This Little Piggy

Okay, anybody who has just eaten or is about to eat, back away from your computer right now. Don’t look left. Don’t look right. Trust me, you’ll thank me later. 

Now for those less squeamish, let’s talk toes. Yep, those ugly little piggies belong to yours truly. Normally, I try to shield you, dear reader, from the uglier aspects of my life. You can place the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist or Jasia over at Creative Gene , or for that matter, the blame can be placed on my dad whose toes I've inherited. 

Lisa suggested the topic for this edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. “What traits run in your family? Which of them did you inherit? “And Jasia was all like, well sure, that sounds good. So let’s just take a little peek at my toes. (Haven’t been able to take your eyes off them, have you?) 

If you look closely, you can see that the second toe is longer than the big toe. My father’s toes have the same arrangement. When I was little, he said a longer second toe was a sign of intelligence. I believed him. In fact, in times when I have doubted all of my abilities, I’ve clung to the thought that at least I had the intelligence thing going for me. After all, I had that longer second toe to prove it. 

Turns out Dad fibbed. While this is one of the myths surrounding a lanky second toe, the toe itself is actually a deformity. That’s right I have a DEFORMED TOE. It even has a name, Morton’s Toe. There’s also a website, http://www.foot.com/info/cond_mortons_toe.jsp, which talks about the definition of Morton’s Toe, what problems it causes, and the treatment of said toe. 

I was happy to know that there are no sharp objects like surgical knives involved in treatment. The website suggests that those suffering from the affliction wear “footwear with a high and wide toe box” and notes that often, wearing a shoe a half size larger will “accommodate the longer second toe.” Hah! No wonder my shoe size was always bigger than my friends. It also explains why I preferred cutting my bare feet on sharp stones to putting on shoes as a child. 

Without the Carnival of Genealogy, I would never have explored this aspect of my being. I now know that I am deformed and probably as dumb as a box of rocks. Thanks COG, thanks a lot.

Until Next Time …

Note this post first published online, April 14, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

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

Happy Birthday, Little Sis!

Today is my little sis’s birthday. The story goes that shortly after they brought her home from the hospital; I came perilously close to sticking my fingers in her eyes. I am told that I had a rather evil look on my face and my parents could read the complete disdain that was registering in my two-year-old brain without any need for words. For the record, my fingers never connected with anything more than air. 

My hunch is that my parents or someone else had probably fed me the line about having a wonderful new playmate. Let me tell you, that mewling, mother-stealing creature wasn’t my idea of a perfect playmate and all the “oh, look at the cute baby” comments in the world wouldn’t change my mind.

However, the creature did turn into a sweet tempered baby, much more of a laid-back person than yours truly, and she became my very first BFF. It helped that her laid-back nature let me boss her around in the way only a big sister can, and whether it was paper dolls, Barbies or the game, “Colored eggs”, I usually set the agenda for our play. 

As our world expanded to include other children, my little sister often took a back seat to my own budding socialization skills. Often, my mother would make me take little sis with me when I went to a friend’s house to play. Very often, the friend would be our neighbor, Debbie. Debbie was a whole year older than I and she went to Catholic school. 

Now there is a definite pecking order to childhood play and being older and therefore more experienced gave Deb the natural advantage, especially when we played school, and especially when we played school in her basement. Those nuns must have been tough at Deb’s school, because she was a tough teacher with her make believe students, little sis and I. In fact, on one occasion she gave my sister a big fat “F” on one of her papers.

I’m not sure if my sister knew exactly what an F was, but she knew it was bad. Proving that she was not nearly as laid-back as she appeared, she took immediate umbrage and marched her little feet all the way up Deb’s basement steps. We probably had a look of “what’s her problem” written all over our faces, but her problem became our problem when my sister ran smack dab into Deb’s father, George.

I don’t know how the conversation went, but a few minutes later both Deb and I were called on the carpet and instructed that we were never, and he meant NEVER allowed to give my sister an “F” again. George had taken a shine to my little sister, and he would check in and make sure we were following his instructions – you might say, to the letter. 

My sister learned how to read when I did. I would come home and teach her the words that I had learned that day. She was like a sponge, soaking up every new word I threw at her. I would shuffle flash cards at her, and she would always get them right, without any hesitation. I knew when she sounded out the word ‘vegetable” in one of the “Flicka, Ricka and Dicka” books that I was enamored with that summer that the pupil had out mastered the teacher. She was only four. 

When we moved out of our old neighborhood, we were sad that we left behind all of our old friends. But that sadness was tempered with the knowledge that each of us still had our oldest playmate, we still had each other. 

My sister and I have very different personalities. She is pragmatic, while I’m often in the clouds. She loves to be out with people, while I yearn for time to myself. She is the conservative and I am the liberal. Yet for all of our differences we have an unbreakable bond. She is the keeper of my childhood memories, and I the keeper of hers. We have a history of shared secrets and the knowledge of shared dreams. She is my sister, my very first best friend, and the one who has known me longest. I love her dearly. Today is her birthday. Happy birthday little sis – I hope all your wishes come true. 

Love, 

Your bossy big sister 

Note: Originally Published on News-Messenger Website, April 9, 2008

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

Where Were You - An Overview of My Family and the Civil War

Five of my ancestors wore Yankee blue during the Civil War. Four served with Ohio regiments and one with a Pennsylvania unit. Two served at the war's end doing garrison duty and never saw battle. Another was discharged in 1863 for a wound to his left hip received at the battle of Fredericksburg. One died in Kentucky from pneumonia, and the last had his leg amputated above the knee after being wounded on the skirmish line in Georgia. They were all privates. 

If you expand the list to include the siblings of my ancestors, an additional 11, maybe more, from my family tree served on the Northern side of the conflict. Elizabeth Armstrong Feasel, my great-great grandmother, had two brothers who joined the Union Army. One, John Wesley Armstrong, was captured at the Battle of Chickamauga and held in various Southern prisons, including the notorious Andersonville, until his release in 1865. 

Elizabeth's sister, Susan Teresa Wilson, who had gone west in the 1850's, met and married a man from Arkansas in 1865. It is interesting to note, given the fact that her brothers served on the Northern side, that she named a son Stonewall Jackson Wilson and another Jefferson Davis Wilson. Such was the nature of this war of rebellion. 

If you include cousins and nephews of my ancestors, things get even more interesting. Three strands of my family web came to Ohio from Virginia, and though they were all here by the mid 1830's, some had family still living in Virginia at the time the war broke out. Joseph Good and his wife, Magdalena Click Good, were born and raised in Shenandoah County, Virginia. All of Joseph's siblings except one moved north and west. His sister, Elizabeth Good Toppin, stayed behind with her family. Though Elizabeth died long before the Civil War, her only son, William Toppin was living in nearby Rockingham County, when the first shots of war were fired. 

William enlisted in the 7th Virginia Cavalry, known as Ashby's Cavalry in 1861. In 1864, when his three years were up, he reenlisted. Records show he was paroled in New Market, Va., on April 20, 1865. The majority of Magdalena's family had remained behind in Virginia. Her father had been a Brethren minister. Dunkers, as the Brethren were called, did not believe in bearing arms, and many of them refused to join the Confederate army. For a time they were allowed to pay fines to avoid service, but as the war lingered on, a shortage of men meant that they were often conscripted into the army.

Magdalena's nephew, Daniel Click, served as an ambulance driver in Company I, of the 33rd Regiment Virginia Infantry. The Dunkers were often used in this type of capacity. Another nephew, Joseph Click, avoided conscription and tended to his farm. In his deposition before the Southern Claims Commission, Joseph stated that he had “piloted Union soldiers through the mountains and fed them.” 

Many of the Dunkers, as well as their Mennonite neighbors were Unionists (those who believed that Virginia should not have seceded from the Union). One of the Dunkard ministers, John Francis Neff, was another of Magdalena's nephews. His son, also John F. Neff, had graduated from the Virginia Military Institute prior to the war and joined the Confederacy as soon as war seemed inevitable. One can imagine that the pacifist father and the military-minded son may have had a few disagreements on the course that young Neff had chosen. 

The son, a lawyer, who would first be commissioned as a lieutenant, then later be elected as a Colonel by his men, would die at the Second Bull Run or as the Confederates called it, the Battle of 2nd Manassas. Though Magdalena had died in 1853, Joseph lived to see war come to his old childhood home. He also lived to see peace restored to his country. 

The advantage of hindsight isn't just the ability to know what the correct thing to do is. It is the quiet simple knowledge that the world can survive such a terrible calamity. 

Until Next Time - Happy Ancestral Digging!

Note: This post was written for the “Where Were You” Carnival hosted by The Gen Lady 

Note this post first published online, April 4, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

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

Not feeling so smart right now, am I?

Remember way back in September when I was running around à la Chicken Little telling everybody, “NARA's fees are rising! NARA's fees are rising!” I felt oh so smug because I had ordered ALL my direct ancestor's pension files before their cost exceeded the gross national product of Lichtenstein. Except, of course, in January I uncovered a GGGG grandfather who at the age of 42 enlisted as a Private in Company D, 194th Infantry Regiment Ohio. 

He served a little more than six months — ordered first to Charles Town, W.Va. and then after General Robert E. Lee's surrender, to Washington D.C. Not only that, but there are three brothers or possibly cousins who also served at the same time in the same unit. I am practically salivating over the prospects except that it would cost $300 to order all their complete pension files and another $100 for their compiled military records. AARRGH!!!!!! 

But of course, I can't beat myself up for being a few months too slow in discovering ole Nimrod. (No really, that's his name.) But I might want to whack myself in the forehead for not reading carefully the information on the 1812 pension files. 

I have found only one ancestor that enlisted during the War of 1812. Ezekiel Anderson died after serving a little over five months at Fort Findlay in 1813. I had read that Congress passed legislation in 1871 and 1878 concerning pensions for the 1812 Veterans and their widows. Since Ezekiel died in 1813 and his widow, Margaret Scott Anderson Isenhart had passed away in 1863, I mistakenly thought there would be no pension file. 

When I finally renewed my Ancestry.com subscription, guess who popped up in their “US Pensioners, 1818-1872” database — Margaret Isenhart, widow of Ezekiel Anderson. Double AARRGH!!!!! 

I went back to NARA and double-checked. Sure enough, there was an act passed prior to the 1812 War that allowed pensions and land bounty grants for veterans and their widows. To quote NARA about these pensions:

Of the two, the widow's or minor's application is potentially the richest in genealogical information. This is because the widow had to provide proof of marriage, including the date or place of marriage, and usually the maiden name. Important data about marriages before 1815 found in some of the files may not be available anywhere else.

It makes a person positively giddy to think about what MIGHT be in Margaret's pension file. Fortunately, pensions prior to the Civil War cost only $50. What's fifty bucks? 

So what have we learned? 

1. I am not as smart as I think I am. (But you knew that already, didn't you?) 

2. I need to find a new, fully loaded piggy bank to break. 

3. Smugness is a sin that seldom goes unpunished. 

Your formerly smug friend, Desktop Genealogist 

Note this post first published online, April 3, 2008, at Desktop Genealogist Blog at The News-Messenger Online http://www.thenews-messenger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=BLOGS02

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

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