With the number of online book, newspaper and other images are rapidly increasing, there’s an increasing risk of missing some key pages if you search by the full name!  It is fantastic that OCR has allowed for easy searching of these pages.  However, recently, I was searching for someone with the last name Wilkinson in some older newspaper articles.  I could not find the record that I knew had to be there.  It turns out that, on that page, her last name had been hyphenated having come at the end of the line:  Wilkin-son! 

Pat

In my prior post on this subject:

http://webbpat.wordpress.com/2008/11/08/genealogy-link-ordering-copies-of-social-security-applications

there was a question in a comment about how much information is really contained on the (cheaper) computer abstract versus the actual SS-5 original application.  I must again stress that the information on the abstract is very likely a subset of what you can find on the original SS-5 form.  As a recent, more extreme example, I’ll compare information found on my great-grandmother Marvel (nee Martin) Sherwood’s abstract vs. her original application:

Abstract (Numident):

Name:  Marvel M Sherwood

DOB: 04/01/1895; PLB (Place of Birth), UN

Applied at Binghampton [sic] NY 04/18/1963

DOD: 10/XX/1971

Original SS-5 application:

Present Name: Marvel Martin Sherwood

Mailing address: 11 Jay St. Binghamton, NY

Full name given you at birth: Marvel Martin

Age on last birthday: 61

Date of Birth: April 1 1895; Place of Birth: Noank Connecticut

Father’s full name: William Clark Martin; Mother’s full name before married: Euretta May Wilcox

Date of application: Dec. 7, 1956 and her original signature.

Quite a difference!  As I recommended before, get the original even if it’s a little pricier!

Pat

Hands down, the best site is http://www.digitalarkivet.no. They do have English translations of most of their pages. They have FREE images of virtually all extant parish registers before 1900 as well as transcriptions of the 1801, 1865, 1875 (partial) and 1900 Norwegian census returns.

As just mentioned, the 1875 census transcription is not complete. Some slightly different parts of this census have also been transcribed here at the University of Tromsø; but, in general this work is far from complete:

http://www.rhd.uit.no/folketellinger/folketellinger_avansert_e.aspx

Also see http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2008/11/1875-norway-cen.html

Pat

For those doing genealogy research who are interested in recent immigrants to the US, check out this free site!  You can search records of immigrants to the US through Ellis Island from 1892-1924 for free at this link:  http://www.ellisisland.org/

Also, free at your local Family History Center, from ancestry:  http://www.ancestry.com, you can view a wide range of other immigration records.

Pat

I’ve been a subscriber off and on to footnote (see link below) for the past year or so.  Here are the basics:

http://www.footnote.com

Their twist is that they allow you to annotate or “footnote” images on their site.

An annual membership is $69.95 and their monthly rate was recently upped from $7.95/mo. to $11.95/mo.  If you’d like to purchase a single image, it’s $1.95/image. 

My first question when thinking about this review was, why have I been a member off and on? One reason is that I also subscribe to ancestry as well as a few other sites with a substantial amount of content. When I first came across footnote, it was because of the full Revolutionary War pension files they had. Those images and the ability to browse/search the originals drew me in and I found this invaluable. However, there just aren’t that many of those related to my personal research to justify an annual subscription.  I also browsed the Texas birth/death certificates, but now the death certificates can be found for free at http://pilot.familysearch.org. 

They are building up a wide range of newspaper images and city directories which will be very valuable. One opportunity for improving the city directories is to improve the search. Many of the directories just have “” after the first person with a given surname.  So, when, say, I search for Wm Sherwood in the 1923 Washington DC directory; the first result is for Wm. S. Sherwood who is at the top of a page. I’m looking for Wm H. Sherwood, but because HIS listing would be “” Wm H; this appears much further down the search results.

Once you’ve done a search and found documents of interest, Footnote DOES allow you a “Quick Look” at selected sections of the document you are interested in which I do like very much; it is free as well.

Footnote has also recently added a large collection of your own images; you can contribute your own genealogical/family history documents which should also prove valuable!

With all this, you should definitely check them out for a month to see what you can find as you will find something! They used to offer a free 3-day trial, but I don’t see this anymore (please correct me if I’m mistaken)!

As for what would get me to be an annual subscriber?

I’d love footnote to continue with the pension applications in full; these aren’t found anywhere else online to my knowledge. I understand why they started with the Rev. War, one reason being that since this is older than the War of 1812, etc., there are probably going to be more living descendants and thus potential customers from the Rev. War. But, full applications, from the War of 1812, Civil War (including Confederate pensions), etc. would be much appreciated! Just as with the Revolutionary War applications, there is substantial genealogical data to be found here that you likely can’t find anywhere else.

State census records; particularly from around 1890 as the US Federal census was virtually destroyed, would be very useful.  Very often, these records list County of birth or length of time residing in the town; things which are not found on Federal returns. Ancestry does have some images from state census records, but it is not complete. Perhaps a concentrated effort to collect any information from the 1890 time frame would be valuable.

Continue to flesh out the newspaper collections; I love to scour these for birth announcements, obituaries, on so forth.

Tax records! I’m not sure what access there is to even “modern” tax records or returns (say, pre-1930). But, for areas where early census returns have been lost; original images would be invaluable.

Ok, I’m sure there’s a lot more, but anyway; again, I do like the site. I love the original Rev. War applications and can’t wait for them to flesh out some of their other collections.

Thoughts?

Pat

In your family history research, you’ve probably looked at or at least heard of the United States Federal Census returns.  They have been taken every 10 years since 1790 and contain an increasing amount of information on the family being enumerated.  Here is a link that has sample worksheets from each of these and shows what information may be found on each:  http://www.familysearch.org/eng/Search/Rg/frameset_rhelps.asp?Page=./research/type/Form.asp&ActiveTab=Type

Anyway, here are some interesting bits of genealogical information that you may have (I have!) overlooked on these census returns:

• 1830: there is a box to enter in the number of any “ALIENS: Foreigners not naturalized” on the second sheet for each household; if marked, then you should search naturalization records

• 1840: there was a Revolutionary War pensioners census as well, the pensioner’s name and actual age will be listed on the second sheet for the household where they reside

• 1860: there is a box to check if the person was married within the past year

• 1870: if born or married within the year, there’s a column where the actual month of birth or marriage should be written

• 1880: a person’s marital status, single, married or widowed is checked

• There are surviving mortality schedules from 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880:  here is ancestry’s collection of images ($$ or for free as I describe in the beginning family history document): http://content.ancestry.com/iexec/?htx=List&dbid=8756&offerid=0%3a7858%3a0 and here is another index at their website: http://www.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3530.  These list mo./yr. when the person died, their age and place of birth among other things.

• 1890: for newbies to genealogy research, the vast majority of this census was destroyed by fire. Here is ancestry’s effort to reconstruct this census from tax and other records: http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/census/1890sub/main.htm

Please feel free to add your ”hidden” gems from these census returns as well!  Thank you!

Pat

I’ve been a subscriber to ancestry for several years. Their collection of online material is, of course, unmatched. Some of the highlights are:

• Images, fully indexed and searchable from all of the US Federal Census returns (1790-1930)
• Note that they also have a partial collection of the US mortality schedules that survive from 1850-1880. Deaths that occurred within the prior year were recorded here.
• Their online family trees, don’t overlook their Ancestry World Tree (AWT) that they phased out this past March. You can view research notes in these trees which you cannot do with their current format without permission of the tree owner.  http://www.ancestry.com/trees/awt/main.aspx
• Images and a full index of WWI US draft cards. 

Overall, I love this site, but want to review some of the issues/suggestions I have for improving it. Their switch this past March to their new family tree system; I have mixed feelings about.  Perhaps I was just used to the old AWT, but I was very disappointed when the research notes were made private in the new system.  These notes are really the cornerstone for helping you to get to original documentation and to see what someone else has already learned.  Please make them public again! I do miss having the links to the census images by year on the front page of the site as well. At any rate, I do like very much the ability to search and link images from their site to people in your tree.  This would be a key aid to creating the ultimate ancestry wiki; where you link all existing documents for a single person to a common repository for that person.

Their searching capability can also be improved.  I’d like to be able to search by multiple family members such as siblings or by their ages/gender; something to help deal with the dubious handwriting found in many records.  Also, perhaps there could be a search, in the event you don’t know the married name of daughters in a later census (say 1860), you could start with the 1850 info, click and it would scan future census returns to try and ID them.

It would also be perhaps useful to extrapolate information from census records 1850 and after as well as any other relevant back to 1840, 1830, and so on in an attempt to reconstruct these census returns.  Try to reconstruct the 1840 census as if it had been enumerated with every person in the family listed.  Many times, with the statistical data found in 1840 and prior, people tend to assume younger members in the household were children of the eldest male and female which is not always the case.

Here is the link to their website:  http://www.ancestry.com; they do offer a 14-day free trial.  Also, ancestry can be viewed for free at your local Family History Center as I describe here:

http://webbpat.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/genealogy-research-getting-started-2/

Otherwise, it’s $12.95/mo. for the US Deluxe package and $24.95/mo. for their World package.  You do get access to family tree information with the US Deluxe package.

Thoughts? 

Pat

There are many ways to go about plowing through these in your family history research; personally, I’m relentless!  The origin of Robert Seaman of Dutchess Co., New York (1766-1845) is one of my brick walls.  My public member tree at ancestry has the summary of what I’ve found so far (including info on his siblings, $$): http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/pedigree.aspx?tid=4792867&pid=-1544439624

Here’s some of what I’ve done so far.  I have done much more and would be happy to exchange information with anyone interested in this line. Thanks! 

I first looked for him in any trees at http://www.ancestry.com and at rootsweb.  Many trees, such as the one at rootsweb here, have him being born in 1714 and being from Long Island [New York]:  http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=schoverlingroots&id=I25494.

This particular tree references Beers 1). In looking at the actual text of this book, it does truly say 1714.  However, these same trees have Robert’s children being born in the 1790s and beyond.  A search of the Dutchess Co., New York GenWeb shows a transcription (of a transcription!) of Robert and Nancy’s tombstones:   http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nydutche/cems/uniongh.htm.

From this, I calculate their dates as:  Robert (27 Dec. 1766 – 14 Apr. 1845) and Nancy (20 Jan. 1770 – 8 Dec. 1846).  Robert’s death date is confirmed in his probate file (Dutchess Co. Surrogate’s Court Records) and I’ve transcribed his will here:  http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nydutche/wills/rseaman.html. I didn’t see any will, probate or dower info for his wife in Dutchess Co. records.  Anyway, the will and probate reveal Robert’s children and their residences in 1845; very helpful for anyone doing research on this family.

A search of census records at ancestry has a Robert Seaman/Simmons in Fishkill from 1800-1840.  I did some digging on his children and in comparing their information with the statistical data from these census returns, it looks like the same Robert.  It is of note that the 1830 census has a space for “aliens not naturalized” and it is unmarked for Robert’s household. Anyway, there is no name even remotely similar to Robert Seaman in Dutchess Co. in the 1790 census.  However, there is one in nearby Stephentown (now Somers), Westchester Co., New York very near a Henry Seaman.

Also of interest, is census data for (presumably) Robert’s son James.  According to Robert’s probate, in a summons dated 11 June 1845, James (and HIS son Isaac, also mentioned in Robert’s file) was “Of Groton, Tompkins Co. [NY].”  In 1850, in this town, there is a James Seman [sic], aged 60, b. “Weschester” (does NOT say “Co.” afterward). The rest of the household is:

Sarah, 60, b. Dutchess Co.

Isaac, 18, b. Dutchess Co.

Nancy Colwell, 34, b. Dutchess Co.

Sarah Colwell, 5, b. Tompkins Co.

James Colwell, 4, b. Tompkins Co.

At any rate, the 1790 Robert in Westchester Co. being my Robert is looking more plausible.  But, I continued with the Dutchess Co. records.  I looked at deed indices and actual deeds for Dutchess Co. (I have not checked Putnam Co. formed ~1811 from Dutchess), but did not see clues to his origins there.  I’ve transcribed some of these deeds here: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nydutche/#dcd.

Looking into Dutchess Co. books at my local library, ref. 2 has the following:

“Charles P. Seaman, Stormville, farmer, 135 acres, born in the town [East Fishkill] Jan. 1, 1821, he has been town auditor; wife Louisa Ashby, of Duchess county, married in 1847; children four – William H., Ann Maria, George M., and Daniel. Father Daniel, was son or [sic] Robert Seaman, who came from Westchester County.”

Also, on the same page, is:  “Job Seaman p o Stormville, farmer, 120 acres, born on same farm Jan. 16, 1806; wife Maria Martin, married Jan. 8, 1834, died July 8, 1879. Father, Job Seaman, came from Westchester County and settled here about 1800.” Family trees I’ve seen for Job (Jr.) state that it was he who d. July 8, 1879; however, if you look at the wording carefully, it’s actually his wife who passed away then.  We need to be careful in doing our genealogy research! Job can be found in the 1880 census and appears to have died in late 1884/early 1885 from Dutchess Co. Surrogate’s court records.

Note that there’s a Job Seamans in the same cemetery transcription as Robert and Nancy.  Also, in the 1800 Census in Fishkill a Job Simmons is enumerated next to Robert.  Those were enough Westchester Co. references that I searched mortgage, deed and will indices there, but found no Henry or Robert Seaman/Simmons/Symons.  Beers had Nancy’s maiden name as Angevine and I only found a will of an Eli Angevine, but no children Nancy or Anna were found.

I searched available documents online at the Westchester County Archives and did find a few references to a Robert Seaman in some court cases in the 1780s, ordered those records, but they did not shed any further light on his family history: http://www.westchestergov.com/wcarchives/Online_Indexes/PersonalNameIndexes/courtrecords/court_records_Se_Sr.htm

So, it was time to go back to Dutchess County.  There are some other Seaman/Simmons who appear in Fishkill in the same timeframe as Robert including a Phebe. I did a google search for Phebe Seaman/Simmons and found a will/probate transcription posted by a Ms. Johnna St. Clair. Thank you Johnna! We collaborated and I’ve published our joint transcription here:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nydutche/wills/pseaman.html

This was a gold mine!  And, it led to a further gold mine when searching the Surrogate’s Court records themselves for Phebe’s estate.  In Box 3280 of these records (viewed on FHL microfilm 915108), her heirs are listed as “Robert Seamans of Fishkill Dutchess County & Henry Seamans of Somers town Westchester County her brothers, & Job Seamans, Mary, wife of Peter [Benja]min & Lewis Seamans all of Fishkill, children of Job her deceased brother, and [Ph]ebe wife of Simeon Wood, Mary widow of a Mr. Giles, Nancy wife of Wallace Patrick, Rachel wife of David Hitchcock & Olive wife of John W. Miles, of Dutchess County, Elizabeth wife of [Ja]cob Wright & Jacob Vermilyea of Saratoga County & Seamans Vermilyea & Catharin[e] wife of a Mr. Bogardus whose residences are unknown to your petitioners, children of Cynthia a deceased sister of the testatrix.”  Again, what a find!

There is a Henry Seaman who applied for a Revolutionary War pension (looked at www.footnote.com), S23414.  His application dated 16 Oct. 1834 states that Henry was born in 1760 in North Castle, Westchester Co., New York. He didn’t know his exact birth date. He was living in South Salem [Westchester Co.] when he was first drafted in the Spring of 1778. He then moved to “what is now Somers” in 1780 and had lived there ever since.  Another document in the file, p. 16, shows that he appeared in Court 18 April 1838 and had asked to transfer his pension from Albany to New York City in 1837.

At ancestry.com, index to US pensioners, I do see a Henry Seaman on the roll, getting transferred in 1837 and continues on the roll until Sept. 1847; however, no date of death is listed.  The Westchester Co. Archives does have death records from Somers in 1847, but he is not listed. 

One person who gave an affidavit in Henry’s file was a Samuel Wilson of New York City. He served with Henry and stated that he had known Henry “since he was a small boy.”  Samuel was one year younger than Henry.

In Samuel Wilson’s pension application (widow Margaret, W9161), Samuel was b. in Rye, Westchester Co., New York, 16 Oct. 1761. He then moved with his father’s family to South Salem in 1762.  Several years after the War, he moved to what is now Somers.  The statements make it likely that Robert (or at least Job, b. ca 1772) was born in South Salem.  However, I don’t see any records of any Simmons/Seaman in C510171, M510171 in the IGI batch index online of “Church of Christ, Salem, Westchester Co.” births/christenings or marriages.  Nor, do I see any likely candidates in Van Norden, Theodore Langdon, South Salem gravestone inscriptions. South Salem, N.Y., 1926.  I have also searched some North Castle town records and don’t see any obvious connections.  And, I’ve done a little to try and connect with the Robert Seaman found in Long Island (1710-1749).

So, for Robert Seaman’s ancestry and origins, it looks like he was born in Westchester County, New York either in North Castle or South Salem.

1) J. H. Beers, Commemorative Biographical Record of the Counties of Dutchess and Putnam, New York, Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1897, p. 979 viewed at the SUTRO libary in San Francisco.

2) Smith, James H. History of Duchess County, New York, D. Mason & Co., Syracuse, NY: 1882, p. ix[571].

On these applications, very often, the applicant not only filled out their full name, date of birth and so forth, but also their parents’ full names as well; an invaluable resource in your family history research!  The person for whom you are requesting the form must be deceased!  Here are some useful links! First, here’s a link to the Social Security Death Index (not the applications!):

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=ssdi/search_ssdi.asp&clear_form=true

You can also search ancestry http://www.ancestry.com/search/DB.aspx?dbid=3693 either if you’re a member or for free at a local LDS family history center as described in the beginning of this blog http://webbpat.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/genealogy-research-getting-started-2 (or ancestry offers a 14 day free trial as well)!

With this information, you can then fill out the following form online to request the original Social Security application, which is decidedly faster than snail mail:

https://secure.ssa.gov/apps7/eFOIA-FEWeb/internet/main.jsp

You’ll get a confirmation page like this showing how you can track the progress of your order:

Sample Confirmation Page

Alternatively, if you like, you can snail mail a letter to:

Social Security Administration
Office of Earnings Operations
FOIA Workgroup
300 N. Green Street
P.O. Box 33022
Baltimore, Maryland 21290-3022

Freedom of Information Act Request

and include the person’s name, Social Security Number (SSN), if known, date of birth (DOB), parents names, if known.  For an original copy of the SS-5 application, it’s $27 if you know the SSN and $29 if you don’t. You can also get a computer abstract of the application for $16 if you know the SSN and $18 if you don’t.  The abstract generally does not have as much information as the original application.  SS-5 orders I’ve placed this way, I’ve generally received in about 6 weeks from the date I mailed the form; the abstract is much quicker, on the order of 1-2 weeks, but I personally don’t recommend this. 

I’ve found genealogical information from some of my ancestors this way that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else.  As an example, a birth record does exist for my 2nd-great grandmother Euretta M. Willcox in Rhode Island, Jany. 14, 1865.  However, even on this document, it just lists her middle initial.  Her death record, in 1941, does not have her given middle name at birth listed.  However, two of her daughters, Marvel Sherwood and Dorothy Pearce, both listed their mother’s full maiden name as Euretta (Etta) May Wilcox on their SS-5 applications.

Pat

For those doing Sherwood family history research in the US, you need to check out first the summary by Donald F. Notley which has information back to the immigrant Thomas Sherwood (ca 1585 – 1655).  THEN, much of Notley’s info came from the William Lounsberry Sherwood collection which you HAVE to check out!  Mr. Sherwood corresponded with hundreds of his Sherwood relatives in the late 19th century specifically inquiring about their Sherwood family history.  This collection has his summary of this effort as well as the original letters; invaluable for your genealogy research. I personally found a response to Mr. Sherwood from my 3rd-great grandfather, William Henry Sherwood in 1885 in which he states: “Yours of the 1st inst. was received while I was at Home in Maine N. Y.  A. O. Sherwood was my father and a son of Fantan [sic] Sherwood who lived in Liberty Sullivan Co., N. Y.”  There were a number of letters from my 2nd-great grandfather, Ferdinand Adelbert Sherwood, son of William Henry.  In one of them, he gave his grandfather’s full name as Amos Osborn Sherwood.  He gave full names of a number of other relatives, including his mother-in-law, Catharine Tappan Sincerbox; which I have not seen published anywhere else besides in my own family tree at ancestry.  Again, look at the original documents (or as close as you can get)!

I stumbled across this collection as follows:

- searched the Ancestry World Tree (some time ago!) for Ferdinand Sherwood and came across this family tree:  http://awt.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=spaceman34&id=I14882 ($$)

- in this tree’s notes was the following:  “Note: !whs DFN 929.273 Sh58n”

- this looked like a Dewey decimal code, so I entered 929.273 Sh58n into the familysearch.org catalog search:  http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=generalcallnosearch&columns=*,0,0

- this returned a series of volumes by Donald F. Notley, which were also on microfilm 1697640 (and traces the family history back to Thomas Sherwood (ca. 1586 – 1655)):

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=titlefilmnotes&columns=*%2C0%2C0&titleno=521265&disp=Sherwood+family+genealogy++

- I ordered this as described in the getting started document in this blog.  In looking at the notes on my family, I noted the comments WLS, W. L. Sherwood and finally, William L. Sherwood in the margins.

- Then, back at familysearch, I looked for any William Sherwood authors and came across:

http://www.familysearch.org/eng/library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=titledetails&titleno=551601&disp=Sherwood+genealogical+collection%20%20&columns=*,0,0

which finally got me access to the collection itself.  Keep digging!!

I am more than happy to share/exchange information on this family, just let me know!

Pat