The Fine Art of Record Destruction

If everything goes according to plan...and the puzzle pieces are coming together...my wife and I will be moving to a new home in a month.

It's been fifteen years since I last moved, and there has been a lot of accumulation. I have to decide what to keep and what not to keep. My wife isn't the pack-rat that I am, but she does appreciate nostalgia, and historical record keeping, so at least she isn't encouraging me to toss everything.

I don't think I need to save all my school papers. The collection of newspaper articles I wrote for a college newspaper, and a collection of English papers from my Senior year in high school should be sufficient. I don't want anyone reading anything earlier than that anyway. Except, perhaps, a poem I wrote when I was six, but since I scanned in the crumbling pages, I don't really need to save the original. (My handwriting has improved, a little, but not my artistic skills.)

I do wish I had a copy of several letters I've written over the years, but alas, that is the way things are with letters. The sender doesn't usually retain a copy. That is an advantage with email - if one doesn't delete them.

The photograph of some pigs I took at summer camp when I was 14 can be pitched, along with several other similar photographs. I'll try to follow the Practical Archivist's advice on what to keep, and what to toss.

I might scan some of those in, too. Scanning before pitching makes a lot of sense, however, if I do too much scanning, I'm less likely to complete the task in the month we have before closing...

Tu b'Av - A Day of Love

Tu b'Av is a relatively obscure Jewish holiday that falls on the fifteenth day of the month of Av (sundown Sunday, July 21 to sundown Monday, July 22 this year).

The fifteenth day of each month on the Hebrew calendar falls on a full moon, and the holiday was observed as a sort of fertility festival during the period of the Second Temple.  After the destruction of the Second Temple, it was forgotten for the most part in the Diaspora, only to be revived in modern times as a Jewish alternative to Valentine's Day.

To A Lady
by Victor Hugo,
From Les Feuilles D'Automne 

Child, were I king, I'd yield my royal rule,
     My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,
My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,
My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,
     For a glance from you!

Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs,
     Angels, the demons abject under me,
Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,
Time, space, all would I give--aye, upper spheres,
     For a kiss from thee!


translation by Thomas Hardy
photogravure by Goupil et Cie, from a drawing by Deveria, appears in a collection of Hugo's poetry published by Estes and Lauriat in the late 1800s.

Amanuensis Monday: New Institute for Hebrew Children - December 13, 1900

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

This week I look at another newspaper article found at Chronicling America, which doesn't reference a relative, but does provide some history on Jewish education in the St. Louis area at the turn of the 20th century.

Amanuensis Monday: Virginia Cruvant Zimmerman Sharp (1915-2013) - from Flower Girl to Great Grandmother

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

This week I look at a newspaper article found in ProQuest's Historical Newspapers' St. Louis Post Dispatch archives through using my local library card. A cousin of my grandfather makes an appearance at the age of four. She passed away earlier this year, one of the last of her generation of descendants of my second great grandfather, Moshe Leyb Cruvant.

C-Span Video - For Genealogists

Back in 2010 C-Span uploaded almost its entire video library - covering 23 years, and they have added to it since then. All accessible online for free.

One could spend days (months, years) reliving history. C-Span isn't only Congressional Hearings, and I found several things that might be of interest to genealogists and family historians.

• Genetic Testing and Privacy - Aug 31, 2009
• Identification of an Unknown Soldier - June 30, 1998
• Book Discussion of The Seven Daughters of Eve - July 19, 2001
• Book Discussion on The Genealogy of Greek Mythology - Dec 11, 2003
• Book Discussion on American Tapestry - June 19, 2012
• Roots and Ancestry - Jan 15, 2000

It's also useful to search any database for family members. I have several close and distant relatives who have appeared on C-Span, at least briefly. At least one cousin appears in over a dozen separate programs. (He is a political pundit, and a former presidential campaign advisor, so it's not surprising.) While it is free to watch the videos online, C-Span does charge a minimal download fee. It appears to be $0.99 for most hour-length videos.

Happy Independence Day

Happy Independence Day!

The New Colossus Emma Lazarus Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

A poem I wrote a few years back: A Toast to the First and the Fourth of July

Amanuensis Monday: A Concert in Carr Park - August 10, 1902

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

This week I look at another newspaper article found at ChroniclingAmerica about the Carr Square neighborhood of St. Louis City from the early 1900s, where several of my paternal ancestors lived. If these articles are representative, the language of the news was a lot more 'colorful' back then.