Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

Can You Marry Your Cousin?

Consider this list:

Charles Darwin married his first cousin.

Albert Einstein's parents were first cousins. Then Albert married his own first cousin. Elsa Lowenthal, Einstein's second wife, was his first cousin on his mother's side. In fact, they were also "double cousins." Lowenthal also happened to be Einstein's second cousin on his father's side.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt were fifth cousins, once removed (a chart showing their relationship is available at http://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/teachinger/q-and-a/q6.cfm).

John Adams married his third cousin, Abigail Smith.

Reading Old Deeds May Require a Glossary and Calculator

Dee Gibson-Roles has published a very good introduction to reading deeds and property transactions. The article describes the “metes and bounds” method of describing the land in question. She also offers practical hints, such as, "It often pays the researcher to check out the chain bearers, as they were quite often relatives, even sons, of the person acquiring the land."

Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally

I have written several times about the advantages and disadvantages of storing records digitally for many years, both your personal records as well as the holdings of major archives and records repositories. Now Gary Wright, an employee of FamilySearch, has written a definitive whitepaper on the subject that explains the issues involved with digital archiving. He describes in detail the pitfalls of digital storage of priceless paperwork and of old family photographs that have been digitized. As he explains, if done right, digital archives will last for decades. If done wrong, they may not last three years.

I had a chance to read this whitepaper a few weeks ago when Gary circulated it amongst a number of people in the industry, asking for our comments. I told Gary at that time that he had to publish it on the web and, when he did, to please let me know the address so that I could inform the readers of this newsletter. After all the comments were in, Gary did exactly that. White Paper: Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally is now available on the FamilySearch.org web site at https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/White_Paper:_Preserving_Your_Family_History_Records_Digitally

Are You Missing Most of the Available Genealogy Information?

This morning I received a message from a newsletter reader that disturbed me a bit. He wrote, "I have been doing genealogy research for 10-15 years but only through the Internet." He then went on to describe some of the frustrations he has encountered trying to find information.

I read the entire message, but my eyes kept jumping back to the words in his first sentence: "... but only through the Internet."

Doesn't he realize that 98% of the information of interest to genealogists is not yet available on the Internet?

Citing Sources

One thing that genealogists need to do is to always cite their sources. I well remember my early days of family tree searches. I would record new information into three-ring notebooks. (This was long before the invention of the personal computer.) I would write down names, dates, places, and perhaps a bit more information that I was lucky enough to find.

Unfortunately, in those early days I did not write down where I obtained the information. Nobody told me that I needed to do this, and I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out for myself. I simply assumed that everything I found was accurate. After all, it was printed in a book, wasn't it?

The Rising Cost of Travel Versus Online Research

A newsletter reader asked an interesting question. Here is an extract from a longer message:

As the economy continues to worsen and gas prices rise exponentially, I am curious to know how this will affect services such as Ancestry.com, 1837online, Scotland's People, Worldvitalrecords.com, and others.

Will these companies raise their prices in relation to other increases? Or will they maintain or possibly lower prices to keep subscribers? In tough times, leisure activities are among the first to suffer.

I am not sure that my crystal ball is any clearer than anyone else's. However, a few things do seem obvious to me.

There is No Such Thing as a Half-Cousin!

One of my pet peeves is a term that I see online over and over: someone claiming to be a "half first cousin" or a "half second cousin once removed" or something similar. Sorry folks, but there is no such thing as a "half first cousin." I know that lots of families use that term to refer to various relatives, but there simply is no such thing in the U.S.

NOTE: I will describe references used in the U.S. It is possible that relations are described differently in other countries and especially in languages other than English.

Many people think that a "half first cousin" is someone who shares one grandparent with you but not both of them. For instance, my great-grandfather was married twice. He had several children by his first wife. The wife then died in childbirth and great-grandfather later remarried and had more children by his second wife. I am descended from great-grandfather and his first wife. I recently met a man who is descended from great-grandfather and his second wife. Some people would think that this other man and I are half-second cousins. "Half" apparently refers to a mistaken belief that we only share half the relationship because of our different great-grandmothers.

In fact, we are second cousins. Period.

The Popularity of Your Last Name

The U.S. Census Bureau counts the number of Americans every ten years. The same government agency also asks a lot of questions of those people, such as how many bathrooms are in their house and whether or not the family owns a computer. The Census Bureau even counts how many people have the same first or last names.

Soundex Explained

NOTE: This is an update to an article I wrote many years ago. It has had some new information added and several new links to new web pages have also been added.

Many genealogy records are indexed by a high-tech algorithm called the Soundex Code. Well, it was “high tech” in 1918 when Robert Russell invented it. In a nutshell, Soundex Codes provide a means of identifying words – especially names -- by the way they sound. They were used extensively by the U.S. Work Projects Administration (WPA) crews working in the 1930s to organize Federal Census data from 1880 to 1920. Soundex has also been used for many state and local census records and is very popular in genealogy software and databases. If you are a genealogist, it won't be long until you encounter Soundex.

Internet is Resource, But Not Do-All Genealogy Tool

Jule Miller writes a genealogy column in the Broomfield Enterprise, a newspaper and web site published in Broomfield, Colorado. I would suggest that Julie's latest column should be required reading for all new genealogists.

Julie writes, "The Internet has drastically changed how genealogy research is done. The amount of information posted on the Internet is increasing at an amazing pace every day. The ads might say you can find your complete family history by searching a Web site, but even though the Internet has billions and billions of pages filled with information, not everything is on the Internet."

Using the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules

Almost all experienced genealogists have used the census records to find ancestors. However, how many of us have used the Census Mortality Schedules? In fact, I have to wonder how many of us even know what the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules are? And why would we find them to be valuable?

In 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900, the U.S. census enumerators were required to collect all the normal census information plus even more: information about all persons dying within the 12 months preceding the census taking. These lists are known as the "Mortality Schedules."

Can You Prove This?

Here is a quote I have read many times: “Genealogy is the second fastest growing hobby in the United States, next to gardening.”

One problem: I cannot find an original source for this claimed "fact." As genealogists, we shouldn't be making claims when we do not have source citations. We should know better!

Can anyone provide a citation to the original proof? If so, I will publish the source citation in a future newsletter and then we can all use this "fact" properly.

Albuquerque, New Mexico Library Offers a Trove of Hispanic Genealogy

The library, housed in a historic elementary school building, offers resources ranging from New Mexico land grant documents and 200 years of records of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe to censuses and church and government records from El Paso, Texas, and Chihuahua and Durango in Mexico.

The El Paso and Mexico documents are important because “nearly everybody who came this far north went through those areas, so if people work back far enough they’re going to need to look at that information,” said senior librarian Greta Pullen.

Mormon Web Site Handy, But Be Sure To Examine Details

Sharon Tate Moody has written an article that I think should be required for all new genealogists. She writes:

One of the greatest gifts to the genealogical world comes from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which microfilmed thousands of local and state records it loans out to research centers around the world.

You Are Probably Descended from Charlemagne and Other Royalty

If you are of European descent, you are probably a descendant of Charlemagne. Once you are able to prove your line of descent from him, you will then find thousands of links to other royalty in your list of relatives.

Charlemagne had twenty children over the course of his life with eight of his ten known wives or concubines. Genealogists have shown that fourteen presidents of the United States, including George Washington, Ulysses Grant, Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, and the Bushes are all descendants of the King of France who lived from 2 April 742 AD to 28 January 814 AD.

It is rare indeed that the genealogy of a person of European descent, when traceable, doesn’t hit nobility somewhere. And once it hits one European noble, whether you like it or not, nearly the whole tribe joins your family. Those folks got around.

The reason is simple. First, make a guess how many ancestors you have. It may be a larger number than you thought. Obviously, you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, sixteen great-great-grandparents and so on in a geometric progression. Moving backwards, each generation introduces double the number of ancestors of the previous generation.

Tips for Tracing Irish Roots

It is St. Patrick's Day. I was going to write an article about how to trace your Irish ancestry but there are two problems:  (1.) I am not an expert on Irish ancestry and (2.) someone else already beat me to it.

Julie Miller is a professional genealogist, an excellent writer, and noted lecturer. She knows a LOT about researching Irish roots. Julie wrote an excellent article, Tips for Tracing Irish Roots, which has been published in the Broomfield Enterprise.

Family Tree Research Sprouting Again After Katrina

NOLA.com has an interesting article about genealogy research in New Orleans. Many of these genealogists had their records and their old family photographs destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. For many, genealogy research now means starting all over again.

What would you do if you had to start all over? You can read what others have done at http://www.nola.com/family/index.ssf/2010/02/family_trees_sprouting_again_a.html.

Online Course: Archival Research Basics with the National Archives

The National Archives and Records Administration Pacific Alaska Region, in cooperation with The Alaska Network for Understanding American History (ANUAH), is offering online lessons on Archival Research Basics. This self-paced course consists of ten online lessons and a one day hands-on experience in person at the National Archives in Anchorage or Seattle that will lead you through the process of understanding the research process, narrowing your topic, knowing where to look for materials, and understanding the organization and holdings of archives.  Additionally, you will learn to transcribe handwritten documents, cite primary sources adequately, and discover National Archives educational resources online.

A Little-Known Government Genealogy Service

A little-known program of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) provides genealogy information that may be difficult or impossible to obtain elsewhere. The records include naturalization files, visa applications and citizenship tests, and may reveal family secrets and mysteries.

Under the USCIS Genealogy Program, which started in 2008, requests are usually completed within 90 days. For $20, the government will run a search of the name, as long as the person is deceased. If there are records available, the government charges additional fees for the files.

Why Isn't It Free?

The following was published as a Plus Edition article a couple of weeks ago. At the suggestion of several newsletter readers, I am now republishing it in the Standard Edition newsletter for all to see. If you wish, you do have permission to forward this article to others or to republish it elsewhere for non-profit use. For details, look at the menus on the upper right side of this web page and click on COPYRIGHTS.

One topic that surprises me has appeared several times recently in comments from this newsletter's readers. Some people have questioned the idea of placing public domain data online and charging for access to that information, as is done by Ancestry.com, Footnote.com, FindMyPast, WorldVital Records, and others. One person claimed that it is illegal to charge for access to public domain data, and another reader stated that the online sites are "violating my constitutional rights to view the census."

Sorry, folks, but that simply isn't true.