“I’m looking for information in a vertical file that might be here,” I explained to the librarian. We were recently in Baltimore on our way to D.C. and I was trying to find documents that would fill in some gaps for my 4^th great grandfather James Blackston—also spelled Blackson, Blackstone, Blacksen, and Blackiston. Earlier last year I stumbled upon a post on Genforum.com by a distant cousin mentioning a vertical file in a Baltimore library containing something that seemed to substantiate James’ parents–although it didn’t indicate what the actual information was. I have lost touch with that cousin, and I hadn’t printed out the query. So I went back to the site before our trip only to find it had been archived by another company; searching was greatly inhibited and the particular query I needed could not be found to identify the library. A quick online search of Baltimore libraries with vertical files had 2 possible candidates, so we stopped at the first one I found, where I tried to explain, without sounding like a complete novice, my quest. Unfortunately, the vertical files there didn’t contain any Blackistons, but the librarian, from a quick card catalogue search, indicated some Blackiston material was at the Maryland Historical Society Library (MHSL), which we decided to visit on our way back home. Continue reading →