Blog | California Genealogical Society

Friday Report: 2010 Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research

by Kathryn Doyle (7/16/2010)

This is Jeff Vaillant’s final installment of his series from the Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR). Thanks so much, Jeff!

Friday was the “short” day with three presentations. Those of us staying in the dorms had to be out before breakfast so the rooms could be cleaned for a new group arriving in the afternoon. Samford University hosts many activities: youth sport camps, freshman orientation, and church organizational meetings. The decibel level in the cafeteria must have been in excess of 80!
Lloyd started the day talking about Church Records. His bibliography included surveys and denominational records. He drove home the point that understanding the religion of an ancestor will help in finding records. Two tidbits offered were the 903 churches in 1750 (465 Congregational, 288 Anglican and about 250 Quaker meeting houses) and that a “graveyard” is associated with a church whereas a “cemetery” is not.
John Colletta revealed our ancestors using nineteenth-century newspapers. I heard a similar presentation from him in Santa Rosa a few years ago. If you have heard John speak, then you know he is both entertaining and informative. Again, an excellent outline and bibliography was offered. John cited St. Louis as an example of why newspapers are important in research. Of the fifteen papers in print there in 1904: six were in English with four for the white community, one for the black community and one for the Jewish community. There were five German newspapers, two Czech, one Polish and one Italian publication. The Library of Congress has a newspaper collection as well as many state archives and local archives. There are several websites with varying newspaper collections available—mostly on a fee basis.
The last session was Lloyd’s opportunity to finish his discussion of church records and other tidbits, for which there was little time earlier in the week. Yes, we all got handsome certificates of completion.
My take on IGHR is that I now understand why people keep coming to the Institute. One can spend an entire week on Virginia records or Military records or Scottish records.
The June 12-17, 2011 Course Offerings are:
Techniques and Technology (Pamela Boyer Sayre)
Intermediate Genealogy and Historical Studies (Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck)
Research in the South, Part 3 (Carolyn Earle Billingsley)
Advanced Methodology and Evidence Analysis (Elizabeth Shown Mills)
Writing and Publishing for Genealogists (Thomas W. Jones)
Advanced Library Research: Law Libraries and Government Documents (Ann Carter Fleming and Benjamin b. Spratling)
Virginia’s Land and Military Conflicts & Their Effect on Migration (Barbara Vines Little)
Researching African-American Ancestors: Slave & Reconstruction Era Records (Frazine Taylor)
U.S. Military Records (Christine Rose)
Scottish Genealogical Research (Paul Milner)
I meet some splendid people while at the Institute. My next genealogical educational endeavor will be the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy in Salt Lake City, Utah in January. So, it will be from the frying pan of Birmingham to the freezer of SLC.

– Jeffrey Vaillant

Read the entire series:
Part 1 — Getting to IGHR: A Tale of Two Days
Part 2 — Monday Report
Part 3 — Tuesday Report
Part 4 — Wednesday Report
Part 5 — Thursday Report
Part 6 — Friday Report

Thursday Report: 2010 Institute of Genealogy & Historical Research

by Kathryn Doyle (7/15/2010)

Jeffrey Vaillant continues his series from the Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR).

Thursday was Bockstruck day! The definition of a walking encyclopedia is Lloyd. His first presentation was on Hereditary Societies and Their Records. His bibliography included history, directories, military, armigerous (right to use of coat of arms), occupational, ethnic, colonial, old world societies and geographical references. He illustrated many of the lineage societies with his own family.
Next he covered the topic of Migrations or Westward Expansion in two separate presentations. One interesting set of facts about immigration that he offered was the number of arrivals.
1620 – 1820: 650,000 people immigrated in 200 years
1820 – 1880: 10,000,000 arrived over the next 60 years
1880 – 1920: 25,000,000 in the next 40 years
Those are big numbers that stretch the brain to comprehend the impact made. A selfish thing that I found happening while listening was noting those references and aids which will help me in my own research. Most of the materials presented related to the Colonial period.
Lloyd finished the day talking about Special Collections. The points made were to survey the literature, become familiar with handbooks and guides to collections, stay current on genealogical literature, attend conferences, interact with other genealogists, and search computer data bases. Search the Family History Library catalogue, identify WPA inventories, use the NUCMC (National Union Catalog Manuscript Collection) and a touch of serendipity is useful too.
Thursday evening was the dinner banquet in the dining hall with Pamela Boyer Sayre talking about Lookin’ for Kinfolk, Dead or Alive. Hers was a light hearted presentation about field work and what might encounter.

– Jeffrey Vaillant

Wednesday Report: 2010 Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research

by Kathryn Doyle (7/14/2010)

Jeffrey Vaillant continues his series from the Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR).

The morning began with an excellent presentation by Christine Rose on Correlation and Analysis of Evidence. She began the talk with a discussion of the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS). She literally wrote the book on this subject. Rose spoke about the three classes of evidence which are (1) primary and secondary information, (2) direct and indirect evidence and (3) original and derivative sources. Then she spoke to the importance of evaluating the three classes of evidence. If one becomes stuck, she suggested the following:
List all the documents located
Examine for any local, county, state and/or federal items not examined.
Abstract each document into a Word document, then use the FIND function to review names and locations
Watch for clues on religion
Watch for clues on inherited property
As an aside, Christine Rose will be presenting a one day seminar for the Sonoma County Genealogical Society in Santa Rosa on April 16, 2011. This may have been the best lecture of the week.
Onomatology was the title of Lloyd de Witt Bockstruck’s talk. That is a big title devoted to talking about names and everything and anything that can happen with the surname we are all researching. And since word usage is big with Lloyd, on Monday I suggested “semi-posthumous child” for definition. If I understood Lloyd and wrote it down correctly, that term is used to define a child who is left material goods by a grandfather when the father is dead!
Lloyd distributed an extensive bibliography (five pages single spaced) that included general works, forenames and diminutives, name changes (by state) and language dictionaries. Another term to drop at the next genealogical society meeting is uxornecronyms—the name of the dead wife given to the child.
The afternoon was well spent with John Philip Colletta, Ph.D. who first spoke about Passenger Arrival Records from Colonial Times to Mid-twentieth Century. That is a lot of material which he supported with eight pages of outline and bibliography. I took away from this lecture his ideas on where to look if an ancestor arrives before 1820 – colonial period land patents and land grants, pre-federal naturalization, oaths of allegiance, lists of emigrants leaving, list of immigrants arriving, church records and complied histories.
Next the subject of Naturalization Records from Colonial Time to Early Twentieth Century was presented and supported by six pages of outline and bibliography. My take away was the reminder that naturalization records are kept by the regional NARA depositories not in Washington, DC and to check with a state’s archives. The other piece of information I took was the specific legislation that allowed foreign born to gain citizenship from fighting in the Civil War. That citation is to Chapter XXV, Thirty Seventh Congress, Session II, Chapter 75, 1862 which one can find by looking up the congressional records. This sent me to the Library right after class to do so! If you are not interested, skip this next section.
Act of July 17, 1862: Honorably Discharged Soldiers (Re: Naturalization):
“Section 2166: Any alien, of the age of twenty-one years and upward, who has enlisted, or may enlist, in the armies of the United States, either the regular or the volunteer forces, and has been , or may be hereafter, honorably discharged, shall be admitted to become a citizen of the United States, upon his petition, without any previous declaration of his intention to become such; and he shall not be required to prove more that on year’s residence within the United States previous to his application to become such citizen; and the court admitting such alien shall, in additions to proof of residence and good character, as now provided by law, be satisfied by competent proof of such person’s having been honorably discharged from the service of the United States.”
On Tuesday the question was: What President lost his citizenship and did not regain it? The answer is: John Tyler – who was a strong states rights person and who lived in Virginia at the time of secession. As a person living in Virginia he lost his citizenship AND he died before the end of the Civil War.

Wednesday evening Patricia Walls Stamm presented The Timeline: Linking Historical Events to Our Family History. She urged the use of a person’s life events with readily available timelines. Some genealogy software has this capacity. I know I have found timelines to be a big help in identifying where to look for more information about an ancestor.

– Jeffrey Vaillant