Google Transliteration

Back in December Google released Google Transliteration, making it easy to convert Roman alphabet languages to 17 other language character sets.  I commented that Hebrew wasn't one of the 17, and I theorized it might somewhat appropriately be the 18th.  (18 having mystical significance).

Today Google announced the addition of five more character sets, and Hebrew is one of them.  We'll just say that it was the 18th.

Here's my surname in Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek characters
נומרק
يومارك 
Νεωμαρκ  

It's not perfect.  When I type in my great grandmother's surname, "Cruvant," and ask for Hebrew characters, I am given

סרוואנט 

Which would actually be equivalent to Sruvant, but there's no way for me to expect a computer to know I meant a hard-C.  When I enter 'Kruvant', I get the Hebrew spelling I've seen on gravestones and elsewhere:

קרובנט 

My Area of Expertise

Weekly Genealogy Blogging Prompt #13: Have expertise in a specific area of study? Share your knowledge!

The idea is to let readers know where we consider ourselves knowledgeable, so they can better judge the veracity of our statements. As Michel de Montaigne once said:

"I would have every one write what he knows, and as much as he knows, but no more; and that not in this only but in all other subjects; for such a person may have some particular knowledge and experience of the nature of such a river, or such a fountain, who, as to other things, knows no more than what everybody does, and yet to give a currency to his little pittance of learning, will undertake to write the whole body of physics: a vice from which great inconveniences derive their original." - Michel de Montaigne 1533-1592 (Translated by Charles Cotton)

I am not a professional genealogist. However, I am a professional wordsmith. My daily salary comes from writing. In particular I am a grant writer. I also write the occasional piece of poetry or short fiction, but very little of this has been published.

Recently Chris Dunham of The Genealogue put together a list of "10 Genealogy Blogs Worth Reading" for blogs.com. His focus was on blogs from an amateur's perspective, and he included TransylvanianDutch. I was certainly honored to be included in the list. He mentioned the reason he included me was I added the word, "amanuensis" to his vocabulary.

And that is an excellent reason to recommend my blog. I use words like amanuensis, veracity, and verisimilitude.

Verisimilitude: The quality of appearing to be true or real.

(A useful term for genealogists since we know that some things can really never be 'proven' true. We can only increase the verisimilitude.)

July of last year I posted a link to this readability test where you can put your blog through a series of tests to measure its readability.

Today I redid the test, measuring all my posts from Jan 1, 2008 through the post prior to this one. (July's post explains how I did that, and how you can do that, if you use Blogger.)

Here are my updated readability statistics:

Total sentences: 16165
Total words: 123269
Average words per Sentence: 7.63
Words with 1 Syllable: 78725
Words with 2 Syllables: 23090
Words with 3 Syllables: 15634
Words with 4 or more Syllables: 5820
Percentage of word with three or more syllables: 17.40%
Average Syllables per Word: 1.58
Gunning Fog Index: 10.01
Flesch Reading Ease: 65.21
Flesch-Kincaid Grade: 6.06

My readability - with respect to the Gunning Fog Index, is identical. The Flesch-Kincaid grade level actually dropped a few percentage points, though it is still 6th grade. Average syllables per word has increased fractionally, and the percentage of words with three or more syllables has increased from 15.4 to 17.4 percent. It is still roughly equivalent to the readability of TIME or Newsweek. (The repeated usage of the five-syllable amanuensis is going to have an effect, but you may have noticed that this paragraph alone has thirteen words with three or more syllables.)

So, whether or not reading TransylvanianDutch will have any effect on your genealogical research skills is questionable. However, it may increase your vocabulary, without being too painful. You may also occasionally see quotes from 16th century French essayists, or 19th century French poets. When I quote someone else, I almost always cite my sources. Though I don't always document all my family history research, I do provide contact information for any relatives who might be interested in where my information was obtained.

Take'er Easy There, Pilgrim

I subscribe to the Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Day email. The OED is best known for their 'genealogy (etymology) of words.'

On holidays their word choice is often related to the holiday. For example, here is a selection from today's word: Pilgrim

4. a. U.S. Hist. Usu. in plural and with capital initial. Any of the English Puritans who founded the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620; (gen.) any of the other early English colonists. See also Pilgrim Fathers n. at Compounds 2.

In quot. 1630, William Bradford (the second governor of Plymouth) uses pilgrim of the settlers figuratively, alluding to Hebrews 11:13 (cf. sense 3). The same phraseology was repeated by Cotton Mather and others, and became familiar in New England. By the late 18th cent. commemorative toasts were often given to the Pilgrims or the Sons of the Pilgrims, and through such celebration Pilgrim and Pilgrim Father eventually passed into use as historical designations.

1630 W. BRADFORD Hist. Plymouth Plantation 36 They knew they were but pilgrimes, & looked not much on those things; but lift vp their eyes to ye heauens, their dearest cuntrie. 1654 E. JOHNSON Hist. New-Eng. 216 Yet were these pilgrim people minded of the suddain forgetfulness of those worthies that died not long before. 1660 in Publ. Colonial Soc. Mass. (1914) 17 366 [New Haven colony] bounds extended neare unto Cold Spring, beyond Pilgrims Harbour. 1702 C. MATHER Magnalia Christi II. i. 3/1 They found..a new World..in which they found that they must live like Strangers and Pilgrims. 1794 in Publ. Colonial Soc. Mass. (1914) 17 366 Toasts on the occasion, viz..The Pilgrims in Concord. 1841 A. YOUNG Chron. Pilgrim Fathers 88 The term Pilgrims belongs exclusively to the Plymouth colonists. 1892 Nation (N.Y.) 21 Apr., What shall we say to the descendants of the Pilgrims, and the Signers,..who are happy and content under his sway? 1957 Encycl. Brit. XIV. 101/2 The Betty lamp of the Pilgrims (1620)..was equipped for hanging from mantelpieces or shelves. 1987 N. BLEI Neighborhood xxii. 146 Thanksgiving was as gray as the clothes the Pilgrims wore.

Note: The link at the top of this post will take you to the page with the complete entry for the current date. It changes every day, though. There is a link in the upper-left though for those who wish to subscribe via email or RSS feed.

A Family Language

This is being written for the 54th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy

The Family Language...Does your family use words and phrases that no one else knows or understands? Where did they come from? Did you ever try to explain your "family language" to outsiders? Tell a story about your family-coined words, phrases, or nicknames.

I'm not aware of any distinctly family-coined words or phrases. I've blogged previously about how I discovered the origins of why my great-grandmother referred to her father as, "Moshe Leyb, The King," at a most unlikely spot - his grave. Moshe Leyb Kruvant's initials spelled the Hebrew word, King. He spelled his surname with a "C" though, so I didn't notice this until I saw his tombstone carved entirely in Hebrew.

However, the Notaricon code is not unique to my family, though it has been passed down the generations as my parents have exchanged notes written with just the first initial of each word, as did my paternal grandparents, my paternal grandfather being the son of the great-grandmother mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Recently, as I've read old family letters I have come across a twist of this question - words and phrases in letters that I don't understand.

My great-grandfather addressed his daughter, my maternal grandmother, as Machen. Through the help of several readers back in March I decided that was a misspelling of the German, Madchen, meaning "little girl." My grandmother was his youngest child, and it's not unusual for the youngest to be referenced in a diminutive fashion forever. As a youngest child, I speak from experience.

However, I'd appreciate some help interpreting the final words from the last letter my maternal grandmother received from her father's second wife, Josie - in November of 1927. Josie may have sent letters after this one, but they didn't survive, or haven't been uncovered.

Cherry and Jerry still suck the hose?

I don't know who or what Cherry and Jerry were, but the possibility occurs that they were two pets (or two farm animals) that might have enjoyed getting their water from a water hose.

Any other ideas?

Sigh

I sent an email to the Office of Student Records at a highly esteemed university regarding retrieiving student records of a deceased relative. This is how the response began:

This is a very commend request we as that you provide some type of documentation.

Well, I will have no problem providing the documentation, but it is taking great restraint not to respond, "I common you on your excellent grasp of the English language." Of course, I know if I do so, the odds of me retrieving the records will diminish. (So instead of responding sarcastically, I'm posting this on my blog.)

So...two tips for today.
1) Universities maintain historical records of students, and you can find the contact information for the Office of Student Records (or equivalent) on the university website.

2) Do restrain yourself from responding sarcastically when a clerk makes a spelling or grammatical mistake. At least until after you have retrieved every last bit of information that you imagaine you will ever have to retrieve from that clerk. (Even then, it's not nice, as we all do make mistakes from time to time. )

Terms of Endearment

I have discovered a collection of about a dozen letters written to my grandmother, Myrtle Van Every, from her father, Melvin, between 1925-1927. Lots of new information, including a first name to the mystery individual she was married to between 1927-1929.

(Dale. As I mention in the timeline I posted a few days ago, I already knew the surname was Ridgely. So my current suspicion is Dale B Ridgely, born in 1900 about 150 miles east of St. Louis in Richland, IL, and who is listed in the 1930 census in San Francisco, as divorced, and first married at age 27. Everything matches up, except no real documentation. In 1929 he was a 1st Lieutenant in the Dental Corps Reserve, in 1946 a Lt Col, and by 1957 a Brig. Gen. The internet is truly amazing.)

Each letter from her father begins with "Dear machen"

All I can find on that word is that it is either German, or a misspelling of the Dutch for the verb "to make". I'm not sure how that translates into a term of endearment.

Are there any German or Dutch speakers out there familiar with a noun-form of the word 'Machen'?