Reviews

Reviews The Hidden Half of the Family: A Sourcebook for Women's Genealogy. By Christina Kassabian Schaefer. Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., Baltimore, 1999. xii plus 298 pp., index, illustrations, paper. $35.00 plus $3.50 shipping. The hidden half of the family, according to this new genealogical refer¬ ence book, is the female half. During their early years, females were “lost” in the households of their fathers. After marriage it was their husbands who protected and obscured these same females. Our women ancestors had litde opportunity to create their own records with which we can trace them. They could not own property and rarely wrote a will. They are only counted, not named, in fifty years of census re¬ ports. It is not usually the women’s names that appear in tax lists or in city directories. To further complicate our search, women changed surnames at the same time they went from their father’s home to their husband’s. They key to finding this hidden part of our family, Schaefer asserts, is to identify any occasion a woman might have had contact with the government and then look for the records created by that contact To aid in identifying these occasions, the author has compiled a state-bystate source guide to possible records useful in the search, Laws of marriage, divorce, property, inheritance, suffrage, and citizenship are outlined. Sources for marriage and divorce records are indicated, with Family History Library film numbers included when appropriate. A bibliography offers fur¬ ther sources, and unique state resources are listed. A multi-page introduction covers aspects of laws as applied to women. Discussed in the federal section are immigration, citizenship, and passport records; census reports; federal land records, including homestead applica¬ tions; and military and pension records that might have been created by a woman or by her husband. The remainder of the book is a state-by-state guide to various records that might apply to women, with a review of applicable laws. State sources in¬ clude court, marriage, divorce, and manumission laws. Non-govemment sources such as newspapers, city directories, and cemetery and church records are mentioned, and a bibliography and names of research reposi¬ tories are included. — —— 82 — Reviews 83 Frequently used timelines, both in the introductory and the state pages, are helpful in understanding the sequence of changes in the law and in quickly locating the laws that might apply during the time period of the reader’s interest. A glossary of terms and a general bibliography complete the contents. Information included in The Hidden Half of the Family was gathered pri¬ marily by a mail survey of state offices. Responses were received from all but three states. (There is no indication of which three states did not reply, or how the information for those states was compiled.) That this work includes a great deal of useful information is not ques¬ tioned. The information itself, however, is sometimes hidden by the lack of a complete and thorough index. Of the eight entries for “Quaker women,” four refer to Quaker settlements in various states, two to bibliographic en¬ tries, and one to a Virginia law allowing Quaker ministers to perform legal marriages. Only one entry actually pertains to Quaker women: a mention that they sometimes used a maiden name as a middle name. A spot check of other subject entries revealed similar indexing. Another problem arises from attempting to devise a single format that tries to fit the information for all states. A table showing starring dates for county records, while labeled “approximate date,” indicates that county records for Pennsylvania begin in 1681. While possibly true (and it could be argued the date is 1682) the date pertains only to the original three coun¬ ties. An experienced researcher may already be aware of the evolution of counties, but such a statement could well mislead the newcomer. The table showing earliest marriage and divorce registration for states indicates such records begin in Pennsylvania in “1852, most 1885.” No mention is made of the colonial period marriage licenses, the fact that the 1852 law was repealed in 1855, or the pre-1885 registration date for Philadelphia, Pitts¬ burgh, and Allentown all points that may be important to the individual researcher. As long as the information in The Hidden Half of the Family is treated as an overview survey rather than a complete guide to the various laws affecting women, it should be a useful resource, — Kay Haviland Freilich, CGRS 84 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Printed Sources: A Guide to Published Genealogical Records. Edited by Kory L. Meyerink. Ancestry, Inc., Salt Lake City, 1998. 840 pp., appendixes, index, illustra¬ tions, list of contributors, maps, cloth. $49.95 plus $4.95 shipping. American genealogy is approximately 150 years old. Every day a number of new books are published by and for genealogists to help them in the study of family ancestries and histories. Printed Sources is one such book. Its goal, says editor Meyerink, is “to be a guide to published genealogical sources from which both the novice and the experienced researcher can benefit.” The volume should be considered a reference book, not a book to read through from beginning to end but as a place to turn for detailed information about a source with the hope of bet¬ ter understanding that source and related reference tools. Exhaustive is a good word for this massive tome (8 x 11" weighing four pounds) . This overall guide to both the older genealogical literature and newer reference sources summarizes the work of the last generation as it marks the entrance of the study into the electronic age. As Ralph J. Crandall of the New England Historic Society notes in his per¬ ceptive forward, “ours is an era when family history research has progressed beyond a leisure-time activity to become not only a humanistic science with thousands of practitioners but almost a cultural expectation.” If the whole purpose of genealogical books is to make research easier and to make the information sources more accessible, Printed Sources earns high marks from this reviewer and should be warmly received by most read¬ ers. Meyerink provides the best use of this material through an excellent introduction that both defines the need for this comprehensive effort and lays the foundation for the remainder of the book. He divides the introduction into eight sections that give a workable framework for the genealogist’s research. The sections treat such topics as “Origins of Informations” through “Documentation and Copyright” to “Effective Use of Libraries and Archives.” The introduction tells the reader how to acquire different types of printed sources. Two of twenty chapters deal with genealogies and local histories. Eigh¬ teen other chapters treat a wide variety of other sources. More than a dozen authors take readers by the hand and lead them on productive quests for ancestral accountability. There are, of course, expected sources such as family Bibles, cemetery records, and newspapers. There are also unexpected sources, including printed probate records and ambiguously titled documentary collections, 4 + Reviews 85 The information gleaned will be overwhelmingly rewarding, but facts are flavored with warnings to learn the limitations of a transcript, extract, or ab¬ stract “Beware of pitfalls,” an author advises, when relying solely upon tran¬ scribed records. Less stark advice emphasizes the need for flexibility when an expected record cannot be found. On occasion, however, the admoni¬ tions become too pedestrian. In one section the reader is told not to “hog” materials, keep children quiet, and refrain from smoking in the rest rooms! Addressing the growing youthfulness of the genealogical community and the looming reality of CD-ROM/Internet sources, editor Meyerink finds the difference between lineage-linked information and other collections of compiled research in the fact that each piece of data in the newer technol¬ ogy database is linked to other information. To keep up with computer change and expanding capacity, the reader should review pertinent jour¬ nals and attend local, state, and national genealogical conferences. No review can do justice to this stunning achievement. John A. Baird Jr. Eighteenth Century Emigrants from Langenselbold in Hesse to America, by Annette Kunselman Burge rt, FASG, FGSP. AKB Publications, Myerstown, PA, 1997. 192 pp., appendixes, index, maps, illustrations, cloth. $27.50 plus $2.50 shipping. Langenselbold was a part of the Isenburg territory and was one of the German regions that suffered much damage in the Thirty Years’ War. To help repopulate, Ernest Casimir of Isenburg-Budingen issued an edict on March 22, 1712, promising religious freedom to artisans and others who would settle in his lands. From 1704 to 1714 expelled pietists from the Pa¬ latinate found an asylum in Isenburg-Budingen. Most of them settled in that part of the territory known as Marienbom, located north of Langensel¬ bold and just a short distance south of Eckartshausen. Both Marienbom and Hermhaag, located northeast of Langenselbold, were Moravian strong¬ holds in the eighteenth century. The emigration from Langenselbold and nearby villages started in 1709, when the first group left for England, arriving in New York in 1710. This early emigration was followed by a larger group into Pennsylvania in just a few years. More than 70 families came directly to Pennsylvania with a few arriving before 1727 when the ships’ passenger listed start. The often-re¬ peated axiom “they came together they stayed together” certainly applies to the groups of emigrants from this small area. — 86 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Burger t has done her usually excellent research in the church and other records in this country and in Europe to pinpoint these families in North America and their listings in the passenger lists published in Pennsylvania German Pioneers. Included in this volume are several appendixes, including the 1709 emi¬ grants to England from the Langenselbold area, 1710 immigrants to New York first documented by Henry Z Jones Jr., in his two-volume work The Palatine Families of New York, 1710; and immigrants who appear in the re¬ cords of certain adjacent villages. Also included is an index to ships that brought these immigrants to the Port of Philadelphia and an index of Ger¬ man places mentioned. Jane Adams Clarke, FGSP Legacy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History. By Linda Spence. Swal¬ low Press, Athens, Ohio, 1997. 155 pp., paper, photographs. $14.95. Call 775-568-1550 for ordering information. In the Bible we read: “. . . of making many books there is no end” [Eccle¬ siastes 12:12]. Here comes another literary effort in the personal history genre. People with genuine genealogical interest should be made aware of this work because it is convincingly written in the belief that the everyday life of ordinary people has value for future generations. Legacy is intended to help reveal and preserve the essence of a person’s life by jogging memories that can be written in a notebook or journal for later sharing with others. The book provides a helpful framework for oral history. Telephones bring people together, but at the expense of letters and other written records, the author declares. but Linda Spence offers a book for all of us writers and readers alik she addresses it primarily to those who have never written. She offers an inviting and accessible means of capturing personal history to those who wish to share their lives with others and those who want to inspire and encourage friends to leave a written record. The author poses two preliminary questions to which she provides her own persuasive answers. To the query “Why write?” she presents Legacy as a book “waiting to become the reader’s story” as she shares life experiences, insights, wisdom, and humility for the benefit of others, including future generations. Spence also stresses that the effort will bring the writer wider vision and personal purpose not previously experienced or even imagined. The author then offers four responses to her second question, “Hesitancy?” — Reviews 87 She confronts the difficulty many people find in getting started by dealing with such thoughts as natural reticence, lack of writing experience, the dan* gers of self-absorption, and the value of privacy. Legacy is comprised of eight chapters, each beginning with a few para¬ graphs pertinent to a succession of life stages from childhood through marriage to grandparenting. Quotations from famous autobiographical writers Edna St Vincent Millay, C. S. Lewis, Eudora Welty, and William Faulkner are among those who flavor the text and provide a harmonious counterpoint to the penetrating questions found in each section. Legacy could be called a book of questions. The author asks more than 490 of them. For example, “Adolescence” evokes forty-one, while “Being a Parent” presents eighty-two. They create a compelling context for recording personal history, and in so doing provide a family heirloom that money cannot buy. Elementary questions include the expected ones about date and place of birth, school attended, spouse (s) and children, jobs held, and trips taken, to say nothing of money made, religion professed, and senior citizenship encountered. Unexpected questions go beyond facts and statistics as they probe feelings about circumstances and choices that Spence believes are equally or even more important These are questions that prod the reader to tell us his or her story, thereby producing a personal history. The reader is asked, for example, “What frightened you in school?” and “What subjects were avoided in your family?” “When did you first feel like an adult?” and “What did you teach and learn from your children?” Each of these surprising questions provides a sampler to illustrate the distinctive character of the book. Some readers may find the pages devoted to the mechanics of starting to write too elementary. Do we need to be told to close our eyes, take deep breaths, and mutter words like “relax” and “remember”? This comment, however, does not diminish the impact of Legacy, which comes to a powerful close with selected reflections and a final query that requests the neophyte writer to record “the happiest time of your life.” John A. Baird Jr. 88 The Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine Brief Reviews Land Records of Sussex County, Delaware, 1681—1725. By Mary Marshal) Brewer. Family Line Publications, Westminster, MD, 1998. 221 pp., index, maps, paper. $19.00 plus $3.00 shipping. Sussex County land records begin in 1681, although the area was settled earlier. As in most land records, the genealogical data is a tremendous help in finding information not found in probate, church, or immigration re¬ cords. Names of heirs, place of residence before coming to Delaware, and information on land held elsewhere were often included in deeds. When a name is found in the index, the entire page should be scanned. The name is frequendy found several places. Avery useful part of this book is the introduction by F. Edward Wright explaining the early history of Sussex County, because some early land records for the area can be found in the State Archives of New York at Al¬ bany. These date from 1655 to 1664 when it was a Swedish colony, and from 1664 to 1679 when it was part of the Duke of York’s land, Jeanne Pontarelli The Correspondence of Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg. Volume 2: 1748-1752. Trans¬ lated and edited byJohn W. Kleiner and Helmut T. Lehmann. Picton Press, Camden, ME, 1997. xv plus 316 pp., index, acid-free paper, cloth. $39.50 plus $4.00 shipping. Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, the extremely active, traveled, and outspoken patriarch of the Lutheran Church in North America, left as his legacy his three-volume journal and his correspondence to many, both here and in Europe. The dominant topic in his correspondence is the church and its ministry, but the dominant personality is that of Henry Mel¬ chior Muhlenberg, He discusses everything; his dreams, disappointments, and his physical and emotional highs and lows are all clearly apparent. One topic that ties together all the correspondence in this volume is the church being planted in North America’s wilderness, and the ministry that Muhlenberg and his colleagues were exercising “among the dispersed and erring sheep of the evangelical flock" in Pennsylvania, NewJersey, and New York. This volume gives us a deep insight into the problems in the colonies for both the people and the leaders. Jane Adams Clarke, FGSP Reviews 89 — The Dansbury Diaries Moravian Travel Diaries, 1748—1755, of the Reverend Sven Rossen and Others in the Area of Dansbury, Now Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania Trans¬ lated and edited by William N. Schwartze and Rolf Ridgway Hillman. Picton Press, Camden, ME, 1994. xiii plus 274 pp., index, maps, illustrations, doth. $29.95 plus $4.00 shipping. The original documents in this volume— diaries, notes, reports, lists of sufferers, petitions, etc. from the Forks of the Delaware contain first-hand accounts pertaining to the French and Indian War of 1756-1763. These dia¬ ries are fragments of writings by several Moravian missionaries. In additional Rev. Sven Rossen, other authors are Rev. Jasper Payne (1755) , Rev. Thomas Yarrell (1753-1754), Rev. Joseph Powell (1765), and James Burnside. These diaries were first published in 1939 under the tide Dansbury Diaries, and in 1934 as Old Dansbury, both of which are reprinted in this volume. Also included is The Powell List of Sufferers, a list of refugees to the Moravian settlements in the winter of 1756, originally published by the Pennsylvania German Society in 1906. This publicadon is a “must read” for both historians and genealogists interested in the history of the region, their ancestors, and the French and Indian War. — Jane Adams Clarke, FGSP CoUis’ Zouaves: The 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War. By Edward J. Hagerty. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1998. 352 pp., bib¬ liography, maps, photographs, index, cloth. $29.95 plus $3.50 shipping. This is an interest-holding Civil War regimental history of a Philadelphia man (from neighborhoods personally know to the author) who wore vivid red, white, and blue uniforms and were led by a colorful lawyer with the rank of colonel in the Union Army. Following the example of the French army’s ferocious Zouaves who cap¬ tured America’s fancy during the Crimean War, Collis’ command proved to be both fierce attackers and conspicuous targets, with one-third of those serving being killed or wounded by the end of the struggle. Professor Hagerty probes the motivations of the soldiers in the daily com¬ mitment to their cause. Most members of the 114th regiment were older and more skilled than the average member of the Union forces. Hagerty blends a good story with scholarly achievement to fashion an engrossing social history. John A. Baird Jr.