Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Did You Have Fun This Past Week?

Yay!  Randy Seaver gave me the perfect opening to talk about my great genealogy discoveries for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  Did you have good genealogy fun this past week?  Did you add to your family tree?  Did you make a great discovery?  Did you try something new?  Did you make family history?

2.  Share your genealogy fun in this past week on your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, or BlueSky post.  Leave a link on this blog post to  help us find your post.

I was hoping that whatever topic Randy chose for tonight would be something I could work to my advantage, and it is!  Because I definitely had genealogy fun this past week.

Several months ago (August, in fact), Lara Diamond wrote on her Lara's Jewnealogy blog about Alien Registration forms (AR-2's) from 1940 having been transferred from USCIS to the National Archives.  These were forms that people who had not become citizens — whether they had filed only first papers or had filed no papers at all toward citizenship — had to fill out at the beginning of World War II.

The form asked for all names an alien had used, including maiden names, so you can find a still-unknown maiden name if a woman registered.  If you haven't found someone on a passenger list, that was information the person had to include.  If an individual had filed first papers but not followed through with the petition to finish the naturalization process, that was also requested on the form.

So I've known about these forms since August.  There's a great search form on the NARA site you can use to look for all those relatives of yours who might be in there.  I found my great-great-grandfather Gershon Novitsky (originally Nowicki), his niece (my first cousin 3x removed) Ethel Novitsky (also originally Nowicki, but immigrated under her married name of Perlmutter), my great-grandmother's baby brother Benjamin Brainin, and a cousin named Molly Nowick (originally, you guessed it, Nowicki).

This is the same search form I used when I looked for my sister's significant other's grandfather (boy, is that convoluted), which I wrote about in January.  Gary ordered his grandfather's AR-2, and it arrived only a day or two later, just as Lara described in her blog.  Hooray for NARA!

Well, I finally was able to send in my first AR-2 order.  I requested those for Gershon Novitsky and Ethel Novitsky.

NARA didn't fail me.  The next business day after I had sent my request, I had a response telling me how much it would cost and what to do.  I followed through, and the day after that I had my PDF's, sent electronically.  Hooray for NARA again!

I knew a lot of the information on Gershon's form, but two pieces of data confirmed stories that had not yet been documented.  One was something cousins had told me:  Yes, Gershon had originally immigrated to the United States in 1922, but a few years later he took a trip back to Europe and then returned.  And right there on his AR-2, he said that he had last come to this country in 1926 and provided a different ship name than the one on which he had arrived in 1922.  (I'm still looking for that second passenger list.  I'm wondering if my great-great-grandmother traveled with him and which relative they listed in Europe.)

The second item was something I noticed when I found Gershon in the 1930 census:  He had apparently filed his "first papers", or his Declaration of Intention.  After finding this, I had searched in the immigration database on Ancestry, but I had not found him.  But on the AR-2, he provided a spelling for his name I had not seen previously:  Gershen Navitzky.  And when I searched for that exact spelling, I found his Declaration, which he filed at the age of 72!

Other tidbits from the form were a complete birth date (which I am not taking as gospel, but it's the first time I have seen one for him), his birthplace of Porozowo (which I had hypothesized), and the fact that he signed in Hebrew but apparently could not sign in English.  He also stated that he had four children living in the United States, and I believe I have them all accounted for.

The second AR-2 I received was that for Gershon's niece, Ethel Novitsky.  I have avidly researched Ethel and her family, because there are multiple connections with my branch of the family, but I had never found her on a passenger list.  I had narrowed down the arrival to around 1921 and had determined three of her children whom I thought had traveled with her, but I just could not find them.

Guess what?  Ethel provided the ship name, date of arrival, and port — which was not New York!  Nope, she came into Boston.

Okay, jump onto the computer and start searching.  And yes, I found her this time, and the three children I had surmised should be with her.  She had the correct port and ship name and was only a couple of weeks off on the arrival date.  And now I have the Jewish names for all four of them.  Okay, most of them were easy guesses:  Etta for Ethel, Chane for Anna, and Feiga for Fannie.  But I never could have come up with Kadusz for Karl.  I also learned the name of Ethel's brother, about whom I had never heard even a whisper.  He was her nearest relative back in Europe.  I also know it's the right family because they were going to Ethel's son Louis, whom I have researched a lot.

Other helpful items from Ethel's form are a complete birth date, which I am again not taking as gospel, and her birthplace of Shereshevo, which I had correctly hypothesized.  She said she had six children living in the United States, all of whom I have found.  Ethel, unlike Gershon, was able to sign her name in English.

Comparing Gershon's form to Ethel's, I also kind of confirmed one more family story.  I was told many years ago that there was an old Jewish custom, when an older man was widowed, he would often "marry" his niece, who would become kind of his caretaker.  I was told that was the case with Gershon and Ethel.  (I don't know if it really is an old Jewish custom, but I have a second instance of this in my family.)  On their forms, they both said they were widowed, but when I looked at their addresses, they were both living at 1413 44th Street in Brooklyn.  But from what I've heard about Gershon, who was supposedly an energetic old man up until his death at the age of 92, I somehow don't think he actually needed a caretaker.

And I just ordered my next two AR-2's!  I can hardly wait to see what I learn about Benny and Molly.

Wordless Wednesday

Ginny in Black and White

Today is the birthday of my stepmother, Virginia "Ginny" Ann (Daugherty) Truby Sellers.  She and my father were married December 4, 1980.  She was my father's third wife; he was her second husband.  Their marriage lasted longer than both of his first two marriages put together.

I am sure my father took this photograph because it's in black and white.  He loved working in black and white.  The photo was in the bonanza that my sister sent me a year and a half ago (I'm still working my way through it!).  My best guess is that it was taken during the 2010's, but I can't narrow it down more than that.

I'm not sure what to make of the look on Ginny's face.  It's kind of like she's giving Daddy the evil eye for taking her photo.

Well, evil eye or not, Ginny, happy birthday.  We miss you.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Celebrate Mother's Day and Show Us Some Photos

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, so it was to be expected that Randy Seaver would have that as the focus for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post.  (Today's topic revisits the same one from 2018, with updated social media links.)

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

1.  Sunday, 11 May, is Mother's Day in the USA.  Let's celebrate it by showing some of our photos with our mothers.

2.  Extra credit:  What did you call your mother during her life?  What did your children call your mother?

3.  More extra credit:  Have you written a biography or tribute to your mother?  If so, please share a link if you have one.

4.  Share your photo(s) on your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, or BlueSky post.  Leave a link on this blog post to help us find your mom photos.

1.  I remember that the last time Randy challenged us to share photos of ourselves with our mothers, I could only find a couple.  Since having received the photo bonanza from my sister, however, I have many, many more!  Here's a small selection.

This is the earliest photograph I have found of myself.  The photo was developed in October 1962, and I was born in April, so the oldest I can be is 6 months.  The shadow on the skirt of my mother's dress has to be the head of my father, the person likely taking the photo.

I've estimated I'm about a year old in this photo, so it's probably from 1963.  I was told by my cousin Beth (who is in a different photo with me in the same location) that this is Disneyland.

I like the whimsical nature of this one, which had to have been taken by my father.  It's June 1964, and my mother seems to be pregnant, so the absolute latest the photo could have been taken is June 16, and then only if she gave birth to my sister Stacy later on the same day.  This photo might have been taken in La Puente; I'll ask my sister Laurie if she recognizes the house.

This photo was taken in June 1969, when my mother took all three of us kids to Florida for our cousin Gail's wedding.  From left to right we are my brother, Mark; our mother, Myra; me; and my sister, Stacy.  My brother looks miserable for some reason.  I look happy, though.

This photo was developed in June 1973 and was taken at the trailer park where my family lived in Niceville, Florida.  I believe, from left to right going into the trailer, it is me, Mark, Stacy, and our mother.  I'm pretty sure my father took this photo, but I can't imagine why.

This is me and my mother standing on the porch of my Aunt Dottie's house in Niceville.  I'm about 16, so it's roughly 1978.  We're obviously dressed up to go somewhere (I remember that dress!), but I don't remember this at all, so I don't know what the occasion is or why we were having our photo taken at my aunt's.  I'm going to be asking my brother, my sister, and my stepfather what they recall.  If my aunt were still alive, I'd ask her also.

I find it interesting that the three photos I'm pretty sure my father took are black and white.  That means he probably developed them himself at home.

2.  I called my mother Mommy her entire life.  My stepsons never met my mother, as she died young.

3.  I have written a tribute to my mother, as a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post in 2017.  I have also written about her many times for Mother's Day separately from SNGF posts.

Honoring the Nurse in My Family on National Nurses Day

I know of one registered nurse in my family to celebrate on National Nurses Day:  my grandaunt Florence Meckler.  Specifically, she was a pediatric RN.  She was one of my maternal grandfather's younger sisters.

Florence was born December 22, 1915 (coincidentally, the exact same date as my maternal grandmother's oldest brother) in Brooklyn, New York.  I don't know where she attended nursing school or when she graduated, but it must have been before 1939, because on January 1, 1939 there was a photo of her in the newspaper holding the first two children born in the new year at Beth El Hospital in Brooklyn.  I am lucky enough to have the newspaper clipping because my grandmother saved it and had it in her photo album.

Exactly two years after that brush with fame, Florence married Moshe Amine, on January 1, 1941, in Brooklyn.  Florence and Moshe had two children:  Yedida, who was born one year after my mother, also on Armistice Day (now called Veterans Day); and Beth, six years later.  Some years later Florence and Moshe divorced, and 20 years after that Florence married Max Stewart.

I don't know how long Florence worked as a nurse.  I really should ask my cousins about that, shouldn't I?

I never met Moshe, but I knew Florence and Max.  I visited them several times in Las Vegas, where they lived, when I went to conferences and trade shows there.  I continued to visit Florence after Max passed away.  We would usually go out to one of the big buffets in one of the casinos on the Strip.

Eventually, Florence moved to Scotts Valley, California, at the behest of her older daughter.  And then I visited her there, in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  I took her out for lunch and to go shopping.  I drove a cargo van at the time, and I remember she had trouble stepping up high enough to climb in (she was a tiny person), so I started bringing a step stool to make it easier for her.

During all that time, I don't think I knew that Florence had been a registered nurse.  But she definitely fussed over me about health stuff, trying to make sure I was taking care of myself.

And here's a photo of Florence holding me when I was about a year old, proving that we go back a long way.  The teenager next to her is her younger daughter, my cousin Beth, who recognized herself and told me that we were at Disneyland.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many Autosomal DNA Matches Descend from Your Eight Pairs of 2nd-great-grandparents?

My participation in tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is not going to be pretty.  Or fun.

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

1.  How many autosomal DNA matches do you have descended from your eight 2nd-great-grandparents (they would be your third cousins)?  Do you know how they are related to you?  Have you corresponded with them?  Why are your numbers high or low?

2.  Share the number of your autosomal DNA matches for each of your 2GGP and answer my questions above on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a comment on this blog.  Share the link to your post on this blog, so readers can respond.

Oh, this is going to be painful.

First, I need to mention a couple of clarifications.

I do not have eight 2nd-great-grandparents.  I have sixteen 2nd-great-grandparents, as does everyone else.  I have eight pairs of 2nd-great-grandparents, which I'm pretty sure is what Randy meant (and what I changed the title of mine to).

And not all of my autosomal matches who descend from any given pair of 2nd-great-grandparents are going to be my 3rd cousins.  I can have other relatives in addition to 3rd cousins who descend from one pair of ancestors.  If the question was intended to be "How many autosomal matches do I have who are identified as 3rd cousins?", that's significantly different from what Randy wrote, and he wouldn't have to ask, "Do you know how they are related to you?"  Maybe he started with one idea and it morphed into another.

Now that I've cleared the air on that (once an editor, always an editor), on to the disaster of my response for this challenge.

I have mentioned before (particularly when the question of DNA comes up) that my mother was Ashkenazi Jewish and that Ashkenazi Jews suffer from high degrees of endogamy due to lots of intermarriage.

Well, on Family Tree DNA, my current results show that I have 24,697 autosomal matches.

I'm sure that the vast majority of those are on my maternal side, and I have no idea (and probably never will) how they are specifically related to me, due to endogamy and the lovely obstacles that can exist for doing Jewish research in the former Russian Empire in general, particularly in the former Grodno guberniya, where three of my lines go back to.

For reasons unknown to me — I have not actually done much with my FTDNA matches in quite a while and have not kept up with all of the announcements — 1,525 of those matches are identified as paternal, 38 as maternal, and 710 as both.

I have very few matches on FTDNA where I have identified the specific relationship I have with them.  So I have no idea how FTDNA has come up with the numbers of matches that are paternal, maternal, or both.  I'm pretty sure I have not identified 38 relationship matches total, much less 38 on my maternal line alone.

And there is absolutely no crossover in a genealogically relevant period of time between the paternal and maternal sides of my family.  Absolutely none.  Period, end of report.

So I have no idea how FTDNA has identified 710 of my matches as being both paternal and maternal.  That is just flat-out wrong.  Unless there is another way to interpret "paternal and maternal" that I'm not coming up with on my own.

On top of all that, I don't even know one set of my 2nd-great-grandparents, because I as yet have not identified the biological father of my paternal grandfather.  If I don't know who that great-grandfather was, I don't know who his parents were.

As for the number of matches I have who are descended from my eight sets of 2nd-great-grandparents?

To quote Randy:

The number of autosomal DNA matches I have on FTDNA with a known common 2nd-great-grandparent is:

NONE.

The number of autosomal DNA matches I have on AncestryDNA with a known common 2nd-great-grandparent is:

Three total.

• James Gauntt (1831–1899) and Amelia Gibson (1831–1908):  2

• Mendel Hertz Brainin (c. 1860–1930) and Ruchel Dwojre Jaffe (c. 1866–1934):  1

Some days it's just not worth chewing through the straps.

I do have additional cousins who descend from various of my 2nd-great-grandparents and for whom I know the exact relationship who appear as autosomal matches in both databases.  I have corresponded with almost all of them.  Several of them I was able to determine the exact relationship only because I corresponded with them.  Some I recognized by name and knew the relationship immediately.

The huge numbers of matches on my maternal side I already discussed above.  I don't really know that I would characterize the numbers of matches on my paternal side as being particularly low.  It's more that I don't know the exact relationship for most of them.  That is due mostly to a lack of response when I have reached out, particularly with matches on AncestryDNA.  I attribute that to the fact that many, many people who test at Ancestry do it strictly for the cutesie-poo (and mostly useless) pie chart and don't care about anything else.

Was There Really a Ghost?

I grew up believing in things such as ghosts because my mother did.  Ghosts, poltergeists, vampires, hauntings, déjà vu, superstitions, my mother believed in all of it and taught me to also.  But I was always more than a little disappointed because I had not observed nor experienced any of it myself.

Until I did.

I was living in Los Angeles, just on the edge of East L.A., at 459 East Adams Boulevard.  It was a beautiful three-story Victorian house.  The house was owned by my friend's uncle and his partner.  After buying it they needed renters to help pay the mortgage, so five of us moved in:  my friend and three more prior-enlisted Navy, all now attending USC as Navy ROTC midshipmen, and me.  I lived on the uppermost story and had a huge walk-in closet which I loved.

I never heard what made my landlords curious enough to do this, but one day they hired a medium to come and check out the house because they were wondering if it were haunted.  And the medium told them it was.  A young boy who had died in a train accident was haunting it.  He didn't die there — no railroad tracks right next door or anything like that — but he had spent many happy times there visiting his grandfather.  So that's where his spirit was drawn when he died.

After hearing about the results of the seance, my housemates decided we would try to contact the ghost.  We set ourselves up in a room on the second floor with a Ouija board and a candle, and they started asking questions.  Nothing had happened, and they were getting frustrated.  Then someone asked, "If there is a spirit here, show us a sign", or something pretty close to that.  Suddenly the candle went out.  Which normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but all the windows were closed, and there wasn't any breeze going through the room.  So we took that to be a sign, but it made some people nervous, and we wrapped up pretty quickly after that.

Okay, one little candle goes out.  Not much of an experience, right?

Ah, but there's more.

Some time after that, Bill and I were on the ground floor on a Saturday.  No one else was home.  I was reading a book.  I don't remember what Bill was doing, but he was in another room.  And suddenly I heard footsteps running downstairs from the second floor.

I looked toward the stairs, but I didn't see anyone.  I was starting to wonder where whoever it was could have gone, when I remembered — Bill and I were the only ones in the house, and he was already on the first floor.

It had to have been the ghost!

I ran over to find Bill and asked him if he had heard the footsteps also.  He hadn't, of course, but I knew what I had heard.

My only experience with a ghost.

Today, May 3, is National Paranormal Day, so it's a good day to record that experience.

Nobody seems to know how National Paranormal Day started or who created it, but it's listed by several of the sites that track events.  National Day Calendar and National Day Archives don't say anything about when it started.  Days of the Year, National Today, and There Is a Day for That agree that the observance began in 2013.  But according to Holiday Calendar, it began in 2011.

Image by Aberrant Realities.  Downloaded from Pixabay and used under the Pixabay Content License.

Focus on Black and White

It's May, so it must be National Photography Month!  And that means another excuse . . . er, reason to show off my father's photographs.

Daddy liked to work in black and white, and while I was growing up he usually had a darkroom in the house somewhere and did his own developing.  What's interesting about these photos is that, even though they are black and white, almost all of them were taken at his home in Mary Esther, Florida, and he didn't have a darkroom there.  I don't know where he found a place to develop them for him, because so few places do it anymore.  Maybe he found a vendor online?  I really don't know.

Daddy would take photos of the same things again and again, sometimes from different angles, sometimes in different light.  I have learned that's what a lot of photographers do.  They look at the world differently than I do.  So most of these are subjects that we have many, many (many!) representations of (especially that lamp).  The majority are in color, probably because he had problems finding someone to develop the black and whites.  But he must have had a roll or two of black and white, because these were sprinkled in with the color photos.

front door of the house in Mary Esther

table lamp that sat in the family room

a small selection of Daddy's camera collection

a tree in the back yard

the base of the same tree

bird bath in the back yard

little pig statue in the back yard

a sad-looking dog in a truck in a parking lot
(he must be patiently waiting for his person to return)