Community

Family history quest should result in story

By CHRIS DEWITT
For the Herald
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 10:05 AM CST

The Chippewa County Genealogical Society hosted the 2008 Tri-County Genealogical Conference on Saturday, Sept. 27 at Central Lutheran Church in Chippewa Falls. Guest speakers were George Findlen and Russell Horton. The two shared some great ways to gain insight into one’s family history.

George is a retired academic administrator who has served as a faculty member or administrator at nine colleges and universities in seven states over 30 years.

He has re-invented himself as a genealogist, becoming certified in 2005. He volunteers at the Wisconsin Historical Society Library and is one of three volunteers in the Microforms Room. George talked on the subject of “Not In My Family” and “Using State and Local Histories to Locate Elusive Relatives.”

We are encouraged to stop amassing names, dates, and places and do the research needed to tell their ancestor’s story, to move from doing genealogy to doing family history. You want to know who you are, where did you come from and where the family came from. You can take all this wealth of information and tell their story.

Looking into the county or township history for the timeframe you have of an ancestor may add to your story if you don’t have a lot of information to go on. Family history seeks the story of why it happened and what happened.

Traditional genealogy explains nothing whereas family history explains as much as records can uncover. Research negative stories because negative information is a window into your family’s past.

State and local history can help you track your ancestors, date their moves, and explain their moves. County histories, township histories, club histories, church centennial histories, histories of individuals businesses, and even state histories often name your ancestors and explain what happened to them, even giving precise dates for their moves. You will be surprised what you can uncover when you research your family.

Russell Horton is an Oshkosh native. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from UW-Madison and a dual master’s degree in history and library science for UW-Milwaukee. He currently works as the Reference Archivist at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison.

Russ has been at the WVM for seven years and in that time has organized letters ad photographs from the Civil War through the present conflict, helped genealogists discover their ancestor’s military service, aided researchers writing books on Wisconsin regiments or other military topics, performed oral history interviews with veterans, and cataloged the occasional World War I sea mine of World War II fragmentation grenade.

If you know the unit your ancestor was a member of, Russ can probably find information for you. He said they have records for the Civil War and Spanish American War, the Mexican Border War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and recent military conflicts. WI State Statute 45.04 prohibits certain people from accessing some World War II records unless you are a direct descendent if the veteran is deceased.

The Museum has family rolls, which list veteran name, city, county of residence, and the name of the family member authorized to draw the soldier’s pay, muster rolls, which contain personal information about Civil War soldiers such as: age given at enlistment, birth place, occupation, physical description, and a few military remarks.

There are roster and burial cards and Certificates of Service. Have you ever wondered what the G.A.R. marker is by a relative’s gravesite? It means Grand Army of the Republic. Russ has information about this also.

The Museum is a good place to start and they can tell you if they have any information or not on the relative you are seeking information on. Stop in and visit the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Research Center located at 30 West Mifflin Street, Madison, Wisconsin or visit their Web site at http://museum.dva.state.wi.us/.

Chris DeWitt is a member of the Chippewa County Genealogical Society.

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