Some websites you can just visit, on others you can interact in one way or another with the data. ISTG is one such site where you can contribute what you know about any passenger on any of our ships to make the data richer for others.
Let me give you an example from my own family history. My great-great-grandmother came to "America" on a ship with her children. Everyone in the family always believed her husband came with her but his name does not appear on the manifest. Truthfully, I don't know if he was on the ship. A page may have been lost in the archives and never microfilmed. It's also possible he came before her as family history, getting passed down but often not written down, isn't always right. But, since I know his name, I know he was her husband and the father of all those listed, I can add his all this and more to the manifest and he will come up in a search once I add it.
It's a wonderful way to preserve information that would otherwise be lost.
LEBANON, Pennsylvania August 2
Should we call it ‘genealogy’ or ‘family history’?
By James M. Beidler
Lebanon Daily News
This week’s column comes with a warning label.
CAUTION: Philosophy ahead (Do not operate heavy machinery after reading this column).
Especially in the last few decades as ancestor hunting has become a mass sport, so to say,
there has been a debate inside and outside the so-called genealogical community (that is,
professionals, societies, libraries and other organizations) on what we should call ourselves.
Should we stick with the traditional term “genealogist” — which, strictly defined, is the
study of bloodline ancestors — or use the broader term “family historian”?
While I’ll admit to using the terms somewhat interchangeably, there is a philosophical
difference that is not insignificant.
For one example, would we want to omit adoptees from the genealogies that are compiled?
True enough, these folks do not share the bloodline, but they share the experience of
life with their adopted families.
And, in these days of “open” adoption as well as more reunions with birthparents, it
makes sense to me that adoptees “belong” in both families — one by blood, the other
by physical bonding.
No one should have to choose one or another family when he or she can be part of both.
As another example, with the introduction of DNA into genealogy, not a few lineages that
previously relied on the “paper proof” of documents all of a sudden crumbled. Every so
often one even hears of a story about DNA proving that someone who has been the
No. 1 researcher in a family isn’t related by blood via what is delicately termed
a “non-paternity event.”
These individuals sometimes are emotionally disenfranchised — even feeling like an
imposter — in the families that they’ve lived in.
But using the phrase “family historian” instead puts these people back in the game,
since here we are talking about the people who lived together, supported each other
(and, yes, probably fought with each other, as families also do).
Of course, this whole thing can be expanded further. When I recently spent a week
as an adult chaperone for a church youth mission trip, I felt the “crew” of teens
that I spent the week with were like a family — even telling one of the boys that
if I had a son, I’d want the kid to be like him.
Perhaps we have a lot of different “families” in a lifetime.
That’s probably taking the concept a little too far. But I think it’s fair to say
that even when we use the word “genealogy” today, we’re no longer using it in that
strict way of bloodline-only.
Using the phrase “family history” shows that it’s more than genes that make a family.
Beidler is a freelance writer and lecturer on genealogy.
Contact him either at Box 270, Lebanon, PA 17042, or by e-mail to james@beidler.us.
LINDEN, Utah, August 2
Today,Footnote.com announced a
new partnership with Allen County Public Library (ACPL), the largest public genealogy library in
the United States to digitize millions of historical records making them available online for the
first time at Footnote.com.
The ACPL collections feature unique American and International records including family histories,
city directories, military records and historical newspapers.
As part of the partnership, all ACPL records digitized by Footnote.com will be made available at
the library for free. For those that cannot travel to the library, these records can be accessed
from a personal computer with a Footnote.com membership.
Footnote.com doesn't just make history come alive, it keeps history alive. Footnote.com has
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PROVO, Utah, July 25
Ancestry.com Launches Largest Online Collection of Records Documenting Australia's Convicted
'Founding Fathers' 80 Years of 18th- and 19th-Century Australian Convict Records Reveal the
Not-So-Criminal Crimes of Those Banished to the Land Down Under; British Transportation Practice
Has Roots in America
Stealing sheep or wool or cloth in 18th- and 19th-century England could land you a minimum
seven-year sentence at an Australian penal colony, according to Ancestry.com's newest online
collection of Australian convicts records. For those interested in uncovering the criminal
ancestors lurking in their past, the world's largest online resource for family history today
released the largest collection of Australian convict records, indexed and searchable online
for the first time. Records detail the some 165,000 convicts transported to Australia from 1788 to 1868.
I want to tell everyone about a newand FREE genealogy social network that is available to all of you. You can send messages to genealogists in more than 20 countries, find genealogists who read and speak other languages and ask a genealogist in over 1600 cities to do a look-up for you.
This is a redirect
link, so you will pause a few seconds and then go on to sign up for free.
Connectwith genealogists that live in the cities of your ancestors for FREE! July 9, 2007 - For the month of July, Footnote.com is running a birth of the nation special. Revolutionary war collections are available for free. These collections are as follows:
Papers of the Continental Congress - Papers of the ContinentalCongress(The National Archives): NARA M247. The correspondence,journals, committee reports, and records of the Continental Congress(1774-1789)
Misc. Papers of the Continental Congress - Miscellaneous Papers of theContinental Congress(The National Archives): NARA M332. Thesedocuments were misplaced, overlooked, or found in private hands when
the records of the Papers of the Continental Congress were firstarranged in 1834.
Constitutional Convention Records - Records from the ConstitutionalConvention of 1787(The National Archives): NARA M866. Journals ofproceedings, early drafts, and other papers relating to the formationof the U.S. Constitution.
May 15, 2007, Footnote.com announced an agreement with FamilySearch, historically known as the Genealogical Society of Utah, a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FamilySearch is the world’s largest repository of genealogical information. ~ This new partnership brings together two organizations that will utilize their combined resources to digitize and make available many large historical collections. The first project will be the three million U.S. Revolutionary War Pension files which will be published for the first time online in their entirety. ~ “The Revolutionary War Pensions will provide an intimate look into the historical events and individuals that shaped our country’s history,” said Russell Wilding, CEO of Footnote.com. ~ The Revolutionary War Pension Files feature original records that include muster rolls, payrolls, strength returns and other miscellaneous personnel pay and supply records of American Army Units from 1775-1783.
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New counter July 20, 2003 - previously 397,379 visitors since Sep 15th, 1999
Genealogical Publishing Company has just republished, for the first time since1994, Emigrants In Chains by Peter Wilson Coldham. England viewed thenew colonies as the perfect place to discard their undesirables - and they simplyrelocated destitute children, beggars, felons, and religious and political non-comformistsby the thousands to North America and places in the Caribbean.
