Making Connections

Our Greatest Hit

I have had a subscription to your wonderful magazine since it was first published. I have learned a lot from each issue. But I had to let you know that the article entitled “Hitting Home” by Nancy Hendrickson (February 2004) has helped me more than anything you have published.

Being of an older generation, I am not very swift on the computer. Ms. Hendrickson’s article has shown me ways of finding information that I never would have known — and I dare say, not a whole lot of others would have known. It is amazing how much information I have been able to obtain using Ms. Hendrickson’s methods.

Please consider spotlighting a few states in each issue (for example, my native Alabama) and having someone like Ms. Hendrickson write an article about the best ways to research family history in that particular state, using actual examples.

Again, your magazine is magnificent, and Ms. Hendrickson’s article is wonderful and informative.

Open for Discussion

This is in response to the Branching Out article concerning the new research room at the National Archives in the February 2004 issue of Family Tree Magazine. While it is important to know the new facility is open, several issues need clarification.

The comment that the new microfilm readers feature laptop computer hookups is misleading. There are electrical outlets in each workstation that will allow you to plug in your computer. But it’s really stretching to say this is a computer hookup.

The listed microfilm publications were available in the old microfilm reading room.

A serious error is the comment about the compiled military service records. There are no compiled military service records past the Philippine Insurrection in 1902. For the Regular Army enlisted soldier, the enlistment papers run until Oct. 31, 1912, and the Registers of Enlistments until 1914. After that date, all records are at the National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, MO 63132.

Editor’s note: For an update on the National Archives’ new Research Center, see our room-by-room guide in this issue.

Poor Diagnosis

In an article in the December 2003 issue of Family Tree Magazine (“The Mystery of the Melungeons”), Jennifer Churchill reported that Melungeon Research Committee founder N. Brent Kennedy said he discovered his Melungeon past after being diagnosed with sarcoidosis, “a disease found only in people of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean descent.” I take exception to this statement because I also have sarcoidosis and am not of this ancestry.

When I asked my pulmonary specialist, he said that sarcoidosis is found throughout the world, not just in any one region. A friend of mine looked up the disease on the Internet and came up with the same answer.

I am not questioning Mr. Kennedy’s pedigree, but having sarcoidosis does not automatically link his ancestry to any specific part of the world.

Understandably Enthusiastic

May I say that I love Family Tree Magazine! I walked by the magazine rack in a grocery store a few months ago and spied Family Tree Magazine. Being a genealogist, I was curious, picked it up, skimmed through it and thought, “I’ve got to have that!” I bought it, read it and subscribed ASAP. Not only do you supply a wealth of information, but your editors and writers do not assume that the reader immediately knows exactly what they are talking about. Things are explained very well, so that even a novice can understand. It’s the best publication of its kind I’ve ever seen, bar none. Congratulations — keep up the good work!

From the June 2004 Family Tree Magazine