Search Tips
Here are a few things I noticed as I was searching this database:

~ Abbreviations
I found many names abbreviated or only with first initials. While most abbreviations will show up as matches at Ancestry (e.g., Jas. for James, Thos. for Thomas, etc.), initials will not and should be searched for separately.

~ Sorting James Kellys
I checked through all twenty of the references to James Kelly and found that there were only three or four different individuals that these records pertained to. As I found a new person, I would print the record and then using regimental information and dates to identify each man, add link numbers to the other images that also pertained to that person.

~ Check the Next Page
In this database, it's a good idea to check the image that follows your find by clicking the "Next" button. Some of the records in this collection have multiple pages. On the page following the entries for James Kelly, I found his death date, 1 June 1864. Putting the various entries together with information I found on the Web about the U.S.S. Underwriter, I was able to put together a timeline of events for the seaman.

The U.S.S. Underwriter was docked on the Neuse River where it was defending the Union stronghold at New Bern, North Carolina, when Rebel forces raided the ship and took control, capturing the crew and killing nine during the night of 1-2 February 1864. James Kelly ended up in the prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia, where he was admitted to the hospital on 13 April 1864 with "dysenteria," [sic] and returned to prison on 21 April 1864. He was again admitted on 6 May 1864, this time with the reason stated as "diarrhea" and returned again to prison on 17 May 1864. On 22 May 1864, he returned to the hospital for the last time with "dysenteria" [sic] and he died there on 1 June 1864--four months after his capture.

~ Learning More About the Records
Each index entry at Ancestry includes the NARA microfilm roll information (if applicable). To get a better feel for what I was looking at, I went to the website of the National Archives and clicked through to a page for microfilm research and requests. I then searched the microfilm collection. This led me to a page with the publication title. On a subsequent page I was rewarded with a PDF file of a sixteen-page pamphlet describing the collection. In addition to describing the records on each roll and how they were created, the early pages of the pamphlet also gave background information on the prison at Andersonville.

Follow-Up
I still don't know whether this is indeed our James Kelly or not, and proving whether he is or isn't related needs to be my first priority. I'm looking into Civil War Naval records at the National Archives and found reference to several collections that may help in that direction through my copy of the Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives of the United States.

I also want to find out whether there were prison ships that were used in the South during the Civil War. I checked around online and could not find reference to any, but I did find a publication that looks interesting. Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the Civil War, by Lonnie R. Speer (Mechanicsburg, Pa.; Stackpole Books, 1997.) may yield additional information and a quick check of WorldCat told me that a library five minutes from home has it among its collections.

With Veterans' Day coming up it's particularly fitting that I work on this case. I would like to share his story with my family if we can make a connection. Perhaps you have a veteran in your family tree whose story is waiting to be told. There's no better time than the present to honor the veterans in our family history.

Juliana Smith has been an editor of Ancestry.com newsletters for more than nine years and is author of The Ancestry Family Historian's Address Book. She has written for Ancestry Magazine and wrote the "Computers and Technology" chapter in The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, rev. 3rd edition. Juliana can be reached by e-mail at Juliana@Ancestry.com, but she regrets that her schedule does not allow her to assist with personal research.

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by Sherry Irvine, CG, FSA Scot

The more you know the more surprises you find. This may sound odd but it's true because you can only recognize a genealogical surprise if you know enough to spot that something is special.

Browsing the Web recently I came across a surprise for those researching in and around Glasgow. There is a nice fit between online resources at Ancestry and The Glasgow Story website, and if you're interested in learning more about your Glasgow ancestors and their daily lives, you're in for a treat.

Resources at Ancestry
On the right side of the Ancestry search page, there is a list of resources grouped into categories. About halfway down you should see the heading "Directories and Member Lists." Two or three titles can be seen, usually Early UK and U.S. Directories is among them. If not, click the "More" link, find this heading, and click it.

Do not use the search tool yet. At the bottom of the screen, find the "For more information about this database click here" link and click on it. Do that and you will see details about Glasgow: dates beside the names of nine places in Scotland, and those for Glasgow are: 1801, 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1809, 1810, 1811, 1812, 1813, 1814, 1815, 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, 1823, 1824, 1825, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829, 1830. Scroll down further and Glasgow is listed again, with the years 1783, 1787, 1789, 1791.

Now you can return to the previous page and carry out a search. The search tool goes through the transcribed text of all directories in the database, but you can either limit your search by date and place, or carry out a broad search and then browse your results.

Also available are transcripts and indexes to Scottish census returns. Nominal censuses in Scotland began in 1841 and were carried out every ten years. Genealogists can search up to and including 1901. The run of directories to 1830 and the censuses starting in the following decade provide a long sequence of recorded names and addresses.

Resources at The Glasgow Story
The Glasgow Story website, was created in 2004 by a team of museum, gallery, library, and university experts. Using books, documents, photographs, maps, prints, paintings and drawings, the website tells the story of the city. The project was financed with special funds and there have been, as yet, no further grants for additions to the website. However, that does not matter as the resources remain available at no charge and the features work; you can even create your own Glasgow album.

The directories at this website are an excellent fit with those at Ancestry for two reasons, they provide images of the original publications (no images at Ancestry), and they extend the available years. Four years are the same at the two sites: 1783, 1801, 1811, and 1820. Two at The Glasgow Story are more current, 1831 and 1841.

The directories at The Glasgow Story must be searched in a particular way; for example, to search in the 1831 directory for someone whose last name was Brown, use the quick search tool and type this: PO Dir 1831, B. Be sure to include the comma. The search tool cannot find individual names within directories, only the pages associated with the first letter of the last name. If you omit the surname first letter from your search term, you will get all images for the directory concerned, and you can either jump forward, or browse page by page.

Another way to find directories at this website is to use the "Site Map" link. Scroll down to the images, arranged into six time periods, and browse for the lists of directory pages.

Another record at the site also provides addresses and dates. These are the property valuation rolls for 1913-14, which name both property owners and the occupants or tenants (no other family members).

This website also has an extensive collection of illustrations and maps. The illustrations are varied and reflect Glasgow life, buildings, and people in different periods of history. There are pictures of streets, parks, public buildings, grand houses and tenements, the rich, the poor, famous athletes, means of transport, and more. Once again, you can browse or search for specific illustrations.

Two Are Better Than One
At Ancestry you can search many volumes of trade directories spread over fifty years, seven different censuses from 1841 to 1901. At The Glasgow Story you can browse or search six directories spanning 1743 to 1841, the tax assessment rolls for 1913-14, and a huge collection of maps and pictures. Between the two sites you can search for people, and details of their lives from the late 1700s to the early twentieth century.

It is easier to search for names in directories at Ancestry but the details are presented as transcriptions However, for four years, 1783, 1801, 1811, and 1820, you are able to examine actual page images at The Glasgow Story.

If you find an entry in the 1841 directory at The Glasgow Story, you can check that against the census information at Ancestry.

These are just some of the ways you make connections back and forth between the two sites. You will no doubt find others that help your research. Certainly, the historical essays on work, Irish immigrants, social unrest, living conditions, and many other topics, will contribute to your understanding of daily life in Glasgow during the past 200 years. So, whether or not your ancestors appeared in directories and valuation rolls, you will learn more about them using both websites.

Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA Scot, is an author, teacher, and lecturer specializing in English, Scottish, and Irish family history. She is the author of Your English Ancestry (2d ed., 1998) and Scottish Ancestry (2003), and she is a contributor to several publications. Since 1996, she has been a study tour leader, course coordinator, and instructor for the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University. Recently she served a two-year term as president of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

Online Classes
Sherry Irvine has teamed up with Helen Osborn for a new series of online courses. For more information, visit PharosTutors.com.

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The following items were posted to the 24/7 Family History Circle blog over the past week:

• Kids and Genealogy
• NEHGS and Ancestry.com Announce New Membership Benefits as Part of Collaboration

Do you enjoy your "Ancestry Weekly Journal?" If so, why not share it with a friend? Let them know they can sign up through the Learning Center tab or by logging in to Ancestry. Simply click on "My Account," select "Update your newsletter and marketing email preferences," check the box for "Weekly Journal," and scroll down to click "Update Preferences."

By spreading the word about the "Ancestry Weekly Journal," you'll be helping to keep it growing strong with tips and photo submissions coming from more family historians like you.

Thanks!
Juliana

Today's image (in the upper, right-hand corner of this newsletter) is from the Library of Congress Photo Collection, 1840-2000 at Ancestry.

U.S.M. Steamship Baltic, 1850-1880

by Jana Sloan Broglin, CG

We all like to look at our old high school and college yearbooks and remember all those goofy haircuts, clothes, and styles of glasses. But have you considered other types of school memorabilia for your ancestors? As genealogists, we tend to think of 100 years ago, or more, when doing research, but we also need to look at items from our parents and grandparents.

When looking at school yearbooks, look not only at the school picture, but any others, such as Future Farmers of America (FFA), the basketball team, art club, etc. I located my father, Jack Sloan, in 1943 yearbook in Swanton, Ohio. In his senior year, Dad was shown as a member of the yearbook staff. It was interesting to note in later life, Dad was talented in writing, having done a book regarding his experiences in World War II.

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Pet Cemetery Stone
In his article, After the Brick Wall Falls, George Morgan mentions, "Brisco never had a grave marker. I ordered a gravestone for him, and some of my first cousins have contributed to its cost."

We faced a similar problem for one of my ancestors. My great-grandfather died young, leaving a large--and young--family with no money. He never had a gravestone. My mom and I wished to do something, but the cost of gravestones was far more than we wanted to spend. We ordered a gravestone for him from a pet supply catalog. It is a beautiful granite headstone with his name and life dates engraved quite professionally. At a cost of less than $100, the marker is about one-third of the size of a traditional gravestone (much like the smaller tombstones you might see for children or infants). Except for the size, it is as beautiful and as professionally done as a more traditional and more costly grave marker.

He was buried in an old cemetery now closed to new burials so there were no cemetery rules that we had to deal with. That might be a concern for some cemeteries. Nonetheless, we thought this was an excellent way to remember and honor one of our family without breaking the family budget.

Debbie

Small Town Newspapers
I was born and raised in a small town with a local newspaper. There are many articles in the old newspapers about when our family visited other families or places. My two older brothers played basketball in the 1930s and there are stories about those games and who made baskets; my brothers were high scorers in many of the games. Later when I was married and moved out of state, whenever we visited our parents or friends, it was in the paper. My husband and all of the local men or women were included with news of their time in the service, where they trained, were stationed, what their training had been in, when they came home on leave, etc. During the Second World War many of the service people wrote to the editor and these letters were also printed.

Articles of birthdays, engagements, weddings, births, and deaths are there, plus "news" of world events, and of the people of small towns from the area. School news of each grade, 1-12, is found in some of the newspapers.

Many libraries will check for newspaper items about local people and then they will mail or send e-mails of what they find. In my home town library, the microfilm readers will also print articles as you find them in the film. There is a fee of maybe a dime for each sheet of paper you use.

Regards,
Carol Davis

Not Really "Uncle Bud"
I have a brother-in-law with whom I am very close. He knew very little about his family that he could pass on to his children and grandchildren so I undertook the job. I had a number of interviews with him, some after he experienced a serious illness that hampered his memory somewhat. Each time I interviewed him he talked a little and said that was about all he could remember. As I entered information in my database he had given me and started researching it, I invariably had questions that I would return to him with. Sometimes it resulted in more information and other times, it reminded him of something else totally unrelated to the original question, but proved very important.

One person came up in almost every interview I had with him. He was very proud of his Uncle Bud Williamson whom he remembered being a fireman for the city of Fort Smith, Arkansas. He even remembered his two sons' names. I found the person in question with the names of the sons that my brother-in-law remembered. However, he had not been a fireman according to census records, but a laborer in some capacity for the city. Also, exhaustive research could not turn up a link to my brother-in-law's family. I finally asked him if everybody in the area called him Uncle Bud and he said, "Oh yeah, everybody loved him." That was what I needed to save many more hours of research. My brother-in-law is in his eighties and in that era, many people were called uncle or aunt, but were no kin whatsoever.

I thought this might save others some headaches and many late nights of fruitless search. I'm proud to report that it took me eight months of full-time work but I did get his book completed and he was very happy with it.

Felecia Campbell

If you have a suggestion you would like to share with other researchers, send it to: Juliana@Ancestry.com. Thanks to all of this week's contributors!

Quick Tips may be reprinted, with credit to the submitter, in other Ancestry publications, so if you do not want your tip included in a publication other than the Ancestry Weekly Journal please state so clearly in your message.

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The year was 1822 and after a poor harvest in Ireland in 1821, famine and disease were widespread, particularly in the south and west of Ireland. The Gettysburg Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) of 24 July 1822 reported that,

"A letter from T.S. Lindlay, Esq. High Sheriff of Mayo, says, the distresses arise from ‘A failure in the potatoe [sic] crop of the last year, and the inability of the lower classes to purchase either this root or any other provision at present. The small plot usually attached to the cabins of the poor, in many cases, remain unsown from the impossibility of procuring seed. Nothing can be more wretched than the situation of the peasantry generally in Mayo. I have seen hundreds of wretched people greedily seeking for water cresses, wild mustard, nettletops, dwarf thistles, or dandelion all the spring, and this unnatural food has been the only meal within their reach.'"

The Edinburgh Advertiser (Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland) of 31 May 1822 gave similar descriptions of conditions in County Mayo, as well as reports from other counties. Typhus fever was reported in County Kerry and a report from Galway stated that "the population of the town and vicinage of Galway, under-rated at 30,000 souls, to which are to be added thousands of wretched beings whom famine has driven hither from the remote parts of Connemara, exhibit at this moment a spectacle of extended and complicated misery which baffles description..."

From Limerick,

"The scene at the Catherine-street Dispensing Station yesterday, was truly awful--the poor meagre, half-starved women with cans and piggins [small wooden pails], many of them with an infant or two clinging to their backs, appeared in a continued crowd of great and almost impenetrable density, to obtain their pint of porridge (the quantum allowable on each ticket). A vast number of these were furnished with two, four, six, or eight tickets, according to the number of the family--but strange to tell, only one pint was given to many with a family. We are truly concerned to find that Dysentery Patients will not be received in the Fever Hospital as usual, in consequence of the increase of Fever in this city."

The winter of 1822 in New York was remembered as a cold one by one resident in a New York Times article of 5 January 1879.

"There was no coal used in the City then except the soft coal which blacksmiths used. Wood was the only fuel, and it was piled as high as the housetops in yards in many parts of the City. [Stephen Sweet's] father was in the wood business and his supply, which was large, was exhausted in February on account of the cold weather...Mr. Sweet remembers that the North River was frozen over for a number of days so that teams crossed on the ice where the ferry-boats now run, and that he rode on a load of wood from the foot of Cortlandt-street to Jersey City. He also recalls the fact that two young men named Harrison and Houghton built a shanty on the ice in the middle of the Hudson River and at the "Half-way House," as it was called, sold rum to passengers for 14 days."

In St. Louis, advertisements were appearing seeking "One Hundred enterprising young men ... to ascent the Missouri River to its source, and there to be employed for one, two, or three years." These men would form the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, organized by William Henry Ashley and Major Andrew Henry. Known as "Ashley's Hundred," these trappers would work independently and then gather in the summer to exchange pelts for pay. The company employed such notables as Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith, Joseph Meek, and Jim Beckwourth.

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If you'd like to see your ancestor's photograph in the Ancestry Weekly Journal, send it to Juliana@Ancestry.com.

Contributed by Alex Morris, Sarasota Florida Here is a picture from around 1890-1910. The two are mysterious ancestors or dear friends of my grandparents, Sam and Henrietta Oliphant. They moved from near Minsk during the 1890s and were in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1900 census.	Contributed by Donna Chernick A wedding picture of my grandparents, Samuel Edward Sears (1876-1951) and Petronella Erma Symons (1895-1989). They married 7 April 1913, in Prineville, Oregon, and had four sons, Richard (my father), Raymond, Victor, and Wallace Sears.

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Has Ancestry helped you make a significant breakthrough with your family history research? If you have an Ancestry success story you'd like to share, please send it to us. We'd love to hear about it! Click here to share your story.

Curious Scotland: Tales from a Hidden History
by George Rosie

Scottish history isn't just about Robert Burns and "Braveheart." In fact, it's far more complex than some might think. In Curious Scotland, journalist George Rosie digs deeper into Scotland's past, unearthing some of the lesser known but more surprising details, including: Who was behind the military's "Operation Vegetarian"? What became of the Glasgow Frankenstein? Why do Scots always spit on a certain Edinburgh street? And how did John Ross become the greatest Cherokee chieftain? Rosie answers these and other questions, illuminating corners of Scottish lore that have never been explored before. With a dry wit and unflagging curiosity, he shows us that Scotland's history is full of far stranger stuff than your average plate of haggis.

Normally this book retails for $23.95, but for one week you can buy it in the Ancestry Store for $20.35.

Baking Recipes from the Wives and Mothers of Civil War Heroes, Heroines and Other Notables
by Robert W. Pelton

A unique collection of recipes covering everything from bread and crackers and biscuits to cookies and layer cakes and pies as they were enjoyed by heroes on both sides of the War Between the States.

Normally this book retails for $23.95, but for one week you can buy it in the Ancestry Store for $20.35.

For more products like this one, visit the Heritage Cookbooks section of the Ancestry Store.