Staats Genealogical Services

Yes, folks, I’m afraid it’s true. I’m here to make another analogy – the latest in a long line of analogies: puzzles, jalopies, basketball…and now sea exploration.

Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic in 1985. He produced a documentary, “Save the Titanic” timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of its sinking. To promote the show, he appeared on the Colbert Report, which you can view below. I found his description of how he found the Titanic, the approach he used — particularly applicable to our field of genealogy. The interesting part starts at about 1:45. On a side note, I’ve also used diversionary tactics very similar to the one he describes in the video. I pretend to be going someplace for one thing, when I am really going there for genealogy. Except in my case, I am trying to fool my wife, not the Russians.

I thought the “following the debris trail” comments particularly appropriate. Too often in genealogy we are anxious to find “more about John Doe.” This vaguely defined goal leads us to a series of criss-crossing, double-tracking searches that waste much time and effort and often result in not finding what we are looking for. If instead we start at the first clue, which is often a death record in our case, and methodically work our way through the “debris trail” – the records left in reverse chronology by our John Doe, seeking and noting patterns and tendencies, we are more likely to arrive at the correct origins of our John Doe than had we suddenly started running in mad circles once we found our first clue.

And the deer hoof print comments? Brilliant. Kinda sounds like using indirect evidence to find your ancestors, doesn’t it?

Leave your a comment below about your thoughts on the comparisons (genealogy to ship-finding, not the Russians to my wife).

Enjoy!

There will be some genealogy here. Bear with me a moment…

I was driving home from work a couple of weeks ago when I  stopped for a lengthy traffic light. It was one of the odd, tropical 80+ degree days we’ve had this spring, so the windows were down and neighborhoods buzzed with activity. I sat across from a driveway where there was a boy and girl playing basketball. I assume that they were brother and sister, maybe 9 and 10 years old or so. It was a small driveway on a slant to the road. The boy was playfully talking smack to his sister, who had the ball: “What’s the matter, you scared of me”, “You’re not getting past me, girl”, “Let’s see what you got.”

The girl tried to dribble around him and he poked the ball away, which rolled dangerously close to the street – the girl chasing after it. She gathered up the ball and put it back in play with the word anyone who has ever played backyard basketball knows, “Check!” She bounced it to the boy, who bounced it back to her, and the game (and smack-talking) was back on. The girl tried a different tactic this time. She turned her back to the boy and started backing in, dribbling carefully out of his reach. She tried to turn first to the left, then to the right, but the boy was faster than she was, not letting her turn far enough to face forward.

This girl was smart, though. She took a quick backward step causing the boy to react quickly backwards. While he was still off-balance she turned and shot in one quick movement. It was a high, arcing shot – mostly of desperation. Both of their heads turned, following the path of the ball to see the result. I leaned over towards the passenger seat so I could see it, too. This was her big chance to shut her brother up with one clean swoosh of the net. The shot fell short and went bouncing around inside the garage.

Only then did I notice that there was no rim on the garage. There was no backboard, nothing. Just a garage. And they could have cared less. Their enjoyment of the game wasn’t dependent on having a backboard and rim. They simply enjoyed playing the game and made do with what they had. The boy ran to get the ball as it caromed back out of the garage, down the sloped driveway, and towards the street again. “Check.” It was his turn now, and he was going to how his sister how to play the game.

I was deeply moved by all this. My first thought was to wish I had enough money to buy these kids a backboard, rim, and portable fence to keep the ball from going into the street. Shouldn’t they have one? I could buy it and send it anonymously. But of course, I don’t really have the money, and who knows if they even lived there?  I just sort of carried this story around with me since, thinking about it now and then.

The past few days, I have been griping about not being able to attend the 2012 National Genealogical Society conference being held in Cincinnati. I initially planned to go, but could not afford to go to both NGS and GRIP later this summer. The deal was sealed when the day job said no more time off for this school year. So I was salty. All my genea-friends are going, there are some terrific speakers and programs, and here I am stuck in Cleveland. Why don’t I have all the money I want to go to all these events like all the other kids do? Why do I have to work instead of travelling to these things? Why, why, why?

And then I remembered the basketball story, and it helped me to realize that focusing on what I don’t have, can’t do, dislike…is such a huge waste of time and energy. I’m choosing to focus on positive things – like the fact that I will get to go to GRIP this summer for a week-long intense learning and networking experience. Sure, it would be great to do both, but shouldn’t enjoy whatever it is I am able to do rather than fret about those things I can’t? This is what I learned from those children.

So this week,  I’m off to do what I love. I have some client research to finish up and a report to write (okay, so maybe I don’t love the report part quite as much). I have an article to write – for an actual magazine! I have two lectures I need to begin developing, and also a few other things going on genealogically this week. I’m gonna smile, trash-talk, and appreciate the fact that I get to do these things, even if only part-time for now.

Check.

One of the things I’ve discovered over the course of my many life adventures is this: poverty is a wonderful motivator and teacher. During those lean years, I learned to do a number of things I might not have otherwise, simply because it was the only way it was going to get done. Being broke and needing to replace my recently-deceased car was a doubly bad situation. Repair bills finally exceeded the point of making it worth keeping on the road. I couldn’t afford to get a new car, or even a late-model used vehicle with a warranty. My only option was to try and buy the best car I could afford and keep my fingers crossed that it kept running.

Inevitably, things started to go wrong. The brakes needed replaced in the front. Never having worked on a car in any real mechanical sense, and not having the ridiculous amount of money that a brake shop charges, I only had one option: learn how to do it myself. In that pre-internet time, I went to the library and found some books on auto repair. I learned some general things about cars and brakes from those books, but looking at the books and then looking at my car, I needed some more specific information. I went to the auto parts store to get a repair manual for my particular model of car which would tell me step-by-step how to fix my brakes. I read it, and then I did it.

The next thing that happened was that the rear brake line began leaking at the caliper. Hmm… the tips and tricks necessary to remove the bleeder screw from the caliper without breaking it off were not discussed in my manual. Neither did it really discuss how to bend the brake tube around the myriad of things it wound around on its way from the master cylinder on the engine to the brake caliper on the wheel. I needed to hear from someone experienced who’d done this a thousand times before. So I talked to a mechanic friend of mine about how to get that bleeder screw out successfully and how to bend and attach the brake lines. I listened, and then I did it.

There were a variety of other things I learned to do mechanically with my car. The more I did them, the more confident I became in my ability to tackle new and more challenging repairs. With a few exceptions, each repair became easier and faster. Even when I couldn’t necessarily afford to fix things the way they really should be fixed, I was able to come up with ways to work around the problem, ways to keep it on the road. My car had a fancy rear fiberglass spring that went from axle-to-axle. It had little rubber boots on each end of it where it connected to the axles. Those boots wore out, and of course you can’t just buy those boots – you have to replace the whole assembly at great expense. Not having a spare $500 at the time, I figured out that a piece of heavy-duty truck mudflap bolted to the ends of the spring served exactly the same function and cost me nothing but a few minutes of time. I had to replace the pieces of mudflap a few times, but I never did replace that spring over the several years I continued to own the car.

Not that everything I did was successful. On the contrary: I broke things,I hurt myself, I made many things worse before I figured out how to make them better. But those mistakes were a HUGE part of the learning process. The process of learning about mechanical repairs started with that car, but extended well beyond it. I worked on my wife’s car. I worked on the next several cars that we owned. The process for working on different cars was pretty similar, but each had its own quirks, methods, and tricks to make things easier to accomplish.

Genealogy is no different. It is a hands-on activity. Education is paramount, to be sure. You have to read some books, articles, wikis, and other resources to get a general understanding of the basics of genealogy. Eventually, you will use those same resources to acquire specific knowledge about research areas, resources, or other topics not covered in that general material. All along the way, you are going to talk to people who know more about genealogy than you do who will give you guidance and help in your research. You’ll probably go to a class, conference, or institute. You might take part in study groups or other guided learning. You’ll probably follow the latest developments in the field online.

Here’s the catch: it’s easy to do all of those things, and still not be a successful researcher. Why? Because you have to actively apply what you’ve learned. In order to be successful, you need to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. You can read all the repair manuals you want – but if you don’t pick up a wrench and dive in at some point, your genealogical jalopy is still going to be sitting broken-down in your driveway. If you never go to a courthouse, never actually take the time to look up particular statutes that apply to a record of interest, don’t go to a distant archive to see read through that manuscript, or don’t order microfilm to bring that distant record where you can reach it — you won’t learn what you need to know to be successful.

You need to have those physical records in your hands rather than an abstract concept in your head. You need to try and read and interpret them, to figure out how different records can work together to provide the most accurate picture of your ancestor. I’ll go so far as to say you need to have the opportunity to MISinterpret those records. If experience is the best teacher (and I think it is), and making mistakes is often the most memorable experience (and I think they are); then the experience of making mistakes teaches us in a way that is often better than any other method. Mistakes force us to take a closer look at how things work. In order to fix our mistake, we need to come to a much more in-depth understanding of something than if we’d just unknowingly stumbled through it correctly the first time. It requires us to disassemble things into their various parts in order to understand the whole, which then gives us the proper understanding to reassemble things correctly.

So, yes, read books articles, blogs and wikis. Go to educational events, talk to other folks, and find a mentor. It all starts with education. But be sure to set aside time to actually do the things they suggest. Even if the entire process doesn’t quite click when you read or hear it, get out and try to work through it. The more time you put in under the hood, the more sense the repair manual starts to make. The flip-side is also true. The brain feeds the hands and the hands feed the brain. Genealogy and auto mechanics are both skilled-labor endeavors, the success of which is a combination of both knowledge and experience.

One final note: if you see a genealogist broken down at the side of the courthouse, make sure to stop, get out your repair manual and toolbox, roll up your sleeves and help out…but that’s another post for another day.

You would have thought it was the census Brigadoon, never to be seen again after Monday, April 2nd. Every blog, facebook post, and tweet was focused on the release of the 1940 census. Being the rebel I am, I swore I wasn’t going to succumb to this silliness.

I smirked at 9am, thinking about everyone hunched over their ED spreadsheets they’d carefully made with all of their first-day “must-finds” just waiting for the opening bell to sound so they could rush madly into 1940.  At 9:01, I started to wonder whether all the idiots had crashed the servers yet. At 9:02, I became one of the idiots. And the servers were crashed.

This is not a whiny post about the fact the servers were overwhelmed. It’s not a post about how the government can’t get things right or how Ancestry is inherently evil. It’s not a post about anything at all negative. On the contrary, I thought the excitement and fervor brought about by the release of the 1940 census was an undeniable reminder why we all do this. All genealogists, family historians, or any other label you want to apply — realized the rarity of this event.  It only happens two, maybe three, and rarely four or more times in a genealogist’s lifetime. Every professional genealogist I know dropped what client work they were doing – at least for the day, and sometimes the week – to try and find their own families, It was an overpowering reminder of exactly how passionate genealogists are about what they do. It was clear evidence that regardless of whether or not we exchange money for research, none of us have forgotten why it is we’ve chosen this line of work. Whatever our personal or professional motivations might be, we’re all like kids in a candy shop when an event like this comes about.

Rock on my friends, rock on.

Phew. If you haven’t seen a post in a while, it’s because my brain is mush. You see, I hold the very lofty-sounding title of Seminar Chairperson. And the first seminar under my watch is tomorrow. Prior to this experience, I would never have capitalized Seminar Chairperson, but now having done this, I think I deserve capitals, maybe even postnomials (depending how it goes tomorrow).

• I never knew just how important coffee is, and how many variables could be involved with it (do we have enough? There’s no access to water, how do we get it? We can’t plug the coffee makers all in the same outlet without tripping the breaker, what do we do?)
• Just how many possible colors of table covers could there be? Party City is a dizzying place. My Crayola 64 pack had less variety. Sometimes having options is a bad thing.
• Registration is NOT linear. It isn’t even a bell curve. It looks more like a skateboard ramp – flat on the approach, and one wicked curve at the end  that will knock you on your butt if you’re not careful,
• It’s amazing how fast any phrase beginning with “Who would be willing to…,” can clear a room at a committee meeting,

All jokes aside, I greatly appreciate all of the help and guidance I’ve received along the way as I’ve felt my way through this first outing. If it weren’t for the people helping out, giving of their own time and experience, none of it would work. Tomorrow – Saturday – will likely be the most successful, well-attended seminar in 5 or 6 years, and I’m glad I could be a part of it. I will also be glad when it’s Sunday.

When you’re asked to take charge in whatever genealogical organization, in whatever role, I hope you will consider it. I’m not going to say that it’s less work than you think. It’s not.  I’m not going to say that it probably won’t take much time. It will. I’m not going to say that the role is a perfect fit for your personality and interests. It probably won’t be. But if someone as passionate as you, someone who has ideas like you, someone who wants to promote genealogy like you do – if someone like that doesn’t take responsibility, who will?

At the next event you attend, be sure to thank the person handing you your folder, the person at the door, the person running frantically into the room with a last-minute table to accommodate late arrivals. They deserve it.

A recent thread posted to one of the lists to which I belong has illustrated an important principle of research. In this particular example, the question was about misinformation knowingly provided on a marriage application. Both parties had provided false answers to a number of questions, and there were some concerns as to whether the marriage was valid in light of those false statements.

While the particular state in question had no online statute books for the appropriate period – evaluated under the current law, regardless of false statements, the marriage would still be considered legal – although both applicants had committed first degree misdemeanors. Okay, great. Problem solved, right? Not really. The couple in this case happened to be the parents of the person raising the question. She knew the answers were blatantly false. What about future researchers who won’t have that personal knowledge? This is a great example of the need to conduct an exhaustive search.

What information does a marriage application provide? It might provide information about birth places and dates for the bride and groom, parents names, previous marriages, etc. However, what, if anything, does this particular record actually “prove”? All the marriage application really proves is that on the given date, a man and woman appeared in probate court to fill out a form. If there was a marriage return, it might not necessarily “prove” that the marriage was performed on the said date, but it is a really good piece of evidence that it in fact did occur.

But what about all that other stuff? Parents names? Birth dates?… Well, a marriage record really doesn’t, on its own, prove any of those things. Even though it’s an original document providing primary information, that information comes with no guarantee of accuracy. It is simply a single piece of evidence, and any conclusion based on a single piece of evidence (even if it happens to be correct) is not easily defensible. That’s why we need to continue to search – even though we already have a document that provides information that appears to solve our particular problem. In this case we would hope to find a church record, newspaper article, or other bits of evidence that will all agree with each other, or perhaps reveal a conflict that might need to be resolved.

Do most people go before the judge and provide accurate information? Yes, most likely – assuming they actually knew the correct answers. But we as genealogists need to be sure. And when the information from different sources doesn’t agree – we need to try and understand why each document was created, who was providing the information it contains, what biases may have been involved in their answers, and any other details that might help determine the reliability of each individual statement within each individual record. Based on that analysis, we can then arrive at a reasonable conclusion based on a wide variety of sources.

Sure, it’s more work. But won’t it all be worth it when you get into the inevitable discussion with THAT researcher, who points to their single record and says, “but it says right here that…,” at which point you can smile politely and hand them your thoroughly-researched, well-documented, and logically analyzed conclusion? You bet it will.¹

1. Very, very authoritative and important studies have shown that regardless of the quality of evidence against their conclusion, THAT researcher probably will still disagree with you [↩]

While granted, most of my Pennsylvania research has been western and central PA (i.e. “newer”), I have done a reasonable amount of research in eastern Pennsylvania. Never once have I seen any governmental document similar to what is required in this statue. I’ve seen Quaker meeting records that contain a marriage certificate like this, and of course, Penn being a Quaker, it’s no mystery where this law’s origin lies. However, have any of you EVER seen a marriage record like this recorded at the county level as this statute states it should have been? Are there any collections of these loose anywhere? Does anyone actually have a surviving example of a marriage bann that would have been posted to the door? That would be such a cool treasure!

AN ACT FOR THE PREVENTING OF CLANDESTINE MARRIAGES. [1701]

For the preventing of clandestine, loose and unseemly proceedings in marriage within this province and counties annexed:

[Section I.] Be it enacted by the Proprietary and Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the freemen of this Province and Territories in General Assembly met, and by the authority of the same, That all marriages not forbidden by the law of God shall be encouraged; but the parents or guardians shall (if conveniently they can) be first consulted with, and the parties’ clearness of all engagements signified by a certificate from some credible person where they have lived or do live, produced to such religious society to which they relate, or to some justice of the peace of the county in which they live; and by their affixing their intentions of marriage on the court-house or meeting-house doors in each respective county where the parties do reside or dwell, one month before solemnization thereof; the which said publication, before it be so affixed as aforesaid, shall be brought before one or more justices of the peace in the respective counties to which they respectively belong; which justice shall subscribe the said publication, witnessing the time of such declaration and date of the said publication, so to be affixed as aforesaid. And that all marriages shall be solemnized by taking each other for husband and wife before twelve sufficient witnesses; and the certificate of their marriage, under the hands of the parties; and witnesses at least twelve, and one of them a justice of the peace, shall be brought to the register of the county where they are married, and registered in his office.¹

I’ve only followed this law as far forward as 1730, but the additions don’t seem to change the recording requirements other than to add a residency restriction. I’m not sure when the law was actually changed, but you’d think at least a few of these records would exist somewhere if the law were required for 30+ years. Interestingly, the 1730 revision also reflects the relative religious freedom that Pennsylvania embraced at that time:

“and also that no person or persons, of what character or degree soever he be, presume to publish the banns of matrimony or intentions of marriage between any person or persons in any church, chapel or other place of worship within this province unless one of the parties at least live in the town, county or city where such publication
shall be made”²

The floor is now open. Impress us with your cool certificates!

1. Pennsylvania, Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania From 1682 to 1801, Volume II 1700 to 1712 ([no city stated]: Clarence M. Busch, State Printer, 1896), 161; digital images, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau, Pennsylvania Session Laws, http://www.palrb.us: accessed 6 Mar 2012). [↩]
2. Pennsylvania, Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania From 1682 to 1801, Volume IV 1724 to 1744 ([no city stated]: Clarence M. Busch, State Printer, 1897), 153; digital images, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau, Pennsylvania Session Laws, http://www.palrb.us: accessed 6 Mar 2012). [↩]