by Carolyn L. Barkley

I’m observing a labor-free Friday! This article was first posted for Labor Day 2008 and appears here as a revision.

Labor Day symbolizes the end of the “carefree days” of summer. Paradoxically, it is often considered as a day of rest, a brief respite from the cares and concerns of our more complicated working lives.

There is no complete agreement as to who first suggested the idea of the holiday. Some believe that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, was the first. Others believe it was Matthew Maguire, who in 1882 served as secretary of the Central Labor Union (CLU) in New York. (Isn’t this a typical genealogical situation – same surname with variant spellings confusing the issue?) On September 5, 1882, the CLU planned a demonstration and picnic in New York City, and repeated the event the following year. As word spread, and other union and labor groups supported the concept, many municipal governments and state legislatures enacted laws recognizing a “workingman’s holiday.” In 1887, Oregon was the first state to enact such a statute, and Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York followed suit. Over twenty-three states were observing the holiday when the U.S. Congress passed a June 1894 act establishing the first Monday in September as new federal holiday honoring the country’s workers.

As a genealogist, when I consider the Labor Day holiday I think that it should not only be a day of “rest” from work, but also a day for our genealogical “labor of love,” as we research the occupations practiced by our ancestors and consider the impact of those occupations on their lives.

United States federal census enumerations are probably the records used most frequently to identify the occupations of our ancestors. Prior to 1850, censuses recorded only aggregate statistics: the 1820 and 1830 censuses counted the number of persons in each family who were engaged in agriculture, commerce or manufacturing; the 1840 census expanded on these earlier statistics by counting the number of persons in mining, agriculture, commerce, manufacturing and trade, navigation, learned professions and engineering. As with other census milestones (e.g., identifying by name every person in a household), the 1850 census also proves to be an important census year for occupational researchers as enumerators no longer simply reported the number of people in occupational categories, but instead reported exact occupations for all males over the age of fifteen (but no information for females). By 1870, the occupation, profession or trade of every male and female, regardless of age, was enumerated, thus providing a first look at child labor in the United States. Subsequent censuses added further detail including the number of months an individual was employed or unemployed during the census year. The federal government’s growing interest in the capacity of its workforce is illustrated by the labor and occupation-related questions included in each decennial enumeration.

City directories, social security applications, occupational directories and often obituaries are other sources that help identify how your ancestor spent his or her working life. Read every document relating to an individual to glean clues as to an occupation and analyze each piece of occupational information you find. You may find clues that will help you differentiate between multiple individuals by the same name in the same location at the same time. You will be able to understand more fully the life style of a specific individual and his or her family. An occupation might have dictated where and under what socio-economic conditions a family lived, as well as what religious and other organizations the family members may have joined. Frequently, occupational choices influenced succeeding generations, strengthening ties between families by both marriage and common experience.

I have been able to identify occupational trends within family groups in my own research. One ancestor, George Duncan, a carriage painter, came to New Haven, Connecticut, from England in the mid-1850s, at the same time that Frederick Dodd was a “coach body maker” in New Haven. Knowing the latter’s occupation helped me document a move he and his family made to Liberty, Sullivan County, New York, in the late 1850s. When the family returned to New Haven a few years later, George Duncan’s daughter Kate married Frederick Dodd’s son, Frederick O. Dodd. Frederick O. Dodd was employed as a “coach smith.” As industry and technology progressed and coach construction and painting skills were no longer required, Frederick O. Dodd and his brother-in-law, George H. Duncan, both worked for American Express Baggage Service in Springfield, Massachusetts. It would appear that the Duncan and Dodd men’s occupation was the common denominator that initially brought the two families together.

When I sat down to write this post, I reviewed several standard genealogical how-to books and found, surprisingly, that they often did not provide discussions about occupational research. While occupations such as coach body maker and carriage painter are relatively simple to understand, if you are researching earlier time periods or in other countries, you may encounter occupations that appear obscure, to say the least. Terminology may require you to consult other sources in order to understand just what your ancestor was doing.

I have found that consulting the Oxford English Dictionary, or the free-search option at Oxford Dictionaries Online, is helpful in defining occupations. Periodical articles and published lists of occupations–that can be located in PERSI (PERiodical Source Index)–are often the best sources in which to locate lists and definitions of old (and odd) occupations. Do you know what a tidewaiter did? a glazier? a peruker?  (customs inspector, window glassman, wigmaker). How about a snobscat? (shoe repairman). A chiffonier is not a fancy scarf, but a rag picker. One of my favorite obsolete occupational titles is “hamberghmaker” – not a MacDonald’s employee – but an individual who made horse collars.

Cyndi’s List provides an occupations category with 375 links, including several lists of occupations and their corresponding modern titles or definitions. Several sites of interest include the AFL-CIO’s state-by-state list of worker’s memorials and, given my interest in Scottish research, a list of old occupations in Scotland. Specialized sites are available for countries such as Germany and Russia. I searched my personal library collection for “occupations” on LibraryThing and found that I owned a few titles on the topic, all published in Great Britain. Probably the most detailed is An Introduction to Occupations, a Preliminary List by Joyce Culling (2nd ed., Federation of Family History Societies, 1999). The Family History Library catalog identified several titles, but different search strategies yielded very different results. Some titles were found by searching for specific occupations or trade names; I discovered others by searching for occupations in a specific country. Again, Great Britain is the most prolific publisher of books with an occupational or occupational/geographic focus. A subject search for “Great Britain – Occupations – Dictionaries” identified The Complete A-Z Guide to Early Occupations: a Complete Guide to 1,700 Old Trades including Job Titles and Descriptions (Genealogy Printers, 2002). I will definitely look at this book the next time I’m in Salt Lake City. Similarly worded subject searches for France or the United States were unsuccessful.

From these brief examples, it is clear that occupational research is an important strategy for us to use in learning more about the lives of our ancestors. Our colleagues in Great Britain clearly understand its importance, and those of us doing British Isles research will find significant assistance.

As you “rest” over the Labor Day holiday, I hope you will take the opportunity to think about the occupation or trade of your ancestors and consider the impact it had on both their families and yours.

Have a safe and happy holiday.

Anyone who has ever packed for a research trip – particularly when traveling by airplane – has ardently wished for resources that are thin and light-weight, but that are also capable of providing substantive research assistance. Similarly, if you have tried to cram one more book onto your home library shelves – without having to discard something – you have made a similar wish.

The QuickSheet series, published by Genealogical Publishing Company, provides a convenient solution. Two titles in the series, Citing Online Historical Resources Evidence! Style and Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images Evidence! Styles, both by Elizabeth Shown Mills, have been helping researchers for several years.

A recent addition to this series is the two-page Genealogical Problem Analysis: A Strategic Plan Evidence! Style, also by Ms. Mills. This new title addresses one of the single most important skills – and the one most often ignored, if online genealogical content is any indication – needed for quality genealogical research: ANALYSIS. In discussing the basic premise of this QuickSheet, Ms. Mills states the issue succinctly: “Sources give us information, from which we select Evidence for evaluation. A conclusion based on thorough research, careful documentation, and sound analysis might be considered Proof.” [Emphasis and capitalization is Ms. Mills.’]

Basic appraisal elements are defined including the concepts of original and derivative sources, primary and secondary information, and several other matters for consideration. One of the most useful portions of this QuickSheet, however, is found in its outline of ten steps which, if followed, will lead to a solution. These steps include:

1. Focus on understanding, not upon finding names.
2. Organize, chronologically, known ‘facts’ about the problem person
3. Separate documented ‘facts’ from undocumented ‘facts.’
4. Appraise the sources for each ‘fact’ already documented.
5. Analyze prior assumptions for weaknesses.
6. Analyze known records and activities for new possibilities.
7. Identify all known kin, friends, neighbors, and other associates.
8. Identify all unused sources for the region, ethnic group, key events, etc.
9. Draft a “Research Plan” to guide future study.
10. Execute your research plan, leaving no resource or associate unexplored.

The author briefly explans each step, and, with respect to steps two through seven, she provides instructions for creating a worksheet to pursue the sought after information.

Page two presents a Life Stages Worksheet. Life stages include birth, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, prime adulthood, and declining years. Tied to each life stage are representative activities (birth registration, military service, employment, etc.) that could be expected to occur during that time period. You, as the researcher, will probably need to add or delete activities from the list depending on the focus individual. For each activity, the worksheet provides a column in which to list records you have found as well as a column in which to note potential records, not yet found. For historical research, this worksheet is invaluable in organizing your work, providing a visual record of what you have found or still need to find about an individual. For example, I had a telephone call from a new research client today who (before a more extensive interview) requested “anything I could find” about a certain individual. While she and I were able to narrow the scope of the research objective, her interest remained broad enough so that this worksheet will prove very useful as I begin courthouse research.

Personal experience also tells me that this worksheet can be put to a more immediate use, that of organizing your own family papers.  My husband died earlier this summer. In order to arrange for his burial in a national cemetery, I had to locate his military record. I knew it was in the house, but where it might be located was a problem. I spent an afternoon fruitlessly delving into several boxes under the eaves marked “family archives.” Finding no military record, I engaged in that famous methodology known as “vacuum cleaner research” –  I simply started looking in every folder in my file cabinet, hoping to run across the errant military record. I finally found it in a file marked “mortgage.” This location might appear illogical; however, there was a somewhat reasonable explanation (but one known only to me). It was located in that particular file because when we built our house, we initially thought we would use a VA loan. We ended up using a conventional mortgage, but I had filed the military record required for the VA loan application in the mortgage file.

I remembered this search when I looked at the Life Stages Worksheet and realized that if I were to arrange all of my records according to the worksheet categories, I would not only be able to file them in one place, but they would also be arranged in a logical, chronological order. In the future, I (or another family member) would then be able to locate the information effortlessly. What a concept!

I highly recommend that you add Genealogical Problem Analysis: a Strategic Plan Evidence! Style to your home library and that you also include it in your luggage/briefcase when you are on a research trip.

I also recommend that you carry the two earlier QuickSheets. Citing Online Historical Resources Evidence! Style and Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images Evidence! Style. Both of these publications are companion pieces to Elizabeth Shown Mills Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2006) and Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2010).  In four pages each, the two titles provide you with the essentials of citation styles for a wide range of online resources, thus enabling you to accurately cite your sources on your research logs while you are researching.

Citing Online Historical Resources Evidence! Style discusses basic principles in citing online sources and provides a basic template for a source list entry, a first reference note, and subsequent reference notes. It then provides models for common record types including census images (both Ancestry and Heritage Quest); census indexes and databases (Ancestry, Heritage Quest and FamilySearch); digital articles and books (electronic edition, online journal, digital image, online book); historical records (abstracts, databases, images and transcripts); land-entry records (federal and state databases as well as federal and state patent images); newsletters (electronic, archived delivery and images); passenger lists (database entries, and manifest and ship images); Social Security Death Index entries; and vital records (state compiled abstracts or databases. I find the inclusion of all three formats (source entry list, full reference note and short reference note) very helpful, assuring that all my entries are uniform.

Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images Evidence! Style covers major formats commonly found while you are searching Ancestry.com. Source entry list, full reference note, and subsequent reference note templates are provided for city directory databases and images; draft registration images; family trees (both documented and undocumented); immigration-emigration roll databases and images; maps; military record databases and images; newspaper images; PERSI (Periodical Source Index); articles from the Learning Center; books (both database extractions and images); and census databases and images.

QuickSheets provide quick, but detailed help to you while you are researching, whether at your home computer, an archival institution, or a public/university library. They are some of the first things that go into my briefcase/luggage when I travel to do research. You will want to include them in yours.

Our sincere apologies for the late posting.

Sometimes referred to as “Roosevelt’s Tree Army,” the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was an early program created during President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Beginning in 1933, the CCC accepted young men between eighteen and twenty-five years of age–although some variations and time limits were instituted during the program—until its termination in 1942. The young men had to be unemployed and recommended by the Department of Labor through a local welfare agency. They earned $30.00 a month, $25.00 of which was sent home to help support the family. The participant’s allotment was usually sent to the mother. After acceptance into the program, they had to report to an army recruiting station for a physical exam and assignment. After two weeks of conditioning, physical exams, inoculations and taking an oath of enrollment, inductees received army surplus clothing, and later blue denim work suits. The young men were assembled into companies and sent to camps around the country and away from their home area. These camps were operated by the United States Army. The work available at each camp involved conserving, constructing and improving parks, forests and other lands. The results of the many projects can still be seen in our parks and forests today. Flood control, fire roads, bridges, reforestation, erosion control, landscaping and a variety of other work was done.

Records were kept on each CCC participant, and these personnel files are now available for research, Information about the records’ availability is listed on the Internet; part of the purpose of this article is to eliminate some of the confusion surrounding that information. The National Archives site still states that researchers must submit a death certificate along with a whole list of information in a written request; however the CCC Legacy site says that some requirements changed in June 2009. The custody of the records of the CCC has been transferred from the Office of Personnel Management to the National Archives. This change means that there is now a cost to obtain copies of these records, but that a death certificate is no longer required. A note on the site indicates that if a death certificate is sent, it can help expedite the process and that you may receive more information. Even though the records are public, a screening has to be done for sensitive information. Since screening each record on a microfilm is not feasible, the microfilm cannot be viewed by visitors to the National Archive’s public research room. The contact information and costs for the requests can be found either at the National Archives site or the CCC Legacy site.

The CCC Record of Enrollment includes standard birth information as well as a physical description. Record categories include such information as “if naturalized when and where,” and the composition of the family. Educational information is recorded (including any courses taken while enrolled in the CCC program), as are any special interests of the individual. Another section details employment history. The records identify the name and address of the recipient of the $25.00 monthly allotment. Another section provides details of service in the CCC that would be recorded for each six-month term.

Since the CCC program involved multiple government agencies, researchers will discover additional records elsewhere. Many of these records concern the camps and not the individuals in them, although some personnel data may appear within the camp reports. States also kept records and these may be located in state archives collections. From research done in New York State, we found records at the New York State Archives, as well as the local office of the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The local DEC office still oversees the site of the original camp. A search in the appropriate state archives catalog may locate records of interest. Since the camps were administered by the Army, but included local civilian workers, New York State maintained card files that included a history of the camps as well as job-related data on applicants and individuals hired as camp workers. Not all work was done on federal land. Some states, such as New York, already had a state parks system and had immediate projects for the CCC to complete.

Each camp provided recreation and education classes for the enrollees. It soon became apparent that the young men were not particularly interested in literature or history courses, but preferred classes that could help them find a job. Classes varied from camp to camp, but carpentry, landscaping and similar classes were found at many. Some young men even learned to read and write while at the camps.

Recreation was provided at the camps in the form of athletics, movies and small libraries. In some places the local communities provided activities, especially through the churches and local service groups. Some camps were far from towns while others were close enough for occasional visits.

A number of books about the CCC are available. Some are histories of a particular company?? or a camp. The companies were moved from camp to camp as needed for the work. Others are histories of the program either as a whole or within a state. Ask your local librarian to assist you in locating titles of interest.

In addition to the CCC Legacy’s listing of camps by state, some state or camp-specific websites can be found, and there are often forums for people to connect with others who had family members at the camp. Consult Cyndi’s List to review a list of possible sites. Some include photographs of the individual camp and some include information and photographs submitted by family members. Considering that the even the youngest surviving CCC inductee would be 86 today, their descendants are increasingly dependent on shared or secondary sources.

One book, The Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Park Service 1933-1942: An Administrative History by John C. Paige (National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 1985), is available online at nps.gov/history/online_books/ccc/index.htm. The CCC Legacy site also offers a great bibliography.

CCC also published a national newspaper patterned after the World War I publication, Stars and Stripes, that helped to boost morale within the service. Soon each camp had a newsletter or newspaper that reported on camp life. The CCC Chronicles: Camp Newspapers of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942 by Alfred Emile Cornebise (McFarland & Co., 2004) gives the history and an analysis of these newspapers and their impact. The Center for Research Libraries in Chicago has many of these camp newspapers on microfiche or microfilm, and you can search for “camp newspapers” in their online catalog. Choose “Newspapers,” and then scroll down to the CCC camp newspapers and select the state you want or enter a company number and see what is available. A search in New York State located 52 subject listings with 227 entries.

One final resource of interest is the PBS documentary about the CCC, which you can view online at pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/ccc.

Karen E. Livsey is the Library/Archivist at the Fenton History Center in Jamestown (Chautauqua Co.), New York, and she serves as the Ellicott (N.Y.) Town Historian. She is a member of the Genealogical Publishing Company booth staff at national genealogical conferences.

Warning – this posting is most accurately described as a “do-as-I-say” not a “do-as-I do” article. While I may follow the methodologies described here for client research, I am woefully remiss in applying these techniques to my personal research. Perhaps between my writing and your reading, we will improve this imbalance.

It has been almost fifteen years since I attended the Federation of Genealogical Society’s Conference, “Unlock Your Heritage,” in 1997 in Dallas, Texas. During that conference, I attended a Saturday session presented by Elizabeth Shown Mills entitled “The Research Report.” Although I have attended many conference sessions since then, I can truthfully say that this session has had the most effect on my work as a genealogist, by providing me with an understanding of why research reports are important, what they should contain, and how they guide our process of analysis and planning for future work. As a compliment to this enlightening session, at some now unknown and undated conference, I heard Helen Leary talk about the usefulness of the research log. These two methodologies, when used together, establish skills that allow us to excel as researchers.

To begin my discussion of these two forms, I am going to assume (don’t disappoint me here) that you have completed a research plan and that you can state your research objective. This objective must specify clearly the one person or event that you wish to learn about during your research trip, as well as the information that is presumed or has been documented either by you or your client, about that person or event. In addition, I am going to assume that you have explored which institutions and resources will be most applicable to your research and that you have a list of resources or documents to search. (If you haven’t done this preparatory work, don’t wait any longer! Do it now!)

Once you have arrived at the courthouse, archives, library, or other research institution you will want to have a research log form, either a printed one which you fill in manually, or a form on your computer. Research log forms in PDF can be found in various online locations such as the site for PBS’s Ancestors: the first series; Ancestry.com, or Bailey’s Genealogical Forms, as well as from various other companies. PDFs – unless the form developer has created a PDF that can be filled in on the computer – must be printed and completed by hand. The only source for a “fill-in” PDF research log that I have found is included in Michael Hait’s CD, The Family History Research Toolkit, Forms & Charts for Genealogical Research (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2008), and I recommend it as a quick way of completing a research log on your computer or laptop. When I have the time, however, I prefer to create a personalized form using either a Word table or an Excel spreadsheet. By doing so, I can include the column headings that are most useful to me as I research.

I have found the following elements to be useful. At the top of the form provide lines/spaces for the date, a brief statement of your research objective, the institution in which you are researching, and client name if applicable. The body of the table or spreadsheet can include call number/document number; title; bibliographic citation. Refer to Evidence!, Evidence Explained or the two Quick Sheets by Elizabeth  Shown Mills (Genealogical Publishing Co.) for correct citation formats for the resources you use. In addition, include a column for comments such as “volume 6 missing from shelf,” “no index,” “pages 40-60 missing,” etc.  Also include in your comments the years and names included in your search – all information which may prove helpful during future research on the same person or event. Include a column in which to note the information found in each source (this information may be a referral to an attached photocopy or microfilm copy (make sure you number each attachment). Make sure that you include sources in which you found nothing, as well as sources which you were unable to search because you ran out of time, the records were being microfilmed, etc. Your attention to detail in completing the log will allow you to revisit a source if you later discover new information that invites a second look. Every time I go to the Family History Library, I have one title that I check just to see if it’s reappeared since my last visit. Log comments like these will prevent you from expending research time and energy repeating previous fruitless searches.

Now that you have completed your research and have returned home – or have returned to your hotel room – it is time to turn to the research report. Drafting this report is for EVERYONE, not just for those doing client research. You will quickly see how the work you have done previously in developing your research plan and completing your research log provides you with the basis for much of the report.

Based on what I learned in that 1997 conference session, here are my suggested elements for a research reports.

• Date of the report
• The person for whom the report is being written: you if the research is personal, or your client.
• Research objective: insert information from your research plan that describes presumed or previously documented information about the one person and/or event that is the goal of the research.
• Institution(s) where the research was conducted: insert from your research log.
• Sources consulted and results: insert information from your research log. I list each source consulted, whether or not it provided useful information. I include accurate transcriptions or abstracts for each document and, when copies have been obtained, I append a numbered attachment to the research report. Please make sure that you provide a label on the attachment with its assigned number and full bibliographic citation to prevent their misplacement. Include the comments you may have noted in your research log concerning indexing, illegibility, missing pages, record copy/original, etc.
• Analysis. This section is the heart of the report and the piece of work that many genealogical researchers fail to complete. In this section you will discuss what your findings mean with regard to your research objective. You may want to attach timelines that you have developed, pedigree charts, family group sheets, etc. if they illustrate significant findings. Make sure that each attachment is numbered clearly and referred to in the text by name and number. What finds were significant and why? What research failures did you encounter? Did you find documents containing information that conflicts with previous research or presumed knowledge? If so, which information did you verify with original source documentation? Were you able to satisfy the original research objective? Whether yes or no, explain how you satisfied or did not satisfy the objective.
• Future research objective: Based on the analysis of your research, draft a research objective for continued research and include, if possible, repositories to be visited and resources to be consulted (check your research log for possible resources to include in this section). If you are writing the report for a client, you may want to include projected time and costs for the next stage in research.

Once you have completed your report and attached all pertinent documents (including your original research plan and log), file the report in a clearly marked folder, where you can retrieve it easily in the future. When research on this person or event again becomes possible, you will experience something miraculous – you will be able to find the report easily, will be able to review your previous work in detail, and will have a research plan already outlined to guide your future work. You will not have to riffle through piles of paper, you will not have to attempt to recapture your understanding of the problem, you and will not have to locate documentation that may be out of order or perhaps is unlabeled.

I hope that each of you will use these forms in your research on a regular basis. I know I will.

We all can name favorite websites to which we return repeatedly in the course of our research. Virginia Memory is one of my favorites – and not just because I live in Virginia! If you are one of the numerous researchers whose ancestral trail extends back through the decades and centuries to Virginia, I predict that this site will become one of your favorites as well – definitely worth book-marking on your computer.

The Library of Virginia (formerly the Virginia State Library and Archives) has a venerable history, beginning in 1823. In the mid-1990s, the institution became a leader in providing access to digital collections over the Internet. In 2006, library staff “came to the conclusion that our traditional Web site could no longer deliver effectively our online content; promote our services to educators, the public and government employees; guide users through our collections; and accommodate new and exciting digital materials created by the archivists, librarians, educators, and historians on our staff. We realized that increasingly our users would visit us virtually, rather than physically, and their expectations for their online visits would be influenced by and change according to the Web technologies on other sites they use every day for work, research, and entertainment.” The Library’s tudy and planning efforst resulted in the 2009 launch of Virginia Memory, a gateway to a rich array of digital collections.

Virginia Memory features four main components:

(1) Digital Collections provides access to collections of images through the Library’s online catalog, as well as through partnership programs with the Library of Congress and Archive-It. While you can view an A-to-Z list of all collections, it is more efficient to look at the topical list where the collections are arranged in several broad categories: Virginia history and culture, biography and genealogy, maps and architecture, county and city research, African American research, military service, newspapers, history of Virginia government, web archiving, photograph collections, and land office patents and grants. My quick look into these categories turned up a collection of over 3,000 photographs from the Virginia Room in the Court of States area of the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, and the S. Bassett French biographical sketches collection created between 1890 and 1897, in which I located sixteen Barclay entries. When viewing thumbnails of the photographs, I learned that I could email an image to myself (or to someone else), save it to my hard drive, or create an “eshelf” in which I could view, access and manage the images I selected during my research. Please note that if you are not registered on the site, these images will not be saved after you exit. Be sure to read the eshelf help screen for specific details.

Other digital collections include the Alan M. Voorhees map collection, with sixty-seven images dating from as early as 1493 and continuing through the American Civil War, and images of the World War I History   Commission questionnaires, that were completed by returning soldiers or their families. In the latter, I located the questionnaire of Clyde Franklin Barkley of Abingdon, Virginia, which provided his place and date of birth, his mother and father’s name, his residence before the war, his fraternal organization memberships, his war service and medical records, and more. These questionnaires, if paired with World War I draft registration cards, will provide remarkable insights into an individual soldier’s experiences in the “Great War.” Also of importance is the Virginia Digital Newspaper Project, a part of the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America site. This impressive project will complete the digitization of 300,000 pages of Virginia newspapers published between 1860 and 1922 by the end of 2010.  Finally, be sure to check out the “What’s New” and “Featured Collections” sections for continually updated information.

(2) Reading Room includes four intriguing areas to explore:

• This Day in Virginia History offers an image of a document, image or sound file for each day of the year. For example, the image for August 6th, the date of this article’s posting, illustrates downtown Danville, Virginia, in 1946 on the occasion of a primary election involving Harry Floyd Byrd, who was then seeking to be the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate.
• Virginia Chronology presents a detailed chronology of Virginia history spanning from 15,000 B.C. to approximately 2005 A.D. Detailed information is available by clicking on specific eras or individual events. If your ancestor lived in Virginia, this section will be very helpful in determining what was occurring in the commonwealth at the time of his or her residency.
• Virginiana shares an eclectic collection of short vignettes and stories discovered by Library of Virginia archivists as they preserve, arrange and study materials within the library’s archival collections. Some of my favorites include “CSI: Old Virginia” Scenes of Murder and Mayhem in the Local Government Records Collection,” and the story of “Presley Neville O’Bannon and the Marine Corps Sword.”
• Out of the Box provides an opportunity for archival staff to discuss their ongoing work in prserving and conserving the documents that are in their care. Their insights and discoveries are presented in a blog format providing you, the reader, with an opportunity to comment. A new entry is provided each week.

(3) Exhibitions. This section of Virginia Memory makes Library exhibits accessible to individuals who live far from Richmond. Currently, the featured exhibit is entitled “The Land We Live In, the Land We Left,” which runs at the Library through the end of October 2010 and features information and images about Virginia’s inhabitants from the earliest times to the present, with an emphasis on the various immigrant groups who left their mark on the commonwealth. Past exhibits are archived in this area including “Poe: Man, Myth or Monster,” “Working Out Her Destiny: Women’s History in Virginia,” and “Myth and Memory: Understanding 400 Years of Virginia History.” You can search Exhibitions either chronologically or by subject.

(4) Online Classroom is intended for an educational audience. Teachers will find ideas on how to use primary documents in the classroom as well as lesson plans in specific subject areas.

Virginia Memory is an exceptional site and is an essential research tool for anyone researching Virginia ancestors. Visit it often as content is being added continually.

If this article has whetted your appetite for Virginia research, you will also want to consult (and own!) the following titles which are among the many Virginia titles available at genealogical.com:

Early Virginia Immigrants, 1623-1666 by George C. Greer (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2008).

English Duplicates of Lost Virginia Records by Louis des Cognets Jr. (Clearfield, 2008).

Gleanings of Virginia History: An Historical and Genealogical Collection, Largely from Original Sources by William Fletcher Boogher (Clearfield, 2007).

Virginia Genealogy: Sources and Resources by Carol McGinnis (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2008).

Virginia Historical Genealogies by John Bennett Boddie (Clearfield, 2008).

Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers, 1607-1635: A Biographical Dictionary by Martha W. McCartney (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007).

I have always felt closely connected to the Civil War era. My great-grandmother, whom I remember well, was born in 1869. My living room exhibits my great-great-grandfather’s Union officer’s dress sword and a “crazy quilt” incorporating Union regimental reunion ribbons and other Civil War commemorative ribbons. Just to balance the display and represent my husband’s family’s point of view, a portrait of Robert E. Lee looks out over the quilt and the sword.

As a teenager, the Civil War was my favorite period of history, and now, as an adult and a genealogist, my earlier interest insures that the Civil War time period is my favorite research time period. I look forward to the upcoming sesquicentennial commemoration of this struggle and am sharing here some of the essential sources for researching individuals and episodes in that great conflict. Of necessity, the resources listed here represent a brief and personal selection from among a much longer list of resources. Feel free to add your own personal choices.

Understanding the War in Context

It is essential for us, as genealogists, to understand the war from as broad a prospective as possible in order to understand and analyze the records accurately in the context of the time. No single issue brought about the war, nor did any issue alone sustain the conflict. National and local debate, spanning several decades, incrementally fanned the flames and by 1860, issues of economic and social differences between the north and south, disagreements over states’ rights vs. federal rights, passionate discourse between proponents of slave states and non-slave states, the unrelenting intensity of the abolition movement, and finally Abraham Lincoln’s election itself became inextricably intertwined. Taken as a whole, they led to secession, to the outbreak of hostilities, and to a brutal conflict.

While there are many books about the antebellum years (and, I’m sure, many more being written currently), background reading might include the following titles: The Civil War: the Complete Text of the Bestselling Narrative History of the Civil War by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken and Richard Burns (Vintage, 1994); Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War by Eugenia Dunlap Potts (Forgotten Books, 2010); This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War by James M. McPherson (Oxford University Press, 2009); Battle Cry of Freedom: the Civil War Era, also by James M. McPherson (Oxford University Press, 2003); and The Women’s War in the South: Recollections and Reflections of the American Civil War edited by Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg (Cumberland House, 1999).

Did He Serve?

Probably, the most obvious question is whether or not the person you are researching served in either the Union or Confederate armies or navies. Indices and lists of names of those who served may be the first resources you will want to use in answering this question. Which ones you use will depend on how much you know about the individual. Basic resources include:

• The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System is maintained by the National Park Service. This database may be searched online and may also be consulted at battlefield park visitor centers. In conducting a search, you can enter as much as you know about the individual, including last name and first name; whether Union or Confederate service; state or country of origin; unit and function (infantry, cavalry, etc.). You can also do a surname search and receive a list of all individuals with that surname who served. A typical result will provide regiment number, rank and microfilm publication number and reel number on which the individual’s compiled military service record may be located.
• Roster of Union Soldiers, 1861-65, by Janet B. Hewett (33 volumes, Broadfoot, 1997), and Roster of Confederate Soldiers, 1861-65, also by Hewett (16 volumes, Broadfoot, 1995), provide similar information. Searching for Confederate soldiers in these volumes will prove slightly easier as the names are arranged in one alphabetical listing. The title listing Union soldiers is arranged in volumes by state. If you are unsure about your Union ancestor’s state of allegiance, you will need to check multiple volumes in order to compile a list of possible soldiers.
• If you happen to be close to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. or one of its regional branches, you can search the microfilm publications that serve as indices to the compiled service records. The caveat, once again, is that there is no comprehensive index to Union soldiers (Record Group 94) and searches must be done state-by-state. Confederate soldiers (Record Group 109) may be searched via a consolidated index to the compiled records (NARA microfilm publication M253) or, if you already know the state, in any one of the state-specific indices. The best source for determining what is available on microfilm is the National Archives’ Military Service Records: A Select Catalog of National Archives Microfilm Publications.
• Footnote.com, either through a personal subscription or your local library, provides additional index access to Civil War soldiers, both Union and Confederate.

What Did He Do in the War?

Once you have located the correct individual within a Union or Confederate unit, you will want to ascertain his actions and experiences throughout the war. Compiled military service records seldom provide specific genealogical information, but they should be read carefully to determine if they contain helpful personal information such as residence, age, physical description, place of enlistment, etc. They also afford you an opportunity to create a chronology of the individual’s movements throughout a specific time period. Footnote.com provides a wonderful opportunity to access these records efficiently and to print quality copies (no more ugly microfilm copies from worn and scratched microfilm!). If the individual died during the conflict, you may be able to determine his place of burial and cause of death. In some cases, court documents pertaining to his estate have been included. Once again, a caveat…the majority of Confederate records have been microfilmed and are being made available on Footnote. The majority of Union records were not microfilmed, but if you visit the National Archives, you can view the original carded records. Once again, however, Footnote is adding images of Union records to their site. I would recommend checking there first.

You will want to search for any pension records and analyze them carefully for pertinent genealogical detail and anecdotal information provided in the affidavits of soldiers who served with the individual applying for the pension. Remember that Union pensions are available at the National Archives; Confederate pensions are available at the individual state level. You will also find titles such as Martha and William Reamy’s Index to the Roll of Honor (Genealogical Publishing Co., currently out of print) and the various volumes of the Roll of Honor: Names of Soldiers Who Died in Defense of the American Union, Interred in the National Cemeteries (Genealogical Publishing Co.).

How Can I Create a More Detailed Account of His Service?

Once you have located the compiled military service record and created your service-related chronology, you will want to flesh out that document by using such sources as E. B. Long’s classic The Civil War Day By Day: An Almanac 1861-1865 (Da Capo Press, 1987). A new book of the same title by Phillip Katchner is due out in August of this year (which will help with my copy of Long,  which is in tatters).

A variety of other resources can yield important findings. Search any record that might pertain to the individual in question, actions in which he may have been involved, or experiences that may have been similar to those he had. Some useful titles include: August V. Kautz’s The 1865 Customs of Service for Officers of the Army and The1865 Customs of Service for Non-commissioned Officers and Soldiers (Stackpole, 2001 and 2002) which are handbooks of the duties for each rank or officer grade. Carlton McCarthy’s Detailed Minutiae of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 will provide detailed information about the life your ancestor may have lived in Confederate Service.

Detailed listings of available government military collections, both Union and Confederate, can be found in such titles as Preliminary Inventory of the War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group 109 (Iberian, 1994); The Confederacy: A Guide to the Archives of the Government of the Confederate States of America by Henry Putney Beers (NARA, 1986); The Union: A Guide to Federal Archives Relating to the Civil War by Kenneth W. Munden and Henry Putney Beers (NARA, 1986); and Inventory of the Naval Records Collection of the Office of Naval Records and Library (NARA, 2005).

Although your soldier will usually not be mentioned individually, consult the War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies for further background information and details.

Check collections of photographs, diaries, letters, and maps that may be located in an historical society or archival institution. Printed sources that will prove helpful here include collections of Brady photographs, such as Benson J. Lossing’s A History of the Civil War Illustrated with Reproductions of the Brady War Photographs… (The War Memorial Association, 1912). Other primary level details are provided in Robert Knox Sneden’s eye-witness accounts and illustrations, Eye of the Storm (Free Press, 2000) and Images from the Storm (Free Press, 2001). Research in online collections such as the Civil War maps and the Jedediah Hotchkiss Civil War maps at American Memory, and the Civil War legacy project at Virginia Memory will contribute an added dimension to your work.

Finally, be aware of the projects and activities planned for the upcoming sesquicentennial of the American Civil War. States such as Virginia, Arkansas, South Carolina, and North Carolina, among others, have websites providing such information. Not surprisingly, you can also join a Facebook page about the Civil War Sesquicentennial network.

Since its summertime, you might like to take a break from the concentration of your regular research to have some fun (after all, genealogy should be fun) and take the following genealogy quiz that first appeared in Genealogical Pointers in February of 2009. If you are a librarian, you will want to use the quiz as the basis for training your staff or in a presentation to the public.

Do you ever run across terms in genealogical documents that you don’t recognize? Or need a greater knowledge of geography to figure out where your ancestor’s records are housed? Or simply want to know more about your ancestor, such as the origin of his surname, or who his battalion mates were?

Below you’ll find a quiz to test your trivia knowledge, as well as descriptions of several books available at Genealogical.com that are filled with fascinating facts and details that will help in your research, allow you to piece together more details about your ancestor, or simply make interesting reading for all trivia lovers:

Weights, Money and Other Measures Used by Our Ancestors

100 deals of lumber equals:

1. 100 pieces
2. 120 pieces
3. 150 pieces

1 warp equals:

1. 4 fish
2. 50 fish
3. 200 fish

In measuring land areas, 1 pottle is equal to:

1. ¾ acre
2. 416 acres
3. 12 acres

Researchers who come across unfamiliar units of weight and measurement when reading books and documents need to find definitions in order to understand the document or text and apply that understanding appropriately when analyzing the effect of that document on the ancestor’s life. The above title will help you do that.

German-English Genealogical Dictionary

Lehrjunge is:

1. Feudal law
2. An apprentice
3. An inheritance tax

Erbteilung means:

1. Distribution of an estate
2. A hereditary disease
3. Probate court

Genealogy can often open up new avenues of research in foreign countries and languages. Accordingly, genealogists must become familiar with the terms used in that language for church, census and civil registrations, passenger lists and emigration records, journal entries, and correspondence. German ancestor hunters facing this problem will find this dictionary indispensable.

Our Italian Surnames

Most Italian names that start with the prefix In- or Im- are from:

1. Lombardy
2. Piedmont
3. Palermo and vicinity

Which surname is derived from the name of an insect?

1. Culicchia
2. Spinola
3. Pantanelli

Knowledge of names and naming patterns is very important in extending pedigrees. In addition to surnames alone, it is useful to know about pet names, botanical names, geographical names, bird names, insect names, occupational names and more.

Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the War of the Revolution, April 1775-December 1783

Massachusetts provided the most troops to the Continental Army. Which state provided the second most?

1. Connecticut
2. Pennsylvania
3. Virginia

If you are interested in tracing an ancestor whose age suggests military service, you will want to determine if he was in the Continental Army, the militia, or state troops. This listing of 14,000 officers includes the soldier’s rank, dates of service, when and where wounded, taken prisoner, exchanged or killed, the name of the state in which service was rendered, and a designation by company and command is invaluable.

A New Genealogical Atlas of Ireland

The smallest and most ancient of Irish land divisions is:

1. The barony
2. The townland
3. The poor law union

Which is a Parish of County Antrim?

1. Clomantagh
2. Clonduff
3. Carrickfergus

Irish research can seem difficult at first given the variety of geographic and administrative divisions that exist. A knowledge of geography is crucial to understanding in which administrative division a specific record might be located. In addition to geographical distinctions, you will need not only  a knowledge of counties, baronies, civil parishes, diocese, poor law unions, and probates, but also an awareness of the records available in the major religions denominations: Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian.

The Indian Tribes of North America

At the end of King Philip’s War, the only important tribe remaining in southern New England was:

1. The Mohegan
2. The Pequot
3. The Wampanoag

True or false:

The Cherokee language is the most aberrant form of speech of the Iroquoian linguistic family.

Not all Native American genealogical research involves the Cherokee Nation. A useful addition to any library is this definitive guide to all nations, confederations, tribes, subtribes, clans and bands. This title is formatted as a dictionary or gazetteer. Each state’s listing includes all known tribal groupings within the state and the villages in which they were located.

I hope you’ll enjoy this genealogy trivia quiz. After all, if genealogy isn’t fun, we shouldn’t be doing it!

Part Two: Records Relating to Impressed American Seamen

Last week’s article discussed seamen’s protection certificates, first authorized by a Congressional act (1 Stat.477) in 1796. These documents were intended to protect an individual from being “pressed” into service, principally into the British Navy, but occasionally by French or Spanish vessels, by documenting his American citizenship. Some mariners either did not obtain a protection certificate or the certificate did not achieve its intended goal, and as a result were pressed into service against their will. Three years later, in 1799, the problem continued to plague shipping and Congress passed an additional law (1 Stat. 731) to track and repatriate impressed seamen.

Taken together, these statutes authorized inquiry “into the situation of such American citizens or others sailing, conformably to the law of nations, under the protection of the American flag, [who are] impressed or obtained by any foreign power, to endeavor, by all legal means, to obtain the release of such American citizens or others…” If such action occurred in a foreign port, masters of sailing vessels were expected to protest the action to the American consul. If the action occurred at sea, the master was to report the episode to the Collector of Customs at the first American port in which the vessel arrived. The captain was also required to transmit a copy of his protest directly to the Secretary of State, containing information about the manner of impressments or detention and by whom the action was taken, as well as the name and residence of the individual who had been impressed or detained. The report would also indicate whether or not the individual was an American citizen, and if not, to what country he belonged. The customs collector was required to submit a periodic report, also to the Secretary of State, who in turn was required to submit an annual report to Congress including abstracts of the reports received concerning impressments. Statistical summaries reveal the extent of the impressment problem:

For the period 11 March 1803 through 31 August 1804, 1,538 applications for release were made to the British government in cases of impressed Americans. Of those, 306 were duplicates, 373 were refused discharge as the individuals had no documentation, 437 were ordered discharged, 105 were not found on board the specified ships, 120 refused to be discharged as they had taken bounty or entered British service, 17 had married in England, 13 had deserted, and 2 had drowned or died. Six appeared not to have been impressed, 6 were lost when their ships sank, 88 had protections from consuls or vice consuls, 49 refused discharge as they were said to be British subjects, and 2 were prisoners of war.

Here are a few examples taken from NARA microfilm publication M1839, “Miscellaneous Lists and Papers Regarding Impressed Seamen, 1796-1814”? (Record Group 59):

• 23 January 1797 [date of protest]; Ship Independence out of New London, Connecticut; Master Ichabod Goodrich. Impressed, 22 January 1797: James and Alexander Anderson, William Gray, Ezekiel Holding and Simon Hubal, all of Connecticut, by the British Ship of War Ceres. In the column titled “whether they had protection,” was written “it does not appear.”

• 10 February 1797 [date of protest]; Sloop Polly & Betsy out of Providence, Rhode Island; Master Benjamin E. Gorton. Detained Simon Humphrey, John Armington, William Holdridge, Matthew Allen, all of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, impressed by French privateer, name unknown, taken and carried to Basseterre [St. Kitts] 1 November 1796, put in prison and detained until 8^th; all had protections.

• Joseph Bailey, protection [certificate] from Joseph Huler, Collector of Salem No. 2233, on board the British ship La Franchise, 2 April 1804.

• Affidavit of Robert Stanley, master of the Schooner Adelaide of Baltimore, dated Baltimore, 1 June 1796 “in a voyage from [  ] the said schooner was captured by the British ship of war Argonaut, Capt. Ball, and sent to Jamaica.”? On making the capture all the men were taken out of the schooner, but were restored at Jamaica. Whilst she continued at Jamaica, Samuel Brown and Joseph Richards, both natives, and William Jones, a citizen of the United States, were impressed by the British Ship of War Jamaica, Capt. Bingham, but they were afterwards restored.

These abstracts are useful for genealogical purposes, providing place of origin, frequently indicating a wife and/or number of children and where they resided, as well as whether the individual had a protection certificate.

• John Gynett [Gunell?] has a certificate of his marriage 15 June 1804 by Reverend John C. Punze [?] Protestant minister at New York.

• William McDonald pressed from ship Charles Cutter of Norfolk, protection 8 October 1804, White Plains, New York, born in 1777.

• William Cox, “a native of Amsterdam, came to America when a child with his Parents has been twice married in Philadelphia and has three children living. He was Impressed at Jeremie by his Majesty’s ship Scorpion, but has since been turned over to the Dictator where he is now detained.”

• William Clark, a “native of New York and a citizen of the United States has been impressed and is now supposed to be detained on board the Leviathan. Said William is the son of Richard Clark of New York, by trade a beggar.”

These abstracts can also be rich in anecdotal information. Here’s one of my favorite entries:

• Edward Lennord, a “Citizen of the United States and a native of New [York?], was impressed from on board an American Sloop the Salley, Joseph Taylor Mastor [sic] by one of His Majesty’s Ships of War, her name unknown and the officer commanding the impress boat refused to give the information. Said Taylor had a protection, but on producing it to the officer, he [the officer] tore it in pieces and then threw then over board in the presence of the Master of the Sally.”

If your ancestor was a seaman named George Warren from Dorset, you would be delighted to find the following deposition:

“George Warren, now on board H.M.S. Royal William at Spithead, having been impressed at Poole by the Press Gang there on his oath saith That he was born in Wimborn in Dorsetshire, and is now about 24 years of age. That he was employed by different farmers in the neighbourhood of Wimborn until he was about 10 or 11 years of age; that he was the apprentice to a gentleman at the Island of Jersey as a servant until he should attain the age of 21 years; but left the employ in about a year and a half after he was apprenticed and shipped himself on board an American merchant ship called the Mentor commanded by Richard Patrick, then at Jersey, and sailed in her to Marblehead in the state of Massachusetts in North America, and on her arrival there bound himself as an apprentice to the said Richard Patrick for the term of five years to serve at Sea, being then about 13 years of age, that he served out his apprenticeship in the Mentor and made a variety of voyages to France, Spain and the West Indies; That after his apprenticeship expired, being then about 18 years of age, he sailed from Marblehead in the Schooners Mary, Friendship, and the Three Sons in similar voyages until the Embargo in North America was laid on, and then staid [sic] on shore at Marblehead for about 14 months; that he married a native of Marblehead; that after the Embargo was taken off on March 16 (but the year he does not recollect) he sailed in the American Merchant Ship Eliza, from Salem to Gibralter [sic] and returned to Salem; That he then proceeded to New York and shipped on board the American Merchant Brig Ann, and sailed in her to Greenock in Scotland and returned to New York and then made a voyage in the American Merchant Ship Ores to Liverpool and back to New York and about the month of February 1811 he entered at the Rendezvous at New York for the American Frigate Constitution and received 20 dollars bounty and joined her in New London in the State of Connecticut in North America in the month of March last; that she sailed from thence shortly afterwards and proceeded to Boston, and thence to Annapolis, and left America about the 5^th of August last; and arrived at Cherburg in France, and sailed from thence after staying about four days, to the Downs and from thence to the Texel and returned to Cherburg and after staying a week or fortnight, then came to Spitalhead at the Port of Portsmouth. That about 8 or 9 weeks since which he believes was about the 16^th or 17^th of November last, he deserted from the boat of Constitution at Portsmouth point, together with another Seaman of the name of William Smith, who is now on board the Royal William and is an Amen Englishman as he was informed by him, that he immediately went to Wimborn to his mother and afterward shipped at Pool in a Brig belonging to M. Garland of that place called Hope, and was impressed from her. That he does not know that any of the crew of the Constitution were British subjects except the said William Smith, never having heard any of them say that they were so. That he had a protection as a Citizen of the United States of North America, which he delivered to M. Wadsworth, the third lieutenant of the Constitution. Sworn at Portsmouth, 22 January 1811.

Further reading reveals that William Smith was really John Taylor, born in Colnbrook near Windsor in the year 1789, the son of George Taylor.

Similar records can also be found in NARA microfilm publications M2025, “Registers of Applications for the Release of Impressed Seamen, 1793-1802 and Related Indexes,” Roll 6 of M588, “War of 1812 Papers” of the Department of State, 1789-1815.” Textual records involving impressed seamen are housed at the National Archives at College Park in Record Group 59.

Records pertaining to seamen’s protection certificates and to impressed seamen may fall outside of the usual research scope of many genealogists. Diligence in searching out such records, however, can provide valuable information in the form of clues, such as Willliam Clark’s three marriages in Philadelphia or William McDonald’s birth date in 1777, and may provide historical context for a life at sea as in the story provided to authorities by George Warren. If you have a sea-going ancestor in this time period, these records are an essential resource for your family research.

Part 1: Seamen’s Protection Certificates

Between the end of May and the beginning of July, Americans observe two holidays, Memorial Day and Independence Day, that celebrate generations of statesmen, soldiers, sailors, militia men, merchant seamen, and others who helped form and preserve this nation. When we celebrate Independence Day, we are not only commemorating the birth of our nation, as represented by the Declaration of Independence, but we are also celebrating the outcomes of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Both of these events represent periods in our history when the future of the new nation was in real danger.

Even after the close of the Revolutionary War, Great Britain did not let its former subjects in the colonies go easily. None, perhaps, were more in danger than those who followed the sea, venturing into the oceans where Britannia clearly ruled the waves. With its active European military campaigns, blockades of foreign ports, and a need to control its wide-spread empire, Britain was in constant need of manpower for the Royal Navy. One frequently employed method of acquiring sailors was the press gang whose members habituated pubs and brothels in Britain, rounding up deserters and innocent citizens alike. Not content with preying solely on British subjects, these gangs began to “press” seamen from neutral commercial vessels, including American ships. In addition, ships of the Royal Navy began to stop these neutral ships while at sea in order to inspect crew lists and remove individuals whom they considered to be British subjects.

American ship captains appealed such seizures to their government. As a result on 28 May 1796, an Act for the Relief and Protection of American Seamen (1 Stat. 477) was passed by Congress, establishing procedures for the issuance of certificates of citizenship. The Collector of Customs at an individual port of entry would issue these certificates to merchant seamen and masters of merchant vessels engaged in foreign trade. The intent was to document a seaman’s American citizenship and thus prevent his detention or impressment into the Royal Navy. An application for the “protection” certificate cost $.25 and was entirely voluntary. The certificate itself was issued only after the individual provided proof of citizenship. The Collector did not retain a copy of the application itself, but did keep copies of the proofs provided and did record the issuance of the certificate. He also provided regular reports to the Department of State listing all of the seamen he had registered under the act during the previous quarter. As time passed, the need for protection certificates was reduced significantly and few if any were issued between 1875 and the beginning of the First World War when, in 1917, seamen once again felt a need to prove their citizenship. National Archives Record Group 36, Records of the United States Customs Service, includes seamen’s protection certificate files from 1796 to 1869. (Records for those issued between 1917 and 1940 can be found in Record Group 41, Records of the Bureau of Marine Inspection and Navigation.)

National Archives Microfilm Publications M1826 (Port of New Orleans), M1825 (Ports of Bath Maine and Portsmouth, New Hampshire), and M1880 (Port of Philadelphia) include “Proofs of Citizenship Used to Apply for Seamen’s Protection Certificates.” Inclusive years vary for the various ports. The majority of these declarations, arranged chronologically by year and then by the number assigned by the Collector, were most frequently recorded on printed forms. These forms disclose the number assigned by the Customs Collector, the name of the witness, the name of the seaman, his age, place of birth, residence at the time of the declaration, port and date of declaration, height, hair color, eye color, and complexion (ruddy, white, brown).

For a genealogist, these declarations can provide a treasure trove of information often unavailable elsewhere. Here are a few examples:

• On 30 September 1817, Manuel Gonzales appeared before Philip Pedesceaux, N.P., to attest that he had been an inhabitant of the Province of New Orleans since 1810. He indicated further that he was a native of Briana[o], Portugal and was 36 years old with dark hair, dark eyes, and a dark complexion. He stood 5’4” tall and signed the document with his mark. Joseph Fereyra and Joaquim Lozano witnessed his application. (M1826, reel
• On 6 January 1818, John Allan [Allan], seaman, appeared before Carlisle Pollock, Esquire, N.P. to attest that he was a native of Philadelphia and a citizen of the United States. He was 24 years of age, stood 5’3”, and had black eyes, black hair, and black complexion. He signed his application with his mark and the document was witnessed by Nicholas Marchand. (M1826, reel
• On 7 January 1818, William C. C. Claiborne, Governor of the Territory of New Orleans, certified that the oath of allegiance had been “duly administered to Etienne Augustine, a free man of color on 4 January 1811.” Augustine then attested before Narcissas Broutine, N.P., that he was a native of the city of St. Nicholas (St. Domingue), but had been a citizen of “this place” previous to       30 April 1803 (the date of the cessation of the Louisiana Purchase to the United States) and was still a resident in 1811. He was 5’10”, had black hair, blue eyes and a “honey” complexion and signed his own name to the document. Witnesses, described as “two additional freemen of color,” were Lewis Daunoy and Lewis Simon. (M1826, reel 5)
• On 16 January 1848, James Turner, described as “small in comparison,” applied for a certificate in Bath, Maine. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and described as aged 25, standing 5’ 3¼”, and was an African with “wooley” hair and black eyes. (M1825, reel 2).

National Archives Microfilm Publication M2003 provides access to the “Quarterly Abstracts of Seaman’s Protection Certificates for New York City (1815-1859),” although some quarters do not have extant abstracts. These records include the certificate number and its date, the seaman’s age, height (or description of stature), complexion (often noted as only light or dark), nativity, state, and remarks such as “naturalized.” In later years, hair color was added as a descriptor. A review of one page of abstracts finds seamen with a variety of places of birth including Massachusetts, Maine, South Carolina, New York, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. An interesting example was found in the third quarter of 1862: Abbot Kinsman’s certificate, issued on 9 August 1862, listed his age as 17, his height as 5’8”. He had dark hair and a dark complexion. He was born in China of American parents. If your ancestor was Abbot Kinsman and you had been searching in vain for his place of birth, this record would be invaluable to advancing your research.

It will be important for you to check as many extant records as possible regardless of the indicated port. I found that in smaller ports such as Bath, Maine, the applications tended to be from seamen from the immediate region (and perhaps neighboring states). In large ports such as New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia, seamen’s places of origin spanned a large American and European geographical landscape. In particular, these records represent an important source of documentation for African Americans.

While I chose to do my research for this article by using microfilmed records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., you can also access seaman’s protection certificate information online. If you are in the Archives building, you can search for them on the Archival Research Catalog (ARC).

If you are working from home or your local library, consider the important site is provided by Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. This site provides access to a “Seamen’s Protection Certificate Register Database” including approximately 31, 047 certificates issued by the Customs Collectors in Fall River, Gloucester, New Haven, and New Salem. These ports were not included in the microfilm collection at the National Archives, but the originals are held by NARA’s Northeast Region in Waltham, Massachusetts. By searching this database I was able to locate certificate information for my 4^th great-grandfather, Oliver Lanfair [Lanfare] of Branford, Connecticut, who at age 22 was issued certificate #1452 on 2 March 1804 in the port of New Haven. Ten years later, his older brother, Horace, was issued certificate #1 on 23 March 1814. Even more satisfying, was my discovery of Oliver’s grandson (and my 3^rd great-granduncle), Aaron S. Lanfair’s certificate #46 issued in Newhaven on 13 March 1840, when he was 15 years old. While I had known through my research that the Lanfairs were spice merchants sailing out of Branford and New Haven, I had not looked for their protection certificates previously. Needless to say, I plan to correspond with the NARA Northeast Region to request copies of these three documents.

Information pertaining to certificates are also available on ancestry.com which provides two online databases: “Indexes to Seamen’s Protection Certificate Applications and Proofs of Citizenship,” from original data published in Ruth Priest Dixon’s Indexes to Seamen’s Protection Certificate Applications and Proofs of Citizenship (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1998), and “Register of Seamen’s Protection Certificates from the Providence, Rhode Island Customs District, 1796-1870,” from original data published in the Rhode Island Historical Society’s book by the same title, published by Genealogical Publishing Company in 1995. Dixon’s title includes the ports of New Orleans; New Haven; Bath, Maine; Mobile, Alabama; Middletown, Connecticut; Alexandria, District of Columbia [Virginia]; Newport, Rhode Island; Rockland, Maine; Salem, Massachusetts; New Bedford, Massachusetts; Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and New London, Connecticut.

You may also want to consult some of the print sources that are available:

Although Ruth Priest Dixon’s Index to Seamen’s Protection Certificate Applications and Proofs of Citizenship, Ports of New Orleans, LA; New Haven, CT; and Bath ME… as well as her Index to Seamen are both out of print, you can search the Genealogical Publishing Company’s website for either title, and by selecting “Notify Me,” you will receive an e-mail when they return to print later this year. A third Dixon title, Index to Seamen with Supplement 1796-1861 is currently available (Clearfield, 2001). In addition, Ms. Dixon’s research materials are open for research at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Other resources include a dissertation, in manuscript form at the Rhode Island Historical Society, by Jeremiah Olney and others entitled United States Customs House (Providence, R.I.) Records, and Maureen Taylor’s Register of Seamen’s Protection Certificates from the Providence, Rhode Island Custom District, 1796-1870…” (Clearfield, 2008).

Next week’s blog article will continue this topic with a review of the records pertaining to impressed seamen.

I began writing articles for this blog in January 2008 and it’s hard to imagine that almost 130 articles have been posted between then and now. In that inaugural article I discussed the small world of the 1600s and mentioned how Stephen Hopkins, a passenger on the ill-fated Sea Venture, en route to Virginia with much needed supplies, was shipwrecked off Bermuda in 1609. Hopkins, although he finally arrived in Jamestown in 1610, returned to England two years later, and was a passenger on the Mayflower, landing at Plymouth in 1620.

I did not think about this Virginia/Bermuda connection until May of this year when my husband and I took our first cruise, choosing Bermuda as our destination. On the last day of our stay in Hamilton, I (of course) sought out the local bookstore and, while I found very few genealogical titles, I did buy Lorri Glover and Daniel Blake Smith’s The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: the Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America (Henry Holt, 2008). The title reminded me of my first blog article and prompted me to want to learn more about this island connection.

James VI of Scotland and I of England issued three sets of letters patent (1606, 1609, and 1612) for exploration and settlement of the eastern cost of North America in order to prevent or reduce Spanish, Dutch,  and French colonization efforts. The first charter (10 April 1606) specifically mentioned the names of Sir Thomas Gates and Sir George Somers and resulted in the establishment of Jamestown. The second charter (23 May 23 1609) added merchants to the earlier group of investors. These merchants were interested in keeping Atlantic shipping lanes free from a Spanish/Portuguese monopoly.

It was under this second patent that Sir George Somers was named Admiral of the Virginia Company’s nine-vessel third supply relief fleet (the Diamond, the Blessing, the Falcon, the Unitie, the Lion, the Swallow, the Catch, and the Sea Venture) that sailed from London, with a stop at Plymouth for supplies and additional settlers for Jamestown. Somers’ ship was the newly-built Sea Venture. The ships had reached the Azores by late July 1609 when on the 25^th, a strong hurricane struck, lasting for several days. The ships of the fleet were separated, and the Sea Venture was blown hundreds of miles off course. Miraculously, it wrecked on the reefs of modern-day Bermuda’s Discovery Bay and those aboard gained the shore with no loss of life. Among these individuals was not only Sir George Somers, but also Governor-Elect of the Virginia Colony, Sir Thomas Gates, Christopher Newport, and John Rolfe. They named the island “Virgineola,” in honor of the former Queen, Elizabeth I. Later, the King, perhaps not too well-disposed toward the Queen responsible for his mother’s execution, sought a more fitting name. In honor of the bravery and leadership of Sir George Somers, the islands became known as Somers Isles. Word of their safe landing would not be known immediately, although seven of the original nine vessels would reach Virginia in August of 1609. The story  of the perilous voyage of the Sea Venture would later provide Shakespeare with the basis for his play, The Tempest.

Stranded on the Somers Isles, the passengers, over the next ten months, set about insuring their ability to reach Jamestown. William Strachey’s diary recorded the details of their lives while they built the thirty-ton Patience and the eighty-ton Deliverance, using pieces salvaged from the Sea Venture as well as local cedar. They also built St. Peter’s Church in St. George’s Parish. Finally in May 1610, 142 survivors sailed from Bermuda headed for Jamestown, with several individuals volunteering to stay behind. Their arrival there, after a ten day voyage, was fortuitous for the Jamestown settlers whose numbers had been reduced to a mere sixty (down from 490) individuals due in large part to sickness and famine. The settlers had decided to abandon the colony, but the supplies that arrived on Somers’ ships meant that the settlement could continue to survive, at least temporarily. Some of the food brought from Bermuda was new to Virginia and included hogs as well as the first onion fig, and olive plants. In any case, the Jamestown colony was saved by the arrival of the Patience and the Deliverance.

Jamestown’s viability was not assured and in June, just one month later, with food again running short, settlers once again decided to abandon Jamestown. As they were leaving, however, they met ships, under the command of Lord de la Ware, bringing supplies enough for at least another month. Somers volunteered to return to Bermuda to collect additional food and fish. He arrived safely, but died on           9 November 1610. He left instructions for his nephew to remove his heart and bury it in Bermuda and to then return his body to Virginia. Instead, after burying his uncle’s heart as requested, he returned the body to Somers’s birthplace of Lyme Regis, Dorset, where he was buried in 1611.

King James’ third charter (25 March 1612) extended the boundaries of Virginia to include “the bermoodies.” The islands that make up Bermuda today, while retaining the Somers Isles as their alternate name, would later be named after the Spanish captain, Juan de Bermudez, who first sighted them in 1503.

Although Bermuda became a British colony in 1684, it would continue to play an important role in United States history. During the American Revolution, the islands, dependent on food from the American colonies, fell under the Continental Congress’s embargo on trade with Britain and its loyal colonies. To insure that they were able to continue receiving their food shipments, a group of Bermuda citizens stole gunpowder and sold it to the Americans and, as a result, the embargo was lifted. During the Civil War, Bermudians ferried supplies and munitions to the Confederates, often providing “safe harbors” for blockade runners. In early 1940, the United States leased a large portion of the island in order to construct military installations. This relationship would continue until the mid-1990s, when both America and the British closed their bases on the islands.

In addition to The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown, mentioned earlier, Julia E. Mercer’s Bermuda Settlers of the 17^th Century: Genealogical Notes from Bermuda (1982, Clearfield, 2008) helps illustrate the island’s connection to America. These notes were originally published in Tyler’s Quarterly between 1942 and 1947, and represent the earliest known records of Bermuda settlers. As such they are a useful supplement to Hotten’s Original Lists of Persons of Quality (1874, Clearfield, 2007) and Martha W. McCartney’s more recent Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers 1607-1635: A Biographical Dictionary.

A variety of other sources will assist you in researching Bermuda genealogy:

Bermuda Index, 1784-1914, an Index of Births, Marriages and Deaths as Recorded in Bermuda Newspapers by C. F. E. Hollis Hallett (Juniperhill Press, 1989).

Bermuda Past and Present: A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Somers Islands by Walter Brownell Hayward, (Dodd, Mead, 1912).

Civil Records of Bermuda under the Somers Island Company 1612-1684 by A. C. Hollis Hallett (Juniperhill Press, 2004-5).

Early Bermuda Records, 1619-1826: A Guide to the Parish and Clergy Registers… by A. C. Hollis Hallett (Juniperhill Press, 1991).

Early Bermuda Wills, 1629-1835 by C. F. E. Hollis Hallett (1993, out of print).

Nineteenth Century Church Registers of Bermuda by A. C. Hollis Hallett (Juniperhill Press, 2005).

Nineteenth Century Bermuda Wills, 1835-1913 by C. F. E. Hollis Hallett (Juniperhill Press, 1993).

Sea Venture: Shipwreck, Survival, and the Salvation of the First English Colony in the New World by Kieran Doherty (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2008).

Online sources:

• Bermuda National Library

• Bermuda Genealogy and History

In addition to the Bermuda connection, you may also want to research connections to the Bahamas and Barbados in the following:

• Early Settlers of the Bahamas and Colonists of North America by A. Talbot Bethell (3^rd rev. ed., 1937, Clearfield, 2007).

• English Settlers in Barbados [on CD] (Genealogical Publishing Co. 1999).

• Tracing Ancestors in Barbados: A Practical Guide by Geraldine Lane (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2007).