Summing It Up: Women's History Month 2016

30 Tips in 30 Days. I posted information that I know will help you as you research your female ancestors. But it's just the beginning. There's so much more to cover. In the meantime, check out the tips from previous years. Links can be found on the right side of this blog.

I also have added these tips and other ideas for researching on Pinterest. Go there for hundreds of sources and ideas.

Follow Gena's board Women's History Month 2016 on Pinterest.

But most of all, start researching, asking questions, and learning. There's so much to discover about female ancestors. It's just a matter of time, patience, and effort.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #30 Learn

Learn Chalk Means Student Education And Subjects by Stuart Miles/Courtesy Freedigitalphotos.net

What is your genealogical education plan? What are you doing this year to enhance your family history research?

We are lucky to have so many choices for our genealogical education. We have access to more information than ever before but it's what you do with it and how you incorporate it into your research habits that makes all the difference in the world.

Where can you seek out educational opportunities? Everywhere. Think in terms of webinars from Legacy Family Tree and the Southern California Genealogical Society. Need more ideas? See the calendar at GeneaWebinars. Take a course from The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. Read the great articles in Family Tree Magazine, In-Depth Genealogist, Internet Genealogy, and Your Genealogy Today. Listen to a podcast from the Genealogy Guys, Genealogy Gems or even the Gena and Jean Genealogy Journey. Go to a conference whether national or regional. There's a ton to choose from on the Conference Keeper website.

Don't forget the learning centers on websites like FamilySearch or Ancestry.com. And most commercial websites have great information on their blogs like GenealogyBank.

Did I miss other opportunities? You bet! But that's where you come in. Write down your goals and what you need to learn about your female ancestor and then go seek out that information.

Enjoy your discoveries!

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #29 Family Letters

(c) 2014 Gena Philibert-Ortega

Correspondence represents an important source in genealogy and history. I'm always amazed  at how important family letters are. Ephemeral in nature, correspondence is often seen as not important and thus thrown away.

I use correspondence a lot in my research. A family letter penned by a 5th great-grandfather provided the names and birth dates of all his children. Saved for generations, this letter owned by a distant cousin was an important piece in a genealogical  puzzle. A letter I found a few years ago addressed to my maternal grandmother from a genealogist in the UK helped me better understand the family history research she had conducted. Surprisingly, she didn't give me the letter because she thought it had genealogical value. She gave it to me when I was a child, for my stamp collection. A Civil War era letter written by a distant relation, found in a microfilmed collection, tells of his experience weeks before his death. A heartbreaking read that provides us insight into his experience and the pain his family endured.

Letters are private in nature and in some cases reveal family secrets. A set of letters I was given by a cousin, details the private thoughts of her parents as they found they were facing an unplanned pregnancy in the 1940s. Another set of letters that are part of a research project I've been working on for a few years are the early 20th century love letters between a married man and his mistress who later became his 2nd wife.

No doubt these letters were meant to be private. But letters provide us with history and help us understand previous generations, the struggles and decisions they faced. Similar to journals, letters provide us with the original sources we need to "do" history.

In the possession of Gena Philibert-Ortega

A recent AARP article suggesting the destruction of family letters as a means to declutter your home brought about some justified outrage in the genealogical community. Amy Johnson Crow and Denise Levenick both wrote great posts about the topic. I too worry about how the obsessive emphasis on decluttering ultimately impacts what history and family history the future will inherit.

I think what's important to remember is that letters, not matter who the author is, are history. If it isn't acceptable to destroy letters from historical or famous people like George Washington and others,  why is is ok to destroy the letters of our family that can one day be used to study their place in history?

So, hopefully, I've convinced you that letters are important but I know you're asking "where do I find them?" Well, to start with they could be at your home or a yet unknown cousin's home. But they could also be in a manuscript collection. Start by searching on ArchiveGrid for the place your ancestor was from.

You can learn more about family letters including those that were published in the newspaper in my GenealogyBank blog posts, Dear Mother: Family Letters and Your Genealogy and Genealogy Tips for Researching Letters in Newspapers.

Letters are an important historical source. Afterall, if we didn't respect the power of letters to tell history, we wouldn't know that Abigail Adams admonished her husband to "remember the ladies." An admonishment that is important today as we research our female ancestors.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #28 What's HER Name???

Boy, there's nothing more irritating then not knowing a female ancestor's maiden name. In some cases it can seem impossible to find. Many genealogical writers have focused on this problem (see links at the bottom of this post) so I figured I would add my own thoughts.

1. Check her children and grandchildren's names. It's possible that a descendant's first or middle name is an ancestor's maiden name. Don't just look at her kids, try her grandchildren as well. Now am I saying everyone uses their maiden name when naming their kids, no. But that should be one of the first things to consider.

2. Study death records. I'm assuming here that her death certificate lists her father's name as "unknown" or is somehow incomplete (otherwise you'd know her maiden name). As you research her death, also check funeral home records and cemetery records. Don't forget obituaries that might list living brothers.

3. Newspapers, newspapers, newspapers! While you're looking for obituaries see if there is some mention of her engagement, wedding, or a milestone anniversary. Find the first two article types by searching on her husband's name. These articles  all may provide a maiden name.

Need more ideas? Here's a few online articles that may help.

Top Places to Find Maiden Names by Kimberly Powell

Five Tips for Learning Women's Maiden Names. FamilyTree Magazine

7 Little-Used Tricks for Finding That Missing Maiden Name. Family History Daily

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #27 Researching Before 1850

Like too many women, this photo is of an unidentified woman. George Eastman House. Flickr the Commons https://flic.kr/p/55EYzC

What's one of your least favorite research tasks? For many people, it's researching families before 1850. Government documents like the U.S. Federal Census are all but quiet in documenting women’s lives prior to 1850. So what’s a family historian to do? Here’s a few ideas:

Start with the familiar

What sources do you consistently turn to as you research your family history? You may have a list of favorite subscription and free websites that you use at the start of every research project. As with any research, start your pre-1850 search with familiar sources like FamilySearch.

Let's use the FamilySearch Catalog as an example. The Catalog allows you to search by author, title, place, surname and keyword. Once you have noted all the resources available for the place she lived in, conduct a keyword search. Choose terms like “colonial women” or “Quaker women” to describe an ancestor. 

In the Catalog's keyword search you can find collections that document women’s lives. Some examples include:

•    Index of references to American women in colonial newspapers through 1800 by Evans

•   Women silversmiths, 1685-1845: works from the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC by Glanville and  Goldsborough

•   The freewomen of Petersburg : status and culture in a southern town, 1784-1860 by Lebsock

•  Connecticut women in the Revolutionary era by Fennelly

•  Women's and men's minutes, 1730-1778 by Society of Friends. Nottingham Monthly Meeting 

As you research some of your favorite websites consider searching differently such as using the website's subject or card catalog in addition to searching by surname. Consider what collections or databases your ancestor might be named in and search that individual collection. 

Consider her activities

What types of activities could your female ancestor have taken part in? Was she a member of a church? Did she join an organization?  Learning more about the time period and place she lived in can provide important clues to what records documented her life. Groups recorded their activities whether by creating membership lists, meeting notes, treasurer’s reports, that document their activities. In some cases these collections were either retained by the organization and may be available from that group if they still exist or were donated to an archive.

As you research remember that researching the ancestor’s community is crucial in your research. As with any research consider her FAN club. Genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills reminds us that every ancestor had a FAN club (Friends, Acquaintances, and Neighbors). Search for manuscripts left by your ancestor’s FANs housed in archives, libraries, and museums for mentions of your ancestor. Search these catalogs by the name of the town she lived in to find everything written by those who lived in that place.

Catalogs to search include ArchiveGrid, and the repositories in the place your ancestor lived, such as university special collections. In some cases a regional catalog might assist you in searching. Examples from the western states include Online Archive California, Archives West, Rocky Mountain Online Archive, Texas Archival Resources Online, Arizona Archives Online, and Mountain West Digital Library. 

Expand your Research

When researching a female ancestor it’s vital to take a look at the men in her life. As you get further back year wise in your genealogy, it can be important to focus on the family unit instead of solely on an individual. Focusing on a family can provide you with more options and information.  

Reconstructing that family may also reveal associates who have migrated and interacted with the family. It is through these men that you might fill in the details of a woman’s life. Mentions in military pensions, a will, or probate papers  can provide valuable clues.

Start with a timeline for her husband’s or father’s life. Then identify documents that he should appear in. Look through these documents for mentions of family members. Consult the FamilySearch Catalog for court records for the place your ancestor lived.  Military records and pensions prior to 1850 will be available from the National Archives  or online through  websites like Ancestry.com or Fold3.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #26 Old, Tried, and True

This weekend I traveled back in time.

Yes, a real live record store in 2016. Rhino Records in Claremont, California (c) 2016 Gena Philibert-Ortega

I went to a ...record store. Yes, a record store. When I was a teenager we had records. And if you didn't want to buy a whole LP you bought a single on a 45. Just explaining that to my teenage son made him give me a puzzled look and then ask if I also rode a dinosaur to school.

At some point, technology marched on and we gave up our LPs for CDs and then over time we, for the most part, gave up our CDs for MP3s.

And now, they are selling records and record players again.

Research reminds me of records. In the good old days people learned how to do research differently than what is taught now. Today, those new to genealogy use online census records and some of the other "low-hanging fruit" found easily and quickly online. And in some cases, if they are lucky, that's how they become addicted to family history.

But there's so much more to research than that.

What about research in the pre-Internet days? Some of us remember that. And those techniques are important to learn when you get stuck on your research today. You see, there's nothing wrong with the old ways, but we tend to like the new ways because they make life easier.

Even old genealogy books can provide important methodology. (c) 2016 Gena Philibert-Ortega 

To enhance your research, I recommend that you begin by reading some of the standard genealogy texts. Yes, some of the ways we access the records are different today, but these tried and true resources will teach you how to do good, solid genealogy research.

These books are available online and in some cases through a used bookseller.

• Szucs, Loretto D, and Sandra H. Luebking. The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1997. 

• Pfeiffer, Laura S. Hidden Sources: Family History in Unlikely Places. Orem, Utah: Ancestry, 2000

• Meyerink, Kory L. Printed Sources: A Guide to Published Genealogical Records. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry, 1998

• Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. Baltimore, Md: Genealogical Pub. Co, 1990. 

Do yourself a favor, and read some of these tried and true classics today. As for me, I'll keep referring to these classics and using the great technology we have for research today.

And my future includes buying a record player.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #25 Go To School

The great microfilm collection at UC Riverside. (c) 2016 Gena Philibert-Ortega

Are you using an academic library?

Yes? Great! They are a fabulous resources for researchers.

For those who said no, why haven't you used an academic library?

Academic libraries have so much to offer family historians. Sure, there's books. Lots of books on all kinds of topics including local history. Most academic libraries also have special collections that may include manuscript collections dealing with local history. So a trip to the local university library where your ancestor lived can be important.

But even a trip to your local academic library should be on your to-do list. Academic libraries have great database subscriptions that include everything from digitized newspapers and periodicals to maps and other original source materials. Often times a trip to your local university library is well worth your time.

Before you go, think about what you want to know. Write those questions down. You can typically ask questions before your trip through their Ask A Librarian feature. So before the trip or when you get to the library ask questions like "I'm researching a woman who lived in this area in the 1850s, what materials might you have that can help me?" Or "I want to know more about women who were members of the WCTU, what keywords should I use in the catalog?"

Make it a goal to check out a university library. Start with their website and then take a field trip and see what they have that can assist your research.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #24 Search Digital Collections

What a great time to be a genealogist. Digital collections exist all over the Internet and provide us with the unique opportunity to search on collections we may not have known existed.

Digital collections can include everything from maps to digitized books and newspapers, correspondence, images and more. Some of my favorite places to find collections are:

• American Memory
• Digital Public Library of America
• Iowa Women's Archive Digital Collections
• Discovering American Women's History Online
• New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Take some time today to search out digital collections for the state your ancestor lived in. 

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #23 Read About Women's Lives

Books! (c) Gena Philibert-Ortega

What's on your bookshelf?

Read any good books lately?

Learning good research methodology and resources is a constant pursuit for the genealogist (or should be). So what are you reading?

There's so much out there to help you research your female ancestor and it doesn't have to be a "genealogy" book.

Pick a non-fiction book, now open it up to the back and check out the bibliography and endnotes. See where the author researched and what sources they found. Now as you read the book, think about the methodology they used. How did they find the information that helped them tell herstory?

As you read the book, use sticky notes, a pencil, and even a highlighter and engage with the narrative. Ask questions. Have your Internet enabled mobile device nearby to lookup words, ideas, and sources. Study the book and think about what it can teach you about researching women.

Need some recommendations? I have plenty but here's a few to get you started:

• Bold Spirit
• Dear Mother, Love Daddy
• Paper Love
• Annie's Ghosts
• The Business of Charity

What are your favorite books about women's lives?

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #22 Women's Work

Packing oranges at a co-op orange packing plant, Redlands, Calif. Santa Fe R.R. trip.
Library of Congress via Flickr The Commons https://flic.kr/p/4juY2V

Most researchers are familiar with the one word description usually found in the occupation column for female ancestors in the US Census. Housewife. So many women have this word attached to records that name them. But that word ignores the reality of most women's lives.

Throughout history, many women have worked outside of the home. Middle class, lower income, and immigrant women worked out of necessity. Out-of-work or disabled husbands, widowhood, or  a large family could also dictate the need to work. Women whose families owned their own business may have had to work to ensure the success of the family business.

Women were needed during war time to fill in for men needed on the front lines. Even during the time of the American Civil War, women found themselves working outside of the home in factories or taking over the family business. Most researchers are familiar with World War II's  Rosie the Riveters but previous generations of women also worked during war time. 

So what types of work did women do? Well the short answer is all types but there were some specific occupations we think of as “women’s work.” Occupations that involved running a boarding house, cleaning private homes, taking care of children, and sewing come as no surprise. But there are perhaps more surprising occupations that our nineteenth-century female ancestors were a part of including working in cigar or ammunition factories and even  coal mines.

When thinking about what types of jobs your ancestress may have done, think about where they lived. In the mid-nineteenth century while some women in the UK worked in the coal mines, women in California would have been engaged in work like keeping a boarding house, doing laundry and cooking for miners or teaching children in school. As you research look not only for possible records left behind by a business, often located at an archive, but also search for more information on the type of work she participated in to help you better understand her life.

Consider the era that your ancestor lived in and what occupations were available to women. Also consider the place. If your ancestor lived in a city with a cigar factory that might be a possibility since cigar factories employed a large number of women. 

Where to Find the Records? If your ancestor worked for a company that still exists, inquire whether they have an historical  archive. In some cases a company may have donated their historical records to a regional or academic archive. Search on a state library catalog or ArchiveGrid to find those archived collections. Whenever you are trying to learn more about your ancestor in a certain place, make sure that you learn about any collections that exist in the local public and academic library. Quite possibly these places have manuscript collections that might have information on the place your ancestor worked, photos, or even employee records.

Don’t forget to use Google Books and Google Scholar to find books about the place your ancestor lived and the history of their occupation.  In my research on cigar factories I was able to find history books and even union periodicals for the cigar industry through Google Books.  Google Scholar helped me find scholarly articles and books that provided me with information about the life of women cigar workers. Another source for “scholarly” periodical articles is JSTOR . 

Want to learn more about the working women of yesteryear? Check out books about the subject like America’s Working Women 1600 to the Present Edited by Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon. Also take a look at census reports that help to break down what work women were doing and the occupations they most commonly held. One such report is Women in Gainful Occupations, 1870 to 1920 . One specialized website that provides history and resources is Harvard University Library’s Working Women, 1800-1930. You can learn more about researching occupations from the chapter Business, Institution and Organization Records found in The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy available online from the Ancestry.com Wiki.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #21 Cookbooks!

Really, you didn't think we could do a month worth of tips and not mention cookbooks?

Cookbooks are important. They are a genealogy source, especially community cookbooks which are very similar to other genealogical sources like city directories. Community cookbooks are at the very least a  “names list.” They provide a person's name and residence. Community cookbooks vary on what information can be found in the cookbook and may include additional information ranging from just the name of the recipe contributor to family history information explaining the significance of the recipe to the family.  Depending on the group who organized the cookbook you can find occupations, personal histories, and even clues to ethnic backgrounds.

So how do you find community cookbooks? While many repositories have not collected community cookbooks, there are ways to find community cookbooks that document the locality you are researching and may even list a family member’s name.

In searching for possible community cookbooks, consider checking available bibliographies, archival/library collections, digitized book sites and online auction websites. If you are in the area where your ancestor lived, you can expand your search to local library collections, used bookstores, friends of the library book sales and thrift stores.

Large collections of community cookbooks can be found around the United States. These collections can be found at:

• Los Angeles Public Library 
• Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive, University of Michigan 
• The Library of Congress 
•  Harvard University, Schlesinger Library 
• Rutgers University Libraries 
• UMass Amherst 

Digitized book websites provide genealogists with a convenient way to peruse new and old books online. Don't forget to search these websites for cookbooks. 

• Internet Archive’s Text collection has a Cooking sub-collection. This collection includes books from UCLA, UC Berkeley and the Prelinger Library.  You can search this collection by title or by author.  
• Google Books includes community cookbooks that can be found using keywords like “church cookbook.”  
• While a library or archive in your ancestor’s locality might hold the promise of a collection of community cookbooks, another place to search is eBay.  Community cookbooks are well represented on eBay and run the gamut of church, school, and organizational books spanning the 19^th and 20^th century.

When searching on eBay, make sure to try various keywords so that you search can be as comprehensive as possible. Some search terms to try include “community cookbook,” “church cookbooks,” “charity cookbooks,” or “fundraising cookbooks.” You can also specify a type of cookbook in your search like “Grange cookbook” or “Methodist cookbook.”

And don't forget that often times community cookbooks are a home source. Ask family members about the possibility they own these long-forgotten gems.

 If you want to check out more cookbooks, please see my blog Food.Family.Ephemera.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #20 Exhaust FamilySearch

Cupcake by Serge Bertasius Photograph/Courtesy Freedigitalphotos.net

How do you use FamilySearch? That may seem like a dumb question but I'm serious, what parts of FamilySearch do you use?

Over and over again I hear from family historians that they don't use the FamilySearch Catalog or the Wiki or some other portion of the website. And I get it, I really do. Why use the Catalog (or other parts of FamilySearch) when you can go straight to digitized records or indexes? Let's face it, for most websites or software, we only use a portion of the available features.

It's sorta like when you were a kid and it was your birthday. You waited patiently (or not) til it was time to cut that cake. But minutes before there was that temptation, the overwhelming temptation to stick your finger into the frosting and be the first to taste some of that sweet goodness. For those of us who dared to follow through with our plan, the result was that your mom would get mad and give you that disappointed look or threaten to not let you have a slice. But let's face it, the frosting is the best part when you are a kid. Now, this defiant act made mom mad  for a few reasons but there's something she knew to be true. The frosting is great but it's better to have the cake with the frosting intact. Very few people want to eat dry cake.*

Sure there's the immediate gratification of entering a name and date in FamilySearch and getting some "hits." There's a lot you can do on FamilySearch but you need to partake of the cake and the frosting. The cake includes that Catalog with its  books, periodicals, microforms and digitized records. This is where the vital records, wills, probates, and everything else can be found.

My advice to everyone is to conduct an exhaustive search on the FamilySearch Catalog as soon as possible in your research process. Not sure how to search the Catalog? Let me provide some tips.

From the Catalog homepage, you will have the ability to search by Place, Surname, Title, Author, Subject, Keywords or Call Number. As you start your search, you are going to want to search by Place, Surname, Subject or Keyword unless you know the specific resource you are looking.

Before you search the Catalog, you should have determined the research question you want answered. So if I want to see what records the Family History Library has that may document Martha Proby who lived in Ipswich, Suffolk, England in the early 19^th century I could structure a number of searches to find what I need.

I would first try a Surname search for Proby.  The Surname search would help me locate family history books. Next, I would conduct a Place search. Here I will type in the city that Martha Proby was from. On the  Place results page for Ipswich, I can look at the various categories of records available and then choose those that are of interest to me. This is where I can find microfilm for subject categories such as Court and Church Records, Occupations, and Vital Records. I would recommend searching on the city, county, and state (or country) that your ancestor lived in to get a complete view of what records might exist.

Once you have completed a Places search, I would recommend trying a Keyword search. Remember our Keyword List from Tip #5? Pull that list out or start it now. A Keyword search allows you to search on a word or phrase that might be found in a catalog entry. So for example I may choose the word “Quaker” or the phrase “Quaker women.” 

A great new feature of the Catalog is the ability to combine your search, using more than one type of search. So for example, we all have Smith ancestors, right? Well you can start your search by clicking on Surnames and enter “Smith” and then click on Places and search for “Utah.” You could also combine a Place with a Keyword search. So for example you could try “Alabama” and the keyword “Women.” Once you type in your combination of search terms, click on the Search button. As with all search engines, remember that the more search terms you add, the fewer results you will receive. This doesn’t mean that there is no information to be had, it just means that those terms may not be cataloged or that combined they may not result in a hit.

Another tip to be aware of, when you are looking at an entry in the FamilySearch Catalog,  notice towards the bottom of the entry there is the heading “Subjects.” Under that heading you may find one or more links. These links provide you the opportunity to search the Catalog for those subject that closely match your search. By doing this, you may find additional resources that were not available in your original search. These Subjects or Subject Headings, available in all library catalogs, allow you to focus and enhance your search.

There's so much more to using FamilySearch than typing in a  name and a date. Make sure to become familiar with the entire website and what it can offer you. Exhaust FamilySearch when researching your female ancestors.

(* Ok, I would still rather eat the frosting and I know lots of adults who don't like to eat it and save the calories. But let's just go with this analogy for the sake of the point I'm trying to make).

Women's History Month 2016: Tip # 19 Utilize Societies

Laptop In Meeting Room by sixninepixels/Courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net

Are you a member of a genealogy society? Think societies are not necessary in today's world? Think again.

Joining a genealogical (or even historical) society can be a boon to your research. Why?

Societies bring together like-minded people. Those people have varying degrees of expertise in all kinds of subjects. Plus they may have access to records/resources through their society's collection.

Membership has its privileges and those privileges can include:

• Meetings
• Educational groups (Special Interest Groups)
• 1:1 help
• Field Trips
• Research
• Digital and library collections
• Special access to materials online and in person

So whether you live near the society you're a member of or you join a society where your ancestor lived, it can benefit your research.

Not sure what societies are out there? Try Googling the name of the city and the words "genealogy," "genealogical society" or use the website Society Hill.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #18 Directories Aren't Just For Cities

(c) 2016 Gena Philibert-Ortega

Let's face it. City directories are a great source. They have names, addresses, occupations, and often, clues to a woman's marital status.

So city directories are a fabulous source for genealogy.

But, there are other types of directories that are equally fabulous for researching female ancestors. Have you used any of them? They include:

• City Directories
• Farm Directories
• Social Registers
• Church Directories
• Alumni Directories
• Club Directories
• Professional Directories
• Telephone Books
• Business Directories
• Who’s Who of American Women
• Community Cookbooks

You can learn more about directories from The Source available on the Ancestry Wiki. Remember that for many different types of directories you'll want to search on digitized book websites and WorldCat.

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Want to learn more about using directories for finding female ancestors? Going to Jamboree? I'll be giving a presentation on the topic. Consult the schedule for FR019 I'm in the Book: Researching Women in Directories.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #17 When Did She Vote?

Are you using voting records to research your female ancestor? We often assume that these records will be of little use since women did not receive the right to vote until 1920. But for many states, that assumption is incorrect.

National American Woman Suffrage Association, “Votes for women,” Digital Public Library of America, http://dp.la/item/1847d71e7f95e296350b3a503e150c80. Courtesy of the University of Virginia Library

As the American Women page on the American Memory website points out:

When it was ratified in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granted     the right to vote to women. Before that time, some states had passed legislation allowing women to vote, beginning with Wyoming in 1869...

Western territories such as Colorado, Utah, and California followed Wyoming's example in the years from 1869 to 1911. Women gained limited suffrage rights from other states and municipalities, such as Kentucky, which gave widows with children the right to vote in school elections as early as 1838.

During the women's suffrage movement, New Jersey became a rallying point for the early suffragists in their demonstrations and court cases. Interestingly, New Jersey had given women who met the enumerated requirements the right to vote in its 1776 constitution. 

Yes, women in New Jersey who met the requirements could vote as early as 1776, but in 1844 that right was taken away.

After you determine when your state granted female suffrage, start looking at voting records. Find these by doing a search on the FamilySearch Catalog, Ancestry.com or a state archive or library.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #16 Church Records

(c) 2016 Gena Philibert-Ortega

Let's face it, women are/were the church goers. And prior to civil registration, church records serve as an alternative.

So are you using church records to trace your female ancestors?

To begin with, what are church records? The answer to that question is complex and for right now I’m just dealing with some generalities involving  Christian church records. Basically, religious records include documents considered original sources, created at the time of an event, as well as materials that tell the history of that congregation and its members. The complexity involves the fact that churches produce different records and policies about what they do with those records, including archiving them or destroying them. So these records can cover everything from a christenings, marriage and baptismal records, excommunications, almanacs, censuses, photographs, membership records, directories, periodicals and ephemera. (Ephemera are paper items that were not originally meant for long term archiving such as periodicals, correspondence and church bulletins.)

Telling Her Story

Let's concentrate on records as they pertain to your female ancestor's life. How was your female ancestor involved in her church? Was she a member of an auxiliary group? Was she mentioned in a church periodical for an important milestone event (birthday, wedding anniversary) or for some personal accomplishment? Did she have a vocation? Learning more about her life can help to guide you towards the appropriate records and where they may be kept.

In addition to locating church records, take some time to identify any possible records that may pertain to the congregations’ women. These may be found, like the others, online or off. Websites for groups that women were a part of might be found online.

So let me provide an example researching Mormon women (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). As I begin my research, I will want to start by conducting a keyword search in the FamilySearch Catalog.  I would then look to the Mormon Church History Library for resources about members but also for resources on the Mormon Church’s women’s organization, the Relief Society. Then I may choose to check out the Relief Society Magazine Index (1914-1970) on the Brigham Young University Library website  to see if she was mentioned in its pages. Searching the Pioneer Index of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers organization might be helpful as well as looking through some histories involving stories of Mormon women. 

The most important thing to think about when tracing your female ancestors in religious records is to consider the church, their organizations and records as you consider possible sources of information.

A Plan!

To begin your church record research, you need to identify which religion your ancestor practiced, churches they attended, and what records may exist. To do this, start with reading local histories of the area that may be found on digitized books website like Google Books or Internet Archive. Continue searching for local histories via the library catalog WorldCat .

You will also need to determine where those records could be located. To do this, consider the following types of libraries and archives:

• The church building or meetinghouse
• Regional church location like a diocese
• Church-sponsored archive
• Church-sponsored museum
• Church-sponsored library
• Church-sponsored university library or archive
• Family History Library 
• Public/Private libraries in the places your ancestor lived
• School of Theology libraries
• State archive or libraries
• Google
• Genealogy Subscription Websites

Now some of the above repositories might seem obvious, like a church house or church archive. But others may not seem as obvious. For example, why would church records be at a state archive or library? Shouldn’t these records be limited to the documents produced by a state government? Well archival collections can end up almost anywhere. The Connecticut State Library has a collection of records and a Church Records Index. So make sure to consult your Research Guide and look everywhere!

Church records are a must. Have you used them to research?

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #15 Create A Research Guide

Woman writing...by khunaspix/Courtesy Freefigitalphotos.net

A Research Guide? What's that?

I want you to think about your research project. Next, think about what you would need to have at your fingertips to be an expert in researching that locality, time period, or subject (religion, occupation, organization, etc.).

If you were researching a place you would want information like:

• Libraries that serve that area and their relevant collections (state, public, private, academic)
• Archives that serve that area and their relevant collections (NARA, state, local, academic, other)
• Museums
• Government offices (courthouses, recorder's office)
• Historical sites 

Now, what records are available for what dates? Such as:

• When did Birth, Marriage, and Death records begin?
• What years do Probate records cover?
• What year did Divorce records begin?
• When was the County founded? What about the City you're researching?

What other significant collections exist for the area you're researching? These might be online in places like:

• FamilySearch
• Ancestry.com
• GenealogyBank

What else might be of help? A map of the area at the time your ancestor lived there would be great. Maybe even a bibliography of local history books.

By gathering all this information and having it in one place, whether a paper notebook, Microsoft Word file, or Evernote notebook, you will become an expert in researching the place your ancestor lived and do better research.

Women's History Month 2016: Tip #14 Ask An Expert

Sure, you may need a professional genealogist but what about other specialties that can answer questions for you?
Hydrologist Job Meaning Hydraulics Expert And Words by Stuart Miles/Courtsy of Freedigitalphotos.net

When is the last time you consulted an expert about your genealogy? I'm not referring to just genealogy professionals but also experts from other disciplines.

Why would you do that?

One of my research projects involves a 19th century British woman who wrote a manuscript having to do with mineralogy. In the course of that research I have asked questions of :

• geologists
• collectors
• rare book dealers
• museums
• archivists
• professional genealogists
• family historians
• history researchers
• geology librarians
• librarians from public, academic, and state libraries
• and others

My point? It has taken a few years of asking questions of many people worldwide  via face to face interactions, conferences, emails, and Tweets to get the answers I have found so far. Answers I would have never found by only using the Internet.

So why wouldn't you ask an expert?

Look at your research. What questions do you have? What do you need to know more about? What do you not know about the place they lived or the resources that are available? Who has done similar research with some success?

Where do you find experts? Social media helps but you can also use the Ask A Librarian feature found on library websites (particularly academic libraries). Consult with archivists, historians, membership organizations, even university professors.

What experts do you need to talk to?

Women's History Month 2016: Tip # 13 Women Specific Sources

Yes, quilts can be a source for genealogy. (c) 2016 Gena Philibert-Ortega

So often we use the same sources for our genealogy. I'm not against that, those sources are great and you should use them. They are tried and true ways to follow and document a family line. But you should also expand your search to include specific sources that document women's lives.

What are these sources?

Well, what about using a quilt database with names of women quilters as well as the names found on signature/friendship quilts. The Quilt Index can help you with that. What about looking at an archival collection that includes records for women's groups like the WCTU, Dorcas Society, or the Junior League? Why not explore historical resources for women like what can be found in the FamilySearch Catalog?

Sources that document her membership in religious groups, benevolent organizations, and even her interests exist. Use ArchiveGrid, WorldCat, and the FamilySearch Catalog to find those that exist for the place your female ancestor lived.

What women specific source have you used?

Women's History Month 2016: Tip # 12 Add Social History

Social history can be found almost everywhere including academic libraries.
(c) 2016 Gena Philibert-Ortega

Combining genealogy with social history is something I'm passionate about, especially when telling the story of women's lives. Social history enriches the story you are trying to tell. It fills in the blanks and helps you better understand her life.

Not sure what social history is? Here's a definition:

 history that concentrates upon the social, economic, and cultural institutions of a people

Social history is the study of ordinary people’s lives. Consider questions that go beyond names and dates. Research what life was like for your ancestor, what they ate, what they wore, what was a typical day like, etc…

Social history utilizes
• Traditional genealogical sources
• Manuscript collections
• Ephemera
• Books
• Photographs
• Newspapers
• Diaries, journals and letters
• Interviews

Where can you find social history? Some websites to check out include:

• GenWriters
• Fashion Era
• The New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Check out Discover Your Ancestors magazine for some great social history + genealogy articles.

Now for a brief commercial.

Vintage Television Isolated by Witthaya Phonsawat/Courtesy of Freedigitalphotos.net

Friends, do you want to know more about social history and how to add it to your research? Do you want to learn more about rich resources just waiting for you? Do you want to get excited about your family history research? (The answer to all these questions is, Of Course!)

Please join me for a workshop at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree. Early bird registration ends in April. Then join me again in January for SLIG 2017 where we will talk social history for a week. It's the most fun you can ever hope to have!