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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Voting for the 40 best Genealogy Blogs
Family Tree Magazine is asking the Genealogy Community to vote on the 40 Best Genealogy Blogs.They have completed the nomination stage, and have divided the nominees into ten separate categories:
1) All-Around (News, research advice, personal family stories, photos, opinion, etc)
2) Personal/Family (A family history blog focused on one - or more- specific families)
3) Local/Regional (Blogs focused on a region's history and genealogy)
4) Cemetery (Cemetery research, gravestone photos, etc)
5) Photos/Heirlooms (Blogs focused on the preservation of photos and heirlooms)
6) Heritage (Blogs focused on genealogy as it relates to a specific ethnicity, or heritage)
7) News/Resources (Blogs focused on genealogy news and information about resources)
8) How-To (Instructional content on genealogy resources and methodology)
9) Genealogy Companies (Blogs written on behalf of genealogy companies)
10) Genetic Genealogy (Blogs focused on genetic genealogy and family health history)
I have been honored with a nomination in the All-Around category.
The category is filled with blogs I would recommend to anyone who asked me for recommendations. All of the categories on the voting ballot are filled with highly recommendable blogs. (I guess that's kind of the point, right?) So I'm just honored to be on the list.
So if you read Genealogy Blogs (and if you are reading this, you do) go vote.
You have until November 5th to vote, and you can vote more than once.
Tombstone Tuesday: Morris Blatt (1864-1926)
Transcription: Moshe son of Jacob Blatt died on the 29th of Nisan, 5686. May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life.Morris Blatt was a second great grandfather, my paternal grandmother's maternal grandfather. His first wife, Belle (nee Wyman) died in Poland, circa 1892, possibly of a bee sting, Morris and his two daughters, Blanche and Annie, immigrated to America and settled in St. Louis, in approximately 1890. (He and his first wife are said to have been divorced.) Morris married for a second time in 1893. With his second wife, Mollie (nee Kellner), he had two more children - Henry and Pearl.
Monday, October 5, 2009
1913 Deutsch Family Manifest - SS Rhein
Here's details from the Passenger Manifest I mentioned in my Amanuensis Monday post earlier today. (Found at Ancestry.com)
Page One
Page Two
Click to enlarge either one
The names on the far left are very difficult to read. However, there is enough detail otherwise to identify this as the correct passenger manifest without any doubt.
In the middle of the first page you can clearly read Varalmas, Hungary as their town of origin, and 'Hebrew' as their nationality. But the clincher is the 'nearest relative' in country of origin, as they listed "father in law" and "grandfather" Israel Lichtmann in Margitta, Hungary. If I didn't know what to expect to see there, I probably wouldn't be able to read it, but it is clear. On the far right it lists Chicago, Illinois as their destination.
The names are supposed to be (from oldest to youngest) Salomon, Jean, Ted, Ed, Martin, Maurice, and Berta. However, those are the English names of the children, which would have varied from their Hungarian names. I know my great grandfather went by both Salomon and Samuel at different times. The manifest says he was 45 years old, but he was likely closer to 52. He may have lied out of fear they wouldn't let him in the US if he was too old to earn a living.
A few columns to the right of their ages we see whether or not they could read or write. In the rows for Salomon, Jean, Ted, and Ed it says yes for both. This is the US Passenger Manifest implying they all could read and write English. I'm not certain this is accurate. Though I believe the father could read and write Romanian, Hungarian, Yiddish, and German - at least to some degree. The three elder children, ranging in age from 14 to 9, would have had varying skills.
On page two we learn (on the far left) that the 'wife' and 'mother' paid for their passage. Which isn't a surprise, as I knew my great grandmother came over to America a year earlier specifically to raise the money for the rest of the family's passage.
The column for friend/relative they are joining is another instance where if I didn't know what it was supposed to say, I wouldn't be able to read it. It says "Helen Deutsch" and I believe it says "435 (or 1135) Christiana Avenue." If it weren't for the section of the audio tape which I posted this morning, I would have no idea what the street is, but I believe this does confirm Ted's recollection.
Finally, I learn my great grandfather was 5 foot 4 inches, black hair, brown eyes. Jean was 4 foot 8 inches, and Ted was 4 foot even. It doesn't indicate the height for any of the other children.
The Wedding Cake of the Duke and Duchess of York, 1923
Here's a 1923 silent film, from the official YouTube channel of the British Monarchy. The Duchess of York later became Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother.
Amanuensis Monday: Baltimore, Ellis Island, Wilson, Taft and Serbia
Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
I continue transcribing in ten minute segments the tape my grandfather, Martin Deutsch, and his older brother, Ted Deutsch, recorded in 1977.
1:15:00
Martin: Two weeks crossing the Atlantic. And it was you think it was in January or February.
Ted: We got here it was in February. I don’t recall whether it was in the middle of February. I know it was February.
Martin: It was in the winter.
Ted: There was snow on the ground. The only reason I think it was February is because they were talking about the President taking office the next month. I remember that.
Martin: I see, it was in March then.
Ted: It was March 15th. And we were here already, see, in February.
Martin: March 15, 1913 would have been Wilson?
Ted: That’s right.
Martin: He was elected in 1912, and then took office on March 15, 1913. Roosevelt was going out. Teddy Roosevelt was going out.
Ted: It wasn’t Roosevelt. It was Taft.
Martin: Taft, sure.
Ted: I remember the kids were singing, “Taft, Taft you’re gone. Taft. Roosevelt next month.”
Martin: And it was Wilson, because of course he was in during the war.
Ted: That’s what makes me sure it was in February.
Martin: And you recognized that when you landed? Or…a few days after that.
Ted: When we landed we stayed with some friends for a while. The Newmans (?).
Martin: In Chicago.
Ted: In Chicago. They had a home on Christiana Avenue, just west of Humboldt Park.
Martin: They owned their home there?
Ted: They owned a home there, they lived on the second floor, and we lived on the first floor. At that time.
Martin: For just…
Ted: About six months I think
Martin: Was it that long?
Ted: Yeah.
Martin: It’s something I didn’t remember at all
Ted: We were there with them, I would say it seems six months to me. And then we moved to Claremont Avenue.
Martin: I remember the place on Claremont in the basement room.
Ted: That was still 1913.
Martin: And of course we went to school near Claremont.
Ted: We went to school. High School there, which was just around the block.
Martin: Well, to get back about the vessel and where did we…we took off from Bremen, Germany, I imagine. Where did we land in the United States, I’ve always been puzzled about that. I thought it was Ellis Island.
Ted: We didn’t land at Ellis. We came through Baltimore. That’s what I … Our passport called for Baltimore.
Martin: Well, if we had tickets on any vessel that would be scheduled for Baltimore, that’s where we came. I hadn’t heard of Baltimore being a port of Entry for immigrants, but of course I am satisfied it was. And while most everybody came through Ellis Island, we didn’t. That surprises me, but I can understand it would be true. Is there any kind of papers that would show it. So that we know that’s what happened.
Ted: I never ran across any papers that would show positively that we came through
Martin: I’m not….your memory is satisfactory I’m sure. It just surprises me. I was also wondering the actual dates. I never have seen…saw anything positive to give us the date, and the port.
1:20:00
Ted: I could never prove that we landed in Baltimore because I don’t have anything to show. If we had come through New York, we would have been put into Ellis Island for detention. We would have been detained there for processing. I don’t ever remember going through any processing over there.
Martin: Well, I would think you would be processed even in Baltimore, but it didn’t impress you somehow. I can’t imagine…you didn’t just come off the boat and come to Chicago. You went through customs, I’m satisfied.
Ted: We went through customs, but we weren’t detained there very long.
Martin: Somehow, you know I visited New York not too long ago, and I went to Ellis Island just to look at the place, and it seemed familiar to me, but I may have seen movies of it or pictures and I’m not sure whether its from my own memories when I was five or six years old and coming here that it seemed familiar. It may have been just from movies I had seen or pictures I had seen of Ellis Island. Well,
Ted: I may look into it.
Martin: I know you have the passports. And you showed it to me, and I couldn’t figure out an exact date.
Ted: Didn’t I give you the passport?
Martin: No, you took it back and you said you’d keep it. Then you were going to give it to me, and you forgot to bring it.
Ted: Last time you were here at the wedding.
Martin: No, you showed it to me here one day, and you were taking it back for some reason. You were going to look at some more papers. But that may be the --- the dates is what I’m…and the port of entry which I think should be positive, but I couldn’t figure it out from the passport, anyway. And you kind of read it. But I don’t think it gave the information about the date of embarkation or anything like that. Those would be other papers.
Ted: The passport gives you the date that you left.
Martin: The passport was issued. No, the passport was issued on a certain date. But it doesn’t say when you left.
Ted: It says you’re killeag (sp?). That means “left the county.”
Martin: All right, I looked at the visas in the passport and there was no entry whatever. It didn’t show that you went through any.
Ted: That’s right, I had noticed that.
Martin: When you go from Austria to Germany, which you had to do, or Hungary to Germany, you go through border processing, and they punched or stamped the passport to show you entered. And when you left anyplace they’d show you left. And when you arrived in the United States they ought to show you arrived.
Ted: Might have been on some other document, which I don’t have.
Martin: But it didn’t show it on that passport, and that’s what I’m remarking on.
Ted: That’s only proof when you left the country.
Martin: I think it is only proof you were issued a passport. But it doesn’t show when you left.
Ted: It does show when you left Hungary.
Martin: All right.
Ted: Because it says Killeag --- and it got the date on it. It was 1913 some time.
Martin: Now, this was one year or so before the war, you know. That was quite an achievement.
Ted: That was a coincidence.
Martin: Of course it was because nobody foretold a year before. It certainly
Ted: Nobody knew about the war. The funny part of it is Dad was not of military age, and they let him go on. If he had been of military age.
Martin: You mean he was over age. Now he had served in the military there.
Ted: Yeah!
Martin: He had I think whatever was required. He had put it in.
Ted: But he was fifty years old.
Martin: I remember him always talking about the huzzars. I think he was some kind
Ted: He was an aide.
Martin: Aide, yeah. He probably took care of their horses and boots.
Ted: That’s as far as a Jew could get.
Martin: That’s right. Of course, I don’t know if there were wars. If he had been born in…
Ted: He was in one war.
Martin: …1866 he was in the war of 78 or something like that with France or Germany.
Ted: He was in a war with Austria, Hungary and Serbia.
Martin: Serbia.
Ted: That’s the time they took over a big territory…Bosnia, called Bosnia. And that war Dad was in that war, and that was the reason the First World War started, because the Serbs were angered because Austria took Bosnia from them, and they wanted it back. They have been fighting off and on ever since. So when they had the Sarajevo affair in Serbia they assassinated the [ ] that started the first World War.
Of course it was Archduke Ferdinand who was assassinated, though I am uncertain of the word Ted uses at the end of this section, and I'm also uncertain of the word (probably Hungarian) which appeared on their passport and Ted says meant "left the country." It sounds like Ted says they stayed with the 'Newmans' upon their arrival in Chicago. However, the Newmans would have been cousins instead of friends.
It was the war of 1878 where Austria occupied Bosnia. They annexed Bosnia in 1908...which led to WWI. My great grandfather's service papers indicate he was in the army from 1881-1907.
Their passenger manifest found online indicates they arrived on the Rhein from Bremen in the Port of Baltimore on March 20, 1913...five days after the inauguration.
However, I don't doubt that with the closeness of Baltimore to DC there was a lot of talk on the streets about the inaugural -- and I suspect Ted's understanding of English wasn't great then, or his memory sixty years later of what he heard was faulty.
If you choose to join me in Amanuensis Monday and post your transcriptions, feel free to add a link to your post below, or in the comments.
I continue transcribing in ten minute segments the tape my grandfather, Martin Deutsch, and his older brother, Ted Deutsch, recorded in 1977.
1:15:00
Martin: Two weeks crossing the Atlantic. And it was you think it was in January or February.
Ted: We got here it was in February. I don’t recall whether it was in the middle of February. I know it was February.
Martin: It was in the winter.
Ted: There was snow on the ground. The only reason I think it was February is because they were talking about the President taking office the next month. I remember that.
Martin: I see, it was in March then.
Ted: It was March 15th. And we were here already, see, in February.
Martin: March 15, 1913 would have been Wilson?
Ted: That’s right.
Martin: He was elected in 1912, and then took office on March 15, 1913. Roosevelt was going out. Teddy Roosevelt was going out.
Ted: It wasn’t Roosevelt. It was Taft.
Martin: Taft, sure.
Ted: I remember the kids were singing, “Taft, Taft you’re gone. Taft. Roosevelt next month.”
Martin: And it was Wilson, because of course he was in during the war.
Ted: That’s what makes me sure it was in February.
Martin: And you recognized that when you landed? Or…a few days after that.
Ted: When we landed we stayed with some friends for a while. The Newmans (?).
Martin: In Chicago.
Ted: In Chicago. They had a home on Christiana Avenue, just west of Humboldt Park.
Martin: They owned their home there?
Ted: They owned a home there, they lived on the second floor, and we lived on the first floor. At that time.
Martin: For just…
Ted: About six months I think
Martin: Was it that long?
Ted: Yeah.
Martin: It’s something I didn’t remember at all
Ted: We were there with them, I would say it seems six months to me. And then we moved to Claremont Avenue.
Martin: I remember the place on Claremont in the basement room.
Ted: That was still 1913.
Martin: And of course we went to school near Claremont.
Ted: We went to school. High School there, which was just around the block.
Martin: Well, to get back about the vessel and where did we…we took off from Bremen, Germany, I imagine. Where did we land in the United States, I’ve always been puzzled about that. I thought it was Ellis Island.
Ted: We didn’t land at Ellis. We came through Baltimore. That’s what I … Our passport called for Baltimore.
Martin: Well, if we had tickets on any vessel that would be scheduled for Baltimore, that’s where we came. I hadn’t heard of Baltimore being a port of Entry for immigrants, but of course I am satisfied it was. And while most everybody came through Ellis Island, we didn’t. That surprises me, but I can understand it would be true. Is there any kind of papers that would show it. So that we know that’s what happened.
Ted: I never ran across any papers that would show positively that we came through
Martin: I’m not….your memory is satisfactory I’m sure. It just surprises me. I was also wondering the actual dates. I never have seen…saw anything positive to give us the date, and the port.
1:20:00
Ted: I could never prove that we landed in Baltimore because I don’t have anything to show. If we had come through New York, we would have been put into Ellis Island for detention. We would have been detained there for processing. I don’t ever remember going through any processing over there.
Martin: Well, I would think you would be processed even in Baltimore, but it didn’t impress you somehow. I can’t imagine…you didn’t just come off the boat and come to Chicago. You went through customs, I’m satisfied.
Ted: We went through customs, but we weren’t detained there very long.
Martin: Somehow, you know I visited New York not too long ago, and I went to Ellis Island just to look at the place, and it seemed familiar to me, but I may have seen movies of it or pictures and I’m not sure whether its from my own memories when I was five or six years old and coming here that it seemed familiar. It may have been just from movies I had seen or pictures I had seen of Ellis Island. Well,
Ted: I may look into it.
Martin: I know you have the passports. And you showed it to me, and I couldn’t figure out an exact date.
Ted: Didn’t I give you the passport?
Martin: No, you took it back and you said you’d keep it. Then you were going to give it to me, and you forgot to bring it.
Ted: Last time you were here at the wedding.
Martin: No, you showed it to me here one day, and you were taking it back for some reason. You were going to look at some more papers. But that may be the --- the dates is what I’m…and the port of entry which I think should be positive, but I couldn’t figure it out from the passport, anyway. And you kind of read it. But I don’t think it gave the information about the date of embarkation or anything like that. Those would be other papers.
Ted: The passport gives you the date that you left.
Martin: The passport was issued. No, the passport was issued on a certain date. But it doesn’t say when you left.
Ted: It says you’re killeag (sp?). That means “left the county.”
Martin: All right, I looked at the visas in the passport and there was no entry whatever. It didn’t show that you went through any.
Ted: That’s right, I had noticed that.
Martin: When you go from Austria to Germany, which you had to do, or Hungary to Germany, you go through border processing, and they punched or stamped the passport to show you entered. And when you left anyplace they’d show you left. And when you arrived in the United States they ought to show you arrived.
Ted: Might have been on some other document, which I don’t have.
Martin: But it didn’t show it on that passport, and that’s what I’m remarking on.
Ted: That’s only proof when you left the country.
Martin: I think it is only proof you were issued a passport. But it doesn’t show when you left.
Ted: It does show when you left Hungary.
Martin: All right.
Ted: Because it says Killeag --- and it got the date on it. It was 1913 some time.
Martin: Now, this was one year or so before the war, you know. That was quite an achievement.
Ted: That was a coincidence.
Martin: Of course it was because nobody foretold a year before. It certainly
Ted: Nobody knew about the war. The funny part of it is Dad was not of military age, and they let him go on. If he had been of military age.
Martin: You mean he was over age. Now he had served in the military there.
Ted: Yeah!
Martin: He had I think whatever was required. He had put it in.
Ted: But he was fifty years old.
Martin: I remember him always talking about the huzzars. I think he was some kind
Ted: He was an aide.
Martin: Aide, yeah. He probably took care of their horses and boots.
Ted: That’s as far as a Jew could get.
Martin: That’s right. Of course, I don’t know if there were wars. If he had been born in…
Ted: He was in one war.
Martin: …1866 he was in the war of 78 or something like that with France or Germany.
Ted: He was in a war with Austria, Hungary and Serbia.
Martin: Serbia.
Ted: That’s the time they took over a big territory…Bosnia, called Bosnia. And that war Dad was in that war, and that was the reason the First World War started, because the Serbs were angered because Austria took Bosnia from them, and they wanted it back. They have been fighting off and on ever since. So when they had the Sarajevo affair in Serbia they assassinated the [ ] that started the first World War.
Of course it was Archduke Ferdinand who was assassinated, though I am uncertain of the word Ted uses at the end of this section, and I'm also uncertain of the word (probably Hungarian) which appeared on their passport and Ted says meant "left the country." It sounds like Ted says they stayed with the 'Newmans' upon their arrival in Chicago. However, the Newmans would have been cousins instead of friends.
It was the war of 1878 where Austria occupied Bosnia. They annexed Bosnia in 1908...which led to WWI. My great grandfather's service papers indicate he was in the army from 1881-1907.
Their passenger manifest found online indicates they arrived on the Rhein from Bremen in the Port of Baltimore on March 20, 1913...five days after the inauguration.
However, I don't doubt that with the closeness of Baltimore to DC there was a lot of talk on the streets about the inaugural -- and I suspect Ted's understanding of English wasn't great then, or his memory sixty years later of what he heard was faulty.
If you choose to join me in Amanuensis Monday and post your transcriptions, feel free to add a link to your post below, or in the comments.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Weekly Picks
Saturday September 26 - Sunday October 4
A selection of blog entries and newspapers articles from the past week:
A selection of blog entries and newspapers articles from the past week:
- AnceStories' October 2009 Calendar of Events
- Genealogy's Star on standards of genealogical evidence
- NARAtions (the blog of the National Archives) asks for input on the process for ordering copies of their archival records.
- Daly History has an entry on Birth, Marriage and Death certificates in the UK
- footnoteMaven at Shades of the Departed has an entry on pet photography in the 1870s and 1880s
- Craig Manson at Shades of the Departed has an entry on what to do if one thinks they may have Classified Photographs
- GeneaMusings has a list of unindexed databases at Ancestry.com. (I discovered the Missouri Still Birth and Miscellaneous records back in March of 2008. I still haven't found time to browse through the 72,000 pages of unindexed material for St. Louis.)
- Cpaphill Vintage Postcards links to the Official Channel of the British Monarchy on YouTube, which has several historical videos of interest.
- Auschwitz blueprints are online (hat tip: GenealogyBlog)
- A press release from LiveRoots.com (hat tip: MoSGA Messenger)
- On September 26th, Robert M. Doerr, editor of the Missouri State Genealogical Association Journal, passed away at the age of 82.
- Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis marks its 160th anniversary
- Ardi, the oldest and most complete skeleton of a potential human ancestor
- Velveteen Rabbi's poem for Sukkot (A week-long Jewish festival which began the evening of October 2nd)
Friday, October 2, 2009
Poetry: Perseverance - by Gelett Burgess
From: Goops and how to be them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants Inculcating Many Juvenile Virtues Both By Precept and Example With Ninety Drawings -- by Gelett BurgessHere's the text:
Perseverance - by Gelett Burgess
Tony started bright and early, clearing up his room,
Soon he found he had to stop and make a little broom;
So then he went into the yard to get a little stick,
But the garden needed weeding, so he set about it, quick!
Then he found his wagon he intended to repair
So he went into the cellar for the hammer that was there;
He'd just begun to build a box, when it was time for dinner,
And that's why Tony's father called his son a "good beginner."
Tony started bright and early, clearing up his room,
Soon he found he had to stop and make a little broom;
So then he went into the yard to get a little stick,
But the garden needed weeding, so he set about it, quick!
Then he found his wagon he intended to repair
So he went into the cellar for the hammer that was there;
He'd just begun to build a box, when it was time for dinner,
And that's why Tony's father called his son a "good beginner."
Burgess is best known for his poem about never having seen a purple cow. Though he wrote a lot of other humorous verse. At times I have found I can identify with the character of Tony in the above poem. I can easily get distracted.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Carnival of Genealogy #81: Writing a Blog Obituary
The assignment for the 81st Carnival of Genealogy: "If your blog ended or was lost/deleted today, how would you write its obituary?"
TransylvanianDutch, the genealogy blog written by Missourian, John Newmark, was lost today. The blog had its origins in April of 2007 on another blog by the same name, and maintained by the same author. A friend of Mr. Newmark's introduced him to an online genealogy site, which turned out to be a 'gateway drug' for this resident of the 'Gateway City'.
Mr. Newmark had been blogging since 2002, so when he moved his genealogy writing to its own space on Blogspot he transferred a few older posts on the topic, but the true origin of the blog has to be identified as April of 2007.
TransylvanianDutch (sometimes referred to affectionately as TransDutch) had received some recognition, being listed in the Top 25 Most Popular Genealogy Blogs in April of 2009 by ProGenealogists, as well as being added to AllTop's list of Top Genealogy sites in August of 2008.
At the funeral, several fellow geneablogs talked about what they would miss about TransDutch. Some said they would miss the weekly Amanuensis Monday posts. Others said they were always impressed by the high quality of English.
The Coroner's Report is uncertain about cause of death. There are rumors that a programmer in Mountain View, California spilled a glass of orange juice on the servers and the bits and bytes containing two years worth of data were lost in a second. Author, John Newmark, hadn't backed up the posts. Ashamed, he returned to his former blog, and says he will return to blogging about politics, religion and the other stuff he was writing about before his genealogy obsession. Fans of his genealogy posts tried to talk some sense into him -- comparing the five people who used to read his blog to the current numbers. But he refused to listen.
Contributions should be sent to the Dead Blog Fund.
Creative Note: When I was in high school, one summer I attended a 'Creative Writing Camp' in Michigan. We were given a similar assignment and had to write an obituary for ourselves. I entitled my obituary: "Death by Orange Juice." I had recently learned that one can drown from having one's beverage go 'down the wrong tube.' So I decided I had to give my blog a similar cause of death.
And yes, this is just a creative exercise; this blog isn't dead. And I do back up my posts.
But I have been thinking about occasionally (maybe once a week) writing down some of my non-genealogical thoughts here. Stuff in addition to the social networking posts I've written lately.
TransylvanianDutch, the genealogy blog written by Missourian, John Newmark, was lost today. The blog had its origins in April of 2007 on another blog by the same name, and maintained by the same author. A friend of Mr. Newmark's introduced him to an online genealogy site, which turned out to be a 'gateway drug' for this resident of the 'Gateway City'.
Mr. Newmark had been blogging since 2002, so when he moved his genealogy writing to its own space on Blogspot he transferred a few older posts on the topic, but the true origin of the blog has to be identified as April of 2007.
TransylvanianDutch (sometimes referred to affectionately as TransDutch) had received some recognition, being listed in the Top 25 Most Popular Genealogy Blogs in April of 2009 by ProGenealogists, as well as being added to AllTop's list of Top Genealogy sites in August of 2008.
At the funeral, several fellow geneablogs talked about what they would miss about TransDutch. Some said they would miss the weekly Amanuensis Monday posts. Others said they were always impressed by the high quality of English.
The Coroner's Report is uncertain about cause of death. There are rumors that a programmer in Mountain View, California spilled a glass of orange juice on the servers and the bits and bytes containing two years worth of data were lost in a second. Author, John Newmark, hadn't backed up the posts. Ashamed, he returned to his former blog, and says he will return to blogging about politics, religion and the other stuff he was writing about before his genealogy obsession. Fans of his genealogy posts tried to talk some sense into him -- comparing the five people who used to read his blog to the current numbers. But he refused to listen.
Contributions should be sent to the Dead Blog Fund.
Creative Note: When I was in high school, one summer I attended a 'Creative Writing Camp' in Michigan. We were given a similar assignment and had to write an obituary for ourselves. I entitled my obituary: "Death by Orange Juice." I had recently learned that one can drown from having one's beverage go 'down the wrong tube.' So I decided I had to give my blog a similar cause of death.
And yes, this is just a creative exercise; this blog isn't dead. And I do back up my posts.
But I have been thinking about occasionally (maybe once a week) writing down some of my non-genealogical thoughts here. Stuff in addition to the social networking posts I've written lately.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Kutano - Combining Twitter and Google's Sidewiki into one App
As I mentioned in my post about Google's SideWiki -- they also opened up their API to allow others to create applications that use comments left in SideWiki.
I received the below email yesterday (Tuesday) morning from a Marketing Manager at Kutano:
First the technical requirements:
Kutano claims that it works on Firefox 3 with Windows (x64 or x86 of XP and above), MacOSX, or Linux. And with Internet Explorer 7 or 8 (32-bits) with Windows (x64 or x86 of XP and above)
I am using it on Firefox 3 with MacOSX.
The Kutano Experience
As a Twitter Application
Kutano creates a fully functional Twitter sidebar on your browser, as can be seen below, but the arrow button in the lower right minimizes the sidebar. Two of the buttons to the right of the textbox are "Tweet about this page" and "insert current page URL". For both Kutano creates its own shortened url for the page. For the former it also adds the text "Reading __Page Title__"
Alone, these are nice added features.
As a SideTwitter
In the above image you can see all the tweets for my recent Wordless Wednesday post. The one tweet from my TransDutch account which automatically tweets every blog entry. Occasionally some of my posts get a little more TwitterLove, but to illustrate the features better, I went to CNN.com
Now I am looking at all the Discussions for CNN. The yellow boxes near the bottom of the panel represent comments pulled in from Google's SideWiki application. The other comments are from Kutano. The numbers in the icons indicate how many posts in each discussion thread.
The email I received from Kutano also indicated Google's API for SideWiki allows them to pull in the comments from SideWiki to use in their App. However, it doesn't provide a mechanism to send comments in the other direction. So discussions that take place on Kutano remain on Kutano.
Thoughts
I don't see myself getting involved in too many side-discussions about a page. Unless of course discussions form around my blog, or any other websites I maintain. I expect most people who have a comment about my blog to post it in the comment threads, or email me. However, not every website has a place to leave comments.
I remember a time not too long ago, back when I was in college and frequented the Usenet bulletin boards, where these discussion threads would have been more appealing to me.
For me the benefit of SideWiki (and Kutano) is the ability to leave notes on a page that otherwise doesn't provide a means to do so. (A blog that doesn't allow comments, or a normal web page without a discussion forum.) The note may provide more information the page doesn't already contain -- or indicate any inaccuracies I feel are there.
I do like the ease of use of Kutano as a Twitter application.
I received the below email yesterday (Tuesday) morning from a Marketing Manager at Kutano:
I came across your post about Google SideWiki and wanted to let you know that this morning we are expecting to release what we believe to be the very first Sidewiki client ever!I didn't have time yesterday to test it out, but I have this evening.
Our tool, Kutano, already works as something of a "SideTwitter", showing tweets about each web page and website directly beside the page and allowing for conversations and comments on the page as well. However, as of early this morning (10AM), Kutano will also be pulling in "high quality" comments that are made in Google's Sidewiki.
The advantage of this, aside from being able to collectively view web page related tweets, Sidewiki and Kutano comments in one place, is that Kutano will also allow users to respond to and start interactive discussions around comments made in Sidewiki. Currently, Sidewiki comments are not threaded and there is no way to respond and engage another person that commented on the web page. Additionally, there is not yet a way to have multiple discussion topics on one page. But using Kutano, people will be able to engage in more interactive and topic-varied discussions about each web page using Sidewiki comments as well as existing web page related tweets and Kutano comments. As can already be done with existing Kutano discussions, users will also be able to tweet out entire discussions as well.
First the technical requirements:
Kutano claims that it works on Firefox 3 with Windows (x64 or x86 of XP and above), MacOSX, or Linux. And with Internet Explorer 7 or 8 (32-bits) with Windows (x64 or x86 of XP and above)
I am using it on Firefox 3 with MacOSX.
The Kutano Experience
As a Twitter Application
Kutano creates a fully functional Twitter sidebar on your browser, as can be seen below, but the arrow button in the lower right minimizes the sidebar. Two of the buttons to the right of the textbox are "Tweet about this page" and "insert current page URL". For both Kutano creates its own shortened url for the page. For the former it also adds the text "Reading __Page Title__"
Alone, these are nice added features.As a SideTwitter
In the above image you can see all the tweets for my recent Wordless Wednesday post. The one tweet from my TransDutch account which automatically tweets every blog entry. Occasionally some of my posts get a little more TwitterLove, but to illustrate the features better, I went to CNN.com
Now I am looking at all the Discussions for CNN. The yellow boxes near the bottom of the panel represent comments pulled in from Google's SideWiki application. The other comments are from Kutano. The numbers in the icons indicate how many posts in each discussion thread.The email I received from Kutano also indicated Google's API for SideWiki allows them to pull in the comments from SideWiki to use in their App. However, it doesn't provide a mechanism to send comments in the other direction. So discussions that take place on Kutano remain on Kutano.
Thoughts
I don't see myself getting involved in too many side-discussions about a page. Unless of course discussions form around my blog, or any other websites I maintain. I expect most people who have a comment about my blog to post it in the comment threads, or email me. However, not every website has a place to leave comments.
I remember a time not too long ago, back when I was in college and frequented the Usenet bulletin boards, where these discussion threads would have been more appealing to me.
For me the benefit of SideWiki (and Kutano) is the ability to leave notes on a page that otherwise doesn't provide a means to do so. (A blog that doesn't allow comments, or a normal web page without a discussion forum.) The note may provide more information the page doesn't already contain -- or indicate any inaccuracies I feel are there.
I do like the ease of use of Kutano as a Twitter application.
Wordless Wednesday: Cactus Flower in San Marcos, Texas
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tombstone Tuesday - Minnie (Mojsabovski) Cruvant
Transcription: Here is interred 
Here is one of the few photographs I have of my second great-grandmother, Minnie (Mojsabovski) Cruvant, wife of Moshe Leyb.
They immigrated to America from Lithuania circa 1875-1885.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Amanuensis Monday: Sauerkraut, Palascinta, the Titanic, and the Rhein
Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
I continue transcribing in ten minute segments the tape my grandfather, Martin Deutsch, and his older brother, Ted Deutsch, recorded in 1977.
They had begun talking about their immigration to America in 1913 (at ages 6 and 11), but have returned to talking about the farm they lived on in Transylvania.
1:05:00
Ted: We had a place we called the cellar, but that was under the barn.
Martin: The cold storage
Ted: Where we kept sauerkraut
Martin: And the apples, we’d save during the winter
Ted: We had enough to last the winter anyhow. In the spring we had to live out of the garden. New stuff coming up. Cucumbers.
Martin: You always had enough sauerkraut, cabbage I guess
Ted: Yeah we had that, we had a barrel of sauerkraut.
Martin: I remember you had to cut up your cabbage and throw in the stuff, and
Ted: And take a rock and put it over it
Martin: I thought you went in there and stepped on it to squeeze it down. I know you did that with wines and grapes.
Ted: We did that when we made wine, yeah. We’d get in barefoot and press the wine. I don’t recall doing it on sauerkraut. I didn’t make that much of it.
Martin: I had a recollection of that, but I might be wrong.
Ted: I know we had to keep it in a barrel in the basement, and we had a big rock to keep the cover on it.
Martin: And we probably had several barrels of it, so if nothing else you were going to have sauerkraut.
Ted: That’s right.
Martin: I don’t know where we got bread, wheat, and flour
Ted: Dad got that in trade. The bread and the wheat
Martin: Did we have to make our own flour
Ted: Yeah, we had to grind it. We had that grinder. A primitive grinder. Two kinds of wheel connected to a rod, turn the wheel around.
Martin: It was probably a heavy stone that ground it
Ted: We made our own flour. Or if you wanted to there was a mill over there. Next to the river there was a mill.
Martin: The old mill stream.
Ted: The mill was built way down below the level of the river so we had a waterfall driving the wheel of the mill.
Martin: Which was the common thing of course.
Ted: You could take it there and they’d grind it for you for a small amount of money. So we had wheat stored, and we had corn stored. And when we wanted to use it we would grind it ourselves. The corn we ground ourselves, but the wheat we didn’t. I think the wheat we took to the mill.
Martin: I know in later years I remember we kept chickens, so we had some eggs I suppose. If nothing else.
Ted: Yeah we had eggs.
Martin: We probably didn’t have much meat of any kind.
Ted: We also made…during the season we made cheese from goat milk, or we also had lambs. People had lambs. We went up and they made cheese in big brown cakes, and we’d take the cheese home. That would last a long time.
Martin: We’d probably have something like they have in Mexico, what do you call it, palacsinta. You can always bake those
Ted: You always make that, and they stay a long time. But they have those big brown wheels of cheese they make up in the mountains and bring it down. They’d hang it up in the home to dry.
Martin: I was just trying to figure out how we got our meats. We didn’t have any.
Ted: Meats. We had a butcher that opened up once on Friday every week. That was the only time you could get meat.
Martin: And your meat was probably poultry mostly.
Ted: Poultry we used at home. We had poultry at home we raised. But if you wanted meat you could buy it at the butcher shop that was open once a week on Fridays.
Martin: They probably would slaughter a cow or something, kosherized course.
Ted: If you wanted a chicken killed you would have to go to the shochet who would kill it for you. You couldn’t kill it yourself. That’s how we got our meats.
Martin: Well, Jean then took care of the crowd. It was only for a period of a year. Mother left there and I still haven’t – you showed me that passport, but I couldn’t figure out the year. I think the year was omitted in some way. Or it gave a year, of course a passport needn’t be used the time it was issued. You can have it in your possession for a year.
Ted: We got here in this country in February 1913.
Martin: February 1913. It sounds approximately. I saw a movie just a few nights ago on television of the sinking of the Titanic which was in October or November of 1912. I do remember from my own memory about discussions about the ocean vessel sinking. It was a deterrent at the time.
Ted: I remember too. We had newspapers. Hungarian papers had the story about the sinking and the life lost on the Titanic. And the news came to us finally. It rippled down to the villages.
Martin: It must have been a deterrent to most people that were thinking of coming over.
Ted: It didn’t hit me as a kid. It didn’t mean much to me.
Martin: It was still an adventure to you, I imagine.
Ted: Even when I read about the disaster I didn’t realize at my age how many people died. It didn’t register with me even at my age.
Martin: I’m trying to figure out a sort of…if mother came over one year before, which was 1912.
Ted: She came in 1912
Martin: Then she must have earned enough to put a down payment.
Ted: That’s right. She was here a year before
Martin: Suppose she earned 2-300 dollars, that would do it, wouldn’t it as a down payment.
Ted: Of course she lived with her sister, and she probably didn’t have to pay too much board or lodging with her.
Martin: She probably borrowed some too.
Ted: She put everything away. But she signed up and they gave her credit for the entire family if it …. I really don’t know what the amount was for the entire family. Maybe they got a rate for kids. You know, smaller kids didn’t have to pay, or half fare. But I would say the amount of at least 500 dollars. Which was a lot of money in those days.
Martin: Especially for her and she had to live on it
Ted: Which would also include train fare.
Martin: After all Chicago is quite a ways
Ted: From New York, and the train from Varalmas to Bremen.
Martin: Yeah I was wondering about the ride from Varalmas to wherever you’re going
Ted: Bremen
Martin: And you’re covering a thousand miles there.
Ted: Maybe it cost more, I don’t really know.
Martin: I think you had to come through Hungry and Austria, and then cross over through Germany to Bremen, which was on the West Coast of Germany.
Ted: We crossed to Germany. We went to Germany.
Martin: We had to get through Austria to get to Germany.
Ted: I doubt it. We had to go South
Martin: You had to go North. That area where we were was almost the southeast corner of Austria Hungary. You see it ultimately was ceded to Romania, which was southwest of Hungary. Southeast I mean.
Ted: We had to get to Bremen and I know we went through Berlin. That I know.
Martin: You might have gone through Berlin. You might have gone up to Vienna and across to Berlin and over to Bremen. That’s my thought what happened. And do you think we took a train then?
Ted: We were on a train
Martin: That’s right, I don’t have any kind of recollection.
Ted: That was my first trip on a train. I’ll never forget it because we took the train. We went to Huedin, we got on the train. And I remember going through Berlin because they told us on the train this is Berlin, and I saw the first time electric lights over there in Berlin.
Martin: I imagine that’s where I saw my first automobile.
Ted: Well we didn’t get off in Berlin
Martin: We stayed on the train all the way
Ted: We stayed on the train to Bremen. We didn’t get off until Bremen. And waited there for the ship. The Bremen Rhein was the name of the ship.
Martin: You think the Bremen Rhein. A German passenger ship.
Ted: That was the name of the ship, the Bremen Rhein. We were on the ship for two weeks.
One of the difficulties of transcribing audio is running across an unfamiliar word, and trying to figure out what is being said. For example, I heard what sounded like "polechenta" and from context sounded like it should be a Mexican dish of some sort my grandfather was familiar with and reminded him of a Hungarian dish. But it took several creative searches to come upon Palascinta - a Hungarian crepe.
The route from Varalmas to Bremen is definitely Northwesterly.
I continue transcribing in ten minute segments the tape my grandfather, Martin Deutsch, and his older brother, Ted Deutsch, recorded in 1977.
They had begun talking about their immigration to America in 1913 (at ages 6 and 11), but have returned to talking about the farm they lived on in Transylvania.
1:05:00
Ted: We had a place we called the cellar, but that was under the barn.
Martin: The cold storage
Ted: Where we kept sauerkraut
Martin: And the apples, we’d save during the winter
Ted: We had enough to last the winter anyhow. In the spring we had to live out of the garden. New stuff coming up. Cucumbers.
Martin: You always had enough sauerkraut, cabbage I guess
Ted: Yeah we had that, we had a barrel of sauerkraut.
Martin: I remember you had to cut up your cabbage and throw in the stuff, and
Ted: And take a rock and put it over it
Martin: I thought you went in there and stepped on it to squeeze it down. I know you did that with wines and grapes.
Ted: We did that when we made wine, yeah. We’d get in barefoot and press the wine. I don’t recall doing it on sauerkraut. I didn’t make that much of it.
Martin: I had a recollection of that, but I might be wrong.
Ted: I know we had to keep it in a barrel in the basement, and we had a big rock to keep the cover on it.
Martin: And we probably had several barrels of it, so if nothing else you were going to have sauerkraut.
Ted: That’s right.
Martin: I don’t know where we got bread, wheat, and flour
Ted: Dad got that in trade. The bread and the wheat
Martin: Did we have to make our own flour
Ted: Yeah, we had to grind it. We had that grinder. A primitive grinder. Two kinds of wheel connected to a rod, turn the wheel around.
Martin: It was probably a heavy stone that ground it
Ted: We made our own flour. Or if you wanted to there was a mill over there. Next to the river there was a mill.
Martin: The old mill stream.
Ted: The mill was built way down below the level of the river so we had a waterfall driving the wheel of the mill.
Martin: Which was the common thing of course.
Ted: You could take it there and they’d grind it for you for a small amount of money. So we had wheat stored, and we had corn stored. And when we wanted to use it we would grind it ourselves. The corn we ground ourselves, but the wheat we didn’t. I think the wheat we took to the mill.
Martin: I know in later years I remember we kept chickens, so we had some eggs I suppose. If nothing else.
Ted: Yeah we had eggs.
Martin: We probably didn’t have much meat of any kind.
Ted: We also made…during the season we made cheese from goat milk, or we also had lambs. People had lambs. We went up and they made cheese in big brown cakes, and we’d take the cheese home. That would last a long time.
Martin: We’d probably have something like they have in Mexico, what do you call it, palacsinta. You can always bake those
Ted: You always make that, and they stay a long time. But they have those big brown wheels of cheese they make up in the mountains and bring it down. They’d hang it up in the home to dry.
Martin: I was just trying to figure out how we got our meats. We didn’t have any.
Ted: Meats. We had a butcher that opened up once on Friday every week. That was the only time you could get meat.
Martin: And your meat was probably poultry mostly.
Ted: Poultry we used at home. We had poultry at home we raised. But if you wanted meat you could buy it at the butcher shop that was open once a week on Fridays.
Martin: They probably would slaughter a cow or something, kosherized course.
Ted: If you wanted a chicken killed you would have to go to the shochet who would kill it for you. You couldn’t kill it yourself. That’s how we got our meats.
Martin: Well, Jean then took care of the crowd. It was only for a period of a year. Mother left there and I still haven’t – you showed me that passport, but I couldn’t figure out the year. I think the year was omitted in some way. Or it gave a year, of course a passport needn’t be used the time it was issued. You can have it in your possession for a year.
1:10:00
Ted: We got here in this country in February 1913.
Martin: February 1913. It sounds approximately. I saw a movie just a few nights ago on television of the sinking of the Titanic which was in October or November of 1912. I do remember from my own memory about discussions about the ocean vessel sinking. It was a deterrent at the time.
Ted: I remember too. We had newspapers. Hungarian papers had the story about the sinking and the life lost on the Titanic. And the news came to us finally. It rippled down to the villages.
Martin: It must have been a deterrent to most people that were thinking of coming over.
Ted: It didn’t hit me as a kid. It didn’t mean much to me.
Martin: It was still an adventure to you, I imagine.
Ted: Even when I read about the disaster I didn’t realize at my age how many people died. It didn’t register with me even at my age.
Martin: I’m trying to figure out a sort of…if mother came over one year before, which was 1912.
Ted: She came in 1912
Martin: Then she must have earned enough to put a down payment.
Ted: That’s right. She was here a year before
Martin: Suppose she earned 2-300 dollars, that would do it, wouldn’t it as a down payment.
Ted: Of course she lived with her sister, and she probably didn’t have to pay too much board or lodging with her.
Martin: She probably borrowed some too.
Ted: She put everything away. But she signed up and they gave her credit for the entire family if it …. I really don’t know what the amount was for the entire family. Maybe they got a rate for kids. You know, smaller kids didn’t have to pay, or half fare. But I would say the amount of at least 500 dollars. Which was a lot of money in those days.
Martin: Especially for her and she had to live on it
Ted: Which would also include train fare.
Martin: After all Chicago is quite a ways
Ted: From New York, and the train from Varalmas to Bremen.
Martin: Yeah I was wondering about the ride from Varalmas to wherever you’re going
Ted: Bremen
Martin: And you’re covering a thousand miles there.
Ted: Maybe it cost more, I don’t really know.
Martin: I think you had to come through Hungry and Austria, and then cross over through Germany to Bremen, which was on the West Coast of Germany.
Ted: We crossed to Germany. We went to Germany.
Martin: We had to get through Austria to get to Germany.
Ted: I doubt it. We had to go South
Martin: You had to go North. That area where we were was almost the southeast corner of Austria Hungary. You see it ultimately was ceded to Romania, which was southwest of Hungary. Southeast I mean.
Ted: We had to get to Bremen and I know we went through Berlin. That I know.
Martin: You might have gone through Berlin. You might have gone up to Vienna and across to Berlin and over to Bremen. That’s my thought what happened. And do you think we took a train then?
Ted: We were on a train
Martin: That’s right, I don’t have any kind of recollection.
Ted: That was my first trip on a train. I’ll never forget it because we took the train. We went to Huedin, we got on the train. And I remember going through Berlin because they told us on the train this is Berlin, and I saw the first time electric lights over there in Berlin.
Martin: I imagine that’s where I saw my first automobile.
Ted: Well we didn’t get off in Berlin
Martin: We stayed on the train all the way
Ted: We stayed on the train to Bremen. We didn’t get off until Bremen. And waited there for the ship. The Bremen Rhein was the name of the ship.
Martin: You think the Bremen Rhein. A German passenger ship.
Ted: That was the name of the ship, the Bremen Rhein. We were on the ship for two weeks.
One of the difficulties of transcribing audio is running across an unfamiliar word, and trying to figure out what is being said. For example, I heard what sounded like "polechenta" and from context sounded like it should be a Mexican dish of some sort my grandfather was familiar with and reminded him of a Hungarian dish. But it took several creative searches to come upon Palascinta - a Hungarian crepe.
Recipes for sauerkraut do indicate pressing is necessary, but nowhere do I see any suggestion to use one's feet, as with grapes.
The route from Varalmas to Bremen is definitely Northwesterly.
I like how Ted's memory of the train ride to Bremen is reinforced through his recollection of the first time he saw electric lights at the stop in Berlin.
If you choose to join me in Amanuensis Monday and post your transcriptions, feel free to add a link to your post below, or in the comments.
If you choose to join me in Amanuensis Monday and post your transcriptions, feel free to add a link to your post below, or in the comments.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Return of Weekly Picks
Back in January I got the idea I would create a weekly list of notable blog posts and news stories related to genealogy. Others do it, and I've found stuff I've missed in their lists, and perhaps I can return the favor. However, my weekly lists ended after about a month.
I had the notion to do this again a week ago. It may not be a coincidence that it is the beginning of another "New Year."
The relationship to genealogy for some of the links below will be a stretch, but I felt the items were still worth sharing.
Saturday September 19 - Friday September 25
On International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Tracing The Tribe expanded upon my entry, and discussed additional Sephardic Jewish Pirates.
The Genetic Genealogist has an entry on Tracing DNA to Individual Ancestors, and how scientists have been able to trace the genes responsible for some hereditary diseases.
The official blog of JewishGen has an entry on how the Jewish Genealogy Society of Long Island helped a metal detector hobbyist return a class ring to someone who had lost their ring in Sag Harbor Bay fifty years before.
What's Past is Prologue has had a couple entries on Passenger Manifests: Manifest Markings and Accidental Discoveries
I enjoyed Geneamusing's photograph on his "Wordly Wednesday" of a great great uncle using a 1916 telephone.
Carnival of Genealogy: Tracing the Tribe is hosting the October 1st CoG, and the theme is to write an obituary for your blog. Here is footnoteMaven's official poster for the CoG.
Hamilton's Habitat blogs about finding a photograph of her distant four-legged relative. And here's her entry a year ago when she learned about the woman. (A rare form of 'conjoined twinning' actually gave her two sets of legs.) The Genealogue had an entry on the woman, Josephine Myrtle (Corbin) Bicknell back in 2006.
While he isn't a geneablogger, and his blog is one of the most popular on the net, there are probably a few who missed Wil Wheaton's post celebrating the memory of his awesome dog. (Wheaton is best known for his television role as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek:TNG, and his roles in the films Stand By Me, and Toy Soldiers. He still does some occasional acting, but has begun a new career as a writer.)
Google has digitized Life Magazine's entire weekly run. (hat tip: Good Morning Silicon Valley)
Newspaper Articles
An article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch discussed how some schools are no longer teaching cursive handwriting, making some fear there will come a time when we are no longer able to read the letters of our ancestors, or other historical documents.
In the National Jewish Student Voice there is an article on whether the E-book is Good for the Jews -- "As Judaism protects texts so much that there are genizot, cemeteries for holy writings, literature is a vital piece of the culture, but the advent of the Kindle may mean the end of that culture as we know it." (hat tip: Jewish Publication Society blog). [I'd argue we protect the text, not the medium through which it is distributed. I was reminded of a 1998 article comparing The Talmud and Hypertext.]
Metro.co.uk has a 'Separated at Birth' story on how two twins met each other when they became employees of the same company.
On evolution: The St. Louis Post Dispatch has an article on how chimpanzees in the Congo are developing 'tool kits' for hunting.
DiscoveryNews has an article on whether mankind's evolutionary ancestors - Neanderthal and Australopithecus - were monogamous, and how scientists think they may be able to tell.
The Daily Mail has an article on the completion of the Fifth Revision of Confucius' family tree, (hat tip: GenealogyBlog ) Back in February of 2008 I blogged about their decision to stop looking for more descendants. I first heard about the revision back in September of 2007, when I learned it would be the first revision to include his female descendants.
Video:
A video on the Information Revolution (hat tip: Dividing by Zero)
I had the notion to do this again a week ago. It may not be a coincidence that it is the beginning of another "New Year."
The relationship to genealogy for some of the links below will be a stretch, but I felt the items were still worth sharing.
Saturday September 19 - Friday September 25
On International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Tracing The Tribe expanded upon my entry, and discussed additional Sephardic Jewish Pirates.
The Genetic Genealogist has an entry on Tracing DNA to Individual Ancestors, and how scientists have been able to trace the genes responsible for some hereditary diseases.
The official blog of JewishGen has an entry on how the Jewish Genealogy Society of Long Island helped a metal detector hobbyist return a class ring to someone who had lost their ring in Sag Harbor Bay fifty years before.
What's Past is Prologue has had a couple entries on Passenger Manifests: Manifest Markings and Accidental Discoveries
I enjoyed Geneamusing's photograph on his "Wordly Wednesday" of a great great uncle using a 1916 telephone.
Carnival of Genealogy: Tracing the Tribe is hosting the October 1st CoG, and the theme is to write an obituary for your blog. Here is footnoteMaven's official poster for the CoG.
Hamilton's Habitat blogs about finding a photograph of her distant four-legged relative. And here's her entry a year ago when she learned about the woman. (A rare form of 'conjoined twinning' actually gave her two sets of legs.) The Genealogue had an entry on the woman, Josephine Myrtle (Corbin) Bicknell back in 2006.
While he isn't a geneablogger, and his blog is one of the most popular on the net, there are probably a few who missed Wil Wheaton's post celebrating the memory of his awesome dog. (Wheaton is best known for his television role as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek:TNG, and his roles in the films Stand By Me, and Toy Soldiers. He still does some occasional acting, but has begun a new career as a writer.)
Google has digitized Life Magazine's entire weekly run. (hat tip: Good Morning Silicon Valley)
Newspaper Articles
An article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch discussed how some schools are no longer teaching cursive handwriting, making some fear there will come a time when we are no longer able to read the letters of our ancestors, or other historical documents.
In the National Jewish Student Voice there is an article on whether the E-book is Good for the Jews -- "As Judaism protects texts so much that there are genizot, cemeteries for holy writings, literature is a vital piece of the culture, but the advent of the Kindle may mean the end of that culture as we know it." (hat tip: Jewish Publication Society blog). [I'd argue we protect the text, not the medium through which it is distributed. I was reminded of a 1998 article comparing The Talmud and Hypertext.]
Metro.co.uk has a 'Separated at Birth' story on how two twins met each other when they became employees of the same company.
On evolution: The St. Louis Post Dispatch has an article on how chimpanzees in the Congo are developing 'tool kits' for hunting.
DiscoveryNews has an article on whether mankind's evolutionary ancestors - Neanderthal and Australopithecus - were monogamous, and how scientists think they may be able to tell.
The Daily Mail has an article on the completion of the Fifth Revision of Confucius' family tree, (hat tip: GenealogyBlog ) Back in February of 2008 I blogged about their decision to stop looking for more descendants. I first heard about the revision back in September of 2007, when I learned it would be the first revision to include his female descendants.
Video:
A video on the Information Revolution (hat tip: Dividing by Zero)
Friday, September 25, 2009
Who to Invite?
Back in January of 2008, the 41st Carnival of Genealogy challenged us to come up with a dinner party of five - by inviting four ancestors, and including ourselves. I cheated and hosted two parties.
"Sarah" at the Jewish Publication Society blog asked the question: Which Five Jewish Authors Would You Invite to your Break-Fast meal?. She provided her five choices.
Schelly Talalay Dardashti at Tracing the Tribe provided her five.
While I'm not in the same position as I was in January of 2008, of having to choose between ancestors, I am grateful for having an additional seat at the table.
1) Joseph Heller (1923-1999) -- I was introduced to Catch-22 in high school and became hooked on Heller's brand of dark humor. I also read Something Happened, God Knows, Picture This, and the autobiographical, No Laughing Matter.
2) Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) -- Former US Poet Laureate, the late author was a professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 1969-1991. For many years he was my favorite living poet. I heard him perform when I was in 7th or 8th grade. However, my timing was off, and I was unable to have him as a professor before he died.
3) Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) -- A voracious reader since the age of six, I became hooked on science fiction early. I may not have read my first Asimov until junior high -- I'm not positive. But he earned a place on this list with his Robot novels, and his collection of (I believe) 576 limericks (288 each) he co-wrote with Martin Ciardi, Limericks: Too Gross
4) Mel Brooks (1926 - alive) -- I can't resist inviting the creator of Get Smart, The Producers, and History of the World Part I. He and Joseph Heller were actually good friends, and regularly ate together in a "Gourmet Club" with Mario Puzo, Carl Reiner, Zero Mostel, and Speed Vogel. So I suspect I might be able to get both of them to share some tales of each other, and their mutual friends.
5) Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) -- Because I need a woman at the table, I like her poetry, and I suspect her wit will be a fair match to the others.
Two things I notice:
1) They are all English-speaking modern authors, Dorothy being the eldest. Four of them are basically contemporaries, born within six years of each other. There are definitely authors from the deep past I could invite. However, this way there is no need for interpreters.
2) None of them were/are overly religious (to my knowledge). I suspect more than one would classify themselves as an Atheist or Agnostic. Though I suspect at least four of the five identify/identified enough with their religious heritage to fast on Yom Kippur.
Poetry: Lost Generation by Jonathan Reed
Note: I've decided to be a little more diverse in my selections for Poetry Friday, and I am no longer restricting myself to genealogy-related poems. Instead, I would like to share poems that move me, or inspire me.
Below is "Lost Generation", a video poem created by Jonathan Reed for an AARP challenge to youth/college students in 2008 to imagine themselves at 50. The video came in second place, but it became somewhat of a sensation, and currently has been viewed over 6.5 million times. Which is impressive since the video consists solely of scrolling words on a black screen with corresponding audio. (Give it at least 55 seconds before you decide to stop listening.)
Below is "Lost Generation", a video poem created by Jonathan Reed for an AARP challenge to youth/college students in 2008 to imagine themselves at 50. The video came in second place, but it became somewhat of a sensation, and currently has been viewed over 6.5 million times. Which is impressive since the video consists solely of scrolling words on a black screen with corresponding audio. (Give it at least 55 seconds before you decide to stop listening.)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
OFallon, IL City Records
The Belleville News-Democrat reported on Monday that the city of O'Fallon, Illinois has put their city records online.
The Public Documents section is set up as a series of folders and subfolders like on your own computer.
Inside the City Clerk/Public/Cemetery Minutes Agenda/Cemetery Disposition Records subfolder there are a series of folders with years from 1963-2009 containing scans of the Authorizations family gave the city to bury the deceased in the OFallon City Cemetery. There's no index, but if you know the year someone died, you can browse through the entries for that year until you find your relative. The documents contain
I haven't looked through all the documents, so there might be some other items of interest. There's definitely a lot there for those interested in the local government process, and history of the city.
O'FALLON -- If you want to peruse the city's bills or check on the ordinance about O'Fallon's special election of 1936, now you can do it from the comfort of your own home.To my knowledge, I don't have any kin who are current or past residents of the city. However, their new Public Documents section does contain information that might be of interest to Family Historians who do.
As the culmination of what he called an eight-year project, City Clerk Phil Goodwin said any records someone might normally come down to City Hall to see are now available online.
"With the assistance of the city's Information Technology Department, access to public documents via our Web site is now a reality," Goodwin said. "I have been striving toward this goal since I ran for office in 2001."
The Public Documents section is set up as a series of folders and subfolders like on your own computer.
Inside the City Clerk/Public/Cemetery Minutes Agenda/Cemetery Disposition Records subfolder there are a series of folders with years from 1963-2009 containing scans of the Authorizations family gave the city to bury the deceased in the OFallon City Cemetery. There's no index, but if you know the year someone died, you can browse through the entries for that year until you find your relative. The documents contain
- Name and age of Deceased
- Lot Number, Section, Grave number
- Name of Lot Owner
- Date of Funeral
- Signature of Authorizer, and if not lot owner, relationship to lot owner
I haven't looked through all the documents, so there might be some other items of interest. There's definitely a lot there for those interested in the local government process, and history of the city.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Web Annotation: More Competition
The concept of Web Annotation isn't new. Methods of leaving notes on websites for other users of the application to see date back as far as 1999.
The concept is very appealing. Leaving notes that indicate information is outdated or otherwise inaccurate. Leaving notes that expand upon the information that is presented. Leaving comments in the same manner you might jot a note in the margins of a book.
But unfortunately, the more competition there is, the usefulness of each application diminishes, since the user base for each application diminishes.
So until one application is declared a winner, it's hard to know which application is best to use. One might argue what is needed is for a well-established web entity to enter the Web Annotation market and establish themselves as the service to use. And perhaps open their code for others to use so that there can be competing systems that share the same content.
Enter Google SideWiki
Announced this morning on the Google Blog, currently Google SideWiki installs on Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers using Google's Toolbar.
They allow owners of websites to create messages that will always be on the top of the 'SideWiki' for a page. (They can identify what websites you own through which Google Account you are signed into, and what websites are associated with that account.)
And they are offering access to their API (code) so others can write applications that utilize the content left in SideWiki.
The concept is very appealing. Leaving notes that indicate information is outdated or otherwise inaccurate. Leaving notes that expand upon the information that is presented. Leaving comments in the same manner you might jot a note in the margins of a book.
But unfortunately, the more competition there is, the usefulness of each application diminishes, since the user base for each application diminishes.
So until one application is declared a winner, it's hard to know which application is best to use. One might argue what is needed is for a well-established web entity to enter the Web Annotation market and establish themselves as the service to use. And perhaps open their code for others to use so that there can be competing systems that share the same content.
Enter Google SideWiki
Announced this morning on the Google Blog, currently Google SideWiki installs on Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers using Google's Toolbar.
They allow owners of websites to create messages that will always be on the top of the 'SideWiki' for a page. (They can identify what websites you own through which Google Account you are signed into, and what websites are associated with that account.)
And they are offering access to their API (code) so others can write applications that utilize the content left in SideWiki.
Wordless Wednesday: Herman and Regina Dexter
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Tombstone Tuesday: Abigal (Stuart) Van Every (1825-1866)
The below tombstone is of my second great grandmother, Abigail (Stuart) Van Every, second wife of Samuel Van Every. She was born on April 29, 1825 in Ontario, Canada, and died March 4, 1866 in Middleville, Michigan. Cause unknown, but due to an infant who died after 3 days one month earlier, my guess is complications from childbirth. She is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Middleville.
My great grandfather, Melvin Van Every, was three years old when she died, though his father, Samuel, married his third and final wife three months later on May 22, 1866.
I know little more about her than the facts above. However, Abigail (or possibly Abigal, according to the tombstone) is the ancestor from which springs many of the branches that lead to my most famous cousins.
My great grandfather, Melvin Van Every, was three years old when she died, though his father, Samuel, married his third and final wife three months later on May 22, 1866.
I know little more about her than the facts above. However, Abigail (or possibly Abigal, according to the tombstone) is the ancestor from which springs many of the branches that lead to my most famous cousins.
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