Before My Time

Postmarked 64 Years Ago Today

2011-11-12T08:52:00.001-05:00

My parents had been married almost two years when they took this trip from Detroit to visit my dad's family in North Dakota. They didn't have any kids yet, but I was born nine months later.

July Ruminations

2011-07-31T08:14:00.015-04:00

I had occasion a couple weeks ago to start from scratch on researching a family. A friend of mine gave me her parents' names and birthdates, and I was curious to see what I could discover online.

Back when I started my research, there was no "online." To get a few census records, it took a four-hour drive to the National Archives branch, and a full day of hand-cranking through reels of microfilm squinting at names in hopes of finding the right ones. Next, vacations had to be planned around going to towns where my ancestors lived to find whatever records could be found there, or you had to mail a request to some librarian or county clerk or whatever, along with a check, in hopes they would find your needed document and mail you a copy when they got around to it. Every nugget of info was so hard-won. It was in times like those that the term "genealogy happy dance" came into being.

So, a couple weeks ago, I sat down at the computer with two names and birthdates in hand, and Ancestry open in one tab and FamilySearch open in another. I had no real idea what was about to happen.

By the end of the day, I had no less than five full generations of my friend's family tree documented with various census records, birth register records, and even a death certificate or two. Wow. I printed out each document, then turned it over and printed out the copied-and-pasted source info on the back. I used old-fashioned paper pedigree charts and family group sheets to build some quick-&-dirty family charts I could refer to as I went along. I also made a document inventory sheet for each direct-line ancestor and marked what documents I'd found for each.

During this process, I had the following thoughts:

Wow. Wow. Wow. (rinse and repeat....)
Wish I could have made these awesome print-outs right from the start when I was researching my own family tree, with all the source info printed so tidily right on the back!
Wish I could have also downloaded image files like these and had them on my computer for easy sharing and easy import to my database.
Speaking of which, if I were just now starting my research and my database from scratch, it would be a lot easier to cite sources than it was back in the day.
Should I give this to my friend or not? I feel like I've stolen five generations of genealogical discovery, i.e. GENEA-FUN, that she could be having herself.
Gosh, it would hardly be 20 years of genea-fun, would it? It wasn't even 12 hours of genea-fun. And really, it was so easily won, and could so easily be redone some other day, and by anyone, honestly, it seems a little less compelling as a pursuit.

My friend has never been interested in genealogy, and she still isn't. I did give her the work I'd done in hopes of sparking an interest, but she decided to pass it along to her genealogically-inclined uncle. He already had the info, of course, but was impressed with the way I'd prepared the documents.

So, in the end, was it worth the time I spent on it? Most definitely yes! What a fascinating look at the way genealogy has changed in the last twenty years, for better, for worse, and particularly for different! And what a huge level of appreciation I have for all the people who have lent a hand to do scanning and uploading and indexing and all that's required to make records so readily available that twenty years' work can be done in a day.

And most of all, to those of us who did our research the old-fashioned way, before there was "online," I remind us that our labors were not time wasted. It was our interest that spurred the developments that make research a whole different animal today.

But I'm feelin' a little nostalgic for the old-time happy-dance. Didn't it have a little more vigor back then?

118 Years Ago Today: Schulte-Hauer Marriage

2011-06-21T04:35:00.104-04:00

An evening reception had been planned, but Joseph Hauer, father of the groom, died June 6.

At my dad's house quite awhile ago, in the basement where, I'm sorry to say, all things archival have been buried for ages (yes! pictures too! feel my pain!), I happened upon a large manila envelope stuffed with greeting cards that my grandpa Rosmer Kerr had given to my grandma Evelyn during the many years of their marriage. Evelyn had even identified the contents as such on the front of the envelope.

I may have peeked at one or two of the cards. Most were still in their own little envelopes. It didn't seem like a motherlode of genealogical information or family history, just a big pack of sentimentality, and if you've been here before, you know I've had much bigger fish to fry from the archival pool in the basement. So back into the cupboard went the manila envelope full of greeting cards.

I happened to be at my dad's the other day waiting for an electrician, and since my sister had taken Dad shopping, I had nothing to do so I brought the greeting cards up and commenced going through them one by one, taking each from its envelope to have a look.

Amidst the greeting cards, tucked into one of the envelopes, I was stunned to find that several real treasures were stowed, including the one above, an invitation to the 1893 wedding of Evelyn's parents, Felix Hauer and Elizabeth Schulte.

Let this be a lesson to you, my genea-friends... make no assumptions! Go through everything!

95 Years Ago Today: Hauer-Kerr Marriage

2011-06-12T04:18:00.002-04:00

Exemplar: It's Two! Two! Two Books in One!

2011-05-06T07:39:00.002-04:00

Mother/Grandmother by Dominic H. White | Make Your Own Book

This book was recently featured in the Blurberati Blog, but I like it so much I wanted to feature it here too. Author Dominic H. White has done a great job with an idea that's been kicking around in my head for awhile now. But I'm not going to tell what it is... I'll let you leaf through the book and discover it yourself.

Exemplar: Leaf by Leaf Through a Family Tree

2011-04-29T20:21:00.057-04:00

Those Who Came Before Us by Researched and Written by Maggie and Ed Stokes | Make Your Own Book

This great idea is so simple and straightforward, I'm surprised I didn't think of it. Authors Maggie and Ed Stokes did a beautiful, elegant job of it!

Ideas:

Create a family history book by writing a short biography/character sketch of each person in your family tree. Whether a few paragraphs or a few pages, try to focus on the whole individual, not just his or her role in the family.
If available, choose a few good photos of each individual at different ages to illustrate his/her story.
Try to make the narrative warm and friendly, not clinical and detached!

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

How is Socrates not Plato? Let me count the ways...

2011-04-01T05:32:00.010-04:00

'Twas the 30th of July, 2002, the 400th birthday anniversary of Reverend Samuel Stone. The First Congregational Church was celebrating the event with a public reading of his most erudite works. As we arrived, Reverend Peebles, a descendant of Reverend Stone, was reading aloud from his ancestor's well-known and very illuminating explanation of "Why Socrates Is Not Plato, Nor Plato Socrates." We were not surprised to see Natasha Guttbalm, the local TV station's fledgling reporter on the Religion and Philosophy beat, paying rapt attention to Reverend Peebles as he read from the text...

Reader, admit it. I know you're on the edge of your seat, waiting and hoping that I'll present the full scintillating text of Reverend Stone's lesson, and believe me, I have no intention of letting you down. Read on!

WHY SOCRATES IS NOT PLATO, NOR PLATO SOCRATES.

[A Congregational Church is a Catholic Visible Church. 1652.]

by Samuel Stone

SOCRATES and Plato are distinguished one from another by their proper and essential forms. As a man and a lion differ in their common form, so Socrates and Plato in their proper form. All opposition is firstly from the form; hereby a thing is that which it is, and is therefore by this distinguished from all other things. All essential distinction and opposition is from the forms of things; they differ not only accidentally, but essentially one from the other, and are distinguished one from another by their essential forms.

The numerical difference between Socrates and Plato is an argument of their specifical distinction; it includeth and implieth an essential difference between things, being distinguished by their proper, individual, essential forms. It is true that our intellectuals are so wounded by the apostasy of the first man that it is exceeding hard for us to find out the forms of things; we are forced many times to describe the forms of things by their accidents, as we are constrained to describe the elements by their proper qualities arising from their forms; yet every one of them hath a proper form. The existence of every thing is from all the causes; nothing can exist and be that which it is without its proper form. And the difference of the proper form is no less than the difference of the common form but rather greater. Look how much greater the similitude and agreement is between singulars in regard of their common forms—so much greater is the difference of their proper form. The difference and opposition of contraries is the greatest and strongest, and yet they communicate in the same genus: these are more opposite one to another than things that are not under the same genus: white and black are more opposite than white and bitter, &c. Gravia bella fratrum.

To differ so numerically is to differ formally; to differ in number is to differ in form; for number is an affection or proper adjunct following the essence. Socrates and Plato have two distinct forms; hence they differ in essence; hence they have two distinct essences and beings; hence they are two; one cannot be the other; they cannot be both one and the same, hence they differ numerically one from the other. Where there is one humanity and essential form of man, there is one essence of man, and one man; and where there are two humanities and essential, proper, and individual forms of man, there are two men; hence they differ numerically, and one is not the other, or the same with the other. Socrates is not Plato, but is numerically different from him. Socrates is one, and Plato is another, as London is one city and York another.

The difference of number is nothing but the difference of the proper and individual form, and to differ in number is to differ in form. Two men have two different forms, two lions have two different forms. If Socrates and Plato, or any other individual men differing in number, should not differ in essence and form, they should differ only accidentally one from the other, as one man differs from himself, or as Socrates in his old age differs from Socrates in his youth, being the same man and differing only in accidents, not in essence. Socrates should be Plato, and Plato Socrates, and when Alexander rides Bucephalus, Aristotle sits in the same saddle, and it were impossible not to set the saddle upon the right horse, for every horse is the same essentially; and he that stealeth one horse, he stealeth all the horses in the world, because the essence of the one is the same with the essence of the other. There is a difference, indeed, in accidents, but none in essence; there being, according to this account, no essential or substantial difference between them.

Lastly:—hence there is, upon the same account, no essential and substantial man in the world, but only Ideal; for all generals subsist in individuals, and individuals subsist only in themselves. If, therefore, individuals differ not essentially one from another, but only accidentally, there is no substantial and essential man subsisting by himself, because individual men only subsist in themselves. If, therefore, no individual, proper, essential, human form, there is no individual, essential man subsisting, and therefore no individual, substantial man in the world. Every individual man is an accidental man, having no proper, substantial individual form or essence. He that hath no substantial proper form, hath no substantial proper essence, and therefore cannot be a substantial, individual man. And hence there is no substantial, individual man in the world, but only ideal and common; and Socrates and Plato should differ essentially no more from one another than Doctor Martin and Doctor Luther. But the truth is, they have not one and the same essence, but differ in their essential form one from another. For an accidental form cannot be the prime and principal essential Cause of a substance.

------------

Say what?

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, Ellen Mackay Hutchinson Cortissoz, and Arthur Stedman. A Library of American Literature From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. New York: C.L. Webster, 1888. (Page 272-274)

March Ruminations

2011-03-31T15:03:00.000-04:00

I haven't ruminated all month... why would I start now?

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March Accomplishments

I've almost completed three books, thus maxing out my mental capacities. Deadline: April 3.

And in the other column . . .

Um . . . so where is that Phillips driver, anyway? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Exemplar: A Colorful Family History Book

2011-03-25T08:53:00.005-04:00

The Family Strube - HARDCOVER by Norma Strube Rue | Make Your Own Book

Color can be tricky in a book of family pictures. Too many color pictures on a page can make for a wearying experience for the reader. Norma Strube Rue reined it in quite nicely in The Family Strube. She used two techniques to make color work successfully in her book. They are today's Ideas:

When using more than one color photo on a page or a spread, choose photos whose colors are similar and harmonious together. Clashing colors don't look any better together on a page than they do in the mirror when you dress yourself badly. There's not much chance that an orange polka-dotted shirt will look good with your red plaid pants, is there? Well, they don't want to spend eternity on the same page with each other either, even in separate pictures!
Norma carried a color theme through her book even on pages which had only neutral photos. She did so by using a two-tone scheme for her text, keeping the main body of text black, but using a dark reddish color for titles, captions and such. This creates a strong unity throughout her book no matter what kind of pictures are on any particular page-spread. And it looks terrific!

Having said that, I should hasten to point out that I love the cover art as well, despite the flurry of activity therein. Norma brought a great sense of balance and harmony to it, along with a sense of fun, and that restful white spot in the middle where the title sits quietly, hinting that it's about to bring order to the flurry. Nice!

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

Blurb Software Upgrade Available Now

2011-03-19T09:05:00.001-04:00

I currently have several books in progress and, as you probably know, my POD publisher of choice is Blurb. (And in case you're wondering, I am not affiliated with Blurb in any way except as a customer, and I do not benefit in any way by writing about my Blurb experiences, positive or negative.) This week I received notice that they've released a new software upgrade, Booksmart 3.0. There are some interesting new features that customers have requested, and I'm looking forward to checking them out.

You'll find more information about the upgrade here, including some advice about any works you may have in progress.

Exemplar: Memoir of a Special Place

2011-03-18T08:08:00.000-04:00

Grandma's House | The Fond and Familiar by Photographs by Benjamin & Trey Hoyumpa, Book design by Trey Hoyumpa | Make Your Own Book

What makes a house your home? If you home could say, "This is what I want you to remember about me," what things would it point to? When your grandchildren come to visit, what do they see that's different from their own home?

My father remembers a candy jar up on a shelf at his grandmother's house. My mother remembered the dark at the top of the stairs in her childhood home. I remember the carved lions that were the feet of my grandma's sofa. If I could go back in time, I'd photograph them all.

Will a time machine ever be invented? Maybe, but I don't think we can count on it, and a photographic house memoir might be the next best thing.

My house, I fear, will not be saying, "Look what a good housekeeper T.K. was."

Ideas:

Charge up the camera and plan a photo shoot to motivate spring cleaning efforts.
The absence of text allows the viewer to fill in his own memories associated with the photos. Even though this was not my grandma's house, the images brought up memories for me.

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

The Mysterious "J" -- Who Was It?

2011-03-17T19:32:00.000-04:00

My grandmother celebrated her 20th birthday on April 1, 1914. She was single and working at the Palace Roller Rink in Detroit when she received these four postcards signed only "J."

I haven't a clue who "J" was!

Exemplar: A Sketchbook of Childhood Memories

2011-03-11T07:23:00.001-05:00

Stuff I Remember by Willard Scolnik | Make Your Own Book

"Stuff I Remember" is truly delightful. Blurbarian Stuart Scolnik describes it thus:

Our Dad sketched his childhood memories on a sketch pad. The images were sorted, printed and presented on his 80th birthday, with love from his family. The illustrations artistically tell the story of a simpler time and a boy's intimate relationship with a world around him called the Bronx. Dad's attention to detail helps us revisit the objects, experiences and emotions of his happy youth. We hope you enjoy his journey.

I did! I enjoyed Willard's sense of humor too. You don't have to know Willard to enjoy this book, but by the time you finish it, you'll probably wish you did.

Ideas:

Learn to sketch! I'll never be an artist, but art doesn't have to be fine to be fun.
When there's no photo to illustrate a story you want to tell, creating a simple drawing could really personalize a page of text. Consider whether such a drawing would fit with the mood of your book--is your book formal/scholarly/research-oriented or informal/warm & fuzzy/personal?

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

Exemplar: A Family History and Genealogy Book

2011-03-04T08:24:00.073-05:00

From New York to Indiana by James P. Barber | Make Your Own Book

If you're thinking of putting all your research, or just all your research for one particular surname, into a big, comprehensive genealogy/family history book, you've probably spent some time considering how to lay out your book. There are plenty of ways to do it, and you can refine your own ideas by studying the approaches others have taken. If you visit the Blurb Bookstore and type in the search term genealogy, you'll find lots of examples to look at. Browse several. See what you like and what you don't like.

In From New York to Indiana, author James P. Barber chose to include charts in a separate section, after a textual family history. If your readers are not consumed by genealogy (like us!), the odds are pretty good that they won't be inclined to sit around reading charts. An interesting text will have more appeal to that audience, as will pictures.

Ideas:

If you're creating a book for family members who are, for the most part, not genealogically inclined, you might want to keep charts in a separate section toward the back of the book, where the hard-core genealogist among your readers will find them more easily anyway.
If you're using Blurb as your POD publisher, you may find yourself with extra pages available due to Blurb's pricing structure. Consider using them to add some blank family group sheets at the end of your book, as Barber has done here, so generations can be added as the book is handed down.

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

February Ruminations

2011-02-28T06:06:00.199-05:00

I enjoyed watching a few of the webcasts from the RootsTech conference. It was interesting to hear about some of the issues being considered on the frontier where the techies and the genies come face to face. In the last decade or so, the development of technology, along with genealogy's embrace of it, have made astounding changes in the way we research, and in the ways we share and preserve our data. I don't think any of us who started our research the old-fashioned way would want to give up the newfangled methods that allow us to pursue our passion in pajamas.

And it's easy to see how the technologically-inclined among us are lured by the convenience of the internet, and by the expansive capacity of cyberspace, and by the amazing science behind digitization. This is the way of the future, we hear. Digitize, digitize, digitize! And back up! Not once, not twice, but three times, and update your back-ups when the technology changes or every three years, whichever comes first. Password-protect it so the bad guys can't get it. Tell someone where you've hidden the password, so they can. Oh, if only your ancestors had done that! Imagine the happy dance you would have done when your complete genealogy appeared before you on a computer screen!

Huh?

Consider this: when you're watching Who Do You Think You Are?, have you ever thought they've made the research look too easy? Have you ever thought, hey, the celebrity didn't seem very excited (I recall someone saying this after the recent Tim McGraw episode)? Well, what if the scenario were this:

It's the last game of a hard-fought season, and an athletic team (the Blue-Blooded Ancestor Hunters?) suddenly finds itself short by one member. Six players are required; they have only five. You're asked to fill in, even though you have no knowledge of the game. That doesn't matter, they assure you, the real team members will carry the ball and do the scoring. All you have to do is stand where the coach tells you to, and be counted. Some sort of reward is offered--fame? fortune? undying gratitude? some skeletons for your closet?--so you accept the deal. The team wins the game, and the highly-coveted blue ribbons are passed out to everyone on the team, including you. Tell me, how meaningful is that blue ribbon to you? Isn't it pretty much commensurate with how much you've invested in the game?

Some people do genealogy because it's part of their religious practice. Some do it as a vocation. Many of us do it as an avocation and, oh, how we bristle if our pursuit is reduced to the lowly status of a mere hobby! No matter which category we fit into, though, I'd be willing to bet it's the thrill of the hunt that keeps us going, and that tantalizing prospect of another happy dance possibly just minutes away.

I started out doing genealogy the old-fashioned way. It was kind of like going big-game hunting. You had to go someplace to do it; you had to learn how to hunt; you had to plan ahead for your trip; you had to pack carefully and be prepared for anything, or nothing. It was an adventure.

The advent of digitization and online availability of records has made it a lot more like shooting fish in a barrel. A search engine, a name... BANG! Oh, look, another dead ancestor... no, two... three... But the number of records extant is finite. Sooner or later, all the fish in the barrel are gonna be floating belly-up. How long will it take? Another generation or two? When the barrel is passed on to your descendants, how much happy-dancing will there be when there's naught to do but dip out a couple thousand barcoded belly-up fish? How many of your descendants will be passionate about scanning the barcodes to look up those pedigree charts that you're so passionate about preserving? In fact, how many of your current, living relatives are passionate about it now?

The techiest of the techies see the world through tech-colored glasses. Everything, they insist, should and will be virtual in the future. Maybe they're right, I don't know. But I do know that not all people are computer-savvy now, nor will they all be computer-savvy in the future. And not all who are computer-savvy prefer to spend their time in the virtual world rather than the real world. Believe it or not, Kindle fans, some people still prefer a book with paper pages. Some would rather talk than tweet. Some would even... I know this will come as a surprise... some would even prefer to receive a bouquet of real flowers from a three-dimensional boyfriend rather than a virtual-bouquet icon from a Facebook app. Go figger!

In any case, it seems to me that it's a boon for everyone when the big players go digital with their records--and by big players, I mean any organization that has a body of records of the type we all seek as documentation for our family lines. I mean people who are in the records business (whether civil or commercial, profit or non-profit).

As for me, I'm what I would call a micro-player--gathering records (from people in the records business!) that pertain to my own lines only. For me it's not business, it's personal. And I'd be lying if I said I was doing it just to pass down to my descendants. If I can stir up their interest, so much the better, but the truth is that I have a hunter-gatherer gene that's tickled by this pursuit. I do it for the pleasure of the hunt.

I have decisions to make, then, along the way. Should I listen and learn from people with more skills, more experience, more credentials? Of course. Should I be grateful for what I learn from them? Most definitely. I am grateful. It's always better to be more informed. But should I then obediently follow all their advice?

Hell, no! I'm a grown-up. It's up to me to weigh what's been offered and make my own choices. I reserve the right to enjoy and/or employ cyberspace to whatever extent works best for me, along with the right to use real paper. Why? Because at this moment I can reach across my desk and pick up a book that was published in 1884, and it still works. Nobody had to take any particular pains to preserve it, and I don't need anything but daylight to be able to use it. Am I glad there's a copy of it in cyberspace? Yes, of course I am, that's how I discovered it and decided I wanted the real thing. And, yippee!, I was able to order the real thing for $25 and about five minutes of my time online, thanks to technology. Yep, technology is great. But am I gonna digitize everything in triplicate, pay to store it in cyberspace until I die or run out of money, and replace it triennially in case it's deteriorating?

Nope. Not today, thanks. But, reader, if it serves your purpose to do so, you go right ahead!

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February Accomplishments

I've been working on books this month, as usual, but have extended my deadline for completing the Stone book.

And in the other column . . .

I still haven't vacuumed yet this year. See, the vacuum cleaner needs a new belt and, while I did order and receive said belt, I am still waiting to see if it will crawl in there of its own accord, or if I'm actually going to have to find my Phillips-head screw driver and put it in there myself. I'm all for giving it plenty of time to take the initiative.

Exemplar: A Photo-Journal and Biography Book

2011-02-25T08:47:00.050-05:00

The Collector, the Guide and the Bone Digger by James P. Barber | Make Your Own Book

"The original scope of this book was to provide a reproduction of the wonderful photos from a turn-of-the-century expedition into the rugged Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains of Mexico led by guide Charles M. Barber. However, as I began to add a few details, the book developed into two distinct parts. This meant including the photo journal in its entirety unedited as Part I of the book. It is unique and valuable in its own right, but it was just the beginning of the journey that Charles Barber seemed to have in mind for me. His role as the guide for this expedition was only a small part of a most fascinating life that unfolded before me." ~ James P. Barber

In The Collector, the Guide and the Bone Digger, author James P. Barber takes the reader on two journeys, one his great-uncle Charles M. Barber's field research journey a century ago, and the other his own journey in creating this book.

I don't know who said it first, but we've all heard it: the more you know about something, the more interesting it becomes. Barber's willingness to dig up a little information about the photos he wanted to preserve in book form pulled him into a much grander project, and he's presented his findings beautifully.

Ideas:

As you work with your materials, your book will start to tell you what it wants to be. Listen!
You may be able to find out a lot more about a photo than you ever thought possible.
In large or landscape-format books, large bodies of text are more easily read if presented in two columns rather than a single page-width column.

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

Getting Ready for the 1940 Census

2011-02-20T09:28:00.023-05:00

Countdown to access the 1940 Census

These four training films for 1940 census enumerators will give you a pretty good idea of what information we'll be getting, an understanding of what some of the terms actually mean, and an occasional guffaw. Grab your beverage of choice and begin with:

Introduction to the 1940 Census (3:19)

Population (10:23)

Agriculture (10:39)

Housing (10:49)

Aw, go ahead, you might as well watch The Three Stooges in No Census, No Feeling... I mean, since the link is right up there and all... and it is about the census... and it's colorized! ... heh, you already did, didn't ya?

Paper Conservator--What a Cool Job!

2011-02-19T07:51:00.003-05:00

Exemplar: An Album of Memories About a Special Person

2011-02-18T08:44:00.290-05:00

I Remember Granny by Darlene Schneck | Make Your Own Book

The title of this 40-page book tells you exactly what it's about. You needn't have completed and documented your entire genealogy before putting together a book like this, so it would make a great first-book project.

Author Darlene Schneck chose to do her book in a style similar to that which I chose for my book about my mom. We both chose black text on white pages, at least one image on every two-page spread, and a fairly neutral color scheme with minimal use of color images. In fact, Darlene has limited her use of color (other than sepia tones) to just three pages:

page 11, images of a beautifully colored family memento--here the colors are an integral feature of the object so they really need to be there; the photo is focused in tight on the object with very little distracting background showing, and the colors of the object itself are subtle and mellowed, so the mood of the book is not interrupted.
page 38, a color photo of family members gathered after Granny's funeral--as the last of the book's content, this use of color brings us back to the present, but without being jarring or garish, as the colors in the photo are subtle, limited, and quite in tune with the palette of the book.
page 40, centered on the back page above the Blurb logo, a small color image of a cast-iron frying pan with a wristwatch in it (no background, just the white of the page); Granny's frying pan? Granny's watch?--once again, the colors are subtle, and the image has the feel of a logo. I'd be inclined to use it as such, the final punctuation in a whole series of "I Remember..." books... because, you know, Time Fries.

Ideas:

Consider creating a series of books around a similar idea. Give the project a name and a logo, so it will develop a momentum that will help keep it going.
The smaller the photo, the higher the resolution you should scan it at. All those little square snapshots? Most are not much fun to look at; they're too small to really see. You'll find they're a lot more interesting if you don't have to squint to see them. Scan them at 600 dpi instead of 300 dpi so you can enlarge and crop them. Some may turn out to be not clear enough, but others will surprise you. You may be able to settle for a little bit of blur in a picture if it's all you've got. But don't make your reader go hunting for a magnifying glass.
Just because your snapshots happen to be in color, that doesn't mean you have to use them that way. Use your photo editing software to desaturate garish photos if the mood of your book calls for that. Or change them to a sepia tone. Also, some of those old color snapshots have turned bad on us--faded, gone yellow or purple or some other hideously inhuman hue. Again, edit them!
Several color photos bunched on a page or a spread can be a visual assault that gives the viewer's eye something akin to caffeine jitters. A little quiet space around a photo lets the eye slow down and really 'get' the picture.

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

Evelyn's Valentines

2011-02-14T08:26:00.004-05:00

My grandma! Honestly, I think she saved every greeting card that she ever got! I recently found an envelope addressed "To Mama" and there were several Valentines inside. Let's look at a few.

Measuring about 3" across, this purchased Valentine was given to Evelyn (my grandma) by her daughter Mary (my mom). Mom must have been only about five years old at the time, judging from her handwriting. Was she in the habit of calling her mama Evelyn? I can't imagine it. I think it's much more likely she'd just recently learned her mama's first name and was trying it out.

This little handmade gem is about 2.5" across, about the size of a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Was this one given before or after the previous one? The printing seems more confident to me, so I'd guess it was the year after. Notice the ribbon drawn on the front of the card. It's similar in concept to the one on the card below.

Above: back and front of card

Below: inside of card

Closed, this card measures 3" wide and 4.5" tall. What does the "52" mean on the front of the card? Your guess is as good as mine. I can think of no explanation for it. But again, notice the ribbon drawn on the front. It's become pretty sophisticated:

It's a peek-a-boo now, and pretty tidily cut, too!

But what about FROM YOUR DAUGHTER? Evelyn had two daughters. Which one made this card, Bonnie or Mary? Again, I can only guess. I do suspect it was Mary though, not only because of the similarity in printing but also because the drawing of the ribbon is pretty similar to that on the previous card. I remember some of my own drawings from when I was a kid--I had a bed concept and a stairway concept in my head, and I repeated both in many drawings, never varying them much.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Exemplar: A Then-&-Now Family History Book

2011-02-11T07:52:00.000-05:00

G&G by Matthew Epler | Make Your Own Book

In G&G, Matthew Epler restages photos taken half a century ago to tell the life-long love story of his grandparents. The text is minimal and consists of bits of memory as told by the grandparents themselves. Used sparingly, these quoted remarks have much more impact than they would if they were lost in a large body of text.

To view the book full-screen, click on the little square next to the Blurb logo. You might have to squint to read the text, but it's worth doing.

Ideas:

Bring new life to old snapshots by restaging them in the present. Presenting the two together gives the viewer a reason to really look at them.
A good, pithy quote can tell a lot more than it says. It engages the reader in a way that a thousand words of third-person explanation doesn't.

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

Last year, Jasia (of Creative Gene) used restaged photos of places to tell a story about Detroit in her post, Melancholy Too. It was a very effective (and affecting) tool. If you'd like to try it, you'll find a very detailed how-to in this "Then and Now" tutorial by John Walker. (Even if you don't plan to photoshop the dickens out of it as Walker does, you'll learn a lot from the tutorial about perspective, etc.)

Yet Another Post on Making Books!

2011-02-08T09:33:00.003-05:00

Because I'm a one-dimensional girl these days, totally smitten with creating family history books, today's topic is a continuation from previous posts about print-on-demand bookmaking. I want to share some thoughts on creating and pricing a book that might be of interest to an audience beyond one's immediate family.

Currently I have another book almost ready for printing. I'll be using Blurb again, and in this case I am prepared for the book to be perfect-bound because it's well over 120 pages, Blurb's limit for side-sewn binding. I promise I won't be traumatized by that this time (unless the glue fails again!). It's a less personal book than the one about my mother. Let me tell you a bit about it.

Reverend Samuel Stone, one of the Pilgrims who founded Hartford, Connecticut, appears on my pedigree chart as a ninth great-grandfather. In trying to learn more about him, I didn't find a biography, per se, but I did collect a generous selection of materials written by, for, and about him. I thought, ever so briefly, that maybe I should write the missing biography myself. But I don't have the time, the money, or the attention span to spend months trying to ferret out original documents and such, nor do I know enough about history to really understand the significance of things I might find, much less organize it. What I do understand at this point is that history is like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle on fertility drugs. Nope! I'm not goin' there!

And why should I, when others (better suited than I) did much of that research and writing centuries ago? As I read about Rev. Stone in one book and then another and another, a sort of biography of the man began to emerge from the pieces. At this point, I'm surprised to say I know him pretty well for a guy who was born over 400 years ago. I know his core beliefs, his career, his habits (both bad and good), his personality traits, who his friends and associates were and how they interacted, and some interesting anecdotes about events in his life.

Google Books and Internet Archive made finding all this information infinitely easier than it would have been even a decade ago. It still took considerable time though, and I wanted to bring it all together in a way that would make it readily available to my descendants. A Blurb print-on-demand book made perfect sense to me, and I began work on it as soon as I completed the book about my mom.

I thought I could put it together pretty quickly--just choose the materials, copy and paste, write an intro, and voilà!, a book! However, it turns out I haven't totally gotten over that perfectionist thing... so the project is taking quite a bit longer than planned. Still, it will be a cool book when it's done, which I hope will be no later than the end of this month.

As I spent time working on the Stone book, I began to wonder whether there might be other Stone descendants who might like to have these materials in book form. To date, none of the books I've made are available to the public in Blurb's bookstore, but this one may have a bigger audience than just my immediate family.

Yesterday I posted a bit about Blurb's pricing structure. The prices I mentioned are base prices; i.e., they represent only the cost of having the book printed. Blurb offers discounts during promotional sales, and discounts for purchases of more than ten copies of a book in one order. They also feature a bookstore on their website where, at no cost to you, your book can be listed for sale to the public. As the creator of a book, you have the option to adjust the price upward from Blurb's base price if you wish to make a profit from sales.

If you decide to make your book available for public purchase, you'll have to consider how to price it. Before even thinking about that, you might want to read this article by author Scott Butcher. Although the article is about traditionally published books, not print-on-demand books, it's still a good reality-check.

At the moment, my book has 174 pages. If I edit it down to 160 or less, Blurb's price for printing would be $39.95 for softcover, $49.95 for hardcover with a dust jacket, or $52.95 for a hardcover with image-wrap. Reader, when is the last time you spent that much for a 160-page book? College? I admit, I'm more of a penny-pincher than most people, and honestly, I'd have to be highly motivated to buy a book at those prices, never mind another dollar or five added onto that. So I have to ask myself, do I think my Stone book is going to motivate the masses highly enough to get out their wallets? Well, let's see:

How many Stone descendants do you suppose there are?
Of those, forget the ones who are not reading at an adult level.
Of those who are left, how many of them have any idea they're Stone descendants? Forget the rest.
The market is shrinking! Of those who are left, how many are actually interested in family history, or in reading 160 pages about Samuel Stone? Forget the rest.
How many of the remaining people have computers and access to the internet?
Of those, how many are likely to stumble across my book?
Among those who do, what fraction will have and be willing to spend some money to have a copy?
And in the case of my particular book, this number will doubtless be reduced further by the fact that the materials I've used are out of copyright and already freely available online.

I think most family historians will agree: doing your family's genealogy has never been a way to make money. Heck, it's not even a real good way to get your family's attention! Your best bet is to do it for the pleasure of doing it. And I think the same is true of creating print-on-demand books about your family history. The market for your book is extremely small to begin with, and there's no way you'll ever be fairly compensated for all you put into it. Maybe it's better to genuflect, whisper a thank-you to all who made it possible for you to create the book, and consider it your pay-it-forward.

All of which is to say, if I decide to make the Stone book publicly available, I'll be pricing it at the cost of the printing, nothing more. And if the only copy sold is to myself, that's okay too. That's who I made it for, and I've had a great time doing so.

Reader, what are your thoughts on creating and pricing a family history book for sale?

Blurb Anyway?

2011-02-07T09:26:00.003-05:00

Back in the pre-cellular day, when your phone had to plug into a phone jack in the wall, a dear friend of mine bought herself a new telephone. One could expect, back then, that such a product would last for years, but only minutes after the 90-day warranty expired, so did the phone. She was really annoyed that she had to go out and buy another phone, and rightly so. But when I asked her what kind she got to replace the bad one, she replied, "The same thing."

Honestly, I just wanted to slap her upside the head! "You vote with your dollars," I told her. "You just voted in favor of poorly made telephones!"

It's true, you know. Every time you buy something, you're casting a consumer vote for that product in favor of others that you might have chosen instead. And you know what they say: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. In other words, you need to learn from your mistakes. A bad purchase, like any mistake, is redeemed when it's understood. Caveat emptor.

I'm sure I've flaunted enough cliches to make my point. Are you wondering how this applies to today's topic? Yesterday I posted about a disappointing result I had with a Blurb book order. Today I want to talk about why I'm not abandoning the Blurbarian ship just yet.

If you have a look at Jason Dunn's in-depth comparison of POD publishers or click around in this Photo Book Review, you'll discover how many factors go into your decision when choosing a POD publisher. As Heather pointed out in yesterday's comments, no one is perfect, and that certainly applies here. There is no "one perfect POD publisher," as every one offers a different set of features from which to choose. Your job as a consumer is to discover which features are most important to you. You'll have to consider things like cost-to-value ratio, what skills you bring to your project or what skills you're willing to learn, how much time you want to spend on your project, how many pages you'll need to present your material and whether it consists of photos, text, or both.

One of the things I love about Blurb is their pricing structure. Unlike many other POD publishers, you don't start with a fixed number of pages (usually 20) for a base price, and then add $1 per page for additional pages (a 'page' means 'one side of a page', not both sides). Instead, Blurb prices in increments: 20-40 pages, 41-80 pages, 81-120 pages, and so on up to a maximum of 440 pages. Psychologically, I find this very freeing when it comes to designing a book. What's more, the cost of, say, a hundred-page book ends up being considerably less expensive at Blurb than at the other POD publishers I've considered. The 120-page book about my mom, for example, at a base price of $30 for 20 pages plus $1 per page for the next 100 pages, would have been $130 using that pricing structure, but at Blurb it was about $42. That, for me, is the difference between can-do and no-can-do.

Also, many POD publishers have a page-limit much smaller than Blurb's. My Publisher, for example, limits you to 100 pages. I love that Blurb allows for a much longer book, and that it is not just a publisher of photo-books that you can add some text to. You can do much more than that with Blurb's free BookSmart software--from creating a text-based book with no photos to a photo book with no text, and everything in between. If there isn't a template for the way you want to lay out your page, you can easily create your own layout. You can even save it as a custom layout, and select it from the layout menu if you want to use it again.

Using BookSmart, your project lives on your computer until it's finished. Then you upload it to Blurb for printing. Thus you don't have to be on the internet to work on it. On the other hand, there's definitely a learning curve to consider. BookSmart offers a lot of control, but it's a little quirky. If you're just hoping to make one simple photo book, you may not want to invest the time on learning how to use it. (Blurb recently added an online book creation tool, Bookify, which may be simpler to use if you haven't already learned BookSmart, but it offers less control. Having learned BookSmart first, I have a strong preference for that.)

Tomorrow: A bit about my current Blurb project, and some thoughts about pricing your book for sale to the public.

By the way, in case you're wondering, I am not affiliated with Blurb.com in any way except as a customer, and I receive nothing from them for sharing my thoughts.

------------

You can read some user feedback on Lulu.com at Olive Tree Genealogy, and Cheryl Palmer has answered some questions about her experience with Blog2Print at Heritage Happens.

Blurb Rant: I tried, and I tried, but . . .

2011-02-06T07:32:00.010-05:00

. . . I can't get no satisfaction!

Reader, have I raved enough about Blurb in the past? I think so! I spent most of 2010 creating books--seven titles in print so far and at least another half-dozen in various stages of development--and Blurb has been my print-on-demand publisher of choice. It still is, in fact, although I am heartsick over something that happened with the printing of my most recent and most important book, Mary Roslyn Kerr: A Book of Childhood Memories. And so I'm sorry to have to backpedal some regarding my previous Blurb raves.

Before creating this book about my mother, I created six books based on a number of personal blogs I've kept since 2005. I wanted to learn, before investing months of work creating a family history book, how to use Blurb's BookSmart software as well as what I could expect from Blurb in a finished product.

According to Blurb's FAQ page What types of bindings and book sizes are available?:

For you bindery aficionados, Blurb uses both "side sewn" and "perfect bound" binding options on all hardcover books. Generally, books with fewer than 120 pages will be side-sewn. Books with more than 120 pages will be perfect bound.

But what about books of exactly 120 pages, I wondered. Would they get sewn bindings or perfect (i.e., glued) bindings?

I made my blog books in Blurb's 7" square format. Three of the books had 80 pages, while the other three had 120 pages. All six were made with sewn bindings. As a result, I set a limit of 120 pages for my future family history books. I am making them specifically with the intention of preserving family history for future generations, so the durability and longevity of a sewn binding is of great importance to me. My book-making dream is that my books will be handed down for generations to come, and with all their pages intact!

Because of the information noted above from Blurb's FAQ combined with my own three 120-page book experiences, I fully expected the book about my mom to be made with sewn bindings. I ordered twelve copies of it in time for Christmas giving. I'd done my research, I'd done my homework, I'd done my test run with less important books, so I was feeling pretty confident, despite the use of the weasel-word "generally" in Blurb's FAQ.

And of course you know why I'm writing about this today. When my order was delivered and I took the first copy out of the box to look at it, CRACK!!! went the binding of the book, and suddenly I was looking at an ugly glue-filled split between the last page and the end-paper.

I contacted Blurb's customer service via a link on their website. A quick response was promised, and indeed it did come within a few hours. It was essentially a scripted or form response, telling me to submit a photo of the problem, which I then did. It took longer to get their next reply, which again seemed formulaic, but offered me a credit to have my book order reprinted. I asked if there was a way I could be assured that the reprinted books would have sewn bindings, and was told there would be "a better chance" if I removed pages from the book, but that there was still no guarantee that the binding would be sewn rather than glued; however, I was assured that Blurb does guarantee the quality of their products.

To give my book the best chance, I did remove two pages, bringing the page-count down to 118 rather than 120. However, the reprinted edition also arrived with glued bindings.

Soon there came another email from Blurb, asking me to take a survey about my experience with their customer service but saying that if my issue was not resolved to my satisfaction, I should reopen my customer service ticket rather than take the survey. At that time I was too depressed about the whole thing to deal with it any further, so I put it aside until last week, when I finally pulled myself together and contacted customer service again.

In my email to them, I reviewed the issue I'd had, and asked them this:

... what I need from you today, before I write my post, is to know the following:
    1. how Blurb decides which books will be glued and which sewn--my readers
and I would all like to increase our chances of getting the binding we want.
    2. why the customer doesn't get to decide this critical issue during the
ordering process.
    3. whether Blurb has any plans to make it an option for Blurbarians in
the future.

Again the response was formulaic. It didn't add any new information in response to my first question, and did not address my second and third questions at all.

As a result of this experience, I've learned (or think I've learned) several things about Blurb:

Blurb uses more than one printing company to print book orders. It seems that not all printers are created equally; some have the means to create books with side-sewn bindings and others create books with glued bindings. All of my 7" books were sent from an address in Washington, while my 8" x 10" family history book was sent to me from Missouri (both the original order and the replacement order). In my experience, the Washington printer sews, and the Missouri printer glues.
Even in the service of customer satisfaction, which Blurb seems to want, they have no means in place to assure than any particular book order will have a sewn binding. From my experience, it seems to depend on the luck of the draw. Maybe it depends on the dimensions of the book?
Blurb's customer service department seems to be scripted and unable to respond in a very personalized way, which left me feeling unheard. On the other hand, when I followed their complaint procedure, they readily replaced my order.

I'd like to see Blurb make sewn bindings an option in the same way that premium paper is an option. I'd happily pay a couple dollars more per book for a sewn binding when long-range durability is an issue.

I'll be sharing some additional thoughts about Blurb in my next post.

Mat Thorne's Book-Design Tutorial, Part 2

2011-02-05T08:53:00.002-05:00

Last Saturday I posted Part 1 of Mat Thorne's book-design webinar. This one, Part 2, covers an overview of typography, essentials of cover design, and laying out front and back matter. It runs about 70 minutes.

Exemplar: An Artful Family History Book

2011-02-04T10:36:00.061-05:00

Cousins Remembering by Marilyn Burroughs K | Make Your Own Book

One of the best things about print-on-demand books is that you can create a family history book that doesn't have to be all things to all people. You can tailor a book to a specific audience, and later make a different book for a different audience. Marilyn Ramer Burroughs and Kathleen Ramer Harden created Cousins Remembering with the younger reader in mind. Marilyn brought her skill as an artist to the project, and the result is a great example of how art can replace photographs as a way of illustrating family history. A book like this one would be visually appealing to family members of all ages, and particularly to younger readers who might be less attracted to a book illustrated by old photographs. I enjoyed the text as well. This book will be a Ramer family treasure for generations to come.

To view the book full-screen, click on the little square next to the Blurb logo.

Ideas:

Before even beginning to make a book, think about its potential readers and how best to engage their interest. For whom do you want to make a book? What material do you have, and who might be interested in it?
Consider whether co-authoring with another family member would result in a richer book.
Consider whether your own art skills or those of another (willing!) family member could be used to enhance the book you're thinking of making.

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

Posted from Saugatuck, Part 3

2011-02-03T08:26:00.009-05:00

The card above was postmarked at 11 a.m. on July 21, the same as yesterday's letter. The letter below was written on July 21 after 4 p.m. However, it wasn't postmarked until July 23.

Also, on the back of today's letter, my mother noted that it was "LETTER #1." This would have been the first thing Evelyn would see upon taking it out of the envelope. It would seem, then, that there was also a LETTER #2 sent either in the same envelope or in another envelope mailed the same day. However, at this point in time, it's missing. Oddly, based upon the first paragraph, LETTER #1 appears to have been written after LETTER #2, not before.

July 21, 1941
Dear Folks,
Sunday and Monday were considerably warmer than Sat., and today, up until about 4 P.M. was really hot, but right now it is raining. That's why I'm writing another letter.
Yesterday, or rather Friday night, we met a couple of fellows from Detroit and they are staying in Saugatuck all this week too. They live on Drexel and Lakewood. After the dance they took us out to eat and we made plans for swimming on Mon. Well, ~ we did go swimming and am I ever sunburned! I can't hardly move. We climbed Mt. Baldhead yesterday, too, and that's 367 steps. You'd love that, wouldn't you, mom? After we reached the top & looked around, we came down the opposite side in the sand, and I really believe that is harder than walking down the stairs. No wonder I'm worn out today.

      We were supposed to go swimming again today, but my sunburn hurt so that I was afraid of getting a double dose so we told the fellows to go on alone. We, Frances & I, played shuffleboard all morning until it started to rain. It looks like it will be over soon though.
     Ethel, that girl from the office, is down here now and we've seen here quite often, but we haven't actually gone out with her. Every now & then we get together and talk things over but that's about all.
     Well, I guess that's all there is to tell you right now except ~ Don't worry. There is no need to.
     Bye now.
          Love,
               Mary
P.S. Excuse the x's. I was writing too fast & couldn't stop.

Mary Kerr, age 19 ~ Saugatuck, Michigan ~ July 1941

Posted from Saugatuck, Part 2

2011-02-02T09:14:00.005-05:00

Frances and Mary ~ Saugatuck, July 1941

My mom at nineteen... this one had me laughing out loud!

July 20, 1941
Sunday
Dear Mom,
We are having a wonderful time! Yesterday we went bicycling and horse back riding. Then we came home, took a bath, and slept for a couple hours. When we woke up we dressed and went to the dance. It was so nice. There were hundreds of fellows and almost all of them were good looking. We just sat down when Gordon came up and asked me to dance, and he stayed with me all evening. I didn't get a chance to dance with anyone else, but it was fun anyway. He was a good dancer. He drove me home and wanted to take me to the beach today but his boyfriend was very short & Frances didn't want to go, so I left the house before he came. We met him on the street later this afternoon but we managed to get away from them after...

...a short talk. He was nice though. However he was only here for the weekend. He came from Chicago.
Today we met Bill Decker. We were sitting on the dock and he came along and began talking to us. We got him to take our picture together, and then Frances got the bright idea that Bill and I should have our picture taken together, so she took it. After a while he drove us to the beach and it's so nice. All white sand. Frances kinda' liked Bill & she wanted her picture taken with him so I took it while we were at the beach. You'll be able to see him when we get the films developed. He's awfully nice.
Gee! Mom, things sure are expensive around here. I'm afraid I'm going to need more money before the week is up. Will you stick a couple dollars in an envelope and mail it to me. Right away quick! I'm...

...going to need it. Just write Mary Kerr % Mrs. Dempster, Saugatuck, Mich. and I'll get it.
     Thanks loads, Mom. I don't know what I'd do without you.
     Will write again later.
     Bye now.
          Love,
               Mary
P.S. I just read over the letter & it seems like all I told you about was the men folks. Really, mom, they are only incidental. We have had lots of fun without them as well as with them. And I'll tell you a secret. I still like Charles best.
          Love,
               M.

Too funny! The men are short and incidental! Send money right away quick! I wonder if my grandmother laughed as loud as I did. I bet she did.

The photo of my mom on horseback is one of the snapshots I used in the book about my mom. I realized it was a Saugatuck photo when I noticed it had the same batch number stamped on the back as other photos now identified as being from the Saugatuck trip.

Frances on the Chicago guy's car (Illinois plates!)

Frances with Bill Decker

This page from the book about my mom features two snapshots of her from the Saugatuck trip.

Posted from Saugatuck, Part 1

2011-02-01T08:53:00.002-05:00

In July of 1941, when my mom was nineteen, she took a trip to Saugatuck, Michigan, with her friend, a Chrysler co-worker named Frances. The other day, I found a few pieces of correspondence my mom wrote while on that trip. As a result, I was able to identify several snapshots taken there, a few of which I'd included in the book about my mom's childhood.

Mary Kerr's friend Frances

Saugatuck, July 1941

My mom feigned hitch-hiking for a little photo-snapping fun . . .

. . . but it looks like Frances had a lot more fun with that speed-limit sign!

A rippin' good time so far, huh? Well, just wait until tomorrow, when they meet some... aw, never mind, I don't want to spoil the delicious anticipation...

January Ruminations

2011-01-31T09:09:00.272-05:00

I had occasion to read someone else's correspondence this month. Among my small group of genealogy friends, one had received a request to donate information to a genealogy library and wondered what others thought about the request. Several others had read the request and shared their thoughts before I got there, so I had the benefit of knowing not only the content of the request, but also how others responded.

Because my own reaction to the shared email was immediate and strong, I was surprised that no one mentioned the issue that struck me right between the eyes. Perhaps courtesy demanded that this particular issue be ignored, particularly since the name of the email correspondent had been included. For that reason, I decided to withhold my comment, i.e., not have it appear in conjunction with the email. But I think there's an important point to be considered. Hence I'll make my remarks here, where they won't be associated with anyone by name. They are relevant to everyone, anyway.

The email in question consisted of only 98 words, including the greeting and signature. In the body of the letter there were just seven sentences. But in that short bit of correspondence, there were no less than eight spelling errors and seven errors of grammar and/or punctuation.

Call me the grammar police if you will, but this email was sent on behalf of an organization that hopes to get genealogists to hand over their research for preservation and sharing. Don't get me wrong--I think preservation and sharing is great, but I would be very reluctant to give my research to an organization for which correctness is apparently a nonexistent priority.

Earlier in the month, the subject of poor grammar and the resulting lack of credibility had come up in another context. I won't go into it further except to say I'm so very thankful for the teachers who taught me how to use English correctly, and for the schools which deemed that an educational priority. It is, by far, the most essential skill I learned in school.

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January Accomplishments

I've been working on three books this month:

a photo book about a place I enjoyed almost daily in 2005-2006. Selecting photos for this one was fun, but drawing them together into a cohesive book is harder than I thought it would be. In the end, this may be two or three books instead of just one.
the dad book. I tried using a book of interview questions to get my dad talking, and used an iPhone app to unobtrusively record what he said. That didn't go along as easily as I'd have liked, although he was willing to answer questions. With my dad, it works best to ask the right question at the right moment. Spontaneity is key. Taking notes or asking questions from a list is like throwing a soggy blanket on a match. I totally get that... I'm the same way.
a compendium of materials about Reverend Samuel Stone. Currently this book stands at 174 pages, and in the interest of avoiding burn-out on the topic, I've taken a little break from it before deciding whether to cut pages or add more. Either way, my deadline for this one is the end of February.

And in the other column . . .

I haven't vacuumed yet this year . . . . . you got a problem with that?

Don't ya hate when that happens?

2011-01-30T08:26:00.026-05:00

So. The other day I was looking for pictures to include in the dad book, which will eventually be a lovely shelf companion for the mom book. And I happened to find a few items for the mom book.

The mom book... you know the one... that's right, the one that was published last month.

The items found, while not key to my mom's overall childhood story, would properly have been included in the mom book. They won't fit into the dad book at all. I might be able to make a place for them in the Evelyn & Rosmer book someday. But really, they should have been in the mom book.

Family historians, has this happened to you? Or does the dread of this ugly spectre keep you from making your own family history books?

Genealogy-blogging has surely served to fill the gap for me, that gap between having lots of info and the illusive certainty that I have all the info I'll need for a book. With a blog, you can delete, redo, add more later... it's like a river. It flows, it changes, it adapts. But you can't hold it in your hand. A book is more like a rock. It's solid, permanent. You can hold it, keep it, and return to it because, barring catastrophic intervention, it will be just the way you left it.

The case for real books is strong. Unlike a genealogy blog, it doesn't remain in existence at the whim of any service provider. What's more, and this applies to e-books as well as blogs, a real book doesn't require any supply of power or technology to enable the reader to use it. All you need is eyes.

Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt to have a genealogy blog too. Coming up at this one, I'll be sharing the items that missed out on their spot in the mom book.

My mother lived in Hollywood for several months during WWII, just after she turned twenty-one. Today's entry is a letter written from my mom to her mom. It's part of a series of Hollywood letters I included in the mom book, but was not kept with the others. Below the page images, I'll include a transcription with a little annotation to explain the threads that tie into topics from previous letters.

February 9, 1944
Dear Mom,
     Helen is in Hollywood now. She arrived at 4:30 A.M. yesterday morning, and she is rooming in the house next door. She's there now, and I'm writing in between our conversations. [Helen was my mom's best friend. She had been living in northern California but decided to move down to Hollywood.]
     Mom, don't bother to bring my spring coat. If you put all of my clothes in your suitcase ~ you won't have any room for your own. And I think I can get along without that coat for awhile. By the way, how is my room looking these days? I kinda' miss it! [My grandma Evelyn was planning to take the train from Detroit to go and visit her daughter. What she should pack was an ongoing topic.]
     When you send your luggage ~ send it here in my name, and if I'm not home when it arrives, the manager will take it in. Also, send on a couple of blankets, 'cause we have very few. Then we can send them back again when you return.
     San Luis Obispo is about 200...

...miles north of here. It will take about 4 hours on the train, and she'll have to change trains here in L.A. so you will both have to get off in the Los Angeles station. I think the fare from here to there will be about $4.00 or $6.00 round trip. [The "she" my mother refers to is her sister Bonnie, who planned to visit her husband Karl who was stationed at San Luis Obispo. See Karl's letter at the bottom of this post.]
     If she wants any other information, perhaps she can get it at the station there in Detroit.
     And say, you'd better save some of that clothes money you're spending. I think you might find something out here that you'll want to buy.
     Do you remember I mentioned that I was sending you something to go with your navy blue dress? Well, I've decided to keep it here until you come, because it's breakable, and it might not get there all in one piece. So you see, you'll have something to look forward to.

     What's this I've been hearing? You're going around telling important people like Miller and Jim that you are coming out here after me? That's a fine thing to be saying? You see, I hear all the latest gossip even if I am clear across the country.
     Well, Mom, I'm going to close now. It's getting late, and my hair still has to be washed before I go to bed. Helen is going to give me a deluxe shampoo ~ or something, so until later . . .
     Love to you,
          Mary

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The letter below appeared in a previous post about Karl Parker. It was written from Karl to my grandma in late February of 1944 and addresses the question of Bonnie traveling to California to visit him while Evelyn was visiting my mom.

(click to enlarge)

An Excellent Book-Design Tutorial

2011-01-29T09:47:00.016-05:00

If you'd like to create a book, carve out a 60-minute timeslot this weekend to watch this great webinar by Mat Thorne. I'll post Part 2 next Saturday.

While the webinar is not specifically about family history books, the subject of design is relevant to any book.

Exemplar: A Compelling Family History Book

2011-01-28T10:35:00.002-05:00

Remember Me by Lesley Graham | Make Your Own Book

Like most creative projects, creating a family history book is immensely satisfying, and the result needn't be dull or boring. Remember Me by Lesley Graham just blew me away. Because it's so stunning, today's post is the first of a new series here at Before My Time, in which I'll feature family history books I've happened upon which may inspire you with new ideas for your own book project.

Described as "a thesis design book that focuses on memory loss and the journey one might face," Remember Me is utterly compelling. I am a big fan of "grunge" style, but like any design element, it has to serve the project it lives in first and foremost, or it's just visual clutter. In Remember Me grunge serves to perfection, carrying the message of the book in a way that words simply can't.

I encourage you to view the book at full-screen. Just click the little square box next to the Blurb logo. You may have to squint a bit to read the text, but it's worth doing!

Ideas:

All the elements of a book--photos, fonts, background, text, colors, everything--combine to make the whole. Understanding the theme of your book helps you choose design elements accordingly. The better you stick to your theme, the more cohesive your book will be in the end.
Snapshots! What a mixed blessing they are! The overwhelming majority are terrible, but sometimes they're all we've got to work with. Treatment is everything. In Remember Me, Graham uses what are essentially a bunch of bad snapshots as a metaphor for memory, advancing the theme of the book and thus turning bad photos into great ones.

Reader, what ideas do you get from this book?

Mary June: A Poem

2011-01-25T14:16:00.000-05:00

The other day I found this poem among things saved by my grandmother, Evelyn Hauer Kerr. The poem is about her first-born child, Mary June. As you can see, there is no byline. The poem is unquestionably written from Evelyn's perspective, but was it actually written by her? Or was it written for her by her daughter, poet Bonnie Elizabeth Parker? Or was it written by some other poet about some other lost child, and simply copied for Evelyn as a comforting memento? At present, I have no way of knowing for certain. I never knew my grandmother to be a writer of anything other than letters, but I was recently surprised to find another short typescript upon which Evelyn was named as the author. Maybe she had hidden talents!

December Ruminations

2010-12-31T16:36:00.004-05:00

A year ago today, I planned for 2010 to be The Year of Getting Stuff Organized. I set some goals and promised myself some very cool rewards. Let's see how I did with that!

My main project for the year was to be entering into my family tree database all documentation I have for each of my direct-line ancestors. I'd planned out a calendar: one ancestor per day, starting at the near end and working back in time for ... huh, where is that calendar? ... well, for as many months as it would take to complete them all. Having started that process with enthusiasm during the week before 2010 even began, by the time the new year did begin, I was already behind. Reader, let's leave it at that, shall we?

My daughter has a theory and, because we share brain genetics, I think it's a fine theory indeed. If one sets a goal, and then in the avoidance of working on that goal accomplishes some other fine project, that's counts as a win. In the interest of avoiding the heinous job of data entry, I accomplished quite a fair bit of other organization, to wit:

I labelled most of my genealogy binders so that I no longer have to guess what's in each one.
I reorganized some of those overstuffed binders, breaking out some of the material into new binders.
I printed out my complete pedigree chart and put those pages into a stand-up binder as an aid to working on the organizational project, so I can see what data is already entered for each, and where work needs to be done.
In the course of poking around online trying to do some of the work that needs to be done, I added a number of additional ancestors to my future research list, including Charlemagne and some other big-name history types. (Honestly, I'll probably never go there! I just don't see any need!)
The pedigree chart I printed out was instrumental in working on my Surnames page and in creating the daily surname posts I did early in the year.
The Surnames page led to creation of my Cousins in Cyberspace page.
The potential reward of creating an ancestor photo book led to a test run of Blurb. The test run ultimately resulted in six books created from my personal blogs and one very awesome book about my mother's childhood. In addition, several other volumes are either in progress or in the planning stage.

So, Yippee!!, I won big in the data organization project.

And what about 2011? More books! That's the plan, plain and simple! Not that the actual projects are plain and simple... they're not! But the end results are highly motivational!

------------

Once again the genealogy-blogging community was invited to vote for the Top 40 Genealogy Blogs. There's something about this that kind of rubs me the wrong way. I don't like to think of the blogosphere as a competitive arena, and if I ever had, I probably would never have begun blogging in the first place. I think the blogosphere is every bit as expansive as the Universe itself, for all practical purposes, with creative space for everyone who wants to use it. Each and every blog is a unique entity and, I hope, as much a source of satisfaction to its creator as mine is to me. In addition, each blog enriches the blogosphere in its own way, for which I'm very grateful. All of which is to say, I chose not to vote. I'm more of a bear* than a fish.* (But you already knew that, right?)

Speaking of unique blogs, Janice Brown, everyone's favorite Cow Hampshire correspondent, has returned to her little corner of the blogosphere, plopping The Christmas Box under our blogospheric tree after a hiatus of more than two years. Two long and silent years. Well, two years, three months, twenty-six days, twenty-two hours and fifty minutes, to be exact. If you haven't been to Cow Hampshire, really!, you must go!

*cave-dweller
*synchronized swimmer

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December Accomplishments

Upon completing the book about my mom, I promptly started a new book, one which I thought would be very quick to finish. I'd hoped to finish it by December 10, in order to take advantage of Blurb's December promo (free shipping). As the deadline drew near, though, I warmed to my topic, I guess you could say, and decided it was worth spending more time on. What started as a simple copy-and-paste compendium is now calling for some actual writing on my part, or at least some summarizing, and I think I'll have to cut some of the 100 pages I've already included to make room for other more readable material. Still, at this point I'd say the book is at least half done.
I wrote a post for the very awesome 100th Carnival of Genealogy at Creative Gene!

And in the other column . . .

Seriously... let's not even go there.

Why, kiddies, in my day we...

2010-12-25T09:20:00.000-05:00

... ten miles ... barefoot ... didn't talk back ... penmanship ... Santa Claus ...
... a Christmas present from Google so technology wouldn't pass us by...

Merry Christmas, my peeps, and to all a good day!

Mary and Joseph, Immanuel, and a couple of Christians...

2010-12-01T11:00:00.001-05:00

...well, actually, I've understated the count. In fact, the name Joseph appears no less than nine times in my pedigree chart, and twenty of my grannies were given the name Mary or Maria (not to mention Maryanne, Marybelle, and Marrayetia). But there is only one Immanuel--Hinrich Immanuel Behm to be exact, my fifth great-grandfather, born in April of 1725.

In total, there are more than 300 given names (counting both first and middle names) in my pedigree chart. Variety-wise, I was surprised to find that more than 100 different names were represented.

Other Biblically-named grandparents include:

A Joshua, a Gabriel, and five guys named Josiah,

A Benjamin, Ezekiel, and two named Jeremiah,

Micajah and two Peters, and two more named Elijah,

Nine grandpas known as Samuel and one as Jedediah.

And that's just the boys! Among the grandmas, there were four Ruths, three Deborahs, two Sarahs and a Naomi.

Those Puritans had Desire, Freedom, and Experience. And one of them was Thankful.

Grandpas with regal names include:

Alexander and Edward (one apiece)
David, George and Ludwig (two of each)
James (4)
Richard (half a dozen of those)
11 Williams
and a full dozen Henrys... Henries?... whatever!

There are two Ferdinands, and that's no bull.

Regally named grandmothers include half a dozen Annes, two Eleanors, nine Katharines, and a whopping twenty-one Elizabeths (the most popular girl's name in my pedigree chart).

Johns? There must be one of those in every family, isn't there? I have at least a dozen, along with seven Johanns, two Joans, and a Jonathan. On the distaff side, there are half a dozen Johannas and two Janes.

There are seven Roberts, and twice as many Thomases. I'm surprised that's not the other way around.

There's an August, but no April, May, or June.

I have a Russell in my chart--just one--my father. Russell is not a particularly common given name, but my children have two in their charts. Both of their grandfathers are Russells. Oddly, my daughter's husband also has both grandfathers sharing the same first name (Robert). And my daughter and her husband both have a paternal Uncle Gary. (My daughter's father grew up on a street named Hilldale, and her husband's father grew up on a street named Hillsdale. Although that has nothing to do with the given names in my pedigree chart, it certainly is a funny little addition to their list of odd similarities.)

Tryphena, Elvina, and Herman were handed down, but only once (at least in my direct lineage).

Dorcas, Lubbert, and Balthasar weren't handed down at all. Just as well!

But I did get two Valentines!

------------

Today is your last chance to post for Jasia's 100th Carnival of Genealogy. The prompt is "There's one in every family!" and it's wide open to your own interpretation. The goal for this very special celebration is 100 posts (or more!), so write on! You have until midnight, Hawaii time, to join the fun!

As usual, this great COG poster was created by footnoteMaven. Thanks so much, fM, for sharing 100 fabulous COG posters with us over the years! Readers, don't miss fM's post for this carnival, "We're Still Having Fun, & You're Still the One." She's expressed perfectly what so many of us feel about Jasia and the Carnival.

November Ruminations

2010-11-30T16:34:00.002-05:00

Because I'm focused on Blurb bookmaking these days, my ruminations this month are a bit of a continuation from something I mentioned in last month's ruminations: digital photo archiving. And again, my thoughts are not quite in sync with the how-to methods you've read about from the experts.

Digital archiving as advised by the experts consists of scanning photos at 300 dpi and saving them as TIF files. An important pro of the TIF format is that it is not a 'lossy' format; in other words, no resampling of the pixels takes place if you should 'Save' the file over and over again. A TIF con is that the file size is considerably larger than that of the same photo scan saved in, say, the JPG format.

The experts' advice may be enough for you, as far as it goes. However, in the course of working on a book about my mother's childhood, I discovered that I was unable to use some photos as I wanted to. Why?

For an 8" x 10" book, the pixel dimensions for a full-bleed page image, such as the left side of the two-page spread above, are 2363 x 3000 pixels. I had previously scanned both of the snapshots above at 300 dpi, but a regular-sized snapshot scanned at 300 dpi is simply not adequate to enlarge that much.

Using small snapshots as full-bleed page images, as shown in the examples above, necessitated my finding the originals and rescanning them at considerably higher resolution. In most cases, 600-700 dpi was adequate, but in some cases I scanned as high as 1200 dpi in order to crop the photo as I wanted it, or to select some small detail to enlarge for closer study.

Fortunately, I do have access to most of my mom's old snapshots. There are many other photos in my digital collection, however, which I've scanned from photos which I no longer have access to. I hadn't foreseen that I would have need of higher-resolution images.

In the future, I plan to scan small photos and snapshots at a much higher resolution. Because saving them as TIF files would require an enormous amount of disk space, I'll save them as JPG files. When I open one of those files for use in a project, I'll make a copy to work on and then close the original file without using the Save command. That way, the pixels in the original file do not get resampled as they do when you Save. It's the resampling that causes a tiny loss of clarity every time you do it, unnoticeable at first but after Saving repeatedly, the degradation becomes noticeable. At least, that's my understanding from a number of articles I've read about digital images.

By the way, if you burn your photo files to a CD or DVD, a JPG file is not going to degrade any more than a TIF file. The only degradation would be that of the CD or DVD itself.

I find that every time I use a photo in a project, my needs are different--I may want to crop it differently, or change the color to sepia or some other tint, or maybe just desaturate the colors a bit, maybe erase the background... you just never know what your next idea might be. Consequently I always work on a copy anyway, rather than the original image.

My point, if I actually have one, is that you may want to consider what your purpose is in scanning old photographs, and how you might want to use the scans in the future. You may need to make some exceptions to the advice of the experts in order to serve your own needs better.

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November Accomplishments

I managed to get a post up for Bill West's Second Great Local Poem and Song Genealogy Challenge. I've been waiting all year for that one to come around, and almost missed it due to seemingly endless fussing over the finishing of the book I've been working on.
I'm sure you're tired of hearing about it but at last, with six hours to spare before the deadline, I uploaded my first family-history-related book to Blurb.com and placed my order.

And in the other column . . .

There are still a few names remaining to be done on my Surnames page. This is a fine example of how I lose my momentum on a project if I take a break from it before it's completed. I'll finish them up eventually, but right now they're down some on my list of priorities. Sure would be nice if I could wrap that up before the end of the year, though!

A Poem by John Cotton

2010-11-21T18:27:00.002-05:00

IN PRAISE OF MASTER STONE.
[To my Reverend Dear Brother, Mr. Samuel Stone, Teacher of the Church at Hartford. 1652.]

How well, dear Brother, art thou called Stone?
As sometimes Christ did Simon Cephas own.
A Stone for solid firmness fit to rear
A part in Zion's wall, and it upbear.
Like Stone of Bohan, bounds fit to describe
'Twixt Church and Church, as that 'twixt tribe and tribe.
Like Samuel's Stone, erst Eben-Ezer hight,
To tell the Lord hath helped us with his might.
Like Stone in David's sling, the head to wound
Of that huge Giant-Church, so far renowned,
Hight the Church Catholic œcumenical,
Or at the lowest compass National;
Yet Politic Visible, and of such a fashion
As may or rule a world or rule a nation.
Which though it be cried up unto the Skies
By Philistines and Israelites likewise,
Yet seems to me to be too near akin
Unto the Kingdom of the Man of sin.
In frame, and state, and constitution,
Like to the first beast in the Revelation
Which was as large as Roman empire wide,
And ruled Rome, and all the world beside.
Go on, good Brother, gird thy sword with might,
Fight the Lord's battles, plead his Church's right.
To Brother Hooker thou art next akin,
By office-right thou must his pledge redeem.
Take thou the double portion of his spirit,
Run on his race, and then his crown inherit.
Now is the time when Church is militant,
Time hast'neth fast when it shall be triumphant.

The Reverend Samuel Stone was my ninth great-grandfather.

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Stop by West in New England on November 25th, Thanksgiving day, when the entries in Bill West's Second Great American Local Poem And Song Genealogy Challenge will be posted. I've read a few of the entries already, and this year's event promises to be as awesome as last year's.

Treasure Chest Thursday: The One That Got Away

2010-11-18T07:31:00.007-05:00

Okay, so this was not an ancestral treasure... it was mine. I held it in my hand every day for decades. It was on my keyring from the time I got it until early 2004 when it disappeared, keys and all. I didn't care about the keys, but I still miss my brass tag. I expected to have it until my dying day. And maybe beyond!

You're wondering how I got a picture of it if it's gone? Well, I was still grieving my lost tag in late 2005 so, to make myself feel better, I decided to recreate it in Paint Shop Pro and then add it to a digital scrapbook page as an embellishment. When I sat down to do that, however, I found myself with questions. Like, what did it actually say?

You've come a long way, baby.
or
you've come a long way baby
or
YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY

And where was the line-break? Details, details! It's funny how we can look at stuff every day for years and still not fully see it. I thought to google it, hoping to find an image online or maybe even an identical tag for sale on ebay. Instead I found a journal entry by a college student named Violette, in which she mentioned that she'd received a tag like mine as a gift from a friend. Next I googled her name and found a way to contact her, so I wrote and told her a bit of history about the tag. It was a promotional item from the late 1960s or early '70s (surely before she was born) that came with a purchase of Virginia Slims cigarettes.

And I told her the story of how I'd lost my tag. I'd gone out for an early morning walk around the apartment complex. I'd stopped at my minivan for a moment before taking my trash to the compactor at the far side of the complex, and either I left my keys hanging in the car lock or else had them in hand when I got to the garbage compactor and unwittingly dropped them in when I tossed the trash. Of course, back at my apartment, I noticed their absence right away since I couldn't get in! I immediately retraced my steps, but to no avail. The keys were not hanging from the minivan gate, they weren't inside the minivan, and searching as much as I could reach in the trash compactor produced nothing. Because the compactor operated automatically, I could not climb in and search there more thoroughly unless it was turned off, so I found the man in charge of maintenance and he offered to send the groundskeeper at 8 a.m. when he started work. I returned to the compactor about 7:55 to await the groundskeeper, but he'd arrived early and was already standing in the compactor ripping open all the bags of garbage that were in there and dumping them out! Of course, my keys wouldn't have been in a bag, they would have fallen down between bags to the bottom of the compactor. But now, with all the garbage set free, it was a hopeless cause.

And then I asked Violette to help me with my three questions:

Was the phrase entirely in lower case letters or upper case, or was the first word capitalized?
Was there a period at the end of the phrase?
As I recalled, the phrase was broken into two lines, correct? Where was the line break?

She graciously replied with a friendly letter, telling me a little about herself. She was from Switzerland, attending college in Michigan for awhile. It made me smile to think that her friend had given her a tag like mine--quite appropriate for her! She answered my questions about the tag, and with her answers, I made the image above. Then I emailed it to her and asked if I'd gotten it about right.

A short time later during a break from school, she emailed me back. Yes, she said, I'd gotten it quite right except for the font. She'd been able to make a scan of her tag for me and sent it along. I've used it in the image below. Mine was pretty close, eh?

July 2006: I'm reflected in the side window of my
minivan. I was still living in Oregon at the time, but
this picture was taken at my dad's house in Michigan.

Violette has become part of the memory of my tag now. I googled her again while preparing this post. It appears she's travelled a good bit in these last five years. It still makes me smile, to think of her with a keytag that says, "You've come a long way, baby." It's so right for her! In 2006, she wrote a beautiful essay that will have you nodding and smiling too. Click to read "Big is beautiful."

------------

And while we're on the subject . . .

Speaking of Virginia Slims, I found this fun little collection of "long way, baby" commercials at Internet Archive. Oddly, the last minute of the video is blank. Consider it a moment of silence for women who have lost their lives to cancer and emphysema from smoking.

Today is The Great American Smokeout. Every year at this time, I take a moment to thank myself for quitting smoking. At the time, I had no idea how much it would change my life.

October Ruminations

2010-10-31T23:33:00.004-04:00

Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip?

Once you're off, that's all right, but the last moments

are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling

that you are a snail being pulled off your rock.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Somehow I managed to pull myself off my rock in early October and drove to St. Joseph, Michigan, where I spent three fabulous days with my genie cousin Cheryl, of Two Sides of the Ocean, and Creative Gene's Jasia. We three had a great time talking genealogy, dining out, shopping, and just visiting. I also got to meet Jasia's awesome husband, and was entertained by her dog Kai as well as Cheryl's dog Zoya. I'm happy to say also that Cheryl's mom is recovering nicely from her stroke and was in very good spirits. All told, my visit couldn't have been more fun! Thanks again, Cheryl and Jasia, for your hospitality and for making my trip a very special highlight of 2010!

Speaking of Creative Gene, this fall Jasia has all sorts of reasons to celebrate: last month, her 1,000th post; this month, the 5th anniversary of Creative Gene; and coming right up, the 100th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. These are all remarkable events in the blogosphere. The COG gave rise to a great community of genealogy bloggers, resulting in new friendships, consumer clout in the genealogy industry, and inspired family history writing. Congratulations on your successes, Jasia, and thanks for the many ways in which you've enriched the blogosphere and those of us who have had the good fortune to find you there.

I haven't had much time this month for general internet surfing, but an article was brought to my attention by Denise (of Moultrie Creek Gazette) via the Genealogy Research Resources group at Diigo. Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally, by Gary T. Wright, is an excellent and very detailed how-to lesson in digital preservation, well worth reading for anyone who hopes to go that way. Having said that, however, I must admit I found myself laughing out loud at the possibility (and I use that term despite reality) that my descendants (or even I, for that matter) would remember to remake my preservation disks every few years, and would convert the files as formats become obsolete, and would archive not only the disks but also a spare device to read them when technology moves on to the next newer and better innovation. (Got 8-track player, anyone?)

Personally, I see digitized files as a great convenience:

I can take everything with me on a research trip when it's on my computer.
I can bring up a copy pretty quickly using tags.
If I have need of a paper copy, I can print one out quickly.
I can email whatever I have to cousins who'd like a copy.
I can upload a copy to my family history software.
I can crop or adapt a copy for use in my blog.

I'm sure I could add to this list, but I think my point is made. It's useful to have digital copies of documents. However, armed with the information and insights gained from reading Mr. Wright's article, I've decided to leave eternal digital preservation to the big players. For myself, I'm sticking with the time-tested technologies of hands, eyes, and paper. And if any of my digitized documents just happen to live on, so much the better.

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October Accomplishments

Using Blurb, I've almost completed a 120-page book about my mom's childhood, up to and including her wedding. I'd say it practically wrote itself, but actually my mom wrote it. I merged her written stories with the many photos available, and I couldn't be more excited about the way it's turning out.
During my visit to St. Joseph, Cheryl shared many photos to be used in our Schulte book. I haven't even begun to sort through the scans yet, but among them are some very special ones which will add great interest to the book.
I read Legacy, the first book I've read by Danielle Steele. I did so because it has a genealogy theme, and because I only get two channels on my TV set, and because my brain turns to goo around 8 p.m., give or take an hour. Okay, 4 p.m., but sometimes I push on anyway. But... Legacy... only out of sheer inertia did I get past the first few chapters, and by that I mean the pull of gravity exerted by my couch was overwhelming but apparently did not extend all the way to my eyelids. I did learn why all the how to write fiction books say you should show, not tell. I was at least a quarter of the way through the book before the story began to catch my interest. I have to hand it to Ms. Steele though--she's found herself a sweet spot in a world where it's hard to make a living as a writer. Readers who enjoy her books will surely enjoy this one.

And in the other column . . .

Again this month, I have been all about Blurb books. Before My Time languishes!
I've revised the target date for completing the Schulte book, as some of Joseph Meyer Schulte's descendants are still under-represented in the materials and photos we've gathered. We need to make additional contact with other Schulte cousins and see what else we can find.
I've also revised the target date for my Kate Pettis Kerr book, for the same reason. I've learned that there are additional materials available which would greatly enhance the value of the book. However, I've been lax about making contact with the cousins who have those materials.

Speed Dial, 1950 Style

2010-10-09T09:04:00.006-04:00

On this day in 1915, Alexander Graham Bell spoke with his associate, Thomas Watson, over a two-mile telephone wire stretched from Boston to Cambridge. It was the first wire conversation ever held. (The famous "Mr. Watson, come here" conversation of 1876, although a part of telephone history, was actually spoken via a device that used a liquid transmitter, a bit of intermediate technology in the development of the telephone.)

Ninety-five years later, we don't even need the wire anymore.

September Ruminations

2010-09-30T16:32:00.002-04:00

I've been quite out of the geneablogging loop this month, with my attentions directed to other projects. I'm planning a cool little trip for October though, and might have to post about that in the coming days.

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September Accomplishments

I completed the last three in a series of six blog books not related to genealogy.
I came upon a series of letters my mom wrote to her parents in 1943-44, and now have yet another Blurb book project under way!

And in the other column . . .

Blog hiatus! Currently I am all about Blurb bookmaking!

August Ruminations

2010-08-31T16:31:00.018-04:00

Terry Thornton, the original H.O.G.S. blogger and Graveyard Rabbit, passed away August 9. R.I.P., Terry--and thanks for all I learned from you.

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August Accomplishments

I completed and ordered my third non-genealogy blog book from Blurb.
My fourth, fifth, and sixth blog books will be finished in time for Blurb's next special.
I cleaned up the top of my desk!

And in the other column . . .

Twenty-eight days in August lacked a post at Before My Time.
The other three days, including today, got slacker posts!

Wordless Wednesday: Burning Genealogy Books to DVD

2010-08-18T09:26:00.000-04:00

1951, When the Safest Place Was Under Your Desk

2010-08-07T07:00:00.005-04:00

Ah, kiddies, when I was your age, a table could protect you from the atom bomb.

July Ruminations

2010-07-31T16:29:00.003-04:00

I saw these very cool power-dudes at Greta's Genealogy Bog and fell madly in love. They're available from Amazon, so I've added them to Ye Olde Genealogy Shoppe.

I'm enjoying Dr. Daniel Hubbard's blog, Personal Past Meditations, which was new to me this month (although celebrating its first blogoversary on August 1). It's the perfect place to take a break from what you're thinking and see what someone else is thinking, because Daniel is an excellent thinker.

Speaking of thinking, July Ruminations doesn't look like a very good place to find much of that going on! It's been too hot, muggy, and stormy to think of anything besides how hot, muggy, and stormy it is. I'm not a fan of Michigan weather, and this summer seems worse than any I can recall.

Nevertheless, I've been juggling several Blurb book projects all month. The ones getting all the attention right now are those which don't require thinking, i.e., old (non-genealogy) blogs which just need to be slurped and edited. I finished and ordered my second book; the third is done except for the jacket flaps (thinking required!); the fourth is a bit less than half finished; and the fifth has been slurped and a few posts edited.

Because I'm actually posting this a couple days late, I've been giving some thought to something that happened "in the future" so to speak, on August 2. One of my Facebook friends had her account hacked. The hacker, pretending to be her, contacted me via Facebook's "chat" feature. The conversation started with a simple "hi... how are you?" In many instances this would seem normal enough, but I was immediately puzzled. I have never met this Fb friend, I know her only through the GeneaBloggers group, and can't recall ever having had anything like a conversation with her. After trying to figure out whether I'd commented on her blog or something, I decided to respond in an equally harmless manner... I replied with a complaint about the weather and asked if hers was equally muggy. "Not good here... in some kind of mess," she answered. "The weather? or you?" I asked. "I'm stranded in London, United Kingdom... was mugged and robbed at gun point last night."

Yeah, I'm sure the first thing I would do after being mugged and robbed at gunpoint in a foreign country would be to instant-message a virtual stranger for idle chit-chat. Another line or two and there it was: "I need your help."

We all want to believe everyone is honest, but hey, I was not born yesterday. I advised calling to report the credit cards stolen, and then closed my browser and called it a night.

This morning (actually August 3), I checked her profile. She had already posted a status update saying that her account had been hacked, that she wasn't in London and had not been mugged. Other GeneaBloggers reported that they, too, had been instant-messaged by the hacker with the same bogus story. Many had already heard about a similar hacker scam recently. I hadn't, so my own suspicion was that this particular Facebook account had been set up by a scammer right from the start to target members of this community. That I was wrong on that particular point doesn't comfort me much though. In an open group as large as GeneaBloggers has become, there certainly is plenty of opportunity for clever scammers. Fortunately, GeneaBloggers is also a very interactive group, and awareness of last night's scam attempt was shared very quickly among group members.

In any case, I've been reconsidering the way I use Facebook, and will be reducing my Friends list in the coming days to family members and friends with whom I interact on a regular basis. Fellow GeneaBloggers, please don't take it personally if you find yourself unFriended! I look forward to reading your blogs, participating with you in GeneaBloggers activities, blog carnivals, etc. Honestly, I'm betting you won't even miss me, as I'm not much of a Facebooker anyway!

------------

July Accomplishments

I bought the car wax.

And in the other column . . .

I did not apply the car wax to the car.

Blurb Blurb

2010-07-22T11:56:00.002-04:00

Screenshot of Blurb's Booksmart software in use.

The text in this two-page spread can include all the information found

in a family group sheet, but in a visually appealing way that will draw

attention even from genealogically-disinclined members of the family.

In April, Heather Rojo wrote about using Blurb to create a blog book. There was quite a bit of interest in this topic, and she followed up with more Blurb details in answer to questions people had. I'd been leaning toward Blurb for a family history book I'm planning, so I was happy to know she'd had a good experience with it.

I wasn't quite ready to begin my project, but Heather told about Blurb's blog-slurp capability, and I decided to give that a test run using my first (non-genealogy) blog. By the end of May, I had my blog book in hand and was more than satisfied with the materials and workmanship. I started the family history book I'd had in mind, and also slurped a couple more of my old blogs.

The new-found portrait of the Schulte cousins has inspired yet another book project. My cousin Cheryl and I are putting our heads together on this one, a book about Joseph Meyer Schulte's ancestors and descendants. Together we have an abundance of material, lots of excellent photos, and a great mix of skills for getting the job done.

One of our goals is to keep the book under 120 pages. That's the cut-off point beyond which the binding of the book would be glued rather than sewn. We want the added strength of a sewn binding for our book.

Another goal is to create a book that will be interesting to all family members, including those who fall asleep when the word genealogy slips into the conversation. Think family history meets coffee table book. To that end, the first half (or more, as needed) of our book will depend heavily on photographs and narrative text pertaining to our immigrant ancestor, Joseph Meyer Schulte, and his children and grandchildren. For great-grandchildren and subsequent generations (in other words, those of us who are still living), I hope to include some yearbook-style pages, with several smaller portraits on each page identified simply by name and birth year. A section on Joseph's German ancestry is next, followed by a section about Joseph's niece Lizzie and other descendants of Joseph's ancestors. Charts, documents, and a bibliography will play a part in the remainder of the book, based on how much space is left.

I'd already roughed out about forty pages of the book when I read Denise Olson's The Hybrid Family History. You'll want to read that if you're thinking of creating a book yourself.

95 Years Ago Today: Krintz-McArthur Marriage

2010-07-21T09:57:00.002-04:00

(click to enlarge)

From The Baker Sentinel, 23 July 1915:

"The marriage of Miss Emma E. Krintz and Peter McArthur occurred at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Heifrin Tuesday afternoon, Rev. Tack, of the Congregational church, officiating. Both young people have a wide acquaintance in this vicinity and are very popular. They left that evening amid a shower of rice for Thermopolis, Wyo., for a ten days' honeymoon after which they will occupy the Mallough house on West Montana Ave."

Long-time readers here may recall a story I published three years ago about the McArthurs' marriage certificate. Family members may wish to know that the images in that story, along with the image above, are suitable for inclusion in our family history slide show. To download them, first click to enlarge, then right-click and select Save Image As, and choose where you want to save it on your computer.

347 Years Ago Today: The Passing of Rev. Samuel Stone

2010-07-20T00:25:00.005-04:00

Boynton, Percy Holmes, Howard Mumford Jones, George Sherburn, and Frank Martindale Webster. American Poetry. New York: C. Scribner, 1919.

Notes from The Sheldon Progress, 1917

2010-07-16T00:23:00.006-04:00

World War I draft registration of John S. Krentz

January 25:

Fred Buss and Emil Greuel of Leonard were guests at the H.C. Buss home this week.

February 15:

Casey: "Grandma" Buss, living in Anselm, is reported on the sick list.

Miss Hulda Krueger is staying at the Buss home in Anselm this week.

March 15:

Casey: Born on Tuesday of last week, to Mr. and Mrs. Fred Krantz, a baby boy.

March 29:

Casey: Messrs. Carl and Will Nightingale, Fred Krantz, Henry Krueger, E. Froemke, and Mr. and Mrs. F. Buss were Sunday guests at C. Krueger's.

Mr. and Mrs. Ed Wall of Owego are rejoicing over the arrival of a daughter who put in an appearance at their home Wednesday morning.

April 5:

John Krantz arrived from Anselm last week to the buildings on the old Froemke farm now owned by Fred Wall. He will work for Mr. Wall this season.

April 12:

Casey: Mr. and Mrs. Jake Muth and son Esmond, Mr. and Mrs. F. Buss, and Mrs. Litzau spent Monday with Mr. and Mrs. George Schunk.

April 26:

Casey: Emil Seelig and family visited at the John Reis home Sunday.

May 3:

Mrs. F.J. Jaster returned Tuesday from Kenosha, Wis., where she was called last week by the death of her mother Mrs. L. Leining. Mr. and Mrs. Leining were formerly residents of both Casey and Shenford townships.

May 10:

Shenford: Mrs. John Reis called on Mrs. Stewart Friday afternoon.

May 24:

Word was received at Anselm just as we go to press this afternoon that the mother of Barney Buss just died. She was eighty-six years of age and had made her home with her son for years. Death was due to old age.

May 31:

Casey: A large crowd of friends and neighbors attended the funeral of Mrs. Buss Saturday.

June 21:

Dan Froemke and Fred Krantz are among those who have purchased new cars recently.

Men who registered June 5th: August Litzau (Greene Pct. 2); Elmer Nohr, Phillip Nohr, and Herbert Nohr (Casey Pct. 10); Gerald Buss, Edward Buss, William Nohr, John Krentz (Shenford Pct. 11).

August 23:

Edward H. Buss of Lisbon, #383, was #179 of Ransom County called for a physical in the draft. William Philip Nohr of Lisbon, #388, was #171 called.

October 18:

The First National Bank put through a real estate deal this week whereby they disposed of a part of the old Jas. Marks place in Shenford township. The purchaser was Fred Krantz, who bought the quarter where the buildings are. Mr. Krantz also disposed of a quarter he owned southwest of Venlo to John T. Reis. Mr. Krantz for the past two seasons has farmed just east of Lisbon on rented land and was in the hailed out district this summer. He has already moved his personal property to his new acquired land.

November 29:

Casey: August Ludtke, Phil Nohr, Sr., and John Reis and families and Mr. and Mrs. Max Moldenhauer and mother of Chaffee were guests at the H.C. Buss home Sunday.

December 20:

Ferdinand Buss left Wednesday for Minneapolis where he will vist his daughter Mrs. Nelson.

Mr. and Mrs. H.C. Buss from south of Sheldon were at Chaffee Tuesday to attend the golden wedding anniversary of Mrs. Buss' parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. Moldenhauer. There are eight children in the family and all were present at the gathering. The couple are 74 and 72 years of age and are grand old people. They have made their home in the vicinity of Chaffee for a number of years. There are 24 grandchildren and three great grandchildren in the family.

Notes from The White County Democrat, 1916

2010-07-14T07:21:00.001-04:00

This photo of the Jewell Ward home appeared in W. H. Hamelle's

A Standard History of White County, Indiana in 1915,

the year before it was destroyed. (click to enlarge)

Friday, March 24 ~ Front Page:

TWO KILLED, MANY INJURED BY CYCLONE'S FURY
NORTH HALF OF COUNTY HARD HIT
LOSS OF PROPERTY IS TREMENDOUS
Houses, Barns, School Houses Blown to Pieces--Fire Added to the Destruction--Much Stock Killed
SCORES OF PEOPLE LUCKILY ESCAPED DEATH

THE DEAD
ROBERT RECTOR, MONON
INFANT ERWIN, MONON
BADLY INJURED
Jewell Ward, Rural Route 3
Mrs. Jewell Ward, Rural Route 3
Arnold Lucy, Rural Route 4
Mrs. Arnold Lucy, Rural Route 4
Both of the fatalities due to the cyclone were in Monon township. One of the victims, Robert Rector, lived alone in a cabin that was demolished by the wind. His dead body was found in a field this moning fifty feet away from the spot where his cabin stood. He was employed in the Monon stone crushing plant and was quite old.

The other victim, an infant child of Mr. and Mrs. Al Erwin, residing south of Monon, died this afternoon from the result of injuries received. The child, an infant in arms was blown out of its mothers arms and carried away by the wind to a distance of 150 yeards into a field. Two other children were hurt but not seriously. The house and barn on the Erwin place were blown to pieces.

In the wake of the cyclone which followed a path about five miles wide from east to west, and which swept over the county about 10 o'clock on Tuesday night, left a waste of houses, barns, school houses, orchard and forest trees, dead animals and chickens.

The toll in death which the storm took in this county was 2 lives, the fatalities occurring at Monon. Several persons were more or less injured, but taken as a whole, and computing the opportunity for scores of fatalities, there was cause for thankfulness next morning when an inventory of the storm's damages was taken.

The rumbling and roaring of the wind shook houses in Monticello and those who were awake were much alarmed, but no damage was done here. The storm spent its fury on a strip of country five miles north and the center of its activity was in Liberty township in the Cullen Creek neighborhood. Roads leading to the north, particularly on the Buffalo Pike, were littered with trees that had either been uprooted or broken off, telephone poles and wires, wire fences and posts and all sorts of debris imaginable. Hardly a single farm escaped damage in the whole path of the storm from west to east and over a territory about five miles wide. Telephone connection on all lines north of the Panhandle railroad was destroyed and it was a very difficult matter to get particulars of the actual damage done. Nearly half of the telephone poles between here and buffalo were blown down. Manager Hanway estimates that the company is damaged fully $2500. Telegraph wires and poles were also blown down and the Western Union was without service all day between this city and Logansport, as well as points west.

Liberty township seems to have bourn the brunt of the wind. There also, the wind played some of its most freakish stunts. The home of Jewell Ward, north of Sitka, was blown down and afterwards caught fire and was consumed. There were thirteen people occupying beds at the Ward home. They were all carried away by the wind when the house collapsed but escaped death by a miracle. Three daughters, who were occupying a bed upstairs were carried away with the bed and deposited, bed and all, in a berry patch several hundred feet away. None of them were hurt. One of the girls went half a mile to the nearest neighbor for assistance, barefooted and with nothing on but her nightclothes. One daughter was found in the middle of a field several rods away and another member of the family, a son, was in the cellar, where he had been buried. A piano was blown out into a cornfield. Mrs. Ward was the only member of the family who was badly injured. When Dr. McCann attended her next morning he found that she was bruised all over, but there were no bones broken. Mr. Ward and some of the children were slightly injured but none of them badly hurt. The premises were searched for bed clothes and enough found to make the sufferers comfortable in the barn where they remained until they were taken to the homes of neighbors.

Arnold Lucy and his wife were among the badly injured. Their house stood on the west side of the road and was lifted up by the wind and deposited on the east side of the road and nearly two hundred feet from the place where it originally stood. The house was demolished. Mr. and Mrs. Lucy were hurled fifty feet east of the road and 150 feet from the place where they had been calmly sleeping. Mr. Lucy sustained a fractured collar bone, was badly bruised on the back, and had a number of cuts and bruises on his head and body. Dr. Cray was in the neighborhood attending another patient and was called to go to the assistance of Mr. and Mrs. Lucy. When found, Mrs. Lucy was unconscious and was in that condition when Dr. Cray arrived. She had sustained a bad injury to her back, the extent of which could not be determined at the time. It is feared that her back was broken.

In the same neighborhood Del Rouhier's barn was blown down. The windmill at Lew Tucker's home was blown on to the roof of the house, smashing in the roof and doing considerable damage. John Amich's kitchen was unroofed, window glass blown out and shade trees uprooted.

On the Buffalo pike Victor Hare's fine barn was ruined but none of the stock was killed except two hogs.

The barn on the Samuel Wolf farm and the old blacksmith shop that stood along the road were demolished, also the barn on the Frank Wolf place.

Other barns destroyed in the Sitka neighborhood were on the farms of Wm. Criswell, Bert Luse, Mrs. Wm. Daugherty, Wallace Moore, Mike Criswell, where a cow was killed, and Logan Hughes.

There were nine head of horses and fifteen head of cattle in the Hughes barn. The barn was leveled to the ground and the stock caught under the wreckage. The animals were all down when Mr. Hughes began to investigate his damages and he supposed they were all dead. Not a single head was killed and none of the animals badly hurt. Mr. Hughes was injured by running a nail in his foot while searching the wreckage. Dr. Coffin was called to attend him.

Four school houses in Liberty township were ruined and the house at Sitka was so badly shaken that the trustee would not permit the house to be occupied, school being dismissed.

The school houses destroyed were as follows:
White Post, blown down and afterward burned.
Amich, blown across the road and entirely demolished.
Valley, blown down.
Carr, lifted from the foundation and carried out into the road, a distance of about 100 feet, where it was smashed to pieces. This was another of the freakish performances of the wind. The house was lifted cleanly off the foundation and carried in an upright position over a pile of cordwood, without knocking the wood down. It caromed on the ground in two places and lit in the road, collapsing, but without disturbing some of the seats that were left in a row on the floor, with books on top of them. The bell was in the yard fifty feet away from the foundation and the stove was carried out to the road.
The cupalo [sic] of the Cullen Creek church was blown off, but otherwise the building was uninjured. The bell was deposited in the yard about fifty feet away.

The barn belonging to Henry Reid near the old county farm northwest of Monticello, was blown down and six head of hogs killed. Mr. Reid's barn was practically new. He estimates his loss at $2000. The house was also twisted.

On the August Dreifus farm, the old county farm, every building on the place was twisted out of shape and otherwise damaged, but one of them blown down.

A new barn on the Sperry Miller farm in the same neighborhood was also blown down.

Some damage was done to the county house, a part of the slate roof being blown off.

The damage to orchards and standing timber cannot be estimated. In some places orchards were practically ruined. Chickens also suffered from the wind. At almost every farm house there was a litter of dead fowls.

In the neighborhood around Wolcott farm buildings and orchards suffered considerable damage, but the wind did not become very destructive until it had reached a point east of Monon and Reynolds. The latter place escaped damage but reports have been received that considerable damage was done to buildings and trees between there and Monon.

It is impossible to even place an estimate at this time on the [illegible] amount of damage done in the county by the cyclone, but it will run up into thousands of dollars. A great many of those damaged carried cyclone insurance, but their policies do not nearly cover their total losses.

Logansport was hit hard by the storm, there being one person killed and six injured there. Among the injured are Mrs. A. H. Nethercut and her son. The Nethercuts formerly lived at Burnettsville. Mr. Nethercut is telegrapher in the tower at Trimmer, seven miles west of Logansport and saw the house blow over which his family occupied. He could not go to their assistance when the storm broke on account of being detained by his duties. When the house blew over the heating stove fell on Mrs. Nethercut and her body was badly burned. The son was only slightly injured. Mrs. Nethercut and son were taken to Logansport on a Pennsylvania engine where they were treated.

The cyclone also wrought great havoc at Monon and in that vicinity, especially south. The Monon round house at Monon was reported to be badly damaged.

Farm buildings in the vicinity of Monon were badly damaged and a large amount of stock killed. Physicians and their helpers were kept busy all night caring for people who had been hurt.

A cyclone swept over the same section of the county on the 12th of May thirty years ago. Some of the farms that were hit and damaged by Tuesday night's storm were also badly damaged in the cyclone of 1886.

From Sitka the storm swept on eastward scattering devastation over the country north of Idaville and Burnettsville, reaching Logansport at 10:20, where one person was killed and several injured.

A partial list of the damage north of Idaville and Burnettsville follows. Owing to lack of telephone service it is likely that there was much more damage unreported than has been heard of yet.

Many houses in Idaville had windows blown out and roofs damaged. Several plate glass windows in the business houses were broken. The M. E. church was badly damaged.

Much damage was done to live stock, especially where the animals were sheltered by straw stacks.

At the Stuhmer farm, one mile north of Idaville, the house was badly damaged, windows all broken, chimneys blown down, large stock barn destroyed. Men from Idaville worked most of the night clearing away debris to liberate cattle and succeeded in saving all but 5 or 6 cows.

Sheds at the Suits farm north of the Stuhmer farm were destroyed.

Several head of cattle and hogs on the Timmins farm south of the Stuhmer place were buried when the straw stack went over.

A barn at the Nulf place northwest of Idaville was picked up and set down several rods away leaving the horses hitched in their stalls.

At Dave Gardner's farm 3 miles northeast of Idaville a barn was destroyed.

At the Allie Carson farm 5 miles northwest of Idaville, occupied by John Morgan, the barn was destroyed and two horses killed.

The Pious Chapel church 6 miles north of Idaville is said to be badly wrecked. Sam McVay, a farmer near by the church, had his barn destroyed and five horses killed.

James Nixon, four miles north of Idaville, had his barn destroyed but all the the ten horses were uninjured.

John Jones east of Mr. Nixon, near the Thomas school house, reports all buildings badly damaged. Harve Thomas, north of Mr. Jones, lost the roof off his barn.

Arthur Pingry, residing mid-way between Idaville and Monticello, had two horses killed.

Two barns on the Capt. Hays farm two miles north of Idaville were destroyed and a horse and several hogs belonging to te tenant Fred Ohman, were killed.

A big barn belong to Milt Mertz at Burnettsville was blown down and a house on the Guy farm northeast of Burnettsville was wrecked by the wind and later caught fire and burned up. Mr. and Mrs. Guy were both badly hurt, the latter's condition being quite serious.

Damages are also reported at the Russow farm west of Idaville, the Geisler farm 2 miles northeast of Idaville and at the John Neel farm northwest of Idaville.

Bert Shafer, who had a thresherman's cabin on wheels in the gravel pit at the edge of Idaville, awoke to find his cabin gone. When he attempted to give chase the wind slammed him into a wire fence from which he was unable to get loose until the storm subsided. When he got disentangled he hiked to his father's home at the south end of town leaving his cabin in flames. Idaville [illegible] who noticed the fire went in search of him and for a time it was thought he had been burned to death but his whereabouts were later discovered and the search came to an abrupt end.

7 April:

THE ERWIN BABY COULD NOT SURVIVE INJURIES
Infant Blown Out of Mother's Arms When the Great Cyclone Came, Died March 30

Infant Erwin, the little storm victim in Monon township, in whom everybody in the county had a solicitous interest, died Thursday of last week. The baby was reported in the list of dead in the first chronicles of the storm, but later reports, to the surprise of everybody conversant with the rough treatment the baby had received, held out some hope of ultimate recovery. During the week preceding the baby's death it had been in convulsions most of the time.

The death occurred at the home of Will Erwin, a brother of Albert Erwin, the father of the babe, and whose house was destroyed by the wind. The anguish and greif of the parents, from the time their babe was found by the light of their burning home, until death came as a merciful liberator, can be best understood by those who have seen their treasures taken from them.

15 September:

ONLY ONE DEATH IN FAMILY OF FOURTEEN

Our Sitka correspondent sends in the following death notice which is remarkable for the reason that it records the first loss by death in a family of fourteen children:
"The infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jewel F. Ward was buried at Riverview cemetery Monday afternoon. This is the fourteenth child born to them and the first death which has occurred in the family."

Notes from The Sheldon Progress, 1916

2010-07-12T15:09:00.002-04:00

Herman Christian Froemke

1856 - 1916

January 6:

Mr. and Mrs. Ed Wall and family and Miss Elma Torfin were guests at the Bjugstad home Tuesday evening.

February 10:

Anselm: The popularity of checkers seems to have centered in Anselm this winter. The contestants most interested are Barney Buss, Mr. Sohenstahl, Leslie Legg and Ole Gutenberg who carry the banner of superiority. However, the tables were turned just recently when Charlie Krueger an old timer with past checker experience, defeated the entire line of "banner carriers", establishing a higher standard of checker brains.

Owego: With his pockets filled with salt and a hammer under his arm, J. N. Johnson sallied forth early Thursday morning with the intention of capturing several of the "domesticated coyotes" which are especially fond of Owego chickens. However, he soon discovered that his artillery was too light and was compelled to signal for reinforcements. His S.O.S. signal was soon answered by Carl Bjugstad who came hurrying across the field astride his worthy cayuse. Before his heavy Howitzer could be brought into action the coyotes had reached the hills and vamoosed from sight. The sportsmen returned late in the afternoon tired but not vanquished. Undaunted by his neighbor's failure, Ed Wall shoved his old musket under the seat of the cutter, hitched up his trusty team, and after securing the assistance of his father, gave chase late in the evening to two other coyotes. Just as Ed thought he had his game the sleigh struck a stump and upset and before he could dig himself out from underneath the wreckage the coyotes had made their getaway. Edward is seriously considering the purchase of a Zeppelin from the Germans as he is of the opinion they are not all needed in Europe. Should he be successful in making the purchase he feels certain that he can fly high enough to miss the stumps.

February 17:

Mr. and Mrs. Ed Wall and son Herbert visited at the Christ Bjugstad home Tuesday evening.

Our North Dakota atmosphere has again captured Mr. Reis after having tried to begin a home in Minnesota the passing winter.

February 24:

Lena Buss returned last week after having spent a few days at Lisbon and Leonard.

John Reis, who farmed the Black place southwest of Anselm for years, and sold out last fall and moved to Bemidji, near where he had some land, sold out down there and will again locate in this vicinity. He has rented the Lovejoy farm on the Sheyenne river and is expected here soon with a carload of goods. Mr. Lovejoy will probably have an auction sale and move to Sheldon to live.

March 2:

Ed Buss has decided to quit farming this spring and will dispose of all his personal property at auction on Thursday, March 9, on the Banish place, three miles east of Sheldon. Ed has ten head of horses, a fresh milch cow, some corn in stack and a complete set of farm machinery. D. E. Jones will cry the sale and R. E. Kratt will do the clerking.

March 9:

John Reis and wife arrived from Bemidji, Minn., Wednesday morning and will take up their home on the Brocker place on the Sheyenne river. Mr. Reis sold out his interests at Bemidji this winter and was not long in deciding to come back to his old neighborhood to live.

March 16:

Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Buss called at the Shunks' Frinday afternoon.

Mr. and Mrs. Reis and daughter Mae called at Charlie Krueger's Sunday.

March 23:

Ed Wall and family spent Sunday afternoon at Walter Ihme's.

Mrs. Herman Froemke and daughter Elena visited at F. Buss' Sunday.

Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Nohr and two children and Mr. and Mrs. Lew Froemke spent Sunday at Herman Buss.

Mr. and Mrs Arthur Anderson and child from Bedford, Ind., are visiting at Herman Buss. Mrs. Anderson is a dughter of Buss and they expect to locate here now.

March 30:

Anselm: Miss Mae Reis visited at the Seelig and Lovejoy homes Sunday.

John Reis was a Lisbon visitor Monday.

April 6:

Owego: Last Thursday Mrs. Ed Wall entertained the Ladies Aid of the United Lutheran Church. Owing to the bad weather very few were present, nevertheless a considerable amount was raised from the sale of luncheon.

April 13:

[The Progress reported that more than two-thirds of the May jurors were farmers in the midst of seeding. Oscar Wieg of Green township was one of them. It was expected to take the greater part of a week to dispose of the jury cases.]

H. C. Buss closed a deal last week for the purchase of the southwest quarter of section 18, in Shenford township, known as part of the Black farm, from the Ransom County Immigration Association. Mr. Buss will summer fallow a greater part of the quarter this year. During the summer he intends to erect a set of farm buildings.

April 20:

McLeod: Mr. and Mrs. A Buss of St. Paul, who have been spending the winter in California, stopped off here enroute home Monday to look over some land.

Those who spent Sunday at Ed Wall's were Ina, Glenn, Ellen and Mae Black, Helen and Clara Johnson, Hattie Johnson, and Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Buss.

April 27:

Mr. and Mrs. Ed Wall and son Herb spent Easter Sunday at Zuelke's.

Gerald Buss's little son is quite ill with pneumonia.

May 18:

Last Sunday the stork was overloaded with little cherubs and so paid a visit to the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Krentz, southwest of Sheldon, and left them a pair of twins, a boy and a girl.

June 8:

Fred Krentz's visited Lew Froemke's Sunday.

June 15:

F. W. Froemke received a telegram at noon today from North Yakima, Wash., stating that his brother Herman C. Froemke had been seriously injured in an accident and was not expected to live. Mr. Froemke is well known around Anselm where he lived before moving west.

June 22:

F. W. Froemke departed Friday evening for North Yakima, Wash., where he was called by a telegram stating that his brother Herman was not expected to live, and who died Saturday evening before Mr. Froemke arrived. His death was caused from an injury which he received Wednesday of last week. He fell from a load of poles which he was hauling, severely injuring his back, some of the bones penetrating the spinal column between the shoulder blades. He was conscious only a part of the time after the accident. Old friends of the Froemke family around Anselm will be grieved to hear of his untimely death, the family moving from there to Washington some ten years ago.

August 3:

FOR SALE: Five head of horses--one good heavy work team and three four-year-olds. Fred Krentz, Lisbon, N.D., R.F.D. 2.

August 17:

Herman Schultz and family of Anselm Sundayed at the home of Ed Wall's.

August 24:

August Nelson and wife of Minneapolis are visiting with Mrs. Nelson's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Buss. Mr. Nelson returned home Tuesday while his wife will make a longer visit.

August 31:

Anselm: Sunday last, Mr. and Mrs. F. Buss entertained at a party at their home. Those present were Jake Muths, Oscar Weigs, Jno. Krantzs, and Mr. and Mrs. Nelson of Minneapolis.

September 7:

Anselm: Miss Annie Buss and Mrs. A. Nelson called on Anselm friends Monday.

Olge Schultz and Annie Wall were guests of Ella Shunk and Ella Toring Tuesday.

A. Nelson returned to Minneapolis after spending several days at the Buss home.

October 5:

Casey: Oscar Wieg, John Krentz and Ferdinand Buss and families and Mrs. Brehmer were all guests at the Jacob Muth home Sunday.

November 9:

Jacob Muth, a Casey township farmer, returned Tuesday morning from Parshall, up on the Berthold reservation, where he had been for a week looking after his farming interests. Mr. Muth was one of the lucky ones two years ago at the drawing for land and drew number 300. He had some of the land broken up and put into flax this year and harvested a bumper crop. Mr. Muth sold his land while up there on this trip, as he found it almost impossible to attend to his farm work here and establish a residence up there which the government compels him to do. He believes that is a good country up there and if he could dispose of his farm here he would probably go there and buy again.

November 30:

At two o'clock Thanksgiving afternoon occurred the marriage of August Litzau and Miss Anna Buss, at the home of the bride's parents southwest of Sheldon, Rev. A. Haag pronouncing the words that made them man and wife in the presence of a large circle of relatives and friends. The groom comes from Frazee, Minn., but for the past two years has been working on different farms in the vicinity of Sheldon. He is a steady capable upright young man well thought of. The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Buss, pioneer residents of Green township, and has always made her home with her parents. She is a charming accomplished young lad with full attainments for taking up the duties of a wife. The happy couple will make their home with the bride's parents and will assist Mr. Buss in operating his farm. Following the ceremony, after congratulations had been extended, a bounteous Thanksgiving wedding dinner was served.

A party was held at John Reis' Sunday. Among those present were Chas. Colva and family, Robert McRitchie and wife and daughter Margaret, Leslie Legg, John Behrends, Edna Lovejoy, and Jane Behrend.

[Spoiler alert! The entire plot of "The Serpent" is revealed here! TKS] Theda Bara at the opera house, Saturday, Dec. 2, is at her best as Vania Lazar, a beautiful Russian peasant girl. Betrayed and debauched by the Grand Duke Valonoff, she leaves the country and with naught but hate in her heart for all men deliberately sets forth on a career of devastation. High or low degree, it matters naught, her prey is man, and in the city which she has taken up her abode, she leaves a trail marked by ruined lives. The war has broken out, wounded soldiers are arriving from the front, and "The Serpent" watches in glee as the broken men file past her window. A Russian officer is carried past. His face wakens memories. She makes inquiry and discovers that the wounded officeer is Prince Valonoff, son of the Grand Duke. She helps nurse him back to health and he, too, falls victim to her charms, Shortly after their marriage the Grand Duke sends word that he is coming to visit his only and beloved son. The Prince is called away before his father's arrival. Vania greets the Grand Duke, who does not recognize her. He makes love to her after she had lured him on. The Prince returns, and finding his wife clasped in the arms of his own father, commits suicide. The last drop of venom from the "Serpent's" fangs has found its mark. Admission 15 and 25 cents. Coming Wednesday, December 6, Wm. Furnum in "The Plunderers."

December 7:

The following people spent a pleasant Sunday with Mr. and Mrs. Colva of Anselm. Mr. and Mrs. Reis and daughter May, Fred Wall and wife, Chas. Wall, Mrs. Henry Ihme and sons Henry and Christian, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Shimming and his father C. Shimming.

December 21:

The H. C. Buss family spent Sunday at the home of their daughter Mrs. Art Anderson and family.

[Some minor typographical errors have been corrected. TKS]

Lyman, W. D. History of the Yakima Valley, Washington Comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties. S.J. Clarke Pub. Co, 1919. [Bio and portrait of Herman C. Froemke, Vol. 2, p. 926-928]

Wordless Wednesday: 'Twas a hot day in July, summer of '16 . . .

2010-07-07T07:54:00.009-04:00

. . . when a couple of guys from the U. S. Geological Survey set out across North Dakota . . .

. . . forded a stream or two in the ol' Ford . . .

. . . and set up their tent on the prairie.

William Clinton Alden and the young 'un had a job to do . . .

Photos courtesy of the U. S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.

Notes from The Sheldon Progress, 1915 (Part 2)

2010-07-05T07:58:00.003-04:00

The Sheldon Progress and Sheldon Enterprise ~ Page 1

Sheldon, Ransom County, North Dakota ~ Thursday, June 24, 1915

January 7:

Casey: Last Friday evening Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Buss enjoyed several hours visiting at the August Ludtke home.

Shenford: Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Buss were Lisbon visitors Saturday and Monday.

January 28:

Ed Buss had the big toe of his left foot completely severed Friday morning while attempting to start a balky gasoline engine at the Gust Schmidt place three miles east of the village. In his efforts to start the engine Ed placed both his hands on the fly wheels and braced his feet against the frame. When the crankshaft revolved his toe was caught between the frame and the shaft, cutting it so that t only hung by a small piece of skin. Dr. Weyrens of Sheldon and Dr. Roy Labbitt of Enderlin were summoned and completed the job of amputation. Mr. Buss will be laid up for some time and is congratulating himself that the injury wasn't of a more severe nature.

February 4:

Herman Froemke came home from Fargo Monday morning for a few days rest. Herman has been laid up with a bad case of the grip and he wants to fully recover before going to work again.

March 11:

Jake Muth and family were Sunday guests at the John Reis home.

March 18:

John Ihme and Miss Ella Buss went out for a joy ride last Sunday. Who knows where?

Mr. and Mrs. Fred Krantz, who reside east of Anselm, visited with the latter's aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gus Jaster, Sunday afternoon.

Miss Emma Krueger is assisting her grandmother, Mrs. Buss of Anselm this week with her general housework. It is reported that Grandma Buss met with an accident the past week, thereby hurting her hand which is quite a drawback in her work at present.

March 25:

H. C. Buss and daughter Miss Leona returned from their winter's sojourn in Florida and Indiana Saturday. Mr. Buss went down to Lake Alfred, Fla., where he has a tract of grapefruit land which was set out two years ago, and spent the winter there looking after the cultivation of the trees. He reports that all the old Sheldon folks are in the best of health and that Mr. and Mrs. Adam Goodman expect to remain in the south during the summer. Miss Buss did not go to Florida but visited with her sister at Bedford, Ind.

April 1:

Casey: Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Krueger entertained a number of friends Sunday, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. John Krantz and Joseph Legg.

April 8:

Herman Froemke came down from Fargo Saturday morning to spend the day with his parents Mr. and Mrs. P. W. Froemke. Owing to the large amount of spring business in the Northern Trust company, where he is employed, he could not remain away from his position any longer.

May 20:

Anselm: Mrs. Jack Woods spent Thursday of last week at Fred Krantz's.

Casey: Mr. and Mrs. F. Buss will leave Saturday for Davenport for a visit with friends and relatives until Wednesday.

Mrs. F. Buss and daughter Miss Annie spent Tuesday afternoon at the Shunk home. Miss Buss has been with her sister Mrs. Oscar Weig [sic--correctly Wieg] the past month.

June 3:

Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Nohr and family Sundayed at the home of Fred Krantz.

Ferdinand Buss and wife returned Saturday morning from Davenport, where they have been for a week visiting with relatives.

July 1:

Mrs. Ed Hasebring [sic--correctly Hasselbring] of Lemmon, S. D., and Miss Emma Krentz, of Baker, Mont., arrived Monday morning for a visit with their sister Mrs. John Ries [sic--correctly Reis], southwest of Sheldon.

July 8:

Casey: Mrs. Gus Jaster and May Feltman spent Thursday at the Fred Krantz home.

Anselm: Bernard Smith is now working for Fred Krantz.

Herman Froemke came home from Fargo Saturday morning to spend the bank holiday with his parents.

July 22:

Casey: Mrs. Phillip Nohr called on F. Jaster;s and on her daughter, Mrs. Fred Krantz, Monday.

August 5:

Mr. and Mrs. Herman Froemke have as their guests Mrs. M. Adams and children of Milwaukee, Wis. Mrs. Adams is their daughter and intends staying several weeks with her folks.

Jake Muth, John Ries, Frank Nohr, Chas. Krueger, William Hanelt and Bernard Schultz were pallbearers at the funeral of Mrs. Fred (Wilhelmina Stein) Seelig.

August 19:

Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Buss are entertaining their daughter and husband Mr. and Mrs. Nelson of Minneapolis this week.

September 2:

Fred Walls autoed to Owego Sunday. They visited there with the Edd Wall family.

Casey: Mrs. August Nelson and her mother Mrs. F. Buss were at the Mrs. H. Froemke home Monday. Mr. Nelson is near Velva looking after farming affairs.

Local News: During the high wind last Monday a load of bundles at the Lew Froemke machine caught fire from a spark from the engine and was entirely consumed. The load was being pitched into the feeder when the teamster discovered that his load was on fire. He drove away from the separator and the rest of the crew succeeded in saving the team and the wagon by tipping the rack off. The rack burned with the bundles. Mr. Froemke was threshing on his own farm.

September 16:

The home of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Krantz, east of Anselm, was made happy Monday afternoon by the arrival of a very sweet little baby girl--their first.

September 23:

Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Nohr visited at the Fred Krantz home Sunday.

Fred Wall's sister Ella arrived Friday evening from Idaho and will spend several weeks visiting her brothers near here.

September 30:

Casey: During the rainstorm last Friday night one of Ferdinand Buss's hay stacks was burned by lightning. The fire might have been serious, being that it was near the buildings. Mr. Buss, with the aid of the threshing crew successfully checked the fire.

Born last Monday to Mr. and Mrs. A. C. Weig, at the Enderlin hospital, a daughter. If the new arrival had been a boy, the entire state of North Dakota wouldn't be large enough to hold Alfred.

October 7:

Mrs. A. C. Weig and the new baby girl came home from the Enderlin hospital last Thursday.

Casey: Mrs. Ed Wall and son of Owego visited at the Fred Wall home Sheldon. [sic]

October 14:

Mrs. Ed Wall accompanied by Fred Wall's sister Ella visited at Ferdinand Buss's home Tuesday.

October 21:

Gerald Buss, with wife and baby, spent Sunday at Ed Wall's.

Mr. and Mrs. Reis left Tuesday evening on a business trip to Minnesota.

Fred Krantz bought some Ransom county real estate this week when he purchased the northwest quarter of section twenty-two in Shenford township. The land already contains a barn and granary and Mr. Krantz will build a house next summer.

October 28:

Mr. and Mrs. Albert Buss and two children of Leonard came down to spend Sunday with his brother Herman Buss.

November 11:

RANSOM COUNTY CITIZENS LUCKY: Three other [sic] Ransom county citizens were lucky in the drawing for land on the Berthold reservation at Minot last week. They all secured numbers below five hundred, and when others below their numbers are weeded out because of their ineligibility, they should secure some choice land. Those securing numbers were:
No. 303 - Jacob Muth, Lisbon.
No. 400 - William Lindemann, Enderlin..
No. 526 - Albert Hauge, McLeod.
No. 128 [sic] - Gust Kemmer, Alice.
Several other Ransom county people were lucky but their numbers were well beyond a thousand and it is not likely they will have a chance to file.

November 18:

Miss Mae Reis is spending a few days with the girls at Herman Buss's.

Mr. and Mrs. Reis, Gerald Buss and family and Mr. Nightingale spent Sunday at Herman Buss's.

December 2:

Herman A. Froemke, who has land interests near Lake Alfred, Fla., left last night for that point where he will spend the winter.

December 23:

A number of friends and relatives gathered at the home of Mr. and Mrs. H. Buss last Saturday afternoon to help them celebrate their silver wedding anniversary. Rev. Elster, pastor of the German Lutheran curch, gave a splendid talk to the group present which was enjoyed by all. After the address a most sumptuous dinner was served to the guests, a dinner which could not be excelled in quality and quantity. The guests were then entertained in numerous ways. Mr. and Mrs. Buss were presented with numerous tokens of remembrance and their friends wish them many anniversaries to come.

------------

Click to read Part 1 of Notes from The Sheldon Progress, 1915.

How do you explain that?

2010-07-03T21:03:00.001-04:00

"Well, coincidence, first of all..."

"Nonsense. Literature does not permit coincidence."

"Maybe not in one book, there can't be coincidence," Joe argued. "But sure, all sorts of myths are alike from all sorts of places..."

Have you been here before? Then you already know I'm not much of a reader. You'll probably be ever so mildly impressed, then, when I tell you I've read not one, not two, but three meaty novels in the past two weeks. Myself? I'm so impressed that I think the three deserve a fancy title: My Summer Reading List for 2010 or some such. And, while it wasn't easy reining in the six-headed ADD beast through 1,393 pages (and I am not talking large-print editions here), I did enjoy all three titles.

This, however, is not so much a book review or book report--to be honest, I'm not sure I remember what the difference is between the two, nor what the proper elements of either one would be--as it is an observation.

To begin, I'll go back to this time last summer, when the world breathlessly awaited the release of The Lost Symbol, a new novel by Dan Brown, author of The DaVinci Code. I was as breathless as anyone. I loved The DaVinci Code. I had two text copies--one in English, one in Spanish--and the unabridged audio CD in Spanish. I'd read the English one first, then ordered the Spanish versions thinking I would use them together, aided by the English version, to teach myself to read and speak Spanish. This plan was as much for the sake of motivating myself to reread the book (something I never do) as it was to learn Spanish, although at the time I was also preparing for a trip to Mexico. But I digress. I pre-ordered The Lost Symbol, it was delivered soon after the release date, and I put it on my bookshelf to be read at a time when I was certain I'd be able to read non-stop for a couple days or so, long enough to finish it without taking a break to do anything else.

On another occasion last year, I don't remember when exactly, I happened to stop at the dollar store when they had a table of remaindered hardcover books parked right inside the entrance. Like everything else, the books were a dollar, so I took a minute to glance over them. The Lost Constitution looked good--William Martin was "a master storyteller," according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer quote on the cover--and the jacket threw around some eye-catching phrases--"treasure hunt through time" and "early annotated draft of the Constitution stolen and smuggled out of Philadelphia" and "in shocking detail, the Founders unequivocal intentions" caught mine, and hey, it was only a dollar.

Before I could move away from the table, the cover of A Geographer's Library caught my eye also. I picked it up and flipped it over. On the back, an 'advance praise' quote said, "The Geographer's Library is a real reader's book, magnetic and sharply written, with excellent history, a strong narrative, and a mind of its own." Now right away I can hear you thinking, wouldn't that be enough to cause TK to drop that puppy like a hot spud?, because we all know she is not a 'real reader,' and she hates history! But this is the point in the story where I reveal one of the reasons I never go shopping. I hate shopping, for one thing, but for another, there is some sort of gap in my mental apparatus which sometimes causes me to purchase something that makes absolutely no sense a'tall! And hey, it was only a dollar.

So I arrived home that day with two books which I was pretty sure I'd never actually read. I left them laying on the coffee table, on the off chance... but eventually moved them to the shelf below the TV. Their priority dropped, you might say, to about 3" above floor level.

Fast-forward now to mid-June, 2010. After more than three months of daily posts at Before My Time, I had only a few surname posts left to do, but I was dragging my feet when it came right down to it. I had blogger burnout and my energy was being pulled toward creating books, but I didn't feel like actually writing anything. Heck, it was so hot and muggy I didn't feel like doing anything. So, since I was laying around like a limp dripping dishrag anyway, reading a book seemed like a pretty good way to pretend like I was doing something while actually doing nothing.

In the course of writing my surname posts, early American history had come up a lot so my mind was already warmed up to that era, and I really didn't think I had enough mental energy for Dan Brown, so The Lost Constitution seemed like the best choice.

If you've read it, you already know how faulty that bit of logic was, but it doesn't matter. William Martin, it turns out, is a master storyteller, and the book generated all the energy I needed to keep turning the pages. What's more, there was a strong family history/genealogy aspect that figured into the story. History mystery, family saga, political thriller--this turned out to be another book I'd like to reread. But will I have time? Martin wrote seven novels before this one, none of which I've read yet. And now I must!

While I was reading that book, my daughter called and asked me to farm-sit while she and her family take a two-week camping trip. I brought the book to Kentucky with me, thinking I would write a post about it. And, what the heck, I brought along the other two books that have been waiting to be read also, just in case.

And as it happened, the first few days I spent here were so hot and muggy I didn't feel like doing anything. Luckily I was prepared for that, huh? I settled in with The Lost Symbol and some lemonade.

You don't have to hit me over the head more than two or three times before I catch on to stuff, and indeed it didn't take me long to notice that this book, like the one just before it, was a thriller about finding something very old that has been lost. Yeah, I know what you're thinking... both books have 'Lost' right in the title. But you may remember, from several paragraphs ago, how I happened to acquire these particular books--i.e., without much attention to the fine points. The first was chosen largely because of its early American history aspect, and the second because... well, Dan Brown, duh. So the similarities seem like a pretty interesting coincidence to me.

As in The DaVinci Code, symbology and the Freemasons figure prominently in The Lost Symbol. To be perfectly honest, I liked The DaVinci Code--the ultimate genealogy thriller--better, but having said that, I will admit I had no trouble turning the pages of The Lost Symbol. I ate it up in two hot, sticky days.

Two good thrillers in a row and the ongoing hot weather had me firmly settled into a rare reading mood, so I moved right on to The Geographer's Library--you know, the one where I judged the book by the grungy old map on its cover. And as it turns out--this is where my story gets just a little bit creepy--this book is a thriller about the search for a whole bunch of very old stuff that's been lost.

That, if you ask me, is a pretty strange coincidence--randomly choosing three novels, which came out in three different years, reading them one right after the other when I rarely read fiction, and finding that all three are crafted upon the same premise.

What's more, in The Lost Symbol, a recurrent phrase was "as above, so below," and in The Geographer's Library, the same thought was a chapter heading. That's a pretty odd coincidence too.

And the cherry atop this three-scoop sundae of coincidence? It's the title and quoted lines of dialogue which appear at the top of this post. They're from The Geographer's Library, page 300. Now, that's just plain bizarre!

------------

Fasman, Jon. The Geographer's Library. New York: Penguin Press, 2005. (This post opens with a quote from p. 300.)
Martin, William. The Lost Constitution. New York: Forge, 2007.
Brown, Dan. The Lost Symbol: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2009.

June Ruminations

2010-06-30T16:28:00.005-04:00

On writing: I think 'facts' seem like safer turf to me than 'thoughts'--absurd, when you think about it, because it's so easy to be wrong about facts but when it comes to thoughts, all they have to be is honest.

Cynthia Shenette, of Heritage Zen, took her readers on a 1937 trip to Poland with her Aunt Helen in a series of posts this month. I enjoyed that.

I also found myself well-entertained at J.K. Del Collo's Daily Tombstone Photo, a blog I hadn't visited before--so entertained, in fact, that I went all the way back to the beginning of the blog.

I'm really excited to be working on two new projects, both of them books which will be available to interested readers via Blurb's print-on-demand book publishing service. It will be quite awhile before either of them is ready, but I'm hoping at least one will be done by the end of this year. The projects are:

a book about Kate Pettis Kerr which will include the many photographs I have of her, her family, her art, and her career, along with genealogical and biographical information. Much of the content can be found on this blog. Reader, if you are able to share any information, photos, letters, postcards, anything you may know about Kate Pettis Kerr, please use the Contact page to get in touch with me. I am especially interested in finding any additional paintings or drawings she did. My family has two paintings of her younger son, Rosmer P. Kerr, when he was a little boy, and I'm sure there must have been paintings of her older son, Milton E. Kerr, as well. (Click here to see the artwork I already have.)
a book tentatively titled Joseph Meyer Schulte: His Ancestors and Descendants, which will be co-authored by Cheryl Schulte and will include photographs and information that both of us have gathered during more than twenty years of research. We are currently seeking to contact other Schulte descendants who may have other Schulte photos, especially of Joseph's daughter Ida and son Ted, who are under-represented in our own photo collections, and any biographical information which would bring some life to the genealogical data. In addition, I hope to include a few yearbook-style pages featuring head-shots of all descendants up to the present, as a peek at what kind of family resemblance there might be. Reader, if you are a descendant of Joseph Meyer Schulte and Alvina Tobian, please use the Contact page to get in touch with me.

------------

June Accomplishments

Ye Olde Genealogy Shoppe has been added to my pages.
I finished reading Annie's Ghosts early in the month. More recently, I read William Martin's novel, The Lost Constitution (my comments on that coming soon).

And in the other column . . .

After more than three and a half months, my daily post streak is over.
I haven't quite finished the Surnames project. I will though, I promise!
The June Ruminations post is running late! Good thing there's backdating!

Searching the Detroit Free Press Archives Online

2010-06-23T21:14:00.000-04:00

A comment from Greta Koehl on my previous post led me to discover that the Detroit Free Press archives from January 1831 through December 1922 are available for searching online.

Little or nothing is given away for free though. The search results indicate only that your search term was found in an article on such-and-such a date, and you might get the headline of the article and, if the article is more than a couple hundred words, you might get the first sentence or two. You won't get the part that includes your search term unless it happens to be in either of those two snippets.

You must purchase access to see the full article. A single article is $3.95, and there's a range of other purchase options. I purchased the right to access 10 articles during a 24-hour period for $11.95, but before I did so, I had searched and chosen all ten articles, leaving each search result open in a browser tab. I then made my purchase and returned to each tab to download the PDF of each article.

Three of them were exactly what I had expected (two marriage notices for which I already had documentation and a real estate transaction around the time of my great-grandfather's death); four were shot-in-the-dark (sort of) research about other possible descendants of my ancestors which turned out to be pretty interesting; the rest seem to be irrelevant so, while I did keep a digital copy of each, I did not bother to print those out for my hard files.

On the whole, I found this less than user-friendly for general info-hunting, considering the cost. If you don't know exactly what you're looking for and when it happened, you could pump a small fortune into this method of finding out, and still not find out. If you have a small fortune to spend, I will say it's quicker than reeling through ninety years of microfilms scanning every page for names of interest to you. If you have more time than money and free access to microfilms of these archives, you could certainly search here first and take notes on what dates to look up in the microfilm, because these search results include do the page numbers.

The marriage notices I found were simply announcements of marriage license applications. They included nothing but the names and ages of brides and grooms.

The real estate transaction was something I did not expect. Although the article title was "Real Estate Transfers," the date was a week or two after the death of my great-grandfather, Felix Hauer, so I suspected I would find a death notice in the same column directly below the real estate transactions. However, there were indeed not one but two real estate transactions between Felix and J. N. Wolfslayer, the first and last in a list of sixteen:

Felix J. Hauer to J. N. Wolfslayer, lot 22 of Wesson's sub of p. cs. 644 and 723 (April 20)... $400
J. N. Wolfslayer to Felix Haure [sic], lot 22 of Wesson's sub of p. cs. 644 and 723 (April 24)... $400

These two transfers were recorded 4 June 1897, and were published in the Free Press the next day. The transfers had taken place in April though, less than a month before Felix's death from tuberculosis on May 19 of that year.

I'm not sure, but I think J. N. Wolfslayer was John Wolfschlager, the brother of Felix's mother, i.e., his uncle.

Over the years, I've seen a number of these back-and-forth real estate transfers in my family history research. I'm not sure what's accomplished by them. Leave a comment if you can enlighten me!

This is my first encounter with Detroit real estate records--I've never looked for deeds in Detroit, despite having several ancestors who lived there. Reader, if you've done any deed research in Detroit, I'd like to hear about your experience, particularly pertaining to deeds in the 1800s-early 1900s.

117 Years Ago Today: A Wedding and an Odd Little Cup

2010-06-21T04:48:00.000-04:00

I must have been about ten years old when my grandmother, Evelyn Hauer Kerr, gave this little cup to me. If she told me anything about it at the time, I surely don't remember now. I happened to find it the other day while I was looking for something else. I hadn't seen it for quite awhile and I'd been wondering where it was; I'd been wanting to put it in The Mausoleum with my other heirlooms.

Oddly, I hadn't remembered there was a handwritten date on the bottom. It must not have meant anything to me when I was a kid. But today, as a family historian, I went straight to my family tree database to see what happened on June 21, 1893.

I started with Evelyn. She wasn't born until 1894, and her husband Rosmer was born in 1892, so I moved on to Evelyn's parents. And there it was. Felix Hauer and Lizzie Schulte were married on June 21, 1893, in Detroit, Michigan.

But . . . ??? What an odd little wedding keepsake! Or is it a wedding keepsake at all? Who wrote the date on the bottom? What, if anything, is the significance of the cup? These questions will go unanswered; there's no one left who would know.

Pedigree Chart: Evelyn Elvina Hauer

2010-06-18T07:17:00.012-04:00

.       +--- 4-Theodor Hauer,d.???
        | 
     +--+ 3-Joseph H. Hauer,b.Abt Apr 1837,d.6 Jun 1893
     | 
  +--+ 2-Felix J. Hauer,b.5 Jan 1867,d.19 May 1897
  |  |          
  |  |     +--- 5-Wilhelm Wolfschlaeger,d.???
  |  |     | 
  |  |  +--+ 4-Johann Peter Wolfschlaeger,b.Abt 1804,d.After 1879
  |  |  |  |    
  |  |  |  +--- 5-Anna Gertrud Merren,d.???
  |  |  | 
  |  +--+ 3-Theresa Wolfschlaeger,b.16 Oct 1843,d.Abt 1914
  |     |       
  |     |  +--- 5-Mathias Wigger,d.???
  |     |  | 
  |     +--+ 4-Maria Elisabeth Wigger,b.Abt 1810,d.???
  |        |    
  |        +--- 5-Catharina Ronnewinkel,d.???
  | 
--+ 1-Evelyn Elvina Hauer,b.1 Apr 1894,d.19 Dec 1988
  |                
  |           +--- 6-Balthasar Meÿer,d.???
  |           | 
  |        +--+ 5-Joan Herman Meÿer,b.Abt 24 Mar 1750,d.???
  |        |  |    
  |        |  +--- 6-Maria Kochs,d.???
  |        | 
  |     +--+ 4-Johann Hermann Meyer,b.Abt 14 Dec 1788,d.20 May 1855
  |     |  |       
  |     |  |  +--- 6-Carl Franz Anton Friderici,d.???
  |     |  |  | 
  |     |  +--+ 5-Maria Clara Friderici,b.21 Dec 1755,d.???
  |     |     |    
  |     |     +--- 6-Anna Maria Elise Meschede,d.9 Sep 1778
  |     | 
  |  +--+ 3-Joseph Meyer Schulte,b.7 Feb 1843,d.16 Oct 1921
  |  |  |    
  |  |  +--+ 4-Maria Gertrud Hagedorn,b.13 Dec 1820,d.After 20 May 1855
  |  |     |          
  |  |     |     +--- 7-Joan Henricus Hagedorn,d.22 Jan 1779
  |  |     |     | 
  |  |     |  +--+ 6-Gerhardus Henricus Hagedorn,b.20 Oct 1766,d.???
  |  |     |  |  |    
  |  |     |  |  +--- 7-Elisabeth Ontrup,b.Abt 1728,d.18 Dec 1798
  |  |     |  | 
  |  |     +--+ 5-Clara Elisabeth Hagedorn,b.Abt 20 Jul 1798,d.???
  |  |        |       
  |  |        |  +--- 7-Lubbert Brede,d.27 Mar 1775
  |  |        |  | 
  |  |        +--+ 6-Anna Gertrudis Brede,b.3 Mar 1763,d.???
  |  |           |    
  |  |           +--- 7-Gertrud Meier Erdman,d.3 Sep 1784
  |  | 
  +--+ 2-Elizabeth Louise Schulte,b.28 Jun 1872,d.25 Jun 1930
     |       
     |  +--- 4-Ferdinand Tobin,b.Bef 1830,d.???
     |  | 
     +--+ 3-Alvina Tobian,b.23 Mar 1848,d.8 Jun 1902
        |    
        +--- 4-Johanna,b.Bef 1830,d.???

------------

Visit The Vertical File for a PDF copy of Evelyn Hauer's Pedigree Chart.

Surname: Burdick

2010-06-16T06:46:00.001-04:00

The Burdick surname is part of Rosmer P. Kerr's heritage. His sixth great-grandfather was:

Robert Burdick, born 1633 in England. He married Ruth Hubbard on 2 November 1655 in Newport, Rhode Island, with whom he had eleven children. He died 25 October 1692 at Newport. Robert and Ruth were my eighth great-grandparents.
Deborah Hubbard Burdick, born about 1662 at Westerly, Rhode Island. She married Reverend Joseph Crandall about 1681. They had eight children. She died at Westerly in 1697. Deborah and Joseph were my seventh great-grandparents.

Johnson, Nellie Willard. Burdick. Norwich, New York: 30 September 1937.

Surname: Opp

2010-06-15T05:59:00.000-04:00

The Opp surname may or may not be part of the heritage of Rosmer Kerr. His sixth great-grandmother was formerly thought to have been:

Mary Opp, who was said to be the wife of Elder John Crandall. Apparently this name is now thought to be incorrect [see Crandall Family Genealogy Forum #1611 by Paul Gifford]. In any case, Elder John and his wife, whatever her name is, are thought to be my eighth great-grandparents.

The Crandall Family Association is hard at work on this problem. I'll wait right here!

John Cortland Crandall, Elder John Crandall of Rhode Island and His Descendants (New Woodstock, New York, 1949)

Surname: Crandall

2010-06-14T06:11:00.002-04:00

The Crandall surname is part of Rosmer P. Kerr's heritage. His ninth great-grandfather is thought to be:

Nicholas Crundell (1) [see Crandall Family Genealogy Forum #1611 by Paul Gifford].
Nicholas Crundell (2), whose wife's name was Elizabeth.
James Crandell [see Hey, Elder John... by Earl P. Crandall].
Elder John Crandall (1617/18-1676). His wife was said to be Mary Opp, but apparently this name is now thought to be incorrect [see Crandall Family Genealogy Forum #1611 by Paul Gifford]. In any case, Elder John and his wife are thought to be my eighth great-grandparents.
Reverend Joseph Crandall (about 1661-1737) married Deborah Hubbard Burdick about 1681. Joseph and Deborah are said to be my seventh great-grandparents. [See The Story of Joseph Crandall].
John Crandall (about 1682-1767) and his wife Hannah are thought to be my sixth great-grandparents.
Elijah Crandall (1734- ) married Mary Auchmuty on 28 March 1754 at Westerly, Rhode Island. They are my fifth great-grandparents.
Ruth Crandall (1771-1837) married William M. Pettis about 1795. They are my fourth great-grandparents.

The website of The Crandall Family Association is the place to go for the most current research into the Crandall ancestry. My other source of information is the 1949 genealogy by John Cortland Crandall which, based on current research, has errors.

John Cortland Crandall, Elder John Crandall of Rhode Island and His Descendants (New Woodstock, New York, 1949)

Schulte Cousins, 1900 Style

2010-06-12T07:04:00.001-04:00

In 1894, Joseph Meyer Schulte and his wife, Alvina Tobian, were blessed with three grandchildren, one born to each of their three oldest children. (Their youngest son Ted was just eight years old at that time.) I estimate this picture to have been taken circa 1901, give or take.

The grandchildren, left to right, were:

Mamie, born to Joseph's daughter Ida on 9 May 1894.
Elmer, born to Joseph's son Rudolph on 4 August 1894.
Evelyn, born to Joseph's daughter Elizabeth on 1 April 1894.

In essence, these three grew up as 'only' children and in some ways took the place of siblings in each other's lives. Evelyn (my grandmother) was great friends with Mamie all her life. And when my mother was born, Evelyn chose Elmer (Cheryl's grandfather) to be Mom's godfather.

I think Elmer resembles both of the girls to some extent, but the girls don't resemble each other. What do you think?

Surname: Godfrey

2010-06-11T06:19:00.012-04:00

The Godfrey surname is part of Rosmer Kerr's heritage. His fifth great-grandmother was:

Mary Godfrey, wife of Josiah Cooke III. She was probably born about 1670. Mary and Josiah were my seventh great-grandparents.

I know nothing more about her.

Robert M. Sherman F.A.S.G., editor, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations, V. 2 (Plymouth, Massachusetts: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1978), p. 153-217.

Surname: Wills

2010-06-10T06:37:00.000-04:00

The Wills surname comes to me via my grandpa Rosmer Kerr. His ninth great-grandmother was:

Margaret Wills, wife of George Cosford. Margaret and George were my eleventh great-grandparents.

I haven't done any additional research on this line and I have no documentation.

"The English Ancestry of the Pilgrim Thomas Rogers," The Genealogist, V. 10, p. 138+.

Wordless Wednesday: Are you kidding me?

2010-06-09T06:28:00.009-04:00

"This is a bargain book and quantities are limited. Bargain books are new but could include a small mark from the publisher and an Amazon.com price sticker identifying them as such."

Best price???? Seriously????
Update: When posted, the price was $224.
Saturday, down to $167.
Sunday morning, $99.
Monday morning, $113.

Surname: Cosford

2010-06-08T06:30:00.002-04:00

The Cosford surname comes to me via my grandpa Rosmer Kerr. His ninth great-grandfather was:

George Cosford, whose wife was Margaret Wills. George and Margaret were my eleventh great-grandparents.
Alice Cosford, christened 10 May 1573 at Watford, Northamptonshire, England. She married Thomas Rogers on 24 October 1597 at Watford. Alice and Thomas were my tenth great-grandparents.

To date, I haven't done any additional research on this line and I have no documentation.

"The English Ancestry of the Pilgrim Thomas Rogers," The Genealogist, V. 10, p. 138+.

Surname: Blake

2010-06-07T06:18:00.002-04:00

The Blake surname comes to me via my grandpa Rosmer Kerr. His seventh great-grandmother was:

Joanna Blake, of England. She is said to have married Robert Sedgwick on 6 January 1636 at Andover, Hampshire, England. Joanna and Robert were my ninth great-grandparents.

At the moment, I'm hoping to hear from someone who's done quite a bit of research on this line. Click here to read Charlotte Dolan's research at the Blake Family GenForum.

Little House in a Wilder Neighborhood

2010-06-06T05:45:00.003-04:00

My great-grandmother, Kate E. Pettis, was born on 2 October 1864. Two years and four months later, on 7 February 1867, Laura Ingalls Wilder was born. The Ingalls' Little House in the Big Woods at Pepin, Wisconsin, was about fifty miles up the Mississippi River from Kate's birthplace, Winona, Minnesota.

Of course, I didn't know that when I discovered the Little House books at the school library. I must have been ten or eleven years old at the time. My interest in genealogy and family history was still several years in the future. My interest in Laura, however, was triggered with the first book I read. Thereafter, every time I went to the school library, I turned left just inside the door and made for the far end of the shelves along that wall. The Little House books lived on the second shelf up from the floor. Was there one available that I hadn't read yet? Oh, good!

I think I started buying Little House books for my daughter before she could even read. They're my first answer to the question, "What did you like to read when you were a kid?" Yes, there were a few other answers too, but I never considered buying a whole set of Nancy Drew books for my daughter. You could easily borrow those and happily give them back. The Little House books? Those were keepers.

The Little House on the Prairie was southwest of Independence, Kansas. The Ingalls family lived there in 1870-1871. Forty years later and 140 miles north, my grandpa Rosmer Kerr, then just 17, worked as a hotel clerk in Topeka for awhile. Rosmer, being a city boy, would have enjoyed quite a different experience from that of the rural-dwelling Ingalls family.

Laura lived for awhile at Walnut Grove, Minnesota. My dad's brother raised his family there. (Different centuries, of course. My uncle's first child was born eighty years after Laura.) I have cousins who live there still, less than ten miles south of where the Ingalls family lived On the Banks of Plum Creek.

The Ingalls family stayed at the Masters Hotel in Burr Oak, Iowa, for about a year, helping to run the hotel. My cousin Judy and her family live a bit over a hundred miles southwest, as the crow flies, of the Masters Hotel, which is now preserved as the Laura Ingalls Museum.

Charles Ingalls finally settled his family in the Little Town on the Prairie, De Smet, South Dakota, which was the setting of several more books: By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, These Happy Golden Years and The First Four Years. Members of the Ingalls family were still living there when my grandpa John Krentz and some of his siblings moved to Lisbon, North Dakota, 150 miles north of De Smet.

Laura and her husband, Farmer Boy Almanzo Wilder, eventually left the Ingalls home for a place of their own; they were On the Way Home to Mansfield, Missouri, where Laura lived until her death in 1957. My kids have first cousins who grew up in the Ozarks about 50 miles southeast of there a quarter century later.

On impulse during a road trip in 1998, I altered my route so as to pass through De Smet, where I stopped briefly at the Ingalls' home, now a museum. There was more to see and do than I had time for, so maybe I'll stop by there again someday.

Laura and Almanzo buried their baby son while they still lived in De Smet. Several other members of the family are buried there with him. Their daughter Rose was the only other grandchild of Charles and Caroline Ingalls, and because Rose had no children, the family's lineage ended at her death in 1968. Still, their legacy lives on in the stories Laura shared, and the stories live on because they parallel the stories of so many of our ancestors.

What about you? What bits of your ancestors' history might be illuminated by commonality of place or time with the Ingalls family? Did you read Laura's books when you were a kid? I'm especially curious to know whether boys read them, or were they considered girl-stuff? Are you of the generation that grew up with the TV show? Did that have any effect on whether you read the books?

Will you find yourself in the vicinity of any Ingalls or Wilder homes during your summer vacation? You might want to plan a stop. You'll find links to plenty of background and planning information at Laura Ingalls Wilder Home Sites: A Guide to Little House Country.

Surname Saturday: Holy Roman Emperor, Batman!

2010-06-05T06:30:00.013-04:00

I have no idea what to make of this. Charlemagne was my nth great-grandpa? Seriously? Genealogically speaking, it seems almost meaningless to me. And "Charlemagne" ... what is that? A first name? Last name? Nickname? How am I supposed to put that in my database?

Did all those King Henrys have a surname?

And how about this: William T. Conqueror?

All I wanted to do was find out who Mary Ann Russell's parents were. Somehow I found her at Geneall.net,
a website I'd never heard of before. Have you checked it out? It's a membership website, and you'll want to read the explanation about this global project on their Access page.

I found navigating a little tricky. From the start page, you click on your language of choice. You'll be taken to a page with a short menu in the left sidebar. You'll need to return to this page to access the menu again, as it's not available on the other pages. Using the back-button on your browser can end up being pretty laborious when you start clicking through the links you'll find; I found it easier to keep the menu page open, and wheel-click or right click to open my menu selection in a new tab or window. You'll also see a log-in box in the left sidebar. You needn't be a member, though, to use the search box on the right and click through the lineages.

I entered Mary Ann Russell's name in the search box and found her page. As I clicked and clicked up her branch of the family tree, I began to wonder what the colorful dots meant. Hovering revealed the secret:

A red ball identifies the descendants of William the Conqueror, king of England;
A yellow ball the descendants of Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor and king of Italy;
A dark-blue ball the descendants of Hugh Capet, king of France;
A green ball the descendants of Ferdinand the Great, king of Castile and Leon;
A pale-blue ball the descendants of D. Alfonso Henriquez, the first king of Portugal.

Click around in Mary Ann Russell's tree long enough and you'll find dots in all five colors. The whole experience was a little overwhelming. Again, the navigation is confusing. Using this link to her branch of the family tree, you arrive on a page that shows Mary Ann with a yellow dot next to her name, dots of all five colors under her name, and a yellow dot beside her father's name. Clicking on her father's name will take you to his page, where he will be at the top with his yellow dot, and below you'll see it's his mother who has the yellow dot beside her name; i.e., it is through her lineage that he is descended from Charlemagne. You can click through the Charlemagne line that way.

But suppose you are on Mary Ann's page and you are wondering about the other colored dots under her name. Do they mean anything? Yes, they do. They mean she is a descendant of all those lineages. How do you follow her lineage back to William the Conqueror, or one of the others? You do so by clicking on one of the tiny flag icons at the lower right corner of the info box. You'll see the dot next to Mary Ann's name change color, along with the dot next to the name of her parent who is descended from that line. Now when you click through the parents' lineage, you'll be following a different line back.

I found that sources are listed (peerages and such) for some lines but not all. More information is available to members, but at this point I'm not ready for a membership. I'd like to know more about Geneall.net, though, and would appreciate comments from any of my readers who have used the site, either as members or as guests.

Now, about those ancestors of mythological proportions. I really don't know what to do with this! There are plenty of generations between me and my grandpa, the Holy Roman emperor, for which I have not yet found sufficient documentary evidence to support my connection, and in truth, I probably never will... although the odds get better as FamilySearch continues to add free online access to more and more of the world's documents.

Nth great-grandpa Charlie and me

(strong family resemblance, no?)

But what about now? I was blindsided. I can't even imagine how to think about this. So I'm making a list of questions that have come to mind, and I invite my readers to share their thoughts on any aspect of this topic in the Comments section, or on your own blog if you prefer, and let me know you've done so via the Comments section here.

Have you found royal ancestors in your own family tree? If so, how did you find them? What were your thoughts at the time? If not, what do you imagine your thoughts would be if you did?
How would you react to such news? Would you search for documentation? Accept the lines as they appear in peerages or other books which, presumably, have been well-researched by historians? Something other way entirely?
How meaningful is (or would be) this kind of connection to world history for you?
Would you believe it? Question it? Doubt it? Disbelieve it? Disregard it entirely?
Would you be inclined to add the lineage to your working database? If so, why? If not, why not?
If you were adding the lineage to your database, how would you go about entering the names when, instead of surnames, you have stuff like "of Aquitaine" or "The Conqueror" or "III, King of England"? Is there a standard way of entering such descriptions? If you just put William in the Given Name field, with no surname in the Surname field, and the descriptors in the Title fields, The Conqueror is going to show up in your index as plain old William, right next to that guy Bill your third cousin Marlene married awhile back whose last name you don't know.

Yeah, I know. I'm just makin' fun now...

Dealin' with a touch of Sarah Jessica Parker Syndrome...

Un...be...lievable!

Stephen Hopkins: Bermuda Castaway, Jamestown Survivor, and Mayflower Pilgrim

2010-06-04T17:51:00.001-04:00

Enter Stephano, singing, with a bottle in his hand:

"I shall no more to sea, to sea;
Here shall I die ashore."

William Shakespeare
The Tempest, Act II, Scene ii

If they made a movie of Caleb Johnson's book, Here Shall I Die Ashore, it would be a big-budget documentary action flick filmed on two continents, the ocean between them, and the island of Bermuda. The cast? Huge. Costumes? Everything from shipwreck tatters to a wardrobe fit for the King of England. Don't forget those fancy Pilgrim outfits and whatever the Indians wore.

And the dialogue? Uh-oh... Early Modern English? You're kidding, right? The action takes place in Shakespeare's time and, sorry to say it but I've never been a big fan of Shakespearean English. Without an interpreter, much of it is Greek to me. Well, alright, not exactly Greek, but I certainly miss the subtleties of contemporary communication.

But don't worry... Shakespeare wrote for an Early Modern English audience, whereas Caleb Johnson wrote for... well, me! He's pulled together tons of research about my ancestor, Stephen Hopkins, and about the events of his lifetime, both historic and picayune, and woven it all into a narrative that's as detailed as it is readable.

Stephen Hopkins, it turns out, had a pretty interesting life--adventurer, family man, businessman--Johnson tells all, including the suggestion that my 10th great-grandfather inspired the character called Stephano in Shakespeare's The Tempest. I hadn't heard this before, so I did a little search and found Dating The Tempest by David Kathman, in which he compares, line by line, what Shakespeare would have read in a first-hand report about the shipwreck of the Sea Venture (with Stephen Hopkins aboard) with what he wrote in his play. Pretty convincing!

In addition to Johnson's text, he's included seven appendices, almost a hundred pages of additional material.

I'm happy to have added this book to my family history library. In the glow of hindsight, though, I think I should have bought it in hardcover. It's a definite keeper!

What are your favorite genealogy quotations?

2010-06-03T07:59:00.004-04:00

Last month at Creative Gene, Jasia's review of Annie's Ghosts caught my attention and I got the book from my library. I was not disappointed. Steve Luxenberg's story about researching a family secret was fascinating enough to overcome my ADD and my (seemingly opposite) tendency to fall asleep while reading.

I was about halfway through the book when my cousin Cheryl, of Two Sides of the Ocean, wrote and asked if I'd read it yet. She'd also picked it up after Jasia's review and had just finished it. She's not the only one, either--the book is enjoying a good deal of attention among other geneabloggers too.

I don't know why I forgot to pull quotes from the book as I read. I usually notice a good observation when I read it, and I write it down either on a tiny scrap of paper which will then float around among the papers on my desk for years to come, or if I'm anywhere near the computer, I type it into Notepad with the appropriate citation details. But I didn't think to do that this time.

I often find myself in need of quotations pertaining to family history and genealogy. Luckily, Nancy pulled some excellent Luxenberg quotes at My Ancestors and Me. I get by with a little help from my friends!

What about you? Do you collect quotations about these subjects? I invite you to share your favorites, either as a Comment or in a post on your own blog. If you choose the latter, please leave a link in the Comments here so I don't miss it.

------------

See also Dead and Gone and Still Private, an article by Steve Luxenberg about the accessibility of old medical records.

Surname: Kochs

2010-06-02T05:09:00.000-04:00

The Kochs surname comes to me via my grandma Evelyn Hauer Kerr. Her third great-grandmother was:

Maria Kochs of Herzfeld, Westfalen, Germany. She would have been born before or about 1730. She was married to Balthasar Meÿer. They were my fifth great-grandparents.

Maria and Balthasar are named in the christening record of their son Joan Herman, my fourth great-grandfather. I currently know nothing more about them.

Christening record of Joan Herman Meÿer ~ 24 March 1750
son of Balthasar Meÿer and Maria Kochs
(click to enlarge)

Surname: Meschede (also Mesches)

2010-06-01T06:33:00.001-04:00

The Friderici surname comes to me via my grandma Evelyn Hauer Kerr. Her third great-grandmother was:

Anna Maria Elise Meschede of Herzfeld, Westfalen, Germany. She would have been born about 1725. She married Carl Franz Anton Friderici on 29 July 1749 in Herzfeld, where they had five children together. She was his second wife. Carl and Elise (Elisabeth) were my fifth great-grandparents.

Elisabeth's full name appears only in the record of her marriage. In the birth records of her five children, she is called Elisabeth.

Marriage record of Carl Friderici and Elizabeth Mesches ~ 29 July 1749

Christening record of Maria Clara Friderici ~ 21 December 1755
(click to enlarge any christening record)

Christening records of other children born to Carl and Elizabeth show her maiden name as Meschede.

Christening record of Catharina Elisabeth Friderici ~ 20 July 1750

Christening record of Joan Steffen Friderici ~ 21 March 1752

Christening record of Joannes Christophorus Friderici ~ 12 February 1754

Christening record of Joannes Henricus Friderici ~ March 1769

I found no other Mesches or Meschede in the Herzfeld records. However, I did find a town named Meschede located about 30 miles south of Herzfeld. That may or may not be relevant; to date, I haven't looked into it any further.

Katholische Kirche Herzfeld (Herzfeld, Kr. Beckum, Westfalen, Germany). Birth, marriage & death registers. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. FHL microfilm 871723 & 871724. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

May Ruminations

2010-05-31T06:28:00.001-04:00

Before My Time found itself amid some very esteemed company this month when it was included on a list of MyHeritage.com's Top 100 Genealogy Sites. A click on the ribbon above will take you to the list, where you'll find many of the excellent blogs that I read regularly. And I've had a great time the past couple of weeks visiting the ones I was unfamiliar with. The variety of topics and approaches is without limit. If you're interested in genealogy and family history, you're sure to find sites you'll want to visit and revisit. (Don't overlook the MyHeritage Blog itself!)

In the course of looking up some stuff for my Surname: Russell post, I discovered Geneall.net. While poking around the freely accessible portion of the site, I found something that blew my genealogical socks off. There appears to be a branch in my family tree which is hung heavily with dukes and earls and such, along with historical characters of mythical proportions--William the Conqueror, King Henry II and Eleonore d'Aquitaine, Charlemagne--and many more kings and queens of various and sundry countries that I've never heard of. (As you surely know by now, I'm not a history buff. Sort of.). Although I've been ruminating royally all month, I find it's more than I want to get into here. I'll be posting some thoughts on this subject June 5th. Please come back to read them, especially if you've discovered royalty in the branches of your own family tree, but even if you haven't. I have questions and will be eager to hear your thoughts.

At ShawGenealogy, Jen's excellent series of posts on The Genealogical Proof Standard was one of the excellent entries in this month's Carnival of Genealogy. The topic was "How-To Series" and I rank it among the best-ever COGs. So much to learn, so many outstanding geneabloggers to learn from!

Jen's how-to series was good grounding for Evidence Management Explained by The Ancestry Insider. Although I fall solidly (probably with a thud!) into the "hobbyist" camp when it comes to genealogy, I do wish to be barking up the right family tree, so to speak. And, as I've been gathering evidence for more than twenty years in hopes of ending up with a preponderance, but not being quite organized enough to pull it all together into a proof, I'd love being able to produce spreadsheet reports from my Legacy database like the ones in that post. Until that's possible, Insider's explanation gives me a more organized way to think things through. I found the comments interesting also.

------------

May Accomplishments

I read two books. Not just any two, mind you, but history books! And found them interesting!
Daily posts, three months in a row! Zowie!
Posted some unrelated memorial cards at Find-A-Grave.
Created my first book using Blurb and the content of my first (non-genealogy) blog. I couldn't be happier with the end product. The quality of materials and workmanship way outshines the humble content which, surrounded by all that glow, looks a lot better than it is! The Blurb software was reasonably easy to work with after reading the instructions, but I was glad I chose a 'starter' project to learn on. I have a much better foundation now for planning a more elaborate project about family history.

And in the other column . . .

I was disappointed to find nary a soul named Buss in the microfilms I'd ordered based on what I thought might be the correct place name, nor did my cousin Mary find any in the microfilms she'd ordered from a nearby parish. We're now reviewing her results from prior searching in another area where she found lots of Busses, many with first names similar to the ones in our tree, and with dates in a similar timeframe. But none of them quite fit!
Again this month I neglected to add newfound names to my Legacy database. (Charlemagne, indeed...)

A funny thing happened on the way to . . .

2010-05-30T06:25:00.008-04:00

. . . Ripon, Wisconsin. You're not getting tired of hearing about The Anti-Rent War on Blenheim Hill, are you? Because it seems there's just no end to the amusement springing from it. Today's revelation doesn't seem to apply to my Efners in any more than a peripheral way, but I found it interesting, nonetheless, to learn something about Oscar E. Loper, with whom they were surely acquainted.

In yesterday's post, we learned that it was Oscar who first visited Ripon township in Wisconsin to check out the land that was being opened up to settlers in the 1840s. Hard to imagine that Wisconsin was wilderness so short a time ago, but there it is. Oscar, as you'll recall, returned to South Gilboa, New York and "organized a colony of its members" for a move to Wisconsin [Bouton Papers, Efner file].

It was Amos Loper who was mentioned several times in Mayham's book, and I was curious to know how Oscar was related to him, so I went to my first-choice source for second-hand information, WorldConnect at RootsWeb. Oscar, I learned, was Amos' son. Oscar had moved to a place in Wisconsin called Ceresco, according to the notes in the Wehling family tree. I'd never heard of Ceresco and wondered if it was near Lyndon, where Ezekiel Efner settled, or perhaps near Ripon, where Ezekiel's sister Catherine Whiting settled.

So next I googled "Loper Ceresco Wisconsin." The first thing I read was this:

The first claim on the north side of the river was made by Mr. O. E. Loper while it was still Indian lands and not open to legal settlement. After the Indian title was extinguished by the government at the treaty of Poygan, the lands were rapidly taken up and now they are cleared and improved. A small cranberry marsh was cultivated on the western margin of the town. Mr. Loper, who was first to settle north of the river, had been a member of the Fourier community at Ceresco. [Lawson, p. 332]

That confused me a little... was this the right O. E. Loper? I was looking for the one from Schoharie County, New York. And what's a Fourier community? So I searched for Fourier in the same book, and found this:

Mr. Lester Rounds had come from Ceresco, where he had been secretary of the community of Fourites under the name of the Wisconsin Phalanx of the Fourier association... ." [Lawson, p. 331]

Phalanx? Fourites? Hmm, back to Google... and what I found next was so unexpected that I thought the whole story blogworthy:

François Marie Charles Fourier (April 7, 1772 – October 10, 1837) was a French utopian socialist and philosopher who... envisioned a society organized in units called “phalanxes” composed of male and female representatives of 810 personality types, in which natural interaction would automatically result in peace and harmony. In these communities the status of manual labor would be elevated by making work enjoyable and satisfying. Fourier also advocated the emancipation of women and coined the word féminisme in 1837.

Read more about Fourier at New World Encyclopedia.

Having come of age in the late 1960s, on occasion I had toyed with the idea of joining a commune myself. I've always had a fondness for unconventional ideas, I admit. I did read quite a bit about it at the time. I'm surprised I don't remember any mention of Fourier, and if there was any reference to commune experiments in the previous century, it made no lasting impression on me. Nevertheless, I did let the commune idea pass. It seems I'm a staunch adherent of the A Fool And His Money Are Soon Parted school of philosophy and couldn't quite release my grip on the purse-strings.

Neither do I recall, by the way, ever hearing of Fourier in relation to the term feminism when it was on everyone's lips (including mine) in the 1970s. So for me, this discovery casts a pretty interesting light on the 1840s!

But, what about Ceresco? The commune was begun in 1844 and enjoyed some successful years until 1850 when it disbanded and became first the village of Ceresco and later part of Ripon. I found the following three websites particularly interesting and informative:

Ceresco: A National History Day Resource (with documents and newspaper clippings)
Ceresco: Utopia in Fond du Lac County (with footnotes galore, on Fond du Lac Public Library's website)
Discover Historic Downtown Ripon, Wisconsin (with photos, and a bit about the birth of the Republican Party

Oscar Loper, according to the Wehling family tree at WorldConnect, arrived at Ceresco in 1845, and his father came with the rest of the family in 1847. Alonzo, Oscar's brother, arrived in 1846 (State of Wisconsin Blue Book). All went to Ceresco, and some remained at Ripon afterwards, long enough to be buried at "Loper Cemetery, next to Loper School, on Loper Hill."

I find it hard to imagine that a Blenheim Hill anti-renter would fight for the right to own his own property, and then turn right around and go all the way to Wisconsin to join a commune. For that reason, I suspect the Lopers were among those who joined the Ceresco community as a financial investment rather than a lifestyle choice.

I wish there existed a list of all who joined Ceresco. It would be interesting to know if there were others from Blenheim Hill.

My third great-grandfather, Ezekiel T. Efner, went to Wisconsin in 1848. I have no reason to believe that he ever lived at Ceresco or Ripon--I've seen only Cascade and Lyndon mentioned with regard to him. And by the time Charles and Catherine Efner Whiting arrived at Ripon in 1854, the Ceresco commune was history. Still, this fascinating bit of history was a part of the culture at the time. I wonder what they thought of it.

What do you think of it?

Lawson, Publius V. History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People. Chicago: C.F. Cooper and Co, 1908.

For further reading: The Spirit of the Age

The Bouton Papers on the Migration to Wisconsin

2010-05-29T06:46:00.003-04:00

My third great-grandfather, Ezekiel Taylor Efner, was born in New York in 1801 and christened at the Middleburgh Dutch Reformed Church. He lived in Schoharie County until 1848 when he moved his family to Wisconsin [Davis, p. 22], where he was enumerated at Lyndon in the 1850 census. His sister Catherine and her husband, Charles Whiting, moved to Wisconsin in 1854, settling at Ripon [Lawson, p. 1192].

When I read in The Anti-Rent War on Blenheim Hill that a number of Schoharie County residents relocated to Wisconsin during that same time period, I wanted to know more. I was fortunate to find a page about it in the Efner file of the Bouton Papers:

In 1915 Hector P. Taylor of Jefferson, N. Y. who was visiting at Ripon, Wisconsin, met Alonzo A. Loper from whom he received the following:

About 80 years ago one Oscar Loper of South Gilboa, N. Y. came as a land prospector and struck the then new country of what afterward became Ripon township, Fon du Lac County, Wisconsin, and found land to be for sale in one-fourth and one-half sections at the regular fixed price of $1.25 per acre. Seeing great possibilities in this section he went back to South Gilboa, N. Y., and organized a colony of its members. The party represented such names as Loper, Whiting, Brown, Sage, Pierce, Fink, McArthur, Wood, Effner.

About the year 1886, by special count there was found to be 70 persons living in the town of Ripon who had come from Blenheim Hill, Gilboa, Jefferson and vicinity, including Henry Mattice and family, Martha McArthur, etc. During this period of time the land has passed through the hands of the third generation, and many times out of the family. The land today finds quick sale at $150 per acre.

Mr. Taylor's sister, Fanny Taylor of Jefferson, N. Y., was the wife of Winfield S. Mattice of Ripon.

Most of these surnames were familiar to me after reading Mayham's book, and a few are also found in the Efner family tree.

Mayham, Albert Champlin. The Anti-Rent War on Blenheim Hill: An Episode of the 40's : a History of the Struggle between Landlord and Tenant Growing Out of the Patroon System in the Eastern Part of New York. Jefferson, N.Y.: F.L. Frazee, 1906.

Davis, Lewis Jay. Our Kinsmen: A Family History. Portland, Oregon: [The Metropolitan press], 1936.

Lawson, Publius V. History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin Its Cities, Towns, Resources, People. Chicago: C.F. Cooper and Co, 1908.

Recruiting Workers for Aircraft Manufacturing - 1944

2010-05-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

Run time: 8:58

Names of people and places mentioned in this film:

Lowell Thomas (narrator)
George Bost
Pittsburgh
Beaver, Pennsylvania
Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania
Beatrice Jennings
Woodridge, New Jersey
Paterson, New Jersey
Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Lamb, who had daughters 11, 13, and 15 years old ca. 1944
Jane James, 22, whose husband was in a Nazi prison after being captured in N. Africa

Were these real people or characters created for the ads? Either way, they're Google-searchable now!

Surname: Friderici

2010-05-27T06:19:00.001-04:00

The Friderici surname comes to me via my grandma Evelyn Hauer Kerr. Her third great-grandfather was:

Carl Franz Anton Friderici of Herzfeld, Westfalen, Germany. He would have been born before or about 1725. He first married Anna Gertrud Schulte on 2 May 1746, and with her had two children. She died 24 January 1749 at Herzfeld. On 29 July of that that year, he married Anna Maria Elise Mesches (or Meschede), and with her he had five more children. Carl and Elise were my fifth great-grandparents.
Maria Clara Friderici, who was born at Herzfeld 21 December 1755. She married Joan Herman Meÿer on 17 November 1778 at Herzfeld. Joan and Maria were my fourth great-grandparents.

He who kept the record books in Herzfeld was a man of few words:

Marriage record of Carl Friderici and Gertrud Schulte ~ 2 May 1746

Death record of Gertrud Schulte Friderici ~ 24 January 1749

Marriage record of Carl Friderici and Elizabeth Mesches ~ 29 July 1749

Christening record of Maria Clara Friderici ~ 21 December 1755
(click to enlarge)

Christening records of other children born to Carl and Elizabeth Friderici show her maiden name as Meschede.

Katholische Kirche Herzfeld (Herzfeld, Kr. Beckum, Westfalen, Germany). Birth, marriage & death registers. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. FHL microfilm 871723 & 871724. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Surname: Ontrup

2010-05-26T06:06:00.002-04:00

The Ontrup surname comes to me via my grandma Evelyn Hauer. Her fourth great-grandmother was:

Elisabeth Ontrup, born about 1728. She married Joan Henricus Hagedorn on 18 June 1765 at Wadersloh, Westfalen, Prussia. I know of only two children born to this couple. Elisabeth died 18 December 1798 in Wadersloh. She and Joan were my sixth great-grandparents.

Wadersloh Katholische Kirche (Kreis Beckum) (Wadersloh, Westfalen, Germany). Taufen, Heiraten, Tote, Konfirmanden, Verzeichnis. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. FHL microfilm 860792-860796 and 871719-722. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Surname: Erdman

2010-05-25T06:14:00.002-04:00

Marriage record of Lubert Brede and Gertrud Erdman

The Erdman surname comes to me via my grandma, Evelyn Kerr. Her fourth great-grandmother was:

Gertrud Meyer Erdman, who married Lubbert Brede on 12 February 1760 at Wadersloh, Westfalen, Prussia. She died 3 September 1784 in Wadersloh. Gertrud and Lubbert were my sixth great-grandparents.

Surname: Brede

2010-05-24T06:07:00.000-04:00

The Brede surname is part of the heritage of Evelyn Hauer. Her fourth great-grandfather was:

Lubbert Brede, who married Gertrud Meier Erdman on 12 February 1760 at Wadersloh, Westfalen, Prussia. Together they had seven known children. Lubbert died 27 March 1775 at Wadersloh. He and Gertrud were my sixth great-grandparents.
Anna Gertrudis Brede, born 3 March 1763 at Wadersloh. She married Gerhardus Henricus Hagedorn on 29 May 1798. They were my fifth great-grandparents.

The Bouton Papers on the Anti-Rent War

2010-05-23T06:36:00.003-04:00

Last week I wrote about The Anti-Rent War on Blenheim Hill. Although no Efner was mentioned in the book, I thought that event might have had an impact on my ancestors and might have precipitated my third-great-grandpa Ezekiel T. Efner's move from New York to Wisconsin.

This week I've had the opportunity to read several pages of the Euguene Bouton Papers (Efner file), and my suspicions were confirmed. The Efner family, although not mentioned by name in Mayham's book, was surely affected by, if not actively involved in, the Anti-Rent War. Today's post is about the relationships that lead me to think so.

I made the chart above primarily to help illustrate how a number of surnames mentioned in Mayham's book are connected to Efner family members. The chart is neither comprehensive nor documented; it is simply a way to visualize what I'm going to point out.

(If I told you how long it took me to make the chart, I'm pretty sure you'd have a good case for getting me institutionalized. I began the project thinking I would use it to learn how to use FreeMind mind-mapping software--I happen to have version 0.8 but had never tried using it. After a frustrating hour or so, I was ready to admit I'm not that smart, so I bailed out and put my comfortable old Paint Shop Pro skills to work instead. After that, it took... oh yeah, I wasn't going to tell you that, was I?)

According to Bouton, there exists an old Efner Bible which, at the time of his research, was in the possession of Helen B. Easton of Peoria, Illinois. (Where, oh, where is this Bible now? I would happily cross a few state lines to get a look at it! Reader, if you can help me out, please click on this Contact link and let me know how to reach you.)

In the Bible, there are listed eleven children of Valentine Efner and his wife, Elizabeth Martin, my fourth great-grandparents, who are represented at the top center of the chart above. I've surrounded them with only five of their children (aqua ovals) for the purpose of this discussion. Each of the five ovals is overlapped with a brown rectangle showing the name of that person's spouse.

At the center, I've listed all the children of Margaret Efner and her husband, Dr. John Cornell. With the exception of Dr. Cornell's sister Elizabeth and Eugene Bouton, all remaining names are spouses of the Cornell children.

The Cornell surname appears 17 times in The Anti-Rent War on Blenheim Hill. The first mention is of Henry, but later references to "Dr. Cornell" refer to Margaret Efner's husband. On page 50, Dr. John Cornell is named specifically as one of the three men wanted by the sheriff for being the most active among the anti-renters. On page 59, there's a reference to "two of his little children, John and Bettie," and a bit of dialogue in which Mrs. Cornell speaks to another son, addressing him as "Sime." (That chapter begins on page 58, and you might as well start there, because Margaret has quite an entertaining part in this scene!)

In the Efner file, Bouton wrote, "Dr. Cornell's children are named in the old Wood School District as Ezekiel, Valentine, Simon, Margaret, John Tuttle, and Betsey." I've shamelessly added the others to my chart from WorldConnect with no intention of verifying the research; it serves my purpose here well enough as it stands. Take it for what it is--a small part of this discussion.

Bouton says this about Dr. Cornell (and my comments follow below the line):

He was a well known and highly respected physician and leading citizen in the northern part of Gilboa, which was taken from Blenheim in 1848. He was active in the Anti-Rent movement in the 1840's. He lived on the road leading from Cornell Hollow to the Blenheim Hill Methodist Church. At Sage place 1858 [*see note below] a camp meeting was held in the grove on the west side of the road opposite the Cornell home on the east. A lumber wagon with boards around the sides of the box for seats conveyed a company from Jefferson village to the meeting.
After the adoption at an Anti-Rent meeting of a resolution calling for "such laws as will enable the tenants to purchase the land of the Patroons at a fair consideration," Dr. Cornell announced, "I want to make a motion that will carry here tonight. I move that at our next meeting we get together in the afternoon and have a pole raising. I want to see a flag floating here bearing the words, 'Down with the Rent.'"
______

[*The phrase "At Sage place 1858" appears to be a type-over. Underneath, it appears to have said "At Sage place" without the year. I can't begin to guess the who or why of this change, and I'm confused because 1858 was well after the Anti-Rent War, which seems to be the subject immediately before and after the two sentences introduced by this phrase. Therefore I'm not sure whether the sentences actually are about a camp meeting in 1858, or alternatively about one of the meetings of the anti-renters which occurred during the timeframe covered in Mayham's book. The last three lines above (i.e., what Dr. Cornell is quoted as saying) appear verbatim in Mayham's book, but they were said to have been spoken in a meeting at the Brimstone church, not at the Sage place. The Sage surname, by the way, appears in Mayham's book a dozen times; they were anti-renters.]

Dr. Cornell's sister Elizabeth married Milo Wood in 1824, according to Bouton. Milo's name appears twice in Mayham's book.

The Mayham surname appears in the book 22 times, including the authorship references. According to the Bouton Papers, Dr. Cornell's daughter Ellen was first married to Isaac Mayham, a brother of Stephen L. Mayham (who is named in the book along with another brother, John). Ellen's second husband, Elijah Danforth, had been married first to Hannah Maria Bouton, an older half-sister of Eugene Bouton. The Bouton Papers also say that my grandfather Ezekiel lived on the Charles Mayham farm, although no timeframe is given.

Dr. Cornell's son Ezekiel would have reached marrying age during the later years of the Anti-Rent War. He married Rosetta Fidelia Decker. I haven't been able to discover whether she was related to Christopher Decker or two other Deckers who were anti-renters, but I'd be surprised if she wasn't.

Dr. Cornell's daughter Elizabeth (Bettie in Mayham's book, Betsey in Bouton's Efner file) was married, years after the Anti-Rent War, to Isaac Peaslee, one of the cradled babies I met on the first page of Chapter I in Mayham's book!

By hokey nettie! Now that I know who all these people are, I want to read that book again!

------------

The Bouton Papers are a compilation of genealogical research material related to some 100 families who lived in the Town of Jefferson, Schoharie County, New York, from its settlement in 1794 to the mid-1900s. Click to read more about Eugene Bouton and His Papers.

Mayham, Albert Champlin. The Anti-Rent War on Blenheim Hill: An Episode of the 40's : a History of the Struggle between Landlord and Tenant Growing Out of the Patroon System in the Eastern Part of New York. Jefferson, N.Y.: F.L. Frazee, 1906.

Eugene Bouton and His Papers

2010-05-22T08:14:00.003-04:00

The Eugene Bouton Papers are a great source of information for people with roots in Jefferson, Schoharie County, New York. My Efner and Martin ancestors are among those families researched by Dr. Bouton.

Because I question some of the details from Dr. Bouton's Martin file, I became curious about the man. Who was he? What was his interest in these families? Where did he get his information? And how could I get my hands on a copy of his Efner file?

I was able to learn quite a bit about Dr. Bouton online, and in this post, I will hook you up with links which answer these questions and more. Let's start out with a short biography published when he was forty years old:

Eugene Bouton, A.M., Ph.D , was born at Jefferson, Schoharie Co., N. Y., Dec. 6, 1850. His primary and intermediate education was received in the public schools of Jefferson, and his preparation for college was obtained chiefly at Cazenovia Seminary, Cazenovia, N. Y., where he secured numerous prizes for proficiency in his several studies. After a course at Yale College, in which he excelled especially in composition and oratory, he was graduated in 1875, being the class poet, and having received during the course, several honors of a similar character.

After teaching for two years at the Norwich Academy, Norwich, N. Y., and then for three years at Sherburne, N. Y., as principal of the union school, he was elected Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Albany Academy at Albany, N. Y, which position he retained for three and a half years. In the spring of 1881 he was elected Professor of History and English Literature in the College of Charleston at Charleston, S. C, but decided to remain at Albany. After studying poetry under Prof. H A. Beers, he received the degree of M.A. from Yale College, in 1881. During the summer of 1881 he traveled in Great Britain and France, for the pupose of obtaining information concerning his favorite studies, and in 1882 he received the degree of Ph.D. from Syracuse University, on an examination in English Literature.

On the first of January, 1884, he was appointed by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction a member of the Institute Faculty of the State of New York, and served thereon two years, until he was appointed Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in January, 1886, and shortly afterwards Principal of the State Normal and Training School at New Paltz, Ulster Co., N. Y.

During the autumn of 1884, he published, in connection with Prof. James Johonnot, a work on elementary physiology and hygiene, entitled "How We Live ; or the Human Body, and How to take Care of It." D. Appleton & Co., New York. He has also published various papers on educational and other topics.

June 29, 1887, he married Elizabeth Rumrill Gladwin, b. Sherburne, N. Y., Oct. 9,1865, daughter of Albert R. Gladwin, Esq., of Sherburne, Chenango Co., N. Y.
______

Boughton, James, and Willis A. Boughton. Bouton--Boughton Family; Descendants of John Boution, a Native of France, Who Embarked from Gravesend, Eng., and Landed at Boston in December, 1635, and Settled at Norwalk, Ct. Albany: J. Munsell's Sons, 1890.

In July 1947, Dr. Bouton received a letter from Yale University informing him that, at the age of 96, he was Yale's oldest living graduate. Two newspaper clippings with additional biographical information were published at that time; transcriptions are online at Schoharie County NYGenWeb. He died after a brief illness on March 31, 1951, at the age of 100 [The New York Times, Sunday, 1 April 1951, p. 93].

Next you'll want to read the text of Dr. Boughton's brochure which he sent out in the mid-1900s to spread word of his project to collect information about the families living in the Town of Jefferson, Schoharie County, New York from its settlement in 1794 through the mid-1900s.

The Schoharie County NYGenWeb Site also has a very helpful page about the Bouton Papers and how to obtain files from the collection.

The actual Bouton Papers are housed at the New York State Library. However, the index to the Bouton Papers is reproduced at Schoharie County NYGenWeb, where some of the files have been transcribed and are available online (active links provided).

I obtained my Efner file pages by mail from the Old Stone Fort Library at Schoharie, New York. This library's excellent website enables detailed planning of a research trip I'd love to take!

Surname: Hagedorn

2010-05-21T05:48:00.002-04:00

Hagedorn - Ontrup marriage record
(click to enlarge any image in this post)

The Hagedorn surname comes to me via my grandma, Evelyn Hauer. Her fourth great-grandfather was:

Joan Henricus Hagedorn, whose wife was Elisabeth Ontrup (the widow of Erdman?). They were married 18 June 1765 in Wadersloh, Westfalen, Prussia. Joan died 22 January 1779 in Wadersloh. Joan and Elisabeth were my sixth great-grandparents.
Gerhardus Henricus Hagedorn, born 20 October 1766 in Wadersloh. He married Anna Gertrudis Brede on 29 May 1798. Together they had eight known children. Gerhardus Henricus and Anna Gertrudis were my fifth great-grandparents.
Clara Elisabeth Hagedorn, christened 22 July 1798 in Wadersloh. Clara was my fourth great-grandmother.
Maria Gertrud Hagedorn, born 13 December 1820 at Wadersloh and christened the next day. She married Johann Hermann Meyer-Schulte on 11 August 1840 at Beckum, Westfalen. She outlived Hermann, who died in May 1855. Maria Gertrud and Hermann were my third great-grandparents.

Hagedorn - Brede marriage record

Clara Elisabeth Hagedorn christening record

Maria Gertrud Hagedorn christening record
(The notation later added below this record indicates
that Maria married Schulte of Herzfeld in Beckum.
The dates in this notation jibe with the marriage
record as it appears in the Beckum churchbook.)

Surname: Krenz, Krentz, Krintz, Krantz

2010-05-20T05:59:00.000-04:00

The names of two Krenz ancestors are highlighted
in this detail from the Evangelical marriage banns
of Martin Krenz and Anna Mariane Strech.

My paternal grandfather was John Samuel Krentz. His great-grandfather was:

Johann Krenz of Ostrowke, named in the marriage record of his son Martin. He was probably born before 1772. He was my third great-grandfather.
Johann Martin Krenz of Podanin, born about 1792. He married Anna Marianne Streich at Podanin on 22 January 1823. To my knowledge, they did not emigrate. Martin and Anna Marianne were my great-great-grandparents.
Johann Michael Krenz, born 26 October 1837 at Podanin, Posen, Prussia, and christened there on November 5. His first marriage, to Anna Louise Butow (Büto, Bueto), was recorded at Chodziez, Posen, Prussia on 21 January 1862. Together they had eight children, three of whom died in infancy. Upon arrival in the United States, this family stayed first at Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, but soon settled permanently in Reynolds, White County, Indiana. Anna Louise died there 8 October 1874. Michael next married Christine Friederike Dorothea (Dora) Brandt at Reynolds on 24 April 1875. Dora had a daughter of her own (also called Dora), and together Michael and Dora had eight more children, one of whom died in infancy. Michael died 7 January 1924 at Reynolds, and was buried at the Lutheran cemetery. Michael and Dora were my great-grandparents.
Johann Samuel Krenz, born 19 May 1891 in Reynolds and christened there May 31 at the German Lutheran church. He married Margreta (Gertie) Buss on 11 February 1914 at Moorhead, Minnesota. They made their home in Ransom County, North Dakota, where they had nine children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. John died 27 August 1978 and was buried in the little cemetery at Anselm.

Evangelische Kirche Kolmar (KrSt. Kolmar). Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1809-1874 (Protestant parish register transcripts of baptisms, marriages and deaths for Kolmar, Posen, Germany; now Chodzież, Poznań, Poland). Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1969, 1981. FHL INTL Films 807991-807993.

Kościół rzymsko-katolicki. Parafja Chodzież (Chodzież). Kopie księg metrykalnych, 1819-1874 (Transcripts of Roman Catholic parish register of births, marriages and deaths for Kolmar, Posen, Germany; now Chodzież (Chodzież), Poznań, Poland. Salt Lake City, Utah: Mikrofilmowało The Genealogical Society of Utah, 1969, 1981. FHL INTL Film 807956.

119 Years Ago Today

2010-05-19T06:36:00.001-04:00

My paternal grandpa, John Samuel Krentz, was born on 19 May 1891 in Reynolds, White County, Indiana. His parents were Johann Michael Krenz and Christine Friederike Dorothea Brandt. John was the last of the eight children his parents had together. In addition, he had eight half-siblings on his father's side and one more on his mother's side, making him the youngest of seventeen children. However, three half-siblings and one full brother died in infancy long before John was born.

click to enlarge

John was christened at the German Lutheran church in Reynolds on 31 May 1891, and he attended the German Lutheran school there as a child. He was confirmed on 16 April 1905, but his mother was not there to attend the confirmation; she had died in August 1903, when John was just twelve.

Confirmation Certificate of John Samuel Krentz
(currently the best copy available--I hope to replace
it with a high-resolution scan as soon as possible)

When he was still in his teens, John left Indiana to join some of his full siblings who had moved to North Dakota. It was there that he eventually made a home for himself, married and raised a family, and spent the remainder of his life.

Surname: Manthey

2010-05-18T06:30:00.001-04:00

The Manthey surname comes to me via my grandpa John S. Krentz. His great-grandmother was:

Anna Manthey of Podanin, Posen, Prussia. She was married to Matthias Streich. They were my third great-grandparents.

Anna and Matthias are named in the marriage record of their daughter, Anna Marianne Streich, and Martin Krentz.

Anna Manthey's name is highlighted in this
detail from the Catholic marriage record of
Martin Krenz and Anna Mariane Streich.
(From this record, incidentally, it appears
that Martin's first name was Johann.)

Kościół rzymsko-katolicki. Parafja Chodzież (Chodzież). Kopie księg metrykalnych, 1819-1874 (Transcripts of Roman Catholic parish register of births, marriages and deaths for Kolmar, Posen, Germany; now Chodzież (Chodzież), Poznań, Poland. Salt Lake City, Utah: Mikrofilmowało The Genealogical Society of Utah, 1969, 1981. FHL INTL Film 807956.

Surname: Streich (also Strech)

2010-05-17T06:32:00.007-04:00

The Streich surname is part of the heritage of my paternal grandfather, John Samuel Krentz. His great-grandfather was:

Matthias Streich of Podanin, Posen, Prussia, a farmer. His wife was Anna Manthey. They were Catholic. Matthias and Anna were my third great-grandparents.
Anna Marianne Streich, born about 1804. She married Martin Krenz, a Protestant, at Podanin on 22 January 1823. They were married in the Catholic church, but banns were also published in the Evangelical church on 15 December 1822. Together they had six known children born in Podanin, two of whom are known to have died young. Martin and Anna Marianne were my great-great-grandparents.

There's no evidence that either of these couples emigrated.

The Streich names are highlighted in this
detail from the Evangelical marriage banns
of Martin Krenz and Anna Mariane Strech.

The Streich names are highlighted in this
detail from the Catholic marriage record of
Martin Krenz and Anna Mariane Streich.
Streichowna is a feminine version of Streich.
(From this record, incidentally, it appears
that Martin's first name was Johann.)