Non Family Sources

In the current Independent Study class I am taking, I came across this list of "nonfamily" Sources which I thought would be a good thing to save for future reference.

Community Records

• Published histories of the community, county, and state
• Published biographies of people living when our people lived
• School yearbooks and newspapers
• Photographs of community events, places, and people
• Old phone books
• Old city directories
• Maps for the time period
• Unpublished life stories, diaries, letter collections

Local Government Records

• Special censuses
• Annual property tax records
• Deed books for land sales and purchases
• School records
• City and county council or commission minutes
• City and county courts (wills, citizenship, lawsuits, divorces, adoptions)
• Official birth, marriage, and death records
• Cemetery sexton’s records
• Wills, probates of estates

State and Federal Government Records

• Federal censuses every ten years
• State censuses
• Elections and voting
• Maps
• Land purchases, such as homesteading
• Citizenship and naturalization
• Ship arrival passenger lists
• Passports, visas
• Military service, pension applications
• National Guard
• Law and statute books for the period
• Business licenses
• Records of government employees
• Social welfare agencies for deaf, blind, mentally ill
• Prisons
• Federal and state courts
• Native American reservations
• Natural resource usage (mining, road building, irrigation projects, land zoning)

Organizational Records

• Private schools, colleges
• Hospitals, medical
• Employers, companies, businesses
• Labor unions
• Business organizations and associations: chambers of commerce, rotary, Kiwanis, cattlemen or livestock, farmers, transportation, water users, builders, medical
• Fraternity orders and women’s auxiliaries (Masonic Order, Elks, Eagles, IOOF, Knights of Pythias, etc.)

Special Interest Groups

• PTA, Grange, 4-H clubs, Ladies Literary Clubs, dancing or recreational clubs, history and genealogy
• Societies, boat owners’ associations, pilots’ associations, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Demolays

Church and Religious Organizations

• Published histories of nations, state, local units
• Lists of members
• Employee files (including ministers)
• Vital records—birth, baptism, confirmation, marriage, death
• Newsletters, printed programs
• Minister’s diaries
• Missionary service
• Photographs of local people, buildings, and events
• Teachings and doctrinal positions at various points in time
• Minute books, donation records, conduct hearings
• Religious orders

Personal Unpublished Records of Our People’s Contemporaries and Associates

• (These are usually in the hands of descendants, but some records are in local libraries and historical societies.)
• Autobiographical accounts
• Biographies written by relatives
• Diaries, journals
• Old letters
• Photographs
• Business records, property transactions

What to Look For

When researching in these nonfamily records, we are looking for two kinds of information:

1. Mention of specific members of our family—birth, wedding, death notices, obituaries, anniversaries, properties, community involvements, etc.
2. Time-and-place details about their current events, local customs, personalities, amusements, economics, and beliefs—even if your people are never mentioned

genealogy blog to check out

http://finding-forgotten-stories.com/2012/08/04/sorting-saturday-making-sense-out-of-the-mess-or-sources-matter/

Photo Scanning Tips

The following ideas are taken from the article "Yes, You Scan!" by Rick Crume  published in the  Jan/Feb 2013 issue of Family Tree Magazine

1. Equipment
1. computer, scanner and cloud storage or external hard drive
1. Multifunction printers do not perform as well on photos as standalone scanners do
2. Free photo programs Picasa.google.com and windows Photo Gallery
2. Preparation
1. Wear white cotton gloves or wash hands with soup, rinse and dry well and only handle edges of photos
2. Remove staples, paper clips, rubber bands etc from photos
3. Keep photo collections together and in order to help with identification
4. Keep scanner glass clean - spray cleaner on lint-free towel and then wipe the glass
5. Use soft brush to remove dust from each photo before scanning
3. Scanner Settings
1. Color - scan in color not grayscale even for black and white or sepia photos
1. This gives more options when editing
2. Resolution: - 300 dpi for reprinting same size as original
1. scan small prints at 1,200 dpi and large at 800 dpi
1. Higher resolutions take longer and require more storage
3. File Format - Uncompressed TIFF or optimal quality
1. retain more detail than JPEG and require more storage space will not degrade each time to save as a jpeg will.
2. To edit a JPEG file, save i n TIFF as the original unedited copy
4. Scanning
1. Advanced mode allows you to change the dpi
2. Do rough scan to see if anything needs to be changed
3. Image setting allows for corrections such as removing dust, adjusting color balance, brightness/contrast and tone.
1. Faded picture - increase the contrast
2. Scan back to pick up any written information
5. Label and Editing
1. label with "tags" and captions
2. Edit a copy not the original image
3. Back up work
6. Slides - can get adapters to scanners to do slides

Preserving Photographs part 2

1. Duplicate Images
1. Make extra prints and digital copies of photographs
1. Black and White Photo prints will outlast digital copies so do not pitch them
2. Each successive copy loses quality so only make 1st generation copies
2. Film is less stable so print up the negatives or slides and digitize them
3. To keep digital files long term scan as uncompressed TIFF files not JPG
1. JPG files lose information every time they are changed or resaved
2. To edit, crop or change, work from a copy
4. Back up digital files 
1. 3-2-1 - three copies, two different kinds of storage technology and one more location
1. Try and external hard drive and in the cloud such as Picasa or flickr
5. Keep up to date with the current storage method so the photos will not be lost.
1. I can not read anything stored on a floppy disk today!
2. Preserve and Store
1. Stand up photos, unsleeved but organized in an archival photo box which is acid free and lignin-free.  If stacking get boxes with reinforced corners.
1. www.archivalmethods.com
2. www.hollingermetaledge.com
2. Do not do air tight containers.  They need and air flow, something breathable
3. Beware of "photo safe" or "archival" labels.  Make sure acid and lignin free
4. Dyed boxes are risky - color could leach
5. Place valuable or fragile originals in individual photo sleeves made of archival polyester that is chemically inert.
1. These are expensive - can substitute polypropylene sleeves
6. Archival albums - 
1. album pages should be archival paper: acid-free, lignin-free and preferably buffered to slow acid migration
2. Page protectors - polypropylene
3. Album covers - buckram fabric, leather, bonded leather and leatherette no vinyl covers
7. Store on a main level in the house where the temperature is steady
8. Do not frame originals but high quality copies instead
9. Damage from sunlight, and acid are permanent to photos

Preserving Photographs Part 1

I just received my newest Family Tree magazine.  (January/February 2013)
I am excited about an article by Sunny Jane Morton about Photo Preservation and an article about scanning photos by rick Crume.  I have a whole bunch of Peterson photos to scan.  I have been waiting to do the scanning until I bought a flip pal scanner but that plan didn't work out.  So I think with the information by Rick I will be able to scan them well enough into my printer.  I want a way to easily access this information again so I decided to take notes from the articles and record them here for my future reference.

Photo Intervention and Preservation:

1. Storage
1. wear white cotton gloves when handling photos
2. Do not store in acidic paper environments such as cardboard boxes, book pages, with newspaper clippings or other papers, photo frames, magnetic albums, remove adhesive tape from photos
3. Resource - Sally Jacobs, the Practical Archivist -http://practicalarchivist.com/
1. sales a photo rescue kit for $25 
2. Offers a class for $25
2. Cull, label and organize
1. Select those to save - do not save everything - save the most meaningful
2. Save old and rare photos
3. Label the photos
1. Use a extra soft #1 pencil to label the back with names, dates, locations and story behind the photo
4. Make a spreadsheet and give each photo a number.  Use the same number if you scan and digitize the photo
1. On spreadsheet include columns for date taken, provenance (chain of ownership), names of individuals pictured, location and story behind the picture
5. Organize the photos
1. Consider organizing chronologically.  If date is unknown guess the decade
1. To guess the decade go to identification tips by Maureen A. Taylor's Photo Detective blog at familytreemagazine.com/blog

Getting ready for my presentation

I am looking for free clip art for Genealogy and Family History.  I found a site that sees to be older and I was able to look at  through some sort of archive site.  Even though, I didn't find any clip art for my current project, I did like some of the clip art and want to remember where it is.  So here is the link:

http://web.archive.org/web/20081003213037/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/7923/

Books and Information on Education in England

 As I am reading chapter 19 Education  in my text book Ancestral Trail: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History  by Mark Herber, I am pulling out books and sources to check for more information on education as several of the Litchfield grandchildren were listed as scholars on the census records.  It would be interesting to understand what those schools were actually like and perhaps find the local schools that they attended

• For a detailed survey of British education and relevant records check The growth of British education and its records by Colin R Chapman,  Lochin Publishing, 2 nd edition, 1992 [Family History LIbrary book 942 J2cr].
•  Colin R. Chapman, Using Education Records (Federation of Family History Societies, 1999)
  [Adapted from Anthony Camp's article 'Schools and their records: Part 2' in Practical Family History (UK), no. 68 (August 2003) pages 8-10.
• Administration of the education system since the 19th century is described by P Ridon in Record sources for local history,  Baston 1987
• For the lives of 19th and 20th Century school children check out The Victorian and Edwardian schoolchild  by P Horn, Sutton 1989
• Information on Victorian Schools can be found in The Victorian Schoolroom by T May, Shire 1994
• For a list of older schools indexed by county try The Local Historian's Encyclopedia  by J Richardson,  Historical Publications 3rd edn 2003
• For a list of school registers of Britain through 1963 check Registers of the universities, colleges and schools of Great Britain and Ireland  by PM Jacobs, Athlone Press for the IHR 1964
• Great on-line source for Education in Britain https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/England_Schools
  

General Education Information:

• 1870 - Elementary Education Act divided England and Wales into school districts with elected school boards who were to establish schools at the public's expense.  Poor children often excluded
•  1876 & 1880 Acts - prohibited the child labor for children under 10 and children up to 13 were required to attend school
• 1880 - Beginning of school administration records
• 1891 - Additional government funding allowed for free elementary school to all children
• 1902 - schools taken over by the local educational authority

To find the local school - check a directory of the area, County Record Office Catalogues, County histories and old town maps might help locate a local school.  Look for a published school history.  Family History Societies might have school information.

School Records in Family History Library 

The school records held by the Family History Library are found in the Place Search of the Library Catalog under one of the following:
ENGLAND - SCHOOLS
ENGLAND, [COUNTY] - SCHOOLS
ENGLAND, [COUNTY], [PARISH] - SCHOOLS
See also Lance Jacob, Register of English school, college, and university registers housed in the collection of the Genealogical Society of Utah as of April 1981 [Family History LIbrary typescript 942 J24c].