Archive for the 'Genealogy' Category

to any Canadians who happen to be reading this blog.

I have several Canadian ancestors, though the ancestors of these ancestors were pre-Americans who backed the wrong side in a certain war, the anniversary of which occurs in a few days.

Anyone who has an interest in reading a complete listing of all my known ancestors who immigrated to America - when and from where they came - should read this post on my genealogy blog.

As some people know I am slightly obsessed with genealogy lately, and here are two poems that mention (directly or peripherally) family bibles.

My Mother’s Bible
By George Pope Morris

THIS book is all that ’s left me now!
Tears will unbidden start,—
With faltering lip and throbbing brow
I press it to my heart.
For many generations past,
Here is our family tree;
My mother’s hands this Bible clasped,
She, dying, gave it me.

Ah! well do I remember those
Whose names these records bear;
Who round the hearth-stone used to close
After the evening prayer,
And speak of what these pages said,
In tones my heart would thrill!
Though they are with the silent dead,
Here are they living still.

My father read this holy book
To brothers, sisters dear;
How calm was my poor mother’s look
Who leaned God’s word to hear!
Her angel face—I see it yet!
What vivid memories come!
Again that little group is met
Within the halls of home!

Thou truest friend man ever knew,
Thy constancy I ’ve tried;
Where all were false I found thee true,
My counsellor and guide.
The mines of earth no treasures give
That could this volume buy:
In teaching me the way to live,
It taught me how to die.

Three Balls - by Carl Sandburg

JABOWSKY’S place is on a side street and only the rain washes the dusty three balls.
When I passed the window a month ago, there rested in proud isolation:
A family bible with hasps of brass twisted off, a wooden clock with pendulum gone,
And a porcelain crucifix with the glaze nicked where the left elbow of Jesus is represented.
I passed to-day and they were all there, resting in proud isolation, the clock and the crucifix saying no more and no less than before, and a yellow cat sleeping in a patch of sun alongside the family bible with the hasps off.
Only the rain washes the dusty three balls in front of Jabowsky’s place on a side street.

The origins of St. Valentine’s Day

Now that we know Ted, Caroline and Patrick are supporting Obama

And Robert Jr, Kerry and Kathleen are supporting Clinton

I think we need to hear from the Shrivers.  Who are the Shrivers supporting?
I can’t make up my mind until I know how all the Kennedy Clan are swinging, and just because they’re descended from Eunice, Jack and Bobby’s sister, doesn’t make then any less important.

I received an email a little earlier today:

Subject: John Newmark added you as a friend on Facebook…
Body: John added you as a friend on Facebook. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, friends with John.

To confirm this friend request, follow the link below:
[link]

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

—
Yes, I have an account on Facebook.
No, I didn’t send myself a friend request.
I’m not *that* desperate.

My first thought was this was a spam message. I’ve gotten messages *supposedly* sent from myself before. But usually I want me to buy drugs in those messages, and usually I ignore them. Because I was taught to just say no.

So I didn’t click on the email link. Too risky, that. I just typed Facebook’s URL into my browser by hand. And voila - there was a friend request waiting for me. From myself. Though the picture next to my request didn’t look like me.

So I sent myself a message. Thought about quoting Admiral Stockdale. “Who am I and what am I doing here?” But I went for something a little more mundane.

We shall see how I respond.

(There are those who say that talking to oneself is ok, as long as you don’t answer. I might be in trouble.)

Being the SF geek that I am, and my growing obsession with genealogy, I couldn’t help but giggle uncontrollably at this

Today I learned Patrick Swayze is possibly my 7th cousin. This is much more likely than my relationship to Chaucer. Though my line intersects with his before it branches off towards Geoffrey, making Patrick as much of a direct descendant as I am. I’m not sure Patrick realizes this.

It’s time for the Aug 15th Carnival of Genealogy. I was sure I wouldn’t be contributing to this one. The topic is Genealogy conferences and seminars, and I’ve never been to one. If I’m going to blog about something, it should be something with which I’m familiar. So I was content that I was going to sit this one out, and see what others had to say.

Then Janice at CowHampshire, admitting she had never attended a conference, posted her “Genealogy seminars I’d like to see” The list was humorous, I was listed as a host of one of the seminars, and I realized I could come up with a humorous list, too, but now it would be redundant, or worse, copying, unless I came up with my own unique twist.

Then Jasia, at Creative Gene, posted her suggestions for conferences from the perspective of one who had attended…and I realized there were some vague familiarities, and I had my topic.

What to expect when your favorite genealogical conference merges with a local SF convention.

1) Possible panel/seminar topics:
a. Homer Simpson’s Family Tree
b. Genealogy references in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: from Nature’s Nobility to graveyard visits.
c. Did your great grandparents read science fiction? An introduction to First Fandom for Young Adults.
d. Did your ancestors get eaten by Grendel? Where would they be buried if they were?
e. Making whoopee in the 17th century, were there any differences? (midnight panel)
f. Podcasting for the Genea-blogger.
g. Heraldry – What your local branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism has to offer your local genealogy society – and vice versa.
h. The 1891 and 1901 England Census are online? Is HG Wells listed? (Yes - ancestry.co.uk, image)

2) Genealogy Guest of Honor: Alex Haley. (live via time machine) Huge line for autographs, but a smaller subset of attendees will turn their nose up, claim the writer was a hack, and refuse to get in line, even if they’ve read all his books.

3) There will be a masquerade. A chance to dress up like your ancestors – or your future descendents! Prizes will be awarded.

4) Art Show will have new categories for Coats of Arms and family photographs.

5) Free alcohol in the room parties after hours will lead to genealogists logging on to OneWorldTree and adding entries to prove they are descended from Isaac Newton or Beowulf.

Note: I’ve started to post genealogy stuff here, so that those interested in just genealogy don’t have to wade through my other mishmash, and those interested in the mishmash, don’t have to wade through my growing interest in genealogy. But this post definitely belongs in both places.

Alamasu, Romania
County: Salaj
Hungarian alternate names: Varalmas; Nagyalmas
Jewish population 1900: 51
Jewish population 1910: 35
Jewish population 1930: 30
Most of the decline in those twenty years may be attributable to one 8 member family. However, there may have been more than three births, and additional departures.
Jewish population after 1944 transport to Auschwitz: 0 (source)

For personal reasons, I’m glad that family made it out. The year was 1912. My grandfather was 4. He remembered little, but an older brother, Ted, had obtained a sixth grade education before leaving. At least, that’s what he claimed in a note to the government that provided a translation of my grandfather’s birth certificate which they had obtained from Nagyalmas, and which revealed the information my grandfather had previoulsy given as his birth date was incorrect.

I recently discovered a school report I did in fifth grade on my grandfather’s immigration. I opened it without thinking I’d find much of interest. My sister had done a similar school report for the same teacher, and I knew we had been allowed to ‘make things up’. The purpose wasn’t to find out information about our family, but to show we had an understanding of the ‘immigrant experience.’

But, unlike my sister’s which was a pseudo-diary of my great-grandmother, and even the ‘real information’ would have been entirely secondhand from my grandfather, mine was ‘written’ by my grandfather, so I had the direct source, and mine also included photos and documents which he must have provided. In it there was a copy of the birth certificate, and the translation.

At least, that was my thought at first glance, and then I did a doubletake. The birth certificate wasn’t on white paper like the rest of the report. It was more yellowed than the rest of the pages. I talked to my mom, and she didn’t remember the birth certificate. I’ve decided it’s not a copy. Well, a copy of the original, but the copy that the Nagyalmas government sent, and I put it directly in my school report, to be discovered 27 years later. Brilliant.

About 6-8 weeks ago I ordered the SS-5 for an ancestor of mine. The SS-5 is the Social Security Application form. It finally arrived this weekend. (Link describes what the SS-5 is, and how to order one.)

The SS-5 has a lot of useful information, including where the individual was employed, their address, and names of boh parents, but I ordered it primarily because it is supposed to contain as detailed a place of birth as the applicant knew. I am trying to figure out the town in Russia he was born in. Every other document just says ‘Russia’. He’s one of my Dudelsack ancestors, though he would have had his name changed at age 4.

Unfortunately, by 1936 when Social Security began and he applied, both of his parents were dead, and it turns out he didn’t know the town, so I am still in the dark.

When I first saw the initial theme (family photos) for the Aug 1 Carnival of Genealogy, I noticed nothing wrong with it. Which is strange, since I have written over the years several blog posts involving copyright issues.

For example

1) When Google was sued for copyright violations,
2) The debunking of Poor Man’s Copyright by Snopes and myself.
3) Elvis Presley entering the public domain in Europe
4) Martha Reeves’ complaint to the FTC about Ebay
5) And my own violation of copyright law regarding photographs back in 2003

So I should have spotted the issues involved, but others did.

So the theme got changed to moral/ethical and legal issues we’ve experienced involving genealogy or genea-blogging.

I haven’t been researching my genealogy or genea-blogging very long. But I can think of one issue I’ve faced. I’m putting together a family website with all of the information I’m gathering from my research. It’s password protected so only family members will be able to access it. However, in listening to a tape recording made of Relative A who passed away several years ago, he made a comment about a dispute he had with Relative B. A dispute he claimed caused him to cease speaking with Relative B.

Relative B is still alive. I’m not sure he knows why Relative A stopped speaking with him – for if he did know, I suspect it was a dispute that could easily have been worked out, as I think Relative A was unfortunately misinformed.

I’ve decided there is no good that can come of putting the information on the website. Or of telling Relative B, since the dispute can no longer be resolved, and it’s even possible Relative A exaggerated a bit on the tape when they said they had ceased speaking with Relative B. It’s possible Relative B never knew Relative A was upset, and if so, I have no desire to inform him now.

It’s on the tape. Several others have copies of the tape if they wish to listen to it. It’s not like I’m burying the information. And it’s the only family dispute of this nature that I am aware of. I knew Relative A well, and the idea he would cease speaking to anyone over anger is surprising – but as I said, if he wasn’t exaggerating, I think he was misinformed about an action Relative B took.

Obviously, I also faced an issue of how much to say in this post.

On a mailing list a couple weeks ago, we were discussing who had famous relatives. I brought up my questionable oneworldtree genealogy of course.

In the past day a couple newcomers added to the thread. One said he was related through marriage to Mary Todd Lincoln.

I thought about the obvious joke “You’re married to Mary Todd Lincoln?”

But came up with a better response.

“Through marriage I’m related to Jesus. My second cousin, once removed, is a nun.”

Well, she is.

Apparently a poet is putting up a new form of poetry around Manhattan. He is calling himself “Nick Beef” which is a reference to an empty grave next to the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald.

(Click to enlarge)

The words in Beef’s dieku above aren’t just references to chess pieces but to actual moves that can lead to a checkmate.

(source)

more dieku (including one that attacks my 10th cousin)

Genogram of the main characters from the Harry Potter series of books.

(Doesn’t, yet, as I can see, include spoilers for Book 7. But I don’t know when they will update it.)

There are actually several references to genealogy made in the final book.

I don’t believe that the sins of a First cousin, five times removed should be visited on someone, even if they happen to share your name.

source.

I certainly don’t believe that the sins of a tenth cousin should be visited on someone. As that describes W’s relationship to me, according to One World Tree. (Have I neglected to mention this before when talking about Chaucer?)

Five names from various census databases at ancestry.com
Some may think the names sound somewhat familiar.

Louis Malfoy
Scotland, 1871
Age: abt 12

Arthur Weasley
US, 1920
Age: abt 25

Peter Voldemior
US 1900
Age 56

Septima Snape
England 1891
Age 24

Harry Potter (father named James)
England, 1901
Age: abt 1

Update: Changed a couple of the names because I liked them better.

Due to my recent interest in genealogy, you can imagine my glee to discover a recent exposé of the Apple IPhone’s 1983 ancestor, along with a photo album containing pictures of several family members, courtesy of the son of Hartmutt Eslinger, who designed the Apple IIc.

(Yes…this is real. Don’t expect funny pictures. Expect geeky pictures. Though the 1983 SmartPhone has its humor due to age.)

This is my favorite Apple family member. A 1984 wireless phone design they apparently considered…but of course never went through with. I remember the size of the early wireless phones, and consider the people walking around today who look like cyborgs, and I think *damn* this is amazing. 1984?!

And no…the idea of categorizing this under genealogy wasn’t my brilliant idea. It was the brilliant idea of Buzztracker. (Which I am sure did it without the aid of any human mind.) You might note in this link that Buzztracker likes me. I have no idea why, but I’m not going to complain.

If you found the information about my family surname interesting, you might find these blog posts interesting as well. Apparently there’s a “Carnival of Genealogy” where bloggers who blog about genealogy post thematically twice a month. Who knew? (maybe me). My favorite of the bunch so far is Cow Hampshire’s post on the surname: LNU. At first glance it looks like an unusual surname, but it is really quite common!

It seems my blog is the only one of the bunch that is Genealogy only part of the time. But that doesn’t seem to be a problem. Probably because I am writing posts in this category during the rest of the month, too. At the beginning of the month the theme was on Independence Day, which was the impetus for my post on Independent Thinking.

So some of you who have followed some of the above links and learned the theme for the next carnival, may be expecting that in a couple weeks you will see a family photograph of some sort on this blog. I’ll try not to disappoint.

Last Tuesday (6 days ago) around 7 am (Central Daylight Time) or 1 pm (British Summer Time) I went online and ordered a marriage certificate from the British General Register Office. (The marriage took place in 1902 in the Great Synagogue of London, for those curious.)

It arrived today. And that, in itself, is impressive, because it took over two weeks to get documents from the Missouri Archives, and you know, I’ve driven to Jefferson City and back in one day. And I received a postcard from the Missouri Archives that initially told me it could take up to 8 weeks. It didn’t, but it could have.

So a six day turnaround from London is impressive. But that’s not the most impressive thing.
The receipt that came with the certificate says the “Despatch Date” was July 16th. I double checked my calendar. Yep. Same-day mail.

Now, someone is going to point out that London is six hours ahead of me. But, OK. Let’s say it was 8 am in London, and 2 am here in St. Louis when they mailed it. For it to be sitting in my mailbox at 5 pm when I return from work is STILL BLOODY IMPRESSIVE! There was an ocean to cross!

The Dudelsack was once perhaps the most widespread bagpipe in Europe. German-speaking people today still often apply the name generically to all bagpipes, though the correct word is “sackpfife” (literally, sackpipe). An ancient instrument, it is seen - sometimes in considerable detail - in a large number of early paintings including some great masterpieces. At some point, probably in the nineteenth century, it seems to have all but vanished. There exists today only one early specimen, in an Austrian museum, and there is some controversy about how old all or parts of that pipe are. Nevertheless it has been possible to reconstruct the Dudelsack through a combination of study of early paintings and music, and today it enjoys a great revival evidenced by many players and numerous makers. - Source

I have ancestors who were named Dudelsack. They were from Poland/Russia, and not Germany, but as the snippet above indicates, the musical instrument was widespread. I’m not sure if it means they were musicians, instrument makers, or whether someone resembled a bagpipe in a appearance. They changed their name when they entered the US.

It’s a pretty rare name. In the US 1920 census, there were 2 Dudelsacks. Jacob, and his wife, Ida. On the ship manifests from the 1880s-1910s, 30-40 different Dudelsacks arrived in the US. It appears only Jacob kept his name. Jacob must have been extremely proud of his ancestry. I have no idea if I’m related; he appears to have come from Austria, and my Dudelsack ancestor didn’t.

The other possible reason for the ‘disappearance’ is that all the Dudelsacks who arrived in the US suffered massive spelling errors on the various census. It’s not an easy name to spell. At Castlegarden.org, my ancestor is listed under ‘Dudersack’, and a possible brother under ‘Dudelsuck’. In the 1920 census, there is one family of Doodlesseks in Massachussets.

**

I was re-reading a few of my April National Poetry Month posts this morning and came across this poem video by Billy Collins:

Of my father’s eight great-grandparents, seven are buried in St. Louis. The other is buried in Poland. All were born in Poland, Russia or Lithuania, and make up the half of me that isn’t TransylvanianDutch.

I’m 38, and until this month, I’d seen none of their graves. No one in my family knew where they were buried, even though the cemetery is two blocks from the cemetery my father’s parents and grandparents are buried at. And in our lives we’ve all driven past the cemetery countless times since it’s at the intersection of two well-traveled streets. My mother tells me that intellectually she knew they immigrated to the US, but never having met them, she thought of them as part of the old country, and it didn’t occur to her to wonder where they were buried. My father has memories of one, from when he was four, but he too didn’t pursue the information.

I don’t blame either of them. If it weren’t for the information on the internet, I wouldn’t have done the research. Easy access to a little information gives encouragement to search harder for more, but when there isn’t easy access to any information, it appears as a mountain, and not everyone has the energy to climb a mountain. I know I don’t.

I wonder briefly what happened, though, that my great-grandparents, the children of the seven, didn’t pass on the burial sites of their parents. Then I remind myself that the only time I’ve been to my great-grandparents’ graves, is when we buried my grandparents. And while my grandfather died in 1992, and grandmother in 2002, I haven’t been back. If I had children, before now, would I have taken them to their graves? Probably not.

I haven’t forgotten my grandparents. I think about them a lot. And I would have passed on stories — as my parents and grandparents have done. I don’t feel I need to visit their graves to pay them respect.

On the other hand, now that I have visited my great-great grandparents’ graves, I know I will go back. I have no memories of them. The one who lived the longest, died 25 years before I was born. Their gravesites are the only thing I have, beyond the bits of data I’ve collected. And as I collect more data, my interest grows.

For a Reform Jewish amateur genealogist, this is the ultimate test of one’s religious education:

With the help of this guide, I succeeded.

Line 1: Here is interred
Line 2: Reb Moshe Leyb, son of
Line 3: Ahron Kruvant.
Line 4: Died five days into
Line 5: the month of Tishrei
Line 6: in the year 5672.
Line 7: May his soul be bound in the bonds of life.

5 Tishrei 5672 = Sept 26-27, 1911.

No indication at all of when he was born. Birth dates aren’t as important in the Jewish tradition.

Those of you who have always wondered what my middle initial “C” stood for…the picture above gives you a huge clue.

In a similar vein to the five I came up with last week, here are five more names from various census reports.

1900 Census - Valjean Churchill – Montgomery PA – Age 2
1850 Census – Javert Miller – Stamford CT – Age 9
1870 Census – Cosette Byron – Rome OH – Age 4
1930 Census – Fantine Borges – Tampa Fl – Age 21
1881 Census – Victor Hugo Hitchcock – Leicestershire England – Age 5

I leave town early tomorrow morning so I am posting this a little earlier than I normally would.

July 1st is Canadian Independence Day, July 4th is US Independence Day. My great-grandfather Barney, when he entered the US for the first time in 1907, wrote down that his nationality was Canadian. He had likely been living there for 3 years. My suspicion is that he misunderstood the question, but it’s possible that he had officially become a Canadian citizen. This may not have been a complicated process since he was already a British citizen, and Canada wasn’t completely independent yet. On my mother’s side I have several relatives who discovered a need to leave the US and enter Canada in the late 1700s. So there is cause for me to celebrate July 1 as well as July 4.

My ancestral lines have never been shy from taking a stand — but we have often stood separately, from each other, and in some cases, from ourselves.

I am a Son of the Confederacy and of The Union. The Civil War was a war between brothers, and it was common that families split down the middle. (Especially in a border state like Missouri, though my ancestors who wore either blue or grey weren’t living here at the time.) I also have ancestors who fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War - loyalists and revolutionaries (link to a poem I wrote several years ago). One ancestor first went to a revolutionary camp, and after a few weeks, bolted, and joined the loyalist Butler’s Rangers. It’s not clear if it was a change of heart/mind, or if he discovered like the lost student he was in the wrong classroom.

Naturally, the Loyalists are those I mentioned above who found the need to speed over to Canada when the war was over.

We weren’t of divided mind during WWII. Both grandfathers and multiple great-uncles fought with the Allied Powers in various theaters. My father lost an uncle in France, and several relatives of my mother, who had remained in Romania, died in the concentration camps. I expect more relatives died there than we know, it’s just that much of our family genealogy stops on the border of the US, and we don’t know who remained. In my mom’s case, there were two survivors who migrated to Israel and started doing the research themselves to find us.

This first through fourth of July myself, my siblings, my parents, uncles, aunts and first-cousins will all be together, celebrating, in Costa Rica. We may not like the current administration, but this is no protest. We gather every few years for a reunion, in different locales, and we sought an extended-holiday weekend to plan around.

At these reunions, my parents’ generation always leads a discussion of family history. Passing on the stories they’ve been told, or have witnessed. I’m going to be expected to speak this year on my recent research. I shouldn’t be nervous; it’s my family. I’ve recited poetry in front of strangers. But then again — strangers are more forgiving (or at least more forgetful) than family.

Music? I don’t listen to music at work.
In the past I’ve done five random books.
But this seemed to be appropriate due to my latest obsession.

Five names from various censi. (I’m not completely sure what type of noun the word ‘census’ comes from, and whether the Latin plural would be censi, not all Latin words that end in ‘us’ are declined in that manner, but what the heck, it sounds erudite.)

Belgium Bonn
Born: about 1915
Home in 1920: Syracuse, NY

Switzerland Savage
Born: about 1910
Home in 1910: Shelby, TN

Madrid Jordan
Born: about 1927
Home in 1930: Chicago, IL

Jerusalem Smith
Born: about 1836
Home in 1841: Warwickshire, England

Nagasaki Iataro
Born ? (age not given in this particular census)
Home in 1900: Kauai Island, Hawaii

Update: For those curious, but not curious enough to look it up, Census is a supine noun, which takes a fourth declension form. So the plural would be ‘census’ as well.

There’s an article in this month’s issue of Smithsonian talking about how ‘genealogy is bunk’. Some bloggers have already talked about it, such as here. Not having read the article, I’m not going to talk about it, except to think about why I have dived so furiously into this activity, and why I enjoy doing this, and why I don’t think it’s silly. (But honestly, being a member of science fiction/fantasy fandom, I am quite used to people thinking my activities are silly. What could possibly be sillier than dressing up as a jester and going to a renaissance festival, or dressing up in a Starfleet Uniform and going to a convention?)

One common accusation is that genealogists are seeking how they are related to Napoleon or Chaucer or Triboulet. Someone reading my blog might assume that is my intent, but actually the ancestral line that might actually tie me to Chaucer if the 20-sided-die rolls an 18 six times in a row is the line I am least interested in researching. I don’t want my mom to be offended by this, but one of her relatives has so researched the heck out of the tree, and has taken it back to the early 1600s, with certainty, there’s nothing left for me to do except try to prove/disprove the line to Chaucer, which is likely impossible, and I would rather just accept it. So if that were my intent, I’d be done.

I’d love to extend the other lines that far, including my maternal grandfather’s line, though it’s not going to happen. In Europe, there was a series of things called Pogroms and one major one called the Holocaust, that among other things destroyed most of the records I would need. And the records that do exist are mostly offline in Europe. I have a relative on my paternal side who has spent fifteen years, and traced one line back to the early 1800s in Lithuania, and it’s a little fuzzy there. She has had to actually go to Lithuania several times and spend weeks researching. In my mind she has set a marker indicating what’s possible with the most extreme effort. And I know I don’t have what it takes to make that effort, so I will just have to do what I can, and see what I find.

Genealogy for me is a puzzle. And one that matters to me personally. I love puzzles, and always have. My paternal grandfather taught/passed on a love for the crossword. As a child I had a subscription to Games magazine. Logic puzzles have always been my favorite though. Drawing the tables, and filling in the Xs from the clues given. No need for any trivial knowledge, just following a series of logical steps until conclusions are reached and the entire table is filled in successfully. That was what I enjoyed most when I was a computer programmer as well – the puzzle of getting the computer to do what you wanted it to do. Figuring out what was going wrong when it always did.

In 1987 my paternal grandfather was interviewed and recorded on his knowledge of family history. He talked about how his father, Barney, would say he was born in England, though my grandfather believed he was really born in Poland, and emigrated to England at 3 or 4. He also ‘knew’ that Barney, a brother, and their father explored North America – visiting Winnipeg, Memphis, and St. Louis before either returning to England, or sending for the rest of the family. There are certainly a lot of details there, but still somewhat fuzzy on particulars. In about a month of research, mostly sitting on my butt in front of a computer terminal, I have found English census records, ship manifests and other records documenting some of their life in England, and the multiple oceancrossings, and of course, raising more questions.

I know now that Barney’s brother Sol didn’t make the initial trip. (Older than Barney, and recently married, I suspect he stayed home as a means of support for the women and children.) The father and son left England in 1904, and were in Winnipeg for 3 years. (That 3 years was one of the bigger surprises; I’m not sure anyone in my family expected that their exploration was that lengthy. Maybe they needed 3 years to earn enough money to make the return trip.) In 1907 they crossed the Canadian border, and that’s how I know how long they’d been in Canada, because the border crossing document includes this information. It also says they’re headed for St. Paul, MN…a surprise…to join a heretofore unknown cousin…and I’m not sure yet if they ever went. I have the ship manifest from 1908 when they returned, with Sol, at Ellis Island. So obviously they weren’t in the US long. And the ship manifest when the wives and children arrived five months later. All the Ellis Island records say they’re headed for Memphis. And the 1909 one includes an address the father and two sons were now allegedly living at in Memphis. However, one month later, Sol’s wife gives birth in St. Louis. And in 1910 (the census) all of them are clearly in St. Louis. So there are a lot of questions I have about the immigration to America, but a lot of the pieces are also falling into place, and my family knows a lot more than it used to.

Does this information matter? Not in the grand scheme of things. But if we want to get philosophical – nothing matters. Nothing at all. The Earth will continue rotating on its axis until the universe comes to an end. Instead of getting all depressed about this, and committing mass suicide – paralleling Disney’s false portrayal of lemmings – cheer up! Real lemmings don’t act that way, and neither should humans! Life is what we make of it. So we should all do what we enjoy. Though it’s nice to do what we enjoy, while also thinking about those that are going to follow us. I know I have an interest in the lives of my ancestors. I consider it likely that one or more of my descendants (either direct if I am lucky, or through my brother/cousins if not) will be grateful for the research and archiving I do now.

I never knew Mandell, my great-uncle, the youngest son of Barney. He fought in WWII, just like his older two brothers. However, he didn’t return home. I’ve known for awhile that my uncle had Mandell’s war journal. And I’ve mentioned to him I’d like to read it. Last time I said this was a couple years ago when he wrote a poem based on his own reading of the journal, and showed the poem to me. He said sure. My uncle and I have a similar personality in that we are both forgetful, and if you want something from us, you sometimes need to be persistent. And I haven’t been. It was always something I could ask for again later.

In a conversation with my mother Sunday night, I discovered she had a photocopy of the journal. So I went home from Father’s Day dinner with it. Mandell’s handwriting was better than my own. But a chimpanzee’s handwriting is better than my own. Luckily, his was better than a chimpanzee’s too, but it’s still not the most legible at points. Of course, he wasn’t writing under the best of circumstances.

It looks like a journal that was ’standard issue’ because there were predefined spots to write down names/addresses of ‘buddies’ and dates to remember (birthdays/anniversaries) of family back home. Every page has a quote from someone famous on courage or heroism or such. There was a spot in the front that said “The following pages contain the diary of my life in the service. This simple record of my daily experiences and thoughts has given me pleasure in the writing of it. If for any reason it leaves my possession, I would like to have it forwarded to: “. The addressee was “B. Newmark” - which could be either his father Barney, or mother Bertha.

Note: Obviously in the 40s there was no gender-connotation to the word ‘diary’

So far I’ve made two other linguistic notations. The slang term PO’d was already in use in the 1940s (And Mandell thought it was an appropriate term to associate with ‘APO’) and he refers to a beer as “Green Death”. Apparently this term has long been associated with Rainier beer, and one of his buddies was from Seattle Washington, so even if it wasn’t referring to Rainier in particular, its possible the Seattlian introduced him to the term.

I may include some excerpts here I don’t know how many people care about what life was like in the army in the 1940s for a relative of mine, but then again, perhaps more than those who care about my views on George W.

Here is the direct lineage of Catherine the Great to Henry David Thoreau — according to OneWorldTree

I don’t see any issues with it - do you?

Sure … 19 generations is a lot to go through between 1729 and 1817, but here is how it works:

Catherine the Great
(1729-1796)

Paul I Romanov
(1754-1801)

Marie Pavlovna Romanov
(1786-1859)

Marie Von Saxe Weimar Eisenach

(1808-1877)

Friedrich Karl Hohenzollern
(1828-1885)

Louise Margaret
(1860-1917)

Patricia Helen Windsor
(1886-1974)

Alexander Arthur Ramsey
(1919-2000)

Agnes Ramsay
(1372-)

William Urquhart
(1411-1475)

Alexander Urquhart
(1445-1503)

Agnes Urquhart
(1885-1956)

Hugh Rose
(1505-1597)

Janet Rose
(1537-)

Mark Dunbar
(-1642)

Ninian Dunbar
(1575-1693)

Robert Dunbar
(1630-1693)

Peter Dunbar
(1668-1719)

Samuel Dunbar
(1704-1786)

Asa Dunbar
(1745-1787)

Cynthia Dunbar
(1787-1872)

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)

Of course, as I’ve said before, when discussing the case of Lucy and Desi, this doesn’t mean I’m not descended from Chaucer. Some of the linkages they come up with are bound to be correct — so mine could be one of those.

Some of you may be familiar with the ’sport’ of Googlewhacking where you search for two words that exist in Google’s dictionary, but when used together in a search yield only one result.

Genea-Musings talks about “Census Whacking” Searching an online census for a given name that only one person has, or a surname that only one household has.

I thought I’d give it a try and I actually discovered five people in the 1930 census named Balaam, four named Belgium, and 820 named CAIN. OK, yes, that is a biblical name. But 820 parents who thought “Hey, let’s name our kid after Cain!” So, of course I had to check:

Satan - 21 people.
Lucifer - 7 people.
Beelzebub - 0 (whew!)
F_ck - 3 people! (no kidding!)
Slartibartfast - 0 (not surprising)
Trillian - 1 !

My first Census Whack!
Trillian McDaniel - age 11 in 1930 - lived in Nowata Nowata OK (I think whoever named the town was thirsty)

Some other related discoveries in the 1930 census

Arthur Dent - 26 people
Ford Prefect - 0

As I noted a couple months ago I’ve been doing some genealogical research. It’s been fun. Beyond discovering I’m maybe, perhaps, possibly descended from Chaucer.

This past week I added an entire branch to part of the family tree. The brother of a great-great grandmother, and all his descendents. Beforehand all I knew was the name of the brother.

That’s rather exciting, and several of these new cousins live in Chicago, which isn’t too far. I see a possible reunion at a Cards-Cubs game in the future.

Somewhat sadder has been the death certificates I’ve found of great-great aunts and uncles who never made it out of childhood. A common occurrence in the first half of the twentieth century. But either having blocked it from their mind, or not wanting to pass on the painful memories, the parents and siblings never said anything to their children and grandchildren, so the names were completely lost, until uncovered in Missouri’s online archives.

I must say I am really impressed with the archives. They’re scanning in every death certificate from 1910-1956. (And I have the impression that in 2008 they will add 1957, etc) They have some records prior to 1910, but counties weren’t required to keep them prior to 1910, so the archives are a little spotty. Those that aren’t scanned in yet, can be ordered for $1/copy. Compare this to Illinois, where nothing is scanned in, and ordering a copy costs $10. Those copies can add up when you’re doing a lot of research.

It sounds gruesome to be ordering death certificates of your ancestors, but they contain information such as the names of parents, date of birth, and cause of death.

Another great resource has been census forms. In the US they’re available online through 1930. There’s a federal law making them private for 72 years, so 1940s won’t be released until 2012. Genea-Musings has some tips on searching the census databases, since the information was spoken from the individual to the census-taker, and then handwritten, so the indexing of names wasn’t 100% accurate where spelling is concerned. Phonetic spelling of names aren’t uncommon.

One of my most interesting discoveries, I think, is the sister-in-law of my Great-grandfather Barney. The faux-Irish great grandfather I’ve mentioned before. His brother married Sarah Nathan while they were still in England. That was the name in the British Marriage Index. I have every reason to believe that is the name she went by — so lets call it her maiden name. However, her father wasn’t named Nathan. OK, yes, her father’s name was Nathan. First name. She was “Sarah daughter of Nathan” without the “daughter of” which is really confusing for research. And this wouldn’t be all that surprising if we were talking 19th century Europe and not 20th century England. Of course, her parents were 19th century Europe. Luckily her death certificate didn’t ask for her maiden name, but asked for her father’s name. So with that information, I went to the 1901 England census, and found all her brothers and sisters. Because the English census taker, obviously, asked the father for his name, and then assigned the last name to everyone. Why wouldn’t he?

In order to get the right answer, you need to ask the right question.

Lucille Ball is listed as the grandmother of her husband, Desi.

When you look at the details, it inserts someone inbetween them, and all it says is “Living ___” where ___ is a last name that’s irrelevant, but obviously someone had a little fun and said that Lucille was their mother, and Desi their son. It’s kind of like WikiAncestry, but there’s no one correcting the vandals.

That doesn’t disprove anything though.

As I mentioned a few weeks ago I think I’m descended from Chaucer

I was asked in the comments if I’ve verified this, and I admitted, I’m not sure how to. One idea was to find out which of my famous cousins are related to each other according to this website, and then hope others might be intrigued and do the research on them. Because I certainly don’t want to do the legwork when all it can do is disprove the theory, because I already believe it.

So in that regard, according to OneWorldTree:

Emily Dickinson is the 7th great grandchild of Alice Lambert who lived between 1554-1620.
Henry David Thoreau is the 6th great grandchild of Alice Lambert.

Shirley Temple is the 8th-great grandchild of Elizabeth Stoughton, who lived between 1600-1647
Ray Bradbury is the 9th-great grandchild of Elizabeth Stoughton.

I should also mention that Shirley Temple, according to OneWorldTree is the 15th great grandchild of Chaucer, and cousin to O Henry and Walt Whitman, neither of whom are my cousins, so it doesn’t help me or hurt me if you prove or disprove that. I’m not descended from Shirley, but we are supposedly cousins, which makes sense, if we are both directly descended from Chaucer.

Interestingly, their “Famous Relative” script only works it’s way up from the first person, because when I ask for famous relatives of Chaucer, it comes up blank. It should at least list Shirley.

While it doesn’t help me, I’d love to know if Humphry Bogart’s 7th great grandfather is really John Alden of Mayflower fame.

Or if Henry David Thoreau is really descended from Romanovs, and is first cousins (22 times removed) with Empress Anna of Russia

Well…having exhausted research on one branch of my family tree (my father’s), I went to my mother’s. Her family, especially the ones that came over from Holland in the 1600-1700s have done a great job of tracking their ancestry.

Ancestry.com has this thing called One-World-Tree, where everyone enters their trees, and thus there’s a chance of trees combining.

I found my mother’s mother on this One-World-Tree and then asked them the question: Any Famous Relatives?

I nearly fainted with the results.

Presidents: Ford, Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Fillmore
Entertainers: Elvis Presley, Shirley Temple, Humphrey Bogart
Writers: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury

But all of these are distant cousins, several times removed. Fun, but not the cherry at the top of this Sundae.

My 18th Great Grandfather (YES! 18th!) lived from 1343 - 1400. He wrote poetry. I’m going to say no more. You can look it up on Google. 1343 1400 poet. Top results. There was only one person living from 1343-1400 writing poetry that I would be this excited about anyway. Yes. Him!

I know this is completely dependent upon the fact that everyone involved entered their family tree correctly. Shush!

I am SO including this in every bio I send to editors from now on!

A friend of mine got me interested in researching my genealogy online. My family has actually already been pretty good about this, asking elder members about what they know while they’re still around to tell us. So as many census forms, ship passenger lists, and military records I have found, it hasn’t extended the chart another generation yet. But as my mother told me recently, it’s nice to have the documentation confirming what we thought.

My most recent find was a 1901 census from England containing my great-great grandparents and their children: Barney and his siblings. (Barney - The not-so-Irish great-grandfather born on March 17th.) I love England’s census forms. They have one piece of data US census forms don’t have. Street address. Sure, it’s irrelevant trivia…except next time I’m in London I know what street to walk down.

For those of my readers familiar with London (and I know there are at least a couple) they lived in Marylebone, now part of Westminster, at 56 Wells Street, not too far from Hyde and Regent’s parks. (Yes, I looked it up on Google Maps). Apparently it’s part of the Soho/Noho area. Maybe while I’m walking down the street, I’ll eat some sushi.

Barney claimed in the bio he submitted to Who’s Who in North St. Louis - 1925 that he learned tailoring “at the London Polytechnic” and was “a student at Oxford.”

What is now Westminster University at that time was under the name of Regent Street Polytechnic, and was located at 309 Regent Street. Locals probably just called it Polytechnic, since that was a prior name, and it was at that time part of London. It’s only four to five blocks from where he lived, which got me to research the school a bit more.

My family has chuckled at the idea of him attending college when he probably never finished high school. But as it turns out, I think we may have been unfair. Regent Street Polytechnic’s founder, Quintin Hogg, had a mission “to provide for the athletic, intellectual, social and religious needs of young men, and to this end he provided a range of sporting and social facilities as well as an increasing range of educational and vocational classes.” It appears he received his training from a charitable institution not too much different from the one his great-grandson works for today.

Now, to his claim that he was a “student at Oxford.” He doesn’t say Oxford ‘College’ or ‘University’, which helps more than you might imagine. Oxford England is about sixty miles away, however, a quick look at the maps linked to above, and Wells Street intersects with Oxford Street, a few blocks from where the Oxford Circus underground stop is today, and was in 1901, though then it was part of the Central London Railway.

So it seems likely that Barney was a ’student of life’ on Oxford Street.

In a couple days I’ll be in Dogtown, wearing the green, to honor my great-grandfather, who was born on March 17th. (The below is from a 1925 Who’s Who in North St. Louis)

My great-grandfather fibbed a bit, and he wasn’t exactly from Dublin. He was from a nearby town. Here’s how Google responds when I ask for driving directions from my great-grandfather’s hometown to Dublin.

Geographically, the rest of the bio is true. Though the scholastic parts of this curricula vitae are also exaggerated. Fortunately for my grandfather, he lived in a day where it wasn’t very easy to look these things up, so one could get away with a few embellishments.

My mother’s father would have been 100 years old today. On February 28, 1907, my grandfather was born in a small town in Romania/Transylvania called Varalmas. (aka AlmaÅŸu Mare)

Latitude: 46.950
Longitude: 23.133

(These numbers are taken from the website above. Add the digits together, and you get 36. Admittedly, some take longitude to a few more decimal places. But as long as you take it to 6 (or a multiple of 6) more decimal places, the sum is still a multiple of 18)

I have many fond memories of my grandfather.

* He taught me how to bowl. As some of you know, I don’t bowl extraordinarily well. That isn’t his fault. I recall him bowling over 200.

* He was always interested in new technology. In 1982 he bought me, my siblings, and my parents our first computer. A Commodore 64. Ironically (oh, yes, I’m pretty sure this is ironic) I was very loyal to the Commodore, and I swore at that time I would never own an Apple.

* He exercised by jogging around his basement, and always insisted on shoveling his own driveway during the winter — with a cast iron shovel. I have two ten-pound weights of his, which he used much more than I have.

* I remember eating waffles for dinner at my grandparents’ house, and he was the one who cooked them. I loved the idea of waffles for dinner. (He also had a Presto Sandwich maker, which I thought was cool. My mom made sandwiches in a toaster oven.)

* I’m told by my Mom, as a young man in Chicago, at Fort Sheridan, he served in the ‘Cavalry‘ in its final days. He had a cavalry sword engraved with a Star of David. After WWII he retired from the Air Force at the rank of Lt. Col.

update: For the numerologically inclined, you will note in the map above there is a highway (or whatever the Romanian term) near Varalmas. It happens to be numbered E60. You know how 64 becomes 40 when you crossover from Illinois to Missouri? Well if you follow E60 west over the Hungary (Magyarorszag) border and zoom in you will notice that E60 becomes 42. Cool? Yes, I know there are millions of numbers that I come into contact with every day, and I just make note of the numbers when they mean something to me.