A Smart Program -- GenSmarts

[Disclosure: I have no affiliation with GenSmarts or its publishers, Underwood Innovations, LLC]

If you are a vastly experienced researcher with perfect recall for where you might find a record, then the program won't help much. Do you have brick walls? Do you despair of finding the right record? Then read on.

It is an affordable $24.99 (for download only, no tutorial or CD provided -- a free trial version is available, but does not include all features.) The program is a one-time buy -- all upgrades are included in the purchase price.

It is easy to install and extremely easy to use. If you use one of the programs below, GenSmarts will work as a button on your program:

• Family Tree Maker (including FTM 2008)
  
• PAF 5
• Ultimate Family Tree
• The Master Genealogist
• RootsMagic
• Legacy
• Ancestral Quest
• Ancestry Family Tree
• Brother's Keeper (Version 6)
• Family Trees Quick and Easy (contact GenSmarts for more info)
• Heritage Family Tree Deluxe (contact GenSmarts for more info)

GenSmarts can also import a gedcom file made from any genealogy program.

ILet's look at a real-world example. I use The Master Genealogist, v7.03 (TMG), and there is a little green and orange "G" on a button on my tool bar. I entered Abraham and Nancy Todd Lincoln for basic events (birth, marriage, death & burial only) and then pressed that "G".

At the top of the page there is a list of sources. For this example, a list of 21 suggestions was generated. The first five are:

• Illinois Marriage Records
• District of Columbia 1850 Census
• Illinois 1850 Census
• District of Columbia Land Patent
• Illinois Black Hawk War Service Records

If I place the hi-lite on the first suggestion, Illinois Marriage Records, a window at the bottom of the screen shows me the why and how of using this record.

Why:
"Researching the Illinois Marriage Records makes sense because he was married on 4-NOV-1842 in Springfied, Sangamon County, Illinois. . . .it appears to be either a source for an event where you have no sources, or because there is a high probability that it will be an additional source to what you currently have."


How:
"Here is a recap of some of the people and places that might be involved in searching a Marriage Records:

• State: Illinois
• Person: Lincoln, Abraham
• Alt Spellings:
• Spouse(s): Mary Todd [394]
• Inlaws:_____
• Parents:____
• Brothers: ____

This record can be researched at the following 2 locations:
1) Illinois State Archives Website
2) Ancestry.com Website

A visual key (a little green mouse) tells me that I might find both of these sources on-line. I have an Ancestry account, but I don't think I have used the Illinois State Archives. So I leave "Illinois Marriage Records" hi-lited and press the button for "Online Lookup." An IE session opens the Illinois Archives site (http://www.ilsos.gov) at the exact query I need -- "Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763–1900", with the query for Abraham Lincoln displayed. The search has returned 3 possibles:

LINCOLN, ABRAHAM GRANT, LUCY 1886-07-27 / 00104894 COOK
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM TODD, MARY 1842-11-04 / SANGAMON
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM B MACK, FANNIE 1899-06-29 / 294218 COOK

You may think that only one of these records is any help at all, but remember that the other two may be clues to wider family ties. Who are these other two Abrahams? If you are a thorough researcher, you will try to find out about them, or at least put them into your research log. At this point, you are probably thinking that you don't need a program to tell you where to look for marriage records.

But let's look at another suggestion. Do you know when and where the Black Hawk War was fought? Would you know how to look up someone who might have been involved? I would have to answer "no" to both questions.

A quick side trip to Google and I find that the war was fought in 1832, meaning Abraham would be 23 and unmarried in 1832, thus eligible for service.

I move the hi-lite to Illinois Black Hawk War Service Records, and again select "Online Lookup". This takes me the Illinois State Archives again, this time to a database titled "Database of Illinois Black Hawk War Veterans," with 4 hits.

Name Rank Company Place Enrolled Regiment Brigade
LINCOLN, A PVT E ILES SANGAMON CO 20 DAY
LINCOLN, A PVT J EARLEY SANGAMON CO ODD
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM CPT A LINCOLN RICHLAND 4 WHITESIDE
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM PVT A WHITE ADAMS CO 20 DAY

My next task will be to look for records of the war, and try to determine if any of these A Lincolns are the one I am researching. This may involve a web search, an email or regular mail inquiry letter, or maybe a telephone call to the Illinois Archives.

Now, if I don't have time to do all that, I can tell GenSmarts to "Create Task", which is what TMG calls making a research log entry. The task has been automatically generated for my program with the the information I will need to research this later, including the name of the subject and where the records may be found.

As well as helping on-line searches, this tool will let you plan more effective road trip to research your data, alerting you to records and repositories you may not have learned about.

If you try the program, I welcome your comments on whether you find it helpful.

[Coming Soon: Research Logs]

Census Records - map to the past

Although census records exist in many countries, I will be talking about U.S. Federal Census records. The Constitution states that an actual count of the U.S. population will be made every 10 years, and that census will provide the basis for determining representation of states in the House of Representatives and to determine direct taxation. As I discuss each census, a link will be given to a blank census form (Adobe Reader required - download here).

In 1790, the new country was still worried about war - war with Britain, war with the native peoples, maybe war with the Spanish. To establish representation, only voters were named, and that was usually a male head of household. The counts were for free white males under 16, free white males over 16, females, all other persons, and slaves.

This tells us that the number of men of fighting age was very important to the government. After all, the Constitutional requirements just required a count for representation or taxation. The future crop of soldiers (males under 16) was also important. In general, the government wanted to know how many women or "other persons" lived in the country, and lastly, how many slaves.

In 1790, slavery was practiced almost everywhere in the western world, and slaves, almost entirely of a different ethnicity than the slave holders, were not considered to be "persons." Out of an estimated population of 3.8 million people, 695,000 were slaves and slave owning families were both "white" and "Free Colored."

Today, 1790 census returns exist for the states of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina and the territories of Maine and Vermont. Unfortunately returns for Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, and Virginia, as well as the territory of Kentucky have been lost. In those states, locating your families will become more difficult. Land and tax records, wills, probate files and marriages are your best bets, but they all have limitations. I have a n-times great grandfather who lived to be 95, dying in 1841. He fought in the Revolution, but was never a landowner. Since he didn't die, get married or transfer property between 1746 and 1841, I would never have known where he was if he had been in Virginia in 1790 instead of North Carolina.

In Bladen County, North Carolina, there were 633 families and only 53 of them were headed by women. A family unit was needed to make a life in the wilderness. You needed someone to hunt, someone to clean, preserve and cook -- someone to plow and sow, someone to weed, someone to preserve and cook. Children were your real wealth, and there wasn't really anything that you could do to limit your family, if you wanted to. An older woman left alone went to live with her family if possible, or maybe moved in with another family and helped as she could. A woman or a man who was widowed and left with small children had to remarry - or risk not surviving.

Pioneering was hard work -- harder I think than I could stand. After all, a week backpacking every now and then, with freeze dried food, portable stove and fuel, matches, water purification tablets, a collapsible, weather proof tent and sleeping bag -- well, I think you can see the difference.

More census years to come!

Cemetery Update -- Cleaning Stones

I have had a busy week, mostly putting the final touches on the first leg of my "Boones in Oregon" project. I am looking at a variety of solutions for putting this up on a web page. But more about that project another day.

Last weekend we went to Portland to attend a morning class at Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery in how to clean grave markers. Since it is summer in Oregon, the day was overcast, breezy and none to warm. We also had a group of young adults from Central Catholic High School -- almost 40 of them. Becky and Steve (from Friends of Lone Fir) were giving the class, and I don't think they expected all of them, but they graciously carried on, and the students appeared to be enjoying themselves.

First of all, do no harm! That means that if the stone is badly cracked or stone is flaking off, don't touch it! You will need to consult someone more knowledgeable about stone preservation. However, if the stone is in reasonably good condition and just dirty, you can proceed.

You will need

• LOTS of water. If a hose isn't available, you will need several buckets of water.
• Brushes -- natural bristles are best, although soft nylon ones are OK. A large one for large areas, toothbrushes for small areas
• Wooden utensils such as chopsticks, paint sticks, and so on. Never use metal of any kind around the stones
• For stones badly stained with lichens, you will need an non-ionic solution such as Photo-flo. Basically, an ionic solution (such as salt and water) conducts electricity, a non-ionic solution (sugar and water) does not. It makes water "wetter", but doesn't harm the stones.
• Miscellaneous small things like cotton puffs, Q-Tips, clean rags.

To begin, wet the stone and your tools. Never, ever work on a dry stone. You want to really soak the area you will be working on, giving the stone a few minutes to absorb the water.

Next, using your wooden tools, remove any accumulations of moss and dirt, working slowly and very carefully. If stone seems to be flaking, STOP! and get professional advice before proceeding.

Then, using a wet brush, continue cleaning the stone. Make sure you keep the stone continuously wet.

When you have removed all the dirt you can, you can work on the lichens with Photo-flo. Mix up a solution of 1 or 2 teaspoons of Photo-flo to a gallon of water. Using a cotton ball or Q-tip, apply the solution sparingly to stained areas that are already wet. Wait for 5 minutes or so, and rinse thoroughly. You may have to repeat this several times.

The reward is a clean marker. The old white marble markers begin to look brand new very quickly. We uncovered a truly unique marker under layers of moss, dirt and grime: the grave of a 5 year old girl, it was the shape of a child-sized coffin with a very ornate cross in raised stone on the top, and an inscription running all around the edges. No one had seen the pattern in years, and now it will be a very special place again.

So, go carefully. And remember, unless it is the grave of a family member, it doesn't belong to you. Always get permission from the cemetery staff or the family before working on a stone.

Charles Magnus Wibert -- Portland, Oregon

Charles Magnus Wiberg (also spelled Wyberg) was born circa 1820 in Norrkoping, Sweden. He was apprenticed to a shoemaker as a young man to learn a trade. In about 1841 he left Sweden for London and practiced his trade there for several years. In 1849 he set sail from Galloway, Ireland, to New York City, arriving 12 July 1849 on the C. Tottie. He is listed on the passenger manifest as Carl M. Wiberg, a shoemaker.

By his own account, he lived in Connecticut, New Orleans and Wisconsin, finally settling in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1851, where he opened a shoe store. His entire business was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1851. He remained in Milwaukee another year to repay his debts from the fire, and then left for Oregon by way of the Isthmus of Panama. He arrived in Portland on 06 July 1852, and promptly started the first boot and shoe store in Oregon.

In 1858, he married Paulina Ingram. They had 9 children, 8 of whom lived to adulthood. Charles was a highly regarded businessman, owning property worth over $45,000 in 1870. He was a member of the board of directors of the Willamette Iron Bridge Co., which built the Morrison Street bridge in Portland.

He died on 03 February 1897 in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, of pneumonia following grippe [influenza] complicated by Bright's Disease [kidney disease]. He was buried on 6 Feb 1897, in River View Cemetery, Portland, Oregon, section 7, lot 95, plot13.

That is the short story of one man's life -- a collateral line to a line I am investigating in my Boones in Oregon project. This required research, of course: immigration lists, census information 1850-1920, death certificates, marriage certificates, a visit to River View Cemetery, consultation with available Polk's city directories for Portland, histories of prominent men in Portland, newspapers of the era, a medical dictionary -- just to name a few. Just Charles' narrative (not including his wife and children) generated over 20 footnotes, referencing 16 sources.

Ten years ago this project would have been impossible for me. I can't afford to travel to New York for instance, to look through several years of ship manifests. I would not have had access to indexed historical newspapers. The microfilm copies of old Portland death certificates would not have been available.

Now, I have the internet and a subscription to Ancestry, the site we all love to hate. As I have said before (and Dick Eastman has said better here), this subscription is worth every penny I pay for it. I also joined the Genealogical Forum of Portland (that's not free either, nor should it be).

I also have The Master Genealogist (TMG) program, which helps me properly format citations to my sources, and keep track of where to put the footnotes. Glory Be! I am old enough to remember typing term papers and putting in the footnotes by hand (and retyping them endless times to get the footnotes on the correct page), then having to make a bibliography by hand.

Using Elizabeth Shown Mills' book, "Evidence Explained, Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace," I can put in the format for a type of source only once -- first citation, subsequent citation and bibliography - and then be confident that the source will be printed out correctly. When I output my report to a word processor (and I prefer to use the free, open source OpenOffice), all of my footnotes are firmly attached to the text, and the bibliography prints correctly at the end.

I want to make it clear that I am no way affiliated with Ancestry, TMG, OpenOffice or any one or any software or book mentioned in this site. The blog is provided by Google, and that is the extent of my relationship. These are simply the best tools out there for doing genealogy.

Later this week I will share with you what I learned from a class taken at Lone Fir Cemetery in how to responsibly clean monuments and stones. Stay tuned.

Boones in Oregon

Besides my own genealogy, I am working on a project I call "Boones in Oregon." The object is to document those descendants of George and Mary Maugridge Boone who migrated to Oregon. My cousin is a 7GGrandson of George of Mary. From his grandfather Phillip Merwin, his ancestry is Phillip Clark Merwin, Mary E. Boone, Jesse Van Bibber, Alphonso, Jesse Bryan, Daniel M., Squire, George.

Alphonso Boone came to Oregon with all of his living children (excepting only George Luther, who stayed in Missouri) in 1846. They took the southern route, sometimes called the Applegate. When the wagons set out from Missouri, they were a very large group that formed and reformed several times along the trail. Alphonso and his family initially set out with a party of extended family friends, including former Missouri Governor Lilliburn Boggs and his wife, Panthea Boone (Alphonso's sister). Some of the large train were bound for California, such as the Donner party, and some were bound for Oregon.

Apparently the winter that year was unusually early and severe, trapping the Donner party in the mountains even though they were only a few days behind Lilliburn Boggs and his party. Boggs and his companions made it to California, most of the Donner party did not.

Alphonso and his family opted to take the Applegate Trail into southern Oregon. They branched off from the California trail at the Humboldt River and took the route Jesse Applegate and his brothers has blazed earlier. Unfortunately for the large party of pioneers and their wagons, all the Applegate brothers had done was blaze the trail -- marking where a road should be built. The travelers had to build their road in order to travel on it!

Look here for a good depiction of the map of the various Oregon and California trails. If you have ever driven from Ashland, Oregon, up I-5 to Roseburg and then into the Willamette Valley, you will have closely followed the route the pioneers took. The route climbs and dips from mountain summits to river valleys. It was the end of fall as the wagons began this arduous task, and they were soon bogged down in the wild and wet winters that happen in Oregon. Many possessions were either lost or left along the trail. Alphonso and his sons were carrying Daniel Boone’s surveying instruments with them, and left them cached along the trail. They went back later for them, but either misremembered the place or else natives had taken them.

The party arrived in the Willamette Valley at Mary’s River on Christmas day, 1846. Among the people in the train was George Law Curry, destined to court and win the hand of Alphonso’s oldest child, Chloe.

Did you enjoy this? More about Oregon Trail pioneers can be found at Stephanie Flora's award winning site, The Oregon Trail and Its Pioneers.

This and That

First a kind word for Dick Eastman and his Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter: he really gets it right. In a new post, I Have a Complaint, he makes an excellent point about subscription genealogy sites such as Ancestry and Footnote. I urge you to read it.

I had a lot of fun yesterday, at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon (GFO) first and then a trip to Lone Fir Cemetery. This being a holiday weekend in Oregon, it was a slightly cool, overcast day, perfecting for hiking around a cemetery or spending some time indoors.

At GFO I found both the death returns and marriage records I was looking for. It is always a thrill to me to see a part of the past this way. One of the death returns I was looking for was for Chloe (Boone) Curry, wife of Oregon's last Provisional Governor, George Law Curry. The death returns are microfilmed, and somewhat difficult to read, but the date of death was very clear: 10 Feb 1899. Then I went to Lone Fir and found the Curry family marker. I found the full name and dates of birth for some of the family, but as I transcribed the inscriptions I got a huge shock -- Chloe's dates on the stone are given as 1822-1889. That's a ten year difference! Now I need to go back to the GFO library and look in the Portland city directories for 1880 to 1900, and find out when she stops being listed. Drat the fire that destroyed the 1890 census!

That trip will fit perfectly, because Lone Fir is sponsoring a class on how to clean stones safely on Saturday, and I am going to that. Watch next week for tips from the class.

Another post on cemeteries

Saving our past is important to most genealogists. And part of that past is the memorials erected to preserve the memory of those who have gone on before. As we approach Memorial Day, many of us will be going to decorate the resting places of our ancestors, especially those who fought for us and our freedoms.

If you visit a cemetery, take a look around you. Are the grounds well kept? I don't mean park-like, but the blackberries and poison oak should not be threatening to swallow either the living or the dead. Vandalism is unfortunately an all too common experience, but has some effort been made to put grave markers back or repair them? Is there a map posted, with the burial plots marked as to who is where?

If these conditions aren't what you would like to see, what are you doing about it? It costs money and/or time to keep up a cemetery. Ideally it would be fenced to keep out at least some of the vandals, the weeds would be held back, the stones and/or a map would be readable. Each and every one of things is achievable.

Do you live close enough to come over and take a WeedEater (TM) to the margins of the area? If you don't have the physical means to do this, can you contribute a small amount of money to hire some one to do this? Has the cemetery been mapped? Who has the books or other records? Can you borrow or copy them to make a map? Maybe the owner of the records would allow you to post the list of burials on the internet.

Posting on the internet is a very simple process. These links will take you to the USGenWeb pages on cemetery preservation. All of the information on USGenWeb is free to everyone. It is also mostly in a plain text format, so you don't need fancy tools to post it. The Tombstone Transcription Project is explained here and state projects here.

Does your cemetery have an association dedicated to its preservation? Can you join it or support it? Do you need to start a "Friends of the ___ Cemetery" association? Check out this link for state cemetery associations: Tombstones with a View .

Now, on to individual tombstones. Stones are not indestructible, and using the wrong technique to clean them can result in permanent damage. Most of us should not undertake to "clean up" stones or other markers without expert advice. The older the marker, the more hesitant we should be. About.com has a page of links on cleaning stones. In the main, refrain from using anything on the stones that you would not be willing to use on your most sensitive body parts .

To record stones, first write down all of the information on the stone, exactly as it appears. Misspellings and all -- just an exact transcription. For each stone, record its location in the cemetery (from a map if you are lucky enough to have one, otherwise from landmarks like a large family monument). Bring a camera (digital is really best, as you can view the picture and make sure it is clear). DO NOT take rubbings -- these can be quite destructive. The use of shaving cream is also controversial, and I do not recommend it. Instead, bring a large mirror, a battery lantern and a friend, and throw light from the mirror onto the stone to bring out the lettering.

The Texas Historical Commission has produced an excellent e-book on preserving old cemeteries. Some of the laws and regulations are specific to Texas, but the sections on preserving and cleaning stones, and preserving and maintaining cemeteries are applicable almost anywhere. Above all, enjoy the day! Remembering should bring a song to our hearts -- our memories carry the past and its people forward to now -- and beyond!