RAOGK Wiki launches with tribute to Bridgette Schneider (1948-2011)

There's a new wiki in town with what seems the same heart of gold fostered by the late Bridgette Schneider (1946-2011).

The Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Wiki is now the home to volunteers across the world. The site includes series of tributes to the late Bridgette Schneider.


Bridgette and her husband Doc made the volunteer network we know as Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) a reality.

I can point to connections in my personal genealogy made possible by the volunteers at RAOGK. What was Bridgett's dream has been a part of my "brick walls" exchanges with family historians over the years.

Who could say it better than Pat Richley-Erickson (DearMyrtle) who wrote this morning on Facebook, "Bridgette was the first in genealogy to get us networking. Now it's called crowd sourcing and social networking."

You can connect with RAOGK on the new wiki, or on one of two Facebook Groups. For information on how to connect, please visit the Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Wiki.

FHISO receives start-up grant from Megan Smolenyak^2

Gilbert, AZ USA—April 18, 2012—Family History Information Standards Organisation, Inc. (FHISO) today announced that it has received a grant from Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak’s Honoring Our Ancestors Genealogical Grants. The funding will be used to help with the expense of incorporation and start-up.

Megan Smolenyak is a genealogist, author and popular speaker. Her most recent book, Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing was released in January of this year. She earlier wrote, Who Do You Think You Are?: The Essential Guide to Tracing Your Family History. Megan also conducts forensic research for the U.S. Army, coroners, NCIS and the FBI. To learn more about Megan, visit her website, http://www.honoringourancestors.com . 

FHISO is a standards-setting organisation bringing the international family history and genealogical community together in a transparent, democratic forum for the purpose of developing information standards to solve today’s interoperability issues. To learn more about FHISO, visit our website, http://fhiso.org/ .

Please join us in thanking Megan!

CONTACT:

Anthony C. Proctor, FHISO Media Relations (acproctor@fhiso.org)

Robert M. Burkhead, FHISO Acting Chair (rmburkhead@fhiso.org)

Andrew G. Hatchett III, FHISO Acting Secretary (agh3rd@fhiso.org)

Will you "Pass it on?" April 22-28 is 2012 Preservation Week

Losing a family momento isn't the same as misplacing the remote. Will your family papers and artifacts survive into the next century? The one after that?

Help is on the way in the form of programs and webinars developed by libraries and other institutions for Preservation Week 2012, April 22-28. Offerings by the Library of Congress, Stanford University, Google Maps and many others are featured on a resource page developed by the Preservation Section of the Society of American Archivists and NARA. They even make the great graphic/poster, above, freely available.

Historical preservation is everyone's business, so let's take advantage of the opportunity to learn what we can and should to do keep our family history alive.

Thanks to Kate E., SSA on the A&A list for the tip and links. 

Citing my 1940 U.S. Census finds. Two takes!

Over at Geneamusings, Randy Seaver has chimed in with examples of citations for the 1940 U.S. census.  Other genealogists have been sharing their insights, too.  Here's to hoping there is room for another take.

Say you not? 

I blogged about finding John and Bernice Preston in the 1940 census, and created by own supplemental schedule for them. Would I have rushed to finish the job and document that census on April 8th, no doubt the graphic below comes at least close to how the citation would have appeared.

Say you should!

The passage of time can be a good thing. It renews the spirit and settles the nerves. In this case, it also made for a better set of citations.

Genealogy needs a better technical standard

News from FHISO, the open-standards gang. 

“If we are to become better genealogists, then we need a better storage format.” So writes FHISO organizer and BetterGEDCOM wiki member, A.C. “Tony” Proctor in his latest article. His work, “Building a BetterGEDCOM: Building a Better World,” appears in the current (April 2012) issue of Your Family History.

Tony’s article introduces FHISO and touches on many BetterGEDCOM discussion topics, including the need for the new format to be “”flexible and accommodating ” toward the definition of the family unit. By golly, he managed to highlight both “E&C” and Elizabeth Shown Mills in the same article!

Great job, Tony.

To read the full text of Tony’s article, visit the publisher’s site (below) or search Amazon.com for “Your Family History.”
http://www.your-familyhistory.com/

About FHISO 

One community, one standard.

FHISO is a standards-setting organization. It is working to bring together the family history and genealogical community for the purpose of developing collaborative, open standards.  

Connecting with John and Bernice and their 1940 US Census entry

Call it my kind of "supplemental schedule."

From the just earlier blog article explaining how and where this was located, below is the 1940 U.S. census page that includes the entry for John and Bernice Preston. Bernice's parents are listed, too.

Better than a street address! I've concluded that I have a photograph of the home where John and Bernice were living at 1940--pretty cool. Check out the graphic below for some key information I used to reach my conclusion. 

How about some timely photographs of this couple!

Bernice died in childbirth, on 6 June 1941, early in the morning. Their daughter, Pamela Ann Preston, died, too, though I have never located a death certificate about Pamela. 

John was the informant on Bernice's death certificate, and he reported her residence at the time of death to be "R.R. #1," (Chillicothe, Rural Route 1)--yet further evidence that the residence in my photograph was where the couple lived at the time of the 1940 census.

While doing research to locate the 1940 U.S. census about Bernice, I learned she had been married earlier to Harry Caldwell, also of Ross County, Ohio. Harry died in a motorcycle accident on 13 May 1933 [digital image, Ohio Deaths; FamilySearch]. 

I feel a special connection to Bernice (Cottrill) Preston, though I never knew her.  I am able to share at least part of that connection.

Some readers know the story of the baby grand piano I inherited from Bernice's husband, John. In the piano bench, John had carefully placed any number of genealogy files compiled by his second wife, Helen. In the hope of expressing my thanks for the life of love John and Helen had shown to me, I decided to do a little digging into the family history, using Helen's materials as a starting point. With help from my mom and volunteers at the Family History Center, I made a "link" in my father's family tree. I was able to share that new information with John before he passed away. Alas, I was hooked ... and so goes the story.  What you probably do not know is that the piano I received had been purchased by John as a gift, for none other than his wife, Bernice Cottrill.  --GJ 

Saturday Night Genealogical Fun (on Sunday) - A Genealogy Easter Egg Hunt

I may have had one special Easter egg too many, for this afternoon I took to the 1940 U.S. census to nibble again on Randy Seaver/Geneamusings' "Saturday night fun."
 
1. My target was John L. Preston (1904-1997) and his first wife, Bernice Cottrill (1909-1941).
 
2. Street address. This was more of a challenge for me. John's wife Bernice died 6 June 1941, in childbirth [Ohio death certificate, Bernice Ann Preston, (Chillicothe, Ross County)]. 


(a) The residence address on her death certificate was just "Chillicothe, RR #1." Sigh.
(b) I next checked letters my father had written to John, his brother, just later (1942ish), but found no better detail.
(c) Off to the Ancestry.com city directories--I found a series of entries for my John L. Preston, serving in different capacities at the federal reformatory in Chillicothe. He was listed with a residence at 1016 N. High. [Polk's Chillicothe (Ross County, Ohio) City Directory, v1940; p. 217.] 

1936 Polk's Chillicothe directory; digital image from Ancestry.com

1938 Polk's Chillicothe directory; digital image from Ancestry.com

1940 Polk's Chillicothe directory; digital image from Ancestry.com

3. Mapping. I had no problem finding what at least seems the address, 1016 N. High, on the various maps. (Apparently there is a Subway now in the general area where John once lived.)


4. Steve Morse' Unified 1940 Census ED Finder. Sigh. The map and census finder didn't pan out for me; it returned EDs 71-23, 71-24 and 71-29.


Browsed more pages than I will admit; no joy. Okay, now it's starting to feel like a real challenge.


3-take two. Back to the maps, and more maps, and more and more maps with a dabble here and there in an alternate ED or two.


No joy.


2-take 2. Back to the 1940 Chillicothe city directory, this time to find the entry for Bernice's parents--given as John Cottrill and May Frances on Bernice's death record.  Ha! I located what seemed the possible parents at 1020 N. High, a few doors down or over from where John and Bernice were reported in the same directory.

1940 Polk's Chillicothe directory; digital image from Ancestry.com

4-take 2. Back to check the above noted EDs for this John Cottrill.


No joy, but since I was not having any luck, I looked for and found ED descriptions for "Scioto Township, U.S. Industrial Reformatory," which connected with John's entry in the 1940 city directory. As many officers and families were enumerated there, I checked for John and Bernice, but did not find  them.


4-take 3. Decided to try my hand using the Cottrill 1930 U.S. census ED and Steve Morse' option, "If you know the 1930 ED for this location." (John was living in Michigan in 1930, so the prior research I had done about him would not have helped.)


(a) First to find the Cottrill family in the 1930 U.S. census--success. 

1930 U.S. census image; from Ancestry.com

(b) I used the 1930 Cottrill ED (71-27) location reference to develop reference for that location in 1940. This returned two EDs.

(c) And .... and ... Yes! Success. John and Bernice, and Bernice's parents, too, were located in 1940 ED 71-37. 

1940 U.S. census images; via Steve Morse' site integration with Ancestry.com

I learned more about Bernice during the challenge; will save that for another day. Bear just gonna do the happy dance for now.  

Saturday Night Genealogical Fun - A Genealogy Easter Egg Hunt

Randy Seaver's Geneamusing's Challenge

1. My target? Well, I decided upon the census entry for my Aunt Helen (1899-1988), who married first, Russell Von Clausburg (1896-1940), and second, John L. Preston (1904-1997). Helen lived in Chillicothe, Ohio at 1940, and she loved history and genealogy.

2. Street address. Helen's first husband died 14 April 1940. According to his death certificate, Russell died of unknown causes, he "fell dead on the street." I went in search of a census entry, using the residence address given for Russell on his Ohio Death Certificate.

3. (Skipped this.)

4. I entered the relevant state/county and city information to Steve Morse' Unified 1940 Census ED Finder. I used the map available from Morse' site to locate cross-streets; entered what I believed to be a proper set of cross-streets. Morse' tool provided me an ED result of 71-31, which Ancestry.com describes as ...

5. "SCIOTO TOWNSHIP, CHILLICOTHE CITY WARD 3 BOUNDED BY (N) MAIN; (E) HICKORY; (S) 7TH; (W) PAINT."

6. I located Helen and Russell on page 5 (of 36) in Ancestry.com's free 1940 census images. And .... my oh my--the census was taken on 5 April 1940--just nine days before Russell's death.

Gold Medals to all ... but the Morse-Weintraub team are my heroes

Image credit to Library of Congress

All this talk about 1940 winners ...

How about we give gold medals to all the content providers working hard to bring the 1940 U.S. census images and indexing to our home screens and keyboards.


There are some real heroes, though. For me, it's the Stephen P. Morse-Joel D. Weintraub team who brought us the Unified 1940 Census ED Finder.




As far as winners go, personally, I think we genealogists are the winners on this release! Thank you to the content providers and technologists from me and my fine furry friends!