Family Tree Magazine - An Educational Resource

Do you subscribe to any genealogy periodicals?   Family Tree Magazine  www.familytreemagazine.com may  help you learn how to perform a successful research and understand what you have discovered from your research.  It is one of my favorites, and I think you might like it too.

In the current May/June 2014 issue, the widely varied topics include :

• How to care for heirloom baptismal gowns and wedding gowns
• How to organize your home workspace for effective genealogy research
• Search strategies to use when looking for those elusive ancestors
• Accessing birth records and how to use their information to further your research
• How to find your German ancestor's hometown
• Finding information on ancestors of meager means
• European genealogy websites
• Searching the 1901 and 1911 Irish Censuses........and so much more.

The U.S. news stand price is $6.99 per issue.  However, if you subscribe, the price is much less.

Compared to every other genealogy magazine that I have viewed, Family Tree Magazine is my personal favorite. I learn something new in every issue.  This magazine is for the novice and the highly experienced researcher.  Visit the website, and see for yourself.  There is so much more to this magazine than meets the eye.  Something you might want to try.

April 2014 issue

Italian Research

There are so many resources available to research Italian genealogical and historical records.  I just want to mention one that I happened upon just today.

This one is new, at least to me.

www.italianimmigrants.org

Italian Immigration Data : 1855 - 1900 

copyright 2013 by Crafted Knowledge

Thank you, Crafted Knowledge !!! They state that this entity has a goal to make educational and historical information available and free to the public

This site is invaluable for those of us who are continually looking for those pesky Italian names that are "creatively" spelled by transcribers of immigrant ship lists of passengers.

You know the names that I am talking about.  I know that you have seen them, and chuckled, like I do.


This database allows you to search for your Italian Immigrants name.  So far, so good.  But what makes this different?  You can search by first name, last name, AND by one letter at a time, as such:

names beginning with A, search by:

A
Aa  Ab  Ac  Ad  Ae, and so on
Aaa, Aab, Aac, Aad, Aae, and so on
Aaab, Aaac, Aaad, Aaae, Aaaf, and so on

You get the picture.  They bring up all names that have those criteria.  Click on the "suspected name" and you'll see where they have appeared on ship manifests,

Example:  a surname search with Aad returns this result:

#	NAME	AGE	GENDER	FROM	DEST	COMPT	SHIP	ARRIVED
0001	Tre Aado	31	M	Italy	USA	Steerage	Rugia	05-12-1890

Cool, huh?  But wait, there's more!  Click on the name of this passenger, Tre Aado, and see what happens....voila!  A Passenger Record for Tre Aado who arrived in 1890

Passenger Record for Tre Aado

record id 271754 date arrived 05-12-1890 name Tre Aado aka names gender, age Male, 31 relation occupation Laborer literacy destination USA purpose Staying in the USA city residence U native country Italy embarkation port Hamburg & Havre travel compartment Steerage ship name Rugia

Neat, huh?  But wait, there's more!  Select the name of the ship, Rugia, and see what happens....bing, bang, boom...  you get a list of all passengers who have appeared on the manifests of the Rugia. If you select the date of arrival, 5-12-1890, results will contain a list of all passengers who arrived on that very date, not just on the Rugia, but every other ship that arrived on that date.

OK, you can also search for a specific ship.  Across the top of the HOME page, select Immigrant Ships List.  

Here you will be treated to a whole list of ships, in alphabetical order, by date of arrival, number of Italian passengers, departure port and native country (Italy) and destinations listed by the passengers.
Scroll through the list to find the Rugia (hint, it's on page 17), and you will see a listing of every arrival date of the Rugia.  It appears that this ship was in operation from April of 1889 until November of 1894.  These dates of arrival ARE NOT in chronological order, so be sure to look closely at this table of information.  The date of arrival for our passenger, Tre Aado, shows that there were 280 passengers from Italy, and the ship departed from Hamburg and Havre, as seen here :

05-12-1890

280

Hamburg & Havre

Italy

USA

If we selected the date, 05-12-1890, the results would be a complete list of passengers on the Rugia from that date of arrival.  These passengers are listed in alphabetical order.

In my opinion, this is a step up from other online references for Italian immigrant ships.  I will certainly be using this site on my future projects.  What a great find!


The Reference Sources for this data is listed as below:

1

wikimediafoundation.org - The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc

2

gpo.gov - The U.S Government Printing Office (GPO) provides publishing and dissemination services for the official and authentic government publications to Congress, Federal agencies, Federal depository libraries, and the American public.

3

archives.gov - The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

4

data.gov - Open datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government (USA)

Related Resources, Advocates, Supporting Contributors, Etc.

1

ancestry.lookupthe.name - Genealogy and ancestral name database

2

Jacksonville Law - Law archive for the Jacksonville Florida area.

3

PopularNameList.com - Look up information on popular names from A to Z. You can find thousands of data connections for names listed in our online guide.

4

Immigrant Legal Resource Center - National non-profit resource center that provides legal trainings, educational materials, and advocacy to advance immigrant rights.

5

LawHelp.org - Information to help you with problems related to housing, work, family, bankruptcy, disability, immigration and other topics.

6

ww2enlistment.org - searchable archive for World War II era Army enlistment records

7

Law Library of Congress - With approximately 2.65 million volumes, the Law Library’s collection of primary and secondary sources constitutes the largest legal collection in the world.

101 Independence Avenue Washington, DC 20540-4860

The Federal and States Census : A Usual First Step in On-Line Family History Research

 Filling in the blanks on your family research is easier than you may think.  Try looking at the US  Census and the individual state census returns.

This can mark your first jumping off point to gain more information about your family history.
As set for by the founding legislators of our country, every 10 years a census shall be taken to count the number of people living in the USA.  In addition to the federal census, many states have commissioned their own individual census programs to enable their governments to find where their inhabitants live, what they own, and what their occupations are.

The US federal census began in 1790.  All census data is available on-line through the 1930 poll.  Various websites have this information, whether transcribed, and/or available images of each page.  This information can be very useful when researching your family history.  There is one word of caution.  The information on these census sheets are not certified to be true.  Names and their spellings, ages of persons, addresses, marital status, number of children, place of birth, home ownership, etc. mentioned on these sheets may or may not be true.  So, in short, you should consider all information that you gather from the census to be clues to the life stories of families.  Many times, a census-taker would visit a household and not speak the same language as the residents.  It may not be quite clear as to the names of the persons being questioned. When the names of the residents were not quite clear to the census-taker, they were instructed to name the man John, and the woman would be named Mary. You will find many phonetically spelled names in the census.  In addition, a friend or a neighbor may have answered questions about an individual living in their household.  The informant may not know the truth about their family member or friend, or may have just guessed to answer the questions of the census-taker.  Census-takers usually visited a home during the daylight hours, and the residents may not have been home to answer the questions about themselves.  Many times, older children were home to answer questions about their parents, but did not know the true answers.  They told only what they believed to be true.  Therefore, you will find many discrepancies and confusing information in the census that you are looking at.

Many States conducted their own census projects, much like the federal census.  Before the states joined the Union, they were just territories  Even some of the territories conducted census programs.   These can often give different information than what was gathered from the federal census just a few years from the date of the state census.  Once again, use the information as clues to the true family history.  The State census data may have special schedules that include information about births and deaths that were not required to report in that particular state at the time of the census.  It may also have information about agricultural details, if the family lived in an area of farms and cattle raising.

Dates of immigration can be researched through the records of Castle Garden, Ellis Island  and the Steve Morse websites with several ports of entry also in the South and West of the United States.
Castle Garden   Ellis Island   Steve Morse


Where do you find special state census information?  Currently, you can do a quick search on Cyndi's List to seek information to each state to discover what census each state has in its archives and where you might be able to view the data.  You may also try Ancestry for a quick search of this also.  As you might know, the Latter Day Saints have begun an indexing and imaging program on their website where they are beginning to post transcriptions and images of many of the wonderful records that they have collected from all parts of the world.  The Federal and State census is a part of this project.  Visit Family Search to find out what is currently on the internet, and be sure to check back periodically as it is constantly being updated.
Cyndi's List   Family Search

Remember that the information in every census are just clues.  Use this information to research vital information of your family.  Birth and death certificates were not always required by states until a particular year.  Marriage documents can more readily be found in county records and church records.  Be sure to look high and low for proper documentation  of your family's vital records.  The census can point you in the right direction most of the time.  But be prepared for surprises.  That is what makes this kind a project very interesting and keeps you on your toes.  You will have a greater understanding of your family once the pieces of information begin to fall into place.