Looking into one woman’s journey in learning about her genealogy.

After working with such a small collection, I was eager to begin “getting dirty” and to start working on a larger collection. Of course the Phillips Library with the Peabody Essex Museum holds collections to spare for an intern to process.

The second collection I encountered was the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Collection (as it is now called). Martha Jane Averill was a woman living in Middleton, Massachusetts during the mid and late 19^th century who dedicated her adulthood to researching the

Newspaper clipping tucked away in one of Martha’s memo books. Undated. Manuscript from the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Collection at the Phillips Library

genealogy of both her family and other, older local Massachusetts families. Martha was born in 1838 in Middleton, Massachusetts, to Samuel A. Weston and Polly Gould, both members of their respective families that tied into the colonial history of Massachusetts. Martha worked as a grammar and primary school teacher from 1859 until she married Alfred Augustus Averill, a local shoe maker, in 1868. Once married, Martha stopped teaching, instead pursuing local genealogy. Martha studied, recorded information, and collected various documents pertaining to multiple old Massachusetts families, such as Ingalls, Howe, Peabody, and Putnam, as well as her own family

 

Deed for Thomas Wilkins, a distant relative to Martha Averill, dated 1693. Manuscript from the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Collection at the Phillips Library.

such as Weston, Gould, and Averill. This genealogical endeavor continued until her death in 1908.

 

Once again, the manuscripts in this collection are not going to change the courses of history; however like the Archibald Wheel Company Papers beforehand, this collection provides a different look into local history. In the case of this collection, the histories present go further back in history and provide the stories of multiple families, including Martha’s own family history.

Six memo books where Martha kept some of her genealogy research notes. Manuscript from the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Collection at the Phillips Library.

For example, remember back to my first blog post where I mentioned a bill/receipt for killing two hogs? The manuscript is from Martha’s own collection, and the receiver of the payment for killing two hogs came from Martha’s grandfather, Samuel Gould, who served as an Essex County (Massachusetts) constable from circa 1760 to circa 1830. The Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Papers Collection contains numerous manuscripts just like this particular document from centuries ago.

 

Along with memo books and journals, Martha wrote down her genealogy notes on anything she had handy. For example, she wrote notes on the back of a flyer for ratifying the 19th amendment. Six memo books where Martha kept some of her genealogy research notes. Manuscript from the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Collection at the Phillips Library.

Besides the historical value in these original documents from multiple Massachusetts families, the notes that Martha created in order to better understand the histories of these families provides both a look into these families, but also into the dedication of one woman who decided to learn more about her family and those who asked for her help.

Family tree of the Wilkins Family, going back to the 1500s in England. Manuscript from the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Collection at the Phillips Library.

 

 

 

For the next blog post, I will be describing the actual processing of this collection and how this collection took some creative thinking regarding organization.

**Pictured throughout this blog post are just some of the items found in this collection (these are just of the more interesting ones), ranging in date from 17^th century to 20^th century.**

Racing through the Archibald Collection

As written about in my previous blog post, the Archibald Wheel Company records and Edward A. Archibald papers is a collection relating to both the business transactions of the Archibald Wheel Company, a 19th century iron wheel company catering to both the North Shore area north of Boston, and throughout the United States, and the personal papers of its founder and wheelwright, Edward A. Archibald. The collection itself was itself an easy start to this summer internship: the collection was only approximately one linear foot, and a previous volunteer started the research and processing progress. Working with this smaller and easier collection allowed me to re-tune my archival processing skills due to its ease and size.

The processing of this collection only took a total of two days, which although technically consisted of two weeks (I conduct my internship once a week), the actual processing was a breeze. When I started working on this collection, I decided to maintain the basic original organization of the previous processor: why reinvent the wheel? The previous processor organized the collection by splitting the business papers of the Archibald Wheel Company and the personal papers of Edward A. Archibald. However, that is where the previous organization ended, and where I picked up the reigns.

For my final finding aid, the archivist Tamra and I decided to go with my third edition of my processing plan. First, the collection is split into two series: Archibald Wheel Company Records, and Edward A. Archibald papers. Since the collection was originally so small, the collection did not need to be separated into sub series: instead, the series were then dealt with on the folder level. I then divided the collection into nine folders with the first series, the Archibald Wheel Company records, into six folders, and the Edward A. Archibald papers into three folders. A simple organization for a simple collection. The documents themselves were also reorganized and placed in date order, ranging from 1867 to 1908, with each folder maintaining different years that are present on the final finding aid.

The Archibald Wheel Company records and Edward A. Archibald papers Collection after final processing!

By the end of the entire processing and creating of the finding aid, the Archibald Wheel Company records and the Edward A. Archibald papers found a new home in brand new folders in a brand new box, and the collection eventually made its way back to the large storage collections room to await a researcher to learn more about a valuable member of the local community of the 19th century. Not too shabby for a first collection!

The final finding aid is now online here: http://www.pem.org/library/finding_aids/MSS657_ArchibaldWheelCompanyRecords.pdf

For my next blog post, I will write about my second collection, the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Papers, a medium sized collection from a woman who dedicated her life researching and collecting on old Massachusetts families. Stay tuned!

 

Getting Started Greasing the Wheel

   By some people, museum collections (of any kind) are romanticized as being ground-breaking treasures similar in importance, most radically to the Declaration of Independence. Although those objects obviously exist, that is not exactly the reality of some manuscript collections: most of the time, the collections are simpler, maybe even anti-heroic in scope. More likely, a manuscript collection is similar to the one that I first encountered at the PEM library: a collection pertaining to the everyday life of an ordinary member of the local community.

   The first collection I encountered was the Archibald Wheel Company records and Edward A. Archibald papers. The Archibald Wheel Company was a wheel manufacturer active between 1867 and 1910, founded and co-owned by Edward A. Archibald (1838-1910) of Methuen, Massachusetts. Developed in the late 1860s, the Archibald Wheel Company provided spoked wheels for wagons. The Archibald Wheel Company quickly gained favor in the industry after 1869 with their patent for the machine that created iron-hubbed wheels, serving clientele across the United States from 1870 until the 1910s.

Patent for the Archibald Wheel Company/Edward A. Archibald  for Iron-hubbed Wheel.

 

Meanwhile, Edward A. Archibald immigrated to Boston from Canada on April 15, 1852. Shortly after moving to Boston, Archibald married Addie E. on December 24, 1857, had 8 children, and then 10 years later started the Archibald Wheel Company. Besides running the Archibald Wheel Company, Archibald served multiple positions within his community, including as a trustee for the Essex Mechanics Association (1874), and as a deacon for the North Essex Congregational Church from approximately 1866 until his death in 1910.

   Sounds thrilling, right? Sure, this collection may not contain undiscovered treasure and information relating to fame and glory; this collection simply contains documents relating to the Archibald Wheel Company and Edward A. Archibald. However, as any good historian and archivist knows, the treasure lies in the simplest of words and papers, and that rings true to this collection. History is made through the actions and interactions with a person and their world, and Edward A. Archibald interacted with his 19th century world through invention and business determination.

   Edward A. Archibald and his Archibald Wheel Company served multiple communities in the mid to late 19th century by providing a patented state of the art wagon wheel, and the papers in this collection prove his grandeur. Edward A. Archibald also served his community religiously, and alongside his business papers, Archibald leaves behind his thoughts on the development and status of his beliefs into the 20th century.

   Without Edward A. Archibald there would be no iron-hubbed wheel, which served both domestic and military purposes. Without Archibald (and the previous owner of his collection), the PEM library would not have this valuable collection pertaining to a local man grasping the American dream and creating a better world for himself and his community. That sounds pretty heroic to me.

   For the next blog post, I will be describing the actual processing of this collection and how it only took two days to completely transform this collection into something valuable for researchers.

Starting an Internship with Wheels and Hogs

“To celebrate outstanding artistic and cultural creativity by collecting, stewarding, and interpreting objects of art and culture in ways that increase knowledge, enrich the spirit, engage the mind, and stimulate the senses” This passage is the first sentence of the mission statement for the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), an internationally recognized art and cultural museum located just north of Boston, Massachusetts.

Alongside this 21^st century museum are its outstanding collections, ranging from Native American artwork to grand artwork depicting 18^th century maritime merchant ships. The museum creates a sense of wonder and imagination that tickles the senses and encourages new and bold ideas.

And then there are the bills. I am not talking about the bill for the millions of dollars to operate the museum: I am talking about the bill for .50$ for killing two hogs. Now this leaves to wonder: where does killing two hogs come into play in a cultural institution as grand as the PEM? The answer is in the collections, literally.

“To Killing Two Hogs”, 1846   Manuscript from the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Collection at the Phillips Library

Among the thousands of artistic items curated in their museum facilities, the PEM also owns a library archive to store their millions of manuscripts donated throughout the 20^th century to further the understanding of the culture of the North Shore area outside of Boston.

The PEM Library, known as the Phillips Library, is where I am currently conducting my archival internship. Under the supervision of the Phillips Library archivist, my summer work will consist of working with two manuscript collections through processing and developing new finding aids for each collection. These collections are the Archibald Wheel Company Records, and the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill Papers. The Archibald manuscript collection relates to the business work of Edward Archibald, inventor of the 19^th century “iron-hubbed wheel,” while the Martha Jane (Weston) Averill papers consists of genealogical research notes and 18^th century family manuscripts. Both collections contribute to a better historical understanding of Essex County in the 19^th century. All very exciting!

I will be updating on my journey through the archives periodically, where I will be providing my experiences in working on these collections and images of the interesting pieces. Join me on my journey through the archives this summer to learn more about what lies within the PEM Library Archives.

As for the bill for killing two hogs, you will just have to wait and see!

 

Processing for the National Park Service: A lesson in patience and government records.

In the fall of 2016, I set out on an amazing journey as an intern archivist for the National Park Service under the supervision of Liz Banks, senior archivist at the Northeast Museum Services Center in the Charlestown Navy Yard. With a Congressional Act in 1872 to protect what is now known as Yellowstone National Park, a movement was born to protect our nation’s cultural and natural resources for perpetuity. This campaign resulted in a bill that founded the National Park Service in 1916 by President Wilson. The signed bill mandated the agency “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”¹ Today, the NPS cares for over 400 national parks and historic sites and strives to preserve our local history and provide recreational spaces for all.

 

The Chief Regional Scientists’ Records, 1962-2012 (bulk 1974-2010)

My mission for the Park Service was to begin to process the collection of the three Chief Regional Scientists for the Northeast Region. The organization and philosophy of the NPS treats research as part of resource management and the two areas were combined to enhance cooperation between the two functions. Park Service research and resource management were organized at three levels of authority: in the Washington office, in the 10 regional offices, and in the individual park units. In fact, when the NPS science program was being developed in the 1960s the original structure selected was a centralized organization patterned after the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This structure gave the NPS a chief scientist in Washington with authority to supervise all field scientists, whether they were assigned to parks, universities, or regions. However, the records reflect an organizational change in 1971 when the current decentralized plan was instituted. The regional chief scientists now administer the regional programs in concert with the regional directors and superintendents. The regional chief scientists serve as the technical directors of their programs, and the regional director  and superintendents administer them. 

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I had 22 boxes to sift through and find the story of natural resource stewardship under the three Chief Regional Scientists, Paul Buckley (c.1977-1979), Mike Soukup (c.1985-1989), and Mary Foley (c.1989-2013). I quickly found that there was minimal discernible order to how the files were arranged in the boxes and the newer files were less so.

All my boxes stacked on the floor.

 

Inventory

Taking an inventory of the collection proved to be more difficult than I originally thought. I sifted through budget proposals, budget discussions, scientific reports, scientific data, correspondence between the scientists and the park scientists. Not only was I attempting to find out who the major players were in the collections but also trying to figure the different types of records. Budgets and correspondence were easily identified but scientific data sheets were challenging to find context, or even dates–many of the scientists did not date their reports or data sheets so I had to refer to NPS website to see if there was information regarding the different projects.

From the inventory, I was able to take some time to devise a solid processing plan, which we deviated from and readopted several times. As the records told me more about the story of natural resource management in the Northeast Region, I began to see some obvious areas that could be grouped together. I was not anticipating having an entire series dedicated to the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Study project (FIMP) that spanned from the 1960s to the present but 4.38 linear feet of material out of the total 27.5 warranted a separate series.

Program files vs. park files

After finishing a thorough inventory, I was tasked with flagging folders that I thought were park files that should be shipped off to the individual parks as well as flagging folders with file codes that told whether the folder had permanent files or files that needed to be destroyed according to the disposition schedule. This was a difficult task for many of the items I encountered at first, but what I learned from Liz was if the item helps tell the story of natural resource management from the regional level (budgets, decision making, final reports), then it is a program file. If the item is very detailed and is mainly data gathered for the project, then it is most likely a park project file that can be sent to park of origin.

Flagging folders with file codes

Nearing the end

On the last two days, Liz and I finally felt confident that we had enough of a grasp on the files that we could start moving them to their proper places. We spread out all 22 boxes over 2 folding picnic tables and started pulling files by decades to place on additional tables that were marked for the decades and stacked them by year on the tables. The only files that stayed in place were the FIMP files, since they had been pull together a week prior. Once we had all the boxes emptied, we placed all the Series I: Budget and Administration files together and arranged them by year, then Series II: Projects, which we arranged by year first, then park.
I will admit that it was tough for me to walk away from this project, especially when I felt that i had not been able to do enough. I envisioned a finished product, neatly organized with a finding aid in hand, but I was assured by Liz that it would have been impossible to achieve a finished product in the time span I was given.

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1. https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/history.htm

5 December – 9 December 2016: BINGO!!!!

Most of my day was spent organizing the documents in the yearly budgets; each folder needed to be arranged chronologically. This is a slow process even though it doesn’t seem like it should be.  In some cases, there were several project proposals from different years grouped together but with nothing to tell me why. If projects were being approved for a specific fiscal year, then why are there old proposals from as much as a decade before there. Hmmm…a conundrum–was this on purpose or did someone just stick proposals into different folders. If it was an isolated case, I might have concluded that it was an isolated case, but since it happened in almost every folder I encountered I knew there was something else going on. I asked Liz and she explained that many times project proposals will stay active for years because of budget constraints, so while a proposal was submitted in 1980, it may not be funded until years later. I did what I thought was best and wrapped the proposals that were together in their original order so show that this arrangement was on purpose.

Our big triumph for the day was an enthusiastic response from Acadia National Park regarding found park project files. When I began this internship I was told that Acadia was looking for some specific project files from a study on vegetation management on three of the mountains in the park. I found what I thought was a match in September and flagged them for Liz to confirm.  After she looked through the folder I flagged, she suspected that I had found the right study and emailed Acadia. We received a happy email in return: “BINGO!!!!” in purple and pink letters. They are clearly thrilled that I found the data sheets and project information they were missing. So these will be packed up and sent to the park asap.

As I am arranging the Series I. Administrative, subseries i. Fiscal Year Budgets and Projects, Liz is getting down to the nitty gritty weeding out of files. We are running out of time and since she has decades of experience in government records management, she has taken over the deep weeding. She can pretty much tell at a glance whether a record is permanent or not, whereas I agonize over it. When she runs across an interesting item, she brings it to me to explain why it stays or goes to help me understand the process more. I truly appreciate that because when I passed through these records the first time, I was extremely cautious and erred on the side of keeping files that were not obvious dispositions.

Starting to arrange…this was the table before it got really messy with documents and folders strewn about.

As this is my tenth and last blog post for this project, I would like to thank you all for reading and for the support. This project has brought me great joy and some frustrations–all totally worth it. Working with Liz Bank has been a privilege and she made an unwieldy project a great learning experience and fun.

Cheers,

Corinne

28 November – 2 December 2016: It’s all about the groupings.

This week was spent hauling all 22 boxes down to my workspace on the first floor and starting to group files according to the arrangement scheme. The first four hours I pulled all the fiscal year budgets together from the various offices and put them together according to the year. Ranging from 1977-2006, the budgets take up a good portion of space –a little over 4 linear feet or 3.25 paige cartons. Most of the budget and project award files had several folders for each year but they tell a great story of how the Park Service chose projects to fund. Just as air pollution was the focus of inland parks in the late 1970s and early 1980s, coastal erosion, dune management, and breach management certainly took center stage as scientists really began to see the effects that climate change was having on the coastal areas of the northeast region in the 1990s and 2000s.

Although the date span given for the collection is 1974-2012, I do not have budget information for 1974-1976 and the folders I do have for the 2000s are quite sparse–2000, 2001, 2002, and 2006. I can’t help but wonder as to what happened to the rest. Could the newer files be electronic records that I don’t have or (gulp) weren’t captured?

The second half of my day was gathering all of the Fire Island FIMP project records together. Most of the 3.5 boxes of records are going to be packed up and shipped to Fire Island National Park. Unfortunately, Fire Island no longer has a park curator to care for the records but hopefully they will be stored properly once they are there.

Putting  together the two obvious record groups has made both Liz and I reconsider our arrangement plan slightly because of the multi-year and multi-park projects. We have tentatively decided that those will become a separate series so as to keep them in proper order. So the proposed new arrangement goes as follows:

Series I. Administrative

Subseries i. Fiscal Year Budgets and Projects (arranged by year)

Subseries ii. Northeast region administrative reorganization (arranged by year)

Series II. Projects

Subseries i. Multi-park projects (arranged by year)

Subseries ii. Multi-year project (arranged by park, then by year of start of projects)

Series III. Meetings, Conferences, Workshops (arranged by year)

Series IV. Reports (arranged by year)

Moving all of these files around has reeked havoc on my inventory spreadsheet and it is no longer useful as a guide to find specific folders. Hopefully, when Liz and I dive into the boxes next week to weed out more project records to send off to the parks, I can reorganize my spreadsheet into something useful again.

7 October – 11 October: I’ve got a plan… a processing plan.

This week was much like the past couple of weeks. I worked industriously on file codes for the 22 boxes (almost done!!) but with one twist: I was wearing my brand new ID

My brand new gov’t ID. Yes, there is a glare over my picture on purpose. Not the best picture I have ever taken.

badge. Next week Liz and I will make our first pass at weeding out the duplicates and non-permanent records to try to bring these 22 boxes down to something more manageable.

A couple of interesting things came up as I was flagging the files this week. As I delved deeper into the the boxes from the mid-1990s, I saw an obvious uptick in the amount of email correspondence and it made me wonder if these emails had been digitally captured somewhere and I could dispose of the hard copies as duplicates. I sat down with Liz for our weekly meeting and we discussed. It turns out that NPS, like so many government and non-government organizations, had not had a way of permanently archiving emails until recently. So more than likely, these emails are the only copy and need to be treated as a permanent record. Liz also explained to me that the NPS has had many changes in their email systems over the last decade and much has been lost, even for someone like her, an archivist who knows the importance of saving records. Many of her archived files disappeared over the course of several system changes.

Liz and I also discussed  the processing plan I had submitted to her over the weekend. Overall, Liz was very pleased with my arrangement ideas and was happy to let me move forward with the plan. She did have one suggestion for a change that makes sense. I had consulted other finding aids on the NARA website and saw that photographs usually had their own series so I corresponded my arrangement plan to follow suit. During our discussion, Liz suggested that I make my series of aerial photographs part of the park project records as a subseries. This makes total sense to me since most of the photographs were taken as part of coastal and beach erosion studies and they should be with the project files.

The last thing we discussed for the actual processing is oversized items. In our Archival Methods course, Marilyn taught us that the proper way to handle oversized items is to remove them, place a separation form in the folder, and have them stored in oversized folders and drawers. Apparently, NARA is not a big fan of the separation of oversized materials so all of the folded maps that are included in the park project files will remain there. Most are still in very good condition and properly folded, so from a preservation standpoint, they are okay for now.

Lastly, I came across an interesting folder of materials this week that needs some mulling over on the Gateway National Recreational Area salt marsh restoration project. I am trying to decide as to whether these are park project records that should be sent to Gateway or permanent NPS records. The contents suggest to me that they should be sent to Gateway because the folder contains local committee notes from New Jersey, correspondence that Mary Foley was CC’d on but no Chief Scientist decision making notes. In other words, this was a NPS regionally funded project but nothing in the folder makes that clear and feels like more of park records than regional records. Liz and I will discuss this next week and come up with a decision.

31 October – 4 November 2106: No better feeling than being approved.

A collective sigh of happiness was released by my fellow National Parks people yesterday when we all received the email informing us that I have been adjudicated favorably and will be receiving my PIV card and credentials next week. YEA! Now I can get into the building and use a government computer to do my work.

This week I continued working on assigning file codes to the documents and came across an item I can share with you because it poses an interesting dilemma as to whether it is permanent record or a record to be disposed of. Ominously called “deer/child incident report,” a deer knocked a child down in a park after it ate out of a food bowl left on park grounds. No one was hurt and there was no lawsuit. Because this is technically a minor incident, it should fall under a 7 year record and be disposed of because it has been nearly twenty years since it was resolved. But as I have learned with government records, there is always a caveat. The incident report also has the NPS response and what they did to prevent further incidents between deer and humans at this particular park. This tells the story of natural resource management unless there is documentation of the NPS response elsewhere. I have not seen any other reference so that leads me to believe that it could be a permanent record. Welcome to my weekly dilemma: deciding if a record is permanent. Sometimes it is perfectly clear, a park project funding decision is permanent; human resources material is not. Sometimes, it is not as clear, as it is in this case, and I have to really think it through to make a decision. As Liz says, if you are in doubt treat it like a permanent record.

Through assigning of file codes I have come to a solid idea of how I am going to arrange my files and began a processing plan to submit to Liz on Saturday. Four central series have stuck out to me so far that will be arranged by year. The first is Administration Natural Resources Management under which administrative decisions, such as region restructuring and department restructuring, will fall. The second is Park Projects in which individual project funding decisions are made with progress reports and final reports when the project finished. The third, Meetings, will contain meetings, conferences, and symposiums of the Chief Regional Scientists that discuss Natural Resources stewardship. Then, lastly, Reports, will have reports that do not have a corresponding Park Project file. As there are a lot of these, it does deserve it’s own series.

I am looking forward to getting to work on the processing plan this week and beginning to weed out the duplicate disposable files next week. I have so much work to do before this project is ready to send off to NARA!

October 24 -28 2016: Flagging files in the deep freeze

Last week I discussed how I was learning the government file codes in order to flag my boxes more appropriately.  I composed a list with examples from the records management book for the NPS that I thought would apply to records I have seen to compare with the list Liz, my supervisor, compiled. There are ten categories to choose from and within each category there are several subcategories to assign records to — and will be discussed further below.

This week Liz and sat down for our weekly meeting to discuss our file codes lists. At first, I felt like I was being tested but that wasn’t really the case. Liz was really just making sure I had a firm grasp on the subject. I went through my list carefully describing what I thought each file code meant and to what files I thought they applied. Liz seemed really happy with my assessment and thankfully, it closely matched her list.

There will be a sprinkling of other file codes used but the below represent the majority of the records. Here are the main categories we came up with:

♦Category 1: subcategory 1.A.2: Cultural and Natural Resource Program and Planning. Most of the files fall under this category and includes general management plans for the parks, inventory and management of flora and fauna, controlled fires, and decisions regarding which research projects for individual parks would be funded. These files are permanent for both the NPS and for NARA so a copy will be sent off to NARA.

♦Category 4: subcategory 4.A: Park Facilities and Maintenance. Under this file code will fall the Corps of Army Engineers project to the inlet around Montauk in Long Island against storm damage in the 1990s. These records are also permanent for both the NPS and NARA.

♦Category 7: subcategories 7.A and 7.B: Partnerships Programs. The NPS had many cooperative and partnership agreements with various colleges and universities for research. This file code will represent them and the actual agreements and final research reports.

After our meeting I got to work on applying the file codes to the boxes. The heat was broken in the building and so I just kept moving in order to stay warm. I got through 7.5 boxes before my day was done. I also flagged a lot of files that meet the disposal schedule and can be pulled when we begin weeding out the files in the next two weeks.

Flagged files: Program files with file code and the park code