interview?

i've been thinking about the interview portion of the project..and i have been having a little trouble with it...

Because of the type of project i am doing..im not really sure what i should ask in the interview or who i should ask...i know everything about my friends and their opinions on it and everything..

i was thinking about possibly interviewing a middle school teacher as she has expressed opinions to us on why she let us pass the notebook in class..but im not sure if that makes sense for the project...

Retirement homes

Mr. Laub had a great suggestion in class today. If you're looking for someone to interview, consider going to a retirement home! A retirement home is full of people who have lived through the events you study in history class and many people there would be thrilled to tell you about this history.

For example you could ask someone questions about:

--Did you ever participate in Civil Rights (or anti-war) demonstrations?
--Did you participate in or do you know people who were in the Vietnam War (or Korean War)?
--What did you think of Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1960s? (or another person)

Found Some Great Things

I really found some great pictures. My mother had stashed away. Every picture had a unique story to it. She introduced to me new people that I have never met. It to me was just a great experience to learn more about the people in your family and friends that once were and still are. I knew that my Uncle Billy was a very good ball player but i also learned that the University of Michigan's was looking at my Uncle. My Uncle was a basketball player at Cross High School. my mom kept the news paper article. It says "When he wasn't passing off, Jones was popping in jumpers and driving to the hoop and drawing fouls. As a result he went to the line 10 times and missed only once."This was from 1978. I was blown away y a lot of my finding. I came a cross my mom year book from when she attended Hill House High School. It was interesting to see how different people dressed and how that year book was put together. am really enjoying this project. I think as time goes by it will get easier and easier.........Amanda Panda

Cool links that will help you in your oral history interview

These are some links to help you in planning and conducting your interview.

StoryCorps (http://www.storycorps.net)
A great project that helps anyone record their own oral history interviews. There are lots of short oral history interviews that you can listen to here. Click on Listen to Stories in the upper right corner. They're short! If you listen to National Public Radio (NPR), you've likely heard some of these stories before. You can even search the stories by keyword (subject, name, place).

StoryCorps Question Generator tool (http://www.storycorps.net/record-your-story/question-generator)
By filling in a short form, this site will give you questions that you can ask the person you are interviewing. It's a great tool.

DoHistory.org's Step-by-Step Guide to Oral History (http://dohistory.org/on_your_own/toolkit/oralHistory.html)
This is the source of the handout that you got in class.

Oral History Society's website (http://www.ohs.org.uk/)
There is lots of various information on oral histories here.

Mr. Murphy's first blog post!

[I am reposting this for Mr. Murphy]

Welcome to my first blog ever. I am so relieved that this blog has spellcheck. (Those who know me, know why!) I wanted to be the first entry in the Family & Community Archive Project because:

1. I'm excited about the collaboration between COOP High School and Yale University.
2. I REALLY love history & genealogy ( the study of family history).
3. I REALLY love archives & research. In fact, I'm happiest when I'm in a library or doing research. The time just flies by! (I know -- NO LIFE!)
4. I want my students to learn that their own personal history is important.

My only real regret in life, is that so many of the people I loved in this world have passed away without leaving much of a written record behind. These were some of the most influential people in my life, and I want other people to know of them. They were magnificent and they were important! I want to write down as much of their history as possible, because although they may not have been famous, they were important -- at least to me. I feel that one of my missions in life, is to record their stories so that future generations will know them. Why do you think I take all of those pictures? You students (and I'm assuming it's mostly my student who are reading this) are part of my history and I want to record your images and your stories, because you all are important to me. You are part of my history!

Good luck on discovering your past -- let me know how I can help.

HAVING TROUBLE

Hi I am really having a hard time with my project. Ive begun to ask my mom about things that she feels are important to the family or her and she cant think of aything to help me out the same with my garndma what should i do??? Do i need to pick a new topic....HELP

notebooks.

This project has been really fun. I am excited to look at the notebooks my friends and i have written (all 33 of them) and have had a interesting time re-visiting old pictures and memorabilia.

this project is a good way for me to see how much i have changed by looking through my own archives and how much friendships have grown and changed, its really cool.

ive also been thinking about the final project..wondering what to do..it would be really cool to put together my own notebook with pictures and copies of pages that fit together from all the notebooks to make it look just like one of our old ones.

Items

I asked my grandma about things my grandpa had collected from WWII and she told me she actually has food rations from that time. I thought that was pretty interesting. Also I think the object I might use for the project is a recipe handwritten by my great grandma.

Creating a Family Tree

Getting Started

1. Compile as much information as possible about your family. Start with yourself, parents, and grandparents. Get names (don't forget siblings), dates (birth, marriage, death, and military service), and locations (town, county, state or province, and country).
   
   
2. Ask your relatives about your family history. Often, family members remember stories or information, or possess documents, that can help start you on your way.
   
   
3. Look in family records (letters, family Bibles, scrapbooks, diaries, photographs, baptisms, new clippings, etc).
   
   
4. Consult non-federal local sources for records such as births, deaths, marriages, obituaries, deeds, and wills. Start with the Public Library's Local History collection (open M 530-8, Th 1-5) or the New Haven Colony Historical Society (open T-F 10-5; note: there may be a fee to use the Library). New Haven's Bureau of Vital Statistics, which issues certificates for birth, death, marriages & civil unions that have occurred in the city of New Haven, provides copies for a fee.
   

In addition, the National Archives has some good tips and links to tutorials and guides help get you started.

Software

I recommend Family Tree Builder. It's free, easy to use, and has looks of cool features, including publishing your results to the web, photo integration, and Smart Matches, which compares your results to those of others, allowing you to easily extend your research.

Websites

There are a number of good websites for doing family research (just Google 'genealogy'). These include:

• Family Search
• Connecticut Research Guides
  
• Ancestry.com [note: 14 day free trial requires sign-up an cancellation of subscription]
• RootsWeb.com
  
• National Archives
  

Other resources

• African American Quick Guide (PDF)
  
• Finding African American Ancestors (PDF)

Federal Records

The next step is to consult available federal records. Records most often used by genealogists and family historians include:

• Federal Population Censuses
• Military service and pension records
• Immigration records
• Naturalization records
• Land records

Note: few of these are freely available online. Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest Online have digitized many of these, including census records. These web sites are subscription-based, but access is free-of-charge and unlimited from certain libraries such as Yale.

In any case, use of federal records requires considerable time and/or trips to different institutions.

Archives We've Worn

One question raised in our class was whether or not clothing counts as “archival”. This is a great question! Here is my attempt to provide an answer:

Many archives don’t collect textiles and some archivists cringe at the idea of collecting textiles, clothing, etc. But there are a number of cultural institutions –- including archives -- that do collect textiles and costumes in order to ensure ongoing preservation and continued access to such resources. Researchers from many disciplines use these collections. In addition to the more predictable users (costume and fashion designers) other patrons include scholars from fields such as gender studies, architecture, consumer studies, religious studies, literary studies, etc..

Collections are found in libraries, archives, and museums, as well as private businesses. Some universities and colleges have also developed textile and costume collections (often as a resource for programs in textiles as well as fashion and apparel design).

Some examples of institutions that preserve textiles are:

• Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• American Museum of Natural History maintains collections of historical First Nations and African clothing.
• American Textile History Museum contains a costume collection and textile samples as well as textual records (books, trade catalogs, business records and personal papers), graphic materials (prints and photographs), and machines used in manufacturing textiles.
• Scottish Textile Heritage Online is a digital project compiling textiles and costumes from six archives and museums within Scotland.
• Drexel Digital Museum Project: Historic Costume Collection is a joint initiative between the College of Information Science and Technology and the College of Design Arts and provides access to the textile and costume collection online.
• Victoria and Albert Museum has a collection of Fashion, Jewellery & Accessories as well as Textiles.

Often businesses in the textile and fashion industries also have corporate archives such as the Warner Textile Archive in England and the Calvin Klein archive in New York (sorry, no link!).

First image:
Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Court Dress, ca. 1750
British
Purchase, Irene Lewisohn Bequest, 1965 (C.I.65.13.1a–c)

Second image:
Victoria and Albert Museum
Formal men’s ensemble, ca. 1740-1750
British
Given by Sir Charles Hope Dunbar, Bt (2006AV6074)

Hi everyone,

Here is a link to the Library of Congress's American Memory website:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

This website has digital images of archival materials in the Library of Congress, which you can browse by topic.

Enjoy,

Karen Spicher
Beinecke Library