There is a bit of a hint that the Great Depression Collection is intended to illuminate our current economic landscape. Researching historical records about the previous hard landing for the economy might involve understanding the causes of the last one, and I’m not sure that the census explains that very well. The newspapers of the time are full of explanations, many of which history has shown to be less causative than originally hoped. There are five “major city” newspapers at Footnote, but none of them include years later than 1923. For the year 1930, there are 22 Small Town Papers on the site. The term “depression” can be found in 21 of them, but not every occurrence refers to the economy. There’s precious little of probative value in a discussion of economics to be found in this collection. But that’s not a bad thing, it’s just an indication that the labels have a bit of salesmanship involved in their selection.

It further seems to me that the 1930 Census is more properly viewed as a great enhancement to Footnote’s already considerable World War II collection. A bit of arithmetic will tell you that anyone serving in the military when WWII ended in 1945 should have been at least 17 years old, indicating a birth no later than 1928. And in fact, you can generally find everyone who served in WWII in the 1930 Census. When you do, you find them in the context of a family – either as parents or children. In a sense, you find what they were fighting for, in the war.

The first 5 titles published on Footnote.com were:

• The Papers of the Continental Congress [link]
• The Pennsylvania Archives [link]
• The FBI Case Files [link]
• The Southern Claims Commission files [link]
• The Organizational Index to Civil War Pensions [link]

When Footnote went live I was in a content acquisition role, and I spent time consulting with advisors from the genealogy community. I also spoke with NARA staff. One of the most influential early advisors that I had was Marie Melchiori, who has specialized in military records research at NARA in downtown DC for many years. Here are descriptions of the first five titles we published and a bit of background about each one.

The Papers of the Continental Congress

Elsewhere on this site you can find a description of the meeting where this topic was first discussed. It’s a story worth repeating because in my view, it was a fortunate accident. [link]

When the colonies chose to band together to consider independence, they formed the First Continental Congress. Delegates from 12 of the 13 British colonies that later formed the United States met in Philadelphia in 1774. Georgia was the only colony that was not represented. That group agreed to see how matters progressed and to re-convene, if need be. They petitioned King George to address a list of grievances, discussed a boycott and the like, inspired by the “Intolerable Acts.” They called for the congress to re-convene on 10 May 10 1775 to consider further action if appropriate.

The following year, hostilities broke out at Lexington and Concord and a Second Continental Congress did meet on 10 May and began preparation for the defense of the colonies. This congress constituted the national government until the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1781. The Congress of the Confederation governed until the adoption of the Constitution on 04 March 1789.

Unlike the system of checks and balances established in the Constitution, the Congress oversaw all of the functions of the government. These papers included correspondence, laws, reports, and journals.

In addition, Footnote has several related record sets:

• The Papers of the Constitutional Convention
• Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress
• Foreign Correspondence of the Continental Congress
• Domestic Letters of the Department of State

These records are helpful because they describe the earliest efforts to govern the United States. In them we find the Articles of Confederation, Thomas Jefferson’s eyewitness account of the storming of the Bastille, and a design for a ceremonial sword to be presented to Lafayette.

The Pennsylvania Archives

From the description of these records, written by Elissa Powell:

As one of the original 13 colonies, Pennsylvania played an important part in our nation’s early history. Many significant records were created and kept by Pennsylvania, as Philadelphia was both the site of the Continental Congress and the largest port of the time. Many of those early documents, and others through the 1800s, were transcribed into the published Pennsylvania Archives. These volumes should not be confused with the repository in Harrisburg where official colonial and state records are kept. The images here are pages from the 138-volume, 10-series set of the well-known collection of early government records transcribed and printed by the Commonwealth. The Pennsylvania Archives has been relied upon by scholars, genealogists, and historians for valuable historical information for over a century.

The only online availability of virtually all of the Pennsylvania Archives is here, with free access, on Footnote.com. Previously, the full set was available in total or in parts on various libraries’ shelves, or microfilm, and on a few CD-ROMs. Each of the ten series, numbered 1 through 9 plus the Colonial Records series, has been scanned and made searchable. Previous indexes to each series of the set were incomplete or non-existent and caused this valuable set to be underutilized by veteran and casual researchers alike. The valuable search capability created by Footnote.com provides the key to unlocking previously hidden names and events.

A portion of this title had been scanned and posted online as a demo by iArchives (the parent company of Footnote.com). People made good use of those segments. One of the first tasks that we undertook when we started Footnote was to contact the State Archives in Pennsylvania and ask for permission to do the complete set. They graciously provided us with a digital copy of the entire title under the condition that we make it available for free.

It’s a great resource because it covers the activities of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from colonial times, through the American Revolution, the Whiskey Rebellion, and up to the War Between the States.

The FBI Case Files

Genealogists expressed an interest in the FBI case files from the beginning. When asked if these records were all about gangsters, we were informed by these genealogical advisors that the scope of these records was much broader than organized crime investigations.

The formal title is “Investigative Reports of the Bureau of Investigation 1908-1922.” At that time, the name of the Bureau of Investigation was changed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The last director of the BOI was J Edgar Hoover, who continued as the Director of the FBI into the Nixon Administration (50 years).

This rich collection of reports includes:

• suspected spy cases, which often documents the lives of innocent immigrants;
• anarchist cases, such as Emma Goldman and her associates;
• labor movement cases describing much of the rise of unions;
• many other interesting stories, most of which do not turn out to be crimes

There are almost a million cases here. In contrast to a sweeping view of the history of the US during this time, it’s a “worm’s eye view” of the details of many lives from which one might build up a well-grounded view of the period.

The Southern Claims Commission Files

The war between the states is often viewed as having been a contest between two sides that were wholly devoted to opposing causes. History tells us that isn’t true. For example, while it is true that 11 states voted to secede from the union, the sentiment was not universal. In Virginia, some counties voted overwhelmingly against seccession, as reported by the NY Times on 01 June 1861. During the war, many southerners proclaimed themselves as “Union men” and attempted to remain loyal to the Union or at least neutral.

When the war ended, southern loyalists looked to the Union government for reparations for their losses. Between 1871 and 1880, the federal government appointed the Southern Claims Commission to receive and process these claims. The overwhelming majority of the claims were denied, and the ones that were paid were discounted heavily. But the real story in these pages are the affidavits themselves.

Each case is a collection of responses to a questionnaire about the claimant’s loss and loyalty, filed as an affadavit. It includes affadavits by the claimant and also by witnesses who claimed first-hand knowledge of the claimant’s loss or loyalty or both. These contain abundant relationship information as well as demographic information about the people giving testimony.

Some researchers suggest that most of these claims were fraudulent – that the loyalty of the claimants was discovered only after they became aware of the opportunity for a government handout. Be that as it may, this title contains 22,000 stories of people in the Reconstruction era, backed up by almost 100,000 witnesses.

The Organizational Index to Civil War Pensions

There was already an index to Civil War pensions online when Footnote decided to publish this one. The other one, NARA microfilm publication T288, is a name index and is found on Ancestry and Heritage Quest. It also contains the names of widows of many pensioners.

Footnote chose to publish NARA microfilm publiction T289 for several reasons. First, it has more records than T288 (765 rolls of microfilm vs 544 rolls). We believed that the information contained in the almost 3 million images would represent a significant unique resource for researchers. Further, it contains death dates in almost a third of the cases, which are not present in T288. Finally, as an organizational index, it supported research by military unit, as well as the search for records about individuals.

These index cards cover a time period slightly broader than the Civil War. Their formal title is “Organization Index to Pension Files of Veterans Who Served Between 1861 and 1900.” That period would cover the Indian Wars and the Spanish War; yet even that is narrow. The cards contain information on veterans from WWI and the Mexican War, and even a few presidential pensions ranging from George Washington to Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

In summary, the first five titles represented unique records, covering the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. They illuminated the founding of the nation, the war between the states, and the period of demographic and economic growth before 1922. Significantly, publishing titles like these indicated that Footnote was focusing on the original record, as opposed to publishing indexed lists of names. Further, publishing folders and reports showed that Footnote was trying to help researchers find the whole story of a historical person or event, and not simply an entry on a muster roll, directory, or census.

These five titles laid the foundation for a site that promised:

• to publish historical records in complete sets;
• to address the entire period of US history;
• to display an image of the original record; and
• to produce quality content that was not available elsewhere on the internet.

These records represent a great opportunity for researchers to better understand historical people and events. This post begins a series of articles about those five titles. We’ll go into each one in more detail beginning next week.

• Major search overhaul at Footnote.com. Users get a great deal more control over the process.
• 2008 User Meetings – preliminary schedule. Six cities with a lot of the midwest – St Louis, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Dallas / Ft Worth, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia make the list.

Enhancements to Search Go Live

On Friday a new search paradigm went live at Footnote. Briefly, they’ve replaced the “free text” search with a “faceted” search. Visitors to the site have much more control over search results than before. It’s especially helpful with common names, where some “winnowing” is very helpful. Further, names can be decomposed into first names and surnames.

There’s a blog post about it on the Footnote blog. The example there shows a good insight into the goals of the site developers.

One of the most frequent questions that people ask as Footnote, when we do demos and talks around the country, is about search functionality. The initial offering was somewhat spartan in that regard – the zen haiku search, where no results left you feeling poetic. The new functionality is a big step in the right direction. Try it and see if you don’t agree.

2008 Footnote User Meetings Schedule proposed

Footnote holds meetings with users who live in a particular area. These are generally planned to coincide with travel by Footnote team members so that a special trip isn’t required. The tentative schedule for 2008 follows.

25-Mar. Minneapolis
12-Apr. St Louis.
26-Apr. D/FW.
16-May. KC.
26-Jun. LA.
3-Sept. Philly.

The meetings may turn out to be a day earlier or later than these dates. Still, it’s something to plan for. A bit of face time with Footnote staffers, a chance to have your say about the site, the business practices, the content … members might want to show up for that. It’s likely that users will see an announcement and a sign-up link on the Footnote blog sooner or later.

The main purpose of these meetings is to give members a chance to meet Footnote people face-to-face. It’s easy to imagine a company as some monolithic black box. Footnote staff hope to dispel any preconceptions that we aren’t like other people. We are just like other people. Only more so. If you live near one of these towns, make plans to meet us, and to tell us what you think of the site, and what you’d like to see.