Books, Non-Fiction

San Antonio in Pictures

The Saga of Catarina: A Patchwork Quilt of Memories, The History of a Little Town in South Texas, written and compiled by Dorothy Mainland Brown, M.D.

Castroville Garden Club’s Seventh Historical Pilgrimage to Pioneer Homes of Castroville, Texas, by the Castroville Garden Club

Texans One and All, by John L. Davis

Archaeological Monitoring of Subsurface Electrical Lines at Fort McKavett State Historical Site (41MN2), Menard County, Texas, by Nathan DiVito and Kristi Miller Ulrich

Texas 1836: Musical Echoes from the Alamo, Followed by San Antonio Roze, by Gérard Dôle, translated by Anita Conrade

Where the West Begins: Debating Texas Identity, by Glen Sample Ely, foreword by Alwyn Barr

Archaeological Investigations and Construction Monitoring at the Bexar County Justice Center Expansion Project, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, by Antonia L. Figuero

The Alamo Master Plan Report: Revised May 2011, Prepared for the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, prepared by Ford, Powell & Carson in association with TBF Partners

Thunder Across the Swamp: The Fight for the Lower Mississippi, February-May, 1863, by Donald S. Frazier

The Cause of Liberty, by Raymond Alan Gardner

The Peter Harrison & Amanda Williams Family in Texas, by Elaine Harrison McReynolds

Archaeology Monitoring Associated with the South Texas Heritage Center at the Witte Museum in Bexar County, Texas, by Bruce K. Moses and Kristi M. Ulrich

National Register of Historic Places Eligibility Testing of 41WN120 at the Helton San Antonio River Nature Park in Wilson County, Texas, by Cynthia M. Muñoz with a contribution by Raymond P. Mauldin

Grasses, Pods, Vines, Weeds: Decorating with Texas Plants, by Quentin Steitz

Texas: A Historical Atlas, by A. Ray Stephens, cartography by Carol Zuber-Malliso

Intensive Survey Associated with Improvements to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, by Jennifer L. Thompson

Intensive Survey and Testing Associated with the Rediscovery of the Acequia Madre (41BX8) and Alamo Dam, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, by Kristi M. Ulrich with a contribution by Maria Watson Pfeiffer

Books, Fiction

A Line in the Sand: River of Blood, by Richard Brighton

Poetry

What Harvest: Poems on the Siege and Battle of the Alamo, by Floyd Collins

Periodicals

Baysider, published by the Bayside Historical Society

Electronic Resources

DRT Oral History Project: Interviews of Various Daughters of the Republic of Texas and others, by the DRT Library Committee

Broadside of an ordinance passed by the San Antonio City Council, December 29, 1856.

The above ordinance, issued by the San Antonio City Council in 1856, offers a glimpse into nineteenth-century Christmas celebrations in the Alamo City. An examination of historical San Antonio newspapers in the DRT Library’s collections did not reveal what specific incident(s) might have spurred this ordinance. However, the fact that city leaders felt compelled to expressly forbid public rioting, fighting, and drinking seems to indicate that locals had witnessed, felt threatened, and were appalled by their neighbors’ “offence(s) against the rules of good order [and] public decency.”

That this ordinance was passed at Christmastime is probably not a coincidence. In his work The Battle for Christmas: A Cultural History of America’s Most Cherished Holiday (1996), historian Stephen Nissenbaum examines Christmas’s carnival origins.

In northern agricultural societies, December was the major ‘punctuation mark’ in the rhythmic cycle of work, a time when there was a minimum of work to be performed. The deep freeze of midwinter had not yet set in; the work of gathering the harvest and preparing it for winter was done; and there was plenty of newly fermented beer or wine as well as meat from freshly slaughtered animals – meat that had to be consumed before it spoiled (5).

Within this context of seasonal leisure and surplus, writes Nissenbaum, Christmas long involved ritualized behavior that “most of us would find offensive and even shocking today – rowdy public displays of excessive eating and drinking, the mockery of established authority, aggressive begging (often involving the threat of doing harm), and even the invasion of wealthy homes” (5). Combining “carnival rowdiness with urban gang violence and Christmas-season riots,” such behavior, Nissenbaum argues, became “even more threatening” in early nineteenth-century cities and gave rise to Americans’ embrace of a “new-styled Christmas that took place indoors, within the secure confines of the family circle,” and focused on children and consumerism (x-xi).

Nissenbaum’s study concentrates on New England and, to a lesser extent, the coastal Southern states, and he admits that Christmas rituals “changed over time and varied from one place to another” (5). Moreover, residents within the same community celebrated Christmas differently. As the Western Texan, a San Antonio newspaper, noted on December 23, 1852, “With some [Christmas] will be a season for sober, moral reflection, with others a season of merry-making.” A thorough exploration of primary sources would hopefully uncover more detailed information about the history and evolution of Christmas celebrations in San Antonio.

Still, anecdotal evidence suggests that, while Christmas in San Antonio had to some extent become domestic and consumer-focused by the mid 1800s, a rowdier and more public celebration of the holiday also persevered. For example, in her book Christmas in Texas (1990), Elizabeth Silverthorne writes that “between 1875 and 1881 the Christmas Eve midnight mass was suspended in San Antonio by edict of the Roman Catholic bishop” (30). At the time, the San Antonio Express reported that “persons stay up, ramble about the streets and get drunk and noisy and then go to the Midnight Masses, rendering them instead of occasions of quiet holy joy, scenes of disorder and unrighteous conduct.” According to Silverthorne,

during the years of the ban, Christmas masses were scheduled at 6 a.m., when it was hoped, the paper reported, that ‘disorderly and boisterous persons, idle critics and spectators who come but to calumniate, ridicule or condemn will be kept away.’ In 1881 when the midnight masses were restored, the Express issued an editorial warning: ‘The church is no place to smoke or be boisterous, or guilty of ungentlemanly conduct. Father Genolin feels humiliated in having to call public attention to these points, and only does so after patience and forbearance almost equal to Job’ (30).

For Further Reading

Another ordinance passed by the San Antonio City Council on December 29, 1856 ordered that “each and every Public Bar Room, Billiard Room and Dram or Drinking Shop where intoxicating liquors are sold either by retail or by the bottle shall be closed at half past 10 o’clock P.M. and shall continue so closed till sunrise on the next ensuing morning.”

A second possible context (beyond the scope of this post) for understanding the above ordinance pertains to the municipal elections held in San Antonio during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. While preliminary research has not uncovered any specific information about these local events, Mark W. Brewin writes in Celebrating Democracy: The Mass-Mediated Ritual of Election Day (2008) that American elections were historically days of raucous “public celebration” marked by parades, “large gatherings of citizens and other residents to both observe the casting of ballots and the accumulation of returns, the treating of voters and supporters, often at the bar or tavern, and most certainly, fistfights, riots, gunfire, and general urban violence” (2).

Special thanks to Donna Guerra, archivist at the San Antonio Municipal Archives & Records Facility, who searched City Council minutes for additional information about the ordinance. 

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

Bustillo Family Papers, 1772-1936

Albert Curtis Papers, 1729-1967

Dittmar Family Papers, 1874-1944 (bulk 1909-1944)

Muench Family Papers, 1848-1875

John R. Stricker Financial Records, 1903-1907

Julius Tengg Papers, 1859-1972

John Files Tom Papers, 1835-1952

Walker and Stanfield Families Papers, 1838-1941

Eleazar Louis Ripley Wheelock Papers, 1833-1875

Gifford E. White Papers, 1770-2000

John W. White Family Papers, 1850-1890

Samuel J. Whitsett Family Papers, 1841, 1870-1906

Yanaguana Society (San Antonio, Tex.) Records, 1931-1960

Finding aids for all processed archival collections can also be located and searched through the DRT Library’s online catalog or by using its browse by title and browse by subject webpages.

For more information about the DRT Library’s ongoing project to convert legacy finding aids, see this entry posted earlier at “Inside the Gates.”

A stock certificate for the Siege and Fall of the Alamo Motion Picture Co., November 17, 1913.

A single document (shown above) and a handful of photographs at the DRT Library are thought to provide a crucial record of a lost silent film about the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. No copy of the The Siege and Fall of the Alamo (1914) is known to exist, and earlier generations of historians believed that the film was never made. While this assertion has proven to be false, information is sparse and many questions remain unanswered.

This picture from the DRT Library's collection shows the palisade that scholars believe was reconstructed in front of the Alamo church during filming of The Siege and Fall of the Alamo. (SC98.103)

A synopsis of The Siege and Fall of the Alamo, written for copyright registration, survives at the Library of Congress and is reproduced in its entirety in Frank Thompson’s book Alamo Movies. Unfortunately, Thompson writes, the summary “tells us little about what the film might have been like.” In addition, a review and advertisement in the San Antonio Light (not in the Library’s collection) describe the film’s showing at the Royal Theater on June 1-2, 1914. According to the ad, The Siege and Fall of the Alamo was made in San Antonio with a cast of 2,000 actors “at a cost of more than $35,000.00.” At “five great reels” in length, it was the first feature-length film about the Alamo. Praising the film, the Light called it “a splendid piece of photography, clear in every detail, and the acting is perfect. The play seems to please the patrons and is pronounced by historians as a great production.”

The reconstructed palisade. The Siege and Fall of the Alamo may be the only movie about the 1836 battle filmed at the actual Alamo. (SC98.101)

The production stills below were previously thought to be from The Immortal Alamo (1911). However, the actor shown to be portraying David Crockett (below) is not Francis Ford, who played the famous Tennessean in The Immortal Alamo. The wooden palisade shown in the photographs above appears to be same one behind “Crockett” in the picture below. Other clues in the palisade photos and production stills support the conclusion that these materials show The Siege and Fall of the Alamo, although a lack of definitive corroborating evidence means that this identification remains less than certain.

An unidentified actor portraying David Crockett in front of the reconstructed Alamo palisade. (SC96.601)

Davy Crockett struggling with a Mexican soldier. (SC96.602)

A woman attempts to defend Jim Bowie while Susanna Dickinson protects her daughter. (SC96.600)

Texians firing and reloading rifles. (SC96.603)

References and Further Reading

Books by writer and film historian Frank Thompson include Alamo Movies (1991) and The Alamo: A Cultural History (2001), both available at the DRT Library. Another work by Thompson, Texas Hollywood: Filmmaking in San Antonio Since 1910 (2002), does not discuss The Siege and Fall of the Alamo specifically but provides interesting contextual information. Additionally, the DRT Library has a vertical file on various movies that have been made about the Alamo, and Richard R. Flores’ book Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol (2002) also contains a chapter on the topic.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

Previously, the finding aids were available only as paper copies in the Library’s reading room. Now, researchers can access the guides through the Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO) website, the DRT Library’s online catalog, and the Library’s browse by title and browse by subject webpages. TARO also brings together information about documents to, by, and about members of the Maverick family scattered across numerous collections in multiple Texas repositories.

Together, the Library’s collections document the history of four generations of the Maverick family, starting with Texas Declaration of Independence signer Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803-1870). Indeed, one collection contains an original printed copy of the Declaration, one of two in the DRT Library’s holdings and one of about thirteen known extant examples. The copy in the Samuel Augustus Maverick family papers has been annotated by Maverick himself.

Particularly with the current sesquicentennial commemoration, also significant is the sizable number of Civil War-era letters contained in the Maverick family papers. These letters include those from Samuel Augustus Maverick and his wife Mary Ann Adams Maverick to one another and to their children and those exchanged by siblings.

The eight Maverick family archival collections at the DRT Library are:

Maverick Family Papers, 1840-1960 (bulk 1861-1909)

Albert and Jane Lewis Maury Maverick Papers, 1927-1954 (previously called the Maverick Family Collection)

Lucy Maverick Letters, 1913-1941

Maury Maverick, Jr. Papers on the Reinterment of Joseph H. Barnard, 1979-1982

Maury Maverick, Jr. Research Papers, 1857-1964

Samuel Augustus Maverick Family Papers, 1836-1909

Samuel Augustus Maverick Letter, 1861

Samuel Maverick, Jr. Letter, 1912

Cataloging Librarian Beverly Ewald (left) talks to a family about a petticoat that belonged to Alamo survivor Angelina Dickinson.

“Love it!”

“Interesting.”

“Fantastic!”

“Thank you.”

These are some of the enthusiastic comments we received from visitors who came through the DRT Library as part of San Antonio Founders Day. Held on the Alamo grounds and in Alamo Plaza on Saturday, October 22, 2011, Founders Day featured outdoor exhibitions and booths by more than forty-five area cultural heritage institutions and organizations. The displays, entertainment, and other activities all reflected the Founders Day mission of

honor[ing] the…cultural groups and outstanding individuals who shaped our San Antonio heritage and stimulat[ing] interest in reading and learning about our history and heritage in the context of the history of Texas, the nation, and the world.

Two visitors compare the original Daniel Cloud letter with a transcription of the document during the Library's Founders Day Open House.

For the third year in a row, the DRT Library held a day-long Open House in the reading room in conjunction with Founders Day. Since the Library has no permanent exhibit space, the event is one of a handful of times during the year that rare and unique treasures from the collections are on display.

Addressing the Founders Day mission, one exhibit featured documents related to Texas Declaration of Independence signers Jose Francisco Ruiz and Samuel Augustus Maverick; a letter written by Alamo defender Daniel William Cloud; Ernst Schuchard’s paintings of fresco details at Mission Concepción and frescoes on the facade of Mission San Jose; and items highlighting families and individuals in San Antonio’s German, Tejano, and Italian communities. A second exhibit included photographs, letters, and other materials – including a report card from 1880 – by, to, or about young people who lived in San Antonio or Texas during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The Open House brought approximately 830 people into the Library; visitors came from places across Texas, twenty-one other states, and four foreign countries.

One Open House exhibit highlighted materials that reflected the Founders Day theme.

The second Open House exhibit, "Kids in the Archives!"

In addition to the Open House, the Library also put together an outdoor exhibit that showcased (digital prints of) historical Alamo photographs in the Library’s collections. Approximately 270 people stopped by to check out the exhibit and ask questions about the materials on display.

The DRT Library's outdoor exhibit, "The Alamo Through Time," at Founders Day.

The outdoor display.

Reference Librarian Chuck Tucker answers questions about the Alamo photographs.

We look forward to participating in Founders Day 2012!

Visitors examine a nineteenth-century map of Texas during the DRT Library's 2009 Founders Day Open House.

This coming Saturday, October 22, 2011, the DRT Library will be having an Open House as part of San Antonio Founders Day, a day-long celebration being held on the Alamo grounds and in Alamo Plaza. This is the third year the Library has held an Open House as part of this event.

October is also American Archives Month, an opportunity to celebrate the significance of archives as institutions that preserve and shape individual memory and communities’ collective memory.

On Saturday, the Library will be open from 10:00 am until 4:30 pm. Visitors will be able to view numerous rare and unique treasures from the library’s archival, photograph, and art collections. One exhibit will include historical photographs of San Antonio children and other materials highlighting how kids lived in the past; a second display will highlight materials that reflect the Founders Day theme of honoring the “cultural groups and outstanding individuals who shaped our San Antonio heritage.”

Researchers will not be able to access library materials during the Open House. Patrons interested in conducting research at the DRT Library should return during regular business hours or contact library staff at drtl@drtl.org.

Be sure to also stop by and see the Library’s outdoor exhibit, which will feature copies of photographs of the Alamo from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s.

Forecasts call for beautiful fall weather on Saturday, and there will be lots of family-friendly activities available at Founders Day. We look forward to seeing you at the Library!

A stereograph showing damage at Avenue O and 19th Street in the aftermath of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. (SC10034)

A stereograph showing "a schoolhouse that was carried 600 feet while all beyond was swept away" during the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. (SC10033)

According to the Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones, this storm was “an exceedingly violent Category 4 tropical cyclone.” With 140-mph winds, 9-inch rains, and a 16-foot storm surge, the hurricane “annihilated large portions of coastal and inland Texas.” It “not only remains one of the most intense storms to have ever afflicted the mainland United States but also the nation’s deadliest” (218).

Annie Fisher Dallam Harris (1823-1906) wrote to her niece Nannette “Nettie” Pleasants Fisher Armstrong (1857-1939) in San Antonio two days after the storm. She reported that among the 6,000 to 12,000 people who perished in the hurricane were three of her daughters; her son-in-law, and Nettie Armstrong’s brother, Walter Pemberton Fisher (1856-1900); and six grandchildren.

The first page of Annie Harris's letter to her niece.

The second page of the letter.

Monday, Sept 11th

Dear Nettie –

Knowing that you will feel anxious to hear about us after this late awful calamity, I will write you this morning just the bare heart rending facts. I cannot give you the harrowing details, and it is a wonder to myself that I can write at all, for the hand of the Lord has smitten me [illegible], has taken at one flow three of my lovely daughters and six of my darling grandchildren. Also, your own brother, poor dear Walter. I cannot think why I whose life is nearly spent was saved, and all those valuable lives taken! But so it is. Of my own family [son] John & [daughter] Cora are all that are left, and of the children [granddaughter] Nanna & [grandson] baby Kenner. Our house and the Mastersons are both entirely destroyed. For the present, the [grandchildren] young Mastersons, myself & little Kenner are sheltered at [nephew and his wife Fred’s, and Addie requested me to write you this to let you know. But I cannot as yet write you the dreadful details. 

Auntie

Based on some preliminary research, we’ve been able to at least tentatively identify everyone mentioned in Harris’s letter and compile the following genealogy (some people not mentioned in the letter have not been included):

Samuel Rhoads Fisher (1794-1839) m. Ann Pleasants (1796-1862)

• Samuel William Fisher (1819-1874)
• Annie Pleasants Fisher (1823-1906)

Samuel William Fisher (1819-1874) m. Eliza Ophelia Smith Fisher (1823-1877)

• Frederick Kenner Fisher (1852-1920) m. Lucy Adelaide Selkirk (1859-1939)
• Walter Pemberton Fisher (1856-1900) m. Elizabeth Lillian/Lillie Byrd Harris (1858-1900)
• Nannette or Annette “Nettie” Pleasants Fisher (1857-1939) m. John W. Armstrong (1843-1911)

Annie Pleasants Fisher (1823-1906) m. James Wilmer Dallam (1818-1847)

• Annie Wilmer Dallam (1847-1900) m. Branch Tanner Masterson (1847-1920): their five children, who ranged in age from sixteen to twenty-five, survived.

Annie Pleasants Fisher Dallam (1823-1906) m. John Woods Harris (1810-1887)

• Rebecca Perry Harris (1853-1900): single at the time of her death with no children.
• John Woods Harris (1855-1918) m. Minnie Knox Hutchings (1866-1922): their two children, ages five and thirteen, also survived.
• Elizabeth Lillian/Lillie Byrd Harris (1858-1900) m. Walter Pemberton Fisher (1856-1900): three of their children, ages seven to ten, died in the hurricane. Their youngest son Frederick Kenner Fisher (1898-1910) survived.
• Cora Lewis Harris (1868-1950) m. Wharton Davenport (1867-before 1930): oldest daughter Anna “Nanna” Davenport Newton (1889-1967) survived, but the couple’s other three children perished. They had a son in 1902.

For Further Reading

Additional Fisher family genealogical information can be found at the Star of the Republic Museum’s Samuel Rhoads Fisher page, compiled as part of its Texas Declaration of Independence signers project.

The Complete Story of the Galveston Horror edited by John Coulter, Galveston: The Horrors of a Stricken City by Murat Halstead, Galveston in Nineteen Hundred edited by Clarence Ousley, and The Great Galveston Disaster by Paul Lester were published in the immediate aftermath of the 1900 storm.

Helping to mark the centennial of the hurricane, Galveston and the 1900 Storm: Catastrophe and Catalyst by Patricia Bellis Bixel and Elizabeth Hayes Turner contains many historical photographs and examines the reinvention of the city in the storm’s aftermath. Through a Night of Horrors: Voices from the 1900 Galveston Storm, edited by Casey Edward Greene and Shelly Henley Kelly, contains letters, memoirs, and oral histories that document survivors’ experiences.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

The first page of Eliza Ophelia Fisher's letter to her son Samuel Rhoads Fisher.

The DRT Library’s archival collection of Fisher Family Papers contains letters documenting two of the worst natural disasters in Texas history. Today’s entry focuses on a letter describing one woman’s experiences during the Indianola Hurricane of September 15-17, 1875. Tomorrow we’ll highlight a letter written by a survivor of the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, which pummeled the city on September 8 and 9.

According to the Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones, the 1875 hurricane,

a 100-mph whirlwind, carried beneath its eye an unusually large storm surge. Piled up against the sloping banks of Matagorda Bay, the surge eventually rolled ashore at Indianola, reducing three-quarters of the town’s 2,000 buildings to splinters in a matter of hours. One hundred seventy-six townspeople died, making the Indianola Hurricane of 1875 one of the deadliest Texas hurricanes on record (389).

Eliza Ophelia Smith Fisher.

The storm was so violent in Matagorda, across Matagorda Bay to the northeast, that Eliza Ophelia Smith Fisher (1823-1877), daughter-in-law of Samuel Rhoads Fisher, was still haunted by her experience two weeks later. “I feel now as if I were waking from a horrible nightmare,” she told her son Samuel Rhoads Fisher (1849-1911). “It makes me shudder even to write about it.” In her dramatic letter, Fisher describes her family’s struggle to find safe shelter during the storm, first in their home, then at a neighbor’s house, and finally in a chicken house.

Matagorda

Sept. 29th 1875

My Beloved Son –

We have passed through such horrors, since I last wrote to you, that I feel now as if I were waking from a horrible nightmare. You have seen from the papers, accounts of the storm that commenced on the 15th inst. & lasted furiously until the 17th. No pen can describe all the horrors of such a storm & I will not attempt it. I little expected to live to go through another storm such as we had in 1854, but I have done so – for though we have not lost our house – my sufferings mentally were greater, for having passed through one, I knew what to expect – hour after hour, we faced death, not knowing what moment would be our last.

After the kitchen & outhouses blew down, we were afraid to remain longer in the house, for the dining room was wrenched from the main house, & we expected every minute that it would go, & of course expected the gallery to be blown off. We then dreaded to be in the house with no means of getting out, in case this part of the house went. So about 9 o’clock at night, we went out & faced the pitiless storm. We could not keep our feet, but by holding to each other, were blown along & managed to get over to the next house & found a number huddled together in the kitchen. We only staid a few minutes there, when the windows & doors of the main house blew in & we had to go out again. Fred & Nettie were afraid to go into another house & more over it blew & rained so awfully that we could not walk against it, so we decided to come into our own yard again & go into the chicken house! So 14 of us, seven grown persons & 7 little children, crowded into it. We had hardly gotten out of that house when the whole side to the north east was blown off. What horrors we can go through & yet live!!! It makes me shudder even to write about it, & yet dear son our sufferings & danger was nothing compared to those on the Peninsula & at Indianola, where they had the water to contend with; whole families drowned & hundreds getting off with only their lives, every thing they owned lost!!!

I can write no more, as I want to send this by the mail. Matagorda is blown down. Our house is about the least damaged in town, but it will take a $100.00 to repair it & the house next door. Mrs. Wright is staying with us. Her house blew entirely down & she had no place to go. The poor suffering people from the Peninsula were brought over, every one had to share clothes & bedding with them, that had any thing to spare & find some sort of shelter for them. Provisions are scarce, we live on plain bread & meat & are thankful to get it. No boats have been able to get to Indianola for flour, for all our lighters* lay capsized in the Bason [basin?]. These are dreadful times!!!

We have not had a line from your for two weeks, of course we could get no mails. I hope to hear soon & to hear that our house will soon be ready, for I can tell you – we all want to leave the coast. Love to dear Walter.

God bless you –

Your Affect.

Mother.

*A lighter is a large, open, flat-bottomed barge used in unloading and loading ships offshore or in transporting goods for short distances in shallow waters.

For Further Reading

Two general histories of Indianola – Indianola Scrap Book: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Storm of August 20, 1886, compiled and published by the Victoria Advocate, and Indianola: The Mother of Western Texas by Brownson Malsch – include information about the 1875 hurricane.

Click here for a full citation of the documents and images included in this entry.

John A. Sellars was the featured speaker at this year's Family History Seminar.

The seminar included four presentations by Mr. Sellars. His first lecture asked whether Texas should be considered part of the South or the West. His answer: based on the state’s history, which he explored during the session, Texas is part of both the South and West. Mr. Sellars also argued that researchers can’t do genealogy without knowing about the history of the time and place in which their ancestors lived. Indeed, stated Mr. Sellars, looking at history can help genealogists break down “brick walls” (i.e. barriers, problems, or dead ends) in their research. He ended this lecture by providing an overview of Texas genealogical records, describing their value and where they can be found in physical archives or through online resources.

Mr. Sellars’ second talk focused on using newspapers in genealogical research. As the news medium of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, historical newspapers contain a wealth of information. They’re a “great way to breathe life back into your ancestors,” Mr. Sellars said, although using them can be “rewarding and tedious” and require additional fact-checking. He recommended that genealogists start their newspaper research by conducting historical and geographical research of their ancestral homes. This will help identify state newspapers that may have carried regional stories; regional papers that perhaps included local stories about the county or community in which one’s ancestors lived; and regional religious newspapers for an ancestor’s denomination or religion. While several Internet sites provide access to digital copies of historical newspapers, Mr. Sellars reminded the seminar attendees that libraries and archives often have hard and microfilm copies of papers that are currently unavailable online.

Seminar attendees obtained much useful information from Mr. Sellars' four lectures.

In his third presentation, Mr. Sellars explored the importance of collateral research, or learning more about an ancestor’s siblings and their offspring. He noted that during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries people usually moved and relocated as part of extended family, church, or ethnic groups; intermarriage between families was common. Researching cousins to the same extent as direct ancestors can lead to new information and discoveries. Cousins can be identified by using census records to study the neighborhoods in which ancestors lived; noting witnesses or administrators listed on deeds, probates, and other courthouse records; and consulting county histories and cemetery records.

In the final talk of the seminar, Mr. Sellars examined how to locate information about an ancestor who was a member of a Masonic lodge. In an 1897 article in the North American Review, author H. S. Harwood described the “Golden Age of Fraternity” at the end of the nineteenth century. He reported that fraternal groups like the Freemasons, International Order of the Odd Fellows, Knights of Columbus, Knights of Pythias, and Improved Order of Red Men claimed five and a half million members while the total adult male population of the United States was approximately nineteen million. Mr. Sellars recommended that genealogists first look for clues that their ancestor may have been a Mason or a member of another fraternal organization. Clues can be found on tombstones, in published biographies, or in photographs that show organization symbols. To research a Masonic ancestor, Mr. Sellars recommended that genealogists consult published sources as well as Grand Lodge and local lodge records, although some documents may not be available to the general public.

From left, Leslie Stapleton, DRT Library Director; John A. Sellars; and Madge Thornall Roberts, DRT Library Committee Chairman.

Many thanks to Mr. Sellars for providing such interesting and informative lectures. Library staff members and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library Committee also thank everyone who supported the Library by attending the 2011 Family History Seminar.