Desktop Genealogist Unplugged

Windows 7 and Saving Images from Ancestry on Your New Computer – Aargh!

2010-10-10T16:15:00.003-04:00

I’ve been limping along for quite some time now, using the same laptop for work and play. And boy, do I play – a lot. Seriously.

It’s easy to separate your work life from your play life, but not so easy to justify a second laptop, especially when it is dedicated solely to personal use. Since my work laptop was run on XP windows, and I’d heard all the horror stories from users of Vista, I’d decided that limping along using the one machine for both functions might not be such a bad idea. So I headed to my own mental bomb shelter and patiently waited out the scourge that was Vista before revisiting the idea of a second computer.

And then the sun came out. Microsoft put out its new Windows 7. I started seeing all those happy people in the commercials. You know the ones, those people all over the world who invented Windows 7 thereby making the world a better place, Kumbaya. Yeah, okay, I’ll admit it. Madison Avenue got me. Suck-ah!

The first piece of bad news - My Family Treemaker version 16 was not compatible. Then my Arc software that I’ve used forever, the software that I love, the software that came with my old Sony camera, and I’ve become an expert at using – also not compatible. Grrrrrrr!!!!

Today, however, Windows 7 dealt its harshest blow of all. It would not let me save images from Ancestry. Wait. Was that a collective gasp I heard coming from the genealogy gallery? (Chuckles from the folks still using Windows XP?)

Now you would think that in my umpteen years of having an Ancestry subscription, I’ve probably saved every darn census I would ever need, and you’d be right. The size of my census folder is a whopping big 2.74 GB, with 817 folders and 5,275 files. (Some of those files are duplicates – remember those old .SID image files? I still have them. I can still read them with a Brava Reader and they are really beautiful to behold compared to the jpeg files.)

Well, today, owing to the fact that I could not use my wonderful free Arc software to crop an image of the 1840 census, I looked online to see if there was something I could use on Windows 7 to do a simple job like crop a photo. There is – it’s called Paint. You know that application that’s been on every Windows based computer since the beginning of time, that application.

So, I followed the instructions, did a credible job of cropping, and then saved the image. But wait, I shouldn’t have clicked “Save.” By clicking “Save” instead of “Save As,” I overwrote the original file. Rats!

No problem, I said to myself, I’ll just log into Ancestry, find the very same census image and save it to my computer. When I went to “Save” the image, I was told the Administrator did not grant permission to save the file to my folder entitled “Census.” Wait a minute, aren’t I the administrator? I most certainly did grant permission, but Windows apparently couldn’t take verbal permission. Fine.

It did however have another recommendation. Windows 7 recommended that I save it to “My Pictures” folder. Inconvenient, but what the heck, I clicked “yes.”

Problem was I couldn’t find the image when I went looking for it. I tried saving it again, going through the same process, except this time I was told the file already existed. I could see the file in my little save box but when I went into the “My Pictures” folder, the file wasn’t there.

Then I did a search for the folder. It found the file, but when I clicked on the link, it told me the file wasn’t there, and to make sure I had typed the file and path correctly. Of course, I didn’t type the file and path. Windows did. But hey, who am I to argue with a snippety computer system.

Okay, now I’m ticked. I start googling for answers, finally, coming across a Microsoft forum where, hello, someone else had the very same problem. “Kaye” said to go to the home page of Ancestry, click on the help button, type in the term “Can’t save Images.” Number five in the search reads, “Why can’t I print or save record images from Ancestry.com any more on Windows Vista or Windows 7.”

There on the page are the step-by-step instructions. I couldn’t print them out, as my printer hasn’t been hooked up yet to my new laptop, and I don’t think my heart could take the news that my printer isn’t compatible. So I read the instructions carefully first, copied the “*.ancestry.com” phrase I would need to add, tiled the Internet Options box with the help page for Ancestry and proceeded to fix my problem.

Voila! It worked. See screen shot below with blue arrow pointing to the naughty little file, sitting as bold as can be in my 1840 Ohio Census folder.

Thanks Kaye. Thanks Ancestry expert. No thanks, Windows 7, you heartless cad.

Washed to the Sea

2009-09-17T13:25:00.005-04:00

I don’t know if it's the way for everyone as they get older, but I find myself going back over bits and pieces of my childhood looking for clues as to how and why I became the person I am. Yesterday, a piece of my adolescence died in the form of Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary fame.

My parents belonged to a record club in the mid sixties when I was growing up. You remember records, don’t you? They were those 12-inch diameter black vinyl discs that you had to flip over in order to listen to all the songs. My mother and father’s tastes must have been quite eclectic, or perhaps they forgot to send in the little postcard denying the current selection of the month, because there were a wide variety of different musical tastes represented in their collection.

Bobby Vinton, The Association, Englebert Humperdinck, Blood Sweat and Tears, Ray Charles, Joni Mitchell, The Everly Brothers, The Seekers, and The Tijuana Brass were some of the artists whose albums graced our record case. Eclectic, yes?

But the album that I was most entranced with, and listened to over and over again was Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1963 album, In the Wind. On the album, the song Hush-A-Bye would become a staple among the lullabies that I would sing to my own children years later (along with PP & M’s Album 1700 entries, Leavin’ on a Jet Plane, No Other Name and I’m in Love with a Big Blue Frog).

It was, however, Bob Dylan’s song, Blowin in the Wind that captured most of my attention. The antiwar song sung with a crystal brilliant clarity by Mary Travers became a favorite, a song to memorize and sing. Its quiet protest message penetrated the selfish layer of an adolescent brain, and became a part of my own mantra, my own raised social consciousness, my own antiwar sentiments. Sentiments I wished I had been more vocal about six years ago.

It’s funny how a series of little things turn into your life. Not those wild huge moments, though there certainly have been those, but small moments like tiny drops of liquid that build until you have enough to make a wave - crashing then receding back into the sea. Mary Travers’ recession began yesterday. For those, like me, who loved her voice, her songs, her clear elegant protests, we hold onto the wave that her music inspired.

What do Fill Dirt, a 1500 Year Old Indian Mound, and the Wal-Mart Corporation have in common? Nothing Good!

2009-07-11T02:31:00.002-04:00

For a number of years, I had my own personal little boycott going against Wal-Mart. I was upset when they abandoned their building on the East side of Fremont, to build a newer, better, bigger version across town. It was mostly a quiet rebellion, in which I took my business to the local K-Mart, grumbling about the extra 15 minutes of drive time that this change of buying habits necessitated.

My anger briefly flared again in 2001 when I found online, Wal-Mart’s Realty Division. I was shocked to see close to 300 stores across the country had suffered similar fates.

Today, more than a decade (maybe even closing in on two decades, my senility creeping mind can’t remember exactly when the “new” store was built) after coyly hinting to the local newspaper that they, Wal-Mart, had undisclosed plans for the soon to be abandoned building on the East side of Fremont, the building remains empty, unoccupied, and a monument to the schizoid good neighbor policy Wal-Mart brings to its host communities.

What does this have to do with genealogy? Nothing really, except that earlier on Friday, I received an email from my geneablogging buddy, Mississippi Terry, of Hill Country of Monroe County. He asked his friends in the geneablogging community to “Read Deep Fried Kudzu today and weep at the wanton destruction of our heritage.”

In the post, the writer tells about the plans of Oxford, Alabama to destroy a 1500-year-old Indian Mound site to use it as fill dirt for the building of a new Sam’s Club. The mayor of Oxford, Leon Smith, was quoted as saying to the local ABC affiliate, “if any remains are found, they will be reburied there.” Well, sure, after digging them up and tossing them all together in a heap, that’s the least the city could do.

I’d like to think that the Wal-Mart Corporation is ignorant of these plans, and would not condone such a thing. I’d like to think that upon learning of such activities by the town of Oxford, the Wal-Mart Corporation would prove me wrong in my assessment of their community minded character, and say, “No, Way!”

I’d like to think it, but I’m not holding my breath.

Sandusky County Kin Hunters Meeting This Sunday

2009-07-09T12:41:00.000-04:00

Are you making effective use of obituaries and death certificates in your genealogy research? John Tate will be discussing this topic at the Sandusky County Kin Hunters meeting this Sunday, July 12 at 2:00 PM

The meeting will take place at the Sandusky Township Hall on Rt 19 North in Fremont. There is ample parking and the meeting is handicapped accessible. Guests are always welcome!

For further information, please contact Kim at 419-603-0367.

Footnote and Gannett - A Partnership Made for News-Messenger Readers?

2009-07-09T09:14:00.001-04:00

There was interesting reading in my email box today. Footnote, the home of 57 million digitized historical documents, has partnered with the Gannett Company, the publisher of 84 daily newspapers (including our own News-Messenger) to add historical newspaper content to the online world. Two of those newspaper’s, Florida Today and Poughkeepsie Journal (NY) have already had digitized pages added to Footnote’s ever growing list of documents.

According to Footnote, they plan to digitize “the full run” of these two newspapers. That could be quite an accomplishment since the Poughkeepsie Journal dates back to 1785!

Footnote has kicked off the venture with news articles featuring Woodstock and the Moon Landing. No word on whether any of our own local newspaper will eventually be added to Footnote’s content, but that might be worth Footnote’s subscription price, which goes up to a $79.95 annual rate as of August 1. Footnote is currently running a limited time special rate of $59.95 for the annual subscription.

Which of Gannett’s newspapers will have their content added to Footnote? I don’t know. Since Ohio is woefully underrepresented in Footnote’s current small town historical newspaper collection – I couldn’t find any when I took a quick peek – my guess is that at least some of their Ohio newspapers will eventually be part of the collection.

If the News-Messenger ends up as one of them, wouldn’t it make a nice promotional, giving the subscribers to the News-Mess a discount on an annual Footnote subscription? Just a thought….

Because the Boat Rocked?

2009-05-24T12:27:00.005-04:00

Note: Mildred Jane Thacker and Frances Thacker lived beside each other with their families in 1850. They, as well as their families, are listed as “mulatto” in this census. They married cousins Weatherfoot Napper and Nimrod Nicholas Thacker. Were Mildred and Frances cousins? Were they sisters? Why are the descendents of one white, and the other black?

Raccoon Creek starts softly in the southeast corner of Hocking County below the Hocking River. It travels down 109 miles flirting with Athens County and the northwestern tip of Meigs County. Full bodied it runs into Vinton County before it reaches the Ohio River just north of Raccoon Island in Gallia County. The creek has always attracted boaters and fishermen.

In 1857, a trio of men were enjoying the day, paddling a canoe on the creek near Hawks Station in Vinton County. Dennis McKinniss, Malachi Dorton and Weatherfoot Napper were all Wilkesville Township boys. According to the 1850 census, Malachi and “Wed” lived next door to each other. Conspicuous by his absence was another neighbor, Nicholas Thacker, the nephew of Malachi and cousin to Wed.

On another day, it could have easily been Nicholas in the canoe, with Wed back on dry land, but on this day, the men rowing the narrow boat were Dennis, Malachi and Wed. The account of the incident, found in “A Standard History of The Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, Volume 1” is painfully sparse, stating only, “The last three men were drowned at Hartley’s Mill in 1857 by the upsetting of a canoe in which they were rowing.”

After the death of her husband, Wed Napper, Mildred Jane moved her family to Pike County where she worked as day laborer. Francis, the wife of Nicholas, stayed with her husband and family in Vinton County. Family tradition says that the Dorton, Napper and Thacker families were part Native American. This originally set them apart from their Ohio neighbors when they first arrived from Virginia.

Eventually, after many decades of living, working and marrying their white neighbors, those that stayed in Vinton County crossed the threshold of race and disappeared forever into the white community. This is what happened to Francis and her descendents.

In Pike County, however, it was the surrounding black community that opened its arms to Mildred Jane and her family. And so Mildred and her descendents passed forever into the African American community.

Two descendents, one black, one white, research the same branch of a family tree. Is it possible they owe not only the color of their skin, but their very existence to a boat that rocked and a canoe trip not taken?

The Postman Sometimes Comes Twice

2009-05-24T01:16:00.012-04:00

The postman was very nice to me in the last two days. He gave me an envelope with four obituaries and one envelope from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Whoopee!

I know you are too polite to ask, “Terry, how much did all of this largess cost you?” But it’s okay. Go ahead - ask me. ASK ME!

A buck twenty cents is how much it cost me. That’s $1.20 for all of you specific types. The obituaries came from the Special Collections Division of the Akron-Summit County Public Library, which charges a $1.00 processing fee plus $.05 per copy. The payment is already in the mail and on its way. Thank you, Special Collections Division!

Today, I received the package from the USCIS. I’ve looked through it twice and there was no charge. Back in August, I challenged myself to do “7 Requests, 7 Days,” mainly because I am a devout masochist. This was Day 2 of my self-challenge marathon. I used the Freedom of Information Act to request the complete immigration file for each of my great grandparents, Emma and Leo Schrader.

Emma and Leo, who immigrated to this country from Germany in 1906, never became citizens. When World War I and World War II broke out, they were considered Enemy Aliens. The majority of registrations for World War I are no longer in existence, but there are some states, such as Kansas, whose records still exist. NARA has compiled a list of 5928 files, digitized them, and allowed access to them through ARC.

In today’s mail was Emma’s file. It is eight pages long. I made the request on August 5 of last year. On August 13, a new genealogical service went into effect at the USCIS. The new format charges $20.00 to do an index search. You now must have a valid USCIS file number before you can request a file. The file itself now costs an additional $20 or $35 depending on the type.

You must pay in advance, and if you request the file without a valid USCIS file number they will refuse to do the search and they will not refund your money. (If you already have a valid number, which luckily I did, you can skip the index search and save yourself twenty bucks.)

The date stamp for my request was August 19, so I wondered if I would get the request back, telling me I needed to go through the correct procedure. Fortunately, at least in the case of Emma, I did not, and instead of paying $20 or $35 dollars, I got mine free! (This helps dampen slightly my pain at having to pay NARA $75 for an ancestor’s civil war pension packet. No, I am still not ready to let that go.)

Below I have scanned all eight pages I received from the USCIS. You can decide for yourself, if you want to go through the process. To read more about the new genealogy program offered by the USCIS, you can click this link.

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging!

An Award - How Lovely

2009-05-12T19:52:00.004-04:00

I was honored recently by two of my favorite genealogy blogging friends, Harriet at Genealogy Fun and Judith at Genealogy Traces with the One Lovely Blog Award.

I was particularly pleased to be so honored by these two ladies, who along with being terrific, talented writers, are also the essense of the lovely blog ideal. You'll see exactly what I mean when you go and check out each of their blogs.

Harriet has a unique, lovely background design which frames each of her posts. And she always has out the "welcome mat" for friends and strangers alike.

Judith Richards Shubert has a lovely banner, framing her blog. It's filled with beautiful family pictures and is quite stunning to behold.

So you can understand, why being named by these two wonderful ladies would be an honor.

I may have been tardy on my thank you, but I am touched none the less. Thank you dear friends, for thinking of me!

Happy Birthday, Mikey Boy!

2009-05-10T03:21:00.006-04:00

Ah, Michael, you are the child who is so unlike me. Sometimes I have looked at you in awe, wondering how it is that I have produced such a child. By the age of two, it was obvious that you had outstripped me in mechanical genius, when you took it upon yourself to replace a dead battery in the toy train engine, that had finally, blessedly gone silent after weeks of constant use.

You opened up the battery compartment of the toy, took out the old battery, went to the drawer where we kept batteries, pulled out the right size battery, put it in the correct way, closed up the battery compartment, and went toddling away with that pleased smile I’ve come to know so well and the train engine running, pressed noisily up to your ear. I watched the whole thing in shock. I, a woman who barely knew what a straight edge screwdriver was, had produced this child.

I remember one particularly trying day, when I had gotten out late from class. I had to pick your brother up at day care, you at preschool and your sister at elementary school. Nothing was going right.

We were finally on our way, racing across town to get to the elementary school when we were stopped at a railroad crossing waiting for an approaching train. You had been begging me to turn the radio on, which I finally had done. Now, you were tugging at my sleeve asking me to turn the radio off.

“But, Mikey,” I said with all the exasperation I was feeling, “you just asked me to turn it on!”

“Mommy, just listen.”

So, I turned off the radio, and did just that. Wrapped in the cocoon of our car, you and I sat listening in companionable silence to the clickety clack of the train. You with that silly precious grin pasted all over your face, and me suddenly engulfed by your pure sense of joy. There are so many little slices of the world that I would have missed, my son, had you not been there to show me.

Today is your birthday, Michael. I celebrate it not only for you, but for what having you has brought to my life. Happy Birthday, Mikey Boy!

Love,
Momma

So, Great Grandpa was a Farmer - Land Records - Part One

2009-04-26T21:48:00.014-04:00

Land Patent Records

I come from a long line of farmers. During the nineteenth century, most branches of my family tree made their living in agriculture. This is good news, because being successful in farming, meant owning land. And owning land meant a paper trail of information left for descendents.

If your ancestor bought land from the federal government in the Eastern Public Lands States between 1820 and 1908, than you can use theBureau of Land Management’s website to view the actual land patent used to transfer ownership from the US Government to your ancestor.

What states are included in the Eastern Public Lands States?

1. Alabama
2. Arkansas
3. Florida
4. Illinois
5. Indiana
6. Iowa
7. Louisiana
8. Michigan
9. Minnesota
10. Mississippi
11. Missouri
12. Ohio
13. Wisconsin

In addition, the Bureau of Land Management is slowly adding the land patent images for the seventeen Western Public Land States.

The Western Public Land States are:

1. Alaska
2. Arizona
3. California
4. Colorado
5. Idaho
6. Kansas
7. Montana
8. Nebraska
9. Nevada
10. New Mexico
11. North Dakota
12. Oklahoma
13. Oregon
14. South Dakota
15. Utah
16. Washington
17, Wyoming

What information will you find searching the land Patent records?

PATENT DESCRIPTION

As you can see from the image above, the Patent Description gives you the following information for a parcel of land purchased by my GGG Grandfather, Joseph Good.

1. Patentee
2. Issue Date
3. Land Office
4. Cancelled
5. US Reservations
6. Mineral Reservations
7. Authority Note type of Entry – Cash in this example)
8. Survey: State
9. Acres
10. Metes/Bounds (Post will be No)
11. Document Number
12. Accession/Serial Number
13. BLM Serial Number

DESCRIPTION OF LAND

Below is the description of the land that Joseph purchased.

Believe it or not, those seemingly undecipherable notations will tell me exactly where Joseph’s land is located.

The easiest way, is to find a Plat Map in the county where the land is located. It doesn’t matter what year the plat map was produced, the numbering of the township and range will remain the same. (However, in counties such as Gallia County of Ohio where the boundaries have changed, you might find the land listed in another county depending what year the land was purchased and what year the Plat map was produced.) Look for the range and township number to match. In this case, I would look in Seneca County for Township 3-N in Range 14-E.

However, if you know how to read it, the information taken from the land description will tell you precisely where great grandpa’s land was located. Public lands used the rectangular survey system, which utilized principle meridians and base latitudinal lines as their basis. .

Below is a Map taken from page 47 of The Auditor of the State of Ohio’s Publication, “The Official Ohio Lands Book.” It illustrates how the rectangular survey system worked.

1. Meridian - 1st PM

Refers to the first Meridian which is the Ohio/Indiana Line

Base Line – In Northwest Ohio, the base line is the 41st parallel of north latitude.

2. Range: 14-E

This tells you that the land is located 14 ranges east from the 1st Principal Meridian. This takes you into Ohio. (Anything with an E designation would be in Ohio. Anything with a W designation would be located in Indiana.)

3. Township 3-N

The 3-N tells us that the land is located in the third township north of this baseline, in Range 14. This township happens to be Liberty Township, in Seneca County. Township 4-N in that same range, for example, would be Ballville Township in Sandusky County.

Townships are divided into 36 sections with 640 acres in each section. Below you can see the numbering system used. Notice section 8 and section 5 would are adjoining sections.

In this instance, Joseph had purchased 80 acres. The location of the acreage is described as E ½ NE. You can see the section pictured below.

DOCUMENT IMAGE

And finally, there is the land patent document itself. You have your choice of viewing it in four different formats – small GIF, large GIF, TIFF, and as PDF file. The website says the PDF file is the best for printing. Below is an example of my small GIF file.

Notice the Certificate No. 4785 in the upper left hand corner matches the patent number on the Patent Description. This number is important if you decide to order a land entry file from the National Archives.

My next post will discuss doing just that.

Until Next Time…

Me – The Poster Child for ole Abe Maslow’s Theories

2009-04-18T03:26:00.003-04:00

I have been anxious the last six months as I realized that my job, like that of millions of others, was in serious jeopardy. As the economy shriveled up like a stale French fry wedged in the seat cushion of a sixteen year old’s jalopy, my anxiety arose in direct and opposite proportion.

I believe I may have lamented in previous posts, that I alas, do not have in my repertoire, the normal feminine ingrained ability to handle several things at the same time, especially when I am under stress. (A notable genetic mutation, I’m sure.)

My point is, that during the last six months I have found it difficult to concentrate on enjoyable or challenging pursuits such as writing and genealogy. Two weeks ago, my anxiety reached its off key crescendo, when I finally got the word, that our client, whose account I have worked on for over five years, had fired us, leaving yours truly, without work.

Now you would think that the six months of anticipation of this very event would have been enough to cushion the blow, and that the shoe finally dropping would be somewhat of a relief, but you would be wrong.

The first week I sat staring blankly at the walls. I vaguely remember visions of “bag lady living” dancing through my head, and I’m sure there was some masochistic inventory taking, but mostly there was catatonic staring.

Before anyone sends over the cuckoo squad, I did eventually move past that stage, and into a more action-oriented phase, which after a few days of researching my options, made me twice as depressed.

Let me just say, it sucks to be out of a job no matter what your age, but if you happen to be over a certain age, it sucks doubly. If you doubt me, go ahead and look up the statistics.

Or better yet, if you want to really fall into a pit of depression, go ahead and read the advice on getting another job, if you happen to be over the age of, let's say, fifty. Whatever you do, don’t admit how old you really are or how much experience you really have, because employers DON’T WANT IT, according to the so called experts. As I said, it sucks. (Whatever happened to people honoring the wisdom that comes with age? Don’t answer – it’s a rhetorical question.)

Fortunately, after two weeks of limbo, the boss called with some project work that should keep me busy until the beginning of September. (I’m putting a note on my calendar to get the worry beads out come the first of August.) It’s not the same as having my own client, but I’m not complaining.

I also did some research on a couple of companies that I think our company should take on as clients, and my boss has already made preliminary contact with one of these companies. (And bless my boss, she was excited as I was at the potential.)

So I’m not sure what this means for my writing and my genealogy research. As Maslow’s theory pointed out, if a person’s lower needs aren’t met, they can’t move on to the higher need of self-actualization.

The point of this post is to inform any readers who are still hanging around, what was going on in here in TerryWorld, and the reason behind my continued absence.

I also wanted to ask each of you to show a little patience, a little kindness and some respect for your fellow man. It’s a tough world out there, people, and we need to understand that for some, it isn’t business as usual. You don’t have to be the solution for someone else’s problems, but you sure as heck don’t have to be the source of new problems either.

Until Next Time …

Note: For anyone who didn’t have to suffer through Psych 101 (or Marketing 101), you can read more about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, here. The pyramid graphic should give you the gist of it.

Genealogy, the economy and me

2009-03-19T19:57:00.001-04:00

For the last year and a half, my drug of choice has been genealogy, double stacked with a heavy dose of blogging. Every odd slivered moment that I could scrape together, was blithely spent on getting that next “high.”

The ability to peek into what was happening in the world of other geneabloggers, people who felt and wrote about genealogy, like me, was a heavenly respite from a world where people rolled their eyes the minute the subject of anything deader than their nightly dinner came up in conversation. Ah, the pure joy of finding such a world.

But about the time that Facebook became the new nerve central for the genealogical blogging world, I realized that I had taken a wonderful hobby, and managed to make it into a blind obsession. So realizing this new step would take me, now a mainlining Internet junkie, to a new level of addiction, I wisely abstained.

Then those sly dogs at Blogger, who must have seen the signs of waning addiction, figured out a way to ramp up my need for a fix by creating the innocuous gadget “Followers.”

My whole day would hang on the number of followers that my blog had. If someone added themselves to my following, I was in heaven. If someone deleted themselves from the group, I was in despair. Why or why had they left me? Up and down, like a kid on a runaway roller coaster, my emotions hinged on the “love” that readers gave me. (And it was such great love!)

But something happens to you when you start assigning your own self worth based on the views of others. You get a little nutty - okay, maybe a lot nutty. Realizing all of this, I started backing off.

And then, the unthinkable, the economy collapsed, making my little obsession seem like, a trivial self-indulgence. I watched all around as family and friends lost jobs or were laid off. In my own case, wages were frozen, bonuses evaporated (if only I had been an AIG gangster), and I now I faced the week-to-week terror of hearing, “I’m sorry but your services are no longer required.”

A brown bag and an index card that said, “Just breathe,” sat at the ready as I checked my ever-shrinking retirement portfolio. (It’s become so small that I don’t think portfolio is the proper term – maybe pofo?)

And God bless the ever present cable news, which by now had become my new preoccupation. The media continually told me, lest I forget, how bad things were. I would listen on my lunch hour, at supper time, and before I went to bed. It was like watching a train wreck. You knew better than to watch, but you were still irresistibly drawn to the spectacle.

I did then, what I always do when things get rough; I became a turtle, pulling into my shell. I didn’t want to read, I didn’t want to write, I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to mope. (Have I mentioned I need long periods of reflection time to figure things out?)

And then, I don’t know, the sun came out the other morning, and I looked at the tiny daffodil shoots popping up through the ground, and I said “enough, already.” It’s time for action. It’s time to do something. It’s time to breathe.

So I’m looking for some balance - a little bit of writing, a little bit of genealogy, a little bit of exercise. I want to spend some time with family, some time cleaning out my office, some time figuring out how to work smarter, some time to plant flowers and maybe even some time to read a book.

And that my friends, is what I intend to do. If I am MIA from blogging and the geneablogging world for stretches of time, I hope you’ll understand.

I leave you with two quotes for this week’s positive thinking. The first by Thomas Merton, who said,

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”

And this one by Frank Herbert,

“There’s no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves”

Here’s hoping that each of you can “feel the waves” and find your own balance.

My Year of Positive Thinking - Week 9

2009-03-09T21:06:00.001-04:00

It hung there, on my bulletin board - forgotten underneath the doctor’s appointment card, a receipt of a long since mailed certified letter, and some important reminders about the changing status of things at work. Bulletin boards are like that, an accumulation of daily minutia and formed layers of time that can, to the trained eye, be read like the rings of a fallen tree.

I vaguely remember printing it and hanging it there, but the twenty-eight pin holes decorating its surface will attest to the fact that it was hung quite some time ago. I have always been a fan of Maya Angelou’s poetry, a particular favorite, “On Reaching Forty,” gets trotted out every time some poor soul reaches that magic number.

But this one, “What I Have Learned,” speaks volumes to one who is on the shady side of fifty. I think it captures the essence of my quest for “Positive Thinking.” I’m glad I was wise enough to save the words, though the fact that they are obviously in need of dusting off, speaks volumes to my best laid plans.

What I Have Learned

Maya Angelou

"I've learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life
does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she
handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled
Christmas tree lights.

I've learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you'll
miss them when they're gone from your life.

I've learned that making a "living" is not the same thing as making a life."

I've learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on
both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

"I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually
make the right decision.

I've learned that even when I have pains, I don't have to be one.

I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People
love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what
you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Have a good week!

Wordless Wednesday - The Old Feasel Homestead

2009-03-04T01:07:00.003-05:00

My Year of Positive Thinking - Week 8

2009-03-03T01:57:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure if you can ascribe this week’s quote to positive thinking, but it highlights what I see as a personal flaw in my own psyche. For this week, I am making it my mantra, and my reminder.

We rest here while we can, but we hear the ocean calling in our dreams,
And we know by the morning, the wind will fill our sails to test the seams,
The calm is on the water and part of us would linger by the shore,
For ships are safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.
(Tom Kimmel & Michael Lille)

Have a great week!

My Seneca County Ohio Roots

2009-03-01T22:28:00.004-05:00

Whether we know their names or not, each of us has 16 sets of third great grandparents who served their own specific role in our existence. The decade of the 1830’s played a pivotal part for a quarter of these individuals in my own family tree.

My paternal grandmother’s contributions were living presumably somewhere in Pomerania. On my paternal grandfather’s side, not all of the players had yet been born. Of those that were living, some were in Ohio, and some were in Pennsylvania. It would be three decades later, before the all the necessary parties had made their way to Southern Ohio’s Appalachian region, playing their own part in my eventual existence.

My maternal grandfather’s family were scattered about in New Jersey and Ohio, and it would take two additional decades before for the “right” people would find themselves in Henry County of Ohio ensuring that my siblings, cousins and I would eventually come to be. But the early birds to this party were my maternal grandmother’s people.

All four sets had found their way to Seneca County by the mid 1830’s and they had all settled in Liberty Township.

The Lutheran contingent had come from Shenandoah County in Virginia by way of Fairfield County, Ohio. The German Baptists were also from Shenandoah County, although there is no reason to think the two groups had ever known each other, it is interesting that they both had made their way to Liberty Township.

The Armstrongs came from Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, and the final piece of my genealogical puzzle, the Lynches, were also originally from Pennsylvania with stopovers in Fairfield and Franklin Counties in Ohio.

If you had family that spent any significant time during the last seven decades of the nineteenth century in Liberty Township of Seneca County, Ohio, we are, quite likely, related.

If you aren’t related to the Lynches (Daniel and Margaret Anderson Lynch), then you are probably related by the Armstrongs (William and Leah Shupe Armstrong.) If not the Armstrongs, then we are certainly related by the Goods (Joseph Good and Magdalena Click Good.). But if you still haven’t found the connection, then may I suggest the Feasels (Henry Feasel and Jane Kendall Feasel) as the source of our mutual genetic inheritance?

For the Feasels came to the county in full force. Brothers George and Henry both took out land patents in 1831, George on August 12 and Henry on November 14. Both had large families and with the later addition of a nephew, Samuel Cotter Feasel, who located near Bascom, Ohio, it is fair to say that the county was awash with Feasels.

There were so many Feasels, that the area in which they lived was called, Feaselburg. While to my knowledge there was never such a place on a map, to this day there is a cemetery located on what was once old George Feasel’s land, called Feaselburg Cemetery.

Below is a partial plat map of Liberty Township in 1865, showing where all the Feasel plots were located. The red dots stand for the various Feasel holdings, with the Green dot indicating the location of Feaselburg Cemetery.

While tracking done errant Goods, Armstrongs, and Lynches is difficult business because of the commonness of the name, there is no such problem when it comes to my Feasel relations. According to Feazell researcher, Don Feazell, who maintains a website dedicated to all things Feazell (Feazel, Feazle, Feasel, Feezel and Feezell), almost all individuals who use the F-E-A-S-E-L spelling of the name descend from Michael Feasel Sr, with the a large number descending from his son Jacob Feasel, who was the father of Henry and George. According to Don, “Only a few family lines are known to use this spelling today.”

Which is why, anytime a new database comes online; I plug in the Feasel name just to see what interesting tidbits I can find. I solved a little family mystery in this very manner when the Family Search’s Pilot Site program added the database for Michigan Marriages 1868 – 1925.

I plugged in the name Feasel, and surprisingly enough I found 39 matches for the name. The most interesting result was the name Ross W. Feasel, my great grandmother Laura Jane Feasel Lynch’s brother.

Ross and Gertrude Betts were married in Seneca County on August 25, 1896. Their eldest daughter, Bernice was born that same year. In looking at family records I noticed that their next living birth happened February 16, 1914 when twin daughters, Evelyn and Vivian were born 18 YEARS LATER! That had always seemed odd.

Odd, until I found the wedding of one Ross W. Feasel and Gertrude Greak married December 21, 1912 in Monroe County, Michigan. Gertrude’s father, listed as Isaiah Betts, confirmed that this was the same Gertrude who had married Ross 14 years earlier.

Obviously, there was a divorce and a second marriage for Gertrude, but in the end, the two of them remarried, and in addition to the twins, they went on to have daughters Irene and Mildred before Gertrude died in 1923. Interesting to note that their second marriage occurred three months after Mama Feasel’s death.

As a student of family history, I am always amazed at the confluence of events that had to take place for my own existence to have been made possible. The more I study my own roots, the more I realize how heavy the word “if” floats atop my head. All the events that had to happen in precise order, with the correct people and at the perfect time make me shake my head in wonder.

The next time you are feeling low, or are angry with the moron who just cut you off in traffic, it might be wise to remember this: Each of us who have made it here, to this often troubled world, did so because we beat the odds and won the most important lottery of all – life. And that’s gotta count for something.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging

Note: For more on the Feaselburg Cemetery, see the posting I have done at Great Black Swamp Graveyard Rabbit website.

Some of you will notice that I took an unintended two-week hiatus from the Geneablogging world. A quick thank you to all of you who nominated me for the Kreativ Blogger Award (including the first to nominate me – sista crankypants.) I have some catching up to do on responding to comments. The Monthly Mélange for February may be a little later than planned this month because I also have to do some major Geneablogger reading!

PS If you found this post by googling one of my family names, please feel free to get in touch with me. I always love to do some mutual sharing when it comes to the family tree.

Happy Birthday to My Daughter

2009-02-17T14:00:00.004-05:00

You were maybe twenty months old, and we had started using a time out chair when you continued to get into something you had been told not to get into, like say, cigarette butts sitting in an ashtray. Only this was in a pre-enlightened time, when I didn’t know any better and called it “The Bad Girl Chair.”

I was standing near “The Bad Girl Chair” one day, when you suddenly pushed me. I lost my balance and fell back into the chair. I quickly stood back up, and you pushed me again, and continued to push me until I, suddenly wising up, asked you, “Do you want me to sit in this chair?”

Head nod yes.

“Because I’ve been bad?”

Vigorous head nod yes.

I sat down in amazement. Here you were, less than two, and not only did you understand the concept of “The Bad Girl Chair,” but you stood there unafraid to stare down an authority figure (me) when you thought you were justified. I knew then that the world was in big trouble, just as was said authority figure (me)!

You are such a paradox, my beautiful daughter. Gentle hearted, thoughtful, strong willed, competent, stubborn, insightful, considerate, tough, brave, intelligent, less than punctual and kick ass funny, when the mood strikes you. I would not change one tiny little thing about you, my love.

From the first moment I saw your sweet little heart shaped face, I fell hopelessly in love with you. I don’t say it often enough, princess, but I am so glad that you are my daughter. Happy Birthday, baby girl.

Love,

Momma

My Year of Positive Thinking - Week 6

2009-02-17T01:24:00.002-05:00

I am suffering from an embarrassment of “positive” riches. My friend Teagen, though she had a stressful week last week, managed to send me a beautiful book filled with enough positive quotes to last me an entire year. That’s right, an entire year, every day, 365 days!

Next week, I will be pulling from this quote book and talking more about it, but I wanted to thank Teagen publicly for such a thoughtful gesture, especially with the kind of week she experienced.

Speaking of last week, as you know, last week started on a bit of a low note. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. HARRIET of Genealogy Fun also had a Bad Day last week. She dwelled a little in that vat of you-know-what, but was able to pull herself out of it. I say, “Good for you, Harriet!”

This week’s quote comes from my boss, Sam. When she sent it to me, I knew that this was the next quote that I wanted to use. It’s from Nelson Mandela.

"And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

So that’s my goal this week, to be the candle instead of the candlesnuffer.

Have a great week.

PS to Harriet. Ohio has more snow in the forecast this week. If I could only figure out how to do it, I would share. :-)

A webinar, a database, and the forgotten African American Ancestor

2009-02-16T01:21:00.016-05:00

There is a brick wall for African Americans when they start researching their ancestry. That brick wall is slavery. On February 24, Ancestry.com is presenting a free, one-hour webinar featuring Marjorie Sholes, a professional genealogist who can show you how to identify slave owners and track down your slave ancestors. You can read more about the program and register for it here.

You should know however, that it is possible your ancestor belonged to an overlooked group, known as free people of color. Though their numbers were small, these individuals existed from the days of the early colonies right through to the eve of the civil war.

Some of the individuals were former slaves who had been given their freedom and some descended from African Americans who came to the colonies as indentured servants early in the seventeenth century. When their term of indenture was completed they were free, the same as their white counterparts.

By the last half of the seventeenth century, African Americans were brought to the colonies as indentured servants for life, in other words, slaves. But for some, those among the first to come to this country, there was freedom – for themselves and their descendents.

Just how many of the Free Colored was there? Below are graphs of statistics taken from the 1790, 1820 and 1850 census. As you can see, the percentage of Free Colored remained steady at 2% of the total population. During that same time period, the percentage of slave to total population declined from 18% in 1790 to 16% in 1820 and finally to 14% in 1850.

Would it surprise you to know that some of the largest population of free coloreds resided not in Free states but in Slave states? In 1790, the six states with largest population of free colored accounted for 71.4% of the total free black population.

Below is the chart for the number of slaves that were freed and those that fled, according to the 1850 census.

If your ancestor came originally from the state of Delaware, the chance that they were a member of the free colored class is much better than if they came from the state of Georgia.

Curious how your free African American ancestor might have made his living? Below are the top occupations listed in the 1850 census for Connecticut and Louisiana.

Finally, if you are wondering if you descend from a free person of color, the New England Historic Genealogical Society is featuring their database “Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830.” For the month of February, you may access this database free. Happy Hunting!

Sources:

Debow, J.D.B., Statistical View of the United States, Compendium of the Seventh Census, 1854, PDF download, Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/details/statisticalviewo00unitrich: 2009.

Russell, John Henderson, The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865, 1913, PDF download, Google Books, http://books.google.com/books?id=G7AJAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Free+Negro+of+Virginia : 2008.

Slave Code for the District of Columbia, American Memory, Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860, Law Library of Congress, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/sthtml/stpres02.html, 2009.

Slave State, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_state, 2009.

Maine 1790 Census, USGenWeb Census Project, Maine 1790 Census, http://www.usgwcensus.org/states/maine/me1790.htm, 2009.

Vermont1790 Census, USGenWeb Census Project, Vermont 1790 Census, http://www.usgwcensus.org/states/vermont/vt1790.htm, 2009.

Not Dwelling in the Vat of Crabbiness

2009-02-12T00:55:00.002-05:00

Okay, okay, I lied. I didn’t post my positive thinking piece as promised. But, in mulling it over, I decided that I would let Monday’s post stand.

Yah, I was crabby, but in writing about my day, I relieved my stress, poked some fun at myself, and then got on with things.

Life doesn’t always go the way you want it to go. Sometimes, no matter how good your intentions, things run amok. As long as you find a healthy way to deal with it, and don’t dwell too long in the vat of crabbiness, it’s okay. The positive police won’t come and lock you up.

It turns out that writing is my coping mechanism. Once I wrote the post, my doom and gloom mood lifted, and I was able to laugh at how personally I was taking a series of random events. Now that may be an unconventional vision of positive thinking, but it kind of works for me. Maybe that’s progress.

Until Next Time . . .

Dear Internet – This is NOT my Monday Positive Thinking Post

2009-02-09T11:58:00.006-05:00

Dear Internet,

I am having a bad day. I do not like Mondays. It is laughable that I chose this day of the week for my positive thinking posts. Was I not begging for trouble?

Most of the issues I am having are computer related, and while that might not sound like a big deal, it is. I make money using my computer and the Internet. And when I can’t log into a certain database in a certain East Coast city, I can’t make money. Wah!

However, the whole tone for the day was set first thing this morning, before I knew the universe was conspiring against me.

I did a dumb thing. I made myself a cup of tea, and put it into one of our mugs that we’ve had for almost seven years. As I am carrying the tea from the kitchen into the family room, I hear a telltale crack that should have been my warning that something bad was about to happen. But I am slowwitted and I keep on walking.

Actually, I got as far as one more step, when the side and bottom blew out of the cup, spraying the contents of what moments before had been boiling water, all over me. My left foot with its long Morton’s toe, along with one of Morton’s brother toes, took a direct hit of the liquid as it obeyed the laws of gravity.

Fortunately, though I am by nature a hillbilly (please no emails, I use the term lovingly) and start my mornings barefooted, this morning I had slipped on a pair of footies. Unfortunately, they are made of absorbable material and as I am jumping around in pain, it occurs to me that the biggest source of pain is this now soaked footie, which I immediately rip off. This turned the pain down a notch, but it still hurt. So I took an ice pack wrapped in a washcloth and put it on the burn to cool it down and ease the pain. Then I sprayed burn ointment on it.

According to the Internet, I should have run the burn under cold water for about 15 minutes, not used the spray, and then wrapped in non-fuzzy material (I had some gauze that is now wrapped around the two toes.) All the other burns were superficial. I suspect this might be a partial thickness burn.

Moral of the story - wait a few minutes before you pour boiling hot water into a cup. Then wait a minute or so more before carrying the liquid anywhere. If you hear a funny cracking sound, set the cup down immediately and step back. Learn to drink a nice cold glass of milk to wake yourself up in the morning.

So I’m cranky, I hate Mondays, and I’m setting down my Pollyanna persona that I’ve been practicing for the last few weeks, and taking a few hours to enjoy some well earned crabbiness.

My quote for today (oh yes, I have one) comes from my friend Leslie, who upon reading all the aforementioned catastrophes wrote me back and said, “Sometimes you just need to bask in the vat of crabbiness.” Indeed.

Tomorrow, I will post my regular positive thinking post. Have I mentioned I hate Mondays?

Snapshot - Summer of 1932

2009-02-08T12:55:00.003-05:00

The car, grandmother’s dropped waist dress and hairstyle suggest a picture taken in the late 1920’s. Her sister Elsie’s dress style, finger wave bob, and more importantly, the little guy holding each of their hands, my dad, firmly dates the picture as summer or early fall 1932.

This post written for the 10th edition of Smile for the Camera: Costume at Shades of the Departed.

The Monthly Mélange - Edition I

2009-02-07T02:36:00.004-05:00

We live in such a hurried world, always rushing from point A to point B, from one task to the next. Frankly, I don’t do “hurry” very well. That probably explains why I am so unprolific when it comes to posting on my blogs. (Or would that be non-prolific? Or does non-prolific apply only to nuclear test band treaties? Hmm…)

I’m not sure why we are all racing around. Where exactly do we think we are going? I am, by nature, a more reflective person. Things have to roll around in this brain of mine before they take root. So once a month, I’m going to sloooow things down, and do a little reflecting on the blog posts that lingered with me from the past month.

Now understand, I could easily come up with a hundred or more that fit into that category. There is a lot of good writing and interesting topics to be found in the blogosphere, but I’m only going to highlight a dozen or so that, for whatever reason, have stayed with me. It may be that they made me smile. It may be that they made me weep, or it may be that they told me something I wanted to know, even if I didn’t know I wanted to know it.

My picks, like my tastes, are eclectic, hence the name “Monthly Mélange.” I hope you find one or two of these topics that linger with you.

Now to kick this series off, I have a wonderful post that is universal in its theme. What is more wonderful than a grandparent sharing their passion with a grandchild? I loved this story, “You Really Do Know Her” by our lady, footnoteMaven. It’s sweet, without being saccharine, and it’s guaranteed to make you smile.

Speaking of smile, I chose this post by Amy of We Tree, because in addition to the fact that “The G-Files” is about organizing your genealogical data (which always interests me since organization is my personal downfall,) but also because of this wonderful line in her post. “I bought 100 manila folders and I'm not afraid to use them.” You go, girl! I’m still smiling typing that line.

For those of you not local, that is not Northern Ohioans, you may not know about Johnson’s Island. Johnson’s Island is located in Lake Erie, along the Sandusky Bay. During the Civil War, it housed Confederate officers as prisoners-of-war. But why was it called Johnson’s Island? Well, now I know thanks to Dorene of Graveyard Rabbit of Sandusky Bay, and her post, “Leonard Beatty Johnson.”

Do you remember the Challenger? Well Denise Olson does. She had a unique perspective of the event. She watched from her office, which happened to be 120 miles from the launch site. This is a short, touching post about the day, and its impact on Denise. Read “Remembering Challenger” at her blog site, Moultrie Creek.

I’m a BIG PowerPoint fan. But just when I think I’ve found all the bells and whistles, Thomas MacEntee shows me another in “Creating a Banner Image,” at Facebook® Bootcamp for Geneabloggers. While it’s true the post is geared toward bloggers, anybody wanting to learn how to make a banner with their PowerPoint program can easily follow along with this step-by-step post. (Dude, Thomas, where were you when I was struggling with the PP program last year?)

My smart friend, Sheri Fenley, tackles a subject near and dear to every genealogist’s heart, “What Happens To My Research When I’m Gone?” In Part 1, Sheri talks about the use of a codicil to determine your wishes and in Part 2, she tells of a wonderful woman who is ready and willing to give your research an eternal home. Not for nothing is Sheri called The Educated Genealogist.

Sometimes when we write about those people who loomed large in our childhood, we tend to look at them through a filtered lens. We round out the rough corners; soften the focus, and dim the light until some of their special essence is scrubbed from the picture. This is not the case with Craig Manson’s portrait of his grandmother. In “Nana’s 100th Anniversary”, we meet a woman who refused for decades to pay property tax because her son had been barred by segregation from attending the local school. A woman, who unannounced, showed up in Germany while her son and his family were posted there. Make no mistake. This is a loving tribute, but it is also a refreshingly honest portrait of a woman who had what we Ohioans call spunk. You can read about it Craig’s blog, GeneaBlogie.

Miriam Robbins Midkiff of AnceStories holds a Scanfest about once a month. What is a Scanfest, you ask? Well, it’s a get together via Live Messenger, where the individuals, mostly geneabloggers, spend an afternoon “chatting” and scanning. This month, before the event, Miriam wrote a blog post entitled, “Things You Don’t Want to Do During Scanfest.” She went on to list seven things, some of which are definitely worth knowing for anyone who does scanning. (Including No. 2, which is, don’t scan photos into .jpg files.) If you scan, you definitely want to check this out.

Randy Seaver’s has a habit of writing exactly what I’m thinking, only writing it better, and funnier, and well, actually writing it. So when he wrote his post, “Is US Content being held hostage on Ancestry.com?” I was all like, right on, Randy. I snickered when he mentioned that we were on Day 6 of the hostage watch. I wanted to come up with a comment that fit his post, but I drew a big blank. A few days later, with visions of a large, organized geneablogger protest, I went back to make an appropriate comment only to find that a very nice person from Ancestry.com had REPLIED to Randy’s post. Talk about making your voice heard! So get over to Genea-Musings to see both Randy’s piece and Chris from Ancestry’s reply. (Note to Randy – can you say you want to see additions to the Newspaper collection – I LOVE that collection.)

Under the category of “You just can’t make this stuff up,” comes my next pick, “Killed by Wm. C. Falkner.” Mona Robinson Mills of Graveyard Rabbit of Yorknapatawpha County tells an interesting tale of bad blood, a few killings and an unusual tombstone. All revolved around the great grandfather of Nobel Prize winner, William Faulkner. With such a bloodline, Faulkner probably had to become a writer.

If you have ever had the solemn chore of packing up the vestiges of a deceased loved one’s life, you will understand the feelings of Lorine of Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. Her two-part post, “Packing up a Life” and “Packing up a Life – Day 2” are a touching memorial to her mother’s life. She sums up what many have felt in the same circumstance. “We left feeling a bit depressed both at the seemingly never-ending job ahead, and at the realization that we were packing up a life. Once packed it would be over. A life lived, now gone.”

Finally, I admit it. I totally missed this entry when it was first posted on January 1 at Terry Thornton’s, Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi. Which is a pity, because it would have brought some much needed levity to my life, but better late than never. For a few months in the 1940’s, the Thorntons were the proud owners of a pet alligator. Like yarn being waved before a cat, Terry entices us with the story of an alligator, plucked from the Georgia swamps by family friends, delivered as a prospective pet, and determined to cause the family (and community) chaos. For my part, I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around the idea that “friends” would think a medium sized alligator had the makings of a perfect pet. While I sit here and chew on that some more, go see for yourself at “My Pet Alligator.”

Well, that’s it for the January edition of The Monthly Mélange. If you missed any of these particular posts, why not spend some time catching up. It’s okay to take the time, maybe even do a little reflecting. After all, what’s the hurry?

The 65th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy Has Post

2009-02-05T20:48:00.003-05:00

Fifty geneabloggers responded to the topic, “Happy Dancing, The Joy of Genealogy” that Becky Wiseman of Kinexions hosted for the 65th Edition of the COG. That’s a lot of twinkle-toed genealogists! Share in their joy, and maybe take a moment and share a similar experience by commenting on some of their posts.

Just in Time for My Friend Dawn

My friend Dawn today was bemoaning the complexities of organizing your genealogy data. Funny that she mentioned this because I am currently writing a post for the first edition of The Monthly Mélange, in which I confess that, “organization is my personal downfall.” Cross my heart, I wrote that exact phrase yesterday.

Well leave it to Dear Myrtle to have solutions in the shape of a checklist. Myrtle prepared a checklist for January (“2009: All You Can Be”) and one for February (“Finally Getting Organized: February 2009 Checklist”). You can download them free, in a PDF file, but as “Myrt” suggests, viewing them online will enable you to click the hyperlinks.

Just so you know, Dawn and I will have to do double time to make up for the month we are behind, and if we can do it, so can you.

Sandusky County Kin Hunters Meeting

2009-02-03T20:50:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder, that the February meeting of Sandusky County Kin Hunters will take place this Sunday, February 8 at 2:00 PM. John Tate, the guest speaker, will be sharing his own knowledge and experiences in doing family history research.

The meeting, which is free and open to anyone with an interest in genealogy, will be held at the Sandusky Township Hall on Rt. 19 North in Fremont. Parking is ample and the building is handicapped accessible

For more information, contact Kim at 419-603-0367

My Year of Positive Thinking - Week 4

2009-02-02T20:27:00.000-05:00

I am announcing that this week, I will be inaugurating a monthly post entitled, “The Monthly Mélange” which will list blog posts that for whatever reason, stayed with me after I had read them. Perhaps the post made me smile, reflect, or learn something new. While I could easily come up with 200 that would qualify, I am limiting myself to 10 - 13 that I want to highlight and share with you.

Some will be for those of you who, like me, love working on family history. Other posts, I hope, will have universal appeal. For the present, I am sticking to using those written by other geneabloggers, but that is not a hard and fast rule.

And finally, I have this week’s quote. It comes from Teagen’s Mother-in Law, who succumbed to cancer in 2001. Teagen says that she had “a very positive and spiritual outlook throughout her life.”

I didn’t know Teagen’s mother-in-law, but I think she would have liked the idea of inspiring a stranger with one of the quotes she had collected. Perhaps it will be your inspiration too.

"People who have the gift of courage are those who can feel angry, hurt or depressed, yet can bounce back into life and add a bit of laughter and enthusiasm to other lives as well as their own."Fresh Bread - Joyce Rupp

Keep the Faith, and have a great week!

Looking for Catherine

2009-02-01T15:22:00.003-05:00

When I first saw her picture that summer of 2000, I admit I was not the tiniest bit interested. There was no sense of recognition, no feeling of familial kinship, just mild amusement at my mother’s latest passion, and maybe a sense of gratitude that I had not inherited the looks of the woman in the picture. I confess, now, to being a little embarrassed by my own shallow arrogance.

Still, there must have been something in that picture that reached out to me, because like a bag of forbidden Halloween candy, I kept stealing back to take a peek, picking up pieces of information here and there, studying them intently, looking for clues, trying to discover who Catherine Good Lynch really was.

I discovered that she had married George Washington Lynch in Seneca County, Ohio on December 17, 1852. I learned that the family had moved to Crawford County, Illinois in 1874, before moving to what was then Greer County, Texas. (A boundary change later would put the county in Oklahoma.) Catherine and George had run a general store in Mangum, Oklahoma. She was the mother of four children, her second eldest, a son, was my great grandfather.

I learned that she had died of typhoid fever in November of 1900, and was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Mangum. But knowing these few details was not enough. I wondered, who were her parents? Did she have siblings?

Through the census, I discovered three Catherine Goods in Seneca County. None was the correct age, but they were close enough to make me take a second look. Eventually I settled on Catherine Good, the daughter of Joseph Good.

I narrowed it to this Catherine because of the family’s close proximity to the Lynch family farm. When I had finally discovered Catherine living in Crawford County, Illinois in 1880, I found that both of her parents had birthplaces in Virginia, and only Joseph’s daughter, Catherine fit the bill. But how was I to prove it?

Joseph had not made out a will, but he did have an estate. It was my first look at probate records, and while the clerks in Seneca County were helpful, there was nothing in the microfilmed papers to suggest a relationship between Joseph and Catherine.

I began to collect names of other Goods who might be siblings, then reading the obituaries of these “maybe siblings” to see what I could find. I came up empty handed.

Finally, one night as I drifted off to sleep, I thought, “What happened to the land?” For Joseph, who was a farmer, had farmed the land right up until his death in 1873. The probate record, mentioned nothing about land.

By chance, I had made an Internet connection with a woman who did title searches in Seneca County. I posed the question to her in an email. She wrote back asking me for details of the land Joseph had owned. She told me she would take a look.

Finally, one day, she wrote me that she had found the land, and noticed that there was a court case attached to it. This made her curious, and she said that she would see what she could find.

A few days later, she called to tell me she had the case file, but in looking at a list of the heirs, Catherine was not mentioned. I was crushed. I had been so sure that Joseph Good was Catherine’s father.

About 20 minutes later, she called back and said she had found “something.” She would not say what, but asked if I could meet her at her house later in the week. Without a moment’s hesitation, I said, “Sure.”

On arriving at her home a few days later, she handed me a sheet of paper. On the top it read, “Statement and testimony of Susannah Miller.” It began as follows:

“My name is Susannah Miller. I am one of the defendants herein and oldest daughter of Joseph Good, deceased.

I was present when my father and my brother in law, Willis Morse, came to my house in Cass County, Michigan where I now live in September 1871 and heard my father give directions to said Morse in writing into a book he had for that purpose, the amounts he (my father) had paid on advancement to his children respectively and in number the amounts and items, and some of which I know to have been advanced viz: “

Susannah’s deposition went on to list her siblings, the children of Joseph, and the amount of money he had advanced to each child. The fifth name on the list, made my heart race.

“To my sister Catherine Lynch $50.00.”

Catherine had not been listed as an heir, having sold her share of the estate to a nephew-in-law, Dennis Blue before moving west. Dennis, anxious to get his share of the estate, which had been sold at a sheriff’s sale, was getting set to close the deal when Susannah and two other siblings, brought suit to halt the proceedings, thus the reason for Susannah’s deposition.

It had taken three years of tracking down leads, and in the end, my happy dance resulted from a generous, knowledgeable friend, a court case, and a $50 debt. It was as simple and as complicated as that.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Written for the 65th Carnival of Genealogy - The Happy Dance. The Joy of Genealogy

Etched in Stone

2009-01-29T21:14:00.006-05:00

Just because something is etched in stone, doesn’t mean that it is, well, “etched in stone.”

Take for example the case of the Good Family Marker. On August 15 1979, the marker was unveiled at the Flat Rock Church of the Brethren’s Homecoming Sunday service. The church, located in Forestville, Virginia, included the unveiling ceremony in its program that Sunday morning. The marker read:

In Loving Memory of
William Good 1737 – 1806
And Wife Maria Snavely 1740 -1831
Early Pioneers of the Tunker
Brethren in Virginia And Descendents.
Erected by William Conrad Good
And Other Descendents
1978

A lovely sentiment to be sure, but unfortunately the death date for Maria was wrong. Maria’s grave marker, which was located on the original family farm, was still legible when it was read by D. Saylor Good, a descendent, on December 29, 1903

The marker was in inscribed in German.

“Hier Ruht Marie Guth. in Sie ist Gestorben Augst den 10, 1822. Ald 82 Jahr 1 Monat 6 Tag.“

Roughly translated it said, “Here lies Marie Guth, Died August 10, 1822. Age 82 Years, 1 Month and 6 Days.”

The death date is confirmed by a will that was proved October 7, 1822 for Mary Good, which can be found in the Shenandoah County Will Book M, Page 94.

The story, which was told by June Hulvey in her book, “The William Good Family,” does not say how the error came to be, but clearly a descendent reading the marker and going no further, would come away with an incorrect death date for Maria.

That incorrect death date might lead someone to overlook Maria’s will. It might lead to confusion on just who Maria’s children were, and in effect, it might change the history of a family. Mistakes happen on markers. They happen in obituaries. And they even happen on death records. Whenever possible, it is always good to keep digging, even after you have found your prize, just to confirm the accuracy of your find.

The marker, which originally rested on the property of the Flat Rock Church, was moved to the Flat Rock Cemetery about a half mile away.

Flat Rock Church of the Brethren

Flat Rock Cemetery

That is where the fifth Great Granddaughter of William and Maria Good found it, when she went looking for it in 2005. Incorrectly inscribed or not, it was still a thrill to find this monument of my family’s heritage.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Hulvey, Velma June Good. The William Good Family, Revised Edition (Stephens City, Va., Commercial Press Inc.), 1996.

Wordless Wednesday - View From My Window

2009-01-28T16:00:00.004-05:00

My Year of Positive Thinking - Week 3

2009-01-26T00:01:00.000-05:00

This week's positive quote comes from my friend Shirley. As a teenager she saw the quote in her local newspaper, and the words captured her own "imagination." Today, a framed copy hangs on her wall.

"Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which are everything in the world." ~ Blaise Pascal.

So here's to imagination and all it promises to create, and to my friend Shirley, who was kind enough to share this special quote.

My Year of Positive Thinking - Week 2

2009-01-22T00:20:00.001-05:00

Well it seems, uh, downright dorky, this whole year of positive thinking thing. I am mentally cursing myself for having started it. But since I committed to it, and I was always big on making my children stick with their committments, I guess I will just have to live with being dorky. It's only for 51 more weeks, how bad could that be?

This week’s positive quote is from my friend Teagen, who sent me, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters, compared to what lies within us. ” The quote is from Finding Your Way Home by Melody Beattie

Last week proved personally trying; I proved that mere words do not a positive thinker make; and the only thing I can say positively for sure is, that this post (which I previously said would be on Mondays) is two days late.

Fulfillment of a Dream

2009-01-19T09:44:00.003-05:00

It is, of course, ironic that Martin Luther King day and the inauguration of our 44th President are occurring on consecutive days. The man who stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August of 1963 and said, “Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood,” must surely have envisioned the historical event that is taking place tomorrow.

Whether or not you supported his presidency, you cannot ignore the magnitude of what is about to happen, a man of black heritage taking the oath, for the highest office of our land.

Real progress, however, will be made when the young children of today, look on the election of an individual of any race, man or woman, as nothing out of the ordinary. We will have arrived, as a nation, at the door of our mutually promised heritage when that day occurs.

The man who said, “We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote,” must be pleased with tomorrow’s events.

Today we honor a man who had a dream. Tomorrow we see a portion of that dream fulfilled.

Note: If you read this post at my original Desktop Genealogist Blog on the News-Messenger website, you will notice that the second to the last paragraph was not included there. That is because the website required me to change the word "Negro" to the word "Black." Not wanting to change the historic speech of Dr. King, I elected to omit the offending paragraph.

Memories of a Giggle

2009-01-14T10:56:00.007-05:00

I came out of the womb a serious, anxious child. The world scared me from the first. I preferred my mother’s presence to that of anyone else, feeling warm and safe with her. But you can’t stay in the cocoon of a mother’s love. There is a world, and you are expected to live in that world.

Very early then, I began to collect laughs. I decided as a small child that a person was safe to be around based on frequency and style of laughter. If you didn’t pass my laugh test, I wasn’t spending any time with you. My Aunt Marion passed this laugh test with flying colors.

Funny, I don’t remember any specific conversations with her. I remember being in her basement where the family was living while their house was being built. I remember her decision to push my cousin’s twin beds together one time when I was spending the night, much to my delight. I remember warm, fresh from the oven peanut butter cookies tasting like heaven as we ate them in her sunny kitchen, but mostly I remember her laugh.

Aunt Marion -Thanksgiving 1951

It started at the back of her throat and came bubbling out her lips. It was really, more of a giggle then a laugh. It was delicate. It was feminine. It made you smile. It punctuated sentences, or sometimes marked the beginning of one. It was infectious and drew you in, especially if you were a serious, anxious little girl. It was unique and part of my earliest childhood recollections.

My aunt died this past Sunday, leaving the world a lesser place with only memories of her unique little giggle. She will be missed.

Until Next Time . . .

Resolutions and No Resolutions

2009-01-12T00:54:00.003-05:00

You may have noticed that I passed on doing a New Year’s Resolution this year. I shamed myself with last year’s resolution (Finding out more information on Jacobus ancestors) so badly that I figured my making a resolution was something akin to Congress requesting accountability on bailouts. A great idea, but without muscle, it’s just words.

However, not to worry, the Carnival of Genealogy had in the neighborhood of forty “resolute” geneabloggers who willingly put their own reputations on the line to share with you their personal New Year’s resolutions. They were, to say the least, inspiring. They were, to say the most, practical ideas that may be just the thing you need to start your year out right. You can catch the link at Jasia’s Creative Gene website.

I have however, been thinking about my own cranky, go away don’t bother me attitude. If I said, “I hate Christmas!” once, I must have said it - well enough times to have a daughter-in-law tell me, “You always say that.” Ouch!

So I’m trying an experiment, which is different from a resolution. (Don’t ask me the difference, just roll with me here.)

I’m calling it, “My Year of Positive Thinking” and every Monday, I’ll write a positive quote on an index card and read it first thing in the morning and the last thing before going to bed for an entire week. The next week, I’ll do the same thing all over again with another quote.

In each Monday’s post, I’ll tell you what my quote for the week is. My boss, Sam, and my co-worker, Teagen, have offered to help me come up with some positive quotes. (As I told them, the only quote that leapt to my mind was, “When you see light at the end of the tunnel, it’s the light of the oncoming train.” You see my problem.)

If any of you have a favorite quote that fits in with what I am hoping to accomplish, feel free to send me the quote. I can use all the help I can get.

However, I think I found just the ticket for this week’s quote. It comes from Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata.”

You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Until Next Time …

Tri-Racial Isolate: A Hidden Ancestry

2009-01-12T00:07:00.004-05:00

In the foothills of Eastern Tennessee, there lived a group of individuals called Melungeons. I mention them because they are perhaps the best-known example of a tri-racial isolate. “Tri-racial isolate” is an academic term used to denote communities of mixed racial ancestry. Most often, the mixture is said to be that of European, Native American and African American, although some would argue this point.

Other theories vigorously promoted include descendancy from shipwrecked Portuguese sailors (who intermarried with local natives) to shipwrecked Spaniards, Sephardic Jews, Gypsies and the Lost Colony of Roanoke Island. Each theory has articulate proponents and disciples. Each theory endeavors to explain away deep olive skin, dark hair and the blue, gray or green eyes that marked many of these individuals as “different” from their white neighbors.

These differences, noted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, often made them unsuitable spouses for their white neighbors. Their own unwillingness to embrace the economic, legal and social disadvantages of the African American community made them shun this group as potential mates. Because of this, they intermarried within their own populace, thus isolating themselves socially and sometimes physically from society at large.

Since they were not considered white or black, this posed problems in a racially divided 18th Century America. These problems would haunt the Melungeons and the other tri-racial communities well into the 20th Century. Prior to the 1850 census, you will find many of these mixed ancestry individuals tabulated under the “Free Colored” columns of the census, along with their free African Americans counterparts.

In the 1850 and 1860 censuses, the census taker instructions were, “Under heading 6, “Color,” in all cases where the person is white, leave the space blank; In all cases where the person is black, insert the letter B; If mulatto, insert M. It is very desirable that these particulars be carefully regarded.” This of course, left the census taker with a dilemma when enumerating members of a mixed race group. You will often find them listed on the census with a letter “m” under the column “Color.”

Other famous tri-racial isolate communities include, North Carolina’s Lumbee Indians (from which the actress, Heather Locklear, descends), the Carmel Indians of Highland County, Ohio and the Redbones of South Carolina and Louisiana. The article, “ ‘Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South – A Genealogical Study” by Virginia Easley DeMarce, states that “Ethnologists have identified approximately thirty-five tri-racial isolate communities in the eastern half of the United States (or up to two hundred, if one counts small groups.)”

One of these smaller identified groups originated in an area of Gibson’s Mill in Louisa County, Virginia. Sometime in the early to mid 1830’s several families from “Gibby’s Mill” migrated across the Ohio River into what was then Gallia County, Ohio. A boundary change in 1850 placed most of the group within the boundaries of the newly created, Vinton County with the remainder living on the Jackson/Vinton County border. These individuals had surnames of Napper, Dorton and Thacker, joined later by Doles and Freeman.

Like other mixed race communities, they congregated closely together. Like other mixed race communities, they intermarried heavily within their own group. Like other mixed raced communities, the census taker marked them with an “m” under the heading of “color.” But unlike the other tri-racial isolates, this community is of special interest to me. A branch of my family tree has roots within this community, roots that I had been unaware of until this past year.

If you have noticed a lack of posting and participation in geneablogger pursuits, it has been because of my own fascination with this “Vinton County Group.” In order to study the group I have had to study the disciplines of history, anthropology, cultural and ethnic studies, geography, sociology and law –certainly a stretch for a former business major.

I’m not complaining. I cheerfully gobble up each new detail, but it does take time, and time is a finite quantity. So if I am less attentive, or seem preoccupied, this is the reason. I’m not sure what will become of the information that I am amassing. Maybe one day I will devour that one last piece that will satiate this curiosity, this hunger and I will sit back on my heels (okay, you realize the sitting back on the heels thing is a metaphor, my knees would scream in heated protest, should I actually try that move) and say, well okay, now I have had enough and I can move on.

Until I have had enough, I will still be posting (I do have to come up for air from time to time) just not as much or as often.

If you are interested in learning more about tri-racial isolates, here are some websites to get you started.

Melungeon Heritage Association Website A great website with articles of differing points of view.

Discover: “Where Do We Come From?”

The Lumbee Indians A variety of information and articles.

Open Salon: “ Who was America’s first black President?” An interesting article about the racial background of previous presidents.

World Culture Encyclopedia:: North America – “American Isolates”

Frontline: “The Blurred Racial Lines of Famous Families” Be sure to check out some of the other links in the sidebar.

Additional Resources Used:

DeMarce, “’Verry Slitly Mixt’: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South—A Genealogical Study,” NGSQ, Vol. 80, No. 1 (March 1992): 5–35.

United States Census Bureau, “Measuring America: The Decennial Censuses From 1790 to 2000,” 2002. Pamphlet, U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/pol02marv-pt1.pdf: 2009.

Sandusky County Kin Hunters Meeting this Sunday!

2009-01-07T00:45:00.000-05:00

Kim Harden of Sandusky County Kin Hunters sent me a note reminding me that the next meeting is this coming Sunday, January 11, at 2:00 PM. The meeting will take place at the Sandusky Twp. Hall on Rt. 19 North in Fremont. The building is handicapped accessible and there is ample parking available.

Kim says, "We would like to welcome anyone interested (or curious) in genealogy research. Present members will be glad to share knowledge and experience. Anyone wishing to join will receive a free starter kit."

So don't be shy, come out and meet some fellow family historians! For more information you can contact Kim at 419-603-0367.

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging!

My Twelve Sentence Review

2009-01-04T01:45:00.003-05:00

Okay, proving that geneabloggers are just as warped as your average person, several memes are going around the geneablogger universe right now. One instructs – “take the first sentence from the first post of each month. You will end up with only twelve sentences. Post those twelve sentences.” Well, okay then.

January 2 - Other Voices of Genealogy - My writing style tends to be a casual, slightly irreverent style of prose.

February 1 - Web sites to check out - Aaarrrggh!!!!! How in the world did it get to be February already?

March 2 - Pension File Stories: Louisa Ish Smathers, Disappearing Woman - “I am nearly 48 years old, a housekeeper…”

April 1 - A look back — on Women's History Month and beyond - When my sister and I were young, we would play make-believe games.

May 1 - Part II: Pomerania - War and Consequences - The people of Pomerania knew that the Russian Army was rapidly advancing on them.

June 2 - One SuperPower to Go - Please! - Over the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking about what superpower I could appropriate that would help me most in my genealogical snooping.

July 1 - Delete is NOT an option - Okay, this post is only for those of you who maintain blogs on this newspaper website or those of an affiliated newspaper website. The rest of you can go do something else - sleep, eat, start a third world country.

August 4 - 7 Days, 7 Requests - Inertia is defined as the resistance to motion, action, or change.

September 1 - Our Family Treasure - For 102 years, various members of my family have been responsible for keeping the documents that my great grandparents Leo and Emma Schrader brought with them when they immigrated in 1906.

October 1 -Geneablogger Gnome makes a visit to the Desktop Genealogist - The little fellow below came for a visit to the Desktop Genealogist blog via email for my participation in Terry Thornton’s “Getting to Know You Challenge. "

November 4 - Some Final Thoughts on This Election Day - I just read a piece in the New York Times which said that the election with the largest voter turnout happened 100 years ago, on November 3, 1908 when 66% of the registered voters showed up at the polls and elected Ohioan, William Howard Taft, the Republican candidate, as President.

December 2 - Today I cannot write - Last night, big fat flakes of snow traveled softly to the ground.

So there you have it. My twelve sentence review of my blog. I’m not sure what it proves – that I don’t always start my posts with the word, “okay?”

My Christmas Past - My First Christmas

2008-12-25T11:07:00.003-05:00

Merry Christmas to You and Yours!

My Christmas Past - My First Christmas as a MOM

2008-12-24T09:43:00.002-05:00

Christmas Eve 1973 – This was my first Christmas as a mom. Here my ten-month-old daughter Joy and I are opening a gift. Before motherhood snagged me, I had no idea you could love a little person so deeply and with so much abandon. Motherhood opened up a new world for me, and though I entered it a little shakily and with much uncertainty, I entered it wholeheartedly. I was all of twenty.

Ice Storm

2008-12-19T12:18:00.001-05:00

My beautiful birch couldn't handle the ice. Power outages, closed schools and ice covered windows are what's happening in Northwestern Ohio today. What's the weather like in your neck of the woods?

My Christmas Past - Christmas 1968 - Or How I learned to smile again!

2008-12-18T16:11:00.004-05:00

Terry and her siblings Christmas 1968

This was the year after the infamous "Christmas Slap" and right after my braces had been removed. I suddenly felt like smiling again.

The 62nd Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy Has Posted!

2008-12-18T16:04:00.000-05:00

You saw what my three wishes were of Dear Genea-Santa. Now read the wishes of the other geneabloggers at Jasia's Creative Gene post, "Carnival of Genealogy, 62nd Edition." Thanks, Jasia, for another well done edition of the COG.

My Christmas Past - Shoe Envy 1955

2008-12-17T16:08:00.005-05:00

Christmas 1955 - I don't remember much about that Christmas except that I had a bad case of shoe envy. Once I spied my cousin's black patent leather shoes, I was permanently done with those "baby" white shoes of mine. I was two.

A Blog Caroling We Will Go - Part Two

2008-12-17T09:08:00.000-05:00

Last week, our own footnote Maven invited the geneablogger community to participate in the Internet version of caroling. This week the very clever fM created her own Christmas Caroling Tree to link you to the various Christmas inspired bloggers.

As you check on the link to each of the geneabloggers, you might want to look around to see some of their other Christmas inspired posts.

Thanks fM! And a very Merry Christmas caroling to you all

Happy Birthday Moe Dog!

2008-12-16T01:08:00.002-05:00

Because I love you and because it’s your birthday, I won’t mention the time we were seated at your sister’s sixth grade band concert, and you leaned over and said to me in a very loud stage whisper, “Mom, I forgot to put my underwear back on after my bath,” creating a laughing spasm that rippled through three rows of concert goers and making me want to slither under my seat.

Instead, I’ll just say - Happy 30th Birthday, kiddo! (Where did the time go?)

Love,

Mom

A Locket of Hair, An old Christmas Recipe and A Family Bible - Three Genea Wishes for Christmas

2008-12-15T00:54:00.003-05:00

The locket of red hair, given to the six year old at her mother’s funeral in 1911, had no intrinsic value, but decades later, as she spoke about the gift, its cherished nature was still evident.

The challenge for the 62nd edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is Three Wishes. “This is your chance to write a letter to Genea-Santa. Make a list of 3 gifts you would like to receive this holiday season from 3 of your ancestors. These have to be material things, not clues to your family history (we're talking gifts here, not miracles!).” So …

Dear Genea-Santa,

I would like the locket of my great grandmother’s hair that my great aunt Lucille was given the day she said good-bye to her mother. Shortly afterwards, Lucille and her siblings were separated, and as an adult, it was Lucille’s quest that brought her not to her brother’s doorstep some forty years later, but to the doorstep of her brother’s son, my father. To have the locket of hair would serve as a reminder of one woman’s tenacity for putting her family back together.

In my stocking, Santa, it would be easy for you to add a recipe card from another Great Grandmother’s kitchen. Emma Gleffe Schrader was, according to my grandmother (with a hearty endorsement from my father) a very accomplished cook and baker. I’ve heard that there exists a surviving recipe for her Christmas Yule Roll. This would be a wonderful way of passing on an old family tradition that future generations could enjoy, and a way of honoring my great grandmother’s memory. Santa, please!

And finally, in the family of my third great grandparents William Armstrong and Leah Shupe Armstrong, there is a family bible which includes the birth of my own great great grandmother Elizabeth Harriet Armstrong Feasel. Is it too much to ask that Leah’s own parents kept such a family bible, and that somehow, miraculously, it would come into my possession? Okay, I know we don’t get to ask for miracles, but hey, this could be the only way I figure out who Leah’s parents were.

Well Santa, there you have it, my three wishes. I know that these are a lot to ask of one poor overworked fellow, but it sure was fun daydreaming about the possibilities.

Merry Christmas Santa, and don’t eat too many Christmas Cookies!

Terry S.

A Christmas Caroling We Will Go

2008-12-12T09:26:00.006-05:00

The foototeMaven has invited Genea-bloggers to come Christmas caroling with her today. Of course, she's stipulated that we put down our favorite Christmas carol, and as everybody knows I'm too wishy washy to have a favorite.

But here is one that I often hum to myself during this time of year.

Judy Garland first performed the song in 1944 in the movie "Meet Me in St. Louis." Written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, below is the version that most of us know. In 1957, as Frank Sinatra was recording his album, "A Jolly Christmas," he asked for a rewrite of one of the lines. The line went from "Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow" to "Hang a shining star upon the highest bough."

The original version that Martin and Blaine wrote, was even darker with the first two lines reading, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas, It may be your last."
Below is the Frank Sinatra version:

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years
We all will be together,

If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.

And have yourself A merry little Christmas now.

My Christmas Past - The Mustachioed Christmas

2008-12-11T22:06:00.003-05:00

By 1989, we had added two son-in-laws to the family tree. They, the son-in-laws, turned out to be keepers - the mustaches not so much.

My Christmas Past - The Christmas Slap

2008-12-10T11:41:00.005-05:00

From now until Christmas, I will be visiting some photos from my Christmas past on Wednesday and Thursday of each week. Below are two of my favorites taken in 1967, as my siblings and I sat for the annual Christmas Tree photo.

My youngest siblings apparently were feeling pretty confident that Santa was done with the whole naughty and nice list.

Graveyard Rabbits AND My Mutated Gene

2008-12-09T15:38:00.000-05:00

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. Never could.

I know you’re saying to yourself that all women are born with the multi-tasking gene. You know - that secret weapon that allows us to change a baby’s diaper, drag the toddler away from playing “fishing” with your prized rainbow guppy, and cook a six course dinner simultaneously while putting on the new shade of peppermint pink lipstick, all the better to have kissable lips when the hubs comes home.

I didn’t get that gene. Instead, I got that gene that allows you to concentrate obsessively on one thing, and one thing only.

This gene allowed cave man to focus exclusively on taking down a mammoth lion, instead of say, thinking about not forgetting to pick up a supply of kindling and sticks on his way back to the cave or whether or not the lion in question had the correct color coat his wife had requested for the new cave rug. Nope, he just focused on killing a big ole lion.

The modern day equivalent of this can be witnessed by a husband's almost serene ability to concentrate exclusively on Sunday’s football game. This is done while vacantly nodding as you talk about this year’s Christmas plans, ignoring his own offspring as they bicker loudly about custody of a toy, and looking up with wounded incredibility when you finally get through to him to let him know that YOU KNOW he isn’t paying any attention to you or the kids.

HE CAN”T HELP IT. It’s wired into his DNA and apparently, this very trait has jumped over and replaced the multi-tasking gene that is supposed to be wired into my X chromosome. I think they call this a spontaneous mutation. Genetics, what are you going to do!

This is my usual long-winded way of saying that I don’t know what the heck I was thinking when I agreed to take on a fourth blog at the invitation of Terry Thornton and The Association of Graveyard Rabbits. Blogging, working, babysitting, holiday preparing, genealogical research and an added extra blog – well if that isn’t a recipe for personal disaster.

Thanks to the hard work of Terry and footNote Maven there is an “anchor” site for ALL the Graveyard Rabbits who as of last week numbered 55. The site is really a beautiful work of art. It has a directory listing all the affiliated blogs with their LOCATION.

There’s a contact page and an aggregator page, which updates all the latest posts by each of the rabbits. If you have family that lived in another state, you might check the directory to see if someone is covering that area. I’m still hoping for a New Jersey and/or Oklahoma Rabbit. In the meantime, you are treated to some wonderfully written articles.

Myself, I decided to cover the twelve counties that make up The Great Black Swamp area of Ohio. My latest post, Survey of Washington Chapel Cemetery, did not turn out quite as I had planned.

I worked a good two weeks creating a slideshow from Photo Story 3, complete with titles and narration. (I was especially proud that I had gone back and rerecorded every piece of narration that I said the word Washington and added the famous Midwestern “R” making it “warsh” instead of “wash.” Man, some parts of the country get really creeped out by that.)

All was for naught, as the darn thing refused to open each time I tried to upload it to my YouTube account. Finally, I took another route with less than stellar results. However, I was working on a bit of a deadline. The bylaws of Graveyard Rabbits require me to post at least once a month. It’s not clear if that is a calendar month, or one month from your last post. I was closing in on the one-month mark of the latter qualification, and I didn’t want to get the boot, so there you have it.

If anyone is interested in writing their own post as a guest author for The Great Black Swamp Graveyard Rabbit, please leave me a comment below or email me at Blackswampbunny@aol.com but be patient. Owing to that darn gene mutation which causes me to concentrate on one thing at a time, it takes me a while to remember to check that email address.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Today I cannot write

2008-12-02T11:19:00.000-05:00

Last night, big fat flakes of snow traveled softly to the ground. I could not see the lights of Clyde, a comforting beacon that lets me know the severity of a snowfall or the thickness of a fog. Last night I paced, this morning I stare at a blank screen, unable to summon the enthusiasm for writing about matters of genealogy.

Last week, I watched with horror the attacks in Mumbai. Half a world away, there were young men, turned killing machines, who embraced not in theory but in deed, the twin evils of death and destruction. Mayhem, carnage, death – how can these be laudable goals, anytime, anywhere?

They and their victims, strangers all, foreign to me not just by birth, but by life and life style. I am not a world traveler. I am not an Indian citizen. I am not of the Jewish faith. And yet …

A father and daughter, visiting India in search of spiritual truths were caught eating in a café and gunned down by terrorists. Their colleagues, who were wounded, survived by playing dead, as the gunmen moved on to other diners.

A prominent food critic of The Times of India was trapped in her suite at The Taj, frantically texting her husband as the siege progressed. Her last transmission, early Thursday morning said that the gunmen were in her bathroom, after that, silence. He would later find her body in a pile of lifeless corpses, deposited there by commandos after the final assault. She died of asphyxiation.

And the vision of a blood spattered little boy, saved by his nanny, after witnessing the murder of his parents. His cries for his mother as the small community that she and her husband served, held a memorial in their honor were too heartbreaking to bear.

I do not know all the stories, nor the names of all the victims who died by man made tragedy last week in Mumbai. But I am filled with sorrow at such a senseless loss.

Today I AM a world traveler. Today I AM an Indian citizen. Today I AM a Jew. And today I cannot write.

8 Things You Might Not Know About Me

2008-11-25T22:25:00.003-05:00

Well, I’ve been tagged twice for this week’s meme that is making the rounds in Geneablogger land. Since I was tagged by two of my favorite bloggers, Sheri Fenley of The Educated Genealogist and Randy Seavers of Genea-Musings, I feel duty bound to play.

This time I have to give you eight things about myself that you, the reader, might not know. If you have read this blog on any kind of a regular basis, it’s probably obvious that any thought or experience that happens to pop into my brain makes its way onto this blog. Is there anything about me that you don’t already know?

You might not know. . .

1. I drink hot tea instead of coffee. (A latent English gene, perhaps?)

2. I not only passed my college swimming class without finishing the swim portion of the final test, but I received an A, thanks to my sister’s one size too small hot pink bikini and an appreciative student instructor.

3. You can count me as another member of the “I took belly dance lessons” club. Had it not been for an emergency C-section, I probably would have been become “Tara the Dancing Princess.”

4. I believe God created parentheses just for my benefit. (And since I don’t want his creation to go to waste, I make ample use of them in my blogging posts.)

5. I love all things tomato. I love tomato sandwiches, tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, stuffed tomatoes, but I cannot stand the size and texture of cherry tomatoes in my mouth – yuck!

6. I can twist my tongue around so that it looks like I am turning it over. This (along with my Morton’s Toe) is a talent inherited from my dad. It is a useful trick in a room full of rowdy children. They’ll spend a good, QUIET half hour trying to duplicate the feat.

7. I played the violin in school, which is how my pal Karen and I first became friends. (She usually sat first chair and I sat second. Once, when the music instructor was trying to teach her a lesson, he switched our places right before a recital that had a solo for the first violin. I was scared to death. My generous friend talked me through it and it turned out fine – but I was happy to have her resume the duties of first chair.)

8. I believed my mother EVERY time she told me that taking Pepto-Bismol would make my stomach ache feel better. She lied!

Now the actual rules for this meme are:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their name.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and to read your blog.

Since, I was one of the last to come to this party, I’m guessing that most of the geneablogger crowd that has wanted to play, has played. So, any blogger reading this post, please consider yourself tagged. Ah, that goes for you non-geneablogger types, too!

A Little Game of Scrabble

2008-11-23T13:45:00.002-05:00

Karen, my friend from California, and I were just talking about how we don’t forward those emails that say “send this email to 10 people within three hours and you will have your most fervent wish come true. If you delete this message before forwarding it on, you will have 10 years of bad luck.”

Okay, you may not have gotten one with the same verbiage but you know the kind of email I mean. By my count, I have about 10 LIFETIMES worth of bad luck. (Hey, wonder if I can “serve” my sentences concurrently and speed things up to say 5 LIFETIMES?)

Anyway, the next day I received the following email from one of my geneablogger buddies:

Scrabble
Ok the game is on... Afternoon Scrabble - Keep it going!!!

Change one letter of the bottom word posted and let's see who gets stuck and can't continue!
Rules: You cannot add letters. You cannot use foreign languages. You can only change one letter.

Send it back to the person that sent it to you, plus 10 new people.

Add your entry to the bottom after you hit Forward, or to be neater please Copy and Paste!???

Don't forget: send it back to the person that sent it to you, plus 10 new people.

To make it even more interesting, let's add what city and state we are from & the date to see how far this goes and how long it's been out...

This one I did participate in and pass on. I did it for two reasons.

1. NOBODY was being threatened if they did not pass it on.
2. It was extremely interesting to see the number of places this little chain email had been.

I sent it to people in the geneablogger world (see Karen, I was good to you.), and my apologies to anyone who may have been offended by being included in this little email. My apologies to anyone I didn’t send it to and who, upon reading this, realized that they would have WANTED to be included. You just can’t please everybody.

It started in the UK, but I don’t know which country in the UK because the originating person was not that specific. However, the following countries are represented: England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, Barbados, and the United States. Twenty states are represented in the list. I am the second Ohioan on this particular list.

Below is the list. I have deleted names from it, but I thought it was interesting to see the dates, and the places where this game of scrabble has been. The first date is listed as 18/08/08, which is August 18, 2008. This form of date changed to the more common form used in the US in Baltimore, MD.

A special thanks to the fellow geneablogger who included me in this game. I was feeling in a funk, and this perked me up.

If anybody recognizes this list, and would like to drop me a comment, I would love to hear from you. The world has certainly gotten smaller!

Pray
Bray -.UK 18/08/08
Tray - Jenny, Essex UK 18/7/08
Tram -, Essex UK 18/07/08
Trap - 18/7/08
Trip -, Essex 19/08/08
Grip - l,Essex , UK 20/08/08
Grid -, Scotland 20/08/08
Grin - , Barbados 21.08.08
Gran - - England 21.08.08
Bran -, Kent, 24.8.08
Rant- England 27.08.08
Pant -, South Australia 27/8/08
Pint - Hervey Bay Queensland Australia
Punt _ Craignish Qld. Australia
Puny - - Pt Elliot South Australia 29/08/08
Punk - - Goolwa Beach South Austraila 01/09/08
Pink - -Canterbury UK
Sink - Herne Bay Kent
Link - Herne Bay Kent . 2 Sept 08
Line - Essex 2nd September 08
Lint - Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex 02/09/08
Tint - - Orpington , Kent 03/09/08
Tent - - Sevenoaks , Kent 3/9/08
Rent - - Fairseat , Kent 3/9/08
Dent - - Bromley Kent 3/9/08
Bent - - West Wickham , Kent 3/9/08
Sent - - Borough Green, Kent 6/9/08
Went - - Southport UK - 06/09/08
Want - -Kay Southport UK - 06/09/08
Wart - -Lee , South Grafton20AU -07/09/08
Fart - South Grafton AU -07/09/2008
Cart- Brisbane Au- 08/09/2008
Tart - Maryborough AU - 08/09/2008
Dart - Brisbane Qld Australia 08/09/08
Dirt - Brisbane Qld Australia 8/09/09
Girt - Brisbane Qld Aust 09/09/08
Gift - Brisbane Qld Aust 09/09/08
Rift - Brisbane Qld Aust 09/09/08
Rife - Brisbane Qld Aust 09/09/08
Life - Qld Aust 10/9/08
Wife- WA Aust 11/9/08
Waif - WA Aust 11/09/08
Wait - WA Aust 11/9/08
Bait - WA Aust 11/09/08
Gait - Glasgow , Scotland 15/09/08
Gain -, Coulsdon, Surrey 15/09/08
Pain -, Woodmansterne, Surrey 16/9/08
Rain -, Banstead, Surrey UK 16.09.08
Raid-, Surrrey UK 16.09.08
Paid -, Hants , UK 17.09.2008
Laid - Wales UK 17.9.2008
Lair - South Wales UK19.09.2008
Lain - South Wales UK 22.09.2008
Lean - Birmingham 22.09.08
Loan- -Hampshire-23.09.08
Moan - West Sussex 24.09.08
Moat - Val Wingate West Sussex England 24.9.08
Boat -, West Sussex . England
Beat--, West SussexUK 24/9/08
Neat -, Cambridge England 24/09/08
Peat--, Chicago ,USA
Feat-- Mountain View , CA 26/09/08
Teat - San Carlos CA , USA 26/09/08
Meat - Baltimore , MD 9/27/08
seat- Raleigh NC 27609 9 /28/08
sear- Boca Raton , FL 9/30/08
rear- Pikesville Maryland
bear- Baltimore Maryland 09/30/2008
tear- Baltimore , Maryland 09/30/2008
team- Owings Mills , Maryland 10/1/08
teal- Owings Mills. MD 10/01/08
seal- Phoenix , MD 10/2/08
sell- Framingham, MA 10/2/08
bell- Framingham , MA 10/2/08
lobe- Framingham , MA 10/2/08
bowl - Framiingham , MA 10/5/08
cowl - Framingham , MA 10/5/08
coal - Weston , MA 10/05/08
COAT- Hollywood FL 10/5/08
Goat - Weston , MA
moat Marlboro MA
Boat -- Framingham , MA
Toad-- Framingham , Ma 10/5/08
Told--- Westwood, Ma 10/6/08
bold - Den nis , MA 10/7/08
bald - Arlington , MA 10/8/08
bale - Troy , OH 10/7/08
balk- Pittsfield ,Ma 10/7/08
bank-,lee,ma 10/8/08
tank- Stamford CT 10/9/08
talk- Wood dale IL 10/9/08
walk-, Wood Dale IL 10/9/08
wall - - RLB , IL 10/9/08
wail - - Glenview , IL 10/9/08
pail -, Chicago , IL 10/09/08
sail - - Torrance , CA. 10/9/08
nail - - Torrance , CA 10/9/08
rail - - Santa Clarita, CA 10/10/08
bail - - Burbank Ca 10/13/2008
hail - - Riverside , CA 10/14/08
fail –– Lakewood, Ca 10/19/08
tail –– Huntington Beach , CA 10/19/2008
toil –~ Ceres, CA 10/20/08
boil- ~ Turlock , CA 10/20/08
coil- CA 10/20/09
cowl- Tracy , CA 10/20/09
fowl ~, Tracy, CA 10/21/08
bowl~ Tracy CA10/21/08
bawl- Tracy, CA 10/21/08
ball–Tracy, CA 10/21/2008
mall- Stephanie Waddoups, Tracy, Ca. 10/22/08
call -, Roy, UT 10/22/08
hall - Carrollton, TX 10/23/08
hail - Ponca City, OK 23 Oct 2008
haik – Laguna Niguel, CA23 Oct 2008
hair - Fort Wort , TX 10/23/08
hail - Anchorage , Alaska , 23 Oct 08
Tail - Houston ,Texas , 10/23/08 @ 1:03p.m.
Teal - TX 10/24/08 @ 6:21
Meal- TX 10/24/2008 6:30am
Lame –Houston , TX 10/24/2008
Lime –, Corpus Christi , TX 10-24-2008
Dime –Corpus Christi , TX 10/24/2008
Mime -- CC, Texas 10/24/08
Mine - Covington , LA 10/24/08
Mind- Sonora , CA 10/25/08
Mild –Pt. Reyes CA 10/25/08
Milk - Ford CA 10/26/08
Mile- Beach Ca 10/26/08
Mole -, Petaluma CA 10/26/08
Pole –, San Francisco, CA 10/26/08
Hole –Napa , CA 10/27/08
Home- Portland , OR 10-28-08
Hope –Lake Oswego , OR 10-28-08
Rope –Lake Oswego , OR 10-28-08
Rose-- Lake Oswego, OR 10-31-08
Rise-- Portland, OR 10-31-08
Wise-- Concord, Ma. 11-1-08
Wipe-- Portland, OR 11-2-08
Wimp-- Portland, Or 11/3/08
Limp –Borrego Springs, CA 11/03/08
Pimp - Vista, CA 11/5/08
Pump - NV 11/6/08
Jump- Incline Village, Nv. 11/6/08
Hump -, Aleaxndria, Va 11/7/2008
Lump - Hernando, FL
Lamp - Lecanto, Fl. 11/07/08
Ramp- okeechobee, fl 11/10/08
camp- Taylorsville,NC 11/10/08
damp - Millville, NJ 11/10/08
tamp - Rosenhayn, NJ
Vamp - Millville - NJ
pave- Millville, NJ
pale - Millville, NJ
Bale –Millville, NJ
Bake- Millville, NJ
Rake—Woodstwon, NJ
Make - Mannington, NJ
cake- Clearwater, FL
sake - Naples, FL
Wake- Daw Ca.
Wade- V.H. AZ
Wide - Viejo, CA 11/21/08
Wipe - Ladera Ranch, CA 11/21/08
Wise - CA 11/21/08
Wish - Whidbey Island WA 11/22/08
Fish - Brookdale, CA 11/22/08Fist -- Chula Vista CA 11/22/08
List - Fulton, Mississippi USA 11/22/08
Last – Fremont, Ohio 11/22/08

November - I Weep

2008-11-13T12:39:00.007-05:00

I hate November. I always have. The days are short and overcast. Even the thought of the annual Thanksgiving feast is not enough to cheer me. As a child, I can’t tell you the number of times my family sat feasting on the luscious bird with all of its trimmings, while I lay moaning in my bed, bedroom door closed, completely nauseated by the smells that managed to filter their way into my sickroom. Having the flu seemed, at times, like an annual November ritual. Something you could count on in the same way you could count on my mom grinding up the cranberries the night before the holiday. So you can have your Thanksgiving and the entire month, I still hate November.

It seems only fitting, then, that November would house one of my worst memories, one of those before and after moments that people call “defining.” In the scale of things, it was just a small moment. I’ve come to realize if you scratch below anyone’s surface, you will find similar moments. I’m not special. God did not single me out, but at twenty-four, with a limited worldview, it felt as if he had.

In my mind, I see a little blond girl, smiling and running towards me with arms outstretched. I smile back, and reach for her, picking her up and kissing her warm forehead. It is a cherished fantasy, decades old. It’s all I have of her, my youngest daughter, Heather, the fantasy.

When Heather was born, she had massive birth defects. That is what I tell people, when I talk about it. It sounds much better than the truth. That as a seven-month preemie, she weighed over ten pounds. That her little body was so bloated with fluid it had crushed her fragile bones, and made it impossible for her to come down the birth canal.

The fact that she managed to hang out for twenty minutes after her caesarean birth, might qualify as a small miracle, on a day when miracles were in short supply. I am haunted with the idea that she was waiting for me, and in one final insult, I let her down, not coming out of the anesthetic fog until after she had died.

Funny, when they told me she was a girl, for a brief moment there was pleasure, I hadn’t known until that instant how much I was hoping for a girl. In that instant, I forgot that a short time earlier I had begged uselessly for the doctor to give me some small piece of hope as they put me under the anesthesia. All he could do was shake his head.

How much of my grief-inspired insanity do I share? How much can you hear? Do you want to know that because I never held her or kissed her little cheek, or even saw her ravaged body that the ache of it can still make me weak?

Do you want to know that for months afterwards, every time I got into my car it somehow ended up in the hospital parking lot? Even I couldn’t understand the compulsion, until finally, one day, it dawned on me that the hospital was the last place Heather had been alive for me. The baby that had kicked inside me whenever I stopped rocking in my chair had disappeared. My mind and body were still looking for her.

Do you want to know that it would take five years, but eventually the event would highlight the growing cracks in my marriage, making a divorce the final footnote of the tragedy?

I wanted the world to stop. I didn’t care about someone looking for a new house. I didn’t care if they lost their job, or their plumbing stopped working. I wanted to shout, “My daughter has died! Nothing else matters!” But of course, as everyone knows, everything else does matter, and eventually, even I had to pick up the pieces and move on.

I hope that in your gravest moments of crisis you will find the same support and compassion I found in the cadre of women who nurtured and sustained me through mine. My mother, my sisters - Marcia and Lee, and my sister-in-law Nancy had the difficult task of withstanding all the vitriol and angst that I could muster. Over and over again, they let me cry, and rage and once done, let me regurgitate again all the bile that filled my soul. They must have wondered at times if I would ever stop, and eventually I did, when the well of bile finally ran dry. I don’t know how these women weathered my storm, but thank God, they did.

And so there was before, and then there was after. One day I was me, and then I was another me - not necessarily a better me, or even a worse me, just a different me. That is how life is.

Most of the time, it is behind me, though never lurking too far below my surface. With decades of practice, I can talk about it clinically, dispassionately without the slightest wave of disturbance. Except in November, when the sky is overcast and the calendar stares at me in defiance. Then I weep.

For All My Sandusky County Kin Hunter Friends

2008-11-09T00:48:00.000-05:00

I wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone at the Sandusky County Kin Hunters who let me ramble on today about one of my favorite subjects, my Pomeranian roots. You each made it a thoroughly enjoyable experience for me. A special thanks to Dave Golden for inviting me to speak.

Here are the links that I promised I would post. Enjoy!

I. EAST OF THE ODER/NEISSE LINE
A. Eastern Europe
1. http://www.kartenmeister.com/preview/databaseUwe.asp
Kartenmeister
“Database of locations are EAST of the Oder and Neisse rivers and are based on the borders of the eastern provinces in Spring 1918. Included in this database are the following provinces: Eastprussia, including Memel, Westprussia, Brandenburg.
Posen, Pomerania, and Silesia.”
Gives both German and Polish names of villages and towns.
Website in German, English and Polish

2. http://feefhs.org/
The Federation of East European Family History Societies
Resource for All of Eastern Europe – Maps, Links etc.

B. Pomeranian Links
1. http://pom-wpru.kerntopf.com/index.htm
Useful information about the counties along the border between former Prussian Provinces Pomerania and West Prussia. Counties include
Butow - Pomerania
Lauenburg – Pomerania
Stolp – Pomerania
Karthaus – West Prussia
Neustadt – West Prussia
Putzig – West Prussia
Website in both German and English

2. http://www.ruegenwalde.com/pommern/index.htm
Pommerninfo – Information and links for All Pommern Counties
Website in German with some English Subtitles

3. http://hinterpommern.de/
Pommern – Das Land am Meer
Information and links for Pomerania East of the Oder-Neisse Line
Website in German

4. http://pommerndatenbank.de/
Pommerndatenbank
Searchable databases including
1. Contact exchange between Pommern family researchers – Pommernkontakte
2. Search Family Names in various Address books from years 1869 -1938
3. Search Church Books and Civil Records Database for availability of records and their location
Website in German and some English

5. http://www.bogenschneider.org/pomerania.htm
Pomeranian Genealogy Resources - Excellent website for links!
Website in English and German

6. . http://pomeranianews.com/welcome.html
Die Pommerschen Leute
Website for the Quarterly Newsletter devoted to the Duchy of Pomerania
Published by The Immigrant Genealogical Society Pomeranian Special Interest
Group
Maps, Articles, and Links
Website in English

7. http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mnprgm/PRG.html
The Pommern Regional Group of Minnesota
Information on Pomeranian Culture and Links
Website in English

8. http://www.pommerschervereinfreistadt.org/Home/tabid/68/Default.aspx
Pommerscher Verein Freistad
Culture and History of Pomerania
Website English and German

C. Pomeranian County Links
1. http://www.hinterpommern-info.de/index.html
Herzlich Willkommen im Landkreis Stolp i. Pommern
Information about specific villages in Stolp Kreis
Links to other information
Website in German

3. http://www.powiatslupsk.info/
Powiat Slupski
Information about towns and villages of Stolp Kreis
Website in German and Polish

4. http://belgard.org/
Information on Pommern - Kreis Belgard – Schivelbein -
Website in German

5. http://www.buetow-pommern.info/
Information on Pommern – Kreis Bütow
Website in German

6. http://www.cammin-pommern.de/
Information on Pommern - Kreis Cammin
Website in German

7. http://www.deutsch-krone.de/
Information on Pommern – Kreis Deutsch Krone
Website in German and some Polish

8. http://www.kolberg-koerlin.de/
Information on Pommern – Kreis Kolberg-Körlin
Website in German

9. http://www.lauenburg-pommern.de/
Information on Pommern – Kreis Lauenburg
Website in German

10. http://www.naugard.de/
Information on Pommern – Kreis Naugard
Website in German

11. http://www.netzekreis.de/
Information on Pommern – Netzekreis
Website in German

12. http://www.rummelsburg.de/
Information on Pommern - Kreis Rummelburg
Website in German and English

13. http://www.schlawe.de/
Information on Pommern – Kreis Schlawe
Website in German

14. http://www.geocities.com/schlochau/index.html
Information on Pommern – Kreis Schlochau
Website in English and German

15. http://list.genealogy.net/mailman/listinfo/stolp-l
Mailing list for Researchers of the Pomeranian County of Stolp
Instructions in German, English, French and Dutch
Website German but some on list read and write English

II. GERMAN LINKS
1. http://www.genealogy.net/genealogy.html
German Genealogy Portal
Website in German and some English

2. http://immigrantgensoc.org/
The Immigrant Genealogical Society
Collection of German and American Genealogy – Research Service from Library
holdings.
Website in English

3. http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/about.cfm
German History in Documents and Images
Collection of Historical documents, images, maps pertaining to German History
From 1500 -2006 (Note some sections still under construction)
Website in German and English

4 http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/RG/frameset_rg.asp?Dest=G1&Aid=&Gid=&Lid=&Sid=&Did=&Juris1=&Event=&Year=&Gloss=&Sub=&Tab=&Entry=&Guide=Ger_BMD_RefDoc_HandbookGermanResearch.ASP
“A Genealogical Handbook of German Research” by Larry O. Jensen
This can be downloaded as a PDF file from FamilySearch website.
Website in English

5. http://www.volksbund.de/
Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.
Website of the German War Graves Commission with information on German
Soldiers who died in World War I and World War II
Website in German

6. http://mki.wisc.edu/
Max Kade Institute for German American Studies
Documents, Maps, Information, Resources, Links
Website in English (some links in German)

6. http://home.att.net/~wee-monster/germanlinks.html
Links for Geman Genealogy on the Internet
Joe Beine’s very useful German links recently celebrated it’s 10 year anniversary.
Website in English

III. IMMIGRATION
1. http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=d21f3711ca5ca110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD&vgnextchannel=d21f3711ca5ca110VgnVCM1000004718190aRCRD
Information on the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Genealogy Program
Procedures and fees for requesting Index Search and Record Copy Request
(Note you can now make these requests online)

2. http://www.ellisisland.org/
Ellis Island
Search Passenger Manifests for Immigrant Ancestors
1892-1954

IV. ONLINE LANGUAGE TRANSLATORS

1. http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Google Language Tools
Can translate both text and websites into from approximately 30 different languages into English., including Polish. Muy Bueno!

2. http://babelfish.yahoo.com/
Yahoo Babel Fish
Can translate both text and website from 12 languages into English. Does not include Polish.

V. INTERACTIVE MAPS

1. http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=44.023938~-99.71&style=h&lvl=4&tilt=-89.875918865193&dir=0&alt=7689462.6842358
Microsoft Virtual Earth
Look at Earth in 3D

2. http://www.google.com/intl/en/
Google Earth
3D view of the world and more.

Sandusky County Kin Hunters Meeting Reminder

2008-11-05T11:29:00.000-05:00

This Sunday, November 9, the Sandusky County Kin Hunters will be holding their monthly meeting at 2:00 PM at the Sandusky Township Hall on Rt 19 North. I will be there chatting about the topic “Researching My Pomeranian Roots.”

The meeting is free and open to public with ample parking available. If you have any questions please contact Dave at 419-502-7620.

Hope to see you there!

Some Final Thoughts on This Election Day

2008-11-04T01:51:00.003-05:00

I just read a piece in the New York Times which said that the election with the largest voter turnout happened 100 years ago, on November 3, 1908 when 66% of the registered voters showed up at the polls and elected Ohioan, William Howard Taft, the Republican candidate, as President.

Of course, women could not vote in that election. Today will be the 23rd time that women of the United States will have voted in a Presidential Election. November 2, 1920 was the first election in which women could exercise their right to vote. This was a mere 72 years after the birth of the women’s suffrage movement took place in Seneca Falls, New York at the first women's rights convention. Most of the women at that convention would not live to see their dreams of women’s suffrage realized.

As much as I am pulling for my candidate to win, I think the most important factor in today's election is the sanctity of the process – that no eligible voter’s vote be denied, nor left uncounted.

There are mountains of lawyers ready to pounce in my home state of Ohio with charges of voter fraud already floating like bits of pollen in the air. I have heard that there are legions of lawyers representing both political parties stationed in other swing states ready to do battle.

Perhaps it is naïve to believe that the integrity of the process matters more than the outcome of the election. But it is this belief that is at the core of what it means to be an American – one person, one vote. Is it too much to hope that those who would lead and their supporters remember this concept as this election season comes to a close?

Ouch!

2008-10-30T01:01:00.003-04:00

Karma is a ... well, you know. I made a funny ha, ha about not wanting to drive to Michigan this week, and I may have said something along the lines that Michigan drivers were maniacs. I should have known that saying something like that, even in jest, would come back to bite me. Predictably, it did.

No, I didn’t get into any accident, at least not an automobile accident. But owing to the fact that I did not inherit either parent’s physical prowess, I managed to get into another kind of accident.

Yesterday, klutzy me ended up kissing Michigan pavement, hard. I managed to land on one of my hands, and to cut to the chase, I have a couple of swollen fingers that even now are screaming at me to STOP THE DARN TYPING. (One is a handsome shade of purple, thank you.)

So not being a suck it up kinda girl, I’m just posting and typing enough to tell you, that until the fingers stop complaining, my wrist stops hurting and my shoulder no longer needs the heating pad, you aren’t going to hear a peep out of me.

I also want to say that I have learned my lesson about taking pot shots at the innocent citizens of another state, even in jest, even when technically true. No sir, not me, you won’t catch me saying anything bad about another state. Which probably means I’m going to have to stuff a sock in my mouth the weekend of November 22nd. Ouch!

One INTERESTING Week

2008-10-26T12:23:00.001-04:00

No, I haven’t died, nor have I fallen off the edge of the earth. (Well, duh, the earth is round and has no edges but I digress.) I’ve just had an INTERESTING week.

First, I have been fighting off some kind of flu bug. I think the drive-in person at McDonald’s who told us she wasn’t feeling well as she handed us our coffee and tea, may have had something to do with that. No, I get you, that’s not especially interesting but I just wanted to point out that you can have an INTERESTING week and still feel sick.

I also had my hair colored (no more gray) because I have to go to a work conference on Tuesday and Wednesday up into (shudder) Michigan. (No offense to the Michiganders who read this, but you people drive like maniacs!) And no, getting your hair colored isn’t especially interesting either but I wanted to prove what a real trooper I am – I mean feeling sick, getting my hair colored, and STILL managing to have an INTERESTING week.

The first thing that happened was that I was invited to join a new group called The Association of Graveyard Rabbits. This is a group of individuals “promoting the historical importance of cemeteries, grave markers, and the family history to be learned from a study of burial customs, burying grounds, and tombstones. As a group we pledge to promote the study of cemeteries, promote the preservation of cemeteries, and promote the transcription of genealogical/historical information written in cemeteries”.

I am honored to have been asked to join, but one of the things required is to start a NEW blog. So as soon as I am done writing this post, that is the next thing on my “to do” list. When the new site is up and running, I will post a link to it.

The next thing that happened this week was that my German friend, Siegfried, proved what a brilliant man he really is. A few months back I had written a series of posts about the land of my great grandparents, Pomerania. Siegfried found the posts and me, and we began a correspondence.

Siegfried decided that he would send me some videos after he had put some English captions on them, so I could “see” the homeland. I was grateful, excited and impatient to see them. I’m still hopeful that one day the postman will put them in my mailbox, but for now, they seem to have taken a rather long detour.

Now let me explain. Siegfried and I are not related, but his family and my family came from the same area in Stolp all those many years ago. For him to have gone this extra mile for an UNRELATED stranger, well what superlatives would be appropriate to describe such a wonderful selfless gesture?

As it turns out, there is another person in Ohio that Siegfried has helped. Her name is Shirley. (Hi Shirley! I hope the chicken soup helped.) Siegfried, Shirley and I are convinced that Shirley and I are very distant cousins.

Siegfried, who is no quitter, found another way to get the videos to both Shirley and I. He found a storage website that can be viewed in both German and English. He broke up the videos and uploaded them to the website, where Shirley and I could access them and download them. Each chunk of video took about three hours to download. For some reason while the download process was ongoing, it didn’t like me doing ANYTHING else with my computer. There were four videos, some with as few as two parts, some with as many as six parts. You do the math.

So, for the entire week, I have been computerless as I downloaded each portion. While there were some snafu’s – I still can’t view the very last video, and I had to get online to help figure out how to put the various pieces back together, I have to say it was pretty exciting being involved with such a project. I also have to say that Siegfried has been an amazing captain of the project, and Shirley has been a great deal of help – especially since I consider myself a technological imbecile in many respects. I could never find a better team to undertake something as all consuming as this turned out to be.

So a public thank you to my friend Siegfried. I’ve used the adjectives brilliant and amazing, but they pale in comparison to what you have done for me. Thank you very much for your persistence and kindness, and yes brilliance. As for Shirley, I couldn’t have found a better partner to share in our mutual excitement of what we experienced this week. It was time consuming, sometimes frustrating, but it was a major BLAST. We did it!

The final interesting thing that happened was a message board query that I had done about four years ago, finally paid dividends. I had been looking for information about my great grandfather’s cousin, Abram Perry Baker and one of his sons Dudley Vernon Baker. Well, a descendent of Dudley’s found me. (This is the very reason I hesitate to change any of my email addresses – you just never know!)

While I have been supplying them with parts of their family history and some cool documentation, they in turn have solved a couple of mysteries that have been plaguing me for about four years. I now know why Dudley went to Honduras, and why his uncle Rufus went there. I even know now that Dudley’s cousins Edward and Albert were also there. It feels a lot like an itch in the center of my back that I could never quite reach has finally been scratched. Relief! Euphoria! Hot Darn!

So you can see, this has indeed been one interesting week. None of this would have happened without the Internet. I know that I am preaching to the choir, but if you know any holdouts to the idea of using the Internet to further their genealogical interests, then tell them this – You know a lady, who at 55 is a technological imbecile, but still reaches out willingly to embrace the Internet and all its mysteries. You can also tell them she is loving every minute of it. Today is a day for happy dancing!

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Terry Accidentally Learns How to Make a Movie with Her Camera, Hah!

2008-10-20T23:43:00.003-04:00

Have I mentioned before that I have some kind of brain defect that causes my eyes to roll back in my head as I am reading an owner’s manual? I mean it’s all yadda, yadda to me.

So, the other night as I am taking pictures for my ‘autumn’s here” post, I was screwing around, uh, experimenting with my digital camera’s settings, and I accidentally made the movie you see below.

I want to mention that this is the very camera, that I asked Santa for last Christmas in the Carnival of Genealogy’s “Dear Santa” edition. Jasia of Creative Gene expressed real concern for someone who was taking pictures on an old camera that still used floppy disks. So Jasia, if you are reading this, I wanted you to know that Santa was good to me, possibly because I pointed out your concern to Santa’s helper, who just happens to be my husband Al. I pointed to your words and said, “See, people PITY me.”

So it’s been what, almost 10 months now, and I can honestly say I haven’t read one word of the manual. Now this is something that drives my husband completely insane. He LOVES owner’s manual. He reads them, keeps them all nice and neat, and frowns and grouses around if for some reason he can’t find them where he is sure he left them. He will say things like, “Someone moved my blah, blah, blah manual.”

Okay, since we are the only two people living in the house, we all know who SOMEONE really is, don’t we?

So when I showed him my proud masterpiece and admitted that I had no clue how I did it, predictably, he said, “You really ought to read the manual.” Hah!

As for the masterpiece itself, you can hear me clicking the “picture taking whatjamajig button,” which of course it wouldn’t do because the camera was all like, I’m making a movie, obviously. I am so proud that I didn’t utter any swear words. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to show you my accidental baby.

Of course, in order for you to see it, I had to load it on to YouTube. I entitled it, “Terry Accidentally Learns How to Make a Movie with Her Camera, Hah!” which is longer than the movie itself, and is, in fact, infinitely more interesting than the movie. It’s probably going to become an overnight sensation. CNN will want to interview me. David Letterman will ask me to read the top 10 list. And my husband will look at me and say, “Oh, Terry, I see now that I have been so wrong to smirk with an annoying air of superiority because I actually read owner’s manuals and you alas, do not.” (What! You think the “alas” was too much?)

Okay, now you see why I blog. I have a ridiculously rich imagination. Sigh . . .

Until Next Time!

Geneablogger Tag

2008-10-20T23:12:00.001-04:00

I’m working on an ongoing project that is tying up my computer, so I am a little behind the times in posting my response to a meme that has been making the rounds. Randy Seaver started it, and on it’s second pass to him he passed it along to me. Denise Olson of Moultrie Creek, also tagged my sister blog, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged. It would be rude not to respond, right?

10 Years Ago I...

1. Was preparing to move into a new house.

2. Had started a new job which I took after leaving a place I had worked for almost sixteen years. Turned out this was just the “rebound” job and I would leave it after a tough six months.

3. Was recovering from a trip I had taken with my sisters down to Florida to see our folks. As I have told my youngest nephew, no matter how much they beg and plead, NEVER take a trip with your aunt and your mom – that’s how much I love the kid!

4. Was missing my only daughter, who had moved to San Francisco.

5. Had given up figuring how I could manage to go to school AND work full time to get my Bachelor’s Degree. (A few years later, I revisited the idea and found a way to make it work.)

5 Things on Today's To-Do List

1. Catch up my “Desktop Genealogist Unplugged” website – the News-Messenger site is SO much easier to work with than blogger. So, I’ve slacked off a bit.

2. Go shopping at the farm market – hope they have red peppers.

3. Do laundry

4. Download information from my German friend, Siegfried

5. Get started on next’s months Kin Hunters presentation

5 Snacks I Enjoy

1. Ballreich Potato Chips and Tofts Chip Dip (or Sterlings) with a tall glass of Pepsi

2. Brownies with my mother’s “special” icing (Hint! Hint!)

3. Dove Dark Chocolate – my sister says a little is good for the heart –yeah!

4. Tortilla Chips with Salsa or even better, homemade 7 layer taco dip

5. Homemade soft chocolate chip cookies, or Cookie Lady’s chocolate chip and walnut cookies if I’m feeling lazy.

4 Places I Have Lived - (It’s suppose to be 5 but unless you count the hospital where I was born, I’ve only lived in four different localities and that was stretching it.)

1. Clyde, Ohio

2. Fremont, Ohio

3. Shepherdstown, West Va.

4. Green Creek Township (between Clyde and Fremont)

5 Jobs I Have Had... (I could have filled up the whole page, but stuck to just 5)

1. Carhop at A & W (which is why I can no longer stand the smell of root beer)

2. Bank – Checking Departments and Investments

3. Tax Preparation Instructor

4. Loan Operations Supervisor

5. Customer Service Positions – in Financial, Industrial and Construction industries. No matter where I start, I gravitate to communicating with the public.

I’m suppose to tag 5 additional bloggers, but I think after reading Randy Seaver’s recap, it would be tough to find 5, so if you haven’t been tagged, consider yourself tagged by me.

Poverty's Daughter

2008-10-15T02:39:00.003-04:00

There are no hidden ancestral ties to political figures. There are no kings and queens to be found on my family tree. I come mostly from hard working German stock, with a few wild Irish lads and lasses thrown in for good measure. A pinch of this, a pinch of that and there you have my family tree.

From my father’s paternal side, they came from Pennsylvania and Virginia to Ohio’s Appalachian hills. A few farmers, but mostly miners, these families settled in the coal producing area of Ohio in the mid 19th century.

A miner’s life was hard. They often lived in shanties and shacks provided by the mining company. They moved from time to time, following the work as it shifted from mine to mine, shaft to shaft. They started young, doing the most menial of work, and once the mines “got you”, it was hard to escape.

In the early days, furnaces were formed and stoked at the bottom of shafts creating the ventilation needed in the tunnels beneath the earth’s surface. Cave-ins, explosions, floods all posed great dangers to the men. The wages were low, their lungs scarred from breathing in the dust, yet the men continued working for as long as their bodies held out, to keep food in their family’s bellies and a roof over their children’s heads. The sons followed the fathers into the mines, and the circle of hard work for low wages continued for another generation.

This would have been my great great grandfather’s life. Except that he went to war and on a summer day in Georgia took a gunshot wound to the knee. The resulting amputation made finding work hard. Eventually, he would get a small disability check, but it was not enough money for the family to live on, so Henry found odd jobs when he could. His sons went to work in the mines, and his daughters looked for serving jobs to supplement the family income.

There are no pictures of Henry or his wife Louisa. Nor are there photos to be found for any of their children. Who were they after all? Certainly, they were not anyone whose likeness was worth recording. If there had been pictures, I wonder if I would have seen gaunt cheeks, hollowed eyes and a hopelessness reserved for those whom hope has abandoned.

Henry’s son Elmer, my great grandfather, was said to have been fond of the grape. This may or may not have been a fair assessment of the man, for it came from his wife’s stepmother, and was told to Elmer’s youngest daughter. After the death of his wife Lizzie, in 1911, Elmer found himself with four young children. He farmed out his eldest daughter, age six, to another family who used the girl as an unwilling servant.

His youngest daughter was left in the care of his father-in-law. He packed up his sons, ages one and three, and headed north. Between 1910 and 1920, oil had begun to replace coal as a heating element. The loss of jobs, even poorly paying ones, had forced many men to leave their Appalachian homes in search of new work.

So Elmer left, promising to return for his daughters sometime in the future. He headed for Lucas County, where an elder brother, Lawson, had found work earlier. We’ll probably never know what happened, but three years later Elmer was dead, in an apparent suicide. He had drunk carbolic acid. One cannot know what deep despair caused him to do this, but the result was two little boys and two little girls suddenly without any parent.

The youngest boy, George, stayed with his aunt and uncle, but the older boy, my grandfather would eventually be adopted out four years later. Grandfather would later manage to find a good job with Overland Express and was on his way to securing a good future for himself when he died unexpectedly at age 39 of a burst appendix.

He left seven fatherless children. But while my grandfather had not always made the best choices in life, he had certainly made two wise choices when he chose two strong, capable women to be the mothers of his children. These children would grow up not to perpetuate the poverty that had been their family’s heritage, but instead would form good, stable middle class homes from which they would raise their own children. It took several generations and a prescription of community aid, personal responsibility and education to change one family’s path out of poverty.

I wonder if Louisa and Henry would have ever dreamed that a great great granddaughter would find their lives important enough to write about and share with each of you. You can have your kings and queens, and your presidential ancestral ties. In my family, we have survivors, and there is a hard won dignity to be found in that.

Written for Blog Action Day 2008

Reflections on an Autumn Day

2008-10-13T21:17:00.000-04:00

Autumn has come to my own little corner of the universe. Turning leaves, the neighboring soybean crop harvested and the sun setting in a different part of the evening horizon all signal the definitive end of summer.

I like autumn - cool evenings that call for the comforter to be pulled tight around you, the reds and yellows topping tree-lined streets in town. Sweatshirts pulled hastily over your head, as you run to the end of the driveway to check for the daily mail. I swear it was just spring. What happened to summer?

A stray flower on my Pontentilla bush, which blooms in May and June, tells me that I am not the only one left wondering where summer has gone.

Until Next Time!

Attention Fellow Bloggers - Blog Action Day October 15

2008-10-12T02:49:00.001-04:00

Blog Action Day is a nonprofit event with the goal of encouraging bloggers, podcasters and videocasters to unite on one day, and talk about a single subject. This year’s subject is poverty. The goal is to “raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.”

If you write a blog, this is your chance to make your voice heard and join the discussion on poverty. You can register here. As of this writing, 7673 participants have committed to tackling the subject.

Participating bloggers are encouraged to write about poverty from the perspective of their individual blogs. In my case, I will be writing on poverty with a genealogical slant.

To read more about this year’s blog action day go to Blog Action Day 2008.

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Sandusky County Kin Hunters This Sunday

2008-10-08T21:04:00.000-04:00

Sandusky County Kin Hunters

Just a reminder, the October meeting of Sandusky County Kin Hunters will be held this Sunday, October 12 at 2:00 PM. Stephen Charter, Head Archivist of the Center for Archival Collections at Bowling Green State University will be the featured speaker. If you’ve ever had questions about this wonderful research facility, then maker sure you attend at the Sandusky Township Hall, Route 19 North in Fremont on Sunday. The meeting is free and open to anyone with an interest in Family History. There is ample parking and the building is handicapped accessible. For further information, contact Dave at 419-502-7620.

Carnival of Genealogy

The Carnival of Genealogy has posted its 57th edition. The topic was I Read It in the News. If I counted correctly (not always a sure thing) there are 47 genealogists participating this time. Thanks Jasia, for being such a good hostess!

The next edition of the Carnival has the topic “Halloween Hauntings– Fact or Fiction”

For more details, be sure to visit this edition of the Carnival of Genealogy at Creative Gene.

Fly Killer

2008-10-06T17:18:00.007-04:00

I’ve created a killer, a fly killer, that is. A few weeks ago, in the natural course of an energetic four-year running in and out, a quick thinking fly managed to breach our inner sanctum.

Quick thinking yes, but maybe not so quick moving. After my own thwarted attempts at swatting the little pest, the grandson begged me to let him try. So I handed over the white fly swatter. And what do ya know? Deadeye managed to do in a few well-aimed swats, what Grandma had not. He killed that darn fly.

“I’m really quick, right Maw?”

“Yes, you are.”

“You couldn’t get him, could you Maw?”

“Nope, I could not.”

“We don’t like flies, do we Maw?”

“No, we do not.”

“Hey, are you goin’ to tell PaPa Al, that I’m quick?”

“Yes, I am.”

A few weeks later, when one of the deceased fly’s buddies made it in through the opened screen door, the grandson was not pleased when I managed to shoo the fly back outside.

“But, I wanted to kill him,” grumped the peanut gallery.

My explanation of a win-win philosophy was lost on a four-year old who thought I was just mucking up his chance at another fly victory.

Later, as we played outside, the little guy got his chance when a hapless fly landed on one of our outside toys. Deadeye, took aim, and swatted the fly with his BARE hands, and put another notch in his fly killing belt.

After a brief discussion about why it was good policy to wash one’s hands after such a heroic act, I made one of my usual breezy pronouncements.

“Hey, I’m going to have to start calling you Fly Killer. Yep, I’m going to call you, Fly Killer Snyder.”

Silence, as the two of us walked the length of the stone driveway.

Then, “Its okay, Maw. You can call me Fly Killer if you want.”

A few more steps, a quick kick of the stones, and then my buddy looked straight up at me and said, “I kinda like that name.”

Glad to oblige, kiddo. Glad to oblige.

I Read it in the News - Evidence of Collateral Damage

2008-10-02T00:46:00.004-04:00

When people get divorced, whatever wonderful quality they first saw in each other, has long since vanished. What doesn’t vanish is their mutual offspring, something often overlooked by warring parties.

When my grandparents divorced, it was not pretty. My grandmother, a petite, spunky woman, and her ex Mother-in-law formed two separate camps. There were no prisoner exchanges, no mingling of combatants and both camps remained armed and on alert. The fact that the two women had never gotten along, guaranteed no one would be suing for peace.

My grandfather, whom I have written about previously, died suddenly at the age of 39 from a burst appendix. My grandfather had been living in Toledo with his second wife, and four children. My grandmother, my dad and his sisters lived in Clyde. Nettie, the mother-in-law lived in Florida.

Nettie sent a notice to the Clyde newspaper giving the details of her adopted son’s death. The story goes that this was how my grandmother and her children heard about the death. I’m prepared to give Nettie a pass on that one, because I don’t know whether she had tried to contact grandma. Perhaps she had or perhaps Nettie figured letting the paper know was a good way to tell her former daughter-in-law and her grandchildren of the loss.

However, what she did next seems particularly spiteful. The list of survivors given to the newspaper included the four children by the second marriage, but not one word was mentioned about the three older children who were living in Clyde.

A week later, the following short notice appeared in the paper:

“Mrs. Anna X asks that we make a correction in the obituary notice of the late Walter X sent us last week by Mrs. Nettie X from Florida. Mrs. Anna X, says he is survived by three children by a first marriage, and 4 children by a second marriage.”

I can almost see my grandmother pulling herself up straight, and making the simple, direct correction. Nettie had landed a well-aimed blow at my grandmother. Maybe it was deserved, maybe not. I wonder, however, did she think about the collateral damage? Was the chance to stick the knife into my grandmother so irresistible that all other considerations were secondary?

Fair or not, that one act defined, for me, Nettie’s character. And I found that character wanting.

Written for 57th Carnival of Genealogy - I Read it in the News

Geneablogger Gnome makes a visit to the Desktop Genealogist

2008-10-01T00:40:00.001-04:00

The little fellow below came for a visit to the Desktop Genealogist blog via email for my participation in Terry Thornton’s “Getting to Know You Challenge. " I wanted to take him around and show him the sights of Northwest Ohio, but I’ve been chained to my desk for the past couple of weeks.

So far, all the poor little guy has gotten to see is a fog-enshrouded sunrise out my backdoor.

Maybe, if he sticks around long enough, I can take him to this weekend’s Civil War Encampment at Spiegel Grove. What do you think? Would that be a good place for a Gnome to visit?

In the meantime, you can checkout Hill Country of Monroe County’s overwhelming response to the Getting to Know You Challenge. Forty different participants with 42 blogs are represented. You can read about the brightest, the breeziest and the most beautiful from some very talented geneabloggers here, here and here.

Our host, Terry Thornton, in his usual Southern charming fashion, did a thorough job putting this project together. If I were pressed to describe Terry with only one word, I think that word would be gracious. He certainly handled this Herculean task in just such a manner. Thanks, Terry for a wonderful idea.

PS Just to put this in perspective - Terry had to read 42 posts, and another 126 posts that we geneabloggers submitted for our brightest, breeziest and most beautiful. Then Terry had to write a summary about each blog. When that was all done , he had to LINK 168 POSTS to his own blog. By comparison, my post had a mere six links .Just the thought of posting this to my archive blog, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, makes me darn cranky - and I only am talking a paltry six links. So Terry really is THE MAN!.

Getting to Know Me, Getting to Know Desktop Genealogist

2008-09-27T17:55:00.001-04:00

Something was missing. Like the midnight snacker standing before an open refrigerator, I had a taste for “something,” but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what that something was. When the News-Messenger advertised for bloggers for their online edition, suddenly it all clicked.

Overcoming my usual shyness, I submitted a proposal to the city editor, who requested a meeting and some writing samples. From that meeting the Desktop Genealogist was born.

Initially I had hoped to help other family historians better navigate the waters of Internet research. However, once I started posting, I realized the posts I enjoyed writing the most had to do with telling a simple story. Whether it was about a grandmother, an old church, or why my toes are deformed, the constant knot in my stomach dissolved and that missing “something” was suddenly found.

My friend Mississippi Terry, of Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi, decided with the growing number of geneabloggers finding their way to the Internet, it might be nice if each of us posted an article about our blogs, including an example of the brightest, breeziest and most beautiful of our posts.

Below are my own nominations for my best of the best:

Brightest – Stories My Grandmother Told Me

This was written for an edition of Smile for the Camera. It gave me a chance to experiment with my tools for telling a story.

Breeziest – One SuperPower to Go – Please!

My answer to the question, “Why are you twitching your nose?”

Most Beautiful – The Art of Painting Pictures

Note my breeziest and brightest posts links take you to my original Desktop Genealogist Blog on the News-Messenger.

Strange Things A Happenin'

2008-09-24T17:30:00.001-04:00

Note: This post pertain's to my Desktop Genealogist blog on The News-Messenger. In the interest of keeping my archives up to date, and because some people follow this blog, (thank you Sheri, Miriam and Apple), I have went ahead and posted it to the Unplugged site. If I've confused you, imagine being me!!!!

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but of late, I have been MIA on this blog. My MIA status extends to all my “homies” in the geneablogger community. So when I did a quick check in on Monday to find out what ‘s been happening in the world of genealogy, I was surprised to find my blog mentioned in Randy Seaver’s weekly Best of the Genea-Blogs September 14 -20, 2008.

Surprised, pleased and dismayed because Randy wrote, I also had Terry Snyder's post "The Gentle Ferocity of Love" from The Desktop Genealogist blog on my list, but the Fremont News-Messenger site is messed up and I couldn't find a link. I'll add it to my list when I can find a good link.

So I sent Randy the link, and I thought all was well. But hold it, not so fast. I noticed in my Google Reader that a post I had dated September 4, now showed that it was posted September 20. Huh?

For those of you not familiar with Google Reader, it is a wonderful little tool offered by Google that allows you to organize your blog subscriptions, and see them all at a glance. Occasionally, however, it does some wonkie things.

So being a Curious Georgia type a girl, I clicked on this new link to my old post, and what do you know, I end up on Cincinnati.Com’s very own online edition. AND THERE I AM IN ALL MY GLORY!

I’m giving you the link right HERE, but just in case they fix the darn thing, and you start thinking, “That Terry chick has finally gone off the deep end,” I took a print screen picture of me, on Cincinnati.Com’s online edition. Darn, I almost feel famous.

I’ve reported the problem to the media editor here at the News-Mess, and he basically said:

1. Huh, really AND

2. That's above my pay grade.

But bless is heart, he did report it and you can see how quickly the wizards behind the newspaper curtain have reacted to the problem.

I haven’t seen any other bloggers mentioning these weird happenings, but then again, I haven’t been paying close attention. I’m not sure when the Cincy newspaper will notice they have a freeloader on their website, but hey, my screenshot proves I was there – hidden where nobody can find me, but there nonetheless.

In the meantime, you can head on over to Randy Seaver’s blog, and find a variety of blog posts to keep you in the genealogical loop.

Hey, I wonder where this post will end up? Who knows - today Cincinnati, tomorrow Hackensack!

The Gentle Ferocity of Love

2008-09-16T16:38:00.001-04:00

The elderly couple came tentatively into the waiting room of the doctor’s office where I sat. Both were white haired. Both were frail looking, though she, the more frail of the two, leaned a bit unsteadily into the arm of her mate. He fussed with getting her seated and letting the receptionist know that they were there.

I saw the look of concern etched so clearly on his face, as he continued to fuss around her until she took his hand into her own and patted it softly. I watched the look that passed between the two of them, feeling as if I had somehow invaded their privacy yet unable to pull my gaze away, drawn in by the gentle ferocity of love that passed between them.

I saw that same look this past Saturday, with a younger cast of characters, as I witnessed the marriage of my eldest stepson and his new bride. Though this time the look included the exuberant dash of youthful joy, it was, nonetheless. the same gentle ferocity of love that I had viewed so many years ago in that doctor’s office. It was beautiful and breathtaking to behold.

Erin, my new daughter, had her heart set on being married beneath the trees on her grandmother’s farm.

The weather, which had been withholding rain for weeks, suddenly decided that this weekend it was time to let loose. It rained on Friday and it rained on Saturday. A call from my stepson, told us that they were moving the ceremony to the reception hall, but because Erin still hoped to say her vows on the farm, the wedding party and a few close friends were going to meet there.

Sure enough, the rain stopped. Erin and Matt were married just as they had wanted to be - on her grandmother’s farm.

I don’t know what kind of journey awaits them. I hope that life is kind to them. I hope that when their hair is white and their gate is slow, their love is still beautiful and breathtaking to behold.

Kościół p.w. NMP Królowej Polski

2008-09-12T02:32:00.003-04:00

In the village, nestled beside neighboring trees, it stands. Made of brick, embedded on a stone foundation, it is the perfect example of Gothic architecture - pointed arches, stained glass windows, and ribbed vaults. First built in the sixteenth century, fire has been its natural enemy. Repeatedly it has been rebuilt, so that bits and pieces of the structure originate from different centuries.

It was here, beside the eighteenth century alter, that my great grandparents, Leo Schröder and Emma Gleffe Schröder were baptized. It was here, standing above, in the 17th century pulpit, Reverend Walter Bielenstein preached the last sermon before he and the rest of his flock were forced to leave their church and their homes at the end of World War II.

I had thought, looking at the few pictures found online, that the church had been abandoned. I imagined a dusty, dark neglected cavern, left as a relic of a forgotten time, and a forgotten people. I imagined this, that is, until a certain German friend set me straight.

Below you are looking at Kościół p.w. NMP Królowej Polski or Church of Our Lady Queen of Poland. The church, far from being abandoned, is still busy baptizing the children of Budowo

From Website: http://spanie.pl/12-atrakcje-turystyczne-Budowo-Kosciol_p.w._NMP_Krolowej_Polski_-1974.html

Though the dogma preached from the 17th century pulpit is slightly different and the voices lifted in song are of another language, the ghosts of Budow's German parishoners must be smiling. For their church, still lives. It lives.

Until Next Time . . .

Information Sources:

http://spanie.pl/12-atrakcje-turystyczne-Budowo-Kosciol_p.w._NMP_Krolowej_Polski_-1974.html
http://www.hinterpommern-info.de/kirchspiel_budow.html
http://www.powiat.slupsk.pl/index.php?dzial=dzieje&strona=zabytki&go=budowo&tlo=1
http://www.stolp-pommern.de/Stolp-Kreis/Orte/budow.htm
Email correspondence with Siegfried Krause.

Sandusky County Kin Hunters at the Hayes President Library

2008-09-10T02:09:00.000-04:00

I’m popular. Well, okay, not so much popular as I am in demand. Family, work, and my dirty house are all crying for extra chunks of time. And if you haven’t noticed, there is an exciting presidential race in full swing. (I think I have whiplash from trying to follow all the charges and countercharges that are floating around the Internet and TV – talk about silly season.)

So, I’m going to be dialing it back a bit on my blogging – unless of course, someone discovers how to add more hours in a day. Seriously – anyone - more hours?

Carnival of Genealogy

Jasia has posted a whopping 50 entries from 49 geneabloggers at the 55th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. There is a lot of great reading (and a fair amount of picture viewing) on the subject of “Show and Tell.”

Sandusky County Kin Hunters

A little birdie (okay, not a birdie but Dave Golden) tells me that this Sunday’s Kin Hunters meeting will be held at the Hayes Presidential Library this Sunday at 2:00 PM. Head Librarian, Becky Hill, will be presenting the program that is free and open to anyone interested in family history.

For further information, you can contact Dave at 419-502-7620

Well, that’s all from my corner of the world.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

PS Special thanks to Randy Seaver for including my post One Year and 199 Posts Ago, in his Best of the Genea-Blogs- 31 August - 6 September 2008.

One Year and 199 Posts Later

2008-09-04T09:54:00.005-04:00

One year and 199 posts ago, I wrote my first blog post. It was scary. And it was exciting. I had no idea what I was getting into, but I plunged ahead wholeheartedly.

As I wrote on the blog’s two-month anniversary, “It probably will come as no surprise to anyone that I was not exactly blog literate when I undertook this task. I had an idea, a chance to pitch it, and finally the thumbs up to try it.”

As I did then, I will again thank all of you who have stopped by to read a post or two. Your support has meant a great deal to me.

I have discovered a few things in the year that I have been blogging.

1. I discovered that I probably should have paid more attention in English class.

2. I discovered that a girl, who could never keep a diary for more than two weeks, could indeed blog for a whole year.

3. I discovered that spell check is a girl’s best friend.

4. I discovered that spell check isn’t idiot proof (me being the aforesaid idiot.)

5. I discovered that geneabloggers, though diverse and unique, are of one voice in their mission to support and encourage other geneabloggers. I can’t think of another group where ego is so checked at the door. These people genuinely celebrate each other’s success.

6. I discovered that writing apparently has some healthful benefits. Since November, I have been off my high blood pressure medication. While the doctor is sure I have taken his advice to meditate (yeah right), I think whining aloud is the ticket to better health.

7. I discovered that I’m not as smart as I think I am. I could have saved myself that very public discovery by just listening to my family. They have been giving me that same message for years.

8. I discovered that I have my own voice, however warped it may be.

9. I discovered that some of my writing is not written for you, dear reader. Nor is it written for me. Rather it is written for those who are yet to be. I often think of a time 25 years or maybe 50 years from now, when a relative or a descendent discovers my words, and feels the same excitement that I feel when I read the words of my ancestors. (Note to self: Eighty-six the post with the picture of my foot. Don’t want the great grandchildren to worry about mental instability running through their gene pool.)

10. In writing posts about my own family’s history, I discovered that each of our lives is just a brief flicker on a long, flowing timeline. This is it folks, This is your one shot to get it right, to find the joy, and to give yourself permission when you fail, to get up the next morning and take your shot at getting it right all over again.

11. And finally, I discovered me. And while that only has relevance to those nearest and dearest, for me it has been an interesting journey.

I have no idea where I go from here. I know that for now, you can find me slicing and dicing pieces of my life and my family’s history like some mad chef - serving it up for your reading pleasure here at the Desktop Genealogist Unplugged Blog.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Almost Wordless Wednesday - I knew he loved me when ...

2008-09-03T21:32:00.002-04:00

He agreed to wear a matching pink tie for our wedding ceremony.

Our Family Treasure

2008-09-01T21:38:00.000-04:00

For 102 years, various members of my family have been responsible for keeping the documents that my great grandparents Leo and Emma Schrader brought with them when they immigrated in 1906.

Without these items, much of our family’s history would have been lost. Many records belonging to those areas east of the Oder-Neisse line, where my family originated, were destroyed during World War II and its aftermath. It is doubtful that we would have been able to reconstruct this information without these originals.

Below is the marriage certificate of Leo and Emma in Muttrin, on April 5, 1904

The next item, which I had to have translated, was written by the minister of Budow’s church. It was needed to prove the details of Leo’s birth. It gives Leo’s parents as Wilhelm Schröder and Caroline Quetschke. (Quetschke, I am told is an uncommon German name.)

Below is the Kirchliches Zeugnis or Christian Certificate that shows, the birth, baptism, marriage and confirmation of Leo, Emma, Willi and Max.

These are pictures of an unknown German family. The woman bares a family resemblance, so my guess is that she is related to either Leo or Emma

One of several papers relating to Leo’s military service.

The definition of an heirloom is something that has been in the family for generations. These papers are my family’s heirlooms.

This post written for the 55th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.

Note: German family names – Schröder, Gleffe, Quetschke, Hingst

Related German family names – Tuschy, Kollat, von Malottki

It's A Girl!

2008-08-29T23:26:00.000-04:00

I was at work in 1984 when we got the news that Walter Mondale had named Geraldine Ferraro as his VP pick. I was so excited I quickly called home to tell to my eleven-year-old daughter the news. It didn’t make much of an impact on her, because she only vaguely remembers the event. But I can still recall the palpitating excitement that Mondale’s choice created.

It was the first time I carried a presidential bumper sticker, the first time I voted Democratic and the first time I watched every nuanced element of election night coverage. Of course, as Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC put it earlier today, the Mondale/Ferraro ticket lost in a stunning landslide.

Who would have thought it would take another 24 years before we had our first serious female presidential contender? Who would have thought it would be another 24 years before we had our next female VP candidate? And who, in their wildest dreams, thought it would be the Republicans doing the honors? As Gomer Pyle use to say, GOLLLLLEEEE!

I don’t know much about Sarah Palin. I don’t know if she has the chops to go along with the great cheekbones, when it comes to the VP slot. And I certainly don’t know if John McCain has just made the dumbest choice next to Bush senior’s selection of Dan Quayle. What I do know is that come Election Day, no matter which party wins, history will be made.

Oh, and today, it was my daughter calling me when the rumors started flying, wanting to know what I thought of the whole idea. We both agreed, no matter how we vote in November, it will be a thrill seeing a female name on the Presidential ballot. To Geraldine, Hillary and Sarah – thanks for doing the heavy lifting.

Wordless Wednesday - Scenes Along Lake Erie

2008-08-27T23:37:00.002-04:00

Oops, there goes another chunck of my heart

2008-08-26T23:48:00.005-04:00

I decided that this summer, instead of having my favorite four-year old every Friday that I would switch off and on with his eight-year-old sister, Little Miss Freckles. LMF and I have a stormy history. Once, when she was about eighteen months old her Dad, my stepson, brought her over for a visit, and LMF was NOT amused.

She pulled her hat down over her face and refused all overtures to coax her out. Finally, exhausted from her very loud and persuasive protest, she fell asleep in the middle of the family room floor, her hat still pulled down over her eyes.

Now, I’m usually a hit with young children. I have no problem talking in funny voices, making funny faces, and in general acting the complete fool, all in an effort to raise a smile on a child’s face. Nine times out of ten it works, but not with my granddaughter.

I soon learned that if I met her on her turf, she would throw me a bone or two of acknowledgement. But get her in unfamiliar territory – read my house, the results were not stellar. So, over the years I have given her a wide berth. But she had been asking to spend some time with Grandma Terry, and I thought that this summer would be the perfect opportunity.

Of course, I was a little nervous, in the way you are nervous, when the flashing lights of a police card pull you over. Like a rolodex, your mind spins through all the possibilities, none of them good.

So I googled queries like “activities for eight year olds.” I asked others for advice, and finally panicked, I chose several items off Amazon.com (my go to place) and had them sent two day delivery, damn the expense!

Over the summer, we have played several games of Putt-Putt, tried out the cheap crochet set that I had bought (and found out why it was so cheap.) and played a few school inspired computer games. We’ve eaten lunch at a variety of eateries and once, fixing her lunch, I learned that while my hot chicken sandwiches were good, she readily assured me, the school’s were even better. Sigh.

She taught grandpa and me a new card game, she and I played hangmen (she’s quite good) and we sang some songs, and told a few stories. Only once, did I hear the dreaded words, “I’m bored,” which lasted all of two seconds until we started a game of hangman.

We discovered that the game, Guess Who, might be great to play, but it was way too much work for busy women like us. By far, her favorite activity was Klutz’s “The Fabulous Book of Paper Dolls,” by Julie Collings.

For those of you who have never heard of these paper dolls, let me tell you they are cute and imaginative. There are six different punch-out dolls, and you can make them male or female, simply by the hairstyle and clothing you choose. The clothes are two-sided and because you stick them on with two-sided reusable tape, you have a variety clothing options.

They also come with six different scenes that you can use as a backdrop to your play. Below is our birthday party/picnic scene that LMF and I created.

We decided that because we often LOVED both sides of the two-sided outfits, Grandma needed to order a second book. One Friday, LMF and I almost attacked the mailman as we waited impatiently for the second book to arrive. Thank goodness, it came that day. Note to postman, sorry if we were a little over zealous that day. (He’s probably requested hazard pay for having to deliver to my house.)

Below we used the same background to create our “Halloween Party.”

I learned many things by spending Fridays with my granddaughter. She LOOOVES chocolate milk and she, OH, MY GOSH, LOOOVES Hannah Montana. She never tired of explaining the complexities of the Hannah Montana plot line, which turned out to be a blessing since for some reason my 55-year-old brain could not keep the whole Miley/Hannah thing straight from week to week.

She has a thing for older men – don’t worry kiddo, I’m not mentioning names. She thinks the reason that Papa Al likes her so much is because she calls him, “Evil” and “Loser” (with the traditional “L” sign to the forehead.) She is thoughtful of her siblings, because when we went to the Cookie Lady, she insisted we get extra cookies to take home for them.

I knew that our relationship had taken a turn for the better when she told me one Friday, she wished it would storm really hard, so her parents wouldn’t be able to pick her up. Sometimes I wonder how I have any heart left. Too many people are walking off with big chunks of it, including a special eight-year old who spent Fridays with Grandma Terry this summer.

It has a good beat, and you can dance to it - What music defined you?

2008-08-24T23:54:00.003-04:00

Tim Abbott from Walking the Berkshires wrote a post a few weeks back entitled, "The Soundtracks of My Salad Days.” Tim talked about the 10 most influential albums during his teenage years that defined the person he became. His last sentence read, “How about you?”

Though I’m a little late to the party, I’d like to nominate my own list, though a mere 10 albums won’t quite do it.

Back in those days, we listened to (horrors!) AM radio, and the one station that everybody was tuned in to was CKLW out of Detroit. I can still remember sun bathing in my backyard, with some Sun In spritzed into my hair, little black goggles on my eyes, baking to the tune of The Archies’s, “Sugar, Sugar.”

“Sugar, Oh, Honey, Honey. You are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you.”

No, that wasn’t one of my defining songs, but as they use to say on American Bandstand, “It has a good beat and you can dance to it.”

I hesitate to cop to the following list, for fear it might be used to prove instability in a court of law someday. But what the heck, my children should know which artists and their albums are to blame for the mother’s odd behavior.

Peter, Paul and Mary - "In the Wind" 1963 (Technically this was released before my teenage years, but the song, "Blowin in The Wind" had a big impact on my views of war and I listened to the album, and that song throughout my teenage years.)

Beatles - “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” 1967

Iron Butterfly - “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” 1968

The Association – “Greatest Hits” 1969 (My then boyfriend, very romantically, requested the song "Cherish" be played on the radio as a surprise present for me.)

Blood Sweat and Tears – “Blood Sweat and Tears” 1969

Three Dog Night – “Suitable for Framing” 1969

The Carpenters – “Close to You” 1970 (Okay, I know I lose all credibility with this pick, but the album and falling in love for the first time, happened in the same year.)

James Taylor – “Sweet Baby James” 1970 (Note, Grandson has been indoctrinated with some of these songs.)

Beatles – “Let It Be” (1970) (My all time favorite.)

John Lennon – “Imagine” 1970

Cat Stevens – “Tea for the Tillerman” 1970 (This pick is my college roommate’s fault. She played it so often it became tattooed on my brain.)

Santana – “Abraxas” 1970

Simon and Garfunkel – “Bridge Over Troubled Water” 1970

Chicago – “Chicago II” 1970

James Taylor – “Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon” 1971

Carole King – “Tapestry” 1971 (This one is tattooed on my roommate’s brain because I played IT constantly.)

Rod Stewart – “Every Picture Tells a Story” 1971 (Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say you. It’s late September and I really should be back at school.)

Steely Dan – “Can’t Buy A Thrill” 1972

Helen Reddy – “I Am Woman” 1972

Jim Croce - “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim” 1972

For the record, when I was a teenager and they would advertise songs written in the 1950’s and 1940’s on special, one of a kind albums, I thought it was the lamest thing I had ever heard. I couldn’t imagine the point of advertising OLD songs and expecting people to actually BUY THEM. Man, life certainly likes throwing all that youthful arrogance right back in your face.

So, how about you.? What youthful music listening habits shaped you into the person you are today?

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging.

News to Know

2008-08-24T00:00:00.002-04:00

54th EDITION OF THE CARNIVAL OF GENEALOGY

The 54th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is posted over at Donna Pointkouski’s What’s Past is Prologue. This edition’s topic was “Family Language” with twenty-nine geneabloggers contributing. So get comfy, and settle in for some interesting reading. Thanks go to Donna, for doing a nice job of hosting this latest edition.

The topic for the next edition, is “Show and Tell.” The deadline for submission is September 1.

FREE WINDOWS BASED PROGRAMS

A big thumbs up to Dick Eastman who just posted “6800 Free Programs for Windows” on his blog. I’m taking his advice and bookmarking the link that he has included in his post. Thanks, Dick, for the useful information!.

FACT OR FICTION

Ever done a little research on the Internet and found out some truly interesting things about an ancestor, only to find that there are no facts to support these events? Then you can probably relate to Tim Agazio’s post “The Hunt for Daniel Cone (1626-1706) – Separating Facts From What you Want to be Facts.” Oh, boy, can I relate.

PODCASTS TO GO

Ever in the mood to listen to some very talented genealogists tackle a variety of genealogical topics, but don’t know where to turn. Not a problem! Check out Randy Seaver’s post, “Are you listening,” over at Genea-Musings. Randy gives you the low down and the links to six different podcasts for you to enjoy.

10th EDITION OF THE CARNIVAL OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN GENEALOGY

The 10th edition of the CCEG has posted at Jessica’s Genejournal. Only five contributors for this edition, but each is a gem in their own right. You won’t be disappointed if you take a peek at this interesting edition of the CCEG. Nice job Jessica!

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging.

Baseball at the Grove

2008-08-20T21:48:00.002-04:00

Old Fashioned Baseball at Spiegel Grove, Fremont, Ohio

His Eyes were Gray

2008-08-19T21:31:00.003-04:00

His eyes were gray. A man of small stature, he stood five feet six inches tall. The recruiter noted his dark hair, his dark complexion. He was 42 years old when he showed up at the recruiting station in Chillicothe, Ohio on that March day in 1865.

In an area of the state where most men were miners, he listed his occupation as farmer. He had come that day with other men from Vinton County, many of them kinfolk. He was given a uniform, a canteen, a knapsack and a haversack. All told, the value of these items was $30.13.

His papers listed his place of birth as Louisa County, Virginia, a fact often assumed and now confirmed. A large X where his signature should have been, signified that he could neither read nor write.

According to his papers, he had signed on for a year. Lee’s surrender the following month ensured that he would not see the full term of his enlistment. On October 24, while stationed in Washington DC, he mustered out of Company D, 194th Ohio Infantry and out of the Union Army. He resumed his life as a farmer in Wilkesville Township of Vinton County, Ohio.

His name was Nimrod Nicholas Thacker. He was my 4th great grandfather and his eyes were gray.

Note: Yesterday’s mail brought the compiled military file of Nimrod N. Thacker that I had ordered from NARA This was request number five from my “7 Days, 7 Requests” series. Request number three also came back and unfortunately, they could not find a record of a marriage between Thomas Jacobus and Catherine? in Essex County, New Jersey for the time, I had specified.

You win some. You lose some.

A Gift from an Internet Cousin

2008-08-18T13:39:00.002-04:00

I work out of my home office. The arrangement has it perks, one of which is having my own honest to goodness window. Having worked for fifteen years in a building that had no windows, this is a very big deal.

My view overlooks my front yard. From there I can see some of my trees, my flowerbed, and most importantly, I can see my mailbox. Last week, the mailbox and the glorious mailman who delivers my mail, were the focus of my attention.

My Internet cousin, Dee, whom I have written about previously, had told me she was sending me “some” photographs. I could hardly contain myself. Dee thought they would get here sometime midweek. I figured Friday. They arrived on Saturday.

When they finally arrived, I barely managed to make it indoors before I ripped open the package. Inside the envelope were fifty-two pictures. Pictures that Dee had taken to her local Walgreens, copied, and then had taken the time to label EACH ONE. I can’t imagine how long a process this was, but oh my, what a wonderful treasure Dee has sent me.

Among the pictures is one of my ggg grandfather Daniel Lynch’s brother, William Lynch. There is a picture of William’s son John, a mighty handsome man judging by his photograph which was taken sometime before his death in 1885. Though John lived his entire life in Illinois, he managed to marry a Seneca County, Ohio lass, Rebecca Feasel. Rebecca is also related to me through my Feasel line. (My relationship calculator tells me that Rebecca and I are first cousins four times removed which happens to be my relationship to her husband, John, though through a different line.)

Frank Armstrong, who was a double cousin of my great grandmother, Laura Jane Feasel Lynch was also among the pictures that Dee sent. A very stern picture of my great great grandmother, Catherine Good Lynch lay on top of the picture pile.

My favorite picture in the group is one of my two great grand aunts, Ormena Lynch Pendergraft and Laura Jane Lynch Wetsel taken in 1934. I’ve researched those two ladies for a very long time. I can’t tell you how rewarding it was to see their faces finally, and to see them standing together side by side – amazing!

I am very humble at Dee’s generosity. I don’t think I can ever repay her for this gift. I wanted to say publicly what I have already said privately – thank you, thank you, thank you.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Who Knew

2008-08-16T20:50:00.003-04:00

Me - sitting in our living room with my fingers laced, covering my eyes, tiny spaces between each finger open just wide enough so I can see parts of the screen as I am watching the movie “Untraceable.”

My husband shaking his head, “Why did you get this movie, if you knew you wouldn’t be able to watch it?”
“I like Diane Lane,” I say behind the curtain of fingers.

“Yeah, me too. I hear she told Josh Brolin she’d kick him to the curb, if he didn’t stop drinking.”
Fingers now dropped, I am staring at my spouse, as three rapid-fire thoughts fly through my brain.

This is the kind of conversation I miss having with female co-workers. And -

Who are you and what have you done with my husband. And –

Really, she said that to Josh Brolin?

All of which must have played across my face because then, the perfect man looked at me, shrugged and said simply, “AOL.”

Well, okay then.

After 19 years of marriage, my husband can still surprise me.

Genea-bloggers Galore!

2008-08-14T20:55:00.002-04:00

Wow! When Jasia’s Carnival of Genealogy came to town last week, there were a whopping 39 entries. A Carousel Edition, many of the entries were from newbies to the Carnival.

If that weren’t enough, when the footnoteMaven published this month’s Smile for the Camera Carnival, she had 40 participants who wrestled with the problem of picking their favorite photo. Again, there were first time Carnival participants.

Kudos to both ladies for giving a forum to genea-bloggers and family historians across the Internet! Thanks for all your hard work!

What's in a Name?

2008-08-14T20:53:00.002-04:00

My friends call me Terry, but my real name is Teresa. The story goes that mom wanted to call me Terry, but Dad insisted that Terry wasn’t the proper name for a girl. So, I became Teresa

For financial, legal, medical, and employment purposes I am Teresa, for everything else I am Terry. (When I was 10 and decided I was going to be a singing star, I briefly went around signing my name as Tee Tee Brown – mostly on home chalkboards. Alas, my vocal chords did not live up to Tee Tee’s name.)

My little sister called me Tissy, her toddler contraction for Terry and Sissy. Since this is the sister whose eyes I tried to poke out, I guess I’m lucky she did not call me Evil Fingers.

When I was very young, my dad would often call me Trish Kalish. He’s the only person that has ever used this particular nickname He stopped using it about the time I went to kindergarten. But when he left me on the steps of Shepherd College's Gardner Hall at the beginning of my freshman year, his parting words to me were, “Bye, Trish Kalish.” I still get all teary -eyed thinking about it.

I have signed my emails and letters, “TS,” “Ohio Terry,” “Yo Momma” and to one of my stepsons, “Your Evil Stepmother.” (Just say YES?)

One of my favorite names is “Grandma Terry,” or even better, “Maw T-U, ” which is the name that my eldest grandson , now four, bestowed on me when he was beginning to talk I couldn’t have been prouder or happier with a name.

I’ve answered to Sloanie (derived from my maiden name Sloan), Terry Lynn, Babe and even, “Hey, You.” A hundred years from now, should anybody be interested, I wonder which of my names will survive? When they start poking around in the ashes of my life, will they uncover its secret? That it has been my good fortune to drink deeply from the jug of familial love and that my thirst was quenched

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Written for the 54th Edition of The

Wordless Wednesday - The Bridge on Lamereaux Road (Huron County, Ohio)

2008-08-13T21:20:00.002-04:00

Update on USCIS Genealogy Program

2008-08-13T21:03:00.002-04:00

Today is the first day for using the online fee for service program at the US Citizenship and Immigration Service. Actually, online may be a little of a misnomer as you still must make your Genealogy Requests via mail.

An index search for an ancestor will cost you $20.00 and the form to make such a request will be Form G-1041 available on the website. The USCIS will look through a variety of indices and will list all that pertain to your ancestor. You can fill the form out online but you will need to print it, as you cannot save it to your computer.

If your ancestor’s birth date is less than 100 years prior to the date you make the request, you must attach proof of death. Payment must accompany each request.

If you already have a valid USCIS file number, you may skip the index search and make a record copy request. Again, payment must be sent in with your request. Note: There will be NO refunds, should you submit invalid or non-existent file number.

The fee is $20 when taken from a microfilm copy and $35.00 when taken from an existing hard copy. Below are the types of records available.

1. Naturalization Certificate Files (C-Files) from September 27, 1906 to April 1, 1956
2. Alien Registration Forms from August 1, 1940 to March 31, 1944
3. Visa Files from July1, 1924 to March 31, 1944
4. Registry Files from March 2, 1929 to March 31, 1944
5. Alien Files (A-files) numbered below 8 million and documents therein dated prior to May 1, 1951.

To make a genealogy request via mail you will use Form G-1041A.

Both Form G -1041 and Form G -1041A should be mailed to the address below for processing.

USCIS Genealogy Program
PO Box 805925
Chicago, IL 60680-4120

Go to the USCIS website for complete details on this new service. No word on how long you can expect the process to take.

No word either, on the status of my request. My hunch – it’s in limbo.

Alltop - (Me on the fringes of Cool?)

2008-08-12T22:50:00.002-04:00

Okay, so keeping up with all your favorite blogs is just too much work! And your eyes glaze over when someone mentions RSS feed and feed readers. Well, do I have a website for you!

It’s called “Alltop.” They take a wide range of topics. Then they group blogs and websites relating to the topics and put them all together in what Alltop calls a “digital magazine rack.”

My friend, footnoteMaven, was the first to wonder over and check out the brainchild of Guy Kawasaki, Will Mayall and Kathryn Henkens. I suspect fM was instrumental in getting the subject of genealogy added to the topic list. Check out Ms. fM’s post, “All the Cool Kids (And Me).”

Currently they have about 223 different topics listed alphabetically and the list keeps growing. In addition to genealogy, they have such diverse topics as headaches, baseball, teen news, twenty something, and motorcycles. The topic with the most feeds is “Moms.”

What’s Cool: They display the last five headlines of a blog or website, and when you hover over the headline with your cursor, you can read a portion of the story. If you decide, “Hey, that’s something I’d like to read,” you just click on the title and it takes you right to that post! See, way cool!

What’s Annoying: They have a banner that floats near the bottom of the page, and sorry Alltop gurus; it does get annoying after awhile. (But I forgive you, because the rest of the website rocks.)

So, GO RIGHT NOW, and make a shortcut to Alltop’s Subject Page, or better yet, a shortcut to Alltop’s Genealogy Page – some of my favorite genealogy folks are there. And oh yeah, I made Alltop’s cut – sort of near the bottom, but I made it. How great is that!

Note: It's not the Desktop Genealogist Unplugged that's cool, but my original blog Desktop Genealogist. Hey, Cool is Cool where ever you find it!

Sorry, My Moron Filter Slipped

2008-08-12T22:05:00.004-04:00

Occasionally, the “moron” filter in my brain slips and I have a major dumb attack. (Oh yes, it happens. Ask my spouse, or my children, or my boss, or, well you get the idea.)

I’d tell you how my “fame” has made me all narcissistic and self-centered but wait, that approach was recently used. Ditto if I’d tell you that nobody is beating me up more than I am beating myself. (Gees, politicians are making all of us sound disingenuous,)

I have no real excuse or explanation for my little error, except to say some things tend to slip right past me. Okay, maybe a lot of things slip right past me.

Last week at the start of my 7 Days, 7 Requests efforts, I wrote about sending for the Alien Registration Form of my great grandparents. Well, and this has been out there on the USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Service) website since at least June, starting tomorrow, August 13, the USCIS will offer a fee-for-service program in which family historians can request copies of a variety of immigration and naturalization records online including, wait for it, Alien Registration Forms.

Now the USCIS is not necessarily the easiest site to navigate, so I can possibly be forgiven for not catching this soon to be service notice, but Juliana Smith of Ancestry’s “24-7 Family History Circle” reported this on August 1, BEFORE, my brilliant brainstorm.

Juliana Smith’s blog is one that I have in my Google Reader, and I read it faithfully, except apparently I missed that one. My only excuse is that August 1 happens to be the day that I spent a mind numbing 7 hours playing Klutz paper dolls with my favorite 8 year old granddaughter (as opposed to my favorite 13 year old granddaughter who prefers shopping to paper doll playing). It took me several days to recover.

I still wouldn’t have caught it except that Juliana did another post on August 10 entitled, “Ten Places to Find Immigrant Origins,” which mentioned among other things, the new online program by USCIS. The post is filled with lots of good information that I think many of you can use. I know I sure could have used it.

I’m guessing that my own little request will end in one of three ways.

1. Nothing will happen. I mean literally nothing, and I will be all like “dum de dum,” waiting for information that never arrives. This is the worst-case scenario.

2. I will get my nifty little envelopes back with the federal speak version of “Idiot! Do this over and do it the correct way!”

3. I will get my information but it will take me a whole lot longer than any of you using the new online system, at which point, feel free to tell me how fast you received your information. Go ahead; twist the knife in my heart.

I will keep you posted as to which of the three scenarios turns out to be the winner.

Now, I’ll just go somewhere and hide my head in shame. Hey, maybe I can blame my error on a wide stance. What, that excuse has been used, too

My Final Request

2008-08-11T20:58:00.001-04:00

My last request is very modest. For sometime, I’ve known about a Pomeranian newsletter that is written here in the states. “Die Pommerschen Leute” comes out four times a year and deals with a variety of Pommern topics. You may purchase old issues of the newsletter for $5.00 each.

I’ve printed out the form and finally made a decision on which two of the old issues I’d like to read. The Fall 2003 volume offers several articles on the region that interests me, the Stolp area of Pomerania. The Fall issue 2006 has another Kreis Stolp article, along with an article about Plattdeutsch (Low German). (I almost went with another volume that talked about Pomeranian potatoes – that one sounded yummy!)

Though this is my last request, you will notice that my scoreboard still needs one more request. I will be going to the post office on my lunch hour today and mail the paperwork to start the process of changing my great great grandfather’s civil war grave marker. When that is done, you will see the scoreboard updated. (If it won’t allow me to update on this post, and you never know what this platform will or will not let you do, then you will see it as a separate post on this blog.)

The Importance of U (A Part of the 7 Days, 7 Requests Series)

2008-08-10T23:03:00.000-04:00

On my desk, I have a sticky note that has two words written on it. The words are “fried” and “friend.” Notice that the two words have much in common. In fact, except for one additional letter, an “n,” the two words are identical. But oh, what a difference that “n” makes. You would never mistakenly interchange the words in a sentence as in, “You are my best fried" or "I love friend chicken.” The addition or omission of the “n” is important.

So when I went looking for the grave of my great great grandfather Edward L. Jacobus, and found instead the grave of Edward L. Jacobs, I believed it should be corrected. Jacobs was not Jacobus. The missing “u” mattered.

Edward Jacobus enlisted for service August 2, 1862 in Henry County, Ohio. The harness maker reported to Camp Toledo on September 1. A member of Company B of the 100th Infantry Regiment Ohio, he was detached for duty to the Quartermasters department on September 21. By the November muster roll, he had rejoined his company stationed in Kentucky, where their job was to protect the city of Cincinnati.

At the time of his enlistment, he and his wife, Mary Thorn Jacobus, had been married for not quite 5 years. They had three children, Frank, John and Clara, ages 4, 1 and 5 months respectively.

His death, which would be reported in Edward’s pension files by his Captain, H.D. Taylor, would come almost 8 months to the day after his enlistment.

“E. Jacobus was a private in my said company and that on or about the 20th day of February, 1863, at or near Lexington, Kentucky, while in the line of his duty, he was taken sick with Lung Fever and after a few days, was removed to the hospital at Lexington where he died of said disease on the 2nd day of April 1863. “

Taylor further went on to state:

“I was present with my company during the time he was sick in hospital and visited him frequently, and I saw him the day before he died and my first Lt. G.D. Forsyth saw him after he was dead and reported the fact to me.”

The body would not be shipped back to Henry County, but instead, be interred at what was to become Lexington National Cemetery. Edward was 27 years old.

The error of the missing “u” was foreshadowed earlier, in the muster roll taken for September and October 1862. A hurried hand wrote, “Edward L. Jacobs.”

Certainly, Captain Taylor knew the correct last name as indicated in his statement in Edward’s pension file, but the clerk who filled out the casualty sheet, probably did not. The casualty sheet read Jacobs, and officially, when the markers were ordered for the graves at Lexington National Cemetery, my gg grandfather became for all intents, Edward L. Jacobs.

On the US Department of Veteran Affairs website, under the heading, “Replacement Headstones and Markers” I found the following information:

Headstones and markers previously furnished by the Government may be replaced at Government expense if badly deteriorated, illegible, stolen or vandalized. We may also replace the headstone or marker if the inscription is incorrect, if it was damaged during shipping, or if the material or workmanship does not meet contract specifications.

And

For guidance on obtaining a replacement headstone or marker, you may call the Memorial Programs Service Applicant Assistance Unit between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. (ET), Monday through Friday, at the toll-free number below:1-800-697-6947

So that is what I did. I called them. From there I was told I had to contact the superintendent at the national cemetery where Edward was buried. The office girl at Lexington National Cemetery told me to send an email. A reply email referred me to Camp Nelson, which is the department that oversees Lexington National Cemetery. Lexington will change their online listing once Camp Nelson has approved and made the change, if I email Lexington and let them know.

A call to Camp Nelson gave me the next hurdle to cross. I needed to bring in the documentation proving that Edward Jacobs was really Edward Jacobus. When I explained I was in Ohio, I was told to send the information along with a phone number. So as soon as I am done making this post, I will write the letter, include what I hope to be appropriate documentation, along with a printed copy of this blog post. I will keep you informed of any developments. When I have put the letter in the mailbox at the Clyde Post Office, I will post an updated scoreboard to my blog.

Of all the requests made this week, this is the one that I hope succeeds.

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Ordering GGGG Grandpa's Compiled Civil War File (A Part of 7 Days, 7 Requests Series)

2008-08-10T22:55:00.000-04:00

Look! Me ordering!

Thank you for Your order!

Updated Scoreboard!

So I Went for a Little Car Ride (Part of the 7 Days, 7 Requests Series)

2008-08-09T22:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I made my first trip the Family History Center in Perrysburg. I’ve been spoiled by having the Hayes Presidential Center’s Library and its wonderful genealogical resources nearby But let’s face it, if you need records from another county, there’s no place like a Family History Center, no matter how far the drive.

The people at FHC were very nice and friendly, and I ordered three films – two related to Jackson County, Ohio and one dealing with Gallia County, Ohio. I’m hoping to find out what happened to the land that my fifth great grandfather, David Thacker, owned. I know that he did not make out a will, so what happened to the land?

The price to order film is $5.50 per roll and it will stay at the center for 30 days. The Perrysburg Center has a wide variety of films that are permanently housed at their facility. I was happy to note that films from the Budow Parish where my great grandparents were baptized are part of this collection.

If you are planning a trip to the Perrysburg office, you should know that the hours listed on the FamilySearch website are not accurate. Below are the hours they are currently open.

However, effective September 1, the Monday hours will be changing to 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

I can chalk up another request for the scoreboard!

7 Days, 7 Requests - Hold That Thought!

2008-08-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

Well, yesterday's request has required four phone calls (okay, I created an extra one by my own stupidity), one email, the scanning of several pages of material and you guessed it, I'm still not done. It looks like I will now need to scan and print some additional material to put into the mail. No wonder I had procrastinated on this one!

I would really like to tell you more about it, but if I want to get today's request accomplished, I have to leave RIGHT NOW for points north and west.

So remind me, who's brilliant idea was this 7 days, 7 requests? Gees, I really have to lay off the caffeine the first thing in the morning!

Stay tuned!

The Envelope (Part of the 7 Days, 7 Requests series)

2008-08-06T21:27:00.000-04:00

The envelope addressed to the New Jersey State Archives had sat propped against the small lamp on my office desk since the second week of January. At first, it sat there all bright-eyed and perky, reminding me that I needed to type a letter, write a check and mail it – nothing too difficult.

Then, as time went on, it began to snarl and stare accusingly at me as I continued to ignore its presence. Finally, as often happens to things that are continually ignored, it faded into the background, much as the canister of pencils and file holder that also sat on the desk.

Yesterday, I wrote the letter requesting information on the marriage of Thomas D. Jacobus and Catherine? who married in Essex County, New Jersey, sometime between 1827and 1832. Jacobus appears to be the early 19th century equivalent of Smith or Jones in New Jersey. I’m not sure if I have given enough information for the Archives to find the marriage record, but I am only going to be out $5 if they can’t fulfill my request.

So while my grandson was busy saying, “Eenie, meenie, minee, moe” to determine which of two identical spinners would be mine as we played “Dora Bingo,” the very nice mail carrier stopped at my rural mailbox, grabbed the envelope and sped it happily on its way.

Score another one on my request counter.

7 Days, 7 Requests - Immigration Files

2008-08-05T21:06:00.000-04:00

On September 12 of 1906, my great grandfather, Leo Schrader, signed a Declaration of Intention stating that he intended to become a citizen of the United States. Five months earlier, Leo, his wife, Emma and his two young sons, Willi and Max had disembarked from the SS Amerika at Ellis Island. The declaration was the first in a series of steps leading to US Citizenship.

Changes made on September 27, 1906 may have created impediments to Leo’s completing the naturalization process. As far as we know, this is where Leo’s path to citizenship ended.

In 1940, with the threat of global conflict, the Alien Registration Act of 1940 was enacted. It required registration and fingerprinting of all aliens 14 years old and older. Almost 5 million people were registered and fingerprinted at their local post office from August 27, 1940 to December 26, 1940.

As a direct result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation requiring further registration of all aliens, fourteen and older, from enemy nations – Germany, Italy and Japan. Leo and Emma were among those required to register in the month of February 1942.

Information on the 1940 form included:

1. Name (maiden names for females as well as any other names the individual had used)
2. Current Address
3. Birth date and Birth place
4. Country of Claimed Citizenship
5. Marital Status, Sex and Race
6. Physical Characteristics
7. Information on the last port of arrival in the US
8. Length of time in the US
9. Occupation
10. Membership in clubs and organizations
11. Any Previous Military or Naval Service
12. Names of relatives living in the US
13. Any arrests
14. Any political affiliations in past 5 years

While Leo and Emma were required to register twice, it is important to know that if your ancestor was living in the US in 1940 and was not a US citizen, he or she would have been required to fill out an Alien Registration form regardless of their country of origin. If that is the case, there is a file out there waiting for you to view.

The request must be made in writing and to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. Taken from the USCIS website, you will find the four steps needed to make the request:

1. On your written request, include a daytime phone number so that we may contact you. Fees in searching, copying and reviewing records may apply, see below.

2. Provide as much information as possible on the subject matter. This will help expedite the search process.

3. Verification of Identity, Guardianship, Accompanying Persons, and Amendment requests are requirements for making a request for records of a personal nature. Requests for disclosure of records on individuals other than yourself require consent or proof of death.

4. Mail requests for USCIS records to the National Records Center, FOIA/PA Office, P. O. Box 648010, Lee’s Summit, MO 64064-8010.

The USCIS website goes on to state:

Requests are deemed to constitute an agreement to pay any applicable fees that may be chargeable up to $25.00 without notice. Most requests do not require any fees; however, if fees exceed $25.00, we will notify you beforehand. Do not submit fees with initial requests.

You can download and use a form G-639 to make the request.

Because my great grandparents are deceased, I had to furnish proof of death, which for Leo was an obituary and for Emma a copy of her death certificate. I requested their complete immigration file, including but not limited to their alien registration forms. The requests went out in yesterday’s mail.

Two letters, two requests – Boo Yah!

7 Days, 7 Requests

2008-08-04T21:03:00.000-04:00

Inertia is defined as the resistance to motion, action, or change. We all suffer from it. Some of us are card-carrying members of the “Inertia – A Way of Life” club. I know I qualify. That’s why a recent blog post on “Copyblogger,” caught my attention. (That and the first line in Sean D’Souza’s post, “Let’s say you have to pee.” He had me at pee.)

Sean went on to say that in these economic times, you have to drive people to purchase by giving them a sense of urgency. Buy now, or else!

I wondered, how could I put this theory to work for me? How could I use the idea of urgency to overcome my resistance to writing for that marriage record for my ggg grandparents or the Alien Registration cards for my great grandparents?

So, I’ve created my own urgency, by publicly stating that I am going to write, fax, email, call or send smoke signals to request some of the information I have been putting off getting. In fact, I’m officially calling my plan, “7 Days, 7 Requests.” I have until next Monday at 3:00 PM to complete my personal challenge.

If anyone decides to do his or her own 7 Days, 7 Requests, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear all about your own personal challenge and the results.

A Little Mojo Confusion

2008-07-29T01:20:00.003-04:00

Well, this is my week to apologize. It seems I caused a little confusion with my post, “Oh Mojo, Won’t You Please Come Home.”

I received an email from Mojo the dog, as opposed to Mojo the blog, assuring me that he wasn’t lost. He also sent pictures to prove it.

"What you mean I lost? I not lost! I right here!"

After a little embarrassed backtracking on my part, the matter was straightened out, I think to Mojo’s satisfaction.

Proving that he truly was man’s (or in this case woman’s) best friend, he also sent the following advice:

If you're looking for something and you sniff around long enough, you'll probably find it.

That’s, um, good advice Mojo. I’ll be sure to remember it.

Thanks goes out to Joy, one of Mojo’s people who sent me the pictures and captions. And again, apologies to Mojo for the confusion.

Until Next Time!