Curious language in a deed

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

“An Act donating Public Lands”

There is curious language in a deed The Legal Genealogist stumbled across doing the usual late-night-poke-around-in-the-records that has become almost a routine.

The grantee in the deed was one James K. P. Newman. On the 14th of March 1882, he acquired 60 acres of land in Scioto County, Ohio, for $90. It’s a perfectly ordinary deed in many respects — with the usual metes and bounds description of the land and the grant to “have and to hold said premises with the appurtenances unto the said James K. P. Newman his heirs and assigns forever” that’s the usual legal boilerplate.1

What’s curious about it is the language at the beginning of the deed: “in pursuance of an act of the Congress of the United States approved February 18 AD 1871. Entitled an act to cede to the State of Ohio the unsold lands in the Virginia Military District … and also in pursuance of an act of the general assembly of the State of Ohio. which was passed and which took effect on April Third AD 1873. …”2

And, of course, the identity of the grantor — shown in the deed as “the board of Trustees of the Ohio State University.”3

So what’s this all about? Turns out you can find language like that, referencing different federal acts and different state statutes, from many different colleges, all over the United States. And it’s all because of something called the Morrill Acts.

In the dark days of the Civil War, Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont continued to look forward to a time when the light of education could shine throughout the land.

Morrill had been the sponsor of a bill in 1857 to give federal land to the states, from the sale of which public colleges teaching industrial and agricultural subjects could be funded. The bill had passed in 1859 but was vetoed by President Buchanan.4

This concept of education suited to the working class — differing from the scientific and liberal arts focus of the private colleges and religious emphasis of sectarian colleges — was surprisingly radical. One of its proponents, Professor Jonathan Baldwin Turner of Illinois, had had his home burned to the ground in the controversy.5

Morrill didn’t accept the defeat of 1859, and reintroduced his bill in the Congress facing the reality of the Civil War with one critical change that secured its passage: in addition to teaching agricultural and industrial subjects, the colleges funded by the law would have to teach military tactics.6

The act became law on 2 July 1862.7 It gave the states 30,000 acres for each Senator and representative in Congress, so the more populated states at the time benefited more from the law.8 And it provided:

That all moneys derived from the sale of the lands … shall be invested …; and that the moneys so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, … to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, … in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.9

And so began what are known as the land-grant colleges — and the deeds those grants caused. In Ohio, the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College was established in 1870 under the 1862 federal act. It had just 24 students when it opened its doors in the fall of 1873, and graduated its first six students in 1878 — the same year that it changed its name to The Ohio State University.10

The 1871 federal act referenced in the Newman deed of 1882 gave Ohio all the unsold lands in what had been the Virginia military district11 — some 4.2 million acres of land in Ohio that Virginia had reserved in order to give bounty land to Revolutionary War veterans.12 The state law then provided that the title to said lands is hereby vested in the trustees of the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, for the benefit of said college.13

So the land being sold by the University by way of that deed was Virginia Military District land, ceded to Ohio by the federal government, titled to the University by the state, and the proceeds were then put into the endowment fund that, even today, supports OSU and its educational mission.

And whenever you see language like that — and a grantor that’s an educational institution — take a look at the Land-Grant Act for the explanation of how that transaction came to be … and why.

By the way, as you can imagine, the 1862 act did exclude the Confederate States — “No State while in a condition of rebellion or insurrection against the government of the United States shall be entitled to the benefit of this act.”14 But they were brought into the land grant fold by the act of 1890, which required admission of students without regard to race but permitted the establishment of separate institutions “for white and colored students.”15

That law led to the founding of many of today’s historically black colleges and universities. But that’s a post for another day…

 
SOURCES

  1. Scioto County, Ohio, Deed Book 63: 270, Ohio State University to James K. P. Newman, 14 March 1882; County Recorder, Portsmouth; digital images, “Ohio, Scioto County Recorder, 1885-1887, Land and property records,” FamilySearch.org (https://familysearch.org/ : accessed 13 May 2013). ↩
  2. Ibid. ↩
  3. Ibid. ↩
  4. Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “Morrill Land-Grant Acts,” rev. 10 Mar 2013. ↩
  5. Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “Jonathan Baldwin Turner,” rev. 13 Jan 2013. ↩
  6. Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), “Morrill Land-Grant Acts,” rev. 10 Mar 2013. ↩
  7. “An Act donating Public Lands to the several States and Territories which may provide Colleges for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts,” 12 Stat. 503 (2 Jul 1862), 7 U.S.C. §301 et seq. ↩
  8. Ibid., §1. ↩
  9. Ibid., §4. ↩
  10. “Ohio State History and Traditions,” Ohio State University (http://www.osu.edu/ : accessed 13 May 2013). ↩
  11. “An Act to cede to the State of Ohio the unsold Lands in the Virginia military District in said State,” 16 Stat. 416 (18 Feb 1871). ↩
  12. “Historical Information,” A Guide to the Virginia Military District Land Surveys, 1787-1823, Library of Virginia (http://lib.virginia.edu/ : accessed 13 May 2013). ↩
  13. “An Act accepting the act of Congress of the United States, … ceding to the state of Ohio certain lands in the Virginia Military District…,” Revised Statutes of the State of Ohio … in Force January 1, 1883, vol. III (Cincinnati : Wrightson Printing Co., 1887), 762; digital images, Google Books (http://books.google.com : accessed 13 May 2013). ↩
  14. “An Act donating Public Lands…,” 12 Stat. 503, §5, paragraph Sixth. ↩
  15. “An act to apply a portion of the proceeds of the public lands to the more complete endowment and support of the colleges …,” 26 Stat. 417 (30 Aug 1890), 7 U.S.C. § 321 et seq. ↩
Posted in Resources, Statutes | 8 Comments

FamilySearch: sharing is forever

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

FamilySearch terms of use

It used to be, just a few short weeks ago, that the major emphasis at FamilySearch.org was the records it digitizes and makes available to its users.

You would navigate to the website, and the very first thing you’d see would be the search box to take you into the millions and millions of images available to the genealogist there.

No longer.

Now the emphasis is on sharing. There are six rotating images at the landing page for the website and the first three, in order, are for making connections with an online fan chart, sharing memories by uploading and sharing photographs, and connecting generations by creating an online family tree.

Oh, the records are still there — thank heavens! — but the focus has shifted to the user and sharing of information among users.

And that means it’s time for a very careful look at the website’s terms of use. Terms of use, remember, are “the limits somebody who owns something you want to see or copy or use puts on whether or not he’ll let you see or copy or use it.”1

And when it comes to a site where sharing is involved, terms of use are also those pesky little sometimes-written-in-legal-jargon provisions saying what the website can do with anything you choose to upload.

For the most part, FamilySearch‘s terms of use are typical and ordinary and, for the most part, written in plain English.2 But there are a couple of provisions that should make us all stop and think.

The big one affects anything you choose to upload to the site:

In exchange for your use of this site and/or our storage of any data you submit, you hereby grant us an unrestricted, fully paid-up, royalty-free, worldwide, and perpetual license to use any and all information, content, and other materials (collectively, “Contributed Data”) that you submit or otherwise provide to this site (including, without limitation, genealogical data and discussions and data relating to deceased persons) for any and all purposes, in any and all manners, and in any and all forms of media that we, in our sole discretion, deem appropriate for the furtherance of our mission to promote family history and genealogical research. As part of this license, you give us permission to copy, publicly display, transmit, broadcast, and otherwise distribute your Contributed Data throughout the world, by any means we deem appropriate (electronic or otherwise, including the Internet). You also understand and agree that as part of this license, we have the right to create derivative works from your Contributed Data by combining all or a portion of it with that of other contributors or by otherwise modifying your Contributed Data.3

In plain English, by using the website and uploading anything — a photo, a story, any comments you share about an ancestor or about your research — you are giving FamilySearch an unlimited right to use what you’ve uploaded. It’s a license, meaning you do keep your own copyright in your own work, but it’s a license that allows FamilySearch to do just about everything that copyright law says you’re the only one who can do: copy it, display it, create derivative works from it, and modify it.

If you choose to upload something, you must understand that you are agreeing to allow it to be downloaded and used by everyone else who uses the website for their own personal noncommercial research, to be revised and included in the FamilySearch Wiki, to be used in training materials and similar purposes.

Your grant of permission is perpetual — meaning forever — and it’s unrestricted. You can’t come back later and say you didn’t mean it; you can’t object when someone else starts using that particular picture you uploaded of Great Aunt Tizzy; and you’re never going to be paid for anything you wrote and uploaded that ends up being the featured section of the FamilySearch Wiki.

Let’s be clear about this: there’s absolutely nothing wrong or underhanded about what FamilySearch is doing and it’s not hiding a thing. FamilySearch makes no bones about its purpose here — it wants people to collaborate and share:

You acknowledge that a primary purpose of this site is to enable collaboration between users of this site and other sites that wish to expand their genealogical databases and knowledge. You acknowledge that we may utilize Contributed Data that you submit, for the purpose of collaborating with other individuals and organizations (including commercial genealogical organizations), for example, in order to create a global common pedigree for the purposes of increasing participation in family history and preserving records throughout the world. You acknowledge that collaboration between multiple individuals and organizations allows us to obtain additional data that we may provide to users of this site—thus allowing users to extend their own ancestral lines.4

If that purpose doesn’t sit well with you — if you have qualms about seeing your words used by others or about other people downloading your family photos — don’t upload to FamilySearch. It’s as simple as that.

And, by the way, because you’re the one granting the license, if you do choose to upload, make sure you only upload things you have the right to share. The terms of use clearly say that you’re the one on the hook if you upload something that violates someone else’s legal rights:

You represent and warrant that you will not submit anything to this site that violates any third party’s rights (including, but not limited to, copyrights, privacy rights, publicity rights, contract rights, or other proprietary rights). Whenever you submit data to this site, you are affirming that you have the legal right to contribute that data to us and to grant us the rights and licenses set out in this Agreement. You accept legal responsibility for our use of your Contributed Data based on your affirmation. You are solely responsible for all Contributed Data that you post or otherwise contribute to this and any other FamilySearch affiliated site.5

Beyond the sharing issues, the other stop-and-think provision is right at the top: the site restricts its use to non-commercial purposes:

You may view, download, and print material from this site only for your personal, noncommercial use unless otherwise indicated. … You may not use this site or information found at this site (including the names and addresses of those who have submitted information) to sell or promote products or services, to solicit clients, or for any other commercial purpose.6

Uh-oh. What about professional genealogists, bloggers and genealogy speakers? Are we all violating the terms of use when we use images from FamilySearch in client reports, or as illustrations in a lecture or a blog post?

Not to worry. I posed those questions directly to FamilySearch and the answer is that these are permitted uses:

     • “Specifically, yes you may use the materials in client reports.”7

     • “Yes, you may use the materials as instructional illustrations (but not for promotional illustrations) in lectures.”8

And as to blog posts, I specifically clarified that some bloggers “have affiliate programs (if someone clicks through on a link on the website and buys a book, the blogger will get a small fee); sometimes the blogger sells his or her own works somewhere on the website; some bloggers take clients or do lectures for a fee and have information about those activities somewhere on the website.” Even on a blog like that, using images from FamilySearch to illustrate a point in a blog post is considered “limited illustrative use” and “is acceptable.”9

Bottom line: share with care, and if you’re a professional you can use the images for client reports and illustrations in blogs and lectures.

 
SOURCES

  1. Judy G. Russell, “A terms of use intro,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 27 Apr 2012 (http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 12 May 2013). ↩
  2. “Terms of Use,” dated 4 June 2012, FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/ : accessed 12 May 2013). ↩
  3. Ibid., “Licenses and Rights Granted to Us,” emphasis added. ↩
  4. Ibid., “Collaboration with Others.” ↩
  5. Ibid., “Right to Submit.” ↩
  6. Ibid., “Licenses and Restrictions.” ↩
  7. Email, Merlyn Doney, FamilySearch International, to the author, 3 May 2013. ↩
  8. Ibid. ↩
  9. Ibid. ↩
Posted in Terms of use | 31 Comments

The whiz kids

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

Congratulations to the nieces!

Speaking at the National Genealogical Society conference today in Las Vegas has relieved The Legal Genealogist from a terrible dilemma: how to be in two places at one time this afternoon.

Because, later today, in two different auditoriums on two different college campuses almost a continent apart, two exceedingly bright and exceedingly dear-to-my-heart young women will be walking across stages and reaching out for those sheepskins that will set them free to go on and try their wings as they fly off to pursue their dreams.

On the east coast, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, my niece Rose St. Clair will receive her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude. Youngest of the four children of my sister Kacy, Rose is on a path that should take her through graduate school to a career in cognitive psychology.

And some 2,000 or so miles to the west, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, my niece Katya Geissler will receive her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude. Youngest of the four children of my brother Paul, Katya is on a path that should take her through graduate school to a career in medicine and/or biochemistry.

I look back through the pictures in my mind to two very little girls, one dark haired and one blonde, but both with impish smiles and a well-developed sense of the absurd, who learned in about a nanosecond to wrap parents and older siblings (and various assorted relatives like aunts) around their little fingers.

Who stand today proud and tall… and making us so very proud.

Congratulations, Rose and Katya!

The world is waiting, and we can’t wait to see what you do with it.

Posted in My family | 4 Comments

NGS Report

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

NGS tidbits

The whirlwind that is the National Genealogical Society conference is blowing strong in Las Vegas this week and it’s left many of us — The Legal Genealogist included — breathless.

The sheer number of sessions, the variety of speakers, the excitement of the vendor hall, the opportunity to spend time with old friends and meet new ones is exhilarating but wow… no time to even think!!!

Marian L. Smith

I had the chance on Wednesday to hear the keynote address from the very entertaining and very knowledgeable Marian L. Smith.

Marian is Chief of the USCIS Historical Research Branch and directs the agency’s History Office, Historical Reference Library, and Genealogy Program. She’s been the nation’s immigration historian for nearly 25 years and if there’s anything about U.S. immigration and naturalization that she doesn’t know, it probably isn’t knowable.

She is also one of the best speakers out there on genealogical topics.

Using the mystery behind the authorship of the Morton Allan Directory of European Passenger Steamship Arrivals as the story, she wove for the hundreds and hundreds of attendees a story with these lessons:

    • “Some questions take time — much more than you might have expected.”

    • “No time is ever wasted doing research: we all need that background, that historical understanding of the time and place.”

    • “You are never going to understand your ancestors if you don’t understand the world they lived in — it was a different place from our world today.”

    • “Be prepared to be surprised by what you find.”

    • “Question your sources: don’t believe what you read.”

She also emphasized that every researcher will find things that weren’t expected along the research path. Her advice: “when you find a piece that may not fit into your puzzle, pick it up and put it in your pocket because you may not come back this way again.”

And what may have been her most cogent point: “Your ancestors didn’t create the records for you. Documents have their own stories.”

I’ve had a blast so far telling some of those stories in my own presentations Wednesday on The Treasure Trove in Legislative Petitions and yesterday in Blackguards and Black Sheep: The Lighter Side of the Law. One more to go on Saturday, with How Knowing the Law Makes Us Better Genealogists.

And oh… it is such fun to be here with all these folks whose eyes don’t glaze over when we start talking about a tough genealogical problem…

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Law and the NGS conference

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

NGS opens!

It’s Day 1 for the National Genealogical Society’s annual conference, this year in Las Vegas, Nevada.

And for anybody like The Legal Genealogist who’s interested in the law and its impact on genealogy, it’s the start of four days packed with opportunities to learn and to share.

For those of us interested in knowing more about how the laws of the past impacted the records we have to work with today, the options for presentations are dazzling: everything from the legal histories of our families today to a full day of law-related presentations on Saturday.

And for all of us, deeply concerned about access to those records and the impact of today’s laws on our access rights, there are many options as well.

Yesterday’s Laws

Presentations focusing on yesterday’s laws and the records created by them include:

Wednesday, May 8

• The Treasure Trove in Legislative Petitions, 11 a.m., Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL

• Legal Histories of Families, 2:30 p.m., David S. Tanenhaus

• Divorce Records in Genealogical Research, 4 p.m., Pam Sloane Eagleson, CG

Thursday, May 9

• Finding Ancestors through their Lawsuits in English Chancery Courts, 9:30 a.m., Ronald Ames Hill, PhD, CG, FASG

• Chinese Exclusion Act: A Genealogical Goldmine, 11 a.m., Trish Hackett Nicola, CG

• Feme Covert or Feme Sole: Women and the Law, 11 a.m., Barbara Vines Little, CG, FNGS, FVGS

• Blackguards and Black Sheep: The Lighter Side of the Law, BCG luncheon, 12:15 p.m., Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL

Saturday, May 11

• Guilty as Charged! Strange and Unusual Punishments in Early America, 8 a.m., Diane Florence Gravel, CG

• When Our Ancestors Met the Law, 9:30 a.m., Kay Haviland Freilich, CG, CGL, FNGS

• Child of No One: The Law and Your Illegitimate Ancestor, 11 a.m., Sharon Tate Moody, CG

• From Blackstone to the Statutes at Large-How Knowing the Law Makes Us Better Genealogists, 2:30 p.m., Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL

• Ours and Theirs: Tax and Land Laws, Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, CGL

Today’s Records Access Laws

Wednesday, May 8

• It’s Not Just SSDI: How We Can Advocate for Genealogy While Still Practicing It, APG luncheon, 12:15 p.m., Harold Henderson, CG

• Advocacy for Records Access, 2:30 p.m., Melinde Lutz Byrne, FASG

• RPAC Strategies in a Changing Environemnt: Fraud Protection v. Access, Jan Meisels Allen, Jan Alpert and Federick E. Moss, JD

Posted in General | 2 Comments

DNA Day at Jamboree

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

Last day for early bird registration

There’s something very new, and very exciting, at this year’s Southern California Genealogy Jamboree in June.

An entire day devoted to DNA and its use in family history.

And today is the last day to register in advance and get the early bird registration discount.

Co-sponsored by the Southern California Genealogical Society (SCGS) and the International Society for Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG), Family History and DNA: Genetic Genealogy in 2013 will be held Thursday, June 6, 2013, in conjunction with the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree in Burbank.

It’s the first-of-its-kind — an entire day devoted to examining everything from the very basics of what DNA can do to help with genealogical problems to chrosomosome mapping and phasing of autosomal DNA results.

Dr. Spencer Wells of the Genographic Project at the National Geographic Society is the keynote speaker, on the topic of “The Genographic Project and the Rise of Citizen Science.”

And Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (“Faces of America” and “Finding Your Roots”) is the lunch speaker.

The day-long program has something for everyone at every level of knowledge on genetic genealogy. There’s plenty if you’re just starting out; there’s plenty for those who have some knowledge and want to know more; there’s even plenty for those who consider themselves really familiar with genetic genealogy.

Here’s the lineup of speakers:

     • Spencer Wells, PhD – “The Genographic Project and the Rise of Citizen Science”
     • Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL – “ABCs of DNA”
     • Bennett Greenspan (Family Tree DNA) – “Genetic Tools: What They are and When to Use Them”
     • Tim Janzen, MD – “Mapping Your Chromosomes with Autosomnal DNA”
     • Richard Hill – “Finding Family with DNA Testing: An Adoptee Success Story”
     • Joanna Mountain, PhD (23andMe) – “DNA and Family History: Getting the Most out of 23andme’s Genealogy Features”
     • Blaine Bettinger, JD – “Using Third-Party Tools to Analyze Your Autosomal DNA Results”
     • Emily D. Aulicino – “Genetic Genealogy: Beginner Basics”
     • CeCe Moore – “Autosomal DNA Testing for the Genealogist”
     • Debbie Parker Wayne, CG, CGL – “Mitochondrial DNA: Tools and Techniques to Go Beyond Basics”
     • Katherine Hope Borges – “Famous DNA”
     • Ken Chahine, PhD, JD (AncestryDNA) – “An Inside Look at AncestryDNA”
     • Alice M. Fairhurst and David Reynolds - “The Changing Y-DNA Haplotree and Its Impact”

Early Bird registration ends today, May 7. For more information, head on over to the DNA Day web page or simply register online.

Hope to see you in Burbank!

Posted in DNA, General | 2 Comments

Freedom of information: residents only

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

Supreme Court upholds limits

Information access took a hit last week, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that states have no constitutional obligation to treat non-residents the way they treat residents under their freedom-of-information laws.

To be sure, most of the specific information at the center of the decision in McBurney v. Young1 was not information near and dear to the heart of The Legal Genealogist or the genealogical community in general.

Still, it’s sad to see the High Court — unanimously — come down on the side of freedom of information being a service provided by a state, and not a right enjoyed by the people — all the people — no matter where they live.

The case arose in Virginia, where the state Freedom of Information law provides that “all public records shall be open to inspection
and copying by any citizens of the Commonwealth.”2 That language — limiting the reach of the law to residents, to the exclusion of non-residents — appears in the laws of other states as well, including Alabama,3 Arkansas,4 Delaware,5 Missouri6 New Hampshire,7 New Jersey8 and Tennessee.9

It was challenged by two very different plaintiffs. One was a businessman from California, whose business collects real estate tax records on behalf of clients. The other — McBurney — was a Rhode Island man who was in a dispute with his Virginia-resident ex-wife over child support.

What’s clear is that both plaintiffs got most of the information they wanted through other means. In the case of the businessman, Virginia law already provides that all the records of the circuit courts, including things like deeds, mortgages, liens and the like, are open to the public and anybody can see them by going to a courthouse in Virginia.10

Moreover, most of the one category not covered by the circuit court information — current tax assessment information for Virginia property — is widely available on the internet, and the specific county the business wanted data from had posted its tax information online.11 So, the Court concluded, “Requiring noncitizens to conduct a few minutes of Internet research in lieu of using a relatively cumbersome state FOIA process cannot be said to impose any significant burden on noncitizens’ ability to own or transfer property in Virginia.”12

Fair enough.

And most of the information at the heart of McBurney’s request — information about his dispute with both his ex-wife and the state agency in charge of helping collect from dead-beat parents — had been provided to him under a different Virginia statute, the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act.13 The only thing he didn’t get was “general policy information about how the agency handled claims like his.”14

Also fair enough.

But I have to part company with the Court when it went on to find that there is no constitutional underpinning to the Freedom of Information laws generally, that such laws are merely “a service that is related to state citizenship.”15

Here, stripped of the citations to other cases, is what the Court said on the general challenge to the law:

This Court has repeatedly made clear that there is no constitutional right to obtain all the information provided by FOIA laws. …

It certainly cannot be said that such a broad right has “at all times, been enjoyed by the citizens of the several states which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign.” … No such right was recognized at common law. … Most founding-era English cases provided that only those persons who had a personal interest in non-judicial records were permitted to access them.

Nineteenth-century American cases, while less uniform, certainly do not support the proposition that a broadbased right to access public information was widely recognized in the early Republic. …

Nor is such a sweeping right “basic to the maintenance or well-being of the Union.” … FOIA laws are of relatively recent vintage. The federal FOIA was enacted in 1966, … and Virginia’s counterpart was adopted two years later… There is no contention that the Nation’s unity foundered in their absence, or that it is suffering now because of the citizens-only FOIA provisions that several States have enacted.16

And, the Court said, “Virginia’s FOIA law … merely provides a service to local citizens that would not otherwise be available at all. … Virginia … merely creates and provides to its own citizens copies—which would not otherwise exist—of state records.”17

For the most part, the Court’s decision will not greatly affect genealogists’ access to the bulk of the records we use in our research. The usual records we want the most — the vital records, the judicial and legislative records — are usually open by virtue of other laws.

But the decision certainly may impact our access to the out-of-the-ordinary records we may want to see, the ones not included in other laws but that are so helpful in completing our reasonably exhaustive search for documentation. And it certainly bodes ill for our chances of getting the courts to overturn freedom-of-information denials by agencies like the Social Security Administration.

More than anything else, seeing our Supreme Court label freedom-of-information laws as merely providing a service and not as securing a right of the people to information by and about their government is profoundly disturbing.

This is Not a Good Thing.

 
SOURCES

  1. McBurney v. Young, No. 12-17, slip opinion (U.S. Supreme Court, 29 April 2013; PDF of opinion available at U.S. Supreme Court website (http://www.supremecourt.gov/ : accessed 5 May 2013). ↩
  2. Virginia Code §2.2–3704(A). ↩
  3. Ala. Code §36–12–40. ↩
  4. Ark. Code §25–19–105. ↩
  5. Del. Code, Title 29, §10003. ↩
  6. Mo. Rev. Stat. §109.180. ↩
  7. N. H. Rev. Stat. §91–A:4. ↩
  8. N.J.S. 47:1A–1. ↩
  9. Tenn. Code §10–7–503. ↩
  10. See Va. Code §17.1–208. ↩
  11. See McBurney v. Young, slip op. at 8. ↩
  12. Ibid. ↩
  13. Va. Code §2.2–3800 et seq. ↩
  14. McBurney v. Young, slip op. at 2. ↩
  15. Ibid. ↩
  16. Ibid., slip op. at 10-12. ↩
  17. Ibid., at 13. ↩
Posted in Court Cases, Records Access | 9 Comments

Going raw and banking DNA

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

Downloading Ancestry’s raw data

During Tuesday night’s webinar on autosomal DNA testing, sponsored by the Association of Professional Genealogists, one question came up that needed a little longer answer than the format allowed:

      “How do you download your raw data from AncestryDNA?”

It isn’t hard; it’s just that there are a lot of steps.

First: Log in to your Ancestry account and use the DNA drop down menu to navigate to Your DNA Home Page.

Second: Click on the link for Manage Test Settings.

Third: Scroll down to the greyish area near the bottom and look for the Download your raw DNA data area. Click on the Get Started button.

Fourth: Enter your Ancestry.com password in the box that appears and click on Confirm.

Fifth: You’ll get this instruction to go over to your email and follow the instructions you get via email.

Sixth: The email instructions have a Confirm Data Download box. Click on that box and it will take you back to Ancestry.

Seventh: Back at Ancestry, you’ll have the option to Download DNA Raw Data. Click on that box and save the resulting file to your hard drive.

So… lots of steps, but nothing hard.

And fortunately, we’ve got plenty of time to get it right, since two of the big options of what to do with your raw data are on hold.

GedMatch, the very popular and free utility site with many tools to analyze and compare your raw data, is back up and running but not accepting new uploads until at least this coming week. Keep an eye out, though — the upload date shown on the website now is May 10th — that’s just a few days away.

For those waiting patiently (or otherwise) for Family Tree DNA to be able to accept uploads of Ancestry raw data, the latest word is that it may be another four to six weeks before that option opens up.

In both of these cases, of course, the advantage is being able to have vastly better analytical tools than Ancestry itself offers while picking up additional matches to your genetic cousins who’ve tested elsewhere.

In the meantime, those who are still thinking about sticking their toes in the DNA waters and are concerned about not being able to afford to test their oldest relatives as soon as they’d like, there’s this news: Family Tree DNA has lowered the price of both its entry-level YDNA test and its entry-level mitochondrial test to $49 each.

While neither of these tests, alone, is optimal for genealogical purposes, doing them now has the advantage of banking your oldest relatives’ DNA against the day when you can afford to expand to the autosomal tests. There’s almost always enough DNA left after the initial tests to be stored for the future, and you can order an additional test literally years after the first round of testing.

And if you’re going to do this, you might consider asking Family Tree DNA to include extra swabs in the test kit to make absolutely sure there’s enough banked for future testing.

Posted in DNA | 6 Comments

Welcoming Martin

Posted on May 4, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

Welcome to baby Martin!

It’s a darned good thing that Saturdays are reserved for The Legal Genealogist‘s family around here, because BOY do I want to sing out!

Just 11 months ago we welcomed a new nephew by marriage into the family when my niece Gina married the love of her life David in a fairy-tale wedding.

And yesterday we got the news that they’ve given us the newest member of the family! My newest grand nephew!

Martin Evan is just about the most beautiful thing we ever laid eyes on.

David, Gina and Martin

He is the first grandchild for my brother Evan and my much loved sister-by-marriage Judith, and the first nephew for Gina’s brother Tim — who, I’m sure, considers him a personal birthday present (Tim’s birthday is tomorrow).

Welcome, welcome, welcome, baby Martin!

(And yes, of course, I’ve already added him to the database…)

Posted in My family | 16 Comments

Going Dutch

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Judy G. Russell

Resources for Dutch-American law

So you’ve listened to The Legal Genealogist‘s reasons for thinking colonial American women would all have been better off if they’d worn Dutch wooden shoes.1

And maybe your interest in all things early-Dutch-American was piqued by the transition of power this week from Queen Beatrix to her son, then-Crown Prince and now-King Willem-Alexander. (Her abdication after 33 years of rule made him the first king the Netherlands has had in 123 years.)2

Now, you’ve decided, you want to know more about those colonial Dutch laws.

Boy, are you in luck.

The resources for research into the Dutch colonial period are excellent. And that may be a bit surprising since that really was a very short time frame in American history. The Dutch first arrived in North America early in the 17th century, landed the first serious colonization effort in what is now New York City in 1624 and ended up surrendering New Amsterdam to an English naval force in 1664.3 And even more surprising considering that the records were housed in the New York State Capitol — which suffered a fire in 1911.

The fact is, New York has done a terrific job of preserving and archiving them, and making them accessible to modern researchers. Despite the devastating fire at the New York State Capitol in 1911, some 12,000 or so pages of Dutch Colonial records survived and — even though many have charred edges — they were saved, stabilized and preserved.4

Casual genealogists won’t generally access those original records, though — not only are they exceedingly fragile, but — well — they’re in Dutch. Fortunately, the New York archivists over the years have ensured that there are English translations of many if not most of those early Dutch records. And nobody has done it better than Charles T. Gehring.

Director of New York State’s New Netherland Project, Gehring has overseen the translation of some of the most valuable surviving records from the Dutch colonial period, and the establishment of the New Netherland Research Center at the New York State Library to share those resources with the public.

And if that wasn’t enough, there’s also the New Netherland Institute, a non-profit organization that supports the New Netherland Project and the New Netherland Research Center, with a wonderful website to lead researchers into the Dutch colonial records. Check it out — http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/.

And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a wide array of published materials, including (but not at all limited to):

     • Arnold J.F. Van Laer’s translations of New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch5

     • Charles T. Gehring’s translations of New York Historical Manuscripts, Dutch : Volumes GG, HH & II : Land Papers6

     • Gehring’s Laws & Writs of Appeal, 1647-1663 7

     • Gehring’s two-part translations of the records of early Fort Orange8

     • E. B. O’Callaghan’s Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1638-1674.9

And specifically on the subject of women under early Dutch law, Linda Briggs Biemer wrote her doctoral dissertation at Syracuse University on the changeover of women’s rights from the Dutch to the English system; it’s been published and is a great research tool as well.10

Sigh… almost makes me wish my ancestors were Dutch instead of Deutsch!

 
SOURCES

  1. See Judy G. Russell, “Colonial women and the law,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 2 May 2013 (http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 3 May 2013). ↩
  2. Andrew Higgins and Alan Cowell, “A King Takes the Throne, and a Nation Celebrates,” The New York Times, online edition, posted 30 Apr 2013 (http://www.nytimes.com/ : accessed 3 May 2013). ↩
  3. “The Netherlands and Scandinavia in North America,” Historical Timelines, New Netherland Institute (http://www.newnetherlandinstitute.org/ : accessed 3 May 2013). ↩
  4. See “New York State Archives,” Heritage Preservation, National Institute for Conservation (http://www.heritagepreservation.org/ : accessed 3 May 2013). ↩
  5. Arnold J.F. Van Laer, trans., New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, 3 vols. (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1974). ↩
  6. Charles T. Gehring, New York Historical Manuscripts, Dutch : Volumes GG, HH & II : Land Papers (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1980). ↩
  7. Charles T. Gehring, Laws & Writs of Appeal, 1647-1663 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1991). ↩
  8. Charles T. Gehring, Fort Orange Court Minutes, 1652-1660 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1990), and Fort Orange Records, 1656-1678 (Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 2000). ↩
  9. E. B. O’Callaghan, Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland, 1638-1674 (Albany, New York : Weed, Parsons and Co., printers, 1868), also available on microfilm and microfiche in many libraries. ↩
  10. Linda Briggs Biemer, Women and Property in Colonial New York : the Transition from Dutch to English Law 1643-1727 (Ann Arbor, Mich. : UMI Research Press, 1983), available in many libraries or for sale from ProQuest’s UMI Dissertation Express. ↩
Posted in General, Resources | 9 Comments