Amanuensis Monday: An Automobile Accident - 1922

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 and share their family history documents.Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

***
This week I transcribe a newspaper article describing a 1922 automobile accident involving a distant cousin.

---

The Evening World (Thurs, Aug 10, 1922) page 3
Five Girls Hurt When Wild Auto Runs Into Them
Machine Had Sidewiped Another and Leaped to Newark Sidewalk

Five girls were hurt, one of them seriously, when two automobiles sideswiped, one of them crashing into a group of girls on their way to work at Monmouth Street and Waverly Avenue, Newark, to-day.

Miss Frieda Rasnick, sixteen, of No. 80 Monmouth Street, is in the Newark City Hospital suffering from cuts, shock and internal injuries. Two others are in the Beth Israel Hospital suffering from shock and body bruises. They are Miss Eva Fige, eighteen, of No. 32 Avon Place, and Miss Cecilia Cruvant, seventeen, of No. 28 Avon Place.

The girls were pinned against the brick wall of a factory building by the car of Dr. Harry Simon of No. 119 Spruce Street, when Simon lost control of the machine and drove onto the sidewalk. The other car was owned and operated by Abraham Karetnick of No. 17 Quitman Street, Newark.

The two other girls injured by Simon's car ran off and their names were not learned by the police.

Karetnick told police he was driving west on Waverly Avenue and Dr. Simon was going north on Monmouth Street when they sideswiped. Both men are being held pending the outcome of the Rasnick girl's injuries.

Miss Celia Eisenberger, seventeen, of 22 Hillside Place, Newark, walked into the Fourth Precinct Station House, cut and bruised and wearing a dress torn almost to shreds. She told the police she was one of the two girls who ran from the scene of the accident after she had been pineed against the wall by Dr. Simon's car.

Dr. Simon, under arrest at the station, dressed a number of cuts and bruises which the girl sustained in the accident. She said she had gone home, but had later decided to go to the police to report the accident. She returned home after her wounds were dressed.

The following day, the story appeared in the German-language New Yorker Volkszeitung Aug 11, 1922 edition, page 2.

Notes

1. I share the German language newspaper image without transcription, but it's clear they identify Cecelia Cruvant as age 14. While that seems young to be on her way to work, who's correct? According to her 1994 entry in the SSDI, Celia Kruvant Feld was born in 1905, so in 1922 she would have been 17. She was the second cousin of my paternal grandfather. It was my belief that her branch of the family consistently spelled their surname with an initial-K, but perhaps it wasn't so consistent. Or the newspaper got the spelling incorrect, which wasn't uncommon.

2. I like how the newspaper notes that the doctor involved in the accident helped dress the cuts and bruises of one of the girls at the police station. It should be noted that there were two drivers involved, and the newspaper account is careful not to place blame.

SNGF: Ancestors with Facial Hair

Randy Seaver at Genea-musings suggested for last night's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun to share photographs of ancestors with facial hair.

(All photographs below can be clicked on to view larger.)

	I'll start off with my own photograph. I'm not my own ancestor, but facial hair isn't a relic of the past in my family. I'm wearing a hat that was bought for our 20 month-old twins, so it's a little small.
	My grandfather, Melvin Newmark (1912-1992) was well-known for his well-groomed mustache. This photograph was taken in 1971.
	My great grandfather, Samuel Deutsch (1861-1938)  I believe this photograph was taken in Hungary prior to immigration in 1914.
	My great grandfather, Melvin Van Every (1863-1929). This photograph was taken in 1900.
	My great great grandfather, Moshe Leyb Cruvant (1857-1911). This photograph was likely taken within the last few years of his life.
	My great great grandfather, Morris Blatt (1862-1926). I am unsure when the photograph was taken. Perhaps at one of his children's weddings, which would place it in 1912, or early 1920s.
	An unknown Lichtmann or Deutsch relative, likely taken in Hungary.

Surnames Including Collateral Branches - Updated

Back in 2009 I exported a list of surnames from my database, and calculated the frequency of each using this Word Frequency Counter.

Here's an updated list of surnames with counts greater than 10

217 (C/K)R(U/OO/I)V(A/O)N(T/D) This surname has as many variant spellings as one can imagine phonetically. KRUVAND, KRUVANT, and CRUVANT are the three most common.
140 VANEVERY/VAN IVEREN
92 BLATT/BLATYTA
85 DENYER
83 NEWMARK
55 FEINSTEIN
51 SWAYZE
45 DEUT(S)CH
45 COHEN
31 BRAY
30 ODELSON
21 DUBINSKY
20 LICHTMAN
20 PERLIK
17 VANN
16 FUDEMBERG
16 FELDMAN
16 OXENHANDLER
16 SIVKIN
15 BRANNON
15 ALTMAN
15 HARTLEY
14 OBERMAN
14 WEINBERG
13 SPEAR
13 BENOLD
13 BERGER
12 BROWN
12 GOLD
12 ROSS
12 WYMAN
11 SAMBOR
11 COLBERT
11 HORTON
10 CAMPBELL
10 GEIL
10 GRIFFITH
10 GROSSMAN
10 KLINSKY
10 PERKINS
10 ZIGLER
10 ZIMMERMAN

I've also started researching a second database since then. Here are the surnames from that database with counts greater than 5.

31 WALLACE

25 MOULDON
25 FULKERSON

22 GOBER

18 DAVENPORT

12 HAZEL

14 BROWN
14 SEDOR

12 BALDWIN

10 BAUER
10 FUNKE
10 WILLIAMS
8 ALCORN

8 OLSON

7 BOYD
7 RUFFERT
7 TAYLOR
7 USREY
6 MATHENY

6 SCHROCK

6 VOLK

Poetry Friday: Heredity by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

It's been over a year since I decided to share a genealogically-related poem on a Friday.
Here's one by New Englander, Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Heredity
By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907)

A SOLDIER of the Cromwell stamp,
With sword and psalm-book by his side,
At home alike in church and camp:
Austere he lived, and smileless died.

But she, a creature soft and fine—
From Spain, some say, some say from France;
Within her veins leapt blood like wine—
She led her Roundhead lord a dance!

In Grantham church they lie asleep;
Just where, the verger may not know.
Strange that two hundred years should keep
The old ancestral fires aglow!

In me these two have met again;
To each my nature owes a part:
To one, the cool and reasoning brain;
To one, the quick, unreasoning heart.

Source
Author Image

Responsibility: The Buck Stops Here

I am a professional writer. When I'm not researching family history, I write grant proposals for a local not-for-profit. There is a meme that has circulated around the internet for awhile. Perhaps you’ve heard it.

I am responsible for what I say. 

I am not responsible for what you understand.

That’s not a statement most professional writers would make. We are responsible for your understanding. If we are unable to convey our intent to you, we have failed in our job. Readers don’t want to pick up a book they can’t understand. And if you are employed as a writer of corporate press releases, software documentation, or grant proposals – being understood is extremely important. If you are writing your family history down, it is also important that those who read that history understand it.

Let’s look at an example with which many will be familiar, The Beatles’ song, “Let it Be.”

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

I suspect if you ask most listeners for the source the song is citing, the identity of “Mother Mary,” they would say, “Mary, the mother of Jesus.”

However, Paul McCartney claims the lyrics refer to his mother, Mary (Mohin) McCartney, who died when he was 14. Allegedly he dreamt of her while working on The White Album, which inspired the lyrics to this song.

Was he successful in conveying his intent? I’d suggest not.

(However, I’d also suggest his true intent with the song, as with most of his songs, was to record something his fans would enjoy. So while he might have been inspired to write the lyrics by a dream he had of his mother, he knew full well that his fans would interpret the song differently.)

Which of course is completely fine. The interpretation of a reader or listener to music, poetry, or fiction doesn’t have to match that of the author.

For authors of fiction or poetry, it isn’t mandatory that readers “get” the exact same meaning or intent. But it is still the author's responsibility that they are emotionally moved in some manner. It is their responsibility that their words have an impact. For fiction and poetry, there are no wrong interpretations.

For authors of press releases, software documentation, family histories, genealogy blogs, grant proposals, newspaper articles, or other works of non-fiction, it is our responsibility that readers interpret what we say the way we intended. For non-fiction, there are wrong interpretations.

Finding Your Roots: Kushner, King, and Dershowitz

My wife and I sat down last night to watch Tuesday night’s episode of Finding Your Roots. I prefer the series to Who Do You Think You Are?

1. I like how there is no pretending that the celebrity is conducting the research. The show is presented realistically, telling the viewer that a staff of genealogists has conducted research, and the information is presented to the guest stars in a “This Is Your Ancestry” format.
2. There is a greater diversity of guests.
3. The show appears to be less of an advertisement for Ancestry.com

In last night’s episode, we even got to see a database hosted by JewishGen appear on the screen. The website wasn’t mentioned on the show, but the database JRI-Poland was clearly visible, and anyone interested could easily find it online.

Last night’s episode was especially moving for me. The stories of Carole King, Alan Dershowitz, and Tony Kushner felt very familiar. Not because I’m related to them, or because I knew about their genealogies. I’m not, and I didn’t. But their stories are very similar to the stories of my ancestors. During the Holocaust, instead of deaths to firing squads, many of my Lithuanian cousins faced townspeople with axes. Most of my 19th century immigrant ancestors crossed the ocean in the steerage section, and originally settled in depressed slums. My maternal second great grandfather would have likely been sent back to Transylvania if he hadn’t had cousins sign affidavits. And just as Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was able to surprise one of the guests by tracing one branch of their family to the late 1790s, a cousin of mine has been able to research one of our branches (the Cruvants) back to the late 1790s. Many of the European records have been destroyed, but not all of them.

Some may have noticed one aspect of most episodes was missing. Professor Gates didn't discuss DNA testing results with any of the three guests. My guess is that the tests were done, but for all three of them, the results were the same: 100% (or close) Ashkenazic Jewish. The primary reason genealogists do DNA testing is to find cousins to help them in their research. The primary interest for most of the guests on these shows is their ethnic breakdown. For many of Jewish descent, the ethnicity results yield no new information.

You can view the full episode here or watch it below.

Sixth Annual Genealogy Poetry Challenge - Scotland

Bill West of West In New England is hosting The Sixth Annual Great Genealogy Poetry Challenge

1. Find a poem by a local poet, famous or obscure, from the region one of your ancestors lived in. It can be about an historical event, a legend, a person, or even about some place (like a river)or a local animal. It can even be a poem you or one of your ancestors have written! Or if you prefer, post the lyrics of a song or a link to a video of someone performing the song. 

2. Post the poem or song to your blog (remembering to cite the source where you found it.). If you wish to enter an older post, you may as long as long as it has not appeared here in an earlier Poetry Challenge. 

3.Tell us how the subject of the poem or song relates to your ancestor's home or life, or the area of the country where they lived.

To celebrate my wife’s Wallace roots, I thought I would share some poetry from Scotland. I traveled to the Scottish Poetry Library.

A Red, Red Rose – Robert Burns (1759-1796)

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair are thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

And here’s The Rowan Tree, by Carolina Oliphant, Lady Nairne (1766-1845) - sung by Kenneth McKellar (1927-2010)




Entries from past years:

• First Annual: Emilius Buczi – Hungary ; Julian Ursin Niemciwicz – Poland and Lithuania ; TS Eliot – St. Louis and London
• Second Annual: Texas State Anthem
• Third Annual: Chaim Bialik – Volhynia, Russia
• Fourth Annual: Portsmouth, Hamsphire – Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle
• Fifth Annual: I was a no-show

Amanuensis Monday: Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Cousin

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 and share their family history documents.Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

***

This week I transcribe a few paragraphs from a collection of essays written by well-known author, Tom Wolfe. In his first published collection of essays, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965), he mentions a cousin directly. The essay, "Las Vegas (What?) Las Vegas (Can't hear you! Too noisy) Las Vegas!!!" was originally published in Esquire Magazine.

---

The wheeps, beeps, freeps, electronic lulus, Boomerang Modern and Flash Gordon sunbursts soar on through the night over the billowing hernia-hernia sounds and the old babes at the slots—until it is 7:30 A.M. and I am watching five men at a green-topped card table playing poker. They are sliding their Beebrand cards into their hands and squinting at the pips with a set to the lips like Conrad Veidt in a tunic collar studying a code message from S.S. headquarters. Big Sid Wyman, the old Big-Time gambler from St. Louis, is there, with his eyes looking like two poached eggs engraved with a road map of West Virginia after all night at the poker table… As everyone there knows, or believes, these fabulous men are playing for table stakes of fifteen or twenty thousand dollars. One hundred dollars rides on a chip. Mandibles gape at the progress of the battle. And now Sid Wyman, who is also a vice-president of the Dunes, is at a small escritoire just inside the golden fence signing a stack of vouchers for such sums as $4500, all printed in the heavy Mondrianesque digits of a Burroughs business check-making machine. It is as if America’s guys-and-dolls gamblers have somehow been tapped upon the shoulders, knighted, initiated into a new aristocracy.

-- The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, Tom Wolfe, 1965, pp 14-15.


Notes

1) Sid Wyman (1910-1978) was the first cousin of my paternal grandmother, Belle Feinstein. Several years ago I transcribed a newspaper article about him that I later took down for copyright concerns. However, these short quotes from Tom Wolfe's essay surely fall completely within fair use guidelines.

Comparing Ethnic Percentages for Ancestry and FamilyTreeDNA

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I transferred my raw DNA from Ancestry to FamilyTreeDNA.

I activated my account last Sunday - a process which took two business days. I didn't have access to any functions additional to what I received from the free transfer until Tuesday. This bothered me a little, since I felt I should at least be able to instantly email the 20 free matches they had provided me.

Anyway, once the account was activated, I was able to view FamilyTreeDNA's MyOrigins page, and see how their ethnic breakdown of my DNA compared to Ancestry's. Overall, they're very similar. Which is good to see. Though there are some differences.

FamilyTreeDNA's chart is on the left, Ancestry's is on the right.



FamilyTreeDNA tags a slightly smaller percentage of my European DNA as Jewish. However, when I add Jewish Diaspora + Eastern Europe + Eastern Middle East, I get exactly 75%, corresponding well to what I know of my three Jewish grandparents. On Ancestry, adding European Jewish + Europe East + Caucasus, I got 74%. [Ancestry's definition of 'Caucasus' includes Romania in addition to the Middle East as a possible source of the DNA. FamilyTreeDNA doesn't mention this, but I suspect my Transylvanian ancestry may be responsible, though ultimately, most of my Jewish ancestry should track back to the Middle East.]

The biggest difference might be FamilyTreeDNA says I have 10% Southern Europe DNA - while Ancestry suggested only 2% for Italy/Greece, and less than 1% for the Iberian Peninsula. I haven't traced any of my ancestry back yet to Southern Europe.

A "True Certification of Facts"

A "True Certification of Facts" may not always be certifying what you think.

This is a current Missouri Birth Certification form, with all identifying information removed.
(And in gray scale to prevent it from being used for illegitimate purposes.)

This is actually an amended certificate, but there is no way to tell that, is there?

[I have removed nothing except the names, dates, ages, gender, locations and state file number.]

The individual was born in the spring of 2013. The amending took place in October of 2014. The Date Filed still reflects the original filing date of the original certificate. The date at the bottom of the form is just the date the certified document was requested at the local Vital Records office.

The state registrar signed that this is a "true certification of name and birth facts as recorded...." However, the name of the child, the name and age of the mother, and the name and age of the father are all different from the original certificate.

Legally, I agree with the statement. The Mother and Father on the form are now (as of October 2nd, the date their adoption was legally finalized) the mother and father. The words 'Natural' or 'Birth' are not used to describe "Mother" and "Father" on the form.

Decades from now, if a genealogy researcher obtained this certificate, without any other knowledge, they would likely make that assumption, wouldn't they? They'd be wrong.

In this case, the individual (and his brother) are going to grow up knowing that they are adopted. But if the parents chose not to tell them, the birth certificate would in no way give it away.

Keep this in mind when looking at documents.
Know the difference between what is stated, and what you only assume is stated.

FamilyTreeDNA Autosomal Transfers

I read at The Genetic Genealogist that FamilyTreeDNA had dropped their DNA Autosomal Transfer to $39 (from $69), and that they allowed you to see the first 20 matches for free. (Though not all of the FamilyTreeDNA functionality is provided for free. What is provided I illustrate below.)

An Autosomal Transfer means that if you download your raw DNA data from 23andMe (the V3 Test) or Ancestry, you can upload the data to FamilyTreeDNA. This way you can find matches with additional cousins.

It's hard to ignore a free opportunity - which of course is what FamilyTreeDNA is betting on. Get lots of people to upload for free, and see what they can 'unlock' for $39. (You can also unlock it by getting 4 others to upload for free.)

If you follow this link, you can upload your data for free (and help me unlock my data for free.)
But you may want to see what you're getting first...

This is the screen you see first

Enter your name, email address, gender, and click that you accept their ToS. Then click Try it Free!

Click "Upload Raw Data" unless you need to click the help link for downloading data from 23andMe or Ancestry. I had already downloaded my data from Ancestry when they made that option available.

When you click a green circle will begin to swirl. About a minute later (at least for me) you will progress to this screen, where they tell you the upload is complete, and they will email you when they are finished processing it. That can take around an hour. Yesterday morning I uploaded my data at 5:43 before leaving for work, and received the email that everything was processed at 6:50.

Once processed, this is part of the screen you will see after logging in. MyOrigins (detailing FamilyTreeDNA's analysis of your world origins) is one of the options you need to unlock.

But you can click on Matches.

Here's what I see with my first two matches

As you can see:

• It tells you how many additional matches there are. (Interestingly, I've uploaded two sets of raw data, and for the other set, I am told there are only over 402 additional matches. 402 is nice, but a fraction of 3,158.)
• Indicates you won't be able to contact them without unlocking (unless you can find them with an internet search based on their names.)

When I mouseover the FamilyTree icon for the matches I see this response for all 20

Blaine Bettinger said that none of his matches had a family tree available either. The advert at the top of the match screen suggests even if the Family Tree were available, you'd have to unlock to see it. Since FamilyTreeDNA is a DNA-based website, and not a Family Tree-based website like Ancestry, I wonder if not a lot of people upload their trees. However, many do provide some surnames, which is somewhat helpful.

For example, one match below listed a lot of surnames, and their geographical locations. I know he is descended from the Van Everys who settled in Nebraska. I suspect this makes us third cousins, as our earliest shared ancestor is likely my 2nd great grandfather, Samuel Van Every.

If we click on the arrow below the profile image, you see more options. (Most of my initial matches haven't uploaded images. I suspect this is common)

The 'common matches' function needs to be unlocked. I suspect this is exactly what it implies, it will show all your matches in common. As far as I've seen, Ancestry doesn't provide this functionality, and that sounds great.

I can use the chromosome browser. If I click the + sign, I add the match to the Chromosome Browser. (You can compare up to 5 matches at a time.)

Then, if I click compare, I get to see exactly where in our chromosomes we matched.

This is also additional functionality not available at Ancestry, and looks like it could be very useful. If multiple matches match in the same area of a chromosome, it probably suggests a shared ancestor. I haven't done much research into this as it's not available at Ancestry.

One of the options on the Chromosome Browser is to "hide 3rd party matches." As the tutorial explains:

I, of course, am a "Third Party Match." They don't tell you up front that the matches are less reliable.
Of course, I won't hide 3rd party matches, since if they used Ancestry the comparison should be more reliable. Right?

So, will I pay $39?

Well....If I can convince 4 people to follow this link, and upload their data for free, I won't have to.
(Actually 3 people, since I followed it to upload a second file of DNA data I had. Of course, I'd like to unlock that as well. But I'll be happy if I only have to pay for one.)

Of Grands and Greats: Ancestral Nomenclature

There are two ways to describe your grandfather’s brother in English: Great Uncle and Grand Uncle. (There are actually six ways if one includes Great-Uncle, Grand-Uncle, Greatuncle, and Granduncle.)

[Note: I am sticking with the masculine terms throughout this post; everything applies equally to the parallel feminine terms.]

Some will tell you there is a ‘correct’ way. They are wrong. Both ‘Great Uncle” and “Grand Uncle” date back at least to the 15th century. (see citations below)

• “his grete Uncle H. Cardinal of England” (Rolls of Parliament V.438, 1438)
• “his graunt oncle Henry cardinalle of Englande” (Book of Noblesse, 1475)

Grand derives from the Anglo-Norman ‘Graunt’
Great derives from the Germanic ’Great.’

In French, the construction is very logical for uncles, fathers, and sons

• Grand-oncle
• Grand-grand-oncle
• grand-Père
• Grand-Grand-Père
• Grand-Fils
• Grand-Grand-Fils

However, in English, for fathers and sons, we start with grand, and then switch to great.

• Grandfather
• Great Grandfather
• Grandson
• Great Grandson

Some feel we should do the same with uncles and nephews

• Grand Uncle
• Great Grand Uncle
• Grand Nephew
• Great Grand Nephew

Many genealogists seem to like this construction because they feel it looks the best on a family tree. The same terms are used for everybody on the same hierarchy. Your ancestors' siblings are equally grand or great. Your great great grandfather's brother would be your great great granduncle.

Some like a construction similar to the French, but using Great.

• Great Uncle
• Great Great Uncle

However, there isn't only one correct method in English. Don't listen to those who insist there is.
Personally, I like the French system.

1919 Composite Photo

I think there may be some people who think composite photographs - photographs combining the features of multiple individuals - are a relatively new concept.

The below was created in 1919.

It probably was a more difficult process back then, than it is today.

Source: St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 15, 1919, Page 23

Assumptions: The Name of the Father Part II

Fourth in a series of posts.

A discussion of assumptions one might be tempted to make. With examples taken from my own research.

Assumption: The name of the father on the birth certificate is the father of the child

You find the birth certificate for John Robert Green II, and the father's name on the certificate is John Robert Green. You decide your previous guess has been confirmed.

But wait!

Absent DNA tests you might have no way to confirm the veracity, but be aware, only the mother needs to be present at the birth. (Arguably, this is no longer the case with surrogacy.)

A 9 month period is a significant length of time, and a woman who changes partners might decide to put the new partner on the certificate, and to name the child accordingly.

For privacy reasons I will not indicate the example from my own research.

[Sure. In your database entry for "John Robert Green" change the source citation to the birth certificate. You now have more to go by than the name of the child. Finding a marriage certificate might help increase the odds, but there are many births outside of marriage. Genealogy is not an exact science; just because something is written down on a government-issued document doesn't mean it is indisputable fact. This is why source citations are so gosh important.]

Data Backup Day: Be Prepared

The first day of every month is Data Backup Day.

This past Saturday morning, I woke up to a very unpleasant feeling. My computer wouldn't boot up.

Using my cellphone, I found a step-by-step guide on what to do.

1) I ran Disk Utility, and 'repaired' the disk.

It wouldn't reboot.

2) I restarted in 'Safe Mode.'

It wouldn't reboot.

3) I restarted in "Single User Mode," and entered: fsck -fy until I received the message "the volume...appears to be ok."

It wouldn't reboot. (But I did enjoy the geeky thrill of taking my Mac to a unix command line.)

4) I reinstalled the OS. [In years past this would have meant searching for the install disks. Now the computer downloads the software over the internet.]

It rebooted! What a relief. The next step was taking the computer to the "Genius Bar" at the local Apple Store, and I am glad that I was able to avoid that. For now, at least. The computer is only three years old, so hopefully she has a few more miles in her.

Throughout this ordeal I wasn't nervous about my data. It's backed up regularly through Apple's Time Machine. I knew the last full backup had taken place Friday evening, so there would have been no lost data if I had to erase the drive and restore from the backup. That's a good feeling to have.

Image Source: "The First Page," by Émile Bayard (1837-1891). An illustration for the novel, Ninety-three, by Victor Hugo.

Émile Bayard's best known illustration is his image of Cosette sweeping the floor of the inn, for the novel, Les Misérables.

Assumptions: The Name of the Father

Third in a series of posts.

A discussion of assumptions one might be tempted to make. With examples taken from my own research.

Assumption: The name of a child indicates the name of the parent.

Example:

Question: You run across a person named John Robert Green II. What is his father's name?
Answer: You can not assume it is John Robert Green.

Sure, there is a strong likelihood. But there is no law, in the United States at least, that sets rules on how to name a child.

Sometimes a child can be named the II where an Uncle or other relative was the first.

Or you can have parents with a strange sense of humor.

You can have a John Robert Green II who is the son of David Alexander Green, with no John Robert in sight.

I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in our country there exists a Leonard Part VI.

For privacy reasons I will not indicate the example from my own research.

[Sure. In your database enter "John Robert Green" for the father, and in the notes indicate that you are guessing that is his name from the name of the son. But always remember it is a guess, until you find confirming documentation.]

Assumptions: Documents are a Snapshot in Time

Second in a series of posts.

A discussion of assumptions one might be tempted to make. With examples taken from my own research.

Assumption: Documentation that an individual lived somewhere in time indicates they lived there before or after that moment in time.

Every document is a snapshot in time. Except in rare occasions, they don't tell you what happened before or after that snapshot.

Below are entries from the St. Louis City Directory for my grandmother, Myrtle Van Every

•1921 - Astor Hotel
•1921 - 4528a Enright
•1922 - Westgate Hotel
•1922 - 4123 Westminster
•1923 - 4515 Washington
•1924 - 5630 Delmar
•1925 - 5540 Pershing
•1926 - 4506 Forest Park
•1927 - 4545 Washington
•1928 - 5707 McPherson apt 111
•1928 - 5656 Kingsbury apt 203
•1930 - Georgiana Court Apartments, 5660 Kingsbury, apt 203, St. Louis, MO (census - ED 169 - Sheet 1B)

She moved around a lot, but she remained in St. Louis. She doesn't appear in the 1929 directory, but not appearing in a particular directory isn't uncommon. I can imagine many genealogists, of varying experience levels, stating as fact that she lived in St. Louis continually from 1921 to 1930, citing the St. Louis City Directories and the 1930 census as evidence.

And there's nothing wrong with that, except for using the word 'fact.'

In April of 1927 my grandmother married in Oakland, California. In October of 1927 she divorced her husband, and returned to St. Louis. She didn't miss appearing in the 1927 directory. She appeared in the 1928 directory under her maiden name, and her married name. She did appear in the 1929 directory, but only under her married name. She returned to her maiden name by the census in 1930.

Remember: Every document is a snapshot in time. Be open to learning something important happened between two snapshots.

Ancestry doesn't handle European Dates well in Family Trees

I was looking at the entry for one of my wife's ancestors on somebody else's Ancestry Family Tree. As you can see, the person entered her birth date as 04.11.1817. And her death date as 17.07.1915.

From the death date, it is clear they are using the European system of Date.Month.Year.  There is no 17th month. The birth date could either be in April or November. 

If you glance down at the Timeline - Ancestry assumes the user was using the American Month/Date/Year format. Oops.

If I were able to copy the whole entry, you'd notice that the Ancestry Timeline gets the death date correct. Which means the software program is coded to recognize the existence of both methods, but only uses the European method if the American method returns an error. I used to be a computer programmer, and I don't think I'd have coded it this way.

Note: I went to my own family tree and tested the interface. There is no clear way to indicate which method you are using, and the software made the same mistake when I entered the same dates. However, the person who created the entry below did make a mistake in entering the date of birth. They cite FindAGrave as a source, which cites her death certificate. Both sources have her date of birth as November 14th. A simple typo, but a reminder to look at the sources.

Further Note: It was mentioned that this programming error may only exist if one uses periods to separate the numbers in the date. So I tested it with the more traditional /s and the same thing happened.

Assumptions: Government Documents Are Always Reliable

First in a series of posts.

A discussion of assumptions one might be tempted to make. With examples taken from my own research.

Assumption: Government Documents are Always Reliable

While one might say, "of course they aren't, no one would make that mistake," this is what makes me cringe most often when watching Who Do You Think You Are. The researcher finds the grandmother in a household in a census, and tells the celebrity the parents in the household are their great grandparents. Perhaps their great grandparents are dead, and these are actually the grandmother's uncle and aunt? I assume (hope) the researcher has conducted additional research to verify the information, but they don't mention it on television, leading some viewers perhaps not to ask that question in their own research.

I have distant relatives who have looked at the above US census record from 1870 for the Denyer family, and recorded in online databases Amanda, Sherwood, and Ida as children of Ebenezer and Sarah, despite them being a decade older than William and McAlpin. They are actually the children of Ebenezer's brother, Samuel Denyer, who died in 1861, and his wife Zarelda, who died in 1867. (As a side note, several of the names in this record are actually middle names. McAlpin, for example, is my great grandmother, Margaret Jane McAlpin (Denyer) Vanevery.

Above is a marriage record from the UK General Register Office. The marriage occurred in London in 1902. If I asked you to tell me the name of the Father of the Bride, your answer would be "Nathan Nathan." I'm pretty certain I know what happened. The clerk asked the bride for her maiden name, and then asked only for her father's given name. Unfortunately, it appears Sarah followed the Jewish custom of using her father's first name as her last. Perhaps as an affectation, since it was no longer common in the 1900's. The 1901 UK census indicates the family name was Sandler, and Sandler appears on some documents as Sarah's maiden name.

Just because there is a government stamp on a document doesn't mean the information is necessarily correct. Record the information in your database, and cite your source, but always be open to discovering new, conflicting information.

Sarah LNU (Not any longer)

Randy Seaver at GeneaMusings, for his weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, asked:

How Many Sarah LNU's Are in Your Genealogy Database? If you have one that is your ancestor, have you looked recently to determine if there are more records online that might lead you to her surname? Go look for one - you might be surprised!

LNU is an acronym for "Last Name Unknown." Using the acronym, instead of leaving the surname blank, facilitates finding these mysteries in your database to research at a later time.

LNUs, by the nature of surnames in Western European culture, are almost always female.

***

I had one Sarah LNU - however, she wasn't related to me. She was the husband of my 2nd great grandfather's business partner, Max Wieselman. I had entered Max into my database as an "Associated Person." (iFamily chart to the left.) Max and my 2nd great grandfather, Selig Dudelczyk (he changed his surname to Feinstein), worked as horse shoers/blacksmiths together, and were co-inventors of a modification to a fire hydrant. When I first visited the cemetery where Selig and Anna, as well as several other paternal ancestors are buried, I parked a fair distance from where their plots were, planning to walk the rest of the way. At my feet, when I got out of the car, was the headstones for Max and Sarah.

I had only entered their names and dates from the tombstones, and hadn't conducted any additional research yet. While he was my ancestor's business partner for a decade, I had no other reason to conduct any research on him or his family. The first thing I did this weekend was look up their death certificates at the Missouri Digital Heritage website. They were both there, as well as the certificates for two sons. According to Sarah's death certificate, her maiden name was Ottman.

However, Max's death certificate was more interesting to me. It stated he was born in Zhitomir, Volhynia. The same town Selig's brother Julius had for town of origin on his manifest. Did Selig and Max know each other in the old country, or did they meet each other in St. Louis?

Census records indicate Max immigrated in 1884, a few years prior to Selig. It looks like at some point I may need to conduct some more research on the Wieselmans. However, the information I want is likely in Ukrainian records.