Jury Summons becomes Genealogical Adventure

As luck would have it, my jury group was given a two hour lunch today, so after grabbing a quick bite, I went across the street from the Union County Court House and visited the Elizabeth Public Library's new Elizabeth Room. This local history room was opened in mid-September and was filled with many interesting items.

Materials include a variety of books, The Elizabeth Daily Journal and its index, which was completed by Elizabeth Public Library, a pretty complete series of city directories going back to the late 1800's, maps, photos, high school yearbooks and other records of local interest. A microfilm machine is dedicated to the room, as well as new furniture and a computer. The Local History Room has been made possible with support from the Trustees of The Josephine Ebbe Kenah Trust.

I found some interesting items that will be added to my Family Tree Connection database, including an Elizabeth Police Department report from 1927, three Elizabeth Fire Department reports (for 1902, 1903-4 and 1905), a 1907 yearbook for the Elizabeth Board of Trade, and a bunch of other local items of genealogical interest.

So, what I expected to be a long, boring day, turned in to something quite unexpected. Many of the items I photocopied will be indexed and uploaded next Monday (Nov. 5, 2007).

No News is Still Good News, Right?

The other day someone told me that I was wasting my time by scanning and indexing war ration books that had little (or no) information on them. I tried to explain to him that as a genealogist, it is better to know that a document does in fact exist, but has little informative value, than in endlessly wondering how to locate it. He didn't accept my argument.

Don't genealogists have to accept that along the way they will encounter genealogical duds? I have a death certificate of a female ancestor and the maiden name is blank. I was certainly bummed when I got the document, and even more confused when I saw that the witness (i.e. person providing the information) was the woman's son! He didn't even know that detail about his mother. Up until that point, getting that death certificate was my sole quest. Once I saw it, even though it was disappointing, I was able to move on.

Ration books have so many cool pieces of information (when they are filled out properly), which is much like so many other documents genealogists crave. When I acquire these documents, I don't always know how complete they will be, and I see no reason not to scan/archive the ones which are lacking.

Ration books are also somewhat unique in that they have series and serial numbers on them, so even the blank ones can yield relationship information by noting the books that are in the same series and serial number range. You may not be able to tell who were the parents, but you'll have a good idea that they were all in the same household.

I was always fascinated by the Columbo movies. As a detective, Columbo was able to piece together a murder mystery with the smallest of clues. As a genealogist, sometimes these partial documents can be just as important.

Genealogical duds are a fact of life for researchers. If you can think of a better argument for me NOT to scan/index these partial documents, I'd love to hear it.

Genealogy is Boring. Say What?

I was browsing around the other day and stumbled upon an article where the writer, Mike Elgan, starts out by saying, "I've always found genealogy boring." I've always considered genealogy to be one of the most passionate hobbies around. Connecting with pieces of your heritage brings out so many different emotions.

Then, after the shock of his statement wore off, I began to wonder if what he really meant was that online genealogy was boring -- or more accurately, frustrating. I do find it somewhat challenging to conduct research online when all of the information you need to search is stored in a variety of different "islands." There is no meta-genealogy search engine, and that's what Mike was speculating about in his article.

He ponders, "Is combining all genealogy data too scary?" I don't think so. Just like anything in life, there will be bad people who take advantage of improved access to information. Genealogists would certainly benefit from the efficiency of being able to access information from a variety of online databases in a single search.

Recently, a friend asked for some help in tracking down any immigration information regarding her grandfather. It was a simple request, but it took me over an hour to make the rounds (Ancestry.com, WorldVitalRecords.com, GenealogyBank.com and Footnote.com) before I located a relevant document. It must be challenging for some researchers to contend with the different search techniques required to find information at each of these (and other) sites.

Will it take a company like Google to persuade our industry to provide open interfaces to their databases? The databases of my company, Genealogy Today, are small in comparison to the other players, but I'm ready to join the bandwagon and would be willing to develop an XML interface.