Mullin' Marrow & Ponderin' Pith

How’d Joe Move When He Never Moved?

4/17/2017

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Last week, I got an email I’ve been waiting to receive for...I honestly don’t know how long!

It was from the Digital Initiatives and Services department of The Newberry in Chicago. At first I thought it was another “We’re still working on it” update, but no. While not officially relaunched, they wanted to let those of us on the mailing list know that the AHCB interactive maps are BACK!

Whoo-hoo! Hot diggity!

You may wonder, “What’s the big deal? And what in the world is the AHCB?”

AHCB stands for: Atlas of Historical County Boundaries. To quote the website: “The Atlas presents ... the creation and all subsequent changes (dated to the day) in the size, shape, and location of every county in the fifty United States and the District of Columbia.” [1]

It’s a big deal because the AHCB is a wonderful interactive tool that often can help a genealogist find an individual who suddenly disappears. Let me give you an example:

Let us say you have tracked “Joe Blow” back, via census and tax records, to 1801. He resides in Madison County, Kentucky. However, in 1800, you can’t find him in Madison County. Tax records have him in there in 1809, 1808, 1807, etc. then, poof! He isn’t on the 1800 or preceding Madison County tax lists. Where’d Joe go?

Actually, the question should be, “Where did Joe come from in 1800 or 1801?”

The answer honestly may be, “Nowhere. He never moved—was born, raised and died in the same house.”

“What? No way! Then why isn’t he on any of the tax lists prior to 1801?”

Simple. He is.

“Wait, WHAT?”

The part of Madison County where Joe lived was actually Montgomery County before Madison County “gained” it as the result of a 1799 act of the Kentucky Legislature. The resulting boundary change due to Madison’s gain explains how Joe moved without moving. The comparison maps below show Madison County's gain. A check of Montgomery County tax lists for 1800 shows Joe, as do the 1799 and 1798 tax lists.

While a county formation list usually does NOT include boundary changes, the AHCB provides a map or polygon and text detail for each boundary change, and cites the source! Below is a screenshot from the ACHB website[2]:

Kentucky: Individual County Chronologies

Madison County’s boundaries changed ELEVEN times after it was formed!

In our example of Joe, if he was a real person and if the tax records are still extant, you would find he paid taxes in Clark County before it was Montgomery and would have paid in either Bourbon or Fayette before that.

See how helpful ACHB might be for you in your genealogical research?

Happy mapping!

[1]http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/project.html : accessed 16 April 2017.
[2]http://publications.newberry.org/ahcbp/documents/KY_Individual_County_Chronologies.htm#Individual_County_Chronologies : accessed 16 April 2017.

0 Comments

Going or Staying?

4/13/2017

1 Comment

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

The New England Historic Genealogical Society sends an email called the Weekly Genealogist. It contains helpful information and news and a weekly survey. The survey results from last week caused me to pause and reflect.

The survey question pertained to ancestors who lived in your house. Over 4000 people responded. More than one answer could be selected.

Almost three-quarters of the respondents said that no earlier generations of their family members lived in the house in which they now reside.

Huh. That’s sad, I thought.

Then I thought again.

No earlier generations of my family members lived in the house in which I now reside.

I thought about my siblings. We all live in states other than the one we grew up in.

My mother still resides in the home we grew up in. If I still lived there, I would be in the 18% of the survey’s respondents who said one of their parents had lived there and also in the 15% who said at least one of their grandparents had lived there.

People don’t “stay put” anymore.

Truthfully, people have never “stayed put” for very long. From economic considerations to wanderlust and everything in-between, humans have been leaving home as soon as they realize there is “more out there” for thousands of years.

On the other hand, some people stay their whole lives. In the same place.

Apparently most do not.

What about you? Do you live in an ancestral home?

Image courtesy Pixabay (KrilleM)

If not, do you know if the “old home place” is still standing? Or even where it’s located?

Image courtesy Pixabay (chelseashell)

Pause and reflect.

1 Comment

Are You "Safe" or Are You "Out?"

4/6/2017

0 Comments

Image courtesy Pixabay.com

I apologize for the lack of articles the past few weeks. Writer’s block had a death grip on me. Thankfully, the grip has been broken; sadly, it took a tragedy to break it.

A few days ago, a friend told me a story about her cousin’s home being a total loss as the result of a house fire.

By the grace of God, no one was hurt.

One irreplaceable loss was that of a collection of family photographs and documents.

I commiserated with her.

I remember saying something about everyone’s need to have a fire safe. She nodded.

The day went on and I honestly thought no more about it until I sat down to TRY to pound out an article about something—ANYTHING—genealogically relevant. My mind returned to my friend’s story.

Maybe I can put together an article about the right way to store and protect photos and documents, I thought.

A short time later, I had a page or so of bullet points in a rather vague outline. I planned to begin with three conditions you must control to preserve any document or photo: light, humidity and temperature.

No worries about light with that fire safe, I thought a bit smugly.

Humidity. Huh. Hmm. I probably should toss a humidity meter in there for a day or so and check it at different times for the next week or so to make sure it the level is okay.

A quick virtual trip to the National Archives website taught me relative humidity levels need to be below 65% to prevent mold growth but above 15% to prevent crumbling.

Hmmmm. I wonder if it really is okay to store in the fire safe after all? I began to morph into Fearful Face Emoji. You know the one.

With my confidence crumbling like it’d been sitting in 2% relative humidity for four score and seven years, I quickly Googled, “How do you keep pictures safe in your home?” After a bit of floundering around, I ran across commentary about fire ratings which triggered a morph into Confounded Face Emoji.

Fire safes have fire resistance ratings which determine their “Class.” The Class indicates what the safe is intended to protect. The label of the safe pictured below indicates it will protect Class 350 items for ½ hour. Underwriter’s Laboratories Standard 72 says, “Class 350 rated devices are intended to protect paper records...”[1] They do this by preventing the interior temperature from rising higher than 350 degrees. That’s great news due to the fact the auto-ignition temperature for paper is between 424° and 475° F. Since the average house fire “only” lasts about 30 minutes, everything in there should survive, right?

WRONG.

The paper will probably be intact—deeds, passports, wills, currency, etc.

Other items like film, negatives, audio and video tapes, magnetic media, and digital media like USB drives, DVDs and CD’s and external hard drives have different Class ratings because they ignite at different temperatures. LOWER temperatures than paper.

Enter Screaming-Face-in-Fear Emoji.

Photographic records are Class 150 rated, while tapes, film and digital media are Class 125 rated.
In the event of a fire, that external hard drive with all my stuff on it would NOT be protected in the safe I so very smugly thought to be the bee’s knees. Same thing with all the old photos I can’t bear to part with.

So, boys and girls, the lesson I’ve learned is this: a “media vault” is the best way to protect photos, and digital and magnetic media in the event of a fire.

Before you run out or open a new tab to purchase one, I’ll leave you with a few things to take into consideration: vaults are expensive, heavy, and large with little interior space. The FireKing MV1000 media vault, a 70 lb. safe, roughly the size of an over-sized shoe box, costs over $400 on Amazon or about $600 from The Safe House, an online safe dealer. The Phoenix Datacare media safe, available online from Keystone Safe Company, has interior dimensions of 9.5” h X 6.25” w X 7.75” d. It weighs over 100 lbs. and lists for over $900.

Enter Speechless Emoji.

I’m out.

[1] “UL 72 Standard for Tests for Fire Resistance of Record Protection Equipment,” Underwriters’ Laboratories, (https://standardscatalog.ul.com/standards/en/standard_72_16 : accessed 4 April 2017).

0 Comments