Treasure Chest Thursday: Jean La Forêt's Diary, section cinq

Jean La Forêt's diary holds yet more treasures to explore.  When last we left Jean, he had arrived in Valparaiso, Chile while serving with the U.S. Marines.

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Febr. 11 – 02 – Callao again

Feb. 26 – 02 – Acapulco

Mrch 5 – 02 – Pichili[n]gue Bay and La Paz –

Mrch 12 – 02 – Madalena Bay

Mrch 26 – 02 – San Diego

April 5 – 02 – San Francisco

April 7 – 02 – Mare Island à l'hopital.

Juillet 8, 02 – Quitte l'hopital

Novembre 15 – 02, A Yerba Buena ——

Nove Oct. 20, 1903  Quartermaster Sgt.

February 1 – 1905  Left Yerba Buena for Philipine Islands –

Manila – March 2 – 1905

Cavite — same day —

Olongapo — March 6 – 05

Leave Olongapo May 19 – 1906

Arrive at Cavite May 19 – 1906

Quitte Cavite Oct. 7 – 1906 – 4 ½ P.M.

Quitte Manila Oct. 9, 1906 – 2 P.M.

Quitte Mariveles Oct. 10 – 1906, 4 P.M.

Arrive à Nagasaki, Japan, lundi, Oct. 15 3. P.M.

Quitte Nagasaki, Japan Oct. 17 – 6 AM.

Arrive à Honolulu, Hawaii on Monday Oct. 30 – 9 AM.

Quitte Honolulu Samedi Nov. 3 – 5 P.M.

Arrive à San Francisco dimanche Nov. 11 –

Arrive à Mare Island Nov. 12 –

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February 11, 1902 – Callao [Peru] again

February 26, 1902 – Acapulco

March 5, 1902 – Pichilingue Bay and La Paz

March 12, 1902 – Magdalena Bay

March 26, 1902 – San Diego

April 5, 1902 – San Francisco

April 7, 1902 – Mare Island in the hospital.

Juillet 8, 1902 – Left the hospital

November 15, 1902 – At Yerba Buena

Nove October 20, 1903  Quartermaster Sergeant

February 1, 1905 – Left Yerba Buena for Philippine Islands

March 2, 1905 – Manila

same day – Cavite

March 6, 1905 – Olongapo

May 19, 1906  Leave Olongapo

May 19, 1906  Arrive at Cavite

October 7, 1906  Leave Cavite 4:30 p.m.

October 9, 1906  Leave Manila 2:00 p.m.

October 10, 1906  Leave Mariveles 4:00 p.m.

October 15  Arrive in Nagasaki, Japan, Monday, 3:00 p.m.

October 17  Leave Nagasaki, Japan 6:00 p.m.

October 30  Arrive in Honolulu, Hawaii, Monday, 9:00 a.m.

November 3  Leave Honolulu Saturday 5:00 p.m.

November 11  Arrive in San Francisco Sunday

November 12  Arrive at Mare Island

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Nothing in these pages was difficult to translate, not only because a lot was written in English.  These entries are almost entirely a list of locations and when Jean arrived and left.  He appears to have become fluent in "franglais", that mish-mash of French and English.  He goes back and forth between the two languages and sometimes uses both in the same entry.  I took a small amount of liberty with the translations by making the format consistent for each entry:  date, then location, then day and/or time if included.

In this part of Jean's travelogue, I think the item that caught my attention the most was his three-month stay in the hospital at Mare Island, from April 7–July 8, 1902.  After all of his travels up and down the Pacific coast, he comes back to California and goes into the hospital.  Maybe it was a bug he picked up on the trip.  Obviously, another item that I hope shows up in his service file.

I'm guessing that the entry for October 20, 1903 — "Quartermaster Sgt" — means he was working in that position.  He tends to write little about his accomplishments.  I am pretty sure that Yerba Buena refers to the island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, which currently is a U.S. Coast Guard installation.  The Wikipedia page about Yerba Buena does mention that a U.S. Navy training station was established there before the turn of the 20th century.

Several of the locations Jean mentions I had not heard of previously.  I now know, however, that Pichilingue Bay (with some spelling variation) is in Baja California, as is Magdalena Bay. I guessed correctly that Cavite, Olongapo, and Mariveles are in the Philippines because of their apparent proximity to Manila based on Jean's notes.

There are additional significant gaps in time in these pages.  Between November 1902 and February 1905, Jean made only one entry, the one that says "Quartermaster Sgt."  And it seems that Jean had nothing to write about during his stay in Olongapo.  He arrived on March 6, 1905, and the next entry records his departure on May 19, 1906.  I wonder if that means he had a quiet tour there.

From May 19, 1906 through the last page shown here, the entries were written first in pencil and later copied over in ink.  I wonder if Jean was the person who wrote over the entries to make them darker, or if that was the work of Emma.

Researching Japanese-American Family History

Example of koseki
(Japanese family registry)

A few years ago I volunteered and worked with a group that was bringing genealogy into schools and social agency programs, trying to interest the younger generation in researching family history.  The outreach during the first couple of years focused on the black community.  It was then decided that we expand our outreach to other groups.  One suggestion was the Japanese-American community, but we ended up not pursuing that, primarily because Japanese family history research can be difficult and we knew of no good resources for beginners.

Well, Japanese family history is still difficult to research, but now I know about a very handy reference for people who are getting started.  Linda Harms Okazaki has created a six-page guide, Finding Your Japanese Roots, in a laminated trifold layout.  It is focused on Japanese-American research, finding records in the United States, and then working back to finding records in japan.

The guide provides a quick overview of important history to keep in mind when conducting your research, types of records to look for in the U.S. and Japan, a glossary, a comprehensive list of online resources, and several short tips.  Most of the information is clear and to the point, but some items would benefit from a little clarity, due in part to the need to be very concise because of the limited space.

The short introduction explains circumstances and records specific to Japanese-American research.  In particular, the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II, while a heinous tragedy, created records that can be extremely detailed and informative.

The timeline Linda has created fits an amazing number of important dates into a small space, but a critical fact was omitted.  She included the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act that allowed Asian immigrants to become citizens but did not mention that laws enacted at various earlier times (usually during wartime) allowed Asians who served in the U.S. military to naturalize prior to that.

The records discussed are divided into conventional U.S. records, records unique to Japanese-Americans, and conventional Japanese records, and the lists appear to give a good overview.  One record type for those unique to Japanese-Americans seems to have accidentally been left out, however.  There are two references to "Evacuee Case Files" in the descriptions of other records, but there's no entry for the Evacuee Case Files themselves.

Some phrasing is misleading.  A reference to delayed birth certificates as a resource suggests that these exist only for Hawai'i and pre-1906 San Francisco.  Certainly, the majority of Japanese immigrants in the United States were probably in California and Hawai'i, but some were in other locations that either required vital records registration at later dates or simply didn't come near complete compliance for many years.  Delayed birth registration is something to consider through the early 1940's for anywhere in the U.S.  Another statement that would benefit from rephrasing is in the introduction, which states that "American-born women who married Japanese immigrants lost their citizenship until 1931", implying that this was always the case.  It only began in 1907, however.

As Linda is producing and distributing her guide on her own, she makes it in small batches and updates it on an ongoing basis.  Some of the minor problems I have mentioned here will undoubtedly be corrected in an upcoming print run.  If you would like to talk to her about getting a copy, she can be reached at LindaHOkazaki@gmail.com.

Full disclosure:  The copy of Finding Your Japanese Roots that I used for this review was given to me by Linda.

Black and White and Read All Over . . . .

Several new links have been added to the Wikipedia online newspaper archives page, so I thought I should let everyone know about them.  All but two are free, which is always nice to hear.  Many more college student publications have appeared online; this seems to be an ongoing trend.  And there's one new country, Japan, which is one of the fee-based archives.

Australia:  The Ryerson Index contains publication information about more than 5 million death notices from 281 Australian newspapers, ranging from 1803 to the present.  The majority of the entries are from New South Wales, but other parts of the country do have coverage.

Brazil:  An older archive of Diario de Pernambuco, covering 1825–1924, is now available to go with the modern archive.  Maybe at some point the mid-20th century will be added?

Brazil:  The Diarios Oficiais ("Official Gazettes") of several cities and states are online.

British Columbia, Canada:  There are three new links for British Columbia, one index and two sets of transcriptions.  The index is for Victoria newspapers from 1858–1936 and includes BMD announcements, general news articles, and more.  The Qualicum Beach Family History Society has transcribed obituaries from many newspapers in the Parkville and Qualicum area from 1948–1994.  The second set of transcriptions is mostly BMD notices from British Columbia newspapers from 1861–1875.

Manitoba, Canada:  The Manitoban, the student publication for the University of Manitoba, is available for 1914–2012.  The Winnipeg Tribune archive currently covers 1890–1950, 1957–1960, and 1969, but there are plans to digitize and upload the missing years.

Québec, Canada:  McGill University student publications from 1875–2001 are on Internet Archive.  They include the McGill Gazette, McGill Fortnightly, McGill Outlook, Martlet, and McGill Daily.

Saskatchewan, Canada:  The Saskatchewan Obituaries Project is digitized scrapbooks of obituary clippings.

Canada (national):  The Drouin Institute has an online collection of transcribed obituaries from throughout Canada.  The site and the obituaries are all in French.

China:  Four more Shanghai papers published by the Jewish refugee community, three in German and one in English, have been added to Internet Archive.

Ireland:  PDF's of bound volumes of the Dublin Gazette from the 1750's to around 1800 can be downloaded from the Oireachtas Library Web site.  The Connolly Association has made available The Irish Democrat and its predecessor, Irish Freedom.

Japan:  The entire run (1897–2014) of the Japan Times, an English-language newspaper, has been digitzed and is available as a paid subscription through an outside agency.  This is probably designed as an institutional subscription only, but I can't find the site, only the marketing materials.

United Kingdom:  A generous person has created two Google Custom Searches:  one for all the national British newspapers, and a second that includes 384 local, city, and regional papers.

Arkansas:  The Ashley County Ledger has an obituary index and transcriptions for 1965 to the present.  The Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Library has an obituary index for local newspapers from the 1820's to the present.

Connecticut:  The Ferguson Library has provided an index to obituaries appearing in seven Stamford newspapers from 1830 to the present.

Georgia:  The Digital Library of Georgia has added two new collections:  Southern Voice, an LGBT publication, for 1988–1995; and six West Georgia historic newspapers covering 1843–1942.

Hawaii:  Two student publications from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa are now online:  Ka Leo o Hawaiʻi, a newspaper, for 1922–1949 and 2002–2010; and Ka Palapala, kind of a student annual, for the 1920's to the 1960's.

Idaho:  The Gooding County Historical Society has a page with downloadable Excel files with obituary indices for Gooding County from 1946–1947 and 1980–2011.

Illinois:  Illinois Wesleyan University has digitized student publications ranging from 1870 to the present.  The Illinois Digital Archives has added the Huntley Farmside for 1960–2000 and two collections relating to World War II:  The Herald (for Melrose Park and area) for 1941–1945, and clippings and index cards relating to servicemen from Park Ridge.

Indiana:  The Tell City–Perry County Public Library has an obituary index for 2010–2014.  The Torch, the Valparaiso University student newspaper, has been digitized for 1914–1992.

Iowa:  Granville and Newspaper Archive have worked together to place four Granville newspapers and a scrapbook collection online.

Louisiana:  Centenary College of Louisiana, in Shreveport, has four student publications online covering 1899 to the present, including one published in French.

Massachusetts:  If you had whalers in your family, you'll want to look at this.  The Whalemen's Shipping List and Merchants' Transcript for 1843–1914, published in New Bedford, is online courtesy of the National Maritime Digital Library.

Montana:  The Columbia Falls Columbian for 1891–1925 (I believe it is the complete run) has been digitized by Veridian.

New Jersey:  A scattering of issues of the Newark Sunday Call from 1871–1881 and 1881–1946 are available in two separate collections from Google News Archive.

Ohio:  The Cleveland Jewish News Digital Archive has added a few more historical Cleveland Jewish newspapers to its database.  The Cleveland Public Library has two indices on its site for several Cleveland newspapers, one for death notices and one for general news items.  Ohio Memory, the state digitization project, has added several newspapers to its collection.

Tennessee:  This one's a little different.  The Knox County Public Library has digitized and posted two years of the Knoxville News-Sentinel as a sample to motivate people to donate to a fundraiser to raise enough money for NewsBank to digitize the newspaper for the years 1922–1990.  The two years available are 1940 and 1982 (no idea how those years were chosen).  What I'm particularly curious about is whether the newspaper is planned to be available as a NewsBank subscription, since the library is raising the funds.

Texas:  Some death notices and news items were transcribed from two Arlington newspapers and put together as books, which have now been scanned and can be downloaded from the Arlington Public Library Web site.  The Dallas Voice, an LGBT newspaper, has been scanned for 1964 to the present and is available through the Portal to Texas History.  And Lamar University student publications from 1933 to the present have been digitized and are on the university library site.

United States (national):  Obituary Central is an index to obituaries from throughout the country.  Warning:  When you first go to the page you get an annoying pop-up ad.

It's interesting how digital partnerships work (or don't).  The Poughkeepsie Journal is online again, on its third host site.  I first found the historical Journal on Ancestry.com.  Then the license apparently expired, and it was not available for a couple of years.  Next it appeared on Footnote.com.  When Ancestry bought Footnote's parent company, it was unable to work out a license with ProQuest, which had created the digital archive of the newspaper.  The digital Journal has been offline for several years, collecting virtual dust on a virtual back shelf somewhere at ProQuest, and even the Journal didn't have access to it.  But now Ancestry.com and Gannett, the Journal's owner, have redigitized the newspaper, through to the present, and it's on Newspapers.com.  You can read a little more about the current situation at Dick Eastman's blog.