Ancestral Discoveries

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Share a Recent Genealogy Find about an Ancestor or Family

I have found several cool things recently, but one in particular stands out, and that's what I'll write about for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1. Share a recent genealogy find about an ancestor or family, such as a new name, document, or even a clue toward cracking a brick wall.

2. Tell us about your recent genealogy find in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post. Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic — I will probably use it again!]

This is another time when the coolest discovery I made recently wasn't for my own family.

My sister and her significant other were in Greece last year. I did not know this until then, but his grandfather immigrated to the United States from Greece. My sister told me there has always been a big mystery about what his name was originally and where he was born, partly because he told different stories at different times to different people. Could I find anything?

Well, I didn't find anything at the time, but I continued to look. And a new resource that I learned about provided a huge clue.

Lara Diamond, who has a blog called Lara's Jewnealogy, wrote not too long ago about a new index on the National Archives site. It's an index to Alien Registration forms (AR-2's) from World War II.

Nonnaturalized aliens in the United States were required to fill out AR-2's under the Alien Registration Act of 1940. Information requested included facts such as where the person was born, mother's name including maiden name, and all names the alien had used. A brilliant feature of the index is that once you find someone under one name and have an A number, you can then search for that number and find how many names are listed for it, which can help you verify whether it's for the person you want.

So I searched for James Thomas in Ohio (because he lived in Cincinnati) with his rough year of birth and had one relevant result. When I searched for that person's A number in a subsequent search, I had two results: James Thomas and Dems Tomas. (I'm pretty sure Dems will turn out to be Demetrios.) There's no real doubt this is the person I was looking for. And I was able to deliver the news on the significant other's birthday, no less! How is that for a great birthday present?

I actually did find some cool things in the index for my own family. My great-great-grandfather, whom I knew had never naturalized, is in there, as is his cousin. For both of them I have their father's names and their mother's given names but no maiden names. So now I'm saving my money to order the two forms ($17 each, which is almost a steal considering the great information).

Oh! And I just thought of someone else I need to look up!

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

My 14th Blogiversary!

Today is my 14th blogiversary — the 14th anniversary of the day that I began my blog. And it's amazing to me that I am still writing a blog! Me, the person who hates to write. So I started thinking about why I am still doing it.

It comes down to the fact that I like to tell stories. Admittedly, I prefer saying them to writing them, but I don't reach as many people that way. And writing is in many ways a more permanent method of sharing them.

Yes, I know that the Internet is a very impermanent thing. What's here today can be gone tomorrow, and often is. But I download and save my blog (semi)regularly, and blogs have a tendency to stay around even after they've been abandoned by their authors. So I think it'll hang around for a while.

And I have been able to share! I discovered that several of my family members actually read my posts and sometimes even comment on them. Plus some of my genealogy colleagues do also. Occasionally random people find me and have something to add.

In some ways having the blog isn't that difficult, because I can write about anything I want. But in some ways it is, because I actually have to sit down and write. I have lots of ideas, but during the past few years I've had many health issues, and they've often interfered with the process of getting the idea onto the computer. I think I'm finally coming out of that now, and last year I wrote more than the two previous years combined. I was able to complete the series about births, marriages, and deaths in my family. And I still have even more things I want to write about and more research to do!

Like all writers, I have posts that work and that people respond to, and others that seem to just fade into the background. But that's the nature of the beast. I'm happy when I get those responses, but I don't allow myself to be crushed when I don't.

And it wouldn't be my blogiversary if I didn't mention Lisa Hork Gorrell, who started her blog on the same day I did, lo these many years ago. Congratulations, Lisa! We're both still writing!

"14" image by b0red and used under the Pixabay Content License.

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Three Grandmothers with the Same Birthday

It's easy to say that something is against the odds, but how do you determine the odds?

I've read about statistics that once you get something like 50 people together in one place, it's almost guaranteed that two of them will have the same birthday. (I've read it, but I still don't understand it.) But what about when you're dealing with only two or three people? The odds have to be much lower, right?

Yet low odds are not impossible odds.

For our example here, we have my half-sister, Laurie.

We have the same father, so we share a paternal grandmother. Anna Gauntt was born January 14, 1893.

Laurie's maternal grandmother, Louise Elsie Gaynor, was born January 14, 1903.

Okay, all you statisticians out there, can we figure out the odds of that happening?

But I'll go one step further.

Our paternal grandfather married twice after living with our grandmother. His third wife, to whom he was married before I was born, and who can reasonably be called our stepgrandmother (my mother certainly always told me to call her Grandma), was Adelle Cordelia Taylor. And she was born January 14, 1914.

What are the odds on that particular situation? I certainly don't know. Maybe our brother or sister-in-law can figure it out. They're the mathematicians in the family. Which I realize is not the same as a statistician, but it's the closest we have.

So today, on January 14, I'll wish a happy birthday in heaven to three of my sister's grandmothers.

This is the type of thing I noticed while going through a year's worth of births, marriages, and deaths in my family.

Family historians are a strange breed.

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Do You Have a Digital Genealogy Library?

This week's challenge from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is much more straightforward than some recent ones.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1. Do you have a digital genealogy library? If so, what titles are in it? If not, why not?

2. Tell us about your digital genealogy library in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post. Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for this suggested topic.]

I definitely have a digital genealogy library. I unfortunately can't easily tell you the titles because I don't have a digital library catalog to go along with it. But I can do a general breakdown along the lines of Randy's.

• I have a digital folder named Reference Information. Within it are about 150 subfolders with broad categories such as Adoption, Black Research, California (and many other locations), DNA, History, Journals/Newsletters, Libraries and Archives, Paleography, Photographs, Prison Records, Source Citations, and Women. Within each of those folders can be a variety of items, such as articles, photographs, and PDF's of books. A folder can have as few as two items (because I only create a folder for a subject after I have at least two items for that subject) but no real limit for a maximum. I sometimes will create subfolders if I have a lot of a specific type of resource. I have a lot of public domain city directory PDF downloads in this folder under specific locations; they're usually in subfolders. The Journals/Newsletters folder has a subfolder for each journal and newsletter I receive electronically.

• I have another folder named Research Aids. These are things such as indices, instructions on how to complete a procedure, guides for using sites, and info on converting coordinates.

• I have folders for each of my family surnames and the surnames of extended family and friends for whom I continue to do research. Along with documents and photographs relating to a given surname, I have some books and articles relating to specific surnames which are filed in the appropriate folders.

• I have a folder for Education. It holds conference handouts and programs, syllabi, and recordings of presentations.

• I have a folder for my presentations and handouts, although I'm not sure I was counting that as part of my digital library. I guess I should, though, huh? It's about genealogy and it's digital.

That is a good representation of the majority of my genealogy digital library. I have a lot of files taking up lots of disk space, that's for sure. I'm not into downloading movies or TV series, and I don't play computer games anymore, so I had to find something to fill my hard drives.

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Wordless Wednesday

Monday, January 6, 2025

Thank You, and You, and You

Coming out of COVID, I really fell behind on posting on my blog, including for such things as thank yous. Having been raised by my mother to tell people thank you, I have felt very guilty about this. So I'm going to catch up on my thank yous from 2022 and 2023 and include them with those from 2024.

First I want to thank all those groups that invited me to be a genealogy speaker. I am honored that you felt that I had information worth sharing with your members and attendees, and I appreciate you having chosen me.

I was mostly able to maintain my genealogy volunteer work. It's very rewarding being able to give back to a field so near and dear to me. My health definitely was a factor in my level of involvement, but since so much was (and still is!) remote, I kept plugging along. So a big thank you to the people I worked with at the Gresham FamilySearch Center, Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon, Genealogical Forum of Oregon in general and the African American Special Interest Group in particular, San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, and (new for me last year) Geneabloggers.

Last on my list but most decidedly not least, thank you to the readers of my blog. It's rewarding to know that people find it worth spending their time reading my comments and reflections on this incredibly engrossing pastime that we share. I particularly appreciate when you write to me, online and offline, with your comments and feedback. I hope you find this year's posts interesting as well.

Graphic created by WiR Pixs.

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Seven Birds for National Bird Day

I'm still working on that photo bonanza I received from my sister. Among the thousands of photographs my father took, many were of birds that came to visit a bird feeder in his back yard. I thought National Bird Day was a good way to showcase some of those.

Because my father did not label or identify any of his photos, I don't know when any of these were taken. The Florida Panhandle can routinely have below-freezing temperatures in winter, so they probably were not taken then.

I freely admit that I was unable to identify a single one of these birds on my own (now, if they had been macaws, I might have gotten somewhere). I used Google Lens for all of the ID's. If Google Lens has made a mistake (maybe the Old World sparrow?), please let me know.

Google Lens is not without its quirks. It decides what to focus on and then identifies that part of your image. In the photo of the house finches, they apparently were not exciting enough for Google. Instead of the birds, it focused on the green teardrop-shaped opening in the bird feeder — which it told me was a Jaguar engine mount. I had to crop out almost that entire section before Google finally found the birds.