Find Your Family at the Allen County Public Library

by Jeffrey Vaillant

The California Genealogical Society and Jeffrey Vaillant will guide you on the trip of a lifetime at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne Indiana from October 4-11, 2015.

Found in Fort Wayne

Ten members of the California Genealogical Society met at America's crossroads for the biennial CGS Research week at the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This year's group included members Carole Brisson, Kathryn Doyle, Sandy Fryer, Jane Hufft, Mary Mettler, Frankie Rhodes, Jim Robinson, Pat Smith and Kate VanDemark, led by Jane Knowles Lindsey.

Sandy Fryer and Jane Hufft.

On Wednesday I wordlessly posted several photograph of our week in the library, including some of Curt Witcher, Genealogy Center Manager, who generously gave us a personal tour of the facility and an excellent private lecture on military resources.

Pat Smith, Jane Lindsey and Carol Brisson

All in all we were a pretty driven group - entering the library at 9:00 a.m. when it opened and staying until the last closing announcement at 9:00 p.m. (6:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.) The exception was mealtimes.

Jim Robinson and Mary Mettler.

Unfortunately, the concession that ran the in-house cafe on the main floor of the library (which served great soup and sandwiches two years ago) has been replaced by Dunkin' Donuts. That meant more time out at restaurants and less library time and consequently, a bit more fun (as you can see by this collection of photographs.)

Pat, Kathryn, Jim and Frankie Rhodes.

This year's group was a little smaller so we ate together as a group several times during the week. New friendships were formed and former connections were rekindled.

Frankie, Kate, Jim, Kathryn and Jane Hufft.

As always, a special dinner celebration was held on the last night and everyone shared some of their special finds. Here's a quick list of some of the week's highlights:

Pat Smith proved Thomsen Clark who was named in her sister-in-law's will. Pat found her in Indiana in the 1880 census.

Jane Knowles Lindsey and Pat Smith did some work on the Judge Project - the latest of the society's group research undertakings. Jane was tracking Alonzo Kelly of Iowa. She found his widow and four children in Arkansas in 1900.

Sandy Fryer made a wonderful discovery using PERSI – the PERiodical Source Index. She learned that her ggg-grandfather, Martin Burris, died instantly after being shot by "Mr. Frost" during a dispute over a cow in Wayne County, Kentucky.

Mary Mettler found the maiden name – Whitney – of Mary, seventeenth century wife of Ephraim Pierce of Groton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

Jane Hufft was thrilled to find Volumes 1 and 2 of Etched in Stone: Newburyport, Massachusetts Cemeteries by Noreen Cook Pramberg. For some reason the Family History Library in Salt Lake City has one volume and NEHGS in Boston has the other. Jane insists that "Both volumes are essential!" She also told me several times that she should could easily spend another week – she was finding so much.

Carole Brisson found "some good stuff" using two volumes on the New England RAWSON family.

Frankie Rhodes made progress tracking her great-grandfather, Ezra Nichols and his wife Margaret Downs. She found them on a passenger list and located information from 1886 in a Sacramento newspaper.

Jim Robinson got organized and worked with Jane on his JUDY (Tschudi) application to the National Society Sons of the American Revolution (SAR).

All of us on the last night.

If you have never been on a group research tour, it's something you should seriously consider. Lots of genealogy was discussed during these meals. When a group gets together like this ideas keep flowing even after the library has closed.


Photographs courtesy of Carol Webb Brisson, Jane Knowles Lindsey and Kathryn Doyle, August 2009, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Allen County Public Library Tour
August 16 - 23, 2009

Photographs courtesy of Jane Knowles Lindsey and Kathryn Doyle, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Fort Wayne in August

President Jane Lindsey led a third CGS sponsored research trip to the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, August 19-26, 2007. This year's trip was especially well timed to follow the FGS Conference which was held August 15-18. And while many attendees (Dick Eastman estimated the total to be about 1500) raced to the library to try and cram in some research time before, between and after conference sessions, we from CGS were smugly relaxed with the knowledge that we would be there for a whole week after the crowds had left. (Okay, so actually we did sneak in occasionally - the temptation was just too great and they opened the library at 6:00 am!)

The conference was my first and was as fun, informative and exhausting as I had expected. One of the high points was hearing Christopher Haley, nephew of "Roots" author Alex Haley and Research Administrator of the Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland at the Maryland State Archives.


Even better was Chris's interview of our prez for Roots Television in the Exhibit Hall. Jane used the forum to tell viewers about some of the exciting changes we have made this year, including our long-anticipated online catalog.


Hmmm - it's daylight and we're not in the library. It must be Sunday - the library was closed but it was not a day of rest for us. Here we are in the dining room of the LaSalle Bed & Breakfast gearing up for our week of research.

This was the first CGS trip to the Allen County Public Library since the renovation project was completed. The library is a gem from its space-age pods where the littlest readers can curl up with a picture book to the state-of-the-art televison studio available to Allen County residents at no charge. Of course we only saw these things on the tour since we would go straight to the 2nd floor to the genealogy department and stay til closing with only a short break for lunch.

Jim Robinson is a CGS member and serves as 1st Vice-President of the Marin County Genealogical Society. His parents and grandparents were Indiana natives so his roots are deep there and he was able have Sunday dinner with ten ROBINSON third cousins.


One very special treat was a private lecture by Curt Witcher on "Fingerprinting Our Families: Using Ancestral Origins/Ethnicity As a Genealogical Research Key." Curt is the Manager of the ACPL Genealogy Department and author of the GenealogyGems Mailing List. He provided a comprehensive hand-out with reference suggestions for context which can be just the thing to help us over our brick walls. Jane arranged the talk for us which is typical of the kind of scrupulous attention she pays to the details on these research trips.

Here we all are on the last night - Jane always organizes a closing dinner so we can celebrate our finds. Starting at front left (around the table) are Sandy, Carol, Jane, Kathryn, Lorna, Lavinia, Gail, Jim and Pat. Thank you, Jane for another successful research trip.

Photographs courtesy of Jane Lindsey.