I'm looking forward to participating as a panelist at this event, along with Ressie Luck, Renate Yarborough-Sanders, and Char McCargo Bah today in Alexandria, Virginia.

Travel Tuesday: Plans to Visit the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Reading Room

“Travel Tuesday”  is a daily blogging prompt listed on the site of Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers. This blog topic was suggested by Susan Donaldson of Family History Fun. The “Travel Tuesday” daily blog prompt is described as follows:

Do you have images, quotes or stories about trips your ancestors or family took during their lives? Or have to ventured out on travels to your ancestral homeland as part of your genealogy research?

MY “TRAVEL TUESDAY” BLOG PLANS

This blog prompt has given me quite a few ideas about genealogy travel. In addition to the ideas mentioned above, I plan to write “Travel Tuesday” blog postings about "plans for future trips and reports on activities of the actual trip to research repositories and historic sites, both local and distant." I am fortunate to live within driving distance from numerous research repositories and historical sites which I believe will be of interest to the genealogy community. I also hope that writing about my future genealogy travel plans will keep me more focused when I get the opportunity to visit these places.

PLANS FOR VISITING THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

I will begin my first “Travel Tuesday” blog posting with writing up plans to visit the Library of Congress in Washington, DC sometime in the near future. I can either drive or take the train. 

In preparation for this visit, I decided to research this library via YouTube and the Library of Congress website. As a result of this research, I would like to do the following during my visit:

1. Take the hour long tour.
2. Obtain a LOC library card.
3. Browse the subscription databases which are only available for use at the library.
4. Spend time in the Reading room. I am interested in looking at books on “Rush County, Indiana history”, “Leavenworth, Kansas history”, and “United States Color Troops.”

I plan to blog about my visit and hope that this will help other genealogists who visit the Library of Congress in the future.

For additional information about the Library of Congress, see links and videos below:

• Library of Congress Online Catalog, https://catalog.loc.gov/
• Visitor’s Guide, https://www.loc.gov/portals/static/visit/documents/Visitors-Guide.pdf

How to Find Stuff at the Largest Library in the World

The Main Reading Room of the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress Is Your Library

Inside the Library of Congress

Sacred Sunday: Easter Fashions of the Past

(Left to right) Sister Odell Hayes and my Grandmother, Emma Johnson Thornton
Newport News, Virginia, Photo taken during 1950s

Today, I'm making a commitment to begin blogging again. One of the series I began in 2008 was called "Sacred Sunday" which highlights religious and church history and traditions.

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This is one of my favorite photos of my maternal grandmother, Emma Johnson Thornton (1922-2011) because it represents Easter fashions of the past when women wore hats and gloves to church.  The lady on the left was Sister Odell Hayes (1926-1994) who was a member of my family's church,  The photo was taken sometime during the 1950s in front of our family's church, Gospel Light United Holy Church, Inc., located in Newport News, Virginia, when my mother was a child.

The women of Gospel Light not only wore hats on Easter, but on every Sunday because they believed the scriptures in the Bible written by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11: 4-5, which states: "Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven." I’m not sure where the tradition of wearing white gloves originated.

Pearls of Wisdom From the Ancestors

I am pleased to report that I have been invited by a local church to speak at their Women's Breakfast on the topic "Pearls of Wisdom From the Ancestors."  A pearl of wisdom is "an important piece of advice or something people have learned from adversity over time, and often hang onto and pass to others." This talk will be based on the scripture below where Moses reminded the Children of Israel to remember to tell their descendants about how God delivered them from the many challenges they faced.

"And ye shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine houses,  and when thou walkest by the way,  and when thou liest down,  and when thou risest up."Deuteronomy 11:19.

Preparing for this talk has broadened my perspective about my family history and I have chosen ancestors from both sides of my family whom I have learned "pearls of wisdom" through things they said in general conversation or oral history interviews, and things I learned about them about some of them from other people or by researching their lives.

Finding My Folks Through New Online Databases, Part 1

I am pleased to report of my great success in “finding my folks” through numerous newly added Virginia databases on Ancestry.com such as the Virginia Death Certificates (1912-2014).  Search of this database has allowed me to make numerous family connections. However, on Wednesday evening (October 21, 2015), I stumbled upon two death certificates which provided an ancestor's maiden name and also information that took me back another generation on my James Family of Greensville County, Virginia.

County, Virginia.  The James family is the birth family of my great grandmother, Mary Lula James Pair (1880-1944).  I traced my great grandmother through her death in 1944, however, I was only able to locate her parents and siblings up through the 1900 census.  I searched later censuses for her parents and siblings, but did not find anyone in this family living in Greensville County, Virginia.

My gold mine finding on Wednesday, October 21^st resulted in discovering the following two death certificates.  This finding gave me great genealogy joy!

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Document #1:  Death Certificate of Addie James Banks (sister of my great grandmother Mary Lula)

I did a surname search first for “Cyfax James” and then for “Syfax James” of Greensville County, Virginia. He was a 2X Grandfather and father to my great grandmother Mary Lula James Pair (1872-1944). A death certificate for one of his daughters and a sister to my great grandmother came up in the search. Through this certificate, I learned several new things:

1. That I had family members migrate from the rural area of Greensville County, Virginia to the cities of Newport News and Hampton, Virginia earlier than I previously thought. I only knew that some of them migrated to this area during the 1940s and 1950s which included my father's move to the area when he was a boy after the death of his mother in 1956. Some of his older sisters had migrated to the area during the 1940s for better job opportunities when they were teenagers and/or young women.  Only two of these sisters are still living and I need to ask them details about their migration.
2. I also learned from this death certificate of my Aunt Addie that her mother’s maiden name was “Mitchell.” Louise (also named as Louisa in many records) and Cyfax (Syfax) James were married by the time of the 1870 census and I have not found a marriage record yet.
3. Aunt Addie's address at 132 Wine Street in Hampton, Virginia is of interest because a local family whose history I have been researching, had members of their family also living on Wine Street at that time. It will be interesting to see if I find any connections between my family and this local family whom I’m researching. I informed a descendant of this local family of my new finding and we laughed at the possibility that our ancestors may have known each other long ago.

Document #2: Death Certificate of Louise (Louisa) James, my 2X great grandmother and mother of Mary Lula James Pair and Addie James Banks

Next, I did a surname search for "Wyche" because I recalled seeing persons with this surname living with my 2x grandparents “Cyfax and Louisa James” on the 1870 and 1880 censuses. My search resulted in finding the death certificate of my 2X great-grandmother Louise (Louisa) James.  This finding added the following new information to my genealogy collection.

1. Name of her father (Matthew Wyche). Yay! This finding puts me back another generation on this line. However, Grandma Louise’s (Louisa) maiden name was given as “Mitchell” on the death certificate of one of her daughters (Addie James Banks).
2. Occupation: Midwife. How exciting to learn this because now I have two ancestors who were Midwives.  The other midwife in the family was a 2X great grandmother on my mother’s side.
3. Date of Death (January 12, 1927). In previous research, I was only able to trace this family up through the 1900 census living in Greensville County, Virginia. I assumed that they moved out of the county since I couldn’t find them. However, I need to look again at the 1910 and 1920 censuses. Perhaps I was only looking for them in a certain part of the county. 

Locating these two new death certificates has changed the course of my genealogy research of my James family.  This weekend, I found additional documents through Ancestry.com on this family and these findings make this quest even more interesting.

Stay tuned…..

The Thrill is in the Hunt!

The Thrill is in The Hunt!  Like most genealogist, I get a kind of “high” on finding documents and facts about my ancestors.  This explains why my house and computer are overflowing with genealogy and family related things.  Shortly after beginning Thomas MacEntee’s Genealogy Do-Over in January 2015, I realized that in my over 20 years of researching my ancestry, I had never taken the time to sit down and to establish genealogy base practices and guidelines or to develop a genealogy research process.

The Genealogy Do-Over Movement.  In case you haven't heard, genealogist and blogger Thomas MacEntee began the Genealogy Do-Over in January 2015.   Most genealogist start out as name and fact collectors giving little attention to tracking research findings, citing sources, and evaluating and analyzing the evidence.  This is the premise of the Genealogy Do-Over movement which seeks to help genealogist to improve their “processing of genealogical research.” 

After Thomas decided to embark on a genealogy do-over journey, he invited the genealogy community to join him.  The Do-Over has been repeated in four cycles in 13-week increments this year.  The fourth cycle began on Friday, October 2, 2015.  Click here to read more about the genealogy do-over movement.

For 2016, Thomas MacEntee is planning to convert the genealogy Do-Over methods from four cycles to a year long endeavor.  He also plans to compile the do-over in a book (both paper and digital) which he expects to publish in November 2015.  Click here for more about the upcoming book and plans for the 2016 Do-Over.  

Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines. In week one of the Genealogy Do-Over, one of the topics is:  Establishing Base Practices and Guidelines.  As mentioned earlier in this blog posting, one of my self discoveries through participating in the Do-Over is the realization that I had never taken the time to sit down and to establish genealogy base practices and guidelines.  Through self analysis, I have concluded that lack of these guidelines has vastly inhibited my research progress since I began this quest in November 1994.

Because of the failure to establish baselines and guidelines for any area of our lives, we often experience emotions of frustration and being overwhelmed.  This ultimately results in wasting time and resources such as money.  Lack of baselines and guidelines in the genealogy research process is no exception!

Self-Assessment and a Call to Action.  I encourage all genealogist to take some time for self analysis regarding your research processes and practices.  A great model of a genealogy self analysis was written by genealogist and blogger Melanie J. Rice of the Grandma’s Genes blog in her posting entitled “Genealogy Do-Over Week 1 TakeAway.”  

I also encourage all genealogist to participate in the Genealogy Do-Over in some way, whether you participate fully in all activities, do your own do-over, or just follow along in the discussions.

Whatever you decide, JUST DO SOMETHING!

Happy Hunting!

Drusilla Pair aka “Professor Dru”

Freedman's Bureau Online

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Mapping the Freedman's Bureau

http://mappingthefreedmensbureau.com/

• Blog Talk Radio Show, Mapping the Freedman's Bureau, Bernice Alexander Bennett interviewing Toni Carrier and Angela Walton-Raji.  
• Press Release, Mapping the Freedman' Bureau 

Freedmen's Bureau Project Indexing Administrator Training