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The Parke Society Newsletter Issue 2007 - Vol. 44 No. 1 |
This year's location for the 44th Annual Convocation of The Parke Society, held in late September, was perhaps the most scenic we could have picked anywhere. Indeed, it was a new adventure for us as we journeyed to the Chattanooga Choo Choo, the former Southern Railroad terminal in the great city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. A one-of-a-kind historic property, unique in the Holiday Inn chain, it has been restored to its former elegance and put to a new use. Operating now as a hotel and small convention center, it offered everything we needed to have a successful meeting.
Trading as it does on its historical railroad connection, the hotel doesn't miss a step reminding you of the bygone days when steam was king ...
The Core Staff brought along most of the Society's genealogical
materials, as we usually do: a good assortment of volumes from our
Library, plus a copier for attendees' use. The Research Room was
available throughout the Convocation, usually with a Core Staff
person in attendance to assist members in their work.
...
Regarding the 2008 Convocation
The Society will return to our old haunt, Fort Wayne, Indiana, for the 45th Annual Convocation, September 25-28, 2008. During this, our fourth Convocation in Fort Wayne, we can make use of the wonderful facilities of the Allen County Public Library's Genealogical Collection, one of the best accumulations of genealogical material in the country. We are negotiating a downtown host hotel.
We know that many our researchers wish to further their research in
Fort Wayne. Since our last visit in 2004, the Library has completed
its renovation and remodeling of the Genealogy Department; it is
quite spectacular. Check subsequent Newsletters for more information
as we finalize our plans. We do hope you'll join us there next September.
(page 1)
Our 44th Convocation in Chattanooga, TN concluded with the passing of the gavel. We recognized Keith Harrison for his tenure as president, and a job well done. It will be quite a challenge to fill the office as well as Keith had. Thanks, Keith.
My own goal is to strengthen our Society in those areas that best serve all of you as members. Your officers have often discussed the shift from doing research in libraries and county archives to surfing on the Internet from home for our answers, and the impact on our Society of that research shift. We also note that there remains a vital role for societies such as ours that collect ancestral information as an aid to their members. In the case of our "single name" genealogy society, our principal resource is the collected and indexed family group sheets. As our lineages are found to converge, our Historian changes our Lineage Key accordingly so that we can learn who constitutes our expanded set of of ancestors. (A gentle reminder; do check that any corrections to the information you had supplied to our Historian is sent in to update your family's group sheets!)
One of our more recent additions to our members resources is the DNA project, now well underway. Ken Parks, PS#1406, your newly elected Vice President, is also our DNA Group Administrator.
At our recent Convocation we approved a proposal to start an
archive of our ancestors' obituaries. I volunteered to start the work
on such an archive. We recognize that obituaries, as an adjunct to
our group sheets, can add significantly to the information we need.
To help establish our new archive, please consider looking among your
documents for obituaries you may have collected and saved. Make a
Xerox copy on 8 1/2 x 11 paper and mail them to me. Please make sure
that the name of the newspaper, the date of publication
and our Society Lineage Key (LK) are on each sheet of the
obituary copy. You may include several obituaries on a page as long
as they all share the same LK. ...
(page 4)
As many of you are aware from her announcement in the previous newsletter, Jean Churchill, PS#934 has retired as Librarian for the Society. Also in the last newsletter was a call to any member who might be interested in assuming the position of Librarian.
To date, no member has expressed an interest in taking on the position of Librarian, so the Trustees have decided on a course of action which has been under discussion ever since Jean expressed her intention to retire, over a year ago. ...
The Wayne County Historical Society in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, has recently completed a building addition which has given them much-needed additional space for their holdings. Part of this new space includes state-of-the-art library shelving, and they have accepted our offer of the bulk of the Society's non-Park/e/s related books.
The Park/e/s specific library holdings, listed in the 000
category on the PS Web site's library holdings page, will remain
in the Society's possession and will continue to be available for
loan to current active members. These 000 materials are currently
being kept by me, and although I am not assuming the Librarian
position (which is being eliminated), I will continue to fulfill
any loan requests by active members. ...
(page 5)
Missing Links: Though I have retired as the Society's Librarian, I plan to continue to work with Missing Links and some of the other Fragment Lineages. Using Ancestry.com, I have managed to find more male Parks of both the "Silas Parks/Peter Parks" (LK=CU and IX) line and also the "David Parks/Elizabeth Lance (LK=CT) line—more on these Links will appear in later articles.
Book Reviews: I will be happy to review new Park/e/s manuscripts and advertise their prices for members. If you plan to donate a copy to the Parke Society, please send it to me first for review and then I will send it on to Ken Parks (DNA Administrator) where it will become part of our Park/e/s collection.
NSDAR NOTE: if you are an active DAR member, please
access the NSDAR Genealogy site to check for genealogical information.
If you need help, contact me at my email address: sdtjs2001@yahoo.com.
(page 5)
At the recent Convocation in Chattanooga I gave a talk with the title of this article. I spoke about several migration patterns; migrations to this country, from various regions of this country to the South, and from the South to other states or territories. I was asked to write a short recap for benefit the of members who were not able to attend the Convocation, and will do so in this and future articles. In the next two issues I will focus on migration to this country from the British Isles.
Much of the information about migration from the British Isles comes
from two books: ...
... (pages 6-10)
For the genealogist, that sustenance comprises the freely available bits of data, those information items that help us build a picture of our forbears and trace their history to the present day. Unfortunately, I think we sometimes take for granted our sustenance, not only in foodstuffs, but in the availability of information we need to thrive as genealogists.
...
What we do as genealogists is collect lots of data points; it is called evidence. Then we start to give weight to the data by its preponderance. If we have five records giving the date of birth of a certain person, and four show one date while the other shows another date, we can probably bank on the preponderance of the one date as being the right one, unless some really good solid reasons why it may be incorrect. Internet data does not automatically confer reliability. ...
The Free Flow of Information
...
I am often awed by how much information is really available to us, should
we care to roll up our sleeves and dig it out. If I don't know where
Podunk Falls, NY was in the 1850s, all I have to do is find an old
gazetteer and check the index, and I can locate where it used to be,
and what it is called today, if anything. What about who sold the house to
our great great grandfather? March down to the county courthouse and check
in with the Registrar of Deeds (or whatever they are called in that
jurisdiction) and you can trace the ownership of that parcel forward and
backward through the Deeds and Mortgages volumes. Uncertain of when Great
Aunt Millie died, and of what? Visit the keeper of the Vital Statistics
records where the event happened and perhaps for a small price you can get
a copy of the document. Did she have any heirs to her estate? Check the
Probate Office and there you will probably be able to find records
concerning her will and the disposition of her worldly belongings.
While this has generally been the case in the United States, it certainly has not been true in various parts of the world during various times in history. ...
Public and Not-So-Public Records
Now you may say, "Well, that was then and there, not here and now," but don't be too sure about that. In this column, I want to take up some of my concerns for the future of genealogy—doing family history 25, 50, even 100 years from now. Will the resources be there when our descendants want to look at them? ...
So what are we to do? We must be on our guard so that public records
remain just that—public. We must ensure that information belonging
to the people remains available for our honest use. This is where our
best defense is to be allied with the state and local genealogical and
historic societies. It takes a louder voice and bigger stick than one
individual can wield ...
...(pages 9-13)
In 1998, the descendants of Etta Wolcott Park received permission to reprint A Story For My Children, a book written by Etta's daughter, Nettie Wolcott Park. The 250-page book was first published in 1968 by Vantage Press, and has been out of print since then.
Etta was the wife of Burton William Park, a ninth-generation descendant
of Robert Parke (1630). Etta agreed to write the story of her life for
her children two years before her death, and her daughter, the author of
Mehitabel: Girl Pioneer, edited her mother's memoirs, adding
recollections of the rest of the family as well. ...
[Remaining copies of the book may be purchased from Kathi Baxter.]
(page 13)
[Gary's article on various aspects of the issues surrounding our e-mail
is printed in this Newsletter by permission, and is copyrighted by the
author.]
(pages 14-15)