[ Music ]
>> Sheree Budge:
Hello, I'm Sheree Budge,
a reference librarian at
the Library of Congress,
and my specialization is
history and genealogy.
My colleague, Candice Buchanan,
and I have created a guide
called Family Secrets.
Everyone encounters
discoveries that evoke emotions
in the course of researching
their family history
or associated genealogical
activities.
This might be a surprise
at unexpected relationships
or depression over high infant
mortality, embarrassment
over black sheep ancestors,
or anger and sorrow
over social injustice
and hardships endured
by family members.
Genealogy is often touted as a
healing activity to connect us
to history and our fellow man.
But it can also create
rifts within families
and harm relationships and
self-image if we let it.
We hope that the Family Sequence
Guide we created will help you
to find resources to deal
with your own family
history surprises.
This is my ancestor
Hagar Hicks Stardip.
She was born in England
in 1844 during the
Industrial Revolution.
Her father was a bricklayer and
her mother was his second wife,
a bride at 15 years old.
Hagar was made of sterner
stuff and didn't allow others
to make decisions for her.
She was determined to move
to America, and she came
up with a plan that could
not be foiled by her family.
She convinced her
boyfriend to meet her
in America whenever he
could make the journey
and she would marry him there.
She went to church one Sunday
morning in her best black dress
and bonnet with an
ostrich plume,
and then joined a young matron
with two toddlers onboard a ship
to cross the Atlantic
as her nanny and helper.
Once she was safely aboard and
felt no one could force her
to leave, she sent word to her
mother as to her whereabouts
and began her journey with only
the clothes she was wearing.
She and her boyfriend each
made the trip to Utah,
where they married,
had four children
and started a sandwich
shop and a candy factory.
Her husband, William Dawe
Stardip, died young as a result
of an accident when
moving a large marble slab
into the candy factory.
Hagar found herself in
possession of the factory
and the sole support of her
four little children, three sons
and one daughter, Minnie.
Eight years later, she met
and married Albert Singleton,
a successful haberdasher
in 1883.
In 1896, Hagar divorced
Mr. Singleton on grounds
of polygamy, or at least
she dissolved her common law
marriage with him.
She never married again.
She was proud of her
business sense and continued
to build the business
with her children.
She made sure they
got a good education
and that there was
a job for any member
of the family who needed one.
This is Cosette.
She was a foundling discovered
by Hagar as a newborn infant
on a train in northern
Utah in 1892.
You can see a newspaper
clipping I got
from Chronicling America
about her discovery.
It tells the story of a
woman, Hagar Singleton,
traveling with her son in an
otherwise empty passenger car
when they heard an infant's cry.
Yet whenever they walked down
the aisle, the crying stopped.
Eventually, they found the child
in a box under one of the seats
and took her home with them.
The news spread quickly.
The newspaper articles report
that volunteer adopters appeared
at every railroad station
along their journey home,
but they took her
home to their family.
Hagar said she felt the
child was meant for them.
They raised her as their
own, and she had no inkling
of this adoption until
she was nearly grown.
Cosette stumbled across
the truth by accident,
was so overwrought
and by embarrassment
and perhaps betrayal, that she
couldn't talk about it but went
to bed with a migraine
whenever anyone brought it up.
This became a trigger
for migraines throughout
the adult life
of this otherwise very
strong and independent woman.
There were rumors of a scandal
among the family members,
and that Hagar's oldest
daughter Minnie was
in fact the biological
mother of the baby.
But this was not a
topic that was discussed
within the hearing of children.
So Cosette's children did not
know what their heritage was.
When I was a young adult began
gathering family stories,
two separate genealogists
approached me to say
that Minnie was indeed
the biological mother,
impregnated by her stepfather.
This story has not
been substantiated
by documentary evidence, but my
sister has also been approached
by yet a third independent
source.
This illustrates the
great efforts people make
to obscure events they
find difficult or shameful,
and to create a story
they can live with.
Not only did Hagar
protect her daughter,
she created a believable
story documented
in newspapers across the state.
In doing so, she also
created a brick wall
for later generations
of researchers.
The next obvious
step in breaking
down this wall would
be DNA analysis.
However, at this time,
I'm not comfortable
in approaching strangers,
even those related to me,
to request that they
donate DNA so I can point
out Mr. Singleton's
bad behavior.
This secret in my
family has affected
at least four generations
in different ways.
Knowing some of the truth
about this secret has made
me question why it was kept
in the past, and what
my responsibilities are
going forward.
I have to ask these questions.
What harm has this
family secret caused?
What harm have we caused
by revealing this secret?
How can we preserve the truth
so that other relatives
can find it?
>> Candice Buchanan: No doubt,
most genealogists could join
us today in telling stories
of unexpected discoveries
in their family trees.
Some facts have simply been
lost or forgotten over time.
Others were distorted by
myths, legends or confusion.
And inevitably, there
will be those points
that were deliberately concealed
through lies and deception.
Whether they mean to or not,
genealogists often revive
and reveal these past truths.
Modern technology makes it
easier to find the documents
that divulge family secrets as
more collections, both official
and personal, are
digitized and indexed.
And of course, DNA has shifted
not only how we approach our
research, but also how
families today address potential
secret keeping.
The reality now is
that DNA is likely
to expose biological
family ties,
whether they are
past or present.
When I was 14 years old, I went
looking for a haunted mausoleum
in the local cemetery and
discovered my ancestors instead.
I was young and eager.
An early mentor saw
an opportunity
to teach me a big lesson.
He and I shared a mutual
ancestor, Peter Livengood,
who was a soldier in
the American Revolution.
Peter served for roughly
four years, was captured by
and escaped from the
British, and after the war,
settled on the western
Pennsylvania frontier in 1784.
The National Archives maintains
Peter's military pension file,
available these days
to us online.
It is a record that should
delight his descendants.
However, in the days
before easy internet access,
my mentor encountered
one local cousin
who had traveled all the way to
Washington DC to obtain a copy
of the prized file,
only to be so bewildered
by what she discovered
that she tried
to dissuade any other cousins
from reading its
entire contents.
When my mentor finally got
his hands on the pages,
he learned that in 1825 a
local attorney had written
to the Secretary
of War to complain
that Peter Livengood did not
deserve the pension he received.
This concerned citizen said
that 66-year-old Peter,
"Now enjoys his pension
or rather, I should say,
his pension enables him to
remain drunk a great part
of the year and keep a set of
drunken witches about him."
As in all things, Peter's
descendants have had different
reactions to this accusation.
Some hid it, others embraced it.
My mentor laughed about it.
The lesson, no matter how we
feel about Peter's past times,
is that all ancestors
were human.
They did human things.
We must be prepared for the
fact that anything is possible.
We must also be ready to accept
that we might unravel
those old yarns
about alleged famous ancestors
or illustrious beginnings
in which our family has
taken pride for generations.
If we aren't ready to
expect the unexpected
and accept the facts we find,
family history may not
be the best adventure
for us to embark upon.
It is some kind of irony that so
early a lesson would sneak back
up on me years later, as
one of the most unexpected
of family secrets
began to sprout
from what I thought was one
of the most reliable
branches of my family tree.
My story today is really
about Peter Livingood's
great-grandson,
John Madison Livinggood, who
was my great-grandfather.
Despite Peter's alleged
bad habits,
his Livingood descendants
were embodied in my lifetime
by my beloved grandmother
Sarah Livingood Buchanan.
Most of us living today
never knew her father John,
but my grandma's respect for
him was clearly communicated
to our family.
My grandmother and I
were especially close.
She saw my research as a way
to keep alive the memories
of the people she loved.
Her stories were
concise and captivating.
I was able to substantiate
most of the accounts
with the usual list of
genealogical go-to records.
We established this
pattern of partnership.
And though grandma was
not a genealogist herself,
she enjoyed her role
in preserving the past.
Family secrets come in
all shapes and sizes,
and they impact different
people in different ways.
In order to understand why
her father's secrets were
such a shock to my grandma and
such a surprise to the rest
of us, I think it's important
to understand why grandma
admired her father so much.
This photo captures
the man my grandma knew
and is a treasure
for our family.
It was taken in the early 1920s.
My grandma is on the left with
the big bow, which she hated.
She was always jealous that her
sister got the little rosettes.
Her father, John Madison
Livingood, is in the center.
Grandma always told me how none
of her dad's children had
known him before his hair had
gone gray.
That was because her
father was 41 years old
by the time he married
her mother, Frances Cook,
who was 26 years old on
their wedding day in 1914.
Neither of them had
been married before.
This was their family.
Frances grew up near John,
but as a teenager moved
away with her family.
According to Grandma, Francis
came back to visit friends
when John spotted her
singing with the church choir.
He turned to someone and said,
"I'm going to marry that girl."
After their wedding, John
bought a house in Graysville,
Greene County, Pennsylvania,
where their four children were
born between 1915 and 1920.
Tragedy struck in 1926, when
Francis succumbed to pneumonia.
Her children were ages
11, nine, eight and five.
My grandma was the
eight-year-old.
She told me that offers came
in from family and neighbors
to take the girls
or to take the boys.
But John was determined
to keep the four Livingood
children together.
During the Great Depression,
he made sacrifices to ensure
that all four received advanced
educations, a rare opportunity
in those years, especially
for girls.
In 1934, he sold his home in
Graysville and rented a house
in walking distance
of Waynesburg College,
where the eldest
three were enrolled,
both of his daughters included.
When my grandma was
married, the newlyweds took
up residence with her father.
My grandma was under the
same roof as her father
from the day she was
born to the day he died.
John had lived more than 40
years of life before he met
and married my
great-grandmother.
It wasn't until the
secrets started to come
out that we realized
how little we had known
about that early
part of his life.
So now I'll share with you the
secrets unintentionally revealed
in the pursuit of
family history.
None of these discoveries
change all that John did
for his four Livingood children,
but they do present a stark
contrast between the behaviors
of his early and
later adult years.
These facts also provide
a more complete account
of his life and family.
As it turns out, the
family picture we love
so much is incomplete.
In 1902, 30-year-old John
Madison Livingood had a
relationship with his
first cousin once removed,
15-year-old Lillian
Francis Supler.
In the 1900 senses, Lillian
was a 13-year-old school girl.
Unfortunately, her father
died later that year.
After his debts were
paid, his widow
and three minor children
moved from his rented farm
with just $300, equal
to about $9,500 today.
Lillian, the eldest, was hired
out to work in the household
of her grand Uncle
Jesse Livingood,
father of John Madison
Livingood.
We cannot know the circumstances
that seemed to have brought John
and Lillian so personally
together under that roof.
There are lots of questions
we will probably never answer.
What we know is that on February
2nd, 1903, John was indicted
for fornication in the
court of quarter sessions.
10 days later, Lillian gave
birth to their son Walter.
When Walter was seven months
old, Lillian, then 16,
was married to 21-year-old
John Thomas Swart.
Walter was given his
stepfather's name
and raised as his son.
No birth certificate
was filed until 1942
when Walter presented a petition
for a delayed special
registration
of birth to the orphans court.
He identified himself as Walter
Howard Swart, legitimate son
of John Thomas Swart,
and Lily Supler Swart.
His mother Lillian signed
the petition as a witness.
We know Walter was
not legitimate based
on the date Lillian
married John Thomas Swart.
We also know that DNA evidence
proves Walter was the son
of John Madison Livingood,
not John Thomas Swart.
But it's not hard to understand
why Lillian perjured herself
on this official document.
Lillian and Walter
had the security
of her prompt marriage
to John Thomas Swart.
His descendants credit him as
a kind and affectionate father
and grandfather, who
made no distinction
that revealed Walter
was not his own child.
Whether Walter ever knew the
secret or not is uncertain.
On 21 December 1905, 33-year-old
John Madison Livingood became a
father again, when 29-year-old
Sarah Myrtle Milliken gave birth
to their son, Loraine Millikan.
Myrtle never married, though
the Milliken family stories say
that John did offer.
Her son grew up very differently
from his older brother Walter.
We do not believe that
these two brothers ever knew
about one another.
For Loraine, a timely
birth certificate was filed
at the county courthouse.
In spite of a flawed reporting
system that left it riddled
with errors, the
document clearly refers
to Loraine's birth and
identifies both of his parents.
Unlike Walter, Loraine always
knew his true father's identity.
But this also meant that he
knew how distinctly he existed
outside of his father's
recognized family.
Loraine clipped Livingood
articles from local newspapers,
and doubtless saw and heard
about his Livingood relatives
throughout the community
that they shared.
He endured the stigma of a
child born out of wedlock,
and his life was impacted by it.
>> During their lifetimes,
the six children
of John Madison Livingood
were never united.
Most never even knew
about one another.
Very late in her life,
my grandma learned
about her Milliken brother at
a Livingood family reunion.
Loraine Milliken's
descendants knew
that his father had
been a Livingood.
15 years or so after
Loraine passed away,
members of his family attended
a Livingood reunion with hopes
of mending the family tree.
When the Milliken/Livingood
connection was explained
to grandma, she did
not take it well.
As a person left out of
a secret might react,
grandma was shocked,
defensive and confused.
In keeping with our routine
of her sharing memories
and me verifying with
research, grandma looked to me.
Only this time she expected
me to prove it wrong.
I genuinely expected to find
some error or misunderstanding
of the records -- some
other John Livingood --
but everything I found
supported the claim.
I was left to lay
out the evidence
that my grandma had a
brother she had never known.
Only in the last year
to DNA evidence spring
the Swart case to light.
As the Swart research got
underway, arrangements were made
for the Milliken's
to share DNA as well.
Combined with this documentary
evidence, the DNA study confirms
that John Livingood
fathered Walter Swart
and Loraine Milliken in addition
to the four children
born to his marriage.
In 2021, more than a century
after his youngest child
was born, the grandchildren
of John Madison Livingood
finally reunited his
three families.
Swart, Milliken, and Livingood
half first cousins met
for the first time.
Honest, accurate and exhaustive
research is a way forward,
as we grapple with the
unexpected and the range
of feelings and reactions
we encounter.
As researchers, we recognize
that we can only reconstruct
pieces of a much bigger story.
We know that there are issues
we may never reconcile,
and perspectives
we may never hear.
We try to be open, willing,
and ready to conduct a
thorough investigation,
and to share the
facts without bias.
But we are human too.
We have our own feelings
and reactions.
As the genealogists
revealing these facts,
we have a certain
responsibility to all involved,
and that's sometimes
a lot to shoulder.
I struggled with my
grandma's reaction to learning
about just one of
these oldest brothers,
and now we know there were two.
She knew about the
Millikenn relationship,
which at least involved
two adults.
How would she have handled
learning about young Lillian?
Geneology is profoundly
rewarding and satisfying.
It makes history
tangible and personal.
It is exciting and
frustrating and motivating.
But genealogy is also
consuming and heartbreaking
and frustrating, and
at times, maddening,
or shocking, or devastating.
Those of us who become
enthralled by this research,
this mission really, of
rebuilding lives and families
and stories and communities, we
know that for better or worse,
this work does matter.
It isn't about who can take
their tree back the furthest,
or who has the most
names in their database.
It's about connecting and
representing real people.
>> Sheree Budge: I'd like
to make a disclaimer.
We are not psychologists or
experts in family therapy.
We are librarians who
specialize in genealogy.
We have gathered resources to
help you deal with surprises
and trauma in your
family history.
None of these lists
are exhaustive,
but they represent
many standpoints
and include authoritative
sources.
We've called this
section General Reference,
and it includes print sources.
It includes nonfiction books
about DNA research, descriptions
of current problems with
genealogical research,
therapy, adoption, and ethics.
There are new memoirs
about dealing
with family history
surprises almost daily.
We've included some
personal accounts by people
who tackled collective
guilt, NPE's,
that is non-parental events, or
perhaps not the parent expected,
family members who
dropped out of the family,
racial issues and more.
Blogs provide an ongoing
discourse about topics
of interest, as well as
the opportunity to interact
with others who have the
same or a relevant interest.
If you learn best by listening,
you may find these podcast
discussions helpful.
Shared experiences in social
media can inform others
who are just beginning
to deal with an issue
in their own research.
We highly recommend the
International Society
of Genealogical Genealogy Pages,
which provide mailing
lists and Facebook pages.
Sometimes it just helps to know
that other people have gone
through this kind of trauma too.
Get to know some of the
leading thinkers in this area
and their solutions
in a short timeframe
by watching some TED Talks.
We've selected just a few
to help you get started.
TV shows demonstrate the
discovery and results
of some genealogical research.
Like most reality TV, they
may not show all the steps
in the research, and they
may be heavily edited
to tell the story
they want to present,
but they are all entertaining
and many provide some
useful resources.
We've selected some free
websites that you can explore
as deeply as you like.
The periodical literature
is divided into two parts.
The journal articles we
selected are accessible only
at libraries.
They are marked with
a padlock icon.
You can access these online
articles from home at any time.
>> Candice Buchanan: We
hope that you will visit
and bookmark the family
secrets Research Guide.
Its purpose is not only
to be there for you
on the days you inadvertently
shake some surprises
out of your family tree.
Learning from the experiences
of others also helps us all
to be better researchers.
Understanding how records were
discovered, mysteries solved
and difficult scenarios
addressed helps
to broaden our perspective
and problem-solve creatively.
These are essential skills when
we are rebuilding the lives
and families of assorted and
unpredictable human beings.
There is a popular tendency
to deify our ancestors,
as though past generations
were perfect, pious,
well-behaved citizens.
Such an unrealistic perspective
does them no justice,
because with those
blinders on, we cannot see
who they really were, or
how they faced challenges
or evolved as individuals.
I personally find comfort
in knowing my ancestors
weren't perfect,
that they were human
to just like us.
While we are targeting
one of the tougher aspects
of family history
research with this topic,
please make no mistake that
our end goal is for genealogy
to be a positive and
passionate experience,
because that is certainly
what it is for us.
As a community of researchers,
we need to learn from
and support each other.
We believe that the
truth can be healing.
And if we can work together
through the difficult moments,
there is a positive outcome
on the other side of it.
With that, we welcome your
questions and conversation.
And we want to encourage
you to continue to reach
out to our team here
at the Library,
even after we wrap up today.
Our Ask a Librarian
service is here for you.
Submit questions through our
website at LOC.gov anytime
to open up a conversation
with one of our librarians.
And we just want to thank
you so much for joining us
for this discussion today.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
So we have a few
questions from the audience.
What are some of the causes
of non-paternity events?
And how could I get
to the bottom
of one in my family history?
>> Sheree Budge: The
easy answer to that is
that someone has tried
to cover up the truth.
Often, it's an adoption.
Sometimes it was an affair.
And these are things that
parents are not likely to want
to talk about their
children with.
At least in the past,
that was true.
Parents may be more open now.
The way to get to the bottom of
them is one, to take a DNA test.
You may want to take more than
one and compare the results.
Second, ask the people
who are still living
who might know what happened.
And then you might want to
go into the documents and see
if you can find original
documents
through traditional
genealogical research means,
by looking for birth
certificates and finding
out as much as you can about
the people who were involved
in the non-parental event.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
When doing your own
personal research,
are you adding all discoveries
to one all-encompassing
family tree?
Or do you create new trees
for different branches?
>> Candice Buchanan: You can
do that a number of ways.
I personally maintain
one large family tree
and I use software
-- there's a lot
of different genealogy
softwares and websites available
that you can organize
that information on.
You can also do it on
hardcopy paper forms
to organize your information.
But depending on where
your family comes from,
if they lived, for example, in a
particular area for a long time,
you may find that the branches
of that tree connect
in more than one way.
And so by working on one large
tree, within your software,
within your paperwork, you
may more easily establish
those connections.
So whatever makes sense for you,
depending on the trees you're
working on, but it's nice
to be able to see
the big picture.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
Does the Library
of Congress partner with other
countries to provide access
to documentation that might
help in genealogical research?
For example, do we have access
to Mexico's database of records?
>> Sheree Budge: The Library
of Congress primarily
collects print materials.
If the Mexican records are part
of Family Search or My Heritage
or Ancestry, then you
would have access to them
through our ancestry
subscription.
But we collect mostly things
that have been printed.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
When you are doing genealogical
research, who do you believe
when you are tracing
down a family secret?
And how do you find
the sources of that?
>> Candice Buchanan: So you
want to take a broad approach?
I mean, you want to take many,
many avenues, no
one single source.
So absolutely, you
do want to begin --
as in all respects in genealogy,
you want to begin by talking
to the living generations
interviewing,
taking down information.
But you want to also verify
that information with documents,
with records, with DNA if
you choose to use that.
So you should be
looking at many sources.
We call it reasonably
exhaustive research,
which is you're really pursuing
every avenue within reason
that you can -- court records,
census records, family papers,
military papers, all the
assortment of records --
so that you're getting as
much information as possible
and seeing not only things
that confirm your research,
but also things that might
contradict your research
so that you're really
looking at it all.
And so family secrets,
obviously,
they come as a problem
to be solved.
So you're going to
run into obstacles.
So it's very important
to do really careful,
thorough research
as much as you can
as you work through
that process.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
How far back have each
of you been able to
trace your families?
>> Sheree Budge: Well, I
personally am still trying
to straighten out some
of the kinks and gaps
in the previous 200 years.
But my grandmother hired
a professional genealogist
who traced one of her lines
back to Frosty the Snow King
on one line, and that's
back in the Middle Ages.
>> Candice Buchanan: And for
my tree, I go back to the 1700s
on most lines, and I
personally am content with that.
Usually once I get back to that
period, I'm more interested
in tracing the descendants
forward.
I really enjoy filling
in the stories
and the photographs
and the details.
So I spend a lot of time chasing
the descendants of my ancestors
and finding the cousins and
filling in all of those blanks.
So it is very interesting
with each generation what kind
of documents you can find
and what is available.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
And have you hit any roadblocks
when you have been
searching any further back?
>> Sheree Budge: Yes.
Yeah, finding documentary proof
of Cosette's father
is a roadblock.
We haven't found anything yet.
Nobody has written anything
down that might implicate
Mr. Singleton.
And there are other
roadblocks as you go
through any of your research.
There's the woman
who has no parents.
It's especially difficult
to find women ancestors.
There are so many
things that can happen
to obscure their records.
So in the period before
the Revolutionary War
in the United States,
there are a number of gaps
that we're still working on.
And we work on them from
time to time as we have time
and interest, but there's still
plenty to do for other people.
>> Candice Buchanan: Yeah, and
I think it's, it's the same.
I mean, you know, overcoming
those roadblocks is definitely
the research process.
And so, I, like Sheree said,
I have a particular interest
in the female ancestors.
So I love trying to
solve those mysteries,
but those are particularly
difficult because the records
for the women are more
challenging to find
at times just more obstacles
to overcome for them.
But the good thing about that
all is that you just really get
to know those ancestors that
you spend that time with trying
to solve those mysteries.
And when you do solve those
mysteries, you just feel
like you've really made a
contribution to the research
into the family history.
So you just keep -- like Sheree
said, you just keep coming back
to them and trying
to work through.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
As kind of a follow
up to what you were just saying,
how close do you feel to each
of these people as
you discover them?
Do you consider them all family?
>> Sheree Budge: Yes, we do
consider them all family,
and we have affection for them.
And we're dismayed when we find
out that they have
behaved badly.
And we get over it so that we
can continue doing the research.
>> Candice Buchanan:
Yeah, it's definitely --
I mean, you bond to them,
because you're getting
to know them as you
research them.
And there's just nothing
like putting somebody's
life back together,
putting somebody's
family back together.
And you just really become
connected to these ancestors.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
Where's the best place to look
for ancestors and/or records
of pre-revolutionary Americans?
>> Sheree Budge: Well, I would
recommend that you go local
and find the places
where they lived.
If they lived in the United
States, you want to look
for the county courthouse and
the local historical societies.
Eventually, you'll probably want
to go to the National Archives
of whatever country they lived
in before they came to America,
and see if you can find
traces of them there.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
One of my ancestors was a union
surgeon during the Civil War.
Where is the best source of
records related to that service?
>> Candice Buchanan: You want to
start with the National Archives
where the military records are
maintained, and definitely look
for not only service
and pension files,
those are the great
places to begin.
But the National Archives
has many different kinds
of records related
to the military.
And so you want to
go through those.
It's also a good idea to
check, as Sheree was saying,
local records and state records
for things that you might find.
Newspaper articles -- there's
a lot of different ways
that you can piece
that story together.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
How do you find the history
of slaves before 1860?
>> Sheree Budge: That's very
tricky and very challenging.
If they were enslaved
people, then you have to learn
about the families
that owned them.
And that at least
puts them in a place.
Sometimes you can find
documents that are associated
with a particular
plantation that will help you.
They often don't list names,
but they might list
identifications, descriptions.
So instead of saying this is
Ralph George, it might say,
this was a boy of 13 years
worth this much money.
And it can be harrowing
to read those descriptions
of your own ancestors,
because we do identify
with them to a certain extent.
But usually, the
history of the family
that owned the slaves will also
be the history of that family
that you're descended from.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
As a follow on to that,
was there slavery in
either of your families?
And have you found any relatives
that were formerly
enslaved peoples?
>> Candice Buchanan: I haven't
found any formerly enslaved
peoples, but I have found
ancestors who were slave owners.
And that is -- you know, that
is certainly one of these things
that you discover in the
course of family history
that falls right into our
topic today of family secrets
and difficult discoveries.
And how to handle that
and how to move forward
with that is definitely a
part of the research process
that we all have to
address and be prepared for
and be prepared to work through.
>> Sheree Budge: You
know, in my family,
I have not found slave owners
and that's largely because most
of my families immigrated to
the United States in the 1850s.
So maybe if you want to go
back several hundred years,
you can find slave-owning
Vikings.
But for my family so far, I
haven't found any slave owners,
but I have found ancestors
who operated the Underground
Railroad in the Midwest.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
Are you familiar
with the concept
of intergenerational
transmission of trauma?
And are you aware of situations
where people have worked
with therapists to work
through genealogical secrets
or found answers that helped
them understand their experience
resulting from their
family histories?
>> Sheree Budge: I think this is
kind of a new area of genealogy.
And I have read a
little bit about it.
But I personally do not
know anyone who feels
that their trauma
has been sent down,
except possibly my own family
when we don't like men.
Some of the women don't
like men, because we feel
that they tend to be
overbearing, but that may be
from ancestors' experiences,
or it may not.
You may want to do your
own research on that.
And if you want to send your
question in to Ask A Librarian,
we will help you compile a
bibliography of materials
to explore that further.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
Okay, so we have a couple
of document questions here.
Why are Social Security
application birth years
so frequently, one year off?
Should I check the benefit
application number accessed
through a database
year, that birth year
over other birth years?
>> Candice Buchanan: Well,
I can't answer specifically
to that record.
But you know, when you're
doing the genealogy research,
you do want to always have a
certain amount of flexibility --
flexibility in spelling,
flexibility in dates,
because things may
have been misheard,
things may have been
transcribed incorrectly.
Sometimes people
just didn't know.
You know, record keeping
has been different
at different points
in our history.
So with genealogy, you always
have to have a certain amount
of flexibility in
your searching.
And then that's another reason
that we always try to find more
than one source for
any particular fact.
I don't know if you
know any more
about that that you want to add.
>> Sheree Budge: No, I
agree that you just have
to keep an open mind and find
as many documents as possible.
Two or three documents with
the same date is usually
considered authoritative.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
How good are Census
Bureau data about families?
And can you speak a little bit
about the limitations
on recent censuses?
>> Sheree Budge: Well, these
are limited for privacy reasons.
And again, you need to take the
census information with a grain
of salt because they are only
as good as the enumerators
who recorded the information.
And, for example,
in the 1940 census,
I found my aunt listed as a boy.
And her name was spelled Dean.
Her name was Dion.
And it may be that the census
taker just was taking notes
and when he got home that
night, he adjusted things
as he remembered them, and
Dion was recorded as a boy.
So the transcriptions
are mostly wrong.
But some organizations
that published the census have
gone back and make it possible
for you to go back
and change mistakes.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
Does the Library
of Congress have
shipping records
with lists of passengers?
>> Candice Buchanan: We have
access to those materials
through our subscription
databases,
but the original
records are largely
at the National Archives.
So we do have publications
and access to those things
that you can research
when you're here,
but if you're looking to find
the originals, those are mostly
in the documents
at the archives.
>> Elizabeth Schreiber-Byers:
And we have one final question.
Do you work in the area where we
might encounter you if we come
to the library to do research?
Or if we were doing research,
could we request you to help us
with our genealogical questions?
>> Sheree Budge: Yes, we work
in the main reading room,
and you can always ask
us for a consultation,
or for strategies in
your own research.
We look forward to seeing you
at the Library of Congress.
Thank you for joining us at
the Library of Congress today.
>> Candice Buchanan:
Thank you so much.
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