Episode 167 - Colonial American Genealogy

Genealogy Gems Podcast
Episode 167 with Lisa Louise Cooke

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Get ready to lay a foundation in your knowledge of Colonial American genealogy research. Beth Foulk is here to walk us through early immigration to America, Indentured Servitude and Bondage, and the records and resources that can help you locate your ancestors from this time period. But first...

NEWS:

Lisa's youngest daughter Hannah got married last weekend!

NGS 2014 Conference in Richmond VAIn addition to teaching conference classes Lisa teamed up with Maureen Taylor (The Photo Detective) and Janet Hovorka (Family ChartMasters) to provide Genealogy Outside the Box free 30 minute sessions in the exhibit hall. Stay tuned for more announcements of more sessions at future genealogy conferences!

New Newspaper CollectionThe National Library of Australia has added an additional 35 historic newspapers to their online collection at http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper. The greatest concentration of newspapers in this latest update is from New South Wales. Most of the new additions cover the date range from about 1875 to 1960, with many in the 1910 to 1945 era. Most of the additions appear to be from small towns.

Hat tip to Paul Nauta at FamilySearch

MAILBOX:

From Chris on Family Relics: "I loved your comments on "most treasure family relic" in the latest podcast. I'm very fortunate to have pictures and artifacts from my mother's side, but unfortunately I know very little about my dad's side and have only a few things. I could relate to the woman whose answer was "nothing".

One consolation for me has been a few little things I could find out with just a little digging. I wrote about it on my blog

Finding the things I mentioned at least lets me stand in the shoes of my ancestors and imagine life in that place and at that time. It's not as nice as a "relic", but it brings them to life as real people. I think that's important in genealogy as well. Love the podcast!"

Judy writes to as a follow up to the Google Earth for Genealogy Webinar I was so excited about your workshop. Legacy presenters are good but you are among their best. In fact I received an email from my friend:

After watching today's webinar and seeing the gal search the GLORecords for land patents I tried for William Breeding.

S C O R E ! ! ! ! !

I had tried searching for land patents for William Breeding in the past with no success. My great results are due to finally getting confirmation that it is William Jackson Breeding for sure and watching this gal search today.

Thanks for the heads up on this webinar!!!

Watch Google Earth for Genealogy free here at the Genealogy Gems website.

Barbara is Shocked: "I really enjoy your podcasts, and was listening to your latest one when your piece about not so happy memories really struck a chord with me.

I recently asked for the file of my Great Uncle from the Australian War Memorial. He was in World War I in France. I found that he had been charged with desertion and sent to goal( (jail)! What a shock, and I don't think many of the family know a lot about it.

Reading through the transcript of the court marshal and the history of this time of the war, it was pretty clear he was a young man in shock after seeing several of his fellow soldiers die, who did not know what to do. He got separated from his troop and wandered around for a couple of days until he found another company and was arrested. Later he got TB and this probably shortened his life. A sad story, and during my research, I found that 306 Commonwealth solders were shot for desertion. It is quite a controversial part of our history as (thank goodness) the Australian Army refused to allow any of its soldiers to be executed, and this caused some issues with the English officers.

A new law passed on November 8th 2006 and included as part of the Armed Forces Act in the UK has pardoned men in the British and Commonwealth armies who were executed in World War I. The law removes the dishonour with regards to executions on war records but it does not cancel out the sentence of death.

I have decided not to put any of the information online, but keep it in the family archives. Anyone in the family who decides to go looking will find it at the war memorial site, but my uncle did not marry or have children, so that does seem to lessen the impact."

Barbara also asks for your help: I am trying to track down the family of an Australian sailor from WWI who wrote some lovely postcards. I bought them at a garage sale several years ago, and have only just got around to reading them. I would really love to give them to the family, as they are very touching.

I posted about them on my blog.

Here is what I know from them:

The writer was on...