My flight to Salt Lake City leaves from Oakland at 7:30 PM tonight . I’m all packed, but I’m not sure I’ve ever really been ready for a genealogy research trip . I’ve been preparing for the last couple of months, trying to get my Family Tree Maker files in order, trying to organize my sources so I don’t spend time looking up documentation I already have, and searching the Family History Library (FHL) catalog for the books and microfilms I want to see while I’m at the FHL.
I found a bunch of films that were in the Granite Mountain Vault, so about two weeks ago I sent off an email to the FHL asking if they could get those films to the FHL in time for my visit . Two weeks is a good lead time for this task;Â one time I only gave them a week and they weren’t able to get the films in time for my visit.
One unusual set of films I want to look at is the Massachusetts Selective Service System Registration Cards [World War II]: Fourth Registration . These cards represent older men, born between 28 Apr 1877 and 16 Feb 1892, who registered for the draft in 1942 . I set up a custom report in FTM to find any men in my file for whom I had recorded a birth, marriage, or death in Massachusetts, and who were born in the appropriate period . This gave me the names of 55 men to look up in this set of films . Unfortunately, this collection includes 166 microfilm reels, all of which are in the vault! I guess nobody knows about this set of records and has never requested them before! Well, I couldn’t order all 166 reels, so I ordered the four I thought would be the most relevant for me . When I get to the FHL on Friday, the first thing I’ll do is order some more films and hope that they’ll arrive before I leave on Tuesday .
Some of the other sources I plan to look at are:
- Petitions for Naturalization for Worcester Co., Massachusetts,
- Selective Service Records and Exemptions as Aliens for Massachusetts in 1917-1918
- Roman Catholic Church Records of Butrymance Parish in Lithuania (1834-1841)
- Roman Catholic Church Records of Saint Krzyza Parish in Warsaw (1826-1876)
- Roman Catholic Church Records of Krasne Parish in Poland (1657-1892)
- Roman Catholic Church Records of Szwelice Parish in Poland (1780-1890)
- Protestant marriages in the District of Bedford, Quebec (1804-1879)
- Non-Catholic Civil Registration Index for Bedford, Quebec (1899-1989)
- New Brunswick Vital Statistics from Newspapers (1784-1896)
- New Brunswick Births, Marriages, and Deaths (1801-1925)
- Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography
I’m looking forward to seeing Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography . There is one biography in particular I’m interested to read, but this source is rather notorious for containing at least 200 fictitious biographies!  Most family historians don’t trust published genealogies that don’t list the sources of the information, but here’s a case where the source might not be trustworthy, either!
So, I should have plenty to keep me busy! I’ll let you know how things are going!
Copyright © 2006 by Stephen J. Danko
