Wordless Wednesday

A Passport Goes Home

My sister, who works in a university library, contacted me several months ago about an original 1921 U.S. passport that had been in her office for several years.  It had come with some donated materials.  She didn't know what to do with the passport, but she thought it was cool and knew it shouldn't just be thrown away, so she asked me for suggestions.  I told her I would try to find a descendant to whom the passport could be returned as a family heirloom.

The passport was for a married couple.  They had gone to China because the husband had a job teaching.  They had filed for an extension, and the extension included their baby daughter who had been born abroad.  I found the family in the 1930 U.S. census and discovered the couple had had three daughters.  Of course, I had trouble finding the daughters because they had married and changed their names!  I did discover the family had moved to California and found death dates for both parents and one of the daughters, but then got stuck.

I looked for family trees online and found three that looked credible.  I contacted the owners of the trees and all three got back to me, which was a pleasant surprise.  What also surprised me is that the first two to respond were not related at all to the families whose trees they had posted.  Is it common for people to post family trees of people they're not connected to?

On Thanksgiving Day I received a message from the owner of the third tree, who actually is related to the family.  Amazingly enough, the young daughter shown on the passport is still alive, now 88 years old!  Apparently, this passport may be the only surviving documentation from the time showing that she was born in China.  I'm going to mail the passport to her next week.

It feels so good to be able to send a piece of a someone's history back to her!  I don't know how it ended up with papers donated to a university, but I hope it stays in the family now.

Wordless Wednesday

More "Immigrant Voices" from Angel Island

The "Immigrant Voices" feature on the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) site is growing.  Volunteers read through files on the immigrants who passed through the immigration station and write narratives about their lives.  One of the recent additions to the site is the story of Max, Fanni, and Gertrude Rohr.  They arrived at Angel Island on June 16, 1940 after departing from Shanghai.  Their stated intention was to go to Brooklyn, New York to stay with Fanni's brother Max Popper, but apparently they enjoyed California, because Max Rohr became a U.S. citizen in Los Angeles in 1946, and Max and Fanni both died in Los Angeles, Max in 1986 and Fanni in 1990.

AIISF wants to hear from descendants of Max and Fanni, or from anyone who knew them.  Also, volunteers are needed to create more narratives based on immigration files.  If you can help with either request, contact AIISF at info@aiisf.org.

Jewish Family History Open House a Success

I really wanted to post about this earlier, but somehow the entire week got away from me.  The inaugural Jewish Family History Open House on November 13 was great!  I rushed back to California from Maryland, where I had been for my brother's wedding, to find that everything was set up and waiting for people to arrive.  (All those e-mails back and forth while I was gone were effective!)  Our first couple of researchers showed up early, and we then had a steady stream throughout the afternoon.  Altogether about 50 people attended, and we had about 20 volunteers, almost enough to keep up with the flow, with only a few slight delays in providing assistance.  The volunteers who so kindly gave up their Sunday afternoon were from the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, California Genealogical Society, and Oakland Regional Family History Center.

The attendees were almost evenly split between beginners and intermediate researchers.  Beginners had a short introductory class on family history and online research, and then everyone was assigned an experienced researcher to be a guide.  People came with questions about research all over the U.S. and in many countries.  We had several volunteers with special expertise in areas who were able to help with area-specific questions.  Almost every attendee found some kind of information during the day.  One man discovered he was indeed born in a concentration camp.  A woman was dismayed to learn that her father and his brother, both survivors, had each not learned that the other had survived and ended up living not far from one another but never found each other again, but she is going to contact her cousins and reconnect the families.

Almost everyone who came to the open house also attended Ron Arons' lecture, "Putting the Flesh on the Bones:  Researching Why Our Ancestors Did What They Did", which he gave twice during the event.  It is important to learn more about our ancestors as people, and not have them be merely names and dates on a page or in a database.  Ron's talk is a great example of the kind of in-depth research someone can do on a person.

I think we've started what could become a wonderful annual event here in the San Francisco area.  If we hold it again next year, I'm hoping to have representatives from local archives come also, to talk about records that area available right here that people can use in their research.  But right now I'm just looking forward to seeing the people who came to the open house continue with their research and learn more about their family histories.

Wordless Wednesday

A New Branch on the Family Tree

A wedding is a lovely event for everyone, but for genealogists it holds a special place in the heart:  You have lots of family members gathered in one place, and you are adding new members to the family tree!

This past Saturday I was in Maryland for my brother's wedding.  All four of my father's children were there, which made him as happy as can be.  Other family members also attended, and there was lots of catching up all around, along with plenty of photos (my father is a photograhy nut, and my nephew just got a BFA in photography).  Once I get copies I have to make sure all those photos are labeled!!

My mother passed away several years ago, but my brother included her in the ceremony in a way I've never seen before.  When he walked up the aisle, he placed a rose on a chair in the front row to symbolize her presence at the wedding.  I thought that was a wonderful way to remember someone who could not be there.

The choice of wedding date also was affected by my mother.  She was born on November 11, and that was one of the days considered for the wedding.  In deference to her birthday, my brother and sister-in-law chose to have the wedding the day after that.

My new sister-in-law is very sweet and I'm happy to have her as a member of the family.  As a genealogist, I of course took the opportunity to talk to as many of her relatives as possible to start building that new branch of the tree.  I'm lucky in that her father has a strong interest in family history and remembered quite a bit about his side of the family.  He also wants to do more research, and I said I would be happy to help him.

Because my father has good-quality cameras, I was able to bypass waiting to get a copy of the marriage license and certificate for my files.  Right after the minister signed everything, he allowed my father to take digital photos of the certificates.  Oh, the joys of modern technology!

Any family gathering is an opportunity to talk to your relatives and to find out more about your family history.  Sit down with older members of the family and let them talk about their memories.  Ask questions that you've been wondering about.  Bring a digital camera and get copies of things such as the marriage certificate or the photos that are being handed around.  If you take photos of the event, don't forget to note who is who in them, so that you're not looking at it five years from now and wondering who those people are.  And write down your memories of the event to add to the family story.

Armistice Day

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.  That is when the armistice ending World War I was signed.  I grew up hearing about Armistice Day (now called Veterans Day in the U.S., to honor all veterans) from the time I was a small girl because my mother's birthday was November 11.  She knew her birthday was special, and she shared that with us.

I was in England in 1996 on Armistice Day (they still call it that).  Everything stopped at 11:00 a.m. -- drivers pulled over, radios didn't play anything, and people stopped moving and talking.  For two minutes the country remembered the sacrifices and deaths it endured during World War I.  It was a very moving experience.

A friend of mine in Chicago goes every year on Veterans Day and places a flower on the grave of Zalman, the grandfather of a friend of mine in the Bay Area.  Zalman served from 1917-1918 and was in France during the Armistice.  He wrote to a girlfriend during the war, and when he returned he asked her to type up all the letters he had written to her, so my Bay Area friend has a fascinating collection of letters he wrote from the war front.  As much as he was permitted to, he included where he was writing from, so we have a pretty good idea of his movements throughout his tour and what he experienced.

On Veterans Day this year I particularly want to honor my stepson and daughter-in-law, who both served in the U.S. Army, but I also am thinking of all members of armed forces, past and present.  They sacrifice a lot in the service of their country, and they deserve our thanks.

Wordless Wednesday