Blurb in
our daily paper explained that Spokane has been visited by a dozen U.S.
presidents plus some VPs, wives and others. Our list is Taft, Harding, both
Roosevelts, Truman, Carter, Nixon, Clinton, Reagan, Ford and GW Bush. How about
your town? How many presidential visits do you mark?
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Cemeteries
have always been of great interest to family historians. It’s always
interesting to me to read about cemeteries of yore and of other cultures. In
December 1634, three men set out from Fort Orange (now Albany) New York to make
contact with the Mohawks to convince them that the Dutch made better trades
than the French or English. They visited a series of villages, “surprising
Harmen with their level of civilization. They
encountered cemeteries, surrounded by palisades, ‘so neatly made that it was a
wonder,’ and graves painted red, white and black. A chief’s tomb they found was
large enough to have an entrance and was decorated with carvings and paintings
of animals.” (From The Island at the
Center of the World: Epic Story of Dutch in Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony
That Shaped America, by Russell Shorto, 2005.)
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Another
newspaper article spelled out the “Eight Critical Skills” or attributes that
teens need to become well-functioning adults. As I read it, seemed to me that
even we adults could tune up our skills in these areas, especially as
genealogists:
·
Problem-solving
skills
·
Critical
thinking
·
Emotional
intelligence (“a greater predictor of success in life than IQ”)
·
Values
and ethics
·
Resourcefulness
and resilience
·
Creative
processing
·
Executive
functioning, including basic social skills
·
Leadership
perspective and the ability to see the big picture
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Have you
an ancestor who traveled west on the Oregon or California trails? Did you know
there is a super organization dedicated to preserving not only the records of
those travels but the physical trail (the ruts) itself? The Oregon-California
Trails Association (OCTA) is headquarter in Independence, Missouri, and holds
annual conferences somewhere along the trail. This year, 2016, it will be in
Fort Hall, Idaho (near Pocatello) from 1-5 August. At these conferences (which
are vastly different from genealogy conferences) there are few vendors (mostly
books) and the emphasis is on scholarship and education. And the theme of each
conference centers on that area, the geology, the Native Americans, the trail
itself. Click to www.OCTA-trails.org
for more information.
The OCTA
website also offers Paper Trails, a database of information about every single traveler
on any of the overland trails as they are found and documented. So there is a
second reason to check out OCTA.
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Several
times I’ve taught a class titled, “Is There A Book With My Family In It?” The
idea being that there are at least a dozen ways to check to see if there is a
book written about your family. Carol Richey, in her article “Reminiscences” in
the April-May 2016 issue of Internet
Genealogy goes a step further. When you can’t find a book about your
ancestors, nor family letters, diaries, journals or other personal accounts,
turn to county or compiled local histories! “These town and county histories
began to emerge in the 1870s, in a large part a result of the congressional
resolution in 1876 recommending towns and counties compiled historical sketches
for the nation’s centennial anniversary,” states Richey. She cites finally finding
a biographical sketch of her ancestor in the Compendium of History, Reminiscence, and Biography of Nebraska,
published in 1912.
I think
we have all been aware of these county histories but have also been aware that
too often they were not indexed, nor were they even in alphabetical order.
Found online, that problem is solved for then these books and their contents
are word-searchable.
So where to find these books? Online collections of state libraries, university archives, and the online collection of state and local historical societies. Also do check out http://books.familysearch.org and http://archive.org or www.hathitrust.org. These websites might also point you to “your” book.
So where to find these books? Online collections of state libraries, university archives, and the online collection of state and local historical societies. Also do check out http://books.familysearch.org and http://archive.org or www.hathitrust.org. These websites might also point you to “your” book.
***************************************
Back to
the topic of cemeteries, one of my favorite cemeteries is Hollywood Cemetery in
Richmond, Virginia. So named because holly used to grow profusely on the
grounds, this cemetery sold its first grave in 1849. Hollywood Cemetery ranks as the second
most-visited cemetery in the nation, right behind Arlington National Cemetery. Paths
and driving roads meander through the 130 acres where you can visit the graves
of several U.S. presidents.
From
their website, www.hollywoodcemetery.org you
can click on Genealogy and then search their online burial records. Or their
database of Confederate soldier burial records.
Note of interest… there is a large Confederate burial area that, to be
frank, is not well marked. This is because the Confederate dead from the
Gettysburg battle (July 1863) were brought to Hollywood as their resting place.
Can you imagine hauling hundreds of
bodies 185 miles in the July heat????
Hollywood
Cemetery is one place I must visit whenever I’m blessed enough to visit
Richmond, Virginia.
