StoryVault http://www.storyvault.com/

An interesting place to spend an evening, StoryVault http://www.storyvault.com/ "preserves your friends' or family's life-stories alongside other eyewitness accounts of remarkable events from around the world."

There's an easy interface for recording a webcam video (they recommend no more that 4 or 5 minutes), uploading it, linking it to a family tree you can add, and a simple way to invite other family members to view and add to the memories.

Also available are documentary-like videos including Mecca in 1885, a First Nations video (that looks it was made c1910), eyewitness stories of World War I and II -- all of it is fascinating.

Check out the Fox Valley Genealogy Society updated Local Names Index. Over 46,000 names of people who lived in Dupage, Kane, and Kendall counties have been collected from  local cemeteries, church records, newspapers, and historical documents. The index includes about 6500 names from Naperville newspapers dating from 1850 to 1943.

Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States

Containing 14 chapters and nearly 700 maps, the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States was first published in 1932. This wonderful resource, the product of the Digital Scholarship Lab, is available online at http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas

Chapters include

• Population, 1790-1930
• Colleges, Universities, and Churches, 1775-1890
• Boundaries, 1607-1927
• Industries and Transportation, 1620-1931

There's a lot here, so be sure to set aside time to learn what the collection offers, then do your homework and make a research list to you can get the most from this wonderful resource.

Pre-Fire Marriages

The state of Illinois offers several databases that can be a significant help in your research. Since 1985, the Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS) has cooperated with the Illinois State Archives to create an index to Illinois marriages occurring prior to 1901.

My mother wanted to stay active in her retirement but was physically limited, so she spent her mornings transcribing the Kankakee county married records from oversized photocopies of the original books into a software application used to index the records. The database can be searched at https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/archives/databases/marriage.html

French Canadian settlers came to Kankakee County in 1834, after the federal government signed the Treaty of Camp Tippecanoe in 1832. The earliest marriage records for Kankakee are filled with surnames like Lambert, Brunnenier, LaMuret, and Jeannot. Over time, there was a decline in French surnames and an increase in Irish and German.

While the online Illinois marriages database provides only the names, date, location, and file numbers for a marriage, the original Kankakee books usually included residence, occupation, parents, and witnesses. Mom and I were fascinating by number of men living in Chicago who married wives in Kankakee county. Keeping in mind that many of these records are pre-1871, the Kankakee marriage records are a valuable resource to check if your ancestor was married before the Chicago Fire.

So take another look at the Illinois marriage database. Be VERY creative with surname spelling and you may track down your illusive pre-Fire ancestors.

Happy Birthday, Chicago!

Chicago: From trading post to global city
Check out the pictographic history of Chicago highlights set up by CNN.com
Incorporated as a city on March 4, 1837, here's what Chicago looked like in its early days. This is Lake Street, a major downtown east-west thoroughfare.

The picture wasn't dated but my guess, based on the women's dresses, is that the picture is from just before the 1871 fire.

Happy Birthday, MaryAnn!

You've probably heard about the Chicago Fire of 1871, but did you know the Peshtigo Fire started the same day? Peshtigo didn't get the same press -- being in northern Wisconsin and Michigan. Other fires have destroyed more acres, but Peshtigo is the deadliest, taking between 1,200 and 2,400 lives. You can see on this map of the fire area that Green Bay, Wisconsin, is just south of the damaged area.

Shortly after the 1870 census was recorded, Jan and Eva Piotrowska Janusz settled in Green Bay. On October 10, while the woods burned, their third child, Mary Ann, was born. (It would be more than a year later, on 2 Nov 1872, that her birth was recorded in the state records in Madison.)

Tragedy struck again on 26 January 1873 when Jan Janusz died. The death was entered in the state records on 31 Dec 1874 but no cause of death was listed. An illness? A farming or logging accident? Or the lingering effects from the smoke and ash endured 15 months earlier?

With 3 young children, Eva remarried in June 1873 and had 6 more children in the next 12 years with her second husband, Joseph Kroll. Still young at 53, Eva passed away 29 December 1901.

Martin Janusz, probably a brother of Jan's, lived in Milwaukee. Perhaps while visiting relatives, MaryAnn met Pawel Paprocki. They were married in Milwaukee the day after MaryAnn turned 21 — on 11 October 1892. Apparently, it was a love match. MaryAnn and Pawel had 12 children in the next 20 years.

MaryAnn's last child was born 11 October 1912 and named Paul Jr. Sadly, complications during the birth caused excessive bleeding and MaryAnn, at the much too young age of 41, passed away on 19 Oct 1912. She left 12 children who gave her 39 grandchildren and 72 great-grandchildren (that I've identified so far).

I'm thrilled that I can introduce my grandchildren to their great-great-great grandmother, and that together we can speculate about the inbetween spaces of her life.

Happy Birthday, MaryAnn! – from your great-granddaughter, Denise

Did You Know?

It must have been quite hard, being a lawyer in the Middle Ages in England. Originally, all your law books would have been in Latin. Then, in the 13th century, they start being written in French. Then along comes English. Lawyers had a problem. Should they they describe the issue using an English word or opt for the equivalent word in French or Latin? And would the words be equivalent anyway?... The lawyers thought up an ingenious solution. They would use both.
-- From "The Story of English in 100 Words" by David Crystal

Legal pairs include will and testament, good and chattels, null and void, aided and abetted, and the triplet: give, devise, and bequeath.  Can you think of others?

Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing

I've had the pleasure of attending several lectures by Megan Smolenyak though the years. She's as vibrant and energetic as her reviews describe her. From her book "In Search of Our Ancestors," to her most recent release, "Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing," Megan's casual style pulls you in to her story and starts you thinking of ways her experiences can help you in your family search.

Megan's ability to be at the right place at the right time seems effortless --  but is really the result of hours of research, phone calls, and networking to stay at the cutting edge of new resources, technologies, and techniques. Read her books -- all of them! -- and watch for her posts. Megan is showing us the future of family research

Follow Megan at her website http://megansmolenyak.com/ and her social media links:

http://www.facebook.com/megansmolenyak

http://www.youtube.com/MeganSmolenyak

What's in a Name?

I was listening to a podcast and was stuck by a comment that was made. The podcaster was talking about census records and was explaining that the person being researched was called Minna on one census but was erroneously called "Milly" on another. I was annoyed by this misleading, off-handed comment.

Yerbi Miller

In my research I've discovered many instances of people "Americanizing" their names in different ways during their youth before settling on the name they used as an adult.  

My husband's great aunt was born in Chicago in October 1887.  She was 13 years old for the 1900 census and listed as Rebecca—her Hebrew name. However, in the 1910 census she's listed as Goldie Miller.

Gertrude Miller Stein

Her marriage license in Chicago on 5 May 1915 to Morris Stein lists her name as Goldie but, a year later on 29 May 1916, she's Yerbi Stein on her first son's birth certificate.

By the time her second son was born in 1919, and in the 1920 census, she was recorded as Gertrude Stein—the name she used the rest of her life. She was 31 years old before she was recorded using the name her family knows her by today.

This name game occurs in all kinds of records for the immigrant generation. I would never have found my Grandfather's Confirmation if I hadn't questioned the appearance of an Eddie Pagel in an index that I couldn't match to any Pagel I knew about. I had discovered a youthful name-blip for my Eric Carl Pagel. Should I ever try to locate his records I now know to watch for Eddie.

The lesson? Don't assume the record is wrong when the information isn't what you expect. You may have discovered a snapshot-in-time that offers new clues to follow.

What name-blips have YOU uncovered?

Metro Chicago

Having worked on my family's history for over 40 years (I started in grade school, honest!) I've reached that point where I have to ask, "What happens to all the information I've collected when I'm gone?" My family has always been supportive of my "hobby" but none of them share my need to find my scattered cousins and tell their stories.

I had the opportunity to listen to the RootsTech 2012 Conference, Feb 2-4, 2012. (Thank you so VERY much for the live stream all three days!) The idea seems to be to create a unique identifier for every person who has ever lived—or at least those who appear anywhere online or in a database—so that the same individual can be identified in multiple records and images. Such a forward-thinking goal makes it very important that I clean up the content I have (yeah, yeah, citations) and that I get that information online. 

So, as others have already done, I'm posting what I have discovered while researching my extended family. My father's side settled in Milwaukee; my mother's side—and my husband's—in Chicago.

I'm also posting Webinars and Events that pertain to Metro Chicago. There isn't a single place to get all event information, so I'm adding to the chatter in the hope that more people will see an announcement that interests them and attend. As good as blog summaries may be, they can't provide the experience of attending a genealogy meeting.

Metro Chicago Genealogy, established 1967. I hope you learn something new that helps your search. — Denise Pagel Moskovitz
P.S. You can see the full-sized map at http://www.flickr.com/photos/10461908@N03/5785040748/sizes/o/in/photostream/