Category: Research Resources

Unearthing Genealogy Through Military Records – A Fallen Soldier

Bible page joseph v wise
A page from the Wise family Bible notes the death of Private Wise (Source: Tim Gavin)

During a genealogy class I led at the South Coastal Library in Bethany Beach, we delved into advanced methods for tackling complex family history inquiries. After asking the class to provide examples of challenging problems, Tim Gavin offered this fascinating account about his ancestor, Joseph V. Wise, who served in the 7th U.S. Calvary during the Indian Wars.

Tim and his cousin used military records to uncover many details about Private Wise’s life. They learned that he enlisted in the 7th U.S. Calvary on July 30, 1866, and was guarding cattle and horses near Fort Dodge, Kansas, when a Kiowa Indian raid occurred on June 12, 1867. Private Wise sustained wounds in three places and died the next day at the fort hospital.

While Tim and his cousin had some clues from various databases, the Family Bible, and stories passed down by the generations, they found the most valuable information in the military records of the National Archives. The 37-page pension file contained lots of information. For example, Wise’s mother, Elizabeth, began receiving a monthly pension of $8.00 from the U.S. Government starting April 1, 1868.

Through their hard work, Tim and his cousin also discovered that the Army Medical Museum had preserved the arrows that killed Private Wise. They were able to obtain photos of the arrows from the museum curator.

Tim’s research highlights how exploring historical records can unearth remarkable details about ancestors. If you face challenges in your genealogical research, check out digital collections at the National Archives, particularly military records. The institution has made significant progress in digitizing its collections, which can be a valuable resource for historians and genealogists.

I want to thank Tim for sharing his intriguing story and allowing me to view some family artifacts, such as the Wise Family Bible he brought to one of the classes.

Here are a few links from the FamilySearch Wiki that provide more guidance on military and pension records.

FamilySearch Resources for Military Records
pension military record joseph v wise
One of the 37 pages with the pension military record for Joseph V. Wise (Source: National Archives)

Harrington Newspaper Online–Research Tip

As part of its mission to make the past accessible and promote understanding of the past, the Greater Harrington Historical Society has digitized a Harrington newspaper.

The weekly, the Harrington Journal, runs from 1933 to 1998, and visitors to the museum’s webpage have free access to high-quality online images that brought hometown news to the community each week.

To access the newspaper, follow this link to the Harrington Journal.

While you are checking out the page, consider donating to the museum. A grant from the Delaware Humanities funded this project.

The Harrington Journal started publishing in 1913 after Frank Thomas Fleming purchased an earlier weekly, the Harrington Enterprise. The year 2020 saw the end of the town’s paper, as corporate owners, who had purchased it years earlier, shut it down.

Thanks, Harrington Historical Society, for creating greater access to the past. Developing ways to give a broader community open access to history is an important mission for heritage groups in the 21st century.

Harrington newspaper, the Journal
The Harrington Journal, a weekly Southern Delaware paper published on January 7, 1949 (Source: Harrington Historial Society)
For more on Delmarva Newspapers, see these articles

Online newspapers from the Eastern Shore of Virginia

More Online Maryland Newspapers available at Maryland Archives

170,000 Photos of American Life During the Great Depression and World War II

During the Great Depression and World War II, the United States Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information hired photographers to document American life. The documentarians, working between 1935 and 1944, captured 170,000 pictures. This included many in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

It is described as one of the most famous documentary photography collections of the twentieth century, “creating visual evidence of government initiatives alongside scenes of everyday life during the Great Depression and World War II across the United States.”

Once the program ended, The Library of Congress became the custodian of this work. They were placed in public file cabinets where researchers could browse the prints, searching for visual clues of earlier times. In March 2011, Yale University received a grant to create an interactive web-based open soured visualization platform for these images. The free online platform, Photogrammar, allows a rapid search of the large photographic data set. Easy to use, it includes an interactive map, which facilitates locating images of interest.

If you are interested in the images of the photographers who documented America during the Great Depression and World War II check out this free resource https://photogrammar.org/maps

great depression era photo of church dorechester county md
“Dorchester County, Maryland. The congregation of this church are all waterman.”
Jack Collier, Feb. 1942. U.S. Farm Administration
homes of dorchester county great depression era photo
DORCHESTER COUNTY — “Dorchester County, Maryland. Home of an Eastern shore waterman.” Jack Collier, Feb. 1942. The U.S. Farm Administration

Wilmington Newspaper, The Sunday Star, Available on Google Archive

After Google launched an ambitious project in 2008 to digitize many local newspapers, the giant e-content provider scanned about 2,000 publications, including a Wilmington newspaper, the Sunday Morning Star.

Wilmington Sunday Star newspaper
The whole wide world in your home. Delaware’s only Sunday Newspaper.

 In the era when many dailies didn’t have Sunday editions, these periodicals functioned like newsweeklies, the broadsheet having a form distinct from the weekday news. They pulled together features and more in-depth, colorful pieces as reporters worked seven days to assemble stories for the Saturday afternoon deadline. It was this sought-after, far more leisurely reading on peaceful Sundays that made these publications unique.

Delaware’s only Sunday newspaper was first issued in 1881 by Jerome B. Bell. The second editor and publisher was Joseph H. Martin, who sold it to J. Edwin Carter in 1946. An agent for Alexis I. du Pont Bayard and Erwin M. Budner purchased the paper in 1949, and they became the controlling interest. 

The broadsheets contained robust women’s sections, news in photographs (once technology advanced), advice for modern living, entertainment coverage, history pieces, and “The Delaware Magazine,” a weekly insert.     

The last number of the 73-year-old paper rumbled off the press on April 18, 1954. It had revised its name and added new typefaces almost two years earlier to serve readers and advertisers better. But “The Star that had been such an important feature of Delaware Life since 1881 was out,” Morning News Columnist Bill Frank wrote. It is tough “to run a Sunday newspaper in Wilmington against the competition from out-of-town Sunday papers and their abundance of pages of comics.”

The Star – A Valuable Research Source

Bill Frank called the Wilmington Sunday Star a “fighting newspaper.” Often overlooked, it is a valuable source for genealogists and local history researchers. The coverage and perspective differ from what was covered in the city’s dailies.

Here are the links to the Sunday Morning Star on the Google archives, which provides free access.

Sunday Morning Star — 1881-1950

Wilmington Sunday Star — 1953-1954

Wilmington Newspaper, the Star
The Star, Wilmington, DE — “Can Wilmington keep its rum?”