Genwriting

American Women's Letters and Diaries

2010-07-20T09:16:00.001-04:00

I happened upon a most useful website today in my quest to find diaries from the 1800s. American Women’s Letters and Diaries: A Bibliography is a portal for locating published diaries in libraries around the world. According to the “About This Site” page:

“This site uses the ‘My Lists’ feature of the WorldCat database to increase access to letter and diary collections by American women.”

Ken Middleton, a reference librarian at Middle Tennessee University Library, has compiled an extensive list of carefully-selected diaries from the 1600s to the present with links to their record on WorldCat. Simply put, WorldCat is a catalog of library catalogs from around the world. With the information contained in the record, the books can be ordered via interlibrary loan at your local public library. All you need is a free library card.

As my blog post last Friday mentioned, diaries and letters can help to add social history context to our written family histories. Don’t be concerned if you can’t find a diary written by or about one of your ancestors. Instead, search for diaries written by people who lived in the time and place of your ancestor. You will learn about the community and the social mores of the time. Allow yourself to be transported to your ancestor’s world.

Diaries and Letters

2010-07-16T14:25:00.003-04:00

I updated the "Diaries and Letters" page on my Genwriters website this week with annotated links to online diaries. In doing so, I rediscovered how valuable these documents can be to our research and writing. I’m not fortunate enough to have inherited a diary or personal letters for any of my ancestors; however, there are still benefits of seeking out diaries from the time and place where my family lived.

Diaries offer a personal glimpse into the past. Your ancestor may not necessarily be mentioned in a published diary, but you can learn about their community and colleagues which will allow you to place your family history into its social history context. While some diaries may be filled with seemingly trivial and mundane entries, others offer insight into the daily lives and social customs of the times. Social events may be described in detail from a personal perspective, and the writer might offer opinions on religious and political movements of the day.

I found a great website called History Matters. The “Making Sense of Letters & Diaries” section, written by Steven Stowe, offers great information about finding and using diaries in research and writing. The introductory page states:

“This guide offers an overview of letters and diaries as historical sources and how historians use them, tips on what questions to ask when reading these personal texts, an annotated bibliography, and a guide to finding and using letters and diaries online.”

The website also offers links to letters and diaries online. Take some time to read Mr. Stowe’s advice and to look for diaries that can enhance your family history.

Why I Write (Part 3)

2010-07-14T08:57:00.002-04:00

My reasons for writing my family’s history are two-fold:

To preserve my research. I have collected volumes of documents over the past two decades and have traced ancestral lines to New Amsterdam and colonial Philadelphia, as well as across the pond to England, Holland, and Switzerland. Although my research is organized by surname in 3-ring binders, the documents alone do not make much sense to others in my family. Writing helps me to preserve my research in a way that is accessible to my family.
To preserve the stories associated with my family history. Some stories are those my grandparents and great-grandparents shared with my parents. Other stories were discovered during my research. All of these stories combine to make up the fabric of my family’s history.

To add substance to my writing, I search for resources beyond the usual vital records, census records, deeds, and wills. I want to fill out the stories with background information about the time and place where those stories took place. Internet and library searches have uncovered interesting sources that help to explain the why and how of my ancestors’ lives. Many of these resources are found outside the genealogy realm. Historical and social history topics help me to build on my family’s stories to create scenes and vignettes to take the reader back in time.

In the days and weeks to come, I will share many of these resources. I will talk about how they helped me, and how they might help you.

State Census Records

2010-07-07T10:27:00.001-04:00

State census records are a valuable, and often untapped, genealogy resource. Many states conducted their own census enumerations, often on the 5s (i.e., 1865, 1885, 1905). Questions asked mirrored those on the federal census, but the state censuses also included unique information. The state census enumerations are helpful to fill in the gaps between federal census enumerations, particularly if your family migrated during that time. A state census might also capture information about a child that died young.

Not all states conducted their own census enumerations. The book “State Census Records” by Ann S. Lainhart outlines the availability of state census records. You can also search the online Family History Library catalog or contact your state’s archives. Either could be a repository for the state census and will have microfilms available for loan.

Last week I was doing research in the 1915 New Jersey state census records for Mercer County. (I requested the film from Salt Lake City.) There was a nice little surprise waiting for me. A Supervisor’s Report preceded the enumeration for each municipality in the county. Each report provided a summary of the demographic statistics that were captured in the enumeration. There were forty-five categories that included (just to name a few) total number of males, number of females, number of single males, number of single females, number of persons American born, number of naturalized citizens, number of dwelling houses, number in professional pursuits, number of skilled laborers, number of farmers, number of children attending school. This statistical information gives a demographic snapshot of each community at a point in time: 1915 in this case. I am also able to compare communities because each Supervisor’s Report contained the same information.

My focus is on the town of Hopewell, population 1,341. The residents were predominantly American born while a small percentage were English, Irish, German, or Italian born. There were 173 persons engaged in professional pursuits and 130 engaged in commercial pursuits. The remaining residents were either skilled or unskilled laborers, farmers, or engaged in “other occupations.” There were more single men than single women and by quite a large margin.

Check to see if your state conducted a state census enumeration. You might be pleasantly surprised with what you will find.

A snapshot of their lives

2010-07-01T18:32:00.002-04:00

I’m always on the hunt for resources that will help me to better understand my ancestors and the lives they led. Regular readers of this blog know that I’m currently obsessed with three of my 3g-grandfathers whom I affectionately call my Mount Rose Men. These three men lived near a small crossroads community, Mount Rose, just a few miles from the town where I grew up. I’m familiar with the area from a twentieth-century point of view, but to better understand my Mount Rose Men, I continually seek resources that help me understand life in and around Mount Rose in the nineteenth century.

One of my favorite series of books that provide a snapshot (literally) of life across America during the last century is published by Arcadia Publishing. The Images of America series has thousands of volumes and each one is focused on a community and other local history topic. The books are filled with photos and images that help to bring the topic to life.

I purchased the Images of America: Hopewell Valley book several years ago. Mount Rose is but one small community in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, commonly referred to as Hopewell Valley. I enjoy looking through the book filled with annotated pictures, many of farms and businesses that no longer exist. One interesting photo shows an Ox Roast in Mount Rose likely around the turn of the twentieth century. An Ox Roast? Well, yes, I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see a photo complete with the ox they roasted. Another photo shows snow from the blizzard of 1899; the drifts tower over the heads of the women in the shot. Then there is the photo of the Saturday afternoon congregation of the Old School Baptist Church, the church my Mount Rose Men attended. The caption does not identify the several dozen people in the photo, but I still enjoy the photo and imagine they were all friends of my 3g-grandfathers.

It’s definitely worth checking out the search feature on the Arcadia Publishing website to see if they have a book that will help with your family history research.

Read the whole paper

2010-06-26T15:51:00.002-04:00

We may never know the intimate details of our ancestors’ lives. They likely did not leave behind a diary, and family stories may have been lost to the generations. But we can research social history to gain some insight into what their lives might have been like. Your ancestors may or may not have been typical of their time, but they were still influenced by their surroundings.

For that reason, I enjoy reading historic newspapers. I can get lost for hours in the pages of the Hopewell Herald, the newspaper that served the community and surrounding area where my Mount Rose Men lived. While we’re tempted to scan pages looking for our ancestors’ names and move on, take time to read the newspaper, the whole newspaper. You will learn about their lives, their times, and what they valued.

The Mount Rose neighborhood column in the 27 June 1885 issue of the Hopewell Herald painted a picture of a challenging year for the farmers:

“This place remains quiet. Oats have begun to head out having grown about shoe high. The prospect for hay and grain is slim. Corn where it has been planted early looks promising, but in other places it does not appear very forward. Pasturage owing to the lack of rain has got down fine and cattle have a hard time finding a sweet mouthful. The price of butter and eggs remain the same.”

The writing in the nineteenth century newspaper was eloquent, even poetic. This short entry in the 31 March 1887 issue of the Hopewell Herald speaks to the weather:

“Gentle spring is evidently making a long stay in the lap of winter, the poets have not yet commenced their spring campaign, and it is not expected that the April showers will be on hand this year before the middle of June.”

The 19 May 1887 issue of the Hopewell Herald carried two short lines that indicate the people in Hopewell enjoyed community gatherings:

“The girls are all ready for the first picnic.”

“Ice cream and strawberry festivals will soon be ripe.”

Socials were commonplace and offered a chance for the young people to get together, socialize, and dance. The 21 February 1889 issue of the Hopewell Herald described one of the newer activities among the young crowd:

“An exchange says that the young people in some towns have tried the ‘Rainbow Social,” and pronounce it a success. Each one of the girls wears a gay colored apron without any hem at the bottom. The apron is numbered. Other corresponding numbers are placed in a box. Each gentleman draws a number from the box and searches for the young lady wearing the apron thus numbered, to whom he must pay attention that evening. His duty is to hem the apron, all of which he must do unaided by his lady friend. The one who hems the apron the neatest gets a prize. If he declines to hem he pays a forfeit.”

These vignettes help me to imagine life in nineteenth century Hopewell. I get lost in the time and place which, I believe, helps me to write about the lives of my ancestors.

Fish tale

2010-06-22T16:19:00.001-04:00

I’m working on revising and expanding upon the stories I wrote about my 2g-grandfather, Wilson Blackwell, son of Liscomb T. Blackwell (one of my Mount Rose Men). The local newspaper (fortunately for me it’s available on Ancestry) has yielded a wealth of articles and notices about Wilson and his extended family.

Earlier this month I wrote about Wilson’s marriage to Emma Sutphen, farmers challenging each other to bring in the largest tomato of the year (1892), and clues to Wilson’s character -- all found in the pages of the local newspaper. A frequently recurring theme in the Skillman neighborhood column from 1892 through 1910 was Wilson’s fishing prowess. The writer of the Skillman neighborhood column was a friend of Wilson and often accompanied him on these journeys (both locally and across the state). The biography of Wilson (which I wrote several years ago) contains the following, with the help of the local newspaper:

Wilson did not spend all of his days laboring in the fields and barns. He was quite an avid fisherman. Details about fishing trips to the Millstone River in nearby Griggstown and the local Stouts pond as well as traveling south to Lake Hopatcong and east to the Jersey shore appeared in the local newspaper. The writer of these adventures, the neighborhood reporter for Skillman, no doubt was a friend of Wilson’s because the two often journeyed together. They were reportedly quite successful in their catches (pike, catfish, and carp), but the big one always got away. Fishing excursions were foremost on the minds of these men as evidenced by the following report in the newspaper in 1893:

“Wilson Blackwell has the finest tomato crop of any in this vicinity. Just how Wilson is going to gather them and the large peach crop he has it is hard to imagine, but as he is a hustler, we expect to see him get through time enough to catch some pike.”

When you read historical newspapers, listen carefully -- they might be telling you a story.

Don't stop with the obit

2010-06-15T15:20:00.002-04:00

I love reading historic newspapers. As genealogists, we often seek out newspapers for obituaries and marriage announcements, but there’s so much more to be found.

My current research and writing revolves around my Mount Rose Men. The neighboring town produced a weekly newspaper, the Hopewell Herald. Many of the communities and crossroads surrounding Hopewell had neighborhood columns in the paper that talked of the comings and goings as well as daily activities of the residents. The Hopewell Herald was filled with news about the area’s residents. These notices have provided clues that guide my research.

Wilson Blackwell was the son of one of my Mount Rose Men, Liscomb T. Blackwell. Wilson is my 2g-grandfather. After he married Emma in 1874, he moved to a small community about five miles from Mount Rose, just across the county line. The 1880 census finds Wilson with his wife and three sons living in Montgomery Township in Somerset County. The 1880 census is silent as to land ownership. A notice in the 22 November 1888 issue of the Hopewell Herald provided a clue that Wilson was a tenant farmer for many years before purchasing the farm and led me directly to the deed for the purchase of the farm:

“The sale of the real estate of Zephaniah Stout, deceased, took place yesterday. The house and lot in Hopewell was purchased by Mrs. Imlah Weart for $3100. Mr. W. Blackwell bought the farm near Skillman for $60 per acre.”

My mother remembered, as a young child, seeing a bed set up in the front room of her great-grandparents’ house. A notice in the 31 January 1934 issue of the Hopewell Herald provides a clue as to who used the bed that was placed in the downstairs room:

“[Wilson] Blackwell sustained a broken left hip when a rug slipped from under him and he fell heavily to the floor in his home Sunday morning. He is convalescing at his residence, on Center street.”

Wilson recovered from his injury. In the 28 November 1934 issue of the Hopewell Herald, an article about the sixtieth anniversary of Wilson and Emma Blackwell noted the following:

“Mr. Blackwell has generally enjoyed good health, but last fall he broke his hip and was confined to his bed all the past winter. His unusual stamina and ruggedness has enabled him to walk about once more. He and his wife are both active, performing daily duties about their home.”

Wilson was eighty-five years old when he broke his hip. It sounds like he was one tough cookie!

Read the historic newspapers for the towns where your ancestors lived. Don’t stop at the obituary. Read the neighborhood columns. Look for those tidbits of information that you can weave together with other documents and vital records to reconstruct the lives of your ancestors.

The Tomato Story

2010-06-07T14:19:00.002-04:00

One of my favorite stories gleaned from newspaper research involves tomatoes and two of my 2g-grandfathers.

The 7 September 1893 issue of the Hopewell Herald (a small town newspaper in central New Jersey) carried this notice in the Skillman neighborhood column:

Wilson Blackwell has the finest tomato crop of any one in this vicinity. Just how Wilson is going to gather them and the large peach crop he has it is hard to imagine, but as he is a hustler, we expect to see him get through time enough to catch some pike.

The following week, in the 14 September 1893 issue, the local news column reported the following:

George Van Dyke of Woodsville handed us two tomatoes one day this week that weighed 13 and 15 ounces. Who can beat this?

On 21 September 1893, the following appeared in the Ringoes neighborhood column:

We see by the Herald that Mr. Van Dyke of Woodsville raised two tomatoes that weighed 13 and 15 ounces, but we can beat it. Jacob Dilts brought us two that weighed 15 ½ and 17 ½ ounces, and Mr. Rea had two that weighed 19 and 23 oz. Can you beat it?

The friendly neighborhood rivalry continued. In the 28 September 1893 issue, Hopewell spoke back with the following:

Hopewell is still up head in the big tomatoes. Nelson Wyckoff brought one to the factory that weighed 28 oz and H. A. Hoagland brought three, plucked from one vine, that weighed 3 pounds and 13 ounces, the largest weighing 25 oz. Ringoes must hunt up some larger ones.

Perhaps wanting the last word, the following appeared in the Hopewell local news column on 5 October 1893:

The champion of Hopewell was brought to our office by Wm. H. Wyckoff, weighing 35 ounces.

The neighboring communities took note of this (presumably) friendly rivalry with their own postscript mention in the 12 October 1893 Mount Rose neighborhood column:

This has certainly been a great year for prize tomatoes.

I find this neighborhood rivalry entertaining. The first entry names Wilson Blackwell, my 2g-grandfather. The notice does not mention the size of any individual tomato, just that Wilson had a fine crop of tomatoes. The following week, George Van Dyke (another 2g-grandfather) answered with his own version of a fine crop - specifying the size of his tomatoes. [It may be interesting to note here that Wilson’s son married George’s daughter several years after this neighborhood “discussion.” The two men also grew up on neighboring farms.]

New Jersey is known for growing tomatoes (Jersey tomatoes). It evidently was an abundant crop for the farmers around Hopewell; they supported a tomato canning factory that started operations about 1892.

Years later, after they gave up farming and settled into retired life, Wilson and George served together on the Board of Directors of the Hopewell Valley Canning Company. Newspaper articles in 1919, 1923, and 1927 list them as directors. The factory enjoyed success well into the twentieth century. My mother tells stories of working there when she was a teenager in the late 1930s.

Making inferences

2010-06-04T15:36:00.003-04:00

My 2g-grandfather, Wilson Blackwell, was the sixth generation Blackwell to live and farm at Mount Rose in Hopewell Township in central New Jersey. He married Emma Sutphen, the daughter of another Mount Rose farmer James Thompson Sutphen, in 1874. I have a copy of the “Return of Marriages” that lists their names, the date of marriage, parents’ names, and where and by whom they were married. I’m not aware of any family stories, photographs, or other information about that day other than the facts contained in the official document.

Emma’s younger sister Rachel was married many years later on 15 December 1886. The local newspaper, the Hopewell Herald, printed a lengthy article about Rachel’s marriage to Daniel C. Hart that included a weather report for the evening (evidently, it was a very stormy evening) and accolades to Rachel’s mother for a fine meal. I used information from the newspaper article about Rachel’s marriage to make some inferences about Wilson and Emma’s wedding day.

On 25 November 1874, Wilson Blackwell married Emma Sutphen in Hopewell Township, New Jersey.(1) Wilson was 26 years old and Emma was 23. The couple was most likely married at the bride’s home outside Mount Rose as it was the custom of the time and area for weddings to take place at home. Emma’s younger sister, Rachel, was married several years later to Daniel Hart in a lovely home wedding attended by a plethora of family and friends. Accolades went to Mrs. Sutphen for the bountiful repast and fine table she set for the occasion.(2) It might be safe to assume the same was done for the elder daughter.
1 Blackwell-Sutphen marriage, 25 November 1874, 1848-78 Vital Stats, Volume BO, page 43 [stamped], Return of Marriages in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, microfilm no. 77, New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, New Jersey.
2 Hart-Sutphen marriage announcement, Hopewell Herald, Hopewell, New Jersey, 23 December 1886, microfilm no. 5815, New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, New Jersey.

The actual wording in the newspaper article about the inclement weather was quite poetic:

The storm was so violent that all had to wait till fair “cynthia” dispelled some of the darkness, as the road was badly filled with snow; but as soon as prudent all “scattered” for home, and as every head was “steady,” all arrived home in safety feeling that they had had a very enjoyable time.

It’s important to research the entire family. Our ancestors had sisters, brothers, cousins, and aunts and uncles. We can learn about our grandparents through their siblings and extended families.

Revisiting previous writing

2010-05-28T09:33:00.002-04:00

Several years ago I completed the American Genealogy Course offered by the National Genealogical Society. The sixteen self-guided lessons covered everything from vital records to census records to deed research, immigration, and military records. Perhaps the two best features of the course were: (1) that I was able to use my own family and my own research to complete the lessons; and (2) I received written comments on my work from professionals in the field of genealogy.

My assignments during the course included analyzing and evaluating a family tradition, performing in-depth census analysis, visiting and writing reviews of repositories (and not relying solely on the Internet), examining the migration patterns of one ancestral line, and thoroughly examining and analyzing a vital record.

The capstone project was to write a biography of an ancestor, fully cited, of course. I chose to write about my 2g-grandfather, Wilson Blackwell, fifth child and second son born to Liscomb T. Blackwell and Susannah Drake. This was the first biography I ever wrote, at least the first one to be fully documented. I chose Wilson for several reasons.

I had a plethora of information about Wilson that provided lots of sources to write his story.
I was intrigued by the stories that appeared in the local newspaper about him, those snippets appearing in the neighborhood “gossip” columns about his fishing and hunting expeditions and his farming activities.
My mother personally knew him. I have interviewed her on many occasions to learn more about my grandparents and great-grandparents who all lived in the same town she grew up in.

My story about Wilson starts off with a quote from my mother derived from interviews:

When I was growing up, my maternal grandparents and great-grandparents lived in the same small town. It was a quiet town, a safe place for a pre-teen girl to walk (or run) around. My great-grandparents, Wilson and Emma Blackwell, lived not more than a block away from my childhood home. I remember visiting them and sitting on the front porch in the summer with my great-grandmother. Great-grandpa was always working in his garden. He loved that garden. When the weather chilled, great-grandma and I would move to the kitchen for our chats. Great-grandpa continued to work outside, in his garden, or fixing things. He was always busy, doing something around the house

All the documents I’ve collected from Wilson’s life have given me the facts, but the interviews with my mother helped me to learn about Wilson, the man.

My writing journey is now turning from my 3g-grandfather Liscomb T. Blackwell to his son, my 2g-grandfather Wilson Blackwell. Although I’ve already written his story, in the four years since completing his biography, I have discovered more stories. So, I’ll be updating his biography which will then become a part of the larger Mount Rose Men book I’m working on.

Wrapping up

2010-05-23T20:08:00.002-04:00

I’ve been writing about my 3g-grandfather Liscomb T. Blackwell. He was a farmer who lived in central New Jersey during the 1800s. There’s nothing spectacular about his life. He was a dedicated farmer who, with his wife Suzanne, raised a family of ten children.

I first knew of Liscomb early on in my genealogy research. I had a name and a death date from his tombstone. I remember the first time I stood in the Old School Baptist churchyard in Hopewell, New Jersey, and touched his tombstone. A peace and calm filled me. I imagined his widow and family standing there on 24 March 1895 paying their last respects. I wanted to know more about this man, my 3g grandfather. The Blackwell line is well-researched, but I wanted to follow the paper trail myself. I gathered census and vital records, deeds, wills, and newspaper clippings. Then I read them. And I compared them to each other, placed them on a timeline, and did a reality check. The documents spoke to me.

I looked at Liscomb the man, husband, father, brother, son, uncle, and nephew. I researched his family unit identifying his parents (and their parents and their parents), his siblings, children, aunts, and uncles. I wanted to know how Liscomb fit into his family and his community.

I learned from researching the deeds of their parents that Liscomb married the daughter of a neighbor. They likely grew up together, went to school together, and socialized at neighborhood gatherings.
I learned from various vital and census records and his will that Liscomb and his wife Suzanne had ten children, but one died as a teenager from a fever that gripped the area in 1865. The daughter of a neighbor died two weeks prior. They likely knew each other and were friends and playmates.
I learned from researching deeds that Liscomb purchased his first farm with his brother. The two shared the farm for several years until Liscomb sold his share and moved to a new farm just a couple miles away.
I learned from researching deeds and the book “Hopewell Valley Heritage” by Alice Blackwell Lewis that Liscomb ultimately purchased his father-in-law’s farm that included a distillery but not an orchard.
I learned from vital and census records and newspaper research that Liscomb and Suzanne had 28 grandchildren; they lived to see the birth of all but one grandson.
I learned from census records and deed research that Liscomb never lived more than a few miles from the farm where he was born.

All that paper gave me the facts (when Liscomb was born, where he lived, who he married, the names of his children, and his final resting place), but I wanted to learn more about the life Liscomb led in the mid-1800s. That’s when my research went beyond those “typical” genealogical documents and I sought out social history sources. My greatest find was the book, “Midcentury America: Life in the 1850s.” I wrote about that book and my findings in my March 4 and April 8 blog entries.

Why do I care about Liscomb, the man, and not just the dates in his life? I am his 3-g granddaughter. He is a part of me. I am because he was.

Write the stories

2010-05-18T11:23:00.001-04:00

Sometimes the hardest part of writing is settling down to write. We get so hung up on that opening sentence and perfect word choice that we end up staring at the blank computer screen or sheet of paper instead of allowing our thoughts to flow. When we’re writing our family’s history, we’re telling the stories of our ancestors’ lives. Put yourself in their shoes. Learn all you can about the time and place in which they lived that created a backdrop for the stories. Then, in your own words, tell their story. Don’t worry about grammar or style or spelling (at least not yet). Just tell the story as if you were sharing it with a friend. Read your words out loud. That’s one of the easiest ways to tell if your story is flowing logically and clearly.

Keep it simple. Focus on each individual story. Watch out for tangents that lead you down paths away from the story you’re telling. Simple words, simple sentence structure, simply storytelling. My goal has never been to write a critically-acclaimed scholarly family history. I just want to share the stories discovered during my genealogy research, document them, and share them with my family in a form that is interesting (fully documenting my sources, of course).

The best advice I can give to help your writing is to … well, write! The more you write the easier it will become. You will begin to develop a style. You will create a habit. You may soon discover that you can’t stop writing.

Helpful, and Fun, Websites (Take 2)

2010-05-13T14:06:00.001-04:00

How many ways can you spell your surname? Do you think you’ve found all the variants? The Name Thesaurus can probably help. Type in a surname and you will be presented with a list of possible alternate spellings. I typed in the surname Rorer (from my mother’s paternal line) and the Name Thesaurus identified 78 alternate spellings!

What happened on the day your great-grandmother was born? What toys were popular when your father was young? Enter any date between 1800 and 2002 into the dMarie Time Capsule to read headlines from the week, top songs for the year, hot new toys … even grocery prices. A fun site to play with that can also provide some interesting background tidbits for your family history writing.

What day of the week did your grandparents get married? (Weekday weddings were very popular during the 1800s and early 1900s.) Enter any date into the Day of the Week Calculator to find out what day of the week an event occurred.

Are you writing?

2010-05-07T18:42:00.002-04:00

Are you writing your family’s history? Are you thinking about writing? Or have you only gotten so far as to think about thinking about writing your family history?

What are you waiting for? What’s holding you back? Don’t let the fear of writing stand in the way of documenting your family’s stories.

I started writing several years ago as a way to share my research with my family. I get excited when I finally locate that elusive death record, but my family didn’t share my excitement when I showed them the piece of paper. They couldn’t relate to it. Trying to explain by showing some ancestral charts and where that person fit into our family tree didn’t do the trick either. Through writing about the lives of our ancestors, telling the stories uncovered during the research process and adding a social history context, I was able to cast a light on my passionate obsession and bring our family’s history to life.

The first step to writing your family history is making the commitment to do it. The second step is to choose an ancestor. The third step is to start writing.

Clues in an estate inventory

2010-05-05T13:25:00.001-04:00

I love estate inventories in which the appraiser identified the rooms in a house and their contents. Dated 11 October 1864, just a couple weeks after his death, the inventory for Wilson Blackwell is presented this way. Following a list of items in the kitchen and parlor there are separate sections for other chambers in the house. The house had several sleeping chambers: the parlor chamber with one bed; the chamber over the sitting room with a bed; the bed chamber over the kitchen, and the north east chamber with two beds. Wilson used the bedroom over the kitchen; the inventory indicates that this room housed “wearing apparel of deceased” valued at $40. Presumably, the parlor chamber was on the first floor adjacent to the parlor while the other three sleeping chambers were on the second floor. The rooms all had carpet on the floor and curtains at the windows.

The cellar was evidently full because the value placed on its contents was $25.00. The inventory was taken in early October; the farm’s bounty would be stored in the cellar along with crocks and crates.

The property also had a wash house, barn, work shed, corn crib, and wagon house. The contents of these buildings, while not individually itemized, are tallied and presented as a sum total. The three wagons and plow are, however, listed separately. The wheat was harvested but unthreshed; the corn was harvested and “in shock” (bound for drying); and the barn was stocked with hay.

The wash house had a kettle. I suppose that was the 1864 version of a washing machine!

The livestock listed on the inventory include one horse, two cows, and several fowl. In Wilson’s will, dated 18 June 1864 (three months prior to his death), he bequeathed one cow and “the three pigs in the pen” to his daughters Rebecca and Eure. The pigs are not listed on the inventory. In the 1850 agriculture census, Wilson reported five horses, seven cows, four other cattle, eighteen sheep, and eighteen swine. In the decade after that census, it appears Wilson substantially scaled back his farming activities.

Estate inventories can be fascinating reading, especially when compared to deeds, wills, and census records.

The son of the father

2010-05-02T16:26:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I began to organize documents for Liscomb T. Blackwell’s father, Wilson Blackwell. To write the story of the son, I need to learn more about the father. According to his tombstone at the Old School Baptist churchyard in Hopewell, New Jersey, Wilson Blackwell died on 23 September 1864 at the age of 74 years, 8 months, and 27 days. His calculated date of birth was 27 December 1789.

I have collected population censuses for 1830, 1840, 1850, and 1860; a published marriage record (to Ester Titus on 6 November 1813); the 1850 agriculture census; a record of Wilson’s death recorded in a register of deaths; a photo of his tombstone; his last will and testament and estate inventory; and the deed for the transfer of his home in Hopewell, per his will, to his two daughters, Rebecca and Eure. Earlier population censuses (1800-1820) are unavailable in the state of New Jersey; they were destroyed by a fire. I did not locate Wilson’s farm in the 1860 agriculture census. The deed for the transfer of his house in town to his daughters indicates he purchased that home in 1858 implying he gave up farming around that time; hence, his farm would not be a part of the 1860 agriculture census. Wilson’s son Johnson inherited the family farm, per Wilson’s will. I have ordered a microfilm from the FHL that might tell me how Johnson ultimately disposed of the farm that had been in the family for three generations.

I was reviewing the documents, looking for clues and information to write Wilson’s story when I realized his estate inventory had not been transcribed. Typically, I transcribe all documents (entering all information, word for word). It helps me to thoroughly read documents as I type them into a Word document. The transcribed copy, in neat Times New Roman text, is much easier to refer to during my analysis and writing process than trying to decipher mid-nineteenth century handwriting time and again.

Consider transcribing your hard-to-read documents. It’s worth the time and effort. Although errors can occur during the transcription process, a careful proofread can help to ensure an accurate duplicate of the original. The transcribing process often brings to light information that might be overlooked during a quick read-through.

Researching the farm

2010-04-26T15:13:00.002-04:00

Have you researched the agricultural censuses for your farmer ancestors? These censuses were conducted for the years 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880. The agriculture censuses for many states have been microfilmed and are available from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City through your local family history center.

While the agriculture census won’t provide names and dates to further your ancestral lines, they captured valuable information that will help you to know your ancestors a little better. Finding your farmer ancestor on an agricultural census places him in a geographic place at a point in time. The census captured landowners; therefore, you are prompted to search for a deed for your ancestor farmer’s land. A deed will provide the physical description of the farm while the agriculture census will enumerate the output from that farm. Using the two documents together will help you to envision what your ancestor farmer’s homestead was like.

When you find your ancestor farmer on an agriculture census, take some time to look at the entries for his neighbors. Some of those neighbors could be family (father, brothers, uncles, sons). You can also compare your ancestor’s farm with those around him. Did the neighboring farmers grow the same crops? Who had orchards? How did the size of their farms compare? The agriculture census provides details about farm output (harvested crops, slaughtered animals, and eggs and butter produced). Most years provide an estimated value of farm production, in dollars.

My April 8 blog entry is an example of taking information found in the agriculture census along with details about mid-nineteenth century farming found in the book Midcentury America: Life in the mid 1850s to set the scene for the story about my 3g-grandfather, Liscomb T. Blackwell.

Life on the farm

2010-04-12T08:54:00.001-04:00

To continue my story about Liscomb T. Blackwell, I created a snapshot of his family and farm life in 1860. Again, using the book Midcentury America: Life in the mid 1850s along with census and vital records, I was able to set a scene for a point in time and infer what life was like for this mid-nineteenth century farming family.

In 1860, Liscomb and Susannah had been married for twenty-two years. Their family had grown to ten children (five girls and five boys): Ann Rebecca (24), Esther (19), Spencer (15), Sarah Emily (12), Wilson (11), Nathaniel (9), Susan Adelia (7), Eura Euphany (5), John P. (3), and Wallingford (newborn). All of the children were living at home and the older ones were either attending school or helping out on the farm. There were farm chores even for the youngest of children, and help from the oldest children was a necessity to keep the farm running. The livestock required daily care: feeding, cleaning stables, milking cows, and turning cattle out to pasture and bringing them back in at night. During the harvesting months, April through October, long hours were spent in the fields plowing, rolling, pulling up stumps, burning refuse, preparing the fields for sowing, planting, and harvesting. After cutting the hay, it had to be raked and drawn to the barn. The wheat had to be shucked and stored. Barley and rye had to be mowed, usually by hand. September was spent threshing the wheat. Threshing parties were often held with neighbors helping neighbors. October was the month to bring in the crops before the heavy frosts. Potatoes, corn, and beans were harvested and stored for the winter months. The oats were threshed, corn husked, fields plowed, and wheat was cut, bound, and shucked. Mid-November through March was the “slack” period of the year - that period of time between the fall harvest and spring planting. This was a time that farmers worked on projects not directly related to planting and harvesting: slaughter animals, cut and haul timber, split rails, replace fences, haul straw, shell corn, clean seed for spring planting, and repair or construct outbuildings and water troughs.

Setting the scene

2010-04-08T12:31:00.001-04:00

I blogged a few weeks ago about a book I happened upon titled Midcentury America: Life in the mid 1850s. Using that book along with census records, agriculture census records, and deeds, I drafted a few paragraphs to provide a setting for Liscomb T. Blackwell and his family in mid-nineteenth century Mount Rose in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey. The following paragraphs are a draft; they still need some editing, but I’m sharing them now to demonstrate how I’ve brought together some diverse resources to set a scene for my 3g-grandfather’s story:

The Hopewell Township landscape in central New Jersey was a checkerboard of farmland in the mid-1800s. Whether they were large or small, most farms had the same elements: fields for crops, land set aside for pasture, and a vegetable garden near the house. Some acreage remained wooded to provide a source of lumber for house building, fences, tools, and firewood. The structures on a farm included a house, barn, and outbuildings dedicated to a specific purpose (such as a chicken house, a smoke house, a tool shed, etc.). The farmhouse was a utilitarian structure designed as a place for cooking, eating, sleeping, and occasionally for entertaining. Most were two stories although the kitchen wing might have been just one story. At least one section of the house typically had a cellar that was used for storing the garden’s bounty. The chief room in the home was the dining room. This is where the whole family gathered three times a day for meals and conversation.

The animals on a farm each offered their own unique purpose. Horses provided the needed source of power until mechanized machinery began to appear in the late nineteenth century. Cattle provided meat, dairy, and leather. Sheep were typically kept as a source of wool rather than food. And poultry supplied both meat and eggs. In 1850, Liscomb had three horses, four milk cows, two “other” cattle, twelve sheep, and sixteen swine.

At sixty-two acres, Liscomb’s farm in 1850 was not among the largest in that part of Hopewell Township. Many other farms had twice the acreage. Like his neighbors, Liscomb’s fields were filled with wheat, Indian corn, oats, Irish potatoes, and hay. He also chose to grow the less-common crops of rye and buckwheat. Neither the farm he owned in 1850 nor the farm he purchased from his father-in-law, Nathaniel Drake, in 1854 had an orchard; however, the latter farm had a distillery located on the property. The Drake distillery was well known in the Mount Rose area and beyond and provided another valuable source of income to the family. Liscomb often accepted bushels of apples as payment for pressing apples for farmers.

Family Connections, Part 2

2010-04-05T16:45:00.001-04:00

My blog entry a couple of weeks ago, Family Connections, spoke about my 3g-grandfather Liscomb T. Blackwell and his siblings. Liscomb is one of the Mount Rose Men who are the focus of my current writing project. I love finding evidence that my ancestors’ lives were intertwined with those of their siblings.

Liscomb and his younger brother William purchased a farm together just over the township line from their childhood home in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey. Liscomb married in 1838 and was living in neighboring Princeton Township when the 1840 census was taken. William married in the mid 1840s when he was in his mid-twenties. The brothers purchased a farm in Princeton Township on 26 April 1847. The deed indicates that the brothers were “of Princeton Township” indicating they likely were residing on the property at the time of purchase. Whether they shared a dwelling or had separate dwellings on the land is unclear. The following year, on 13 March 1848, Liscomb purchased a farm in Hopewell Township that was adjacent to his father’s farm. Later that month, on 31 March 1848, William purchased Liscomb’s share of the Princeton Township farm. The year 1848 marks the birth of William’s first child, a girl named Ann. The brothers evidently made a decision to part ways with their growing families. Was it amicable? I like to think it was.

William presumably effected his purchase of Liscomb’s share of the farm with the help of his father, Wilson. The inventory of Wilson Blackwell’s estate after his death in 1864 shows a note receivable from William L. Blackwell in the amount of $3,074.39, about 52% of the purchase price of the farm sixteen years prior.

To learn about the lives of our ancestors, we must remember to research their family unit.

Serendipity

2010-03-28T14:08:00.001-04:00

While researching my 2g-grandfather Wilson Blackwell, middle son of Liscomb T. Blackwell, one of my Mount Rose Men, I found an interesting entry in the 1920 census. Living with Wilson (age 71) and his wife Emma (age 68) were two boarders named James (age 66) and Emily Leming (age 73). The census record provided information for me about Wilson’s address in 1920 (he had recently moved from the farm into the village of Hopewell). But it raised another question: Who were James and Emily Leming? I searched the earlier 1910 census for James and Emily Leming with no luck. I transcribed and filed the 1920 census record expecting to get back to that research question.

I have spent much of the past year building the family of Liscomb T. Blackwell including Wilson, his nine siblings, their spouses, and children. One day, while researching in a February 1919 issue of the local newspaper, I experienced a serendipitous moment. There was a marriage notice for Sarah Emily Blackwell Titus and James Gilbert Leming. Sarah Emily was Wilson’s sister. I knew of her marriage to Samuel B.Titus in 1872 and his untimely death in 1886. I had found her, widowed, enumerated as Sarah Titus, in the 1900 and 1910 censuses living with her children. My efforts to find her in the 1920 census were unsuccessful; I wasn’t sure if she had died, moved from the area, or was just missed by the census taker. Stumbling upon the marriage announcement answered all those questions. In 1919, at seventy-two years of age, she married her second husband, James Gilbert Leming.

Then, a light went on. I vaguely remembered that census record listing James and Emily Leming as boarders with Wilson and Emma Blackwell. I pulled it out. The names matched. The ages matched. James’ birthplace of Ohio matched. Then I knew. Wilson and Emma opened their doors to his sister and her new husband. Not long after the 1920 census enumeration, James and his wife moved to their own home around the corner.

Sarah Emily and Wilson were the middle of ten children and were just two years apart in age. They spent much of their adult lives on farms that were about five miles apart. The family ties of these siblings brought them back together to share their lives once again.

Searching ... and searching

2010-03-24T20:11:00.001-04:00

I spent this morning at the Family History Center in town. Two of three microfilms I ordered at the end of February arrived almost two weeks ago and I finally had time to go look at them today. One roll of film held promise that it would contain the death certificate for one of my Mount Rose Men: James Thompson Sutphen.

James Thompson Sutphen died on 25 July 1896. I have two sources that agree with this date: the death notice in the local newspaper, the Hopewell Herald, and his tombstone in the Old School Baptist Meeting House cemetery. An inventory of James’ estate, completed two weeks after his death, was proved on 14 August 1896. There is no will; James died intestate. His farm was sold by his three children in September 1896.

I searched for James’ death certificate at the state archives during a 2004 research trip to New Jersey. My notes from that trip say, “death record not found.” I had to try again and ordered the microfilm from Salt Lake City for one more look. But it was not to be. I left the Family History Center empty handed. But I’m persistent. I’m going back next week for one final look. Maybe the third time will be the charm.

Is that all?

2010-03-22T13:50:00.001-04:00

I completed my 2010 census form today. What surprised me most was how little information it requested. My name, birthdate, phone number, and home ownership are the only clues my great-grandchildren will find when they research the census. This enumeration didn’t want to know my birthplace, address, or occupation -- valuable pieces of information we genealogists derive from census records as we research our family history.

As I completed the form I became acutely aware that the answers to the ten questions provide little information about me as a person. It places me and my husband in North Carolina in 2010, but doesn’t speak to the reasons why we left Florida during the decade since the 2000 census. It doesn’t speak to the (successful) journey with breast cancer I had after moving to North Carolina. Those ten questions do little to let my great-grandchildren know me. If they rely on the census to know me, they’ll never learn that I love cook but not bake, work on jigsaw puzzles, take long morning walks, enjoy game nights with my family, and have devoted the past decade to researching and writing my family’s history. The only way they’ll know these things about me is if I tell them.

Are you writing about your own life? Are you telling your own story, or are you leaving it to be speculated about by your great-grandchildren who might have little more than ten questions from the 2010 census? There are a wide variety of journals available that contain questions about your life experiences and space for answers. These journals offer memory prompts to make writing your own story easy. You are the best person to tell your story. Be sure your story is told from your own point of view.

One Story at a Time

2010-03-20T11:04:00.002-04:00

I’m hooked on Who Do You Think You Are? I eagerly anticipate 8:00 on Friday nights for each new episode. Especially compelling, for me, was Emmitt Smith’s slave ancestor story and his journey back to Africa.

I love how each episode focuses on just one or two stories rather than trying to share an entire ancestry in one hour. Each of us has many ancestral stories waiting to be discovered and shared. One story at a time. When we focus on one story at a time, we preserve those stories. Then we can weave them together into a family history, one story at a time.

Who Do You Think You Are? reminds us to place our ancestors in historical context. Look at what was happening in the world your ancestors lived in and how those events impacted their lives. Write about the event and your ancestor’s part in that event. You may find your ancestor was a small piece of a much larger story.

My hope is that Who Do You Think You Are? will continue to hold the interest of the millions now tuning in each week. The first three episodes have done a fine job in introducing family history to the non-genealogist and pointing out reasons why it is so important to research our family’s past.

Family Connections

2010-03-15T15:20:00.001-04:00

I am currently focusing on one of my Mount Rose Men. Liscomb T.Blackwell had two brothers (William and Johnson) and two sisters (Rebecca and Eure). When their mother died in 1852, thirty-seven year old Rebecca, twenty-eight-year old Eure, and twenty-year-old Johnson still lived at home. Liscomb and William had married and settled on farms of their own by 1852. Johnson married five years after his mother’s death and remained on the family farm. The girls took care of their father, Wilson, until his death in 1864 and did not marry until several years later.

As I research and write my family’s history, I reconstruct the family units. Liscomb was a son, brother, uncle, husband, and father. I can’t omit any of these relationships as I learn all I can about his life. He was close to his brother William who was about four years younger. The brothers purchased their first farm together. After their families began to grow, Liscomb sold his share of this farm to his brother and moved to a farm just a few miles away.

When Johnson inherited the family farm from his father, he was the third generation to work that land. Johnson inherited the land from his father Wilson who inherited the land from his father John. I have a deed index microfilm roll waiting for me at the Family History Center that will (hopefully) tell me what happened to that land after Johnson died in 1913. He died intestate, had no sons, and only one daughter, so I’m assuming the farm was sold after his death. In order to trace the land where Liscomb was born, his father’s farm, I need to follow his brother’s paper trail.

It's Not All on the Internet

2010-03-11T14:11:00.001-05:00

I’ve spent a lot of time during the past week reading books to help me understand what daily life was like for my mid-1800s farmer ancestors. There were no diaries or family stories passed down through the families of my Mount Rose Men, so in order to “build their lives,” I turn to nonfiction books written about the era and/or locale where they lived. A new book to my bookshelf, “Midcentury America: Life in the 1850s,” is everything I hoped it would be when I ordered it. I wrote about it in last week’s blog entry.

“The Expansion of Everyday Life” by Daniel E. Sutherland speaks about the changes occurring in the states during the years 1860-1876. My Mount Rose Men were in their mid-40s during these years and were at the height of their farming careers. This book talks at length about the daily life of farmers, crops grown, farm chores, seasonal activities, and the dawn of mechanization. I got a good feel for the workload and cycle of activities my ancestors performed as farmers from reading this book.

I picked up a copy of “Everyday Things in American Life: 1776-1876” by William Chauncy Langdon at a library book sale many years ago. This book is a great snapshot of the daily lives of our ancestors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I learned about the houses our farming ancestors called home. The book talks about the various rooms found in a typical house and their function and furnishings. I can now turn to the estate inventories for my Mount Rose Men and more accurately reconstruct their homes in my mind.

“Hopewell: A Historical Geography” was written by Richard W. Hunter and Richard L. Porter at the request of the Historical Sites Committee of Hopewell Township, New Jersey. This book is a gem. Filled with pictures, maps, and illustrations, it’s an in depth presentation of land use in the township my Mount Rose Men called home. Well into the early twentieth century, the Hopewell Township landscape was largely decorated with farms. This book speaks about the general farming practices over the centuries and also speaks to many specific farms as they were passed on through the generations.

These books prove to me that not everything is on the Internet. What books are waiting out there for you to discover?

Seek and you never know what you’ll find

2010-03-04T13:48:00.002-05:00

One day last week I was wandering aimlessly around Google on the hunt for anything that would help me understand what farming life was like in the 1800s. My Mount Rose Men were well respected farmers in central New Jersey. Other than the typical documents (census records, wills, deeds, death records, and the like) not much is written about them specifically. In order to learn what their lives were like, I need to turn to books that speak more generally to the location and time in which they lived. On that seemingly mindless afternoon of Googling, I discovered a reference to a book that promised to answer some of my questions. I checked my favorite online book source (Half.com) and was able to purchase it for $5.98 (including shipping). That book arrived yesterday and I’m thrilled with its contents.

Midcentury America: Life in the 1850s, compiled and edited by Carl Bode, is filled with annotated newspaper and magazine articles from the mid-nineteenth century. Those articles give a first-hand account of what life was like for our ancestors. I was drawn immediately to the chapter titled “The Good Earth” that features an article from the Connecticut Valley Farmer, “The Economy of Agriculture.” Published as a series in 1854 and 1855, the article talks about the economies of a small farm vs. a large farm, typical structures found on a farm, and challenges faced in growing a variety of crops. The article also speaks at length about the opening of the West, the movement of the farming industry to the wide open spaces of the frontier, and the impact the eastern states felt when the products from those farms were shipped back east.

Reading this book, and reading articles that were actually written in the mid-nineteenth century by authors who were living and working at that time, helps me to imagine what life was like for my Mount Rose Men.

It’s going to be a late night. I’m eager to read the remaining articles.

Pardon the interruption

2010-02-23T15:46:00.001-05:00

A blog reader, Gwen, asked me, “How do you handle interruptions, is there a quiet writing place you go to?” First, let me say, I’m fortunate. I have an office with a door and can block out many external distractions. In fact, because my office is tucked away on the second floor, I often can’t hear what’s going on downstairs and don’t even notice when someone comes to the door. So I shouldn’t have a problem focusing, right? Wrong!

It’s the internal distractions that rise up during the day that are more annoying than any phone call or talkative family member. I’ve worked hard over the past year to learn to ignore the internal distractions.

I’m a goal-oriented person. I schedule my writing sessions into my calendar and have a plan in mind. This keeps me from wandering aimlessly around the family tree and helps to keep me focused. If the plan is to spend an hour or two writing about my great-grandparents’ courtship and marriage, I don’t allow myself to wander over to my grandfather’s farm to imagine how his family managed during the Great Depression. Focus is a key. Focus on a plan.

But even that’s not foolproof.

There’s e-mail distractions, Facebook distractions, “what’s for dinner” distractions, and a television in my office that can produce its own set of distractions. Do I allow myself to get interrupted? Sometimes. A little breather can be good as long as it’s short and I get myself refocused quickly. But when I find myself getting continually distracted, I close my e-mail and make sure the tv remote isn’t at hand. I refocus on my plan. When I have a plan, the distractions are more likely to fade away into the background.

Thinking about writing

2010-02-17T16:13:00.001-05:00

It’s been a busy week. I’ve done a lot more thinking about writing than actual writing. It’s OK to take a break. Sometimes life intervenes and takes priority over our scheduled pursuits. These breaks can actually make you a better writer. Yes, even when you’re not writing, you can improve your writing.

I find when I’m away from my writing, it still occupies my thoughts. The perfect word that eluded me while in front of the computer quickly surfaces in my mind when I’m engaged in an unrelated activity later in the day. The challenge of where to find a missing piece of information is often solved when I’m able to step away and give myself some physical distance from the project. I think about the family relationships of my ancestors while interacting with my own family and often discover a new focus for a passage in my writing.

Although I haven’t written much this week, I did some reading. I’m working my way through The Copyeditor’s Handbook by Amy Einsohn, one chapter a day. This book is filled with practical advice for editing documents and offers easy-to-understand grammar guidelines. Everyone who writes can benefit from Ms. Einsohn’s advice.

My calendar should allow me to return to my writing on Friday. I’ve missed my ancestors, my friends, but I know they’ll be waiting for me right where I left them a few days ago, eager to tell me their stories.

Capture the Seemingly Insignificant

2010-02-11T13:38:00.001-05:00

I’m back in the world of my 3g-grandfather Liscomb T. Blackwell today. As my post The Family Unit explained, in order to learn more about Liscomb, I stepped back a generation to look at his parents (Wilson Blackwell and Esther Titus) and his siblings. I have documented proof for five children born to Wilson and Esther. However, when I look at the spacing of the births, there’s a nine-year gap between fourth-born Eure and last-born Johnson. There’s plenty of room in that gap for another birth. But the time frame (1822-1831) is before vital record registration in New Jersey, and I have never discovered a family Bible to help with the answer. The Blackwells were members of the Old School Baptist Church which did not keep records of births of children.

I turned to early census records and analyzed the tic marks in the 1830 and 1840 censuses. When I matched the known family members to the tic marks in the 1830 census, I came up short. There was a “1” in the “female under 5” column for which I didn’t have a “known child.”

Then I remembered, a flash in my memory, and I went to the notebook where I keep the cemetery transcriptions I’ve gathered.

In my notes for Wilson and Esther’s tombstones, I noted that there was a small worn stone next to Esther’s tombstone; the letters were so weathered that they were illigible. The stone was nearly worn smooth. Could this be the “female under 5” child from the 1830 census? It’s likely. And if so, she likely died as a baby or toddler.

I’m glad that when I stood in the Old School Baptist Church cemetery in Hopewell, New Jersey, I had the foresight to capture the details about that seemingly insignificant rock.

Read Before You Write

2010-02-09T14:01:00.001-05:00

When I first developed an interest several years ago to write my family’s history, I went to the library and gathered books on the subject. These are books I still turn to for inspiration when I get in a rut. Whether you’re just getting started, or need a jump start, spend some time reading before you write. Read for ideas. Read for inspiration. Read for motivation.

In his book, For All Time: A Complete Guide to Writing Your Family History, Charley Kempthorne first builds a case for the importance of writing your family’s history, then provides several chapters with techniques for putting your words on paper.

In Writing the Family Narrative, Lawrence P. Gouldrup demonstrates how to turn genealogy and local history research into a written family history. The companion workbook takes you step-by-step through the writing process. There are brainstorming exercises and prompts to try out writing techniques.

You Can Write Your Family History, by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, provides tips and ideas to turn your family history into a page-turning novel with fascinating tales of your ancestors. Sharon focuses on developing a plot from your historical research.

The Family Unit

2010-02-05T15:55:00.002-05:00

I spent the morning writing about one of the men who is a focal point of my current writing project. To learn more about Liscomb T. Blackwell I moved back a generation to look at his parents and siblings.

Liscomb’s parents were Wilson Blackwell and Esther Titus. The birth years of the known children of Wilson and Esther are: Rebecca, abt. 1814; Liscomb, abt. 1816, William, 1820; Eure, 1822; and Johnson, 1831. An analysis of census records from 1830 and 1840, those census enumerations with the little tic marks in the age categories, indicates there might have been other children that did not survive to adulthood. (I should note here that I do not have earlier censuses to study; the 1800-1820 New Jersey censuses were destroyed.) I have verified the five surviving children of Wilson and Esther and have found no records of other children (either vital records or cemetery tombstones).

Liscomb and William purchased land together a few miles from his childhood home. They farmed this land together until both were married at which time Liscomb sold his interest in the farm to his brother and purchased land from his father-in-law.

Liscomb’s mother died in 1852. While Liscomb and his brother William were married at this time, the two sisters (Rebecca, age 36; and Eure, age 28) and youngest brother Johnson (who was 20 years old) still lived at home. Johnson married in the late 1850s. The sisters remained with their father until his death in 1864. They inherited land and a house in the neighboring village of Hopewell where they moved after their father died. The girls did eventually get married (in 1866 and 1868).

Johnson received the farm upon his father’s death. Wilson’s other two sons (Liscomb and William) were already settled on farms of their own, so Johnson, being the youngest, inherited the farm (which, incidentally, was inherited by Wilson from his father). My next research opportunity is to determine what happened to the farm after Johnson’s death.

My take-away from the morning’s analysis is that the Blackwell children were close-knit. Liscomb and William were partners in the purchase and running of a farm. The girls dutifully cared for their father after their mother’s death and shared a house in Hopewell after their father’s death. All of the siblings lived within a few miles of each other their entire lives. The girls, having married later in life, had no children of their own, but bequeathed personal items to their brothers and to nieces in their wills.

Looking at the Family

2010-02-02T13:43:00.001-05:00

My current writing project involves writing about three of my 3g-grandfathers who were neighbors. Yesterday I was writing about Liscomb T. Blackwell and his children. My goal is to write about them as a family unit and to examine the interactions between the siblings. I don’t want to isolate my direct line ancestors and take them out of the context of their family and community. They are part of the whole.

Liscomb T. Blackwell and his wife Susannah Drake had ten known children born in a twenty-year span between 1840 and 1860. Susannah was twenty-five when she bore her first child. I find it amazing that for twenty years she was pregnant and/or nursing all the while caring for her growing family and performing those daily chores required of a farmer’s wife.

When the youngest child was eight years old, all the Blackwell children were still living at home (except for Nathaniel who died in 1865 of smallpox at the age of fifteen). The remaining nine children ranged in age from 8 to 30.

It was in 1868 the Blackwell children began to marry. During the eight years between 1868 and 1876, seven of them married. None ventured far from their Mount Rose childhood home settling within about a five-mile radius. Sisters Ann and Esther were neighbors just across the township line in Lawrence Township while sisters Susan and Sarah were neighbors in Glen Moore. Eura and Ann both married men named Reed, but I’ve yet to determine if they were related (although I suspect they were brothers). All of Liscomb T. Blackwell’s sons carried on the tradition of farming that had been their heritage for many generations and his daughters married farmers. It’s not until the next generation, the grandchildren of Liscomb T. Blackwell, that I begin to see other occupations (telegraph operator, livery stable owner, carpenter, butcher).

Two of the Blackwell children remained childless. The remaining seven children gave Liscomb and Susannah twenty-seven grandchildren; they lived to see all but one grandchild born. I picture a raucous happy house when the grandchildren went to visit.

The Blackwell children all lived long, full lives each reaching well into their sixties, seventies, and eighties. There’s much comfort reaching an old age surrounded by family.

My 2g-grandfather was Wilson Blackwell, a middle child (the fifth of ten children). It’s important that as I research Wilson, I also learn all I can about his siblings and their interactions. He was a member of the Blackwell family and, as such, decisions he made would have been influenced by his position within and relationship to his family.

Quick Sourcing

2010-01-31T14:36:00.001-05:00

I wrote about the importance of source citations in my 15 October 2009 entry “Do Source Citations Matter?” I don’t think anyone disputes the need for source citations. We’ve all been told time and again to document all the facts we gather in our genealogy research. The same attention to source citations should be applied to our writing as well. But, that’s one part of the process that can really slow down our writing and the flow of our thoughts.

Elizabeth Shown Mills wrote the definitive book about citing sources in genealogy research: Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace. This book has explicit citation examples for just about any source you could find. These rules should be followed if you plan to write for a genealogy publication or publish a book for wide distribution.

The writing I do is for my family. My audience is limited and I do not intend for my books to become widely distributed. My purpose for writing is to share my research with my family members in an interesting narrative so that they, too, can meet their ancestors. When I was beginning to write the Rorer family history book for my mother last year, the process of writing citations bogged me down. I came up with a simpler citation style, one that works for me and that still provides adequate documentation for each fact. I simply cite the document name, city/state/town referenced, person referenced, date of document, page number, and any other information pertinent to that document. (i.e., Death Certificate, Hopewell Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, Liscomb Blackwell, 1895 or William Reed obituary, Trenton Evening Times, 3 June 1908.)

These shorter citations are adequate for me to identify the source document for the facts cited in my writing. They’re also quick enough to create that my writing doesn’t get bogged down. And if I do choose to publish my work beyond my family, the basic information is captured so expanding the citation to meet publication guidelines will be easy. (I should add here that I have paper copies in my files of every source I cite.)

Don’t let source citations get you down, or keep you from writing. In my opinion, writing our family’s history is more important than perfectly written source citations.

The charm of crossroads communities

2010-01-25T19:22:00.003-05:00

I am fascinated by the many crossroads villages that are scattered across central New Jersey where I grew up. When I was a child, most of these crossroads still held onto their names from the past and often were nothing more than a cluster of buildings. My research has revealed to me that many of these crossroads villages were once thriving communities. Depending upon the needs of the surrounding population, the villages might have a post office, general store, blacksmith shop, wheelwright, mill, shoe maker, or school.

My current writing project is centered on three of my 3g grandfathers who lived near the same crossroads village: my Mount Rose Men. (Those who have been following my blog have heard me speak about these men.) I have researched the usual record sources (vital records, wills, deeds, census records, etc.) to find out the details of their lives. But, I’m also interested in how they related to their community, and to each other. There are many marriages between the three family lines and I enjoy untangling the genealogical web.

Where did I find information about the communities that really no longer exist except for an occasional dot on a map? County and local histories are the first place to look. Just before the turn of the twentieth century, county histories were popular. They often had biographies of prominent citizens, and they devoted pages to detail the various communities in the county. Many of those communities were thriving at the time the county histories were written adding to the accuracy and authenticity of the descriptions.

Newspapers are another great source for details about these rural communities. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, newspapers were filled with neighborhood columns, each detailing the comings and goings and activities of the residents in the various crossroads communities. Finding your ancestors mentioned in a neighborhood column can introduce you to their neighbors and extended family members.

Take the time to learn about the communities your ancestors called home.

Write with style.

2010-01-22T11:25:00.002-05:00

I created a style guide to use when writing family histories. What is a style guide? Simply put, it is a set of standards, or guidelines, to be used when writing. A style guide defines rules about punctuation, grammar, spelling, and citation. For instance, what format will you use for dates (January 22, 2010 or 22 January 2010)? Will you capitalize all the letters in surnames or just the first letter? Will you spell out numbers or use numerals? How will you handle surname spelling variations? Will you abbreviate location names (i.e., state abbreviations, co. for county, twp. for township, etc.) or spell them out?

There are no hard and fast rules for these questions. It comes down to a matter of personal style. The important thing is to be consistent with how you handle these issues. Consistency will lend an air of professionalism to your writing.

My style guide defines many personal preferences for elements in my writing. I keep it close by during my writing sessions and refer to it frequently. How did I create my style guide? I started by reading the BCG Genealogical Standards Manual. This manual, written by and for professional genealogists, is a must-have for all genealogists. It outlines common styles for genealogical writing. I also rely heavily on the Chicago Manual of Style for help with punctuation, spelling, grammar, syntax, and a host of other questions that pop up when writing. When I find myself referring to Chicago multiple times to answer the same question, that answer goes in my style guide. These books are my two personal choices, but there are many other style guides available for you to choose from. Spend some time at your local book store looking through several before committing to one. It’s definitely worth the time to develop your own style guide to use when writing.

Helpful, and Fun, Websites (Take 1)

2010-01-17T16:04:00.002-05:00

The Tombstone Birthday Calculator is a useful tool to determine a person’s date of birth when their death date and age are provided (either on a tombstone, in an obituary, a death record, or Bible record). Although it’s called the Tombstone Birthday Calculator, it can calculate a birthday when the age of a person is provided for a point in time (i.e., a census enumeration or a marriage record). I keep this website bookmarked for quick access. It takes away the guess work, and backward counting, to arrive at a person’s date of birth.

On This Day in Weather History is a fun website to explore when looking at events that occurred during your ancestors’ lives. Significant weather events that occurred in the United States as early as the late 1700s are retrieved by entering the month and day, and year if desired, in the search box. Was there a drought, hurricane, or blizzard that affected your ancestor? Did a weather event play into a decision your ancestor made? Explore this website and you may find some clues to answer some questions.

The Food Timeline is a new website in my bookmarks. The website can answer the questions: What did your grandparents eat? How much did your great-grandparents spend on food? What did it cost to eat at a restaurant one hundred years ago? This website won’t break down any brick walls, but it will provide some interesting information about your ancestors’ lives.

More helpful websites can be found on my companion website, Genwriters.

Create a writing schedule you can live with.

2010-01-15T13:18:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, the secret to writing is simply finding (or making) the time to write. Decide how much time each week you want to spend writing your family history. It could be an hour, a few hours, or a whole day. Schedule an appointment with yourself to write and mark it on your calendar.

Think about the best time of day to write. Are you an early riser whose creative juices run rampant along with your morning coffee? Or do you have a clearer mind after lunch? Perhaps you are a night owl who prefers to write into the wee hours of the morning. It doesn’t matter when you write, just that you do. So think about a time of day that would work well, when other demands of your busy life aren’t tugging at you, and write.

Whatever you decide, write your plans into your schedule. Set aside that time. Don’t let the phone, the television, or your friends distract you. Let your phone calls go to voice mail, and the doorbell was probably just a solicitor. You’ll be surprised how much you can write in an undisturbed hour. And every hour brings you closer to your goal of a written family history.

Immerse yourself into your writing, into the lives of your ancestors. You’ll be happy you did when you begin to see the pages of your written family history become a book.

First Things First

2010-01-13T15:13:00.001-05:00

Before I start to write, the first thing I do is make sure everything is in order. All my research gets filed and nothing gets left in the pile. I then sort the documents collected for each person/couple into chronological order. This helps to identify gaps in my research.

Our ancestors’ lives were a sequence of events, each one impacting the next. I spend time reviewing my research and carefully reading each document while looking for a trend, theme, or focus to write about. I look for relationships between my ancestors and their extended family and neighbors. Witnesses on marriage records, neighbors in the census, executors of estates, informants on death records, and those comments in the newspaper society column can all provide relationship clues.

My next step in the pre-writing process is to create a timeline, a chronological list of the events of an ancestor’s life. A timeline helps me to see my subject’s life as a whole, and helps me, again, to see areas of my research that are lacking. The timeline also works as a reality check for assumptions I’ve made.

While these pre-writing activities may seem a bit time consuming at first, they actually save time in the end. Analyzing, and actually reading, the documents I’ve collected makes the writing easier. I’m also able to make the writing more interesting because I find the stories often hidden in the documents.

As you review your documents chronologically, and add pieces of information to the timeline, keep in mind the idea that your ancestor was a piece of a larger whole. Don’t remove him/her from the context of his community.

More detailed instructions for creating a timeline can be found in my How to Create a Timeline document.

What's on my bookshelf?

2010-01-11T15:14:00.002-05:00

What books are on my bookshelf? I don’t mean the bookshelves filled with genealogy and history books in my loft. But what’s on the bookshelf in my office, next to my desk, that I can reach from my chair? What books do I turn to, if not on a daily basis, at least several times a week?

The Chicago Manual of Style is my go-to resource for grammar and syntax questions. When I need help with comma placement, capitalization issues, hyphenation rules, or how to properly show the possessive form of a word, this is the book I turn to. Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace by Elizabeth Shown Mills is the definitive guide for creating source citations. Properly citing your writing cannot be over emphasized - citations let the reader know where your information came from and how you reached your conclusions. This book is perfect for demonstrating citation styles for all those unique resources we genealogists use in our research. A Merriam-Webster dictionary is an absolute must to keep close by. Spell check catches many errors, but when I’m in doubt while typing, I simply reach for the dictionary.

New to my handy reference bookshelf is The Copyeditor’s Handbook. I edit newsletters for several genealogy organizations and this book has helped me to refine my editing skills. These are the same skills any writer can put to use editing his or her own writing. Edit Yourself by Bruce Ross-Larson is a small book filled with tips on how to tighten up your writing. Find the right word to say what you mean, or just take the fat out of your writing. I’m often too wordy and this book helps me to trim my writing to make my point more clear.

One of the books that helped me to pull my writing together into a cohesive volume is Producing a Quality Family History by Patricia Law Hatcher. This book is particularly helpful to me because it offers tips about the technical side of creating a book, such as font selection, page layout, book design, and writing styles and really helped me to visualize the end product.

Last, but not least, is How to do Everything Genealogy by George G. Morgan. I keep this book at my fingertips so it’s easy to grab when I need help with a record group, or if I get stumped in my research. This is the best how-to genealogy book I’ve found.

What’s on your handy genealogy reference shelf next to your desk?

Census Clues

2010-01-09T14:56:00.001-05:00

Two of my Mount Rose Men (Liscomb Titus Blackwell and John Simpson Van Dyke) lived a stone’s throw from each other, separated by just two neighbors. I did a census analysis of their neighborhood, a rural farming community just to the west of Mount Rose. I selected the 1860 and 1880 censuses because they would show the difference in the area between two generations (twenty years). I chose 28 families from both census years, all neighbors surrounding the farms of Liscomb and John.

Many farms in the Mount Rose area in the 1800s were those handed down through the generations, father to son to son, keeping family land within the family. For that reason, I was not surprised to find that 26 (in 1860) and 27 (in 1880) of the heads of household in the census samples were born in New Jersey.

This was a farming community. Away from the towns and villages, the nearly sole occupation was farming related. Twenty-three heads of household in each of the census samples were farmers. The remaining households were headed by laborers, hired hands, housekeepers, and in 1860, one was a widow.

Between 1860 and 1880, the average age of the sample increased (from 25 to 29) while the average number of inhabitants per dwelling decreased (from 6.5 to 5). The total number of those identified as “in school within the year” decreased (from 32 to 24). The average age of head of household also increased from 41 to 49. One-third of the farms did not change hands during the twenty year time span between the censuses as evidenced by their farmers appearing in both census samples. The farmers with large families in 1860 were farmers with grown children who had moved to other parts of the township and county in 1880. This farming neighborhood just outside the crossroad village of Mount Rose was aging.

Liscomb Titus BLACKWELL married Susannah DRAKE. John Simpson VAN DYKE married Caroline TITUS. In the sample of 28 families in the 1880 census I used in this analysis, I found 5 Blackwell households, 2 Drake households, 2 Van Dyke households, and 1 Titus household -- all likely relatives of my Mount Rose Men. I’ll certainly be investigating these leads.

Looking at your ancestors within the context of their community, through an analysis of one or more census years, can provide new clues to the lives they led.

Mount Rose Men - Who Are They?

2010-01-07T14:35:00.002-05:00

The subjects of my next family history book are three of my 3g-grandfathers who lived near the same crossroads community (Mount Rose) in the 1800s. Liscomb Titus Blackwell was the second generation born in this rural community in central New Jersey. John Simpson Van Dyke was a first-born in the first generation born near Mount Rose, his father having migrated from points east. James Thompson Sutphen was also the first generation born near Mount Rose. These three men, born and raised as farm boys, also shared common roots: their great-grandfathers were early settlers in New Netherland who migrated south to central New Jersey.

Liscomb, John, and James were farmers. They were simple men, but each left behind a paper trail. Census records, Bible records, marriage records, deeds, death records, wills, and newspaper accounts have helped me to learn more about these men who were total strangers just ten years ago. Liscomb purchased his father-in-law Nathaniel Drake’s farm that included a distillery. Farmers from near and far brought their apples to the Drake distillery where the apples were pressed into cider and aged into vinegar and apple whiskey. An inventory of the estate of John Van Dyke listed mortgages he held for three sons, a son-in-law, and a brother-in-law. He had prospered as a farmer and was able to lend a financial hand to his family. James had a much smaller farm than other farmers in the area, yet his butter and egg production, according to the 1880 agriculture census, far exceeded that of his neighbors.

My Mount Rose Men (Liscomb, John, and James) also served as deacons for the Old School Baptist church in the neighboring village of Hopewell. It’s fascinating to me to think that three of my 3g-grandfathers lived, worked, and worshipped together. They also died within a span of two years (John in 1894, Liscomb in 1895, and James in 1896).

These are the men I will write about in my next family history book. I have spent the last few years researching them, their children, their grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren. In a rural farming community, neighbors married neighbors who in turn married neighbors resulting in an often-tangled genealogical web. Turns out, Liscomb T. Blackwell and his wife Caroline Titus were first cousins.

My book will also serve as a remembrance of the village of Mount Rose. A few of the old buildings still exist, but the village my Mount Rose Men knew ceased to exist by the early 1900s. I feel drawn, compelled, to tell their stories.

Mount Rose Men

2010-01-04T15:17:00.001-05:00

Three of my mother’s four maternal great-grandfathers farmed near the same crossroads village, Mount Rose, in central New Jersey during the 1800s. (I affectionately call them my Mount Rose Men.) I grew up in a small town (Hopewell) just to the north of Mount Rose and can remember being fascinated by the remnants of that village. There was always a tugging on my heart when we would head out of town and pass by the empty storefronts. Were my great-grandfathers trying to get my attention?

Mount Rose was a prosperous community during the 1800s. It began in 1820 with a single merchant and by the middle of the century boasted a post office, school, wheelwright, blacksmith, general store, two shoe shops, an agricultural implement warehouse, a harness shop, and a small steam sawmill. At the edge of the village was a distillery that was a local center of apple whiskey production during the second half of the nineteenth century. This distillery was owned by the father-in-law of one of my Mount Rose Men. What contributed to the growth of Mount Rose? The stage route between Pennington and Rocky Hill went right through the village bringing a steady stream of people and supplies. Mount Rose was on its way to becoming more than a crossroad village. However, by the 1870s, a new mode of transportation was taking shape. Tracks were laid for the trains -- in nearby Hopewell -- rerouting people from the stage route through Mount Rose to the train route through Hopewell. The trains enabled Hopewell to grow and flourish while the businesses in Mount Rose closed one by one marking the end of an era for the crossroad village.

When doing my research, I’m always interested in learning about the communities in which my ancestors lived. My Mount Rose Men weren’t islands. They were an integral part of their community. They built relationships with their neighbors who surrounded Mount Rose. I have a better understanding of their lives when I know more about their community. I’m fortunate that there are historians in the Hopewell area that have written a few books: “Hopewell: A Historical Geography” by Richard W. Hunter and Richard L. Porter, published by the Township of Hopewell Historic Sites Committee; “Hopewell Valley Heritage” by Alice Blackwell Lewis, published by the Hopewell Museum; and “Pioneers of Old Hopewell” by Ralph Ege, published by the Hopewell Museum. The latter book (published in 1908) is widely available in full-text online.

Are there local history books available for your towns and villages? Seek out the holdings of museums and historical societies. Learning about the towns your ancestors lived in will help you to learn more about your ancestors.

Happy 2010

2010-01-01T08:04:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year!

My pastor made an interesting comment during last week’s sermon: New Year’s resolutions focus on the negative. We resolve to lose weight, begin an exercise program, or spend more time with friends and family - in other words, we promise to right a wrong in our lives. Then we fail once again when we break that resolution by the end of January.

This year I’m not making a New Year’s resolution. Instead I’m focusing on setting some personal goals for the coming year. One of those goals is to grow this blog to reach more readers and encourage them to write their family’s stories. Another goal is to complete my next writing project. I’m going to focus positive energy toward fulfilling those goals.

Those who have been reading this blog know that a 2009 goal of mine was to give my mother a family history book about her paternal Rorer line for Christmas. I met that goal and she was thrilled, and surprised, to receive the book. And I was proud of the completed work. Seeing the book in print, and the look on her face when she opened it, was all the spark I needed to begin planning a book about my mother’s maternal Blackwell line. My goal is to complete it in 2010. It’s a hefty task, but I’m goal oriented and love the challenge. You’ll be hearing much more about this new writing project during the coming months.

What are your goals for 2010?

Traditions

2009-12-17T09:57:00.001-05:00

What holiday traditions does your family have? Are there foods made only during holiday time? Do you have a special Christmas morning breakfast? Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? Is a candlelight Christmas Eve service part of your holiday? What are your favorite cookie recipes? What sights, sounds, and smells evoke a Christmas feeling in you?

When my children were young, I made a felt-board Nativity with a figure for each day during Advent. The Christmas story is told throughout the month as camels, wise men, sheep, a donkey, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and the star are added. My daughter is continuing that tradition with my grandson.

My mother started a tradition of buying a dated Christmas tree ornament each year for my daughters. Although I’m not so sure they appreciated those ornaments when they were young children, the ornaments are treasured Christmas memories now. Many of the ornaments depicted a current phase in their lives (like the tennis-playing Santa).

As we pass our traditions to the next generation, be sure to share the stories that surround them. Write them down so they will not be lost. It’s our traditions that give us the greatest sense of family.

The Nitty-Gritty

2009-12-09T13:21:00.001-05:00

During interview sessions with my mother over the past year, I would dig into the nitty-gritty of everyday life while she was growing up in a small town. I was interested in the achievements of my mom and her parents but was more interested in the nuances that made up their day-to-day lives. I wanted to understand what made them “tick.”

I discovered my mother has a true affection for lima beans. Who knew? That’s one vegetable I can certainly live without, but for her, they’re a treat. She also loved horses as a child and always wanted one of her own. As a teenage she took riding lessons. I never knew this because she gave up her equestrian activities before I was born. One of her favorite songs from the Big Band era is “String of Pearls” by Glenn Miller. I must confess that since I, too, have discovered the joys of that era, that is one of my favorite songs. And her father called her “Bill.”

Imagine your grandmother had left a diary, what would you most like to read in it? Keep those thoughts in mind while writing about your own life to pass on to your children and grandchildren. Remember to share those things which might seem humdrum to you. Your family will enjoy reading about your daily doings and inner thoughts.

Write your life

2009-12-06T14:54:00.002-05:00

This past week I worked on compiling my mother’s life story from our interviews and chats over the years. She’s been very good about sharing stories about her immediate and extended family. The more we talk, the more she remembers. I’d often start a session with a question and that would send her down memory lane. Some of her stories have come from her own hand while others were committed to paper by me. I put the stories and anecdotes in chronological order and created a first-person narrative. Because I was interjecting my own subjective comments and emphasis, I wanted to be sure she had a chance to review it before it become a part of my Rorer family history book. She gave it her stamp of approval yesterday with just two minor tweaks.

When I was deep into organizing my notes last week, I suddenly remembered that she had filled out a “grandmother book” for my daughter several years ago. It’s one of those books with memory jogs and blank spaces to help share life’s memories. It’s a treasured possession for my daughter because it’s completed by hand by her grandmother. I enjoyed reading it because there were tidbits throughout that I had never heard from her before. I especially like the comment she made about her paternal grandfather: “My grandfather Rorer always treated me as an adult and listened to my childish prattle.” I also enjoyed reading about her first boyfriend, and no, that wasn’t my father.

Reading the “grandmother book” my mother completed for my daughter got me thinking. We’re so busy writing the stories of our ancestors, but who’s writing our stories. Are you taking the time to write about your own life? Perhaps our greatest legacy is to leave behind a little of ourselves by writing about our lives, our thoughts, and our feelings.

An easy way to get started writing your life is to complete a grandmother/grandfather or mother/father book. There is a wide variety of books available but they all have a common approach: writing jogs with space to write. What a wonderful Christmas gift for your children and/or grandchildren.

Grandmother’s Memories: To Her Grandchild
For My Grandchild: A Grandmother’s Gift of Memory
Grandpa, Tell Me Your Memories
A Father’s Legacy: Your Life Story In Your Own Words
Reflections From a Mother’s Heart

Make it a Habit

2009-11-21T18:51:00.001-05:00

Sometimes life has a way of interrupting the best laid plans. Obligations and distractions get in the way of those things we want to do. Usually if there’s something we want to do, we find the time as long as it’s easy and enjoyable. And the key to making sure there’s time for the project and activities we enjoy, we need to make them a habit.

I fell out of the habit this week of writing … and blogging. Life happens. Other obligations came to the forefront and my writing was pushed into the background.

I’m usually much more disciplined. In fact, I hadn’t realized that writing was a habit until it went missing in my life. To start (or restart) the habit of writing, make a date with yourself to write. Add it to your written schedule or to-do list. Daily. You don’t need to reserve huge chunks of time to sequester yourself at your computer to write. Fifteen minutes here, a half hour there … it all adds up. Some of my most productive writing is done is those otherwise wasted moments during the day. As with anything that’s important, if we want to do it, we’ll find the time.

Writing will remain one of my daily habits. Funny thing - I feel closest to my ancestors when I’m writing about them, when I focus on one ancestor, or one family group, and write about their lives. I wonder what they would think of my habit.

Tombstone Tuesday, Take 7

2009-11-17T11:18:00.001-05:00

The Lower Bermudian Lutheran Church Church and cemetery are located just south of the town of Bermudian, Latimore Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania, on Lake Mead Road. My daughters and I visited this cemetery in the summer of 2001. Two generations of our Asper forebears are buried in this cemetery.

In addition to snapping individual pictures of the tombstones, I took this picture showing the location of the the burial plots. In the foreground, Kristen is standing next to the tombstones of Johannes Asper (1763-1835) and his wife Barbara (1770-1836). In the background (closer to the church building), Traci is standing next to the tombstones of Hans Gerg Asper (1726-1804) and his wife Elisabeth (1731-1802). My purposes for taking this photo were (1) the show the relative location of each burial plot, and (2) to help me to find the tombstones when I’m fortunate to make a return trip to the cemetery.

Perfectionism is overrated

2009-11-16T14:01:00.000-05:00

I’m a perfectionist. That doesn’t mean everything I do is perfect. I want everything to be perfect and will often get so caught up in the details of perfection that some things never get done. That has been the case (over and over again) in getting my Rorer family history written and in the form I want to share with my family.

I’ve researched my Rorer line for many years and have notebooks filled with census records, birth records, marriage certificates, death certificates, deeds, wills, agriculture census, tax records, newspaper articles, and much more. I have visited ancestral homes, and walked numerous cemeteries. What kept me from writing was knowing there was more to be found. My research wasn’t complete, it wasn’t “perfect.” But then, earlier this year it hit me. I’ll never be done researching. There will always be something more. Once I realized that, it was easier to start writing. I’ve been writing for a year now and have six generations of stories to share with my family.

I am now using a page layout program to create a book complete with photos and images. And again this week, I fell into that “perfectionist” trap. I began to doubt whether it was too early to publish my research; should I wait until my next research trip to New Jersey when I KNOW I will uncover more details about my Rorer family? However, there are no immediate plans for that research trip. I had to tell myself this week, in no uncertain terms, that the time to publish is now. I have gathered an abundance of research for six generations of Rorers. I have interviewed my mother time and again to harvest family stories. I have uncovered countless other stories during my research. Yes, the time to publish is now. It won’t be perfect. And when I find new information, I’ll add it to my file for the second edition of the Rorer family history.

This week, in overcoming that flawed perfectionist streak that runs through me, I had to take a step back and think about what is the most important thing about this project. It is sharing the stories and the research I have completed with my family. I was reignited this week and am keeping my eye on the goal.

Veteran Stories

2009-11-11T09:22:00.001-05:00

Have you captured the military stories of your family? Perhaps you’ve discovered Revolutionary War or Civil War ancestors and have gathered information about their service to our country. But what about our veterans from more recent service who are still with us? At my daughter’s request several years ago, my husband wrote about his experiences in the service during the Vietnam War. She treasures these memories, told from his point of view and written in his hand.

My father did not serve in the military. He received a deferment because he was a farmer. During World War II, he served his country by providing for the daily needs of his farming community.

My grandfather served in France in The Great War. I have pieced together stories about his tour of service from his military service record, background information about his unit found on Google Books, three letters he wrote home that were published in the local newspaper, and a few stories passed down through his daughter to me. I wrote about him in the blog post, “Do you have the right spelling?” I’m thankful for the stories that have survived, but how wonderful it would be to have his thoughts and impressions about his experiences in his own voice and handwriting.

Does your family have undocumented military memories? Today, on this Veterans Day, take a moment to thank the servicemen you know who served our country. Then talk to your family members about their experiences in the military. Write their stories down so they will not be lost.

Rorer/Rohrer

2009-11-09T17:46:00.001-05:00

I spent the weekend in activities that aren’t a part of my genealogy life. It was a fun time with family and friends. And while it’s important to relax and clear my mind, I missed writing. For two days, I didn’t write a word. Today, I found myself craving some time at the computer, time with my ancestral family, time to learn and write more about them.

What better way to start off a Monday than with Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge. Even though Saturday night has come and gone, I can’t resist this challenge. Randy challenged us to find out the geographical distribution of our surname and suggested using the Public Profiler website at http://www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/. I’m going to take him up on the challenge using the surname I am currently writing about: Rorer (Rohrer).

I first searched on the surname Rorer (as my mother, her father, her grandfather, and her great-grandfather spell it). I was surprised to find that internationally, that spelling was found only in northwest Italy, southeast England, and Wales. In the United States, the highest concentration of Rorers is found in Kentucky. The top cities were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Cynthiana, Kentucky.

Our immigrant ancestor, Heinrich Rohrer, spelled the surname with an “h.” In my direct ancestral line, the “h” was dropped by the third generation in America (during the early 1800s).

I returned to the Public Profiler website to search on the original spelling: Rohrer. This spelling resulted in many more instances in both the United States and Europe. The highest concentration of Rohrers, worldwide, is in Switzerland. Heinrich Rohrer emigrated from Switzerland. In the United States, there are Rohrers is every state except Vermont and Rhode Island.

What did I learn from this exercise? While I assumed it was commonplace that the “h” was dropped from the Rohrer surname in America, that is not the case. The spelling with the “h” is much more commonplace in the United States and worldwide. There continues to be a high concentration of Rorer/Rohrers in the Philadelphia area, the region in which Heinrich Rohrer settled. Several of Heinrich’s grandchildren migrated west and settled in and around Cynthiana, Kentucky, during the late 1800s. Seeing the high concentration of Rorers in Cynthiana leads me to believe I must have some cousins I haven’t met yet. I see an opportunity here ….

Finding Cousins

2009-11-05T14:36:00.003-05:00

I found a new cousin while double-checking one of my census sources. The Ancestry index for David S. Rorer in the 1860 census was transcribed incorrectly. A correction was submitted by Matt, and when I contacted him to thank him for making the correction, I discovered his 2g-grandfather was a brother of my 2g-grandfather. Matt is not the first cousin I’ve found online; but, there have only been a couple before him. When he responded to my e-mail, he sent along a picture of my 2g-grandfather. I’m sure you all heard my squeal of excitement. There’s just something about a photo that makes our ancestors more tangible.

I couldn’t wait to show the picture to my mother. When I stopped by to visit her today, I handed her a printout of the photograph and asked if she recognized the man in the photo. She studied it while thinking out loud, “There’s something about those eyes.” She stared at it some more and I told her it’s a picture of Frank’s father. (Frank was my mother’s grandfather). She said, “Of course, those are Frank’s eyes.”

Don’t you just love looking at old photos of your ancestors while searching for a family resemblance to them?

Keep looking for those living cousins. They are your family, too. And they just might have some information that will make you do the Genealogy Happy Dance.

Tombstone Tuesday, Take 6

2009-11-03T09:52:00.002-05:00

My tombstone Tuesday entry this week is the Ziegler’s Church graveyard outside Newville, Mifflin Township, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. The church is no longer standing, but the cemetery lays quietly on a country road surrounded by open fields.

I went in search of this cemetery during a 2004 genealogy journey. It was the “cemetery vacation.” My daughters and I walked more than a dozen cemeteries during that two-week period. Ziegler’s Church graveyard is one of those little “by the road” cemeteries that, if you didn’t know it was there, you’d never find it. I found directions to the cemetery online and we set out, not knowing what we’d find. From Newville, take Route 233 north, cross a creek bridge, left at a crossroads, bear right at the sharp turn (the road changes names here), under the turnpike bridge, over a small stream, then a left turn after cresting a small grade. This was how the directions were written. And they were spot on accurate. We drove right to the cemetery which turned out to be a gold mine for our Asper ancestors. The immediate and extended families of George Asper (1798-1865) and his wife Salome (1797-1871) are buried here. It was a thrilling day.

Don't stop writing

2009-11-02T13:58:00.001-05:00

I’m in the final stages of editing the Rorer family history that covers six generations (from my maternal grandfather, Herbert F. Rorer, back to the immigrant, Henry Rorer). Although this book has been many years in the making, it’s only been during the last year that it really took shape. It took me a while to settle down and begin writing. There’s always one more book to be found, one more document to retrieve, one more repository to visit. I would start writing, then find a hole in my research. That would send me on the hunt for the missing information. My early attempts at writing led to more research, not more writing. Not that it’s a bad thing, but finally I just had to draw a line in the sand and say, “I’m going to write what I have.”

And I’m glad I did.

Over the past year I focused on the writing. I still got sidetracked with research opportunities, but I kept my goal (a Rorer family history for my mother) in front of me and quickly returned to the writing. I also focused on more interviews with my mother. I’m fortunate that my mother is alive and remembers things about her parents and grandparents. I would discover new family stories from my mother, and I would also discover tidbits in the historic newspapers that triggered her memory, then I wrote those stories and shared them with her. She became my editor without even realizing it. She just enjoyed reading the stories as I wrote them. And all the while, I kept writing.

Yesterday I was editing my writing and couldn’t get past a full page of text. Why? Because I kept searching Ancestry, Footnote, and Google Books … just one more time. I had to draw myself back in. If I’m going to complete this book (with pictures, maps, and images) in time for Christmas, I have to keep my eye on the goal. There’s time for more research, and there will always be more to research. There can be a Rorer Family History, Second Edition, down the road. But right now, I want to finish the first edition so my family can enjoy learning about their Rorer ancestors.

When there is no story

2009-10-30T14:03:00.001-04:00

I’m working on a surprise for my mother for Christmas: a 6-generation family history of her paternal Rorer line. She has been helping me over the past few years with family stories she remembers. I’ve discovered many more in the pages of the hometown newspapers. She’s even read some of my drafts. What she doesn’t realize is that I’m planning to assemble the stories of all six generations, with photos and images, have it bound, and give it to her in two months. It’s going to be tight, but I work best against deadlines.

What about those early generations from which stories have not descended and original source documents are few? The immigrant ancestor of the Rorer line, Henry Rorer, was born in 1718 in Basel, Switzerland, and came to America in 1740. My source documentation for Henry includes his tombstone, last will and testament, several years of tax records, scant records from his church, and a published ship’s list with the name “Heinrich Rorer.” There’s no story evident in any of the documentation.

The real story of Henry Rorer is his emigration from Switzerland. Why did he leave? Did he travel with family or alone? And what faced him when he set foot in America? Where did he go when he got to Philadelphia? Instead of searching for Henry Rorer specifically, I looked for sources that spoke about Swiss emigration in the early eighteenth century. A wonderful book, Lists of Swiss Emigrants in the Eighteenth Century to the American Colonies by Albert Bernhardt Faust, provided significant information about the plight of these people. Henry is not mentioned by name in the book, but I can use the information to research the conditions in Switzerland at that time and the stories of others who emigrated at the same time.

After Henry arrived in Philadelphia, he settled in Frankford, a small community to the northeast of center city Philadelphia that has now been consumed by the city. Tax records gave me his home location. But I learned about the village of Frankford in the mid-eighteenth century from a most unlikely source: One Hundred Years of the Presbyterian Church of Frankford by The Rev. Thomas Murphy. I found the full text of this book on Google Books.

Think outside the box. There just might be a story where you thought there was none.

Probably, Possibly, Likely, Maybe

2009-10-28T13:12:00.001-04:00

Writing my family’s stories forces to me scrutinize my research, one person at a time. As I review the documents gathered, gaps in my research are highlighted. I’m also able to look at the body of research and make some assumptions. But those assumptions are never written as fact. They are always preceded by words such as: probably, possibly, likely, unlikely, maybe.

When I wrote the story about my grandparents’ courtship and marriage, I asked my mother if she knew how her parents met. She does not know. Looking at all the documents and newspaper clippings I offered some theories in my writing on how Herbert and Clara Rorer might have met. Maybe they met at church since they attended the same church. Possibly their paths crossed because their parents lived around the corner from each other. They probably shared some friends because they lived in a small town for about a year before their engagement announcement. As I write their story, I can speculate about how my grandparents met. In doing so, I can highlight aspects of their lives in the early 1920s.

I never speculate or hypothesize without the modifiers: probably, possibly, likely, unlikely, maybe. And I make sure that the footnote explains my hypothesis, the documents I’m using to form that hypothesis, and the reasoning behind my theory. There may be information discovered at a later time that will confirm or refute my hypothesis. The footnote explains how I reached my conclusion so a future researcher will know my theory was just that - a theory.

Tombstone Tuesday, Take 5

2009-10-27T10:07:00.003-04:00

I’ve been writing and blogging about my great-grandfather Francis C. W. Rorer, so I thought it appropriate to share his tombstone as today’s Tombstone Tuesday entry.

Francis, known as Frank, lived to be 96 years old. He was born in the middle of the Civil War (in 1863) and died at the start of the space race (1960). I would give anything to be able to sit down with him today and discuss all the changes he saw during his lifetime. Frank had two careers. He worked for the railroad for many years as a fireman on the trains between Philadelphia, PA, and Princeton, NJ, where he lived. Then, at age 50, he went to mortuary school and became a licensed funeral director. He purchased an existing business and moved the family to neighboring Hopewell, NJ, where he worked his second career for another thirty years.

Frank and his wife Ella are buried at the Brainerd Cemetery in Cranbury, New Jersey. Their tombstones are located at the back of the cemetery facing a wooded lot. Their daughter Sarah and her husband Walter Hoffman are buried next to them while their daughter Anna and her husband Frank Smith are buried behind them.

Saturday Night Fun, Take 3

2009-10-24T19:27:00.001-04:00

This week Randy Seaver charged us with identifying a unique, strange, or funny combination of a given name and last name in our ancestry. While my choice isn’t strange or necessarily funny, it is unique. And it has a certain rhythm and flow when you say it out loud.

Solomon Whisler, my paternal 2g-grandfather, was born on 1 March 1839 near Orrstown, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. He lived his entire life in Franklin County and neighboring Cumberland County. On 2 September 1859 he married Rebecca Jane Cover (Coover). He worked as a plasterer and was well known throughout the area for his trade.

During a 2004 research trip to the area, I went in search of Solomon Whisler’s home. The 1900 census gave his address as 224 Garfield Street in Shippensburg, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Driving along a tree-lined city street with rows of two-story wood houses, I passed each house reading the numbers aloud, 218 … 220 … 222 … 226 … Stop! The number 224 was missing! Between the house numbered 222 and the house numbered 226 was a narrow empty lot. A gentleman (whom I’ll call Mr. G), sitting on the front porch of his home at 222 Garfield Street, provided some answers. The house at 224 Garfield Street burned around Valentine’s Day 1966. Mr. G purchased the vacant lot to add a carport to the north side of his house.

The icing on the cake in this story is that hidden away in Mr. G’s safe deposit box were copies of every deed for 224 Garfield Street beginning with Solomon and Rebecca’s purchase of the new home in 1893. Mr. G graciously photocopied all of the deeds for me.

Book Review: "Breathe Life Into Your Life Story"

2009-10-23T21:11:00.004-04:00

Dawn and Morris Thurston have written a book, Breathe Life Into Your Life Story: How to write a story people will want to read, that is filled with helpful advice and examples to help the reader create an interesting, well-written life story. They have presented a methodical approach to putting your thoughts and stories on paper. This book will be helpful to those who have always wanted to write their life story but never had the courage to pick up a pen. It also serves the experienced writer well with ideas, hints, and tips to overcome a writer’s block hurdle.

The book begins with a “pep talk,” a chapter filled with encouraging words. The authors demonstrate that by following a plan, and using this book for guidance, the reader will become a writer. Everyone has a story to share. With encouragement, these stories can be written and preserved.

The authors offer an abundance of quality writing examples throughout the book. These examples serve to accentuate the points made in each chapter. Many how-to books tell the reader how to write. This book offers numerous examples of good writing throughout each chapter that demonstrate each principle. These examples illustrate the authors’ point of showing your readers the details of your life through your life story rather than merely superficially telling a story. Showing involves action and vivid descriptions. This principle of “showing” resonates throughout the book.

The authors have created a guide to help the reader to “learn by doing.” There are several dozen specific tips offered throughout the book that will provide impetus for moving pen on paper. These tips, offered in grayed boxes, correlate with each chapter’s theme. They allow the book’s reader to apply principles learned in each chapter to immediate practice. Appendix A provides a complete list of these learn-by-doing exercises.

Dawn and Morris Thurston have written a useful manual. Their years of experience in writing, and helping others to write, shine through in the pages of Breathe Life Into Your Life Story. If you have been thinking of writing your life story, or even if the thought has not crossed your mind, this book will provide the encouragement and the guidance to put your life stories on paper. Your grandchildren will be glad you did.

Writing can help your research

2009-10-22T13:39:00.001-04:00

Writing our family history is a natural extension of our genealogy research. But the act of writing can actually improve our research. Yes, writing our ancestors’ stories can help us with our genealogy research. The process of writing forces us to examine each document more carefully, to pull clues from each source to find the truth behind the story. We scrutinize and analyze, and in the process we find discrepancies that went unnoticed in earlier brief encounters with the source. We also find facts hidden in the words, facts that slipped past us because we either (1) never fully examined the source, or (2) were so tunnel-vision focused on one aspect of the source that we missed a clue that, at the time, wasn’t relevant to our current search.

I have had many “aha” moments during my writing sessions. One recent discrepancy caught me totally off guard, and I’m embarrassed that this one slipped past me. While making notes to write a story about my 2g-grandfather Charles Herbert, I discovered an extra daughter. I had gathered names of three daughters (from his first marriage) from census records. But as I read (really read) the deed for the sale of his land after his death (he died intestate so all surviving children were identified in the deed) there were FOUR daughters listed. This slipped right past me when I first got the deed last year. I was so intrigued reading the text surrounding the sheriff’s sale that was included in the deed that I overlooked the names of his daughters. I already knew the names of his daughters (or so I thought), so I didn’t focus my attention there. It wasn’t until I was using the source for my writing that I read it carefully enough to find this discrepancy, which of course led me to do more research.

Writing and research go hand-in-hand. I can’t do one without the other.

Who is your audience?

2009-10-21T09:18:00.001-04:00

My first attempts at writing my family’s history were shredded long ago. I was scattered and unfocused, attempting to share all my research gathered on all my ancestors in one tidy volume. I had many false starts. The project was too large. I lost sight of the reason I wanted to write in the first place.

The overriding reason I want to write my family history is to preserve my research and share it with my family. In doing so, I can (hopefully) ensure that my research will not be lost. But I had to come up with a workable plan to accomplish that goal. My false starts had gotten me nowhere, except to point out how NOT to accomplish my goal.

That’s when it hit me. Who’s my audience? Who am I writing for? I’m not writing the next best-selling novel. I’m writing for my family. I’m writing for my family now living, and my future descendants. And it’s important to me to write something they’ll actually read (and enjoy reading).

Once I determined who my audience was (my family) the writing got a whole lot easier. Now when I write, I “speak” to them. I write about things they’ll find interesting. I focus on the stories, building context, bringing life to our ancestors. I write about their communities, their neighbors, and their friends. And I break off small branches from the tree to focus on at one time. Now, I can’t stop writing …

Tombstone Tuesday, Take 4

2009-10-20T09:43:00.005-04:00

For today’s Tombstone Tuesday entry I chose my 5g-grandfather, Captain David Baird. He died on 25 December 1839 at the age of 85 and is buried in the cemetery at the Old Tennent Church in Tennent, Monmouth County, New Jersey.

I’m amused every time I look at a picture of David’s tombstone because I remember well the day that, together with my daughters, we went on a search for the church and cemetery. David is a much-researched Revolutionary War veteran so it was easy to find information about his burial place. The Old Tennent church dates back to the early eighteenth century. Photos of this early church show a small cemetery along one side of a white church. I added this cemetery to my list of places to visit on a 2002 research trip to New Jersey.

As we neared the church and rounded a corner in the road, we saw a white church that was surrounded a cemetery that covered ACRES. In my innocence, I had neglected to contact the church or cemetery before my visit. Where to start looking for David’s tombstone among the jungle of tombstones? Several other cemeteries during that trip were small and walkable. This cemetery was massive. We stopped in to see the cemetery caretaker. It was lunchtime, and fortunately he had delayed his lunch that day for some reason so he was still in his office when we arrived. As soon as I mentioned the name I was looking for, he pointed me in the right direction.

Lesson learned: Do some research before visiting a cemetery. Check hours of operation and talk to someone associated with the cemetery. We would have left that day without a photograph of David’s tombstone had it not been for the caretaker’s delayed lunch hour.

Saturday Night Fun, Take 2

2009-10-18T15:20:00.002-04:00

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musing offered up an intriguing challenge for this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. He challenges us to choose a set of great-grandparents, then tell how many descendants, living or dead, are in each generation from those great-grandparents. Of those, how many have we met or exchanged family information with?

I chose my great-grandfather Francis C. W. Rorer for this challenge. Although he has the fewest descendants of any of my great-grandfathers, I am actively researching and writing about my Rorer family line at this time.

My great-grandfather Francis C. W. Rorer was born on 7 December 1863 in Southampton Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and died ninety-six years later on 18 June 1960 in Princeton, Mercer County, New Jersey. He was married on 25 November 1886 to Ella Applegate Herbert. She was born on 7 July 1864 at Hightstown, Mercer County, New Jersey, and died on 9 April 1948 at Hopewell, Mercer County, New Jersey.

Their descendants and number by generation:
Children = 3 (Sarah, Anna, Herb)
Grandchildren = 4
Great-grandchildren = 12
Great-great-grandchildren = 3* (that I’m aware of)
3rd great-grandchildren = 3* (that I’m aware of, and one on the way)

My mother was an only child, so I have no first cousins on her side of the family. After her father died (when I was a young child), our visits with his side of the family became scarce. I have few memories of my grandfather’s sisters, although I know we visited them occasionally. I have one faint memory (image) of my great-grandfather sitting in a wheelchair with a lap blanket. I was quite young when he passed on.

It’s easy to see why I’ve been on my own researching this family line. With so few descendants there is less opportunity to find other researchers researching the same line. It’s not until I get to my great-grandfather’s great-grandfather than I begin to find other Rorer researchers with common threads.

I have tried in recent years to contact my mother’s cousins and their descendants, but to no avail. Herb’s sister Anna was the family historian and presumably has some family information, but to date I have not been able to get a response from her family. I’ll keep trying. This Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge was a good reminder to me not to give up contacting living relatives.

Do Source Citations Matter?

2009-10-15T09:20:00.001-04:00

I spent yesterday afternoon adding footnotes (source citations) to a story I wrote several years ago about my immigrant ancestor. It’s a project I’ve been putting off for some time. But yesterday, armed with a fresh pot of coffee and a “gotta get it done” attitude, I tackled the project.

Do source citations matter? The short answer is “yes.”

When I wrote the story of my 1700s immigrant ancestor’s journey from his homeland in Switzerland to Philadelphia, I included no source citations. Every fact in the story came from a piece of documentation in my possession but I didn’t include that source information when I wrote the story. Now, several years later, I’m working to add the sourcing as an afterthought. At the end of the day there were several facts for which I could not determine where the information came from. I had to have seen it somewhere, but now, I can’t locate that piece of paper.

Sourcing matters. Sourcing adds credibility to your writing. Sourcing tells the reader where the information came from, and helps the reader work back to the original source. Sourcing also helps the writer. I wrote the immigrant story many years ago. As I read the story and searched for the source documentation, I found myself able to add to the story. Other clues from the source documents became important, and questions arose in my mind sending me searching for new documentation to build a richer story.

Are you sourcing your writing? Trust me. It’s easier to “source as you write” than to go back, years later, and search for the supporting documentation.

Tombstone Tuesday, Take 3

2009-10-13T08:54:00.002-04:00

For today’s Tombstone Tuesday entry I selected the tombstone of my 2g-grandfather’s brother. The tombstone serves as a reminder that sometimes the only evidence of a child born is that child’s marker in a cemetery. I have found no other evidence of Charles Van Dyke who is buried with his parents Wesley T. Van Dyke and Anna C. Voorhees in the Old School Baptist churchyard in Hopewell, New Jersey. In the 1910 Federal Population Census, Anna answered the enumerator that she was the mother of four children and three were still living. Charles was born between census enumerations, and a record of his birth has not been found in the available New Jersey vital records. Neither Wesley nor Anna’s obituary mentions the child, either. The only evidence of the baby boy is the inscription on his parents’ tombstone.

Just Do It

2009-10-12T15:24:00.000-04:00

Writing for me is therapeutic. It hasn’t always been so. I’ve always wanted to write the ultimate, complete family history, a volume that would share my genealogy research findings with the world. I just never quite got to putting anything down on paper. The scope of the project was too intimidating. I figured the project was so big it would never be completed, so I never started. That all changed a few years ago when I realized my written family history doesn’t need to be, nor should it be, and epic all-encompassing tale of the lives of the thousands of ancestors and collaterals I have researched. What’s important in a family history is … the family.

My current project is writing about my mother’s paternal direct line back to her 4g-grandfather who emigrated from Switzerland. This has turned out to be a much more digestible bite from the family tree. The past few weeks have been spent finalizing the stories about her father, Herbert Rorer, and grandfather, Francis C. W. Rorer. My mother has been most helpful in providing family stories for me to research, and fact checking other stories I’ve happened upon during my research.

Once I got past the idea that my research needed to be complete before the writing could begin, I discovered that I have plenty to write about. When I started writing, seriously writing the stories, the writing started to flow. I began to see that the project wasn’t insurmountable. I now have a final draft for Herbert. A satisfying moment came the other day after I gave a copy to my daughter to read. She loved it. That’s all this writer needed to hear to keep going.

My lessons learned: (1) Start writing the stories of your nearer ancestors before the connecting generation passes on. My mother has been valuable in helping me with the Rorer family history. (2) The best way to start writing is to start writing. The more you write, the more you will write.

Saturday Night Fun, Take 1

2009-10-10T18:33:00.002-04:00

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings posts a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic each week for bloggers to comment on. This week he charges us to write about a “Satisfying Genealogy Moment” from our family history and genealogy research.

My thoughts went immediately to my grandfather, Herbert Rorer. As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, he died when I was four years old. But through my genealogy research, and the writing down of family stories, I have gotten to know my grandfather as I never knew him. If I were not a genealogist, it’s possible I might never have gotten to this point. So, my most satisfying genealogy moment is really a series of moments as I have discovered my grandfather and gotten to know him by researching his family’s history and writing the family stories as passed down through his daughter, my mother.

Where to start

2009-10-08T09:36:00.001-04:00

Where do you begin writing your stories? How do you choose an ancestor to begin your writing adventure? Ask yourself a few simple questions to help identify that starting point:

Is there one ancestor or relative that stands out in your mind as being interesting and/or intriguing? Begin with a story about those interesting characteristics and how they shaped your ancestor’s life.
Did one of your ancestors have an interesting tale about his or her immigration? Write the story.
Did one of your ancestors have a unique line of work? Describe that occupation and how your ancestor might have come to learn it. Did your ancestor’s children follow his footsteps in that line of work?
Does one of your ancestors come from an interesting locale? Describe the city, town, or region and the impact living there might have had on your ancestor.
Did your ancestor belong to a civic or fraternal organization? Research that organization. What role did your ancestor play in the organization?

I began my writing journey with my grandfather (my mother’s father). He died when I was four years old so my memories of him are few. I have one vivid memory of him. We were standing in the kitchen and I’m looking up at the towering figure standing in front of my, reaching to be picked up. He was a large, teddy bear sort of fellow. He was actually about five feet ten inches tall - not a tall man by adult standards, but a giant to four-year-old eyes.

I chose my grandfather to begin my writing journey because there were several tales my mother shared about him while I was growing up. I wanted to document those tales by creating stories that were supported by documentation. As I write the stories and share them with my mother, she remembers more details that can then be added to the stories. My mother is thrilled that the stories are being preserved. And I’m getting to know my grandfather through the process of writing his stories.

Tombstone Tuesday, Take 2

2009-10-06T09:17:00.001-04:00

This is the monument for my 2g-grandfather, Charles H. Herbert. He is buried with his wife at Brainerd Cemetery in Cranbury, New Jersey.

The monument reads: Charles H. Herbert, born 1817- died 1896. Sarah A. Wyckoff, wife of Charles H. Herbert, born 1830 - died 1919.

There are four sides to the monument. Two sides are blank. On the other inscribed side is the following inscription: James Harkness, died Oct. 16, 1904. Cornelia Laning, wife of James Harkness, died March 31, 1909.

I don’t know the relationship between the two couples. They share a monument so there must have been some type of relationship. At this point, I’m assuming they were neighbors and friends. I continue to research, looking for clues.

Old Newspapers Add Context

2009-10-05T08:34:00.003-04:00

I love doing research in old newspapers. My mother’s family lived in a small town in New Jersey for many generations. The newspaper for that community, the Hopewell Herald, was microfilmed many years ago and is available at the New Jersey State Archives. I was able to interlibrary loan those microfilms from New Jersey and spent countless hours perusing the fascinating pages. A few years ago during a random search on Ancestry.com, I discovered those microfilmed newspapers had been digitized and were available online. I shouted with joy. No more waiting for microfilm reels to arrive at my local library, no more hours at a microfilm reader. Now I could access those pages from the comfort of my office, any time, day or night.

The Hopewell Herald is available for the years 1881-1954 (when the newspaper officially changed its name to the Hopewell Valley News). There are missing issues and gaps in the coverage for this time period, but for the most part, it’s a reasonably complete collection. I’ve gleaned many tidbits of information about my family from reading the newspapers. A few of the morsels I’ve learned about my grandfather:

While I have one letter my grandfather wrote home when he served in World War I, text from three other letters appeared in the newspaper.
He was one of the founding members of the Lions Club in town.
He served on the school board for many years during the 1930s and 1940s.
He was active in his church taking part in its social organizations and serving on the building committee. He also was elected to serve three years on the governing board of the local church.
He served on the Memorial Day parade committee (as part of the American Legion) on the finance committee and as a one-time president.
He was a local business owner (hardware store) and there were many articles about his business.
Visits out of town were mentioned. One particular mention of a visit to Kentucky to visit relatives helped to locate a “lost” uncle.

Historical newspapers are filled with tidbits about our ancestors’ lives. Newspapers can provide information not found anywhere else. By researching local history through newspapers, you are learning about your family’s community. These details add context to your family history and provide clues to further research opportunities.

Why wait? Write now.

2009-10-02T20:06:00.000-04:00

I have been working, intensely, on my mother’s paternal line for several years. A few research trips to New Jersey have netted deeds, city directories, wills, photos, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and death certificates. Several cemeteries have been explored and headstones for several generations have been located, photographed, and documented. Online databases have been checked and rechecked. Each new piece of information answers a question, provides verification of a perceived fact, or sometimes raises new questions or conflicts with other documents in my possession. All of my gathering has been just that … gathering. I’ve been hesitant to write the stories because I might discover a new fact tomorrow. The next trip to New Jersey will certainly help to uncover more documents. But that trip to New Jersey isn’t even on my radar screen right now.

I made a decision. Rather than waiting until I’m done researching (that’s a silly thought in the world of genealogy!!!), to start writing now. I’ve already written a few stories supporting family lore. Now is the time to pull them out, dust them off, and weave them together with other information gathered on the family. I’ve set a goal to write the Rorer family history and to share it with my family. I will probably discover research opportunities along the way - missing information, conflicting information, or just a need to clarify some information. But I’m going to focus on the goal and work through the conflicts. In the end I will have something that will last longer than those notebooks of documents and family group sheets. And that something will be a lot more interesting to my family.

Tombstone Tuesday, Take 1

2009-09-29T09:43:00.002-04:00

This is the military foot stone for my grandfather, Herbert F. Rorer. He is buried at Highland Cemetery in Hopewell, Mercer County, New Jersey, with his wife Clara. Herb was proud of his service to our country during World War I. He tried to enlist several times in 1917, only to be turned away because his eyesight did not qualify him for combat. Finally, in 1918, he was drafted and served a hospital in central France where he was an ambulance driver. After the war, he joined the local American Legion. He was actively engaged in that organization and served on the annual Memorial Day parade committee. His house, located on the main street of town, provided a perfect viewing spot for the parade, where he was front-and-center with his movie camera. I remember reels and reels and reels of parade movies in his study. Sadly, my grandfather died in 1958 when I was a very young child, so I don’t remember much about him. But I do remember watching those movie reels with my brother.

Do you have the right spelling?

2009-09-28T13:16:00.002-04:00

My grandfather served in World War I as an ambulance driver for a field hospital in France. According to family lore, he drove supplies to the front lines and returned to the hospital, located in La Fuehr, with the wounded. From my grandfather’s service record, I knew he was assigned to Base Hospital 117 (no geographic location is given). After consulting several maps and gazetteers of France, I could find no community, town, or city named La Fuehr. I started to believe it was a hamlet so small that it didn’t warrant a speck on a map.

I turned to Google Books and searched for “Base Hospital 117.” To my surprise there were a few “hits” - government documents and medical journals. I had the name of the town wrong which explains why my previous searches on La Fuehr came up empty. The hospital was located in the village of La Fauche, France. With that piece of information, I was able to find the location on a map. But, the documents found in Google Books provided more interesting information about the hospital my grandfather served for six months in 1918. I found a Report of the Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War with a chapter devoted to a hospital for war neuroses - Base Hospital 117. The report gave a physical description of the village of La Fauche and details of the start-up of this hospital in June 1918. Base Hospital 117 was created to meet the growing need for adequate and proper care for those suffering from shell shock and other war-related nervous disorders. The hospital, to this day, serves as a model for wartime neuropsychiatric treatment.

Searching for books with your ancestors’ names might yield zero to few results. However, searching for places and events of their lives can yield plenty. Reading the U. S. Army report and other results in my Google Books search helped me to understand the environment my grandfather lived in during the war and provided more than ample background information to write his story.

Why I write (part 2)

2009-09-26T14:28:00.002-04:00

If you’re like me, you have files and piles of family documents and research findings you have collected over the years. Each piece of paper is one more piece in the puzzle (although some pieces don’t quite fit). We collect, we file, we store, sometimes we review, and we move on in our hungering quest for more. And, so, our files and piles grow.

How do you make order out of the chaos? Even with the best filing system, important documents can be overlooked, misfiled, or forgotten. Writing helped me to bring order to my genealogy research. With each story I write, the documents are reviewed, analyzed, scrutinized … and most importantly, read. Writing the stories discovered in my research helps me to fit the pieces together and sometimes chip away at that brick wall. But probably more important is the stories are being documented and preserved for my children and grandchildren. I don’t see my toddler grandson picking up one of my research books anytime soon, but I hope in time he will read the stories I’ve written about his myriad of ancestors.

Why do I write?

To preserve my family’s stories.
To share my research with my family in a way they find interesting and tangible. Sharing written stories is more meaningful than a list of names or a chart of boxes.
To review my research and analyze the records more deeply. I might even chisel away at a brick wall in the process.
To point the way to further research and to identify missed research opportunities.
Writing the stories brings a satisfying conclusion to the research cycle.

Use newspapers to write the story

2009-09-24T12:27:00.004-04:00

As I do my genealogy research, I’m always looking for “the stories.” The facts are important (who, where, when), but I’m always wondering “how” and “why.” And a funny thing happened. Once I started looking at the lives of my ancestors, building their lives, looking at them as a part of their community, examining family groups ... well, suddenly my family was much more interested in hearing about my research conquests. And when they’re more interested, suddenly their memories are better and they start providing tidbits of information.

I’ve built stories from information found in historic newspapers, Google books, Internet searches, family lore, and just taking the time to look at the body of documents as a whole against each other.

I have the marriage certificate for my great-grandparents wedding in 1898. An announcement of their marriage appeared in the local newspaper. This announcement gave a description of the bride’s gown and the parlor decorations. But I didn’t stop my research in that newspaper issue with the announcement. On the front page was news that during the week prior to the wedding that part of New Jersey experienced two back-to-back blizzards. According to the local newspaper, travel was difficult. I discovered from the wedding announcement in the newspaper that about fifty people witnessed the wedding vows. The wedding took place late in November and the parlor was decorated for the season with evergreens. One can just imagine the romantic setting: the hush that falls over the snow-covered earth, the scent of pine and spruce filling the parlors, the light of day dimming with the sunset, and the bride aglow in white cashmere, satin, and lace. Combining the facts found in the marriage announcement (who, what, when, where) with the descriptive elements (parlor decorations and description of the wedding gown) against the backdrop of a wintry evening creates a more complete picture of the day. The marriage certificate provides the details, but the newspaper paints the day with color.

Turning family lore into story

2009-09-23T10:12:00.003-04:00

The first story I wrote was about my grandfather. I took a family story and looked for documentation to support it, wrote it down, and shared it. This particular story has gone through many editing sessions and fine tuning over the years as I worked on my writing style. Finally, last year, I entered the story in the Excellence-in-Writing Competition sponsored by the International Society of Family History Writers and Editors. And guess what? I won first place in my category. But even more thrilling than winning an award with the story was the look on my mother’s face when I handed her a copy of the story.

Today, this story remains my standard: a family tale, supported by documentation, written down in an interesting narrative, with photos and other graphics added for interest.

Read the entire story of The Boy Scouts and the President.

Why I write

2009-09-21T15:27:00.003-04:00

Have you started to write your family’s history yet? I don’t mean an epic novel about treacherous ocean voyages and settling wild lands. Are you capturing and preserving the stories of your family? Writing your family’s history needn’t be a chronicle of a person’s life from birth to death. Everyone’s family has stories: family lore, traditions, tales, and anecdotes. Has anyone documented these family treasures? You might also have gleaned stories from your research. These are the stories of our ancestors’ lives. But these stories might be lost if no one documents them and passes them on to future generations.

Several years ago at a family dinner, I was excitedly sharing my latest research triumph. Around the table were puzzled faces not nearly as excited as I was about great-great grandfather Stryker’s death certificate. It provided the link to the next generation with his parents’ names (which included his mother’s maiden name). I was thrilled for the missing link to the next generation. It was all much too intangible for my non-genealogist family members. I knew right then I needed to change how I presented my research findings to my family. They were less interested in names and dates and more interested in learning about the lives of our ancestors. Go figure! As genealogists, we need those names and dates. But I’ve learned not to stop there. As they say, “put some flesh on those bones.” That has been my quest, to find out more about my ancestors as people, about their communities, about the times they lived in, and about their interactions with their world. This blog will share that ongoing journey.