Genealogy Gems: News from the Allen County Public Library at Fort Wayne No. 170, April 30, 2018 In this issue: *Getting More Online for Your Family History--Extra *New York Slavery Records Index *Women in World War I: The Hello Girls *Technology Tip of the Month: Cabinet Cards Continue with Vignette and Trompe l’oeil Effects *Quick-Tip of the Month for Preservation--How to Choose a Conservator *PERSI Gems *History Tidbits: British Royal Family & Titles *Library Catalog Insider--Subject Headings *DNA Interest Group *Summer Days at The Genealogy Center *Day With James Beidler--May 9, 2018 *Northeast Indiana Jewish Genealogical Society Organizational Meeting *Staying Informed about Genealogy Center Programming *Area Calendar of Events *Genealogy Center Social Media *Driving Directions to the Library *Parking at the Library *Genealogy Center Queries *Publishing Note *************************************** Getting More Online for Your Family History--Extra by Curt B. Witcher *************************************** Last month, we discussed a six-step strategy for more effectively using the Internet to find the most data possible about one’s ancestors and potential ancestors. I hope you had an opportunity to explore sites discussed in that strategy. This month, I would like to explore a few sites that are complementary to the sites previously discussed. Though there are a number of search engines one can deploy to find relevant sites on the Internet, many still like websites in the genealogy space that provide well-organized lists of local and family history sites. One of the best is not very well known and rather underutilized. It is Linkpendium.com. From their website, “Linkpendium is a 10,000,000+ resource directory to everything on the Web about families worldwide and genealogically-relevant information about U.S. states and counties. We cover both free and subscription sites, with a strong emphasis upon free resources provided by libraries, other government agencies, genealogical and historical societies, and individuals. We are particularly proud of our unique indexes to online biographies.” That this site is bigger than other similar type sites is not the only reason I believe it is the best. First, they have a more sophisticated and more frequently applied link-checking routine. That means one will have far fewer “site not found” types of messages when exploring links on Linkpendium. I also like the presentation of the links for U.S. geographic locations. For every state, one gets an alphabetical list of counties with the number of links listed with each county. Before the county lists, though, there is a statewide resources link for every state. Under this link, one has access to topical links that cover an entire state rather than specific counties. I am particularly partial to the “projects” lists at the very top of the state resources sections. It is a neat way to find some lesser known but potentially quite helpful sites. Each county also has links to any extant county-wide projects. When one uses Linkpendium to find county-specific sites, its value is even more pronounced. We know how extremely consequential it is to provide context for our research. At the top of every county page is a list of adjacent counties as a reminder of other geographic locations to check-- rather much like a research assistant. As an example, for Auglaize County, Ohio, one would find the following list of adjacent counties with links to their webpages in Linkpendium. •Allen County, OH to the north •Darke County, OH to the southwest •Hardin County, OH to the east •Logan County, OH to the southeast •Mercer County, OH to the west •Shelby County, OH to the south •Van Wert County, OH to the northwest Linkpendium definitely is worth a look, and I dare say worth incorporating into your online searching routine. I would be hard-pressed to believe there are many engaged in genealogy that are not aware of the site FamilySearch.org. I am listing it as my second “extra” site for getting more online for your genealogy because I believe there are portions of that very large website that are totally under- utilized, indeed nearly ignored, by many. While many are appropriately impressed with FamilySearch’s digitized records and personal trees, two sections of the site that don’t get nearly the use they deserve are “Family History Books” and the “Family History Research Wiki.” Family History Books is an online collection of more than 370,000 digitized family and local history materials. I am fond of telling genealogists that everyone in our field has a personal research library of significantly more than a quarter of a million items they can read online, search for specific names, and download--all for free! That is what Family History Books offers to the researcher. More than one dozen organizations, including the Allen County Public Library, have partnered with the Family History Library in Salt Lake City to place copyright-clear materials online for free use by any interested party. Both the collection of online materials available for free use and the number of partners participating in this exciting initiative continue to grow. One just has to take a look. The Family History Research Wiki of FamilySearch.org truly should be one’s research assistant. With more than 87,800 well researched and well documented articles, it is a great way to explore information about the geographic area one is researching as well as the availability of online records for that location. Using U.S. states as an example, each state has a clickable map of county information as well as a button to take one to online records for the state. The Wiki template gives one quick access to research strategies in the particular state, access to information on record types (e.g. cemeteries, census, church, court, land, military, etc.), background on the history of the state, data on ethnicity and settlement, and local research resources. And before one discounts wikis for inconsistent data and lack of posting authority, know that this wiki is closely monitored and heavily vetted. Spend some time not only exploring the extras mentioned in this article but also take a look around and see if there is something just off the beaten path that might be an enhancement to your online research experience. *************************************** New York Slavery Records Index by Melissa C. Tennant *************************************** The “New York Slavery Records Index,” <https://nyslavery.commons.gc.cuny.edu/>, administered by the Master of Public Administration Programs at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, is a centralized access point to more than 35,000 records that document slavery in New York. The index identifies slaves, slaveholders, ship investors, and other records from 1525 to the Civil War era. Currently, records concerning slave owners and enslaved persons have been indexed from the following collections: Dutch Records of New Amsterdam; Colonial Census Records; 1790-1930 U.S. Census; Slave Trade Records; 1715-1765 Slave Ship Records; Emancipations; Runaway Slave Advertisements and Announcements; Treaty of Paris Records; Birth Registration, Abandonment, and Emancipation Records; Comptroller Records; Cemetery Records; and Underground Railroad Records. The search page, with its thirty-four optional search fields, can feel intimidating at first glance. The site is arranged so that all of the data entry fields that an indexer uses is visible to the researcher as search fields. The researcher can search one or multiple fields. Due to the uniqueness of the search page, a review of the Search Instructions page is recommended. Also, the Database Fields page, listed under the Sources tab, provides clearer definitions for each of the fields. The site links slaves with slave owners, such as one finds in the entry for Galloway, born in 1719, who was owned by John Breese of New York City in 1740. The entry includes a search tag of “RAN,” which indicates that the name appeared in a runaway slave notice. Search tags can be found on the Search Instructions page and on the Slavery Records page. In the above example, the record source referenced was Hodges and Brown 34 with an added comment naming the “New York Weekly Journal #360.” One can find more information about the record source under the Sources tab on the Slavery Records page, which in this example is a printed volume available at a library. With this information, one can check that library for the cited volume to read the 1740 notice that had been posted in the “New York Weekly Journal.” The site can also link slave families together, such as the entry for Betsy, mother of Isabella. Also named in the index entry is Donald McLeod, a merchant of New York City in 1802. The search tag of “REG” indicates that the source is the “Birth Registrations of Children Born to Enslaved Mothers after 1799.” The entry is linked to a digital image of the two-sided document titled, “a birth certificate of a certain negro child named Isabella,” located on the New York Historical Society Digital Manuscript Collection website. The “New York Slavery Records Index” site continues to add more sources and indexes, providing an indispensable entry point to slave records in New York. *************************************** Women in World War I: The Hello Girls by Delia Cothrun Bourne *************************************** As the United States entered the Great War in Europe, military officials realized that success in the war depended on speedy communication over newly-constructed telephone lines across France. Civilian French operators could not communicate with English-speaking American personnel and could not be depended on for the secrecy that the army required. Male soldiers were pressed into service at the French switchboards that connected the changeable front lines to command posts and supply depots, but most could not speak French and were uncomfortable working the complicated equipment, which state-side women could work five times faster.