A look back — on Women's History Month and beyond

When my sister and I were young, we would play make-believe games. I would be married to the President of the United States, and she the Vice President. I would be married to the richest man in the world and she the second richest. That I was always the one married to the richest, the smartest or the most powerful should come as no surprise. I was, after all, the eldest sister and my added two years of wisdom, not to mention my unbridled imagination, put me at an advantage in all of these make-believe scenarios. 

But what was surprising, given my rich flights of fancy, is that I never once considered offering myself the role of President, nor that of smartest or richest person. In a “Leave it to Beaver”/”Father Knows Best” era, I never once entertained the idea that I as a female could do any of these things. The horizons of the average woman in 1960 were limited to housewife, teacher, nurse and secretary — or possibly a model or a stewardess if one was thinking of something a little more exotic. (“Exotic” as defined by a 7-year-old has serious limitations!)

I would like to think that my 7-year-old counterpart in today's society would not find her make-believe scenarios as severely restricted as mine were almost five decades ago. If that is true, then the essence of Women's History Month is how we as females leapt from playing second fiddle in our own fantasies to the role of leading lady in the last 50 years. How we went from the inability to vote to being full-fledged participants in the elective franchise in the 40 years prior to that. And how we, as females, went from individuals deemed unworthy to hold property to that of property owners in the decades before that. 

Someone recently accused me of being a feminist for spouting similar sentiments. I defer to a quote made by Margaret Atwood on the subject. “Does feminist mean large unpleasant person who'll shout at you or someone who believes women are human beings? To me it's the latter, so I sign up.” And on that note, I would like to close the books on Women's History Month with Jasia's 44th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. The subject, fittingly enough, was “A Tribute to Women.” (http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2008/03/carnival-of-genealogy-44th-edition.html).

I can't give a better endorsement for reading these tributes than Jasia's own words. 

Thirty-two participants penned tributes to a variety of different women. This was an especially wonderful edition of the COG because so many of the tributes came from the heart. It took me a long time to put it together because I was moved to tears so many times and just had to walk away for while. What a tribute that is to all of you who participated! When an author can stir your emotions and touch you with their words and pictures they have real talent. 

So find the time to read these remarkable essays. I guarantee that you to will find a post or two that will move you. 

Until Next Time — Happy Ancestral Digging! 

Note this post first published online, April 1, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 1 April 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

What! I have an Accent????

This is way too good to be true. Thomas MacEntee of “Destination: Austin Family” found this wonderful little quiz that tells you what kind of an American accent you have. Several of my genea-blogger compadres have taken the test themselves. (They are such a fun group!) If you want to check out your own accent, you can take the quiz at http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have. 

Thomas's post, http://destinationaustinfamily.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-american-accent-do-you-have.html, talks about his own interest in accents. 

My results from the quiz say that I speak Inland Northern American English. You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.” Bingo!

Did I not just blog about this very thing in my recent post, “Squawkers and other Regionalisms?” Wikipedia has a wonderful article about the Inland North Dialect that you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English. 

A cool map shows the region for this dialect. For an equally cool map of all the dialects check out this url: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NatMap1.html. 

For the record, I break the dialect when I pronounce the word “on” to rhyme with “dawn” instead of “don.” Hey, so I'm not as perfect as you thought! 

My hunch is that the majority of you taking the test will find that you also have The Inland North accent. If not, chances are you speak The Midland dialect. 

Thanks, Thomas, for a fun couple of hours — albeit not very productive ones. 

Until Next Time! 

Note this post first published online, March 28, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 28 March 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Do Not Attempt to Adjust That Picture

There is nothing wrong with your computer monitor. Do not attempt to adjust that picture. The Generations Network (parent company of Ancestry.com) is now in control of transmission. 

Okay, I borrowed and tweaked that quote from the opening of that old sci-fi favorite, “The Outer Limits.” You may feel, however, as if you've landed in your own episode of the “Outer Limits” the next time you visit one of your favorite GenWeb sites. 

If you haven't been reading any genealogy blogs or newsletters in the past week, you missed an important bit of news. Ancestry announced that the “Web address for all RootsWeb pages will change from www.rootsweb.com to www.rootsweb.ancestry.com.” You can read the entire announcement here: http://bigfile.rootsweb.com/newsroom/?p=111. 

As you can imagine, there have been a few interesting posts about these changes. Kimberly Powell's “Kimberly's Genealogy Blog” at About.com gives two interesting posts on the subject. The first is “RootsWeb.com Being Transplanted to Ancestry.com” at http://genealogy.about.com/b/2008/03/13/rootswebcom-being-transplanted-to-ancestrycom.htm.

A second post called “USGenWeb - Where Are They Moving?” has some interesting details on what is happening at the various GenWeb sites. Linkpendium and Cyndi's list must be going crazy trying to keep up with the massive rootsweb defections. You can read that post at http://genealogy.about.com/b/2008/03/17/usgenweb-where-are-they-moving.htm. 

Randy Seaver's “Genea-Musings” targeted some interesting statistics for both the Ancestry and Rootsweb sites that you can read about at http://randysmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/ancestry-and-rootsweb-traffic.html and http://randysmusings.blogspot.com/2008/03/5-year-statistics-for-ancestrycom.html. 

A follow up message appeared on the Rootsweb Newsroom on March 17: 

  - www.rootsweb.com will still bring you to the RootsWeb homepage after the domain change. We will be redirecting all of the old URLs. - We are not changing anything on RootsWeb other than the URL. We will still offer the same features and support. - RootsWeb is now and will remain a free online experience. - Your data will not be taken away from you. We host the mailing lists, message boards, sites etc. but you own the information that you post or upload. 

I remain healthily skeptical of these changes. I hope the follow up message posted at the Rootsweb Newsroom turns out to be true - not only for today, but the foreseeable future. 

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging! Note: This post first published online, March 26, 2008 at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 26 March 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Stepping Outside the Comfort Zone

So last week I dropped in on the Ottawa County Genealogical Society for its March meeting at the Ida Rupp Public Library in Port Clinton. 

Now, normally when I am about to do anything that might make me look stupid, I like to clue you, my faithful readers, in on it. In this case, I calculated the chances of making a fool out of myself were rather high, and therefore, I decided that while my discomfort might garner a laugh and a high five from any sadists who read my posts, my own sense of self-preservation warned me to say absolutely nothing about my little adventure.

As it turned out, I had a blast. I'm still not sure that my topic was well chosen — I think it was a case of me preaching to the choir, but those hearty souls who listened to me talk turned out be pretty good sports. They stayed attentive, laughed in all the right places (whooh - nothing worse then being unappreciatively funny), and asked questions at the end of the talk. 

This was my first foray into public speaking, unless you count my brief career teaching tax classes a few years ago. It's one thing to sit safely behind my computer keyboard, pecking away madly, sometimes chuckling at my own odd turn of phrase, and quite another to stand defenseless, nary a thesaurus in sight, in front of strangers with only my mind and mouth for back up. YIKES! 

I want to thank Mary Hamann who invited me to the meeting. Mary understood my “Nervous Nelly” tendencies and my control freak need to get to the meeting early to make sure my laptop and her projector would make friends and play well together. Thank goodness, they did, or I would have wasted a boatload of time on a useless PowerPoint presentation.

If any of you reading this have Ottawa County roots and have thought about attending one of Ottawa County Genealogical Society's meetings, I say, “Go for it!” They are a nice, informed group of people, who know how to make a stranger feel like a friend. 

Thanks OCGS — you were awesome! I enjoyed meeting all of you and you made the whole experience a very pleasant one. For information about the Society and its meetings be sure and check out their Web site at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohoccgs/. 

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging! Note this post first published online, March 24, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 24 March  2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Beating A Hasty Retreat

People have this tendency to write apologetic posts when they have not posted to their blogs for a lengthy period. In lieu of me doing that, I thought I would let you know in advance that I probably won't be posting at all in the coming days. I have a lot on my plate right now, and it feels like I am continually juggling my time, trying not to let anyone down.

But I do - let people down, that is. So this week the readers of this blog get to be disappointed in me — join the club! It's becoming a rather large membership. Not writing feels like a self-imposed punishment. I write to vent, to inform, to amuse (mostly myself), to think out loud and sometimes, it feels like I write to breathe. 

So like your momma told you when you were four, this is going to hurt me way more than it hurts any of you. 

So until next time - happy ancestral digging! 

PS If you are looking for a genealogical blog fix, may I suggest you go to Kimberly Powell's “About Genealogy” column and look at her list of Genealogy Blogs and Bloggers at http://genealogy.about.com/od/blogs/. Many of my personal favorites, as well as some of my own genea-blogger friends are well represented there - Terry Thornton, Jasia, Randy Seaver, FoonoteMaven, Denise Olson, Janice Brown, Craig Manson, Becky Wiseman, Juliana Smith, Megan Smolenyak, Blaine Bittinger, Kimberly Powell, Chris Dunham, Joe Beine … 

Note this post first published online, March 17, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 17 March 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

The Art of Painting Pictures

The little girl hurt. She thought she could hear her daddy's voice. She wanted to tell him about her pain, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't talk and tell him that her throat hurt. She opened her eyes, and saw the sheets of her bed and thought it strange that a hospital would have red sheets.

Her mother in the waiting room didn't have the luxury of her daughter's confusion. When she saw the nurse running through the hall, she knew instantly what the red soaked nurse's uniform meant. Something had gone wrong. She knew, as only a mother could, that the red blood splashed over the front of the nurse's clothing was that of her child. 

It was a simple procedure, a tonsillectomy. Children had them all the time. The little girl, 7 years old, had suffered repeated bouts of bronchitis, and the family physician had said the young girl's tonsils were bad and needed to be removed. It would be an adventure, the mother had told her daughter, and the 7-year-old listened to her mother's words and believed them.

Instead, when the physician finally came and found the woman, his own eyes laced with concern, he told her they were trying to stop the child's bleeding and doing everything they could. He shook his head, patted her hand and walked back to be with his patient. 

The mother stood there by herself. Her husband, lulled by the routine nature of the surgery, had gone to work that day. The mother dazed and in disbelief, waited until they came to take her to her daughter's bedside in recovery. 

The little girl looked small and fragile. The mother thought her heart would break. The little girl moved in and out of consciousness, only vaguely aware of her surroundings those first two days in recovery 

The mother left that first night exhausted, and came back early the next day. She stayed at her daughter's bedside, leaving only long enough to shower, change and occasionally sleep. The child, once reunited with her mother, felt the comfortable safety that she always felt in her mother's presence, never once understanding how close she had come to death. 

The child never saw, never felt the fear behind her mother's smile, she heard only her mother's comforting voice, talking of things they would do when the girl was better. The mother's words were strong, and the picture painted in the little girl's head so clear, that not for even the tiniest of moments did the little girl think it would be otherwise. 

Slowly the little girl recovered. The surgery, the hospital were just a bad memory for the girl, nothing more. 

As the daughter grew, again and again, as life presented each new difficulty, she would come to her mother, listening intently as her mother found ways to paint a picture of a positive outcome, no matter how serious the problem. 

When the girl grew into womanhood and the problems became larger, the mother's words continued to create positive pictures. Even when the young woman didn't believe, her mother's words were so powerful, so filled with detail that the young woman moved forward on faith alone at the sound of her mother's words. 

It happened when the young woman lost her own baby daughter. The mother drew the picture of another baby, this one healthy framed in the young woman's arms and it was so. 

It happened when the young woman, in the midst of a broken heart and marriage, listened as the mother painted the picture of another love, a perfect partner for the young woman, and this too became so. And so it went, the mother teaching the daughter how to paint the pictures in her mind.

It would come as no surprise that the mother, who for years had been painting pictures in the mind, now put those pictures on canvas, sharing her talent with friends, family — charming even strangers with her work. 

And the daughter, who had not inherited her mother's artistic talents, found her own way to create pictures, creating them with words. 

Though many women have had an impact on my life, none more so than my own mother. It has been her strong words that have propelled me through the rough times (tonsillectomies and all) and helped me soar through the good. 

This tribute is written for you, Momma — for your wit, wisdom and warmth and most of all, for teaching me to paint pictures. I love you.

Until Next Time

This post is in honor of National Women's History Month and the Carnival of Genealogy whose topic is to “Write a tribute to a woman on your family tree, a friend, a neighbor or historical female figure who has done something to impact your life.” 

Note this post first published online, March 13, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 13 March 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Sunset after a Blizzard

Most of my readers (all five of you) know what happened here in our own little corner of the world this past weekend. We had, at the very least, blizzard like conditions, if not an actual blizzard.

It started out with a light friendly snow Friday morning and by Friday night we were at a level two here in Sandusky County. (For those of you who live out of state; see snow level definitions listed after the post. They range from one to three, three being the worst.)

By Saturday, the wind had picked up, snow came down in a horizontal path, and the county declared a level three, snow emergency. Now normally Al and I are on top of these things and are prepared, but not being able to go out on Saturday changed our normal weekend schedule.

For one thing, we get groceries on Saturday. We had ample food in the house so there was no threat of starvation. My Pepsi and chocolate supply, thank goodness, were fully stocked, but there were still some necessities missing from our larder.

My husband treats himself once a week to a pint of ice cream. I know, I too think he is insane to continue this weekly treat when temperatures are below freezing but the man loves his ice cream. So he moped around like a kid on Christmas Eve who has learned that Christmas has been delayed a couple of days.

In my view, the most serious shortage involved the lack of salt-coated nourishment. I considered taking the saltshaker and just dousing my tongue with it, but that would have meant removing the afghan I was warmly wrapped in, and leaving my cozy perch on the living room sofa — too little reward for so much effort.

On the second Saturday of the month, Al and I have a ritual of going out to eat for breakfast. We started this ritual as a means of self-preservation when we first married and found ourselves heading a houseful of six children, aged 8 to 16. We called it “Al and Terry time” and in the beginning, it was a weekly observance.

After a while, we felt guilty excluding the children from this weekly treat, and one Saturday “surprised” them and took them all out to breakfast. Oh, what a mistake!

They complained because we made them get up too early. They complained about the lack of menu selection. They complained that the whole dining process took too long. They complained that their younger brother was staring at them. They complained for the sheer joy of complaining. And they complained that it was a dumb idea, and in this last complaint, they were absolutely right.

Al and I never took them out for breakfast again, nor did we feel the slightest twinge of guilt. Ever.

As I write this, we have been down graded to a level one. My husband is anxious to get to the store and pick up his weekly treat and I want to make sure that I am stocked up on the appropriate salt laden goodies.

We went from a wind rattling blizzard to the quiet stillness that often follows a storm. As daylight slowly faded, I noticed that the sun, for the first time in several days, began to poke its way through the cloudy sky. It was a comforting sight.

I captured its brief appearance as I leaned out my front door. I’m calling it “Sunset after a Blizzard.”

Until Next Time – Happy Ancestral Digging!

Note: For those of you out of state who have no idea what all this level stuff means, I will quote you from OCSWA (Ohio Committee for Severe Weather Awareness):

LEVEL 1: Roadways are hazardous with blowing and drifting snow. Roads may also be icy. Drive carefully.

LEVEL 2: Roadways are hazardous with blowing and drifting snow. Only those who feel it is necessary to drive should be out on the roads. Contact your employer to see if you should report to work.

LEVEL 3: All roadways are closed to non-emergency personnel. No one else should be out during these conditions unless it is absolutely necessary to travel or a personal emergency exists. All employees should contact their employer to see if they should report to work. Those traveling on the roads may subject themselves to arrest.

Be sure to memorize this – there may be a test!

Note this post first published online, March 10 , 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

© 10 March 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snydere