Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019

I always have fun with lists of questions for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but I have to admit I've never heard of the word "geneameme" before.

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) Jill Ball reconstituted her "Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019" on 30 December 2019 and invited readers to participate.  

(2) This week, let's contribute our answers to her questions about our genealogy accomplishments in 2019.  Copy the questions below and add your own responses.

(3) Share your responses on your own blog, in comments on this blog, or on Facebook.  Please leave a comment on this post so readers can find your post, and please let Jill know about your efforts by e-mailing her at jillballau@gmail.com.

Here are mine.

1.  An elusive ancestor I found was:

I did not discover the names of any unknown ancestors in 2019.

2.  A great newspaper article I found was:

I found several interesting newspaper articles about my cousin Sam Brainin on Newspapers.com, including one about a bad car accident he was in as a child.

3.  A geneajourney I took was:

I took three geneajourneys, to RootsTech, the Ohio Genealogical Society conference, and the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy.

4.  I located an important record:

Yes!  I found the passenger list for my great-great-grandmother Ruchel Dwoire (Jaffe) Brainin immigrating to the Untied States with four of her children.

5.  A newly found family member shared:

A cousin I discovered through a DNA match shared lots of information on his branch of the family, plus a photograph of my great-great-grandparents Gershon Itzhak Nowicki and Dube (Yelsky) Nowicki from about 1915, while they were still in Russia.

6.  A geneasurprise I received was:

When I posted a family photograph that I love but didn't know who was in it, one of my cousins recognized her grandmother and grandaunt, which was totally unexpected.  Plus the photo is probably of her father's bris!

7.  My 2019 social media post that I was particularly proud of was:

I am glad I took the time to write up all my family connections in "Now That's What I Call a Blended Family!"  It takes a genealogist to keep track of a family as complicated as mine.

8.  I made a new genimate who:

I've gotten to be friends with someone who comes regularly to the African American Special Interest Group at the Genealogical Forum of Oregon.  We're even working toether on a few genealogy projects.

9.  A new piece of technology or skill I mastered was:

Well, not quite mastered, but for the first time I was the speaker for a Webinar, and I did all the computer stuff for it.

10.  I joined:

Well, I rejoined the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.

11.  A genealogy education session or event from which I learnt something new was:

I always learn something from every conference and Webinar, but one of the standouts last year was Judy Baston's presentation on the Vilna Ghetto Library, which I attended at the IAJGS conference.  It was fascinating to see the kinds of documentation that have survived.

12.  A blog post that taught me something new was:

Jennifer Mendelsohn's "No, You Don't Really Have 7,900 4th Cousins:  Some DNA Basics for Those with Jewish Heritage" has incredibly useful information on how to work around the overabundance of matches that endogamy produces.

13.  A DNA discovery I made was:

For the first time, a DNA match connected me with someone on the Jewish side of my family I was able to place in my family tree immediately but didn't know already.

14.  I taught a genimate how to:

I did 25 presentations at conferences and genealogical societies, in addition to my volunteer work at the Gresham Family History Center and "Helping Hands" sessions for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Oregon.  I think I taught several "genimates" how to do a lot of things.

15.  A brick wall I demolished was:

I had been looking for my great-great-grandmother's arrival into this country for about 20 years (see #4).

16.  A great site I visited was:

"Old Photographs of African Americans" is a site that displays unidentified photographs for free.  People have been able to find their relatives' photos, which is wonderful.

17.  A new genealogy/history book I enjoyed was:

I found a copy of London:  Then and Now by Diane Burstein at a thrift store, and it was a bargain.

18.  It was exciting to finally meet:

Like Randy, I also can't think of someone new and exciting I met in 2019.  I'm sure there was someone, but my memory is blanking.

19.  I am excited for 2020 because:

I am really looking forward to working more on figuring out who my paternal great-grandfather Mr. X was.

20.  Another positive I would like to share is:

I'm always excited about a new year of opportunities to learn about and share genealogy!

Top 10 Posts of 2018

It's the thing to do at the end of the year:  tote up the numbers and make comparisons.  But it is sometimes surprising to discover what topics people found the most interesting on my blog during the year.

I knew that this year's results would be substantially different from those of previous years because I've had somewhat of a rough year and have not written as much for my blog as I would have liked.  One huge thing missing is any commentary on two entire seasons of Who Do You Think You Are?  Half of the top ten for 2018 were Saturday Night Genealogy Fun posts—not actually too surprising, since Randy Seaver has good readership, and that gives everyone's posts an extra boost—and three were Wordless Wednesdays, so my family photos must attract attention for some reason.

A couple of unusual facts about this year's Top 10:  The numbers were all fairly close; #1 had only 10% more views than #10.  And all ten of the posts fell during the six and a half weeks from June 12 (#5) to July 28 (one of the #8 posts).  I don't know if that's significant, but it's definitely intriguing.

#10 on the list is a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post where Randy asked people to write about their second-most recent unknown ancestor (who in my case happens to be the father of my most recent unknown ancestor).

Two posts tied for #8 this year.  The first is a Wordless Wednesday photo of my mother and her brother standing in front of the family home, probably in Florida, circa 1950.  The second is another Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge, this one to determine how many generations in their family my parents and grandparents knew.

At #7 is a photo of my Canadian cousin Ben Kushner in his apartment, another Wordless Wednesday post.

#6, the third Wordless Wednesday and the highest ranking of those on the list, is a class photo of a bunch of mathematics enthusiasts (including me) at a Math Institute held at Auburn University in 1978.

I was very happy to see that my annual tribute to Loving Day made it onto the list for the first time, coming in at #5.

A Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge holds the #4 position on the list.  That week's challenge was to determine how many individuals were in my largest family tree file.

#3 is a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post about events that happened on the day my grandmother was born.

Ranking #2 is the most viewed Saturday Night Genealogy Fun of the year, this one Randy's "Ahnentafel Roulette."

And #1 in popularity on my blog for 2018 was when I announced that I had had two talks accepted for the 2019 Ohio Genealogical Society conference.

The most commented-on post this year was for my 7th blogiversary, in January.  It was great to hear everyone's good wishes.

Ohio-bound in 2019

The Ohio Genealogical Society recently sent out contracts to the speakers chosen for its 2019 conference, "Building a Heritage", scheduled for May 1–4 in Mason, Ohio at the Great Wolf Lodge.  And I was the happy recipient of one of those contracts!  It will be a relatively Jewish conference for me, as the talks they selected are "Jewish Genealogy:  How Is This Research Different from All Other Research?" and "Online Resources for Jewish Genealogy."

I'm already looking forward to the conference.  Not only will I enjoy giving the presentations and learning from other speakers, I'm sure I'll get to visit some extended family members who live in the area.  Plus Mason isn't that far from Cincinnati, and a con man I am researching was from near there.  The last time I was in Cincinnati, I was able to find a lot of information about him, but I left some stones unturned at the time.

So watch out, Ohio!  I'll be seeing you next year!

Last Day of Ohio Genealogical Society Conference

I went to more interesting sessions today at the conference.  The first session was on how to do research for a house history.  I've been wanting to do that for a while with my house, which was built in 1910.  I started the research a while ago, but now I have more good ideas on places to look for information.  After that I went to Colleen Fitzpatrick's session, "Forensic Genealogy:  CSI Meets Roots."  Unfortunately, this really wasn't a talk about forensic genealogy (see my recent post about the Forensic Genealogy Institute I attended two weeks ago to learn more about what that actually is).  Her talk was really about DNA and using science in your research.  So I was a little disappointed, but right at the end of the lecture she talked about her family connection to a surname I am researching in County Cork, Ireland, so that helped salvage the talk for me.

We had a three-hour lunch break today, which gave me time to catch up on four days of e-mails.  After that I headed back downstairs for a case study by Jay Fonkert, where he discussed how he tracked down four wives for an ancestor of his wife's where people originally thought there was only one.  He used several less common record types and had to prove several condlusions through indirect evidence, and it was interesting to see how it all came together.  In the next session James Beidler gave an overview of German Palatines, the area they came from, and the historical governmental structure in that area and how it affects research.  My family, Sellers, which was originally Söller in German, were Palatines.  Currently I have the family tracked back to 1615, but I want to see what else I can find.

The last session was on using estate papers and deeds for Irish research.  Richard Doherty had lots of wonderful information and links, which I hope to use for my research in Cork, Roscommon, and Sligo counties.  The Irish estate records seem to be very similar to the Polish magnate records which many Jewish researchers have been finding in archives.  Feudal landlords preceded governments in many areas; they owned the land, and they kept track of who was renting land, how much they paid, repairs that were made to buildings, etc.  So if you can find out who owned the land, you look for that person (or family's) archives and see if your ancestors appear in the records.  It's an excellent way to look for people who were not landowners.  And to celebrate a great convention, I took myself out to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House!  (Well, it wasn't much of a splurge, because someone gave me a gift card, but it was still a treat.)

Tomorrow I have allowed myself more time for research at the Cincinnati Public Library.  I'm going to see what else I can find on my con man and maybe do a little research on my Columbus relatives.  Then I head back to California on a nonstop flight (yay!) and get ready to go back to my regular schedule on Monday.

Cincinnati is a really nice city, and I've enjoyed my visit a lot.  I also got along great with my roommate for the conference, Luana Darby.  She is also a professional genealogist, and it was amazing how many things we have in common -- we've both done musical theater; we know multiple languages; we like NCIS, Criminal Minds, Chopped!, and Iron Chef America; we love to cook and sew; and we love to talk!  We stayed up late talking every night.  I'm glad I got to meet her, and I'm sure I'll see her again at another conference.

Days 1 and 2 of Ohio Genealogical Society Conference

I am having a great time at the Ohio Genealogical Society conference in Cincinnati, Ohio!  It's the end of the second day, and I finally have time to write about it.

The opening keynote on Thursday was by Tom Jones, the well known genealogist.  The topic was "Strategies for Finding 'Unfindable' Ancestors."  He discussed many excellent strategies for difficult research situations and gave several case studies that demonstrated some of those techniques.  I didn't get to hear any other talks that day, however, because I was helping in the exhibit hall.  I manned the table for the Warren County and Clinton County genealogical societies and handled their sales.  I was next to the Family Tree DNA booth and got to meet founder Bennett Greenspan (who knows a cousin of mine from Omaha, Nebraska!).  We talked about the next tests I should be doing with my father's DNA, and I ended up ordering an mtDNA test for him.  And that evening, the Cincinnati Public Library stayed open late just for conference attendees (they called it a "research lock-in").  Several staff members worked late in the genealogy and newspaper departments, and everyone who was there got great help all evening (except for not letting me get a library card, just because I'm from California).  They let us stay there until 11:30 p.m.!  I found two more marriages for a con man whom I am researching, who was originally from just outside Cincinnati (I think that brings him up to six marriages), and one of them appears to overlap with a marriage I already knew about -- so maybe he was a bigamist in addition to being a con man?

Friday I had a full slate of sessions.  In the morning I went to "Using Land Records in Slave Research", "Using State Court Records to Locate Slaves and Slaveholders", and "German Territories and Maps:  You Can't Research without Them" (yes, I have broad research interests).  While they all covered some material I knew, I learned something new in each session.  The afternoon started with my presentation, "Using Online Historical Black Newspapers", which everyone said they enjoyed very much.  The talk was recorded, and I already have my copy, so I'll get to hear one of my own presentations for the first time, which should be interesting.  Later in the afternoon I went to "Finding Rejected Claims and Pension Requests", which unfortunately really didn't talk much about rejected claims, and "Researching World War II Ancestors", which was an excellent talk with well explained information.  Then I was one of the experts on the panel for the African American Roundtable, where we had about 20 attendees asking all sorts of questions.  The evening ended with about twenty APG members and ProGen graduates getting together for dinner at Arnold's, which was featured on the TV program Harry's Law.

I started off my trip with a one-day stop in Columbus, where my aunt's sister lives.  In addition to getting to visit her, her daughter, and her granddaughter, we went to get some documents for relatives of her late husband's, which will help me with my research on his side of the family.

Saturday has a slightly shorter schedule because it's the last day of the conference.  I'm planning on attending sessions all day, and I'm hoping to meet Colleen Fitzpatrick, with whom I've had several entertaining e-mail conversations.  But I better get some sleep soon, or I'm going to miss those morning talks!

Colonial Handwriting Was a Big Hit

Tuesday I taught a class on American Colonial handwriting for the first time.  I was the third choice to teach, after the woman who has been teaching it for the past few years (who was unable to do so this year) and the person who was going to substitute for her (whose husband decided he wanted to take her away for a week's vacation).  And then the date was switched on me -- originally the class was supposed to be March 26, but it was pushed back to March 19.  So I was more than a little nervous going in, between being third in line, it being a new subject for me, and having a week less to prepare than I had anticipated!  But the class went smoothly, and the attendees seemed happy with the lesson and the handout.  I discussed how several letters were formed differently than what we are accustomed to, spelling inconsistencies, how words and names could be abbreviated, and even the calendar change of 1752.  I showed several real examples from the 1700's and had people read through them; by the end of the class everyone had a pretty good grasp on it and was able to read the examples fairly quickly.  So I was happy and relieved, and now I have another class in my repertoire.

I have two more new talks I am creating this year.  The programming person at the Napa Valley Genealogical Society read about forensic genealogy and learned that I am a member of the Council for the Advancement of Forensic Genealogy (CAFG), so asked if I could speak to the society on the subject.  Forensic genealogical research is when there are "possible legal implications that involve determination of identity, kinship, legal rights, or distribution of held monies or assets" (from the CAFG Web site).  I will make that presentation in Napa on July 18.

In August, I will debut my newest newspaper talk, on finding and using online historical Jewish newspapers, at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference in Boston.  The conference runs August 4-9 and is being held at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers.

Of course, I have additional newspapers talks coming up.  I am the newspaper queen, after all!  On March 29 I'll speak at the Oakland FamilySearch Library on the subscription newspaper databases available there.  On April 25 I'll be in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Ohio Genealogical Society conference teaching about online historical black newspapers.  And in October, for Family History Month, I'll present my general talk about using online newspapers for genealogical research twice, at the Family History Day at the California State Archives (October 12) and at the Concord FamilySearch Center's Digging for Your Roots one-day conference (October 19).  All of my newspaper classes cover where to find newspaper databases and how to use effective search techniques.

My other presentation that is popular right now is on research techniques for finding women's maiden names.  I talk about a wide range of resources that can be helpful in finding those elusive names.  I'll be giving that talk at the main branch of the Sacramento Public Library on May 5, the Livermore-Amador Genealogical Society on June 11, and the Concord FamilySearch Center's Digging for Your Roots on October 19 (yup, two classes in one day).

Last but certainly not least, Berkeley Midrasha wants me to return this fall to teach my genealogy class to the high school students.  That was a fun and different experience last year, and I'm looking forward to trying to get more kids hooked on genealogy.

I enjoy sharing my enthusiasm for genealogy through my classes.  I would love to have you join me at one or more of my talks this year.

Upcoming Family History Presentations

I love teaching about genealogy.  I've had a pretty restricted schedule for the past few months, though, and haven't been able to schedule many family history talks (my last one was February 26).  But things have finally settled down a bit, and I now have several presentations planned through the end of the year, and even into next year!

I'll be teaching "Jewish Genealogy for Beginners" on Sunday, August 5, at this year's J-West.  I'll also be teaching a semester-long Jewish genealogy class for Midrasha, the East Bay Jewish community high school in Berkeley.  That class runs from September to December.

On September 15 I'll make a presentation to the San Mateo County Genealogical Society about the incredible details you can learn about a family if you follow them through newspapers for more than a hundred years.  That's a brand-new talk.  And sometime in September (I hope they tell me the date soon!) I'll talk about vital records (a new talk for me) for the California Genealogical Society and Oakland Family Search Library (formerly the Family History Center).

October is Family History Month, and I'm going to be busy.  Another new talk is the one I will be giving to the Mt. Diablo DAR chapter on October 9.  My ancestor was an American patriot during the Revolutionary War, but his brother ... not so much.  On October 14 I'll be at the Davis Genealogy Club, talking about how even when you start with very little information, you can still build on what you have step by step and find out more about your family.  Then on October 18 I'll teach how many ways newspapers can help in genealogical research to the Napa Valley Genealogical Society.  And on October 20 I'll be repeating the two latter talks for the Concord Family Search Library's annual Digging for Your Roots one-day conference.  Five talks may not sound like much for one month, but that's on top of my regular work!

November 14 will see me at the East Bay Genealogical Society with another new presentation, this one on techniques to find maiden names of the women in your family.  When a woman changed her surname to that of her husband, it can be very difficult to find that original name.  Without it, you can't find her parents.

And I just heard today that one of my submissions was accepted for the 2013 Ohio Genealogical Society conference!  The conference runs April 25-27 in Cincinnati.  I'll be talking about online historical black newspapers.

If you attend any of my talks, please say hi and let me know you read my blog!