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Genealogy Pointers
February 17, 2015
In This Issue
Three-Volume Reprint Embodies Largest Collection of Requests for Private Compensation from
U.S. Government
Prices Slashed on Five CDs
"What Our Ancestors Died of," by Terrence Punch
"Genealogical Resources in Maine, Part One," by Denise R. Larson
Michigan Genealogy at a Glance
Three-Volume Reprint Embodies Largest Collection of Requests for Private
Compensation from U.S. Government
The three-volume Digested Summary and Alphabetical List of Private Claims . . .
Presented to the House of Representatives enumerates about 60,000 claims for
compensation from the U.S. Government for the period 1789-1849. Many of the
claims were for Revolutionary War service, such as invalid claims, and for War of
1812 and other military services, including compensation and indemnity for
supplies and services. Other claims were for confirmation of title to land in
Louisiana, Mississippi Territory, and Michigan; bounty lands in Illinois and Indiana;
and for various services performed for the U.S. Government, such as
transportation of the mail, delivery of hospital equipment, etc.
The entries are arranged alphabetically by the name of the claimant, with information in tabular
form such as nature of the claim, where presented, and action taken. Our publication is a reprint of
the 1853 edition, which was printed as House Miscellaneous Documents, Series 653-655.
According to the December 1971 issue of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, "The whole
panorama of our early republican history passes in review in these volumes. Claims were
submitted for corrections of land entries; compensation for medical services in Florida; arrears of
pensions; compensations for Revolutionary services; indemnity for properties taken for public use;
compensation for horses lost in the public service; widows' compensation for Revolutionary
services of deceased husbands; indemnity for services in taking and holding the fort at Baton
Rouge until 1810; compensation for naval services; compensation for occupancy of houses in
Philadelphia as hospitals; indemnity for French spoliations prior to 1800; relief as Canadian
refugees; payment for provisions furnished Kentucky militia in the War of 1812 and for property
destroyed; confirmation of titles to lands in Missouri pensions for services in the Seminole War;
compensation for services and medicines furnished during the war with Mexico; etc. . . ."
No collection of published pension records is complete without inclusion of the Digested Summary
and Alphabetical List of Private Claims . . . Presented to the House of Representatives. We are
proud to make this stellar set available for the genealogical community for the first time since 1970.
Even better, this massive three-volume work is available at a savings of $25.00 through the end of
February. Please click on the following URL for details.
http://www.genealogical.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&item_number=5920
Was $225.00
Now $199.95
Prices Slashed on Five CDs
(Sale prices good through 11:59 p.m. EST, tomorrow, February 18,
2015.)
Be sure to cash in on the amazing deals on the following five CDs while
supplies last. We've lowered the price on each of them--two for Virginia,
one for West Virginia, one for Ohio, and one for the Deep South--by at
least 60% through tomorrow night. Our supply of CD-ROM publications-every one of them a great value--is dwindling to a small handful of titles.
When they go, they are gone forever! Don't wait, get your steal of a deal today!
Genealogies of Virginia Families from the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (very low in
stock)
This CD contains the roughly 5,000 pages of Genealogies of Virginia Families from the Virginia
Magazine of History and Biography, originally published by Genealogical Publishing Company in
1981. The five volumes together contain all the family history articles that appeared in VMHB from
its inception in 1893 to 1977.
Was $39.99 Now $12.99
Ohio Vital Records #2, 1750s-1880s
This Family Archive CD contains images from the pages of the following three books: (1) Ohio
Cemetery Records, (2) Ohio Marriages, and (3) Ohio Source Records, and is composed of articles
that originally appeared in either The 'Old Northwest' Genealogical Quarterly or The Ohio
Genealogical Quarterly.
Was $39.99 Now $14.99
The Deep South: Genealogical Records of Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi,1700s-1800s
This Family Archive CD covers the core genealogical works dealing with the Deep South.
Altogether, some 150,000 individuals are named in a wide-ranging collection of census returns,
probate, marriage, military, vital records, and family histories--all brought together in this one CD
with a single, integrated index.
Was $39.99 Now $14.99
Early West Virginia Settlers (Low in stock)
Made up of images of the pages of fourteen reference books, this Family Archive CD contains the
records of approximately 200,000 early West Virginia settlers. The reference books contain wills,
land grants, marriage records, military records, family histories, and local histories, and they
include many of the most important books ever published on West Virginia genealogy, including
genealogies of the pioneer families of various districts of West Virginia.
Was $39.99
Now $12.99
Genealogies of Virginia Families from the William and Mary College Quarterly
This CD contains all five volumes of Genealogies of Virginia Families from 'The William and Mary
College Quarterly and the single volume Virginia Gleanings, which originally had been published
serially in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.
Was $39.99
Now $12.99
"What Our Ancestors Died of," by Terrence Punch
Some genealogists collect only ancestors, that is, people from whom they are personally
descended. When traced out on a sheet of paper or a spreadsheet you have a pattern resembling
an inverted Christmas tree, wide at the top and pointed at the bottom. Others take a great deal of
trouble to track down collateral relatives, the siblings of ancestors and their descendants. If they
began with a couple of progenitors, the result will tend to spread more widely with the passing of
the generations.
This is not always the case. One couple had eleven children, sixteen grandchildren, but just four
great-grandchildren, all four of whom grew to adulthood, two of them married and none of them
had children. Within three generations a large family had completely died out. Imagine the original
matriarch, dying in 1883 leaving eight children and nine grandchildren, and in 2003 her last
descendant died, childless.
One of the reasons why people try to compile genealogies linking collateral relatives as well as
direct ancestors is to produce a health history of their wider family circle. They ask questions about
age at death, causes of death, conditions that appeared to run in the family, handicaps, tendency
to accidents and mishaps, even towards suicide.
A circumstance that interferes with this effort is that records, if they exist, often fail to reveal
people's cause of death. Another snag is that the deaths were attributed to conditions and ailments
with unfamiliar names. We really do have to wonder who made the diagnosis written down as the
cause of death. We can understand "drowned", "typhoid" or "pneumonia", but what did someone
mean by "senile decay"? Had the patient become moldy with age? And what did the sexton mean
when he entered "senility" as the reason that a 3-year-old died? To allege "premature ageing"
would be ridiculous. Since the same man gave that cause of death to more than one child, we can
assume that he did not understand the word.
Whenever possible, learn whether there were outbreaks of epidemic disease in an area about the
time your relative died. If a child died while a smallpox outbreak ravaged the vicinity, consider that
may have killed your family member too. Halifax had smallpox at the turn of the nineteenth century,
as well as cholera epidemics a few decades later. There was a visitation of the mis-named
"Spanish" influenza after the end of World War One.
Nor should we forget disasters such as the Halifax explosion of 1917, or mine disasters. In coastal
communities several men may have perished in a marine mishap. Diphtheria wiped out
households of children, as did scarlet fever and so forth. In doing a genealogy, be alert to these
group deaths, as they may signify the presence of contagious disease or some tragedy, such as a
house fire. Not to be morbid, but the media tended then, as now, to cover such events. Victorian
papers seem to have reveled in headlines such as "Melancholy accident," "Tragedy at sea," etc.
Here are some examples I've seen in records:
ague - any of several feverish conditions, e.g., malaria (not so odd when you remember how many
seamenvisited tropical ports in the age of sail, and contracted illnesses)
bad blood - euphemism for venereal disease, especially syphilis
bilious fever - any of hepatitis, malaria, typhoid (caused by bacteria salmonella)
bladder in the throat - diphtheria
carbuncle - large boil (not usually fatal); skin cancer (then often fatal)
consumption - tuberculosis
cramp colic - appendicitis, peritonitis; also simply 'colic'.
debility - lack of energy or movement, probably due to an unrecognized illness.
dentition - teething (hard to imagine this as fatal in itself; probably other complications)
dropsy - congestive heart failure; also noted as 'hydrothorax'
falling sickness - epilepsy
flux - diarrhea; hemorrhage
gleet - inflamed membrane in the urethra
green sickness - anemia
horrors - delirium tremens
infantile paralysis - poliomyletis
jail fever, ship fever - typhus (caused by bacteria rickettsia)
king's evil - tuberculosis in the neck and lymph glands; also called scrofula (until Queen Anne,
monarchsactually touched the afflicted; popular belief was that the king's touch cured it)
milk fever - children contracted this bacterial disease from milk from cows having brucellosis
mortification - gangrene (common before antiseptics)
nostalgia - homesickness; the belief that immigrants died pining for their native land
old age - applied to people as young as 55 (making some of us positively 'ancient')
palsy - paralysis; also uncontrollable jerking of limbs; also entered as 'fits'.
screws - rheumatism
senility - advanced old age; perhaps alzheimer's; wrongly applied to young people
visitation by God - many sudden deaths due to natural causes, e.g, strokes, were called this
Two websites for those who want to see a list of obsolete diagnoses:
http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/index.shtml
http://www.homeoint.org/cazalet/oldnames.htm
"Genealogical Resources in Maine, Part One," by Denise R. Larson
Just as the Smithsonian is said to be the nation's attic, Maine is New England's attic. Among
Maine's many treasures and whatnots are several early nineteenth-century embroidery samplers
that are more than elaborate fruits and flowers surrounding a carefully stitched alphabet. The fine
silk threads sewn into the linen of these special samplers sketch family genealogies. In the
collection of the Maine State Library in Augusta are pedigree samplers for the Cooper, Twombly,
Pool, and Swan families.
Watercolorists also took up the subject of family lines. An 1830 watercolor depicts the Libby
lineage, and one done in 1831 with pen and ink as well as watercolor was done for William and
Rhoda Thompson.
Both the samplers and the watercolors can be viewed online at www.mainememory.net, a project
of the Maine Historical Society that brings together the collections of more than two hundred
organizations in the state.
Of those two hundred contributors to the Maine Memory Network, many are libraries that have a
history & genealogy room or special genealogical collections about local families. History holds an
honored place in the hearts of Mainers.
Many Maine families had roots in Massachusetts. Spurned by the Puritans of Massachusetts as
nonconformists, the people of the Province of Maine logged the vast forests, farmed the stony soil,
and fished in mighty rivers and the rough Atlantic. There was a steady migration, both native born
and immigrant, from the Boston area to the wilds and opportunities of Maine, which became an
independent state in 1820. Many government records pertaining to Maine prior to 1820 are held at
the Massachusetts Archives in Boston (220 Morrissey Blvd.; 617-7272816; www.sec.state.ma.us/arc). The Maine materials are indexed by county and include court
records, the Eastern Lands papers, and records concerning eighteenth-century forts. The archives
has an extensive genealogical collection.
Major Migrations to Maine
Maine was considered the northern wilderness by the more urban New England states. France
and England were still arguing and fighting into the mid- to late eighteenth century about which
river constituted their territorial boundary. The French in the north claimed it was the Kennebec in
central Maine. The English in the south said it was the Penobscot, farther to the east. The constant
threat of attack by opposing forces and their Native American allies dissuaded all but the bravest to
settle to the north of the Piscataquis River, the southern boundary of the Province of Maine.
Even Henry David Thoreau, who loved the woods more than town, said during his visit to Bangor
in the 1850s, "the country (north of Bangor) is virtually unmapped and unexplored, and there still
waves the virgin forest of the New World." Fast and heavy development of southern Maine began
in the 1840s with the influx of large numbers of Irish immigrants. They came to escape the famine
in Ireland and to seize the work and earning opportunities in the quickly industrializing New
England states. They built roads, railroads, canals, bridges, and mills to process lumber from the
North Woods and cotton offloaded from Maine-made ships that brought the raw material from
southern ports.
The second large influx of an ethnic group to Maine happened in the 1860s. Farms in southern
Canada were failing, so many French-Canadians followed the Canada Road from Quebec to the
coast of Maine to work in ship yards and lumber and textile mills that lined the shores and
harnessed the power of the mighty Maine rivers.
The "2009 American Community Survey" by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the other ancestral
groups in Maine (with five percent or more of respondents) to be German (8.4%), Italian (6.2%),
and Scottish (5.5%). French/French-Canadian was 24.9%; English, 23.5%; Irish, 18.2%.
(Ms. Larson's account picks up with the resources and repositories most beneficial for Maine
genealogical research in next week's "Genealogy Pointers.")
Michigan Genealogy at a Glance
Michigan became part of the Northwest Territory in 1787, and starting at that time
an extensive body of territorial, state, and federal land records was generated.
Where to find this information, and much more, is at the heart of Genealogy at a
Glance: Michigan Genealogy Research. Written by Michigan expert Carol
McGinnis, author of the acclaimed textbook Michigan Genealogy: Sources &
Resources, it provides a quick overview of the facts you need to know in order to
begin and proceed successfully with your Michigan research. In the process, Ms.
McGinnis also identifies the best books in the field of Michigan genealogy and
provides an indispensable list of major record repositories as well as a list of the best online
sources for Michigan research. For more information, visit the following URL:
www.genealogical.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&item_number=3524
Other State Research Guides in this series . . .
Genealogy at a Glance: Pennsylvania Genealogy Research
Genealogy at a Glance: Maryland Genealogy Research
Genealogy at a Glance: Virginia Genealogy Research
Genealogy at a Glance: North Carolina Genealogy Research
Genealogy at a Glance: Old Southwest Genealogy Research