CAREERS, JOBS OFTEN DEFINED LIVES OF OUR ANCESTORS
Week of January 12~18, 2012
What people do for half (or more) of their waking hours tells a lot about them: You can guess their interests, skills, values, educational background and, when the job is tough, their endurance!
Our ancestors’ vocations offer insight into their everyday lives, too … especially if they worked in industry. Their work tells you something about the determination that drove them into dark mineshafts, loud production lines or furnace fires each day. Their industrial labor also generated heavy-duty paperwork. You’ll find similar types of documents and historical collections across different industries. But for now, I’ll focus on railway, mining and auto workers.
LESSON 30: CLOCK IN FOR OCCUPATIONAL RECORDS
Railways: Though pre-1936 records are hard to find, various archives and historical societies have rescued and preserved some over the years. Start by determining the railroad your ancestor worked for. Local histories will tell you which railroad(s) operated in his town. Check draft registration cards for an employer and census records which often show an occupation or company name. After 1936, the Railroad Retirement Board began administering retirement benefits to workers and their families. If your ancestor’s SSN starts with a number of between 700-728, you’ll know he was eligible to receive benefits from the board. For $27 you can request records on deceased employees since 1936.
Go to: www.rrb.gov/mep/genealogy.asp.
 |
| Coal Miner Tags |
Mining: If you have a numbered “tag” belonging to your ancestor, he might have been a coal miner. Workers attached these tags to their belts. A corresponding tag was hung on a pegboard when they went underground. When men still hand-loaded cars and were paid by the ton (a system immortalized in
Sixteen Tons), they tagged their individual loads of coal so the boys outside would know who to pay. Search for miners in state historic Coal Mining Reports. These documents offer rosters fitting particular criteria, like those injured/killed in the mines. You’ll find names of the companies they worked for and read testimony of living coal miners talking about accidents or explosions. This is a great substitute for company records, which tended to be destroyed.
Disaster Source: http://www3.gendisasters.com/ (search by state and then disaster type).
Auto: Start with home sources by looking for union cards, employee badges, pictures taken at union picnics/Christmas parties and news clippings. Check local newspapers for stories, ads and photos. If your relative is still alive, have him request his own employee record from corporate headquarters or regional plants. Your relatives are the only ones who can request these. Ford is best for genealogical research, but its records are hit or miss. Request records from their archives by emailing
archives@ford.com. If your ancestor attended the GM Institute (now Kettering University) you can try searching
www.kettering.edu/archives for year books or school newspapers. Many auto plants also had in-house newsletters.
Search: UAW, auto worker and labor in historical newspaper databases.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect: All kinds of documents may mention employment. Don’t overlook letters, pay stubs, check registers, insurance and pension paperwork, death certificates, obituaries and city directories.
RESEARCHING FRENCH ANCESTORS REQUIRES BEAUCOUP WORK!
Week of February 16~22, 2012
Something that often makes it difficult to find French ancestors is that they may have been using a dit (pronounced zeet) name. This peculiarity is probably one of the major stumbling blocks in French-Canadian genealogical research.
Found primarily in France, New France (French-Canada, Louisiana, etc.) and Scotland, a dit name is essentially a nickname tacked on to a family name or surname. An individual can be designated by a nickname at just about any time, and no rules can be made to predict when.
The French word “dit” is a form of the word “dire” – in the case of names; it translates loosely as "that is to say" or "called.” For example my ancestor, Michel Morin chose to be called Morin dit Valcourt. A different dit name indicates a different family, meaning he was not related to Morin dit Boucher.
LESSON 31: WHY A DIT NAME?
Dit names were often adopted by families to distinguish them from another branch of the same family. Some were chosen for many of the same reasons as the original surname – to designate ancestral place of origin, mother’s family name, physical characteristics, occupation or guild, name of fief (for nobles), etc. Many were derived from military service, where early French military rules required a nom de guerre, or nickname, for all regular soldiers.
The dit is sometimes replaced by a hyphen and the two surnames can be interchanged at any time. For example, Morin dit Valcourt may appear as Valcourt-Morin. And, since one or both forms of the name may appear at birth, baptism, marriage, in a census record or at death, each individual document must be checked to determine its use. A man could have been born as Michel Morin, baptized as Michel Morin dit Valcourt, married as Michel Valcourt dit Morin and died as Michel Morin-Valcourt – a real hodgepodge, made more confusing by children who may have opted to drop the dit name!
A standardized list of dit names with their common variants can be found in Rene Jette's Répertoire des Noms de Famille du Québec" des Origines à 1825 and Msgr Cyprien Tanguay's Dictionnaire genealogique des familles canadiennes (Volume 7). Another extensive source is The dit Name: French Canadian Surnames, Aliases, Adulterations, and Anglicizations by Robert J. Quentin. The American-French Genealogical Society also presents an extensive collection of name variations at
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~afgs/index1.html.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect: Researching such a surname will require that you keep an open mind, looking for both the ancestral surname and the dit name. If you can’t find the name in one of the above sources, record it in the form most often used by your ancestors.
DOCUMENTS THAT SURVIVED HOLOCAUST HELPFUL IN TRACKING JEWISH ANCESTORS
Week of March 15~21, 2012
The first Jewish immigrants to the New World were Sephardim, who originated in the Iberian Peninsula. Ashkenazi Jews from Western Europe began arriving in the U.S. as early as the 1840s. About 95% of Jewish immigrants to America – predominantly Ashkenazi – came in a wave starting in 1881 following the Russian pogroms and then after each World War.
American Ashkenazics hail from more than 15 countries in Eastern Europe alone. So it’s important to figure out your ancestor’s country and shtetl (town) of origin before attempting a search overseas. If you don’t know that, look for clues in the following sources.
LESSON 32: CROSSING THE POND
The majority of American Jews immigrated to the U.S. between 1881-1924. Ship manifests often give places of origin/departure. Stephen Morse’s “one-step” Ellis Island searches includes a Blue Form specifically for Jewish researchers.
Go to: http://www.stevemorse.org/.
U.S. censuses began including birthplace in 1850. Parents of foreign birth and naturalized immigrants were indicated in 1870. The 1920 census identifies year of arrival, citizenship status (alien, first papers or naturalized) of every foreign-born individual and year of naturalization for those who became citizens. Also check draft registration cards and social security applications.
Naturalization records and passports usually provide the applicants’ town of origin. Because so many Jewish immigrants entered through New York, NARA’s Northeast branch in the Big Apple could have the records you’re looking for. If your ancestor applied for citizenship after 1906, you could try filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.
Go to: http://www.uscis.gov/.
Synagogues recorded birth, marriage and death information: Birth records include the baby’s name/sex, birth date, name/residence of parents/grandparents (often with mother’s maiden name), relatives’ occupations and name of the mohel who performed a circumcision; and marriage records generally show names of the bride and groom, marriage date/place, dowry, parents and sometimes occupations and previous residences.
Go to: American Jewish Archives (
http://www.americanjewisharchives.org/) or American Jewish Historical Society (
http://www.ajhs.org/).
Gravestones may show the deceased’s given name and his/her father’s name. Jewish immigrants often formed landsmanshaftn, societies based on their towns of origin. If your ancestor was buried in a landsmanshaftn-owned plot, he/she likely came from the town that society represented.
Search: YIVO Institute for Jewish Records at
http://www.yivoinstitute.org/ for landsmanshaftn records.
European boundaries have shifted tremendously since 1924, when the greatest period of Jewish migration to the U.S. came to a close. To locate villages, try the shtetl locater at
www.jewishgen.org/shtetlseeker. Hot Tip: Perhaps no site is more useful to Jewish genealogists than JewishGen. Be sure to browse all of its pages!
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect: A common misconception is that all Jewish vital records were destroyed in the Holocaust. While most Jewish records were destroyed, government documents such as birth, marriage and death records did survive. Once you know the town, you can determine where its documents are located today.
CENSUS FROM 1940 OFFERS TREASURE TROVE OF ANCESTRAL DATA
Week of May 3~9, 2012
It was a decade of mass unemployment and social upheaval as our nation dug its way out of the Great Depression and rumblings of global war were heard from abroad. Now, after 72 years of privacy protection, details of 132 million people who lived through the 1930s have become accessible to the public with the release of the 1940 census.
For genealogists, this census is the most important disclosure of ancestral data in a decade. Scholars expect the records to help draw a more in depth portrait of a transformative decade in American life: Researchers might be able to follow the movement of refugees from war-torn Europe in the latter half of the 1930s; sketch out in more detail where 100,000 Japanese Americans interned during World War II were living before they were removed; and more fully trace the decades-long migration of blacks from the rural South to cities.
This census contained 34 questions directed at all households, plus 16 supplemental questions asked of 5% of the population. New questions reflected the government’s intent on documenting the turbulent decade, by generating data on homelessness, migration, widespread unemployment, irregular salaries and fertility decline.
Finding names in the 3.8 million digitized images won’t be as easy as a Google search and it could be at least six months before a nationwide name index is created. In the meantime, there’s a tool you can use for finding people.
LESSON 33: 1940 CENSUS QUICK START
The census is divided into enumeration districts (EDs), unique numbers within each state. They consist of two parts – the first typically specifies a county and the second a district within that county. Knowing ED numbers will enable you to quickly access actual census pages. Once there, you’ll need to scroll through its images to find the family you’re searching for:
1. Make a list of everyone you’re searching for and note the city/state (and street if possible) where they lived in 1940 – here’s where some family “elders” might be able to help!
2. Go to
http://stevemorse.org/census/unified.html.
3. There are dropdown menus where you’ll select state, county (optional) and city/town. (If your city/town isn’t listed, select “Other” and type it in.) EDs for that location will appear at the bottom of the screen.
4. If you select a city/town from the dropdown menu, you’ll be able to reduce the number of EDs by entering street level information. You can narrow it even more by entering cross and back streets that complete the city block (click on “See Map” to find them).
5. Clicking on EDs at the bottom of the screen will bring you to a page where you’ll select a viewer. (The “NARA Viewer” takes you to the official 1940 Census site, where you’ll be able to download, print or share images.)
6. Clicking on a viewer takes you directly to the census for that ED. Scroll its images until you find the family you’re looking for. If you cannot find them, but are SURE your location is correct, go back to #2 and try another ED.
Perfect Practice Makes Perfect: Some experts say enthusiasm for the release of the 1940 census could be dampened by the lack of a name index, especially for novices. But don’t despair ... a little patience will be worth the search!
GOT YOUR THINKING CAP ON? GENETIC DNA TESTING CAN GET CONFUSING
Week of May 31~June 6, 2012
DNA testing won’t help you to fill in entire branches of your family tree. But as a complement to traditional research, it allows you to uncover your genetic makeup, learn whether you’re related to someone, discover your ancestors’ ancient homeland and prove (or disprove) family lore about famous lineages.
Your first step in the process is to define the problem you want to solve and who should be tested—this will determine which test you need to order. There are a number of companies that offer DNA testing. They typically send you a testing kit that includes swabs to painlessly scrape cells from inside the cheek, a return envelope and consent form.
LESSON 34: HISTORY FROM A FEW CHEEK CELLS
Y-DNA Test: Because Y-chromosomes, like surnames, are passed from father to son, this test can be useful in determining whether families with the same last name are related. It can’t pinpoint the common ancestor and won’t help if you want to know whether you’re related to someone through your maternal line. This test is often used to determine a haplogroup, the genetic group ancient ancestors belonged to. Since only males receive the Y-chromosome, only men can take this test. Females who want to find out more about their paternal line need to have a male relative from that line tested.
The number of Y-chromosome markers you get tested influences the reliability of these tests. Men can choose to test between 12 and 67 markers. The more markers tested, the greater the chance of finding genetic differences and, therefore, the smaller the chance of having an exact genetic match. In other words, a 67-marker test is more precise than a 12-marker test.
mtDNA Test: This test will tell you about your female line with no influence of any males along that line. Because mitochondrial DNA doesn’t mutate much over time, it’s best for telling you about your “deep” maternal-line ancestry. If your mtDNA test results exactly match someone else’s, there’s a good bet you’re related, but it doesn’t tell you about your traceable ancestors—rarely do two people with differences in their mtDNA have a common ancestor who lived recently enough that she might appear in written records. mtDNA passes from the mother to sons and daughters, so men and women can take this test.
Ethnic Testing: To discover your ethnic ancestry, you’ll need a standard Y-DNA or mtDNA test done through a lab that can provide additional analysis, comparing your results to those typical of certain ethnicities. Be mindful about choosing the correct family member to test: if you think your mother’s father was American Indian, for example, don’t test yourself—your mother didn’t get Y-DNA or mtDNA from him and neither did you. Instead, have her brother take a Y-DNA test.
Biographical Testing: This examines your autosomal DNA markers (those located on chromosomes other than X and Y) and estimates percentages of your genetic heritage among anthropological groups such as American Indian, Indo-European, East Asian and Sub-Saharan African. Addition testing can further subdivide certain groups. Biographical testing provides a broad region (not the specific country) your ancient ancestors came from and are somewhat controversial because results can be inconclusive.
STR Test: The best way to confirm you’re related to a living person is with a short tandem repeat test. It uses autosomal DNA to determine what relationship (if any), exists between two individuals. Both must provide a DNA sample.
Next Month: We’ll review common genetic genealogy myths and figure out how DNA testing can fit into your family tree search.
