Learning Scrivener

I mentioned earlier this year that I would be taking an online course to better learn the ins and outs and bells and whistles of Scrivener^⁠1. Its makers at Literature & Latte describe Scrivener as “a powerful content-generation tool”; users refer to it as a word-processing program, as project management software, and  as “my favorite writing tool^⁠2.” While Scrivener’s click-here and drag-there interface makes the process of writing, brainstorming, and tinkering the text much easier—so much easier that you want to weep with happiness—than working in a traditional and more linear word processor, there are just soooo many options available that it’s easy to lose track of how to color-code cards on the corkboard or make a floating reference panel appear. I wanted to play with the toys, er… use the tools, without having to go on a darned treasure hunt to find them first.
 

Gwen Hernandez’s Scrivener for Mac^⁠3 course met my needs perfectly.

The course consisted of four weeks of lessons, posted five days a week. Color screenshots illustrated anything that might be unclear or tricky to figure out from explanation alone, or gave us a reference point to which we could compare our own results at the end of a lesson’s instructions. Each lesson finished with a homework assignment, and I thought Gwen did a good job with those. They were each brief, but left scope for stretching and trying out the trick of the day on our own work after practicing on the course material. Gwen was clearly interested in having us practice what we’d learned rather than testing us on how well we remembered where to access what—the assignment instructions frequently included a parenthetical hint on which item we needed to find under which drop-down menu. (Thank you for that, Gwen!)

Students were subscribed to a discussion board where Gwen cheerfully and thoroughly answered questions, and where students could exchange ideas and ask each other questions. The discussion board remained open for one week after lessons ended, so that those who were catching up or those who simply wanted to keep practicing still had a place to get answers from Gwen.

Gwen had us set up a little mock writing project for the course so that everyone was trying the exact same thing; it made it easier for her, too, when one of us had a question, because she knew where we had started and what results we should have gotten. (And if any of us messed up our project too badly, she'd give us a copy of whatever form it was supposed to be for that day, so that we didn't lose time trying to fix things just to get going again.)

I spent an hour or two a day working my way through the lesson and doing the homework. Often I was a day or two behind, and judging from posts in the discussion board, that was a common occurrence, but the course is well-designed to allow for that. Some students clearly spent more time than I did on the lessons, applied the day’s new knowledge to projects of their own, tested variations of what we’d learned, and came to the discussion board with thoughtful questions (frequently with screenshots of what they’d tried).

Different people learn in different ways. Some folks coming to Scrivener will explore and play and master it well. Others will read the tutorial or manual or one of the commercially available books and watch the videos and read the blog posts and do just fine from there. But for those who need or would simply enjoy a systematic and comprehensive tour, Gwen’s course is IT. And the price is totally reasonable. Literature & Latte even offers a 30 day free trial of Scrivener, meaning a person can try it out thoroughly without the cost of the software, while taking this course. (Just to be clear: it’s the software that has the free trial; you’d still have to pay for Gwen’s course.)

So, bravo to Gwen Hernandez for designing an excellent online course for a wonderful piece of software! I think just about any writer would enjoy using Scrivener, and I look forward to more genealogists integrating it into their research and writing processes and then starting conversations about how they’re using it.

¹ http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php

² http://www.copylicious.com/2012/02/my-favorite-writing-tool-ever-how-it-makes-me-a-productive-member-of-society/

³ Gwen also offers a Scrivener for Windows course; see http://gwenhernandez.com/scrivener-online-classes/ for both courses. Gwen is also the author of Scrivener for Dummies.

Cambridge Annual Archives Crawl: Day 3

A third beautiful summer evening for walking from archive to archive!

Mount Auburn Cemetery  www.mtauburn.org

There’s so much that can be said (and is said, and written, and photographed) about this 175-acre cemetery, delight of gardeners and bird-watchers as well as genealogists, but I don’t recall hearing much about their archives before. Curator of Historical Collections Meg Winslow and another woman (whose name I didn’t catch) shared their detailed and enthusiastic knowledge of the history, records, collections, and stories (was Mary Baker Eddy really buried with a telephone?) of the cemetery. Meg referred to the cemetery and its archival collections as “a balance of monuments, landscape, and lives.”

The cemetery, opened in 1831, contains over 98,000 burials today, and inspired the beginning of the public parks movement (including Boston’s beautiful Public Garden). Its historical collections (climate controlled) include a library, the cemetery archives, and a collection of ephemera. Meg explained that a burial produces several records, including: decedent card, burial record, entry on a lot card, burial permit, and death certificate. Lot files can contain a surprising amount of information: correspondence regarding care of the lot, letters stipulating that Uncle So-and-So is not to be buried in the family lot, detailed “planting plans” (the ones we saw appeared to be professional landscape designs), and plans for monuments  Cremations also produce records, even if the cremated remains are not interred at the cemetery; I was surprised to learn that a cremation requires a medical inspection (of the body) beforehand. The cemetery is now switching to digital files for contemporary records.

Meg and her co-worker seemed very open to researchers, but pointed out that appointments are needed and that photocopies of files might be provided instead of access to the originals.

The most surprising piece of information: Mount Auburn Cemetery has a book club. Honest! I was mentally making plans to ditch my burial plot here in Burlington and buy a lot in Mount Auburn, but then they pointed out that the book club is only for living people.

What I’d come back for: Anyone buried here. Meg pointed out that Mount Auburn immediately became so popular (really, if you aren’t from the Boston area, you must check out the photos on the website to see how beautiful it is) that many families bought lots for themselves and then relocated their deceased family members here from other cemeteries. So I’d be sure to note anyone who died before 1831 and look for their records not only at Mount Auburn but also at a previous cemetery.

Cambridge Historical Society  www.cambridgehistory.org

Located in the second-oldest house in Cambridge, the historical society (founded 1905) has a very nice archival collection, a resident archivist, and is digitizing some of its collections. Archivist Mark Vassar gave us an excellent overview of the history of the society’s collections and of the collections themselves. We were treated to letters and documents signed by First Lady Dolley Madison, Abraham Lincoln, and P. T. Barnum, among others. Collections include Revolutionary War diaries, family papers, some business records, photos, maps, plans, periodicals and newsletters pertaining to Cambridge, and records and papers of the Small Property Owners Association (local folks might remember them from the rent-control issues of not too many years ago). 

Specific collections highlighted included some sermons of Joseph Willard, president of Harvard in 1781, including a sermon he gave after the Declaration of Independence. Most of his papers are actually at Harvard, but some which had been in his grand-daughter’s possession made their way here instead. The Quincy-Hill-Phillips-Treadwell collection intrigued me, since it includes papers from a number of prominent families, covers a large time span, and includes correspondence with people outside the families. The account book and estate papers of Andrew Craigie, a big land speculator of late 18th and early 19th century Cambridge, are here; this one caught my attention because there are a number of Craigie’s papers in the Shattuck Collection (for which I wrote the finding aid) at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. I learned that more of Craigie’s papers are at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, and re-learned (I’d forgotten) that Craigie owned the Longfellow House (our next stop) before Longfellow did. And for fans of American patriot Dr. Joseph Warren (you know who you are!), the good news is that Mercy Scollay’s letters are here at the Cambridge Historical Society. I think we were told that they are now digitized, but check the website to be sure.

The Cambridge Historical Society is open to the public for research, by appointment only. My impression is that they prefer that researchers have specific questions or targeted research plans. In other words, be prepared to discuss your specific research needs with the archivist beforehand as well as setting a time for the appointment itself.

What I’d come back for: I’ll definitely be returning to the website to take a more in-depth look at the collections, their finding aids, time periods covered, and family names. Some of the families probably interacted with one or two families that I’m slowly researching, plus I’d like to have an even better overview in my head of the various collections.

Longfellow House/Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site  www.nps.gov/long/index.htm

Our last stop of the evening was the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, also called the Vassal-Craigie-Longfellow House after the three families who owned it, and the Washington Headquarters National Historic Site in recognition of George’s presence here for nine months during the siege of Boston. Built in 1759, it’s now a National Park site.

We saw very little of the house itself as we made our way to the basement archives. The collections here are focused mainly on the house and families, especially (no surprise) the Longfellow family. Longfellow’s son (or grandson? my notes fail me) traveled widely and commissioned photos during his trips in the 1860s through 1880s, creating a rich and unpublished travel archives—the mention of photos of Japan during this time particularly interested me. Longfellow’s [grand?]son also had a good sense of developing an archival collection, and made purchases to increase it. Some of his acquisitions were laid out for our viewing: a certificate bestowing military rank signed by Catherine the Great; a letter to H. W. Longfellow’s grandfather Peleg Wadsworth signed by George Washington; and a 1789 order for payment signed by King George III.

What I’d come back for: I’ll certainly come back for the house tour sometime; it’s long been on my list. As for the archives, I don’t have an immediate sense of anything I’d be looking for here. Fanny Longfellow is from a family I’m researching, but she’s far enough removed from my client’s branch that I probably wouldn’t need to work my way down into Fanny’s own papers.

The Cambridge Archives Crawl turned out to be as interesting as I had hoped. For local readers, I hope these three blog posts gave you a little idea of some historical collections that you might not have been aware of. For non-local readers, I hope it gives you some ideas of the types of historical repositories you might have in your own area. Happy researching!

Cambridge Annual Archives Crawl: Day 2

Day One of Open Archives was focused on Cambridge city collections; Day Two will be Harvard collections, Day Three cultural collections, and Day Four (to which I’m not going this year) MIT collections. There will be less walking on Day Two, since we’re staying within Harvard.

Harvard University Archives  hul.harvard.edu/huarc/

The archival collection of all things Harvard is located in the Pusey Library. Just walking down the hall to the Archive’s rooms was a treat: we passed the rooms of the Harvard Map Collection (http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/maps/), the rooms for the holdings of the Harvard Theatre Collection (http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/collections/htc/index.cfm), a hallway display about Theodore Roosevelt, and another display about the war of 1812.

The staff of the archives had quite a number of items for us to examine (and lemonade and cookies in an adjoining room, thank you staff!). It wasn’t too difficult for them to find items in keeping with this year’s theme of “Famous and Infamous,” but they did tend to favor “famous.” Two documents signed by John Hancock illustrated the evolution of his well-known signature; it was not quite so fancy back in 1754, but its boldness was already apparent. FDR’s update for the class anniversary report noted his current occupation as “President U.S.” and in the space to describe how much he had traveled he wrote “about 1,000,000 miles.” Other items were about the university and events (e.g. ‘60s protests) rather than about individuals.

I was most fascinated by the class book of 1837, which was open to Henry David Thoreau’s page. Each member of the class wrote long-hand, himself, about himself (no herselfs back then), and the class secretary later kept each person’s entry up-to-date with news clippings, notices of occupation and death, sometimes photos, etc. These class books, forerunners of the red class books and anniversary reports, are in handwritten format pretty much only for the 19th century. I need to go back to one of my New England research projects—I think there are some Harvard students in there, and how cool would it be to give my client a copy of something her ancestor wrote about himself in his youth.

What I’d come back for: I’m not particularly interested in the history of the university itself. I’ll be back for the 19th century class books, and maybe materials about events pertinent to the time that my research subjects were there.

Houghton Library  hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/Houghton

Wow, what a gem this building is! Its mission is the collection of rare books and manuscripts, and it has one of the largest collections of incunabula (books printed before 1501). Major collections include the books and papers of Longfellow, Edward Lear (also the subject of the current exhibit), Keats, e.e. cummings, and T.S. Eliot. One entire oval room, stunningly beautiful (it was decorated like a piece of Wedgwood jasperware, honest!), was devoted to a collection of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s works. We were treated to a view of the first book printed in British North America, a book of Psalms published in 1640; one of only thirteen copies, it’s more rare than a Gutenberg Bible.

Once again my interest was most taken by an item about ordinary individuals. Mary F. Peirce was a teacher at Cambridge High School in the late 1800s and left a collection about the school (a little more than a linear foot of material) that made its way to the Houghton Library. The papers include school records, report cards, newspaper clippings, letters, and more. Our guide admitted that it’s one of those miscellaneous undescribed collections that no one really knows about until someone takes the trouble to go through it. (My thought—Writing a finding aid/collection description would be a great little volunteer project for someone interested in Cambridge history.)

I’d love to see this building again and learn more about what’s here. The Edison and Newman Room to the left of the lobby displays the current exhibition and is open to the public without needing a researcher’s card. Tours of the building for the public take place every Friday at 2 p.m., and we were told that they are more in-depth than the hour-long tour and discussion that we had, so I’ll be back one Friday soon!

What I’d come back for: Besides the tour, I’m curious to know what other non-literary collections like Mary F. Peirce’s might be here. Longfellow intersects with a family I’m researching, so I’ll be keeping his papers in the back of my mind.

The Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America  www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library

We didn’t see much at all of the interior of this library, built in 1908 partly with Carnegie funding, but we were given a good overview of the types of material they collect here. Most of what we were shown was from collections about or from particular women, including Betty Friedan, Susan Brownmiller, Amelia Earhart (including her baby book which contained a lock of her very fine very straight and very blond baby hair), Judy Chicago, and Julia Child (who knew an Emmy is so large?). The Beecher-Stowe family papers, including those of Harriet Beecher Stow, are at the Schlesinger, and are in the process of being digitized. Collections not specific to particular individuals include the Black Women’s Oral History project of the 1980s.

Unlike the procedures at other Harvard libraries, research at the Schlesinger does not require that one first obtain a Harvard researcher card—as the archivist put it, we could walk in off the street to do research.

What I’d come back for: I didn’t come away feeling that I needed to keep any particular collection in mind, but that I should probably take a more thorough look at the Schlesinger’s website before dismissing it as a genealogical resource.

Cambridge Annual Archives Crawl: Day 1

Genealogists love archives, and this week is a sort of mini-tour of genealogy heaven in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The fourth annual Cambridge Open Archives, aka the Cambridge Archives Crawl, will visit twelve archives in four evenings, and I’m going to three of those. This year’s theme is “Famous and Infamous,” and you can learn a little more about the event at http://www.cambridgehistory.org/calendar/openarchives. Please visit each organization’s website for more information about their collections, research hours, and procedures.

The Cambridge Historical Commission  www.cambridgema.gov/historic/

Many of the archives we’ll be visiting are not set up for large groups, so we’re broken down into three groups of about ten people. Each group starts at one of the three archives for the evening, and we each move on to another archive at one-hour intervals. My group began at the Cambridge Historical Commission, located next to City Hall on the edge of Central Square.

The theme “Famous and Infamous” lends itself well to highlighting individuals, but the Historical Commission focuses more on architectural history. So the folks here drew on a scrapbook in their collection of a late-19th /early-20th century sergeant of the Liquor Squad, and used it to spark a history lesson of the pre-Prohibition “no license” (= no alcohol) movement in Cambridge. Locations and photos of taverns (a popular spot was just inside the Cambridge town line next to a dry town), owners of taverns, the sentiment behind the “no license” push (possibly veiled anti-immigrant feelings as the composition of neighborhoods rapidly changed), and an annual newspaper devoted to the topic (Frozen Truth) were all woven into the discussion. Our small group included a couple of people who were deeply knowledgeable about Cambridge history, and they saw the local anti-alcohol issues of the time as leading into the later development of what comprises “good government” in Cambridge.

I was hoping to get an overview of what archival materials the Historical Commission holds, but they didn’t explicitly cover that.

What I’d come back for: Hard to say without checking their website. Offhand, I think I probably wouldn’t come back for genealogical research unless I were researching a Cambridge resident and wanted to draw in very detailed information about his home and neighborhood. (Something that’s always nice to do, but there’s that little issue of time!)

The Cambridge Room, Cambridge Public Library http://www.cambridgema.gov/cpl/Services/cambridgeroom.aspx

Second stop: the Cambridge Public Library Archives and Special Collections. This is in a brand-new light-filled and spacious space, and now has a full-time (and enthusiastic) archivist. Because both the facility and archivist are relatively new, the collection is still being processed and described; the archivist is quite excited about the collections she is finding.

The archivist had a number of items on display for us. Lucius Paige wrote a definitive history of Cambridge in the late 1800s, and his papers make up one of the many collections here; part of his manuscript was on the table for us to look at. Paige was a long-time city clerk and a minister, so he knew everyone; he spent years extracting information about Cambridge and its residents from various records, and those research notes are in his papers also. One of the other tour members mentioned that the full text of his Cambridge history is available on Google Books, but that its index is not.

A few late-18th century letters were available (in clear protective sleeves) for us to examine. My favorite was a letter from one man (“Mr. A,” let’s call him) to Mr. B, politely informing him that B Jr. had gotten A’s daughter pregnant. He mentioned that the bearer of this hand-delivered letter was his (A’s) son-in-law. One wonders about that son-in-law—was he a banker who held B’s mortgage? a thick-necked low-browed knuckle-dragging hulk, just a tad intimidating? a young minister? or simply someone who was very adept at resolving delicate situations?

What I’d come back for: I’m somewhat tempted to return and finish reading that letter, and then see if I can find out how the story ends! But more seriously, I’ll come back here for any Cambridge resident I’m researching—or at least check the collection information online and send an email to the archivist to find out what might be available for my target timeframe and social group. I should go back once just to scan the stacks in that room and make note of some of the books that I might want to use as reference in the future.

Cambridge Department of Public Works  http://www.cambridgema.gov/theworks.aspx

I was looking forward to this stop, because I wasn’t sure what to expect. The DPW is in a modern building, and we spent our time in the basement where records are stored. I was surprised (happily so) to find that half of the records area is climate-controlled. Records here go back to about 1850, although the weather reports date back to 1814.

The records are about what you’d expect to find—information about sewer lines and other such things. One of the surprises was how beautiful and detailed the old hand-drawn engineering designs are; a large sketch detailing a footing and support for an arch was on display for us to admire. Records are not limited to geographic Cambridge; the 1934 example illustrating this concerned a piggery in Lincoln and Waltham located on the drainage area of the Cambridge Water Supply. Local folk who are familiar with the location of the Cambridge reservoir at route 128 on the Waltham/Lincoln line can envision how this might be an issue!

The record set that most interested me were two small field books, now scanned and available at the DPW as downloads to a thumb drive (but not online). The first is titled simply F.B. 1, 1868-1935, and is the less interesting of the two for any genealogical purposes. There are some sketches pertinent to certain neighborhoods, and a fair amount of measurements concerning water—soundings in the Charles river; and tables of time, velocity, and flow of the Vine Brook in Bedford (again, outside of Cambridge). I found F.B. 2, Claims + Accident Reconstructions, 1889-1937 much more interesting. Each page contains a detailed sketch of the location of an accident, with names (sometimes) and dates. One page illustrates the precise situation of a sidewalk on November 9, 1898, where   “[a] man fell and hurt his knee last night”; details include “bricks sink where shaded,” “this end filled with dirt,” and the depth of an apparent hole (the small writing on the photocopy we were given is somewhat difficult to read; the original, and presumably the scan, is larger and clearer). Another page, dated October 3, 1906, concerns an incident where “[a] horse fell from bridge to top of cars” (presumably train cars), and notes “picture taken.” I’ll bet this sad accident made the news! I’d come back to this booklet if I had a family story of an accident in Cambridge, especially if seemed likely to lead to a lawsuit.

What I’d come back for: Again, I’d probably come back here only for house and neighborhood background information, such as when certain city services came to the neighborhood or street where someone lived. The historical weather information intrigues me; if I wanted information regarding a storm or drought that affected my family being researched, I’d keep these records in mind.

Today's Favorite Resource: Detailed Historic German Maps

A particular factoid that I remember from a high school American history class is that one out of every six Americans has German ancestry. Given the passage of years (ok, decades!) and the immigration of a variety of other nationalities, that proportion has likely changed; I don’t doubt, however, that there are still significant numbers of Americans researching German lines. My own maternal ancestors came from various corners of the German-speaking world, and I continue to work on those portions of my family tree and learn about the many resources available. I have a few favorite collections that are accessible online; two are free, the other is free at many libraries or by subscription otherwise.

Kartenmeister

One of the first sites I use for my German map research is http://kartenmeister.com/. Kartenmeister helps me pinpoint a location, tells the various name changes of a town, and gives the past and present political divisions that are so important for locating records.

Here’s what it shows for the village of Sarben, near the town of Czarnikau, in what used to be Prussia (today in Poland) at http://kartenmeister.com/preview/City.asp?CitNum=54196

Using the information in Kartenmeister, I made myself a little cheat-sheet of basic location info for my ancestral villages in the German province of Posen, Prussia, which today is the Polish province of Wielkopolskie:

Towns in Prussia associated with the Grube-Giese family
German name	Polish name today (no diacritics used)	Location	Roman Catholic parish
Czarnikau	Czarnkow	East 16° 34′ North 52° 54′	Czarnikau
Hutka	??	East 16° 41′ North 52° 53′	Czarnikau
Gembice, Gembitz	Gebice	East 16° 41′ North 52° 54′	Czarnikau
Sarben	Sarbia	East 16° 39′ North 52° 56′	Sarben
Schönlanke	Trzcianka	East 16° 27′ North 53° 02′	Schönlanke

Ancestry.com, World Explorer membership or Library Edition

The information I collected from Kartenmeister made it much easier to turn to Germany, Topographic Maps, 1860-1965 [original title and publication info: Karte des Deutschen Reiches 1:100 000. Berlin: Reichsamt für Landesaufnahme, 1860-1965], available at Ancestry.com in the World Explorer membership, or via Ancestry Library Edition. This collection of highly detailed maps is a treasure. I can see the lay of the land, where there were fields, forests, buildings, businesses such as brickworks, and streams in the area where my family lived.

To access this collection, at Ancestry.com or Ancestry Library Edition,  pull down the Search menu and choose “Card Catalog.” Type in the search term “Germany topographic,” and in the box to the right choose sheet range “Ubersichtsblatt” [“Overview”], sheet number “Ubersichtsblatt,” and then click year ‘all.’  (I found that I have to type “Germany topographic” and not “German topographic”: for some reason, Ancestry won’t find it without that final –y.)

This leads to a large map of Germany divided into numbered squares corresponding to the sheet numbers. Each square includes the name of a major town or city; river names and political divisions are also indicated. Using those clues, I can hone in on the area my ancestors lived in, and find the section number(s) that includes their town. Obviously, I first need to know the name of the town my family came from (from family stories and documents) and have a pretty clear idea where it is located (thank you, Kartenmeister).

Once I have a sheet number, I can return to the map collection’s search page. Now I can choose a sheet range instead of “Ubersichtsblatt, ” then a specific sheet within that range, and sometimes I can choose from several maps of different dates.

To illustrate what the search process and results look like, here is the search screen for those villages around Czarnikau.  I determined that I needed sheet 250, and then:

I chose sheet range “200-299” then sheet “250”; a choice of years is listed, which leads to the maps.

Below is a cropped section of sheet 250, showing Czarnikau and villages including Hutka, Gembitz, and Sarben. If I did this right (but apparently I didn't!), you'd be able to click on the map and blow it up to see just how much detail is present. Yeah, I'm still practicing with capturing images and putting them into my blog; it doesn't always come out quite as well as I'd like.

Bavarian Regional Library Online: Bayerische Landesbibliothek Online

In a future post I’ll look at another resource that I use for a different branch of my ancestry from yet another part of the German Empire, but I want to at least mention it here. The Bavarian Regional Library online at http://www.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/ has a wealth of resources, including maps at http://www.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/enortsblaetter. Some parts of the site have an English language option.

A new-to-me resource for central European genealogy

A new resource was pointed out to me last night, a godsend for anyone searching central European parish registers. Compiled by Bartholomew Szokolszky and published in 1922, Annyakönyvvezetők szótára [Registrar’s dictionary] is 141 pages of terms used in church registers, each term being given in Hungarian, Slovak, German, and Latin.

There are four chapters, each for a different class of vocabulary. Words are in alphabetical order of the Hungarian term within each chapter. The chapters are: occupations, causes of death, first names, and the most common terms and phrases used in the registers.

The registrar’s dictionary is available online in PDF format, courtesy of Verejná knižnica Jána Bocatia [John Bocatia Public Library] in Košice, Slovakia, at http://www.vkjb.sk/File/anyakonyvvezetokszotara.PDF . I immediately put it to work, looking up a cause of death in Hungarian for which I could determine only some of the letters. With the PDF format, I could search on a partial word. After a few tries (“is that a letter o, or an a?”) I found the phrase.

I owe a HUGE “d’akujem pekne” [thank you so much!] to Ladislav Rosival for telling me about this resource.

New England resources: Searching for Shammas

One of my great challenges in becoming more expert in New England research is learning about places, history, laws, customs… well, you know, 400 years of everything! I’m still searching for a niche, something under-researched or a time/place/topic that just really grabs me, so I can focus a little more.  But in the meantime, I try (and try) to read broadly.

And so I went hunting for two books and their authors today, and happily found more than I expected. I needed to note the exact titles of Women and the Law of Property in Early America by Marylynn Salmon, and Inheritance in America from Colonial Times to the Present by Carole Shammas, Michel Dahlin, and Marylynn Salmon.  For some reason, I also had it in the back of my mind that there was another book by Carole Shammas that had caught my attention some time back; it was time to google.

I came across Shammas’ profile at the University of Southern California (http://college.usc.edu/cf/faculty-and-staff/faculty.cfm?pid=1003699&CFID=13189362&CFTOKEN=36713233) with a link to her curriculum vitae; I clicked on it, and found my hoped-for list of her publications, including a very long list of articles which she has authored.

Sometimes the internet makes me feel like the proverbial kid in a candy store.  I skimmed and happily noted several interesting articles. “The Space Problem in Early United States Cities” (William and Mary Quarterly 3^rd ser. V. 57 no. 3 [July 2000], 505-542) caught my eye; I’ve long been interested in how people use space, as individuals, as families, and as communities. Here comes the candy store part: I didn’t have to move an inch to get this article. Being a resident of Massachusetts gives me access to the electronic resources of the wonderful Boston Public Library at http://bpl.org/.  I clicked on the tab for “electronic resources,” clicked “J” under “Search databases alphabetically by title,” clicked “JSTOR,” and then did an advanced search with the author’s name and a few words from the title.  Up came a pdf of the whole article, which I sent to print. Voila, subway reading for the next few trips! Procrastination material for those evenings when I should be studying German! And (undoubtedly) new insight into lives of the past.

And all with a few taps of my fingers on a keyboard.

I’ve used the amazing collection of journals at JSTOR a number of times; it has greatly aided my efforts to expand my knowledge and resources, and of course not just for New England.  I applaud the many libraries in the U.S. that make this collection available. Now if I could just find more time to read the many enticing articles I find there!

Three books of interest

The folks at the Slovak-American International Cultural Foundation Inc. are offering three Slovak-themed books for $30 plus $10 shipping and handling.  The books are:

• Slovak Tales for Young and Old, in Slovak and English; by Pavol Dobsinsky, modern Slovak version by Peter Strelinger,  translated by Lucy Bednar, illustrated by Martin Benka.
• Images Gone with Time: Photographic Reflections of Slovak Folk Life; photographs by Igor Grossman, text (in Slovak and English) by Martin Slivka
• Night of the Barbarians: Memoirs of Communist Persecution of the Slovak Cardinal; by Jan Chryzostom Cardinal Korec, S. J. 

I own copies of the first two, and keep meaning to get the third. Rather than describing or reviewing all three books, I'll just mention one.  Images Gone with Time is a book of 124 striking black and white photos, taken 1950-1965. Each photo has a caption which includes year and place ("Harvest near Suja, Rajec Valley, 1957").  Photos are organized by theme, such as Memory, Work, and Heritage. There are some comments by the photographer at the back of the book, and at the beginning of each theme.  A beautiful collection of photos!

All three books are worth owning or reading, for anyone interested in Slovakia.

See http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1410731575 for more details about each book as well as to access the sale price.