femkes_follies | Research Skills

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research

Research Skills

I really do appreciate all the nudges and leg-ups I've been given as I try to expand my research skills. And I'm glad other people are finding some of the info useful/enjoyable. The plan is for a web page coming this fall/winter.

Toward that end, I wonder what advice you all may have in regards to finding period wills that might list clothing items or other fun stuff.

Parte the First - If you know the inventory number of the manuscript, how do you locate it? And what are the chances that, having located it, you might be able to obtain a copy? Most importantly, at a decent rate. The Bodleian has an Album AMicorum that looks interesting, but I'm not up for shelling out $60-70 if I don't know if it will be useful

Parte the Second - How do you systematically search for extant documents, like wills, that may not be obviously costume-related? And while I'm at it, other than the Alcega, Enns, and Milan books, are there other extant tailor's books anyone knows of? Has anybody spent any time at all looking into the Polish one in L.A.?

One other tidbit that's been knocking around in my brain. I noticed, when comparing, that the "Cheese Museum" ladies are all in dark colors, though none in blue. The ladies in Bruyn's Trachtenbuch are VERY often in blue. And a bit of yellow/ochre is not uncommon. Is this just a factor of those colors preferred by the artist? Or are we seeing a difference in dress? The Cheese Ladies appear to be middle class, in what Dad would call "Sunday-go-ta-meetin'" dresses. And dark aprons. The trachtenbuch ladies are sort of all over the map classwise. And there aren't enough Dutch ladies to REALLY get a feel. Is it just a Nord-Holland thing that eschews blue? Or is it a more work-a-day color, perhaps due to the cost of the dye. Which doesn't QUITE add up, as some of the Flemish ladies are in red in the trachtenbuch. And one of the Cheese Ladies was in Dark green, I think. Which is most likely to be weld over indigo or woad.

?!?!?!?

I'm chasing my tail here, if anybody has any thoughts, I'd be interested.

EDIT: I did find THIS one, which is interesting. I wonder how "German" the German cloak is.

http://www.vertetsable.com/research_freyle.htm

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Parte the First - If you know the inventory number of the manuscript, how do you locate it?

I don't have a surefire way, but googling the manuscript number may help! Sometimes a citation will list a museum, library or archive and I start looking and writing there. However, I usually do find many answers on worldcat including facsimiles so a search there is more often useful than not.

Parte the Second - How do you systematically search for extant documents, like wills, that may not be obviously costume-related?

I have been doing the ferret tunnel through an old bibliography of inventories - you can see some of the items I have been working on:

http://jillwheezul.livejournal.com/tag/inventory

There is a large body of work untouched in terms of wills and inventories from the 16th century. This sort of work, however, is not necessarily easy and requires a learning curve.

First you have to figure out where to get the records. Since my family is LDS (Mormon) and I went to a church school, I learned how to read records as part of the church's family history program. The church maintains local "Family History Centers" that are small libraries housed in the churches throughout the world. They are equipped with microfilm and microfiche readers, microfilm copiers, computers, CD's with US vital records and useful reference books as well as a "little old lady" whose life passion generally is genealogical research. These family history centers are free to use, open to the public regardless of denomination and it isn't religiously pushy in anyway. It is a library and perhaps more than half the people who come in are non-members. (I worked as a librarian for about 15 years, and decided to wait until little old lady status before trying that again.) You can order microfilms from the main library in Salt Lake City (worth a visit!) for $3.50 for 2 weeks and you can renew it for about $7 more for an indefinite amount of time. The card catalog is based mostly on locality, so if, like me, you are researching Zwickau, you will use that as a key search. There are many microfilms of wills preserved on microfilm because they supplement the meager early church records and also provide familial ties and information. Sometimes there are what seem to be an entire room of them on film, so it is good to have a starting plan with a somewhat narrow focus and build from there. You can find the local Family History Center by looking in the phone book for "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", calling and asking for the Family History Center or the "genealogy library" as it is more commonly called among Mormon folk. You can look at the catalog for the Main library in Salt Lake at http://www.familysearch.org .

Second, you have to be able to read the old handwriting. Sometimes easier said than done. There are genealogical source books with samples of old alphabets and dictionaries of terms you might find - but usually the definied terms will be related to profession or relationship, not household goods. But still most useful for learning. My counsel was always to try to create a sample alphabet from the document you are looking at. When helping others, I must always sit and stare at the thing until the words start to pop out. I usually start by looking at names because they are fairly stable and there are many common ones like John/Johan or Mary/Maria etc.

Third, once you can actually READ the letters and words on the document says, then it helps to know the language so you can understand the content. It also helps in word recognition.

Fourth, an understanding of archaic usage is also necessary because the differences between modern language and 16th century language can be significant. Not all English foreign speakers can understand Shakespeare when they read it!

All of this takes practice and so many people give up after one look. It isn't hard, just a series of skills that need to be learned which develop over time and repetition.

I may be able to use the catalog idea. Lucky for me the Dutch provinces still cover a fairly small geographic area.

I've been doing scribal stuff for quite a while, and I've got some practice building my own ductus. Paleography is sort of another hobby of mine. ;-) I can manage archaic English. Other languages will be the nosebleed portion of the learning curve. I usually do better with Dutch or Fries than German.

Thanks for the new goodies to pursue!!

I've spent a little tiny bit of time rummaging.

Is there any way to access some of that info without physically going to Salt Lake City?

I've spent a little tiny bit of time rummaging.

Is there any way to access some of that info without physically going to Salt Lake City?

Let's start with a place name - perhaps from one of the Dutch ladies, but not too large of a city? If you'll give me an example, I'll guide you through how to find the goodies. Then there will be no stopping you!

Probably Beets, Edam, or Benninzbroek. I'm not sure how many of these tiny towns even still exist.

The first step in doing a locational search is to get a modern map and start to look for it. I just google to see if the town has a website and find out the administrative structure for a town, which will be important for finding the records. Something I never learned in high school is that a gazeteer

For example, I live in Canby, Oregon - in Clackamas county. In modern times my vital records are handled by the state, and my marriage records are probably also located in the county where I was married. So if I were in the future looking for me I'd have to know to look in the state capital in Salem or the county courthouse in Oregon City, assuming that I was born here and had these events occur here.

(I'll just go stream of consciousness here:)
So, we'll start with Beets, Netherlands.
http://www.familysearch.org
click library tab
click Family History Library Catalog in the banner below the tab
click place search
type: Beets as part of Netherlands
The computer returned:
Netherlands, Friesland, Beets
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Beets

I don't know enough about the Netherlands to be able to know the difference and they could possibly be the same place with different names. At this point I could google for more information, or I might actually know that I wanted the Friesland version, so I am going to click there.

The computer returned as links:

Place Netherlands, Friesland, Beets

References: (See Also) Netherlands, Friesland, Opsterland
Topics: Netherlands, Friesland, Beets - Church records
Netherlands, Friesland, Beets - Names, Personal

This tells me a couple of things - Beets is in Friesland, and is associated with another record center Opsterland (which guessing now, might be an administrative district). Generally wills and probate records are not kept in the little towns, but rather in the next designation. (So in my personal example, probate is kept in the county courthouse in Oregon City and not Canby where I live). When I clicked on the church records link I saw that they do go back to the 16th century, so this is an encouraging sign that there may be probates microfilmed too.

Okay time to google. There is a Wikipedia entry! It tells me that it is in the municipality of Zeevand and in Noord-Holland province. But first I am going to click the see also link to "(See Also) Netherlands, Friesland, Opsterland ". Ah ha. There are the court records for the area. Back to the wikipedia where I discover that there are 2 Beets, which is the reason for the 2 entries. Sometimes it just means that they are just classified differently and it pulls up 2 separate results for each area. When I click on the Nord-Holland Beets back from my original search the court records show up on this search. So when I click on the links provided on either of the court records (either the Opsterland/Friesland or the Nord-Holland) I see that the Nord-Holland query is a little weird because usually you just pick up microfilm or call numbers:

Topic
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Beets - Court records
Titles
Schepenakten, 1357-1850 / Hoorn (Noord-Holland). Schepenbank
© 2002 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

Since there is a copyright and a recent date, this could be an internet file, and it is worth contacting the Salt Lake library to find out how to access the data.

Back now to the Friesland Beets and the court records I found under Opsterland -

The return is (I've abbreviated for what I want to see):
Title: Rechterlijke registers, 1577-1812
Physical: op 12 microfilmspoelen ; 16 mm.

Okay so the rechterlijke (and I don't know what this is either so here is where building the limited legal vocabulary you will need comes into play). Let's just assume we want to order these. One must click on the "film notes" button in the upper right hand corner of the page.

End part one - my post is too long

Thank you:) I just tried Nijmegen as my mum will be going to see her mum next month and I can get her to try for information on my behalf. I found a few leads to where she can go in the city itself.

Start part 2

Out of the notes I pick up on the word inventory here but am not quite sure of what. If I were on the hunt I'd be careful and translate to get a better idea of whatever this might be:

Akten van nalatenschappen inv. nr. J 1727-1801 Inventarissen en boedelpapieren inv. nr. L 1584-1811 Boelgoeden inv. nr. O 1807,1810 Publicaties van verkopingen en verhuringen inv. nr. P 1807,1810 Proclamatieboeken inv. nr. Q1-Q2 1609-1623

If you wanted to order this film, the film number below is what you would give to the little old lady to order for you! Then they will call when the microfilm comes in and you will have some excitement.

VAULT INTL Film
1692318 Items 5-7

(Films from the vault take up to a week longer to process - so it takes from 3 weeks to a month for them to arrive.)

That's kind of the down and dirty of it and I did somewhat of a loosey-goosey job of this. It's also a good idea to see if you can get a feel for the local history from tour guides and actual written area/town histories. They are jewels sometimes! You may have to resign yourself to learning all the keywords for land, property, relationship, probate, clothing, color, household goods etc. By that time you may just as well learn the whole language :p Do you want to try to look up Edam and see what you can find?

If you wanted to order this film, the film number below is what you would give to the little old lady to order for you! Then they will call when the microfilm comes in and you will have some excitement.

Now, I assume they photocopy the microfilm, rather than sending the film itself, yes?

Akten van nalatenschappen inv. nr. J 1727-1801 Inventarissen en boedelpapieren inv. nr. L 1584-1811 Boelgoeden inv. nr. O 1807,1810 Publicaties van verkopingen en verhuringen inv. nr. P 1807,1810 Proclamatieboeken inv. nr.

Which essentially is: "Deeds of estates inv. nr. J 1727-1801 Inventories and (something - laundry?) papers inv. nr. L 1584-1811 business goods inv. nr. O 1807,1810 Publications of auctions and rents inv. nr. Pen 1807,1810 proclamation book inv. nr."

Edam

I get one option:
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Edam
Which meshes with what I know about Edam. And also the fact that according to the Cheese People all 24 pictures are ladies from Noord-Holland.

Hmm, no direct "Court Records" link. I get:

Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Edam - Archives and libraries - Inventories, registers, catalogs
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Edam - Church records
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Edam - Church records - Inventories, registers, catalogs
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Edam - Civil registration
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Edam - Notarial records
Netherlands, Noord-Holland, Edam - Taxation

Under "Civil Registration" I get:

Registers van de Burgerlijke Administratie, 1581-1811 Edam (Noord-Holland). Schepenbank

Roughly:
Records of the Middle-class Administration, 1581-1811
These are apparently marriage and death records.

Hah, the Notarial records look more promising. The 1574-1575 film is apparently in the vault:

VAULT INTL Film 999276

And wow, the Court records for Oudendijk go back to 1357. There are films and films of them. Yipes!

Enkhuisen isn't bad either.

So I guess my question is, HOW to I contact someone in regards to obtaining materials and WHAT exactly do I get?

Probably not. I want a facsimilie of an invoice book but have to buy the entire microfilm.

Use the family history center locator to find a family history center near you:

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp

I note the hours are listed, but you might want to call to be sure.

Head on down to the Family History Center. Tell the little old lady that you want to order some microfilm and have the film numbers that you have looked up. They will think you are wanting to do genealogy and may be confused by a long story. Of course, it will depend on who is there ('cuz, you know, it could be someone like me) but a safe thing to say is "I want to look at the records of xyz for this time period" and let them assume you are looking for actual people rather than things.

The librarian will have you fill out a small form to order the microfilm. Last I knew it was $3.50 for a 3 week loan, and $3.50 to renew for 6 months and then finally a final $3.50 if you want to keep it indefinitely. You will receive (depending on what you order) microfilm rolls that are duplicates of the originals held in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Mormons are record keepers and they had a vision to store the records of the world's peoples in a granite vault in the wilds of Utah. Odd, perhaps, but also visionary given what we did see in the world in the 20th century... There will be microfilm readers there, as well as microfiche readers, most likely a microfilm "printer" that gives you a paper copy (but are 25 cents or so each). Last time I was in Salt Lake I saw a bright man take digital photos with his camera. Clever, clever! You may have a portable scanner with a slider option that could also scan the microfilm to go with a laptop. They do not let you remove the films from the library.

With your first visit you may want to bring in family information and actually have something to show the librarian so that she/he can give you a tour. Be sure to take the time to read through the books on the shelves. These are the reference books they have gathered there, and Salt Lake doesn't lend their books. However, you can find more on Worldcat bookwise than you can in their library, except maybe for specific family histories.

Hmmm, no slider scanner. *sigh* Though I might ask Lisa what her toy list includes. I AM wondering how to get pictures w/o a glare. I may have to fiddle with my digicam and figure out how to turn the flash OFF.

Current price list is $5.50 per film, $5.50 renewal. I bet that has something to do with postage and distance from SLC. This will require planning. I'm betting that the local center may have quite a bit of reference material I'd find useful. This area is steeped in Dutch immigrants. (Lead singer of Bare Naked Ladies at a Calvin College Concert: "You know what You all need? Ya need more Blonde People!" - as he stared out at a sea of blonde). Big downside: The local Family History Center is the freakin' 'hood. I'm not sure the one in Grand Rapids is a LOT better. I might have to do a drive-by and check before I decide which to have stuff sent to.

Thanks! Cool stuff!

The lack of blue could also be related to the cost of the paint; if these paintings weren't made for a wealthy benefactor it's likely the artist would have been interested in saving money by avoiding more expensive pigments. Remember that pretty Lapis blue cost more than the same weight of gold!

Just a thought. They did look like they had a fairly limited color pallet in the paintings, it might also have been an artistic choice to keep them all in the same or similar colors.

That did occur to me. Though Lapis was hardly the only blue pigment available. Indigo works fairly well, as do some of the copper clues. So I'm not sure. Cennini has a number of recipes, as does the Dutch Boke of Secrets.

I'd almost be more inclined to think it was deliberate on the part of the artist. I wonder who he painted them for. It seems like an odd undertaking unless it WAS a commission. But who can tell at this point?

Or maybe more likely that the dresses in that province were infrequently blue. If you look at later Dutch provincial costumes, it's not a color that comes up much. Black, red, yellow, and green are much more frequent.

But those cheaper blues changed colour over time:) That's why we have a number of greenish brown backgrounds;) The blue in inks was much more light fast. I think it is mostly down to materials. I find a lot of blue in textiles for example.

As for how to find, I've been doing a really wide net search for phrases that might pop up in wills and inventories. item/iten/ytem and then the object. It's turned up a few gems and a few "bugger can't they just let us look at the whole page at least" snippets in google books.

I have found a few other gems in google books by looking for buckram. I found one of the Marys' wardrobe accounts from when she was a princess (Henry's sister/daughter/neice can't recall which.) Also a list of materials used for festivals. I think I tried a couple of variations on the term.

Because I live just so far away from Europe and am surrounded by sea for that matter I've pretty much not bothered about ILL from Europe. I can try with my library but also being a local rather than University library it's less likely to happen too.

I'm feeling a bit disgruntled that my Alma Mater doesn't offer any additional privileges for Alumni. You'd think after what 8 years of education cost me, I'd be worth something to them. *sigh*

I probably need to shake down my Aunt Janice for help. She's been doing geneaological research for years and has somebody overseas that hunts down and translate documents for her. Unfortunately, she and Dad are kind of butting heads right now. So I think I'll wait a bit, as I REALLY don't want to get involved in this particular sibling spat. Once I get her full and undivided attention, I might see if I can get her little helper to go seek out copies of stuff _I_ want and send them on.

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Research Skills

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