 170-171.

The lines on the names are meant to indicate that letters have been omitted.

Did They Cross Their Ts?

This image was used as a recent "Daily Genealogy Transcriber" prompt.

Another question for readers (I already know the answer): Why are those "t"'s crossed?

New On FamilySearch

New or updated on FamilySearch since our last update:

Hawaii, Honolulu Passenger Lists, 1900-1953

Maine, Knox County Cemetery Records, ca. 1800-2007

Minnesota, Clay County, School Census Records, 1909-1962

Does Emberson Know Who He Married?

If records always agreed, there would be less of a need for professional genealogists.

The 1865 marriage record for Emberson Randles in Coshocton County, Ohio, indicated that he married Mary J. Rampley on 2 July 1862. The precise location of the marriage within the county is not given. 

part of the marriage record for Emerson Randles and Mary J. Rampley, Coshocton County, Ohio, marriage records 1859-1867 (vol 2), page 369; digital image on FamilySearch.

 In answering questions from the Commissioner of Pensions, Emberson indicates that he married Mary Jane Foster on 2 July 1865. The same Justice of the Peace (John Meridith) is listed on both records.

part of the 31 January 1898 reply of Emberson Randles (Company D, 51st Ohio Infantry) to the Commissioner of Pensions' request for personal information; digital image made from original record at the National Archives.

Which should be believed?

That's a good question. Aside from the slight variation in the spelling of his name, the only real difference between these documents is the last name of the bride.

Our initial conclusion might be that Mary was married previously and that Emberson was providing her "real maiden name" in his 1898 answers.  To call this a conclusion is a bit strong--conjecture may be a better word.

However, initial conclusions (or conjectures) can be incorrect and there is actually nothing in either document to suggest that Mary was married twice. The 1865 marriage record does not list her as "Miss" or "Mrs."

One would initially give more credence to the marriage record. After all, it was created the closest to when the actual event took place. The problem is that the piece of information that is inconsistent between the two documents is not the date, the place or the officiant, but the name of the bride. If the date, place or officiant were different, one would be inclined to view the marriage record as being correct.

What the difference indicates is that more work on this family needs to be done. It would be odd for Emberson to get his date, place, and "who married him" correct and remember incorrectly the maiden name of his wife.

Mary J. Randles as Mary J. Reynolds--One Day Off and One County Away

An earlier post challenged readers to find the death certificate for Mary J. Randles using information on her "drop pensioner" card.

The actual certificate for Mary illustrates some simple errors that researchers encounter in terms of dates and names when researching records. The "drop pensioner" card would likely be considered to contain secondary information on Mary's date of death.

Mary's name was Mary J. Randles--her husband was Embertson Randles.  The "drop pensioner" card indicated she was living in Malvern, Ohio, on 5 April 1932.

Searching for Mary took a little bit of time. The image with this post is her death certificate which was located on FamilySearch. These death certificates are indexed on the Ohio Historical Society's website. Mary was finally located by searching for women named Mary who died in April of 1932. When she could not be located in the county in which Malvern is located, adjacent counties were searched. That is how the index entry for this death certificate for Mary J. Reynolds who died on 4 April 1932 in Canton, Stark County, was located.

The name of the husband is "correct" and the name of the father matches information in her widow's Civil War pension application which is where the "drop pensioner" card was located.

The date of death only differs by one day--not a serious difference to be honest. Of course someone cannot die on two days and (without additional information) one would usually consider the death certificate to be more likely to be accurate than the date of death on the "drop pensioner" card.

New On FamilySearch-Mass. Land Records and More

New on FamilySearch since our last update:

Idaho, Gooding County Records, 1879-1962

Maine, Piscataquis County, Deed Books, 1838-1902

Massachusetts, Land Records, 1620-1986

Where Did Mary Randles Die?

This is the card used by the pension department to "drop" pensioners from the roll upon their death.

It indicates a date of death for Mary J. Randles, the wife of Emberson Randles, who was receiving a pension based upon his service.

The problems is that searching for her death certificate produced no results--at least initially. We've challenged our Facebook Fans of Genealogy Tip of the Day to find it as well.

Mary's death certificate is online at FamilySearch. The Ohio Historical Society also has an index to Ohio death certificates for the time period of interest as well.

We'll have an update shortly--along with the story of how her death certificate was actually found.

Stay tuned--or try searching for her yourself.

Six Stubs For Teeth

I am making my way through the pension file of Emerson Randles of Coshocton County, Ohio. Emerson married a Mary J. Rampley whose first "appearance" in any record is on when they marry. The hope is that there is something in the pension file that provides some clues as to her family of origin.

But pension files can contain all sorts of clues. In Emerson's testimony about his health, he mentions numerous places where he was stationed, involved in skirmishes, or imprisoned. All these locations are somehow tied to some sort of illness or injury, which is the real focus of most of the lengthy statement  Emerson made in New Bedford, Ohio, on 18 June 1889. It is in this statement that Emerson states:

I had the scurvy so bad in Victoria Texas that I had to drink vinegar. My teeth began getting loose, and the gums to shrink soon after I came home and the teeth have dropped out one by one until I have only 6 stumps of teeth left, and they do not amount to anything.

This deposition was contained in Emerson's pension file which was located at the National Archives. The image used in this post was created from a digital scan made of the original deposition.

Even statements that appear to be entirely medically related can contain some good clues.Some of these details could be documented in Emerson's service record. In this case, I'm not going to obtain a copy of his service record as my real focus is on Emerson's wife and I don't think his service record will shed any light (bright, faint, or anywhere in between) on her family of origin.

But it was interesting to learn about Emerson's teeth--that's an image one doesn't even get from photographs during this time period as mouths in pictures from this era are usually closed.

Updated on FamilySearch-SSDI and OK Marriages

Updated on FamilySearch since our last update:

United States Social Security Death Index
Oklahoma, County Marriages, 1891-1959

New On FamilySearch

New or updated on FamilySearch since our last posting:


Illinois, County Marriages, 1810-1934

Georgia, Fulton County Records from the Atlanta History Center, 1827-1933

A Sledd at Camp Douglas

There are lots of little clues in this oath of allegiance for Joseph Sledd which appears in Ancestry.com's "Union Provost Marshals' Papers, 1861-1867" and was taken from the National Archives' Union Provost Marshals' File of Papers Relating to Individual Civilians, 1861–1867 (microfilm publication M0345, made from War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group 109).

Joseph Sledd was of Bourbon County, Kentucky, when he made this declaration at Camp Douglas, Illinois, in February of 1865. Camp Douglas was a Union Army prisoner of war camp for Confederate soldiers.

Sledd's appearance in these papers means that there's probably more information on his military service. This reference may just be the beginning of information available on Joseph Sledd.

Sledd was a grandson of Thomas and Sally (Tinsley) Sledd, Amherst County, Virginia, residents who migrated to Bourbon County, Kentucky in the very early 1800s. Sledd apparently survived his time at Camp Douglas and later returned to Kentucky.

Updated on FamilySearch-Indiana Marriages

Announced as updated since our last update:

Indiana, Marriages, 1811-1959

Separating Out Farms in the 1880 Agricultural Schedule

This image is from part of the 1880 U. S. Census agricultural schedule for Montebello Township in Hancock County, Illinois.

Adam Trautvetter (the intent of the Adam Trautfether) is enumerated twice in this census. The first entry is for the property he owned. The second entry is for property than he rented for a fixed amount (as opposed to to renting for a portion of the crops). The name of the landowner is not indicated.

There are two similar names on the bottom of this page as well (the Hansens)--one was a landowner and one was not. I originally wondered if this was a "repeat name" as well. It is not. A reading of the 1880 population schedule for Montebello Township indicates that there are enumerations for households headed by both a Sullivan and a William Hansen, indicating that the bottom entries are for different men. There was only one Adam Trautvetter in the 1880 census for Montebello Township.

I looked at quite a few agricultural enumerations in Hancock County and did not locate any "duplicate" entries similar to Trautvetter where the rented ground was separated out for a separate enumeration from the owned property. I also did not notice enumerees who indicated they had both owned and rented property. It might have been an unusual practice in 1880 in this area to farm both owned and rented property. I don't have an answer to that question. Adam's uncle Adam was deceased by 1880.

The instructions for the enumerator that I was able to locate did not answer the question: "was it standard practice to separate out owned from rented property in the 1880 agricultural census?"

I do not have an answer fr whether the double listing was common. What I did get a feel for when looking at the entries was how much of the county was farmed by the owner and how much was farmed by tenants.

One has to look at more than just the numbers--those tick marks mean something as well.

My Relatives--Adam and Eve

Many genealogists claim to be descended from Adam and Eve. Genealogies with claims of this type, stretching back to the beginning of time, usually have claims stretching fact into fiction as well. 

I'm not claiming to be descended from Adam and Eve. But I am claiming to be related to them. Well actually, I'm only related to Adam. Eve is a relative by marriage. 

This 1880 census enumeration lists the family of Adam and Eve--Trautvetter. The couple lived near Hamilton in Hancock County, Illinois, where Adam farmed. The couple's stone house still stands. And for the record, Eve's maiden name was Young/Yung. How ironic is that?

Adam Trautvetter was a first cousin to John Michael Trautvetter, my great-great-grandfather. This means that I'm not descended from Adam and Eve, but am merely a cousin. I've yet to make contact with any descendants of Adam and Eve, but I know there are quite a few out there. 

Note that Adam's mother is living with him in 1880--one doesn't usually expect to get back before Adam and Eve, but genealogical research is always surprising .