Celebrate French Heritage

For those of you with French heritage or an interest in French history/genealogy, two events are scheduled in the next few weeks in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.

The first, sponsored by New France: the Other Colonial America, honors one of the founding pioneers of Ste. Genevieve, Louis Bolduc. In fact, Saturday, 26 August is Louis Bolduc Day, and there will be an all-day celebration at the Louis Bolduc House Museum beginning at 9:45 a.m. with registration. This is a family day, and children are most welcome. A scavenger hunt begins at 10 a.m. and, at the same time, the Linden and Bolduc houses will be open for tours. From 11 to 12:30 p.m., a party with sweets, games, and balloon animals will take place at the Linden House. At 1:30, you can take a special curator tour of the Bolduc house to learn more about the house's construction and history. Finally, at 3:00, Yan Bolduc, a historian and descendant of this colonial family, will present a genealogy lecture.

Admission for the day is $9 for adults and $4 for children. More information at https://www.frenchcoloniallife.org/calendar/.

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Also in Ste. Genevieve but a month later, the Foundation for Restoration of Ste. Genevieve will hold their annual fall history conference. The three-day event begins on Friday 22 September with a reception and continues on Saturday, 23 September with a full day of lectures from six different speakers. The lectures focus on John Scott, Missouri's first U.S. representative; Louis Bolduc and Agathe Govreau; The Battle of St. Louis and the attack on Cahokia; the Dodge family in the Mississippi Valley; the Green Tree Tavern in Ste. Genevieve; and diversity in the town in the 1770s. The conference concludes on Sunday, 24 September, with a tour of the Louisiana Academy, Missouri's first school of higher education.

A registration fee of $50 includes the reception, continental breakfast and lunch on Saturday, and Sunday's tour. Register prior to 16 September to guarantee your place and meals. Registration form and more information at https://www.historicstegen.org/fall-history-conference/.

(Thanks to Mary Lee Chivetta for alerting us to the September conference.)

Noteworthy Items to Start Your Week

A reporter from an online magazine, called simply, St. Louis, recently interviewed StLGS projects director, Carol Whitton, about the society's ongoing congregations project. If you haven't yet had a chance to see the article, we think you will really enjoy it. Find it here:

https://www.stlmag.com/arts/history/this-organization-is-on-a-mission-to-track-every-baptism-confirmation-marriage-and-death-in-st-louis-history/

If it inspires you to join the fun, we always need more volunteers. Go to the Volunteer Opportunities page on our website https://stlgs.org/about-us-2/volunteer-opportunities for all the information you need to get involved. In addition, if you are affiliated with a congregation that has records to share, please let us know so we can reach out to you and your church or synagogue leaders.

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While working with twentieth-century death certificates, you may have noticed that many have large numbers written on them somewhere in the "cause of death" section. Perhaps you thought these were just random numbers, but it turns out, they are not. Begun in the late 1890s, these numbers are part of the International Code of Diseases or ICD, and they may reveal more information on how your ancestors died, especially if the handwriting and/or the spelling on the certificate is difficult to decipher. Go to http://familyhistorydaily.com/free-genealogy-resources/icd-codes-death-certificates-genealogy/?platform=hootsuite for an easy-to understand explanation of the coding system (try not to get sidetracked by all the ads on the page, though) and then click on the link to find the codes or go directly to http://www.wolfbane.com/icd/index.html/. Be sure to choose the link that corresponds to the revision closest in time prior to the person's death for the most accurate information.

In the following example, note that the person died in 1912 of "chronic bronchitis with pulmonary abscess." If we use the revised code for 1909, the closest date prior to 1912, we can see that the number 96 stands for asthma, which adds more information to the cause of death.

 

(Many thanks to our Twitter expert, Laura Mackinson, for alerting us to both these websites.)

A Software Announcement and a Great Article!

 Just a few days ago, MyHeritage.com announced it was purchasing the genealogy software Legacy Family Tree. MyHeritage has been slowly growing in the shadow of the giants, Ancestry and FamilySearch. They have a heavy European emphasis and more than 91 million members. Legacy, for years a top contender in PC genealogy software, is widely respected for the quality of its product and its tech support. It also has a well-used webinar platform.

For those of you PC owners looking to update your genealogy software and save money in the process, Legacy Family Tree is offering a substantial savings that will expire this Sunday, 13 August. You can get the Legacy 9 software and/or subscriptions to the webinars for half-price.

Please do not consider this as an endorsement of this product. We just want to make you aware of a good savings on a reliable product. For those who are interested, you can learn much more on the Legacy website: http://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2017/08/legacy-family-tree-has-a-new-home-with-myheritage.html .

(Thanks to Pat Stamm for alerting us to this special offer.)

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With so many genealogists now using DNA testing to help them establish roots, it should not be surprising to learn of extraordinary finds. A recent story, published in the Washington Post, tells of an "Irish-American" woman who discovered an amazing incident in her father's past when she began doing DNA testing of her relatives. It's a great read and a wonderful example of how important it is to follow every clue to get to the truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/she-thought-she-was-irish-until-a-dna-test-opened-a-100-year-old-mystery/?utm_term=.8a663c45a296&wpisrc=al_alert-national&wpmk=1

(Thanks to Ann Fleming and Ted Steele for sharing this link.)