Queries Can Find Your Answers

January 22nd, 1995

QUERIES CAN FIND YOUR ANSWERS

Placing a query or a question in a genealogical journal or newsletter can often be the only way one ever finds other people who are working on the same family that you are. Sometimes they may know less than you, but since you did not know about them, they could have started from an entirely different source of information. A typical query might read: “Looking for relatives of Georgia Governor James Milton Smith (d. 1890).” Over the recent holidays, I found several important queries in Georgia’s most important query source, “Family Puzzlers”. Edited for 20 years by Mary Bondurant Warren, it is mailed weekly (making it Georgia and the south’s only weekly genealogy magazine) to about 10,000 subscribers and thus a query placed there has a much better chance of producing a reply. A query is limited to 50 words, but is free to subscribers. All previous queries are on file by surname. Subscription is $37.10 for Ga. residents at Heritage Papers, P.O. Box 7776, Athens, Ga. 30604-7776. There is also a catalog of books available on a variety of topics.
Update: Family Puzzlers is no longer being published. The files related to this publication can be found at the Hargrett Library at the University of Georigia.

Another major query source is “Southern Queries” now beginning its 6th year. The editor is Steve Smith. There are six issues a year, each with an introductory essay about a record source or a visit to a particular library in the southeast. There are also book reviews and a calendar. Each issue contains about 300 queries. It well worth the subscription to place your own query as often as possible. Usually, I find so many queries I want to reply to that I get bogged down trying to respond. Its worth a try for a year. A subscription is $24, to Southern Queries, P.O.Box 726, Durham, N.C. 27702-0726.

Veterans Project

The Odum Library in Moultrie, one of the fastest growing genealogy libraries in Georgia, has recently announced a new project, through their free newspaper/newsletter “Family Tree”. The library is sponsoring a local history project to collect information on and to honor the veterans from Colquitt County. Any veteran with any link to the county: birth, marriage, residence, or enlistment, or their kin, are invited to send information. They would also like a photograph. This could be a good model for other communities to follow. This one originated through a high school reunion. For further information, or to get on the mailing list for their free newsletter, write the Odum Library, P.O. Box 1110, Moultrie, Ga. 31776.

NEWSPAPER ABSTRACTS

Genealogical abstracts from the “Georgia Journal”, published in Milledgeville, then the state’s capital, have been published in a series of books. The first three volumes are once again available for purchase, since they were originally published in a limited edition. Vol. I covers 1809-1818, Vol. II (1819-1823) and Vol. III (1824-1828). Each is $60 plus $4 for postage and tax. The series, originally abstracted and published with a Taylor Foundation grant by Fred and Emilie Hartz, is being reprinted and continued by Tad Evans, 1506 Stillwood Dr., Savannah, Ga. 31419.
Update: Address valid in 2011.