Archive for March 30, 2009

How to Make Effective Use of Blogs in Your Research

March 30, 2009 Craig Genealogy

Blogs are not an exotic species.   They are a form of expression by real people discussing, for the most part, issues of real interest to real audiences. At their core, blogs are not essentially different from books, magazines, television shows, newspapers, etc.  They are sources of information.

But anyone can write a blog!

That fact is actually one of the benefits of blogs.  Fields of knowledge are open to many more people and many more diverse points of view and experiences.  Blogs thus encourage the free exchange of information so essential to increasing our collective knowledge.

But a blogger can say virtually anything they want to!

That, too, is a strength of blogs overall.  However, anyone who reads any blog quickly comes to understand that mistakes, falsehoods, exaggerations, or misrepresentations are swiftly corrected or challenged by readers.  If too many such things appear in a blog, it will lose its readership.  This is the marketplace of information at work.  On the other hand, we’ve seen in our genealogy blogging community individuals who started as (dare I say) “hobbyists” become leading lights because their content is so consistently great.

Like magazines, newspapers, books, etc., not all blogs are accurate or careful with their content.  In all forms of expression, the educated consumer learns to comprehend the biases, strengths and weaknesses of the author.  The same is true with respe4ct to genealogy blogs.

Here are some tips about making good use of genealogy blogs:

1.  Understand what the theme or focus of a particular blog is.

2. Have a clear understanding of what you want to get out of a particular blog.

3. Read a number of similar and dissimilar blogs.  Sample the marketplace.

4. Find the blogs that you are comfortable with.

5. Regard factual data in a blog as a bit of evidence which requires, like most everything else, evaluation.

6.  Comment on blogs where you find data that doesn’t seem to ring true or that you don’t understand (this is one benefit to blogs that certain other forms make difficult).  Being a regular commenter with valuable input will enhance not only your own experience but will encourage the blogger to improve his or her output.

7.  Contact the author and ask for citations if such are not provided in a post.  Most bloggers are pleased to have a dialog with readers.  Again, this is an aspect of blogs that  is much more difficult with books or magazines or newspapers.

8.   Become familiar with the bloggers in your realm of interest (i.e, a surname, a region, a religion,  an ethnic group or nationality).   Remember that most genea-bloggers are in the game to share information and are just as interested in receiving accurate information as their readers are.

9.  Understand that there are not so many “bad” sources of information (blogs or otherwise) as there are unsophisticated users of information.  Don’t be one of the latter.

Several times I have told the story of how one of my blog posts about my Sanford family led to the convening of an ad hoc group of Sanford researchers who had not know each other previously, but who then proceeded to work together via email for several weeks and solved a long-standing mystery.

Just some thoughts.

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“Jesus Wept.” Maybe He Didn’t Like the Food . . . .

March 29, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

My ancestors include a number of clergymen and my ancestors in general were religious people.   But one curious thing I began thinking about recently.

At mealtimes when my paternal grandmother, Jessie Beatrice Bowie was visiting, she would say a blessing consisting of two words:  “Jesus wept.”

Well, I know, of course, that this is the shortest verse in the Bible (at least in some versions, most notably the KJV). It is John 11:35, part of the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.  When Jesus learns from Lazarus’ sisters that Lazarus has died,  Jesus (after a two day intermission) goes to the sisters Mary and Martha.

32Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

33When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.

34And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.

35Jesus wept.

What didn’t occur to me until recently is why would my grandmother say this as a blessing to a meal?

Am I theologically challenged? (Probably so, but . . . . ) What about this passage has anything to do with the typical things we pray for at mealtime?

Can anyone suggest anything?

What unusual rituals did your family have about mealtime prayer?

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John Hope Franklin, 1915 – 2009

March 27, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

One of America’s greatest historians, John Hope Franklin has died at the age of 94. Born on January 2, 1915 in Rentiesville, Oklahoma, a place so small it seems to have been overlooked on the 1920 census, he was the son of Buck Colbert Franklin and Molly Parker Franklin. His father was one of the first black lawyers in Oklahoma, and his mother was a schoolteacher. His grandfather had been a slave held by Indians.

Franklin went to Fisk University after he had been denied entrance to the University of Oklahoma because of his race. He graduated from Fisk in 1935 and then went on to a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University in 1941. In this video he tells what he did in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Franklin taught at Fisk University, St. Augustine’s College, and North Carolina College. He also taught at Howard University, chaired the history department at Brooklyn College and later served at the University of Chicago. In 1983, he was named the James B. Duke Professor of History at Duke University and con- currently was professor of legal history at the Duke University school of Law until 1992. Among others position as Franklin served as president of the American Historical Society the American Studies Association, the Southern Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1953 when Fisk University became the first historically black college to have a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Although well-known in academic circles, this great American historian was not as well-known to the general public. He came to the attention of the general public on two particular occasions. In 1962, he became the first black member of the exclusive Cosmos Club in Washington, DC. The Cosmos Club, once described by the New York Times as “a preserve for eggheads,” had a racially exclusionary policy. In 1961, Carl T. Rowan, then serving in the Kennedy administration as assistant secretary of state for public affairs, was denied entry into the Cosmos Club because he was black. A number of high-ranking officials and former officials of both the Kennedy and Eisenhower administrations resigned as a result. The Cosmos Club then endured months of negative publicity as a result of this decision. The Club then elected Franklin as a member.

Franklin also came to the public attention in 1997 when he chaired President Clinton’s advisory committee on race. Franklin, though an outstanding scholar, was unabashedly an activist, to use his own word. He felt he had an obligation to make the world a better place.

His 1947 book, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans, remains authoritative and has been updated numerous times.

I had the honor to meet Dr. Franklin in 2004 when I worked on the plans for the African-American History Museum in Washington, D.C. To learn more about this great historian see the memorial page at the Duke University web site.

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Why I Blog–Reason No. 1 and Reason No. 776,002

March 25, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

Several weeks ago, in a post called Happy Dance Days are Here Again, I posted some photographs. The photos were of Frank Gines and his wife Willie V. Cole Gines, and their children. Frank Gines (1883-1946) was a son of Richard William Gines (1860-?) and Sylvia LeJay Gines (1863-1940). One of Frank’s younger brothers was my grandfather, William Edward Gines (1898-1955). This family started out in Shreveport, Lousiana, but eventually dispersed around the country. For example, Frank took his family to Nacogdoches, Texas, while “Eddie” moved to Kansas City with his brother, Henry (1903-1980). Henry’s family eventually ended up in Denver.

Over the last few days, I have gotten emails from a number cousins in the Nacogdoches family. It’s been thrilling and fun. They’ve been planning a family reunion and now I’m planning to go!

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The (New) Paripatetic Graveyard Rabbit . . .

March 25, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

. . . is here. Eh, I mean here! You’ll find up to the minute news about graveyards, cemeteries, and monuments, as well as the PGYR Video of the Week. This week’s video highlights a monument conservation training program put on by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training (NCPTT). Located in Natchitoches, Louisiana, NCPTT is an element of the National Park Service. There will be more from NCPPT on The PGYR.

But for now, come and see the news and this week’s video.

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There’s No Such Thing as Proof

March 24, 2009 Craig Genealogy

If, as a genealogist, you believe that you can “prove” something, well, you need to be re-educated. . . .

In genealogy, we talk about evidence and data sources, and the Genealogical Proof Standard.  We don’t talk enough about what is meant by “proof” or how “proof” is distinct from evidence,or about the multifaceted nature of proof (which means our inability to “prove” anything).

Let’s take an example.  Suppose that we are trying to establish the paternity of Archimedes Jones.  We have two documents: first, a birth certificate that lists Plato Jones as the father of Archimedes Jones; and second, a death certificate for Archimedes Jones that lists Plato Jones as  Archimedes’ father. Do we have proof that Plato is Archimedes’ father?

The best we can say is that we have two bits of evidence that suggest the proposition at issue.

Suppose further that we have census records from two different census years that place Archimedes in Plato’s house as a son. If we couple those with the birth and death certificates, do we now have proof that Plato is Archimedes’ father?

The best we can say in this instance is that we now have four bits of evidence that Plato is Archimedes’ father.

Now imagine we have a will in which the testator, Plato, leaves a substantial sum of money “to my son, Archimedes, with love and affection.” If we add that to the prior documents, do we have proof that Plato is Archimedes’ father?

Or suppose we have a an affidavit sworn to and subscrfibed before a notary public in which a woman declares that she was married to Plato Jones at the time Archimedes was conceived and that Plato is his father.  Do we at last have proof that Plato is Archimedes’ father?

Suppose all we had was the last mentioned document–the affidavit.  Would that constitute “proof” that Plato Jones is the father of Archimedes Jones?

The answers to our questions rest upon the nature of proof.  In fact, there is no such thing as “proof” in a
universally objective manner.  I will go so far as to say that proof is a figment of one’s imagination.  A disturbing statement from a lawyer and genealogist, yes?

Well, I can’t prove that statement, but I can probably get you to believe it.

Let us begin by considering some well-regarded definitions of “proof” taken from leading dictionaries:

1.    The establishment of the truth of anything.

2.    The result or effect of evidence; the establishment or denial of a fact by evidence.

.3.    That evidence sufficient to establish a thing as true, or to produce belief in its truth.

4.    The effect of evidence in convincing the mind [of the truth of a proposition].

5.    The evidence that compels the mind to accept an assertion as true

6.    The state of being convinced or persuaded by consideration of evidence.

7.     That degree of evidence which convinces the mind of any truth or fact, and produces belief.

Which of these correctly describes the nature of proof?

I say that 1 and 2 are plainly incorrect and 3 is somewhat confused.  First, the establishment of the truth of anything is obviously impossible in the realm of human affairs. Second, facts either are or are not; facts cannot be  established or denied by anything other that which creates the universe.

The third definition hedges the bet–that “evidence can establish a thing as true,” but if not, then evidence can produce a belief in the truth of something.

The fourth through seventh definitions are correct; the differences being in single degrees.  Proof is a process that occurs in the human mind.

Take for instance an example from my research.  Here is the evidence and sources:

1.  Mary C. Manson was born in about 1847 in Georgia. 1850 US Census, Talbot County, Georgia. 15th District, p.311; dwelling 1261; household 1261

2.  Mary C. Manson’s race in 1850 was described as “mulatto.” 1850 US Census, Talbot County, Georgia.

3.  Mary C. Manson was apparently the daughter of Jane Manson, born about 1826. 1850 US Census, Talbot
County, Georgia.

4.  Mary C. Manson received a gift of real property from one Nathaniel Brown in 1853 by a deed that reads as
follows:

Nathaniel Brown to Mary C. Manson, daughter of Jane Manson

Love and affection  1/2 acre Pine land where Jane Manson now lives.
Southwest corner of lot of land conveyed to me by J.C. McCants, A. McCants, & J.T. Gray three acres
Wit: W.W. Wiggins, Isaac Mulkey, JJC
Recorded: 14 Nov 1853

Land Records of Taylor County, Georgia, Deed Book A

5.  Nathaniel Brown was a white man. 1850 US Census, Talbot County, Georgia, 24th District, p. 312.

Now that we understand that proof is a mental process, what comes to mind? Are you “convinced in your mind” of the proposition imagined? Is your mind compelled to accept the proposition as true?  Have you been “persuaded” by consideration of the evidence?  Has the evidence produced a belief in your mind?

I will suggest that many will say that the implied proposition on the evidence stated likely fails as “convincing” or “persuasive” under the Genealogical Proof Standard.

A proposition is proven when an arbiter believes it is established by the evidence presented.  The arbiter’s belief that the proposition is established may coincide with such a belief on the part of another, or many others; or it may not.  The arbiter’s belief actually may coincide with objective truth (although we will never know), or not. But as to the believing arbiter, the matter is proven.

Think about that for a minute.  Something which is true may not necessarily be proven, and that which is not true might be proven.  So it is in life; so it is in genealogy.

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Another Approach to Finding African-American Names in the Census

March 24, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

Last year I wrote an article called “Slaves and Slavs in the U.S. Census (and how to tell the difference!).”

You can find the post here: http://geneablogie.blogspot.com/2008/06/research-tip-slaves-and-slavs-in-us.html. It describes how to find African-Americans by name in the census prior to 1870. Since writing that last year, I’ve continued to experiment with the topic and have discovered another way. On Ancestry.com, pick out the option that allows you to search a specific census year. Let’s pick 1860 for example.

Ancestry.com>Home>Search>U.S. Federal Census>1860.

Now leave the name spaces blank, but chose a state or a state and a county. Let’s use for this example Clay County, Missouri. Now in the space that says “Keyword(s)”, type “black.” And that produces a list of 34 names of which 33 are African-Americans. The 34th person is a white person named “Black.” In different states, different terms in the “Keyword(s)” box get different results.

Now let’s try Talbot County, Georgia in 1860. With the word “black” we get nothing; but with the “colored,” we have some hits. Sometimes these terms produce first names and surnames and other times just first names. I recommend trying various terms for any given state and you may turn up a wealth of results. Coming up later: Has this technique crumbled my very highest brickwall?

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I Love Ancestry’s Expanded, Updated City Directories

March 22, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

Last week, Ancestry.com updated and repackaged its U.S. Directories and U.S. Public information databases.  These are now all a part of Ancestry’s “1940 Census Substitute.”   Part of the upgrade was acquisition of  what Ancestry VP for Content Gary Gibb called ” a huge collection of city directories.”   I was excited about this from the outset.  I’ve long understood the value of city directories and have been disappointed to see so few available online resources of this sort.  Ancestry.com’s prior entry in that beauty contest was not all that attractive.

As soon as I read the announcement last week, I went to the  U.S. City Directories Database to see what was new.   Ancestry made me very happy with a truly expanded set of city directories, covering more years and more cities than ever before.  In just a few minutes, I had evidence of the following matters that I had not know before:

  • My great-grandparents, Otis and Bettie Manson, moved to San Angelo, Texas, with several of their children, before they settled in Midland in about 1947.
  • My grandfather, Quentin Manson, worked as a longshoreman in Houston in the late 1930′s.
  • My great-grandfather, Richard William Gines, most likely died before 1936, since his wife Sylvia, is listed in the 1936 Shreveport city directory as living along in the family house at 1540 Ashton street.

I was able to identify a number of my Brayboy cousins and ascertain their occupations and addresses during the period 1935-1945.  I came away from this surf-session thoroughly happy.  I can’t wait for the further refinement of the individual databases that  make up the “1940 Census Substitute.”

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Carnival of Genealogy: A Tribute to Women

March 18, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

The Carnival is now posted at Jasia’s Creative Gene.  There are 31 outstanding selections from both veteran and nedwcomer genea-bloggers.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser (1840- ??)

Mary Elizabeth Bowser (1840- ??)

You won’t find my contribution there; I simply ran out of time.  But had I had the time, I would have written about Mary Elizabeth Bowser.   A Central Intelligence Agency paper tells her story as one of the least-known, but perhaps most valuable, spies in the Civil War:

Union officers got so many valuable pieces of intelligence from slaves that the reports were put in a special category: “Black Dispatches.” Runaway slaves, many of them conscripted to work on Confederate fortifications, gave the Union Army a continually flowing stream of intelligence. So did slaves who volunteered to be stay-in-place agents. Tens of thousands of ex-slaves fought and died for the Union in military units. Less known is the work of other African-Americans who risked their lives in secret, gathering intelligence or while entering enemy territory as scouts.

One of the boldest—and least known—Northern spies of the war was a free African American who went under cover as a slave in what appears to have been a plan to place her in the official residence of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

The residence, called the Richmond White House, served as the Davis home and the President’s executive office. While he conducted Confederacy business there, he would not have seen his slaves as a threat to security. Official papers did not have to be given special protection when slaves were around because, by law, slaves had to be illiterate.

Elizabeth Van Lew well knew this law, and, while running her spy ring in Richmond, realized the espionage value of a slave who was secretly able to read and write. Van Lew had a perfect candidate for such an agent-in-place role:Mary Elizabeth Bowser.

The wealthy Van Lew family, which had 21 slaves in 1850, had only two by 1860—both of them elderly women. Yet, Virginia and Richmond archives show that the Van Lews had not gone through the legal procedures for the freeing of slaves. Freedom meant exile. Under Virginia law, freed slaves had to leave Virginia within a year after winning their freedom. Only by ignoring that law could Van Lew carry out the audacious placement of an agent in the Richmond White House.

Elizabeth Van Lew and her widowed mother Eliza raised the eyebrows of their social acquaintances in Richmond in 1846 by having a slave baptized as Mary Jane Richards in St. John’s Episcopal Church, revered as the site where Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Later, Elizabeth sent Mary Jane off to Philadelphia for an education. In 1855, Mary Jane sailed to Liberia, the African nation founded by Americans as a colony for ex-slaves.

On March 5, 1860, a ship bearing Mary Jane Richards arrived in Baltimore. She went on to Richmond—an illegal act for a freed slave. Five months later, she was arrested for “perambulating the streets and claiming to be a free person of color….” She was briefly jailed and released after Elizabeth Van Lew paid a $10 fine and claimed that Mary Jane was still a slave. This declaration would give her perfect cover as an agent. Mary Jane Richards married and became Mary Elizabeth Bowser. It is under that name that she enters Civil War espionage history.

Information about her is scanty. One good source is Thomas McNiven, who posed as a baker while making daily rounds as a Van Lew agent in Richmond. From him, down the years, came the report that she “had a photographic mind” and “Everything she saw on the Rebel President’s Desk, she could repeat word for word.”

Jefferson Davis’ widow, Varina, responding to an inquiry in 1905, denied that the Richmond White House had harbored a spy. “I had no ‘educated negro’ in my household,” she wrote. She did not mention that her coachman, William A. Jackson, had crossed into Union lines, bringing with him military conversations that he had overheard. In a letter from Major General Irvin McDowell to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, “Jeff Davis’ coachman” is cited as the source of information about Confederate deployments. A butler who served Jefferson Davis also made his way to Union lines.

From Intelligence in the Civil War–Black Dispatches, United States Central Intelligence Agency (2007)

After the war ended, Mary Elizabeth Bowser disappeared from Richmond and nothing is known about her life thereafter.   The 1900 census shows a Mary Bowser of the proper age living in Boston, but it is not clear that this is the same woman.  It is known that Elizabeth Van Lew had friends and acquaintances in Boston, and that she had sent Mary “up North” for an education.

Mary Elizabeth Bowser has been the subject of scholarly examination, as well as popular history, novels, and plays.  In 1995, she became one of just eight women ever admitted to the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.

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Geographical Genealogical Geopardy: The Answer is “The Faroe Islands”

March 17, 2009 Craig Uncategorized

The question is: What does “FO” in Rootsweb’s SSDI mean?

This issue is raised by Arlene Eakle in a blog post on Monday, March 16.  It seems that an individual’s obituary neglected to name the place of death.  But in Rootsweb’s SSDI, a place is given as “FO”.   The Rootsweb SSDI also indicates that the death was “verified,” that is, someone has seen a death certificate.  The person’s home county has no record of the death.  The Social Security Administration professed to have no idea what “FO” means.   Arlene’s correspondent says, “that this individual may have died outside of the US fits with lifestyle, and is not outside the realm of possibility.”

Well, folks, my guess is that the person died in the Faroe Islands.

How did I conclude that and where the heck are the Faroe Islands?

Taking the hunch that “FO”  is some sort of international country code, I went to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and found ISO-3166, which contains the “official” list of 2-character alpha country abbreviations.  There I found that “FO” is the abbreviation for the Faroe Islands.

The Faroes are an island group about halfway between Iceland and Scotland and they are an autonomous province of Denmark.

My thought is that to get a death certificate from the Faroes one might try the Faroese Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.   They can be contacted by email at: ahr@ahr.fo.  One may call the Ministry at 011-298- 30-40-50 or fax them at 011-298-35-40-45  (dialing from USA).  Faroes time is EST+4 hours.

If the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs does not have a deathe certificate, then most likely it’s maintained in one of the 34 municipalities in the Faroe Islands.  A call to one of the numerous Danish Consulates in the USA may be helpful.

On the other hand, it may be that a US consular official in Denmark was notified of the death.   There is important and useful information about deaths of US citizens abroad on the State Department website.

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