Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Maps Have You Found Recently?

Today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver will be extra fun, because the topic is one I love a lot!

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

1.  Do you collect maps of the places that you have ancestors or family?  I do!  I love maps.  And have so many places!

2.  Tell us about a recent map find for your genealogy and family history (it could be any time) and where you found it.  Share the map and a comment on your own blog, or in a Facebook Status  post, and share a link on this post.

I collection maps and atlases in general, especially vintage ones that show earlier names of locations.  I love looking at and reading maps.  I guess I have to fudge a little bit for today's challenge, though.  I have found several maps recently that caught my attention, but I think only one of them has something to do with my own genealogy and family history.  But they're interesting!

360 Cornwall

This is a virtual map of Cornwall with more than 250 locations featured with aerial 360° views.  While it appears to be designed primarily as a way to attract tourist interest, the locations include heritage sites, and it looks cool.  And since my Dunstan family line, which so far I have only in Manchester, is supposed to have originated in Cornwall, that makes this related to my family history.  It's available online and as both Apple and Android apps.  (I chose the image of Penzance because I've actually been there.)

Aerial Montana

Another site with aerial photography is Aerial Montana, which features a map with indexed locations of photographs dating from the 1930's through the 1970's.  The photographs were taken by the U.S. Forest Service of land in the Forest Service Northern Region, primarily western Montana and northern Idaho.  While the photograph collection has tens of thousands of aerial images, the focus has been on digitizing those from the 1930's and making them available.  The map indicates latitude and longitude of about 31,000 images, of which 3,500 are currently online.  An article with background information about the collection can be found here.

Missoula, Montana, 1937

Civil Code in French-speaking Jurisdictions Worldwide

You might not expect to find a map in a Law Library of Congress blog post, but that's where this one came from.  There are apparently 29 jurisdictions in the world that include French as an official language.  The map shows which of those locations still use the French civil law system and how they apply it, whether by itself or in combination with another legal system.  Two countries, Mauretania and Niger, use French civil law and sharia law, which is an interesting combination.  I found this map fascinating because most of the places that are using the French civil law system are former colonies, so it shows history also.

Synchronized Napoleonic Map

I have read about people using Google Maps overlays with historic maps, including in family history.  This is the same idea, with the focus on a 1797 map about southern Germany produced during the Napoleonic wars.  The article to which I've linked, which was published on a Hungarian university site, states that "Hungary is a main provider in the publication of . . . georeferenced maps of the Napoleonic era."  I don't know if that's accurate or if they said it because they're promoting themselves.  I found the topic particularly interesting because I used to be an editor for a magazine about the Napoleonic wars.

National Read a Road Map Day

According to several sites (Days of the Year, National Day Calendar, Time and Date, There Is a Day for That), today, April 5, is National Read a Road Map Day, but none of them has any information on how it started or who initiated it.  No matter, I love maps of all kinds, including road maps.

My most memorable experience reading a road map came during the summer of 1976.  I was living in Villa Tasso, Florida and had just finished C. W. Ruckel Junior High School, in Niceville, 10 miles away.  I also had been a Junior Girl Scout during the three previous years and had "graduated" with other girls in my troop.  To celebrate, we took a trip to Atlanta.

I remember there were a few cars, each loaded with girls and one chaperone driver.  Somehow our driver became separated from the others as we were getting into Atlanta.  Then she got lost, on the "wrong" side of town.  Then she got scared.  Because she was a white Southern woman, and everyone around us was Black.  She started freaking out.  (That's the kind of people I lived around at that time of my life; the joys of living in the Deep South.)

But we had a road map!  And I was already good at reading maps.  So I figured out where we were on the map and guided her to wherever we were supposed to be going, probably a hotel.  (That I don't remember.)  And she slowly got unfreaked out.

Knowing how to read a map is a useful skill.

Treasure Chest Thursday: The Chain of Deeds for the Schafer Property

This sheet of paper is 8 1/2" x 14" and is dark orange.  It is the last page of a packet of documents held together with two large brads and appears to be the "cover" page.  At some point in the past the pages were probably folded in half and this was on the outside.  The stain in the lower right corner looks as though it might be from grease.  The page is labeled as coming from the St. Louis County Land Title Company.  The title on the page, "Abstract of Title", describes reasonably well the contents of the packet.

This half sheet measures 8 1/4" x 4 1/2".  It is the last page in the set of documents, appearing just before the above file "cover."  It is a receipt from the St. Louis County Land Title Company, addressed to Jean L. "LaForest" of Overland, Missouri and shows an order for the chain of deeds for lots 9 through 16 in Belt's Subdivision.  The dates on it appear to indicate that Jean placed his order on January 6, 1920 and paid $10, probably a deposit against the total copying to be done.  He might have mailed his order, because the top of the receipt is dated January 17, 1920; it's also possible that it simply took a week for a clerk to register the request as #8855 with a charge of $25.  When the job was finished, the balance due was $15, although no date is entered for that.  The "PAID" stamp shows the bill was paid off February 4, 1920, and Jean's note in the upper left records that he received the documents the next day, on February 5.

This sheet also measures 8 1/2" x 14".  The hand-drawn map was attached to the front of the complete packet from the title company.  The blank page (from a different land title company) is the reverse side of the map.  Judging by the handwriting on the map, I suspect that Jean La Forêt is the person who created it.

The large packet of papers between these sheets consists of abstracts of land transactions for the lots mentioned on the receipt.  These abstracts appear to be the source of the information that Jean used to reconstruct the history of the sales of the land purchased by John Schafer, lots 9 and 10, the focus of the dispute between Emma (Schafer) La Forêt and her three Curdt siblings.  So Jean didn't go to the county recorder or assessor and research all this himself; he ordered copies and let the county office do the research for him.  Then he pulled out the information relevant to his search and apparently retyped all of it.  There are more than 20 pages in the packet, so I will be posting only a few each week.

I find it interesting that Jean's last name was misspelled "LaForest" on the receipt.  As a French language major, I learned that a word containing a vowel with a circonflexe (circumflex in English) over it often appears in English with an "s" after the vowel.  So, for example, the word "forêt" translates as "forest."  I doubt that the clerk in Missouri in 1920 knew this, and yet Jean's last name became Forest.  Just how did that happen?

Treasure Chest Thursday: Jean La Forêt Is Concerned about Italian Espionage

This is an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper (finally!  modern size!) that probably was once a pristine white but is now quite yellowed with age.  It has a watermark that says "LAKESIDE BOND."  It was in an envelope and was folded into quarters previously, but I have flattened it.  Someone, likely Jean La Forêt, has typed on the front and back.  I am surprised at the red ink Jean used for his name and return address at the top; I wonder if he had a separate typewriter ribbon for that or if there was a row of red on his regular ribbon.  I've seen both.  (Yes, I do remember typing with ribbon, thank you very much.)  With several typed-over corrections, this wouldn't have been the final version of a letter; it looks like it might have been a draft.  Supporting that hypothesis is the second letter that was in the same envelope.

This is another letter on an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper.  As with the first, it is yellowed but was probably white, and was folded into quarters.  It also has the same watermark, "LAKESIDE BOND."  It has Jean's name and address on the top — in black this time — but typing on only one side of the page.

Both letters have a mix of English and French.  They are Jean's reaction to a news item that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 15, 1926.  The first letter is dated the same day and might have been Jean's initial reaction to the article, while the second letter, dated April 18, is a more condensed version of his initial reaction.

And here's the envelope the letters were in when I received them.  It is a perfect 22 cm x 14 cm; the standard measurements are 8 5/8" x 5 5/8".  It's very brittle and looks as though it has taken on color over the years, but I'm not sure it was originally white.  The preprinted return address on the envelope is "American Consular Service, Algiers (Algeria)", so it was likely printed overseas, ergo the metric size.

Here's the short item that caught Jean's attention in the Chronicle.  He did a very good job of transcribing it, with the only mistakes being one added comma and one omitted comma.  Not bad, Jean!

San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 1926, page 2

Jean's typing is very clear and easy to read, so I did not transcribe the sections written in English.  I have transcribed the French sections and translated them (but not Jean's strikeovers), and the handwriting on the envelope, which is mostly in English.  Unlike Jean's handwritten items, these letters have no diacritical marks, so he must have had a standard American typewriter.

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

Transcriptions

First letter

[name and address]

Le 15 Avril, 1926

Monsieur le Consul General de France,
          San Francisco, California

Monsieur le Consul General,

          Dans le "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE" du 15 courant, je viens de lire un petit article intitule:
     [article title]
et concu en ces termes:–
[transcription of newspaper item]

[paragraph in English]

     Traversant l'Italie en 1909, je me suis arrete a Genes pendant environ trois semaines, fin may et premiere moitie de Juin.  Ayant besoin d'une carte pour m'orienter, je suis alle chez un libraire pou[r] en acheter une, demandant la carte la plus recente obtainable.  Le libraire me presenta une carte publiee tres-peu de temps avant et je l'achetai.  En arrivant a l'hotel je l'ai examinee et je me suis apercu que j'ai fait une emplette tres- interessante et, a mon point de vue, assez valuable.  Les revendications suivantes y sont clairement donnees:–
     1.– Republique de St. Marino;
     2.– Ile de Malte ( Angleterre) ;
     3.– Ile de Corse ( France) ;
     4.– Province de Nice (France) ;
     5.– Principaute de Monaco (France)
     6.– Suisse italienne (Suisse) ;
     7.– Canton de Ticino ou Tessin (Suisse)
     8.– Tirol Italien; Cercles de Pusterthal,Belsane, Trente, et Rovereto; Illiria Italienne;
           Cercles de Gorizia, Adelsberg, Trieste (Illiria) et le territoire de Trieste.

     Vous l'Italie n'est pas rapace, elle ne demande que peu de choses! . . .

     Cette carte est marquee:–

[map companay name and address]

     Cette carte est a votre disposition si vous desiriez en prendre une copie photographique.  La carte elle meme, je veux la conserver comme souvenir interessant.

     Ou serait l'Italie sans le secours de la France?  C'est le prestige de la France, le sang de ses soldats et ses finances qui ont fait l'Italie.  Que serait l'Italie aujourd'hui sans le concours, l'aide materiel de la France?  La Carte de l'Italie aurait surement un tout autre aspect:  Allemande et q.q. petites principautes eparpillees sur la peninsule.

     Si vous le desirez je viendrai vous voir a votre office et vous pourrez decider ce que vous desirez faire dans cette affaire.
     En attendant j'ai l8honneur [sic] de me dire,
          Monsieur le Consul General,
               Votre tout devoue serviteur,
                     Jean L. La Foret,
     De 1915 a 1919 U.S. Vice Consul et Charge d'Affaires a Alger, Algerie
                                      des Etats Unis


Second letter

[name and address]

Dimanche le dix-huit Avril, 1926.

Monsieur le Consul General de France,
          Consulat de la Republique Francaise,
                    SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

Monsieur le Consul General:–

          Dans le "SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE" du 15 de ce mois, j'ai lu un petit article intitule:
     [article title]
L'article est concu en ces termes:–
     [transcription of newspaper item]

     En lisant cet article je me suis rappele qu'en traversant l'Italie en 1909, je me suis arrete a Genes pendant environ trois semaines, fin Mai et premiere moitie du Juin.  Ayant besoin d'une carte pour m'orienter dans mes excursions, je me suis rendu chez un libraire demandant la carte d'Italie, la plus recent obtainable.  Le libraire me presenta une carte publiee tres-peu de temps avant et je l'achetai.  En arrivant a l'hotel je l'ai examinee et je me suis apercu que j'ai fait une emplette tres-interessante et, a mon point de vue, assez valuable.  Les REVENDICATIONS ITALIENNES y sont clairement donnees, les voici:–
     1.– Republique de San Marino;
     2.– Ile de Malte (Angleterre) ;
     3.– Ile de Corse (France) ;
     4.– Province de Nice (France) ;
     5.– Principaute de Monaco (France) ;
     6.– Suisse Italienne (Suisse) ;
     7.– Canton de Ticino ou Tessin (Suisse) ;
     8.– Le Tirol Italien; les Cercles de Pusterthal, Belsane, Trente, Rovereto;
           Cercles de Gorizia, Adelsberg, Trieste (Illiria) et le Territoire de Trieste.

     Vous voyez, l'Italie n'est pas rapace, pas du tout, elle ne demande que peu de chose! . . .


Envelope

ITALY and GENOA ——

Italian Revendications —

Very interesting —

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

Translations

First letter

April 15, 1926

Mr. Consul General of France

Mr. Consul General,

          In the San Francisco Chronicle of today, the 15th, I just read a small article titled:
     [article title]
and which stated:–
     [article text]

     [paragraph in English]

     Going through Italy in 1909, I stopped in Genoa for about three weeks, from the end of May to the first half of June.  Needing a map to orient myself, I went to a bookstore to buy one, asking for the most recent one available.  The bookstore offered me a map published very recently, and I bought it.  On returning to the hotel, I looked over it and realized I had made a very interesting purchase and, from my point of view, a valuable one.  The following claims are clearly made:
     1.– Republic de San Marino;
     2.– Island of Malta (England);
     3.– Island of Corsica (France);
     4.– Province of Nice (France);
     5.– Principality of Monaco (France);
     6.– Italian Switzerland (Switzerland);
     7.– Canton of Ticino or Tessin (Switzerland;
     8.– Italian Tyrol; areas of Pusterthal, Belsane, Trentino, et Rovereto; Italian Illyria;
           areas of Gorizia, Adelsberg, Trieste (Illyria), and the province of Trieste.

     You [see], Italy isn't greedy, it hardly wants anything! . . .

          This map is marked:–

[map company name and address]

     This map is at your disposal if you wish to make a photographic copy.  I wish to keep the map itself as an interesting souvenir.

     Where would Italy be without the assistance of France?  It is the prestige of France, the blood of its soldiers, and its treasury that have made Italy.  What would Italy be today without the aid and assistance of France?  The map of Italy would surely look totally different:  German and several small principalities scattered over the peninsula.

     If you wish, I can come see you at your office, and you can decide what you wish to do in this matter.

     Meanwhile I have the honor,
          Mr. Consul General,
               Your devoted servant,
                     Jean L. Foret,
From 1915 to 1919 the U.S. Vice Consul and Charge d'Affaires in Algiers, Algeria


Second letter

Sunday, April 18, 1926

Mr. Consul General of France,
     Consulate of the Republic of France

Mr. Consul General:–

          In the San Francisco Chronicle of the 15th of this month, I read a small article titled:
     [article title]
The article stated:–
     [article text]

     While reading the article I remembered that while going through Italy in 1909, I stopped in Genoa for about three weeks, end of May to first half of June.  Needing a map to orient myself during my travels, I went to a bookstore and asked for a map of Italy, the most recent available.  The bookstore offered me a map published very recently, and I bought it.  On returning to the hotel, I looked over it and realized that I had made a very interesting purchase and, from my point of view, a valuable one.  The ITALIAN CLAIMS are clearly made; here they are :–
     1.– Republic de San Marino;
     2.– Island of Malta (England);
     3.– Island of Corsica (France);
     4.– Province of Nice (France);
     5.– Principality of Monaco (France);
     6.– Italian Switzerland (Switzerland);
     7.– Canton of Ticino or Tessin (Switzerland);
     8.– Italian Tyrol; areas of Pusterthal, Belsane, Trentino, Rovereto;
           areas of Gorizia, Adelsberg, Trieste (Illyria), and the province of Trieste.

     You see, Italy isn't greedy, not at all, it hardly wants anything! . . .


Envelope

ITALY and GENOA ——

Italian Claims —

Very interesting —

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

It appears that the letter dated April 15 was written right after Jean read the article in the Chronicle.  Whether he intended it as a draft or simply put it aside for a few days to think about it a little more, the letter dated April 18 seems a little more streamlined and smoother.  It does not have the paragraph in English at the beginning.  It also seems a little less inflammatory, but I'm not sure I have the entire letter.  This one page does not include a closing or Jean's name at the end, so the second page may have been typed on a separate sheet and has gone missing over the years, and Jean may have repeated his comments about how much Italy owed to France.

I'm not sure how to interpret the ending of the draft letter, where Jean offers to visit the Consul General.  I don't know if he's talking about a decision on whether to copy the map or what to do about the Italians taken into custody.  If the former, he makes it sound much more momentous than I think it warranted.  If the latter, he may have had an inflated opinion of his position after seven years out of foreign service.

The map does appear to have been interesting, although I don't think I have it either.  While some of the cities and territories claimed by Italy that Jean listed had been under Italian control in the 19th century, some go back 500 years or so.  It would have been difficult to find any support for those claims.  Even more interesting is that in the current day, some of the territories on the list have indeed been returned to some level of Italian control.

Jean included an entry in his journal for his trip to Genoa.  This was when he traveled with Emma on what looked like it could have been a honeymoon trip, and Genoa was a stop on their way to Switzerland.  The dates Jean gave in this letter match his journal.  This man was very organized.  Who knows, maybe he even consulted the journal before he wrote the letter!

These letters are the first dated items I have for Jean after he and Emma returned to California from Missouri (unless I find another misfiled item, of course).  Sometimes between July 11, 1925 and April 15, 1926, they moved to Vallejo.  And less than five months later, when he had been back in California for only a year or so, he died.  I wonder if he received a response from the Consul General before then.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Did You Collect as a Youth?

This week's installment of Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun asks us to reminisce about our youthful collecting habits:

1)   Most of us collect dead ancestors and relatives now.  What did you collect when you were a child or teenager, or adult?

2)  Tell us about your collections in a blog post of your own, in a comment to this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.

The only thing I remember collecting before my family moved to Australia is dolls.  While most of the dolls I had were Barbie and other Mattel models, I also had a few vintage dolls.  I dragged them from California to Australia and then to Florida and back to California.  I used to make clothes for them, both sewn and knitted.  And yes, I still have them all.

I think I started collecting stamps while we were living in Australia, though I'm not entirely sure.  I might have started in California.  My grandfather used to own a stamp and coin store, and as I recall he started me off with several common stamps and a collecting book.  I remember having the stamps in Australia, and I brought them back to the States with me also.  One of my "themes" for collecting was trying to get stamps from as many different countries as possible.  I continued to collect stamps even into my first couple of years of college.  I finally sold my collection when I moved to the San Francisco area.

I believe I started my playing card collection while I lived in Australia, because one of the decks I have from there is an old game called Chook Chook, which is a resource game based on making as much money as possible from the eggs your hens lay.  (And I am stunned to learn that there is actually an entry for Chook Chook on Board Game Geek. I didn't know the game dated back to the 1920's.  I don't think my deck is that old.)  I still collect playing cards, and that's the most common gift I receive from my father and brother for my birthday and Christmas.  I must have several hundred decks.  Most are advertising for airlines or casinos.

In Florida, I began my collection of dice.  That started when I was playing Dungeons & Dragons and became fascinated with the different polyhedral dice used in the game.  Along with several different colors and sizes of polyedral dice, I also have lots of regular six-sided dice, including many from casinos.  Some of my dice are . . . unusual, to say the least, such as the "2-sided die" (essentially a coin) and a 7-sided die that Uncle Lou swore was balanced, but I don't know anyone who believed him.  I even have a 16-sided die that was made custom for a specific game and a 34-sided die that was created so people could randomly choose numbers for the Danish lottery.

I love maps and have always kept many relevant modern ones in the house, but when I began working at Chaosium, a small company that publishes the game Call of Cthulhu, set primarily in the 1920's, I began accumulating vintage maps.  Coincidentally, they're helpful with genealogy, also!  Nowadays I also download lots of images of vintage maps to keep for reference.

And while I did not collect baseball cards, my brother did, and I used to help him sort cards when he bought a big batch from someone.  The Topps 1972 cards had a distinctive design I can still picture in my mind.  My brother used to memorize players' statistics, and I would quiz him from the information on the backs of the cards.

I began collecting my dead relatives at the age of 13.  Like Randy, I have several thousand of those now.  I still have my original notes from when I interviewed family members.  And I also collect lots of documents, photographs, and ephemera related to my family.

I suspect collecting things is a common pastime among genealogists, as both hobbies tend to attract people with slightly (only slightly, mind you!) obsessive-compulsive personalities.

Free Genealogy Seminar in Fresno, Saturday, March 19, 2016

The California State Genealogical Alliance and the Fresno County Genealogical Society are presenting a free genealogy seminar on Saturday, March 19, 2016.  This is an opportunity to attend three interesting talks at no cost, hang out with other genealogists, and learn more about the Alliance.

The presentations and speakers will be:

• "Mapping Our Ancestors:  They Went Where?  Why?", by Mary Anne Vincent

• "Grandma, Who Are You?:  Finding the Maiden Names in Your Family Tree", by yours truly

• "Vital Records and the Calendar Change of 1752", also by me

A CSGA board meeting will be held after the third presentation.  The presentations and the board meeting are free and open to the public.

The event will run from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.  It will take place at:
River Room
Woodward Park Regional Library
944 East Perrin Avenue
Fresno, CA 93720

There is limited seating, so the society is requesting that everyone who plans to attend make a reservation through EventBrite.

For more information, download the flyer.  I hope to see you there!

Free Genealogy Seminar Saturday, October 17, 2015

The California State Genealogical Alliance and the Genealogical Society of Santa Cruz County are presenting a free genealogy seminar this Saturday, October 17, 2015.  This is a great opportunity to attend three interesting talks at no cost, hang out with other genealogists, and learn more about the Alliance.

The presentations and speakers will be:

• "Finding Wives' and Daughters' Names", by Cath Trindle

• "Mapping Our Ancestors:  They Went Where?  Why?", by Mary Anne Vincent

• "Read All about It!:  Using Online Newspapers for Genealogical Research", by yours truly

There will be a CSGA board meeting after the third presentation.  The presentations and the board meeting are free and open to the public.

The event will run from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  It will take place at:
Santa Cruz Main Library
upstairs meeting room
224 Church Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

For more information, download the flyer or visit the GSSCC Web site.  I hope to see you there!

Easy Custom Genealogy Maps beyond North America

A few weeks ago, for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver asked readers of his blog to create custom maps of U.S. states and Canadian provinces they had visited, and then to create maps of where their ancestors had lived in some given year.  This was a fun exercise, and it was interesting to see the results.  I was disappointed, however, that I was unable to map several of my ancestors, because they were not living in North America.

Surprisingly, Facebook came to my rescue.  One of my friends posted a link to MapLoco, a site that creates custom world maps of places you've visited.  They're not as detailed as the maps from the first site — you can only indicate visited or not, as opposed to the four levels of visits available on the other site.  The world map site also doesn't have an option to export a graphic file of your map.  Instead, you can generate a URL to a page that shows the countries you marked.  But the site does give me a quick, easy way to map the rest of my ancestors' locations!

For the SNGF exercise I used the locations of my ancestors in 1865, which I had generated the week before, and mapped those in the U.S.  For this new map I took those same locations, added the European ones (the only other continent where I had ancestors in 1865), and clicked those places on the world map site.  The site then automatically generated a URL for my custom map.  Instead of using the URL itself, you can do a screen capture of the map and use the image.  The map the site shows when you use the URL looks like this:

You can see that the title is "Countries I've Visited", and underneath that it lists the countries "I've been to."  There's no way to change the title, which for this map should be "Countries Where My Ancestors Lived in 1865."  The legend on the left indicates Not Visited and Visited.  If you're doing a screen capture, you could easily cut out the "Countries I've Visited" banner, but the text below that is helpful because it lists the countries, which might be difficult to recognize from the map alone.

You actually have two options for images, though.  While you're making the map, it looks like this:

The advantage here is that the Not Visited/Visited legend and "I" text aren't part of the map.  On the other hand, you don't get the list of countries spelled out.

Something I noticed when mapping my ancestors was that due to border changes, I had to fudge a little.  Many of my ancestors lived in the Russian Empire, but that no longer exists.  So I marked the modern countries (Belarus, Latvia, and Ukraine) that control the specific areas where they were.

You might think of that as being a problem relevant mostly to 19th- and early 20th-century research, but I even had the same situation when I created a map of the countries I have visited myself:

Quite a few border changes have occurred during the latter part of the 20th century.  Two of the countries I have visited are the USSR and the Panama Canal Zone.  Neither one exists today.  For the USSR I marked the countries corresponding to the Soviet republics I visited.  But the Canal Zone is just gone, incorporated into the country of Panama, which I visited separately from the Canal Zone.

Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there were a site that could generate maps for any given year, with the appropriate corresponding country borders?

Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Custom Maps

This week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy Seaver told everyone about a fun site that lets you customize maps of the U.S. and Canada based on how many times you have visited states and provinces.

1)  What states in the USA and what provinces in Canada have you visited or lived in?  

2)  Either list or make a map of them (at the http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/us-canada.html Web site) and indicate the following:

*  red for states/provinces where you've not spent much time or seen very much.
*  amber for states/provinces where you've at least slept and seen some sights.
*  blue for states/provinces you've spent a lot of time in or seen a fair amount of.
*  green for states/provinces you've spent a great deal of time in on multiple visits.

3)  For extra credit, you could make a map to show where your ancestors resided at any time (e.g., in 1900), or perhaps where your 16 great-great-grandparents or 32 3rd-great-grandparents married, or where your ancestors were born, all with an appropriate legend.

4)  Tell us, or show us, your "Where I've been" map and any other map that you created having fun tonight.  Put them in your own blog post, on Facebook or Google+, and leave a comment on this blog post so that we all see them.

When I made the map for the states and provinces I have visited, I was a little disappointed.  I thought I was closer to having been in all 50 states, but I'm only at 43.  Obviously, I have a little work to do, even if I do have a lot of green states!  Unfortunately, I don't have any family research that I know of in any of the states I'm missing.  On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised when I realized I have been in four Canadian provinces.  Here's how my "where I've been" map turned out:

I have lived in California, Florida, and Nevada.  I have visited all the other green states multiple times.  The red states are generally places I either drove straight through or landed in an airport for a layover.  For New Hampshire and South Carolina, however, I deliberately went over the state border (from Vermont and Georgia, respectively) specifically so I could say I had been in the state.  Both times I did a little dance (not the genealogy happy dance, though!).

I created one more map.  Instead of showing where my ancestors were in 1900, I used the information from last week's challenge, since I had already determined where my ancestors were in 1865.  That's when I figured out that I'd really like this fun little map function for Europe, as that's where half of my ancestors were then.  The legend I decided on for my 1865 ancestor map is:

*  red for states/provinces where I had only one ancestor.
*  amber for states/provinces where I had 2–3 ancestors.
*  blue for states/provinces where I had 4–6 ancestors.
*  green for states/provinces where I had more than 6 ancestors.


It turns out that I didn't need to be that detailed.  In 1865 all of my ancestors save one were in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.  The one ancestor who wasn't, my great-great-grandfather Cornelius Godshalk Sellers, was somewhere near Washington, D.C., which doesn't even appear on the map!  I put a marker for him in Virginia, guessing that was probably the side of DC he was on.

If I did a map of where my U.S. great-great-grandparents or 3rd-great-grandparents were married, or where they were born, it would probably look pretty similar to this one, with almost everyone (if not everyone) in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.  If I added births of more recent ancestors, I would at least be able to include a few in New York.

I did notice on the description page of the map site that the Canada map was added to the original U.S. map because someone else created it.  Maybe someone will create a Europe map??

Free New Jersey Maps!

Mount Holly,
Burlington County

I have to admit — I've loved maps since I was a kid.  I don't remember when I wasn't fascinated by them.  When I was 14, I navigated my chaperone/driver on a Girl Scout trip through the "bad side" of Atlanta by reading the map after she got herself lost.  I have a decent collection of modern and historic maps from various places in the U.S. and around the world.

I'm sure most people know how useful maps are when doing family history research.  They can help you locate a town, determine how close together two different towns are, pick out street addresses, maybe show you where the cemeteries are, depending on the map and amount of detail.  Historic maps can have information about locations that no longer exist.

So I was pretty happy to discover that the New Jersey Department of Transportation has posted online several county and state maps, absolutely free!  There are detailed maps for each of the state's twenty-one counties; enlargements for large cities; maps showing railroads, the highway system, airports and heliports; congressional boundaries, legislative districts, and political subdivisions; and a statewide transportation map, both modern and the historic version from 1925.

The county maps are modern and up-to-date but still informative.  Looking at the Burlington County map, I see many town names associated with my family:  Mount Holly, Eastampton, Northampton, Lumberton, Rancocas, Browns Mills.  Fort Dix, where my grandfather worked for some time, is about 10 miles away from where he lived in Mount Holly.  The map includes many local features, such as county courthouses, colleges and universities, correctional institutions, and hospitals.

All the maps are available as free, downloadable PDF's.  The sizes range from about 1 to 10 megs.  Some maps can also be downloaded as KML format (for Google Earth) and Shape files (GIS vector format).

The New Jersey state tourism site has the official DoT 2012 state map, also with lots of details.  This file is 23 meg.

So here's a hearty thank you to the state of New Jersey!  I think I'll be wasti– . . . um, investing a lot of time looking at maps for a while.

"Who Do You Think You Are?" - McAdams Sisters

The third episode from this season of TLC's Who Do You Think You Are? featured the McAdams sisters, Rachel and Kayleen.  Rachel is an actress originally known for her work in Mean Girls; her breakthrough role is considered to be The Notebook.  We're told that she is now a sought-after lead actress (I've still never heard of her).  Kayleen is a "talented and trusted" make-up artist.  (Was their mother a stage mom?)

The teaser said that Rachel and Kayleen will be following their mother's roots through England and Canada.  Some phrases made me think from the beginning that the family might have been Loyalists:  "relatives uprooted by the brutalities of war", "painful choice they had to make", and "harrowing circumstances behind their Canadian roots."

We learn that the McAdams girls grew up in Ontario, where Rachel still lives.  They meet in New York City, apparently where Kayleen lives, but that is not stated.  Rachel is the older sister, and they have a younger brother.  Rachel says that Kayleen is the detective (a good trait for a genealogist!), while Kayleen says that Rachel is a romantic.

Lance Frederick McAdams, their father, was born in Canada, one of ten children.  The girls are close to his side of the family and know a fair amount about them.  They don't know that much about their mother's side.  Sandra Kay Gale's parents both died in their early 30's, so apparently Rachel and Kayleen never knew them.  (I know from personal experience how much that can affect family knowledge.  Both my Sellers great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather died young, and many myths were attached to that family line until I spent several years uncovering the facts.)

Sandra's parents were Harold Gowan Gale and Eileen Bell.  The sisters know Gale was in the Air Force and had something to do with planes during World War II.  One thinks he was a pilot, and the other thinks he was a mechanic.  They want to research this part of their family so they can learn about their roots and how they ended up in Canada.  They also want to find the information to share with their mother.

We never see Mom on screen, but they call her on the phone and tell her they received the package she sent, saying they "can't wait to open it" (yeah, they put it aside and waited until they called her before they looked inside, even though that's the information that starts the research for the show; how dumb do they think the viewing audience is?).  So they "open" it on air, and inside is a family tree with a scant amount of information.  Their mother tells them that her father was a mechanic, not a pilot.  She says that a photo of an older couple is of her father's parents (the girls' great-grandparents), William and Maud Gale.  They were from Polpero, England, but originally from Plymouth.  William was in the Royal Navy.  Mom's father was born in Plymouth.  And that's all Mom knows.  The girls ask her where they should look for more information, and she suggests going to Plymouth, England.  (Now that's a huge leap!  How about trying to do even a minimal amount of research in Canadian census and vital records first?)

Rachel talks about how she feels incomplete because they can't go that far back on their family line (a lot of people can't relate four generations before they do some research, so she isn't particularly special).  She thinks it's empowering to learn information about her family and feels it's that much richer because she's doing it with her sister.  (Unfortunately, the scripting and the sisters' delivery remain this lame throughout the episode.)

So off they go to Plymouth.  In the Plymouth Central Library they meet professional genealogist Paul Blake, whom they have previously asked to research their family.  Now they ask him whether he has found anything about their great-grandfather's parents.  He tells them he has found a marriage for their great-grandparents.  William Gale married Beatrice Maude Sedgrove on November 16, 1910.  His occupation was listed as engine room artificer, which means he was a mechanic in the Royal Navy.  His father was William Henry Greber Gale (deceased), a captain in the Royal Navy.  Beatrice's father was Arthur Edward Sedgrove (and nothing more is said of him).

They ask if he has found anything else, and we leap straight to the January 2, 1850 birth certificate for William Henry Creber Gale.  His parents were William Gale and Elizabeth Creber.  The father's occupation is listed as servant.  One of the sisters asks what kind of servant.  (Almost all the questions the girls ask during the program sound forced and very scripted, this one being no exception.)  Blake suggests they look on Ancestry, and one of them responds, "Ancestry.com?"  (Gee, they must watch TV commercials.)  Blake directs them to search in the 1851 England census for William Gale with a keyword of "servant."  (It was nice to learn one can search that way.)  They find Gale working as a footman in Bovysand House in Wembury, a household with many servants.  Even though his son was born only a year earlier, his family is not living with him.  Blake tells them that the house still stands and that they can learn more by going there.

Bovisand (current spelling) House and all the servants make the sisters think of Downton Abbey and they actually have an idea of what a footman is.  (Yes, they do watch television.)  They're excited that the house is still standing and want to learn about their ancestor's life as a servant.  They wonder why his wife and child aren't with him, though.

At the entrance to Bovisand House (now part of a tourist experience as Bovisand Lodge Estate) they are met by Dr. Pamela Cox, a social historian at the University of Essex.  She explains that the footman would not only have answered the door but would have managed the front of the house.  The girls admire the view from the many windows.  Dr. Cox points out that on the census the footman is the top male servant and the next person listed after the governess, an indication of his status.  He would have been in charge of other servants and things such as the china, glassware, and silver.  He also would have been at the constant call of his employers.  The narrator mentions that the footman would have been the physical representative of the house, and therefore height and looks were important factors in who was chosen for the coveted position, which had good wages and was well respected.

The sisters ask where he lived.  Cox explains he lived in Bovisand House, upstairs in the servants' quarters.  The next question is where his wife was.  She wasn't listed in the census at the house with him, but that was normal for the time.  They search for Elizabeth and young William and find them living in a village about 25 miles away.  Gale would probably have seen his family about once a month maximum.  The village was a long way from the house, and Gale didn't have any days off on a regular basis.  He worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  He wasn't involved in his son's life, because his duty was to his employer, not his family.

Next the girls want to know how the couple met.  Cox shows them the 1841 census with William and Elizabeth, both 20 years old, working for the same Nowland family (but not yet at Bovisand House).  Elizabeth was also a servant.  So after spending every day together for several years while they were working, after they married, they had to live separately.  Kayleen asks about William in the 1861 census (how in the world could she have come up with that question on her own?), and Cox tells them William didn't live that long.  She shows them his death certificate, dated May 27, 1860; he was only 40 years old when he died.  The cause of death was delirium tremens.  Cox explains that was not an uncommon occurrence at the time, as alcohol was readily available to the servants.  The sisters ask what happened to Elizabeth, but Cox says that is all she can tell them.  (The researchers totally lost track of the woman after 1851??  I found her in 1861 and 1871 with almost no effort.)  They thank her and leave the house.

Now the sisters have more answers, but those answers have led to more questions.  They stroll on the grounds around the house and think about how William Gale might have walked on the same path, and that maybe William and Elizabeth walked there while they were courting.  They talk about how William had a tough life and made sacrifices for his family, but I think they were looking at his life from a very modern perspective; he probably wouldn't have considered living apart from his wife and baby to be a sacrifice, because it was the accepted thing to do at the time.  William had a short life but made his family proud and provided a better life for them.  But they still don't know how their family ended up in Canada.  So what's the next step?  Go to Ottawa!  (Even though they're from Ontario ....)

In Ottawa they say that they have more names but need stories to go with them.  They meet with Joseph Shumway (apparently Ancestry.com's most flexible genealogist-for-hire) in an unidentified location that looks like a modernist office building.  (Rent-a-desk?)  He has a fancy printed family tree (no calligraphy this time) taking their family back six generations from them (following three women's lines, no less):  Eileen Maude Bell's parents were Andrew Bell and Ethel Josephine Foote; Ethel's parents were William Foote and Carmina Maude McDonald; Carmina's parents were Joseph Blackman McDonald and Emma Peters; and Joseph's parents were Alexander McDonald and Charlotte Gray (the sisters' 4th-great-grandparents).  (So we've totally abandoned the Gale family at this point.)  Shumway points out that the birthdates of the oldest generation are approximate to the period of the American Revolutionary War.

Up to that oldest generation, everyone was born in Ontario, but birthplaces aren't listed for Alexander McDonald and Charlotte Gray.  So the sisters want to know where they were from.  Instead of answering directly, Shumway says he has a document from 1824 and that the girls have to wear white gloves to handle it.  (Why in the world would they use an original document like that outside of an archive?!)  It is a petition for a land grant filed by Charlotte (Gray) McDonald in July 1824.  She filed the petition based on her status as the daughter of James Gray (whom the girls immediately note would be their 5th-great-grandfather) of the Johnstown District of UE Loyalists.  Shumway says that UE stands for United Empire and that the Loyalists were those colonists who sided with the crown during the Revolutionary War.  The girls ask what made someone a Loyalist, and Shumway explains that it was someone who fought for or provided service, shelter, or food to the crown during the war.

So after the war, Loyalists in Canada petitioned for land grants as compensation for their service.  Obviously, children of Loyalists were allowed to have land grants, as Charlotte filed a petition.  But what happened to James Gray?  Shumway tells the sisters to go to the City of Ottawa Archives, which has a large collection of Loyalist materials.

As they leave the odd little building, the sisters say how proud they are of their Loyalist connection.  Canada struggles with its identity and is sometimes viewed as the United States' little brother.  They have strong roots with the crown.  (But Kayleen lives in New York ....)

At the James Bartleman Centre of the City of Ottawa Archives, Rachel and Kayleen meet Dr. Alan Taylor, a historian of Colonial America from the University of Virginia.  The sisters tell Taylor that they know their ancestor James Gray was a Loyalist but don't know "how his life unfolded" (they really talk this way?).  Taylor tells them that the first appearance of Gray in a historical record is in a "List of Families Calling Themselves Loyalists", who were quartered at St. Jean in 1778.  St. Jean was a fort and refugee encampment.  The list is similar to an early census and shows the family consisted of one male adult, one female adult, and two children and that they came from Lake Champlain.  Taylor points out that Lake Champlain lies primarily in the U.S., on the New York–Vermont border.

The girls ask what life would have been like in the colonies for the Grays.  Taylor explains they were probably farmers and recent settlers, likely in a settlement less than ten years old.  They would have had the experience of turning a forest into farmland with only hand tools and maybe some oxen.  The war breaking out meant they had to decide which side to support.  That problem became more urgent when the British army lost to the colonists at Saratoga.  Loyalists feared they would become the targets of Patriot mobs, so many took their families to refugee camps in Canada.  Taylor produces a 1777 map of the British colonies in North America and shows how close Lake Champlain is to St. Jean and the Canadian border.  One of the sisters asks about the pressures Loyalists would be facing in their day-to-day lives, and Taylor shows another list, "Return of Loyalists Receiving Provisions" from 1779.  This shows Mrs. Gray and two boys, but not James Gray.  The second page says that James Gray had enlisted in Petter's Corps as a private, so we repeat the earlier theme of a family being separated.

Suddenly, Taylor says that they best thing for the girls to do is go to the site of one of the former refugee camps (total non sequitur).  Apparently there is still something in St. Jean, so that's where they'll go.  It was interesting to note that Rachel drove and Taylor sat in the back seat of the car.

At Ville de Saint-Jean sur Richelieu Taylor directs Rachel to turn left off the road, and they arrive at an empty field (it looks like an agricultural area).  One of the sisters asks if the whole area would have been the camp, and Taylor responds, "In this vicinity," meaning that the field where they're standing is actually meaningless.  Taylor goes on to explain that four refugee camps were in the valley with more than 1,000 people, more than 600 of whom were children.  Women were busy caring for the children and had a rough time of it.  Their shelters would have been rudimentary, consisting of tents, boards, and possibly dugouts.  Apparently the housing was next to latrines, but I think there was some poor editing, because what we ended up with was the comment, "And they're living right next to these latrines," with no lead-in.  But living next to latrines created an environment ripe for disease.

When asked how long the Gray family was at the camp, Taylor produces another document, "Return of Distressed, Unincorporated Loyalists" from March 24, 1783.  Mrs. Gray is still listed, but the two children with her are now a boy over 6 and a girl under 6.  Between 1779 and 1783 it appears that Mrs. Gray (I guess they never figured out her name?) had a baby girl but one of the boys died, possibly of disease.  Taylor points out that more people died in the camps than on the battlefields.  It's possible that the girl in the 1783 list was Charlotte.

At the time the list was created, the war was winding down, and a month later word reached Canada that a preliminary peace treaty had been signed, recognizing the indepedence of the United States of America.  This would have been demoralizing for Loyalists, who not only were on the losing side of the battle but had to give up any hope that they could return to their former homes.  One of the girls asks what happened to the Gray family next, because they obviously wouldn't want to stay in the refugee camp.  Taylor says the best answers will be at the Archives of Ontario, so that's where they should go.

As they leave the sisters talk about how previously they wouldn't have noticed the field but now know that there are a lot of stories there (but not really!).  They're glad to have learned the stories but know their family went through a lot of pain and hard times.  They say the Gray family was ostracized (eh, not really, at least based on what we saw on air) and were pioneers with strength and conviction.  They couldn't return to where they had lived so needed a new homestead somewhere.  As the car drives away, Taylor is not with them, so I guess he rode back with the production crew.

The next stop is Toronto, where the archives are located.  Going in, the sisters say they hope they find out what happened to James Gray and his family after the war.  They know that Charlotte applied for land in Ontario, and that's about it.  In the archives Jane Errington, a historian of British North America (and Dean of Arts) from the Royal Military College of Canada (not the University of Ontario, as the on-screen credit says), is waiting to meet them.  The girls tell her that they know Mrs. Gray and the two children were in the camp and that James Gray was a Loyalist Ranger, and they want to know what happened to James.  Errington says she has discovered some documents that will help answer that.

The first document is "Disbanded Troops & Loyalists" who were mustered out October 12, 1784, after the war had ended.  James Gray is near the top of the list as a Loyal Ranger.  One woman, one boy under 10, and one girl under 10 were included with him.  So he had reunited with his family, but then what happened to them?  Errington explains that Loyalists had earned a reward by remaining true to the British crown and quickly went to the government and asked it to pay up.

Before bringing out the next document, Errington says the sisters will have to put on purple gloves (these are vinyl; the gloves in the scene with Shumway were cotton).  She then brings out a large survey map of the district of Johnstown and Elizabethtown in Upper Canada (now southern Ontario).  The map lists land grants made to Loyalists in 1784 (before or after the mustering out?).  Errington has the girls hunt for Gray's name, which Kayleen (the detective!) finds first.  Gray received two grants of 200 acres each, so he finally had a place of his own (again).  And not only were his son (nameless, like Gray's wife) and Charlotte eligible to apply for grants of 200 acres, their children also could petition for land grants.  They would have land, but they also had pride, because they were the founding mothers and fathers of Upper Canada.

Kayleen says she had not expected to learn that their family had such deep roots in Canada.  Now they know that their ancestors were Loyalists and early settlers.  She appreciates their loyalty and pride.  Rachel comments on how William Gale and James Gray had to spend time away from their families and how it's important to remember the sacrifices they made.  Now the sisters want to keep the memories of their ancestors alive and share them with their mother.  They seem to be thinking ahead to the future, also, because Rachel says they have that much more to give to their own children.

Obviously, I was underwhelmed by the McAdams sisters in this episode.  I did find the stories interesting, but I was surprised at the large gaps that remained — losing track of Elizabeth Creber Gale so quickly; no first name for Mrs. James Gray.  Those are the types of things I wish they would address more directly in the show, to talk more about the research process.  But I have to keep telling myself that Who Do You Think You Are? is not really about genealogy, it's just entertainment, and as far as Ancestry.com is concerned, one of its main purposes is to generate more subscriptions.

Maps, World War I Heroes, Jewish Sperm Donors, and a Synagogue

I've recently come across some interesting opportunities to help with genealogy projects.  Maybe you can assist with one of them!

The New York Public Library is looking to crowdsourcing from "citizen cartographers" to identify details on digitized 19th-century New York City atlases.  The Building Inspector project allows you to use a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone.  If you know New York City well, you'll be a valuable addition to the team.  The library plans to use the information to make the maps interactive and link them to other historical digitized documents.

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In conjunction with the UK's commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I, the British newspaper The Sun has launched a campaign to create a photo database of the gravesites of Victoria Cross (VC) servicemen, and to bring attention to the sites that are most in need of restoration.  Some of the VC honorees date back to the Crimean War and the 1857 Indian Mutiny.  A list of 544 VC burials is included on the Web page.

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A memorial plaque for Second Lieutenant John Douglas Lightbody of the Royal Air Force, who died November 4, 1918, just days before the end of World War I, will be unveiled in Scheldewindeke, Belgium on November 10, 2014.  The organizers of this year's ceremony are looking for any living relatives of Lt. Lightbody, both to share information about him and possibly to attend in person.  An online article has more information about Lightbody and the search for relatives, including the e-mail address of a person to contact.

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Attention Jewish Men:  Did you donate sperm during the 1980's?  Seeking light-featured Jewish men who acted as anonymous sperm donors in the Los Angeles/UCLA area, between (but not limited to) 1981–1985.  Your offspring are seeking medical information.  Please contact 1980donor@gmail.com (for anonymous communication, create a new Gmail account).

Please feel free to share this with *everyone* you know, repost, attach to mailing lists, etc.  The more people who see this, the more likely it is that 1980donor@gmail.com will find the person he is searching for.

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I never post about fundraising efforts, but this is a little different.  A film raising money via crowdfunding is pledging half of the money to help restore the subject of the film.  The synagogue of Sabbioneta, Italy is a UNESCO World Heritage site but has suffered damage due to recent earthquakes.  The film, an independent comedy, is about a tombstone found in the town's Jewish cemetery.  Read more about the film and the synagogue here.