Digital Archives Teaching Example: Oswald

 

 Here is a teaching example from my own work. We have a fabulous Washington State Digital Archives (www.digitalarchives.wa.gov) . 

I did a search for hubby’s grandmother who I knew died here in 1963 and she did not come up. Why?

 Look closely and you’ll see that she’s listed as MRS. Mary Oswald and so a search for Mary Oswald turned up zip. She was indexed under "Mrs" and not Mary. 

So I just did a search for Oswald and there she was! 

Just something to keep in mind when searching records in-putted and indexed by volunteers.

 

 

Online Archival Resources (for WA) from Anna Harbine

Today is a follow-up post to Anna Harbine's September 7th presentation to EWGS at our regular meeting. 

Besides explaining how "her" archives work, and how to come and access the materials and information in "her" archives, she shared a list of recommended Online Archival Resources, mostly (but not all) for Washington.

1. Washington State Digital Archives - www.digitalarchives.wa.gov

2. Washington State Library - www.sos.wa.gov/library

3. Archives West - www.archiveswest.orbiscascade.org

4. Mountain West Digital Library - www.mwdl.org

5. Library of Congress' Chronicling America - www.chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

Though not on her list, and not an "archives," as such, I'm adding this link because I find it most useful:

HistoryLink.org: The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington ...

https://www.historylink.org

The free online encyclopedia of Washington state history. 7650 HistoryLink.org articles now available. 

Finding Stories while Digitizing Records for Scribe

I have been using Scribe to help digitize records for the Washington State Digital Archives, and while it is kind of time consuming it helps everyone in the long run. I started out with the Spokane County Marriage Applications since they were from 1939- and my parents got married in Spokane in 1942, so I was hoping to find their application, but I guess several others liked the Spokane County records since the names were typed on a typewriter, and soon they were well past when my parents got married, so I started working on Pend Oreille County Marriage Affidavits. These are the applications for a marriage license and they have the signature of the bride and groom, ages of both, and residence of both. Some have an occupation, and some have a section filled in by the parents if either the bride or groom were under age when they applied for the marriage license.
Why Pend Oreille county? My dad's parents homesteaded near Blanchard, Idaho and the nearest town to Blanchard was Newport, Washington the county seat of Pend Oreille county and so I know a lot of the people in that area.
After doing the affidavits for a while I found out a lot of people from Spokane came to Newport to get a marriage license, but people from all over came there also. I did affidavits for couples from Acron, Ohio, Cripple Creek, Colorado, Omaha, Nebraska,  and Portland, Oregon. I also had several were one of the bride or groom were from California, Minnesota, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Oregon. Since Pend Oreille county is close to Idaho a lot of people from Idaho came to get their marriage license, and even many from British Columbia in Canada. Now does that mean they got married in Pend Oreille county? Not necessarily, since that license could be used anywhere in the state of Washington, but it was an easy stop on the Great Northern Railroad, and at least in Spokane they did not publish those marriage licenses in the Spokane newspapers.

Well One day I ran into a couple in one of the pages I was working on:
Alfred M. Vanderpool and Faye E. Gertler June 1, 1933

This was an index page for the affidavits, and so I was hoping for the actual affidavit, but I did not find it. My Great Grandmother was Donna Vanderpool, so I was wondering if Alfred was related. I sent this to my cousin Myra Vanderpool Gormley since she has the Vanderpool genealogy that has been collected for years by various Vanderpool descendants. She sent me back an E-Mail that Alfred was part of the northern Vanderpools and wanted to know more about him and Faye. Seems that Alfred was the THIRD husband for Faye, and that Faye and husband #2 Nels Gertlar were in the 1930 Spokane census. I already had a request to go to the courthouse so I asked if I could look up a divorce for Nels and Faye. Myra E-Mailed back that Faye and Willis LaFayette were in the 1910 Spokane census so look for that divorce also, and the divorce for Faye's parents, and a divorce for Alfred and Faye so now I had FOUR divorces to look up.I now knew That Alfred was a 13 or 14th cousin also.

Spokane County Court records are indexed on two different microfilms, criminal and civil cases, we all know what criminal cases are, and civil cases are everything else, so armed with the approximate dates and names the clerks started looking. Found the divorce case for Nels Gertler and Faye Gertler. The microfilm showed that Nels and Faye filed for divorce August 20, 1922, but the decree was never completed so were they divorced when she married Alfred in 1933? I did not find any of the other three divorces, but did find a lawsuit where Willis Lafayette sued Nels Gertler. So husband #1 was suing soon to be husband #2. That microfilm was very interesting Willis was accusing Nels for taking away his wife, and in that suit filed in April of 1914  said Faye had filed for divorce from  Willis about November 13, 1913 and that Nels had taken his wifes love and affection away from Willis. Willis was asking $10,000.00 damages. Now a little background, Nels and Faye were both musicians and they played at various venues occasionally and were friends. Well they described riding together on street cars to Natatorium Park and a couple of other places, and meeting on the streets and talking. Natatorium Park had dances a lot on weekends and that had local musicians play for the dances. 
Reading to the end of the lawsuit, all charges dropped by the plaintiff Willis as he found after further investigation that all the charges were false.

A Puzzle for New Year's Day ?

I've decided to be come a SCRIBE! This only means that I'm helping to index Washington state birth records from the Washington Archives site  ( https://scribe.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Home/Index ) which is VERY fun and VERY easy. I recommend it to all of you!

Doing some entries for Spokane County births, I came upon a female child, unnamed but born alive, to Henrietta Day, age 34, and was her 6th child, and father John McNeal. The little girl was born on 3 Sep 1893. What caught my eye was that under "location" it stated that she was born "on bluff street near river bank." Hummmmm..... thanks to some images from our Spokesman Review found in Google images, I wondered:  is this where the family was living???

So here is your puzzle for New Year's Day if you do not care to watch football all day! In all fairness, I did check the 1900 and 1910 censuses for Washington and did not find the McNeal family. Nor did I find any listings in our Washington Digital Archives.

If you would care to weigh in on this puzzle, please do! And please let me know what you find.............. did this baby girl grow up and have a life??

Donna

Archives Month Celebration October 26, 2013

Washington State Digital Archives..... Want To Visit?

 Charles Hansen and I attended a meeting in Cheney at our Washington State Digital Archives yesterday. Assistant Secretary of State Terry Badger was there, too, and among all the business conducted Mr. Badger  invited our group to come out for a tour and/or a day of research. This is a fabulous place; we are so lucky to have it so near to us. I think this would be a great EWGS Saturday meeting in 2014; what do you think??

They have Washington records. These records document the interaction between our ancestors and the state government.... vital records, land records, naturalization records, mortgages, school records, probate records, etc. Yes, all these are slowly being digitized and will be available on their website:  www.digitalarchives.wa.gov     but wouldn't it be such great fun to hold the actual record in your hand???

We also got to meet The Sentinel (aka the movie Matrix). He is the unofficial guardian of our Washington State Digital Archives (see him between the computer monitors to the left of Harold). Great to know he's always on guard!  (And see Charles reflected in the glass.)

It was a wonderful afternoon; I hope we all vote yes for a Saturday visit in 2014.

Donna

February 2nd Meeting Featured Our WA Archives

Lee Pierce and Tracey Rebstock spent Saturday afternoon on February 2nd with EWGS and they taught us about our Washington State Archives.  They explained that we have a "paper archives" and a "digital archives."  To use them effectively, we need to understand the difference.

The "paper archives" is where Lee works. This is the Eastern Washington Branch of the Washington State Archives. This is the first floor of the archives building out on the edge of the EWU campus. Paper records......... books, papers, letters, documents, etc...... from the eleven counties of Eastern Washington are housed here. Lee told us that they just got "new stuff" from Lincoln and Ferry counties, and from the Spokane Parks Department.  In this "paper" archives, you do not look for a person by surname; you look in the papers concerning what he was, what he did, where he was. Like did he pay taxes in Ferry County?? Did he help build Manito Park in 1922?

Lee explained that due to budget cuts, the "paper" archives is only open by appointment and on Wed-Thurs-Fri. Clicking to their website you'll get more information and the contact information. Click to: http://www.sos.wa.gov/archives/archives_eastern.aspx

Tracey Rebstock spoke to us about the digital archives. Our Washington State Digital Archives is the envy of archives across the U.S. and even internationally, Tracey explained. These digital archives are housed on the second floor of that same building out on the edge of the EWU campus. If you were to visit (and don't think you can) you'd just see banks and stacks of computers humming away behind glass walls.  The Washington State Digital Archives covers the entire state; it houses records electronically for the entire state. And on this website, you not only can but are encouraged to search by surname. If you've never used this site, click to: www.digitalarchives.wa.gov    Staffing issues and budget cuts don't so much affect the digital archives; it's available to you 24/7.

Like many of you, I use this site all the time when I'm doing Washington State research. And when I do I'm so proud that my state has such a wonderful resource but I lament that my states of research do not have anything like what Washington has. Lucky us.

Vendor Spotlight: Washington Secretary of State - Digital Archives

The Washington Secretary of State - Digital Archives will be exhibiting at the Washington State Genealogical Society's 2009 State Conference being held this coming weekend at The Davenport Hotel in Spokane.

The State Archives are under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State, and the main physical archives housing the state's records collections are held in Olympia. In addition, there are five regional archives which house many of the county and local archival collections of their respective regions: Northwest, Southwest, Central, Eastern, and Puget Sound.

Furthermore, the state pioneered an award-winning digital archives project that has been a trailblazer and model for other states and even other nations. The purpose of the Digital Archives has been two-fold: to digitize physical records in the state's records collections and make them available online; and to preserve electronic state records (such as former governors' websites) for posterity. The Digital Archives is centered at the Eastern Washington State Regional Archives in Cheney and this facility is one of the tours being made available for the conference on Friday afternoon. Also, State Archivist Jerry Handfield and Assistant Archivist of the Eastern Washington State Regional Archives Lee Pierce will be making presentations on Saturday during the conference.

If you have Washington State ancestors, you will definitely want to sign up for the above presentations and tour and make a stop at the Secretary of State - Digital Archives vendor table to obtain more information about how the archives can further your genealogical research. WSGS and EWGS welcome the Secretary of State - Digital Archives to our state conference!

Click on the link below to register.

Online Registration
(need help with the online registration? read our tutorial here)

Brochure and Saturday Schedule
(to help you choose your classes and activities)

Mail-in Registration Form
(for those who prefer registering offline - or you may prefer to fill out and use this form to register in person at the conference to ensure your registration is received before the conference begins)

If you are interested in being a vendor at the Washington State Genealogical Society's 2009 State Conference, would like to advertise in our syllabus, or if you have an item or service which you would like to donate as a door or raffle prize, please contact Miriam Robbins Midkiff.

3D Animated Flags--By 3DFlags.com

Update on King County Marriage Records Online

Although dated August 1st, the following came through my Google Reader today from the Washington State Digital Archives:

The long awaited King County Marriage records from 1855 to 1940 are now available online at the Washington State Digital Archives. As of August 1, records up to 1940 have been scanned and indexed and are searchable on the website. Although the project will not be complete until the end of the year, Marriage Certificates from 1855-2000 and Marriage Returns from 1891-1939 will be available and searchable as they are indexed, beginning with the earliest years. The collection contains over 1 million records.

Marriage Certificates, filed with the County Auditor following the marriage ceremony, provide marriage license number, date, and county; place and date of marriage; names and county of residence of bride and groom; names of witnesses; and name, residence, and official station of the person performing the marriage.

Marriage Returns, returned to the County Auditor from the person performing the marriage ceremony, contain more information than Marriage Certificates. Marriage Returns generally provide the names and birthplaces of the bride and groom and their parents; residence, age, race, number of previous marriages, and occupation of both parties; place and date of marriage; name and official station of the person performing the marriage; and names of witnesses.

For more information about King County marriage records program, contact Washington State Digital Archives at (509) 235-7509 or digitalarchives@secstate.wa.gov.