Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Maps Have You Found Recently?

Today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver will be extra fun, because the topic is one I love a lot!

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

1.  Do you collect maps of the places that you have ancestors or family?  I do!  I love maps.  And have so many places!

2.  Tell us about a recent map find for your genealogy and family history (it could be any time) and where you found it.  Share the map and a comment on your own blog, or in a Facebook Status  post, and share a link on this post.

I collection maps and atlases in general, especially vintage ones that show earlier names of locations.  I love looking at and reading maps.  I guess I have to fudge a little bit for today's challenge, though.  I have found several maps recently that caught my attention, but I think only one of them has something to do with my own genealogy and family history.  But they're interesting!

360 Cornwall

This is a virtual map of Cornwall with more than 250 locations featured with aerial 360° views.  While it appears to be designed primarily as a way to attract tourist interest, the locations include heritage sites, and it looks cool.  And since my Dunstan family line, which so far I have only in Manchester, is supposed to have originated in Cornwall, that makes this related to my family history.  It's available online and as both Apple and Android apps.  (I chose the image of Penzance because I've actually been there.)

Aerial Montana

Another site with aerial photography is Aerial Montana, which features a map with indexed locations of photographs dating from the 1930's through the 1970's.  The photographs were taken by the U.S. Forest Service of land in the Forest Service Northern Region, primarily western Montana and northern Idaho.  While the photograph collection has tens of thousands of aerial images, the focus has been on digitizing those from the 1930's and making them available.  The map indicates latitude and longitude of about 31,000 images, of which 3,500 are currently online.  An article with background information about the collection can be found here.

Missoula, Montana, 1937

Civil Code in French-speaking Jurisdictions Worldwide

You might not expect to find a map in a Law Library of Congress blog post, but that's where this one came from.  There are apparently 29 jurisdictions in the world that include French as an official language.  The map shows which of those locations still use the French civil law system and how they apply it, whether by itself or in combination with another legal system.  Two countries, Mauretania and Niger, use French civil law and sharia law, which is an interesting combination.  I found this map fascinating because most of the places that are using the French civil law system are former colonies, so it shows history also.

Synchronized Napoleonic Map

I have read about people using Google Maps overlays with historic maps, including in family history.  This is the same idea, with the focus on a 1797 map about southern Germany produced during the Napoleonic wars.  The article to which I've linked, which was published on a Hungarian university site, states that "Hungary is a main provider in the publication of . . . georeferenced maps of the Napoleonic era."  I don't know if that's accurate or if they said it because they're promoting themselves.  I found the topic particularly interesting because I used to be an editor for a magazine about the Napoleonic wars.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Favorite Genealogy-related YouTube Channels

This week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver has us watching online videos, or at least discussing them.

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

1.  Do you watch YouTube videos on a regular basis?  What are your favorite YouTube channels for genealogy research?

2.  Tell us about your favorite YouTube channels 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.

Well, as usual, I'm an underachiever compared to Randy.  I am subscribed to only 29 YouTube channels total.  I am still not a huge fan of watching videos online, even after all these years of Zooming, so I have to admit I do not watch "regularly."

Of those 29 channels, four are not related to genealogy at all.  (What?  Something in my life that isn't genealogy??)  Of the remaining 25, my favorites are:

• Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.  They cover such a wide range of genealogical topics at ACPL that there is bound to be something related to your research.  I love that almost all of their presentations are available freely on YouTube afterward.

• Truckee Meadows Community College Library Open Genealogy Lab.  This is another place that has a wide range of topics.  When you sign up for their notification list, you also receive the summary after the presentations, including links that were shared, and announcements about upcoming talks from other organizations.

• Los Angeles Public Library Genealogy Garage.  Where else can you find recorded presentations on Armenian, Black, Chinese, Jamaican, and Scottish research?

• Partnership of Historic Bostons.  I enjoy these because while it's a narrow focus (Boston), it covers so much and the topics are so interesting.  I don't even have any Boston research right now, but I love their talks.

• Backlog Archivists and Historians.  I like Backlog's perspective.  These are professional archivists covering interesting subjects related to genealogy, such as handwriting.

• JewishGen.org.  Since Jewish research is one of my focuses, it makes sense that I would have a couple of Jewish channels on my list.  JewishGen is still considered the home of Jewish genealogy online, especially since it improved its coverage of non-Ashkenazi Jews.  Most of its weekly talks are later made available on the YouTube channel.

• YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.  This is focused on Ashkenazi Jews and topics beyond genealogy, but with more than 800 videos, there is so much you can learn here.

Like Randy, I prefer video to Podcasts, but overall I prefer reading to video.  I learn much better when I see the words.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Is Your Significant Other's Matrilineal Line?

Well, this is an interesting challenge today from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  Have you worked on the matrilineal line of your significant other?  Who are the mothers of the mothers of your significant other?

2.  Tell us about that matrilineal line 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.

I haven't researched the family history of my ex for some time now, but I did get a few generations back.

My ex is Hugh Kartar Singh (1951– ), born in Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California, son of Karm Singh (about 1906–1984) and Mary Margaret McKenney (1914–1993).  His matrilineal line, as far as I have researched it, is:

• Mary Margaret McKenney (1914–1993), born in Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, daughter of Hugh Vincent McKenney (about 1886–1961) and Honora McSweeney (about 1879–1958).

• Honora McSweeney (about 1879–1958), born in Ireland (probably in Ballyvourney, County Cork), daughter of John McSweeney (about 1826–1911) and Catherine O'Leary (about 1834–1921).

• Catherine O'Leary (about 1834–1921), born in Ireland (possibly in Ballyvourney, County Cork), daughter of Arthur O'Leary (?–?) and Nora (Honora?) Twomey (?–?).

And that's all I have.  No research into Irish records as of yet and no DNA info.  My older stepson was interested in his family history for a while, but that petered out and so far has not yet reignited.  My younger stepson has not shown any interest to date.  And so far none of the grandchildren has expressed an interest.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Have You Made Progress on Your 2024 Genealogy Goals?

Let's see how well I'm doing on my genealogy plans for this year, since Randy Seaver has made that the challenge for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  Marian B. Wood wrote a blog post, Halfway through 2024:  Genealogy Progress and Plans, to assess her progress to date in 2024.  This is an excellent idea for an SNGF challenge.

2.  How are you doing with your genealogy goals for 2024?  If you did not make goals for 2024, what goals do you hope to achieve in the rest of the year?

3.  Tell us about your goals 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.

Not going to color-code mine as Randy did.  I think I'll use bold and indentation instead.

I wrote about my 2024 genealogy goals in January (coincidentally, for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post) here, in case you want to read the original post.

I set six goals for myself.

• Get back to posting regularly on my blog. 👍

    • Status:  Definitely improved over last year!  In 2023 I had a grand total of only 33 posts, and I already have 47 posts this year (not counting this one), before the end of June.  I'd say I'm doing quite well on this goal.

• Finish going through scans of the photo bonanza from my sister. 👍

    • Status:  I have done some more labeling of photos, but I have a long way to go.  I know I will need assistance in identifying all the cars my father took photos of, but someone has volunteered to help me with that.  So I'm doing okay on this goal, but I need to make sure I don't let myself slack off.

• Pursue more research on the man who is possibly the child my aunt gave up for adoption (and at least seems to be related to our family). 😟

    • Status:  I haven't done anything with this project yet this year, so I better get a move on.

• Finish posting the rest of the family events from my family tree database.

    • Status:  I'm not behind on this, since I need to pick it up again in November.  It's on my calendar, but it's another thing I need to keep track of and not slip up as I did the past two years.

• Do more research on finding my biological great-grandfather. 😟

    • Status:  I haven't done anything with this yet this year.  I know I need help at this point.  I've determined that trying to find a descendant of my prime candidate isn't going to be particularly helpful.  I did have someone offer to help with looking at the DNA trail, so I need to ask her if she's still willing.  And I still need to pursue trying to find a photograph of Mr. X to see if there's an obvious resemblance, which wouldn't hurt.

• Create some new genealogy presentations I've been thinking about. 👍

    • Status:  I already have accomplished this by creating one new talk about the U.S. census, and I know I'll be making another new presentation soon, because I'm committed to giving a talk about New York newspapers for the New York State Family History Conference in September.  So this goal also is in good shape.

When I posted my goals in January, I was worried that maybe I was being a little too ambitious.  Now that I've put all this down in writing, however, I feel pretty good about how well I'm doing.  Three are good and one hasn't come up yet on the calendar.  I do need to knuckle down on the other two, though.

And I need to thank Marian for having cute little icons I could copy and use in my post!

Did You Ever Use a Typewriter?

IBM Selectric II
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

I discovered that June 23 is celebrated as National Typewriter Day (or sometimes just as Typewriter Day).  June 23 was chosen apparently because a patent was granted to Christopher Latham Sholes on that day in 1868.  His Wikipedia page says that he invented the QWERTY keyboard (which was designed to slow typists down), but the patent awarded in 1868 doesn't seem to be for that version, but rather an earlier model.

I learned to touch type (typing without looking at your fingers) on a typewriter in high school in a semester-long class offered for that specific purpose.  My mother had suggested I learn to use a typewriter because it would be a useful skill.

During the semester, I got up to 54 words per minute overall and 51 per minute with no errors.  This was with the older style of typewriter that had the carriage you had to manually push back at the end of every line.  I don't remember the name of my teacher, but she was so excited by my speed that she wanted me to to secretarial school.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that I had higher aspirations than being a secretary, but I did figure out that my rate was better than average.

My mother was right:  I was able to apply my touch typing skills almost right away in college.  Before desktop computers became the norm, I typed lots of papers for people and made money doing so, which was really helpful, because I went to the University of Southern California on scholarships, not on my family's money.

After I graduated, desktop computers began to be introduced to many of the departments at USC, and my typing skills gave me a leg up on keyboarding.  Every time I applied for a job in a new department I was timed again.  The fastest rate I remember was 108 words per minute; I think that was with no errors.

For a long time I owned and maintained a typewriter, before I could afford a computer.  I favored the IBM Selectric (I think I owned a blue Selectric II), and I had a decent collection of elements, which were how you changed your typeface in the old days.  I remember I stored them in plastic cases specially designed for them (I think I had four cases!).  You had to change the element each time you wanted to change your font, say from regular to Italic.  I loved that typewriter!  But eventually I was able to afford a computer, and the need for the typewriter diminished to the point that I couldn't justify keeping it anymore.  I don't even remember if I was able to find someone who wanted it or I just had to dump it.

IBM Selectric elements in storage case
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Genealogy "Rabbit Hole" Did You Go Down Recently?

Tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver is a favorite of genealogical researchers everywhere.

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

1.  What genealogy "rabbit hole" did you go down recently?  Did you have genealogy fun?  How did it help your genealogy research?

2.  Share your response on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

What?  Genealogists falling down rabbit holes?  Who would have thought such a thing could happen?

The most recent rabbit hole I went down was totally the fault of Reclaim the Records, that scrappy little nonprofit that's filing lawsuits all over the country when records jurisdictions don't follow Freedom of Information rules, even their own, and then sharing all the records they acquire freely and publicly through the Internet Archive.  I love them!  (And I remember when Brooke Schreier Ganz started the whole thing!)

I don't remember when the various New Jersey indices were posted, and RtR doesn't put dates on a lot of its posts, but a couple of months ago I started poking around.  They have New Jersey Marriage Index, 1901–2016; New Jersey Death Index, 1904–2017; New Jersey Birth, Marriage, and Death Indices, 1901–1903 and 1901–1914; and New Jersey Geographic Birth Index and Delayed Birth Index, 1901–1929.

I have a lot of New Jersey relatives.  For many of them I did not have specific birth, marriage, or death dates.  My father and both of his parents were born in New Jersey, and I had their information, but between multiple relationships on both sides and half-siblings all over the place, I didn't have documentation for everybody else.  So I decided one evening to start looking.

I think it started innocently enough.  All I wanted originally was to find the birth dates of three of my grandfather's siblings, for whom I had only "about" and a year.  And then I figured while I was looking, I should find all of the siblings in the birth index, just to verify that I had the correct dates.  Oh, and maybe I should look up all their marriages.  Oh wait, some of those siblings didn't live to adulthood, so I should look for them in the death index.

Several hours later . . . .

I had lots of fun, but I still don't have everyone!  I found one of the birth dates, but two are still missing.  The birth index showed a different date for one of the siblings for whom I already had a date.  I can't find death dates for three children.  And three marriage dates are still hiding from me also (although it's possible one or more of those might not have taken place in New Jersey; lots of people in Jersey went to good old Elkton, Maryland, as my aunt did).  Or maybe some of those couples didn't actually get married.

One amusing discovery was finding the original index entry for my grandfather and then a handwritten one based on his amended birth certificate.

I wrote several years ago about my frustrating and fruitless search for my grandfather's birth certificate and how it took my sister going in person to the New Jersey State Archives to discover that he had been recorded as a girl on his birth record, explaining why I had been unsuccessful in three attempts at finding a birth certificate for a boy.  The lovely archivists had also unearthed an amendment to the original birth certificate, filed by my great-grandmother 37 years later, changing Grampa from a girl to a boy.

Well, both of those records are reflected in the state birth index.

Birth index showing Gertrude Armstrong (bottom), born April 6, 1903, page 7173
(edited image)

Birth index showing Bertram L. Sellers (bottom), born April 6, 1903, page 7173
(edited image)

And in a very strange coincidence, the handwriting for the entry for the amended birth certificate strongly resembles my grandfather's handiwriting.

My Father's Photos for World Giraffe Day

I still have many, many photos to share from the bonanza that my sister sent me on an innocent-looking flash drive.  Did you know that June 21 is World Giraffe Day?  I learned that when I found several photos of giraffes among the collection.

The page I found that discusses World Giraffe Day has some factoids about them, but it doesn't mention that their tongues are purple.  I think I learned that watching an episode of Wild Kratts.  Scientists aern't sure, but the dark color of the tongue may help protect it from sunburn while the giraffe is eating.  Unfortunately, none of my father's photos shows that cool purple tongue.

I think that's my stepsister Cynthia in the last photo.

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Three Things for Father's Day

Since it was for Father's Day, I waited until today to do this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver.

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

1.  It's Father's Day on Sunday.  Tell us three things about your father, or one of your grandfathers (or another male ancestor), that have influenced you in your life.

2.  Share your response on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

I've been thinking a lot recently about my father and racing, so that's my focus today.  And yes, his interest in racing has influenced me.

1.  The fact that I grew up watching a lot of racing in person and on TV meant that I ended up seeing a fair number of car crashes.  I grew up with a healthy respect for the damage that cars can do when they go fast.  It has influenced me to drive the speed limit perhaps a little more than the average person does.

2.  I cannot think of Memorial Day weekend without thinking of the Indianapolis 500.  We knew every year when Memorial Day came around what my father, and by extension we kids, would be doing:  The TV would be showing the Indy 500, and we would often watch it with Daddy, or at least I would.  I don't really remember the specifics of the races, but I remember watching them with him.

3.  I have an unusual recognition of certain landmarks.  Once I was driving east on I-10, and to the north was a huge empty lot with a big pile of dirt in the middle.  I kept looking at it as I was driving past because it seemed oddly familiar.  I realized it was the former Ontario Raceway, which I must have gone to with Daddy to watch some races.  Even stripped down to nothing, it rang a bell.

The same kind of thing happened to me when I drove from the San Francisco Bay area to Milwaukee in the summer of 1993 for a convention.  Heading east on I-80 this time, as the highway transitioned from Nevada to Utah, I saw a sign with Bonneville on it.  I was trying to remember why I recognized that name, and then I saw the vast expanse of white that is the salt.  I suddenly shouted out, "It's the Bonneville Salt Flats!" (which kind of surprised my traveling companions).  Daddy used to watch when people raced and did speed trials on the salt flats, and I watched right alongside him.

Lynn Sellers

 

Loving Day 2024

Yesterday, June 12, was Loving Day, when we commemorate and celebrate the 1967 United States Supreme Court decision that struck down the antimiscegenation laws in the United States, at that time still clung to in sixteen states in the South, which held that just because one person was black and another white that it was not legal for them to marry, no matter how much they loved each other.  And I am thrilled to add another happy couple's marriage to my family tree.

Ally and Adrien, May 25, 2024

Wordless Wednesday

But That Doesn't Add Up Right

I posted last month about finding my great-great-grandparents' marriage record and several other family records in a recent data upload by the Ukraine Research Group on JewishGen.org.  But now I have to worry about how accurate the years are on those records as they are indexed.

I found a Russian birth record for one of my cousins, Dvorah Kardish, the daughter of Moishe Kardish and Rivka Polatnick.  The index entry shows Dvorya Kardish, daughter of Moshe, son of Chaim Duvid, and Rivka, daughter of Leyb.  This certainly sounds like my family member!  The entry indicates she was born January 21, 1899.  I clicked on the image link.

Record #9
Birth record for Dvorya Kardish
January 21 / 12 Shevat
Father Moshe Chaim-Duvid, mother Rivka daughter of Leyb
Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire
(image has been edited to crop out some of the other records on the page)

But when I went to enter this information in my family tree, I noted a few inconsistencies.

There is a note on the page for the record above Dvorya's that refers to 1897.  How could there be a note about something that happened to a child in 1897 if the child wasn't born until 1899?

Second, I have found Dvorya enumerated with the Kardish family in an 1895 Russian revision list (kind of like a census).  If she wasn't born until 1899, that just couldn't happen (that's a really big twinkle in someone's eye).

Third, Dvorya's first child (at least the first I know about) was born in 1915 (I found her birth record in this upload), which would make Dvorya only 16 years old at the time.  Not a deal-breaker, but not likely.  (Yes, I realize the year could be wrong on her daughter's record.)

And not as definitive, but still important to take into account, an 1899 birth would change Dvorya's position in the accepted birth order of the children in that family.  I often tell people that before knowing your exact birth date was an important fact in everyday life, most people didn't know precisely when they were born, but they did usually know who was the oldest child, who was second, etc., down to the youngest.  And the birth order that I was told matches that in the revision list.

So now I had four data points pointing to the possible inaccuracy of the birth year quoted in the JewishGen index.

Obviously, this required further investigation.

The page with Dvorya's birth record does not have a year written on it anywhere I could see to indicate when these births had taken place or were recorded.  I looked several pages before and after but none of them has a year written on it to indicate when the births occurred.  The only one that has a year on it, a few pages before the page in question, has a big block of text in the middle of the page and the year 1898 at the end of the text.  It looks to be some kind of "this is wrapping up the end of the year" note.  I considered that maybe the indexers had used it as an indication that the pages following were for 1899.

Working on the hypothesis that the page with Dvorya's birth had somehow fallen out and been [re]placed out of order in the record book, I looked at the information on the sheet that I probably could rely on:  that she had been born on January 21 on the Christian calendar, which equaled 12 Shevat on the Jewish calendar.  The months were abbreviated at the top of the page, and while I don't know the names of the months in the Jewish calendar well enough to recall them, I could see that the month started with "sh", so I Googled "Jewish months", and only Shevat starts with that.

To try to resolve the problem, I went to SteveMorse.org, clicked on Steve's handy Jewish Calendar Conversions in One Step page, changed the readout to the 57th century in the Jewish era so I could see years for the 19th century, changed the Christian date to January 21, and started going year by year through the Jewish years until I got January 21 and 12 Shevat in the same year.  Yay, it's 1891 (5651 on the Jewish calendar)!

Except I then remembered that the Russians were still on the Julian calendar in the 19th century, but the Jewish calendar was going by the Gregorian dates and Steve's page shows Gregorian by default.  Oops.

So I went back, changed the readout to Julian, set my date as 12 Shevat, and scrolled through years on the Christian calendar line.

Aha!  The year in which 12 Shevat and January 21 were the same day in the Julian calendar then became 1890 (5650 on the Jewish calendar).  That resolved the three concrete inconsistencies and kept Dvorya's birth order in the family the same.

Hooray!

It appears that the pages in the birth registration book are out of order, but that's how they are now and how they were filmed.

I fixed my date question, but how do we correct that problem?  How many more pages in this book are out of order?  How many people will have enough information beforehand, as I did, to realize that there's a problem?  And how many more of the digitized record books might have the same problem?

And what does the note from 1905 on the left side of Dvorya's birth record say?

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Most Frustrating Research Challenge

This week's challenge from Randy Seaver is one of those Saturday Night Genealogy Fun questions when I know right away what my answer is.

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

1.  One of the goals of every genealogy researcher is to solve difficult name and relationship problems.  What is one of your most frustrating research challenges that you have not yet solved? 

2.  Share your challenging problem on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

Yup, didn't even have to think twice.

Definitely, my most frustrating research challenge that I have not yet solved is determining who my paternal grandfather's biological father was.

I have been writing since 2016 (is it really eight years already?!), when I showed with Y-DNA testing that my father (and by extension my grandfather) was not biologically a Sellers, about my search for my grandfather's biological father.

"I'm Apparently a Sellers by Informal Adoption" was when I announced the results of the Y-DNA testing, way back on February 6, 2016.  I compared my father's Y-DNA to his male cousin's and easily determined that they did not descend from the same man in a genealogically relevant timeframe and that my family branch are not biologically Sellerses.  And so began the hunt for my grandfather's biological father.

I wrote about the initial research on December 3, 2016, coincidentally for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:  "Who Is Your MRUA?" (MRUA means "most recent unknown ancestor.")  My MRUA is my great-grandfather.  My father matched two men named Mundy at 111 – 4 markers, so I focused my search for a viable Mundy.  Suzanne McClendon, one of my readers, went to town on finding newspaper articles, and we identified a likely candidate as a man named Bertram Mundy.

Another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic encouraged me to write about my continuing research.  I posted "Research Grief" on September 9, 2017 (a mere eight days after having moved to Gresham, Oregon).  At that time I had researched back two generations of the Mundy family and found no living descendants after following them forward in time.  I was planning to go back another generation in my search.

About a year and a half after my December 2016 post, Randy used the same topic for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  For the May 26, 2018 version of "Who Is Your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor (MRUA)?", I wrote an update of where I was on my research.  I had not researched further back on Bertram Mundy's family tree, but I had come up with some other things I could do, such as get a copy of Mundy's divorce file and try to find anyone who was related to him to inquire about family stories.

Since that post, I have done some additional research.  After researching back four generations and finding no living descendants, I have abandoned the idea of tracking a Mundy cousin down and paying for an autosomal test.  Anyone I could find at this point will be so distantly related that the likelihood of sharing enough DNA to be relevant is very small.

My new goal is trying to find a photograph of good old Bert Mundy and comparing that to my grandfather and father's looks.  Not as scientific, but yes, I am grasping at straws.  I also still need to obtain Bert's divorce file to see if anything is mentioned about philandering.  Finding my great-grandmother's name in the file would be a smoking gun, but I'm not holding my breath on that.  And there is still the off-chance I might find some documentation of Bert having traveled to the Philadelphia area around July or August 1902.

One other thing I have done is ask a couple of friends who do search angel work for adoptees if they can help.  One said yes but then had a baby shortly afterward and is kind of busy with other things still.  It's possible that someone with more experience with DNA might be able to gain more information from what I have, which is not only my father's DNA but also that of two of his half-sisters, all of them children of my grandfather and each from a different mother.  So that's still on my list.

My Father's Photos for World Bongo Day

As I have written previously, last October I received a huge photo bonanza from my sister in the form of scans of many (all?) of the photos that were collected from my father's house after he passed away in 2019.  I'm still(!) sorting through them all, but I have been able to somewhat sort some into little groups based on the subjects.

A lot of the photos seem to have been taken at a zoo or animal park, as they show animals in enclosures.  I did not recognize what species some of the animals were, so I went hunting around on the Internet for answers.

A few photos showed some kind of deer-looking animal, which I think I have identified it as a bongo.  Today, May 31, is World Bongo Day, so that seemed an appropriate day to share these photos that my father took.  I didn't know about the bongo before investigating these photos, so I am a little more educated now.  I haven't figured out the birds or the other animals in the photos yet, though.

These are yet more photos that I don't know where or when they were taken, as my father was more than a little remiss in labeling his work.  I keep hoping someone will at least be able to figure out the location.  My best guess for these is the Florida Panhandle, probably near Fort Walton Beach.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Long Ago Was Your Last "Genealogy Happy Dance"?

Here's 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.  One of the goals of every genealogy researcher is to solve difficult name and relationship problems — and traditionally we do a "genealogy happy dance" when we succeed.

2.  When was the last time you did a "genealogy happy dance" after solving one of your difficult problems?

3.  Share your story on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

Well, my last big "genealogy happy dance" has already been celebrated in my blog, and for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun no less.  That was when I posted two weeks ago about finding the marriage record for my great-great-grandparents Vigdor Gorodetsky and Esther Leya Shnayderman.  This was exciting not only because of the record itself but because it corroborated six hypotheses I had made during my research.

But I mentioned in that blog post that I had found several other records for my family and related lines in the same batch of records.  And I did genealogy happy dances for many of those also.

One in particular I am still excited about is the birth record for my cousin's great-great-grandfather.  Again, very cool just to find the record and have an exact birth date, but it provided his mother's name, which we did not have previously.  We learned that we had the wrong town for his birthplace.  And it is the oldest record I have from the Russian Empire for anyone in my family.

Record #20
Birth record for Aizik [Isaak] Belder
March 5, 1848 (Julian calendar; March 17 on Gregorian calendar)
Father Shimshon, mother Rivka
Proskurov, Proskurovsky Uyezd, Podolia, Russian Empire

So, yeah, I did the happy dance for this record too.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Use FamilySearch Full-text Search

The challenge today from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is valid for varying definitions of the word "fun."

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

1.  Use the FREE FamilySearch Full-Text Search (https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text) to find a record for one of your ancestors that is new to you.

2.  Share your results on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please share a link in Comments on this post if you write your own post.

I'm going to be a party pooper again, sorry.

Non sequitur:  Have you ever heard the party pooper song?
"Every party needs a pooper, that's why we invited you.
"Party pooper!  Party pooper!"

Okay, back on track.

First, I admit I had not tried to use the full-text search yet.  I hate blindly fishing around in records and much prefer to have an actual research plan.

That said, I did as Randy suggested and tried to find a new record for one of my ancestors.  I would have been happy to find a record for a relative on a collateral line.

No such luck.

I went to the link that Randy provided.  I noted that it said I would be browsing "US Land and Probate Records, Mexico Notary Records, Australia Land and Probate Records, New Zealand Land and Probate Records and US Plantation Records."  (I also noted that to the left it said, "Only two collections are currently available to browse . . . .", so something is out of date.)

I decided I would try to find something in the plantation records by using as a keyword one of the locations I am researching in the part of my family that was enslaved.  So I typed in "upatoi" (a location in Georgia) and let 'er rip.

I got a total of 24 results.  Okay, that's pretty manageable.

Then I looked at the filters.

I had options of Collection, Year, Place, and Record Type.

The first one I tried to use to narrow down my hits was Place.  The only option was United States of America, which applied to all 24 hits.  Okay, that's useless.

I looked at Collection.  That gave me choices of "Alabama, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (1)", "Georgia, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (4)", "Pennsylvania, Wills and Deeds, ca. 1700s-2017 (1)", and "United States, Indenture Records, 1600-2001 (18)."

As I was hoping to find information about plantation records, I chose the Georgia wills and deeds.

Boy, was I disappointed.

Nothing about plantation records.  Nothing even in the 19th century.  "Muscogee, Georgia, United States Will 1949", "Muscogee, Georgia, United States Will 1955", "Marion, Georgia, United States Deed, Mortgage 1965", and "Marion, Georgia, United States Deed, Mortgage 1960."

Okay, let's look at the indenture records.

Of the 18 records, 16 are titled "Riverdale Cemetery, Columbus, Muscogee, Georgia, United States Enslavement, Cemetery" followed by a year ranging from 1881 to 1952.  Two are "Georgia, United States Enslavement, Cemetery 1921", and you can see from the teaser text that they're the same item.  So none of these years is during the period of chattel slavery in this country, which officially ended in 1865.  And I don't understand why cemetery records are listed under indenture records.  But I gamely clicked on the first result to see what it would show me.

The first link said it was for 1881.  The page told me it was a full transcript from "Riverdale Cemetery.  Cemetery Records 1866–2000, Enslavement Records 1866–2000."  Um, say what?  What enslavement records begin in 1866, the year *after* slavery officially ended?  And the record itself was an obituary for a man born in 1881 in Alabama.  The obit mentioned he had celebrated his 50th anniversary, so figure he was at least 70 years old; that means that he died about 1951.  Sure, it's a record having to do with Riverdale Cemetery, but saying it's for 1881 is misleading at best and a train wreck at worst.  How is this supposed to be helpful to me?

I clicked on the first link for "Georgia, United States Enslavement, Cemetery 1921" to see if it was any better.  It was listed as a full transcript from "Georgia.  Cemetery Records 1866–2000, Enslavement Records 1866–2000."  Okay, same logic problem as the previous one.  This was also an obit.  This man was born in 1877 in Upatoi and died at 82, so it's from about 1959.  The 1921 that shows up in the link name?  "The aldermanic form was government was abandoned in Columbus in 1921."  Even less relevant than the first link I tried!

I then tried to cut down on the number of hits.  I had "upatoi" as my keyword, so I added "crawford" (one of my family names).  Silly me, I thought the search engine would search for records where both words appeared and cut down the number of hits, maybe even to zero.

I was wrong.

Instead of 18 results, I now had 6,760.  It would appear that adding a term causes the search engine to return results with either of the search terms, not both of them.  I did note that if you add a plus sign in front of a term, it will include that term.  When I searched for +upatoi and +crawford, I had no results.  Well, I did cut it down to zero!

I tried one last search.  I used "slaves" as my keyword.  I had 446,052 results.  I restricted the place to Marion County, Georgia, and the number of results dropped to 41.  The links were to wills and deeds ranging from 1846 to 1862 as far as the period of slavery was concerned, but several titles listed years after 1865 and even into the 20th century.  I clicked a link to one that was titled "Marion, Georgia, United States Deed, Mortgage 1936."  The image was said to be from "Marion.  Deeds 1845–1965, Mortgages 1845–1965."  It was actually from 1858–1859.  I did not find "1936" anywhere in it; the closest was "one hundred thirty six."

I went back to the search results page and added "kinchafoonee" (another location associated with the family), and the results stayed at 41.  Since my previous attempt at adding a name appeared to indicate that the search engine was returning results with either search term, I interpreted this to mean that none of the records for Marion County include Kinchafoonee in the text, or at least not with that spelling.  When I added a plus sign in front of each term, I had no results, so my interpretation appeared to be correct.

I never even saw anything with results that said they were from plantation records.  I suspect that the only way to get those is with the plantation owner's name.  Since I still have not found the name of a single slaveholder in my family, I guess I won't be getting far with those.  I did not see a way to focus my browsing on just one set of records included in the full-text search.

Obviously, the advantage of the full-text search is that it's creating a searchable database of words from handwriting, which is very cool, and that you don't have to wait for a real index.  On the other hand, it's like putting a search term into Google, which used to be great but has been getting worse for quite some time.  You get results with your search term (well, if you're lucky; nowadays Google routinely returns results with no appearance of your search term anywhere on the page), but the context could be anything.  An index gives you context.  And yes, I admit I am very biased, because I'm an indexer.

After this dismal experience, I am reminded of a study I read about many years ago.  Researchers observed people searching for information.  The people searching used an index or did a general text search, such as by using Google.

Even though search results were consistently better and desired information was found more quickly when using the index, the majority of searchers, when allowed to choose the search method, defaulted to doing a general text search the majority of the time.  When it was pointed out to them that the results were better with the index, the response was that it was simply easier to do the general search, and they didn't care that the results were not as good.  Me, I care.  My time is valuable.

I am very happy for Randy that he found five new records for his ancestor.  After seeing my search results, I think I'm going to wait for actual searchable indices for these record collections.  I get tired of beating my head against the wall after a while.

Addendum:  I decided to try one last time, with one of the unique surnames I am researching.  My aunt's paternal grandfather changed his name when he became a U.S. citizen.  He made up a name, which is unique to that family.  If I find that name, it's my aunt's family.  I searched for that name in the database and got a grand total of two hits:  my aunt's great-grandmother's will and her probate.  The reason the name showed up is because my aunt's mother (the granddaughter of the deceased) was named in the will under her married name.  Because it's a unique name, it allowed me to find the will, so that's a new record!  Yay, I found one, even if for my aunt's ancestor and not mine!  And now I know when her great-grandmother died, which is new information.

Celebrating My Stepmother for Mother's Day

Today, May 12, is Mother's Day.  By coincidence, May 12 was also my stepmother's birthday, so I decided to write about her this year for Mother's Day.

Virginia Ann "Ginny" Daugherty (if I remember correctly, she pronounced it "dockerty") was born May 12, 1932 in Cuyahoga Falls, Cuyahoga County, Ohio.  Her parents were Clarence Elmer Daugherty and Clara Margaret Petro.

My father was her second husband; she was my father's third wife.  They were married December 4 (my father's birthday), 1980 in Niceville, Okaloosa County, Florida.  Their marriage lasted longer than my father's first two marriages combined.

She and my father lived in several different places — many cities in the Florida panhandle, Ohio, Texas — but their last residence was Mary Esther, Florida.  That's where they were living when my father passed away in 2019.

Ginny could not live by herself at that point, so after he died, my stepbrother Don took her to Texas to live with him and his wife.  She died a year and a half later, on December 18, 2020.

Ginny was a sweet, caring person who was a joy to be around.  We all miss her very much.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: A Genealogy Fun Day

There's nothing like an open-ended invitation to write about almost anything, which is what we have tonight from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  When was the last time you had genealogy fun?  It could be research, conferences, a society meeting, or just talking with friends about your research, a favorite trip, etc.  Tell us about a recent genealogy fun day!

2.  Share your answers on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

I have had lots of genealogy fun the past two days!

Recently the Ukraine Research Division of JewishGen (the self-proclaimed home of Jewish genealogy on the Web) announced that it had uploaded a bunch of records from several different locations, including (finally!) Kamenets-Podolsky (formerly in Russia; current name Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine).  I was very excited, as that is where I have always been told my maternal grandmother's father's family was from, but I had no documents from there showing their names.  I actually had not been optimistic about ever finding any, due to a significant fire several years ago that affected the archive there.

So I searched using the form on the JewishGen home page, looking for Gorodetsky (my great-grandfather's original surname) in Ukraine.

And I found my great-great-grandparents' marriage record!!!

Record #109 (bottom)
Marriage record for Vigdor Gorodetsky and Esther Leya Shnayderman
August 17, 1888 (Julian calendar; August 29 on Gregorian calendar)
Kamenets-Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire
(image has been edited to crop out other records on the page)

Not only was this exciting because, hey, it's a new family record, but it actually corroborated several hypotheses I had made over the years.

• I had guessed my great-great-grandmother's maiden name to be Schneiderman, based on correlating a lot of information from multiple generations of relatives.  Correct!

• I had guessed that her father's name was Joine (pronounced yoy-ne) after looking at naming patterns in my family.  Correct!

• I had estimated the marriage to have taken place before 1891.  It was in 1888.  Correct!

• I had guessed that the marriage should have taken place in Kamenets-Podolsky.  Correct!

• I had estimated my great-great-grandfather's birth year to be between 1864 and 1868.  He was listed as 25 at the time of the marriage, putting his birth year about 1863–1864.  Damned close!

• And I had estimated my great-great-grandmother's birth year to be between 1868 and 1874.  She was listed as 21 at the time of the marriage, putting her birth year about 1867–1868.  Also damned close!

It is great to have my logic substantiated by the actual record.

And on top of that, I have also found two dozen additional records — births, marriages, divorces, deaths, revision lists (kind of like a census) — for my Schneiderman and related lines, including Kardish and Belder.  I have been staying up way too late for the past couple of days because I can't tear myself away from the computer.

Genealogy fun?  Absolutely!  I've been doing the genealogy happy dance for two days!

Thank you, Randy, for giving us a topic tonight that allowed me to write about my cool discovery!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Yom HaShoah: Remembering the Lost

Yom HaShoah falls on 27 Nisan of the Jewish calendar, which measures days from sunset to sunset.  This year on the Christian calendar it began at sunset today, May 5, and will end at sunset on May 6.  It is the annual day of remembrance to commemorate the fates of the approximately 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust during World War II.

The following are my family members I have been told died in the Holocaust.  All of them are from the Mekler/Nowicki branch of my family and lived in what was Grodna gubernia in the Russian Empire (now in Belarus).  May their memory be for a blessing.

Beile Dubiner
Eliezer Dubiner
Herschel Dubiner
Moishe Dubiner
Sore (Mekler) Dubiner
Aidel Goldsztern
Golda Goldsztern
Josef Goldsztern
Pearl (Gorfinkel) Goldsztern
Tzvi Goldsztern
Esther Golubchik
Fagel Golubchik
Lazar Golubchik
Peshe (Mekler) Golubchik
Pinchus Golubchik
Yechail Golubchik
Mirka (Nowicki) Krimelewicz
— Krimelewicz
Beile Szocherman
Chanania Szocherman
Mobsza Eli Szocherman
Perel Szocherman
Raizl (Perlmutter) Szocherman
Zlate Szocherman

Mirka Krimelewicz's name on the passenger list for my
great-great-grandparents Gershon and Dobra Nowicki, as
their nearest relative in the country they immigrated from in 1922.
She was their daughter and the sister of my great-grandmother.
This is the only documentation I have of her name and of her existence.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Make a Descendants List for Second-great-grandparents

This week's challenge from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun is almost something I can do from memory, at least for some of my family lines (okay, only on my mother's side).

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

1.  How complete is your family tree?  Do you have information about your cousins, both close and more distant?  Today's challenge is to take one set of your 2nd-great-grandparents and make a descendants list (using your genealogy management program, e.g., Family Tree Maker, RootsMagic, etc.).

2.  Tell us about your choice of 2nd-great-grandparents and tell us approximately how many descendants of them that you have in your family tree database.  Share your answers, and perhaps a chart, on your own blog or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

And here's mine:

My family line with the most people on it for this exercise was the Dunstans, which surprised me.  I expected it to be the Gauntts.  Both of these are on my father's side.

The format that Randy used is called an Outline Descendant Report in Family Tree Maker, which is the program that I primarily use.  For this report FTM automatically set the number of generations at 99, which I didn't change.  It turned out to be six generations anyway, the same number of generations that Randy used.

Starting with my 2nd-great-grandparents Frederick Cleworth Dunstan (1840–1873) and Martha Winn (1837–1884), the result was 12 pages with about 20 descendant names on each page, so roughly 240 descendants total.  This is the first page of that report:

On my mother's side, the family with the most descendants was the Gordons (originally Gorodetsky).  The report for those 2nd-great-grandparents, Victor Gordon (circa 1866–1924) and Esther Leah Schneiderman (circa 1871–1908), ran nine pages.  It had about 25 descendant names on each page, so roughly 225 descendants overall.

The shortest report was for my paternal grandfather's paternal line.  As I still have not determined who his biological father was, that line stops with my grandfather.  The report was only four pages.  I was surprised to see that when I did take it back two additional generations of Sellerses, the report only increased to six pages total.  I admit I am not doing research on the Sellers line anymore, so that may be why.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: The Best Newspaper Article You've Found for Your Family History

I love newspaper research, so this week's challenge from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun should be right up my alley.

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

1.  What newspaper article is the best one you've found to help you with your family history?  Tell us about it:  where you found it, and what you learned from it.

2.  Tell us about your best newspaper article find in a comment on this post or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Because I love newspaper research so much, I am constantly searching databases for family names, and as a result I have all sorts of articles about family members.  But I can't say that any of them has particularly helped with my family history.  I learn cool little tidbits of information, but I can't recall solving any significant mysteries or resolving any major questions with them.

I did answer a question the other way around, though.

Many years ago, when SmallTownPapers.com was still a pay site and had a lot more content (including older issues, and newspapers from not-so-small towns), I had access to it at some point, so I poked around and searched for various family names.  One article I discovered was in a DeFuniak Springs, Florida newspaper (which might have been the Herald or the Breeze, but I don't remember).  The article mentioned a display of antique carpenter's tools in the local library that had been provided by my paternal grandfather, B. L. Sellers, who lived in Niceville.

I printed out a copy (well before the days when I routinely saved electronic files, sadly) and remember thinking that I had never known my grandfather to collect carpenter's tools.  I wondered what had generated his interest in them.

Only a few months ago I was looking through a stack of papers that my grandfather saved from when he worked as a civilian at Fort Dix, New Jersey (he saved everything!) and learned that one of his early jobs there was as a carpenter.  So the newspaper article created the question for me, and other documents answered that question.

Another cool newspaper find was from the 1978 Playground Daily News (now the Northwest Florida Daily News), the newspaper that covers a lot of the Florida Panhandle communities.  I lived in that area for six years.  I didn't find this myself; my father's sister was volunteering at the Historical Society Museum in Valparaiso and made the discovery.  She was sorting through a newspaper clippings file and found a photo of me at the museum, so she made a photocopy and mailed it to me.  During the summers, the museum used to offer craft classes, which I think were free.  So I have a photo of me learning traditional Indian pine needle basket weaving.  And I still have the little basket that I made in that class.

me, in a very 1970's polyester shirt
(which I actually remember!)

So no great revelations, but fun stuff nonetheless!