Wordless Wednesday

Remembering My Family Members on Yom HaShoah

Yom HaShoah, the annual day of remembrance commemorating the deaths of the approximately 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust during World War II, falls on 27 Nisan of the Jewish calendar, which measures days from sunset to sunset.  This year it began last night, April 13, at sunset, and ended today, April 14, at sunset.

The following are my known family members I believe died in the Holocaust.  They all are from the Mekler/Nowicki branch of my family and lived in what was fornerly called Grodno gubernia in the Russian Empire (mostly now in Belarus).  I repeat their names every year to ensure that they are not forgotten.  May their memory be a blessing.

Beile Dubiner
Eliezer Dubiner
Herschel Dubiner
Moishe Dubiner
Sore (Mekler) Dubiner
Aidel Goldsztern
Golda Goldsztern
Josef Goldsztern
Pearl (Gorfinkel) Goldsztern
Tzvi Goldsztern
Esther Golubchik
Fagel Golubchik
Lazar Golubchik
Peshe (Mekler) Golubchik
Pinchus Golubchik
Yechail Golubchik
Mirka (Nowicki) Krimelewicz
— Krimelewicz
Beile Szocherman
Chanania Szocherman
Mobsza Eli Szocherman
Perel Szocherman
Raizl (Perlmutter) Szocherman
Zlate Szocherman

Beile Dubiner was my 1st cousin 2x removed.
She was likely named after her grandmother
(my great-great-grandmother) Beile.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Are Your Major Genealogy Research Challenges?

Randy Seaver is back with this week's challenge (a key word this week) for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

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

1.  What are your major genealogy challenges — the family mysteries that you haven't been able to crack to date?

2.  Tell us about five of your real genealogy challenges with a short paragraph, and links to blog posts if you have written about them.

3.  Share your challenges 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.

Okay, here's my list.

• Who was the biological father of my paternal grandfather, Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. (1903–1995)?  He was informally adopted by his mother's husband when he was seven months old and used the name Sellers his entire life.  See "I'm Apparently a Sellers via Informal Adoption" and "Looking for Mr. Mundy (or a variant thereof)."

• What happened to my cousin Raymond Lawrence Sellers (1945–?) after his mother put him up for adoption?  I was unable to find anything about Raymond before my aunt passed away, but her other children would still like to know.  See "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:  Your 2024 'Dear Genea-Santa' Letter."

• All of my Jewish research is a challenge, but the especially difficult lines are those who were living in what was Grodno gubernia in Russia, now mostly in Belarus.  The Nazis were particularly thorough in destroying archival records about the Jews in the area.  So my Meckler (Mekler), Novitsky (Nowicki), and Yelsky lines I'm really, really stuck on.  See "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:  Your Best Genealogy Research Find in May 2018."

• And speaking of the Jewish part of my family, I had a few cousins who ended up in Cuba when they fled Eastern Europe.  I have managed to acquire only four records from their time there (which ranged from the late 1920's to the early 1960's).  I don't know if going back to Cuba will help with my research on the Szochermans.  See "A Declaration of Intention — from Cuba."

• My ex's father (and therefore the grandfather of my stepsons), Karm Singh, was from Punjab, India, born when it was still controlled by the British.  The British barely bothered with records for their own people in India; they didn't really care about the Indians.  So I've gotten absolutely nowhere so far on finding any records for the family.  I have been told I would have better luck if I could travel there and talk to people in person.  See "'Finding Your Roots' – Margaret Cho, Sanjay Gupta, and Martha Stewart."

Wordless Wednesday

Taking the First Kid to See Zadie (Grandpa)

I'm more than a little obsessive, so I like looking for all the documents I can find for my ancestors and collateral relatives also.  I'm always searching for everyone's names in databases.

Everyone on my mother's side of the family from the generation of my great-grandparents and some of their children immigrated to the United States during the early 20th century.  I have spent a lot of time searching for all of my immigrant relatives in passenger list databases.  This not only provides me with their original names prior to Americanization, but also tell me birth places and names of relatives who were still in Europe, listed as contacts in the old country.

One person I have continued to search for is my great-grandmother's sister, known as Jennie in this country.  After putting several puzzle pieces together, I have determined that her Jewish name was probably Zlate, although I have yet to find the passenger list for her first arrival in this country.

I know that Jennie married her cousin Louis Perlman (originally Leiser Perlmutter) June 30, 1908 in Brooklyn, so she had to have arrived before that date.  On May 22, 1906, my great-grandfather Moishe Meckler came into New York and provided the name of his sister-in-law — Zlate — as his relative here, so she was here before then.

Louis himself arrived at Ellis Island a few days earlier than Moishe, on May 19, 1906, and said the relative he was coming to was his cousin, so she was here before that date.  And Jennie's brother Sam arrived July 27, 1905 and listed her as his point of contact, so she was here by then.

But I still haven't found that passenger list for Jennie.  I have found her on a passenger list, but for several years later.

On the passenger list for the S.S. Zeeland, which departed Antwerp May 18, 1912 and arrived in New York May 29 (113 years ago today!), two of the passengers were Jennie Perlman and her son, Rubin Perlman.  They traveled in the second-class cabin, not in steerage, which was the normal method of travel for poor immigrant Jews coming from Eastern Europe.

Jennie and Rubin are the last two names in this image

Another unusual aspect of their travel is that they were apparently not held at Ellis Island.  Unlike the woman and her three children on lines 3 through 6, who are marked with X's, indicating they were detained; or the three minors on lines 14 through 16, just above Jennie, who have SI in front of each of their names, overstamped with ADMITTED, indicating they were held for Special Inquiry, Jennie and Rubin were apparently admitted with no delay.  Normally a woman of child-bearing age who was not accompanied by a man — particularly a woman with a child — was held until someone came to meet her, due to concerns that she would become a burden upon society, a "likely public charge" (abbreviated as LPC on pages listing detainees).  Maybe Louis met her at the ship.

Something not visually evident is that Jennie shouldn't have been listed on this page at all.  The title at the top of the page is very clear, in large capital letters:  LIST OR MANIFEST OF ALIEN PASSENGERS.  But Jennie was no longer an alien.  Her husband, Louis, became a naturalized citizen of the United States on January 23, 1912.  Under the laws of the time, she automatically became a citizen at the same time.  And Rubin was born here, so he was a citizen.  I don't know why Jennie and Rubin are on this page and not on a page for U.S. citizens.  On the other hand, I don't know when they departed the United States to travel to Europe, so it's possible that Louis had not completed his naturalization before they left.

When I first discovered this passenger list, I wondered why Jennie had taken the trip.  Then I noticed who she said was her nearest relative in the country whence she came:  her father, G. [Gershon] Nowitzky.  I think she went to visit her parents to introduce them to her first child.  Rubin wasn't Gershon's first grandchild — my great-grandmother Minnie, who was Jennie's older sister, had her first three children in Europe, and Gershon would have known them — but maybe Jennie was worried her parents wouldn't come to the United States (they didn't come until ten years after this) and wanted to make sure Rubin had an opportunity to meet them.

I'm glad I found this passenger list.  On the second page, in addition to saying that Jennie was born in Porozowo, Russia (now Porazava, Belarus), there is a notation that Jennie first came to the United States in 1904 and was in New York.  Maybe that will help me track down that first passenger list.

Wedding Wednesday

As I have been working my way through the scanned photo bonanza I received from my sister a year and a half ago (how time flies!), I have found some lovely family gems that I was not expecting.  Among them were these beautiful wedding photos for one of my cousins, with full identifications on the backs!

As documented in the informative notes on the backs of the photos (thank you to whichever incredibly intelligent person did this!), this is the wedding of Andrea Michelle Ellis (daughter of Daniel Ellis and Patti Montgomery) and Ronald J. Bean, which was celebrated on May 27, 1999 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Not all the relationships are stated in the notes.  Albert and Imogene Ellis are the parents of Daniel, Randy, and Michael.  Daniel and Patti are the parents of Bill and Andrea.  Patti's parents (Andrea's maternal grandparents) are Bill and Betty Montgomery.  Elise is Randy's wife.  And I have to admit I don't know where Elizabeth fits in.  Maybe she is on the Bean side.

The beautiful bride, Andrea Ellis, is my 2nd cousin 1x removed through the Ellises, to whom I am related on my paternal grandmother's side, the Gauntts.  Of all the people in the photos, I knew Albert and Imogene, and I think I may have met Michael once (I know I've talked to him on the phone).  But they're all my relatives, and I am happy to celebrate the 26th anniversary of Ronald and Andrea's wedding (which actually was yesterday, but only one day off when following a blog meme is pretty good).

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, this is going to be painful.

First, I need to mention a couple of clarifications.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To quote Randy:

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

NONE.

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

Three total.

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

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

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

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

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

Wordless Wednesday

Intellectual Property in My Family Tree

Annually, April 26 is World Intellectual Property Day, which was first celebrated in 2000.  It was established by the World Intellectual Property Organization to raise awareness of the impact of patents, copyrights, trademarks and design on daily life.  And some members of my family have patents and copyrights, so I'm going to celebrate them.

My cousin Al Lore, who worked as a chemist at DuPont, told me he holds five patents, relating to composition of matter and textile finishes (hospital nonwoven gown finish).  I was able to find three of them in the patent database by searching with Google.

Fluorine-containing terpolymers, as Albert L. Lore with Stuart Raynolds

Fluorosurfactant leveling agent, as Albert L. Lore

Oil- and water-repellant copolymers, as Albert Lynn Lore with Edward James Greenwood and Nandakumar Seshagiri Rao

I took chemistry in high school and got all A's, but I have to admit that I don't understand any of what Al's patents do.  I guess I'm not an organic chemist.

My cousin Sam Brainin, who was an electrical engineer, is in the database with one patent.

Space stabilization of a search pattern, as Samuel M. Brainin

My aunt Mary Meckler has written several books, for which she owns the copyrights, as far as I know.

The Magic of Tobias Twissle, as Mary Meckler

Aimsly's Attitude, as Mary Meckler

Tangled in Life:  A Lainey Kelso Mystery, as Mary M. Meckler

Everybody's Grandma, as Mary Meckler

Jangled Lives:  A Story of Love and Fear, as Mary M. Meckler

I had the pleasure of editing Tobias Twissle for my aunt.  I think I did some editing on Tangled in Life also.

My sister Stacy Fowler has cowritten two books.  I believe she shares the copyrights with her coauthor.

A Century in Uniform:  Military Women in American Films, Stacy Fowler and Deborah A. Deacon

Military Women in World Cinema:  A 20th Century History and Filmography, Deborah A. Deacon and Stacy Fowler

I know I have a thank you in the second book, because I translated several Russian titles and credits for Stacy.  I think I have a thank you in the first book also.

Maybe by posting this, I'll find out I have even more talented relatives!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Be a Time Traveler

I think Randy Seaver has previously posted a challenge similar to that of today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, but it's an idea that deserves to be revisited multiple times.

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

1.  We all wish that we knew more about our most elusive ancestors — the ones we might not know the surname for, or the one who was probably adopted, changed his name for some reason, or lived through war or a natural disaster.

2.  Be a time traveler.  Where would you go, whom would you speak with, what would you ask them?

3.  Share your time traveler adventure on your own blog, on Facebook or other social media, or in a comment on this blog.  Share the link to your stories on this blog, so readers can respond.

Randy didn't state this was only one trip, but that's how he wrote his response, so I'll stick with that.

Since I'm time traveling only one time, I have to choose to be there when my cousin Raymond Lawrence Sellers was adopted.  This probably took place in Cumberland County, New Jersey, with a small chance of it having been in Burlington County, New Jersey instead.  Raymond was born September 23, 1945 and apparently was surrendered for adoption by my Aunt Dottie soon after that, possibly before the end of October 1945.  So those are my estimated time and place.

As for whom I would speak with, I'll try to cover the bases.  I want to talk with the adoptive parents and anyone else who participated in any steps of the adoption.  If it was a documented adoption through the court system (the second version of events that I was told), that would include a presiding judge and any administrative personnel who observed the process or handled paperwork, either in the court system or at the adoption agency.  If it was an informal adoption to friends or extended family (the original version I heard), then probably the only other individuals would have been additional family members or friends who were there.

The one question that I would be asking is the name given to Raymond after adoption.  Without that piece of information, my research has been stalled for the almost 10 years that I have been trying to find him.  New Jersey still keeps its adoption records sealed since 1941.  My aunt registered with New Jersey as being willing to speak with Raymond if he ever contacted the state to try to find his birth parents.  Not only have we never received any communication from New Jersey, Dottie died in 2021.  I have not checked with the state to find out what alternatives might be available for contact given that fact, because I'm not optimistic that there are any, but I still need to do so just in case.

If I can learn Raymond's new name, I can try to trace him through his life.  I can look for school records, marriage records, birth records (of possible children), and death records.  I might find out he died young as a child.  But I also might discover that he married and had several children and grandchildren.  I concede that I consider the latter unlikely, as I have not been alerted to any DNA matches, and I have all of the databases covered with close and fairly close relatives who should match Raymond or his next generations if they test.  So either no one among Raymond and his possible progeny have tested, or it was only him, and he either has not tested or died without testing.

But even if the answer were that he died young and had no children, no one to connect with, I would finally have an answer and could tell his siblings, particularly my cousin Pattie, who since Dottie passed away has been the primary standard bearer hoping for a resolution to the search.  I'm sure that, even posthumously, Dottie would appreciate that we knew what had happened to the son she gave up.

Wordless Wedding Wednesday

Learning More about My Cousin Billie

I've written previously about the photo bonanza that my sister sent to me after her niece had scanned thousands of photographs that were left in the house after our father passed away.  I've made many discoveries and unearthed several childhood memories by going through the photos, and I still have a long way to go to identify all of them.

Now that bonanza has to compete with another one.

About a year and a half ago, I was contacted out of the blue by a woman named Wendi Shaw, who looks for family items for sale in auctions and the like.  She called herself an heirloom hunter, which she does as a hobby.  She goes through the items, puts them in binders, does some research, tries to find family members, and offers to send the items back to them.

She told me she was trying to reach the Brainin family, because she had acquired several of Billie Brainin's items.

I recognized the name right away.  Billie was the daughter of David Brainin, a younger brother of my great-grandmother Sarah Brainin.

Wendi included four photos of the pile of letters.  Three photographs were visible in the collection.

So I shouted out loud, jumped up and down, did the genealogy happy dance, and told her I would love to have the items.

I discovered that she had found me through my blog (this one!), where I had written about Billie a couple of times.

I sent her my address and looked forward to receiving this new family history bonanza.  I even posted the photo of Billie that she had sent me.

And I waited.

After several months, I sent another message, asking if something had happened.  Which it had:  Real life had interfered.

But Wendi was glad I had written again, because she apparently had lost my contact information.  And said she would be sending me the items soon, with one catch:  She wanted me to confirm when I received everything (I already did that) and to let her know when I blogged about this discovery.  And hey, that's what I'm doing now!

It was clear when I started looking at all the items that Wendi had already done some sorting and that they were not in the order in which they had been in the storage unit; she had told me that she had gone through them and put them into plastic sleeves.  So I did not feel compelled to keep them in the order in which I had received them, something that should be considered from an archival perspective.  Since the original order was already lost, I have chosen to put everything in chronological order as much as possible.  So far I have found six items with no dates on them.  Two of those (a music program and a piece of a newspaper) I have determined the dates by searching for text that appears.  That leaves me only four undated items:  two cards and two letters.  Maybe I'll be able to figure out where they fit by context.

The earliest item is a funeral bill from 1924.  The most recent so far is a letter from 1964.

I've only begun to go through the items and actually read them.  Some of what I have found already in this amazing gift:

I learned that Billie, the only name I had ever heard for my cousin, was not actually her given name at birth!  A couple of the letters were addressed to Mildred Brainin, and when I looked for that name in the New York City birth index on Ancestry, I found her.  Totally news to me!  I had not searched for her birth previously because Billie was born late enough that I know New York City won't send me a copy of her birth certificate, even though she died more than 30 years ago.  They're just not a friendly jurisdiction to work with.

Among the letters were four from my cousin Sam Brainin (whom I knew personally) to Billie, his sister, while he was in the Navy.  I have been in contact with Sam's children for several years, so I wrote to one of them to ask if she would like to have the letters.

I'm looking forward to reading all of the letters and learning more about Billie.  I don't know yet how personal any of the information is, so I can't tell how much I might feel comfortable posting.  But it's going to be a fascinating adventure, I'm sure.

Tuberculosis Is Still with Us

I was reading the Wikipedia page about World Tuberculosis Day, which falls today, March 24.  I had not realized that in the 1880's TB was the cause of death for one in seven people worldwide.  That's roughly 14%.  Current numbers that I found by searching online suggest that the world's current population is around 8.2 billion and that about 1.25 million people die annually from TB, for a percentage of about .0002.  Many more people, but a significantly smaller percentage of them overall.  So even though it is still with us, we seem to have improved a little in keeping people healthy.

March 24 was inaugurated as World Tuberculosis Day in 1982 because it was the 100th anniversary of when Dr. Robert Koch announced in 1882 that he had discovered the bacterium that causes tuberculosis:  Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  The purpose of World Tuberculosis Day is to draw attention to the fact that it still kills far too many people even now, in pretty much every country, including the United States.

Many well known people historically have suffered from tuberculosis.  There's even a page devoted to them on Wikipedia!  Just a few names I noted are Aubrey Beardsley, Sarah Bernhardt, Anne and Emily Bronte, Anton Chekhov, Frederic Chopin, Edward VI of England, W. C. Fields, Robert Heinlein, Vivien Leigh, Christy Mathewson, Amedeo Modigliani, Moliere, Edvard Munch, Florence Nightingale, George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), Junipero Serra, Igor Stravinsky, and Henry David Thoreau.

I wrote about World Tuberculosis Day in 2016 and had only one relative at that time whom I knew had died of TB.  In searching through my family tree program, I now have found three more cousins who died of tuberculosis.  I as yet have not found an ancestor who died of TB, although I have a note that one of my Hananiah Gaunt grandfathers supposedly did.  I'm still looking for documentation of that.

Henry H. Gauntt, son of Hananiah Selah Gaunt and Margaret S. Scott, died October 16, 1916 in Lumberton, Burlington County, New Jersey.  He was 42 years old and is my 1st cousin 3x removed.

Robert Francis Gauntt, son of John Benjamin Gaunt and Sarah Virginia Woolston, died July 17, 1917 in Norristown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.  He was only 28 years old and is my 1st cousin 2x removed.

Ridgway Eacritt Zelley, son of Joseph Ridgway Zelley and Sarah R. Eacritt, died September 10, 1928 in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas.  He was 50 years old and is my 3rd cousin 2x removed.

Although the primary affliction we hear about spreading through World War I boot camps is influenza, tuberculosis also was a problem.  What's interesting about Robert Francis Gauntt is that his draft registration, dated June 5, 1917 — only six weeks before he died — indicates that he was having lung problems then.  If he was already sick, he probably wouldn't have made it through induction, so he appears to have acquired tuberculosis without being drafted and going to boot camp.

The Gregorian Calendar Enters Use in Russia

Pope Gregory XIII

On my mother's side of the family, I am (as far as I know and have been able to verify through research) 100% Jewish.  All of my Jewish immigrant ancestors and most of my Jewish immigrant relatives within memory (and based on research) lived in the Russian Empire.  A small number of those relatives remained within the empire long enough also to live in the Soviet Union.

And that means that all of those ancestors and collateral relatives lived with the Julian calendar.  You know, the calendar that was corrected and improved upon by Pope Gregory XIII (lucky 13?), thereby giving the world the Gregorian calendar.

The Julian calendar dates back to the days of Julius Caesar, from whom it takes its name.  It had a 365-day year with a leap day added every fourth year.

The Julian calendar was a little longer than the actual solar year — .0078 days per year.  That doesn't sound like much, but over time — 1,628 years — this created a problem with when the seasons began and, more importantly, with determining when Easter began.  That then became a problem for the Catholic church, which is when Pope Gregory enters the picture.

Pope Gregory commissioned a new, more accurate calendar and declared on February 25, 1582 that the day after October 4, 1582 would be October 15, 1582, correcting for this mistake by dropping ten days.  But he did not rule the world, only the church, so at first only the Papal States and the church itself enacted the change.  Not long after, many Catholic countries switched over.  Protestant countries took longer, because they didn't want to be following the edict of the Catholic church, but eventually most of them made the change also (Great Britain and its colonies, including what would become the United States of America, corrected the calendar in 1752, dropping eleven days).

But many parts of the world didn't change until the 20th century, including the Russian Empire.  In fact, the Russian Empire never did make the change.  The Russian Revolution occurred, the Russian Empire was dissolved, and the brand-spanking new Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, which became part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), declared that the country would switch to the Gregorian calendar.  January 31, 1918 was followed by February 14, 1918, dropping thirteen days to bring the calendar into compliance (because those additional centuries of extra leap days added up!).  So today is the 107th anniversary of the Russian change to the Gregorian calendar.  I love the fact that, once you took into account the changes in dates, the October Revolution actually took place in November.

All of my ancestors who were still alive left the Russian Empire before the October Revolution.  Most of my other relatives did also.

But a few were not able to leave quite that early and did live in the Soviet Union for some amount of time.

My great-grandfather's older sister, Etta Gorodetsky, married Dovid Kardish in the Russian Empire, and they had at least eight children there.  One child died in Europe, but Dovid, Etta, and the other seven children immigrated to Canada in 1927.

Dovid is probably my cousin, based on information I have found and been told, although I have not determined exactly how. But that makes everyone else in his family my cousins.  He had eleven known siblings.  Dovid's father and four of the siblings died in Europe, but his mother and six of his siblings were living in the Soviet Union before they left for Canada.  And one of Dovid's sisters never left; she married in the Russian Empire in what is now Ukraine, was still there during the transition to the Soviet Union, and eventually went to Uzbekistan, dying there before it became independent.

So all of those who did not leave before the fall of the Russian Empire went through the calendar transition from Julian to Gregorian.

The records I find for my relatives before the switch to the Gregorian calendar have dates based on the Julian calendar.

So I need to note in some way in my family tree that those dates are Julian, to make sure I'm accurately recording events.

I would prefer to enter the dates per the Julian calendar, because that's how they were originally recorded, and that's the logic I use for entering locations.  What it was called when the event happened is what I enter, and then I make a note that the location is now called something else.

But my computer program isn't able to handle dates that way.  When I put in a Julian date, it wants to interpret it as a Gregorian date, like all the other dates in the database.

What I eventually decided was to record the dates per the Gregorian calendar and then to make a note for each one of what the original Julian date was.  That way, the computer doesn't get confused, I still have the information about the date as originally recorded, and everyone is happy.  And I want to keep my computer happy.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your 2024 Christmas Genea-Gifts

Since it's the Saturday right after Christmas, it's kind of natural to expect Randy Seaver to ask us to talk about our genealogy Christmas presents for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

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

1.  Was Genea-Santa good to you?  What genealogy gifts did you receive for Christmas this year?

2.  Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status  post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Well, I didn't get the one thing I asked Santa for, but I know it's going to be really difficult, so I didn't expect it so soon anyway.  But I did get something very cool!

A new (to me) cousin found me through my blog, and she has been sharing photographs like crazy!

She's a cousin on my Armstrong line, which I don't know as much about.  I've only been in contact with one person who is also researching my family.  So this was a total surprise.

My great-grandmother Laura May Armstrong had a brother and a sister.  The previous researcher is researching the sister, Rachel Anna Armstrong.  This person is researching the brother, Stacy Biddle Armstrong:  all-new information!

Along with lots of photos and great information about Stacy and his family, my newfound cousin even has photos of some relatives I know.

For example, here's a school photo of my Aunt Carol, from the 1st or 2nd grade (which Carol isn't sure she has a copy of):

And here's a photo of my grandfather from 1970 that's new to me:

The baby in the photo is the cousin who contacted me.

Apparently my grandfather used to visit this cousin and her family up in New Jersey kind of regularly.  Even though my family was living near him during some of this time, he never mentioned he was visiting relatives (fink!).

Here's a photo of my great-granduncle Stacy Armstrong and his wife Lydia:

So many photographs!  We're playing the matching game with a lot of them, recognizing a person in one photo and then in another.  Only a few of the photos are labeled (of course!), so we're focusing on those names and faces and piecing things together.

Thanks for the great Christmas present, Genea-Santa!

Family Christmas in Florida

These are photos from the bonanza that my sister sent me a year ago.  (Wow!  Has it really been that long already?)  I'm not sure about the year.  Based on the apparent age of my youngest cousin in the photos, I was guessing about 1998, but her grandmother thinks it was 1994 or 1995.  I'm actually leaning toward at least 1996, based on other information.

This was at my father's house in Mary Esther, Florida.  I don't know if the family get-together was actually on Christmas, but it seems to have been around that time, so close enough.

The Christmas tree, in all its glory

I didn't know my father had a train set-up

My father, Lynn, and my stepmother, Ginny

Aunt Dottie, someone behind her we can't see,
a woman I don't know, and my cousin Pattie

Ginny and Pattie

My cousins Patricia (Stacey's daughter) and Stacey (Pattie's daughter)

Pattie and Dottie

Four generations:
Stacey, Patricia, Dottie, Pattie

And now with Pattie facing the camera!

The feast table before the feast
(I can't seem to find a photo of the table laden with food, though)

j

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday