Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Hebert’s Careful Louisiana Work to be Preserved

Writing in the 2theadvocate.com web site, Damon Veach has penned a glowing tribute to the late Rev. Donald J. Hebert. Hebert was an outstanding genealogical preservationist. He is responsible for the publication of many records about the southwest Louisiana area, especially Catholic Church records.

Using the Social Security Death Records

The Social Security Administration's Death Index (SSDI) can be a boon to beginning genealogists. The Social Security number is the most valuable piece of information when seeking a number of other documents. It is essential for ordering paper copies of original death records, obituaries, and more. The SSDI is the first step in obtaining this information. If you can only trace your U.S. ancestry back to your grandparents or possibly great-grandparents, the Social Security Administration can help you find where they were born, the names of their parents, and more. The SSDI can be especially helpful for those researching immigrants as the data often shows where the individual was born in "the old country."

What Is "Second Cousin Once Removed?"

A term often found in genealogy is "removed," specifically when referring to family relationships. Indeed, almost everyone has heard of a "second cousin once removed," but many people cannot explain that relationship. Of course, a person might be more than once removed, as in third cousin, four times removed.

FamilySearch Indexing - You Can Help!

Tens of millions of records are now available to genealogists. Many of these records are available online and even millions more are available only on microfilm. Unfortunately, many of these records have never been indexed.

How can you find information that is available to you? The task is not easy today. However, a project organized by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will produce millions of indexed records within the next few years. In fact, the Church's vision is to provide computerized indexes to millions of  rolls of microfilmed records held in the Granite Mountain Vault near Salt Lake City.

You Can’t Believe the Census Records!

Census records are amongst the primary tools of genealogists. Even so, those of us who have been reading them for a while can tell you that the records are not as reliable as we would wish. I am still trying to find great-great-granddad in the 1850 census although he appears hale and hearty in the enumerations of 1840, 1860, 1870 and 1880. His absence in 1850 is still unexplained. Still, my quandary is minor compared to some others. For instance, the 1990 census is thought to have missed one native American in eight. Thousands of others – perhaps millions – have been missed in census records taken over the past two centuries.

The Library Problem

Genealogists love to collect books. I have a few hundred books here, and I am told that many genealogists have ten times that number or more. Being somewhat organizationally challenged, my books are scattered around my computer room, the living room, the garage, and the basement. I think there may even be a few in the trunk of my car at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if your books were dispersed in a similar manner.

Of course, there are challenges with keeping and organizing that many volumes. After all, that's a lot of shelf space, and bookcases aren't cheap. For me, the real difficulty is answering the question, "Now where did I put that book?"

There are many possible solutions. Some possible solutions even include the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress classifications (LCC). Would it make sense to use either of those in a home library?

You Are Descended From More Women than Men

Most of us assume that an equal number of men and women amongst our ancestors. Not so, says John Tierney, writing in the New York Times. He quotes Roy F. Baumeister, who delivered a speech on the subject on Friday at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco. Fear not: Baumeister and Tierney are not suggesting that we re-write the laws of biology.

Genealogy Records Disaster

An article in the Corsicana (Texas) Daily Sun caught my eye. It seems that Gary Richards, who grew up in Corsicana but has lived in Louisiana for about 10 years, had a sad experience when he had to evacuate his house near Lake Ponchartrain, where the levee system failed during Hurricane Katrina.

Richards borrowed a friend’s car and had to leave his computers and many valuable genealogical items behind, hoping that the house would withstand storms as in the past. He headed to his parents' home in Corsicana and stayed there for some time. When he returned to his house in October, hoping for the best, there had been eight and one-half feet of water on his street and five feet of water in the house itself. Every stick of furniture had been destroyed, along with his 3,000 books.

Richards' computers were ruined although some of his genealogy records on paper were salvageable.

Handwriting Provides Clues to Ancestors' Personality

Working on a local history project, Floyd Ramsey was puzzled while researching Dolly Copp, a 19th century farm woman who seemed gregarious, but fidgeted nervously with her necklace beads whenever a stagecoach stopped near her farm in Gorham, N.H. "The beads part didn't fit in," Ramsey recalled.

When he learned that Irene P. Lambert could produce a personality sketch from a sample of Copp's handwriting, he gave it a try. After studying Copp's handwriting, Lambert concluded that, while Copp was a strong-willed woman who enjoyed people, she also was self-conscious, afraid strangers would laugh at her.

A Better Way to Search for People?

Peter Wood wrote this week and offered a suggestion that I have not seen before. He described a better method of searching for people on RootsWeb, Ancestry.com, or even on Google and other search engines. Peter finds that adding one more letter onto the end of the name improves the number of correct "hits" and reduces the number of "false hits."

Peter writes:

Searching for people that cannot be found in the "usual" locations such as Roots or Ancestry?