This is another of my Great Great Grandfathers, Benjamin Lewis Nicholas. He was born in Wales and came to America and settled first in Kansas and then Custer County, Nebraska. This photo is of him as a young police officer in Wales.
 This is one set of my Great Great Grandparents and their family. Ozro and Adelaide (Waxham) Foster, had four children Will, Gertrude, Lon, and Ida. Ida was my Great Grandmother. Ozro Foster was from Indiana and made his way to Nebraska after the Civil War. He is on the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington DC. Ida would go on to marry George Porter and serve as the Custer County Register of Deeds after his death.
Earlier this year, I was working on a very complicated family history project where several members tragically died young. As a result, families were split up, and some children were adopted and connections were lost. In unraveling the story, I was able to track one family down and find that a few of them had passed away in Colorado, but had never lived there. This fact jumped off the page to me and I immediately wondered why? Then it hit me...Didn't people go to Colorado to recover from illness in the late 1800s and early 1900s? What kind of illness would this be? As I searched further, I discovered that another family member had died of tuberculosis and it all came together. One quote I read said that at one point nealy 1/3 of Colorado's population was there because of tuberculosis. Whoah! It turns out that our people were probably in Colorado trying to get better and never made it. This disease devastated many American families and had impacted this one greatly.  This site compiles and analyzes court documents filed by slaves seeking their freedom from 1800 to 1862 in the District of Columbia. This is an amazing resource.
http://earlywashingtondc.org/ The introductory information includes State, County, City, and Page. 1. Names of heads of families: Once again, this is the only part of the record with a name listed. The rest of the form contains totals for each category. 2. Free white males under 10 3. Free white males 10 thru 15 4. Free white males 16 thru 25 5. Free white males 26 thru 44 6. Free white males 45 and over 7. Free white females under 10 8. Free white females 10 thru 15 9. Free white females 16 thru 25 10. Free white females 26 thru 44 11. Free white females 45 and over 12. All other free persons except Indians, not taxed 13. Slaves Introductory information includes County, City, and Page. 1. Names of heads of families: This is the only written information on the record, it lists the head of the family and the rest of the fields are counts in each of the categories. 2. Free white males of 16 years and upwards, including heads of families. 3. Free white males under 16 years. 4. Free white females including heads of families. 5. All other free persons. 6. Slaves. Introductory information includes State, County, City, and Page. 1. Names of heads of families: This is the only written information on the record. It lists the head of the family. This field also lists free black heads of households. The rest of the fields are totals in each category. 2. Free white males under 10 3. Free white males 10 thru 15 4. Free white males 16 thru 25 5. Free white males 26 thru 44 6. Free white males 45 and over 7. Free white females under 10 8. Free white females 10 thru 15 9. Free white females 16 thru 25 10. Free white females 26 thru 44 11. Free white females 45 and over 12. All other free persons, except Indians, not taxed 13. Slaves If you are having trouble locating a person or event that you just KNOW happened around a certain time period, take a step back and look around. There might be a newspaper in a neighboring town or even a different state that can shed light on your topic. Recently, I was looking very hard for something that happened in Davenport, Iowa...I found it in the Rock Island, Illinois.
Get yourself a new map indeed. I was working on a project for a client recently and was having difficulty finding basic records that I felt should have been easy to find. The person's name was Fritz and I hadn't found him consistently in census or other public records. As I did a little more searching I stumbled across the fact that Fritz is short for Friedrich, which is Fred in our United States. This opened up some doors to find many of those documents I had been expecting to see.
This seems like a really simple solution that I should have been on top of from the start, but my experience is certainly not as good in German, though I am learning! I guess the moral of the story is to remember the variants of names as you start digging! Here's a nice link to some German names and their variants. http://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/german One great resource often held in College or University Archives are transcripts of student work. You can find expected information such as when an ancestor attended a school, what their major was, what classes they took, what grades they received, and whether or not they graduated. This information can help round out what an individual was actually like in their daily life.
Registration records and transcripts can also offer some less obvious information. Some may come with a card that lists the student's birth date, home town, Father or Mother's name, Father or mother's occupation, previous schools attended and when, sometimes religion, and perhaps a major. If you're really lucky, there might even be a picture that was taken on registration day. The only problem with Transcripts and Registration records is that they are student records and are therefore restricted. It is likely that the researcher will need to contact the University's registration and records department in order to get permission to see and/or copy a transcript. Generally, the older the transcript, the easier it is. Just call and ask. The general public can obtain "directory" information without getting copies and without permission from the University. Directory information is Name, dates of attendance, major, and graduation status. So, if you're interested in what your ancestor studied in college, track down their transcripts either in the Archives or in Registration and Records. The stories of their college years are waiting to be discovered. |
AuthorArchivist, Cultural Heritage Professional, Family Historian. Archives
January 2018
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