** What Is A Source?

** Mine Is Name Most Unusual

**Library of Congress Digital Newspaper Program

** Images of America: Washington

** Offers From FamilyTree Magazine

What is a source? One dictionary definition is so vague as to be meaningless: “a place, person, or thing from which something comes or can be obtained.” See Google search for “define source.”

A source is the identity and location concerning where you got the information you are using. 

That isn’t very artfully said but genealogists are talking about sources being reliable or unreliable. A source is a source. If I got my information from a book in the local public library, the citation information about the book and the place where I found it constitute the “source” of my information. Any questions about the accuracy, reliability or whatever of the information have nothing whatsoever to do with the “source.” If I think your information is wrong or unreliable and you provide me with a source, I can go an check to see whether or not you are correct. Absent a source, I have to guess where you might have gotten the information and from my perspective, I have to assume, since you did not tell me where you got your information, that the information is unreliable and quite likely wrong. When people say a “source” is unreliable, what they really mean is that the information obtained from the source is unreliable. (From: James Tanner ‘s   Genealogy’s Star blog back on  5 Dec 2015.)

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My maternal grandfather’s surname was Gurney. Mother always wondered where her surname originated. And why was the hospital carry-cart called a gurney. Well, I sleuthed and learned that the name originated in France and was DeGournay, meaning of the village of Gournay. A fellow of that name came to England with William the Conqueror (1066) and eventually the name morphed into Gurney. As for the hospital cart? I asked Grandma Google (who knows most everything!) and she said a fellow surnamed Gurney had invented it. Duh.

I have a Gurney ancestor with the first name of Bezaleel. Where did that come from in the early 1700s in Connecticut? Especially when he had siblings Elizabeth, Mary and Thomas. WELL!  It’s a name from the Old Testament, Exodus 35:30:  “I have called by name, Bezaleel…… and have filled him with knowledge in all manner of workmanship.” And Bezaleel was called upon to build the ark for the covenant!

Now why blather you with all of this? Do you have unusual first- or surnames in your family tree? Have you done any sleuthing to learn where that name originated??

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In a previous Serendipity, I spotlighted Miriam Robbin’s Online Historical Newspaper Directory. Now to highlight one of her spotlighted sources:

The National Digital Newspaper Program is a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. This is a long-term effort to develop an Internet-based, searchable database of U.S. newspapers. This is said to be your best bet to find information about American newspapers published between 1690 and the present. Wow. For Washington state, there are 11,000,000 pages posted. Double wow. This website takes time to search, but if you take the time it may prove to be a goldmine for you. Click to www.loc.gov/ndnp

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Arcadia Publishing offers wonderful books most helpful to genealogists. Called Images of America, these books are of a standard format (strictly adhered to) and always pertain to a place. For instance, there are nearly 200 books published having to do with our state, Washington. For example I’ll just pick the center of the Evergreen State; there are books for Leavenworth, Lake Chelan Valley, Kittitas County, Wenatchee, Quincy Valley, Grant County, Soap Lake, Moses Lake, Grand Coulee Dam, Yakima, Walla Walla, Richland, Kennewick and Manhattan Project/Hanford. My friend, Susan Davis Faulkner, did an Images of America book on Early Pasco. Imagine of those nearly 200 titles how many are about Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane and all the little places in between. These books cost $22 (unless you find one on Amazon 🙂  )

Click to this website (www.arcadiapublishing.com/series/images-of-america-books) and search to see if a book has been compiled on your ancestor’s home place, whether in Washington or the other 49 states.

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Family Tree Magazine is a wonderful genealogical resource and just keeps getting better and better with each issue. For all of us genealogists who keep asking “What in it for me?” Family Tree Magazine has answers.

Disclaimer: This magazine is www.familytree.COM and is in no way connected with www.familysearch.ORG and the FamilySearch Family Trees. A piece of chocolate pie and a piece of cherry pie…two great desserts but a bit different.

Each bi-monthly issue carries a score of teaching articles and each issue always offers some FamilyTree freebies…………free for the downloading. Or cheaply for the downloading. Organization guides. DNA guides. Writing your own story guides. State, city, topic guides. Everything!

How about this tip from the September 2016 issue…. click to their website and watch a video demo on finding free old photos and maps on the Library of Congress website. Free is good, right?

So try two clicks to two affiliated websites here: www.familytreemagazine.com and www.shopfamilytree.com.  Might find some amazing stuff.