Looking Ahead to 2020

2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment which granted women the constitutional right to vote. That means 2020 is a great time to focus on researching female ancestors.

Looking for a speaker to provide information on suffrage, women's history, or other topics that impacted our female ancestors? I'm traveling through various states and Canada speaking on these topics and would love to present to your group in person or virtually. Some of my presentation topics include the following:

Suffrage

A Genealogist's History of Suffrage
A condensed look at suffrage and what social history you need to know to tell the story of your female ancestor.

Voting: The Records Left Behind
What records exist to document a female ancestor in regards to voting? What records can you find online and in archives. We will discuss the history of suffrage in the United States and the records that exist. We will also discuss how not every female ancestor had the right to vote in 1920.

Female Ancestors

The Farmer Takes a Wife
“He was just a farmer” is a common lament but what about the farmer’s wife? Sources and material culture can help reconstruct her life. Learn about virtually unknown sources and repositories including the USDA Library, farm newspapers, and more. 


25 Tips for Researching Your Female Ancestors
Every year for Women’s History Month, I create 30 blog posts about researching female ancestors. Based on those articles, learn 25 tips that will help you identify, trace, and discover more about your female ancestors.

Wives, Widows, Spinsters, and Mistresses: Documenting Women’s Relationships
Details about women’s lives are found in examining their relationships. What records exist that document relationships to significant others? Learn what records exist that connect a woman to her husband, partner, or significant other, what information the records provide, as well as where these records can be found. 

Grandma was an Alien?! Marriage and Citizenship in 20th Century America 
Not too long ago, American women lost their citizenship when marrying non-citizens. While the 1920s saw changes to this law, women were still applying for their citizenship well into the 1970s. We’ll discuss marriage and women’s citizenship, as well as their repatriation. Examples from research at the National Archives and other repositories will help tell the story of these women’s lives. 

Her Name was Not Unknown:  Finding Female Ancestors
“What’s her maiden name?” “What happened to her after her husband died?” “How do I start researching my great-grandmother?” We’ve all felt the disappointment of seeing the word “unknown” to describe a female ancestor’s name. How do we go from “unknown” to finding a name?  This presentation will explain techniques, methodology, and resources vital to family history research. Enhance your research skills using a 5-step approach to researching (and finding) female ancestors.

The Secret Lives of Women: Research Female Ancestors Using the Sources They Left Behind
Why is finding a female ancestor so difficult? One reason is the way we research their lives. Successful research must combine familiar genealogical sources and the specific sources that women left behind. It is the sources that women authored or participated in that tell us their unique story.  In this lecture we look at the specific trail women left including signature quilts, community cookbooks, journals, and diaries.

I'm in the Book: Researching Women in Directories
City directories are great, but what other types of directories exist that can lead you to information about female ancestors? Surprisingly there are numerous kinds that include members of a church, community group, and membership organizations. Learn more about directories, what they contain and most importantly, where to find them.

Fabric, Cigars, and Murder: Reconstructing a Community of Women
Imagine finding a 1930s quilt top with the names of numerous women and, through genealogical research, uncovering a community. After I purchased a quilt top in Southern California, I started a research journey that led me to Indiana and a unique community of women and the records they left behind. 

Women in the Newspaper
Newspapers are the great equalizer and women are prominent in their pages. In this lecture we will discuss the types of articles women can be found in, as well as search-engine tips specific to researching women.

Researching Women: Community Cookbooks and What They Tell Us About Our Ancestors
Community cookbooks, commonly known as fundraising cookbooks with the plastic comb binding, have been around since the Civil War. They serve as a “city directory” of women, with everything from names, residences, and in some cases familial relationships and photos. Learn more about community cookbooks and using them for your family history. Presentation includes community cookbooks and food.

Martha Proby and her Book: A Case Study of a 19th Century English Woman

Martha Proby, a spinster living in early 19th century England left behind a unique artifact, a commonplace book. The research done to uncover who Martha was, her community, her manuscript, and her modern-day family includes methodologies that can assist anyone researching a female ancestor. Beyond the same old same old, these techniques go beyond typical family history research.

Women's Reasons for Desiring to Vote 1880

***Note from Gena:  I think it's important to look at present-day events in historical context. I'm humbled when I remember that my maternal grandmother lived during a time when women were denied the right to vote. 

My good friend J. D. Thomas at Words From Us asked me to participate in posting the words of women in 1880 who answered Matilda Joslyn Gage's question about why they wanted to vote. These are women who desperately wanted a right that many of us take for granted today. 

"In July 1880, Matilda Joslyn Gage, the owner and editor of the pro-woman suffrage newspaper,  The National Citizen and Ballot Box, compiled a massive list of notes from women all over the country who sent in postcards with notes on why they wanted to vote.  These were in response to the Anti-Suffrage position that real women don't really WANT to vote" (and yes, there were women who were part of that group).

"Some of these notes are very touching and sad when you realize how many of them never lived to see the day when every woman in the country could cast a vote in federal elections forty years later."

Please take some time to read these and remember that you may feel like you have a choice to not vote in this election but several generations ago women had no choice.

Women's Reasons for Desiring to Vote

National Citizen and Ballot Box – July 1880

A Few Extracts from Postals and Letters.

The work of reading these thousands of postals and letters and selecting from among them for publication, has required the labor of two persons over two weeks, and a portion of this time three persons were engaged upon it. Although but comparatively a small portion of them has been given, they form a very remarkable, unique, instructive and valuable addition to the literature and history of woman suffrage.

They not only show the growth of liberty in the hearts of women, but they point out the causes of this growth. Each letter, each postal, carries its own tale of tyrannous oppression, and each woman who reads, will find her courage and her convictions strengthened. Let every woman who receives this paper religiously preserve it for future reference. Let those who say that women do not want to vote, look at the unanimity with which women in each and every state, declare that they do wish to vote,—that they are oppressed because they cannot vote—that they deem themselves capable of making the laws by which they are governed, and of ruling themselves in every way.

These letters are warm from the heart, but they tell tales of injustice and wrong that chill the reader's blood. They show a growing tendency among women to right their own wrongs, as women have ofttimes in ages before chosen their own ways to do. Greece with its tales of Medea and Clytemnestra; Rome and the remembrance of Tofania and her famous water; southern France of more modern times all carry warning to legal domestic tyrants.

Regards,
Matilda Joslyn Gage
 

UTAH
That Territory where women vote but do not hold office, is in hearty sympathy with the work of the N. W. S. A.

N. W. S. A.: I not only desire to vote as do the women of Utah, but to receive the benefits that are usually considered the direct result of the ballot, as the women of Utah do not.—E. Lee, Beaver City.

I believe that women should vote and have equal rights in every sense of the word. In Utah women can vote men into office, but cannot vote for women. We tried to elect a trustee for common schools and failed.—Eliza Foscue, Beaver City.

I wish to cast my vote with the free and liberal women of the United States.—Harriet Broadbent, Kanab.

I firmly believe or hope sincerely when the balance of power is in woman's hands, the sins of immorality will be visited with condign punishment every time on the heads of men instead of women.—Mrs. E. S. Coombs.

I believe in the right of franchise, also equal rights in the fullest sense, for woman. —Mrs. Mary Black, Beaver City.

Officers and members of Relief Society of Mt. Carmel, Kane Co., Utah Territory, thirty-one in number, send their names desiring an amendment to the constitution, giving women the right to vote.

OREGON

Oregon sent many demands for suffrage and many postals addresed to the Republican, Greenback and Democratic Conventions; demanding a woman suffrage plank of each of this conventions. Union sent fifty names to this demand. “We ask the ballot.” Lack of room compels the emisaion of these names as well as of many hundred others. An old lady of Union sent the following:
I send you the name of Mrs. Pruda Davis aged 87, asking for the enfranchisement of women.—M. P. Ames.

I am in favor of equal rights and I also wish to vote. —Annie M. Mastha. La Foye .

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I want to thank J.D. for this opportunity in honoring these women's voices and invite you check out the other bloggers participating in posting these words nationwide. See the blog roll at Words From Us.