Now @ MPL...

Have you ever been curious about the story that your house has to tell? Whether you are a new house owner, or you've been living in your house for 30 years, the Central Library wants to help you discover your house's history, and the House History program is the perfect place to start.

The program is being held at the Central Library on Saturday, November 3, 2007 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. Sign in starts at 9:15 a.m. in the First Floor Meeting Room. From there, you will tour the resources that the Central Library has to offer. You will learn how to use the Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases, how to wrap your head around the many intricacies of the tax rolls, how to convert an address, and learn about the many other resources your library has to offer.

The House History program is best for Milwaukee residents, as the resources focus mainly on Milwaukee.

To sign up, contact the Humanities Department at (414) 286-3061.

Fill in some of those gaps on your family tree at the open lab for using Ancestry Library Edition, a powerful tool for genealogists.

(Waldburg family tree)

The open labs take place on the following Saturdays: October 27, November 17, and December 15, from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. This is a free service and it requires no advance registration. Simply go to the Central Library's computer lab, on the 2nd floor, and prepare to delve deeply into your family's history. A staff member will be on hand to answer questions about using this powerful database which gives you access to billions of names in almost as many different types of records.

Milwaukee Public Library also offers access to other Genealogy tools online. Additional questions may be answered by calling the dedicated staff at the Humanities desk at (414) 286-3061.

How long did the Orphan train run?

The Orphan Train Movement lasted from 1854 through 1929. In that time, approximately 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children were put on the so-called "Orphan Train" and were relocated to the American West. The Children's Aid Society thought that in this way, these children might gain new families while helping out the pioneers who were settling the frontiers.

The train stopped in 47 states and in Canada. At each stop, townspeople who were interested would gather to inspect the children, and take home those they thought to be likely candidates. After the children had successfully completed a brief trial period, they would become indentured to their host families.

While this program is widely thought of as the beginning of documented foster care, it was not without controversy. Interestingly enough, the controversy came from both sides of the abolitionist movement. Many abolitionists believed that the children were ending up being slaves to their host families, while those who advocated slavery saw it as an outgrowth of the abolitionist movement. After all, who would need slaves when these children provided labor that made slaves unnecessary?

Because there were a large number of children who went west on the Orphan Trains, some genealogists have had problems tracing the ancestry of their relatives who may have hailed from the Orphan Train Movement. There are some resources available for those who are attempting to follow the ancestry of those children. Since so many of them came originally from New York City, many of these resources are from the city.

Did you know that genealogy is one of the most popular hobbies in the United States? With the advent of the Internet age, family research has become even more exciting with worldwide opportunities, The Milwaukee Public Library's Frank P. Zeidler Humanities Room has a resource area for genealogists with many finding aids and tools for conducting research. In addition, the Milwaukee County Genealogical Society meets regularly at the Central Library.
For a useful site on genealogical resources of interest to Wisconsinites, the WIGLHR Genealogy and Local History Sites has a wealth of links. For other online resources, check out the Genealogy Category in the Recommended Links section of the MPL home page.

Gary Rebholz, the editor and researcher behind Milwaukee's German newspapers : an index of death notices and related items will be giving a presentation about his work at the Salzmann Library on the St. Francis de Sales Seminary Campus.

His work indexing death notices pulled from the early German newspapers of the City of Milwaukee has allowed him to create this invaluable genealogy resource. Currently a four volume resource, Gary continues to work on it. The four volumes include two volumes arranged alphabetically by last name, and two volumes arranged chronologically by year.

Gary's talk will focus on what the average researcher can find and how they can use local German newspapers without a prior knowledge of the German language. He will also discuss the different resources available at the Milwaukee Public Library and the Salzmann Library.

His talk will be Saturday, July 18th; starting at 1:00 p.m. Reservations are suggested. Call the Salzmann Library at (414) 747-6479, or email milwaukeegermannewspapeers@yahoogroups.com.

Patrons often call the reference desk to find out if a celebrity is alive or deceased. People also regularly search for obituaries and death notices for friends and loved ones. There are several databases which can help tremendously when searching for this type of information. The Dead People Server is a good choice for birthdates, death dates, and cause of death of famous people. Find A Grave allows users to search 21 million grave records and to find information on more than 250,000 cemeteries. In addition, The Who's Alive and Who's Dead site helps you keep track of who's living and who's deceased. Celebrities are grouped by TV show, film, band and sport.

America's Obituaries & Death Notices contains over 180 U.S. newspapers, most of which date back to the late 1990's and includes everything from front page news articles to paid death announcements. This is a paid database and can be accessed remotely by City of Milwaukee residents. Residents of surrounding communities are welcome to visit and Milwaukee Public Libraries in person to search this database.

For additional databases and links on the subject of People, check out the People Category from the Recommended Links section of the Milwaukee Public Library home page.

September 18, 2009

African-American Family History

Genealogy can be challenging under the best of circumstances. However, few areas of American genealogical research pose as much of a challenge as the search for African-American families.

Joe Williams, President of the Milwaukee African-American Genealogical Society, looks to help out with that issue by exploring strategies for discovering your African-American ancestors in various periods of history.

He will cover topics such as where and how to begin, how to interview family and family friends and what to look for in your home, how to search the census, death records, indexes, how to search transition records from slavery to freedom, how to search records for slaves, and other indexes and records that will be useful to the search.

Registration is encouraged. Please call 414-286-3098 to do so.

This session is being offered at Martin Luther King Library on Saturdays, October 3 & 24, November 7 & 28, December 5 from 1:00-3:00 p.m.

Posted by Rose on September 18, 2009 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)