Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Declarations, 1850-1906

Luzerne County, Pennsylvania Declarations, 1850-1906

Recently I needed to search for a possible Luzerne County naturalization and to do a thorough job, I needed to understand the records that are available on FamilySearch. This led to the post below. The FamilySearch catalog includes a Luzerne County entry for “Declarations of intentions 1850-1894 ; Index 1850-1906” (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/443614). The first film provides an index noted to be “Declarations 1.” It appears as Item 2 on images 258-445 on DGS 7796878 and covers 1850-1906. The entries in this…

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Shortening Old Fulton New York Post Cards URLs

Shortening Old Fulton New York Post Cards URLs

So, you’ve found an article on Old Fulton New York Post Cards (https://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html) and it’s time to create the citation. What do you do with the long URL that refers to the highlighted image returned by search? Shortening the URLS Here’s a way to come up with a shorter URL by working some search-and-replace magic: First, copy the big old long URL to a word processing document. You can get it by right-clicking a sidebar image link. It will look…

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New Pages Feature: Add Title and Caption to Images

New Pages Feature: Add Title and Caption to Images

I just downloaded an update for Pages, word processing software available for use on a Mac, and one of the new features is the ability to attach a title and caption to an image with a couple of checkbox clicks. I’m pretty psyched. Creating genealogical reports in the software just got easier. So, how does it work? First, make sure you have the most recent version of Pages. I’m using 10.1 (6913). Next, open a document and insert an image….

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An Introvert’s Take on Surviving SLIG for the First Time

An Introvert’s Take on Surviving SLIG for the First Time

I’m a stay-at-home body who thrives on solitude but attending an institute has been on my mind since 2017. That was the year I pulled together an education plan for ProGen 33. It’s hard for me to feel comfortable planning ahead, but last July I optimistically clicked the SLIG registration button thinking “Salt Lake City–here I come!” I signed up for Melissa Johnson’s technical writing course because I have two overarching goals at the moment: 1) organizing digitized copies of…

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Finding Alternate Surname Spellings for Index Searching

Finding Alternate Surname Spellings for Index Searching

There’s a death date and place mystery associated with the surname “Macaluso” that I would dearly like to solve. And, there’s a microfilmed index that might help me solve it. But, it has to be skimmed the old-fashioned way and the name I’m looking for doesn’t appear under the obvious spelling. Before I leave the index behind, I want to make sure I’ve been thorough, so this morning, I tried to see if I could come up with a comprehensive…

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Enumerators’ Hall of Fame

Enumerators’ Hall of Fame

Hats off to Mr. George McKechnie. (Did I read his last name right? I want to make sure his plaque is engraved correctly.) He went the extra mile and recorded birth days as well as months and years in the 1900 Brooklyn census. I hereby nominate him for acceptance into the Enumerators’ Hall of Fame. Thank you, Mr. McKechnie! See 1880 U. S. census, Kings County, New York, population schedule, Brooklyn, enumeration district 207, sheet 20D (penned); digital image, FamilySearch …

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A List of Names Comes Alive

A List of Names Comes Alive

I’m still working on the Abraham Trafford probate file. The quick overview is this: When Abraham died in Monmouth County, New Jersey in 1871 he was an “insolvent debtor.” The inventory is long—it seems like it might have included stock from a store—and his debts were many. Take a look at this list of creditors. H. L. BrownF. W. Devoe & CoA. J. ButlerGair & WestB. K. Bliss & SonsJas M. Thorburn & Co.Thomas S. FieldJames B. WeaverWm. T. CorliesJeremiah…

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An Education in Early Textiles

An Education in Early Textiles

This morning I’m working on transcribing pages from a probate file for Abraham Trafford who died in Shrewsbury, Monmouth, New Jersey in 1871. I’m not sure why yet, but the inventory has page after page listing cloth by the yard. I’ve been sewing since I could treadle a machine (I’m not THAT old; we just had a vintage Singer in the house when I was young) and so I can picture many of the fabrics listed: gingham, linen, “moslin,” and…

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I Still Love the Name “Janethe”

I Still Love the Name “Janethe”

I was transcribing a New York City deed from 1816 yesterday when I came across the name “Janethe.” It struck me that it might be pronounced “ja-nee-tha” which I thought was quite beautiful. ” … Gabriel Hatfield and Barnes Hatfield of the City of New York and Janethe wife of the said Gabriel Hatfield and Mary the wife of said Barnes Hatfield …” Wait a minute. Why does the deed say “Janethe wife of” in the first instance and “Mary…

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Startling Find: My Husband’s GG-Grandfather’s Sword And Other Personal Artifacts

Startling Find: My Husband’s GG-Grandfather’s Sword And Other Personal Artifacts

You know how notice of one intriguing thing on a social media site can lead to another something which leads to another something? Many times that path is a great time-waster, but this morning it led me to a startling find: my husband’s ancestor had a presentation sword that was recently auctioned along with some very personal artifacts including his razor, a bit of his hair (with extractable DNA, I’m thinking) and — oh, my goodness — family letters. So…

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