Curiosity is Allowed to Take Over

What's the deal with Fraternal Societies? 

One of my favorite areas of research lies in fraternal societies. These organizations played such an important role in the lives of our ancestors, and simply should not be overlooked in genealogy. Over the past few months, I have been focusing part of my self-education time to this venture, hoping to gain a much better understanding of these organizations, their role in society, how they affected the country as a whole, and what they really stood for. There is much to learn!

I have carried this goal into my social media, creating the Fraternal Organizations for Genealogists group on Facebook and the Fraternal Organizations for Genealogists community on G+. I follow several chapters and lodges on Twitter, and engage them when I can.

The sharing within these communities has been wonderful to see, and even just being more aware of the idea of the societies has taught me a thing or two. I've been able to identify more fraternal symbols on headstones, and realized that all of the elementary schools in my county have Masonic cornerstones. Perhaps I would have noticed this before, perhaps not. Either way, my eyes are wide open now.

As we quickly progress into winter (it's snowing as I write this post at my Colorado high country home...), I feel it is time, and it is necessary, to be more intentional with my self-education, as well as sharing what I discover with my genealogy friends and colleagues. With that in mind, I am planning a long term series of blog posts, all about fraternal societies and the various aspects of them. I plan on asking a lot of questions over the next few months, and doing my best to find and share the answers.

Let us begin! 

W.W. Brown
From personal collection of Jen Baldwin.

My first experience with fraternal societies was when I realized, several years ago, that my great grandfather, William Warner Brown (or W.W. as we like to call him), was an active member of the International Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) in Orting, Pierce County, Washington. As a family, we knew this to be true. Getting confirmation and any any available records from the organization itself was a much more significant challenge. It took me six years, uncounted letters and phone calls, but I was finally able to get something out of them. It wasn't much, just a few copies of meeting notes that included the date and his name listed as "present."



It was, however, the beginning of a decade long curiosity. And the process taught me quite a bit when it came to researching these groups. There is always more to learn, though, and so I am taking the opportunity to let my curiosity take over... and I hope you will join in on the journey. If you have a genuine interest, feel free to ask to join the two communities listed above, we'd be happy to have you engage in the conversation. If not, that's ok, too. We can read, discuss, and engage right here.

It does make me wonder.... what organizations do you have a connection to? Leave a comment, and hopefully sometime in the near future, we can explore it together.



 (Selly sell : I wrote a Legacy QuickGuide on the subject. You can find it via my website.)

Proudly Presenting...

If you do any genealogy research in the Rocky Mountains, you know one thing: there is a genuine lack of printed research guides for this area.

There are general guides, and those are helpful, but there are very few texts of any kind written specifically for the geographical area of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. I know, I’ve looked.

And looked.

And looked.

Knowing that, the pieces that have been written are all very good. Truly.

So when the opportunity came knocking on my door to write such a guide, I snagged it. Immediately.

The best part for me is that these are my favorite types of guides to use. Simple, concise, no frills. Just four pages of resources on the topic, with good information and very easy to use. I prefer the laminated version, and have several on a variety of other topics; everything from citing sources to world history. I buy them for my family, too; my niece received two for Christmas this past year on algebra. Partly because she’s really enjoying her math class this year, and party because I’m a good aunt who likes to encourage the educational efforts of the next generation.

The first two to be published are Colorado Genealogy and Wyoming Genealogy. I’ll admit: I was venturing into new territory here and wanted to stick with topics I was well versed in. I am happy to report they came out incredibly well. They are currently available for purchase from the Legacy Family Tree store, as a PDF download, at a mere $2.95. 

Here is the description of the Colorado guide from Legacy Family Tree store: 

"Colorado has experienced more than one gold rush in its history. The original sent masses to Pike’s Peak in 1859; additional mineral booms throughout the late 1800s continued population growth, and now the “white gold” covering the mountains bring winter sports enthusiast from around the world.Looking to find those elusive Centennial State ancestors? 

The Colorado Genealogy Legacy QuickGuide™ contains useful information including a timeline of Colorado history events, tips on Colorado research strategy, outline of major immigrant groups, and more. Also included are links to websites and resources covering vital records, church records, census records, as well as general Colorado resources. Utilize this handy 4-page PDF guide on your computer or mobile device for anytime access to create your own genealogy gold rush!"

"Genealogy gold rush!" I love it! I'm going to be using that one quite a bit, I think. 

Next on the list? More states! In the next month, I’ll be working on Montana, New Mexico and Washington. Watch my Facebook and Twitter accounts; I’ll definitely be posting when those are available.

That’s not all!  I’ll be branching out of geography in the near future, with “Using Fraternal Society Records,” “Researching Germans from Russia,” and “Moravian Genealogy.” Three topics that come straight from my own personal research. (You can read some of my posts about the Moravian religion here.)

Above all, I hope that other researcher’s find these guides useful. They were certainly useful to write, and truly opened my eyes to the variety of sources one can use in genealogical research. I often write – and think – about creative research, but in this manner I have written it all down and truly tried to go beyond the traditional borders.

Let me know if you love it or hate it. This is my first major "pitch" of a blog post, but I am just too excited about this to not write it.