Genealogy, Free or Fee: Ask an Archivist!

In a recent entry, I told how I discovered that a letter written by my Aunt Dorothy H. Schwartz (1919-2001) was included in With Love, Jane, a compilation of correspondence from WWII servicewomen edited by Alma Lutz.

As shown in the table of contents at right, Sgt. Schwartz's letter was on p. 104, one of more than a dozen contributed by "Indispensable WACS."

My aunt's letter began with the salutation: "Dear ____" and had a vague date ("1943").

Who, I wondered, was my Auntie writing to? And when did she actually write the letter that wound up being printed?

I did an online search to find out more about Alma Lutz, and learned that her literary notes and other papers were in the archives of her alma mater, Vassar.

You know what I did next, right? I picked up the phone and called the archives, leaving word about my request for more information about the author's contact with my aunt.

An hour later, I had a return call from the archives! They were delighted to do a quick search for materials from my aunt. And an hour after that, I received an email from the archivist, attaching the pdfs of two V-mail letters from my aunt to Alma Lutz. (Thank you, wonderful archivist! No lengthy wait, no fee.)

You can see the second of the letters to Alma Lutz at top, in which my aunt claims not to remember who she was writing to, not even the approximate date of that letter.

As the archivist said in his email to me: "So, while I can't solve the mystery of 'Dear Blank,' I hope that I can at least provide a little context for its inclusion in the final volume."

The V-mails did indeed give me more background about my aunt and her wartime activities. Now you know why I suggest that researchers go ahead and "ask an archivist."

NOTE: For more "Free or Fee" tips for genealogy, please see my special page here.

Honor Roll Project: WWI Veterans from Southbury, Connecticut

For Veteran's Day, I'm pleased to participate in the Honor Roll Project by photographing and transcribing the names of veterans as shown on monuments in Southbury, Connecticut.

Above, the WWI plaque honoring those who served from 1917 to 1919. In alphabetical order as shown on the plaque, they are:

Joseph Alseph
Jesse M. Bailey
Thomas Bale
William C. Ballard
Edward Bayon
Ernest H. Beardsley
Harold A. Benedict
Joseph Birtkus
Edward L. Bradley
Howard G. Brewer
J. Edward Coer
Milton B. Coer
Arthur Colepaugh
Edward Coon
Harold Davis (in memoriam)
Thomas Derry
John T. Fleming
William J. Furby
George J. Grisgraber
Grover C. Harrison
William H. Harrison
Bly B. Hicock
Harold Hicock
George F. Hine
Edward Hinman, Jr.
Herbert G. Hoefler
Daniel J. Hogan
Louis Hoyt
Herbert A. Ingram
Robert H. Johnson
Harvey S. Judd
Louis Jullott
James F. Keefe
Augustus M. Kelly
Joel Carl Klang
John J. Malane
David Marshall
Leroy E. Mitchell
Daniel J. Moriarty
George Newton (in memoriam)
Charles E. Norton
Alfred N. Platt
Christopher W. Platt
John Le Roy Pierce
Samuel I. Pierce
John Rogers
William Rooney
Charles M. Seeley
George F. Shelton
Joseph Sinkavach
Henry T. Skelding
Marjorie Skelding
Paul Skelding
Edward Smith
George H. Smith
Le Roy B. Smith
Wesley Smith
Alexander Volage
John P. Volage
Edwin J. Walston
H. Earl Wentsch
Roger P. Williams
Howard W. Wordin
Frederick Yaeger

The Case Against Paperless Genealogy

Sorry, paperless genealogy is NOT for me. Some avid genealogists advocate digitizing everything, not downloading any paper copies, and/or not printing images/documents found during research. Not me. I print everything. I file everything. Under more than one surname, if applicable.

Why print in the digital age?

Walter Isaacson--the author of the best-selling bio of Steve Jobs and, now, the best-selling book about Leonardo da Vinci--sums up my main reason in one sentence. Let me quote him (you can read the entire interview here):

Paper turns out to be a superb information-storage technology, still readable after 500 years, which our own tweets likely (and fortunately) won't be.

Isaacson was privileged to read more than 7,000 pages of da Vinci's own notebooks. And he found more than just words: the man's personality shines through in the scribbles and sketches that adorn the pages. So not only can paper survive, it also can reveal clues to ancestors' inner thoughts and feelings.

A senior Google exec also warns that consumers should print out key items, including selfies, for instance, because technology will certainly change over time. "Historians will tell you that sometimes documents, transactions, images and so on may turn out to have an importance which is not understood for hundreds of years. So failure to preserve [by printing] them will cause us to lose our perspective," he has said.

Technology comes and goes, as anyone who's ever had to unlearn WordPerfect and learn MS Word can attest. Anyone who began storing data on those big floppy discs and migrated to mini-discs and migrated to CDs and migrated to flash drives. And to the cloud, then to whatever overtakes the cloud.

Meanwhile, paper lives on and on. My goal is to ensure that the next generation inherits family history. Will they learn my technology? No. Will they open my files and archival boxes and leaf through photos and certificates and memorabilia? Yes!

At top, the back of a 1930s business card from hubby's grandpa, Brice Larimer McClure. Sometime before his death in 1970, he took cards and scraps of paper and recorded facts about his ancestors and the ancestors of his wife, Floyda Mabel Steiner McClure.

This card shows the birth years of Floyda and her siblings, including the infant who died young (I eventually found proof to confirm Brice's recollection).

Being able to pick out this card from Brice's effects gave us a headstart on piecing together the entire generation of Steiners. And some grandkids think it's a bit amazing to hold in their hands a business card that's now more than 80 years old, while they hear stories of how the family made ends meet during the Depression. I scanned and shared this business card on my Ancestry tree, where dozens of people have saved it to their own trees--making the info widely available and keeping it safe for the future!

All in all, I plan to keep up the paper chase and leave a paper trail for future generations. AND I'm also digitizing everything, by the way, and doing daily/hourly backups to keep the data safe, filed by family and surname on my hard drives, flash drives, and cloud backups. But paper is my secret strategy for passing what I've learned to the younger generation. It worked for older generations--and it will work for mine.

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For ideas about storing documents and paper in archival boxes, please check out my concise genealogy book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, available from Amazon (paperback and Kindle versions). Paperback is available at the AmericanAncestors.org book store.

Sentimental Sunday: Delving into Edgar James Wood's Diaries

Exactly 48 years ago, my late father- and mother-in-law were on the final leg of a two-month European trip. At that point, Edgar James Wood and Marian Jane McClure Wood were both retired and enjoyed touring Italy in particular, for the art as much as for the architecture and the food ;)

I know all this because Ed kept a diary every day for more than 30 years, and I'm lucky enough to have them (and have already indexed them, searching for clues to genealogical mysteries).

Above, the entry for November 3-6, 1969. Ed and Marian had gone to Europe this time with Ed's British-born sister-in-law, Rosalind Ashby Wood. Ed took Italian lessons on board ship and when the ship docked, the three went sightseeing together.

One of the reasons I enjoy Ed's diaries is because of his comments. He usually noted the weather and such ("sea got rough, safety ropes put up"). And he had an opinion on all the entertainment, such as these quotes excerpted from above:

• Movie: "The Love Bug," in P.M. Very good, about a V.W.
• Movie: "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Adult. Good.

Sepia Saturday: Use Photos to Sharpen Family Memories

My husband remembers that his father (Edgar James Wood) would take all the children out for a drive on Sunday afternoons while his mother (Marian Jane McClure Wood) cooked a special dinner.

They lived in Cleveland Heights, and his father would drive around to various spots, entertaining three kids under 8 for a couple of hours every week.

As the self-appointed family historian, my question was, of course: Where did he take you?

Well, there are some rather general family stories about these drives. But when my sister-in-law recently rediscovered a cache of old family photos taken by their father, more specific memories flooded back.

Here is a very atmospheric photo that my late father-in-law took of his two oldest children staring at a steam locomotive. Hubby immediately remembered going to Collinwood Yards. Actually, his memory was Collingwood, but a quick online search confirmed Collinwood was a thriving railroad center in East Cleveland, serving the New York Central RR.

We found photos and maps and other details about Collinwood Yards online. Such as the Cleveland Memory Project and the Rails & Trails maps, to name just two.

Old photos really help to sharpen family memories! I'm writing everything down, captions to go along with photos, for the sake of the next generation and beyond.

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For ideas about storing family photos and captioning them safely via labels on the outside of archival sleeves, please check out my concise genealogy book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, available from Amazon (paperback and Kindle versions).