Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Ellen's Questions, Part 3

In this week's challenge for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, we continue to follow up on a previous one.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Ellen Thompson-Jennings posted 20 questions on her Hound on the Hunt blog two weeks ago — see Even More Questions about Your Ancestors and Maybe a Few about You (posted 27 June). 

(2) We will do these five at a time, with Questions 11 to 15 tonight (we did 1 through 5 two weeks ago and questions 6 through 10 last week).

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Okay, these are my answers.

11.  If money weren’t an issue, where would you go to do genealogy research?

All over the world!  I would go to Ukrainian archives and hire interpreters to find information about my Gorodetsky and Schneiderman (and maybe Kagan) family lines.  I would try doing research in Moldova with more interpreters, looking for my Gorodetskys.  I would visit the Latvian archives with yet more interpreters, desperately trying to find even one measly document about my Brainins and Jaffes.  I would go to archives in Belarus (yes, more interpreters) to see if any of the record sets listed on the Routes to Roots site include any of my Mekler, Nowicki, Yelsky, or related relatives.  If I found addresses in any of those records, I would look to see if those buildings had survived.  In Belarus I would also search for records and information about the families of my many Mekler cousins with whom I am now in contact.

It would be ineresting to go back to Cuba, now that I have a little more information about my Cuban cousins, to try researching in person, instead of having to rely on e-mail communications with my researcher there.  At least I can read Spanish fluently and understand spoken Spanish fairly well.

And that's just my mother's side of the family!

For my father's side, I'd like to go to Manchester, England (where my brother has been able to go, once) and research the Dunstans and Winns (and I wouldn't need an interpreter there).  If I could trace the Dunstans back to Cornwall, that would be my next stop.  I should also go to New Jersey to do archives research on all of his other lines, because they were all in New Jersey for such a long time.

And after all that I would probably take a break to determine my next destination.

12.  Do you ever feel as though you’re the only person researching your family?

At this point, yes.  A cousin in Ottawa, Canada was doing research for a while, even going to the point of creating a legal-sized two-page questionnaire that she sent around to all the relatives there (I am very fortunate that she made photocopies of all of the pages for me).  I don't think she is pursuing that anymore.  Other than the occasional random forays my brother makes online (which almost always produce something substantive and useful), I'm it.

13.  Why do you think you’re interested in your family history and other family members might not be?

I used to actually listen to the stories that my mother and grandmother told about family when I was a little girl.  For whatever reason, my brother and sister were apparently not as interested.  So I was already primed when, at the age of 13, I had a junior high school assignment to trace my family back four generations.  I still have that purple mimeographed piece of paper and the notes I took at the time while interviewing family members.  That assignment is what got me hooked.  I think being open to the stories and then starting so young, when I had so many older relatives who were still alive and could tell me information themselves, was a rare combination.

14.  Do you intend to write about your genealogy/family history findings?

You mean like a book?  Oh, heavens, no!  I hate writing.  But I do manage to post to my blog on a (semi)regular basis and share a lot of the family stories and discoveries that way.  And I have shared family trees with so many cousins I lost count.  If I could find someone who wanted to do the writing after I did all the research, that would work much better for me.  And then I could edit the manuscript, because I love editing.

15.  Did you ever make a genealogy mistake that caused you to have to prune your family tree?

One mistake, and one discovery via DNA.  The mistake was relying on the information in the IGI to identify my great-great-grandmother Lippincott's parents.  I happily researched the parents that were listed and went back quite a ways.  But as more records became readily available and I did more research, I discovered that there were two girls of almost the same age with almost the same name, my great-great-grandmother and another one.  That, of course, meant that I had to fully research both women.  I was finally able to determine through church records that the parents listed in that IGI record were those of the other Lippincott, not mine, even though the marriage date and husband were correct for mine.  Someone accidentally combined info from two records!  So out went the one line of Lippincotts and I began work on the correct one, which I have not been able to document as extensively, but at least I'm pretty sure they're actually mine.  The two lines will probably end up connecting some generations back, because you can't go anywhere in New Jersey without tripping over a Lippincott because they've been there so long and are interrelated, but I'm not worried about that yet.

The other "pruning" came when I demonsrated through DNA testing that my grandfather's biological father was not the man his mother married.  I actually haven't taken those people out of my family tree, because Elmer Sellers was the only father my grandfather knew, and I put years and years of work into that research.  But I have discontinued further research in that direction and now focus on determining just who my grandfather's biological father was.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: A Favorite Family Photograph

I've missed the past couple of weeks, but I'm catching up with today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver.

For this week's mission (should you decide to accept it), I challenge you to:

(1) Show us one of your favorite photographs of your family — a group, yourself, your mom, your dad, your sibling(s), your grandparents, etc.  Tell us about it — the date, the event, the setting, the persons in the photograph.

(2) Share it on your own blog, in a comment on this blog, or on Facebook.

The photograph I've chosen is definitely one of my favorites, even though I still don't know who is in it.

This is a photo of a family celebrating a bris.  I'm pretty sure the mohel is the man in the middle wearing a white jacket.  The man to his right is probably the rabbi or possibly the male relative given the honor of holding the child for the ceremony.  I'm guessing the bris has already taken place.  The table is loaded with food, ready for the party.

I've always particularly liked the matching dresses on the two women in the lower left corner of the photo, plus the girl on the right side of the photo.  You can see that several people in the photo resemble each other, supporting the idea that it's a big family get-together.

Yet I have no idea who these people are!

I received the photo from the widowed husband of my cousin.  About a year after she had passed away, he wrote to me.  He had gone through the photos in the home and had set aside those that were not from his side of the family.  He was asking if I wanted them.  Of course I said yes.

Most of the photos were unlabeled.  I was able to figure out some because the people in them were named in other photos.  I also did a massive scanning project and shared the images with cousins from that side of the family, and they were able to identify a good number of the rest.  But no one knows who the people in this photograph are.

Because of the cousin it came from, I believe the people are on the Novitsky side of my family.  I'm hoping one day to learn the names of these cousins.

But I love the photo anyway.

Update, January 11, 2020:

I now know who some of the people in the photo are!  My cousin saw my blog post and recognized her grandmother and grandaunt, the two women in the lower left corner in matching dresses, and her grandfather, standing just behind them and laughing.  My cousin thinks the bris may be that of her father, which puts it in Cuba in 1935.

Wedding Wednesday

Mirta and Max

I learned via the New York City marriage index, which became available through the efforts of Brooke Schreier Ganz and Reclaim the Records, that my 4th cousin Max Szocherman married Mirta Mata in New York (probably Manhattan) in 1959, 59 years ago.  (Max and I share 3rd-great-grandparents Avram Yaakov Nowicki and SIrke.)  After consulting with other cousins on that side of the family,  I have been told that the wedding was about October 2, so I'm commemorating it today with photos that were shared with me by those cousins.

Max and Mirta were both born in Cuba, Max probably in Guanabacoa and Mirta in Habana.  I know the Szocherman family had already been traveling to and from New York prior to Castro coming to power, but they apparently moved there permanently after that event.  Max and Mirta likely knew each other already in Cuba.

Max, Tania, Julia, Louis, Mirta (face mostly hidden), ?, ?; Foreground: back of rabbi's head

Front row:  Julia, ?, Mirta; Left/middle:  ?, ?, Tania, Fanny, Welwel; Back:  Max, Honey, ?, ?

Left:  Julia, Honey, Eli; Right:  hat, Fanny, Louis; Back:  ?, ?

Left:  Julia, Honey, Eli;  Right:  hair, back of head with hat, Louis, Fanny, ?

Julia, Tania, Honey, Eli

?, Louis, Fanny, ?, ?, ?

Events in My Family Tree: January 7

For the most part I am only posting those dates for which I have some sort of documentation.  I made an exception this time for the birth date of my cousin Max Szocherman, as I have learned from experience how difficult it is to obtain documentation of any kind from Cuba.

Births

Frederick Cleworth Gauntt, son of Thomas Kirkland Gauntt and Jane Dunstan, was born January 7, 1892 in Burlington County, New Jersey.  He is my granduncle.

Frances Pollack, daughter of Isaac Pollack and Bessie Brainin, was born January 7, 1921, probably in Manhattan, New York County, New York.   She is my 1st cousin 2x removed through the Brainins.

Max Szocherman, son of Velvel Szocherman and Tania Jakowszycka, was born about January 7, 1935 in Habana, Cuba.  He is my 4th cousin on my Nowicki line through the Szochermans.

Marcia Ellen Steward, daughter of Warren Riley Steward and Alice L. Gaunt, was born January 7, 1946.  She is my 5th cousin once removed through the Gaunts.

Crystal Fryer was born January 7, 1984.  She is my 5th cousin 2x removed on my Gauntt line.

Elana Kardish Levitan was born January 7, 1985 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  She is my 3rd cousin on my Gorodetsky line.

Marriages

Mark Lewallen Gauntt and Rhoda Ewing were married on January 7, 1881, possibly in Burlington County, New Jersey.  He is my 2nd cousin 3x removed.

Mark Lewallen Gauntt, Jr. and May Ethel Lake were married on January 7, 1914 in Moorestown, Burlington County, New Jersey.  He is the son of the above-mentioned Mark Lewallen Gauntt and my 3rd cousin 2x removed.

Deaths

Lydia A. Long, daughter of David Long and Margaret Mock, died January 7, 1855 at the age of 20 in Knox County, Ohio.  She is my 4th cousin 4x removed on my Sellers line through the Mocks.

Joseph M. Hunsberger, son of Abraham Hunsberger and Elizabeth Wismer, died January 7, 1937 at the age of 89.  He is my 4th cousin 3x removed on my Sellers line through the Hunsbergers.

Clifford Benjamin Gauntt, son of Isaiah Allen Gaunt and Louisa Lemonyon, died January 7, 1959 at the age of 75.  He is my 2nd cousin 2x removed.

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Florida (in July!)

Here I am at the 37th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, in Orlando, Florida.  (Who schedules a conference in Orlando in July?)  As expected, it's miserably humid, but the air conditioning in the hotel is working perfectly.  (Some attendees think it's too cold, but I'm very comfortable.)  As I told everyone before the conference started, people in Florida take their air conditioning seriously.

The conference started bright and early Sunday morning.  The first session I attended was "Outreach for Societies and Organization Leaders", one of a series of eleven, running through the conference, aimed at genealogical societies.  Outreach has been one of the issues lately for my society, so I headed over there.  I got some good ideas and a handy worksheet to take home and discuss with my board.

I'm giving five talks here at the conference, the most I've ever been scheduled for.  I'm very happy to say that they are spread out over the conference, with only one on a given day.  The first one was "Jewish Genealogy:  How Is This Research Different from All Other Research?", on Sunday.  After two time changes, it ended up at 4:30 in the afternoon (which was much better than the original 7:30!).  I'm happy to say it went very well, with several good questions from attendees.  One woman found me on Monday to let me know that the talk helped her knock down a brick wall!

Talks by Mark Fearer, on immigration laws and documentation, and Banai Lynn Feldstein, on her new Crowd Sourced Indexing, rounded out the afternoon for me.  Then, before the evening keynote, I attended the IAJGS presidents' reception for the first time, standing in for the real SFBAJGS president, who had decided he didn't want to go to Florida in July.  It was great to network with everyone, but I was very surprised to discover that the light snacks provided were not kosher and that there was no kosher option for observant attendees.  That seemed to be a significant oversight (or blunder, depending on your perspective).

The keynote was great.  Robert Watson of Lynn University gave an entertaining, informative talk about Alexander Hamilton and his relationship to Jews and the American Revolution.  Apparently Hamilton has been a favorite historical subject of Watson's for some years, and now I know a lot more about the "bastard orphaned son of a whore and a drunken Scotsman."  Since I have not seen the musical Hamilton, I learned on Sunday that Hamilton was taken in by the Jewish community of Nevis after he was orphaned for the second (or was it third?) time.  There he learned to speak Hebrew, to add to the seven languages he already knew.  Apparently Hamilton, who was incredibly intelligent and a prodigy when he was young, wrote a significant number of George Washington's speeches and letters, including many of the latter sent to Jewish congregations around the United States.  Watson was a wonderful speaker; it was easy to see why he was twice named Teacher of the Year by students at Lynn.

Monday started out far too early (7:00 a.m.!) at a breakfast hosted by FamilySearch, which is working on finding and digitizing ever more records.  The meeting was held to reach out to researchers in the Jewish genealogical community to help identify records of interest.  I'm hoping something can be worked out for records from the Jewish Cuban community.

I tried going to some talks in the morning, but I abandoned one after the speaker spent the first 15 minutes talking about personal reminiscences rather than the stated topic, and another when the speaker used words of one syllable and enunciated everything as though he were talking to kindergarteners.  (I know, I'm so fussy.)  Then I headed off to the IAJGS Media Lunch, where several bloggers, tweeters, and others discussed ways to help publicize next year's IAJGS conference in Warsaw, how Jewish genealogical societies can take advantage of social media, and how International Jewish Genealogy Month can be updated to become a more effective outreach tool.

In the afternoon I learned about finding Israeli burial data from Daniel Horowitz, then went to a talk purported to be about one thing but that actually ended up promoting a Web site.  That was . . . disappointing.  I left early and spent the rest of the afternoon in the new "mentoring" area, helping people who came by looking for research advice.

The evening wrapped up with two presentations.  Dr. Alexander Beider, who is well known in Jewish genealogy for the many books he has written on Jewish names, spoke about the historical, linguistic, and onomastic facts supporting the commonly accepted theory that Eastern European Jews migrated there from Western Europe.  That talk was followed by Dr. Harry Ostrer discussing the genetic evidence that supports the same theory.  It was quite an interesting evening, and I think I'm going to somehow find the money to buy Dr. Beider's book about Yiddish dialects.  Once a language geek, always a language geek.

My commentary on days 3 and 4 of the conference is here, and that for days 5 and 6 is here.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Newspapers, Newspapers, Newspapers!

I have been meaning to post another update of what has been added to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page for a while now, but I've been distracted by a lot of other projects.  I didn't realize it had been seven months since I last posted!  I'm trying to catch up, though, so here are some of the most recent additions.  One new country, Lithuania, and new state, Kansas, have been added to the list.  Several of the new archives are being created by one of two companies, Advantage Preservation (which does them with free access) or Newspapers.com (which makes them available for a subscription fee).

• Australia:  Honi Soit, the student newspaper of the University of Sydney (New South Wales), has been digitized for 1929–1990.

• British Columbia, Canada:  The Prince George Public Library has eight newspapers, including the student newspaper for the College of New Caledonia, on its site, ranging from 1909–1965.

• British Columbia, Canada:  Simon Fraser University has a collection of digitized newspapers online, including the student newspaper The Peak and one group called simply "More Newspapers."

• British Columbia, Canada:  The Thompson-Nicola Regional District library is digitizing newspapers from the Kamloops area and has a selection available covering 1882–2014.

• Cuba:  Diario de la Marina is available through the University of Florida's newspaper collection. Years covered range between 1844 and 1961, but coverage is not continuous.

• England:  The Church Times, an Anglican newspaper, has an online archive dating back to its first issue in 1863 and including more than 8,000 issues.

• France:  Two collections of images from Excelsior, a weekly publication that published 20+ photographs in every issue during World War I, are available.

• Italy:  Nine months of the 1885 issues of Il Secolo, published in Milan, are on the Florida State University digital archives site.  The press release I read suggested that more issues will be coming at some point in the future.

• Lithuania:  A new country!  Someone has digitized the Vilna Provincial Gazette and posted it on the Internet Archive.  The years covered are 1838–1917, with a few years missing.  This was published while Lithuania was under the control of the Russian Empire.

• Mexico, Arizona, California, and Texas (under Worldwide category):  The Historic Mexican & Mexican American Press collection includes newspapers from Tucson, Arizona; Los Angeles and San Francisco, California; El Paso, Texas; and Sonora, Mexico.  The archive goes from the mid-1800's to the 1970's.

• New Zealand:  The Southern Regional News Index covers the Dunedin and Otago area for 1851 to the present.

• United Kingdom:  The Gazette has created an instructional video on how to search and use the online Gazette archives.

• California:  The GLBT Historical Society of Northern California has an online searchable database of obituaries (not just an index) for the Bay Area Reporter, a weekly newspaper covering the GLBT community primarily in the San Francisco Bay area, for the years 1972 to the present.  The Bay Area Reporter itself has an online archive that begins with 2005 and is working on digitizing its issues going back to 1971.

• California:  The St. Helena Public Library has the St. Helena Star from 1874–2014 available for free.

• California:  The now defunct San Fernando Valley Genealogical Society posted a collection of vital records abstracts on RootsWeb for Valley newspapers covering 1911–1945.

• Connecticut:  The Shelton Library has two collections of newspaper clippings.  The "Library Scrapbook" has clippings from multiple newspapers from 1923–1930 relating to the Plumb Memorial Library.  The "Servicemen's Scrapbook of Shelton Men & Women Serving in World War" has clippings from the Evening Sentinel from 1943–1945, so apparently those servicemen were serving in World War II.

• District of Columbia:  The Capital is online for 1871–1880 and is said to be a great source for research in the Reconstruction period.

• District of Columbia:  Quicksilver Times (1973–1985) and Unicorn Times (1969–1972) are available from the Washington, DC Public Library.

• Georgia:  The Macon Daily Telegraph for 1860–1865 is in the American Civil War Newspapers database at Virginia Tech.

• Illinois:  The Lake Forester for 1899–1940 is on the Lake Forest Library site.

• Indiana:  The AIM Media Indiana archive, which has eleven newspapers, is a pay site created via a Newspapers.com partnership.

• Iowa:  Central College in Pella has ten collections of student newspapers and yearbooks covering 1876–2006, but there are some gaps in coverage.

• Iowa:  West Branch newspapers the Local Record and Times, from 1866–1934, are on the West Branch Public Library.

• Kansas:  A new state!  There is an obituary index for Rush County at the Barnard Library site.  It covers 1878–1951.  Copies of the obituaries can be ordered from the library.

• Kentucky:  The Lawrence County Public Library has an online obituary index for the Big Sandy News that covers 1885 to the present.

• Louisiana: The New Orleans Christian Advocate, a Methodist newspaper, is only for 1850–1946.

• Louisiana:  Scanned ads from former slaves looking for family members and friends lost during slavery which were published in the New Orleans Southwestern Christian Advocate (1879–1885) — which does not appear to be related to the previously mentioned paper — are available for free online.

• Maine:  Digital Maine has the Old Orchard Mirror, a newspaper published only during the summer, for the years 1900, 1901, 1903, 1904, and 1914.

• Maryland:  The Annapolis Capital has been digitized and placed online by NewspaperArchive.com on a pay site.  The collection nominally goes from 1887–2016, but it goes straight from 1887 to 1918–1919 and then to 1929.  It looked continuous from then on.

• Massachusetts:  The Memorial Hall Library in Andover has three newspapers covering 1853–1925.

• Massachusetts:  The Newburyport Public Library has ten digitized newspapers available for free on its site, courtesy of Advantage Preservation.

• Massachusetts:  The Portuguese-American Digital Newspaper Collections, housed at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, includes Portuguese-language newspapers from California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts.

• Massachusetts:  The (Mattapoisett) Wanderer, which also serves Marion and Rochester in southeastern Massachusetts, has an online archive for its entire publication history, 1992–2016, housed at the Internet Archive.

• Minnesota:  Two union newspapers, the Minneapolis Labor Review (1907–current) and St. Paul Union Advocate (unsure of years covered), are now online.

• Missouri:  The Houston Herald has been digitized and placed online courtesy of Newspapers.com for 1881–present and is a pay site.

• Missouri:  There are online indices for death notices appearing in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and the Post-Dispatch, along with instructions on how to order copies.

• Montana:  The Montana Newspapers project has some dupblication with the Montana Memory Project but includes many more newspapers.  The years range from 1885 to 2015.

• New Jersey:  The Belmar Historical Society has the Coast Echo and Coast Advertiser for 1881–1974 in PDF and searchable.

• New Jersey:  The New Jersey Hills Media Group has partnered with Newspapers.com to present three newspapers on a pay site.

• New Jersey:  The Woodbridge Public Library has digitized eleven local newspapers ranging from 1876–1970.

• New Mexico:  The White Sands Missile Range published its own newspapers, which cover 1950–1990.  There is a list of the issues that are missing, so if you have an old issue, maybe you can help!

• New York:  A new collection of four Staten Island newspapers has been made available, with plans for more to come.

• North Carolina:  The Nubian Message (1992–2005), the black student newspaper of North Carolina State University, has been digitized and placed online.

• Ohio:  The Stark County District Library has digitized eight newspapers in partnership with Advantage Preservation.

• Ohio:  The WestLife Observer (2013–2015) and the Westlake Bay Village Observer (2006–2015) are online at Westlake Library site.

• Oklahoma:  The Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College student newspaper, The Norse Wind, is online for 1948–2007.

• Virginia:  The Library of Virginia has the Charlottesville Daily Progress available for 1893–1964.

• Virginia:  The Prince William County Library System has a local newspaper index for 1993–present for three newspapers that have no other index available.

• Virginia:  The Pulaski County Library newspaper archive has five newspapers that range from 1893 to 2015.

• Virginia:  The Handley Regional Library System has an obituary index for the Winchester Star for 1896–1914.  This is a work in progress, and more information is being added to it.

• Wisconsin:  The Lake Geneva Public Library has searchable indices for obituaries, birth announcements, and local people in the news.  The site does not state which newspapers or years are covered, but an announcement from NEHGS said the obituaries were taken from the Lake Geneva Regional News and Lake Geneva Herald.  The local people in the news database iincludes the code LGNT, which I believe stands for Lake Geneva News Tribune.

• Multistate:  The Swedish American Newspapers collection, hosted at the Minnesota Historical Society, includes 28 newspapers from California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.  Total years covered in the database are 1859–2007.

Earlier this year, the National Endowment for the Humanities, one of the funders for the Chronicling America digitization project, announced that the years which can be funded are expanding from 1836–1922 to 1690–1963.  This means that eventually we should see a much broader range of historical newspapers on the Chronicling America site.  You can read the press release here.

A Declaration of Intention — from Cuba

I have written before about the research I am doing on my Cuban cousins, the branch of my family that immigrated to Cuba from Eastern Europe before coming to the United States.  My presentation at the recent IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy was about my research.

Besides learning more about my cousins and adding to that part of my family tree, one of the goals I had set for myself was to obtain actual documents from Cuba about my relatives.  That turned out to be a much more difficult process than I had imagined, but so far I have two birth certificates, one marriage certificate, and something that seems to be the equivalent of a U.S. Declaration of Intention, the first step to naturalization.  This gave me some wonderful information about Max's life.

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

REPUBLIC OF CUBA

CIVIL REGISTRATION

SAN MIGUEL DEL PADRÓN

SWORN LETTER OF INTENTION OF CITIZENSHIP

Arianne Martinez Remedios, Registrar, State of San Miguel del Padrón.

I certify that I saw Book 12, Page 75[?], of the Citizenship Section of Civil Registration; the record appears which is copied verbatim here and which states:

MORDUCHE SZOHERMAN

In San Miguel del Padrón, Havana province, at 3:00 p.m., on September 10, 1937, before His Honor Luis de la Paz Cervera, Municipal Judge, Head of Civil Registration, and Manuel de Lazaro Sixto, Secretary, appeares Morduche Szocherman, native of Polesie, Poland, 25 years old, single, businessman and resident of this neighborhood, First and Gabriel, Rosalia Division.  Verified his appearance asking to register in the Civil Registration his reununciation of Polish nationality and sworn intention of becoming a Cuban citizen, as described in the sixth article, fifth subsection, second heading of the Constitutional Law of this Republic, and under oath declares that he was born in Polesie, Poland on January 6, 1912, being legally recorded at that time as the legitimate son of Chaniania and Reyzel, of the same nationality and residents of Poland.  That he is single and has no children.  That he does not provide a birth certificate because he does not currently have it, but in accord with Presidential Directive 1859 of the year 1908 has written to the archive where it is located with the approximate dates.  That he arrived in Cuba on the steamship Orbita on December 24, 1932 and since that date has resided in the Republic with no interruption.  That he formally renounces his Polish citizenship and swears to his intention of becoming a Cuban citizen, to observe and comply with the Constitutional Law of this Republic, the laws that govern and governed the same.  Witnessing this information and this act are Marcos Torriente Torriente, native of Pedro Betancourt, Matanzas, married, and Ismael Hernández Torriente, native of Matanzas, single, both of legal age, employed and residents of 11 Rastro, Havana, which they swear to under oath and being warned of the penalties with which the Law punishes the crimes of perjury, swear it is correct.  His Honor the Judge, by merit of the oath and the information received from the witnesses, has accepted the renunciation of Polish citizenship and sworn intention to become a Cuban citizen from Morduche Szocherman.  Read and found to conform to the present act, sealed and signed by the petitioner and the witnesses after His Honor the Judge, who certifies.

Appears the legible signature of His Honor the Judge, the petitioner and witnesses, and stamp.

At the request of the interested party, this is issued on April 12, 2016.

Arianne Martinez Remedios
Civil Registrar

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

This has given me a lot of material to work with.  I knew Max's parents' names already, but I now have a birth date (which I may never be able to verify), his date of arrival in Cuba, the ship he traveled on, even which Havana neighborhood he was living in.  He must have known the witnesses; maybe they worked with or for him.  Plenty of new leads to follow!

I am disappointed, of course, that this is a typed transcription of the original and not a copy, but that's the way they do business in Cuba.  I'm still not sure whether they even have photocopiers there.

IAJGS 2016 — Conference Wrap-up and Looking Ahead

How time flies!  It's hard to believe, but the IAJGS 2016 International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is already over.  The second half of the conference had several useful sessions, plus we had not one, but two days of ProQuest databases (but more on that later).

Wednesday was a good day for some socializing.  One of the sessions I attended was the Professional Jewish Genealogists Birds of a Feather meeting.  The professional genealogists at the conference try to get together to talk about what’s going on in our field, how we can help each other, and things along those lines. About a dozen people came, and we had some productive discussions.  Then for lunch, three of us at the conference who have participated in the ProGen Study Group (Susan Kaplan, Janice Lovelace, and me) actually went out of the hotel (!) and had lunch together, in a real restaurant, no less.   It was an enjoyable break.

From the regular sessions I went to, I was surprised that the one I found most informative was on Newspapers.com.  I’ve been to one of the talks before (a thinly veiled sales pitch), but I always want to keep up-to-date on what’s happening with digitized newspapers.  I learned that for its new digitization efforts Ancestry has partnered with ProQuest, and this time it’s better for the newspaper publishers than in previous times.  Publishers actually get a copy of the digitized papers, which apparently didn’t always happen before.  I remember the sad experience I had trying to find the Poughkeepsie Journal online after it was dropped from Fold3.  It was digitized by ProQuest, and when the online agreement expired, the Journal didn’t even have a copy of the images of its own paper.  With the new agreements that apparently shouldn’t happen to other publishers.

Wednesday was also ProQuest database day in the resource room, which I always look forward to.  For several years the conference has been able to arrange access to many ProQuest databases for attendees.  Along with about 40 historical newspaper databases, some of which I had not seen at previous conferences — Austin American Statesman, Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, South China Morning Post — there was a database I hadn't heard of before, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.  I had a field day!  I found files and reports about Jewish, Japanese, Chinese, and Sikh immigration into Ellis Island, oral interviews from 185 people who had immigrated through Ellis Island or worked there, even a series on INS investigations into prostitution and white slavery.

Thursday morning started far too early for my taste.  Because my talk was at 7:30, which I wasn’t happy about to begin with, Emily Garber organized a bloggers breakfast for 6:30(!).  I actually managed to get there early, which meant I had time for a nice cup of Earl Grey before everyone else arrived, and I was almost awake.  It’s nice to see people in person with whom you normally interact only in cyberspace, so it was worthwhile to be there.

I had been joking all conference that I was expecting about five people to show up for my 7:30 talk about the research I have done on my Cuban cousins.  I admit, it's a pretty narrow topic.  I was so happy to see thirteen people there!  My talk went well, although I finished sooner than I had expected, for which I apologized.  There were several questions afterward, though, and everyone seemed to enjoy it, so I think it was successful.

After my talk I was finally awake enough to notice that there were signs around saying that we had an additional day of ProQuest database access.  Yippee!  I was able to download the remaining oral interviews I hadn't had time for on Wednesday, plus find some additional newspaper articles.  ProQuest has never given us an extra day before, so this was a great treat.

Judy Russell’s presentation about being an ethical genealogist was straightforward:  Her three rules are tell the truth, play nice with others, and don’t tell tales out of school.   If you keep those in mind when you’re doing your research, sharing information with others, and posting family info online, everything should pretty much be fine.  That seems like a good approach for genealogy to me!

One big negative on Thursday was the session that was really nothing more than a sales pitch for research services.  The substantive information was easily shared in less than two minutes; everything else after that was the pitch (in a 75-minute session).  Someone not at the conference suggested to me that maybe what we need are to have some presentations clearly labeled as “vendor sessions.”

Friday morning, the last day of the conference, is always a mixed bag.  Many attendees leave the conference early, and sessions tend to be small.  I’m sure it’s difficult to decide what to schedule for those conditions.  A talk about proving the Jewish ancestry of a Catholic family was short on documentation (as in, none was shown) and lasted only 25 minutes.  Judy Russell spoke about some situations in which DNA has been used successfully when documentation did not exist.  And in the last time slot of the day, Michael Strauss gave an interesting presentation on the life and family of Levi Strauss (who is no relation, as he pointed out).  And then everyone began saying their good-byes and drifting away as they headed home.

I caught the end of one additional session on Friday, where two of the organizers of the IAJGS 2017 conference were seeking input on what attendees liked and didn't like this year and what they would like to see next year.  I heard some people say they have already decided they don’t plan to attend next year’s conference, which will take place July 23–28 in Orlando, Florida, the first time the conference will be held in the South.  While I agree that Florida in July is not exactly my idea of perfect weather conditions, I do hope to be at the conference.  Some research areas the organizers plan to emphasize are Jewish life in the South and in Colonial America.  Now I have an incentive to push myself to prove that the Daniel Joseph I have been researching in 1760’s Virginia is indeed the brother of Israel Joseph, a big macher in the Jewish community of Charleston, South Carolina.  I better get back to work on that research!

IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy 2016 — Already Halfway Done!

I'm attending the IAJGS Jewish genealogy conference in beautiful Seattle, and it has certainly been an interesting three days.  The highlight of Sunday's presentations was, by far, the keynote address by Dr. Devin Naar, "Sephardic Family History as Jewish Family History."  He talked about how he became interested in family history when he was young and began serious research when someone sent him information about another family named Naar, wondering if they were related.  He traced the other family backward from New Jersey to the Caribbean, Netherlands, and eventually Portugal and Spain.  He has learned much more concrete information about the other Naar family than his own, unfortunately.  Though it is almost definite that his Greek Naar family came from Spain and is probably connected, he can't trace his family out of Greece, primarily due to a lack of records.  He integrated the stories of both families into the broader scope of world history, explaining events that affected them.  He even clearly explained the difference between Ladino and Spanish, which I have been wondering about for a while.  The fact that he is still stuck on his own family made his journey that much more realistic, because everything wasn't all wrapped up in a neat, pretty package at the end.  And he was an energetic, enthusiastic speaker.  I suspect his students at the University of Washington enjoy his classes a lot.

The most memorable line of his talk, however, wasn't actually about his research.  It was a translation of a Ladino saying:  the "relative of the heel." This is someone who is probably related to you, but you don't quite know what the relationship is, or he might be a distant relation, or perhaps an in-law of an in-law, or might really just be an old, old friend of the family with no blood connection at all.  It reminded me of Jeremy Frankel (the president of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society) and the "tenuously, absurdly distant" cousins he writes to, hoping that they have a photo or some snippet of information about the family.

On Monday I tended to a fair bit of business.  I went to a media lunch talk with the IAJGS president and other bloggers, a "birds of a feather" meeting for volunteers working with the JewishGen Yizkor Book Project, and the JGS Webmaster roundtable (standing in for the SFBAJGS Webmaster, who was not able to attend the conference).  But I was able to make time to see the documentary Havana Nagila:  The Jews of Cuba, which I really thought I should squeeze in, seeing as how my talk at this conference is about the research I did on my Cuban Jewish cousins.  It was an interesting movie, especially because it's more than 20 years old at this point.  I even recognized some of the people and locations from my visit to Havana last July.

Tuesday brought more variety to my schedule.  Two sessions I attended were all about research, in Australia and New Zealand (by Robyn Dryen, she of the oh-so-dry sense of humor) and in the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC, or "the Joint") archives.  My cousin's mother was from Australia, and I still want to hunt down some information on that branch.  And the Joint assisted so many people, I'm convinced I have to be able to find something on someone in my family.

Tuesday was also when I had consultations with representatives from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem, who brought laptops with specialized databases not available online.  Now that I know the names of more of my relatives who perished in the Holocaust, I was hoping to find documents about them.  There might be something in the ITS holdings for Maishe Eli Szocherman, who died in Auschwitz, but none of the other names appeared in any of the databases.  This means I have several names for which I need to submit Pages of Testimony.

Most of the intrepid SFBAJGS attendees

Of course, the conference is always a wonderful opportunity to network and see other genealogists in person.  In addition to the 40+ members of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society who traveled north for the conference, I've talked to Maris Bredt, Schelly Dardashti, Banai Feldstein, Emily Garber, Roger Lustig, Jeff Malka, Jeff Miller, Israel Pickholtz, Garri Regev, Mary Roddy, Janette Silverman, Joel Spector, Susan Weinberg, and Joel Weintraub, along with several others.  And there are still three days to go!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

They're Not Mine; Are They Yours?

Herschel Kosewen and
Maria Wiernicka
marriage license (top)

I'm sure that everyone who does family history research has at some time ordered a record (probably more than once!) for a person that turned out not to be a family member.  What to do with these?  They aren't doing me any good.  I've accumulated a few of these at this point, so I thought I'd post about them in the hope that other researchers who can use them might read about them here before ordering them.  It's easy to spend a lot of money doing research; helping someone else save some money is a good thing.  These are all high-resolution scans, all but one from microfilm.  All are from New York City except one marriage license from Cuba.

Edwin Carroll Atwood and Margaret Victoria Andren marriage license, Manhattan, New York, May 9, 1931

Alex Blumenkranz and Leah Citron marriage license, Bronx, New York, December 1, 1934 (first page only)

Julius Fitzgerald and Margaret Andrew marriage license, Manhattan, New York, January 21, 1937

Herman Greenberg and Dorothy C. Itzkowitz marriage license, Bronx, New York, May 21, 1935 (first page only)

Jerome V. Heim and Margaret C. Andrews marriage license, Queens, New York, September 5, 1931

Jerome Klosenberg and Edith Posnick marriage license, Bronx, New York, June 9, 1935 (second page only)

Herschel Kosewen and Maria Wiernicka marriage license, Havana, Cuba, March 19, 1937

Irving Strauss and Rebecca Kshonz marriage license, Bronx, New York, November 24, 1934 (second page only)


Dora Sandals birth certificate, Manhattan, New York, February 23, 1899

Beckie Sandler birth certificate, Manhattan, New York, March 11, 1895

Joseph Sandlowitch birth certificate, Manhattan, New York, May 23, 1893


Margaret (Webster) Morrison death certificate, Bronx, New York, November 27, 1923 (first page only)

John O'Brien death certificate, Bronx, New York, November 27, 1923 (second page only); wife Mary O'Brien

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Best Find of 2015, and Research Challenge for 2016

It's Saturday night, so it must be time for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.  This week is a two-parter, bridging the transition from 2015 to 2016:

1)  What was your best research achievement in 2015?  Tell us:  Show us a document, tell us a story, or display a photograph.  Brag a bit!  You've earned it!

2)  We all have elusive ancestors.  What research problem do you want to work on in 2016?  Tell us where you want to research and what you hope to find.
 
3)  Put the answers in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.

Well, I absolutely think my best research achievement last year was the collaboration between me and my half-sister that resulted in finally(!) obtaining a copy of my paternal grandfather's birth record, which I wrote about earlier.  Not only had I been incredibly frustrated at not being able to get the record, it turns out the information on it and the subsequent amendment that was filed have raised interesting questions.

As for what I'll be working on in 2016, there are three big questions I'm hoping to answer this year, two of which I put in my Dear Genea-Santa letter:

• I'm trying to learn what happened to the son that my aunt put up for adoption in 1945.  My aunt turned 90 this year, so on a practical level this is the most time-sensitive.

• I want to determine whether my grandfather's father was the same man who fathered my grandfather's siblings.  One of my cousins, who is a straight-male-line descendant of my grandfather's brother, agreed to take a Y-DNA test, and he recently told me that he has sent it in.  Now I just have to wait to see if he matches my father.  And if not, I'm sure it will be . . . er, entertaining to try to figure out who my grandfather's father actually was.

The other focus will be more research on my Cuban cousins, which I've recently started working on more diligently.  I want to make progress on this while some of those cousins who were actually born in Cuba are still alive and able to share information with me.  So this one has a time-sensitive aspect also.

I don't want much, do I?

History of the Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón

During my recent trip to Cuba, I visited the large Necrópolis Cristóbal Colón (Christopher Columbus Cemetery).  Just inside the entrance was a display celebrating the 143rd anniversary of the cemetery, which opened October 30, 1871 (so the display probably was put up last year).  I figured this information would be difficult to find outside of Cuba, so I've translated the text to share it with others.  I have arranged the short essays into a rough chronological order of the events described, which is different from the order in which they were displayed.  Please forgive the light reflections on some of the images; the display was all under glass, and I'm not a professional photographer.

Illustrated Timeline of the Christopher Columbus Cemetery
143rd Anniversary of the Cemetery: October 30, 1871

Old General Cemetery of Havana

In 1806 Havana’s first general cemetery, known as the Espada Cemetery in honor of Bishop Juan José Diaz de Espada Fernández y Landa, one of its primary supporters, opened its doors. This cemetery ended the dangerous practice of burials in churches and convents.

In the mid-19th century, gradual population growth and deteriorating hygiene and sanitation led to successive epidemics, exhausting the burial space available and making it necessary to build a much larger and more modern cemetery.

The Espada Cemetery was closed in 1878 and demolished in 1908.

Opening of the Christopher Columbus Cemetery

On October 30, 1871, the new city cemetery was opened.  The event was commemorated in an anonymous painting portraying what happened at the ceremony, with the benediction, and which included depositing into the first stone a copy of the day's newspaper and some coins.

North Facade of the Cemetery

A majestic sculpture designed by the architects Calixto de Loira and Eugenio Rayneri. Almost 22 meters high and built of stone from Jaimanitas [a suburb of Havana].  It is inspired by the classic Roman "Gates of Triumph", showing a predominance of the popular Romanesque style in its arches and the massiveness of its walls.  Note that the sculptures were not yet in place.

Gallery of Tobias

First large mortuary that was built in the cemetery for the burial of the dead, using a system of recesses; these functions ceased in 1874 due to defects in the construction.  In the 1970’s it was reclaimed to be used as a state-owned ossuary.  It is an extensive catacomb, 95 meters long, with 526 recesses in three rows.

The name of the gallery was taken from a biblical character of the Naphtali tribe who was devoted to various works of charity, including transporting and burying the dead, in the 7th century BC [8th century BC, according to the Wikipedia article].

Central Chapel

In 1886 work was completed on the new cemetery.  In the chapel Christian ceremonies are conducted.  This chapel marks the center of the cemetery, at the junction of the main avenues.  Of a marked necromantic character, it is the only religious building in Cuba with an octagonal plan.

View of the Interior of the Cemetery, 1892

View from the central chapel of the cemetery toward the main entrance.  This represents the upper-class area, where one sees an abundance of elegant monuments.  Note how the cemetery was growing like a city, in line with the interests of the owners.  The hierarchy of the spaces was determined in the sales of the plots in order to build tombs according to prices established for social classes.

Gate of Peace

Crowning the main arch, above the inscription JANUA SUM PACIS (“I am the Gate of Peace”), stands a sculpture in Carrara marble, representing the three theological virtues (Faith, Hope, and Charity), by Cuban sculptor José Villalta y Saavedra.  It was put in place in 1904.

At the same time two other works by the same sculptor were placed on the north and south faces of the main arch. They represent two biblical passages. On the outside is "The Crucifixion" [visible in this photo], and inside is "The Resurrection of Lazarus."

Cemetery Expansion

In 1922, a project was drawn up to expand the cemetery through its eastern section, incorporating areas that are called A, B, C, D, E, and F, increasing the overall area to 560,000 square meters [almost 140 acres].

Northeast Corner of the Cemetery, May 7, 1949

View from the corner of Avenues 23 and 18.  Here the intersection of Zapata Avenue and the old Estancias Road can be seen.  Note that the right angle of the corner was transformed into a curve to provide greater traffic flow for the road.  [And see the Esso gas station?]

The last two blocks of the cemetery to the west were a space for burial of non-Catholics and victims of epidemics.  After the construction of the Chinese and Baptist cemeteries, as well as improvements in hygiene and sanitation, the space had no purpose and was transformed in the late 1940’s.

National Monument

In 1987 the cemetery was declared a national monument, due to its indisputable historical value, heritage, and treasured documents in its archives.  In the cemetery expressions of religion and of Cuban popular and traditional culture coexist.  It has an extensive collection of architectural and sculptural works and decorative arts, true examples of national and universal culture.  Inside one can find prominent individuals of national and international importance.

Wordless Wednesday

My Cuban Adventure, Part 3: General Impressions and Observations

Cuba was definitely an interesting country to visit.  I have been to a Communist country before — I visited the USSR in 1983 — so I had some expectations that proved to be accurate.  Lots of political and ideological slogans were plastered all over the place, on billboards, building walls, buses, even inside stores:  ¡Venceremos! ("We will succeed!", with a photograph of young female ballet students), Patria o muerte ("My country or death"), Nuevos retos, nuevos victorias ("New challenges, new victories"), Sin cultura la libertad no es posible ("Without culture, freedom is impossible"), Solo la voluntad humana podrá salvar el mundo ("Only human will can save the world"), and even a photo of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in a (state-owned) rum and cigar shop.  One slogan I particularly liked was La palabra enseña; el ejemplo guía ("Words teach, but examples lead"), credited to Che.

I also expected to hear a lot of political rhetoric, and I was not disappointed.  As I mentioned in Part 2, one site the group visited was a cooperative organic farm.  The president of the cooperative lectured us for 45 minutes about how the work they were doing was helping the country, how everyone worked together, how the U.S. could learn lots of valuable lessons from them, ad nauseum.  The one surprise was when he said that Cuba is facing a problem because the fact that all citizens' basic needs are met — everyone has housing, healthcare, education, and basic food provided — means that people don't have to work, and some people actually choose not to.  Of course, he didn't respond to any questions following up on that point, and didn't answer several other questions that apparently touched on other questionable topics, but instead simply "answered" about totally unrelated subjects.  The coop president spoke in Spanish, and our tour guide interpreted for him.  I was able to follow along with what the president said and then compare how the guide translated.  At one point he made a comment about the problems with democracy, but the guide translated it as problems with individuals.

Our tour guide was generally very good at phrasing things so that they didn't stray from party ideology.  She chose her words carefully when describing potentially volatile subjects.  She obviously didn't want to alienate the group on which she was dependent for employment and gratuities, and I also got the impression that for the most part she believes in her country's system.  But for all her talk, not only is she working as a tour guide to supplement the income she receives from her position as a university professor ($50 each month, we were told), it seemed that she was likely getting kickbacks or some kind of percentage cuts from vendors, even going so far at one establishment to ask a clerk how much members of our group had spent.  It appears the capitalist spirit is doing well in Cuba, even among the party faithful.

The bus we traveled in was from Transtur, which seemed to be the official government tourist agency.  We saw Transtur buses in many of the places we went.  This reminded me of going around the Soviet Union with Intourist, the official state tourist agency there.  I never had the impression in Cuba that we were being watched, however, while in the USSR many members of that group were pretty sure we were followed and watched a good portion of the time.

Other experiences, however, were more of a culture shock.  There seems to be some sort of (unwritten?) rule that women in Cuba must wear impossibly tight clothing.  Almost all women wore extremely tight pants (usually Spandex), no matter how narrow or wide they were, and pantylines be damned.  This included police officers (super tight slacks with high heels) and even customs agents at the airport (would you believe two women wearing Spandex and tank tops?  yes, they really were customs agents).  Tops also were very tight and stretched to their limits.  Some professional women, such as officers and hotel employees, substituted very tight, very short mini skirts for the Spandex pants.  They usually wore suit jackets and blouses instead of the ubiquitous stretch tops.  Some of the customs agents wore mini skirts with patterned stockings.  As I tend to wear loose, comfortable Hawaiian shirts and jeans, I stood out like a sore thumb.  For men, somehow the baggy pants look was imported and is very popular.  Sorry, Cuban men, very few of you could get work as underwear models.

Cuban food was somewhat disappointing.  I already knew that Cuban cuisine is not particularly spicy, but I wasn't expecting totally bland.  Salt and pepper seemed almost unknown in prepared food, and herbs were equally nonexistent.  Most of the food tasted adequate but uninspired, and we saw the same dishes in multiple places.  I don't know if the dishes and preparation styles were truly "authentic" or merely what is offered to tourists.

Our group with Daisy and her family

The best meal we had was in a private home.  Through a complicated connection that began when a man tried to escape from Cuba and was rescued by people in the Dominican Republic, we were given the opportunity to have dinner with a family in their home.  The matriarch made the best chicken croquettes (one of those dishes we saw multiple times) we had all week, along with Cuban tamales (much moister than Mexican style), tostones (double-fried plantains), pork and veggie stew, fried ripe plantains, roast chicken, stewed yucca, fresh avocado, and shredded coconut and cheese for dessert (which may sound odd but was very tasty).  Our guide did not come with us to this dinner, and I became the interpreter, dredging up the Spanish I haven't used on a regular basis for more than 30 years.  They didn't kick us out or look offended, so I must have done ok.

Most of the buildings I saw appeared to be sturdily built but falling into disrepair.  The phrase "shabby gentility" came to mind.  This applied equally to residential, commercial, and government buildings.  Paint was peeling, pieces of exteriors were missing (most buildings in the city appeared to be made of concrete, though in the country I also saw uneven clapboard, bare corrugated metal, and cinder blocks).  Many residences looked as though they had been through fires.  Some houses had pieces missing from the roofs but were still occupied.  Many buildings were obviously too damaged for use but were not fenced off, simply abandoned.  Fences often seemed to have been made from whatever materials someone could find; I saw wood slats, broken tree branches, cardboard, and other opportunistic items filling in spaces in bare wire.

Something else I noticed about buildings was that almost universally, ground-story doors and windows had heavy-duty bars, and many second-story windows had bars also.  Government buildings did this one better:  Instead of bars, they had those roll-down doors (like in warehouses) that cover windows entirely.  So even though there doesn't appear to be a problem with personal safety — the women in our group walked around even late at night and nothing happened — I'm not so sure about property crime.

There was trash everywhere — in the city, in the country when we went to Viñales, everywhere.  There was also graffiti all over Havana.  It was a very dirty city.  As I remember Moscow being very clean, I was not expecting this, but it has been three decades.  Maybe Moscow is dirty now also.

Animals that Americans think of as "pets" were in very poor condition in general.  Though some people had dogs on leashes, and those dogs looked well taken care of, they were the exception, and cats and dogs usually looked scrawny and underfed.  Ribs, hip bones, and shoulder bones often were easy to see beneath the skin.  Neutering animals does not appear to be a popular thing to do, because pretty much every male dog and cat we saw was fully intact (thereby helping increase the populations of those dogs and cats, of course).

One interesting aspect of Cuban culture our tour guide explained to us was race, or rather the lack thereof.  In Cuba the government policy is that everyone is mixed race, so race is not used as a classification.  On driver's licenses, "black", "white", and "mulatto" refer to skin color, not race.  The guide also mentioned that someone's skin color is subjective and can easily vary by time of year and how much the person has been in the sun recently.

During our visit to the artist's studio, I noticed two rainbow flags incorporated into the artwork.  Our guide told us that the government's official stance on the LGBT community is acceptance and accommodation.

Most roads were in awful condition, including the major highway we traveled on to go to Viñales.  The speed limit on the highway wasn't very high, most of the time topping out at 60 kph (about 35 mph).  For some short stretches, it actually got up to 80 (50), 90 (55), and even 100 (60) once.  But we'd be zipping along, and suddenly the driver would start hitting the brakes, slowing down gradually to almost a crawl, so he could avoid yet another pothole spanning the width of the lane.

Beyond the condition of the road, I think one of the reasons for the relatively low speed limits is that the highway has to accommodate not only cars and buses but also more old-fashioned transportation.  During our three-hour trip west I counted nine pairs of yoked oxen and sixteen horse-drawn carts that used the highway.

A confusing sight along the highway were overpasses that didn't connect to any roads.  I never learned whether they were roads that hadn't been completed, roads that used to exist but had been destroyed, or built that way deliberately, perhaps as shade for hitchhikers.  Our guide had told us that hitchhiking was the national sport, and a lot of people used the highway to bum rides.  But it gets really hot during the day, and being able to take shelter under those overpasses probably saves some lives.

Something I really liked in Cuba was how traffic lights work.  Every side has a countdown, for both drivers and pedestrians, in green to let you know how much longer the light will stay in your favor, and in red so you know how much longer you'll have to wait.  The system seemed to work very well (but people jaywalked anyway).

the corner of 21 and M streets

Street "signs", however, were another thing.  Instead of a pole on the corner with the names of the intersecting streets, in Havana you see small, square obelisks with the street names on the different faces.  Not only were they difficult to see easily (I can't imagine looking for them while driving), not all of them were in good condition — some were broken, sometimes the street names were missing, and some just didn't have any writing on them at all.

An unexpected bit of excitement on our trip was the opening of the U.S. embassy, on Monday, July 20.  The event was televised locally and was greeted enthusiastically by everyone we saw.  Later that day several of us decided to visit the embassy just to try to look around.  We were turned away because we didn't have any official business to conduct, but we took photos outside the building to commemorate the historic event.

Visiting Cuba really was a great adventure.  I'm glad I had the opportunity to do so, and it's a trip I'll always remember, even though I wasn't able to find everything I wanted to about my family.  Only time will tell if I'm being overly pessimistic about what will happen as more Americans travel there.  I hope I'm wrong, because I would like to go back again some time and try my research again.

My Cuban Adventure, Part 1, is "In Search of Family History."
My Cuban Adventure, Part 2, is "Seeing the Sights."