The Mad Genealogist

In addition to the population schedules, federal, state and local governments have requested special information for administrative decisions. These special schedules can be quite useful for family historians.

An act of 3 March 1879 provided that any state could take an interdecennial census with partial reimbursement by the federal government. Colorado, Florida, Nebraska, and the territories of Dakota and New Mexico returned schedules to the secretary of the interior. The schedules are numbered 1, 2, 3, and 5.

• Schedule No. 1: Inhabitants Lists the number of dwellings and families. It also identifies each inhabitant by name, color, sex, age, relationship to head of family, marital status, occupation, place of birth, place of birth of parents, literacy, and kind of sickness or disability, if any.
• Schedule No. 2: Agriculture Gives the name of the farm owner and his tenure, acreage, farm value, expenses, estimated value of farm products, number and kind of livestock, and amount and kind of produce.
• Schedule No. 3: Products of industry Lists the name of the owning corporation or individual, name of business or products, amount of capital invested, number of employees,wages and hours, number of months in operation during the year, value of materials used, value of products, and amount and type of power used.
• Schedule No. 5: Mortality Lists the name, age, sex, color, marital status, place of birth, place of birth of parents, and occupation, and gives the cause of death for every person who died within the year ending 31 May 1885.

The schedules are interfiled and arranged alphabetically by state and then by county. Schedules for a number of counties are missing. The National Archives has microfilmed the Colorado (M158, eight rolls) and Nebraska (M352, fifty-six rolls) schedules.The originals are in the National Archives.

The 1885 census is useful for locating data about individuals who were living on rapidly growing frontiers: Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nebraska, Florida, and North and South Dakota; for locating and documenting newly arrived immigrants from Europe; and for documenting small businessmen and farmers—many of them immigrants—who were just getting started in their businesses. The manufacturers schedule for 1885 is the latest one available for research.

In some religions, a dispensation was necessary, under certain circumstances, for a couple to be married in a religious ceremony. Dispensations were requested for various reasons, such as not wanting banns read or posted, a marriage between cousins, or, most commonly, a marriage between a couple of different religious backgrounds. In the Cathcolic Church, for example, a dispensation is  necessary for a Catholic to marry someone of another denomination.

In those cases, dispensation records reveal a good deal of biographical information: names of prospective bride and groom, their birthplaces (sometimes including exact towns, which can be especially  helpful in learning a foreign origin), residence at the time of filing for the dispensation, and the names of both parents, often including the mother’s maiden name.

In order to locate this kind of record, the religious backgrounds of the couple of interest must be determined as well as where and when the marriage took place. If the records have been saved for the time period in question, an inquiry to the religious headquarters, diocese, or archive may be the best starting point. If nothing else, this may narrow the search to a particular congregation or parish.

An example of a published collection of Catholic dispensations is Bishop Loughlin’s Dispensations-Diocese of Brooklyn 1859-1866, Volume 1 by Joseph M. Silinonte.

The value of this particular book of 5,200 dispensations lies not oninly its content, in itbs ucto verage-the  Diocese of Brooklyn included all of Long Island (then Kings, Queens, and  Suffolk counties) and present-day Nassau County, a total of thirty-five churches. Furthermore, this region was the initial stopping off place for many immigrants, who would later move elsewhere.

I know many times I have found myself trying to figure out one of my ancestors birth date, especially before 1850 when census records only listed age ranges for everyone. Well I have a list here to help find out at least when someone was born before.

For example, I am looking for a birth date for John Doe. The earliest record I show for him is in 1780 as a witness on a court document. Well I use my little chart here and see that males needed to be 14 to legally witness a document. So I can at least determine that John Doe was born before 1766 (1780 – 14 = 1766).

This chart has helped me many times in the past and I hope you can use it as well.

A story from the Associated Press this morning….

MIAMI  —  Historians and archaeologists want to know who was buried in an apparently forgotten cemetery uncovered in a Miami construction site.

Construction crews uncovered bones, crumbled headstones and nails and metal handles from coffins in the site off Interstate 95. A search of the lot in April failed to uncover any names, records or documents detailing who had been buried there. Only two commercial maps from 1925 and 1936 label the site as a cemetery.

Some longtime residents say there was once an informal burial ground for blacks at the site. It’s at the edge of some of Miami’s oldest neighborhoods.

The African-American committee of Dade Heritage Trust planned a community meeting Monday to begin the search for descendants of the people buried at the site.

I received this link in an email. I am a military buff and I enjoy viewing old photos like theses.If you are a Civil War buff, you might enjoy these amazing photos also.  A lot are really morbid though. To Enlarge the picture and get further clarification, click on the pictures.  If you are a history buff you will enjoy this site! Original Photographs from the Civil War

So, you go to the courthouse to get a copy of a simple marriage record….. and you are hit with the fact that the courthouse was destroyed at some point in the past. What are you to do?

Well old Newspapers are a good option but unless you are in a major city, actual copies can be spotty at best. Well here is a great option that is often overlooked…. DIVORCE RECORDS!

Divorce Records are a great substitute for a missing marriage record. Divorce records were not always filed in the local courthouse. Courthouse filings didn’t start until later years in most states. Divorces that occurred early in a states history were recorded in published journals of the statehouse or senate. The marriage date and place were often part of the divorce record.were not

Sometimes the divorce was never finalized for whatever reason. In those cases a petition may have survived. Petitions far outnumber divorces granted. Some divorces were appealed to a higher court such as  a Superior or Supreme Court. So look there as well.

This letter was sent by one of my removed ancestors, Mrs, Ben Starling (Josephine Handley’s Mother) to Lillian Nichols McKeown, telling about her family’s experiences during the Civil War. This is more than likely a common story to most southern families during this time.

The treachery of war is horrible, and left scars untold. The years of 1861 to 1864 was not erased when I was born in 1870, and after I was old enopugh to remember, the privations told of to me, or where I could hear. I remember hearing father tell how it hurt him when he came home after the surrender of Civil War and his baby boy did not know him and was afraid of him, when he wanted to take him in his arms and embrace him.

Do not see how Yankee’s could destroy the valuable things they did when they could not use them. I heard one woman tell of how they had many negro’s on their fine old farm and had a large smoke house with lots of meat hanging up to smoke and dry to feed them. The men were all gone, also all the mules were taken except two that they left hid under a bluff near a large creek. Whenevers they heard “The Yankee’s were coming”, it was her task to hide the mules and one time the Yankee’s got there before she got back to the house. One of the Officers saw her and accused her of reporting or hiding something – spoke rudely to her and she talked back just as he did – another Officer made him hush and seeing how her bare feet and legs were scratched and bleeding, gave her a pair of his boots to wear. They had two rows of peices of meat hung, one above the other, in the smokehouse and they took it down and had the negro woman cook all they could eat and left the rest lieing around to be destroyed by anything that would do so.

This woman ( a girl then) was Miss Bashey Nichols, one of the best women I ever knew. She married Mr. Jim Brooks and is Buried in Rock Spring Cemetery.

This is 1942 another war is raging and we are asked top help. I want to help every way I can but 71 years of toil, pleasure’s and disappointment, also afflictions, makes me know I cannot do as much for defense as I would like to. I scarcely ever can leave the house because I am unable to walk most of the time and writing is my chief enjoyment.

You said you enjoy family histories in your letter received yesterday, and I thought Ide send this for you to read. We have two children, two daughters. We live with the youngest one and this is written on letters she has received. Had no thought of anyone, (or a stranger) seeing this but I will send it to you to read. Please send it back at an earlier date.

Yoiurs Truly, Mrs. Ben Stark, Star Route, Monticello, Ark.

In the 18th or 19th century, if a man died and left a young widow, that widow probobly would have asked that her father of brother to be named administator of the estate. This was a common practice, and for the regular  genealogist, this appointment is a wonderful clue to the young widows maiden name.

Case in point is my ancestor Christopher Brooks. Christopher Brooks married a Susanna Williams shortly before 1780 in North Carolina or Virginia. Thier marraige records did not show up in Caswell County, NC so at the time I did not know Susanna maiden name. I looked and found administration papers for Christopher Brooks and is stated Susann’s father, Henry Williams, was administrator of the estate.

TGN is letting users get acquainted with all the new features during an upcoming free webinar that will be held March 12, 2009 at 8pm EST. They say they will show
you what’s changed as well as demonstrate how to do some new things in Family Tree Maker 2009 like:

• Use the new extended family chart
• Keep track of important dates in the new calendar
• Take advantage of new data entry enhancements
• Clarify the process of citing sources with new source templates
• Create family history books and more with the new desktop book–building tools

There will be a 20–minute Q&A session afterward. They will also be answering questions that have been submitted from the Family Tree Maker community. To submit a question, please visit the Family Tree Maker blog.

Speakers will be Duff Wilson, the Senior User Interface Designer for Family Tree Maker, and  Michelle Pfister (the Moderator), the Senior Product Manager. Hopefully this will answer some of the many Questions we as consumers and users have. But you have to register on their site in order to attend the Webinar at https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=135327

Researchers also need to keep in mind that Sr and Jr designations did not always indicate a father/son relationship. Sometimes it indicated two generations with men having the same name but they could have been uncle, nephew or some other relationship.