or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk




You Know You’re A Genealogist If…

   December 9th, 2008 Brian Herzog

genealogy booksOne of the publications that gets mailed to my library is aROUNDtheTABLE, the newsletter of The Genealogy Roundtable in Concord, MA.

In addition to success stories from peoples' family research, it also often has tips on things like scanning black and white negatives, how photos can be used for research, etc. This issue also had some humorous columns - here are some excerpts which made me laugh on a Tuesday afternoon:

You know you're addicted to Genealogy...

  • ...when you brake for libraries
  • ...if you get locked in a library overnight and you never even notice

Top ten worst ways to begin a family history:

  • #8 - "Cal me Ishmael," our ancestor Ishmael Johnson might have said if you asked, "What should we call you?"
  • #6 - Let me start by saying this book would have been better if my g'damn relatives had answered my g'damn questions.
  • #1 - In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Several years later, my grandmother was born in Des Moines.

Ah, humor makes any periodical more interesting.

And speaking of genealogy, I attended a great genealogy session at the annual NELA conference. Given by Cindy O’Neil of the Manchester (NH) City Library, it outlined the resources needed for a genealogy core collection (for New England), and is worth skimming.



Tags: , , , , , , , ,



Reference Question of the Week – 5/27

   June 2nd, 2007 Brian Herzog

Marine Corps insigniaLast week I received a letter in my mailbox at work. It started:

Dear Sir/Madam:

I work for the U. S. Marine Corp Casualty Section. I am looking for a copy of three obituaries that might help us locate a next of kin. I am hoping you have a service that could help us get a copy of these obituaries.

The letter then went on to list three peoples' names, their birth and death dates (death dates ranging from 1977 to 1995), and their social security numbers, as well as the contact information to use to send her what we find.

Now, we get genealogical research requests like this all the time, but never from the Marine Corps. Hmm. And, the contact information she cited was a street address in Murray, Utah, and a Yahoo.com email address - both seemed unMarinelike.

I checked the Marine Corps website and didn't see any listing for a Casualty Section, but did eventually find a form to request casualty information. The resulting email was basically about recently injured Marines, and the Corps' next-of-kin notification policy.

Not, I need to say, that any of this matters. Of course we researched these three names and sent the patron what we found. Unfortunately, we found that none of the three died locally enough or recently enough for us to be able to find their obituaries. As part of the response, I gave the patron the contact information for the libraries in the communities where these people died, hoping that those libraries would have their local newspapers on microfilm.

But I still found this particular request just... odd. If it weren't for that line about the Marine Corps, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Even though the information was already sent to the patron, I felt a need to keep digging a little further.

At the bottom of the casualty information email from the Marine Corps website, there was a phone number for the Corps' Personal and Family Readiness Division. I thought that if I called it, at least I could find out if the Casualty Section actually existed, and if they used freelance researchers based in Utah to find next of kin.

After speaking with a Public Affairs Specialist in that office for a few minutes, I found out that no, the Marine Corps does not have an office in Murray, UT, does not use freelancers for this type of work, and would never (in his estimation) do any kind of official work with a Yahoo.com email address.

So what does all of this mean? Nothing, I guess. We answered this question just like any other, because why patrons request certain information is largely irrelevant. I don't know why this person claimed to be from the Marines, because, true or not, it was not necessary.

genealogical research, genealogy, libraries, library, marine corps, marines, obituaries, public libraries, public library, reference question



Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,