Writing for a Genealogical Periodical

Genealogists often hesitate to submit articles to genealogy publications. Yes, some like the National Genealogical Society Quarterly might be intimidating, but there are many other possibilities. Smaller and less well known genealogical organizations sometimes struggle to fill the pages of their periodicals and appreciate new contributors and a variety of topics.
 

What publications should you consider? Start with local groups, especially the ones you belong to; some accept submissions from members only. Look to organizations and societies in areas where you research too. If you write about Kentucky ancestors, for example, consider Kentucky publications. Many accept submissions if they reflect the history or families of the region. 

My favorite “Idol” moment.

Did you see the Genealogy Idol Competition at Roots Tech last week?  If not, you can watch courtesy of Legacy Family Tree at http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/webinars.asp#archives.

Elizabeth Clark, Elyse Doerflinger, Michael Hait and Marian Pierre-Louis had three minutes to present their favorites in each of three categories: technology tip, serendipity moment and website.They all did a great job; the results were close, but Marian Pierre-Louis was the winner chosen by the audience.

However, my favorite was Michael Hait’s use of Microsoft Word auto-text for CITATIONS!  How did I not know this? Better than copy and paste; type it once, save in auto-text and it’s yours forever.  Before the broadcast I had typed about 30 citations for a ProGen assignment. Yes, they should have already been done, but that’s another story. Never again. I saved them all to auto-text for the next assignment.

Just One Thing

Just one thing. Sometimes that all it takes to rocket you into the past. One little detail can make all the difference. In this case it was a name. Ellington.

The Minton family of Rockingham County, North Carolina, was a frustration to me. I knew that Sally Maud Minton Beaman (1890-1972) was from North Carolina. She met and married Oscar Wakefield Beaman (1888-1975) there, then moved to West Virginia. I had lots of Beaman data, but the Minton family eluded me.

Years ago, before the proliferation of online information, I located the family in North Carolina, in both the 1900 and 1910 U.S. census. I was sure it was Maud’s family; the little information I had fit the census listing. I knew that Sally Maud had two brothers, Giles and Plummer. What puzzled me- there was no Mame in the census. Maud had a sister named Mame, or Mamie, as she was fondly called. I know for certain she lived in Huntington, West Virginia, during the 1950s and 1960s; I know the house she lived in. The females of the family in the 1900 Rockingham County, North Carolina, census are Susan A., the wife, and daughters Lessie, Mary E. and Sallie M. Where was Mame? 

You don't know what you don't know, until you know it.

I’m currently researching and writing a Civil War story involving the Beaman, Cranford, Hulin, Hurley, and Moore families of Montgomery County, North Carolina. At the onset of the war many of them were members of the Wesleyan Methodist Church They were hard working farmers who owned no slaves; their loyalties and beliefs were strongly tested by the war. In the Piedmont area of North Carolina violence became commonplace as a result of these beliefs, and led to persecution and murder. The story of outliers and Home Guard, conscription and desertion, culminating in the murder of three Hulin brothers is the story I am researching.

Ordinary Ancestors

 In The Journey Takers, the author, Leslie Albrecht Huber, writes that her Swedish family was ordinary. They led unremarkable lives that left no records. But she knows how they lived because they were ordinary. She knows the history of the times, the lifestyles of the people who lived where they lived. She wonders if she is ordinary, or if she will leave a mark on the world. Don’t we all leave our mark on the world, in one way or another? Her ancestors did, even though they left no trail of documents for her to find. Because of them, she lives to author a book about their lives and thousands of us come to know her family and their ordinary lives through her.