Wordless Wednesday- Fort Wayne

Saturday Challenge: Current Bucket List

Randy Seaver’s GeneaMusing last week was, for me, an ongoing question. Here is my answer that I finally got around to writing:

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to: Knowing that a "Bucket List" is a wish list of things to do before death: 1) What is on your Genealogy Bucket List? What research locations do you want to visit? Are there genea-people that you want to meet and share with? What do you want to accomplish with your genealogy research? List a minimum of three items - more if you want!

Can I answer, anywhere and everywhere?!

I have many projects I want to work on and as I work on each, I discover more places that I want to explore and see if they have the information to solve this particular puzzle. Some of the places are new to me, but others I have been to once or multiple times before.

Last week I explored two different library’s local history departments. Both places I had been to before to work on other things.

First I visited Seymour Library in Auburn. On the day I visited I was working on two projects. The first was looking for some more information about a barn that burned in 1963. My brother, David, now owns the property and I was looking to determine when the fire was and what caused it. We had been surmising that it might have been a lightning strike as there are many lightning rods on the current barn. However, I found in an article that it was a fault in electrical fencing that started it. Also, one of the neighbors had thought it was in the 70s rather than fall of 1963 that I discovered.

The second project was research on the blog post I made last week of The Case of Lead Poisoning. I haven’t found any new information. But I did discover that the notation was not on the actual cemetery listing, but rather on cards in the local historian’s office that were used to create that list. Another place to visit!

In the near future, I would like to check out some locations in Cortland County. There I’d like to check probate records and see if there is any more information on the family in the historical society’s holdings. If what I suspect is true, I can trace my Ingalls family back at least one more generation, possibly more and find that they were in Cortland before Jefferson County. This is after doing some research last week at Flower Library in Watertown on the family.

I could easily create a list of many repositories near me that I would like to visit. Some are for the first time, while others are repeats. I have many ancestors as well as interesting collateral lines that lived and died in this area. With every visit, I tend to find a new tidbit or two about their lives that I hadn’t found before.

My husband and I also postponed two research trips this summer. These will be made soon. We want to go to Westchester County in downstate NY to research some of his family. Along with that, we may sneak in a little research in the Hudson Valley or western Connecticut where we both have families. Also, we’d like to get back to the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. What would I research there? They have some information on New York State areas. However, the areas that are goldmines for me are books and records on many different mid-west areas covering multiple states. Obviously, I need to do an overall research plan of priority areas and questions to work on there!

My husband jokes that I have ancestors, either direct or collateral, in every county of New York State. I’m not sure, but there may be a county or two missing off that list. However, if you put me in any repository in this area with my computer database, I probably can find somebody to research and so will happily sit there searching! Of course, that is not mentioning the cemeteries, or people, or…

PERSI

Find My Past announced yesterday their monthly updates to PERSI. There are 92,647 images added with 20 new publications that cover New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Lancashire England, Ireland and more places! Of course, there was already a lot there as they state there are over 2.5 million entries. This is a resource that I go to periodically to find articles, but will be diving into a lot more over the next few weeks, as I get ready to head for Indiana.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with PERSI, that is the acronym for the PERiodical Source Index that originated many years ago at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It used to be available on HeritageQuest, but as of about three years ago is now available through Find My Past. The older listings are still available at HeritageQuest through 2009. However, all the listings including the latest are on Find My Past. Also, with the change to the new website provider, there are some articles that are available directly from the database. It is no longer just an index from which you need to find the journal in which the article is in to get a copy. From what I understand, as time goes on, there will be even more available through the scanned images on the servers.

How do you get to the articles once you find one you are interested in if it’s not already available on their site? Well, here are the directions from their website:

“Alternatively, you might find the periodical in a library or other research repository in your area. Try searching your local library’s online catalog. If the title does not appear there, search OCLC’s WorldCat.org. WorldCat is the largest bibliographic database in the world, and can generate a list of libraries local to you that own a particular item.
Finally, you can engage the research services of the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center and order a copy of your periodical article. An “Article Request Form” can be completed at: http://genealogycenter.org/docs/default-source/resources/articlerequest.pdf?sfvrsn=2”

That second paragraph is why I always think of Allen County when I think of PERSI. When I was there three years ago, I had a list of many, many articles that I wanted to get copies of. Sure, I could look in my local library for these journals, or some of the libraries in the area just like that first paragraph mentions. However, I prepared that list knowing that in just a few days, I’d be on the road. The Genealogy Center has every journal available there that is indexed on PERSI. Why start looking to see which of several libraries or repositories might have the one I was interested in when I knew I’d be spending three days there and could just walk over to the shelf and grab the ones I was interested in. Convenience meant this was a fast and practical way to get these articles. What is more, there I can copy the articles if I wish, or insert a thumb-drive into the copier and get a digital copy! Less paper to carry home, less cost in paying for copies (digital is free!), and I don’t have to scan them later in order to add them to my files. A big win all the way around as far as I’m concerned.

This time while visiting the Genealogy Center I will probably be looking for less journal articles. I’ve already got a good many that I wanted from that previous trip. The fact that many are already available online means I’ll have less new ones to get. Also, I have a bit more Indiana and Michigan research that I want to concentrate on.

Upcoming Conferences

September is shaping up to be a very busy month for Remling Genealogy. There are two conferences coming up in September.  

The first is the New York State Family History Conference, which will take place September 15-17 in Liverpool. This is a 3-day conference concentrating on New York State and New York City research. The New York State Historians will be having their conference at the same place and time. Registrants for both conferences can attend sessions of the other one if they wish as well.

Registration is still open: http://www.nysfhc.org/registration.html

Allen County Public Library

The second conference is the Professional Management Conference (PMC), which will take place at the Allen County Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana on September 22-24. This conference is geared towards those that work in genealogy as a career. Mainly for those that work independently, there are also many sessions that are helpful to those that work in larger companies as well. This conference has the added advantage that it is taking place at one of the largest genealogical libraries in the United States.

Registration is open for the 2016 PMC, September 22 through 24, at https://www.apgen.org/conferences/index.html.

My husband and I have added to these conferences some research days as well. We’ll be leaving right after the New York State conference and spending some days exploring the northeastern part of Indiana and getting some extra time in at the Allen County Library. This is a return trip for us as we did some research in these areas three years ago.

Dennis K and Sarah Wooster gravestone

I am hoping to find out some more about Dennis Kennedy Wooster, the son of Jerusha Wooster that I mentioned yesterday. He left Central New York in 1869 and spent the rest of his life mostly in either Steuben County, Indiana or Branch County, Michigan. These counties sit either side of the state line and Steuben is the very northeast corner of Indiana. Dennis and much of his family are buried in the Jamestown Cemetery in Steuben County. Just out of site of the cemetery to the north is Interstate 80 and 90 cutting east-west across the country in Indiana, but with views of Michigan to the north. Considering that it is that close, you can certainly understand why some of the children were married across the state line, even though they barely left home to do so.