Thursday's Tip: Resource Wrap Up for Researching Your Deaf Ancestors and Relatives

March 13 marked the beginning of Deaf History Month 2015, which concluded yesterday, April 15. During this month, I have listed tips and strategies for researching your deaf ancestors and relatives in historical records. Here is a wrap up of some resources to conclude our month-long commemoration of Deaf History Month:

**UPDATE 12 JULY 2021: Judith Batchelor at Genealogy Jude has written an excellent blog post, "Ancestors who were Deaf", about her deaf ancestor in the United Kingdom, and lists a variety of resources she used in her research.  If your ancestors came from the UK and you have deaf ancestors, you may want to research those records to see whether additional deaf ancestors can be found.

Professional genealogist Amy Johnson Crow has written several articles on genealogical research on the deaf. These include “Researching Deaf Members of the Family,” published in the Spring 2008 issue of New England Ancestors (now called American Ancestors), “Deaf School Admission Records,” published in the September/October 2001 issue of National Genealogical Society News Magazine (now called NGS Magazine), and--more recently--an article which profiles students from the Indiana School for the Deaf who are buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, published in the March 2015 issue of Indiana Genealogist.

DeafGenealogy.com - This website helps others discover resources on Deaf, CODA (Children of Deaf Adult) Hearing, and Hard of Hearing people who were involved in or made significant contributions to the Deaf Community. It includes information on genealogy resources, databases, archives, tutorials in ASL, deaf genealogy conferences, deaf historical figures information, and other resources.

FindAGrave Deaf Cemetery - This virtual cemetery lists Graves and memorials of well-known deaf people and hearing allies from Deaf Heritage.

The Silent Worker - This was a popular national newspaper written by the deaf for the deaf population of the United States from 1888 to 1929. It was first published as the Deaf Mute Times. The Gallaudet University Archives has digitized this collection and made it available online for public research.

I hope these five posts have been useful in your research. Please leave a comment if you've found the resources to be helpful, learned something new about your deaf ancestors or relatives by using the resources I've highlighted, or have helpful information about them to add. It's been a pleasure to provide these tips and strategies to the deaf and genealogical community and, in doing so, educate myself further about the three deaf DICKINSON siblings of my 3rd-great-grandmother.

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Other posts on this topic:

Tuesday's Tip: Researching Your Deaf Ancestors in U.S Federal Censuses

Tuesday's Tip: Using the U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages and Hearing Relatives, 1888-1895

Tuesday's Tip: Finding Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Schools for the Deaf Historical Records

Tuesday's Tip: Locating Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Other Major Record Groups

Tuesday's Tip: Locating Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Other Major Record Groups

March 13 marked the beginning of Deaf History Month 2015, which concludes on April 15. During this month, I will be listing tips and strategies for researching your deaf ancestors and relatives in historical records.

We've spent quite a bit of time looking at the three deaf siblings--John Fletcher Dickinson, Thomas Sherman Dickinson, and Harriet Ann (Dickinson) Root--of one of my 3rd-great-grandmother. We've found them in U.S Federal Census records, the special census on deaf family marriages, and Schools for the Deaf historical records.There are other major records groups that should be examined.

State and Local Censuses
Like the federal and special census records we have examined, many state and local censuses also listed whether citizens were deaf, blind, or had some other disability. In 2009, I composed a list of online state censuses for this blog, and have recently updated it. The post also contains links to some excellent reference books on state and local censuses, which cover many offline repositories for these record groups.

Oddly enough, my Dickinsons happened to reside in the one county in the Union in which a state census was taken for 10 years running: Cass County, Nebraska; 1876-1885 (there was also one taken in 1870 in that county). Below is one of many state census records I found for the Dickinson siblings, their spouses, and children. It shows John and Chloe "Dixon" in Rock Bluff in 1880. Interestingly, I have found that the column for "deaf and dumb" has more often been left blank than filled in for my Dickinson family members in these state census records.

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Non-U.S. Census Records
Many other countries held regular censuses, often decennially, like the United States. It was not unusual in those censuses to find columns in which to enumerate the deaf and other disabled individuals. Sharn White blogs about these columns and the information they contain in censuses from the United Kingdom. If your ancestors came from Canada or Australia, the census forms will be very similar to those of the U.K. These non-U.S. census records can be accessed through a World Deluxe subscription at Ancestry. For other nation's census records, especially those that can be found online, see Cyndi's List and search for the name of that country.

Draft Registrations
Although deaf men could not serve in the military, they were included in U.S. draft registrations, as these were an enumeration of every man in the country of a certain age, whether or not they were fit for service. Ancestry's Military Collection includes a Draft, Enlistment and Service category, which contains draft registrations for the Civil War, World I, and World War II. FamilySearch has federal draft registration records for WWI, WWII, and state draft registrations for Arkansas, Georgia, and Louisiana during WWII.

Unfortunately, entering the keyword "deaf" into the search engines does not produce a list of deaf draft registrants; instead, it can bring up individuals living in institutions for the deaf, or all registrants living in Deaf Smith, Texas! It is simply best to search for your ancestor or relative by name, and hope to find some interesting information on their registration card or ledger.

Below are D.F. Hogan and Augustus Hummell, an engineer and a baker, who resided at the Deaf and Dumb Institution in the Ninth Ward of New York City during the June 1863 Civil War Draft Registration, as found on Ancestry:

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Annual State Reports
While living in Sherman Township, Newaygo County, Michigan, John and his wife Chloe were both named, along with a number of other deaf individuals, in the Joint Documents of the State of Michigan for the year 1873 (Vol. 3) published by the Michigan Legislature. Note under the "mental competency" category, both are labeled as "bright." Running your ancestor's name through a Google search or at online digital book sites may uncover some surprising details about his or her life.

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Poor Farms and Other Institutions
Because of the nature of deafness, people with this disability were not as physically or financially vulnerable as those who were blind, crippled, or mentally disabled. Most could provide a living for themselves and their dependents. However, it is always possible that a deaf person could have ended up becoming indigent or otherwise dependent upon the community for their survival. Check local poor farm, poor house, and work house records, especially if your ancestor "disappears" from regular records. The Poorhouse Story has a wealth of information on these institutions.

Newspapers
Your ancestors; local newspapers may contain numerous articles about their lives, including biographical articles; news about illnesses or accidents that may have been the cause of deafness;, graduation announcements from schools for the deaf; birth, marriage, or death announcements and obituaries, to name a few. Check out my Online Historical Newspapers site to locate digitized newspapers online

City Directories
If your ancestor was an urban dweller, tracking him through the annual city directories can be helpful to provide a timeline of his life and occupation(s). Even if he lived in a rural area, county, farm, and rural directories were common as well. Don't forget church and fraternal society directories, too! Check out my Online Historic Directories site to locate digitized and transcribed historical directories online.


Next week, we will wrap up Deaf History Month with a final list of resources and links.

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Other posts on this topic:

Tuesday's Tip: Researching Your Deaf Ancestors in U.S Federal Censuses

Tuesday's Tip: Using the U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages and Hearing Relatives, 1888-1895

Tuesday's Tip: Finding Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Schools for the Deaf Historical Records

Thursday's Tip: Resource Wrap Up for Researching Your Deaf Ancestors and Relatives

Tuesday's Tip: Finding Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Schools for the Deaf Historical Records

Columbus, Ohio Former School For Deaf
Source; Wdzinc. "Columbus Ohio Former School For Deaf." Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Web. 28 March 2015.

March 13 marked the beginning of Deaf History Month 2015, which concludes on April 15. During this month, I will be listing tips and strategies for researching your deaf ancestors and relatives in historical records.

We've been following the three deaf children of my ancestors, Ezra and Cynthia (PHILLIPS) DICKINSON, through a variety of historical records to flesh out their lives. As mentioned previously, Ezra moved his family back to Ohio in 1842 after living in Indiana for six years, in order to qualify his children to attend the Ohio Deaf and Dumb Asylum, as there was no such school in Indiana at that time.

If you believe your deaf ancestors and relatives attended a school for the deaf--and even if you're not sure--you should consider obtaining historical school records for those individuals. Admission records can contain basic genealogical information such as date of birth, parents' names and residence, and the onset of deafness (genetic or injury/illness-caused). Additionally, knowing when your ancestor attended school can enhance their personal timeline, and help you determine if they met their deaf spouse at that particular school. Finally, reading about the history of the school may give you a snapshot in time of what your ancestor's life was like while living at the school (which were typically boarding schools). The following are some ways to determine if your family members attended a school for the deaf.

First of all, you may wish to see if your family member appears at a school for the deaf during a regular federal census enumeration, even if they are also enumerated with their family in the same census. Although Thomas Sherman Dickinson appears with his parents and siblings in Hicksville, Defiance County, Ohio in 1850, he is also enumerated at the Ohio Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Columbus, Franklin County (see line 15):

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Another hint for whether your deaf ancestors and relatives attended a school for the deaf is to check out county histories and biographies for the locations and relatives of your deaf individual's families. This is how I originally knew my Dickinsons attended the Ohio Deaf and Dumb Asylum. In 2012 and 2014, I wrote a couple of posts on how to access these county histories and biographies (also known as Mug Books). You can read more about them here and here. Below is the biography of Ezra Dickinson from the DeKalb County, Indiana county history that mentions the deaf and dumb asylum:

Where can you find historical records for schools for the deaf? First, understand that these records are most likely off line and not available to research via the Internet. Secondly, it's important to locate those particular schools. Both the Gallaudet University website and Wikipedia provide comprehensive lists of schools for the deaf in the United States. Cyndi's List provides links to a number of historical schools for the deaf. Another good resource is the Repositories of Primary Sources site, which not only links to schools and institutions with repositories, but state archives, which often are the repositories for state schools for the deaf. Don't forget local genealogical and historical societies. They may know where historical records for the local school for the deaf are now housed. Finally, a catalog search on the keywords deaf school at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City yields in a global list of 45 results. Wherever you locate a school archive--on campus, with the state archives, through a society, or via the Family History Library--you may have to pay a research fee or hire a researcher to locate and obtain copies of the records.

Don't forget that name changes in institutions were not uncommon. For instance, the school my Dickinsons attended was founded in 1826 as the Asylum for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb. Although the following year the state legislature changed the name to the Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, it continued to informally be called the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in a number of historical records and histories. Around 1904, the name was changed to the Ohio State School for the Deaf. Use a variety of terms to do online searches to find books and images--modern and historical photographs and photo postcards--related to your ancestors' educational institution.

I was fortunate to connect with another genealogist who had purchased microfilmed admission registers of the Ohio Deaf and Dumb Asylum. She kindly looked up my Dickinson relatives and shared her finds with me:

John Fletcher Dickinson, resident of Hicksville, Defiance Co., OH. Parents, etc: Ezra Dickinson. Born 10 May 1825. Admitted 30 Sept 1845. Cause: congenital. Deaf/mute relations: one brother and one sister. Discharged 6 Mar 1848. (Admission register 1, p. 110, entry 284).

Thomas S. Dickinson, resident of Hicksville, Defiance Co., OH. Parents, etc: Ezra Dickinson. Born Nov 1835. Admitted 3 Sept 1845. Cause: congenital. Deaf/mute relations: one brother and one sister. Discharged July 1851. Absent one year. (Admission register 1, p. 110, entry 285). [This is the first record I've seen that named Sherman Dickinson as Thomas S. Dickinson.]

DICKINSON, Harriet Ann. Residence: Hicksville, Defiance Co., OH. Parents, etc: Ezra Dickinson. B. 12 Apr 1840 [family and census records are more aligned with 1838 as her year of birth]. Adm. 23 Nov 1850. Cause: congenital. Deaf/mute relations: two brothers. Discharged July 1851. (Vol. 1, p. 158, entry 450)

The Ohio School for the Deaf history page provides a wonderful account of the daily life of students at the time my Dickinsons attended:

Starting in 1845, a new building was erected on the Institution grounds for approximately $3,000 being spent for the heating apparatus and furnishings.  One hundred four students were enrolled in the facility in 1845; however, the new wing increased the school's capacity to one hundred fifty students.  Other improvements of the era included the replacement of tallow candles by coal oil at the Institution.

An 1850 account of daily life at the school indicated the following schedule of activities.  The children were awakened at about 5:00 a.m. so that they might eat breakfast, family-style, with all teachers and officers (administration) in attendance.  Students then completed all "household" chores followed by a study hall until 8:30 a.m., supervised by responsible students.  Recess lasted until 9:00 a.m. at which time all the students and staff congregated in the chapel for prayers.  The one hundred students then went to one of six classrooms for instruction until noon.  After lunch, the children returned to their classrooms to study until 4:00 p.m.  (School was also held on Saturday morning.)  The boys worked on the grounds at various duties and the girls sewed from the time school ended until supper at 6:00 p.m.  The students studied once again in the evenings.

Wherever your deaf ancestors and relatives attended school, if you can access their historical records, you are sure to find a bounty of information!


Next week, we'll look at locating your deaf ancestors and relatives in other major record groups.

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Other posts on this topic:

Tuesday's Tip: Researching Your Deaf Ancestors in U.S Federal Censuses

Tuesday's Tip: Using the U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages and Hearing Relatives, 1888-1895

Tuesday's Tip: Locating Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Other Major Record Groups

Thursday's Tip: Resource Wrap Up for Researching Your Deaf Ancestors and Relatives

Tuesday's Tip: Using the U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages and Hearing Relatives, 1888-1895

March 13 marked the beginning of Deaf History Month 2015, which concludes on April 15. During this month, I will be listing tips and strategies for researching your deaf ancestors and relatives in historical records.

Last week, I explained how my ancestor, Ezra DICKINSON, and his three deaf children could be traced through most of the U.S. Federal Censuses from 1830 through 1910. There is another special census that was taken over the course of the years 1888 to 1895 that specifically enumerated deaf individuals in the United States. Titled "the U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages and Hearing Relatives, 1888-1895," it set out to gather statistics on deaf family members and their hearing relatives to determine if deafness was genetic, and if so, how it impacted family members. Because specific information about deaf individual's parents, siblings, spouses, and children was obtained, this census gives a unique outline of a deaf person's family tree that is much better constructed than what you would find in regular census records.

When you click on the link to the database for the U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages and Hearing Relatives, 1888-1895, be sure to scroll down to read the historical background about the census, and the information under "About this Database," which Ancestry.com has included. It is very helpful to understanding more about this census.

I entered the surname "Dickinson" into the search engine for this database and came up with 14 results. You can see that John Fletcher Dickinson and his wife Chloe Bates, as well as Thomas "Sherman" Dickinson and his wife Jennie Hensinger both appear twice in the list of results, one as the main individual, and one as the spouse (Sherman appears a third time without a spouse in this list). The nice feature of this census (and the search engine for this database) is that women's maiden names were given, increasing the chances of finding deaf females who married, as well as discovering maiden names that may have been unknown up to this point in your ancestral search.

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These census forms consisted of four pages. The first page of these forms can be downloaded at Ancestry.com, but the following three cannot. I used my photo editing software to create screen shots of the three final pages of the form. In today's post, we will be examining the census record of John Fletcher Dickinson and his wife, Chloe A. Bates. Here is the first page.

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From the notes on the first page of the form, you can see that Benjamin Talbot (who may have been an interpreter or family friend) had difficulty extracting information from John. It's too bad he just didn't have John look at the form and fill it out himself. We do know from other records that John and Chloe married 19 March 1856 in Trumbull County, Ohio and that they had at least four children, none of which were deaf.

Here's the second page, in two parts:

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On this page, John's father's name, Ezra, is given and his own full name is also listed. This is the first place I discovered that his middle initial "F" stood for "Fletcher." He also names his brother Sherman (married twice and living at Auburn, Indiana) and his sister Harriet (married to a hearing man) as his deaf siblings. He gives the birth years for all three, states he is deaf since birth (which conflicts with information he gave on the 1880 DDD Census Schedule), and that he attended the Ohio State School for the Deaf while living in Hicksville. He also gives the year he was admitted, how old he was when admitted, and how many years he attended. Finally, he gives his occupation and current residence.

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John's wife Chloe gives her information on page 3. Her father was William R. Bates, and she was born in 1824. She was the only deaf person in her family and became so at the age of one and a half due to inflammation of the brain. She also attended the Ohio State School for the Deaf, while she resided in Hiram. She spent six years at that school. She may have met John at that school, although calculating the dates, it would have been her last year and his first year there that probably overlapped.

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The final page has remarks, the date the information was completed, and a signature of an individual who was probably the enumerator. Note they referenced the 1890 census cards. Where could those gems possibly be today?

While I do not show them here, Sherman's records have even more information. Half are duplicated twice, which accounts for his name being listed three times in the search results. He gives their mother's maiden name (Cynthia Phillips) as well as the fact that he was one of 12 children, three of which were deaf. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate John and Sherman's sister Harriet on this special census, no matter how creative I made my searches. I believe she wasn't enumerated. Even on special censuses, people got missed!

If your deaf ancestors or relatives were alive during 1888 to 1895 in the United States, be sure to check out this special census. It likely will provide useful information to construct your family tree and to learn about their education, if they had any.

Next week, we will delve into historical records at schools for the deaf.

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Other posts on this topic:

Tuesday's Tip: Researching Your Deaf Ancestors in U.S Federal Censuses

Tuesday's Tip: Finding Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in School for the Deaf Historical Records

Tuesday's Tip: Locating Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Other Major Record Groups

Thursday's Tip: Resource Wrap Up for Researching Your Deaf Ancestors and Relatives

Tuesday's Tip: Researching Your Deaf Ancestors in U.S. Federal Censuses

The beginning of the sign for "deaf."

March 13 marked the beginning of Deaf History Month 2015, which concludes on April 15. Today, and for the next four weeks, I will be listing tips and strategies for researching your deaf ancestors and relatives in historical records.

Although no one in my immediate family is deaf*, I did have an ancestor, my 4th-great-grandfather Ezra DICKINSON, who had three deaf children out of 12. His biography can be read here. It states: "In 1842, having three children who were [deaf] mutes, he sold his farm in Concord Township [DeKalb County, Indiana] and bought one near Hicksville, Ohio, that his children might have the advantage of the deaf and dumb asylum."

*UPDATE: In 2016, my first grandchild, Theo, was diagnosed at six weeks old as being severely to profoundly hard of hearing, which is technically deaf.  He received cochlear implants at age 13 months.  Genetic testing determined that both my daughter and son-in-law carry a recessive gene called Connexion 26.  If a child receives one gene from a parent, they can be hard of hearing.  If they receive both genes, they will be deaf.  In 2019, my second grandchild, Charlotte, was born.  She also was diagnosed as being severely to profoundly hard of hearing and received cochlear implants at 11 months of age.  My two children and I either do wear or have worn hearing aids, but until my grandchildren were born, we believed our hearing loss was caused by multiple ear infections we all had as children.  We now know we carry the Connexion 26 gene.  It is entirely possible that gene came down the line from the Dickinson family through many generations.  We are becoming a bilingual family, utilizing both American Sign Language and spoken English to communicate.

I've been fortunate to be able to trace this family through the U.S. Federal Censuses, and even more fortunate that our government decided to identify deaf and mute individuals in many of those censuses. In fact, the 1830 census was the first to identify people as deaf and dumb (the archaic term used for mute individuals, whether they were mute genetically, or were mute due to deafness and the inability or lack of opportunity to learn to speak). For the next six censuses, through the mostly destroyed 1890 census, all population registers identified the deaf and/or deaf and dumb. Also, the 1910 and the 2000 censuses identified this group. We will be taking a "walk" through these censuses to determine what can be found about your deaf ancestors and relatives, by using my Dickinson family as an example.

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When the 1830 census was taken, Ezra DICKINSON was enumerated in Johnston Township, Trumbull County, Ohio. Only heads of household were named in this census. There were six individuals in the household: three sons, a daughter, and Ezra and his wife, Cynthia.

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On the second page of the census, we see the total number of people in the household (six), plus a one in the column identifying deaf and dumb individuals under the age of 14. This would probably have been son John Fletcher DICKINSON, born 10 May 1825.

If you use Ancestry.com to view these census images, please note that you cannot download the second page of the images, because--as they state--those pages aren't indexed (that seems rather silly to me). I took a screen shot of the above image and used my photo editing software to create a clip for this post. Here is the link to the 1830 census database at Ancestry.

In 1840, Ezra and his family were enumerated in DeKalb Co., Indiana (the township is not given). Four sons and five daughters graced their home. Again, only heads of household were named (here is the link for the 1840 census at Ancestry).

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On the second page of the census, the number 11 shows the total number of people in the household, followed by a 2 representing the number of people in the household engaged in agriculture. Then a 2 and a 1 are given in the columns for deaf and dumb individuals, ages 0-13, and 14-24, respectively. These likely were Harriet Anna DICKINSON (probably born 13 Dec 1839), Thomas Sherman DICKINSON (born November 1835), and John Fletcher DICKINSON, mentioned above.

The 1850 census was the first one in which every individual was named within a household; before this, only heads of households (usually male) were named. In this year, Ezra and his family were in Hicksville, Defiance Co., Ohio, having moved to that state so his deaf children would be eligible to attend the state school for the deaf and dumb. The family had originally lived in Ohio before moving to Indiana, so it wasn't a stretch for them to return and set up life in their former home state. Ezra and Cynthia are shown with seven of their children. Some of the adult children are out of the home, and there may have been children born after this census. Three children of theirs have yet to be identified by name. Cynthia died in 1852.

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As you can see in the far right column, John, Sherman, and Harriet are listed as "Deaf & Dumb." Sherman is specifically enumerated as a student for his occupation while older brother John is farming, and younger sister Harriet, although age 10, does not have a student occupation. Keep this in mind for when we discuss school records from schools for the deaf  in the future.

If you are researching enslaved ancestors in the 1850 and 1860 censuses, they will be identified if deaf-mute. However, they will not be named, but only be identified by gender and approximate age. If you believe your enslaved ancestor was a deaf-mute either from a family story or from identification as a deaf-mute in post-1860 population schedules, this can help narrow down the possibilities of where that ancestor was living and who his or her slave owner was. Slave schedules for 1850 and 1860 can be found here and here, respectively, as separate databases at Ancestry.

In 1860, Ezra, his second wife Hannah "Elizabeth," four of his children, and a step-son were back in Indiana, in Wilmington Township, DeKalb County. Sherman and Harriet are identified as deaf and dumb. John was married to his wife Chloe BATES, also deaf and dumb, and living in Brooks Township, Newaygo Co., Michigan (not shown).

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By 1870, all three deaf children of Ezra were married and living in their own homes with their spouses and children. Here are Sherman and John, living next door to each other in Sheridan Township, Newaygo Co., Michigan. As you can see, Sherman, John, and John's wife Chloe were identified as deaf and dumb. 

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Harriet was living with her husband, James Root, in Mount Pleasant, Cass Co., Nebraska (not shown). Interestingly enough, they had a hired hand living with them who was also deaf and dumb. He does not appear to be related.

If you find your deaf ancestors on the 1880 census, be aware that there is more to look at than just the population schedules. Here are Sherman and his family living in Rock Bluffs, Cass Co., Nebraska, probably to be near sister Harriet's family. The Harriet in his own household is a niece; she is John and Chloe's daughter.

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To the far right of Sherman's name, you can see a 1 in the column identifying deaf and dumb individuals. This information informs you that Sherman's name can be searched in the 1880 Schedules of Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes, which include deaf individuals. This is a separate database at Ancestry. These schedules were additional information gathered regarding "defective" (physically and mentally disabled), dependent (the indigent and orphans), and delinquent (criminal, imprisoned) individuals who were identified in the 1880 population schedule.

When I searched for Sherman in the DDD Schedule, he was enumerated on it on the same page as his siblings and sister-in-law, as all were living in Cass Co., Nebraska. Harriet was living in Rock Bluffs proper, while the rest were living in Rock Bluffs Precinct.

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The DDD schedule listed the individual, where they lived, and whether they were self-supporting, or partly so (the family members we are studying all said "yes" to this question). Then they were asked at which age deafness occurred. Harriet and Sherman said they were deaf from birth, Chloe stated she was 11 months old when she had brain fever (perhaps scarlet fever or meningitis), and John stated he was 2 years old when he had a contusion of the head when falling into a well. That is an interesting story; it does conflict with information given when he entered the Ohio State School for the Deaf, which stated he was deaf from birth. The next question was whether the individual had ever attended an institution for the deaf. All four stated the Ohio School for the Deaf in Columbus. John added that he had attended the School for the Deaf in Flint, Michigan, which may give us a hint about the family's migration to that state from the Indiana-Ohio region. Next is the number of years in the institution. The final column gives the date of discharge from the school.

The next census to identify the deaf was the 1890 census, which unfortunately was mostly destroyed mainly by water and mold damage as the result of putting out a fire. Neither John, Sherman, nor Harriet lived in a community where the 1890 census remnants are extant. However, for those fortunate enough to find their ancestors on these remnants, the information would be very similar to that which is found on the 1850-1870 censuses.

The last historical census that has been released to the public which identifies deaf individuals is the 1910 census. In this census, only deaf and dumb individuals are identified; those who were deaf (but not dumb) or dumb (but not deaf) were not identified.

I found Harriet living in Ward 7 of Lincoln, Lancaster Co., Nebraska in 1910. In the very last column on the right, you can see "DD" written, for "deaf and dumb."

Since 1910, the only census that has identified deaf individuals is the 2000 census. It will not be released to the public until 2072. Question 16 of that census asks: "Does this person have any of the following long-lasting conditions: a. Blindness, deafness, or a severe vision or hearing impairment?" It is unfortunate that our descendants will not be able to track deaf ancestors for over 90 years (the gap between the 1910 and 2000 censuses).

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I hope this "census walk" from 1830 to 1910 has been helpful for you in tracking your deaf ancestors and relatives. Next week, we will visit a special census that was taken over the course of 1888 to 1895 which was focused entirely on deaf individuals, their families, marriages, and hearing relatives.

Other posts on this topic:

Tuesday's Tip: Using the U.S. Special Census on Deaf Family Marriages and Hearing Relatives, 1888-1895

Tuesday's Tip: Finding Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in School for the Deaf Historical Records

Tuesday's Tip: Locating Deaf Ancestors and Relatives in Other Major Record Groups

Thursday's Tip: Resource Wrap Up for Researching Your Deaf Ancestors and Relatives

Tuesday's Tip: Attend Any of 14 Live Streaming Sessions from RootsTech This Week--For Free!

This post has been updated to reflect corrected and additional information.

Last year, I had the pleasure of attending RootsTech, the annual genealogy and technology conference held in Salt Lake City. Although it was my first attendance in person at RootsTech, I had attended their virtual live streaming sessions the previous two years.

This week, RootsTech 2015 will run from Thursday, February 12th, through Saturday, February 14th. There are 14 sessions during those three days which will be available for live streaming from RootsTech.org. The schedule of sessions, including topics, speakers, and times is posted here. After the conference, archived recordings of these sessions will be posted on the RootsTech website for a limited time.

I know you will enjoy the engaging presentations and helpful classes that are available through live streaming! Don't miss out!

Tuesday's Tip: Exploring Ancestry's "U.S., Northern Pacific Railway Company Personnel Files, 1890-1960" Database

Last April, I wrote a Tuesday's Tip on using the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association website. Imagine then my delight when I realized that Ancestry.com had recently updated a new-to-me database called "U.S., Northern Pacific Railway Company Personnel Files, 1890-1960."

Here is a screenshot of the description of the database:

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Please note that although the description says the company was in Minnesota, that is where its headquarters were. The line stretched for 6,800 miles across the northern tier of the United States from Wisconsin to Washington State, so if your ancestors lived in any of those states, and perhaps even in adjoining ones, they well could have been employed by the NPR. Additionally, even if you have found your ancestor's occupation to be a farmer or some such other trade, don't hesitate to check this database. According to the description, "some farmers took railroad jobs during the winter and requested leaves of absence during the summers to work their family farms." Such seems to have been the case of my children's great-great-grandfather, George Rice WESTABY, III.

I did a simple surname search for "westaby" in the database and it came up with the following three results:

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Besides George, the second result, I recognized the names of two of his four younger brothers, Guy Steven WESTABY and Charles Wilson WESTABY.

When I clicked on the View Images icon to the far right of George Westaby's entry, I was brought to the following screen:

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This appears to be his application to the Northern Pacific Railway in Glendive, Dawson County, Montana, dated 30 September 1913. Note it gives the names and address of his parents, as well as a physical description of himself.

A few images later, I found the following document, a resignation which was dated a year earlier (12 October 1912), and had his personnel file number (79761) written on it:

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Apparently, like the database description states, George took occasional leaves of absence to work other jobs or help his family. The following document "How and Where Previously Occupied" shows George's work history. You can see he was helping his father, George "Rice" WESTABY, II on his farm from 2 August 1910 to 28 May 1911. This was one of several such cards in his file:

(click on image to enlarge)

The card also contained his signature at the bottom:

I decided to see how many images of documents I could find in George's file. The filmstrip feature made it easy to scroll back and forth. First I clicked on the filmstrip icon near the image number:

The filmstrip option then showed up at the bottom of my screen, giving me thumbnail views of the preceding and succeeding images:

(click image to enlarge)

I could also scroll to the left and the right quickly, using the arrows on each side of the screen. By using this feature, I was able to find the first and last images of George's personnel file to determine he had twenty images of documents in this database. This is important, because when you do a search on a name and then click on the "View Image" icon, you don't necessarily go to the first image in that individual's personnel file. Check backward and forward through the images, and use the personnel file number to help you. It may not appear on all documents.

Even though I knew quite a bit about George's life with the railroad from other family documents and stories, this added quite a bit more information and generated much interest on my part to this period of his life. I'm looking forward to checking out his brothers' files as well. I also searched for two other railroad ancestors of my children, John Franklin MARTIN, and John Franklin MIDKIFF, II. I was unsuccessful, but I believe "Frank" MARTIN actually worked in Idaho for a different railroad, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, a.k.a. the Milwaukee Road. John MIDKIFF was an NPR station master in Mabton, Washington, but I can't find his file. Nor can I find my own NPR ancestors, father and son Martin and John Martin HOEKSTRA, who worked as railroad carpenters and painters in Tacoma, Washington. However, the database description does state "this database does not yet include the entire collection of personnel files." More will be added at a later date.

Did you have ancestors who worked for the Northern Pacific Railway? Check out this useful database!

Disclosure: I am an affiliate for Ancestry.com, and as such, receive compensation for products advertised on and linked from this blog.

Tuesday's Tip: Research Reports and Other Types of Published Conclusions

It doesn't have to be complicated.

Our goal in genealogy is to share the results of our research with others. Hoarding our discoveries does no one any good. And, since our ancestors are also the ancestors of many other individuals, we can't "own" them or their lives for ourselves. We must share their stories with others.

The final step of the genealogy research process states that we will "arrive at a soundly reasoned, coherently written conclusion." If we are professional genealogists, our conclusion will be written up as a research report and given to our client (here's the template I use). If we wish to share our discoveries in a formal way, we may write a family narrative to be published in a periodical such as the National Genealogical Society's Quarterly or the New England Historic Genealogical Society's Register. If we simply want to share our stories with family members, we have a variety of media at our disposal to do so, whether it is a family history book, a blog, a newsletter, a website, or even a video we've produced.

The key is that in publishing our findings, we will, in some way:

• explain the problem (the question or theory or hypothesis behind our research plan);
• identify the known resources (which we've faithfully recorded in our research log);
• present the evidence with source citations and analysis;
• discuss any conflicting evidence; and
• summarize the main points and write (or publish in other media formats) our conclusions.

We also must realize that there is no such thing as a final conclusion, because new information can support, question, or disprove our current conclusion.

These above steps are all elements of the Genealogy Research Process and the Genealogy Proof Standard as established by the Board for Certification of Genealogists.

But again, publishing your conclusion doesn't have to be a big, scary thing. I'm doing this exact thing, publishing my conclusion about where my ancestor Lura may be buried in a series this month here on my blog. It's not formal. It's not scary. But it does follow the elements listed above.

Just get the word out: make a plan, track your research steps, and publish the story.

Tuesday's Tip: Staying On Track with a Research Log

You know you've done it.

Spent an hour browsing through unindexed images on FamilySearch, found the images of your ancestor's probate record, downloaded all 27 pages of it, and...realized you'd already downloaded them last year.

Or you ordered a death certificate of that ancestor's sibling, hoping it will reveal the names of their parents. Spent over $35.00. Waited two weeks. The certificate finally arrives with little information in it. Sighing, you go to file it and..,yep. You've already got that certificate, although you can't remember ever ordering it.

I'm guilty. You're guilty. We're all guilty.

In fact, I almost committed the genea-crime of re-researching the other night, while hoping to find more information to fill in my blog posts in my "Where is Lura Buried?" series. Fortunately, I remembered my research log for the PECK family, opened it, and prevented about 20 minutes of searching for what would have been a negative result. Whew! Saved by the research log!

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If you're not using a research log, you are wasting time. You are wasting money. You are wasting energy. Your genealogy research is inefficient at best and ineffective at worst.

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Now the good news is, there are many ways to keep a research log, and most of them are free.

You can keep a simple log in a notebook. There are free research log forms available online for you to print up; just go to Cyndi's List and find links to a number of them. Some people prefer using electronic notebooks, such as Evernote or OneNote. Most genealogical software, including my preferred one, RootsMagic, have research logs built in as well. My preference is using a spreadsheet, and Thomas MacEntee has a great one here.

My own research log is available as a free download. I've made a copy of this and placed it in every surname research folder on my hard drive. Within each surname research log, I create a sheet for each individual in that family I'm researching by using the same steps outlined in my post about timelines.

Remember last week when I said there are times when you might not use a research plan?

Those times are when you set out to explore a collection, online or offline, to discover what it might hold for a number of ancestors. For instance, you might realize that Ancestry has released a new database for a county where people from five of your family lines once lived. 

This is where the research log especially is handy.

You can open those logs for each of the surnames, copy and paste the date, website, and collection name into each one, and start your searching, keeping notes every time you change a search term or get a result (positive or negative). And prevent the genea-crime of re-researching!

I hope this information is useful, and I appreciate your feedback.

Next week, we'll talk about research reports.