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Calculating a Possible Birth Date for Jane Darragh

Image by Willfried Wende from Pixabay   Trying to figure out a birth date, death date, or range of dates for an ancestor with just a piece of information or two? Perhaps you have a death date and an age on a headstone and want to calculate their birth date. Or maybe you have several censuses with differing ages and are attempting to hone in on the right one. After watching Carolyn Ladd's excellent RootsTech webinar " Which Date Is Right? Solving Birthdate Conflicts Through Genealogical Analysis ," I decided to implement some of her suggestions to tackle determining Jane Darragh's birth date. I have not yet found a birth or baptism record for Jane, so I've had to rely on other sources which give her age, which—typically—vary somewhat from document to document.  I used some great date calculators on Tony Proctor's Parallax View   blog .  He included several in his post, "Measurement Tools ," published in 2015, with various updates since then. Perhaps ...
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Access Some Articles Directly from PERSI for Free




I just noticed a neat addition to the Allen County Public Library's Periodical Source Index—aka PERSI. PERSI is a subject index for genealogy and local history periodicals, produced by the ACPL staff. The valuable resource provides more than 3.2 million citations to readily-available periodical sources.

ACPL has begun adding external links to their PERSI search results for some of over 10,000 periodicals in the index. The little blue icon next to the article will allow users to link directly to their article of interest for free.

 


This does not apply to every article in the PERSI index, however. According to Genealogy Center staff, they are gradually adding the external links to entries if they find a periodical issue that is online or copyright clear, so users can access those issues for free rather than order the article from ACPL. Researchers will still need to order articles which are under copyright from ACPL as in the past.

 

Trying it Out 

I tried the new feature by searching for historical articles in one of my research localities, Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, where Scranton is located. 

Location Search: USA > PA > Lackawanna County > History

There I found an article "Gravity railroad of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co, 1829+," published in Railroad & Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, Issue 82 (April 1951). This gravity railroad and the D&H Canal figure in my family history: my 3x great-granduncle Owen Gilbride was a D&H canal boat operator, and his brother Michael was possibly employed on the gravity railroad in the 1850s.

 

Note the external link icon under the ACPL Call #.

 

Clicking the external link took me to the publication on the Internet Archive website, and a few pages later I located the article. Quick, easy, and convenient!

 




 

ACPL is doing a real service for PERSI users by providing direct access to some great articles when possible—and have given us one more reason to love PERSI! 

If you've never used PERSI before, here is a video produced by ACPL to get you started:

PERSI explorer: Tracing Your Roots Using the Periodical Source Index 

Note that this video will not mention the external link feature as it was only implemented within the past few months.

Until next time... 

© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2026. All rights reserved. 

 


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  1. Marian B. WoodJuly 30, 2026 at 7:20 AM

    Direct, free access is a big upgrade, even if it applies only to a fraction of the PERSI articles. TY for pointing this out!

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  2. Linda StufflebeanJuly 30, 2026 at 9:34 AM

    That is a terrific update. PERSI is an underused resource, for sure, and adding this feature will make it much more usable.

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    1. Nancy Gilbride CaseyJuly 30, 2026 at 9:37 AM

      I agree. It makes we want to go searching again for all my people and those little blue icons!

      Delete
  3. Linda RadeckiJuly 30, 2026 at 10:56 AM

    Oh, I haven't used PERSI in years. I'll have to revisit the site. Thank you.

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    1. Nancy Gilbride CaseyJuly 30, 2026 at 10:58 AM

      Linda, you're in for a treat! Go find you some goodies!

      Delete
  4. AnonymousJuly 30, 2026 at 12:01 PM

    Sandra Robertson--Thanks for this information about the links and also how to use PERSI. That's helpful to me.

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    1. Nancy Gilbride CaseyJuly 30, 2026 at 12:16 PM

      Yay! Would love to know what you find! Keep me posted, Sandra!

      Delete
  5. TessJuly 31, 2026 at 9:37 AM

    Thanks for this...the articles I found aren't available online, but I hadn't searched a more recent name I've been researching and have found some leads...

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    1. Nancy Gilbride CaseyJuly 31, 2026 at 10:47 AM

      So, still a PERSI win! I would continue to check back periodically, as this is an ongoing project for ACPL and others are likely to get added.

      Delete
  6. Lisa S. GorrellAugust 1, 2026 at 11:06 AM

    This is great news. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete

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