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In August 2005, the Indiana Historical Society and the Indiana Genealogical Society sponsored the Midwestern Roots conference in Indianapolis. The evening before the conference officially began, IHS hosted a panel discussion titled “History? Genealogy? Why not both?” which featured Curt Witcher and Elizabeth Shown Mills (with the genealogy point of view) and James Madison and Marianne Wokeck (with the history point of view). M. Teresa Baer’s opening comments and papers by Curt Witcher and Elizabeth Mills are available at http://www.iub.edu/%7Eimaghist/online_content/online_June_2007.html.
I attended the session and found all four participants interesting. What I took away from the discussion was the lack of animosity between the two fields. Contrary to what is sometimes “popular notion,” academic historians do not necessarily automatically scoff at anything smacking of genealogy.
My recent experiences also bear this out. I recently returned to school to finish my history degree and was a bit nervous about “admitting” to my professors that I am a genealogist. So far, I am 2 for 2 in having professors who did not see anything wrong with that. In fact, both professors were quite receptive. In a discussion with one, he expressed gratitude to genealogists. “Without them, we likely wouldn’t have as many wonderful resources available online.” The first assignment in my class this quarter was to read and analyze Tamara Miller’s chapter from “Midwestern Women” (Indiana University Press, 1997) titled “Those with Whom I Feel Most Nearly Connected.” In it, Miller analyzes family structure of early settlers in Marietta, Ohio. She uses sources and methods common to genealogists — and makes no apologies for it.
There is certainly a lot that each field can learn and use from the other. Further, I think that each field is increasingly aware of that.
With the advent of Ken Burns’ new WWII documentary, The War, we are certain to see more and more projects to capture the memories of WWII veterans. When you consider that they are dying at the rate of approximately 1,000 per day, you realize how important it is that we talk to them now. Tomorrow may be too late…
One project is a collaborative effort of the PBS stations in Ohio. They have created a website – www.ohiowarstories.org – which features videos of interviews with veterans as well as civilians who assisted the war effort from the homefront. There are some truly powerful stories.
If you are a WWII vet or know one, record the stories now. Future generations should know what they did.
WeRelate.org is a relatively new site with a lot of potential. It is based on a wiki model, which will make it very easy for researchers to collaborate on common areas of interest.
I’ve just dabbled with putting up some ancestors. I had to include my “famous” Matilda Debolt Skinner Crossen Brown McFillen. (Famous only in the sense that I tell so many people about her and she’s one of the few “out of the ordinary” ancestors I seem to have!)
One thing that I am considering doing (in my copious amounts of spare time – ha!) is to post members of the 1st Ohio Heavy Artillery. I collect information about them when I come across it. The research isn’t very “serious,” but it would be nice to have a place where I can post what I have and allow others to contribute, especially since there isn’t very much written about the 1st OHA.
The other part of WeRelate.org is its genealogy search engine. Think of it as “Google for genealogy.” Somehow, they have created an Internet search engine that will search just genealogy and history sites. They do acknowledge that there is a percentage of non-relevant sites included in the search, but your chances of finding something meaningful is much higher with their search engine than with a general one like Google.
Oh, did I mention it’s free?
I posted my 25th waymark today — Jefferson Cemetery, Blacklick, Ohio (WM24NE). Seems rather appropriate that my 25th waymark would be a cemetery 
I read on a fellow waymarker’s blog the other day that waymarking is like eating potato chips — you can’t stop with just one (or even a few!) I’ve come to realize the truth of that statement!
When I set up this blog, I was drawn to the MistyLook template by Sadish [NOTE: I have since changed to Tarski 1.1.3 by Benedict Eastaugh and Chris Sternal-Johnson]. One of the things I liked was how easy it is to change the graphic at the top. I’ll likely change it from time to time. The photo that is currently at the top is Camp Chase Cemetery on Sullivant Avenue in Columbus. This particular photo is a crop of a photo I took there in October 2004.
Camp Chase was a Civil War recruitment and training camp and a prison for Confederates. According to OhioHistoryCentral, in 1863 more than 8,000 men were imprisoned there. Records for Camp Chase can be found at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus.
The cemetery has approximately 2,260 burials. You can find pictures of individual tombstones at Leona Gustafson’s site.
It is hard to get the scale of the cemetery without going there in person.
Parking can be found on side streets off of Sullivant Avenue.
