TEENA MARIE DEJA VU I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE

Teena Marie passed into the Next World yesterday at the age of 54, too young, in her own home in Pasadena, California, while napping - a peaceful way to leave. My belief in reincarnation helps me deal with the death of loved ones.

ANGEL WITH VIOLIN

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN INSTITUTE and THE ARMONICA

Link above to the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN INSTITUTE

Ben is one of my favorite historical persons.

BEATLES : IN MY LIFE

SEARCH FOR AMELIA EARHART : DNA OF BONES FOUND ON ISLAND MAY ANSWER THE QUESTION

Link now to this new article on Amelia Earhart: DNA from bones found on a deserted island may indicate that she lived a while after crashing in the sea or the island nearby.

SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press reporter writes:

" The remains turned up in May and June at what seemed to be an abandoned campsite near where native work crews found skeletal remains in 1940. The pieces appear to be from a cervical bone, a neck bone and a finger.

"But Gillespie offered a word of caution: The fragments could be from a turtle. They were found near a hollowed-out turtle shell that might have been used to collect rain water, but there were no other turtle parts nearby.

"This site tells the story of how someone or some people attempted to live as castaways," Gillespie said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press. Bird and fish carcasses nearby suggested they were prepared and eaten by Westerners.

"These fish weren't eaten like Pacific Islanders" eat fish..."

SMITHSONIAN ARCHIVES TO SPILL SECRETS

LINK NOW TO THE ARTICLE FROM SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE...

You'll have to wait till 2027 for this:

" The FBI spied on Martin Luther King Jr. in an unsuccessful effort to prove he had ties to Communist organizations. In 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy granted an FBI request to surreptitiously record King and his associates by tapping their phones and placing hidden microphones in their homes, hotel rooms and offices. A 1977 court order sealed transcripts of the surveillance tapes for 50 years."

AMERICAN CATHOLIC OFFERS SAINTS OF THE DAY

Here's a link to American Catholic which offers SAINT DAYS for NAMING and also a brief bio of each saint.

This one links to an Italian Saint Rose of Viterbo

"Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint.

Finding a coorelation between an ancestors name and birthdate as supplied by the Social Security Death Index helped me realize that this person most likely did start out life as a Roman Catholic in Poland.


click on title for link

POLISH ANCESTRY NAMING PATTERN OR SAINT?

Recently I spent an afternoon at the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY library. As it often goes, I came in looking to break through a brick wall on one line, but while going through books I found one that mentioned that Poles often named their children for the day they were born or baptized. There was a good list and so I decided to compare the names of some Polish ancestors with the Polish (or Eastern-Central European) saints lists.

To my surprise there was a true connection (birthdate and saints day) of 7 out of 10 of the people I chose. Now, does that mean they were simply named for the saint of the day when they were baptised rather than born?

Now, to this day in Poland people often celebrate their saints day as their birthday.

HERE IS WHERE IT GETS TRICKY: YOUR IMMIGRANT POLISH ANCESTORS MAY HAVE USED THEIR SAINTS DAY AS THEIR OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY on U.S. paperwork/records. It is possible that this will correlate with their baptismal in Poland but maybe not.

According to the book I read, POLISH ROOTS by Rosemary Chorzempa, parents sometimes picked a name within up to a three week period surrounding the actual birth.

Because 3 out of the 10 names I checked did not correlate with a saint day, I think this is possibly the name of a family member OR THEIR BAPTISM sponsor.

I'm linking to the Rootsweb list of Polish Saints Names; REMEMBER THAT THESE CATHOLIC CALENDER DATES MAY HAVE CHANGED OVER TIME and that you may be able to determine ethnicity within Poland or other countries by linking the name and the saint!

What this reinforced to me also is the Catholicism of this family.

LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY : HAS 10,000 TITLES FROM RESOURCES ALL OVER THE COUNTRY

Did you know that the Central Library genealogy collection has over 10,000 titles and "this exhaustive database is not duplicated in any other California library, and contains documents not even available through the Library of Congress!"

ANCESTRY DATABASES - THE POSITIVES and THE NEGATIVES : WE NEED TO USE BOOKS AND MICROFILM TOO

Although the Internet and Databases are increasingly valuable to researchers, I don't believe that in my lifetime either will eliminate the need for good "old fashioned" research skills. THE WORST PART OF RELYING on EITHER databases or Internet is that your expectations of how fast you can do research and reality will part ways. That's because there is so much that is not available and some "instant" results may spoil you when what genealogy really takes is PATIENCE!

THERE ARE STILL AREAS OF THE UNITED STATES and THE WORLD that will not give what is considered private information to databases or for microfilming. In those places there are sometimes fees or the information can only be given if you already know the details.


I may have mentioned this before but most of my personal research was done without the use of Internet or databases such as Ancestry. When Ancestry came out I was eager to see how fast the same research would take and learned I was NOT able to duplicate it USING ANCESTRY !

Recently I noticed that corrections were coming up on ANCESTRY. Some of these are provided by subscriber-members.


Every few months I look to see what is new on ANCESTRY and other databases and sometimes I find bits and pieces of information that I did not have, or that would have required archive or library fees or to pay a local researcher. So to me that is worth the exploration.


This is one of the things I did recently when I visited LDS in person; I spent time on each of their database offerings to see what would or would not come up.


To be fair in my review, there were a few pieces of information that I WAS NOT ABLE TO FIND the old fashioned way that did come up on Ancestry. The reason is that while the databases are often of no use where typists have interpreted difficult last names (bad handwriting and no knowledge of surnames in various ethnic languages, especially Slavic names) on the other hand you can SEARCH using first names or other details which may then bring up a family group (and you can see just how horribly spelled the surname was).


This is how I busted a difficult problem for a student of mine who was seeking an African American with an unusual first name and for a student of mine who was seeking his Polish great-grandfather in the state of New York.

THANKS TO VOLUNTEERS LOTS OF GENEALOGY INFORMATION IS FREE ON THE INTERNET

This week I looked into the LUZERNE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA genealogy offerings. I was really impressedwith the obituaries that volunteers have uploaded of those who DIED IN MINING ACCIDENTS. These on -line obits have details as to how each miner died.

WHAT ABOUT THAT NAME POLLY? IS SHE REALLY MARY?

Everyone knows of people who don't go by the name on their birth certificate at all. Maybe it's as simple as turning their birth certificate name Karen into Caryn.

Maybe from the day they were brought home from the hospital everyone called the baby "Dinky" and it stuck, even though "Dinky" is really Angelica and 56 years old.

And then there is the fact that some people changed their names as simple as that; in the days before your social security number was really a citizenship enrollment number and you could be found through it and your credit you really could arrive in a new town, give yourself a new name, and start a new life.


When you're looking for genealogical records, it's important to know something about naming patterns by ethnicity, by family (once you have the chart together you may notice that a certain name has been passed from grandfather to grandson for generations), and through translation (so she was named Zsa Zsa Now she goes by Susan.)

Some Germans, for instance seem to have given their children up to 4 names, based on pattern, but then called the child by the second name.

In some families children are on census by their nicknames which seem to have no relationship to their birth names. In one family I researched the census taker assumed that a girl named Salley was really Sarah and listed her that way, which was incorrect. (The same census taker turned a girl named Toni into a boy named Anthony.)

Years ago someone who was stuck in their research could not find their Polish ancestor who they said was named Walenty in the New York census. The temptation is first to try various misspellings - or change the W to V (common), or to think maybe the man got called Wally. I found Walenty by researching to find that the English translation of this name is Valentine.

In colonial times a great many girls named Mary got called Polly. I have no idea why. I've just found it to be true many times. Patsy was really Martha...

So, if you can't find them by the name you expect, by all means try to find the name in translation, or by nickname!


C Ancestry Worship Genealogy/ Christine All rights including Internet and International Rights.

STEAMSHIP POSTCARDS add some SIZZLE to your FAMILY STORY

This image is by Dover Publications and is free for use with a subscription and for non profit sites only..

SPAIN MAY CHANGE SURNAME TRADITION TO END SEXIST NAME BIAS

"Spain's Socialist government has found a new place to push for gender equality, seeking to erase all vestiges of male bias from the country's double-barreled last names.

Spaniards have two surnames, and under current law for registering babies, either the father's or the mother's can come first. Traditionally, however, it is the dad's and in cases of disagreement among the parents, the father's name automatically takes priority."

Read this news article now by clicking on the title of this post!

WW II SOLDIER RETURNS CHILD ART TO DAUGHTER

Link now to Yahoo News:
An American soldier during World War II found children's art on a dead Japanese soldier. He had the art on his wall for years and has just found the Japanese soldier's daughter, who he returned the art to. A war story with a happy ending...
Japanese use items like these on ancestral altars to connect with the deceased.

ALL SOULS - CHRISTIAN AND BUDDHIST or HINDU or JEWISH PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD GOLDFISH?

...to be released from Purgatory or Bardo to Heaven or Eternal Bliss...

I believe there is an afterlife. I also believe there is an experience best described as reincarnation. I eagerly read about the experiences those who "almost died" come back with. Although the tunnel of light and loving ancestors and friends who have passed on seems to be the most commonly reported experience, I have also read some very dark stories, some intent on converting the reader.

My most favorite reference to the near death experience is from prolific author and psychic, famous through television, Sylvia Browne. Sylvia has such a forthright personality. She tells it as she sees it, even if it's a little ouchy, at first.

OK, Sylvia Browne says that all the PETS you have owned and loved in ALL YOUR INCARNATIONS are also waiting for you when you make it through that tunnel of light to the OTHER SIDE... the very idea makes me smile.

CAN YOU IMAGINE YOUR PET FISH over there swimming, swimming, swimming in the ether? Waiting, waiting, waiting...

You know what? I can't. I am afraid that long ago I accidentally, through ignorance, killed some pet fish! One time I killed three fancy goldfish in their mucky mucky because I had the brilliant idea to put clean fresh water in their bowl! But maybe in eternal bliss they forgive me.

The turtle that never came out of hibernation in our basement: him too?



C Ancestry Worship Genealogy. All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

TALES OF MEDIEVAL TIMES

Trecherous territory and valient warriors live in the heroic tales of Old Europe.This image is from Dover Publications and is free with a subscription for use on non profit sites only.

I'M POSTING FROM THE FAMILY HISTORY CENTER - LOS ANGELES !

I'm posting from the NEWLY OPENED LATTER DAY SAINTS FAMILY HISTORY CENTER. (THIS POST IS POPULAR AND HAS BEEN UPDATED JANUARY 12, 2012)

I just took the tour and WOW!

The facility is larger and absolutely BEAUTIFUL; light, airy, cream walls and blue and green carpet with a leaf motif and large sepia toned photographs of ancestors of various ethnic groups - the Irish, the Poles, etc.

THERE ARE DOZENS OF COMPUTERS set up to link to useful genealogy research sites! There are large classrooms for telecasting classes from Salt Lake and teaching while being telecast to Salt Lake. The Church did not waste a dime in designing and implementing a state of the art facility.

HERE ARE SOME CHANGES :

ALL CENSUS RECORDS ON MICROFILM ARE GONE.ALL PASSENGER/SHIP RECORDS ON MICROFILM ARE GONE.

(This may not be so positive. I have in the past tried to duplicate my research on Ancestry (which is available for free at the Family History Center) and COULD NOT DO IT. I'm great at figuring out bad handwriting and most database entry people must not be... I would rather turn microfilm and read page after page than try guessing some of the mispellings that would lead to the same information. I've also found information ON THE BACK of handwritten cards and indexes.)

THERE ARE STILL MICROFILMS AND MICROFILM READERS.
TO ORDER FILMS YOU MUST DO SO ON LINE.

ALL THE BOOKS THAT ARE NO LONGER UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW ARE REMOVED TO SALT LAKE WHERE THEY ARE BEING DIGITIZED.

THE OLD MAP ROOM/MAPS IS GONE.

SOME OF THE LINKS ON THE COMPUTERS such as INTERNMENT.COM are still paid or trial; you don't need to come into the library to do that. FOOTNOTE DATABASE IS FREE OF CHARGE WHEN USED AT FAMILY HISTORY CENTER. In some cases I'm having better luck with Footnote than Ancestry. The name of Footnote is now Fold3.

THERE IS SOMETHING POSITIVE TO BE SAID FOR A DESTINATION THAT IS DEVOTED TO GENEALOGY and to BE SURROUNDED BY OTHER RESEARCHERS. I CONTINUE TO BE INSPIRED BY HEARING OTHER RESEARCHERS STORIES including their research methods.

There are some rules and regulations stated which I am glad for. One of those is no sexual harassment or vulgarity. I am glad this is the case as that is a problem I had with a male or two while researching a few years ago. It was enough to make me stop using LDS and moving my base of operations elsewhere.

IS THERE A GHOST UNDER THAT ARMOR?

ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW : PEONY IN LOVE by LISA SEE

page 19

"I lit incense, knelt on a pillow, and looked up at the two large ancestor portrait scrolls that hung on the wall above the altar table. On the left was my grandfather, an imperial scholar who had brought great dignity, security, and wealth to our family. In the painting, he sat in his robes, his legs spread, a fan open in one hand. His face was stern, and the skin around his eyes was wrinkled from wisdom and worry. He died when I was four, and y memory of him was of a man who preferred silence from me and had little tolerance for my mother or for the other women in our household.

"To the right of the altar table in another long school was my father's mother. She also wore a severe expression. She had a position of great honor, in our family and in the country, as a martyr who'd died in the Cataclysm (note: this is the overthrow of the Ming dynasty by the Manchus). In the years leading up to her sacrifice, my grandfather had served as the Minister of Works in Hangzhou. My grandfather left the Chen Family Villa here in Hangzhou and traveled two days by boat and by palanquin to live with him in Yangzhou. Not realizing disaster was coming, my parents went to Yangzhou for a visit. Soon after they arrived, the Manchu marauders invaded..."


Page 112

"Forty-nine days after my death, my family crowded into our ancestral hall for the dotting of my ancestor tablet and final goodbye. Storytellers and a handful of singers gathered in the courtyard. Someone of great distinction - a scholar or member of the literati - is always given the honor of placing the final precious dot on the ancestor tablet. Once this was done, a third of my soul would be transferred to the tablet, where it would watch over my family. The dotting would allow me to be worshipped as an ancestor and give me a place to inhabit on earth for all eternity. My dotted ancestor tablet would also be the object through which my family would send their offerings to sustain me in the afterworld, make requests for my help, and provide comfort to me as a way of averting potential hostility In the future, when my family embarked on a new business venture, named a child, or considered a marriage proposal, they would consult me through my tablet..."

C 2007 by Lisa See
Random House Publishers

REVIEW: PEONY IN LOVE was a wonderful read as a novel. It is set in a turbulent time in which some Chinese women took advantage of a revolution to venture out of lives lived actually hobbled by foot binding and the seclusion expected of upper class women. These women became poets and writers, many writing of the suffering of love. It's also apparent that Lisa See did her research not only on the literary progress of women in China in the 17th century but also into the Chinese spiritual belief in hungry ghosts, those who died without having family to honor them. The excerpts above is from the early stages of the novel and in the voice of Peony who becomes a hungry ghost herself. I hope I've tantalized you into reading this novel!

Christine

LDS LOS ANGELES TO OPEN LATE OCTOBER

I just got an e-mail from Mr. McBride over at the LOS ANGELES FAMILY HISTORY CENTER, which has been closed for some time, announcing that the library will open about October 25th, 2010. Hurray!

There is going to be some really wonderful technology, such as classes being telecast from Salt Lake and other libraries. Genealogists - hobbiest or pros- tend to be SHARING PEOPLE and can never seem to get enough knowledge.

I'm not a member of LDS (some of you have asked) but I think anyone who is into genealogy respects what they have there and offer there. With a few exceptions, everyone I have ever met volunteering there has been kind to me. And as a result of the generosity of that sharing, I have donated a couple books over time for others to use.

I've made some profound research discoveries using this library.

I've had to stop myself a few times from traveling on over there when I know it's closed.

I'm interested in the ancestor worship of the various Baptism of the Dead and other Temple ordinances. In the book I'm writing (slow but sure) I have a special section on synchronicities at LDS, as well as the story of a small special friendship I once had with a now deceased LDS member... (cliffhanger!)

THE HEIGHT OF SOCIETY - THE MILLER SISTERS - COME FROM MAYFLOWER ANCESTRY

Marie-Chantal Miller married Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece, and her wedding in London was attended by royals and aristocrats - so many that some had to watch on TV at the reception. Her sisters married into the Gettys and the Von Furstenbergs. Would you believe that these daughters of a billionaire come from all American roots on their father's side, traceable to Mayflower passengers?

William Addams Reitwiesner presents his research at the site linked here, and it really is so much fun to read some of those old names: Hugh Squarebriggs,Experience Mitchell, and Hepzibah Washburn.

Their only illustrious ancestor seems to be a Jewish businessman named Isaac Samuels, born in Poland/Prussia ca. 1785 and worth $100,000 dollars in the 1850's.

FALL is a TIME OF HARVEST, REST, REMEMBRANCE, and ANCESTOR WORSHIP

At this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, the Fall equinox has recently passed, the Harvest Festivals are in high gear, and Thanksgiving in the United States - celebrating plenty and prosperity - is not far away.
Until recently, until the Industrial and then Technological Revolution, our ancestors lived around AGRICULTURE, and fall was a time of rest before the harshness of snowy and sometimes bitter winters.

It is during this season that the remembrance of our ancestors, be it through the Mexican DAY OF THE DEAD festivities (all those sugary funny skeletons going through the paces of daily life in the afterlife!) or ALL SOULS DAY (throughout Christendom).

Today I try to imagine what life so close to the earth and the weather and so dependent on local crops must have been. Today we live lives extended through better nutrition (vitamins!) and medicine, but in the past, at this time of year many people must have wondered if they would live through the winter to see the spring flowers bloom.

Today we are sheltered from death in many ways. We expect to live a long time and plan accordingly. When someone dies it is not so often at home but in a hospital, where professionals come to take the body away; it used to be the relatives did so and layed the person out at home.

This is a good time to collect the memories of our living relatives and to ask their cooperation in our genealogy and family history projects. You may want to record the stories of funerals - the wakes, walk around cemeteries recording information from tombstones, or simply light a candle to those ancestors who help you in your research!

EVERY OLD PHOTO TELLS A WHOLE STORY

114 YEAR OLD MAN CELEBRATES HIS BIRTHDAY TODAY !

"Walter Breuning was born on Sept. 21, 1896, in Melrose, Minn., and moved to Montana in 1918, where he worked as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway for 50 years.
Breuning was to give a speech at an invitation-only birthday party at the Rainbow Retirement Community in downtown Great Falls, where he lives, with a guest list that includes Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and representatives from Guinness World Records."


Click on the title to get to the link.

Did you know that THE RED STAR LINE

transported 2.7 million people from Antwerp to American ports from 1873 to 1934, and it is estimated that half its emigrant passengers were Jewish?


From August 2010 Tribe Magazine page 38

BILL SACKS by MAXFIELD PARRISH

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY YIZKOR BOOKS

There are several resources for Yizkor books (Books that Record and thus Remember those Jews killed in the Holocaust of World War II) but I just found this one from THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY, which gives you VIEWABLE books on line... THIS IS AN EXPERIENCE!

Millions of people who were not Jewish were also killed by the Nazis, such as Rom (gypsies), Catholic clergy, and Polish Christian Intelligentsia, and it is my hope that there will be comprehensive memory books for them too someday.

BOOK REVIEW: A PRINCESS FOUND by SARAH CULBERSON and TRACY TRIVAS

SARAH CULBERSON's search for her birth parents took her to Sierra Leone, Africa and the devastation of that country due to war. So many children were left without limbs. As a result of meeting her birth father and being accepted by the whole village she started a Foundation to support the school.

Sarah wanted to meet her birth parents, though she had a happy childhood with her parents and siblings in Morgantown, West Virginia, soon after her 18th birthday. Luckily her parents and some locals had enough information to get her started and over time she came to understand their history and to accept herself as is.

She resolved the mystery of her birth mother, a white woman first, and then her African father. He was a student at the university and her mother could not cope with raising her on her own.

None of this took extensive genealogy research because people knew people and were willing to divulge information but it did take personal courage and openness.

The book is copyright the authors and published by Saint Martin's Press, and should be of interest to anyone who is facing a similiar search.

BOOK EXCERPT : THE RED QUEEN by MATT RIDLEY

Page 198-199

"The six independent "civilizations" of early history - Babylon, Egypt, India, China, Aztec Mexico, and Inca Peru - were remarkable less for their civility than for their concentration of power. They were all ruled by men, one man at a time, whose power was arbitrary and absolute....WITHOUT EXCEPTION, the cast accumulation of power was always translated into prodigious sexual productivity.... The Babylon King Hammurabi had thousands of slave "wives" at his command. The Egyptian Pharaoh Akenaten procured 317 concubines and "droves" of consorts. The Aztec ruler Montezuma enjoyed 4,000 concubines. The Indian emperor Udayama preserved 16,000 consorts in apartments ringed with fire and guarded by eunuchs. The Chinese emperor Fei-ti had ten thousand women in his harem. The Inca Atahualpa...kept virgins on tap throughout the kingdom."

The women were kept to breed the emperor's children...

"Measures to enhance the fertility of the harem were common... Wet nurses, who allowed women to resume ovulation buy cutting short their breast-feeding periods, date from at least the code of Hammurabi in the eighteenth century B.C... The Tang dynasty emperors of China kept careful records of dates of menstruation and conception in the harem so as to be sure to copulate only with the most fertile concubines... These harems could hardly have been more carefully designed as breeding machines, dedicated to the spread of emperors genes.

C Matt Ridley 1993 HarperCollins was the publisher

YAD VASHEM SEARCHABLE HOLOCAUST YIZKOR DATABASE

The other night, a friend of mine who is a Christian scholar and I were talking about the Holocaust.

I explained about the memory books that are usually kept under the TOWN or GHETTO name. They are called YIKOR BOOKS...and there has been an ongoing project.

In war, soldiers fight soldiers. In the Holocaust that occurred in World War II, millions of people who were not soldiers - citizens - innocents - were murdered in ways that testify to the INHUMANITY of HUMAN BEINGS - a human capability to commit horror. Today we think that many of these people were insane. I have been challenged to wonder whether or not we all have souls as a condition of being. Perhaps we can loose them.

It is true that the victims of the Holocaust were not all Jewish, but the YIZKOR books are a Jewish project. These memory books are useful to genealogists and family history researchers and historians... and I think anyone who is interested in trying to comprehend the history of Europe ought to do some reading on the subject and take a look at these books.

PERHAPS IT IS BEST TO UNDERSTAND THESE BOOKS THIS WAY:

Testimonials of a life - and a death - give at last a person the RESPECT THAT THEY DESERVE AS A HUMAN BEING. Those who remember them testify to their existence.

"YAD VASHEM, together with its partners, has collected and recorded here the names and biographical details of half of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices. Millions more still remain unidentified: It is our collective duty to persist until all their names are recovered. Do you know of a Holocaust Victim? Submit Pages of Testimony and send photographs of the victims so they will always be remembered."

FINDING BIRTH PARENTS or CHILDREN GIVEN UP FOR ADOPTION ON FACEBOOK :

Is FACEBOOK the best way to find a birth parent or the child you put up for adoption without having to do a lot of research and possibly battle for original birth certificates? 

Is this better than an adoption registration opportunity? You can link by clicking the title above to this TIME MAGAZINE article, from the August 16, 2010 edition by writer Belinda Luscombe to read about how one searcher found her birth mother in one day and was soon linked to her own child that she'd given up for adoption!

WILLIAM and KATE - 12th COUSINS

Prince William and long time girlfriend Kate Middleton may or may not get married someday but for sure the royal genealogists are delving into her ancestry past and found that William and Kate are related to a man who lived about 12 generations ago...



LINK NOW to the full article that includes a chart by clicking to the link above! (Many articles but chose this one!)

THE KNIGHT ROLAND

NATURALIZATION RECORDS SNAGFOOS!

Wouldn't it be nice if your immigrant ancestor came to America, got off a boat, went to the place they knew they could live and find work, and then stayed there - at least long enough to be naturalized as a citizen?

I know from experience that this is not to be counted on. In fact, you may be shocked at how many years it took for your ancestors to go ahead and become an American.

If you have no idea when they became naturalized... look at CENSUS evidence first. What? Every ten years a different year for NA (Naturalization) is written down? How could that be?

Common enough!

If the information you gleen from census is consistant, then it is probably correct and the YEAR of Naturalization is yours for the simple research. If however, it is not consistant, what could be the problem?

OK... sometimes ancestors were just as suspicious of census takers as some immigrants are NOW! ...and they lied. Sometimes they confused the filing of DECLARATION OF INTENT papers, with actually going through with Citizenship, and sometimes they were naturalized with a parent or husband... This was true almost all the time unless the WOMAN WAS WIDOWED before her husband could do it for himself, her, and the children. Women got the vote and THEN began to apply for themselves as a matter of course.

More often than not, recent immigrants - searching for good employment - simply did NOT STAY PUT in one place upon immigration. What this means is that they declared in one town and then went through the rest of the process elsewhere.

These are just some of the many possibilities.

Christine

GENEALOGY SYNCHRONICITY ? I WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE SON OF LIPA TEPPER

I was just reading THE BOYS by MARTIN GILBERT and following the holocuast survivor testimony from LIPA TEPPER of Dukla, Poland. Wanting to know more about him I GOOGLED his name and up came a semi private blog (comments limited to members) posted by a man who I believe is his son ? AL TEPPER. There was an announcement there that LIPA had passed away surrounded by family.

I do not presently use Twitter, Facebook, or any of those social networks as I simply do not have the time to keep connections going that way. With my research and writing as extensive as it is these days, I have to make time for yoga class and swimming once in a while, just to move the physical plant my brain sits atop of.

However, I am looking for an e-mail address for AL TEPPER because I would really like to speak with him. I was really excited to see this picture of LIPA TEPPER and one of AL, especially as Al calls himself green and uses NAMASTE!

(Al if you are reading this, please contact me! My comments are set for me to approve first and you can leave an e-mail or other contact information for me on there, sure I will not publish it for the world to see!)

BOOK EXCERPT THE RED QUEEN BY MATT RIDLEY

COURTLY LOVE
pages 218-219


"Human mating systems are greatly complicated by...inherited wealth... indeed in more stratified societies the poor often favor their daughters over their sons. But this is not because of certainly of paternity but because poor daughters are more likely to breed than poor sons. A feudal vassal's son had a good chance of remaining childless, while his sister was carted off to the local castle to be the fecund concubine of the resident lord... Sure enough, there is some evidence that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Bedforshire, peasants left more to their daughters than to their sons. In eighteenth-century Ostfriesland in Germany, farmers in stagnant populations had oddly female-biased families... It is hard to avoid the conclusion that third and fourth sons were a drain on the family unless there were new business opportunities....

"But at the top of society, the opposite prejudice prevailed. Medieval lords banished many of their daughters to nunneries... Through the world rich men have always favored their sons and often just one of them. A wealthy or powerful father, by leaving his status or the means to achieve it to his sons, is leaving them the wherewithal to become successful adulterers with many bastard sons. No such advantage could accrue to wealthy daughters... "

Harper Perennial is the publisher.
C 1993 by Matt Ridley

IRATE THAT OTHERS ARE LINKING TO THIS NOT FOR PROFIT SITE TO SELL GENEALOGY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

I'm sorry to have to post this, but it's a legal thing.

As you can see, I, Christine, ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY, am NOT USING THIS BLOGSPOT to sell genealogy or other related products such as GENEALOGY DATABASES, books, etc. I'M NOT FINANCIALLY PROFITING from this blog and I see no reason why anyone else ought to use my work to profit. If anyone is ever going to profit it should be me.


If I read a book or use a database (usually FREE ONES) and I think something is interesting and my reader may be interested in it too - that is a RECOMMENDATION for that BOOK/AUTHOR/SITE only. I am not telling you where to buy it or to buy it at all.


Site owners who pirate, and do this to me are taking MY REPUTATION into their hands without my knowledge or permission - until I catch them. THEY ARE CLAIMING VICARIOUSLY that I am giving their products and services a commercial WHICH I AM NOT. THEY ARE PRESUMPTUOUS. They don't know me, and they are taking a RISK that I may actually NOT AT ALL AGREE WITH THEIR P.O.V.


And I am Happy to be a Citizen of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA where with my Right to Free Speech I may actually CONDEMN THE PRODUCT or SERVICE or the COMPANY!



THIEVES and CONS on the Internet PUT ME IN A VERY COMPROMISED POSITION because I DO NOT WANT MY NAME or the NAME OF THIS BLOG - ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY attached to people and products I do not know, have never even been contacted by - people and products that I may think
S T I N K !



So the only thing I can say to my readers is I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM and I DON'T buy their product or service. And I don't think you should either.



IT ESPECIALLY INFURIATES ME THAT OTHERS web site owners ARE LINKING HERE and even stating that I AM PAYING THEM - that ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY is one of "their" blogs. I work hard on this blog, put many hours in designing it and writing for it; I have a college degree in writing and years of experience as a genealogical researcher. Certainly I am trying to be helpful to others, but that does NOT MAKE ME AN EASY MARK. My original writing is by law copyrighted as mine the moment I publish it the first time... And I reserve all rights including INTERNATIONAL and INTERNET rights.



I think these site owners know better but just figure they'll thieve till they get caught, and are counting on me not knowing and shutting them down long enough to sell stuff.


These people have not shown me the smallest respect before showing off MY ORIGINAL WRITING and ENTIRE CONTENT AS THEIRS. It makes me furious. And I admit it, I can't help feeling they especially thought they could shaft me because I'm a woman!



GOOGLE HOSTS MY BLOG FOR FREE. I THANK GOOGLE.

I PAY NO ONE TO HOST MY BLOG. DO NOT THINK THAT ANYONE BESIDES ME IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SUCCESS OF THIS BLOG.

POLISH RIGHTEOUS - COMPILED BY ANNA PORAY

Saving a Jewish person when the Nazi's wanted to deport them to a concentration camp, or otherwise exterminate them, could mean death for you and your family. Yet some people took that chance. In a world where there is so much evidence of man's inhumanity to man let's be reminded that sometimes common people rise up to a moment of sainthood.

THIS DATABASE STARTS WITH THE TRUTH OF THE CONDITIONS OF WAR... and the NAZI's determination to take over POLAND... IT LISTS approximately 5,400 Poles who are known to have taken the chance of being killed in order to help someone else, a list of those who paid with their own life, as well as a MASS EXECUTIONS by village and information on Religious and Monastic Orders Who Rescued Jews.

Take a look even if you don't have a surname to run on this one!

THANK YOU ANNA PORAY for posting this!

update September 5th https://www.savingjews.org/

MAPS MAKE YOUR STORY SPECIAL

The use of MAPS is essential to your genealogy and using them can help you bring life to your heritage story. This is a step that a lot of people like to skip, but I advise it. Now that there are so many maps on line you may not need to get to a real map library, but personally I like the hands-on of a map library, pulling out a drawer and having a look a a great old paper or paper-canvas map, and some university geography departments have great collections! 

YOU WANT TO FIND MAPS that represent the features of the place you are researching designed at the time that your ancestors were living there. And then compare with the newer maps. 

Today MAPQUEST and GOOGLE MAPS are two of my favorite on-line resources. Newer maps have an advantage in giving you the highways and directions for getting there by car, when you take a family history trip to the Old Country. You can speed down a highway that goes through three countries in a few hours, a trip that took weeks by horse in the good old days... But here are some interesting features I have found on old maps that helped me tell the story of an ancestor... 

Native American villages, Indian Reservations, National Parklands (recently established), hunting trails, wagon train trails, historical markers and monuments. Bridges, golf courses, schools, the Masonic lodge, and the post office - all gone now (now the town's a slum). Plat Maps (farms) in Pennsylvania, maps of Spanish land grants in California, maps of land grants to Civil War Soldiers, maps of land won in the Georgia land lottery (the Cherokee were moved away). Maybe most important Maps that show old counties and how they were divided through the years and illustrate compromises between state borders; these help you situate research in the current county that holds the old county's records. You get the idea, so now get that map! 

POLISH LEGACY RESEARCH GROUP OF CHICAGO

Recently, when doing some research for Poles in the Chicago area, I came across this site and I admire what they are trying to do... PERHAPS YOU CAN ADD TO THEIR DATABASE!

CROATIAN NEANDERTHALS DNA and US : WE HAVE SOME OF THEIR DNA STILL IN US!

Has your boyfriend been acting a bit like a NEANDERTHAL lately? Maybe that's because some of us are still carrying some NEANDERTHAL DNA in us!

There are so many articles on the Net about this breaking news, but I linked to Time-Science here... cool picture of someone you dated right there!

"Scientists discovered that 1% to 4% of the latter three DNA samples is shared with Neanderthals — proof that Neanderthals and early modern humans interbred. The absence of Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of the two present-day Africans indicates that interbreeding occurred after some root population of early modern humans left Africa but before the species evolved into distinct groups in Europe and Asia. "

GOT THAT? INTERBRED!

STAR SPANGLED BANNER

FREE IS FREE (LOOK UPS THAT IS)

Genealogy research is one of the most fascinating experiences of my life, but long ago I gave up on posting messeges on chat boards and through clubs, because it has turned out to be a time and hope waster. I have yet to ever find someone willing to do a little free for me while I do a little free for them. And believe me, when I was newer at this I tried, writing to historical societies and the like and never once getting so much as a postcard in return.

I FIND THAT MOST OF THE "FREE LOOK UPS" are defunct (the e-mail no longer works or the person quit after their first burst of enthusiasm) or used as free advertising by someone who really wants to be paid for genealogy research ; wrong because it's bait and switch.

I'm sure some well meaning souls are really willing to do a little this and that for you for no charge, since they have the books right on their shelf or live next door to the local library, but most of the time when I asked I got no response at all or someone looked something up in the index but would not elaborate without my sending money. Since I live in a major city and have access to several libraries and genealogy societies I have access to research materials that many small towners don't and often all it takes is ordering a microfilm in to research another place in the United States.

SO JUST BE WARY WHEN ANYONE CLAIMS FREE ; YOU'LL PROBABLY GET WHAT YOU PAID FOR.

IS THAT HANDWRITING HIS? HANDWRITING ANALYISIS and GENEALOGY

Sometimes I find documents with the signature of the person being recorded - a draft registration for instance - and I really want to believe this is the handwriting of the individual.

Now you have to be really careful to assume this is true and resist the notion to get that handwriting analysis book out and get to know your ancestor through his or her penmanship! That is because I have seen a series of documents like these in which man after man seemed to have near identical signatures.

What gives?

Although your ancestor may indeed have known how to read and write (and comic book level reading is reading, this does not imply that they did either a whole lot) they may have carefully signed some documents while their daily handwriting was something else. Others remained at a very basic level in their ability to use penmanship rather than printing and it looks a little, shall we say, second-gradish...

Wait until you have a collection of signatures that appear to match before you get too excited. Some documents you may consider besides draft registrations would be marriage licences and original applications for Social Security.

Christine/Ancestry Worship Genealogy c 2010 All Rights including Internet and International Rights reserved. Please contact me for permission before quoting.

THE OLD MAN'S WORLD WAR II DRAFT REGISTRATION is AVAILABLE to the PUBLIC

The World War II draft registration for OLD MEN (ages 44 to 64 years old in April 1942) is now available.

Use this registration information to add to your knowledge of the family before that 1940 census comes out!

The records for the men more age appropriate for fighting during World War II are still closed for privacy because of the privacy laws that cover them: some of them are still alive after all (as are an ever dwindling number of these men recorded.)

Some of the interesting aspects of this information, which is available through the National Archives and some other genealogy databases and resources, is the height and weight, eye color, profession and employer...

and maybe if you're lucky like I was you'll find a handwritten note such as "Wears Glasses and a Mustache!"

BOOK REVIEW: THE PORCELAIN GOD A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE TOILET by JULIE HORAN

THE PORCELAIN GOD - A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE TOILET by JULIE HORAN

Review by Ancestry Worship Genealogy

DO YOU WANT TO LAUGH OUT LOUD ? STUN YOUR FRIENDS WITH FASCINATING TOILET FACTS WHILE EATING THAT BBQ? (On the old television show MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, character AL BUNDY'S toilet flush was quite the punctuation point! Ever since we can talk about this, can't we?)

THE PORCELAIN GOD by Julie L. Horan made me laugh out loud again and again. And, after I lent the book to a male friend, he felt free to ask me what experience I had with using BLUEING in the wash - his white undies you know! Seriously, DID CIVILIZATION actually start with the INVENTION OF THE TOILET?

Believe it or not, people used to worship gods and goddesses who ruled the potty and bowels.

We all have them, we all poop, and then pretend we don't.

Get this! THE GERMANIC tribes hid valuable possessions beneath their potty trenches... sailors went naked up the "head" and held on for dear life as the boat tossed and turned so they could go poo and not stain their clothes... Kings squeezed themselves down the hole to hide from attack and some ran through the sewers below to the river... and for a time, after a female pope was discovered, popes were inspected for maleness while sitting on a throne...

Would you perhaps enjoy using a chamber pot with your least favorite politicians face down in the bottom?

OK I'll leave out the gross stuff... Go get the book!

Christine

BOOK REVIEW BY ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY C 2010 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

YOUR EUROPEAN ANCESTORS WERE PROBABLY SURVIVORS OF THE BLACK DEATH

CHANCES ARE VERY GOOD, if you are from European ancestry, that your genes are survivors of the BLACK DEATH - The Plague. I just read a fascinating article in the travel section of the LOS ANGELES TIMES, a paper copy, about tourism to the OBERAMMERGAU area, for the purposes of the yearly passion play, which has been put on every 10 years since the town promised God it would do so, if it were spared the Black Death.


According to SUSAN SPANO, the journalist who wrote the article called IN THE ALPS, A SAVING GRACE, which appeared in the Sunday June 7th edition, "Before the first Passion was staged and the plague abated, almost 100 villagers -died, relatively few compared with southern Germany as a whole, where the BLACK DEATH killed more than a million people.

NEWSPAPER DATABASES and MICROFILMS are an ESSENTIAL ELEMENT to WRITING ABOUT FAMILY

RECENTLY through a newspaper database that carries hundreds of small town newspapers I was able to break through some research blocks that had truly confounded me. Yes, I'm always working a little bit on my own research when I'm not researching for someone else.

A member of my grandfathers extended family was on the census but the married surname was truly one of the most confused I had ever encountered. It looked like it had been scratched out, erased, and written over again.

I had tried all my tricks to bust through to the correct spelling of this surname. Soundex for starters. Then a series of probable misspellings due to the bad handwriting maybe being transcribed by a hurried typist incorrectly - a's turned into o's and so on.

I actually found an engagement announcementusing a misspelling and then a picture of the bride on a newly acquired newspaper database. I REMINDED MYSELF THAT EACH AND EVERY LETTER OF THE NEWSPAPER HAD BEEN TYPESET and that MAYBE WHEN THE TYPESETTER RAN OUT OF ONE VOWEL OR ANOTHER they decided to substitute!

Not only that but the first name of the groom was listed as Lester, when it was actually Louis.

But now, invigorated by actually having a first picture of this ancestor, an informed intuition took over and I took one more guess at the surname, and was able to find a World War I draft record that most likely was the correct spelling in another databse! I CROSSCHECKED THE ADDRESS and it was right.

SMALL TOWN NEWSPAPERS are valuable because often just reading the page gives us a great idea about the events of the day and what was important to the people in that town. This one appears to be something of a local NATIONAL ENQUIRER! For only two years later - coming up with another misspelling - came the report that the bride was being sued for desertion of her husband! Perhaps this is why I found her living again with her parents on the very next census.

C Ancestry Worship Genealogy All Rights Including Internet and International Rights Reserved.

SPANISH TOURNAMENT

I've been reading about the HUMAN GENOME

and the question is, are we are who we are (and what we are) by NATURE or NURTURE and how so! I think that we often ask ourselves who we are like in our family, looks, personality, and character, talents and skills, psychology... and it seems that all these things may be a bit predetermined if the scientists are right...

JOE MOZINGO makes the FRONT PAGE OF THE LA TIMES for his three part article on TRACING HIS FAMILY HISTORY

"One came from an acquaintance who said he found a bunch of Mozingos in a phone book in the Imperial Valley and was told they all were Basque shepherds. On this authority, we became French Basque.

Next we heard that "Mozingo" was an Americanized version of "Mont Zingeau," a mountain in France or maybe Switzerland I could never find on a map.

All of this was beginning to feel a bit dubious when I met Sherrie Mazingo, whose name is a variation of ours. Sherrie was a broadcast journalism professor at USC when I was a grad student there in 1996.

She was black — and she had news." Joe Mozingo

I READ THE STORY ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE MAY 16, 2010 LOS ANGELES TIMES in paper... Link now to the internet version.

REINCARNATION EXPERIMENT . ORG

As you may know, I find reincarnation fascinating and tend to be a believer.

Using genealogy to help a person find themselves in a past life is even more intriguing.

This has to be one of the most interesting sites I've found on the net since I began this blog... check it out!

ARE YOU PART NEATHDERTHAL? GENES MAY SAY YEA

RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer : Between 1 percent and 4 percent of genes in people from Europe and Asia trace back to Neanderthals."

Click on the link above to get to the full story!

MOTHERS DAY - YOUR MATRIARCHAL LINE

EVERY ONE OF US HAS HAD A MOTHER and FATHER, and some of us are lucky enough to still have them in this life. Tracing the female ancestors can be a challenge... a feminist challenge. Our mothers and matriarchs do not appear in records as often as our fathers and patriarchs. Make a special effort to celebrate the women in your life today.

ARE YOU FOLLOWING THE MATRIARCHAL LINES in your family charts?

CHILDRENS GIVEN NAMES ARE GETTING MORE BIZARRE

CLAIRE SUDDATH of Yahoo News reports that the Social Security Administration has released the top baby names for 2009 were Isabella and Jacob but are people naming their babies after vampires?

"Cullen is also part of a larger trend: two-syllable male names that end in the sound en. Aiden is another example (12th most popular name). So is Jayden (No. 8), Logan (No. 17), Nathan (No. 24), Kevin (No. 44), Justin (No. 46) and a name I'd never heard of before: Brayden. At No. 47, it means I'll probably start meeting a number of Braydens in about 20 years. Likewise, nearly half of the 50 most popular girl names end in the letter a, like Isabella. Why does this happen? Why do parents so often choose the same names for their newborns?" .

Read more about the TWILIGHT EFFECT!

ELLIS ISLAND GETS UNFAIRLY BLAMED FOR NAME CHANGES

In my experience, the often repeated idea that the authorities at ELLIS ISLAND, the dropping off point for STEERAGE PASSENGERS in the port of New York for a long period during the industrial boom, CHANGED THE NAMES of those coming through is completely false.

MAYBE SOME ANCESTOR used this as an EXCUSE for their own decision to change their name. However this was absolutely not within the authority or practice of those harried clerks, most English speaking only, maybe some who knew German, who had a huge number of people to process.

On most ship manifests I've read I see that immigrants were often counted by ethnicity. That is to say, you see Poles with Poles and Hungarians with Hungarians, and Jews with Jews, per CLASS of ticket.

Having used both microfilms and databases I have read a lot of BAD HANDWRITING (which then gets transferred at the typists best guess into databases) and a lot of names that were given a phonetic spelling. I've found the same passenger's name spelled one way on the HAMBURG lists (the departure point of many steamships) and another on the manifests coming into New York. READING BOTH is a good idea.

I believe that mistakes were made with misunderstandings due to not knowing the language spoken or out of hurry and exhaustion. Further, I have seen these same kind of mistakes on census where certain assumptions were also made. For instance a child might be listed as "SARAH" because a parent called her "SALLY" when her real name is something else.

Given documentation and over time, the family always seems to revert to the given name, or is in agreement about a spelling or name change. The exception to this truism - and every case is different - is in African American familys shortly after slavery.

C Ancestry Worship Genealogy All Rights including Internet and International Rights reserved. Please e-mail me or leave contact information on Comments for permissions prior to use.

BOOK EXCERPT: MAYFLOWER by NATHANIEL PHILBRICK

MAYFLOWER
A Story of Courage, Community, and War
Viking Press
C 2006 Nathaniel Philbrick

Massasoit was a local Native American leader. In this scene of the book he is dying. Edward Winslow visits him...

pages 144 145

"Winslow began to examine the interior of the sachem's mouth. it was "exceedingly furred," and his tongue was so swollen that it was little wonder he had been unable to eat anything. After scraping the "Corruption" from his mouth and tongue, Winslow fed him more of the preserves.

"Massasoit may have been suffering from typhus, probably brought to the village by the recently departed Dutch traders. Spread by infected lice, typhus was known as "pestilential fever" in the seventeenth century and was most common in winder and spring. Typhus thrived In the crowded, unsanitary conditions typical of an Indian or, for that matter, English village of the time, and there were also several other Pokanokets (the tribe of Massosoit) suffering from the same disease. According to a modern description of typhus, symptoms include "fever and chills, vomiting, constipation or diarrhea, muscle ache and delirium or stupor. The tongue is first coated with a white fur, which then turns brown. The body develops small red eruptions which may belled." In severe cases, the morality rate can reach 70 percent."

Winslow fed him fruit preserves and this lead to Massasoit's recovery!

ANCESTORS SPEAK ONCE AGAIN - ESPECIALLY THE WOMEN

One of the reasons I LOVE GENEALOGY is that it feels to me like the ancestors get to speak again, telling the story of their lives one more time. AND I THINK FOR MANY OF THEM IT IS THE FIRST TIME ANYONE IS REALLY LISTENING!

Yes, I SAID THAT!

Truly, in this life how often is it that someone who you never met before is all that interested in hearing about your "life history"? In fact we make snide remarks at times when someone goes on "too long" ; "thank you for sharing!" (I hate that!)

For our FEMALE ancestors, until fairly recently in Western culture, there were social and cultural reasons why they did not discuss their thoughts, feelings, or tell about their lives while they were living it.

For many women of the past, speaking up or out was considered not to be feminine. They were to keep to their position and place in life, vote the way their husband voted (if they could vote at all), get along in a group but not stand out. A woman was supposed to be shy and soft spoken and some of them did an awfully good job of being self effacing!

As some of you know, tracing FEMALE ANCESTORS is MORE DIFFICULT than tracing MALE. There are so many reasons for this, from baptismal records that don't list the mother's name at all or don't list her maiden name, to not being able to find school or military records for those who never went to school or into the military.

ELLIS ISLAND FREE DATABASE in NEED OF FUNDS

Recently ELLIS ISLAND contacted me to ask for a donation so that the database, which is free on the Internet, can remain a free service.

I remember how thrilled people were to use that database! One day it was up, and for the next week or two it was so jammed up, it was difficult to get in.

It was my understanding that ELLIS ISLAND was begun as a volunteer project and I never imagined that it would become a pay for play database.

Like any good database it helped thousands of people interested in learning about their immigrant ancestors.

However, many people did not find their ancestors on Ellis Island because they did not realize that this database focuses of those who CAME IN STEERAGE. If a person was on a better ticket, then they got off at CASTLE ROCK.

Above is the link to the free database.

TRAGIC : POLISH PRESIDENT and DIGNITARIES KILLED IN PLANE CRASH ON WAY TO SITE OF UNMARKED GRAVES

For some of us who have roots in Eastern Europe, the recent plane crash that astonishingly resulted in the death of the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and leading dignitaries, to the site of unmarked graves of Poles, killed and deposited there in 1940, will bring up the stories that our ancestors told us about life in the Old Country. "Katyn" is a place in the Russian forest where there are unmarked graves - about 20,000 people are in those graves, many intelligencia, priests, doctors, writers and artists.

IT HAS BEEN A STRUGGLE TO GET THE RUSSIANS TO OPEN THEIR FILES ON THE PRISONERS... Perhaps this is where some GENEALOGY ACTIVISM is required!?

Some of these prisoners are OUR ANCESTORS!

Let me say that about a year ago I discovered that a few persons with a surname in my family had been taken to Siberia... Now, I do not know who these persons are or how or if they are related to me, but possibly this ties in with the story I was told about the Russian soldiers taking my grandfather's brother away... A snippet of family story that I was too young to ask my grandfather more questions about.

Attaching to a Seattle Times article by Associated Press Writer

"Killed with President Lech Kaczynski in the plane crash near Smolensk, western Russia, were his wife, Maria Kaczynska, his closest aides, lawmakers, army commanders, church figures, historic figures, plane crew and relatives of the victims of the 1940 massacre of Polish officers in Katyn and in other places. They had been traveling to Katyn to mark the 70th anniversary.

The Soviet secret police killed thousands of Polish military leaders and intellectuals at Katyn and other places at the start of World War II. It was part of a strategy to subdue the country, whose eastern half it occupied starting in 1939, and better control it..." Minika Scislowska

SOME GOOD REASONS TO HIRE A PROFESSIONAL by Christine of ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

1) WHEN YOU ARE INTERESTED IN YOUR ANCESTRY but YOU have no time, ability, or interest in researching yourself.

2) WHEN you want the research to hold up through documentation ("Proofed"), especially for submission as evidence for entitlement to certain societies (D.A.R or S.A.R. for instance), scholarships, tribal benefits, etc.

3) WHEN you want research that you, a relative, or someone else conducted, to be double checked.

4) WHEN you find yourself stuck in your personal research. (Maybe you need a little advice on where to find resources.)

5) WHEN the research needs to hold up in court (for immigration/INS, wills/inheritance, etc.)

6) WHEN someone approaches you claiming to be related and you are not sure of them. (I've actually met someone quite wealthy that this happened to. Sometimes long lost relatives really are related, sometimes this is someone who is only in touch because they want money...)
7) WHEN someone is making a claim to be a son or daughter or when you wish to find a birth child or birth parent. (Some times genealogy is not necessary in these cases, but will achieve or help to achieve documentation and current location. I highly recommend DNA testing as well.)

C 2010 Ancestry Worship Genealogy All Rights Including Internet and International Rights Reserved.

A 1940 TRANSCRIPTION PROJECT YOU MAY WISH TO JOIN (ED)

UPDATE APRIL 2012 by Ancestry Worship Genealogy

I've provided links to the National Archives 1940 information and to the ED converter utility to the left sidebar - top of this blog. I attended a lecture by Steve Morse at Latter Day Saints Family History Library in Los Angeles recently. It was a fun lecture, tracing the addresses of famous cartoon characters such as Donald Duck.

If you will go to this ED converter site and follow the links you will find the names of volunteers who have transcribed ED districts and the various cities, large and small, in the United States that are already done. You'll see what needs to be done.

I've spend the last week getting into these sites and using them, or trying to. I'm one of the millions who crashed the National Archives site last Monday within hours after the grand opening. What has happened is that a third party contractor has been hired to provide additional servers for the traffic. As a result the images are not showing as was planned. The original idea was to get to a ED and see a row of small page icons to click one after another. As the site is functioning at this time, you will click page by page. (Try using the ZOOM function on your computer to reduce these to cut on how much mouse you have to use.)

I had 1930 addresses as well as 1940ish addresses for seven families which I used the converter on. Sadly, not one of these addresses was wrong, but the ED districts that the addresses brought up on the converter were not right. In one case one ED district was brought up but I read seven ED's till I found the family. In two other cases the ED converter did not reduce the number of films much because the street name ran through a few districts, meaning that the street is being read but probably not the house number. YES USING THE MAP and introducing the cross street names narrowed it some, but not much!

PLEASE NOTE THAT IN ABOUT A WEEK I'LL BE POSTING ON ALTERNATIVES FOR FINDING ANCESTORS ON THE 1940.

OLDER POSTS BELOW:
STEVE MORSE has announced a 1940 CENSUS transcription project which you may wish to join.

Let me tell you this... Morse has been an innovator in helping us get into and around the ELLIS ISLAND database. I heard him speak a few years ago and he's probably a genius with a few cohorts who are genius's too. More than anything this is going to take a lot of work and cooperation!

You may already know that we cannot legally see the 1940 until April 1, 2012 but that doesn't mean it will be TRANSCRIBED... and because of the burgeoning population counted yes I AM saying it could be 2015 before you can use it... unless of course you are part of a project in which your transcription work makes your towns of interest available to other genealogists!check this out NOW!

PS : JUST HEARD FROM STEVE (and PARTNER JOEL) HIMSELF! READ STEVE'S COMMENT BELOW!
(The project is not per surname!)