RLP 303: Southwestern Research with Michelle Mickelson – Part 1 – Jurisdictions and Manuscripts

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 303 Southwestern Research Part one Jurisdictions and Manuscripts Welcome to Research Like a Pro a genealogy podcast about taking your research to the next level. Hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder Accredited Genealogist Professional Diana and Nicole are the mother daughter team at family Locket dot com and the authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist guide with Robin Wirthlin. They also co-authored the Companion Volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join, Diana, and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases. Let’s go.

Nicole (43s):
Today’s episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com. Hi everyone. Welcome to Research Like a Pro

Diana (50s):
Hi. Nicole. how are you today?

Nicole (53s):
Man, I’m having a great time working on my Dyer research project. It’s been so fun. How are you doing?

Diana (58s):
I am doing well also. I’ve been starting my Cline research, so that’s always fun. But I told you the other day, and I’ll tell everyone else here, that I discovered another man of the same name in my county. So sometimes that’s discouraging to think, oh dang, all these records may not be for my guy, but now I know there’s two different John Clines and I’ve gotta be careful about which records I assign to which, so part of the fun of research.

Nicole (1m 24s):
Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve been coming across with the Dyer research. There’s a lot of Dyers and even though I’m focusing on Dyers from the Southern US right now, there’s still a lot. And I’m excited to be helping with the Dyer YDNA project now as a co-admin so that I can help build trees and hopefully untangle some of these lines in Dyer family.

Diana (1m 44s):
That is so great. I’m so excited to hear what you do as a co-admin.

Nicole (1m 49s):
Well, right now I’m just gonna look at everyone’s trees and try to eliminate lines from my family line. And so it’s kind of a selfish reason to join as a co-admin, but that’s my first goal.

Diana (2m 0s):
Yeah, I think that’s great. Part of It is organizing those YDNA matches, you know, anyone that’s looking at that, maybe it will help them as well.

Nicole (2m 8s):
Yeah. Well next month’s Research Like a Pro Webinar Series for May is “Who was Mary F.E. DeShazo? A Case Study Using Indirect Evidence in Burned Counties” by Scott Dixon, a former Research Like a Pro study group member. So if you haven’t registered for this year’s webinar series, we encourage you to do so so that you can come and watch that and also receive research reports as the syllabus for each lecture of the case studies. And this can really help you see different styles of research reports and learn some different strategies for writing about different evidence that was found, especially indirect evidence. This will be a good example of that, while our next Research Like a Pro study group will begin in August and registration opens May 21st.

Nicole (2m 54s):
So this month it’s coming up. We also are excited to announce our Research Like a Pro with AI four day workshop that’s coming up at the very end of July. It’s going to be four days with two hours of instruction every morning, and then hands-on assignment for you to practice with after that. So registration for that will open in just a couple days on May 1st. And then the National Genealogical Society Conference is coming up on May 17th and 18th So. we look forward to learning so much from all the wonderful speakers and visiting the exhibit hall. We’ll be there as speakers and in the exhibit hall as well.

Diana (3m 29s):
Well, we’re excited. There’s all sorts of fun things coming up and we invite you to join us at some of those today. We are really happy to have Michelle Mickelson back with us. Michelle is one of our research team members. She is an accredited genealogist in the southwest United States region. So she is going to be telling us all about records in the southwest and methodologies and we’ll have some case studies. So we’re going to have a few podcast episodes and Michelle has written wonderful blog posts that go with these episodes as well. So let’s talk to Michelle. Hey Michelle, how are you doing today?

Michelle Mickelson (4m 10s):
So glad to be here, Thank you for having me.

Diana (4m 13s):
You are so welcome. So first we’re going to talk about some records and see what we can learn about this whole idea of Southwestern United, States research. and I was just going to say that that’s one of the neat things about accreditation is that you do get to specialize in a region and learn so much about the repositories and the records and the methodologies. And even though there are a lot of things that are the same across the United States, each region has got some special things. And So, we are going to learn from you, Michelle, all about those special things in the Southwest.

Michelle Mickelson (4m 48s):
Absolutely. One of the most basic record sets come from federal, state and local records. And each of these offer distinct perspectives and details of our ancestors and knowing where to look can make all the difference in our research. So to understand jurisdictions, it helps me to think in terms of altitude. Picture a satellite, an airplane, and a car from a satellite, we see our country as a whole. These are your federal records maintained by National Archives and Records, Administration or NARA. They include documents like census records, military records and immigration files that cover a broad category and apply nationwide.

Michelle Mickelson (5m 39s):
Then from a high altitude airplane, we view smaller regions. These are your state records. They are found in state archives, historical societies, museums. They give us a glimpse into state level events and legislation and they include records like land grants and state census data. Then from a car we observe the ground level and these are your local records. These are found in city halls and county courthouses and they provide a more detailed account of our ancestors’ daily life like property transactions, local court cases, and then vital records such as birth, marriage and death certificates.

Michelle Mickelson (6m 28s):
So understanding the scope and content of these records is key to choosing your path of research for genealogy.

Nicole (6m 37s):
Oh, that was a fun anecdote with the satellite airplane and car. What a great way to envision federal, state and local records.

Diana (6m 46s):
I love that. and I teach this a lot, this whole idea of different jurisdictions because if you have record loss on the county level, you can always go to your state or federal level. So let’s start with just a little bit of an overview of what kind of federal records are available for the southwestern states. I’m guessing those might be similar to what we have in other states, but maybe something a little bit different as well.

Michelle Mickelson (7m 9s):
Right. So for the southwestern states, key federal records include homestead files, military service records, like during the Civil War time we had a lot of immigrants come into the country from, you know, as the railroads were being built from China, even those from Ireland. And of course census data covers all of that. Censuses can be an excellent starting point for revealing family structures, their occupations and other vital data. Like you mentioned Diana, sometimes record sets are missing and boy that is the case in the southwest.

Michelle Mickelson (7m 55s):
People were migrating and new governments were being set up. They were learning to keep records. And so there’s a lot of holes that need to be filled and federal records can really do a great job of that. Military records, for example, can help us learn more about our ancestors’, military service and and what they did the early to mid 1800s.

Diana (8m 19s):
That’s really interesting about the Mexican American War and I know that there are a lot of people who fought in that who aren’t even from the Southwest, but I imagine you know those, some of those states. And you know what we haven’t even said yet that we should probably mention. What are the states that we’re talking about? What do we call this region? That’s the Southwest.

Michelle Mickelson (8m 39s):
Yes, the Southwest region covers California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah. So that southwest quarter of the United States.

Diana (8m 53s):
Well and I know people sometimes with the accreditation process wonder why some states are put in a certain region. Like I may not have thought Utah would be in the southwest, but you know, Utah’s gotta go somewhere. So it’s kind of interesting how things are put together, but I’m sure you’ve seen some similarities between the states and you know, understand why those are put where they are.

Michelle Mickelson (9m 17s):
Right. So a lot of it has to do with geography. We live in the Mojave Desert, there are mountain ranges rivers, and all of these affected immigration into our part of the country and lots of records were created from that. And so there are similarities and and others that are different. So as people moved west, they wanted to buy land. So land grants and homestead records are significant due to our southwestern history. Homestead records in Colorado and Utah can provide detailed information about settlers, California and Nevada for example, have mining claims and records that are unique to to their area and Native American records, particularly in Arizona and New Mexico.

Michelle Mickelson (10m 12s):
Offer those, those crucial links for those tracing indigenous ancestry.

Diana (10m 20s):
Well great. So that’s kind of a high level overview of what we can find on the federal level and and the types of records So I know in the Gulf South region. Each state that I studied kind of had its own set of unique records. And what do you find unique about the Southwest region? What are some of the unique things in the states?

Michelle Mickelson (10m 41s):
So the Southwest region is a lot like our nation’s younger sibling. The United States in reality is a blended family of other nations. And because of our relatively young record keeping age, certain records stand out for genealogical value. Each southwestern state created its own set of unique records. For example, Utah’s Pioneer era records are a valuable resource for those with ancestors who migrated during that time. And state records are typically held at state archives or health departments.

Michelle Mickelson (11m 25s):
And then we have our local records that are generated by smaller entities like counties and cities and they often include property records, the local court records and the more personal data like school and church records, for instance, local records in New Mexico can provide rich cultural insights because of the unique history of the Spanish and the Native American influences.

Diana (11m 54s):
All right, well I think it will be fun to learn a little bit more of some of these record types. So let’s discuss some of the regional repositories for the National Archives. So I think we’ve talked a little bit before on the podcast about the National Archives in Washington DC and they have a lot of great records. But then I don’t know if everyone knows that there are regional facilities all throughout the country that focus on gathering these records on the federal level for that specific region. So can you tell us, you know, some of those specific archives, those regional national archive centers in the southwest?

Michelle Mickelson (12m 36s):
Absolutely. So the National Archives at Denver holds permanent records for Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. And then the National Archives at Riverside holds records for Arizona, Southern California and then Clark County, Nevada. Then the location at San Francisco will hold records for Northern California and then all of Nevada except for Clark County. So they’re, they’re kind of placed in strategic areas and that those specific record types go into into those specific facilities.

Diana (13m 16s):
That’s so interesting. and I love how, you know, the states are kind of divided up. I’m guessing Clark County Nevada is Las Vegas as, is that right? It is,

Michelle Mickelson (13m 26s):
Yes.

Diana (13m 26s):
Okay. Yep.

Michelle Mickelson (13m 27s):
So there’s lots of good records there, right,

Diana (13m 29s):
Right. Nevada’s got the northern part around Reno and then the southern part down in Las Vegas and they’re not much in between. So that’s fun that those are split up. Well let’s have a word from our Sponsor newspapers.com. This episode is brought to you by newspapers.com. Discover your mom in the paper when you search newspapers.com. Find the stories that made her who she is today by searching the largest online newspaper. Archive newspapers.com makes it easy to find your mom, grandma, and others in the papers. Search more than 945 million pages from major news titles to small town papers, uncover birth and marriage announcements, obituaries photos, and much, much more. Explore papers dating back to 1690 or as recent as last month.

Diana (14m 13s):
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Nicole (14m 37s):
Well what a great overview so far of federal records. Let’s go now to state archives and historical societies. Can you tell us about what they offer?

Michelle Mickelson (14m 47s):
Yes. These repositories are a wealth of state specific historical and genealogical records. So from that airplane level, for example, California state archives offers extensive collections on Gold Rush era documents while Denver Public Library has railroad employee records for Colorado, these institutions often provide online databases and digital collections making initial research accessible from home, which is really nice. You can begin your online exploration of Southwestern archives and libraries at the Family Search Wiki.

Michelle Mickelson (15m 32s):
By going in there you’ll discover, you know, a great list of national, state and regional repositories. They include a summary of what’s included at each archive so you can kind of tailor your research to those specific topics. Also, once you get in there, the Wiki articles on major repositories also cover specific collections relevant to other southwestern research topics.

Nicole (15m 60s):
How great, that’s nice to have kind of that research guide available at the Family search wiki for these repositories. And when I’ve done research at the California state archives, they had really good finding aids on their website that kind of helped me understand what might be available. It had year ranges and then I was able to reach out to a researcher that I know who, who was able to look those up for me.

Michelle Mickelson (16m 22s):
Yeah, one of the libraries in California, the Sutro Library is, it covers all 50 states. It’s located in San Francisco and they have a lot of international resources as well, like from Canada, Europe, Ireland, great Britain, Mexico, the West Indies. So they, they kind of focus on a, a lot of places that come into California, which is great because people came from everywhere to settle here. That’s a really great library in the southwest.

Diana (16m 56s):
I love how the Family search Wiki has these webpage of all the main repositories libraries and I’m just looking at it right now, historical societies. It’s so nice we don’t have to discover it for yourself. The Wiki has it there and then you can click on each one And, it will give you, like you were both saying, the finding aids and telling you specifically what’s there. So really great, well let’s go down to a little bit more local level of our jurisdiction. So the car level, and this would include city halls and county courthouses and I would imagine that those are similar to others in the United States. Is there anything that’s more unique in the Southwest about those types of local records?

Michelle Mickelson (17m 41s):
So one of the things we were talking about earlier is Clark County in Las Vegas on the blog there’s a picture of the Clark County courthouse and I love that because I think of all the history on those shelves, you know, all the Elvis chapel marriages or the, you know, there could be some fun, fun little treasures to find.

Diana (18m 3s):
I have actually corresponded with Clark County and found some marriage records there that I have of my California ancestors who just quickly went over to get married. Or actually don don’t know if it was Clark County, it might have been in Reno because they were closer to to the northern, you know, part of California, Northern Nevada. But It is fun to find those marriage records, isn’t it? That there’s no church marriage there, it’s just going to the courthouse to get married.

Michelle Mickelson (18m 28s):
Yeah, that would be a popular location to stop for sure.

Diana (18m 33s):
Well what about university archives? I know this is something that we don’t always think of and I am guessing that that is something you’ve discovered has some really good gems for us for our research?

Michelle Mickelson (18m 47s):
Yeah, university archives are really a great source for manuscripts, letters, diaries, oral histories, photographs, books, these types of records can give us unique insights into our ancestors’ lives. I did a project last year that took me to the University of Utah Marriott Library and I found a book that had mentioned a case in the family and so it just gave a good perspective of the context of the time, what this family was going through and and what was happening at that time.

Michelle Mickelson (19m 29s):
So it does give those those nice little enhancements that really bring our ancestors to life to help us see them as a real person.

Diana (19m 39s):
Oh I love that. You know, that’s something we all want to find, but I think it can be a little difficult to figure that out. So do you have any tips on how you found that? Were you looking in their catalog? Did you have a clue that there might be records there that you wanted? You know, I like

Michelle Mickelson (19m 55s):
To use the WorldCat Library and I knew I was gonna be going up to Salt Lake and I would be in the area and So I just went on WorldCat and I saw that it was there available in the library and I was able to get my parking pass. You get to pay for parking there. And then I did have to schedule a time to go in and they were so nice, they’re so helpful to, you know, I was able to make copies of the important parts of the book that, that I was looking for. And their website is very helpful. In fact, if you go, they have some great tutorials about how to search their database and just kind of that whole process to go through.

Michelle Mickelson (20m 38s):
There’s several libraries in California and in Utah that that offer those, some of the state libraries and then also some of the university libraries. But I find those to be really helpful.

Diana (20m 50s):
Well and I think you mentioned an important thing there that you planned out your trip in ahead of time, you figured out parking, you figured out an appointment. You know, that’s really, really important to do. And we’re going to any kind of a library or repository, they have their own hours and we’ve gotta be prepared and not just show up on the, you know, the doorstep waiting for somebody to let us in and look at everything. You know, we’ve gotta figure it out beforehand. So that’s so fun to learn about that, how you did that. I haven’t been to that library and I live right here in Utah, so that’s neat. So this kind of goes along with this idea about private collections and how they might be able to help you. So what have you found with your work in private collections?

Diana (21m 31s):
Anything unique in the southwest?

Michelle Mickelson (21m 34s):
One of my favorite places to go was the Huntington Library and we will talk about that more in the library section, but, but this is a great time to, to bring that in about potential restrictions and getting memberships into libraries and knowing the times to show up. And what I found is that discussing your research and your goals and what you wanna find with their archivists, boy that can really go a long way in helping you know what records they have available. Then you can, you know, make your research plan and really tailor it to a specific visit.

Michelle Mickelson (22m 15s):
And these collections have really unique documents, like photographs or, one of the specific documents I found at this library was a signed record for a land grant. So in California, the Spanish land grants, when the United States government took control of the area, the Spanish who are living there had to tell about their land and how they acquired it and provide maps and documentation. And so this was one of those times where there was a document right there that helped prove the link of marriage between a husband and wife ’cause there are a lot of same names in the Spanish communities and learning the the naming patterns.

Michelle Mickelson (23m 1s):
And that was a really fun way to work through that case study for accreditation.

Diana (23m 8s):
Oh that’s so neat. Yeah, that same name problem, I think that comes up in every community, in every ethnicity, every country we have those same names. So that’s neat that you had that opportunity to go look at those original Spanish land grants and how great that there’s all that information in those. Well let’s talk a little bit about historical and genealogical societies. So, I think our listeners are hearing that there are so many places to be looking for records. So what did you find as you’ve been working with some of these just local societies and I know that they can be different in every area. It really depends on who is running them. But these are volunteer efforts and it’s wonderful to utilize some of the research and some of the resources they have.

Diana (23m 56s):
So can you give us some tips on best ways to collaborate?

Michelle Mickelson (24m 1s):
Yes, I’d like to, to call and have a conversation with the librarians there. They have that local expertise, they know what collections are available. Some of them offer research services, not all of them, but quite a few do. and I found ’em to be so helpful and so nice. One of my favorite historical societies, there’s the NGS here in Utah and the, the California library, they hold a lot of classes, webinars that are specific to, for example, European ancestry or they have Hispanic ancestry or just a lot of different cultures.

Michelle Mickelson (24m 47s):
That’s the beauty of the, the local, the on ground repositories if you will. Memberships are often required to attend these or maybe for, for a higher price. They’ll let you attend a webinar. But those restrictions are easy to work around. And by becoming a member you get the information about upcoming events and special things that are happening throughout the year. And then I think it’s also important too, once we find the records of our ancestors, it’s important to, to share and to contribute our findings with these societies that helped us. It’s a wonderful way to give back and to to make sure that our history is preserved for, for future generations.

Diana (25m 35s):
Right. and I have met with many, many genealogical societies all over the country as I’ve been giving talks for them. And I’m always so interested to hear what specific record collections they have and what they are doing in their community, in their area. So that’s neat that you’ve given us that tip to call and talk to someone and really see what they have. They’re the ones that know what they have to help you. So, I. Love that idea. Well, let’s talk a little bit here as we’re wrapping up this section on these types of records. We’ve talked a little bit about libraries, but you mentioned in your blog post specialized libraries and their collections.

Diana (26m 16s):
So what do we have in the Southwest that’s kind of exciting and interesting with this idea of specialized libraries?

Michelle Mickelson (26m 24s):
Yeah, these are fantastic for targeted research. So if you’re looking for specific ethnicities or religions or occupations, they have a lot of rare and valuable resources. So think of, you know, outside of the usual, there are Chinese records, there are railroad records of the employees that work there. We also have Jewish research in the Southwest. And the types of things that can, can help in that kind of research are the rare books we kind of discussed on with the University of Utah Library. But periodicals, they provide context.

Michelle Mickelson (27m 6s):
Libraries are really fantastic because they, many of them contain online catalogs to their digital collections and they can help, you know what again to put in our research plans that can help you make the most of, of their specialized collections. And according to our, our research interest, it’s important to remember that each library has its own rules and systems like we talked about earlier. So take time to understand how to navigate and utilize those to our advantage.

Diana (27m 43s):
Well I know one of the special libraries that I’ve been to here in Utah is the Daughters of Utah pioneers. And that’s really fun because it’s got, some of my ancestors have files there with handwritten histories by their descendants and there’s just pictures, all sorts of neat things. So it really is worth your time to, to delve into some of those specialized libraries or collections to see what you can find.

Michelle Mickelson (28m 11s):
And that one’s fun too because in that pioneer database there are records of the wagon trains and the diaries of, of those that were in charge. And it’s a real easy collection to, to look up. It’s really user friendly and yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s a favorite as well.

Diana (28m 31s):
It is it’s fun and if you’re going to a new place, it might be fun to see what’s available there. I love just going to a random museum wherever I’m at and seeing what, what I can learn. So I, think it’s time that we do a bit of a case study here and talk about how we bring all this together and I, I think you have got something really interesting to share with us.

Michelle Mickelson (28m 57s):
Yes, I have really come to appreciate my diverse cultural roots. I am a California girl who grew up with a Ukrainian surname. I lived nine months of the year in a rural farming community near the mountains of Utah. And three months of the year in the California suburbs not far from the Pacific Ocean. My paternal Ukrainian Canadian grandfather married the daughter of immigrant parents from Norway in Mexico. So I have a very diverse background and they both died before I turned two. I had a particular fascination with my paternal grandmother’s Mexican roots.

Michelle Mickelson (29m 42s):
The family didn’t talk a whole lot about my grandparents, I think because of the, the pain and the, the sadness that went along with their passing. They, they both died very close before I turned two. and I did hear stories of my grandmother, Esther and and Tony coming across the border from Mexico and starting a new life in America. Antonia was a widow with five children and this was during the, the Mexican war that they came and crossed the border and So I used federal, state and local records to kind of help me piece together their lives as I discovered later on in my adult life.

Michelle Mickelson (30m 26s):
So census records showed me the family here in 1920 and that provided details of Anton’s age where she was from her family structure and her widowed status. Esther was not found, I did not find her until a marriage record surfaced in Arizona. But by 1930 the census told me that Antonio, Antonio, sorry, her father’s name was Antonio. So very tricky to, to keep those two A apart. But Antonia moved to San Francisco, California by 1930 and she rented an apartment and lived with her two teenage grandsons who came across the border with her.

Michelle Mickelson (31m 15s):
Esther was still in Arizona with her spouse and five of her six children, including my grandmother who was age two. And then by 1940 I learned that Antonia remained in San Francisco and her daughter had joined her with, with the grandson that they immigrated together with. Esther stayed in Arizona with her spouse and her six children. My grandmother was, was then 12 And. it was fun to find Esther and her spouse in Phoenix in city directories.

Michelle Mickelson (31m 57s):
And. it was even more fun to pour through immigration records. I learned that Antonia arrived, the records were in tandem, like the numbers, each person had a page and they wrote the information about them. And so it wasn’t until I put all of those five records together that I realized that they came together as a family. And that was a really fun discovery both Esther and Antonia later naturalized. And those records were really amazing to find. It contained their birth information, their marriage information, which led me then back to Esther’s marriage in the 1920s.

Michelle Mickelson (32m 47s):
It contained their residence. Lots of things about their children. They’re just rich in history.

Diana (32m 53s):
So Michelle just kind of remind us, so Esther is your grandmother?

Michelle Mickelson (32m 59s):
Esther is my great-grandmother and Antonia is my second great-grandmother. Okay,

Diana (33m 6s):
So Esther is Antonia’s daughter. And so as you were doing this research, it sounds like you just kind of would find one piece that would lead you to another piece until you gradually put it all together. That’s what it’s sounding like. And I’m so curious, what kind of immigration record was that? A Mexican, like a Mexican border crossing record coming into the US that you found?

Michelle Mickelson (33m 29s):
It was, it was a manifest. They crossed the border in Nogales and they take all the information of like their personal descriptions.

Diana (33m 40s):
I have, I have done a project there, you know, it was a Texas Mexican project. But those records are great. If you can find those, those can give you a lot of good information. They

Michelle Mickelson (33m 50s):
Are and I think Esther’s, I still have to work through hers because there were multiple Esters with her same last name and I think she came through Eagle Pass in Texas. Oh, okay. So ooh, maybe we need to coordinate and work through that together. Maybe you can help me out. But that’s why I haven’t quite found hers yet because she was single. She probably came with family cousins. Oh,

Diana (34m 11s):
Interesting.

Michelle Mickelson (34m 11s):
Those were a lot of fun.

Diana (34m 13s):
That’s great. Well what other records did you find for this family?

Michelle Mickelson (34m 17s):
So Esther’s spouse was 54 and he had to register for the military. I found a registration card and that confirmed her residence in Arizona and her marriage to her spouse Edward. Then that led me to vital records, their marriage, the birth of their children. Arizona has such a great database, even though their vital records are restricted, they do have a database that you can go back online and just search ’em like you were at Family Search. They’re easy to find, they’re available and I was able to find all of their children in that database.

Michelle Mickelson (34m 59s):
Esther and Antonia both died in California. So I was able to then kind of learn more about Esther’s relationship with her spouse. They did divorce in Arizona and she moved to California and, and spent her last years there. In fact, I remember seeing her as a young child with my aunts and uncles whose parents had passed away. So maybe that’s where my, my fascination came from. She didn’t, didn’t talk a whole lot but she was there and she helped out. And her death record led to a funeral home record that contained her parents’ names, her birth information.

Michelle Mickelson (35m 40s):
It gave me her spouse’s information, her occupation, the cemetery she was buried at. It was interesting ’cause she was in San Francisco and San Francisco at one point relocated their cemeteries. There are no cemeteries in San Francisco because they wanted to free up the real estate. And that was an interesting find. So she’s buried outside of San Francisco where she lived in another area. And so newspapers again were helpful in finding that and kind of piecing together, you know, the death record, the funeral home and the newspaper information just really brings into context.

Diana (36m 19s):
That’s so interesting. I had no idea that all the cemeteries were relocated in San Francisco, but that makes sense, doesn’t it? Because the land’s covered up with people and buildings. Oh, so interesting. Well I just have been thinking this whole time that you are researching in probably some records that are not in English. So you had to overcome some language barriers and I can imagine you had some things you had to learn. So how did you deal with that?

Michelle Mickelson (36m 48s):
Yes, So, I learned some Spanish terms and one of the things that really helped me out was family search has the genealogy word list in a lot of languages. Spanish is one of them. So when Antonio across the border, she was marked as a viuda they call it, which is a widow. and I didn’t know what that was. So I was able to look that up and, and then I knew that her, it was ’cause her husband had passed. They don’t know what happened to him. He may have been killed during the revolution. That’s still a mystery. That is another research project. But those Spanish terms helped me in finding the records of her family over in Mexico.

Michelle Mickelson (37m 32s):
Their naming patterns are also very unique. Each generation of children has a unique double surname. It’s the way they put the bride’s surname with the, the groom’s surname. And so each child is different and that was key in finding her family back in Mexico. Same names were also a big challenge. Like I said, there were multiple Esthers, which I think Esther? Esther to me is not a Spanish name. I still have yet to figure out where that came from, but I

Diana (38m 5s):
Was thinking the same thing. I’m surprised that that was a popular name. Yeah,

Michelle Mickelson (38m 10s):
I don’t know the history behind that because that was in Mexico. Right. So, and since we’re studying American records, I, I still have yet to do that. But I learned that using those word lists were really helpful. And the other website that was key for me was the BYU script tutorial. They have an amazing language learning program that even an English speaker like me, who has never learned another language, can go and learn how to decipher genealogical terms, dates, months, places, occupations. I took a good four to five years just reading through those to learn how to read the Spanish part.

Michelle Mickelson (38m 54s):
Now I’m sure there’s a faster way, but genealogically speaking that that was key for me. And then, you know, implementing maps and bringing in the newspaper articles, you know, from the local area was really helpful in bringing all of that together.

Diana (39m 10s):
Well that’s great. That’s so neat to hear about somebody else’s research project and something that you learned. and I can just tell that all along the way you were trying to learn about all of these things that you had, you know, learning the different language and the different areas and locations and different types of records. So that’s always fun to hear how you can really break through some of these brick wall challenges just with good research.

Michelle Mickelson (39m 38s):
Yeah, and it’s just being patient, it’s just working with others. It’s such a great community. We really are lucky to work with a lot of different skill sets and where I struggle in one area, I find another genealogist that can help me in that area. And, and it’s so fun to work together. Yeah. To come to those conclusions and to make those breakthroughs. One of the breakthroughs that was fun, not only in the immigration records with the family members coming across the border, Antonio kind of went back and forth. And so one of the later records actually named her married daughter Esther in Arizona, and then also named her son who went back to Mexico and settled there.

Michelle Mickelson (40m 25s):
So it kind of gives you that relationship across borders, which was really interesting. And then her funeral records led to a social security application that confirmed her parents. These are all records in the United States that helped learn that vital information that happened in a, in another country. And what’s interesting is her parents, so wow, this is even going back to the third great grandparent generation. They actually lived in what they call Mexico, then the United States acquired that land. So even though they never moved, they became American citizens just because of, of where they were at.

Michelle Mickelson (41m 9s):
And so it was interesting to, to see the birth locations and you really have to pay attention to dates and jurisdictions like, you know, kind of to bring it full circle with the, the records here. Not only do we have different vital record dates, but the jurisdictional changes during the territorial period and then during, you know, when the United States acquired these, these various territories really have to be a good detective. And yes, it’s, it’s a great area. Lots of culture, lots of fun things to, to learn about the Southwest.

Diana (41m 44s):
Oh, that’s so great. Well it’s been fun thinking about all the different record collections, the methodologies. You’ve shared a lot of different ideas with us. So Thank you so much Michelle and we’re looking forward to learning more about strategies to research in the Southwest and subsequent podcast episodes. So Thank you so much for being here with us.

Michelle Mickelson (42m 6s):
It was my pleasure. And remember every record, every archive has a story to tell. So happy researching to everyone out there on their journey to uncover their family’s past.

Diana (42m 18s):
All right, well Thank you so much. Thanks for listening everyone, and we will talk to you next time. Bye-Bye

Michelle Mickelson (42m 24s):
Bye.

Nicole (42m 26s):
Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DA on amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses To get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.