“Brick Wall” Tags and Other Technological Innovations Coming to an Ancestry® Family Tree Near You

Brick walls might soon become more fun. (Image: John Vachon, 1938, U.S. Office of War Information).

The words “brick wall” are powerful—so potent, in fact, that just thinking them is often enough to cause even the most intrepid of genealogists to abandon their research in favor of a glass of wine and a good book. But the planned rollout of a new tool by Ancestry® may help family historians stay glued to their research projects longer by transforming those words from disheartening to merely descriptive.

That promising new tool is called MyTreeTags™, and it is slated for release by Ancestry® sometime later this year, according to a February 28, 2019 announcement by the company’s chief executive officer, Margo Georgiadis, who described the change as part of the company’s “commitment to continuous innovation.”

But, while the new tagging system will likely be helpful to everyone using the company’s technology to create online family trees, it will likely benefit those with larger trees most because it will enable users to label profiles of individual ancestors with “predetermined or custom tags,” such as “actively researching” to denote a profile’s current research status, “confirmed” or “unverified” to clarify whether or not the date for a particular profile is accurate or needs updating, or “blacksmith”, “immigrant”, “military”, “unmarried”, or “orphan.” Family historians will then be able to use those tags in combination with a special filter system developed by the company to retrieve lists of ancestors who fall under specific tags (such as everyone in a user’s tree who was a member of the military or worked as a coal miner, for example).

Project managers at the company expect that this new technology will help users “save time as they work to break through brick walls and enrich ancestor profiles.”

The former president of Americas, at Google Inc. and then CEO at Mattel, Inc., Georgiadis took over the helm at Ancestry® on May 10, 2018, following the company’s six-month, global search for new leadership. Expressing excitement at the time of her appointment, she said that, in addition to helping to facilitate “Ancestry’s mission to connect the world,” she also hoped to “enhance our consumers’ understanding of who they are and where they come from.”

 

 

International African-American Museum Awarded Two Million Dollars in Support by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Slave Trade, Africa, 1899 (Sir Harry Hamilton Johnston, et. al., public domain courtesy of the New York Public Library).

Leaders of a new museum under development in United States have announced important new funding which is expected to greatly enhance African-American family history research across the globe. The two million dollar award was made by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the International African American Museum — a new educational facility which is slated to be built in Charleston, South Carolina, where roughly half of all enslaved Africans were brought after being forcibly transported via the Transatlantic Slave Trade prior to the end of the American Civil War.

The funding is expected to support not just the creation of the IAAM Center for Family History, but to help make it “[o]ne of the crown jewels of the experience at the museum,” according to Joseph P. Riley, the longtime former mayor of Charleston and lifetime IAAM board member. “Because of this generous donation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the center will catapult into a level of excellence that simply would not be achievable” otherwise.

During his announcement of the donation at RootsTech’s 9th family history conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, elder David A. Bednar explained that the church is supporting IAAM’s Center for Family History at this early juncture of its development because its leaders and members “value the strength that comes from learning about … families. The museum will not only educate its patrons on the important contributions of Africans who came through Gadsden’s Wharf and Charleston, it also will help all who visit to discover and connect with ancestors whose stories previously may not have been known.”

Also speaking at the Salt Lake event was Martin Luther King III, son of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The younger King noted that the collaboration between the IAAM and the church was very much in line with the efforts of his father to create a “beloved community.”

Prior to this The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its FamilySearch International were instrumental in increasing access to African heritage records, including letters and contracts which were created immediately after the American Civil War as part of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

When its doors open on the site of the former Gadsden’s Wharf in Charleston in the year 2021, the IAAM and its family history center are expected to deliver not only a world-class museum experience, but to serve as a “memorial and site of conscience” which will help visitors better understand and appreciate “the history, sacrifices and contributions of Americans of African descent,” in a way that “contribute[s] to a more complete and honest articulation of American history.”

U.S. National Park Service Partners with Google to Help Share America’s History: Google Cultural Institute to digitize U.S. artifacts

 

Tuskegee airmen in briefing, Ramitelli, Italy, March 1945. Source: 332nd Group Fighter Pilots and U.S. Library of Congress (public domain).

 

“The magic of technology is that it allows us to fold space and time to bring people together with places, experiences, artifacts, and each other in ways that before were impossible.” – Malika Saada Saar, Google’s Senior Counsel on Civil and Human Rights.

 

In celebration of February’s Black History Month and in preparation for the Centennial Anniversary of the U.S. National Park Service occurring on Aug. 25, America’s Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced Feb. 11 that the Google Cultural Institute will “make thousands of historically and culturally significant objects in the [NPS] museum collection available online.” Explained Jewell, Google will photograph and then digitally link artwork, historical records, photographs, and other artifacts to Google Maps, using “technologies similar to Google’s Street View” as part of a partnership agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“This marriage of technology and history means that anyone anywhere can see artifacts and sites that provide a taste of the rich and diverse story of America,” said Jewell. “Our hope is that this partnership will not only illustrate and elevate our nation’s history and culture, but inspire more people to visit the wonderfully diverse places that the National Park Service protects and preserves for current and future generations.”

With more than 450 million objects and 76,000 linear feet of archived records scattered across nearly 400 national park-based museums, the U.S. National Park Service is now operating one of the largest museum systems worldwide, but simply does not have the physical space to display even a fraction of its holdings. So, this partnership is seen by many public historians and open source enthusiasts as a key victory for the arts and humanities.

One of the park-based museums to be made more visible thanks to Google is the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site where Jewell made her announcement as part of a special Black History Month event featuring survivors of the famed World War II Army Air Corps squadron. The collections from the Tuskegee Airmen NHS document the heroism in the air and on the ground of more than 1,000 African-American aviators and 10,000 military and civilian support personnel who defended the nation while raising awareness of the discrimination they faced on the home front.

In addition to bringing more information about the Tuskegee collections to light, said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis, website surfers will likely enjoy a special Centennial Virtual Exhibit from the NPS, and “will have the unique opportunity to see rare Native American artifacts, browse inspiring works of art that convey our nation’s history and natural beauty, and virtually walk through the homes of great American thinkers, like Frederick Douglass and Thomas Edison.”

“The magic of technology is that it allows us to fold space and time to bring people together with places, experiences, artifacts, and each other in ways that before were impossible,” said Malika Saada Saar, Google’s Senior Counsel on Civil and Human Rights. “That’s what the Google Cultural Institute does, and we are thrilled to work with the National Park Service to help preserve these beautiful American places, objects, and stories.”

 

Eastward Ho! The English Bible of Germantown’s Founder Returns to Philadelphia

For news and behind the scenes details about rare Bibles and treasures found in newly opened, once forgotten, old trunks, the University of Pennsylvania’s “Unique at Penn” blog on WordPress #GreatReads for those who love #History and Genealogy.

Unique at Penn

Last April, a woman called the Penn Libraries from California saying she had in her possession an English Bible that had belonged to Francis Daniel Pastorius (1651-1720). Pastorius is credited with being the founder, in 1683, of Germantown (now part of Philadelphia), which became the new home for thirteen Quaker and Mennonite families who emigrated from Krefeld, Germany in search of religious freedom and economic opportunity. Pastorius also drafted and signed, with three other Quakers, on behalf of the Germantown Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, the first protest against African-American slavery made by a religious body in the English colonies. The original 1688 Petition is now held by Haverford College and can be viewed on their website.

Pastorius was one of the few intellectuals in the Philadelphia region at this time, with a substantial library (probably the largest before James…

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Lt.Robert Anderson: letters from the front in WW1

Words from a World War I soldier. With treasures like these, the Wilson County Public Library’s WordPress blog is one to follow for anyone who enjoys #History or #Genealogy.

Wilson County Public Library Local History and Genealogy Blog

In 2014 the 100th anniversary of the First World War arrived. It has become a war that feels nearly as distant as the Civil War or the American Revolution. It is a war that was known for its high death toll as modern technology introduced machine guns, airplanes, and tanks to the battlefield. It is important to remember the men of that war as individuals, not merely numbers on a tally.
Among those men was First Lieutenant Robert B. Anderson of Wilson, North Carolina. Robert was mortally wounded at the Battle of Cantigny on May 29th, 1918, dying at an aid station a short time later. For his bravery he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (US) and the Croix DeGuerre (France).

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The Anderson family has preserved keepsakes of Lt. Anderson’s service. Most cherished among these are three written before his death.
The first was to his father written…

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Time to Clean Out That Attic: National Endowment for the Humanities awards Common Heritage Community History grants

Love letters in grandma’s attic? Photos of unlabeled “mystery men” dressed in Civil War uniforms? A Purple Heart quietly tucked away in your dad’s old box of World War II memorabilia (and never mentioned to you or your siblings)? Paperwork which confirms the war-time service of your family’s very own Rosie the Riveter?

You just never know what you’ll find tucked away in the desk drawers, attics or basements of your parents, aunts, uncles, or grandparents. But thanks to the National Endowment for Humanities, you’ve finally been given the nudge you need to dust off and explore those old family boxes which have been ignored for far too long.

On Dec. 16, 2015, the NEH announced that it had awarded nearly half a million dollars to city governments, county museums, historical societies, public libraries, and other public benefit groups “to bring historical records and artifacts currently hidden in family attics and basements across the country” into the light of day in order to “make them digitally available to the wider public and for posterity.”

The first grants ever awarded by the NEH under the Common Heritage program, which was launched in April 2015, will support preservation by the Town of Westborough, Massachusetts of recently discovered pre-Revolutionary War documents; Sonoma State University’s plan to digitize artifacts, documents and photographs held by internees of the Amache Japanese interment camp; an outreach program by the Holyoke, Massachusetts Public Library to preserve the records, photographs and oral testimonies of Latino elders; digitization by Knox College of memoirs, photographs, records, and other materials documenting the 19th century Underground Railroad and 20th century Civil Rights histories of the African American community in Galesburg, Illinois; digitization by the Marquette County Museum of family photographs and records which illustrate Michigan’s Finnish American history; outreach and training by the Museum of Chinese in America to teach the public how to preserve, store and share photographs and other treasured family heirlooms; and digitization by the University of Southern Maine of materials documenting the wartime experiences of Maine’s Franco-American residents.

According to the NEH, many of the organizations receiving grants during this first funding round will “host ‘digitization days’ encouraging members of the public to share materials important to their family or community histories, such as photographs, artifacts, family letters, and works of art,” and will also provide owners with free copies of their digitized items. In addition, with permission of the owners, each grantee will then make the newly digitized family treasures “publicly available through the institution’s online collections.”

This new NEH grant program is a big win for professional and amateur historians, genealogists and Americans of all ages. So, don’t be shy – and don’t be a slow poke. Stop what you’re doing right now, locate the key to an unexplored trunk in your home or local historical society, and start investigating. America’s future history students and your own descendants will thank you.

To learn more about the Common Heritage Community History program and rally your family members or fellow historical society volunteers for the next grant cycle, visit The Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square. This website also provides information about additional NEH efforts and funding opportunities to “enhance the role of the humanities in civic life.”

 

Photograph: Mrs. Chandler’s New England attic, Landaff, Grafton County, New Hampshire, Irving Rusinow, photographer, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1 March 1941. Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (public domain).

Using Military Records to Get Better Acquainted with Your Ancestors

By The Contemplative Genealogist©™

 

The dad had been an ice skater as a teen, a hobby unknown to his youngest child – a daughter raised in a climate where ice skating was rarely possible for her father and his aging heart. Confident of his musical gifts, he had also described (on the same nondescript government form) his aptitude for playing the piano – listing it as a “talent for entertainment.”

That form was one of many sent to the daughter by the National Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Its completion had been required as part of her dad’s honorable discharge from the Seabees at the close of World War II.

After making a cup of tea, she sat down and worked her way through the inch-thick file in earnest. Encountering mentions of her father’s parents and sisters, she also found documentation of the training her father had been given and copies of the various duty notifications he’d received during his time in the military.

And then she found the copy of his fingerprints.

Taken upon his 1942 entry into the service, there they were providing an intimate link from the 21st century back to the champion hugger who had died nearly 40 years earlier. Although she could no longer hold his hand, the daughter shed real tears, feeling his spirit reach out to her across time as she traced the inky swirls of his fingertips with her own. “Daddy.”

Accessing the military records of a parent or long-dead ancestor can be a profound spiritual experience for both novice and experienced family history researchers alike. Many will tell you of the emotions which still stir years after having initially viewing scraps of paper or bare bones data found in online cemetery records.

Today, thanks to the explosion of history-related websites, there are more ways than ever to uncover details about the lives of those who gave the last full measure of devotion. Free online databases have been created by the agencies which manage the cemeteries where a significant percentage of America’s veterans now rest. Many make locating a soldier’s gravesite as easy as typing his or her name into a search textbox. (See the Going Sherlock – Genealogy Research Tips section of this blog for links to these resources.)

Plus, fee-for-service research tools such as Ancestry.com and Fold3 are also proving helpful as searchers find not only the names of the veterans they are researching, but their dates of birth and death, the names of their spouses (via military pension records), the locations where individuals were residing at the time of their enlistment, the names of the commanding officers under whom they served (via muster rolls), and the specific locations where the ancestors were buried, as well as the names of the branches of service, units, and duty areas where they were stationed (via muster rolls, transport ship ledgers, casualty lists, or burial cards from state veterans affairs departments).

But it is in the hard files found at national and state archive repositories where the real “meat” of veterans’ lives still lies – waiting – begging to be discovered. According to the National Archives (NARA) website, out of the roughly 1.4 million appeals made for military records annually to the agency, only about 10 percent ask for the complete files available for individual veterans. The other 90 percent typically ask only for honorable discharge paperwork and other separation documents.

And that is a shame. Because those who have obtained the full files for their ancestors (World War II to present day) will tell you that those compiled files are the equivalent of family jewels.

These files often contain fascinating and important information related to veterans and their survivors, including social security and service numbers, dates of entry and release from active duty, character ratings by superior officers, and the names of family members designated as insurance beneficiaries. Military discharge records provide added data about whether or not veterans were ever granted leaves of absence, were ill or injured during service, their pay grades, ranks and promotions, and honors received, such as Purple Heart awards and ribbons earned for service in specific military campaigns.

The newest of military records, dating from 1917 to the present, are managed by the National Military Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and may be obtained by applying online or through the mail.

Older military service records are maintained by NARA in Washington, DC. These document the roles played by veterans from the volunteer state regiments which served in the interest of the federal government from 1775 to 1902 to those who served in the Regular Army (enlisted personnel from 1789-October 31, 1912; officers from 1789 to June 30, 1917), Marine Corps (enlisted personnel from 1798-1904; some officers from 1798-1895), Navy (enlisted personnel from 1798-1885; officers from 1798-1902), Coast Guard (Revenue Marine, the Life-Saving Service, and the Lighthouse Service from 1791-1919), and Confederate States (1861-1865).

NARA also provides access to bounty land warrant applications filed based on wartime service (1775-1855) and pension claims filed for federal military service from 1775-1916.

These pre-World War I records may also be obtained online or by mail. The cost generally ranges from $30 to $80, depending on the type of file and amount of research involved.

Your buried treasure is waiting. Don’t miss out.

 

Photo: American men flocked to Army and Navy recruiting stations across the U.S. following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The lines were particularly long in New York City in January of 1942. Source: Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection, U.S. Library of Congress (public domain).

Genealogy – Turning Heartbreak into an Opportunity to Inspire Others

By The Contemplative Genealogist©™

“Genealogy will break your heart.” That cautionary advice was given to me as a beginning family history researcher by one of the longer serving members of a state genealogy society where I was volunteering.

Telling me that there would be many fun discoveries ahead, she also cautioned that there would be breathtaking moments of sadness and disappointment – periods when I would wish that I could reach through the folds of time to grab an ancestor and shake him awake to make him change his bad boy ways – or bear hug a great-grandmother or grand aunt forced to bury yet another child.

The adventure has been an extraordinary one. Working on my own family’s paternal and maternal trees – as well as those of other family members, friends and clients – and those of an entire Civil War regiment, I have often been struck by the ways in which one simple piece of paper can make present day women and men feel as if they’re meeting centuries-dead relatives face-to-face. In several cases, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to help others finally understand why their own lives may have unfolded the way they have.

Distant relatives who were institutionalized. Civil War-era boys who suffered through incarceration at the infamous Andersonville Prison only to die within a few short months of arriving home. Acts of unspeakable domestic violence. A young boy sent to an orphanage when his single mom could no longer care for him. Children who died in infancy from diseases that, only a few years later, would be eradicated or easily treated. A mother, eight months pregnant, suddenly widowed when her husband was felled by a heart attack.

The heartrending snapshots of ancestors’ lives about which that older, wiser genealogist had warned me. But, with a willingness to dig for the details behind a single sentence found on an Internet cemetery memorial or a U.S. Census sheet, many of these hints at tragedy have turned out to be so much more.

Stories of courage, kindness, redemption, and triumph in the face of overwhelming odds that have the capacity to make us realize that we, like our ancestors before us, are made of sterner stuff. That we are capable of surviving almost anything – and that all of us have it within us, as individuals, to change the world for the better in our own unique and important ways.

So, if you’re reading this as someone who is researching your own or another’s family history? Be a Mensch. Try to uncover – and then share – the full story of the person you’re profiling (if it’s appropriate and okay with living family members). Present not only the fact that someone did time, but the why of the crime. Determine what might have been at the root of one parent’s decision to leave a family behind or place a child up for adoption.

Consider doing so even if you’re working on the profile of someone who was only a distant relative. You might be the one, single person who takes the time to uncover a gem of a story that hundreds of other amateur genealogists skipped, thinking it wasn’t relevant to their respective research efforts.

At a minimum, you’ll be demonstrating genuine compassion for the individual you’re profiling by portraying the person as fully and accurately as possible. In so doing, you might just end up with the opportunity to write a great human interest story which captures the attention of a larger reading audience.

 

Image: Rescue of Jules Duruof and his wife off the Skagerrak. Source: U.S. Library of Congress (public domain).