Bushu: My sources

For thise who are seeking the most recent family history for the Bushu family of Somerset, Ohio, Mattoon Illinois, Cincinnati, Ohio, I have a family tree on geneanet.org. Look for Mary Rivers' family tree. To date it primarily focuses on the Bushu family. I hope to add the Wolf family as I learn more.

I posted the family tree on Geneanet.org because this particular site takes seriously the notion that genealogy needs to be evidence-based.  Solid evidence of relationships has many forms, but in general the best evidence is a contemporaneous, official document from an unimpeachable source: a birth certificate, a will, a land record. As records become more open to error (censuses, tombstones, lists composed by family later in time), the trustworthiness of the data becomes suspect. By the time we get to Aunt Cecily recalling the birth of her namesake fifty years after the event, we have entered the realm of "interesting."  The family tree I posted at Geneanet was built from original documents from the following sources. In the event that you cannot find a notation about the source of a particular piece of information, assume it's one of these.  But please let me know of missing data so I can correct the problem.

SOURCES

http://archives.cg68.fr. The Archives of the Haut Rhin, Alsace, France. The Bourgeois (Bushu/Bushue/Bushur) family is from the Haut Rhin (and Switzerland). The archives provides online access to microfilm copies of civil and church records from 1793 to 1856 for Strueth, Mertzen, and all towns in the department. These digital images are not name- or year-indexed; to find an 1811 birth, you must figure out what pages out of 250 or so might be 1811, and then read through each record. Tedious, and some years are missing, but it's free and fascinating.

http://archives.cg67.fr. The Archives of the Bas Rhin. The Wolf family is from the Bas Rhin. Although there are some differences in accessing and using these records, the above comments apply. 

The Archives of the Jura in Porrentruy, Switzerland. These records are not online. Swiss records for its citizens are maintained in the region in which the original citizenship was declared. For the Bourgeois, this is the Jura region. I went to the archives in Poorentruy where I obtained the marriage record for the earliest Bourgeois ancestor, Jean Bourgeois, and the birth records for sons Jean and Michael Bourgeois. It is possible to request records by mail. See the website: https://archivescantonales.jura.ch.

http://www.cdhf.net. The Centre Departmentale d'Histoire Familie. Something like Ancestry but not as huge or well-funded. Searchable database of millions of names. "Hits" provide enough information to identify persons for whom original records are wanted. The difference from Ancestry is that you can't access the original documents online; paper copies of original civil or church documemts can be ordered for a fee (in Euros). CDHF has records not available on the Alsace website archives named above. Between the Alsace Archives and the CDHF, I have close to 90 original records as evidence of people and their relationships.

http://colcdioc.org. The Diocese of Columbus Catholic Record Society publishes a newsletter (The Barquilla), which features in each edition several elements of interest to genealogists. It may be a transcription of a cemetery, a list of baptisms for a church in a given year, or excerpts from the Catholic Telegraph Register. Catholics in the area were served by itinerant priests until the first church in Ohio, St. Joseph's was built here, so the earliest records are a little messy, but the historians at The Barq have done a good job of sorting out the confusion. The Barq is fascinating; it is a secondary source, but I have used it, not for evidence of an ancestor's baptism, but as a window to relationships or additional details. For instance, Myrod Bushue's first wife was Mary; we have no other information. But on two separate occasions, Myrod and Mary Moritz/Mourite are sponsors at a baptism. So we have a lead for a hitherto unknown woman.

Http://perrycountyohio.us.  This site was created by Tim Fisher, whoever he is. It is a wonderfully eclectic mix of records: census data, land plats, tax records, marriage and birth records, county histories, and much more. It's worth a look. Records are transcriptions of originals.