Yesterday would have been his 96th birthday. Tall, slim, even stately in his bearing, he occupied a special place in The Legal Genealogist‘s family history… and he is missed.

Frederick M. Gottlieb

By 1920, Fred’s father Morris had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and the family moved to New Mexico where the climate was expected to be better. In 1920, when Fred was not yet three, they were in Gallup, in McKinley County.² In 1930, the family was in Albuquerque.³

His parents were far better off — better jobs and many fewer kids — than my grandparents and Fred’s and his sisters’ outgrown clothes were always packed up and shipped off to my grandparents. Though I suspect Fred’s hand-me-downs were intended for one or more of my uncles, it was always my mother who snagged his clothes and made them over into the best things she wore as a child.

During the 1930s, Fred’s father Morris owned a trading post on the Laguna Indian reservation and that’s where Fred learned to play polo. He was recorded on his own in Magdalena village, Socorro County, New Mexico, on the 1940 census, as a retail clerk.⁴

Fred attended college for a year but on 2 April 1941 enlisted in the United States Army.⁵ He served throughout World War II in the U.S. Army Air Corp as a flight instructor.⁶

He married, first, Margaret M. Robinson in January 1948 at Santa Fe, New Mexico,⁷ and the timing of that marriage is the backdrop for one of the best of my family’s stories.

My own parents were married in Colorado only a few days after Fred’s wedding. About 10 days before my parents were married, my mother telegraphed her cousin Fred in Santa Fe and asked him to walk her down the aisle. Fred telegraphed back on January 14th: “Am getting married January 22nd but will arrange honeymoon so I can ditch her long enuf to escort you. Fred.”⁸

Years later, after Fred and I tracked each other down researching our family history, Fred gave me the rest of the story in an email:

“Did your mother ever tell you what a hard time I had trying to give her away in marriage? We left Santa Fe after our own marriage for the Broadmoor hotel in Colo. Springs but ran into a heavy snow storm. Didn’t get to the hotel until after midnight and then had to get up early to drive on up to Golden. The roads were quite slick and in my rush, I slid into a sign post and smashed the fender on my father’s new Buick which I had borrowed for the trip! Geez! The sacrifices I make for the women in my life!”⁹

Fred owned a Mayflower moving franchise in Santa Fe and was the owner of Moore’s Generator Exchange in Albuquerque. After Margaret’s death in a car accident, he married Beatrice Bassett Roach, who served as New Mexico Secretary of State from 1951 to 1954. Between them they raised three children and enjoyed seven grandchildren.¹⁰

As with so many others in my extended family whom I hadn’t met, I had long wanted to meet Fred. I enjoyed our email exchanges and letters back and forth, but I wanted to meet him face to face.

And there was something — some intangible than was more than just Fred’s advancing years — that made me feel it was imperative in 2004 to just pack up and go. I went out to New Mexico and had an absolutely glorious time not just with Fred and his wife Bea but with his nephew, my second cousin Dick Moore and Dick’s wife Julie.

I’m so glad I went. Just a few months later, Fred was gone — a sudden unexpected illness had sapped his strength and stolen him away. He died 9 January 2005¹¹ and his cremated ashes were buried in the Santa Fe National Cemetery with military honors.¹²

He was my Mom’s special cousin. He became my special friend. And I miss him.

The Legal Genealogist has her feet off the ground. Literally and figuratively.

Literally, because I’m winging my way across the country en route to Seattle for this weekend’s 90th anniversary spring seminar of the Seattle Genealogicial Society.

And figuratively, because I’m winging my way across the country en route to Seattle for this weekend’s 90th anniversary spring seminar of the Seattle Genealogicial Society.

Tomorrow, Saturday, May 18, I’m so very honored to be the speaker at this anniversary celebration, presenting:

    • How Knowing the Law Makes Us Better Genealogists

    • Where There Is — and Isn’t — a Will

    • “Don’t Forget the Ladies” — a Genealogist’s Guide to Women and the Law

    • Using Court Records to Tell the Stories of Our Ancestors’ Lives

Then on Sunday, May 19, it’s a sold-out advanced workshop on Building a Family Using Circumstantial Evidence.

If you’re in the neighborhood tomorrow, come join us. Walk-ins are welcome at Fairview Christian School, 844 NE 78th St., Seattle, with the festivities kicking off at 9 a.m.

Hope to see you there!

One hundred and forty five years ago today, it was Judgment Day in the United States Senate. And the odds were against the man on trial.

There were 27 states then represented in the Senate — the former Confederate States weren’t yet voting again — and a two-thirds vote was needed. Just 36 Senators had to vote yes, and Andrew Johnson would have been removed as President of the United States.

The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Salmon Chase, had presided over Johnson’s trial in the Senate and it fell to him to poll the members when, on this day, 145 years ago, the first and decisive vote was taken on the most likely of the 11 articles of impeachment to succeed.¹

It all came down in the end to one man, Senator Edmund Gibson Ross of Kansas. He was born in Ashlasnd, Ohio, 7 December 1826, raised in Ohio and apprenticed there as a printer. He moved to Wisconsin in 1849 and to Kansas in 1856.²

Most of his career was spent in the newspaper business. He’d worked with the Milwaukee Sentinel, published the Topeka Tribune, founded the Kansas State Record, and edited the Kansas Tribune. A Civil War veteran, he was appointed to the Senate to fill the seat vacated by the death of Sen. James Lane in 1866.³

He was defeated when he ran for a full term in 1870, defeated as a candidate for Kansas Governor in 1880 and held only one additional political job in his life — he was appointed Governor of the Territory of New Mexico in 1885 and serrved for four years.⁴

Like so many members of the Senate, Ross had been widely lobbied by both sides in the impeachment fight. But no-one knew for certain how he would vote when the time came. Historian David Dewitt was there when Ross was called upon to cast that key vote:

Thirty-six votes are needed, and with this one vote the grand consummation is attained, Johnson is out and Wade in his place. It is a singular fact that not one of the actors in that high scene was sure in his own mind how his one senator was going to vote, except, perhaps, himself. “Mr. Senator Ross, how say you?” the voice of the Chief Justice rings out over the solemn silence. “Is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, guilty or not guilty of a high misdemeanor as charged in this article?” The Chief Justice bends forward, intense anxiety furrowing his brow. The seated associates of the senator on his feet fix upon him their united gaze. The representatives of the people of the United States watch every movement of his features. The whole audience listens for the coming answer as it would have listened for the crack of doom. And the answer comes, full, distinct, definite, unhesitating and unmistakable. The words ‘Not Guilty’ sweep over the assembly, and, as one man, the hearers fling themselves back into their seats; the strain snaps; the contest ends; impeachment is blown into the air.⁵

Exciting historical times, for sure, and part and parcel of what we as genealogists want — and need — to consider in our family histories. Our job isn’t just to record the names and dates and places, but the stories of our people and their times. The BCG Standards Manual calls on us to consider “the data’s background context…, including … the literature, laws, regulations, customs, and history of the area, time period, population group, and government or military jurisdiction.”⁶

Consider, if you will, the people touched by this one event, this one day, in the United States Senate.

Clearly, those whose family line intersects that of Andrew Johnson already have this pivotal historical event in their family histories (or they should!). But then there are the 54 Senators who cast votes whose family lines may join with ours in one way or another:

     • To convict: Anthony (RI), Cameron (PA), Cattell (NJ), Chandler (MI), Cole (CA), Conkling (NY), Conness (CA), Corbett (OR), Cragin (NH), Drake (MO), Edmunds (VT), Ferry (CT), Frelinghuysen (NJ), Harlan (IA), Howard (MI), Howe (WI), Morgan (NY), Morrill (ME), Morrill (VT), Morton (IN), Nye (NV), Patterson (NH), Pomeroy (KS), Ramsey (MN), Sherman (OH), Sprague (RI), Stewart (NV), Sumner (MA), Thayer (NE), Tipton (NE), Wade (OH), Willey (WV), Williams (OR), Wilson (MA), Yates (IL).⁷

     • To acquit: Bayard (DE), Buckalew (PA), Davis (KY), Dixon (CT), Doolittle (WI), Fessenden (ME), Fowler (TN), Grimes (IA), Henderson (MO), Hendricks (IN), Johnson (MD), McCreery (KY), Norton (MN), Patterson (TN), Ross (KS), Saulsbury (DE), Trumbull (IL), Van Winkle (WV), Vickers (MD).⁸

Add to those Chief Justice Salmon Chase, and all of the members of the House of Representatives who had voted for — or against — the articles of impeachment on which Johnson was tried.

Then add the managers from the House who presented the case against Johnson in the Senate, including John A. Bingham of Ohio, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. And the Presidebntial defense team, including “former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis; William Evarts, a prominent Republican lawyer; and Henry Stanbery, a former Attorney General in Johnson’s cabinet.”⁹

Add all the people who worked for the Congress or at the White House, the pages, the clerks. Add those who came to Washington to watch part of the trial. Add those who followed the events in the newspapers. Add, in fact, everyone alive and paying attention to national news — or even affected by it — in 1868.

History and events like these add so much to what we know, and hope to understand, about our ancestors.

They had names like Lon and Ray and Tennison and Dollins. They came from New York and Texas and Oklahoma and Nevada. They were single or divorced, educated or not so much, and they all had one thing in common.

They wanted to serve their country in time of war.

And they did. Officially. Starting 71 years ago today.

They were among the first enlistees of the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), given official military status as of 15 May 1942, when President Roosevelt signed into law the first federal statute enabling women to serve officially in noncombat positions.

The bill enabling creation of the WAAC was first introduced in 1941 by Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts.¹ She was the daughter of a United States Senator and wife of a Congressman who ran to fill her husband’s unexpired seat when he died in 1925 in the middle of his term of office. She became the first female member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts.²

The bill creating the WAAC passed the Congress on 14 May 1942 and was signed the next day.³ It provided

That the President is hereby authorized to establish and organize in such units as he may from time to time determine to be necessary a Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps for noncombatant service with the Army of the United States for the purpose of making available to the national defense when needed the knowledge, skill, and special training of the women of this Nation. The total number of women enrolled or appointed in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps shall not exceed the number authorized from time to time by the President, and in no event shall exceed one hundred fifty thousand.⁴

An electronic database of Army enlistments — including WAAC enlistments — is in the National Archives.⁵ It’s also available on Ancestry.com. While many of the original military records perished in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, most of the enlistment data is readily available.

And there you will find them.

Women like Mary W. Lon, born in 1911, a resident of Kings County (Brooklyn), New York, single, shown as a stenographer or typist in civilian life with four years of college, who enlisted at New York City on 18 May 1942.⁶

Like Pearl E. Ray, born in 1909, a resident of Washoe County, Nevada, divorced, a clerk with three years of high school, who signed up in San Francisco on 25 May 1942.⁷

Like Clara H. Tennison, born in 1915, a resident of Payne County, Oklahoma, single, a teacher with four years of college, who enlisted 30 May 1942 in San Antonio, Texas.⁸

Like Dorothy D. Dollins, born in 1918, a resident of Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, single, three years of high school, who signed up at Oklahoma City on 30 May 1942.⁹

You can even find the enlistment record of Oveta C. Hobby, born in 1899, a lawyer from Washington D.C., who enlisted the very first day the WAAC bill was law¹⁰ — and who was the very first commanding officer of the new WAAC, sworn in on 16 May 1942.¹¹

The first training center for the WAAC began operating in July 1942 at Fort Des Moines, Iowa, with 125 enlisted women and 440 officer candidates as trainees. African-American women served in both the enlisted and officer ranks, in segregated units. From all walks of life, women aged 21 to 45 volunteered in numbers exceeding all expectations. ¹²

Initially, the WAAC wasn’t formally part of the Army: “The corps shall not be a part of the Army, but it shall be the only women’s organization authorized to serve with the Army, exclusive of the Army Nurse Corps.”¹³ If WAACs were sent overseas, they didn’t get the overseas pay the men got, and if they were killed, there was no death benefit to their parents, spouses or children.¹⁴

But in 1943, Rep. Rogers introduced more legislation to integrate what then was designated the Women’s Army Corps into the Army itself. Signed into law on 1 July 1943, the law provided “That there is hereby established in the Army of the United States, for the period of the present war and for six months thereafter or for such shorter period as the Congress by concurrent resolution or the President by proclamation shall prescribe, a component to be known as the ‘Women’s Army Corps’.”¹⁵ Oveta Hobby became its first director as well, sworn in with the rank of Colonel on 5 July 1943.¹⁶

Women in the military.¹⁷ Officially. And it began 71 years ago today.

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…

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.

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.

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

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…

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

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!