Crossing the Border

It may well be that political boundaries have always existed since the very first human organizations. It is a certainty that, at least, for the last one hundred years, individuals had to obtain some sort of permission to move across an international boundary or even internal political boundaries within a single country. At times, some countries imposed and still impose travel restrictions on their own citizens and even the process of moving from one city to another to work, requires documentation. That need for permission generates a whole slew of documents that genealogists can use to identify and track individuals. Even if permission was not necessary, there are still documents that track the movements of individuals and families.

The list of documents that record the efforts of your ancestors to cross a border is extensive. The list includes some of these categories of documents:

• Ship manifests or passenger lists
• Border crossing records
• Passports
• Visas
• Work permits
• Travel permits
• Exit permits
• Immigration and emigration documents
• Church records
• Business records
• Police Records
• Military Records and/or Failure to report for service records
• Citizenship records including, but not limited to naturalization records
• Port of departure records
• Approval to emigrate before departure
• Published announcements of emigration
• Pre-departure records
• Consular records
• Home town censuses and emigrant lists
• Illegal and extralegal emigration

A common challenge for genealogical researchers in the United States is determining the place of origin of the immigrant. Any of the above record categories and many more types of records can contain that sort of information. I recently identified the birth place of a Great-great-grandfather from a church record. So where would I begin?

The first step, as is commonly taught to budding genealogists, is to start with the records your family has preserved. Any surviving records should be carefully examined to determine if the record contains information about the place of origin of the ancestor. But if these home sources have been exhausted, then there are many websites containing vast amounts of information about international and even local travelers. 

The first place I would look for ancestors' movements would be the Immigrant Ancestors Project. Here is the description of the project from the website:

Immigrant Ancestors is a project sponsored by Brigham Young University's Center for Family History and Genealogy. To create the database, images of emigrant records are transmitted over the Web to volunteers who extract their contents and send them back to the project team at Brigham Young University (BYU). BYU students are hired as part of the project team to supervise the volunteers and edit their work before adding it to the database.

This database already contains hundreds of thousands of records from France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. You can see a list of the archives that have been used to create the lists by clicking here. See the information on Records and Laws on this website.

Next, I would recommend following the links contained in the FamilySearch.org Research Wiki on United States Emigration and Immigration. In addition to links for each state in the United States, the Research Wiki contains the following list of resources:

• Canadian Border Crossings
• Europe Emigration Records
• Finding the Place of Origin
• Legal History of Immigration
• Mexican Border Crossings
• Online Genealogy Records
• Other Published Sources
• Passenger Arrival Records
• Pre-1820
• Starting in 1820
• Passports
• Ship (Vessel) Arrival Records
• Searching Passenger Lists
• Surname Distribution Maps
• Web Sites

See also United States Immigration and Naturalization Online Resources. Of course, you should search the large online genealogy websites, including FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com and findmypast.com. Here are a few other very useful websites to get you started:

• Ship Passenger Lists and Records Online
• Pilgrim Ship Lists Early 1600s
• U.S. National Archives Immigration Records
• Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild
• Immigration and Passenger Arrival Records
• Cyndi's List, Ships and Passenger Lists
• US Ports of Arrival and their Available Passenger Lists 1820-1957
• The Statue of Liberty - Ellis Island Foundations, Inc.
• Shipping - Passenger lists - Australia
• Passenger Lists and Immigration Records, Government of Western Australia

This is only the barest beginning of a list of place to search. I included the Australian records because I have two lines of ancestors who came to the Unites States from Australia and also we are coming up on the celebration of Australia Day on the 26th of January. See #AustraliaDay. 

Looking at the Top 100 Genealogy Websites -- What is really here?

In my last post on this topic, I examined some of the things about the GenealogyInTime.com "Top 100 Genealogy Websites of 2015" that I thought were a little peculiar. I really appreciate GenealogyInTime.com for doing this list, but if you condense the four large genealogy websites, FamilySearch.org, MyHeritage.com, Ancestry.com and findmypast.com with all of their subsidiary websites, you get a dramatically different picture of what is really going on in genealogy. Actually, I suppose you could take the position that those four companies constitute what is going on in genealogy, but that would be an overestimation of their role and influence from my standpoint.

According to the article cited above, the Top 100 list is aimed at the "inner circle" or those who are actively researching their ancestors. But here is an interesting thought, if you are actively researching your ancestors in a country that has no genealogical resources on any of the four big websites, or any of the other websites for that matter, why would you care? It seems that a further level would be those who actively use the programs on the Top 100 list.

Starting at the top of the list, the first non-big genealogy program is GeneaNet.org. This is huge family tree program with over 1.9 billion entries and 2 million members based primarily in France. From the Wikipedia article on the website:

GeneaNet began in 1996 when several people interested in genealogy and computing, Jacques Le Marois, Jérome Abela et Julien Cassaigne, realized what a great instrument the Internet could be for their genealogical research. They then had the idea to share, in a single database, not the whole of their family trees but what French genealogists call a liste éclair.

Presently, you can a family tree to GeneaNet.org either by uploading a GEDCOM file or by entering the information directly. The website also has archival records, family pictures, indexes, old books and newspapers.

With over 2 million members it is easy to see how a program such as GeneaNet.org can achieve a high ranking. GeneaNet.org is the only website in the Top 10 of the Top 100 that is not one of the Big Four.

As you go down the list, into the next 10 entries, you have to drop to No. 14, Family Tree DNA before you find a program that is not part of the Big Four. Family Tree DNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston,Texas. Family Tree DNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purposes. See Wikipedia Gene by Gene. According to the Wikipedia article, Gene by Gene has its own testing laboratory called the Genomics Research Center (GRC). "As of November 2012, the GRC processed more than five million discrete DNA tests for over 700,000 individuals and organizations."

No. 15 on the Top 100 list is WikiTree.com. Again referring to a Wikipedia article called Wikipedia: WikiTree, "as of October 24, 2014, the WikiTree website has over 216,000 registered members and maintains over 8.3 million ancestral profiles."

From this level, below No. 15, the programs listed are extremely varied but always with a sprinkling of websites owned or controlled by one of the Big Four. If you consolidated all of the Big Four websites, Family Tree DNA and WikiTree would be numbers 6 and 7 in the Top 10. Most of the entries on the entire list are either very large companies with substantial resources or websites that have been online for many years and had time to grow. There are a few exceptions in websites that have grown very rapidly. There are a substantial number of family tree programs and quite a few websites based in non-English speaking countries.

What is shown by the list is that genealogy is a growing, vibrant and active online community.

DNA and How My Views Change

I have a lot of residual opinions and issues left over from nearly 40 years of practicing law (I never did get it quite right, even after all that practice). I am frequently asked how I can write so much. Well, if you had been a lawyer for almost 40 years you would have a lot of opinions about nearly everything in the world and in my case, it will probably take another 40 years or so to get them out. Meanwhile, my wife and I live pretty much encapsulated in a genealogy oriented world, so it is not too difficult to come up with a whole bundle of new opinions.

Now about DNA. For the past couple of years, this has been the buzz word topic in genealogy conferences and such. But my interaction with DNA testing goes way back. I had been practicing law for only about ten years before DNA testing became a new hot topic. I understand from doing a little research that the first use of DNA in a criminal prosecution case was in England in 1986 where the accused was exonerated after testing. See Wikipedia: DNA profiling.

In Arizona, as elsewhere, there was extensive discussion about the dangers and merits of using DNA testing in court. For a brief history of the use of scientific expert evidence, see "Novel Scientific Expert Evidence in Arizona State Courts" by Paul F. Eckstein and Samuel A. Thumma. The issue in a court setting in Arizona was whether or not the evidence offered conformed to a requirement that the procedure was generally accepted in the "relevant scientific community." This doctrine was referred to in Arizona as the "Frye Test." However, very recently, in 2012, Arizona abandoned the Frye Test by adopting the new Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. Here is the new Federal Rule:

Rule 702. Testimony by Expert Witnesses
A witness who is qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education may testify in the form of an opinion or otherwise if: 

(a) the expert’s scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue;
(b) the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data;
(c) the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods; and
(d) the expert has reliably applied the principles and methods to the facts of the case.

OK, all this came too late for me to really get into this particular area of the Rules of Evidence, by 2012, I was almost completely retired from the practice of law. But I certainly understand what I would have to do to lay a foundation to get any scientific evidence into court including, if necessary, DNA testing. This new rule is not so different than the old ones I had been practicing under for years.

The issue here for me is rather complicated. DNA testing falls into the category of scientific expert evidence. I was painfully aware of the pitfalls and difficulties in establishing a legal case based on "scientific evidence." I saw the popularization of the use of DNA for other purposes, such as those being discussed for ancestral determination in genealogy as pop-science at about the same level as all the fad diets and other fads "supported by clinical studies and other scientific evidence." My interest level hovered around zero.

In addition, I could not see how a general DNA test that would give me a certain percentage possibility of a relationship to vague ethnic groups could assist me in finding my ancestors. Finding out that I had a certain percentage of Scandinavian genes would not be a surprise or very helpful. The classes I attended on the subject were full of "scientific explanations" about Y-chromosomes, Mitochondrial DNA and Autosomal DNA with little to tie any of the complex discussion into anything practical in the field of genealogical research. Finding out that I had a small percentage of Neanderthal chromosomes did not appeal to me very much either.

At the same time, I did not feel compelled to take any position with regard to what other genealogical researchers felt would help them in their research. It was not a case where I disbelieved that DNA testing could establish genetic relationships, that was pretty much a proven fact. But it was a case where I was unconvinced that DNA solved very many of the difficult problems in genealogy. This was especially true when people I talked to had DNA testing done but had no background genealogical research to support any useful conclusions. Hypothetically speaking, if I took a DNA test and got back exactly what the companies promised I would receive, I would know exactly nothing more than I already knew or could reasonably suppose. I might as well spend a few bucks to find out what colors I should wear or what type of diet would make me into a movie star.

Could my mind be changed? Yes, if I could see a concrete example of exactly how DNA testing would help me with real, expertly done, genealogical research. So that is what happened in two classes with David Ouimette, CG of FamilySearch at the recent Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy.

David did not approach the subject, like most other presenters; with a detailed explanation of the background science of DNA testing. I had always considered all the scientific jargon to be a smokescreen for the fact that DNA testing would only help a very small number of people. But David showed how it worked in genealogy. That is what I needed. I needed a concrete, genealogy-based explanation of how this DNA testing could actually result in advancing genealogical research.

I also came to the conclusion that I did not need to get involved with DNA testing for my own research until I encountered the types of problems set out in the SLIG classes. The key here was the fact that companies such as Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com have accumulated huge online family trees and that by comparing DNA samples from various people, you could establish the high possibility of common ancestry. In short, if the research was done back to common ancestors, then DNA could assist in establishing a high degree of possibility of relationship in certain narrow cases.

Voila! DNA had a use in genealogy. I didn't need it, but others might. This happened because David Ouimette ignored most of the science (very reasonable choice) and focused on the genealogy.

One result of this is that I can now write about DNA without having to interject all of my negative baggage about fad diets etc. For that reason alone, I had ignored the subject in my writing.  Classes do change opinions and help you to learn.

Some Comments on the List of Top 100 Genealogy Websites for 2015

Each year for the past four years, GenealogyInTime Magazine has been publishing a top 100 list of genealogy websites. This year is no exception. Here is a link to the latest list. I am not sure that Internet popularity equates to being the best, but I am fascinated by what the list tells us about genealogy and the direction things are going. Another point is that these rankings are based on a snap-shot view of the Alexa.com statistics that change from hour to hour and from day to day.

First, I might note that the message as to how bloggers are fairing is rather mixed the Top 100. In 2014, there were four blogs ranked:

• Eastman's Newsletter at No. 11 and at No. 22 in 2013
• Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections at No. 63 and at No. 95 in 2013
• Geneabloggers at No. 81 and at No. 89 in 2013
• Genea-Musings at No. 89 and at No. 80 in 2013

In the 2015 list, we see the following

• Eastman's Newsletter at No. 28
• The Legal Genealogist at No. 86 (a new arrival in the list)
• Gould Genealogy at No. 87 (not classified as a Blog in 2014)
• Geneabloggers at No. 89
• Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections at No. 97
• IrishGenealogyNews.com at No. 98

Although there were more blogs numerically, the top blog Eastman's Newsletter has dropped overall. 

Although Gould Genealogy and History is a valuable website, it is mainly commercially operated as a sales outlet for genealogy related products. It is unclear the relationship between the commercial Gould.com website and the blog, Genealogy and History News but they appear to be connected.

This raises the question as to whether this listing includes the blogs for other commercial and large websites. From the list, I can see that almost every website in the top ten sites has its own blog. So are we going to include Ancestry's Blog in the list? I am not arguing that any website should not be included, I just think that as you look at the list, you realize what an accomplishment it is for individual bloggers to compete with large corporations. 

One of my ongoing issues with the list as it is, pertains to the problem that the larger genealogical companies have multiple websites. According to Genealogy and History News, Ancestry.com has 23 active related websites. One of the Top 10 websites on the list is Genealogy.com, which is owned by Ancestry.com and was supposedly discontinued. Upon visiting the website, you get the following message:

Big changes have come to Genealogy.com — all content is now read-only, and member subscriptions and the Shop have been discontinued.

I am pretty sure that this illustrates some of the fundamental problems with this type of ranking, if one of the Top 10 websites isn't even operational. This reminds me of a short blog I posted back in February, 2011. The post entitled, "Quick Correction on last post on New FamilySearch" is my all time most popular post with 57,396 views even though the content is outdated and totally inapplicable to anything going on right now. In fact there were 1906 views during the last month. That is one reason why I question measuring Internet activity as somehow equating with "best."

Another issue with counting all of the Ancestry.com and other large genealogy company websites as separate websites is that it distorts what people are actually watching. An argument could be made that each of the separate Ancestry.com websites has its own constituency, but isn't that like considering each fast food restaurant as a separate business even if they actually are individually owned, which the websites are not? If you did combine all the owned websites into one ranking of the ownership entity, I doubt that the top of the list would change much, but the number of additional websites would certainly increase. GenealogyInTime.com makes this point with a chart showing the "Big Three" and color coding the websites they own. Ancestry.com owns five of the Top 10. By combining the "owned" websites into one each, you can clearly see the influence of the top four genealogy companies; Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, FamilySearch.org and findmypast.com.

These four dominant websites really make up what most people consider to be online genealogy. It would be interesting to know, if it were possible, how all of the genealogy blog activity compares to the rest of the online genealogy programs. 

One of the factors that affects all of these rankings is the fact that the overall traffic on the Web is growing exponentially. Some studies show Internet growth at 741% over the the time period from the year 2000 to 2014. Presently, nearly one half of the total world's population is on the Internet. See Internet Usage Statistics. Like it or don't, it is the biggest thing going. 

 

Use Cadastral Mapping to find your ancestors

Standard Atlas of Calhoun County, Iowa
Geo. A. Ogle & Co. 1911

I would assume that very few genealogical researchers are aware of cadastral mapping. The example above is from The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa Digital Collection. If you click on the image, you can see that the map contains the boundaries of each farm with the name of the owner. This type of map is commonly used and published around the world. The term "cadastre" is defined as follows:

an official register of the quantity, value, and ownership of real estate used in apportioning taxes

 Since taxation is historically a common issue, therefore these maps exist and can be used by genealogists to locate ancestral lands and identify the boundaries. Here is an explanation of cadastral mapping from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management:

Cadastral surveys deal with one of the oldest and most fundamental facets of human society-ownership of land. 

They are the surveys that create, mark, define, retrace, or reestablish the boundaries and subdivisions of the public lands of the United States. 

They are not like scientific surveys of an informative character, which may be amended due to the availability of additional information or because of changes in conditions or standards of accuracy. Although cadastral surveys employ scientific methods and precise measurements, they are based upon law and not upon science. 

Cadastral surveys are the foundation upon which rest title to all land that is now, or was once, part of the Public Domain of the United States.

Some of the maps show the property boundaries with numbers or other designations for reference to the ownership of the land. You may have to dig a little deeper into the local records to see the actual land ownership. However, once you have a parcel description, which you can get from either looking at other land records or other pertinent records, you can usually find a map showing that parcel and adjacent parcels. It is hard not use general descriptions in this area of mapping because almost every local mapping agency has a different system. Many U.S. states and counties have a local mapping system showing land ownership with detailed maps online. I used the one for Maricopa County, Arizona rather frequently. Here is an example of a subdivision map from the Maricopa County Assessor's Office. The map is interactive and when you mouse over any parcel, the ownership data pops up.

In Arizona, you can then go to the Maricopa County Recorders office and trace the ownership of the parcel. In effect, you can either start with historical ownership obtained by reference in a probate file, land records or other references and then reconstruct the property boundaries from the title history. Always search for historical maps of the same area. Here is another example from the Canadian County Atlas Digital Project:

Once you become aware of the existence of this type of map, they seem to pop up everywhere. Here are some links to interesting cadastral mapping websites:

• Montana Cadastral
• Cadastral Survey
• Mathews County Virginia Cadastral Maps
• Michigan County Histories and Atlases
• In Search of Your Canadian Past
• Iowa Counties Historic Atlases - Iowa Digital Library
• State Lib Oh County Atlases - Ohio Memory
• Historic Atlases of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, Ohio
• Montgomery County and Pennsylvania Atlas - 1871

The list can go on and on. This type of map is also common in Europe and other parts of the world. Keep looking.

The Ins and Outs of Evidence for Genealogists -- Part Seven: An Unreliable Reliance

 It is probably important to make a few things clear in this continuing post in the series on evidence. To summarize my conclusions so far; the concept of evidence as employed by genealogists is basically a selection of facts that the genealogical researcher deems important and persuasive of some issue being resolved. Many of the words associated with the concept of "evidence" have been only relatively recently borrowed from the world of legal jargon. I find this incorporation of legal (and also scientific) terminology inappropriate and misleading.

During the years that the concept of evidence has been used by genealogists, the concept has been expanded, primarily through analogical borrowing from other disciplines. Genealogists began to use and write about terms such "direct vs. indirect" evidence, circumstantial evidence, and other related terms. Interestingly, these terms were not found at all in a search of the genealogical writings of the 19th Century. Here is a list of terms I have found in searching through the current genealogical writings:

• direct evidence
• indirect evidence 
• circumstantial evidence
• preponderance of the evidence

All of these terms were most definitely borrowed from legal terminology. The last term on the list, "preponderance of the evidence" was used by the Board for Certification of Genealogists until 1997 when it was abandoned for the Genealogical Proof Standard. See "BCG Abandons the Term "Preponderance of Evidence." I see no need to define or expand on these terms because I feel it is inappropriate to use them in a genealogical context. 

It seems that the origin of the use of this legal terminology can be traced back to a book by Noel C. Stevenson, J.D., FASG, a lawyer and a genealogist, back in 1985. Here is the citation to the book:

Stevenson, Noel C. J.D., FASG, Genealogical Evidence: A Guide to the Standard of Proof Relating to Pedigree, Ancestry, Heirship, and Family History, Aegean Park Press, 1985. 

This book is sometimes cited as a pivotal work in implementing legal terminology into a genealogical context. Although I find the book cited in a footnote in such works as the following,

Mills, Elizabeth Shown. Professional Genealogy: A Manual for Researchers, Writers, Editors, Lecturers, and Librarians. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co, 2001.

I cannot locate a copy of the book either for sale or in any library. In fact, this early edition of the book is not listed on WorldCat.org. Stevenson, the author apparently updated the book about ten years after its first publication.

The current standard is adequately set forth in books such as the one by Christine Rose:

Rose, Christine. Genealogical Proof Standard: Building a Solid Case. San Jose, Calif: CR Publications, 2005.

There is no question that, at some level, genealogy has moved away from the legal concepts so recently incorporated into our vocabulary. But in many instances, the legal jargon is still being used. Most recently, an attempt to move beyond the background of legal terminology was published:

Anderson, Robert Charles. Elements of Genealogical Analysis. 2014.

I will talk more about this book in the future, but from the reviews of the book, Anderson's approach appears refreshing and almost entirely devoid of legal analogies. In fact, the word "evidence" may be missing from his book. I will try to find a copy of this book in the next few days.

Words and concepts have a way of becoming persistent long after their utility has passed. There are ways to analyze and write about genealogical research and our conclusions without resorting to inappropriate legal and scientific analogies. I can see a definite trend in the literature away from using terms such as "proof" but the idea of "evidence" is much more persistent.

In the next post in this series, I will attempt to point the way to establishing a consistent and useful terminology and methodology to genealogy that will reflect the realities of historical research without resorting to inappropriate analogies.

Here are the previous installments:

The Ins and Outs of Evidence for Genealogists -- Part Six
The Ins and Outs of Evidence for Genealogists -- Part Five
The Ins and Outs of Evidence for Genealogists -- Part Four
The Ins and Outs of Evidence for Genealogists -- Part Three
The Ins and Outs of Evidence for Genealogists -- Part Two
The Ins and Outs of Evidence for Genealogists -- Part One

Why Was new.FamilySearch.org Turned Off

FamilySearch recently sent out a blog post entitled, "Why Was new.FamilySearch.org Turned Off: Frequently Asked Questions." The blog post refers to the fact that the old new.FamilySearch.org website is being taken down publicly on February 1, 2015. The website was made read-only some time ago. As with any change, there are always those who are upset and complain about the loss of the old website. The FamilySearch blog post attempts to explain the reason why FamilySearch migrated away from new.FamilySearch.org to the new FamilySearch Family Tree website.

This particular blog post answers, in-depth, many of the questions that are raised continually by the adoption of FamilySearch Family Tree as a replacement for the.FamilySearch.org. After reading through the blog post, I have chosen not to reproduce large portions of the blog post here. I think the information provided is valuable and explains many of the problems and issues raised by the transition. There is however one reference that I think is important to be disseminated further. The question is asked, "How can we "unmerge" mismatched records?" Here is the response:

The new.FamilySearch system combined records in such a way that even though you think it is showing you what was combined, it was not a clean view and could be very flawed. That is one of the reasons we needed to move away from new.FamilySearch to Family Tree. Data in new.FamilySearch was becoming jumbled and unreliable. Family Tree keeps a history of merges and allows users to unmerge an incorrectly merged record. To learn how to properly unmerge a record, refer to the help article titled, “Undoing a Merge.”

One of the main issues in migrating from new.FamilySearch.org to Family Tree is the issue of the combined records in the new.FamilySearch.org database, many of which have been wrongly combined. The resolution of this issue is somewhat complex but involves simply correcting the information in Family Tree and, to some extent, ignoring the previously mis-combined records.This particular issue is addressed in the FamilySearch blog post as follows in response to the question about incorrectly combined records in new.FamilySearch.org:

They will be able to go a person’s records and put only the best sourced information there. If multiple people were incorrectly combined or merged in Family Tree there is a process to follow to clean up these incorrect merges. In many cases, it is easier to fix this problem in Family Tree. Using the data in new.FamilySearch to provide you with a roadmap to cleanup your data is not a good choice since many individuals were not correctly merged in the first place.

This blog post answers some of the more difficult questions which I am faced with answering on a regular basis. In many cases, it will take me anywhere from an hour to two hours to adequately explain to people who are caught up in trying to correct the errors in Family Tree inherited from there.FamilySearch.org the reasons for the difficulties they are facing. Blog posts such as this one are extremely helpful in facilitating the transition process I appreciate the explanations given by Jim Greene. If you have anything to do with Family Tree, I would suggest carefully reading and noting the implications of the explanations given.