Research burnout: The inevitable consequence of the undiscipled approach

Photo by Oliver Kendal @ Flickr

As the 12 subscribers to Sifting Through the Past may (or may not) have noticed, I have not written a blog post in some weeks. This is for two reasons; 1. I went on a two-week smash-and-grab hunt for documentation on a particularly interesting ancestor, and 2. I was so burned out on genealogy research afterward that my brain hurt every time my thoughts drifted to the topic.
If there is any lesson in this, I suppose it would be, "Don't do as I do." Or, do. Unless you are in the middle of professional genealogy research for a client, I don't really see the harm in taking an extended break from it after an intensive period of non-stop overexposure to your family history.

So, after a couple of weeks spent doing little more than recovering from my genealogy bender by putting the house back in order, reading dystopian fiction, and playing some old-school SimCity 2000, my brain is no longer threatening to melt at the thought of genealogy.

I even managed to resume my column at The Examiner this morning with a budget genealogy post about the Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspaper Digital Archive (the very resource that kicked off this documentation spree in the first place). Next week I plan to post here and there about the other resources that fueled my family history frenzy, and maybe a bit of what I found.

But for now, I have a couple of more loads of laundry to finish, and some chicken to toss in the slow cooker.

Surname Saturday: Norman

We were told we were descended from vikings (among other European roots). I'm sure this postulation came more from historical associations with the word Norman than any oral family traditions that may have been passed down.
Merriam-Webster has this to say:

Origin of NORMAN

Middle English, from Anglo-French Normant, from Old Norse Northmann-, Northmathr Norseman, from northr north + mann-, mathr man; akin to Old English north north and to Old English man man
First Known Use: 13th century

We come from the land of the ice and snow...?

Despite the rather extraordinary claims, I haven't been able to confirm a Norman ancestor outside of Texas. My Norman line makes its first reliable appearance in Gonzales County, when my ggg-grandfather Benjamin F. Norman married widow Mary E. Stevens Townsend on November 10, 1854.

According to the 1860 and 1870 censuses, Benjamin F. Norman was born in Alabama around 1835, he was literate, and neither of his parents were of foreign birth. Exhaustive research into Benjamin Normans that somewhat fit this description has led me to suspect that he may have been the son of Charles Norman of Benton County, Alabama.

Of course, this is still speculative, as the only evidence I have to support the notion is that I have been unable to trace Charles' B. F. Norman beyond the 1850 census. So, currently, my Norman line is still much more Texan than viking.

More about Benjamin F. Norman

Benjamin Norman died before 1879, when his widow married Isaac S. Steen. The Gonzales County history center also had muster rolls for a Benjamin F. Norman in the Texas 22nd Cavalry, Company G. However, his age on the muster rolls have him several years younger than he should have been during the Civil War. Inconsistent ages have actually been a bane with several of my Gonzales County ancestors, but that is an issue for another time.

Children of Ben and Mary Norman:
Mary J
John A
Susan C
Virginia A

As always, feel free to contact me if you have any interest in this line.

Thrifty Thursday: Obtaining free census images online

Finding free genealogy and family history records online is getting easier with the efforts of many volunteers to provide scanned, searchable documents for genealogy researchers. While the 1940 U.S. Census is most prominently on the minds of family history researchers these days, census records dating back as far as 1790 are available for free on the internet.

Census records at HeritageQuest

One of the largest sources of free scanned census images can be found at HeritageQuest. This repository contains U.S. Censuses from 1790 - 1820 and 1860 - 1930.

Access to HeritageQuest requires log in through a library that is subscribed to the database. To find out if your local library system is subscribed, go to your library's website and search for HeritageQuest. If found, you should be given the option to log in at HeritageQuest with your library card number from home.

The HeritageQuest search engine only matches exact terms, therefore some troubleshooting may be required for abbreviated names and surnames with alternate spellings. The advanced search option is best for this, allowing you to customize your results by county, sex, age, race and birthplace.

Census records and data at FamilySearch

While FamilySearch only provides scanned images for the 1850, 1870, 1900 and 1940 censuses, plenty of information is provided for census years 1860 - 1930 to help you improve your search results at HeritageQuest. I like to have both sites open in separate tabs when searching HeritageQuest for census images.

In most cases, FamilySearch provides a list of each person in the household, gender, age, location and birthplace information. This data can be utilized to customize HeritageQuest census searches when the name seems to be throwing your search results off the right trail.

1940 Census at Ancestry

While the 1940 census isn't the only one available for free at Ancestry, it is the most prominent until FamilySearch has finished integrating the last remaining states into their searchable database.

There is no subscription required to view and save the 1940 Census images to your computer. You will, however, need a free member account. Don't waste your 14 day free trial on this, just sign up for the free account (if you don't have one yet), then go to the 1940 Census search page.

Please feel free to share any other free census resources in the comments below.