Happy 70th Birthday, Dear Ruby! 🌹

 

Take a moonlit night on the banks of the Potomac, a few bottles of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Wine, our guardian angel, Jim (also procurer of the aforementioned wine), my alcoholic infused babbling tongue, and a very long walk back to our Dorm, and presto change-o, you became Ruby. 

In truth, the actual metamorphosis happened the next day.  We dragged ourselves to Jim’s part time gig at the local pizza parlor, feeling a trifle worse for the wear. Jim came to our booth and asked, “So who is this Ruby chick?” What? There was no Ruby. “Well, she,” his fingers pointing at me, “kept calling someone, Ruby.” The light dawned.  My slurred midwestern twang version of Roomie, sounded like Ruby to his Southern accent accustomed ears.  After that, you were officially, Ruby. 

Fifty one years ago was the last time we celebrated your birthday together. 

Honestly, it seems like yesterday.  You came North to be in my wedding, and a year later, I went South to return the favor.  Life was so busy, and we lost touch.  

I chose a school that was six hours away from home.  A school where I knew no one. I made a lot of friends, but the four of us – you, me, J and K – were our own Fab Four. 

I learned so much that year.

I learned that  frozen daiquiris are yummy.

I learned enough swear words to make a marine blush.  (That was mostly, J.  That girl was a swearing savant.  Although, my personal favorite, and one I would continue to use, was your “Well, F—k a red and yellow duck.”)

I learned that it takes beaucoup quarters to call a boyfriend who was spending several months in Europe.  You sold your beautiful red jacket, your clogs, your gorgeous purple dress, and I don’t know what else to Vicky, to feed the machine.  It was a good thing that W came home when he did, or goodness knows you would have been left with only your undies and your slippers!

I learned that yes, Virginia, you can squeeze a mattress through a second floor window to the ground below when Vicky and Hawaii did just that. I don’t know how they explained the missing mattress. But… Not my monkeys, not my zoo.

I learned that sometimes, having a messy closet, can actually be a good thing.  You brought that little black and white TV back for the second semester. It was strictly verboten.  Our RA, who was normally a big stickler for following the rules, agreed to overlook it when you slyly suggested that she was welcome to come down and watch her favorite soap opera. 

The problem was, we were assigned a new house mother that semester, and she was doing a surprise inspection.  I happened to leave our room to go to our wing’s bathroom and there was Miss W. with our R.A., Mary.  Mary was standing behind our new housemother, frantically doing a pantomime for my benefit.  When I got back to the room, I told you what was happening and we quickly hid the TV in my closet, which was, as usual, a disaster.

 We made it more of one, throwing clothes off hangers, grabbing more clothes out of my drawers to cover the TV, and putting some on the floor to complete, “The Look.”  We had just finished when a tapping at the door ushered in Miss W. and Mary. Oh Lord, Mary’s eyes were practically popping out of their sockets as she looked around for that TV.  Miss W. went to your closet first  She did a thorough check. Then she came to mine.  She took one look at the disaster, sniffed, and then left the room. I bet we sat there hyperventilating for a good five minutes.  I don’t remember.  Was that an expulsion offense?

I learned, thanks to your insistence, that I did not need full make-up to go to the dining hall for breakfast.  You would pace the room back and forth until I was ready.  Oh, the pressure!

I learned that forming a study group really made getting decent grades a snap.  The fact that the four of us were all El Ed majors meant we had the same courses, and often the same class.

I learned that I could easily do a 7:10 AM class if it was history.  (The professor loved my papers.) But a 11:10 Friday class in English, just interfered too much with my life.  (That professor hated my papers.)  

I learned that while the movies make it look like throwing a burning object into a waste basket easily smothers the fire, in real life that only works if the basket isn’t already full of paper. Duh!

I learned that a good friend will sit on the bathroom floor outside your stall, patiently explaining – well, never mind, no one else needs the details, but you’ll remember what I am referring to. You, dear Ruby girl, were such a good friend!

I learned that I could go somewhere I had never been; where I knew no one; and find my own tribe.

I hope your birthday is wonderful, Ruby.  You are the first of our group to hit that milestone. The rest of us will bravely follow you.  I think of you and J and K often.  I am sending you virtual hugs and good wishes on the wind.

Terry

© 17  Oct 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Ancestry’s New Chromosome Painter – Close but no Cigar!

 

I really wanted to give a thumbs up to Ancestry’s new Chromosome Painter.  (Although a Chromosome Browser would make me much happier.) Sadly, Ancestry has missed the mark.

My mother, my brother and I have all taken Ancestry’s DNA test.  And yes, we are the appropriate centimorgans match to show mother and child, and full siblings. Therefore, I should be a half-match to my mother’s ethnicity, on each chromosome.  My brother should be likewise.  As for my brother and I, we could be a full match, a partial match or no match depending on which segments we inherited from mom and which segments we inherited from dad.

Here is what our ethnicity looks like for each of us on Chromosome 12. 

Mom: 

Me: 

Brother: 

The color on this chromosome is deceptive in that mom’s colors represent Germanic Europe for her parent 1 and Scotland for parent 2.

My colors on the same chromosome represent Sweden and Denmark for parent 1 and England and Northwestern Europe for parent 2.

My brother’s colors represent Sweden and Denmark for parent 1 and England and Northwestern Europe for parent 2.

You can see that each of us has a green component to our Chromosome 12, but the green stands for different ethnicities on my mother’s chart as opposed to my brother and me.  In our case, green denotes England and Northwestern Europe, while on my mother’s chart it denotes Scotland. 

Looking at this, you might draw the conclusion that my brother and I are a full match on this chromosome, but we are not. 

By looking at all the chromosomes I can tell that for me, my mother is represented by parent 1 and my father is parent 2.  My brother is the opposite.  Parent 1 for him is my dad, and parent 2 is my mom. How do I know this?  My mother has no Eastern Europe or Russia in her ethnicity, but my father’s German side (half of his DNA) also has some Kashubian thrown into the mix.  Kashubian’s were one of several Slavic tribes that settled in Pomerania along with Germans.  Dad gets this mixture from his maternal grandparents who emigrated from Pomerania in 1906.

On my chromosome painter all the Eastern Europe and Russia show up on parent 2, while for my brother, they show up on parent 1.  Which means according to Ancestry, I received my Sweden and Denmark ethnicity from mom and my England and Northwestern Europe from dad.  My brother, on the other hand, received the Sweden and Denmark ancestry from dad, and the England and Northwestern Europe from mom.  Confusing, yes?

Because I am a visual person, I put all our chromosome ethnicities on a spreadsheet. I coded each ethnicity with a specific color so that I could see immediately where we matched and where we didn’t. 

My mother and I don’t match ethnicities at all on Chromosomes, 1, 12, 13, 14, or 15.  My brother and she do not match on Chromosomes 4, 7, 10 and 12. 

Below you can see Chromosomes 12, 13, and 4 for each of us.                                                                                                                                                         

Logically, not matching ethnicities with my mother on specific chromosomes does not make sense.  I give Ancestry a B for effort, and a D for execution.  The worst part, it makes me question all their ethnicity assumptions.  They have tagged me with Scandinavian (now Sweden and Denmark) since I first took the test in 2012.  I have yet to find a Swede or Dane in the family tree. 

Until Next Time . . . 

© 15 Sept 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Wordless Wednesday - Looking fine at 90!

😀💕👏

 © 14 Sept 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Happy Birthday Mamacita

Song: “Mother Like Mine” sung by The Band Perry from their album, Pioneer

© 23 August 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Ancestry's new Chromosome Painter (Beta Addition)

 

If you have been on Ancestry lately, you may have noticed this banner.

  

Ut oh, I thought, I’d better make sure I had captured the last update before it disappeared. Ancestry’s last “refresh” took away my smidgen of Welsh ethnicity, which I will admit, bummed me out. Oddly enough, my brother gained Welsh ancestry on that last refresh.  He always gets all the cool stuff!

In that last update, Ancestry had split my inherited Ethnicities to a specific parent, which they cleverly called, Parent One and Parent Two.  I am a visual person, and Ancestry obligingly gave me a lovely pie chart of this. 

Of course, they couldn’t tell you if Parent 1 was your mother or if Parent 1 was your father, but luckily for me, I know my mother does not have any Eastern European & Russian Ethnicity so,  . . .

We have a winner.  Clearly, Parent 2, is my father since only Parent 2 shows Eastern European and Russian Ethnicity.  My mother, is therefore, Parent 1.

But, it gets better.  On the same page, there is now a tab that says Chromosome Painter Beta.

Because it is in Beta mode, I don’t know if everyone has this tab for their DNA ethnicity results, but if you are interested, check it out.

Below is what mine looks like.

Be still my nerdy DNA loving heart.   Let’s see if Dad is still Parent No. 2.  Below is the same chart but with only the Eastern Europe and Russia Ethnicity showing.  As you can see, Dad is still Parent No. 2. 

Okay, I admit it.  This is pretty cool.  I can’t wait to see what happens with the August 2022 update. However, as cool as this is, I still want my Chromosome Browser.  Are you listening, Ancestry? 

© 3 August 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa l. Snyder 

Throwback Thursday - California Dreamin'

Scrap Wisdom

 

Scrap Wisdom

You sulk about opportunity lost.

I grieve a shared lifetime.

I didn’t trust her heart with you.

You are people careless.

Good faith meant nothing.

My bones picked clean, no longer of use,

A mere scrap to be flicked away

With subtle and not so subtle cruelties.

You are people careless.

I See You, now,

Stripped of your charming camouflage.

Hiding behind a borrowed dialect.

I have the receipts, your very own words.

You are people careless.

You keep your "truth" hidden, 

From the place of Alder trees

Expecting mine to be an open book.

Yours carefully protected, 

Mine, you shrug, collateral damage. 

You are people careless.

Untorn index cards do not lie.

Warm yourself with your delusions.

Reality having leached away.

An ugly truth dressed in silk ribbons

You are people careless.

Self lies and hypocrisy are your mantle 

I will not forget. We will not forget.

You are people careless.

 

Acqua davanti e ventu d’arreri.

© 10 July 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Miss you, Sissy

I really thought I could do it, this year.  I thought I could write about you and say how special you were to me.  Instead, I am crying and I can't seem to stop.  Coward that I am, I cannot look into my mother's and my father's faces and witness their pain.  Children are not supposed to die before their parents.  

No, three years is not enough time.  

I am so glad the last words we spoke to one another were, "I love you, Sissy."  and you said, "I love you, too."  I can still hear your words, your inflection, echoing in my head, echoing in my heart. 

This is the fourth birthday of yours that I cannot wish you a year of Happiness.  I miss our shared history. I miss knowing you are in this world.  I miss you, Sissy. 

 © 9 April 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

SAY HIS NAME

 

There is a tradition in Mexico that speaks of the three deaths.

 

The first death is when you take your last breath.

The second death is when you are returned to the earth.

The third death, that final consignment to oblivion, occurs the last time your name is spoken.

 

On September 13, 1904, Emma Gleffe Schröder, my great grandmother, gave birth to her second child, a son, in Groß Gansen in the Pommern region of what was then Germany but is now part of Poland. Paul Albert Carl was baptized on September 22 as a member of the church of Budow. This was the same church that his mother Emma, his father Leo, and his older brother Willi, were all baptized. There are records indicating that little Paul’s ancestors had been baptized at the church in Budow from at least, the early part of the 18^th century. (Paul’s ancestors were probably both Kashubian and German, as the liturgical services were spoken in both German and Kashubian until 1795.)

Paul’s baptism on that day in September of 1904 listed his sponsors as Albert Bacher, Frau Karoline Gleffe, and Franz Gleffe all residing in Groß Gansen. Paul’s baptism occurred on a Thursday, not the usual Sunday, indicating that the child must have been ill. On October 3, 1904, Paul Schröder died.

In 1906, when Leo and Emma along with their sons Willi and Max arrived in the United States, I can imagine their excitement, and their sadness. Leaving your mother, your father, your siblings, your cousins, and your friends had to be difficult. But I cannot discount, the sadness Emma must have felt leaving behind her son’s grave. As a mother of a deceased child, I know the small comfort of standing at my child’s final resting place. The bittersweet joy of placing flowers to honor that piece of my lost heart. The rough feel of the cold marble as I trace the letters of her name. I feel a kinship with Emma, not just of blood, but of a shared sorrow.

Paul’s parents are both long gone from this earth. His eight siblings, too, have found their final resting place. There are no children or grandchildren to remember, Paul. Today as I type his name - Paul. Albert. Carl. Schröder – I say his name aloud, for Paul, for Emma. One more day Paul’s memory lives. One more day oblivion cannot claim him.

Say his name.

 

 

A Thank you.

I have been blessed in my research of my German ancestors, with the kindness and generosity of many. Today, I single out one of them. My German friend, Siegfried Krause. Siegfried reached out to me over a decade ago after he read my blog. He not only helped me with research, but he also sent me pictures and videos of my ancestral towns. Thankfully, he spoke and wrote English very well, as I do not read or write German. (A complication my German friend, Jörg, could attest to.) Siegfried is the one who explained the German custom of having three baptismal sponsors. The Evangelische church allowed for three sponsors, any more than that, and you had to pay an additional fee. It is rare to see any 19^th century or early 20^th century German church registers listing more than three, but they do exist

I learned several years ago that my friend Siegfried had passed away. I think of him often. I say his name aloud, Siegfried. Krause. I promise you, Siegfried, while my brain still functions and I have a breath, your name will be on my lips. I miss your wisdom and kindness, my friend.

 

Sources:

1. Siegfried Krause, numerous email correspondence

2 Evangelische Kirche Budow Taufen, 1904/88

3. Manifest for the Ship, Amerika, first found on Website for Ellis Island in 2003 – now listed as https://heritage.statueofliberty.org/

4. Kashubia, Home of the Baltic Slavs – written originally in Polish by Jaroslaw Ellwart, translated to German by Peter Oliver Loew, and abridged and supplemented English translation by John M. Hingst and Liesel Herchenroether Hingst, 2000. PDF version found online, 20 July 2020.

© 26 March 2022, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

 

For Heather - Another Year Without You

A Matter So Small 

I never saw her, my daughter, my Heather

I felt her prenatal kicks; I patted my belly

Named her Little Harry Eagleclaw

She liked my rocking chair, I think 

Kicking when I would pause to stop

She died, bones crushed by the weight of her own body fluids

A mystery, they said, so sad, they said, you'll have another, they said.

I nodded, the always acquiescent essence of a good girl

Not willing to bother anyone, for a matter so small.

Until one morning, when the sun came up a little slanted

Illuminating the white hot fierceness of loss 

I moaned and wailed and beat my fists upon the walls 

Demanding retribution, demanding an accounting

Demanding God to show himself, to strike me dead 

And when I was done, God being silent 

I lay spent, alive, yet not, pieces of my soul released and gone forever 

Buried with my perfect monster child, my daughter, my baby, my Heather.

© 14 Nov 2021, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Look Who's Turning 90!

© 4 October 2021, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

In Honor of the First US Woman Becoming a Presidential Nominee of a Major party

Love her- hate her, tonight we make history with Hillary Clinton  becoming the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party for President of the United States.

In honor of this, I republish a post I first made on March 4, 2008.

Her Inalienable Right to the Elective Franchise

In precinct A of Roscoe, Ohio, Catherine Christofel, accompanied by her daughter, went to the polls at noon on November 2, 1920, and did the one thing that the 93-year-old woman had never been allowed to do before, she voted. When asked by a reporter of the Coshocton Tribune who would get her vote in this, her first presidential election, Catherine smiled and said, “I'm not telling my politics, and besides the ballot is secret.”

In Athens, Ohio, the 90-year-old mother of a congressman arrived at 5:30 AM to wait in line for the polls to open so she too could cast her very first ballot. In Indiana, the Indianapolis Star reported five sisters, aged 73 to 94, would also be voting in their first presidential election.

And so it went, across the country, women made their way to polling places and exercised the same rights as their fathers, brothers and husbands — the right to vote. The 19th Amendment that conferred this right had been proposed on June 4, 1919, and on August 18, 1920, the amendment received the necessary two-thirds majority of state ratification when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment. It was signed into law by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby on August 26. The amendment read:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

In Georgia and Mississippi, where the state legislatures had previously rejected the 19th Amendment, women were told they could not vote. These states claimed a requirement of registration six months prior to an election in order for an individual to vote. Either women who showed up at polling places were turned away or their ballots destroyed.

The road to women's suffrage had been a long one. Catherine Christofel would have been 21 when the first Woman's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with the help of Lucretia Mott, created a written document called “Declaration of Sentiments” which proposed, among other things, extending voting rights to all citizens of the United States.

After the Civil War, this idea of universal suffrage was embraced by those supporting both black and woman Suffrage. Frederick Douglass, a former slave turned statesman and reformer, was an outspoken supporter of both black and woman suffrage. However, with the proposal and impending ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments, some women in the movement were angry at Douglass's push for the two amendments’ passage pointing out that women were once again left out of the voting franchise.

Notice the difference in wording of the 15th Amendment and the 19th Amendment. The 15th Amendment states:

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.”

Douglas defended his support of the 15th amendment at the Equal Rights Association in May 1869, stating:

“When women, because they are women, are dragged from their homes and hung upon lampposts; when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed to the pavement; when they are objects of insults and outrage at every turn; when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads; when their children are not allowed to enter schools; then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot.”

Some of the leaders of the women's movement refused to support the ratification of the 15th Amendment without the inclusion of women in the voting franchise. Others worked hard for its passage, feeling that this would be the first step to ensuring their own voting rights.

On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified, giving all male citizens the right to vote. With a few notable exceptions (Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and for a time, Utah) women would wait another 50 years before their time would come.

For Catherine Christofel and the other women who voted that cold rainy day in November of 1920, the time had been long enough.

Until Next Time …

Original © 4 March 2008,  republished 7 June 2016

How about it, AncestryDNA, wanna be my hero?

Catherine Good Lynch, pictured above, is a potential X DNA donor of mine.  In fact, thanks to AncestryDNA, Gedmatch.com, and the testing of another individual at 23 and Me, whose raw data like mine and my mother’s was added to Gedmatch, I know that my mother inherited approximately 34 cM of her XDNA from Catherine.  (My brother and I inherited a smidge less at 33.9 cM from Catherine through my mom.)

With a half million individuals who have taken the test at AncestryDNA this could easily have been a win for Ancestry’s DNA program.  But alas, it is not.  The DNA test could have been taken with another company (say FamilyTree DNA or 23 and Me), so Ancestry’s part in this is limited to providing accurate test results, and, after much pressure of the genetic genealogical community, providing me with the opportunity to download the raw data from the tests.

Instead, the victory lap belongs to Gedmatch creators John Olson and Curtis Rogers, the administrator of the matching individual’s test, and me.

Below is what the match looks like using Gedmatch’s X DNA “One to One” Comparison Tool.  

 
 

For those of you a little foggy on how XDNA is inherited, a little basic science.  Women inherit two segments of XDNA, one segment from their mother and one segment from their father.  When they pass the 1/2 of their XDNA onto their offspring, they pass a recombined version.  One child, for example, could get 10% from the mother’s father and 90% from the mother’s mother, while another child could get 50% from the mother’s father and 50% from mother’s mother, or any combination thereof. 

Father’s on the other hand, only have one XDNA segment to give (because instead of two X Chromosomes, they have that pesky Y chromosome.) When a father’s DNA is passed onto his child, he can give either an X chromosome OR a Y chromosome.  If he gives the X chromosome, he finds himself the proud parent of a little girl. If, on the other hand, he gives the Y chromosome, he welcomes a bouncing baby boy into the family. 

This means two things:

1.        A father cannot be an X DNA donor to his sons.

2.       The X chromosome that he inherited from his mother is passed on virtually intact (unless of course there is a mutation of some sort) to his daughters.   For daughters, this means even if they don’t have access to their father’s DNA, they do have an exact copy of his XDNA, a copy that hasn’t been recombined.

 

Below is the path this particular segment took in my branch of the family.

1.       Catherine Good Lynch would have gotten the segment from one or both of her parents, Magdalena Click Good and Joseph Good.

Catherine Good Lynch

 

 

2.       Catherine in turn passed this segment to her son, John Perry Lynch.

3.       John Perry Lynch passed the segment on to his daughter, Katheryne, my grandmother.

John Perry Lynch

 

4.       Katheryne passed the segment onto my mother.

My grandmother, Katheryne

 

5.       My mother passed almost the entire segment (33.9 of the 34 cM) to at least two of her children, my brother and me.

Mom

 

In my mother’s case, we can document that the segment came from her great grandmother.  In the case of mother’s match, the journey was longer.  The match received the segment from a sister of Catherine’s, who happened to be the match’s Great great great grandmother.

What is both exciting and frustrating is that this scientific tidbit has the potential to give proof of the identity of either Magdalena Click’s mother (purported to be Elizabeth Bauserman) or Joseph Good’s mother (purported to be Susannah Kaufmann).  I haven’t been able, thus far, to find documentation proving anything but that researchers have the women’s first names listed correctly.  The idea that somewhere within AncestryDNA’s half a million DNA testers may be the one person whose DNA could corroborate the identity of either of these women (and potentially their parents!) is so brightly dazzling that it makes my head spin.

So how about it AncestryDNA. Wanna be my hero?  Help me break through those brick walls by giving me the tools to find my needle in a haystack.

© 30 September 2014, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

 

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

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.

© 10 October 2010, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Washed to the Sea

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.

© 17 September 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

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

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.

© 11 July 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Sandusky County Kin Hunters Meeting This Sunday

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.

© 9 July 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

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

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….

© 9 July 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Because the Boat Rocked?

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 descendants. 

 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 descendants passed forever into the African American community. 

 Two descendants, 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?

© 24 May 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

The Postman Sometimes Comes Twice

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!

© 24 May 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

An Award - How Lovely

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!

© 12 May 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Happy Birthday, Mikey Boy!

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

© 10 May 2009, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder