The Latest in Genealogy Journals

I realized I have been remiss lately in letting everyone know what interesting articles are being published in the journals for which I am the editor.  And now that I've added a new (to me) journal to the list, there's a wider range of stories!

The most recent issue of ZichronNote came out at the end of November.  Australian Dani Haski wrote about the status of Jewish record books in Egypt, a subject of interest to her because her ancestors came from Egypt.  Susan MacLaughlin discussed her roots trip to Lithuania, which she originally thought was going to be to France.  Vivian Kahn updated our membership on the latest additions to the Hungarian Special Interest Group database on JewishGen.org.  Debra Katz tried to entice people sitting on the fence to jump in the DNA research pool and see what they can learn.  Fred Hoffman wrote about some pitfalls of machine translation, including "swanky oxen" and "fetus farms."  And SFBAJGS President Jeremy Frankel and several other members shared their perspectives on the 2016 IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, which took place in Seattle, Washington in August.

The Fall 2016 issue of The Baobab Tree was e-mailed to members in December (yes, when it was still fall, thank you).  We've had a glitch with the printer, so the print copy has not yet gone out, but it should soon.  The big story in this issue was the celebration of the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California's 20th anniversary, which was held at the September meeting.  Dera Williams wrote about the highlights of the day, and Jackie Chauhan contributed a list of some of the topics the society's speakers have addressed over the course of 20 years.  There's also a lovely photo gallery showing many of the attendees and honorees, including our beloved Electra Kimble Price and the ever-busy Ron Higgins.  Lavinia Schwarz wrapped up her three-part story about the research she did on her 2x-great-grandmother, a free woman of color in New Orleans.  A few AAGSNC members attended the 3rd International Black Genealogy Summit in Arlington, Virginia and had the opportunity to meet the Côte d'Ivoire ambassador to the United States.  And AAGSNC President Howard Edwards presented a plaque of appreciation to the Oakland FamilySearch Library in thanks for all of its support over the years.

My new baby is The California Nugget, the twice-yearly journal published by the California Genealogical Society.  This is my first issue, so there's been a learning curve, finding out about all the people and procedures involved.  It should be published this month.  Two things that will be new with this issue are a message from the president, currently Linda Harms Okazaki, in place of the previous message from the editor (because we all know I hate to write), and a regular column on genealogical methods by Rondina Muncy, CG.  In addition to those, Stella and Linda Allison wrote about their great-grandfather's sister, a Mexican immigrant to San Francisco who moved up economically from her beginnings in Mazatlán.  Scott McKinzie used DNA and old-fashioned paper research to determine who his grandfather was.  Joe Reilly and Tim Cox have stories about relatives who served and died in World War II.  Kathleen Javdani dove into research on her great-grandmother, trying to find if the information in a family narrative matched reality.  And Carolyn Ervin wrote about memories of her own great-grandmother, whom she was fortunate enough to meet shortly before she passed away.

There's a caveat, though.  (Isn't there always?)  To receive these fine journals, you need to be a member of the respective societies.  If you would like to read these articles, visit the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society (for ZichronNote), the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California (for The Baobab Tree), and the California Genealogical Society (for The California Nugget) to join and you can be reading them soon.

There is a way around that membership requirement, at least on a per-issue basis.  If you have a story published in an issue, you receive a copy!

Have you had a breakthrough in your research, solved a family mystery, discovered a different way to use resource materials, or walked where your ancestors walked?  Do you have an interesting story about your family?  We would love to read about it in one of the journals.  Submission guidelines for The Baobab Tree (including deadlines) and The California Nugget (which will probably be updated soon) are available online, or you can send me a message regarding any of the journals, and we can talk about it! 

Newspapers, Newspapers, Newspapers!

I have been meaning to post another update of what has been added to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page for a while now, but I've been distracted by a lot of other projects.  I didn't realize it had been seven months since I last posted!  I'm trying to catch up, though, so here are some of the most recent additions.  One new country, Lithuania, and new state, Kansas, have been added to the list.  Several of the new archives are being created by one of two companies, Advantage Preservation (which does them with free access) or Newspapers.com (which makes them available for a subscription fee).

• Australia:  Honi Soit, the student newspaper of the University of Sydney (New South Wales), has been digitized for 1929–1990.

• British Columbia, Canada:  The Prince George Public Library has eight newspapers, including the student newspaper for the College of New Caledonia, on its site, ranging from 1909–1965.

• British Columbia, Canada:  Simon Fraser University has a collection of digitized newspapers online, including the student newspaper The Peak and one group called simply "More Newspapers."

• British Columbia, Canada:  The Thompson-Nicola Regional District library is digitizing newspapers from the Kamloops area and has a selection available covering 1882–2014.

• Cuba:  Diario de la Marina is available through the University of Florida's newspaper collection. Years covered range between 1844 and 1961, but coverage is not continuous.

• England:  The Church Times, an Anglican newspaper, has an online archive dating back to its first issue in 1863 and including more than 8,000 issues.

• France:  Two collections of images from Excelsior, a weekly publication that published 20+ photographs in every issue during World War I, are available.

• Italy:  Nine months of the 1885 issues of Il Secolo, published in Milan, are on the Florida State University digital archives site.  The press release I read suggested that more issues will be coming at some point in the future.

• Lithuania:  A new country!  Someone has digitized the Vilna Provincial Gazette and posted it on the Internet Archive.  The years covered are 1838–1917, with a few years missing.  This was published while Lithuania was under the control of the Russian Empire.

• Mexico, Arizona, California, and Texas (under Worldwide category):  The Historic Mexican & Mexican American Press collection includes newspapers from Tucson, Arizona; Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; El Paso, Texas; and Sonora, Mexico.  The archive goes from the mid-1800's to the 1970's.

• New Zealand:  The Southern Regional News Index covers the Dunedin and Otago area for 1851 to the present.

• United Kingdom:  The Gazette has created an instructional video on how to search and use the online Gazette archives.

• California:  The GLBT Historical Society of Northern California has an online searchable database of obituaries (not just an index) for the Bay Area Reporter, a weekly newspaper covering the GLBT community primarily in the San Francisco Bay area, for the years 1972 to the present.  The Bay Area Reporter itself has an online archive that begins with 2005 and is working on digitizing its issues going back to 1971.

• California:  The St. Helena Public Library has the St. Helena Star from 1874–2014 available for free.

• California:  The now defunct San Fernando Valley Genealogical Society posted a collection of vital records abstracts on RootsWeb for Valley newspapers covering 1911–1945.

• Connecticut:  The Shelton Library has two collections of newspaper clippings.  The "Library Scrapbook" has clippings from multiple newspapers from 1923–1930 relating to the Plumb Memorial Library.  The "Servicemen's Scrapbook of Shelton Men & Women Serving in World War" has clippings from the Evening Sentinel from 1943–1945, so apparently those servicemen were serving in World War II.

• District of Columbia:  The Capital is online for 1871–1880 and is said to be a great source for research in the Reconstruction period.

• District of Columbia:  Quicksilver Times (1973–1985) and Unicorn Times (1969–1972) are available from the Washington, DC Public Library.

• Georgia:  The Macon Daily Telegraph for 1860–1865 is in the American Civil War Newspapers database at Virginia Tech.

• Illinois:  The Lake Forester for 1899–1940 is on the Lake Forest Library site.

• Indiana:  The AIM Media Indiana archive, which has eleven newspapers, is a pay site created via a Newspapers.com partnership.

• Iowa:  Central College in Pella has ten collections of student newspapers and yearbooks covering 1876–2006, but there are some gaps in coverage.

• Iowa:  West Branch newspapers the Local Record and Times, from 1866–1934, are on the West Branch Public Library.

• Kansas:  A new state!  There is an obituary index for Rush County at the Barnard Library site.  It covers 1878–1951.  Copies of the obituaries can be ordered from the library.

• Kentucky:  The Lawrence County Public Library has an online obituary index for the Big Sandy News that covers 1885 to the present.

• Louisiana: The New Orleans Christian Advocate, a Methodist newspaper, is only for 1850–1946.

• Louisiana:  Scanned ads from former slaves looking for family members and friends lost during slavery which were published in the New Orleans Southwestern Christian Advocate (1879–1885) — which does not appear to be related to the previously mentioned paper — are available for free online.

• Maine:  Digital Maine has the Old Orchard Mirror, a newspaper published only during the summer, for the years 1900, 1901, 1903, 1904, and 1914.

• Maryland:  The Annapolis Capital has been digitized and placed online by NewspaperArchive.com on a pay site.  The collection nominally goes from 1887–2016, but it goes straight from 1887 to 1918–1919 and then to 1929.  It looked continuous from then on.

• Massachusetts:  The Memorial Hall Library in Andover has three newspapers covering 1853–1925.

• Massachusetts:  The Newburyport Public Library has ten digitized newspapers available for free on its site, courtesy of Advantage Preservation.

• Massachusetts:  The Portuguese-American Digital Newspaper Collections, housed at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, includes Portuguese-language newspapers from California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts.

• Massachusetts:  The (Mattapoisett) Wanderer, which also serves Marion and Rochester in southeastern Massachusetts, has an online archive for its entire publication history, 1992–2016, housed at the Internet Archive.

• Minnesota:  Two union newspapers, the Minneapolis Labor Review (1907–current) and St. Paul Union Advocate (unsure of years covered), are now online.

• Missouri:  The Houston Herald has been digitized and placed online courtesy of Newspapers.com for 1881–present and is a pay site.

• Missouri:  There are online indices for death notices appearing in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the Post-Dispatch, along with instructions on how to order copies.

• Montana:  The Montana Newspapers project has some dupblication with the Montana Memory Project but includes many more newspapers.  The years range from 1885 to 2015.

• New Jersey:  The Belmar Historical Society has the Coast Echo and Coast Advertiser for 1881–1974 in PDF and searchable.

• New Jersey:  The New Jersey Hills Media Group has partnered with Newspapers.com to present three newspapers on a pay site.

• New Jersey:  The Woodbridge Public Library has digitized eleven local newspapers ranging from 1876–1970.

• New Mexico:  The White Sands Missile Range published its own newspapers, which cover 1950–1990.  There is a list of the issues that are missing, so if you have an old issue, maybe you can help!

• New York:  A new collection of four Staten Island newspapers has been made available, with plans for more to come.

• North Carolina:  The Nubian Message (1992–2005), the black student newspaper of North Carolina State University, has been digitized and placed online.

• Ohio:  The Stark County District Library has digitized eight newspapers in partnership with Advantage Preservation.

• Ohio:  The WestLife Observer (2013–2015) and the Westlake Bay Village Observer (2006–2015) are online at Westlake Library site.

• Oklahoma:  The Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College student newspaper, The Norse Wind, is online for 1948–2007.

• Virginia:  The Library of Virginia has the Charlottesville Daily Progress available for 1893–1964.

• Virginia:  The Prince William County Library System has a local newspaper index for 1993–present for three newspapers that have no other index available.

• Virginia:  The Pulaski County Library newspaper archive has five newspapers that range from 1893 to 2015.

• Virginia:  The Handley Regional Library System has an obituary index for the Winchester Star for 1896–1914.  This is a work in progress, and more information is being added to it.

• Wisconsin:  The Lake Geneva Public Library has searchable indices for obituaries, birth announcements, and local people in the news.  The site does not state which newspapers or years are covered, but an announcement from NEHGS said the obituaries were taken from the Lake Geneva Regional News and Lake Geneva Herald.  The local people in the news database iincludes the code LGNT, which I believe stands for Lake Geneva News Tribune.

• Multistate:  The Swedish American Newspapers collection, hosted at the Minnesota Historical Society, includes 28 newspapers from California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.  Total years covered in the database are 1859–2007.

Earlier this year, the National Endowment for the Humanities, one of the funders for the Chronicling America digitization project, announced that the years which can be funded are expanding from 1836–1922 to 1690–1963.  This means that eventually we should see a much broader range of historical newspapers on the Chronicling America site.  You can read the press release here.

Restitution, Competition, Preservation, Memorials, and Football

The Government of Lithuania has authorized compensation payments for Lithuanian Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust and Soviet terror during World War II.  Criteria for eligibility and the application form can be found at http://www.gvf.lt/.  The deadline for applications is September 30, 2013.

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The National Archives "Files on Film"

If you can come up with an idea for a film based on a record from the National Archives of the United Kingdom, you could win £450 for first prize or £200 for second place.  I didn't see anything in the rules that says entrants need to be from the UK; it says "anyone can enter."  The only criterion is that the person submitting the film must be 18 or older.  The National Archives has provided a selection of ten documents to choose from, ranging from 1806 to 1968 and covering topics such as lunatics, illegitimate children, and lesbianism.  The film must be 3 minutes or shorter, and the deadline is midnight British Standard Time on September 24, 2013.  The documents and all rules are available here.

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English Football Association's Founding Fathers

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, the Football Association began a search earlier this year to find living descendants of football’s "Founding Fathers."  Apparently not much is known about the men who met on October 26, 1863 in the Freemasons' Tavern in London to form "The Football Association" and who later drafted the original laws of association football.

The Founding Fathers of English football included Charles William Alcock (1842–1907), John Forster Alcock (1841–1910), Francis Maule Campbell (1843–1920), Ebenezer Cobb Morley (1831–1924), Arthur Pember (1835–1886), Herbert Thomas Steward (1839–1915), James Turner, and George Twizell Wawn (1840–1914). Any living descendants who can be identified and located will be invited to a special ceremony at Wembley to honor their ancestors in October.

Since not much is known about the eight Founding Fathers, I figure some of their descendants might have ended up in the United States.  I didn't see anything on the FA site about invitations being restricted to only British citizens, so maybe an American descendant will attend the ceremony in October.

A few more details (though not many) are in the Football Association's news release.

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California Audiovisual Preservation Project

Primary-source sound and moving image recordings of the 20th century are endangered by physical deterioration, lack of playback equipment, and format obsolescence.  The California Preservation Program, through the California Audiovisual Preservation Project (CAVPP), has started an online collection of historic Californiana called California Light and Sound, available through the Internet Archive.  So far, 697 recordings are available online from 23 project partners.  CAVPP is now reaching out to more California archives and libraries to identify new partners and preserve more historic Californian recordings.  If you have historic, unpublished recordings of local, regional, or statewide significance, consider joining CAVPP.  CAVPP's free services include digitization, metadata management, quality control, and long-term preservation and online access.

The California Preservation Program has been leading a series of workshops to introduce the project and to train partners on how to use the CALIPR tool to assess the preservation needs of their audiovisual collections.  Potential partners assess the needs of their collections before recordings are selected and digitized through CAVPP.

The final dates for the northern and southern California workshops are:
University of Southern California Doheny Library (I used to work there!), Wednesday, October 2, 2013, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Berkeley Public Library, Thursday, October 10, 2013, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

RSVP for a workshop near you.  If you have audiovisual recordings that document California history in your collection or if you have any questions about joining CAVPP, contact Project Coordinator Pamela Vadakan at pamelajean@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-4665.

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Kentucky Historical Society Seeking Governor Memorabilia

Five governors served Kentucky during the Civil War.  Three were Union — Beriah Magoffin, James F. Robinson, and Thomas E. Bramlette — and two were Confederate provisional governors — George W. Johnson and Richard Hawes.  The Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is looking for almost any document associated with one of these men while serving as governor.  This includes manuscripts and printed materials written by a Kentucky Civil War governor, documents addressed to a governor, documents endorsed by a governor, documents written by a secretary or assistant but signed by a governor, and documents reporting a governor’s words (e.g., speeches printed in newspapers).  If you have anything relevant to the project, or if you have any questions, contact the project’s editorial assistant, Whitney Smith, at whitney.smith@ky.gov or (502) 564-1792.

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Municipal Library of Nuremberg Seeking Descendants of Book Owners

The Municipal Library of Nuremberg houses looted books from World War II on permanent loan from the Jewish Community of Nuremberg.  The collection of about 9,000 items was taken from Jews, Freemasons, priests, and other groups during the period of Nazi rule from 1933 to 1945.  This collection was found at the end of World War II in the editorial offices of the anti-Semitic periodical Der Stürmer and in a private residence.

To aid in the search for the previous owners of these books the Municipal Library of Nuremberg has published a list of 1,390 names of individuals, corporations, and institutions from 300 towns across Europe.  (This is similar to the efforts of the Central Library of Berlin, about which I have posted previously.)  Many books have already been restored to their former owners or legal successors, from Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Switzerland, and the United States of America.  This effort is being done pro bono.

Please look at the current lists, which are sorted by name and place.  If you recognize one or more of the names, contact information is at the end of each file.

You can read more about the collection (in German) here.

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New Stolpersteine Project

Stolpersteine are memorial stones placed for individual victims of the Nazis.  Borken, Hesse's (Germany) first stolpersteine are being planned.  Bernd Hessler, the mayor of Borken, is very supportive and is encouraging descendants of any Borken Holocaust victims to consider memorials for their families.

Anyone interested in having these memorials placed in Borken for their family members should contact Hans-Peter Klein.  Klein lives near Borken and is a tireless keeper of the memory of the Jewish community of North Hesse.  Some Jewish family names from Borken are Appel, Blum, Gottlieb, Hain, Katzenstein, Kaufmann, Lehrberger, Nussbaum, Rosenbusch, Rothschild, Speier, and Stern.

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World War I Memorial Projects

As we approach the centenary of World War I, many memorial projects are being planned.  Roads to the Great War, a blog dedicated to the history of the war, recently discussed two of these projects.

The aim of the World War I Memorial Inventory Project is to create an online listing of all World War I memorials and monuments in the United States.  One post shows images of several memorials that have already been catalogued.  A second post explains the project and asks for volunteers to help.

The Michigan in World War I Project is hoped to be the first in a series of commemorations in different states.  Currently the Michigan project has a Facebook page and a YouTube channel.

If you know of a World War I state memorial project, contact Roads to the Great War editor Mike Hanlon.

Research on the Migration of Lithuanian Jews

Nathan Shapiro, a student at Hofstra University in New York, is writing an honors thesis about the migration of Lithuanian Jews during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  As part of his research, he wants to interview the descendants of Jews who emigrated from Lithuania during this time.  Ideally, he is looking to interview people who are one generation removed from the emigrant.  If you fit these criteria, or if you know someone who does, please contact Nathan at nathan.shapiro@me.com.  His research is not focused on any specific destination, so he is looking for interviewees from anywhere in the world!

DAR and Lithuanian Citizenship

from Ghosts of the Pines

Well, my new presentation was well received by the Mt. Diablo DAR chapter.  I spoke about my Revolutionary War ancestor, who was a drummer for his New Jersey unit, and his brother, a Loyalist who stayed in the colonies and was hung for treason.  I'm eligible for DAR through my ancestor, and eligible for the International Black Sheep Society of Genealogists because they accept a sibling of an ancestor.  What is particularly ironic is that my ancestor died destitute and has been almost forgotten, but his brother lives on in legends, comic books, and a documentary.  I don't even know if my ancestor has a surviving tombstone, but his brother's grave marker is replaced when it disappears.

After my talk, I went to the Oakland FamilySearch Library to do some research but ended up helping someone who came in looking for advice on how to prove his grandmother was Lithuanian, so he can claim Lithuanian citizenship.  I wrote recently about the right of return and my experience researching someone's Italian ancestry.  Apparently the Lithuanian requirements are similar to the Italian, including eligibility up through a great-grandparent (though the information on the Wikipedia page is singularly uninformative).  One aspect relating to eligibility is proving that the ancestor was a Lithuanian while Lithuania was an independent country, between 1918-1940.  His grandmother was living in Lithuania at that time, and there was a 1923 national census, so I recommended he try to find out if the census has survived and has information about individuals.  There's also the possibility of finding a civil birth registration (his grandmother was born when Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire), or maybe the visa issued by Lithuania when his grandmother left to immigrate to the United States.

An interesting quirk in this patron's situation is that his great-grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1913, while Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire, but did not apply for U.S. citizenship until 1922.  When the great-grandfather submitted his Declaration of Intention to become a citizen, he renounced citizenship and allegiance to Russia.  So I'm wondering what his citizenship status was from 1918-1922, when Lithuania was independent but he had not renounced any citizenship.  Was he Lithuanian?  Russian?  Stateless?