What's in a Name?

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 Carnival of Genealogy

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

Wordless Wednesday - The Bridge on Lamereaux Road (Huron County, Ohio)

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

Update on USCIS Genealogy Program

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.

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

Alltop - (Me on the fringes of Cool?)

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!

© 12 August 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

Sorry, My Moron Filter Slipped

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.

© 12 August 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder 

My Final Request

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.)

© 11 August 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder
 

The Importance of U (A Part of the 7 Days, 7 Requests Series)

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!

© 10 August 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder