Researching Polish Ancestors? New Translation Guide Available

I've volunteered at the Wilmette Family History Center for a number of years and one of the perks in serving there is the chance to meet many talented and downright-pleasant-to-get-to-know researchers. Judith Frazin is one of them. She's the author of A Translation Guide to 19th-Century Polish-Language Civil-Registration Documents
(including Birth, Marriage and Death Records) and the newest edition of the book recently won her an achievement award from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies.

If you are researching Polish ancestors, as many people who have Chicago roots are, take some time to explore this book!

Sample pages including table of contents

Check WorldCat to see if there's a copy available at a library near you. (The Wilmette FHC has one, if you're in the area.) If not, you can order it through the Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois website.

One Person, Two Death Records

This is one of those not-sure-what-it's-worth-but-it's-fun-to-ponder posts.

I was searching for a death record online at FamilySearch.org's Record Search and I happened on two death records for the same individual.

WACHOWSKI, ADAM 1908-07-16 CHICAGO 06 MO U 00019664

I wasn't surprised. I knew that from 1908-1915 there are two sets of records for Chicago--but I had never really compared certificates from both sets before.



I believe the first record, the one with hurried handwriting stamped with numbers and a date, is the original, and the handwritten number in the top right corner is the certificate number--the one you find in the online index--and that's how those records are arranged.



I think the second record is a copy of the original probably made at the Cook County Clerk's Office. Notice that it has a different number in the top right corner--a register number--and that's the way those certificates are organized.

Things to notice . . .

The original certificate has the register number written on it in two places. The two records are connected.

The information on both records seems to be exactly the same.

The original record seems to have been torn from a book of records. The duplicate seems to be part of a book.

Things to wonder . . .

What does the number "33717" on the original certificate mean?

What does "See Book of Corrections Letter W Page 364 Line 17 (Bessie Wachowski)" mean? On later records I've seen certificates of correction. What is it about this record that's wrong? Or do these records reflect a correction? Is information from the Book of Corrections available from the county clerk's office?

Was Bessie Adam's mother?

The cause of death has the number "105" written next to it. Was that a code for "gastroenteritis" and/or "malnutrition?" I think the answer to that is yes--gastroenteritis. Take a look at a record with the same cause of death and same code. And notice that the cause of death code doesn't appear on the copied record. Who put that code on? Who kept track of that information? What was done with it?



What discoveries have you made about the death records at FamilySearch's Record Search? Feel free to post a comment and share.

Fife Major's Tunes

Fourth of July and I was looking for something to play on the fiddle to celebrate the occasion when I remembered that my husband's ancestor, Benjamin Swetland, a Revolutionary War fife major, had jotted down a couple of tunes in a notebook which was handed down through a number of generations and then, apparently, donated to the Chicago Historical Society.

A facsimile of the notebook page appears in Chapter Sketches By Connecticut Daughters of the American Revolution (see Google Books).

The first tune "God Save the Congress" is the tune that we know as "My Country 'Tis of Thee." But I can't read the title of the second one and I don't recognize the tune when I try to play it.

Can anyone help? Can you read the title? Do you know the tune?

Picasa for Family History Documents

I'm a fan of Picasa, a photo editing program that's available for free download from Google, and I mostly use it for organizing, tweaking, and sharing scans of genealogical documents.

A Picasa tutorial is beyond the scope of a short blog post, but I thought it would be useful for me share a list of the features I find particularly helpful with some simple directions on how to use them.

ORGANIZING


Select Images to Appear: You can decide which images appear in Picasa by selecting folders under "Tools" then "Folder Manager."

Organize Images: Move images from folder to folder by dragging and dropping. You can also rearrange images within a folder using the same approach.

Rename an Image: Click on an image to select it, then hit F2. Type the new image name in the pop-up box.

Rename Multiple Images: Select multiple images (holding down Ctrl lets you do that) and then hit F2. Type an image name and the selected images will be renamed in sequential order. For example, decree.jpg, decree1.jpg, decree2.jpg, etc.

TWEAKING


If you open Picasa and double-click on an image and you'll see three tabbed menus appear on the left: Basic Fixes, Tuning, and Effects. These menus are key.

Rotate an Image: Click "Straighten" under the "Basic Fixes" tab; use the sliding bar to rotate the image left or right, then click on "Apply."



Crop an Image: Click "Crop" under the "Basic Fixes" tab; draw a box around the portion of the image you want to save and click "Apply" when done. If you're not happy with how the cropped image turned out, click "Recrop" and try again.





Tweak Brightness and Contrast Automatically: Click "Auto Contrast" under the "Basic Fixes" tab; if you're not happy with the result, just click "Undo Auto Contrast." If Auto Contrast doesn't work, click on the "Tuning" tab. Move the sliding bars to tweak the image.



SHARING

Print an Image: Click on the image(s) you want to print. Click on the "Print" icon at the bottom of the page. Use the resulting menu options to assure that the image will appear on the page the way you want it to.



Upload an Image to a Picasa Web Album: Web albums are a great way to keep, backup and share images. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the instructions. Images will be sent to a folder associated with your gmail address and once they're there you can rearrange them, add captions, and share links to individual images or a folder. It's a convenient way to back up the files and it's a nice way to make sure they're accessible from any place you have Internet access.






Emailing Images: The one thing that hasn't worked well for me is the email option. I find that the documents shrink somewhere along in the process and the resulting images may not be large enough to be read easily. (If anyone has a solution to that problem, please let me know.)

These are just a few ideas but I'd encourage you to explore the program to discover other useful features and if you discover one, please add a comment to this post.

Finding Chicago Death Records that "Aren't On" FamilySearch: Indirect Approach

I recently received a request for help in finding a death certificate for William J. Quinn. It doesn't come up easily in search results at FamilySearch's Record Search even though it's there.

QUINN, WILLIAM J 1892-01-21 CHICAGO 04 MO U 00014953 COOK

Here's how I found it:

I checked the Cook County Coroner's Inquest Index. If the name was there, William would have had a coroner's death certificate (different from the inquest) and I don't think those records are online. Searching "Quinn" and scanning for the death date, I didn't find a match.

Next I used Stephen Morse's One Step access to the Illinois Statewide Death Index to find "Q" deaths for January 1892. (The certificate numbers for Chicago death records before 1916 group the records together by first letter of surname within each month.)

I found a number of possibilities and so I chose the one that I though had the best chance of being indexed correctly: Charles Quinlin.

QUINLIN, CHARLES 1892-01-26 CHICAGO 11 MO U 00014952
QUEHL, INGER L 1892-01-16 CHICAGO 75 YR U 00014955
QIANI, CAROLINA 1892-01-08 CHICAGO 06 MO U 00014957

I searched Record Search for "Charles Quinlin" and narrowed the results to Cook County death certificates by clicking on the "Collection" link at the top of the page.

In this case, Charles' record came up easily and it happened to be one certificate away from the one I was looking for. I clicked to move one record forward and discovered that was #14951 and I was looking for #14953. I moved one record the other direction and located the record for William J. Quinn.

Looking at the record, I could see where an inexperienced indexer might read the surname as "Luinn" so I searched for that. No luck. So I tried Tuinn. No luck. So I searched William J. and found 151 close matches but no luck. So I tried Nilliam. And then I decided that it wasn't all that important for me to figure out how the record was indexed. My goal was to find the record and I did.

So, the short of it is this: if you don't find an early Chicago death record on Record Search, check the inquest index. If the name isn't there, locate the index entry in the Illinois Statewide Death Index. Then use Stephen Morse's One Step to find certificates beginning with the same surname letter for the same month and year. Search for nearby certificates, then once you're in the database, page through looking for the correct number.

If the name is on the coroner's inquest index or if you find a gap in numbers where the certificate should be, you are welcome to email me for help.

Using Birth Registers to Search for Birth Certificates Not Coming Up on FamilySearch

I’ve had a number of researchers tell me, “I can’t find a birth certificate for that person on FamilySearch’s Record Search. It must not be online yet . . . “

I’m going to stick my neck out here. I suspect (but don’t know for certain) that the birth certificates available on FamilySearch now include all of the Chicago records that were available when the records were microfilmed.

My guess is that if a researcher can’t find a birth record online, it’s for one of two reasons:

1) The birth wasn’t reported so there’s no birth certificate to be found.

2) The name is misspelled in the index.

One of the best ways to check for both possibilities up through 1915 is to use the Chicago birth registers which are also online.

A little bit of background. It seems reasonable to me that the birth registers were created to log birth certificates that were returned to the county. The entries in all but the earliest books group names together by the first letter of the surname for each month. For example, all the “G” entries for April 1901 would be together, followed by all the “G” entries for May 1901, etc. The entries aren’t alphabetical. They’re in certificate number order which makes me think that the numbers were assigned as the records were recorded in the books.

So, because of the arrangement, it’s possible to use the registers as an alternate index if you know the month and year of birth or if you have a good deal of patience . . . .

Here’s how to do this at FamilySearch using an example of an “S” birth from January 1891:

1) Navigate to the search page for “Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915.



2) Type a common name with the same letter of the name you’re looking for in the surname box and type the year of birth in the year ranges boxes. In this case, I'm looking for an "S" birth, so I’ll use “Smith." For surnames beginning with other letters, you may have to try a few different names to be able to find a register in the ballpark of the month/year/name you're looking for.

3) Browse to find a birth from the same month you’re looking for. In this case, “Henry Smith” born January 1891 will work.



4) Click on the name, then click on the small thumbnail in the upper right-hand corner to view the register image.



5) Use the arrow buttons to navigate back to the beginning of the “S” section for January 1891. The month is usually on top of the left-hand page; the year is on top of the right-hand page. Each page has fifty entries and in my experience, even common letters of the alphabet have just a few pages to check.

6) View each register page looking for a match. I often look at the surname, the birth date, the mother’s name, and/or the father’s name.

A few tips on using the birth registers:

1) The catalog entries in the Family History Library Catalog can help you figure out the arrangement of the register entries. For example, in this case, the December 1890 “S” births came just before the January 1891 S” births. For some years, they might be in different books.

2) The register entries cross two pages.

3) For some of the later years, you might find stillbirths or infants who died soon after birth listed at the end of each section.

4) If you find a matching register entry, there should be a matching birth certificate and if you’re using film, you can use the register number to find the certificate. Most certificate numbers have five digits but you might see just two by the names on the page. Look at the very top line to find the other digits.

5) If you find a matching entry and want to locate the corresponding record on FamilySearch but haven't been able to pull it up there before searching the name, try searching for other names on the register page. If you can find a close certificate, you should be able to easily navigate to the right one.

If the birth certificates were assigned numbers when they were entered in to the registers then I think it’s unlikely that many were missed. If a certificate didn’t have a number, it couldn’t be filed away. And as long as a birth was recorded under the proper first letter, then it should be possible to pick out a match in the register even if the name is badly misspelled. Based on these two assumptions, if you don’t find a matching entry in the birth register, then it’s very likely there is no birth certificate to be found on FamilySearch.

If that turns out to be the case, there are a number of things you can do. Here are some ideas:

1) Look for a delayed birth certificate
2) Look for a baptismal record
3) Look for a Social Security application
4) Check for a passport application
5) Check for a school record

Chicago Telephone Books, 1878-1971

This morning my husband and I drove down to the Harold Washington Library at 400 S. State in Chicago so I could explore the resources available at the library for Chicago research—specifically telephone books and newspapers other than the Chicago Tribune. There was a public parking lot just around the corner from the library and the all-day weekend fee was $10.00. Not bad. (During the week parking would cost about $21 but it's easy and inexpensive to get to the library by public transportation, too.)

This blog post will focus on telephone books. The first Chicago telephone book appears to be The Telephone Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, published in October 1878. (For a short history of the telephone in Chicago see FundingUniverse.com's page for Illinois Bell Telephone.) The first book includes information about the telephone service along with a three-page “List of Subscribers”--names of businesses and a few individuals along with an address and numbers for “wire” and “call.” It also includes a three-page “Business Directory” which lists establishments by category much like a modern yellow pages.

Curious to know if your ancestor was an early adopter? Check the three subscriber pages linked from the top of this post. The printouts weren't the best, but the images should be readable. Make sure to check out the instructions for how to make a call on the top of page one. Reading them made me grateful for my cell phone.

As you'd expect, the number of subscribers increased year by year and the later books include many more personal names than the earlier volumes. I didn’t explore in detail, but it appears, at quick glance, that the books mostly include heads of household much like the city directories do.

So how useful would the telephone books be for genealogical research? I'd be curious to hear your experiences using them. But in the meantime, here's my quick take:

If you're researching the early years when city directories are available, I think they're the first-choice resource. A quick comparison of an 1886 city directory and telephone book makes that pretty clear.

Telephone Book: 7071 Skinkle, J. W. residence 543 W Monroe

City Directory: Skinkle, Jacob W. pres. Beck & Hopkins' mnfg. co. 390 Carroll av h. 543 W. Monroe

But, if you're researching a family in the gaps between city directory years (1918-1922, 1924-1927, and after 1928) and need to know an address or establish that they were living in the city, the telephone books might be useful.

Unfortunately, the later directories have tiny print and I found the one film I checked (from the 1930s) challenging to read. I don't think I could have gotten a good printout of it but I could have read it well enough to make a careful transcription to go along with a paper copy.

I'm planning to offer lookups in the Chicago telephone books in the near future. I don't expect to get many requests, but I think the research might occasionally be helpful.