Footnote.com Provides Free Access to FBI Case Files from Early 1900s

Footnote.com is providing FREE access to one of the most overlooked collections of genealogical-valuable records that the U.S. government possesses. The Bureau of Investigation records have never before been available online. In fact, many experienced genealogists have never heard of these records.

Millions of residents were investigated by the government from 1908 to 1922 and extensive dossiers were written. The reports often included full name; place and date of birth; names of parents, spouses, children, and siblings; occupation; date of immigration (if applicable); political and religious affiliations; and more.  If you haven't looked at the Bureau of Investigation case files, you may have overlooked one of the richest resources available for the years 1908 through 1922.

The following is an announcement written by Footnote.com although I also added my own comments at the end:

In Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the FBI, Footnote.com Opens Its FBI Collection Featuring over 2 Million Original Records

Lindon, UT July 23, 2008 – Espionage, bootlegging, war crimes, illegal aliens, and political wrongdoing. 

While this may sound like the latest Hollywood blockbuster it’s actually a review of some of the investigations the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has carried out over its 100 year history.

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the FBI, Footnote.com announced their entire collection of FBI Case Files  will be freely accessible by the public through the end of August.  The collection contains over two million records featuring some very surprising hidden stories.

A few examples include, J. Edgar Hoover opening an investigation into actor Charlie Chaplin for allegedly making a contribution of $100,000 for socialist propaganda.  Baseball great Babe Ruth was investigated for draft dodging and newspaper mogul William Randolph Hurst was investigated for suspicion of funding the Mexican-American War.

The FBI Case Files date from 1908 to 1922 and feature cases involving espionage during WWI, investigations into German aliens who were politically suspect, reports of violations of prohibition and more.  Serious, as well as far-fetched, accounts provide a fresh insider’s perspective to the history of this time period.

“Original documents are not only interesting but also provide a way to verify historical facts that may have been previously considered conspiracy theories,” says Russ Wilding, CEO of Footnote.com. “It’s important to have records like these available so people can understand and appreciate our nation’s history as well as the circumstances that lead to the actions taken..”

Through their partnership with the National Archives, Footnote.com has digitized and indexed over 41 million original records; the majority of which have never been seen on the Internet before.  Footnote.com continues to add millions of new documents to the site every month.

With easy to use tools and a social component to the site, Footnote.com is changing the way people access and interact with history.  “We’re more than just an online repository of historical records,” continues Wilding. “We’re an outlet where people can go to add their own viewpoints on history and to share their own insights and discoveries.” 

Footnote.com also enables people to upload their own shoeboxes of photos, letters and other documents - adding to the ever-changing face of history.
Visit Footnote.com today to view the FBI Case Files  and the millions of additional historical records.

About Footnote.com
Footnote.com is a history website where real history might just surprise you.  Footnote.com features millions of searchable original documents, providing users with an unaltered view of the events, places and people that shaped the American nation and the world. At Footnote.com, all are invited to come share, discuss, and collaborate on their discoveries with friends, family, and colleagues. For more information, visit www.footnote.com.

COMMENTS BY DICK EASTMAN

The Bureau of Investigation is the name of the original investigative branch of the Federal government. It was later renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and was then managed for many years by J. Edgar Hoover. The Bureau of Investigation was the name of the agency in the years before Hoover.

The Bureau investigated all sorts of things. It was not strictly a crime-fighting organization. For most of its lifetime, it focused on potential political enemies and almost anyone who possibly had un-American ideas. From 1909 to 1921, the Bureau of Investigation spent thousands of hours investigating and recording the lives of almost anyone of German ancestry. If your ancestor had a German-sounding name, there is a good chance that he or she was investigated and that detailed information was compiled. If so, that information can now be found in the Bureau of Investigation case files.

You might also note that the investigators were rather liberal with the phrase "German sounding" names; they often investigated people whose surnames were Dutch or Danish or Swedish or Polish or from any of a number of East European countries.

The investigations were not limited to Germanic surnames, however. Many native-born Americans were also investigated, including William Randolph Hearst, Babe Ruth, and many other Americans. Many Mexicans were also investigated, apparently because of the Mexican Revolution of those years. Immigrants from non-Germanic countries were also sometimes investigated, such as the reference to Charlie Chaplin in the announcement. (Chaplin was born and raised in England.)

The Bureau of Investigation documented the lives of most anyone who possibly could have been slightly anti-American. If the mailman or a co-worker or a schoolteacher said, "I'm not sure about Max…", investigators would compile an extensive dossier on Max. Contents usually included his or her date and place of birth, names of all living relatives (and occasionally deceased relatives as well), all acquaintances that looked "interesting," occupation, social organizations that the person had joined, political views, religion, and much more.

Some celebrities were investigated, but the overwhelming majority of Bureau of Investigation case files are about every-day private citizens. Most were working folks, just like the majority of our ancestors.

One record I found is for Carl Eastman who was first mentioned in an "anonymous letter" which generated an investigation. He was accused of the "crime" of taking blueprints home from the shipyard where he worked so that he could study them on his own time. Carl Eastman was a native-born American although his father was from Germany.

The 3-page Bureau of Investigation report written in 1917 starts with, "He lives at 1204 Francis Avenue, [Portland, Oregon]; born Lagrange, Illinois, January 2, 1896; he is registered. His father is Gustave Eastman, a music teacher, born in Germany, living in Portland, Oregon; the mother is Marie Austerburg, a music teacher born in Olenburg, Germany. He has aunts and uncles in Germany at the present time. He has a sister Ruth, seventeen months older than himself, and worked for Miss Allen. They have been in Portland since 1901." The report goes on for three pages describing 21-year-old Carl Eastman's political views, his friends, the club he belonged to, and more. The investigator(s) obviously interviewed friends and relatives of the young man.

The investigator(s) then interviewed the German-born father, Gustave, and gave similar detailed information about him. The investigator ended his report of the father by writing, "I do not doubt but what the old gentleman is somewhat in sympathy with the German cause but is too old to be of any danger to the government."

I think the Bureau of Investigation gives far more detail about these men than I could ever find in vital records! You may find similar information about people you are interested in. The amount of personal information available in the Bureau of Investigation records is amazing.

A SEARCH SUGGESTION

Now I can offer a bit of advice about searching the Bureau of Investigation records. Like most other records on Footnote.com, the names of the primary individuals have been indexed and you can find them by searching for first name and last name. For instance, in the above example concerning Carl Eastman, you can find him by specifying a search of "First name = Carl" and "Last name = Eastman." However, the text of the report was not indexed by any human being. You will not find his mother by specifying "First name = Marie" and "Last name = Austerburg." After all, she was not the subject of the report, her name was not listed in the report title, and therefore she wasn't indexed manually.

HOWEVER, every single word in the body of each report was indexed by a computer using OCR (optical character recognition). You can find her if you specify the correct search parameters. However, the computer had no way of knowing that Marie was a first name and that Austerburg was a last name. The computer simply sees those as words, the same as "Portland" or "shipyard" or "teacher."

The trick here is to search for the words "Marie" and "Austerburg" as keywords in Footnote.com's new search, not as a first or last name. You know and I know that "Marie" is a first name and that "Austerburg" is a last name but the computer didn't know that when creating the index.

These words were treated as text in the body of the report, not as specific names. The search for keywords should find all occurrences of the name "Marie" and the name "Austerburg," indexed as text in the body of a report.

Enjoy the Bureau of Investigation reports at http://www.footnote.com. If you make a new discovery, you might post a report about it at the end of this article in the COMMENTS section.

Comments

[Harold Henderson]

I look forward to using this great new resource. I also look forward to Footnote's PR people learning the difference between the Mexican-American War (1846) and the Spanish-American War (1898).

[Cheryl]

Dick, these were the first records in Footnote where I found really pertinent information to my own research. I found my friend's grandfather's files and a file on my own grand-uncle. Then I just got interested in reading them. They are fascinating.

[Joe Bissett]

You can do Footnotes.com a great favor if you will tell them that they need to do some SERIOUS work on the download speed of their web pages. There is no way I will subscribe with their slow response times. A simple name search in one directory category finally displayed the two search hits after THREE MINUTES TWO SECONDS of waiting, but the page itself was still loading when I quit after four minutes. I watched the links loading at the bottom left of Firefox, and the big hang ups were with pagead links from googlesyndication. I use a high speed wireless connection, and other web sites load at normally expected speeds. To be honest, I believe they try for too much glitz, when researchers want to retrieve information. Trying to get information to display is just too frustrating.
Joe Bissett Rootsweb Surname Administrator: PIGGOTT, CUMMISKEY and KERSLAKE lists

[Dick Eastman]

On my system, a simple name search in one directory category on Footnote.com loads in about four to six seconds. Individual pages load in about six or eight seconds. I do have a broadband connection. Downloading large images on a dial-up connection will obviously be much slower.

I have seen Footnote.com run on many different computers, connected to the Internet by many different Internet providers, and have never seen it run as slow as you describe. Even on my Verizon wireless modem, images always download within twenty seconds or so.

Has anyone else seen extremely slow speeds?

- Dick Eastman

[Vivian]

Dick,

On a DSL connection at the Family History Center where I volunteer, I have seen extremely slow speeds while waiting for Footnote images to load. At home on my cable high-speed connection, the images and other pages seem to load much more quickly.

[jenifer]

Footnote.com images load in about ten seconds on my cable modem connection.

[Jean T]

Thank you so much for this information, I went to the Footnote Website and found information on my father: Charles Nuzum by just putting in the last name as a keyword. Did have to sign up for Footnote Free. To see an affidavit written in my Father's own words is GREAT!! Thanks Again. Jean T (Loaded very quickly!)

[Judy S]

I couldn't find the "Free" FBI records. No clue about it on their homepage, and any searching brings up a box demanding payment. What am I overlooking?

[Dick Eastman]

To find ANY collection of records on Footnote.com, go to http://www.footnote.com and click on SEE ALL TITLES (left column, about two-thirds of the way down the page).

Or here is a direct shortcut: http://www.footnote.com/documents/169098/fbi_case_files/

[Jayne]

I have also found Footnote somewhat difficult to navigate. I have a broadband connection. It takes longer than other sites to load pages, to go to a page and then back, and so on.

But there is a worse problem than that. And that is that the search engine is way off. I put the name GULA in the FBI database and got fifty-some answers. I looked at some of them and found that the search engine had directed me to the word "could" in one instance and "guise" in another instead of the name GULA. When I tried the name HITEMAN, I was directed to Whiteman as well as Hiteman. It takes too much time, what with the site taking too long to go from one page to another, to go through results that have nothing to do with what I am searching for.

Jayne
perllan987@aol.com

[History Lady]

Even easier than clicking on "see all titles" to locate a list of all the records, simply click on the top menu for "Original Documents." The entire alphabetical list of titles will fill your screen. A simple browser search (command-F) will take you to a title even more quickly on the page.

[Lou]

I am very frustrated. Footnote has wonderful information but it downloads so SLOW and sometimes shuts down completely. And no, I do not have dial-up, I have RoadRunner high speed connection.