City Directories

Most family history researchers focus their early work on census records. Census records do contain a wealth of information and cover rural areas, small towns and cities.

However, if your ancestors lived in one of America’s cities, there is another resource that deserves your equal attention, namely city directories. Here is a lively example of how they can help you fill in your family’s story and answer puzzling questions.

I recently sent a cousin the family history that I had discovered — building on the great work my sister did when she and and her husband lived in Madison, Wisconsin, and their son was a baby. The cousin emailed a question I too had wondered about:
 
“Why was Beatrice Jane Bruce born in Cambridge, Massachusetts?’
 
I never thought I could find the answer — until Ancestry.com put hundreds and hundreds of city directories from the 1880s and 1890s onto its Web site.  The directories help fill the gap caused by the loss of the 1890 census records in a major fire.

In those days, before people had telephone numbers, city directories included name, address — and occupation. So I wondered, would there be one for Cambridge, Mass., for 1896 and would Bea’s father Martin P. Bruce be in it? Voila! Yes! The entry reads as follows:
 
Bruce, Martin P., Salesman, Fish Bros. Wagon Co., h. 56 Baldwin.
 
Fish Bros. Wagon Company was a very large Racine, Wisconsin, firm that sold their wooden wagons nationwide and overseas. It was controlled by J.I Case of Racine. Fish Bros.  made both work wagons and fancy wagons such as phaetons and trotting buggies. You can read more about the firm and see a sketch of the Racine plant  online.
 
So it seems that Martin, newly married in 1895, took a position that promised better opportunities than his occupation as a clerk or accountant — which he had pursued since 1887 when he was 17 years old. Even if that meant Martin Bruce and his wife Grace Booth Bruce having to move east across the country to a new city.

They were there just one year, with daughter Beatrice Jane Bruce born 22 May 1896. Perhaps Martin did not like the life of a salesman. [He likely was a sales agent for Fish Bros., calling on businesses that sold the wagons to customers]. Or, with a new baby, Martin and Grace wanted to be back in Milwaukee among their families.

In any case, by the time the 1897 Milwaukee Directory was published, Martin, Grace and Bea were back in Milwaukee. Martin was listed that year as:

Bruce Martin P., bkpr. 205 Wells, h 465 Hanover

What company did he work for as a bookkeeper? Based on the address at 205 Wells, it was J. Dorsch & Sons, a company that sold agricultural implements and carriages. Its directory listing says:

J. DORSCH & SONS, agric. Implts and carriages, 195 2d and 205-211 Wells.

Martin had worked there as early as 1892, according to city directories. We surmise that he got to know the sales representatives of Fish Bros. Wagon Company. And there is the likely link to the sales job in Cambridge.

So there is why Bea was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, courtesy of city directories for Cambridge and Milwaukee.

You can find city directories in your local libraries or on microfilm through LDS Family History Centers or via Interlibrary Loan, all at a very low cost. Check them out soon!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research articles to help you find your family and ancestors, often for modest or no cost.

Census Sources

I was asked recently how to find all the census records for different states and counties, and even countries. Because the census is an invaluable tool for genealogists, I offer the following ideas on census sources, both free and requiring suscription. While these recommendations are mostly for the United States, key Canadian and British census sources are also mentioned.

The first place that I would look for census documents – if you have surnames and locations back that far — is to search the 1880 US Census for free at the FamilySearch.org Web site.

 The 1880 Census is wonderful because for many families it lists all household members, shows each person’s relationship to the head of the household, plus age, occupation, and where they and their parents were born. That page linked above also lets you search the 1881 British Census and the 1881 Canadian Census for free.

[2] The second thing that I would do is call your public library and ask if they have a subscription to Heritage Quest, an online source for searching ensus records, Revolutionary War pension records, family history books in digitized format and more. If they say yes, ask for the password to log in to Heritage Quest from home.

Click on the HQ home page to see what it looks like after you’ve signed in via the link at your library’s Web site — and what it offers. Here is the URL: http://www.heritagequestonline.com/

HQ has searchable indexes for 1790 through 1820 and 1860 through 1920. Other years are online as scans of census pages that you can browse page by page.  Still it is free from your library if they have it. If not, ask about the nearest library that does. Sometimes a county library has it, but a particular city does not.

[3] Another approach to finding census records is to use Google to find the GenWeb or other genealogy Web site for the specific county you are researching.  In some counties, volunteers have fully transcribed the early census records for the county. Others have done surname indexes. Both are helpful.

I am very grateful for the work of many volunteers to put old census records for New Holstein, Calumet County, Wisconsin online — both early state and federal censuses. The index to the 1855 Wisconsin census on that site showed me that several of my key ancestral lines had arrived by that time from Germany.

[4] Also, you can look at your state of interest at Census-Online.com and then check the county you want to see what is available. Here for example is Wisconsin, a key state in my research:

[5] In addition, you can find the LDS Family History Center nearest you and visit to use their computers with subscriptions to Ancestry.com.  I believe the centers offer Ancestry these days. Search here for the one in your area.

[6] Finally, when you have decided that genealogy is something you want to pursue seriously, then you will likely want to subscribe to one of the services such as Ancestry.com to get census records and so much more available easily at your home computer.

As you collect census records for a particular family, you might consider establishing a timeline or other means to display the changes in the family — who was in the family each 10 years and who was out on their own, starting a career or a family.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research articles to help you find your family and ancestors, often for modest or no cost.

Seeking Ancestors from Germany

Many Americans have ancestors from Germany, but are unsure how to find what area of Germany they came from, and who made up the earlier generations of the family.  Strategies to begin your research will depend on what you know so far.

The first thing you should do is talk to your relatives to see if there are records or memories of where in Germany the ancestors came from. And about when.  And where they settled in America. If relatives don’t know a great deal, you can search ship passenger logs or try to obtain the naturalization papers for the earliest male to arrive.

Or you can use Interlibrary Loan at your local library to get the relevant volumes of the Germans to America series and look up the family. There are 67 volumes covering 1840 to 1897.  Click to see the full list of volumes.

Depending on when your German ancestors arrived, the census records can contain references to specific areas of Germany, rather than just Prussia or Germany. 

For my research, the 1870 Census for Calumet County, Wisconsin, contained an invaluable clue.  The elder Ferdinand Hachez, who settled in New Holstein in 1854, was recorded in the 1860 Census as being from Holstein, as so many of the settlers there were. 

But in 1870, he told the German-speaking census recorder that his actual place of origin was Bremen, a free city in Germany. With help from an expert genealogist in Germany, I have found his family in Bremen, a exciting moment in my research. Click for more about the Hachez family.

Depending on when your German ancestors arrived, these sites are worth searching:
> Castle Garden immigration:  http://www.castlegarden.org/
> Ellis Island immigration: http://www.ellisisland.org/

When you have a pretty good idea of where the family originated, you can join one of the genealogy email discussion groups for that part of Germany — and ask for assistance. Most of the genealogy email discussion lists are in English or in both English and German — and the genealogists who help people in the USA speak and write English very well.  For example, here are all the Rootsweb mailing lists for different areas of Germany

You might have luck with a list member knowing of your family. Or you may find a genealogy researcher on the list who offers to help, for a fee. I have had excellent assistance from Klaus Struve, an expert genealogist in Schleswig-Holstein who also has a splendid Web site about people who emigrated from that far northern area of Germany. He now has 63,000 names of emigrants listed. See his Rootdigger site here for a wealth of resources.

With his help, I now have this branch of my family back to the 1700s. The money spent was worth it, for I received transcripts of each of the German originals, followed by an English translation.

Finally, there are additional resources on German Americans — including books on German American genealogy — to be found on this Web page about German Americans and genealogy.

Best wishes in researching your roots!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research articles to help you find your family and ancestors, often for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XV

Efforts to research and record your family history will in most cases be more successful if part of the story is already published in books. These books may include individual biographies, brief biographical sketches in history books on various communities, memoirs and family genealogy books.

During the 1800s and early 1900s, many volumes of community history were published, and most contained biographical sketches of individual citizens.  Whether you find biosketchs about direct ancestors or about close relatives, you can find invaluable insights about your family members and their lives.  Remember, though, that published works can have errors, just a census records and other sources do.

One example of the biographical narrative published as part of a community history is the story of Isaac Sharp and his wife Mary (Woolverton) Sharp of McNarlins Run, Waynesburgh, Greene County, Pennsylvania. The biosketch offers a look at Isaac and Mary’s lives as well as their many children.

Unfortunately, it gives incorrect information about some of the daughters’ spouses. In particular, daughter Rebecca married David Conger, not Ephriam Corwin. See the clarification, based on Conger genealogy records and family letters.

Still, to learn that Isaac’s parents were Scotch-Irish, and that Isaac’s own career was as a teacher and surveyor, adds immensely to the family story.

Another book that helped me, although with a different branch of the family, was I Was Born in America: The Memoirs of William George Bruce. William was the oldest brother of one of my great-grandfathers. Thus the sections of the book about his parents and about his and his siblings’ childhoods in early day Milwaukee provide wonderful insights about my own ancestors.

To help me and others interested in this period of Milwaukee history, I created an index to this book of memoirs that mentions many well known people of Milwaukee in this era as well as family members.  A fine genealogy Web site for Milwaukee — Links to the Past/Milwaukee — has posted that memoirs index online.

Fortunately, twelve chapters of his memoirs were published in the 1930s in the Wisconsin Magazine of History, from the Wisconsin Historical Society. And today, WHS has digitized its magazine back issues and put them online. Thus, I can reread his descriptions  in Chapters I and II of growing up in the intensely German neighborhood just to the east of the Milwaukee River.  Or view again the photograph of his parents, Augustus F. Bruce and Apollonia Becker Bruce, and read a bit of their story. All twelve chapters are listed on the William George Bruce Web page that I created.

You can use the WorldCat or world library catalogue to search for books about your family lines, and then you can use the free or low cost Interlibrary Loan Service to bring the volume to you for reading.  Don’t miss this great method for finding family for free.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XIV

If your ancestors attended a college or university, you may find information about their lives in a source seldom mentioned in genealogy books:  class notes.

Almost every colleage and university publishes brief notes about the lives and careers of their graduates, submitted by the graduates themselves. Topics typically include engagements, weddings, births of children, new jobs and promotions, moves to new locations, awards and, finally, obituaries.

These notes are printed in college and university magazines or newsletters.  Some have indexed their older classnotes. Some remarkably have put these older records online.  One of the finest resources is the University of Wisconsin Library’s digital collection online, including its historic yearbooks and alumni newsletters.

The usefulness of this resource can be seen in several examples.

– In May 1911, the Wisconsin Alumni magazine ran an engagement announcement for Marie Grace Miller and Frank Joseph Petura, both 1904 graduates. Her father’s name, the careers pursued by Marie and Frank, and the month of the wedding are included. What a genealogical gem!

– In 1904, both Frank of Racine and Marie of Madison were included among the seniors with their individuals photographs, field of study, clubs and a quotation. What a remarkable way to see ancestors when they were young!

Many more class notes were published about them and Marie over the years, allowing family to understand more about their lives.

Another ancestor I am researching is William Henry Luehr, who graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1889.  He is in the Badger yearbook several times including when he was censor and historian of the Bildungsverein club and when he was elected in May 1888 to be a general editor of the Aegis, the student newspaper. He had many mentions in the Wisconsin Alumni magazine, such as when he was the principal at Manitowoc high school.

While not all universities and colleges have such a fine resource as that provided by the University of Wisconsin, they may have an index and may be willing to send copies of relevant class notes, if you send a stamped, addressed envelope. It is worth a try!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XIII

Part of the fascination of genealogy is solving the puzzles of who our ancestors were; what occupations they followed; where they were born, lived, and died; and who their offspring were.  If you send a steady stream of emails, letters, queries and requests for information, you’ll find new clues and answers arriving every so often, just enough to keep you motivated!

Consider this checklist of correspondence to do, even if you only write one letter or query a week:

COUSINS:  Write to every cousin and other relative you know, even if you’ve not been in touch for years. You never know who has a box of old family letters and pictures tucked away that they’ll copy and share. Or who will turn out to share the genealogy bug and so have worked out key parts of the family tree.

PEOPLE WHO POST:  People who post family tree and genealogy information at places such as RootsWeb.com or GenForums typically include an email address. If you find a posting with some of your family, write to the person who posted the information to see what else they know. They may have new research not yet online. 

One wonderful contact for me has been Ginni Morey, who has a very fine Web site for her own family and for her husband’s Morey family.  The site shows the family of George Bradley Morey that includes sibilings Eda Dell Morey, my great-grandmother, and Frederick Eugene Morey, Ginni’s husband’s ancestor.  Thanks to email, we’ve shared some research to the benefit of both.

Recently, I emailed two people who had posted information about the Luehr family.  Back came a digital copy of a wonderful photograph of my great-grandfather’s oldest brother and his wife from one person while the other sent a five-generation pedigree of our lineage of the Luehr family, starting with my ggg-grandparents in Dithmarschen, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Both picture and family history came by email, are family history treasures — and were free!

LOOK-UPs:  Find Web sites for the surnames you are researching or for the locations where your ancestors lived.  Check to see if any of them list people who do volunteer look-ups in books with histories and biographies, as well as census or local records.  Or try the well known genealogy look-up site, Random Acts of Kindness. Submit a look-up request.  These volunteers get many requests so the reply may take a long time. Try anyway.

QUERIES:  Posting your own queries is another step that should be part of your week-in, week-out correspondence strategy.  Genealogy forums and discussion lists for the surnames and locations of interest are good places to post. You may also want to join history and genealogy societies in relevant locations, and submit queries to appear in their newsletters.

SOCIETY ARCHIVES:  Speaking of history and genealogy societies, many have files and archives on families in their area. Visit their Web sites for procedures for asking about what they might have on your ancestors. Some allow a simple email request while others have forms to complete and mail with a modest fee.

This steady, methodical approach to genealogy research can protect you from being overwhelmed by thoughts about all the steps you need to take, while ensuring a steady flow of clues and information to help you solve your family puzzles.  Try it!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XII

Gathering multiple sources and documents for a single person or family is crucial if you intend to create a highly accurate family tree or family history. 

To acquire them, you likely will need to move from free resources available via the Internet to materials held by genealogical societies, state historical societies and libraries. And you will have to pay a fee for each copy and possibly for research time if you live too far away to visit in person. The fees typically are reasonable, and you will be rewarded with invaluable details that will confirm or clarify what you have found in free sources.

As noted at the end of the last post, obituaries would seem to be the very best source of details on an ancestor’s life. After all, it is the person’s life story summed up and published in one place. However, many obituaries were written by a surviving relative who knew many facts about the deceased but may not have recalled correctly specific dates and places, especially from early in the person’s life.

In Part II of Finding Family for Free, I discussed the many sources on the Web for educator William Henry Luehr, my great-grandfather.  I discovered enough online sources to be able to create a detailed Web page about him and about his family.  I have also written a 15+ page biography about him for the family.

To make sure I had as much accurate information as possible, I searched the Wisconsin Historical Society Name Index online and found that a biographical sketch and obituaries were available. I wrote for copies of them.

His university education was important to his career, so I wanted to be sure I had the correct details. Interestingly, his obituaries give his graduation from the University of Wisconsin Madison as 1887 while other sources gave 1889.  Fortunately, the biographical sketch published in 1912 in a Wisconsin educational history volume contained a precise outline of his education.  

It states:  “His early education was received in the county schools of New Holstein and the high school at Chilton. Later he spent two years at the Oshkosh State Normal and two and one-half years at the University of Wisconsin where he graduated in 1889 with the degree of Ph. B. In 1896 he took a graduate course in American history under Prof. F. J. Turner, and in economics and finance under Prof. R. T. Ely.”

The biographical sketch clarified his graduation date — and added insights on his love of learning and other aspects of his career.

Multiple sources are the key to creating accurate family trees and histories. They are also crucial for getting past brick walls in your research, a topic for a future post here at Relative Musings: Finding Family for Free.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part XI

Obituaries can help you discover more about the life of an ancestor and can also fill in key family details such as a mother’s maiden name or a birthplace in Europe that you’ve been seeking. Once you have your basic research done and key family members charted, it’s time to hunt for obituaries.

If some of your ancestors lived in a small-to-medium-sized community served by a long-running newspaper, your search will likely be easier than in other situations. My greatest success so far has been in obtaining obituaries for ancestors who lived in New Holstein, Wisconsin.  The town was founded in 1848 by people from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and the community has a strong sense of pride in its history and people.

In fact, it was an obituary for Nicholas Boie, posted on a New Holstein genealogy Web site, that revealed my ggg-grandparents Nicholas and Cecilia Tonner Boie. Their oldest daughter Elise married the younger Ferdinand Hachez. I had known the Hachez name since childhood, but not the Boie name.

The New Holstein Public Library has a genealogy section on its Web page, and lists an “obituary index” among its holdings. Thanks to the helpful people at the library, I was able to obtain a list of obituaries of known family members — and also several in the “cluster” of in-laws worth reviewing.

Using Interlibrary Loan at my local library, I obtained the microfilms covering the relevant issues of the newspaper, the New Holstein Reporter.  When you find the obituary, print it out and, as soon as you can, transcribe it so it is easy to share.

Transcriptions that I have done have recently been added to the New Holstein genealogy Web site’s obituary section, where I’d found Nicholas Boie. 

Direct ancestors include:

Anna Margretha Groth Luehr, gg-grandmother

Clara Hachez Luehr, great-grandmother

William Henry Luehr, great-grandfather

Ferdinand E. Hachez, gg-grandfather

“Cluster” relatives include:

John August Hansen, who married Lena Boie, one of the younger sisters of Elise Boie Hachez.  This obituary provided details on Ferdinand Hachez’s business in New Holstein.

Mathilde Agnes “Tillie” Boie Sebelein, the youngest sister of Elise Boie Hachez.  While Elise (Mrs. Ferd. Hachez) is mentioned just once, the brief text provides a picture of the Boie siblings growing up on a farm south of town.

Just as with all documents, you must use care with the information in obituaries and seek corroboration from other records. See the note I provided at the end of the obituary for Ferdinand E. Hachez as a good example. If I had not viewed many census records and other documents, I would not have known that it was his ancestors who were born in Alsace Lorraine, not Ferdinand himself.

We’ll discuss obituaries again in the future. Good searching!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Ancestors: Resources & Index

Blogs are marvelous devices, but due to their behavior as a diary or log, the most recent posting is always on top or first on the home page. To read a series of postings on a related topic, you either have to read last to first or scroll down to begin.

To make it easier to use the Finding Family for Free series of postings here at Relative Musings, I’ve created an annotated index that runs more naturally, first to most recent. You can click on the above link to view it or you can always find it on this blog’s right navigation bar under the title Index to Free Genealogy Tools. It will open in a new window for ease of use.

I’ve created two other genealogy guides on separate Web pages. One lists and describes a good number of the finest genealogy resources on the Web today. The page makes useful starting point for learning about these research tools. This too is on the right navigation bar under Blogroll.

Finally, to help people with “brick wall” or dead end genealogy situations — including myself — I’ve created a brick wall genealogy page with links to a wealth of articles and examples of strategies for getting past the dead end. This too is on the right navigation bar, called Brick Wall Genealogy Solutions.

I hope these resources are useful for those seeking their ancestors!

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.

Finding Family for Free, Part X

City directories are an invaluable tool for learning more about your ancestors.  Some you will find transcribed and online, while others will be available at historical or genealogical societies. 

The role of city directories is especially important in filling the gap left by the loss of virtually all the 1890 Census records.  City directories at this period often included a person’s employment, work address and a second address, typically a residence.  That’s considerable detail for one brief record.

An early city directory for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, helped me discover quite a bit about my gg-grandfather Sherman A. Bradley soon after he arrived from Connecticut.  The relevant entry was on the page of B surnames in the 1857-1858 Milwaukee City Directory on the excellent volunteer Web site Links to the Past for Milwaukee.

The entry is terse but informative:  “BRADLEY: Sherman A.  Carpenter,  bds Mrs. Luscomb.”  Census records show that he was born in 1835, so now I knew he was 22 or 23 years old when he was working as a carpenter in the young but rapidly growing city on Lake Michigan.  And, because he was boarding with Mrs. Luscomb, it seems likely that he arrived in Milwaukee on his own.

To be thorough, I decided to look up Mrs. Luscomb to see if she had an entry. Sure enough, on the page of L surnames, I found:  ”LUSCOMBE:  Mrs.  Fourth, bt Cherry and Galena, W.”  At first I was simply pleased to know where Sherman was living, but suddenly I realized the address looked very familiar!

I had researched Benjamin Church, an early pioneer carpenter and builder in Milwaukee and my ggg-grandfather.  His famous Greek Revival home, built in 1843-1844, was rescued in the 1930s, moved to Estabrook Park and made a small history museum. [See my Wikipedia entry on the Benjamin Church House]. 

Just to make sure, I looked again for his listing on the page of C surnames in the city directory.  There it was: “CHURCH: B.  Builder, Fourth, bt Galena and Cherry, W.” Clearly the same neighborhood as the Luscombe home, a fact confirmed by census records that placed the Church and Luscombe homes next door to each other.

Why was this one of my favorite genealogical discoveries? Because I had found how Sherman A. Bradley had met Ann Marie “Hannah” Church, the oldest child of Benjamin and Permilia Church. On January 6, 1859, Sherman and Hannah were wed, a union that would extend our Bradley lineage when son Jesse Charles Bradley was born June 22, 1866.

Put city directories on your research list when you are seeking to fill in gaps in your family story.

This is one in a series of genealogy and family history research ideas to help you find your family and ancestors for modest or no cost.