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“Fire Cake and Water.” The Connecticut Infantry at the Valley Forge Encampment

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 20:22:00 +0000

“While the six-month encampment of the Continental Army at Valley Forge in 1777-1778 has been part of America’s folklore for generations,” author Joseph Boyle writes in his Introduction, “most of the men who served there have remained anonymous. The names of over 30,000 men of all ranks appear on the surviving monthly muster and payroll records. This compilation is the initial effort to recognize some of these heroes of the Revolutionary War.”

We are pleased to report that Mr. Boyle has been more than up to the task he has set for himself, for, in a carefully constructed Introduction, he strips away legend from fact in recounting the dreadful encampment of Washington’s army at Valley Forge that began in December 1777 and ended in June of the following year. It is here that we learn how fate conspired to move a number of Connecticut regiments from the Hudson Highlands of New York to the environs of Philadelphia, as well as what would become of them after Valley Forge. The heart of the volume, of course, consists of an alphabetical list of some 4,000 Connecticut soldiers abstracted from Revolutionary War muster and pay rolls at the National Archives. Each patriot is identified by name, rank, date and term of enlistment or commission, name of regiment and company, and a variety of supporting details, such as date of furlough or discharge, when wounded, when and where promoted, etc. In support of the abstracts the author has prepared a detailed glossary of terms found in the rosters, an explanatory list of locations referred to in the entries, and a lengthy, up-to-date bibliography on the topic.

Fire Cake and Water promises to add immeasurably to our understanding of one of the most fateful moments in U.S. history.

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A Guide to Chicago and Midwestern Polish-American Genealogy

gpcdevel — Fri, 03 May 2019 04:00:00 +0000

This eBook contains the first edition of this comprehensive introduction to Polish genealogy. A print version of the updated second edition is also available on this site (See Link below). Since Polish-Americans (including the author) proliferate in Chicago and the U.S. Midwest, they are the focus; however, much of the advice set forth here will apply to the majority of U.S. residents of Polish Catholic origin, as well as to records in Poland themselves. (Persons of Polish Jewish/Lithuanian/Ruthenian ancestry are not covered in Mr. Kruski’s book.) Since Polish immigration to the United States began in earnest following the American Civil War, and was heaviest during the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century, this era is the chronological focal point of the work.
Mr. Kruski’s approach is to blend traditional genealogical methods with the most contemporary tools available to the genealogist, all the while demonstrating their application for Polish-Americans. Like most how-to books, this one stresses the importance of reviewing existing family records and speaking with elderly relatives. It also devotes separate chapters to U.S. census records; birth, marriage, and death records in Chicago’s Cook County; immigration and naturalization records; military records; and cemetery and other death records. The chapter on naturalization, for example, explains that Great Chicago Fire destroyed all naturalization records prior to 1871; the records that postdate the fire have survived, though there is little information on the records from 1871-1906. After 1906 more information–such as the person’s exact birthplace, physical description, and names of children–is given, and the records from the late 1920s-1940 contain even more detail. The easiest place to discover a Chicago Pole’s death record, we learn, is in the Dziennik Chicagoski database on the Polish Genealogical Society of America’s (PGSA) website.
Chapter 7, “Chicago and Midwestern Records and Resources,” discusses documents unique to the author’s geographical area, such as Chicago voter registration records, local property records, coroners’ inquest files, Indiana Polish cemeteries, the 1894 state-conducted census of Michigan, and a Wisconsin Polish newspaper indexing project. Still other chapters explain how to determine an ancestor’s Polish village of origin, the relative unimportance of being fluent in Polish when doing genealogical research, church and vital records in Poland, and how to find living Polish relatives. Each chapter contains references to key websites and/or Internet searching techniques, and the author has added an appendix on Polish Internet genealogy. There is even a chapter on DNA and Genetic Genealogy as it impinges on Polish research.
In short, this all-inclusive manual is the very thing Polish-American researchers must have to stay abreast of the current state of research in their field.
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The Family of Ronald W. Reagan

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:37:17 +0000

This is a detailed genealogy of the family of the 40th U.S. President, Ronald Reagan. The work is divided into thirteen parts, one each for President Reagan’s paternal line (that of Michael Reagan of Tipperary, Ireland) and the twelve allied families of John Baker, Benjamin R. Bechtel, Johnnie Blue, George Bristle, Henry E. Gerdes, Eilt Habben, Samuel Luckett, William McFarlane, Nathaniel Pierce, Jacob Smith, Andrew Wilson, and Claudio Wilson (whose connection is still unproven). Dr. Gronner presents each line in Register style, followed by a kinship report that states the relationship of every person in the allied family to its head. The author compiled most of his information at the Odell Public Library and the Whiteside County Courthouse in Morrison, Illinois, which is not far from Tampico, President Reagan’s birthplace. He also incorporated findings from secondary sources, including the work of respected genealogists like William Reitwiesner, Gary Boyd Roberts, Michael Pollock, David Williamson, Nancy Grubb, and others–much of which is available at the Tampico [Illinois] Historical Society. An informative Introduction explaining how this project evolved, as well as a complete name index at the back, round out the publication.

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Kentuckians in Illinois

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:29:00 +0000

Many of the early settlers of Illinois moved there originally from Kentucky. The trail these migrants left, however, was so indistinct that it has not always been possible to identify them. Now Professor Sprague has assembled a list of these Kentucky migrants with data on them. Passing over conventional record sources, he has used information from published county histories and county atlases.

Arranged in tabular format under the county of origin, entries include some or all of the following information: the name of the Kentucky migrant, his birthdate, the names of his parents and places of birth (if known), and the date of migration. The name index has references to more than 10,000 persons.

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Illinois Census Returns, 1810 [and] 1818

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:24:00 +0000

The 1810 census of the Illinois Territory does not exist in its entirety, but what has survived is given here in full. It lists 1,310 heads of families, and, by age groups, the number of free white males and females in each household as well as the number of other free inhabitants and slaves owned. The total represented is over 7,000 persons.

The 1818 census, which is arranged by counties, makes up the bulk of this work. It lists over 4,000 heads of families and, for each household, shows the number of free white males over twenty-one, all other white inhabitants, free persons of color, and servants or slaves. This represents an estimated 20,000 persons. In addition, there are notations indicating which heads of households can be found in the federal and state censuses of Illinois for 1820.

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Illinois Census Returns, 1820

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 19:24:00 +0000

This work is devoted principally to the 1820 state census of Illinois. It contains notes comparing all discrepancies between names in the 1818 territorial, the 1820 state, and the 1820 federal censuses. The arrangement of the text is by counties, and there are 11,547 heads of families listed, representing over 50,000 individuals.

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A Guide to Chicago and Midwestern Polish-American Genealogy

gpcdevel — Thu, 02 May 2019 04:00:00 +0000

This is the second edition of this comprehensive guide to Polish genealogy. Since Polish-Americans (including the author) proliferate in Chicago and the U.S. Midwest, they are the focus; however, much of the advice set forth here will apply to the majority of U.S. residents of Polish Catholic origin, as well as to records in Poland themselves. (Persons of Polish Jewish/Lithuanian/Ruthenian ancestry are not covered in Mr. Kruski’s book.) Since Polish immigration to the United States began in earnest following the American Civil War, and was heaviest during the last quarter of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth century, this era is the chronological focal point of the work.

Mr. Kruski’s approach is to blend traditional genealogical methods with the most contemporary tools available to the genealogist, all the while demonstrating their application for Polish-Americans. Like most how-to books, this one stresses the importance of reviewing existing family records and speaking with elderly relatives. It also devotes separate chapters to Polish U.S. census records; birth, marriage, and death records in Chicago’s Cook County; immigration and naturalization records; military records; and cemetery and other death records. The revised chapter on Polish databases, for example, explains a wide variety of databases from Poland that have recently become available to Polish-American genealogists including Szukaj Archiwach, the website of the Polish State Archive system; Genealogia w Archiwach, the website of the State Archive system of Torun; and Geneteka, the website of genealogist volunteers who transcribe parish records. All of these databases and more can assist in figuring out where exactly in Poland one’s ancestry lies.

Chapter 7, “Chicago and Midwestern Records and Resources,” discusses documents unique to the author’s geographical area, such as Chicago voter registration records, local property records, coroners’ inquest files, Indiana Polish cemeteries, the 1894 state-conducted census of Michigan, and Wisconsin Polish newspaper records. Still other chapters explain how to determine an ancestor’s Polish village of origin, the relative unimportance of being fluent in Polish when doing genealogical research, church and vital records in Poland, and how to find living Polish relatives. Each chapter contains references to key websites and/or Internet searching techniques, and the author has added an appendix on Polish Internet genealogy. There is even a chapter on DNA and Genetic Genealogy as it impinges on Polish research.

In short, this up-to-date, all-inclusive manual is the very thing Polish-American researchers must have to stay abreast of the current state of research in their field.

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