I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we get a lot of historical and genealogical research requests, working in the Archives. They range from simple (“Can you make a copy of this page from The Wonder of Williams: The History of Williams County?”) to the complicated (“I was in here once ten years ago and looked through five different collections, where I found a letter from a woman homesteader. I should have made a copy of it then…can you help me find it now?”).

Warning: This post is interactive, with few pictures and lots of color.

Knowing where and how to look, and what your sources and available options are, will help you to get started in any quest. We do have a lot to draw from, as you may recall from my mini tour of the Archives in my first post—newspapers, manuscript collections of all sorts of topics, state records, pictures, film, audio, posters, scrapbooks, etc. So, where do you start?

The answer is…it depends. Not every path works for every type of research. The key is to get as much information as possible, and then start looking wherever you can, in whatever might apply.

Doing research often kind of reminds me of reading a Choose Your Own Adventure Book. When I was younger, these books were kind of a big deal. You start off with a basic story line, typically written with second person narration. Something occurs (something cataclysmic, of course). Then you get a choice. Like:

You’ve fallen into a well. Your dog is nearby. You…

Call his name, in hopes that he will come to you! Turn to page 5.
Ignore him, and decide to try and climb up the rope you notice hanging down. Turn to page 59.

You can always change your mind, and you can always try something else, so every time you read the book, you get something different. Unless, of course, you read all of the endings first so you could avoid the pitfalls for the character ending in horrible death, and then pick your favorite ending, like I always did. Not quite what you were *supposed* to do, but it worked for me!

Let’s try it. Here’s an example, similar to requests we’ve received (but made up for these purposes):

I want to find out what happened to my grandfather’s sister, who came somewhere around North Dakota sometime after 1870 and may have died or left before 1920. Her name was Ida Hanson, but I don’t know what her name was after she got married (if she got married). Her brother’s name was Ole Hanson. He settled in Wisconsin. Can you help me?

Step 1: Gather Information
Proceeding with this request can be tough on many different levels.

1. We do not know how accurate this information is. There is a line that is walked when individuals rely on a family story. This requestor already has admitted they do not know if Ida married. So we do not know how accurate the requestor’s knowledge is.
2. The information requested is for a woman in the territorial and early statehood days. We have some written records from this time period, but not too many. Also, many records of the time mainly documented a male presence, referring to husbands and fathers over wives and daughters.
3. We may not be able to answer this question simply because it is so broad. If we don’t find something like, say, an obituary or biography, we may not have “what happened” in our collections.
4. Any name Hanson is sort of like John or Jane Smith up here. And might be spelled Hansen, instead

So, what do you do?
Option #1
You assume the requestor is unsure and needs to recheck sources. Contact them by going to the green box.
Option #2
You have already checked with the requestor, or assume the requestor is correct in part or all of the information they have. Go to Step 2.

Step 2: Apply Sources
Now that we are assuming the request is possible, we have to start checking. What can we check? Perhaps we can take a look at a cemetery index to see if there is a death date. But we are not sure where she settled, other than (possibly) North Dakota, and our cemetery indices are by county only. And if she married, when she passed away, she would have been buried under her married name, not her maiden name. The state death index we have access to is 1900 on, and not before. We have some marriage records pre-1925, but not all, and they are separated by county, so we’d need to know some idea of location if we check those sources. So maybe we can take a look at a census record. Through sites like Ancestry.com (which we have a free library subscription access to), we can do keyword searches by name and state and hope for the best.

What do you do?

Option #1
You take a look at the census, and find a match! A few thousand, in fact, and not all match the facts you have. You assume that the first unmarried Ida Hanson (within reason) is a good possibility, and check to see if there is a listing in the death index for a woman who died and has a birth date around the same time. Skip to the orange box, you lucky duck!
Option #2
You check marriage record indices in hopes that you will find an Ida Hanson marrying some bloke that looks right. Of course, you can only do this if you have a county of marriage, so if you don’t, start over! If you do, jump to the purple box.
Option #3
You take a look at some of the other indices available online, like the biography index we use through the Institute of Regional Studies on a whim. Go to the yellow box.
Option #4
You bang your head against a wall a few times, and wish one of your coworkers had taken this request instead. Take something for the headache, and go to the green box.

Step 3: The Solution
So, did you make it to the end? Or did you read all the boxes through, to find the answer quickly? Sometimes, it would be nice to have that option—to jump through to the end of a search—but the journey of research is also part of the joy of the resolution. (I think that’s part of the appeal of these books.) You have earned your answers!

Research can be difficult, and can take many different paths, but using as much information as you have and knowing the different, available avenues can make it easier and fun. Are you ready to start on your own adventure?

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Below is an interview I did with Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site (RRMMSHS) tour guide Jeni Croy. In case you missed her last post (http://blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/pizza-maker-tour-guide), Jeni gives tours of a preserved Cold War-era intercontinental missile launch site in Cooperstown…

What is your job?
My job as a site interpreter is to guide guests from all over the country and the world around our site. I educate and inform them about the Cold War and the strategic importance of our site. I take guests around the topside support building and also down fifty feet below ground into the Launch Control Center where missile crews stayed on alert and were ready and willing to launch missiles. I also take them into the Launch Control Equipment Building (LCEB) and show them the “life support” of the Launch Control Center.

What are our visitors like? Who are they?
Our visitors are awesome. People come from all over to take our guided tours. We have a lot of visitors from the local area; people from Cooperstown often bring their families and friends to visit us. Former missileer and topside personnel also visit us on a regular basis to reminisce and show their families what they did when they worked here. We also get people from all 50 states and from all over the world. This summer season alone I have given tours to people visiting from France, India, New Zealand, England, and Germany. There is no specific age range that comes through our site either. We have a kids program to inform and entertain kids and we also give tours that engage all age groups at the same time.

How do you learn to give a good tour?
Practice, practice, practice, and shadowing other people. When I first started working out here I had taken a speech course, so public speaking wasn’t really an issue. It was getting all the history into my head and somehow making it come out as a fun, upbeat tour that was the hard part. I also learned how to ‘read’ my tours. If I saw they were bored at the start I made sure to put at least one smile on their face and make them laugh; or if they were already excited I just keep the fun going. I have traveled all over the world and taken many different tours. I didn’t want to be a boring “tour guide.”

What are some of the challenges of giving tours?
Making sure that younger generations understand why this site was important is challenging. I try to make sure that they see what their parents went through and understand how far we have come in terms of technology today. For example, we have a piece of equipment down below called Teletype. A teletype is a piece of equipment that linked to a communication network connecting to Strategic Air Command and other Launch Control Centers. I first ask the kids if they text, the answer is almost always yes, and then I introduce them to “the great-great-great-grandfather of texting.”

The Teletype at Oscar Zero

Is talking about nuclear weapons sometimes difficult?
Yes. Sometimes when I talk about the ranks of the people who worked down below (Captain, 1^st and 2^nd Lieutenant) they are kind of shocked. The ranks were not very high and the people who worked down there were usually young and not paid extremely well. When I explain that our missiles were about 27 times more powerful than the atom bomb, people are shocked. Another fact that is hard to talk about is how expendable the people who worked here were. The people who worked topside were not allowed to go below. Since the site was a direct target for a missile they would not survive a hit. The people below ground were young, had relatively low ranks and were not highly paid so if the thick concrete walls and blast doors did not work, they were also expendable. A lot of people have to take a moment to wrap their minds around those tough truths.

What do you hope visitors are learning when they visit RRMMSHS?
I hope that our visitors can see how important these sites were and appreciate the men and women who helped operate them. I hope they can connect the history of this site with what is going on today, as the U.S. is involved in many nuclear issues right now.

Why do you love your job?
I can’t name one specific reason. I love history, so working at a historic site is a dream come true. I love the people I work with; we all work together and get along so well. I love the visitors that come out and support this place. I am a people person so meeting new people from all over the world is a ton of fun. I also love making sure people smile and enjoy my tours while learning about the site. It’s just a great job no matter how you look at it.

What have you learned by working at RRMMSHS?
I have learned so much about nuclear weapons, the Air Force, the history of the area and the people who worked here. I learned how to connect with people and educate them. I’ve learned so much that I can’t list everything!

What are your future career goals and how do they fit in with working at RRMMSHS?
I am currently working on my B.S. in Recreation and Tourism Studies and I hope to help run, preserve and interpret many other historic sites throughout the U.S. or the world. Working at RRMMSHS is a great example of how bringing history back to life can influence people and local tourism. It is also a great example of teamwork and effort because the State Historical Society and our local supporters worked so hard and put so much time and effort into this site. Without both parties’ help, this site would not be what it is today.

Why is RRMMSHS special?
Why isn’t it special?! It gives people a close-up look at a once top secret facility that once controlled weapons of mass destruction. You can’t get much more amazing and special than that.

The Museum Division is offered everything from political buttons to cook cars, and we are grateful that people think about preserving items for future generations through the State Historical Society of North Dakota. The Museum Collections Committee needs to be very selective in what is accepted, since we simply do not have the storage space for everything offered to us, especially large items like pianos and buggies. Here are a few items we recently accepted into our collection.

1. Accession 2015.00054 is a wheelchair once owned by Louise Wike and donated by her granddaughter Peggy Wanner.

Peggy’s grandmother's name was Louise Carlson. She came from Norway by herself when she was 28 years old in 1905. Louise heard about the "Free Land" and figured she would settle there, sell it, and get rich. She worked her way to Dickinson, ND, and settled on a homestead in 1909 on the southwest quarter of 24-144-98 in Billings County.

In 1939, Louise lost her left leg due to varicose veins and diabetes. When she came home from the Dickinson hospital her family bought her a wheelchair. She also had an artificial left leg that she would only put on when she went outside with crutches.

Louise’s wheelchair is shown here with a footrest. The footrest was taken off later so she could use her other foot to move around the house and have her arms free.

2. Accession 2015.00050 consists of a collection of toys from Sylvia Schmid’s childhood and from her children.

Sylvia’s brother received this Buddy L Dump Truck, still with its original paint, for Christmas. The metal headlights are missing because their sister Louise swallowed one of them in December 1947 when she was one year old. That required a trip from Williston to Minot, where the doctor removed the headlight, costing her parents $75. The doctor asked whether he could keep it to add to the collection of all the things he had removed from people's throats.

3. Accession 2015.00036 is bowling team blouses and shirts with various sponsors worn by the donor, Darlene Brown, from 1952 to 2015.

Darlene wore the shirts to league games and tournaments held at Nicola Bowling, the Bismarck Bowling Alley, Capitol Bowling, Midway Bowling, and 10-Spot Bowling Alleys.

Rodger’s Maytag of Bismarck was their bowling team’s sponsor from 1965 to 2003.

"Details create the big picture.”
Sandy Weill, exuberantly successful US businessman and entrepreneur

In the Archaeology and Historic Preservation (A&HP) Division at the State Historical Society we help protect and study old and historic buildings in North Dakota. One of my favorite pastimes is to closely observe details of old structures and share what I’ve learned about them. The connections -the way old buildings are put together- are extremely important details of a building. If a building gets to be old and historic, it is only because the builder had a firm grasp of putting it together so that it would last. Here are some observations on treenails, wrought iron fasteners and rafter connections. Have you observed any structural connections that you thought were interesting?

Treenails, wrought iron fasteners, and rafters joined directly together at the ridge are three now- rare historic structural connections in North Dakota. Treenails are hardwood pins that look like, well, nails made out of trees. They are hammered into holes to secure wooden joints in barns and other buildings made with heavy timbers. The specific wrought iron fastener in today’s blog is the wrought iron loop used to connect a hanger assembly on the deck of the Viking Bridge (Traill County) to the bridge truss. The metal loop eye bar and cables were the only wrought iron used in the bridge, with the rest of the structure being manufactured of steel in Minnesota. The third rare historic connection consists of rafters joined together without the use of a ridge board at the top of a roof. The ridge board was generally adopted around 1900, presumably because nailing the rafters to a board was much faster than the alternative of crafting mortise and tenons for each pair of rafters.

Treenails

Treenails were and are used in timber frame construction to connect heavy wooden posts and beams together. Also called trenails or trunnels, they are long hardwood pins that secure a joint tightly.

Hand carved hardwood treenails in a small timber frame model used to teach kids about timber frame barns.

Treenails hammered in and cut off flush as typically found in timber frame structural members.

Wrought Iron Fasteners

A blacksmith welded the top wrought iron loop found on the side of the Viking Bridge north of Portland in Traill County. He used wrought iron, which was superior to steel for welding purposes.^[1] Viking Bridge was completed in 1885 at a time when metal bridges were quickly becoming popular with county road commissioners. The metal truss bridges were manufactured in other states and shipped to the closest railroad depot. Average local handymen under the supervision of a bridge engineer could quickly construct a metal truss bridge wherever one was most needed. The only construction specialist other than the bridge engineer was the blacksmith, who forged the wrought iron loops on the cable connections that fastened the truss to the bridge deck.

ND DOT completed the restoration of this oldest documented motor vehicle bridge in North Dakota in 2011.

Left: A wrought iron loop hand forged on location while this bridge was constructed in 1885, Traill County.
Right: The cables which fasten onto the deck with the wrought iron loop and attachment assembly.

Viking Bridge, north of Portland, Traill County, after restoration was complete. Photo by KLJ Engineering http://kljeng.com/projects/viking-bridge-rehabilitation

Rafters joined directly together at the ridge, (no ridge board)

The details of a structure’s construction help us date the building and understand the evolution of building construction. Treenails are probably the least reliable of the three connections for dating purposes, because timber framers still use them today, but the wrought iron connection on the bridge was only favored for about 20 – 30 years and was rare after 1900. Tongue and groove rafters also fell off sharply after 1900, as the ridge board caught on very quickly.

No ridge board here, rafters secured directly together in this school house built in 1894.

Left: An example of a mortise and tenon joint used to connect rafters at the apex. Ridge boards replaced this construction technique about 1900.
Right: Today, if building a stick-built structure, a carpenter would probably choose to use a ridge board to connect rafters. The ridge board supplies additional rigidity and strength to the roof structure, and avoids many hours of crafting multiple mortise and tenon joints. Photo from Griffith Home Analysis’ See example.com http://seeexample.com/index.htm?http&&&seeexample.com/proper_ridge_board_depth.htm

If you have noticed any similar intriguing historic structural connections in your neighborhood buildings, you can share your photos and comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/northdakotahistory

Last year I blogged about home movies that people have donated to the State Archives (http://blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/archiving-home-movies). Not everyone feels comfortable about donating their home movies, nor do the Archives necessarily want them, as they may not fit our collection policy. Nonetheless, this footage should be preserved for future generations of family members to enjoy.

We collect, digitize and preserve home movies if we feel they have historic value. Outreach is also a part of our mission. When possible, we try to help people and other organizations that are working to preserve history. When Kirsten Larvick called last year and told me about her idea of starting a fund to help people preserve their home movies, it certainly captured my attention. Kirsten is a documentary storyteller and film preservation advocate. She operates a studio in New York and has worked for a number of award-winning production companies and filmmakers, including InCite Pictures and the Academy Award^® winning producer, David Goodman. So why, I wonder, does she want to help North Dakotans preserve their home movies? Fortunately there is a connection, as her grandfather grew up and lived a good part of his life in the Valley City area An avid film enthusiast, Kirsten’s grandfather did a great deal of filming family and community scenes while in North Dakota. In his honor, Kirsten decided to start a fund to help people preserve their home movies. I think it is a great cause, and that’s why we are helping to promote this opportunity to the public.

Founded in 2015 after Al Larvick, a man devoted to documenting everyday life activities, the Al Larvick Conservation Fund (ALCF) has begun to offer grants to those who wish to have home movies properly preserved and digitized. The ALCF mission is to preserve historical and cultural heritage through conversation, education, and public accessibility of home and amateur audiovisual materials created prior to 1990. The State Historical Society is happy to partner with the Larvick fund to help promote preservation and to get the word out about the grant opportunities. I am a board member of the non-profit fund and will be part of a program in September to help promote home movies and their preservation.

The first part of the 90-minute program will showcase some of the home movies from our collections as well as those from the Al Larvick collection. We will show different types of home movies ranging from family celebrations to parades and athletic events. Being able to see glimpses of how and what previous generations did is interesting to say the least. From what they wore, to their home décor, to seeing their activities and how they may or may not be similar to the things we do today is entertaining and informative. The movie screenings, discussion, and preservation workshops will be held September 2, 3, and 4 in Bismarck, Valley City, and West Fargo. For more information about Al Larvick, the events, and the grant, please visit the website at http://www.alavcf.org/. To register for one of the free events, go to - http://www.eventbrite.com/o/al-larvick-conservation-fund-8338128169.

This is a wonderful thing the Larvick family is doing, and I hope to see you all at one of the events!

To illustrate a short video segment about archaeological collections work, a co-worker recently asked me for pictures of fieldwork I did during graduate school. Only after I sent those pictures did it occur to me that they probably needed a bit more explanation. That is because most of them are not the pictures you would typically associate with fieldwork. There are none of me working in an excavation unit, or walking transects on a survey, or looking at pottery through a microscope. I mean, I did all of those things in grad school. But most of these pics are of me talking to people. And it was the most exciting fieldwork I have ever done.

Viewing a map with an elk hunter in the Rockies (M. Zedeno)

Many archaeologists develop a particular expertise in a specific material class. Some are ceramicists, some are malacologists (shell), some are experts in faunal remains (animal bones) – the list goes on. And we need them all! But I had a transformative field school experience in Arizona back in 2003 when I was just getting started in archaeology that led me down a slightly different path. We learned all the usual things you learn in field school – excavation techniques, survey, mapping, lab analysis, etc. But the focus of the field school was on tribal collaboration and ethical archaeology. We had guest speakers representing different tribes in the area, who shared their views on the past, the importance of oral tradition as a historical resource, and their perspectives on the sites and objects created and used by their ancestors. We also heard from archaeologists who had partnered with Native American tribes to develop research projects that increased archaeological knowledge, but also addressed topics that were meaningful or important to that community. I came away with the feeling that archaeology should have as much to do with living people in the present (also known as descendant communities) as it does with how their ancestors lived in the past. I was still interested in objects, of course. But I was most interested in how descendant communities see and think about those objects.

So what about those pictures of me talking to people? They were from projects run by the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. They focus on interviewing tribal elders and cultural specialists in the Northern Plains about their knowledge of specific resources – plants, animals, landscapes, and archaeological sites. For example, rather than do a walking survey by transects, we did survey on horseback with Blackfeet elders who showed us historic elk hunting camps. They gave us information about how they were set up and who used them – things we never would have known had we mapped them alone. And here is some unsolicited advice: do not ever let your first horseback riding experience be several days on the edge of dizzying cliffs on the Continental Divide in Montana’s grizzly bear country with your dissertation advisor, who you were hoping would see you as a confident, adventurous, and roll-with-the-punches kind of research assistant.

Left: The remains of a barrel feature found at a historic elk hunting camp in Montana (M. Zedeno)
Right: Archaeological survey on horseback (M. Zedeno)

In addition to looking at plants under a microscope, we interviewed Mandan and Hidatsa elders about the cultural significance and traditional uses of particular plants. This allowed us to provide a report to the National Park Service to help them come up with resource management plans that are sensitive to the plant-related needs and beliefs of native communities. For a project about eagle trapping, we did not look for eagle bones in faunal assemblages. Instead, we visited eagle trapping sites with elders who still hold eagle trapping rights, and learned about why certain types of objects and features are found together. We also learned how those sites can be more respectfully managed.

Working with tribal consultants from Fort Berthold on the University of Arizona’s Missouri River ethnobotany project (M. Zedeno)

So while I love objects as much as the next archaeologist, a good part of my archaeological training has actually been in ethnography and interviewing. As all of my friends were creating GIS models or comparing radiocarbon dates, this used to find me mired in an angsty anthropological identity crisis (I’m an archaeologist! No, I’m a cultural anthropologist! I’m neither! I’m both! I’m an imposter! Ahh!). But I am over that. And to be frank, I am pretty darn excited about what I do these days.

Left: University of Arizona researcher Dr. Maria Nieves Zedeno and the Tribal Historian of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, Calvin Grinnell, revise a report at the Three Affiliated Tribes Museum (W. Murray)
Right: A viewing of the SHSND-produced documentary, People of the Upper Missouri: The Mandans at Fort Berthold Community College in New Town, ND (W. Murray)

There are lots of things to do at the SHSND that are right in line with this – whether we were working on developing the Early People’s exhibit, producing the Mandan documentary, interpreting our historic sites, consulting with tribes on the significance of particular objects, or conducting oral history interviews. Somehow they all involve the links between archaeology (the tangible stuff of the past) and ethnography (people’s worldviews, stories, practices, and traditions).

For example, we are currently collaborating with the Arikara Cultural Center to interview people about life in the bottomland communities (Elbowoods, Nishu, etc.) before the construction of the Garrison Dam in the 1950s. Now that these sites lie beneath the waters of Lake Sakakawea, the physical sites that would normally be a part of the archaeological record are gone. But documenting the collective memories of what it was like to live there are vitally important to the Fort Berthold community.

Left: Interviewing Dorreen YellowBird at the Arikara Cultural Center in White Shield, North Dakota about her memories of living in Elbowoods before the construction of the Garrison Dam (K.T. Kroupa)
Right: Artist Rob Evans worked with SHSND archaeology staff to create a depiction of the Double Ditch Indian Village as it would have appeared around AD 1550. Much of the detail derives from archaeological excavations and ethnographic records. At the request of Alyce Spotted Bear, we also included audio components throughout the exhibit (including this cyclorama) that allows visitors to hear people singing and speaking native languages.

When I moved here, I was afraid that a job in collections would be less about people, and more about things. Luckily, that is not even close to how it has worked out. Working in the Archaeology and Historic Preservation Division of the SHSND on these and other projects has only cemented my belief that the present – native voices and perspectives on the past - is not peripheral to “real” archaeological work. It is, in fact, an integral part of it.