SSDI Comparison

GenealogyBank has announced that their database for the Social Security Death Index is now freely accessible.

GenealogyBank has the only SSDI database that is updated weekly. They also provide more information than some other sites, and as I will show below, in some cases, more accurate information.

I will compare the results for a great uncle of mine, Israel David Newmark, the youngest brother of my great grandfather Barney Newmark. I will compare GenealogyBank's results with Ancestry/Rootsweb's since that is probably the best known alternative.

[Note: it's public information so there really isn't an issue, but I removed the actual number from both results below]

Rootsweb/Ancestry

Name / Birth / Death / Last Residence / Last Benefit / SSN / State of Issue

ISRAEL D NEWMARK

03 Apr 1903

16 Oct 2004 (V)

63005 (Chesterfield, Saint Louis, MO)

(none specified)

Missouri

GenealogyBank

Social Security Death Index

Name:	Israel D. Newmark
Date of Birth:	Friday April 03, 1903
Date of Death:	Saturday October 16, 2004
Est. Age at death:	101 years, 6 months, 13 days
Last known residence: City: Chesterfield; Clarkson Valley; Gumbo; Wildwood County: Saint Louis State: Missouri ZIP Code: 63005 Latitude: 38.6405 Longitude: -90.6464 Confirmation: Verified
Social Security details: State of Issue: Missouri Number:

GenealogyBank's provision of the GPS coordinates is very useful for some mapping software, and they also provide a much more exact description of the location. Both provide the location in the traditional City, County format. However, all four "cities" listed at GenealogyBank are part of the same zip code, and it seems that Ancestry/Rootsweb just lists the first in the series, which isn't necessarily the correct one.

Not being exactly sure which of the four cities my great uncle lived in, I verified this with a relative who died in the 63105 zip code. Ancestry/Rootsweb says she lived in St. Louis City, and GenealogyBank says " Saint Louis; Clayton; University City." She lived in Clayton.

Furthermore, Ancestry/Rootsweb says that my grandmother, Belle Feinstein Newmark, died in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO. Which most would interpret as St. Louis City, but they would be wrong. No portion of the zip code of her last residence, 63141, is in St. Louis City.

GenealogyBank is correct with "Creve Coeur, St. Louis, MO". How does Ancestry/Rootsweb get it wrong? I think it may be due to Creve Coeur being part of an unincorporated section of St. Louis County.

I also like how GenealogyBank provides the day of the week, and the estimated age at death. Those are nice additions.

It should be noted that while in the above example it appears Ancestry/Rootsweb has a location field for "Last Benefit", and GenealogyBank doesn't - when there is data for that field, it is provided at GenealogyBank as well. It's just left out of the results when the information is blank.

Home is Where You Hang Your Hat

The word prompt for the 5th Edition of Smile For The Camera is Crowning Glory. Show us those wonderful photographs of hairdos and maybe even a few don'ts. Don't limit yourself to just hair fashion through the ages, got a great photograph of a hat, helmet, bonnet, or some other interesting headgear? Share!

I start with my great grandparents Herman and Annie (Blatt) Feinstein. The year is 1928, and the location is Cuba. My great-grandfather is wearing a fez with the word "Moolah" on it. As in the Moolah Shriners of the Moolah Shrine Temple. The Shriners is a masonic organization composed solely of master masons. My great grandfather submitted his petition to join the Shriners in December of 1927, so in this photograph he hadn't been a member for very long. He was born in 1886, so he was 42 years old. I don't know how to describe the hat my great grandmother is wearing.

Next up are my paternal grandparents, Melvin and Sissie (Feinstein) Newmark. Neither are wearing hats in this picture, nor can you see their hair. That's because both are wearing wigs. (Note: I'm not sure, but a toupee is officially only a partial wig, and I don't think there's anything partial about what my grandfather is wearing.) The year is 1975, and my grandmother is 61, and my grandfather 63.

Third up is a photograph of my Great-Grandfather Melvin Van Every and a niece, most likely Mabel Ruth Van Every Creamer. The photograph was taken in 1909. My great grandfather would have been 46, and Mabel would have been 28. My great grandfather has removed his hat, and it sits on the table. Mabel's hat is impressive.

I finish with my maternal grandfather, Martin Deutsch, in a photograph most likely taken in 1931 when he graduated from DePaul University Law School. He would have been 24. It's possible this is his high school graduation, but it is less likely.

During This Week: Sept 8-Sept 14

Thomas MacEntee at Destination: Austin Family has recently been posting daily historical births, marriages, and deaths for his family. I like this idea, however, I'm not confident I can do this daily. A weekly post seems manageable, limited to individuals who are deceased.

Sept 8th - Sept 14h

Sept 8, 1994: Death of Ida Odelson, age 88 (2nd cousin, twice removed)
Sept 11, 1951: Death of Myrtle Van Every Deutsch, age 51. (Grandmother)
Sept 14, 1914, Birth of Willard Oxenhandler (1st cousin twice removed)
Sept 14, 1933, Death of Harry Feinstein, age 49 (2nd great uncle)

So far this month
Sept 1, 1846: Birth of Samuel C Van Every (2nd great uncle)
Sept 1, 1868: Birth of Margaret Jane Denyer Vanevery (Great grandmother)
Sept 4, 2001: Death of Meyer Odelson, age 85 (2nd cousin, twice removed)
Sept 5, 1934: Death of Alvin Feinstein, age 24 (1st cousin twice Removed)

Sarah Louise Heath Palin's genealogy

I thought I could focus my attentions elsewhere, and then Tom Kemp on his GenealogyBank blog says he's a cousin to Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, and that she is descended from a Rev John Lathrop. I remembered Lathrops interconnecting with the descendants of Rev. Thomas and Katherine Stoughton, of which I am one as well. Kemp provided no links to any sources, so I had to go looking myself, and I didn't find anything I could trust.

I found her in the Dowling Family Genealogy at WorldConnect. Dowling doesn't have her descended from the Stoughtons. And I found Dowling's pedigree for my ancestor Samuel Swayze, and our lines as he has them don't seem to intersect.

Why don't I trust Tim Dowling's research? I have no idea who he is beyond his heady claim to be related to every single president of the United States. His pedigree for my ancestor Samuel Swayze says that Robert Chamberlain, who married Elizabeth Stoughton, is descended from the first three Kings Henry. Which is all well and good. But William Addams Reitweisner doesn't make the claim that John Kerry is. He provides no known parents for Robert Chamberlain. even though he carries Kerry's other lines a couple more generations. Surely if Reitweisner could find some reliable sources for Chamberlain's parents, he would have.

Further, I lack confidence in Dowling's attention to sources, as he often doesn't provide sources, especially with earlier generations. Since I don't trust his claim of Heath's ancestry, and I can't find her genealogy anywhere else, until I do find a source with a little more credibility, I am happy to accept that I might not be related to the Alaskan Governor.

Note: I missed a post at GeneaMusings on Friday. Randy linked to Robert Battle's Ahnentafel for Sarah Palin. Battle provides sources, and notably doesn't go any further back than 1600.

Show and Tell

Honoring the season of Back to School - The theme for the 55th Carnival of Genealogy is Show and Tell

Show us and tell us about an heirloom, a special photo, a valuable document, or a significant person that is a very special part of your family history. Don’t be shy now, show us what you’ve got!

I have two items to share:
1) Fireplace tongs. At first glance, they don't look that special. They were used to start every fire as I was growing up, and I knew they were old. I think I knew they had been in the family multiple generations. But I didn't know the details. I may have been told them at some time as a youth, but I didn't retain the knowledge.

They come through my maternal grandmother, and they were forged in Pennsylvania. This is the extent of our definite knowledge. However, research shows that our lineage was last in Pennsylvania in the early 1800s.

The tongs were possibly forged by a 3rd great grandfather, William Denyer, either in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, or Philadelphia. He would have passed them on to his son, Ebenezer Denyer, who would have passed them to his daughter Margaret Denyer, who passed them to her daughter Myrtle Van Every, my grandmother. So I am at least the sixth generation to have started a fire with these tongs.

It's possible they come from the family of William Denyer's wife, Elizabeth Sliver, in which case they could date back to the 1700s.

2) The second item is a family heirloom of which I am proud. However, it is not something I can easily photograph. Though it's part of one of the first photographs I ever shared on this blog. My middle name. Cruvant.

I wasn't always as proud of it as I am now. It's unusual, as a middle name. The family name of a paternal great grandmother, it derives from the Lithuanian city, Kruvandai.

Photograph of modern day Kruvandai.
Source: photogalaxy.

More Famous Kin

Several months ago I browsed through Gary Boyd Roberts' Ancestries of American Presidents.

Gary Boyd Roberts is an American Geenalogist known for his scholarship in Americans of royal descent, the ancestors of American presidents, and notable kin. Roberts is the retired Senior Research Scholar of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). (Wikipedia)

Today I discovered this article he wrote: Notable Descendants of the Immigrant Stoughton Siblings of Massachusetts

This provides some documentation to extend the ancestry of Joanna Chamberlain (mentioned a couple posts ago) a couple more generations back, and provides an extensive list of cousins. In this article Roberts doesn't provide detailed genealogies, but does provide a long list of names filled with fun. (And maybe, since Roberts himself is a descendant, I'll be able to find some more detailed charts in one of his books.)

While I insist I am more interested in other genealogical pursuits, I can't deny that it is fun to find out I am distant cousins with all of these individuals. A personal genealogy page at FamilyTreeMaker Online has a detailed descent chart, with even more names. It quotes the Gary Boyd Roberts article, but I'm not certain where the details come from, so I can't be as confident with the information.

Here's a selection of Stoughton descendants according to the sources above.

Presidents
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Ulysses Simpson Grant

Other Political
Mitt Romney
George Romney
John Kerry
Patrick Buchanan
Adlai Stevenson III (son of Presidential contender)
John Foster Dulles
Thomas Dewey
Pierre Dupont IV
Hamilton Fish

Actors
Matthew Langford Perry (Chandler, Friends)
William Christopher (Father Mulcahy, M*A*S*H)
Kyra Sedgwick (Brenda Johnson, The Closer)
James Osgood Perkins (Johnny Lovo, Scarface)
Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates, Psycho)
Osgood Robert Perkins (Young Norman, Psycho II)
Cary Elwes (Westley, Princess Bride)
Ann Bradford Davis (Alice, The Brady Bunch)
Clint Eastwood (Harry Callahan, Dirty Harry)
Barbara Babcock (Dorothy Jennings, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Tuesday Weld (Thalia Menninger, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis)
Shirley Temple (Marthy Jane, Little Miss Marker)
Robert Bushnell Ryan (John Claggart, Billy Budd)
Debbie Reynolds (Kathy Selden, Singin in the Rain)
Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia, Star Wars)
Thomas Edward Hulce (W.A. Mozart, Amadeus)
Patrick Swayze (Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing)
William Holden (David Larrabee, Sabrina)
Jane Wyatt (Margaret Anderson, Father Knows Best)
Viggio Peter Mortensen, Jr. (Aragorn, The Lord of the Rings)
Ashley Judd (Linda Porter, De-Lovely)
Amanda Peet (Jack Barrett, Jack and Jill)
Margaret Sullavan (Patricia Hollmann, Three Comrades)
Fred Rogers (Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood)
Malcolm Atterbury (Al Malone, The Birds)
Lillian Gish (Elsie Stoneman, Birth of A Nation)
Dorothy Gish (Nell Gwyn, Nell Gwynne)
Ralph Bellamy (FDR, The Winds of War & War and Remembrance)

Poets, Artists, Novelists
Hart Crane
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Orson Scott Card

Other
Benedict Arnold
Alfred Kinsey

Anyone should be satisfied with this list of cousins, so now I can focus my genealogical attention elsewhere.

Wordless Wednesday: Fashion Flashback

Melvin L Newmark (1912-1992)
August 1971




















Wordless Wednesday

Veterans of Future Wars

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

It's listed in the top 10 college pranks of all time, second only to CalTech's 1961 Rose Bowl stunt. The Veterans of Future Wars campaign.

In 1935, hit hard by the effects of the Depression, the nation's veterans lobbied Congress to provide them with their bonus check 10 years early. Congress agreed and passed the bill in January of 1936. A group of Princeton students decided to satirize the events and the following manifesto was published in March 1936 in the Daily Princetonian:

Whereas it is inevitable that this country will be engaged in war within the next thirty years, and whereas it is by all accounts likely that every man of military age will have a part in this war,

We, therefore, demand that the Government make known its intention to pay an adjusted service compensation, sometimes called a bonus, of $1,000 to every male citizen between the ages of 18 and 36, said bonus to be payable the first of June, 1965. Furthermore, we believe a study of history demonstrates that it is customary to pay all bonuses before they are due. Therefore we demand immediate cash payment, plus three per cent interest compounded annually and retroactively from the first of June, 1965, to the first of June, 1935. It is but common right that this bonus be paid now, for many will be killed or wounded in the next war, and hence they, the most deserving, will not otherwise get the full benefit of their country’s gratitude.

The satire spread to other college campuses. Many veterans were offended. Eleanor Roosevelt, however, said: "I think it’s just as funny as it can be! And—taken light, as it should be—a grand pricking of lots of bubbles."

There is a time for bubble pricking, and there is a time for seriousness. While at the time many veterans accused the students of being unpatriotic, and "too yellow to go to war," six years later all but two of the Princeton students were overseas. One stayed home due to an injury, and another was employed in the steel industry.

The first official chapter of the Veterans of Future Wars was at Washington University in St. Louis. And the Post Commander there also served overseas in WWII (as a member of the American Red Cross). He was my grandfather.

I found this article in the March 19, 1936 Jefferson City Post Tribune (in the Ancestry.com Newspaper archives.) I shared it with my family, and learned that while my grandfather didn't hide his collegiate actions from his sons, he had expressed regret.

I'm not sure the regret was necessary. As Eleanor Roosevelt was kind enough to publicly note, there was cause for satire, and the students conducted the satire flawlessly. And when the time came, the students illustrated to the country that their actions hadn't sprung from a lack of patriotism.

The MuseumOfHoaxes points out that in 1950 there was a failed attempt to revive the joke to protest the Korean War. There was also an online attempt that began in 2003, which hasn't had enough success to receive any mention in mainstream press (all references in Google's News Archives to the VoFW after 1960 are historical references to the original protest. News stories concerning the 1950 revival do appear in their archives.)

I feel the reason the revivals didn't catch on is that the original protest took place in a time of peace, though war was on the horizon. The same economic circumstances that caused the veterans to ask for an early bonus caused the students to question their government's spending of money. Those circumstances weren't present in 1950, nor are they present now. In 1950 and now, current veterans weren't and aren't receiving early bonuses, so the only 'statement' left for those reviving the joke is an anti-war message. Without the economic underpinnings, the VoFW loses the satirical humor it had in the 30s.

My grandfather, Melvin L Newmark was born August 27, 1912. He died Jan 22, 1992. He would have been 96 years old today.

Monday Humor

It probably has something to do with growing up in Missouri but whenever I think of the word "Ahnentafel" I think of spelunking as a kid at Onondaga Cave State Park

Who's Correct?

WARGS has the ancestry of Jane Wyman

My parents have told me before that I am not related to Jane Wyman. Of course, they were talking about my paternal ancestry at the time. I recently posted a photograph of my great grandfather, Morris Blatt, who married a Belle Wyman, who died in Poland.

Reagan's former wife wasn't born with the name Jane Wyman, though. She was Sarah Jane Mayfield.

According to WARGS, however, she is descended from:
472 Caleb Horton
473 Phoebe Terry

Caleb's sister was Penelope Horton, who married Samuel Swayze. You see them in my descent in the previous post.

However, LongIslandGenealogy.com, says the parents of Penelope and Caleb Horton were Barnabas Horton and Sarah Wines (This Barnabas being the grandson of Barnabas Horton and Mary Langton mentioned in my previous post)


WARGS says that Caleb's parents were:
944 Jonathan Horton
945 Bethia Welles

At least one of them is wrong.

Related to...

Randy at Geneamusings writes about his lack of cousinhood to Joe Biden.

I've been to WARGS before. (Acronym for William Addams Reitwiesner Genealogical Services) However, I didn't browse through the lineage of every politician and celebrity he's researched on the site. (That would take awhile, and I still haven't.) However, spurred by Randy's post, I searched a few more genealogies today. Trusting his research, I am ninth cousins with Senator John Kerry. (This would have been nice to know 4 years ago.)

Below is a table illustrating our shared ancestry, with ahnentafel numbers.

John Kerry's Descent

My descent

8th Great Grandparents 1578 Capt. Richard Betts 1579 Joanna Chamberlain 7th Great Grandparents 788 Capt. Joseph Sackett 789 Elizabeth Betts 6th Great Grandparents 394 Joseph Sackett 395 Hannah Alsop 5th Great Grandparents 196 Col. Jacob Blackwell 197 Frances Sackett 4th Great Grandparents 98 Joseph Blackwell 99 Mary Hazard 3rd Great Grandparents 48 Col. James Grant Forbes 49 Frances Elizabeth Blackwell 2nd Great Grandparents 24 Rev. John Murray Forbes 25 Anne Howell Great Grandparents 12 Francis Blackwell Forbes 13 Isabel Clark Grandparents 6 James Grant Forbes 7 Margaret Tyndal Winthrop Parents 2 Richard John Kerry 3 Rosemary Isabel Forbes 1 John Forbes Kerry

8th Great Grandparents 1890 Capt. Richard Betts 1891 Joanna Chamberlain 7th Great Grandparents 944 Joseph Swazey 945 Mary Betts 6th Great Grandparents 472 Samuel Swayze 473 Penelope Horton 5th Great Grandparents 236 Israel Swayze 237 Mary Pitney 4th Great Grandparents 118 Israel Swayze 119 Abigail Coleman 3rd Great Grandparents 58 Elihu Stuart 59 Johanna Swayze 2nd Great Grandparents 28 Samuel Van Every 29 Abigail Stewart Great Grandparents 14 Melvin Van Every 15 Mary Jane Denyer Grandparents 6 Martin Deutsch 7 Myrtle Van Every Parents 2 Dad 3 Mom 1 Me

After showing Kerry's ancestry, Reitwiesner takes selected ancestors and mentions other people descended from the same, and behold, he chooses Betts and Chamberlain. So I know I am also related to actors Thomas Edward Hulce, and William Franklin Beedle (better known as William Holden.) I already knew about Patrick Swayze. And apprently, Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Henry Seward (Responsible for the purchase of Alaska), is also a descendant.

Interestingly, Reitwiesner doesn't talk about other descendants of Kerry's ancestors:

3534 Barnabas Horton
3535 Mary Langton

I am also descended from them (as is Patrick Swayze, William Holden, and William Henry Seward) All of us are more closely related through Betts and Chamberlain. However, descended from Horton and Langton is also Anna Tuthill Symmes, the wife of William Henry Harrison, and grandmother of Benjamin Harrison. At least according to the research at Sweezey.com

GBGames Final Tally

We have reached the final day of the GeneaBloggers 2008 games, and here are my final tallies:




GB Games - Team TransylvanianDutch - FINAL

1) Competition: Go Back and Cite Your Sources

Cumulative total: 58 citations

Qualifications for "Go Back and Cite Your Sources!":
10 Citations - Bronze Medal
20 Citations - Silver Medal
30 Citations - Gold Medal
40 Citations - Diamond Medal
50 Citations - Platinum Medal

Medal: Platinum

2) Competition: Organize Your Research

Cumulative total: 20 Data Entries
Cumulative total: 84 photos or documents, 126 scanned images.

Qualifications for "Organize Your Research!":

A. Organize at least 20 hard files or ancestral items (books, fabrics, inherited items) into file folders, boxes, envelopes, containers, etc.; archival-quality where appropriate.

B. Organize at least 20 digital files into folders, label, add metadata, add descriptions, add tags, etc.

C. Organize at least 20 photos into photo albums, scrapbooks, collages, protective holders, boxes, etc.

D. Organize at least 20 digital photos into folders, label, add metadata, add descriptions, add tags, etc.

E. Create at least 20 data entries in your database, or scan 20 photos, or scan 20 documents.

F. Create a master list of your files and notify your family members of where it is stored.

Complete any one task - Bronze Medal
Complete any two tasks - Silver Medal
Complete any three tasks - Gold Medal
Complete any four tasks - Diamond Medal
Complete five or more tasks - Platinum Medal

Medal: Platinum (Task E 5 times over)

(I realize my interpretation of the guidelines may have varied from original intent.)



While it won't change my medal, there may be a few more data entries entered today. A cousin contacted my mother with a lead yesterday on several more cousins in Chicago. I only had time last night to look up the census, passenger manifest at Ellis Island (typed!) and do a search at the Cook County index. I have enough leads I am very hopeful I will find some living contacts. There will be another post.

Unusual Obituaries

One of the non-genealogy newsfeeds I subscribe to is Snopes.com's Urban Legends. So whenever they analyze the claims of a new chain email, I receive it immediately. Of course, the most enjoyable posts are often the ones they announce are true.

As Randy at Geneamusings mentions, the unflattering obituary for Dolores Aguilar is real. Apparently her children weren't very fond of her, and at least one of them was unafraid to say so to the world. I think most of us hope that this isn't the impression we leave on our family. When I read or hear stories like this I realize how lucky I am to belong to the family I do.

Coincidentally, it's the five year anniversary of another obituary that got passed around a lot in emails. An obituary that said memorial gifts should be made to any organization that seeks the removal of President George Bush from office. Alas, there must not have been enough donations.

Also nearly five years ago, in November of 2003, the New York Times found itself issuing a very strange correction

GBGames Statistics: Day 12-13

Day Thirteen of the 2008 GeneaBloggers Games is near completion. We are supposed to keep daily stats. This is a combination of yesterday's and todays statistics.




GB Games - Team TransylvanianDutch - August 20-21

1) Competition: Go Back and Cite Your Sources

Event: Create Proper Citations
Number of Citations Entered: 18

Cumulative total: 58 citations

2) Competition: Organize Your Research
Event: Create data entries in your database, or scan photos, or scan documents.
Number of data entries: 18

Cumulative total: 20 Data Entries

Two days ago, when I entered 2 data entries, I said I was unlikely to enter 18 more. Then I remembered that a year ago I found over at Rootsweb's WorldConnect the Descendancy of Henry Rosenberger. It's a transcribed version of "A Genealogical Record of the Descendants of Henry Rosenberger of Franconia, Montgomery Co., Pa." by Rev. AJ Fretz, 1906 - in GEDCOM format. So I downloaded the GEDCOM and transferred the data for my direct ancestors over to my primary database, and left everything else be. Unsure about the validity of Fretz's research, or the accuracy of the transcription, I decided not to add everything to my database.

Recently I found the book in my local library and photocopied the most relevant pages. Having removed the possibility of transcription errors, I decided last night to add a couple generations of collateral relatives. There ended up being 18 of them, and of course I cited the source.

Number of photos/documents scanned: 24 documents, and 24 scanned images

Tonight I scanned 20 columns I wrote for a college newspaper in 1987 and 1988. I figure I can count this under the assumption somebody in my family in some future generation might enjoy reading them. While my parents did save them for posterity, I chose not to scan in the letters to the editor from irate readers critiquing my columns. Though rereading my columns, I agree with several of the comments.

I also scanned in 3 marriage licenses and 1 marriage license application.

Cumulative total: 84 photos or documents, 126 scanned images.

Wordless Wednesday - St. Louis 1910

Franklin Ave. Looking West from 7th Street - postcard 1910. Source

Ancestry.com JewishGen.org collaboration announcement

On Tracing the Tribe I read a combined press release from Ancestry and JewishGen.

ANCESTRY.COM AND JEWISHGEN ALIGN TO PROVIDE MORE ONLINE ACCESS TO MILLIONS OF JEWISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS

Partnership Enables Broader Research of Jewish Ancestry Through Powerful Search Tools in One Centralized Location

CHICAGO – Aug. 19, 2008 – The Generations Network, Inc., parent company of Ancestry.com, and JewishGen, a non-profit organization dedicated to researching and promoting Jewish genealogy and an affiliate of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, today announced a partnership designed to provide easier online access to millions of important Jewish historical documents. JewishGen's collection of databases will be integrated and be made available for free on Ancestry.com, making these historical Jewish records and information ore accessible than ever before. As part of the agreement, the JewishGen site will also be hosted in Ancestry.com's data center.

I think this will be great for the genealogist interested in these databases. The one difficulty I have had with JewishGen is the ability to only search by surname. There is a paid membership option which allows for more search options which I haven't tried yet, but the promised ability to search the databases with Ancestry's search capabilities is exciting. (The press release suggests it will be available by the end of the year.)

The rest of the press release suggests not all databases at JewishGen will be available at Ancestry, but many will, providing data to many researchers who may never have thought of researching JewishGen's databases, and Ancestry will provide JewishGen with hardware and network support making JewishGen a 'more robust' web experience, and allow JewishGen to be able to afford to keep the data free. It looks like a win-win collaboration.

Carnival of Genealogy

The 54th Carnival of Genealogy has been posted with a variety of interesting posts about "The Family Language."

With Labor Day and the end of summer right around the corner it’s time to think about going back to school. So, the topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy will be: Show and Tell! Remember that fun little exercise you used to do in your grade school days? Here’s your chance to do it again :-) Show us and tell us about an heirloom, a special photo, a valuable document, or a significant person that is a very special part of your family history. Don’t be shy now, show us what you’ve got!

The deadline is Sept 1st. Instructions can be read here.

GBGames Statistics: Day Ten

Day Ten of the 2008 GeneaBloggers Games is near completion. We are supposed to keep daily stats. And we have not been doing so, however, the past few days would have been null statistics.




GB Games - Team TransylvanianDutch - August 18

Competition: Go Back and Cite Your Sources
Event: Create Proper Citations
Number of Citations Entered: 20

Cumulative total: 40 citations

I've earned a diamond medal, and I'm only 10 citations away from a platinum.

Competition: Organize Your Research
Event: Create data entries in your database, or scan photos, or scan documents.
Number of data entries: 2

In redoing the research on Ancestry for my citations, I found the names of in-laws of a cousin, so I created two data entries for them. I don't see myself entering 18 more data entries, but I thought I would record the number.

Number of photos/documents scanned: 0

Cumulative total: 60 photos or documents, 102 scanned images.

I feel I have already earned a platinum here, with over 100 scanned images. However, it is my goal to scan 100 separate photos/documents, because I think I can accomplish this. The difference exists since several of the documents have been letters of varying length, and I'm not counting each page as a separate document even though I can only scan in one page at a time.

Above is Schrödinger. He arrived tonight to help me reach my goals. He's five years old, in a state of constant quantum flux, and in need of a temporary home for a couple weeks.

For those who have no idea why a cat would be named Schrödinger, Wikipedia should help. Those who understand, rest assured, I will not test out Erwin Schrödinger's thought experiment.

I suspect the odds that a cat will be named Schrödinger are directly proportional to the number of cat owners who are science geeks.

Van Every Apiary

The photo on the left is a small part of a larger photo that I'd seen in my grandmother's collection, but I had no idea who the people were, or where they were. Last night my mother suggested they were surrounded by bee colonies. It made sense - my great grandfather, Melvin Van Every, was an apiarist. I looked up images online, and there is no question in my mind. This is quite likely a bee yard (or apiary).

However, I still don't know who the women are. I'd like the approx 5 year old girl to be my grandmother, Myrtle Van Every, and the older woman to be her mother, Margaret, or older sister, Minnie. That would date the photo to circa 1905. Minnie would have been 21, and Margaret 37. However, I don't know if Melvin Van Every was a beekeeper yet. I do know that by 1914 he was "one of the most extensive apiarists" in the state of Texas. It's a logical conclusion that the apiary belonged to my great-grandfather, but without any labeling, and without recognizing either of the two people, it's not certain.

My maternal grandmother labeled less than half of the photos in her collection. Of course, it could be worse. She could have labeled none. Here's the full photograph:

Another Great Grandfather photographed

It was only a week ago in my Smile for the Camera carnival post, that I mentioned I only have photographs of four of my 16 great great grandparents.

Yesterday my mother showed me a fifth that had arrived in the mail from a cousin in California.

Morris Blatt (1862-1926) From Losice, Poland, he immigrated to America prior to 1893 with his two daughters, Anna and Blanche. Their mother, Belle Wyman, died in Poland, and Morris remarried here in America.

The photo comes from the collection of Blanche's youngest daughter, Belle.

Morris looks like a wealthy dandy in this picture. He wasn't. Like a few other great grandfathers, he was a tailor. And you would expect a tailor to wear well-tailored clothing. (Would anyone trust a shabbily-dressed tailor?)