Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who Are Your Spouse/SO's Grandparents and Great-grandparents?

It's time for everyone's favorite weekend genealogical activity, Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver!

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

1.  Have you researched the ancestors of your spouse (or significant other)?  Please list the names and vital records data for your spouse/SO's grandparents and great-grandparents as in an Ahnentafel report.

2.  Have you written a genealogical sketch and/or biography for each of them?

3.  Share your list of your spouse/SO's ancestors in your own blog post or in a Facebook, SubStack, BlueSky, or other social media post.  Leave a link to your post on this blog post to help us find your post.

Of course I've researched my ex's ancestors!  What kind of genealogist do you think I am? <grin>

Now, do I have the information handy?  No, because I upgraded my computer a few months ago, and I still haven't been able to hook everything up again and make all my files accessible, including my Family Tree Maker program.

But let's see what I can do from memory . . . .

Hugh's Ancestors

Generation 3 (grandparents)

4.  Kartar Singh Sandhu, born date unknown, probably in Punjab, British India (probably in Khatkar Kalan); married date unknown, probably in Punjab, British India (probably in Khatkar Kalan); died date unknown (probably before August 16, 1947, i.e., before Partition), probably in Punjab, British India.

5.  Raj Kaur, born date unknown, probably in Punjab, British India; died possibly between 1970 and 1971, possibly in Punjab, India.

6.  Hugh Vincent McKenney, born about May 11, 1886, possibly in Belfast, County Down, Ireland; married about 1913, probably in Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts; died January 24, 1961, Quincy, Norfolk County, Massachusetts.

7.  Honora McSweeney, born about September 3, 1879, Ballyvourney, County Cork, Ireland; died February 18, 1958, Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, California.

Generation 4 (great-grandparents)

8.  <unknown given name> Singh Sandhu, probably in Punjab, British India (probably in Khatkar Kalan); married date unknown, probably in Punjab, British India; died date unknown, probably in Punjab, British India.

9.  <unknown given name> Kaur, probably in Punjab, British India (probably in Khatkar Kalan); died date unknown, probably in Punjab, British India.

12.  Patrick McKenney (unconfirmed).

13.  Mary McElaney (unconfirmed).

14.  John McSweeney, born about October 1826 in Ballyvourney, County Cork, Ireland; married about 1859 in Ireland, probably in County Cork; died 1910–1914, probably in Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts.

15.  Catherine O'Leary, born about December 1834, probably in Ballyvourney, County Cork, Ireland; died December 14, 1921 in Brockton, Plymouth County, Massachusetts.

Well, that's what I am able to reconstruct at this time.  I'm pretty sure it's most of the information I have in FTM.  I might have nailed down some specific dates that I don't have here.

I haven't written a genealogical sketch or biography (particularly not with AI) for any of them.

What Do You Mean, You Don't Like It?

I'm celebrating National Beer Day by reminiscing about drinking Guinness at the brewery in Dublin, Ireland.

I'm shocked to realize that it has been almost 30 years since I was in Dublin.  How did that much time go by?

But that's how long it has been.  In 1996, I managed to wrangle Gaming Guests of Honor invitations for GaelCon, the national Irish gaming convention, for myself and one of my best friends, Chris Williams.

While both Chris and I had been working in the adventure game industry for several years, neither of us was of the stature of the big names.  I knew that, so I worked a different angle to nail down those invitations.  I submitted our gaming resumes and asked if we were going to be in the United Kingdom already, perhaps the convention would consider flying us over from London.  And our resumes were definitely good enough to carry that.

So we flew into Gatwick, got through customs, and trundled immediately over to the gate where we boarded our Ryanair flight to Dublin.  Even now, my strongest memory of that flight is the one flight attendant who was very, very tall, but the flight attendant jumpseats were very, very close to the deck.  That poor girl had to fold her legs totally under the seat, and she looked so uncomfortable.

I don't really remember the details of our arrival in Dublin.  I think we were picked up at the airport?  We somehow arrived at the bed and breakfast that was to be our home base for the next week and a half.  They had incredibly good, homestyle food, and we loved eating there.  That was the first time I ever had milk that still had the cream on top.  Heaven!

The first several days were spent attending the convention, and we had a great time.  John Tynes was the major guest of honor, and I vaguely recall something about him having to shave his head because he didn't remember to bring Hamish back to Ireland with him.

After the convention was over, we spent a few more days in Dublin being tourists and sightseeing.  And one of the things we did was visit the Guinness brewery at St. James's Gate to take the tour.

I have been a fan of Guinness for many years.  I like my beer dark and chewy, and Guinness is the epitome of that.  So I had been looking forward to the tour since we arrived.

When we bought our tickets and checked in, we also received two coupons, each good for a half-pint of Guinness after the tour.

At this point I unfortunately don't remember the details of the tour, but I recall that it was interesting and had a good amount of history about the making of stout in general and about Guinness in particular.

I do remember that at the end of the tour everyone was pointed toward the tasting room and given instructions on how to redeem our coupons.

As I mentioned, I like Guinness, so I quickly gave both of my coupons for a full pint.

Chris, on the other hand, redeemed only one coupon and got a half-pint.

We sat down and I happily started drinking my Guinness.  Yum!  I decided that it really does taste better in Dublin.  Now that I think about it, that is one thing I remember from the tour:  We were told that the reason it tastes better in Dublin is because the water comes from the River Liffey.  I'm willing to concede that's the case.

Chris, however, took two sips from his glass, pushed it away, and said, "I don't like it."

Shocked, shocked I was!  And I said, "What do you mean, you don't like it?"

"I just don't like it."

There's no accounting for taste.  But I wasn't going to let that good stout go to waste.  I took his glass and finished that along with mine.

The ironic thing is that after we returned to the United States, he started drinking Scotch.  I guess there really is no accounting for taste.

Image by Aneil Lutchman and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Umm, Beer . . . .

"The cause of and solution to all of life's problems." — Homer Simpson

Well, I'm not sure Homer is entirely correct, but good beer is well worth enjoying.

Did you know that April 7 is National Beer Day?  According to the National Day Calendar, beer is the world's most popular alcoholic beverage and third most popular beverage overall, behind water and tea.

My favorite choice for good beer is Guinness Stout.  I have had the excellent fortune to enjoy Guinness at the St. James's Gate brewery in Dublin, Ireland, and yes, it does taste better there.  I don't know if it's really because of the water from the River Liffey, which is what they tell you, but it definitely tastes better.  It's smooth and malty and goes down just like that.

When I went to the brewery, I was with a friend.  He took two sips of the Guinness, pushed it away, and said, "I don't like it."  What??!!  Are you crazy??!!  On the one hand, to each his own, but on the other hand, there's no sense wasting good Guinness, so I took his and drank it after finishing mine.

When I participated in the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Southern California several years ago, we were told that the beer they drank in Elizabethan times in England was like liquid bread, and that's how I think of Guinness.  It doesn't just quench your thirst, it's actual nourishment.

I remember, though, when I was a kid living with my family in California, when we visited relatives on the east coast, we had to promise to bring Coors with us, because you couldn't get it on the other side of the country then, and everyone wanted it.  Now when I taste a Coors (well, rarely), I wonder if they actually liked it, or if it was just better than the other choices available (such as Bud, eww!)?  Or did they want it only because they couldn't buy it?

I admit, I like my beer malty, not hoppy, and Coors and Bud are far hoppier than Guinness.  Maybe if you like hoppy better they're perfectly fine.  I'll stick to my Guinness, thank you.

I'm not happy that Guinness is now owned by the multinational conglomerate Diageo.  But I guess it's better than not having Guinness at all.

Wordless Wednesday for Marriage Equality

Obergefell v. Hodges 4-year anniversary

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: How Many of Your Ancestors Are in the Social Security Death Index?

Randy Seaver is back with a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge that has you searching for your ancestors in a database:

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

(1) Michael John Neill wrote a blog post this week listing his ancestors who have entries in the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).  He had seven ancestors in the SSDI.

(2) This week, review your files and determine which of your ancestors has an entry in the Social Security Death Index (free on FamilySearch.org; see https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535).  How many do you have?

(3) Tell us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a status line on Facebook or Google Plus.  Leave a comment with a link to your blog post if you write one.

Ok, here's my list:

• Grandfather:  Bertram Lynn Sellers (1903–1995)
• Grandmother:  Anna Gauntt (1893–1986)
• Grandfather:  Abraham Meckler (1912–1989)
• Grandmother:  Lillyan E. (Gordon) Meckler (1919–2006)

• Great-grandmother:  Laura May (Armstrong) Sellers Ireland (1882–1970)
• Great-grandmother:  Sarah Libby (Brainin) Gordon (~1885–1963) (maybe)

So I have five, possibly six, ancestors who appear in the SSDI.  My father is still alive.  I'm not sure if it's my great-grandmother Sarah Gordon or not in the SSDI, and that person does not appear in the claims index.

On the other hand, I do have three ancestors who appear in the Social Security Claims Index.  Both of my grandfathers, Abraham Meckler and Bertram Lynn Sellers, are in there.  My great-grandfather Joe Gordon (~1892–1955) is also in the claims index, although he does not appear in the SSDI.  None of the rest of my great-grandparents is in either database, and my most recently deceased great-great-grandparent, Gershon Itzhak Novitsky, died in 1948 and also does not show up.

And I had my own strange search result with the SSDI on FamilySearch.  I looked for my grandmother Lillyan Meckler under those names with her year of death and did not find her.  When I searched for Esther Meckler, however, she was the only good matching result, with the full name of Lillyan Esther Meckler.  So I had the same kind of weirdness that Randy did while searching for his mother.

Brother, Can You Spare an Hour (or Two)?

It's time for another round-up of projects that are looking for volunteer help, whether in the form of transcriptions, information, or time.  If you have an hour or two a week to spare or some specialized knowledge, maybe you're just the person for one of these requests.

Flooding in Montreal’s Bonaventure Depot in
1886.  Photo: George Charles Arless. Source:
McCord Museum, Montreal, Quebec, MP-1999.6.1

As is becoming more and more common, several of the projects are asking volunteers to transcribe digitized information.  McGill University in Montreal, Québec is hoping people will be interested in working on 150 years of meterological observations from the McGill Observatory.  The focus of the Data Rescue:  Archives and Weather (DRAW) project is studying the historical weather data to identify patterns and trends, but an article notes, “The Observatory ledgers are also full of interesting little notes about the daily lives of our ancestors."  So if you had relatives living in Montreal, you can learn more about what their weather was like and how it affected them.  The project site is still in a beta testing stage, but interested participants can sign up now and practice using the transcription tools.

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Yale University's recent foray into crowd-sourced transcription work is all about the drama — Yale's School of Drama, that is, along with the Yale Repertory Theatre Ephemera Collection.  The aim of the Ensemble @ Yale project is to create a database of Yale theatrical history.  Volunteers can browse digitized programs spanning more than 90 years and transcribe play titles, production dates, and names of directors, cast, and crew.  Once the first two collections have been transcribed and put into a searchable database, more Yale theater-related collections will be considered as additions.  If you had a family member at Yale or are into theater history, this may be the project for you.

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Ukrainian family from Tyshkivtsi,
Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1890

A transcription project more directly related to family history research is the one connected to the recently launched database of genealogical records for Ukrainians born between 1650 and 1920.  The database is said to include information on more than two and a half million people, with plans to increase the total to between four and five million people by 2019.  Documents used as data sources originated with the Tsardom of Muscovy, Russian and Habsburg empires, Poland, and the Soviet Union.  The index is currently searchable only in Cyrillic, but a Roman alphabet search is planned for the future.  (Remember, Google Translate understands Ukrainian and is your friend.)

If you register on the project site you can create a family tree.  The transcription site provides instructions on how to do the transcription work, and lists locations and whether documents have been finished or are waiting to be worked on.  Something I didn't find on the site is a list of what documents are being used, which would be useful for determining whether Jewish individuals might be included in the database.

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There are enough volunteer transcription projects now that someone has created a page to aggregate them.  It's on an education-oriented blog, and the focus is on students working with historical texts, but it's a nice collection of links conveniently grouped together.

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1903 Vacaville Reporter front page

A local request for assistance comes from the Vacaville (Calfornia) Heritage Council, which is looking for volunteers to take on projects such as scanning photo negatives, researching local history, organizing donated historical material, and various computer tasks.  Some of the historical items that scream to be cared for are the Vacaville Reporter's newspaper collection from 1930–2006, microfilm of newspapers going back to 1883, and photo negatives.  Interested individuals can contact council president Doug Rodgers at the e-mail address given in the article.

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Three more local requests, these from museums in eastern Contra Costa County, California, were featured in a recent newspaper article.  The Antioch Historical Museum, East County Historical Museum, and Pittsburg Historical Museum and Society have each received healthy donations of newspapers, microfilm, and other historical items that now need to be sorted and prepared for access.  Contact information for each of the groups is in the article, if you have the time to help.

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Dr. Kimberly Jensen, a professor at Western Oregon University, is trying to find more information about The People's Bulletin, a black community newspaper published in Portland, Oregon.  The only known surviving issue, from June 7, 1917, is Volume 1, Number 34, and is held at the University of California at Santa Barbara's Special Research Collections, as part of its “Portland [Oregon] African-American Collection, circa 1900–1970.”  So far all documentation for the newspaper indicates only the year 1917, although June 7 was in the 23rd week of 1917, so the first issues should have come out in 1916.  It's obviously a very rare paper; it isn't even listed in the Chronicling America directory.  Anyone who can provide information about The People's Bulletin is asked to contact Dr. Jensen at the e-mail address given in the article linked above.

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There are always lots of Irish projects going on.  A releatively new one is Epic Journeys - Ellis Island, which aims to document the Irish experience going through Ellis Island.  The project began in 2015 with a focus on the parish of Tulla, County Clare but has now expanded to other departure points in Ireland, including locations in the counties of Cavan, Cork, Galway, and Tipperary.  The Web site is currently going through an upgrade, so contributions cannot be made through it directly, but they can be sent via an e-mail address on the site.

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The Edmonds Historical Museum (in Snohomish County, Washington State) is asking its area residents, whether military veterans, current service members, or civilians, to come forward and share their wartime memories, from World War II through to the recent War on Terror.  All interviews will be shared with repositories for permanent preservation, and participants will each be given a copy of the oral history interview to keep and to share with family members if desired.  After November 2017, the interview project will expand to general memories of Edmonds and south Snohomish County.  Details and contact information are in an online article about the project.

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This one isn't directly genealogy-related, but identifying the person should help one family.  Authorities from Orange County, California have put out a public request for help with their oldest cold case, who is a Jane Doe.  "Jane" was found dead on March 14, 1968 in Hungtington Beach, California.  She was estimated to be 20–30 years old, 5'2"–5'3", and about 130–140 pounds.  More information about her case, including the clothing and items found with her, is on the Defrosting Cold Cases blog.

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Detail from The Book of Magical Charms

The last project I'll mention today has nothing to do with genealogy, but it just sounds really cool, so I want to share it.  How would you like to transcribe magical manuscripts?  The Newberry Library in Chicago is giving you that opportunity.  The Book of Magical Charms describes how to care for toothaches, cheat at dice, complete a conjuring, and speak with spirits.  How can you possibly pass that up?  Atlas Obscura has an interesting article about the project, and you can visit the transcription project site to get started.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Genea-Bucket List

Wish lists are always fun to create, because you can really go nuts with what you would like to do.  And that's what Randy Seaver is asking us to do for this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:

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

Knowing that a "Bucket List" is a wish list of things to do before death:

(1) What is on your Genealogy Bucket List?  What research locations do you want to visit?  Are there genea-people that you want to meet and share with?  What do you want to accomplish with your genealogy research?  List a minimum of three items, more if you want!

(2) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own (please give me a link in Comments), a comment to this post in Comments, or a status line or comment on Facebook.

Think big!  Have fun!  Life is short - do genealogy first!

Ok, here's mine:

1.  Locations I want to visit:
• Burlington County, New Jersey for an extended research visit, because that's where most of my father's family was from:  Armstrong, Gauntt, Gibson, Sellers, Stackhouse, and other families
• Trenton, New Jersey, because it's the location of the New Jersey State Archives
• Research repositories in New York City and extended area, because that's where most of my mother's ancestors lived after they immigrated to the United States
• Kamenets Litovsk (now Kamyanyets), Porozowo, and Kobrin (minimum), Belarus, all locations from which members of the Meckler and Nowicki branches of my family came
• Kreuzburg (now Krustpils, Latvia), the (claimed) origin of my Brainin family line
• Kamenets Podolsky (now Kamyenets Podilskiiy, Ukraine) and Kishinev (now Chisinau, Modolva), where Gorodetsky family members were born and lived
• Khotin, now in Ukraine (I think), where one branch of the Gorodetsky-Kardish family lived
• Manchester, England, home to my Dunstan line for several generations
• County Cork, Ireland, particularly Ballyvourney, home to my stepsons' paternal ancestors on the mother's side
• Punjab, India, particularly Khatkar Kolan and Patiala, home to my stepsons' paternal ancestors on the father's side

That's the short list.  I can come up with even more if I try.

2.  People I want to meet and share information with:
• Any relatives I can find in the above-mentioned locations :)
• Relatives with whom I am in electronic contact but whom I have not yet met
• Relatives whose names I have from previous research but whom I have not yet met
• Anyone else I find I'm related to
• After I determine who my grandfather's biological father was (see below), people from that branch of the family

3.  What I want to accomplish with my genealogy research:
• Determine who my grandfather's biological father was
• Meet as many relatives as possible
• Collect photographs of as many ancestors as possible
• Learn as much as possible about my ancestors and other relatives as individuals
• Create books or other collections to share with family members
• Document family members who perished in the Holocaust for Yad Vashem
• Find someone else in the family to carry on my work after I'm gone, because I'm going to assume I can't resolve all the questions before I go

National Volunteer Week: What Can You Do to Help?

National Volunteer Week is a week of observance in the United States and Canada designed to spotlight the contributions volunteers make and to thank them for their efforts.  In 2017 it will run from April 23 through April 29.  In my little corner of the family history blog world, I regularly post about ways in which people can volunteer their time, talents, and more to help with various genealogy and history projects.  So in honor of next week's event, it seemed like a good time to help publicize opportunities to help out.

A historian is researching the history of personal ads in the United States.  She is looking for information about couples who met each other through a personal ad published in a newspaper any time between 1750 and 1950.  If one of your ancestors or another family member met a husband or wife through a personal ad, or if you know of someone else who did, Francesca Beauman would love to hear the story.  You can contact her by e-mail at francescabeauman@gmail.com.  All information that is shared with her will be treated with the strictest confidence.

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Ho Feng-Shan

Researcher Mark Sy is working on a project about Dr. Ho Feng-Shan, a Chinese diplomat during World War II who issued thousands of exit visas to Austrian Jews fleeing the country after the Nazi invasion.  Sy would like to communicate with survivors who received these visas, or their descendants, to learn about their plights and experiences during that time.  This could be anyone who was living in Vienna from 1938–1940 and received a visa.  Many of the refugees exiled to Shanghai ended up settling in North America, as several documents of survivors obtained from Yad Vashem and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center reference early U.S. postal codes and New York ZIP Codes.  Interviews so far have been conducted with individuals based in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Melbourne, but survivors and their descendants could be anywhere in the world.  Please contact Mark at marksy85@gmail.com.

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How much do you know about Colorado history?  Maybe you can help solve the mystery of the woman in the portrait.  At the Colorado State Archives, while cleaning up after a leak in a storage area, several old portraits of former Colorado governors were found, along with one portrait of a woman.  The problem is that no one has any idea who the woman is.  The local NBC affiliate covered the story, and the reporter posted about it on his Facebook page, but so far no one has come up with the answer.

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Speaking of history, the Pioneer Village Museum in Beausejour, Manitoba is asking people to help identify early 20th-century photographs from the area, about 30 miles east of Winnipeg.  The photographs are being scanned from negatives that were donated to the museum after the woman who had them passed away.  So far the photos appear to range from about 1900 to the 1930's.  One man actually recognized himself in a photo!  The museum is looking for identification of people or locations in the photographs, which are being posted to Facebook.

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Another repository seeking help in identifying people in photographs is the Oak Ridge Public Library in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  The photos were taken by resident Ruth Carey from the 1960's to April 1994 and were donated to the library, along with many undeveloped negatives, by Carey's daughter.  Some of the prints and negatives have been digitized, but the majority have not and must be viewed in person at the library.  Carey apparently was Jewish, and a good number of the photographs are of the Jewish community in Oak Ridge.

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About 30 some odd years ago, a man living in Hrodna, Belarus (formerly Grodno in Russia and Poland) discovered two albums with photographs and letters in the attic of the building in which he was living.  Some of the photos have writing in Polish and Hebrew, and the names Konchuk/Kanchuck and Vazvutski appear.  The items were likely left in the building, which seems to have been in the Jewish section of the city, before or during World War II.  The man is now trying to find family members to return the items.  There's a long article in Byelorusian about the story (here's the Google Translate version), but apparently without contact information.  A woman who has posted about this on Facebook seems to be functioning as a contact person.

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Two more photos that are currently unidentified arrived at the Belleville (Illinois) Labor & Industry Museum with a donation of printing materials.  Each of the photographs is of an individual (one man, one woman) laid out in a casket for viewing.  The museum is asking people to look at the photos and call if they can provide any information.

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This year, the West Midlands Police (main office in Birmingham, England) celebrates the 100th anniversary of its first female officers, who joined the force in April 1917.  Three female officers in an archive photograph are unidentified, and files on four of the early officers have not survived.  The force is looking for help from the public in identifying the unknown faces in the photo and in gathering any information on these pioneering policewomen.

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Not all photographs are unidentified, which is a good thing.  If you have any family connections to Truro, Nova Scotia, particularly from 1967 to the late 1980's, you might want to contact Carsand Photo Imaging.  The company is owned by the son of the late Carson Yorke, who founded Carsand-Mosher Photographic.  The elder Yorke kept all the negatives of portraits he took during the aforementioned years, and his son, Colin Yorke, is now trying to reunite images with families.  Colin Yorke is apparently taking contacts primarily through his company's Facebook page, but you should be able to get in touch with him through the company's Web site if you don't use Facebook.

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The University of South Florida at St. Petersburg is looking for donations of back issues of The Weekly Challenger, the historic black newspaper of Pinellas County, from 1967 through the 1990's.  Even clippings can be helpful.  The newspapers will be digitized to create an archive.  Contact information is in the article linked above, as is a link to a recording of a lecture about the Weekly Challenger digital initiative.

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When I teach about online newspapers, I discuss the problems that optical character recognition (OCR) software has with reading old newspapers due to ink bleed, typeface dropout, damaged pages, and other problems.  Something I've never considered is whether the software has problems recognizing old fonts.  That issue apparently did arise for Iowa State University when it digitized its yearbooks for 1894–1994 (except 1902).  Because of that, and to have the content be more accessible (as in ADA) online, Iowa State is asking volunteers to help "Transcribe the 'Bomb' " (the name of the yearbook is The Bomb).  An article has information about the digitization project and a link to the volunteer site.

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Dr. Ciaran Reilly is coordinating the Irish Famine Eviction Project to document evidence of evictions between 1845 and 1851.  His vision is to create a dedicated online resource listing GPS coordinates for famine eviction sites and to create a better understanding of the people involved in the evictions.  It is hoped that the project will shed new light on numbers, locations, and background stories of those involved.

Sponsored by Irish Newspaper Archives, the project will use primary and secondary source information to research, gather, and catalog evictions.  One of the goals is to collaborate with individuals, societies, and libraries across the world.  The project is looking for any information about evictions, locations, and local folklore.

To see the 500 sites that have been mapped so far, visit https://irishfamineeviction.com/eviction-map/.  To submit your own research for inclusion in the project, e-mail your findings to famineeviction@gmail.com or tweet @famineeviction.

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Writer David Wolman wants to have a huge party with descendants of the approximately 600 passengers (most of whom were Irish) rescued from the sinking ship Connaught in October 1860.  Failing that, he would at least like to make contact with any of those descendants.  Wolman recently published a story about the rescue of the Connaught's passengers and a modern-day treasure hunter who wanted to find the shipwreck, and issued an invitation to contact him via e-mail or Twitter.  A list of the passengers is in a New York Times article available online.

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I don't usually post stories that have already appeared on Eastman's blog, because he has much, much wider readership than I do, but this one is important enough that I felt I should (because I know not everyone reads Eastman).  Extreme Relic Hunters, a company that specializes in World War I and World War II relic retrieval, discovered a huge cache of WWII dog tags (more than 12,000!).  The majority are from British servicemen, but there are some from other countries.  Of the British, almost all are from Royal Armoured Corps, Royal Tank Regiment, or Reconnaissance, with no RAF or Navy personnel.  The guys from the company want to reunite as many of these dog tags with family members as humanly possible (one was returned to the veteran himself).  You can read about the discovery and the project to return the dog tags on the Forces War Records and the Extreme Relic Hunters sites.  Oh, and Extreme Relic Hunters is looking for volunteers to help them with the return project; they're just a little overwhelmed.

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If you have not read about it yet, well known genealogy speaker Thomas MacEntee has posted a survey to learn what family historians and genealogists think of the industry today and what they would like it to be.  Read about it here and then click the link to take the survey.  He promises that your e-mail address will not be saved and you will not be contacted.

The Season of Giving: Mississippi Midwifery, U.S. Civil War Coded Telegrams, Victims of the Grim Sleeper, and a Possible "Righteous" Couple

The end of the year is often called the "season of giving", when people are asked to contribute to worthy causes.  The worthy causes and projects listed below are asking not for your money but for your time, knowledge, and information.  Please read through them and see if you can help.

The American War Cemetery and Memorial at Margraten, Netherlands includes graves for 8,301 American soldiers and an additional 1,722 names listed on the Walls of the Missing.  The “Faces of Margraten” project, sponsored by the Foundation of United Adopters of American War Graves, has collected almost 4,100 photos of service members buried in Margraten or listed on Walls of the Missing since 2009.  The aim of the group is to remember U.S. soldiers buried in overseas American cemeteries and to commemorate the World War II liberators of the province of Limburg and of the Netherlands.

If you have a photo of a soldier buried or memorialized in Margarten, please consider submitting it via the site's contact page.  Information will be stored in the Fields of Honor database, where searches can be made for soldiers buried or memorialized in the American War Cemeteries in Margraten, Ardennes, and Henri-Chapelle.  The next public tribute will be in 2018.

Contributions of photographs are welcome at any time.  Photographs may also be submitted by mailing them to:
Stichting Verenigde Adoptanten Amerikaanse Oorlogsgraven
Loonsevaert 21
5171 LL Kaatsheuvel
Nederland

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Gunnar Pudlatz of Hamburg, Germany is looking for witnesses or testimony on actions by his grandparents in the years 1939–1945.  He has about 930 letters his grandparents wrote to each other in the 1930's and 1940's, in which they talk about people being hidden.

Karl Kessler in 1937

Gunnar's grandparents were Karl Anton Keßler (1912–1942) and Gerda (Bertram) Keßler (1911–1983).  They were pastors of the reformed church in Altlandsberg, east of Berlin, and were in Altlandsberg from 1939–1945. According to oral history they hid up to 50 Jews in their home at Bernauer Straße (street) 16.  Jews would probably have arrived through the back yard, entering the garden through a gate in the town wall, and were most likely hidden in the basement.  The garden was used to grow plenty of fruits and vegetables, so there was always enough food to share with those the Kesslers hid.  Karl and Gerda were well connected with other pastors in the area.  Karl had worked at Büro Grüber and was a member of the confession church, whose members helped each other through networking and evidently also built up a chain of shelters around Berlin, so people in hiding could be passed from one hideout to another.  Gerda said that sometimes they hid Jews for "longer periods."  Unfortunately Gerda never mentioned any names after the war, and because her house was one of the few in the city that had burned to the ground, she left Altlandsberg in September 1945.  The hope is that the photographs, names, and circumstances shown here will be found by survivors who spent that time around Berlin or anyone who has information about these people.

Gerda Kessler in 1942

Suche nach Zeugen und Belegen für Hilfsaktionen für Juden durch Karl Anton und Gerda Keßler in Altlandsberg (1939-1945).  Karl Anton Keßler (1912-1942) und Gerda Keßler (1911-1983), geborene Bertram, halfen in der Nazizeit/im zweiten Weltkrieg als junge evangelische Vikare der Bekennenden Kirche im Pfarrhaus der von ihnen betreuten reformierten Schlosskirchengemeinde von Altlandsberg (östlich von Berlin) mehreren Menschen, die als Juden verfolgte waren. Ihrer Tochter Johanna – meiner Mutter – hat Gerda Keßler nach dem Krieg davon erzählt. Karl Keßler arbeitete zusätzlich zu seiner Arbeit in der Gemeinde im Berliner „Büro Grüber“, wo bedrängte Menschen betreut wurden und von wo aus Ausreisemöglichkeiten vermittelt wurden. Während Karl in den Krieg zog und bei Stalingrad starb versteckte Gerda noch bis zum Kriegsende verfolgte Juden im Pfarrhaus in der Bernauer Straße 16 in Altlandsberg, unter ihnen gelegentlich auch Kinder. Gerda Keßler verließ Altlandsberg im September 1945. Sie erwähnte gegenüber ihrer Tochter nie die Namen der Versteckten. Sollte sich jemand an Hilfsleistungen der beiden erinnern, diese bezeugen, mündliche oder schriftliche Belege dafür haben, würde ich mich über Informationen und Kontakte sehr freuen.

For questions and more pictures Gunnar can be contacted via e-mail at schuwoe@gmx.de.

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Was your Irish ancestor a Mountbellow Workhouse girl who immigrated to Australia in 1853 aboard the Palestine?  The Mountbellow Workhouse Project is tracing the descendants of 33 Mountbellow girls who left on that ship.  The project wants to tell the girls' stories, establish from where in Galway they came, and connect descendants with their Irish cousins.  Some of the girls' siblings immigrated to the United States, so there are relatives there also.  Background information and the story of Mary Dooley, one of the workhouse girls, can be read in an article on IrishCentral; more information about Mary Dooley can be found in a follow-up article.  You can contact the Mountbellow Workhouse Project via its Facebook page.

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The Mississippi Link recently published an article about an effort to collect information and stories about the history of midwifery.  The oral histories conducted have included people who were birthed by midwives and women who used the services of midwives when they had their children.  The article noted that black midwives delivered white babies and white midwives delivered black babies, and the oral history collection will include stories of both races.  More stories of midwives are being sought, but it is unclear whether only stories relating to midwives in Mississippi are desired.  To share stories and for more information on this project, e-mail Alferdteen Harrison, Ph.D., at alferdteen@aol.com or call (601) 953-4060.

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Did you know that you can help decode and transcribe U.S. Civil War messages and telegrams?  Thomas Eckert, who was in charge of the U.S. War Department's Civil War telegraph program, saved almost 16,000 telegrams that helped direct the course of the war.  Eckert kept the telegrams, including many in code and the accompanying cipher books.  These have now been digitized and are being transcribed through a crowdsourcing effort.  The Huntington Library, which holds the collection, announced the project on its blog.  You can learn how to participate and sign up on Zooniverse, which is hosting the project.

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As part of its 50th anniversary commemoration, the British housing charity Shelter is trying to make contact with children and families who appear in 1960's and 1970's photographs depicting postwar run-down housing conditions.  This article discusses the history of the original photography project and includes commentary from the photographer.  Images of all of the photographs are available online.

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Why do you want to research your family tree?  Dr. Tanya Evans of Macquarie University in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia wants to hear only from residents of Great Britain and Australia about this question.  She is interested in learning the motivations behind your research and the emotional impact of your family discoveries.  Evans has written a book on the history of Australia's oldest surviving charity and has acted as a consultant for the Australian version of Who Do You Think You Are?  You can contact her at Tanya.Evans@mq.edu.au.

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This is an update to an effort I have written about previously.  The Jewish Community of Nuremberg is in possession of the so-called Stürmer or Streicher Library, a collection of approximately 10,000 books the Nazis took from Jews, Catholics, Freemasons, and others.  The books were taken primarily from Nuremberg, Franconia; Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine; and Vienna, Austria, but provenance research has indicated that more than 2,200 owners were from other parts of Europe or from overseas.  The Jewish Community is asking for assistance in finding the former owners or their descendants so that the books may be returned.  Restitution is free of charge.  So far more than 700 items have been returned to ten different countries.

More background on the collection, a list of known owners, and photos of identifying information from the books are available on GenTeam.  Additional background information is available here.  Contact Leibl Rosenberg, representative of the city of Nuremberg for the Jewish Community, with questions and research results.

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Front:  Dawson, Gordon, Moss
Back:  McFaden, Taylor, Cooper

The Canadian Letters and Images Project, which began in 2000, is an online archive of the Canadian war experience—from any war—as told through letters and images of Canadians themselves.  Contemporary letters, diaries, and photographs are digitized, permitting Canadians to tell their stories through words and photographs.  This is the largest such collection online in Canada, about 20,000 letters and growing.

A YouTube video about the project may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0g2VFdYfIg. To search the project site go to http://canadianletters.ca/search/site.

The project wants to borrow correspondence, diaries, photographs, and other personal materials connected to Canadians at war, on the home front and the battlefront.  The documents are digitized in their entirety, with no editing, and the originals are returned to their owners.  The project makes arrangements—at its expense—to have materials picked up and returned by courier to ensure the materials' safety.

If you are interested in sharing your family's war letters, diaries, etc. with the project, visit http://canadianletters.ca/content/about-us and scroll down to “Contact Us.”  The materials must be about Canadians, but anyone, whether in Canada or not, may contribute letters, diaries, and other memorabilia.

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Lonnie Franklin, Jr., was convicted on May 5, 2016 of being the serial killer nicknamed the "Grim Sleeper."  Part of the evidence that connected him to deaths that occurred in Los Angeles between 1985 and 2007 was a collection of photographs hidden in his home.  Franklin had apparently been in the habit of taking photos of each of his victims.  While the photos helped gain Franklin's conviction, not all of the women in the photos have been identified.  A page on the Los Angeles Police Department's site shows photos of 33 women whose identities are not yet known.  Some of the women appear to be unconscious or possibly dead, so his list of victims may be longer than is currently known.

Do More DNA Results Lead to Irish Ancestry?

I had two extra AncestrayDNA kits lying around.  One was left over because my aunt was unable to provide enough spit to make the test work, and I ended up getting her a Family Tree DNA test instead.  The second was unused because the person for whom I had originally intended it passed away before I was able to send it.  So I had been trying to figure out to whom to send them instead.

I remembered a recent post by Judy Russell, the Legal Genealogist, when she discussed the significant differences in ethnicity estimates between her DNA results and those of her siblings.  Since I've been curious about the possibility of actually having Irish ancestry (12%, as shown by my AncestrayDNA results) since I proved (through Y-DNA testing) that my grandfather was a Sellers by informal adoption, I decided to send the tests to my two full siblings.  I wanted to see if either or both of them would have Ireland appear in their ethnicity estimates.  That might lend more credibility to the possibility that my grandfather's biological father was at least part Irish, and maybe help me in my search to find him.

Now, I do realize, as Judy reminds everyone regularly, that the ethnicity estimates are really nothing more than "cocktail party conversation" (or "smoke and mirrors", as I call them), because the underlying statistics are simply not reliable and have significant margins of error.  I also know, however, that if you have double digit results, it's likely that there is at least some amount of that ethnicity in your make-up.

So I checked with my brother and sister to make sure they were willing to do the tests, registered the kits on my account, and then sent the packages off.  I waited patiently for the "processing" messages to arrive from Ancestry.com, and then again for the results.

And now they've both arrived.

AncestryDNA ethnic results for Janice M. Sellers

AncestryDNA ethnic results for my brother

AncestryDNA ethnic results for my sister

The results aren't as wildly varied as those of Judy and her siblings, particularly for the major contributors, but there are definitely differences.  We all show up as about half Jewish, just as we should, but we vary from 45% to 48% to 52%.  We all show large amounts of Europe West, ranging from 26% to 34% to 40%.

And we all show Ireland.  My brother and I show 12%, while my sister has only 2%.  A result of 2% could easily be erased by the margins of error present in these tests, but two results of 12% make me think I'm on the right trail in looking for a man with Irish origins as my great-grandfather.

Of course, now that I have these DNA results, I also plan to work with the real data, the chromosomal information, to see what else I can learn about our ancestry and to try to connect with cousins.  But I figure having one theory borne out by additional testing is a good start.

And why didn't I also test my half-sister, who shares the same father with my brother, my sister, and me?  Because her mother was all Irish all day long, and that would throw off any ability to identify Irish on my father's side of the family.  But maybe I should get her to take a test to see if she really does show up as half-Irish . . . .

Oh yeah, and I realized this is my 1,000th blog post.  Not bad for someone who still hates to write!

What's that, girl? Timmy fell down the well?

Lassie was always ready to help, wasn't she?  But she probably wouldn't have been able to do much to assist with the below projects.  Maybe you can?  The first three are a little more time-sensitive than the others, but it's a long list this time with plenty of options.

Neoklis Girihidis in 1943

When he was a teenager, Neoklis Girihidis saved the lives of 17 Jewish Greek boys from Thessaloniki (Salonika) by guiding them to guerrilla fighters in the mountains and allowing them to escape from the Nazis.  Now, more than 70 years later, he is trying to find out what happened to those boys.  He would like to connect with at least one of them before he dies; he is currently 88 years old.  A story with more details is online.

Please share this story.  It is probably the only way to find the children Mr. Girihidis saved, if any of them is still alive today.  If you have any information on any of the boys, please send a message to sofiachristoforidou@yahoo.gr.

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Two Irish sisters are looking for their mother, who may have immigrated to the United States in the 1960's, possibly to Chicago.  She may have moved because she had two aunts who were living here.  Details about the family's story were published on Irish Central.  The sisters are being assisted in their search by Finders International, which welcomes any information about the mother.

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Dr. Charles Foy of Eastern Illinois University is conducting research for a book on black dockyard workers and longshoremen.  The book will include a chapter on the San Francisco Bay area from 1934 to 1969.  Dr. Foy will be in the Bay Area from July 25 to August 5 this year and would like to interview black dockyard workers and longshoremen or their family members.  Dr. Foy can also arrange to do interviews at other times, either by phone or Skype.  He can be contacted at crfoy@eiu.edu or (347) 200-9893.

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Eduardo Propper de Callejón

The Spanish diplomat Eduardo Propper de Callejón is remembered for having facilitated the escape of thousands of Jews from occupied France during World War II by issuing more than 1,000 visas in Bordeaux in June 1940.  For his efforts, he received the Righteous Among the Nations designation from Yad Vashem in 2008.

The official list of the visas somehow "disappeared" in 1941.  Felipe Propper de Callejón, son of Eduardo, has asked for assistance in locating a visa or travel document issued by his father.  He has never seen one.

Karen Franklin, Director of Family Research at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, is trying to help Mr. Propper de Callejón.  If you are in possession of one of the visas or travel documents, or know where one can be found, please contact Ms. Franklin.

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Béla Guttmann in 1953

David Bolchover, a writer based in London, is currently working on a biography of soccer coach Béla Guttmann (1899 Budapest–1981 Vienna), a Holocaust survivor whose team won the European Cup in the early 1960's.  Mr. Bolchover would appreciate hearing from anyone who can help answer several questions about Gutmann, or suggest avenues for research:

• Where was he from 1939–1943?  Gutmann was in Budapest in 1939, in 1944 was hiding in Ujpest, and then was in a labor camp in Budapest.  He was probably also in or near Budapest in the intervening years, but that is not known for sure.  Some commentators have suggested he was in Switzerland, but no evidence has been found to support that conclusion.

• When and where were Guttmann and Mariann Moldovan, who met in Ujpest in 1939, married?  Biographical sources say 1942, but she was a non-Jew and intermarriage was against the law in Hungary from August 1941.

• Where did his father, (Moshe) Abraham Guttmann, die?  He was born in Tiszaújhely about 1866–1867 and was alive at the outbreak of World War II but simply disappeared.

• Did his brother Armin Guttmann (1893 Budapest–1945 Buchenwald) have a wife and children?  If so, what happened to them?

• When did Guttmann become an Austrian citizen?  (Bolchover thinks it was in the 1950's and has submitted a request to the Austrian authorities regarding this, so he may find out the answer himself.)

• When was Mariann Moldovan born?  Her father was Pal Moldovan.  She lived in Ujpest before the war and died in 1997 in Vienna.

• Who, if anyone, inherited the estate when Mariann died?

Please send any information or leads to David Bolchover.

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During World War I, a married couple in Vignacourt, France, Louis and Antoinette Thuillier, took more than 4,000 photographs of Allied soldiers who were billeted in the area.  Due to circumstances related to the war and the family the glass negatives lay ignored and forgotten for decades, but they survived and there is now a project to try to identify British soldiers in the photos.  Read about the "Lost Tommies" project and look at the photographs, conveniently posted on Facebook and available to everyone.  If you can identify anyone, instructions on how to send the information is included in the article about the project.

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The next request for assistance is again related to the United Kingdom and a war, but this one is for World War II.  The new International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC), being built to honor those who served in Bomber Command, has sent out an appeal for letters, photographs, and oral testimonies of Caribbean and West African crew members, which will be included in the center's digital archive.  An article about the search for information about these black war heroes gives some background about the IBCC and information on who to contact to send materials.

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A new site, the USAF Basic Military Training Flight Photograph Project, aims to collect copies of the approximately 119,000 U.S. Air Force basic training photographs from the creation of the modern Air Force in 1947 to the present day.  The collection currently includes photos from all bases that conducted USAF basic training, including Lackland (Texas), Parks (California), Sampson (New York), and Sheppard (Texas).  The intent is to include USAF basic training that was conducted overseas.  The site also has a "Memories" section, where people can post their comments about basic training.

In addition to the photos that are currently being processed, the project is looking for donations from former airmen and their family members.  Instructions on how to send electronic or print copies can be found in a light-hearted article about the project.

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Richard Ayer tugboat

The San Francisco Maritime Museum is currently working on the restoration of a New Deal mural in the museum. You can help if you have any photographs of the building's interior taken prior to 1976 showing the Richard Ayer murals.  These photos will be useful in reconstructing the painted-over images which featured his abstract nautical themes with fish, ship parts, and relief designs.  Some clues even came from a home movie of the 20th anniversary get-together of the UC Berkeley 1919 graduating class!  If your personal archives show even a glimpse of any of the rooms, please contact National Park Service Historical Architect Todd Bloch.

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The New York Public Library has another crowdsourcing project.  This time it's transcripts from the library's Community Oral History Project.  The project includes narratives focused on Greenwich Village, Harlem, SoHo, Upper East Side, veterans, Latinos, and more.  Volunteers are sought to go through computer-generated transcripts of the oral narratives and make corrections.

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Aufbau, founded in 1934 in New York City, is a journal focused on German-speaking Jews around the world.  During its history it has included announcements about births, marriages, deaths, and other events, including many related to the Holocaust.  The Aufbau Indexing Project is a volunteer effort to create a free every-name searchable index so that genealogists and other researchers may more easily find the names they are seeking.  While you need to know how to use a spreadsheet, knowledge of German is not required.

Aufbau itself is also available free online.  Digitized issues for 1941–1950 are on Rootsweb, and for 1934–2004 at the Internet Archive.

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If oral histories and newspaper announcements sound boring to you, how about decoding Civil War telegrams?  This is another crowdsourced project.  Almost 16,000 top-secret telegrams saved from military communications during the Civil War were saved and are now held by the Huntington Library, along with the cipher books to crack them.  The project page has all the information you need to get started.

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The Washington Post has launched a crowdsourced black history project on Tumblr, somewhat in conjunction with the anticipated opening of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in September 2016.  While the opening of the museum is national news, not everyone will be able to attend, and the "Historically Black" Tumblr project creates an opportunity for people to participate in another way.

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A man in Newfoundland, Canada and a jewelry store owner are trying to find out who the lovely woman is in a photo in a locket.  Was she a soldier's sweetheart?

The locket was among the personal effects returned to the family after Sergeant Charles Reid died during the Battle of Beaumont Hamel in World War I.  It came in a box from a jeweler in Oban, Scotland.  The store is still in business, but its records don't go back to 1916.

A CBC article has more details about the locket and the family.  If anyone recognizes the woman or has any information which might help in the search, send a message to the e-mail address given in the article.

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Molly Marcus, a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at Chestnut Hill College, is looking for transracial adoptees that fit all of the following descriptors to share their experiences by participating in an in-person or phone interview:

• 25–35 years old
• Hispanic/Latino (defined as "a person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race")
• Adopted by white parents by the age of 2, in a closed adoption
• No contact with birth relatives prior to the age of 21

The interview will take approximately 1 to 1 1/2 hours to complete.  It will be audio recorded and transcribed.  To ensure confidentiality, all transcriptions and materials will be stored in a locked cabinet accessible only to the researcher.  Identifying information will be kept separate from interview materials, and fictitious names will be used to protect the identities of all participants.

The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Chestnut Hill College.  The chairman of the IRB is Dr. Kenneth Soprano, whose e-mail address is irb@chc.edu.  He can also be reached by phone at (215) 248-7038.

If you meet the above criteria and are interested in participating in this study, contact Molly Marcus at MarcusM@chc.edu or (215) 821-8022.  If you know of other individuals who may fit these criteria, please share this information with them to spread the word.

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Pepperdine University’s Culture and Trauma Research Lab is seeking participants who are descendants of European immigrants who emigrated after World War II for an important psychological study on generations.  Participation involves the completion of an online survey which will take about 15–20 minutes.  Individuals may be eligible if:

• They are 18 years of age or older and
• Their parent or grandparent emigrated from Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia (formerly known as Czechoslovakia), Austria, Hungary, or Romania between 1945–1952

This study will create a more robust understanding of the long-term impact of specific immigration factors.  Participation in the study is voluntary and confidential.  Each participant will receive a $10.00 Amazon or Starbucks gift card for completion of the survey.  This study is being conducted under the auspices of Dr. Thema Bryant-Davis.

If you have any questions or would like more information on the study, contact the principal investigator, Melissa Duguay, at Melissa.Duguay@pepperdine.edu or (818) 971-9877, or Mia Singer at mjsinger@pepperdine.edu.

If you are able to send out a news blast about the study, post information on your social media pages, or distribute flyers, please let them know.

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The JewishGen Yizkor Books in Print Project is looking for Yiddish speakers who are at least mildly proficient with using MS Word and have about 2 to 3 hours a week available to devote to a project that publishes translations of memorial books (Blach Buchs) of destroyed Jewish communities of Eastern Europe.  The project needs help with translating captions of images and placing them into newly translated books using MS Word in preparation for publishing.  People fluent in Yiddish with knowledge of Word would be very helpful to the project to facilitate the ability to publish books more quickly.  All work on the project is done by volunteers.

The original books were written in the 1950's–1970's, mostly in Yiddish and some in Hebrew, by survivors and former residents of the towns.  The Yizkor Books in Print Project has already published 46 books.  See http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/ybip.html for a listing of currently available books.

Books are sold at very low prices to enable this unique literature that captures the intimate history of the shtetlach to be available to as many people as possible.  The project is part of JewishGen.org, the primary online source of Jewish genealogical information, and is not-for-profit.

If you can help in any way please contact Joel Alpert, the project coordinator, at joel.alpert@uwalumni.com.

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Donna Gilligan is a museum archaeologist and material culture historian now working on a Master's thesis on the topic of the visual and material culture of the Irish women's suffrage movement.  The year 2018 will mark the centenary of the first time any women were granted the national vote in Ireland.

As part of Gilligan's research, she is attempting to trace and record information and images on the Irish suffrage movement.  She is appealing to people who hold or know of such objects to contact her with details.  If you have any information or inquiries relating to Irish women's suffrage, contact Gilligan at donnapgilligan@gmail.com.

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Harald Hadrada on window

An online archive of Norse and Viking culture is in development, funded by the Irish Research Council, and contributions are being sought.  While it's likely that the majority will come from museums and other such institutions, individuals are invited to contribute items also.

"Do you happen to have any Viking-related material lying around the house?  Maybe a helmet or two, or a sword or dagger?  Perhaps there’s a longboat buried in your garden.  If so, or even if you have something a lot less dramatic to offer, you should get in touch with the World-Tree Project, which is being launched today by UCC’s school of English with the objective of creating the world’s largest online archive for the teaching and study of Norse and Viking cultures."  Also acceptable are translations of Norse poetry, films of Viking reenactments, and original artwork.

Read about the background of the project, then visit the World-Tree Project to see what's there so far and how you can add to the collection.