 Good afternoon. Welcome back to the National Archives Virtual Genealogy Fair. Our genealogy hotline is now open from one to four, so please give us a call. We will have archivists standing by and available to help you with your genealogy research. The toll free number is 1-855-309-8404. Our next session is about federal penitentiary records, and our speaker is Jake Ursulin. At the end of Mr. Ursulin's session, he will take questions. You may ask questions live at Ustream or on Twitter. If he does not have time to answer all of the questions you have submitted, please feel free to direct your questions to inquire at narra.gov. The National Archives maintains a large number of federal penitentiary inmate case files. These files can be packed with information providing unsurpassed biographical details on the life of its subjects. Those who use prison records in their genealogical research will be rewarded with knowledge absolutely unavailable anywhere else, anywhere else on earth. The speaker will instruct on what records are available from Alcatraz to Atlanta, inform us on how to locate what inmate files are available, and he will explain what a researcher can find in those files. Jake Ursulin joined the permanent staff at the National Archives at Kansas City as an archivist in 2008 after previously working there as a student hire, a contractor, and an intern, so he's working his way up. He received both his Bachelor of Arts and Master's in History from Pittsburgh State University. Jake oversees Holdings Maintenance Projects, the accessioning of new records, handles reference requests, and writes descriptions of records as well as performing other miscellaneous duties. Jake? Thank you, and thank you for this opportunity to talk about these unique and fascinating records. It's always a pleasure to talk about our Holdings in the National Archives and how they can help researchers look into their past and research their genealogy, and these records are certainly no exception. I just want to point out that the handout will be available on archives.gov, and the presentation, if you'd like, should be posted on archives.gov later in the month as well. As an archivist, every day I have the opportunity to see and learn from records as I aid researchers write descriptions of records and help preserve records. Depending on what I'm working with, they can fascinate me or catch my interest in many different ways. Some show trends or are great for demographical insight, and others provide a great snapshot into conditions in a particular point in American history. And some records are amazing for the biographical information that they contain. Federal penitentiary records certainly fall in this category. As an archivist in the National Archives of Kansas City, I work with Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary Records regularly. They are traditionally our highest used records and are mostly requested for genealogical research. The images here of Leavenworth's main entrance and most of the images in this presentation are from Leavenworth or from Leavenworth files. For a genealogist, a prison file can present itself as a paradox of sorts. While it can offer unsurpassed biographical details in the life of its subject, it may also relate more information than some researchers want to know. Not everyone, for example, really wants to know about their grandfather's drug addiction, foul language, or even at times sexual activity in prison. And that is beyond the very existence of the file, which means that an ancestor was convicted of a federal offense. Though it's said that every family has some skeletons in the closet, a federal conviction is a pretty significant skeleton. The information in some of these files has the power to hurt and offend some, whose memory of the family member does not match the information in the file. Neural grandpa may have seemed to be a saintly old man, but his past may hide a dark side. Despite all that, there is the possibility for those who use prison records in their genealogical research that they will be rewarded with knowledge they can't find anywhere else. The National Archives has available inmate case files for four of the nation's federal penitentiaries. They are Alcatraz, Atlanta, Leavenworth, and McNeil Island. Of course, there have been many other prisons in the Brio prison systems through the years, but record schedules dictate what federal records are kept and which ones are eventually disposed of and not kept or made part of the National Archives' permanent holdings. As of right now, only these four series of inmate case files have been accessioned into the holdings of the National Archives. Inmate case files from Alcatraz are in the series comprehensive case files of former inmates incarcerated at U.S. Penitentiary, Alcatraz, California. While contacting the archives about these records, you can reference this series by its National Archives identifier, 622809. You may be familiar with this number as an ARC ID. Now it is referred to as the National Archives Identifier, and this refers specifically to this series of records, this group of records. Entering this number into the National Archives online catalog on archives.gov will provide a research with more details on these records, including the extent of the record if you don't know how many records are in there, and they can also have more details about what type of records are found within the series. Something I'll talk about today, but there will be more information that could be available on the description at archives.gov. For Alcatraz, it's perhaps the most notorious of prisons in the Bureau of Prison's history. It was built on an island in San Francisco Bay. The rock has held some of the nation's most notorious inmates. Though famous for its inmates, note, the total number of prisoners at Alcatraz is not that many in comparison with other institutes we'll talk about today. Only 1,576 inmates logged in at the rock, and a few of those are actually re-entries, people that were sent back. Alcatraz's files are arranged a little bit differently from most places, as they're arranged alphabetically. Normally, inmate case files are arranged numerically by the inmate number each prisoner receives on entering the penitentiary, but this series on Alcatraz inmates was compiled after the prison closed, pulling files from former inmates that had transferred elsewhere into the series. A complete index to the inmates at Alcatraz is available both on Ancestry.com and the archives.gov website. The original records for Alcatraz are held at the National Archives at San Francisco. The records for the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary cover only a short portion of the penitentiary's history, but this still consists of thousands of files with over 14,000 inmates listed in the catalog. Atlanta has their inmates listed on an individual level in the archives catalog, so you can search by individual names that way as well. Atlanta has each inmate entered individual in the catalog, and the National Archives identifier for the whole series is 607-937. So as I mentioned earlier, you can search by that number in archives.gov on the online catalog to get more information on that series. An index of the inmates is also available both on Ancestry.com and on archives.gov. The original records for this series is at the National Archives at Atlanta. As I mentioned earlier, the National Archives of Kansas City holds the inmate case files for Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. These holdings include inmates from when the penitentiary first opened in 1895 all the way through 1952. It's a more extensive collection than the other holdings that we'll be talking about today. The National Archives identifier for these inmate case files is 571-125. This series presently contains 68,900 inmates and 137 Leavenworth inmate case files. Since opening its doors in July of 1895, the United States Penitentiary Leavenworth in Kansas has been home to some of the most famous and notorious federal prisoners in history. These include Robert Stroud, also known as the bird man of Alcatraz, even though he didn't have any birds at Alcatraz, those were all at Leavenworth. George Machine Gun Kelly, who was later shipped to Alcatraz. People are explored Dr. Frederick Cook, labor leader Big Bill Hayward, and world heavyweight champion boxer Jack Johnson. Lesser known are the tens of thousands of ordinary men and about a dozen women incarcerated for periods from a few months to a few decades. Indexes to the early inmates can be found both on Ancestry.com and Archives.gov. We can move to the next slide, please. Fike Atlanta, McNeil Island inmate case files cover the earliest period of the Penitentiary's existence. However, unlike Atlanta, an index for McNeil Island inmates is available only on Ancestry.com and not on Archives.gov. McNeil Island is located in western Puget Sound in Washington. Therefore, the original case files are at the National Archives in Seattle. The National Archives identifier for the McNeil inmate case files is 608858. One thing to note additionally beyond these four series I have talked about is that there is a separate series of inmate case files at the National Archives of Washington, D.C. This series is titled Notorious Offender Files 1919 to 1975 and is identified by National Archives identifier 580698. Unlike the other series I have talked about, this series specifically contains only inmates that were famous for one reason or another from across the country and not just one particular institute. This includes institutes where no other inmate case file have been made part of the Holdings National Archives. For many genealogists this won't necessarily be a great source of records unless of course you have an ancestor that was a notorious individual, a person of the famous or no. If so, please be sure to check out this series at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. As mentioned on the previous slides, there are two sources online for searching for inmates. Archives.gov has indexes for Alcatraz, Atlanta and Leavenworth. The index for Leavenworth on Archives.gov does not represent all inmate case files that are part of the series. Rather, only those files that are covered through around 1931. Likewise, inmates that appear on Ancestry.com for Leavenworth covers only through the mid 1930s. So that's just to note that just because you don't see a name on one of these indexes, you may want to still inquire if you believe an individual went to Leavenworth or one of the penitentiaries at a later date. Here's a screenshot of the Alcatraz index on the Archives.gov website. The link to this site is included. As you can see, all the names are listed alphabetically by inmates' surname. The only additional information provided is the inmate number, which can be used if a request for a file is placed within National Archives in San Francisco. In general, a file should be able to be located with the inmate number and name. However, it is always generally best to include information such as the subject's age and date of birth, just to make sure you have the right individual that you're looking for. You have similar names and it can be confusing at times whether or not you're looking at the person, looking at the record for the right person. So whenever you submit a request, always include as much as you can. If you know the location they lived or the crime they committed or what court they were sentenced from, those can all help in determining whether or not is the correct person that you're looking for. Oftentimes, if you submit a request at an Archives, we'll supply some of that information back to you whenever we look at the file to perform a page count just to let you know that you can check to make sure if this is the right individual. If you do order a file, you can order copies from the National Archives. The standard fee is $20 for the first 25 copies with an 80 cent charge for each page thereafter. Later in the presentation, I'll provide contact information for each location so you'll know who to contact if you want to order any of these records. As you can see, Atlanta's index on Archives.gov has a lot more information on it than Alcatraz's information. It just, Atlanta's, the National Archives of Atlanta just chose to post more information than the National Archives of San Francisco. It's still arranged alphabetically by inmate surname, but these spreadsheets also include the inmate's race, age of sentencing, court where sentenced from, and crime convicted of. As noted, those are all things that can really be helpful in determining whether or not this is the individual that you're looking for or just someone that has the same name as one of your ancestors. That can happen rather frequently as you'll have people at Leavenworth that's the same first and last name and you'll have to look at the details just to the inside Leavenworth to know whether or not the same person. The Leavenworth inmate index on Archives.gov only contains the basics similar to Alcatraz with inmate name and numbers only. As mentioned, you should be able to just apply that the name and number to make a request at the archives, but always include more information on your individual whenever you do just to make sure we have the right person. The databases for Alcatraz, Atlanta, and Leavenworth on Ancestry are all fairly similar. Searches can be completed individually for each separate database with standard search fields such as first and last name. Leavenworth files on Ancestry.gov go through inmates entering in 1931. However, this still includes over 40,000 names of individuals that entered Leavenworth Federal Penance Entry. So it's an extensive amount of people even though it's a shorter portion than our complete series of records. The McNeil Island index on Ancestry has more information than the other three indexes. This is because it is a digitized copy of the series Record of Prisoners Received at U.S. Penance Entry on McNeil Island. As you can see, the record includes the inmate number, name, date of sentence, age, height, weight, color of eyes, color of hair, and whiskers, and identifying marks. This is an individual as you'll note an identifying mark that says he has a woman's head tattooed on his arm. You never know what type of identifying marks you'll find in prison files. Sometimes it can be rather creative. Also included is where convicted from and the crime convicted of. Here you have an example of an individual that was sent to McNeil Island from California for committing the crime of smuggling. Individuals sent to these prisons are all convicted of federal crime. So you'll note that you have only a specific set of types of crimes listed, all violations of federal crimes. One thing to definitely note when researching federal prison records are that records less than 75 years old are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act under subsection B6. To quote from National Archives Guidelines, this type of record might include medical information, personal financial data, social security numbers, intimate details of an individual's personal or family life, or similar data. What does this mean in practical research terms? Researchers can obtain significant portions of case files less than 75 years old if the inmate is deceased and a copy of a death certificate or obituary or social security death index is provided with a request. The medical, financial, or intimate personal information of other individuals, particularly children, will be deleted or redacted from records less than 75 years old. That said, other persons appearing in the file are entitled to information on them and may obtain copies of these records. Early inmate case files, those created between 1895 and 1905 for Leavenworth and earlier files for the other penitentiaries often can be fairly sparse. They usually contain the photograph or mug shot, record sheet, sentence of court, and correspondence log only. As the 20th century progressed and institutions grew larger and more bureaucratic, inmate files expanded accordingly. Files created in the mid-20th century can run into the hundreds of pages and really sometimes at thousands of pages. I once found a file of a prisoner who ran into ran his business out of jail and had over three boxes worth of records, mostly correspondence detailing wanted business transactions to his business partners. A particular interest in later files is the social interview which the Bureau of Prisons began conducting in prisoners who entered the system in the 1930s. The social interview appeared at a time of high confidence in the ability of sociology to account for the root causes of criminal behavior. Every possible environmental influence was duly noted and weighed in the social workers evaluation of the subject. The social interview offers a wealth of personal information, some of which may be restricted. One thing to note is that at times there will be no inmate file for an individual in the holdings or very little beyond a note that an inmate was transferred to another institution. Normally, when inmates were transferred, their file was transferred with them, sometimes leaving only a note of the folder that the inmate was transferred to. Another time this occurs is when the inmate is sent back to the same institute at a later date for having been convicted of another crime. Normally, the original file will be consolidated with the later file. Sometimes this will result in no file in the holdings as the more recent file is not yet part of the National Archives holdings. So what can you find in a file? I mentioned a few record types, but you can find all sorts of things from physical information such as the mugshot and fingerprints to documents that detail prisoners good behavior and activities in prison to correspondence written to and from prisoners and the basic sheets that document exactly who a prisoner was and why they entered the penitentiary in the first place. Prisoner case case file really does contain a wealth of details. The first record type we'll talk about today is the inmate photograph more commonly known as the mugshot. The inmate photographs normally captures a front and side view of the inmate. You'll note that in earlier photographs often the inmates would have hats on as was the style of the day. Sometimes I've even heard researchers say that the inmate photograph is the only picture they have of an ancestor. That's all they have to know what their ancestor looked like. So they can be a fascinating part of a file for any researcher. Another record to mention would be the record sheet. This document includes the inmate's name, alias, inmate registration number, color, race, crime, sentence, the length of period they'll be sent to prison for, a fine if they received one of those, the date they were received at the penitentiary, the court they received from, where they were convicted. The minimum time due, the maximum time spent in jail, the term of date, if they'll have good time, that's if they are serving with no penalties while they're in prison, they could be let out early on good time. Date of parole eligibility, so when they can be sent, age and what date they were actually discharged from the prison. The occupations you'll find really can vary a lot. Federal penitentiaries have been home to bankers and doctors, lawyers and con men, sometimes the same thing, spies, actors, writers and scientists, train robbers, newspaper editors, soldiers, jockey, boxers, race car drivers, and cowboys. For Leavenworth, there were over 60 individuals that listed their occupation as ball players. So you never know who would be end up being sent to a penitentiary, a wide variety of people committed federal crimes. The record sheet also describes an inmates disciplinary violations. These violations range from rather petty violations, such as talking in the lunch line, to pretty serious things, such as murdering another inmate. These lists can be rather extensive as the prison documents and punishes individuals for a wide variety of things. This is done to keep the individuals in line with prison rules. Anytime someone acts out as an individual, it's a threat to the prison views to their law and order, and therefore they'll take away privileges. But if you behave well, they'd give privileges back as good behavior. Sometimes it could be time available to watch a movie or smoke cigarettes even, or play baseball or watch baseball. But if you act out, show your individuality as a person, they'll punish you sometimes having privileges taken away, or even being sent to solitary confinement, with a term as the whole. So you'll find all kinds of information on what an individual did in the prison. Sometimes pretty mundane things. You'll have talking back to a guard or saying mean things about the warden even, that you'll find listed in these violations. Another record we'll talk about is the personal data sheet. This document provides additional information on the inmate's family background and criminal conviction. It'll include information whether they're a civil or military status in prison, the name of the committing judge and district attorney, the place of their arrest, the length of pre-trial jail time, how long they were in jail before sent to whichever penitentiary they were sent to, how they pleaded whether they pleaded guilty or not guilty, their nativity where they were born, the date of birth, parental information, marital status, number of children, it could have their wife's address, their permanent address of the inmate themselves. Next to kin notification, education, literacy, religion, tobacco use or alcohol use or even drug use, age when they first left home and other miscellaneous remarks. So here you have one sheet that can have just the wealth of details on who a person was, what their background was and why they ended up in prison. Of course, anytime you'd enter prison, you'd have your fingerprints taken. The fingerprint card captures other basic physical identifying features also, such as the height and weight, hair and eye color, marks, you know, they have tattoos or such, scars, moles, and other details that provide you information on what an individual looked like. Earlier files would also have what was called the Bertilian measurements with the fingerprints. The Bertilian system was a system designed by an individual named Bertilian that was designed to take down information on an individual to identify them based off of anthropometrics, such as length and width of the head and degree of the forehead slope. Interesting enough, this system worked well enough until a set of identical twin inmates known as the two Will West exposed the weakness of the Bertilian system when they had the exact same physical measurements and were determined to be the same person. Of course, they weren't. Therefore, they went to just fingerprints to detail who are to document and identify who specifically a person was. Another record to talk about is the individual daily work record. This record is complete when completed. It allows the researcher to discover what an inmate did every day of his or her confinement. It's difficult to imagine many other records as comprehensive as a prisoner work record. Hospital records are one of those documents that unveil facts that possibly could be unwanted by every member of the family. Vanirial diseases, alcohol and drug addicts were noted here. Although it was popularly believed that boot layers caused prisons overcrowded in the 1920s, it was actually the large number of drug or dope offenders that push federal correction systems to the brink of capacity. In 1925, for example, narcotics offenders outnumbered alcohol offenders 10 to 1. Leavenworth had so many drug violators that they formed their own baseball teams. The morphines and the cocaine squared off in an annual contest to determine the best baseball playing dope violators in the Institute. Obviously, you had a whole crowd of drug users and that who was a drug user would be found located on these hospital records. You would also have a physician examination of prisoners. This single sheet lists basic physical information on a prisoner at the time of their entry. It includes more details beyond, you know, your basic physical description is also you'd have health details in heart rate and blood pressure and things of that nature or if they suffered from any other specific disease or ailment. Correspondence logs can be a fascinating record in detailing who all a prisoner corresponded with. Well, often it'll it'll note that prisoners incoming and outcoring letters. Normally these are, you know, family members or work associates. You'd also have legal and friendship networks also that are revealed in these records. So sometimes not all the correspondences kept in the files and these can reveal details about who it is a prisoner actually felt the need to send letters to. Sometimes these can be kind of sad as well when a prisoner has a correspondence log that is completely blank. Nobody wrote to them in their five years of prison and they didn't feel the need to write to anyone else. But sometimes they'll be the document extensive correspondence work by the inmate. Which of course leads to another group of records, the personal correspondence. Now it's considered a prisoner's personal private property if he followed prison institutional rules, which was a big if. Of course, correspondence coming into and out of the prison were examined by prison officials. Something not everyone apparently knew. Just yesterday, one of our staff members here at the National Archives at Kansas City came across the letter while working reference from that was sent to a member inmate at Leavenworth from a member of the infamous purple gang from Detroit that operated 1920s and 30s. Now this individual, obviously, well, I hope obviously did not know that the prison officials would look over his correspondence because he put all sorts of details that you wouldn't expect to find there. He wrote that he was glad to hear that the person wasn't doing poorly at quote, but thank God I was greatly mistaken about that about your condition in prison. And believe me, after reading the letter, I felt so happy I wanted to go out and hold up a post office so that I could join you in your good time end quote. In the detail in the letter, he goes on to detail his operations as a bookie. The new opening of a speakeasy, which he titles a speak on Hastings Street and even gives the address of the speakeasy, goes on to detail his own personal whiskey operations, where he talks about getting shipments from Miami from the real McCoy, famous figure that bootlegger McCoy who was operating, he was getting trans shipments of that whiskey. And then he even goes on to detail his goings on with another lady who he stated was trying to get a job at a club. And to help get the job, he said that quote, but some manager told her that to Bob Herschnauzel, to Bob Herschnauzel would get her head in the business. So he took her to a famous plastic surgeon to get this done. This just goes to show that you never know what you'll find in the correspondence. Sometimes you'll oftentimes you'll find letters to and from family members, you know, just talking about how they're doing back at home, how he's doing back in prison, just reports of that nature. But like I said earlier, you'll have business deals, or people giving out all kinds of criminal activity that will be reported in this personal correspondence. So personal correspondence can be amazing look into a person's life, if it is found in the inmate case file. Another group of records to note is the trustee prisoners agreement, overwork prison officials appointed trustworthy inmates to positions of petty authority and responsibility, where they could lead work crews in the completion of institutional jobs. Since some of the men worked outside of the prison walls without supervision, they were required to sign a contract or a trustee prisoners agreement. The agreement is valuable to researchers because it asks the inmate to state their offense in their own words. Sometimes you get some pretty colorful descriptions of what their offense were. It also required an inmate to list two character references, valuable evidence for researching into an individual's life. Also found in the files will be sentences of court. This will include more important clues, as it implies, more important clues than actual content, as it will supply the sentence of the court and tells the researcher where the prisoner's conviction occurred. The docket number can be used to find the court case, which will provide more information on the inmate's criminal history and open up new research leads. I've talked about some of the more notorious aspects or some of the more not appealing aspects of prison in their case files, but that doesn't mean that you can't have fascinating family stories in these files, too. One of my favorite research requests was for an individual sent sentenced to Leavenworth from Oklahoma inmate number 3-3-2-6-2 O.D. Groom. He was sentenced to Leavenworth for violating national banking laws. His file showed that he owned a bank in a small town in Oklahoma, a bank that his father had started. With the stock market crash in 1929, banks struggled across the nation, and Groom's bank was no exception. Groom fought to save his bank and protect depositors and stockholders. In the process, he broke the law. This letter that I have posted here was in his file. It was written by former governor of Oklahoma, Martin Trapp. He wrote to the warden in Leavenworth to petition for an early release to Groom, an early release for Groom. In the letter, Trapp stated that Groom was an outstanding citizen who could, quote, never willfully violate the law, end quote, and he was highly respected as one of the most useful citizens whose demeanor and conduct was an inspiration to those who came in contact with him. So as you can see, just because someone went to Leavenworth doesn't mean that you couldn't find some very positive information about an ancestor, too. Here's someone who was just operating his bank in a very trying time and ended up being sent to Leavenworth, even though he wasn't trying to commit any crimes. And you have, he's vouched for by a governor of a state for his early release. So you can find some very positive things in these files as well. I do want to note that you can't have mistakes in looking for files. With Leavenworth, certainly, we'll have inquiries from researchers who think they have found in the federal census and the ancestor confined in Leavenworth. In addition to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Leavenworth County is home to the Kansas State Penitentiary, the United States disciplinary barrack, and what used to be known as the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, now the VA. All four institutions enumerated the residents as inmates, leading many researchers to, of course, assume that their research individual actually was at the federal penitentiary. So just because someone is listed as an inmate in the same county as one of these federal penitentiaries doesn't mean that they're at one of these locations. And more research may be needed. Of note for census materials, the fine print at the top of the page normally will tell you where they actually lived. Inmate case files for state institutes normally can be found at either a state archives or state historical society. And those are good sources to look into for more information. Sometimes there will be related prison camps also that are that the inmate case files were not kept for. At Leavenworth you have an annex where overflow when they were they filled up with their inmates. But those files were not kept as well. So it's possible that more research could be needed as well outside of the federal penitentiary in the case files. Now if you would like to view records actually on site it's always best to contact ahead of time and let the National Archives site know that you want to view a particular inmate case file. This will give the Archives staff a chance to locate and pull records for researchers and identify any possible issues that could arise such as if redaction is required or if a file has been transferred or if a prisoner was sent to another location. As stated earlier if you want to contact the National Archives of Kansas City the National Archives of Kansas City holds the records for the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. If you'd like to contact the records for the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary they are located at the National Archives of Atlanta. Generally it's easiest to send a request to be an email but if you would prefer calling the National Archives the specific location is just fine as well. One thing to note for the National Archives at San Francisco their email address identifies them as sanbruno.archives at NARA and you'll note that their address is in San Bruno, California but they are known as the National Archives at San Francisco. They of course hold the Alcatraz inmate case files. And the McNeil Island inmate case files are at the National Archives at Seattle. We have time for questions now. If anyone is has any questions certainly I'm happy to take those at this point. Jake this is Diane. We have quite a list of questions actually. Thank you for your presentation. The first question is who is considered next of kin? Next of kin as far as in the files that who an individual is listed there will generally be who they're married to or if they weren't married to someone who their parents were. Now next of kin as far as making a request generally that would be a direct descendant but you just need to provide if that's the case which you're asking for next of kin you just need to provide proof whether an individual is dead that certificate obituary or social security number or if a person is still alive if you can get written consent that guess that would work as well the most these files are old enough you wouldn't be able to have that. Okay thank you. The next question were all federal prisoners recorded in the decennial census by name. Were all federal prisoners recorded in the decennial census by name. I would assume so they when they were enumerating the districts they certainly went to the prisons as well and like for Leavenworth if you go to the Leavenworth district the Leavenworth enumeration page you'll pages you'll see all the inmates listed there. So yes inmates at federal penitentiaries should also be on the censuses which is another way to actually identify whether or not an inmate case file is there they show up in a census as an inmate at a federal penitentiary. Thank you. The next question how would we know if an inmate was notorious in the 1800s or should we just automatically check. How do you know whether an inmate was a notorious and it's kind of a subjective thing that's a very quest good very good question. Most of the inmates that are listed that have been consolidated into the notorious offender file are significant criminals like the Barker-Karpus gang were involved in major crimes of national note were famous because of their status in society whether they're wealthy or things of that nature. You can just contact the National Archives of Washington DC or here at the National Archives of Kansas City we have a listing of the notorious offenders too so feel free to contact and ask if they if you think you may have an ancestor that was a notorious offender. That that series also is available online though you don't have an index of who is listed there on that series you'll just have to contact to see who all is there. Thank you. The next question where were women incarcerated in the 19th century. Where were women incarcerated and there were a number of institutes that were created specifically for women. I did mention that there were some women that were sent to Leavenworth. I don't believe any were sent to Alcatraz. I don't know about Atlanta McNeill Island but I doubt that. There were specific institutes. I know there was an institute in Michigan that many women were sent to such as Evelyn Perchette John Dillinger's girlfriend. The name of that institute is escaping my name presently but there were other institutes that held women specifically. Thank you. Next question. Are prisoners listed on the census under the heading of the penitentiary's name. I believe at the top of the page will list that they were at the Leavenworth federal penitentiary just as if they were at the state penitentiary it'll list that as a location as well. Last question when did they begin taking these great photographs. Well for Leavenworth when the question is when they began taking the mug shots for Leavenworth they started with the very first inmate. I believe for Alcatraz they should have mug shots from the very beginning Atlanta they likely have mug shots from the very beginning as well as for McNeill Island. It's just a great way to identify who a person was. Anytime someone was in prison you need to know what a person looks like if someone escapes or if they're sent to another prison you need to be able to identify. So the mug shots were standard very early in the prison system. Jake we have one last question if you're still willing to go on. What is the best way to find all conscientious objectors sent to Leavenworth in 1917 and 1918. What is the best way to find all conscientious objectors sent to Leavenworth. Well as you know the as I mentioned earlier the index that's online only gives your inmate number and name so that wouldn't tell you. That type of research you probably need to contact the archives and we for us here at Kansas City we have a more extensive database that includes crimes. You probably need to contact either Atlanta or us at the National Archives of Kansas City and let them let them know what type of research you're looking for and we'd have to analyze our our data data spreadsheets on and see if we can locate those specific types of inmates. But that type of research is possible you'll just need to talk with an archivist to do that. Thank you so much Jake that concludes our program with you this afternoon. Stay tuned at 3 o'clock I'm sorry at 2 o'clock I'm ahead of myself. At 2 o'clock we have Trevor Plant discussing finding US colored troops at the National Archives.