Sunday, June 12, 2022

Loving Day

June 12 is called Loving Day in commemoration of the day in 1967 that the United States Supreme Court struck down the heinous laws against miscegenation that were in effect in yet sixteen of the states of this country, preventing people who loved each other from marrying strictly on the basis of the color of their skin not being the same.

The judge who ruled against the Lovings when they were living as a married couple in Virginia in 1958, causing them to take their case all the way to the Supreme Court, stated, "Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay, and red, and he placed them on separate continents.  And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages.  The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."

Today for Loving Day I want to honor Yang Xianyi and Gladys Margaret Taylor, who married in 1941 in China but who might not have been able to marry in some of those sixteen U.S. states.  They remained married until Gladys died in 1999.



Saturday, June 11, 2022

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Genealogy Search/Research Did You Do Last Week?

I'm very happy that Randy is now feeling healthy enough to resume posting on his blog, but I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't catch up with any additional old posts yet.  I'll just keep trying!  Here is this week's challenge:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music here) is:

1.  What genealogy search/research did you do last week?  Did you have a research goal or plan?  Tell us about one or more search/research session.

2.  Write your own blog post or add your response as a comment to this blog post or in a Facebook Status post or note.

Aw, man!  Well, I didn't do much this week, but I did do a little research.

I worked some more on finding people in the 1950 census, not for my own family, but for that of a friend.  He had remembered that a cousin had put together a short family history and finally dug it out.  Based on the mostly accurate information in it, I was able to find my friend's great-grandmother and her second husband in the 1930 and 1940 censuses and then the second husband as a widower in the 1950 census.  I discovered they were Germans from Russia, which I actually have a fair amount of experience researching.  Now I'm hunting for them in Canada in earlier records.

The other research I did was trying to figure out how a DNA cousin who showed up on Ancestry is connected to me.  I have a total failure there so far.  The surname doesn't appear anywhere in my family tree, and I can't find any connections yet.

Obviously I am far behind Randy in my accomplishments this week!