Washington, DC Researching--Library of Congress

I'm in Washington, DC where I am attending the American Library Association (ALA) as a member of the Association's Genealogy Committee. I will chair that committee for the coming year. Unfortunately my participation in the conference is cutting into my research time because Washington is one of my favorite research sites. The top three sites for genealogists here are:
1. The Library of Congress (LC)
2. The National Archives (NARA)
3. The Library of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)

I'm on my way to another ALA meeting so I'll just introduce LC briefly in this post. Two of these organizations are libraries and therefore collect a wide array of materials of interest to genealogist. LC may be the largest library in the world and contains all kinds of materials on any topic you can imagine and in any format you can think of. The purpose of LC is to provide members of Congress and their staff with all the information they might need to know on any topic. Sometimes a way to get information from LC is to send a research question to your member of Congress and hope that the member's staff will forward your inquiry to a subject specialist in the Congressional Reference Service of LC.

I would recommend that you check LC's website even if you think you are somewhat familiar with LC. Something new is always being added. Lots of digital content of interest to genealogists is available online through the American Memory project. More is being added daily.

Of course LC is is a library and you will want to do search the LC Catalogs. This process may not be as user friendly as you would like but your results should be worth your effort. The on screen directions should help you navigate.

Visiting LC in person can be very rewarding but it is intimidating to a first time researcher. LC is an entire complex of three buildings--each of which is a square block in size. The buildings are connected by underground tunnels. Security is high as it is in most buildings in Washington. You may have to go through a metal detector and have your bags searched to enter but you won't have to take to take off your shoes as you do at the airport. You will have to register and get a picture ID that will serve as your library card. You also will have to register your laptop and camera and "un-register" them as you leave. This is partly for the security of your toys to make sure the person who tries to remove them from the building is the one who brought them in. There are always interesting displays for tour groups. You will probably want to go to the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room which has a very helpful website. LC is a closed stack library which means you have to fill out call slips and request the materials you want. It can take up to an hour for the materials to be retrieved for you. The reading room has a small but interesting collection of back runs of genealogy journals you can peruse as you wait for your materials to arrive. You can even go to one of the staff cafeterias to refuel your body without leaving the premises. I would be happy to try to answer any questions if you post them as a comment through the link immediately below.

New Sweden Research in Delaware

Earlier this week I spent two days in Delaware researching my ancestors who came to New Sweden in the 17th Century. Most of my time was at the Delaware Public Archives in Dover. As you are probably aware there is a difference between an archive and a library. An archive primarily contains the official records that are created by an organization as a by product of its doing business. A library is primarily a collection of documents that were created elsewhere but were collected to meet the needs of a particular clientèle. Of course there are some entities that blur the line or actually function as both. Another difference is that since archives contain the original copy of a document, often only pencils (not ball point pens) are allowed in the work areas where documents are viewed.

At the Archives I was able to get copies of the wills and other probate documents for several of my ancestors. The Archives were lightly used, at least on the days I was there, and the staff had time to be very helpful. I was given an orientation when I first arrived that saved me a lot of time later. I didn't retain everything I was told but I remembered enough to go back to the staff members later and ask for some specific details to be repeated.

Most research at this Archive is conducted by viewing microfilm. There were many film viewing stations and three or four reader/printers to make copies. One of the reader/printers was connected to a computer that allowed the film image to be scanned and stored on a flash drive. I prefer this method of saving copies of documents. I can print the document later if I choose. I can also magnify it on my computer screen to make it easier to decipher.

After the Archives closed at 4:15 I decided to take a 50 mile drive into Wilmington to see what the Public Library there might have. The library has a Delaware Room but the librarian on duty told me my time might be better spent a few blocks away at the Delaware Historical Society Library. Fortunately for me I was there on the one night of the week that the library was open until 9:00 PM. This library clearly had more published books of interest to those researching Delaware ancestors than any other I visited. So if you have ancestors who lived in the Delaware area, I recommend you visit the Archives and the Historical Society Library.

National Archives Material Digitized

If you cannot get to the National Archives, you might want to check out what documents have been digitized by commercial partners Ancestry and Footnote. The following link will tell what is available on line: http://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.html
There are some real treasures here in this fast growing list.

Wing Fort House--1641

I'm on Cape Cod this weekend for the Wing family reunion. This house was the home of Stephen Wing--the brother of my ancestor Daniel Wing. Daniel is my 10th great-grandfather and he came to Plymouth Colony with mother and other family members in 1632.

This house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

There is some debate as to why it was called "Fort House", but there is a consensus that it was originally fortified in some way. An archeologist spoke to us last night after dinner who has considerable experience at Jamestown and supervised a small excavation here in 2006. He has used the results of that dig to request a grant to do further work to try to determine what fortifications--if any--were originally around the house for protection from Indian attack. More information on this house can be found at the link above.

Ancestry.com to Acquire Genline

Ancestry.com has announced it is acquiring Genline. Genline's English language version of its press release on this transaction is also available. This acquisition combined with other recent moves such as Ancestry's announce that it "will be adding the Gothenburg, Sweden, Passenger Lists, 1869 -1950 collection, which contains more than 1.2 million Swedish records" should be good news for those with Swedish roots.

Genline has a fine and growing collection of Swedish parish records. These can be viewed through a good quality image browser but an overall index has not been available. One needs to know exactly what parish and year an event took place to locate the documenting record. I hope Ancestry will soon create such an index and not sacrifice the quality of the images now available.

Irish Census 1901 Online Free

The Irish Census for 1901 has now been made available online free of charge. It now joins the 1911 census on the site of the Irish National Archives. In describing this availability in today's Irish Times, "Minister for Culture Mary Hanafin described the service as 'an important and exciting day for people all over the world who want to trace their roots'. She added: 'In a world which is very troubled, people want to know where they are rooted and are anxious to know about their background and their heritage.'" This article provides useful background about the Irish Census.

The Irish Censuses for 1901 and 1911 are the earliest surviving, complete censuses for that nation. Let the searching begin!

Surname Listservs @ RootsWeb

As most of you are aware, listservs exist on almost any possible subject. Genealogy is no exception. Whether you are searching a locality or a surname, chances are good that there is a listserv devoted to it. Some are much more active than others.

For those of you who have no experience with such lists, this is how they work. First you find a list of interest and subscribe. Then an email comes to your inbox when someone posts to that list. Usually, only subscribers are allowed to post. There are both moderated and unmoderated lists. On an unmoderated list, posts are distributed to all subscribers when they are sent -- much like an email. On a moderated list, posts are delayed until the moderator OKs them.

If you are interested in subscribing to a list for people who share your research interests, one place to look is RootsWeb.org. Some surname lists are more active than others so the amount of posts you will receive varies greatly from one list to another.

If you would rather not have new posts delivered to your email box and/or want to see what previously has been posted on such lists, you can search the archives and find out what has been posted over the last ten years.

Have fun!

Some hints for using Ancestry

This all may be common knowledge for some, but I recently learned some hints for doing Ancestry searches more effectively. Thought I'd throw them out there for others.
--When doing even basic searches, you can put as many names as you want in the search boxes. For example, I have a gggrandfather who used many names and combinations of names over his lifetime. I did a recent search filling in all his names at once and got a great response. In the first name box I wrote Jacob Josiah Joseph (without commas) and came up with all kinds of new things. I think this works especially well with women's names. You can put both maiden and married last name together. Jane Amanda Jennie then Cross Harshman. Try it!
--Ancestry has also improved their wild card selection. You can use the * for zero-unlimited letters and can use it more than once within a word. So Joh*s* can be searching for Johnsons/Johansons. You cannot have the * at both the beginning and the end of a name. Also the ? is used when you are searching for one letter only. So * is often better if 0 letters are possible such as Joh*n for John or Johann which one of my ggrandfathers used interchangeably.

More Autosomal DNA, DNA Part 7

Autosomal DNA testing, for genealogical purposes, was first offered to the public earlier this year. We are still in the beginning stages of learning how to best apply it to further our family history research. It is predicted that such testing may be able to identify some relationships as far back as fifth cousins. In this kind of testing men and women are on a level playing field. One thing is becoming clear in the early days of testing. This kind of testing seems to rely even more heavily on well researched family trees than have the earlier types of testing. No longer can one assume that at match lies on the paternal line as is the case in y-chromosome testing. Likewise, one cannot assume that a match lies on the maternal line as is the case in mitochondrial testing. It can be on either of those lines or on any line in between.

If autosomal testing turns out to live up to the promotional promises of testing labs, most of us will have a hard time taking full advantage of the power we are being offered. Rather than being the “magic bullet” that by itself reveals our family trees, it re-emphasizes the need for traditional genealogy research. Experienced genetic genealogist Larry Vick stated it this way, “Whether we use Relative Finder, Family Finder, or both most of us need to do a much better job on our pedigrees to get more value from either test. I plan to spend a week at the Family History Library this summer beefing up my pedigree."

What is the probability that patrons will share enough DNA with a relative that it will be detected by autosomal testing? If you are related within five generations (3rd or more recent cousins) then autosomal is almost sure to detect your relationship. Testing may also detect many 4th cousins and a few 5th and more distant cousins. Early experience with autosomal testing by both FTDNA and 23andMe indicate the following chances of finding a match based on a biological relationship within the last few generations:









So if someone is a 4th cousin or closer, there is a good chance they will be detected in autosomal testing. Farther back detection of matches is a long shot but possible. The main problem is that even those of us with well researched pedigree charts rarely know who all our 32 great-great-great grandparents are. They would be the ancestors we have in common with a potential 4th cousin. In addition, the potential 4th cousin would also have to have documented who their 32 great-great-great grandparents were as well. Beyond this generation some matches will occur. In fact many will show up in the results of an autosomal test because we have many more potential living cousins as we go back a further generation of two. However, the likelihood of identifying a connecting ancestor becomes remote.

[To review previous posts on DNA in this series, click on the Label: "DNA Testing" just below this post and then scroll down through the series.]

Autosomal DNA Testing Continued, DNA Part 6

If you have studied a little genetics you may know that each person has 23 pairs of DNA chromosomes. Twenty-two of those pairs---the autosomal DNA---are what give us our unique characteristics. They are inherited differently than are y-chromosomes if one is male or the mitochondria for both sexes. Y-chromosomes are passed directly from fathers to their male off-spring without mixing with the genes of the mother. Likewise, mitochondrial DNA is passed directly from the mother to all her offspring without mixing with the genes of the father. In this direct transmission, both can pass down unaltered through many generations. That is the norm. The rare copying errors in these intergenerational transfers are what allow us to trace different branches of the human family.


The transfer of the 22 pairs of autosomal DNA from one generation to the next is quite a different process. Each of the parents has 22 PAIRS of autosomal DNA. Only about half of the DNA from each pair of parental chromosomes can be passed on to a given offspring. Generally, the DNA contained in each pair of parental chromosomes is shuffled (like shuffling a deck of cards) before it is passed on. Both the father and the mother contribute their DNA. In this process about half of the characteristics of the mother and about half of the father are transmitted. But, which half?

If this couple has another baby, the mixing process is repeated again. Again each parent contributes to the process. However, after this mixing process is completed, the half of the DNA that is passed on to the second child may be quite different. Hence, the difference between siblings.


This mixing and passing down goes on generation after generation. During this process some strands of DNA remain intact and others are jumbled up into new sequences. Autosomal DNA testing, for genealogical purposes, is looking for intact strands of DNA that are similar between individuals. The more such strands that are shared by two individuals, the closer their biological relationship is thought to be.

[To review previous posts on DNA in this series, click on the Label: "DNA Testing" just below this post and then scroll down through the series.]