Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Four Things!

Well, I certainly haven't posted in a while!  My last post was January 15 for my blogiversary, and before that it was December 1.  I have nothing but my health to blame, but I've decided I need to start writing again anyway, and what better day to start than on my birthday?  I turned 60 today, and coincidentally Randy Seaver provided a theme for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun that works nicely with a birthday — writing about myself.  So let's get back in the blogging habit!

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

1.  Let's have some genealogy fun tonight and answer some family-history-related questions with four responses (Four Things!).

2.  Share your answers with us in your own blog, in a Facebook or Instagram post, or in the comments on this blog post.  Please leave a link to anything you post elsewhere in a comment.

Okay, here are my answers.

Four Names I Go By
1.  Janice
2.  Jan-Jan (but only for my maternal grandmother)
3.  Bubbie
4.  Amanda Rycroft (Faire character)

Four Places I've Lived (Resided)
1.  Maroubra Junction, New South Wales, Australia
2.  Niceville, Florida
3.  Oakland, California
4.  Gresham, Oregon

Four Ancestral Places I Have Been
1.  Mount Holly, New Jersey
2.  Manhattan, New York
3.  Miami, Florida
4.  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Four Interesting Places I Have Been
1.  Athens, Greece
2.  San Sebastian, Spain
3.  Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
4.  Tallinn, Estonia

Four Favorite Ancestors
1.  Ann (Ridgway) Gaunt, 1710–1794
2.  Gershon Itzhak Novitsky, ~1858–1948
3.  Minnie Zelda (Nowicki) Meckler, ~1880–1936
4.  Moses Mulliner, 1741–1821

Four Favorite Genealogy Record Collections
1.  Historical newspapers
2.  Religious records (all, not just BMD!)
3.  Probate files
4.  Military pensions and service records

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Who Was Your First Ancestor Born in ...

For this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun adventure, Randy Seaver is asking us to climb up our family trees to find some of our "first" ancestors.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission: Impossible! music!):

(1) Lorine McGinnis Schulze, in her blog post "Who Was Your First Canadian or American Born Ancestor?", asked that question.

(2) Let's broaden it a bit to "Who was your first ancestor born in your chosen county, state, province, or country?" based on your known ancestry.

(3) Put it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link in a comment to this post.

I'm going to make a caveat to my post:  These answers are based on what I have entered into my family tree program.  I have additional information about earlier generations, but this is the information that is accessible.

• For the British colonies that became the United States, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 7th-great-grandmother Ann Pharo, born about December 14, 1677, probably in the Province of West Jersey, probably in an area that became part of Burlington County, which was not officially formed until 1694.

• For the Province of New Jersey, which was established in 1702, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 6th-great-grandfather Hananiah Gaunt, born March 2, 1706/07, possibly in Germantown or Hananicon.

• For the United States of America, declared an independent country in 1776, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 3rd-great-grandfather Hananiah Selah Gaunt, born January 25, 1795 in Burlington County.  I suspect I do have someone else born earlier than that, but I can't find the info currently.

• For New York State, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my maternal grandfather, Abraham Meckler, born July 23, 1912 in Brooklyn, Kings County.

And that's it for me and North America.  No known ancestors born in Canada or in states besides New Jersey and New York.  Now, if we go back across the pond:

• For England, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 4th-great-grandfather Richard Dunstan, born about 1790ish, probably in Lancashire.  I know I have ancestors born before that; I think the earliest Gaunt ancestor I know about is Peter, born about 1507 or something like that.  But I can't find that information right now. :(

• For the Russian Empire, my earliest recorded known ancestor born there is my 3rd-great-grandfather Avram Yakov Nowicki, born before about 1835, likely in Grodno gubernia, now part of Belarus.

And so far those are the only countries I have prior to North America.  My family didn't move around much.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Unbroken Chain of Gravestones

I'm going to be pretty much a total failure tonight for Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.  Lack of digitization is part of the problem, but not all of it.

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

(1) Determine what is your longest unbroken line of ancestral gravestones:  How many generations can you go back in time?  Do you have photographs of them?

(2) Tell us and/or show us in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog, or in a Facebook status or Google+ stream post.

Let's see how lacking my contribution is and the reasons for that.

I am happy to report that my father is still alive.  That means that he has no tombostone, and therefore nothing for me to have a photo of.

My mother was cremated and her ashes scattered in Choctawhatchee Bay in Okaloosa County, Florida.  She has no cenotaph or other marker.

So much for my parents.

On my mother's side, even though I have seen it, I don't think I have a photograph of my grandfather's tombstone.  I believe I have a photo of my grandmother's tombostone, but it was taken with a film camera and I haven't digitized the image.

On my father's side, I'm not sure if my grandfather has a tombstone.  If he does, I'm pretty sure I don't have a photo of it.

I do, however, have a photo of my grandmother's tombstone.  (Finally!)  Anna (Gauntt) Stradling [Sellers] was born January 14, 1893 in Westhampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey and died January 20, 1986 in Lindstrom, Chisago County, Minnesota.

According to FindAGrave, neither Nana's mother nor her father has a marker in the Brotherhood Cemetery in Burlington County, New Jersey, where they are buried.  So I have one generation in this unbroken chain!

But let's get hypothetical.  IF I could find the photo of my maternal grandmother's tombstone, that would give me one for that family.  I do have a photo of the tombstone of her father, Joe Gordon, who was born about 1892, probably in or near Kamenets Podolsky, Podolia, Russian Empire, and died May 2, 1955 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York:

That's my grandmother, Lillyan (Gordon) Meckler, standing on the left and her brother Sidney Gordon on the right.  I think this photo was taken at the unveiling of my great-grandfather's stone, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I also know I have a nondigitized photograph of the tombstone of Joe's father, my great-great-grandfather Victor Gordon.  He was born about 1866ish in or near Kamenets Podolsky and died January 26, 1925 in Brooklyn.  So even though I'm not able to post them all tonight, I have a chain of three generations of tombstones on my Gorodetsky/Gordon line.  I have no idea when my 3x-great-grandfather Gersh Wolf Gorodetsky died or where he is buried, so I don't think I'll be adding that to my records anytime soon.  And my maternal uncles are happily still alive.  I think three is about as far as I'm likely to get for a while.

Obviously, I have not made a huge effort to photograph tombstones of my family members, nor to digitize the ones that I do have.  I guess I can't do everything!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday