52 Ancestors Challenge Week 43: "Organized" - Write Your Own Forward

Very often though I have heard others describe me as organized. My office is pin straight so sure, I appear to be. I should probably go through all my filing and get rid of old stuff I no longer need but at work everything is in order. It has to be or it would look like my bedroom which looks like a bomb went off in it. I thought, "oh, if I just had some time at home I'd get that all in order too" but nearly 2 years of working from home and that didn't change. Thanks, COVID.

Anyway, this organized bit...

 

We talk about how to keep our research organized but it is also important to get a clear understanding of how the resources we use are organized by their creators.

 

Recently I used a book called Long Island Genealogical Source Material [A Bibliography] by Herbert F. Seversmith, Ph.D., F.A.S.G and Kenn Stryker-Rodda, Litt.D., F.A.S.G. which is a special publication of the National Genealogical Society (NGS), Number 24 published in Washington, D.C. in 1962.

 

I used it in person at the Huntington Historical Society in Huntington, New York. However, it is available online at archives.org: https://archive.org/details/longislandgeneal00seve/page/n1/mode/2up 

It has a strange configuration. After the forward, which you should always read, it contains 4 parts: 

1. The Bibliography of Sources arranged alphabetically by author's surname
2. A list of Places with reference to the bibliographical sources in part 1
3. An alphabetical list of library symbols used in part 1
4. An alphabetical list of Libraries 

You have to read that forward to understand how this information is arranged. One might want to jump into the bibliography but the best way to begin is to start with part 2 - the list of places.

There you look up the community you are interested in researching. The name of the town will followed by numbers; hopefully several numbers (see snippet of page 100).

 Those numbers refer to the listing in part 1. So, for example, for the hamlet of Merrick there is local history information available using source #440.

Source #440 is the entry above by Charles N. Kent.

At the end of that entry you see strange abbreviations: DLC, MWA, N, NBLiHi, NJQ, NN, NNC, NSmB. Each of those correspond to a significant repository which you can find named in part 3.

• DLC = Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
• MWA = American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA
  
• N = New York State Library, Albany, NY
  
• NBLiHi = Long Island Historical Society, Brooklyn, NY (now the Brooklyn Historical Society)
  
• NJQ = Free Public Library of the City of Orange, NJ
  
• NN = New York Public Library, New York City, NY
  
• NNC = Columbia University, New York City, NY
  
• NSmB = Smithtown Public Library, Smithtown, NY

You would then have to look up those locations and in 1962, you would have had to go to one of those places to use that resource. With the existence of the internet maybe you can find the resource online now, but maybe not. And maybe the repository no long holds the resource. Call in advance to find out.

My point to sharing this information, is not only to inform other researchers of Long Island history of this valuable bibliography and directory, but to also underscore that it really doesn't matter how you organize your own research materials, as long as you leave some instructions for future researcher to understand your madness, to understand the system you use. Sure you can attend all sorts of classes and webinars on how best to organize your genealogy research BUT - - you can just organize it in whatever way works for you. All you have to do is leave some notes about how you organize your stuff. Write your own forward to your collection of personal research resources.