The Ellis Island Collection: Artifacts from the Immigrant Experience
by Brad R. Tuttle. Chronicle Books, 2004. 48 pages, with 23 sample artifacts. $24.95. For more information or to order, go to www.chroniclebooks.com.

From 1892 to 1924, millions of people from throughout the world passed through Ellis Island in hopes of entering America, a complicated process that generated numerous documents, many that have been duplicated for this unique collection. To create this “museum in a box,” twenty-three artifacts from the “Island of Hope, Island of Tears” have been meticulously duplicated, recreating the immigration process for several immigrants, including Irish Catholics, Germans, Russian Jews, Hungarians, and Italians.

Brad Tuttle's informative booklet discusses the types of documents represented and their significance. Artifacts include a copy of a steamship poster displayed in Naples in 1906, steamship postcards, steamship company inspection card, steamship ticket, and ship manifest. You'll also find the required documentation for immigrations: birth certificate, passport, Declarations of Aliens About to Depart for the United States, Declaration of Intention, literacy test, and Certificate of Citizenship. Additional items of interest include five photographic portraits, a bill of fare (showing a menu from Ellis Island), a receipt from the American Consular Service, a letter from an Irish immigrant, a telegram, and simulated money.

This collection will undoubtedly be valued by teachers, family historians, and anyone whose immigrant ancestors came through Ellis Island.

Scrapbooking Your Vacations: 200 Page Designs
by Susan Ure. Sterling Publishing Co., 2004. 128 pages. Hardcover. $24.95. For more information or to order, go to www.sterpub.com.

Even experienced scrapbookers will benefit from the fresh ideas in this colorful book of more than 200 page plans, which offer designs inspired by various vacation locales around the world. Vivid examples of page designs showcase vacation spots in Europe, Africa, Asia, the South Pacific, and North America with colorful photos set in vibrantly original page designs. Designs make use of all manner of textures, papers, and other materials to help recreate both the exotic and the native aspects of other countries and of our own.

For each sample scrapbook page, the author lists the materials used to create the original page, such as pressed flowers, small twigs, rice and bamboo paper, ribbons, and stickers. Keepsakes are displayed securely in a small florist's, or semi-transparent, envelope. The author's hints and suggestions will keep souvenirs organized, and the helpful tips can be applied to other scrapbook projects and creative endeavors. Suggestions include using a matte smaller than the picture itself to create an image-within-an-image or using crisscrossed ribbon for a “bulletin board” look. The unusual and striking designs are bound to create pages that are as memorable and interesting as the vacation itself.

Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families
by Douglas Richardson. Genealogical Publishing Company. 945 pages. Hardcover. $85. To order, go to www.royalancestry.net.

This volume is the first in a series on the ancestry of the American colonial immigrants having English gentry, noble, or royal ancestry. Here are documented lines of descent for approximately 190 seventeenth-century North American colonists from the Plantagenet dynasty that ruled England from 1154 to 1485, beginning with Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou.

Customary information such as dates of birth, death, and marriage, major landholdings, titles, and offices are included when known. Many individuals were leading participants in the complex political and military
activities of the times (namely the War of the Roses), and participation is often included. The lives of the higher ranking individuals reveal a large number of deaths in battle or by execution (with and without trial).

Primary sources are used, both in original form and published abstracts, as well as secondary sources. Footnotes are given throughout the text that list the names of which American colonial immigrants descend from which families, and which immigrants are closely related to one another. Illegitimate children are included, where known.

The book has been compiled as a reference for those wanting more information on their remote ancestry, and on events and individuals in the colonial and medieval time periods. It can also help provide a better understanding of English history in terms of family dynamics.

Map Guide to German Parish Registers, Vol. 1 Grandduchy of Hessen and Vol. 3 Grandduchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin & Mecklenburg-Strelitz
by Kevan M. Hansen, Heritage Creations, 2004. Vol. 1, 199 pages; Vol. 3, 300 pages. Softbound. $34.95 per volume. To order, go to www.heritagecreations.com.

In the past, genealogists searching for parish records in Germany have had to trace the jurisdictions by using old gazetteers—often written in gothic German—to find towns and villages, and their respective parishes. Now locating a parish for Catholic or Lutheran jurisdictions is as simple as locating the name of the parish on a map and finding the specific town, parish, or adjoining parishes.

Each volume of the Map Guide is a master index to the parishes themselves, a listing of towns in that district, and the Family History Library microfilm numbers. By entering this number in the Microfilm Number Search in the Family History Library Catalog at www.family search.org, you can obtain a printout of all films for a given parish and years included on each one. Resources such as archives and repositories are also given.

By working with digitized underlying maps of Germany, the old boundaries were drawn to encompass those towns included in each individual parish. This provides a view of how the various parishes fit together, and it defines the boundaries of each district, adjoining towns, and surrounding parishes. Population centers in each church parish can now be located as well as the location of minority religions.

County Longford Residents Prior to the Famine: A Transcription and Complete Index of the Tithe Applotment Books of County Longford, Ireland (1823–1835)
by Guy A. Rymsza. Dome Shadow Press, 2004. 439 pages. Hardcover. $49.95 plus s/h. Order at www.domeshadowpress.com.

Author Guy A. Rymsza has begun to fill the void in nineteenth-century Irish census returns by making the information found in a taxation record of landowners easily accessible for the first time.

He begins with a brief but thorough introduction to the Tithe Applotment Books and an explanation of his presentation method. A full-name index of over 12,600 male and female tithe payers is followed by the complete recapitulation of records, arranged alphabetically by over 930 townland divisions. This recap serves as an index of the twenty-seven civil parish maps of townlands, which are accompanied by three maps of Longford's major land divisions. A handy table will allow you to easily locate Longford's microfilmed Tithe Book record images for further research.

Return to September/October 2004 issue of Ancestry Magazine.