Dear Genea-Santa

It's time for the Carnival of Genealogy, and this issue's theme is: 3 Wishes!

This is your chance to write a letter to Genea-Santa. Make a list of 3 gifts you would like to receive this holiday season from 3 of your ancestors. These have to be material things, not clues to your family history (we're talking gifts here, not miracles!). Do you wish your great grandmother had gifted you a cameo broach? Or maybe you'd like to have the family bible from great great grandpa Joe? How about a baby doll that once belonged to your dear Aunt Sarah? This is a fantasy so you can dream up gift items. They don't have to be actual items that you know your ancestors owned. However, they do have to be historically accurate to the time period in which your ancestor lived. Do your research. No asking for a new computer from your great grand aunt! Genea-Santa wouldn't like that ;-)

Dear Genea-Santa,

I believe I’ve been a good boy this year. I know some of these three wishes may be difficult ones to grant, and may be beyond your ability to produce, but I know they would make me very very very very very very very happy. Very.

1) The military uniform my great grandfather, Samuel Deutsch, wore while he served in the Austria-Hungarian army of Emperor Franz Josef from 1881-1907.

2) If I am correct about the origin of the surname, a dudelsack (bagpipe) constructed or played by a Dudelsack ancestor.

3) The copy of Les Miserables that my mother tells me was on my grandfather’s bookshelf. He moved to a retirement home before I became a fan of the novel and author, and most of his books were given to Goodwill.

4) Photographs of my second great grandmothers: Annie Perlik Feinstein, Bella Wyman Blatt, and Sarah Hartley Denyer Foster. I am trying to be realistic here, as there are others I am missing photographs for, but I know photography wasn't really existent until the civil war, and wasn't really common until the late 19th century. Annie Perlik Feinstein lived until 1930, there's got to be a photograph of her somewhere in some cousin's collection. Bella Wyman Blatt died in approximately 1892 in Poland, but there are some photographs of some possible cousins. Sarah Hartley Denyer Foster lived until 1898 in Texas.

Yes, I know I went over 3 wishes, Genea-Santa. That will give you more of an opportunity to fulfil some of them.