Wordless Wednesday

IIJG Call for Research Proposals

From Emanuel Elyasaf, Executive Director, International Institute of Jewish Genealogy:

The International Institute for Jewish Genealogy (IIJG) has issued its annual Call for Research Proposals for original research in the field of Jewish genealogy, to be carried out in the academic year of 2013-2014.  Successful applicants will be awarded grants of up to $10,000.

Proposals are requested by May 31, 2013.  Those meeting strict standards of academic excellence will be judged by the extent to which they broaden the horizons of Jewish genealogical research and/or create innovative tools or technologies to assist Jewish genealogists and family historians in their work.

The CFRP and Instructions to Applicants can be found on the Institute's Web site under Research/Research Grants.  These instructions should be followed carefully, as only applications in the correct form will be considered.

Successful applicants will be announced on September 1, 2011.

Free Online Resources from Institute of Historical Research

The Institute of Historical Research is part of the University of London.  While its focus is on education for historians, it has several free resources available on the Internet that look as though they could be useful for family historians also.

A few free online courses are offered.  "Sources for British History on the Internet" sounds like a good resource if you have British ancestry.  "Palaeography Learning Materials" sounds really interesting, even though its emphasis is on Medieval manuscripts.  The process of learning how to read those scripts probably would be good experience for learning to read other difficult handwriting, such as Colonial American or Old German.  And if you are lucky enough to trace your family back to the Medieval period, you'll be prepared for the materials you'll be reading!

More than 200 archived Podcasts are on the site.  Topics range over all geographical areas, ancient to modern history, and specific topics such as agriculture, maritime history, medicine, oral history, and Christian missions in global history (these are just a few among dozens).  This type of information is wonderful for learning about the context of your ancestors' lives and the times they lived in.

The Digital Resources page has many links, including "Bibliography of British and Irish History", "British History Online" (Middle Ages to about 1900), and "Connected Histories:  Sources for Building British History, 1500-1900", which allows searches across fifteen databases (among them Old Bailey Proceedings Online, Convict Transportation Registers Database, and London Lives 1600-1800). And there's a blog called History Spot, to help you keep up-to-date on all the Podcasts and seminars offered.

There is so much great material here!  I think I'm going to start with the palaeography course ....

Free Access to "ProQuest Dissertations and Theses" for February 2013

Samuel Brainin (z''l), USC, 1966

Every month those who have signed up for the ProQuest Discover More Corps social network have free access to one database.  This month's database is "Dissertations and Theses."  Unfortunately, the dissertations themselves are not part of the database; it is actually only an index.  Some entries have abstracts.  For most you are given the option of purchasing a copy of the dissertation.

It was still fun to poke around in the index.  I have a photo (left) of my cousin when he graduated from the University of Southern California with his Ph.D.  Now I know that it was in 1966, his dissertation topic was "The Estimation of Randomly Varying Parameters in Linear Systems", and it was in Electrical Engineering.  I also found my sister-in-law's Mathematics dissertation from Howard University.  And that's about it for my family that I know of (although my sister is threatening to go for a Ph.D.).

In the San Francisco Bay area, we have three Steve's with Ph.D.'s who are involved with genealogy (Danko, Harris, and Morse).  All of them are in the database.

Finding a relative's dissertation topic usually isn't going to take your research back further generations, but it adds richness to the information you have.  So who are the academics in your family?

Wordless Wednesday

The African Diaspora to the East

Nawab Sidi Mohammed
Haider Khan, 1930

In the U.S. we are accustomed to thinking about Africans who came to North America, voluntarily or otherwise, but another diaspora went to the east.  The New York Public Library currently is running an exhibit called "Africans in India:  From Slaves to Generals and Rulers", which began on February 1, 2013 and will end July 6, 2013.

The emphasis in this exhibit is on East Africans, who logically would have been the majority to go east.  Known as Habshis (Abyssinians) and Siddis, they attained authoritative positions in India as generals, commanders, admirals, architects, prime ministers, and rulers.

If, like me, you can't go to New York in person to see the exhibit, you can view the related online exhibit of "The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World."  Using images, maps, essays, and multimedia, this site discusses Africans from Sudan to Mozambique who went to the Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, Indian subcontinent, and outlying areas.  In addition to Habshi and Siddi, the terms Kaffir and Zanji are used for the descendants of East Africans.  Along with covering a broader area, this exhibit has information on people of more social classes, including soldiers, sailors, merchants, servants, and musicians.  A bibliography for further study is also included.

Both of these exhibits relate a history that is not well known.  They are presented through the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Skeletons in the Closet: Divorce

This is the first of what will be an occasional series of posts. The idea behind this series is to discuss subjects which are often denied, covered up, or in some way obfuscated when relatives talk about family history.  When information is hidden, family history research becomes more difficult and can be derailed.  I'm starting with divorce because it's somewhat less volatile than some of the other topics.

It can be difficult for many people in our modern world to understand why divorce might be such a touchy subject in one's family history, but for previous generations divorce was a much more significant event.  Approaching the situation with gravity was even part of the legal procedure.  A couple did not simply get divorced.  Cause had to be shown, and then an interlocutory decree would be issued.  The divorce would be finalized a year later, and then only after one of the parties followed through.  That intervening year was to allow the couple to really, really, make sure they wanted to go through with the divorce.

Because of the social stigma attached to being divorced, women in particular did not want to admit to it.  A lot of "widows" in the census were actually divorcées.

Some of the trepidation about divorce is a holdover from Catholicism, which still does not permit divorce.  The most that Catholicism allows is legal separation, which, in all ways but the final dissolution of the marriage, is just like a divorce.  Paperwork is drawn up, assets are divided, child custody is accounted for -- the same things you see in a divorce.  Legally, however, the couple is still married.  Most other religions allow divorce through some mechanism.

Apparently my family was very "forward thinking" regarding divorce.  My grandmother was divorced in the early 1920's -- I wonder if it caused scandal in the family!  My grandfather divorced for the first time in the mid-1950's, when it still was not a common occurrence.  (Before that happened, he and my grandmother were together and my father was born.  That, however, is a different kind of skeleton in the closet, a discussion for another day.)  One time I sat down and counted and came up with twenty divorces through four generations of one branch of my family.

From a family history perspective, a divorce can provide incredibly helpful information.  I have not yet found a divorce file that did not include the date and location of the marriage.  If you have not found that through other research, obtaining the divorce paperwork can give you a lead.  If the couple had children, their names and birthdates are usually included, particularly if the children are minors.  There may be a full inventory of the couple's assets and property, which can give you an idea of their economic status.  The file may also include addresses of the two parties if legal paperwork was served to them.

Divorce is a civil matter and the records are usually not found in the same department as birth, marriage, and death records.  They are usually available at the county level in the U.S.  Some divorce indices are linked from the German Roots site.  You can also use your favorite search engine with the county name (and state, in case more than one county has that name) and the words divorce records.  (Make sure you find a county site and not a for-profit third party.)  For example, I searched for "okaloosa county divorce records" (not in quotation marks) and found the Okaloosa County Clerk of Court site (which I discovered has scanned images online!).  If the county does not have images or a searchable index online, there will be information on how to request a search and how to order records.

Even though divorce is more commonplace in today's society, it still causes great emotional effects to all parties involved.  If you are researching a divorce in your family and you talk to family members about it, keep people's feelings in mind and be diplomatic and gentle in your discussions.

Black Family History Day, February 10, 2013

For the third year, the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California and Oakland FamilySearch Library are presenting a Black Family History Day in honor of Black History Month.  This year's event will take place Sunday, February 10, from 1:00-5:00 p.m. at the Oakland FamilySearch Library, 4766 Lincoln Avenue, Oakland.  As usual, the event is free, but you are encouraged to register for a free consultation, either through the Web site or by calling (877) 884-2843.  This is particularly important for the February event, as we usually have more attendees during Black History Month.

When people arrive they will register, then beginners will go to a short introductory workshop and have guidance in filling out a basic four-generation family chart, and then some one-on-one assistance in research and looking for information on their families.  Intermediate researchers and those who already have some solid information on their families will register and go straight to the one-on-one research.

I've invited some friends again who have said they want to get going on their own family history research.  I'm looking forward to seeing them and everyone else next Sunday!

An Online Archival Collection of the New York Public Library

I often tell people that most material in archives will probably never be online because it is not cost effective.  It costs money to scan everything, prepare the files, and create and maintain a Web site.  This is why companies such as Ancestry.com charge subscriptions.  A lot of archival material is of limited appeal to the general public and it would be difficult to recoup operating costs.

That said, it's nice when a benefactor steps in to cover the costs of digitization and material can be made available freely.  This is what has happened with one of the New York Public Library's archival collections, the Thomas Addis Emmet Collection.  Thanks to a gift from the Polonsky Foundation, the collection is now available online in its entirety.

The Thomas Addis Emmet Collection contains more than 10,000 handwritten letters and documents from the time of America's founding and earlier, including a manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's handwriting.  The dates of the documents range from 1483 to 1876, with the majority falling between 1700 and 1800.  Previously, researchers needed to visit the library in person to read the materials in the collection. Now this resource is freely available online to anyone, anytime, anywhere.

The main link above takes you to an overview of the collection.  Clicking on "Detailed description" takes you to the digitized collection itself, which is broken up into 28 topics.  Some examples of the topics in the collection are the Continental Congress of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, Signers to the Declaration of Independence, the Siege of Savannah 1779, Irving's Life of Washington, and Boundary Line Controversy.

At the end of the list is Miscellaneous Manuscripts.  I decided to look in there to see what was classified as miscellaneous.  I found a two-page letter dated September 18, 1757 to Mr. David Mendes Dacosta, a contractor for 100 bread wagons for Hessian troops.  His name sounds like a Sephardic Jewish one.  Maybe a descendant of his will find the collection and read the letter written to his ancestor.

Warning:  I have a pretty fast Internet connection, but I found the site painfully slow to load, both on the overview page and the pages with documents.  The image viewer appears to be designed to prevent downloading of images; when I tried to save an image, I would get one piece of it (similar to the Ellis Island Database).  I am using a Mac, however, so perhaps it works differently on a PC.

There does not appear to be an index or a finding aid for the collection.  (If I missed it, please tell me where it is!)  There is a link on the bottom of the page to "Find Archival Materials", but when I tried searching there for the Mendes Dacosta letter, it was not found.  So, as is common with many archival collections, it looks like you will need to browse and see what's there.