MISSING MOM DOCUMENTARY : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

Although this film reaches its conclusion with mom found, after near a quarter of a century missing, and it was an act of bravery on her son's part to be willing to risk such a personal story, sadly I felt like there was a whole lot unsaid and untold. Maybe the real story actually began after filming.

Beginning in 2014, two brothers with different fathers went looking for the mother who abandoned them. They gave it a year max. They didn't use genealogy but they did interview relatives (an important skill for genealogists), network, travel extensively, and mostly depend on social (internet) networking and Canadian police officers willing to give small clues, not much more.

One of the cool things they did was use an app that uses a photo of a person and ages them. You'll have to decide how close the app came.

What's weirder? A woman marries twice and has two sons, one with each husband, but splits? Or that when she split not a single family member kept track of her or filed a missing persons report? Seems to me she was thrown away. And these people didn't say a word about her until the sons started asking. Rob, born in 1960, whose quest it was first, also had a dad that abandoned him so he was raised by his mother's parents.

What could have happened that this family didn't care to find their daughter? Or ex-husbands  - the mother of their sons?

Reportedly, mom had a normal childhood in which she exhibited talent as an ice skater and an outgoing personality. She got work in the hospitality industry, restaurants and resorts, which makes sense to me since she was a people person. Implied is that she was partying. 

But hey. What do average people do for work or fun in Canada?

What if this were Appalachia?

They didn't want to hire a PI and I don't blame them. 

Rob's mom's father doesn't care if he ever sees her again. Why not?

Through posting on the Internet, which they did as well as taking paper flyers around to restaurants, the sons get a phone number for mom, call, she readily agrees she is the mother and she and her son tell each other they love each other.

They do? They don't know each other. But OK, they mean well.

I'm sorry, she might have "disappeared" but she probably knew where they were all along. She had given up. Maybe forced to. What were the terms of the custody agreement?

Something more was going on. Something as simple as poverty. Or as complicated as alcoholism or bad men.

I watched this film hoping to learn some new tricks. I didn't. I saw the value of public postings and photos but winced at the lack of privacy; mom's all over the Internet without her knowledge or permission then gives her side of the story at the end.

Sad.

C 2021

GO SEE WHERE THEY WENT WHEN THEY GOT OFF THE SHIP #6

It's so easy now to print out ship manifests that are not so easy to read. It helps to enlarge the manifest on the computer screen and print close up images. All the information can be important.  A family group may be clear to you, but it's also possible some of those people on the same manifest not identified as a husband, wife, and children, or a mother and children, are also related to the ancestor you're focused on. 

Something I like to do is search by where they left - the village. And look for common surnames.

What you want to do next, after finding an ancestor on a ship manifest, is see where they go. If they're heading to the same town, that might be the reason to note the larger group. 

ELLIS ISLAND immigrants were steerage immigrants - on the cheapest tickets. Their motivation in coming to America was to earn money. They're generally poor rather than cheap. With that six hard earned dollars they've got in their pocket they have to get to their destination and a place to stay. Cabs, train tickets, a night in New York, a meal...

Though information about employers looking to hire immigrants was important to them and was exchanged in letters and on the voyage, so was information on where to stay. 

Boarding houses were not all big houses with nicely furnished rooms rented to individuals. A room could be rented to an entire family. A number of men could be sleeping on a floor. Sometimes immigrants stayed in churches until they found work. They could begin to network at Church or go to a local club meant to support people of their ethnicity - other Irish, Polish, Italian...

There were also big manufacturers, employers, who went to Europe looking for employees - usually those considered skilled. 

There were also incentives such as earning land; if a little town needed immigrants to populate or settle it, usually through farming or homesteading, they might have been invited to settle there.  (That's less applicable to immigrants coming into New York Harbor/ Ellis who came to settle on the east coast and more about certain areas of the mid-West and Texas.)

Did many people from the same place go to the same place? Did your ancestor live in a company town? A company row house? They may have gotten the job while still in Europe and the offer might have included housing. But a person willing to take any work at all, listed as a laborer, and not traveling with a wife or children, is probably heading to a boarding house or hotel.

Boarding houses were sometimes owned as businesses. If a woman with children was widowed, and she had a house, taking in boarders was a practical way to become self supporting. These women worked from morning till night. They had to provide meals, and do the shopping, cooking, cleaning, and importantly, all the filthy workman's laundry.

So. Let's take a look at the address the immigrant gave about the place they are going and who's there. If there is an address on the ship manifest you must go to it on the map and on the census. If a person and place are listed such as "brother in law John Richards, Camden, search for John on census.

If they came in 1906, who is there in 1900? 1910? If there's a state census look there too.

You can get to the right page for the address given on a ship manifest when the person named did not come up on census in a database. For every census, and you have to do so by census year, there is a district description/ map which will give county, city, and then ED, which means Enumeration District. That's the area a census taker was assigned to. Go to the ED without going page by page. 

However, if it's a small town, it may not be too much time to read each page till you come to that address. 

Remember this is the first place an immigrant went. It could be a family home, a boarding house, a hotel, a church. It could even be a house a relative owned.

I always run addresses given on ship and census through present day real estate sites and Google Earth. This is how I found out a relative who had a humble occupation bought a house with money he brought from Europe that's now on a historical tour and that another house, though more than a hundred years old, was up for sale a couple years ago. I got to see a townhouse in a bad part of town on Google Earth that was once new and when it was a good part. My ancestors lived on that street, went through that door. There were only two bedrooms for six children but so it was for their neighbors. Using maps and historical society information I learned they could walk to church and were near a vibrant shopping district, that streetcars ran nearby, and that they were the first generation to give up on an agricultural way of life for what was an ethnic ghetto but one from which sprang good citizens who stuck together during the Great Depression.

Such details certainly will enrich the family story I write. 

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY

Today there will be memorials for the innocent people who were killed in a genocide against European Jews called The Holocaust. I'm not a Holocaust denier. I respect and use various web sites including Yad Vashem. However when we hear The Six Million, we should be aware that this is a count of Jewish victims. Many people who were not Jewish were also killed including Catholic priests, people who sympathized or helped Jews hide or escape, intelligencia... The demonic plan was to eventually also kill off people who were of the Slavic "races."

What does this mean for genealogists? I'll be writing more on this subject later in the year.

Today let's think about genocide and how that has changed populations around the world.

Let's think about how vaccines, sanitation, and nutrition help humans live longer and better lives.

WHERE WERE YOU BORN ? VERSUS WHERE DID YOU LEAVE? #5

A search for an ancestor's origin is a hope that you'll be able to link into records such as birth, baptismal, marriage, and death in church or civil records in another country and from these documents also learn who a person's parents were, so as to go back another generation or more. 

Be careful to read what the question is on passenger lists and other documents). Don't confuse "where were you born" with "where did you leave?" Yes, it is possible the person was born and left the same place but maybe not. Men in need of work moved to work more than women but even a servant girl might follow an employer.

On the steamships coming into the New York Harbor, the questions are "Where did you leave?" and "Where are you going?" The later usually being more informative because a name, relationship, and sometimes an entire address is written.

On documents which some of the Industrial Revolution era / ELLIS ISLAND immigrants can be found on, such as United States World War I Draft Registration, Naturalization/ Citizenship, and Death Certificate (Civil), there will be a comforting repeat of information. 

However, as much as we would love for this to always be the case, here's a scenario from my personal research.

A woman's husband makes two trips to America through Ellis in steerage. He lists two different places he left and he leaves from two different ports. The name is the same and I decide it is the same man for two reasons. Both places he left are in the same region, one a larger city. It's impossible to know how long he stayed in America the first time. But he was going to the same place in America both trips. I only know this because I read every original ship manifest that listed men with his name.

However, my notion that his wife would also come through Ellis turns out to be wrong. She shows up with a baby she's nursing on a 2nd class ticket some time later. The family story is that this baby was a couple months old. The baby's date of birth is on her death certificate and other American documents consistently. She could have been premature, but I see she was six months old on that ship. I see it is quite possible that the husband went back to the Old Country, the couple conceived a child. Then at perhaps the three month point in the pregnancy it was clear he had better make a decision about America and employment.

But where did she leave from? Another place again - her sister's. A family story is that her new mother-in-law wasn't nice. So I guess she decided it would be better to stay with her sister and have her baby there with her husband in America. Goodbye Mother-in-law! 

But imagine another scenario. You or your spouse are poor. You love your family and friends but you need to earn income. You have the sense that you might never come back once you go to America. So you go visiting before you leave. Or you give up your own house and stay with family - a long good-bye. When you answer that question about where you left, it could be a location that's not where you were born at all. 

And here is another scenario that wasn't uncommon. A man uproots his family with the final goal to be America. But, like the scene in the famous Titanic film made by James Cameron, there are men working around the port earning money for a ticket or tickets. This was the case for many leaving the German and British ports. Irish going to Liverpool. Slavs going to Breman or Hamburg. In which case, as passengers they may report having left there rather than a home town, especially if they stayed a year or more. 

The expense of steamship travel certainly put a distance between classes although you might not assume a better ticket meant that a person came from more money. While steerage passengers felt the ships movements down below and knew their trip to America might be their first and last time ever on a ship, there were merchants and buyers for New York stores going back and forth regularly, Honeymooners on their European vacations, and members of High Society going about their yearly seasonal progress of travel. The Titanic film does an excellent job of revealing class difference on a ship; rich, middle class, and poor. However, a man who came in steerage might earn enough to provide a better ticket for his wife, wishing to spare her the steerage experience.

And, what if you're determined to unite your entire family in America, including your sibling who is "slow" or visibly different? You might choose another way to get them into the country rather than leave them alone. You might find yourself and your sibling on another boat, even one with sails, or landing on a beach and walking in.

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN

PRESIDENT

JOSEPH BIDEN is recognised by me.

QUEEN MARY CUNARD WHITE STAR

 

PASSENGER ARRIVALS FROM WHERE? ETHNIC IDENTITY VERSUS BORDERS #4

Today a region once called Galicia is in Poland, but Galicia, ruled as part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, now would be parts of Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. But on a ship manifests a person with these ethnic identities might have left "Austria."

Basically, you've got to research the history of war and politics. Be niche specific. Get out your maps. Look at borders. Remember borders as we think of them today weren't so official or supervised. It could be that a road was blocked but people traveled through the woods or well known farm roads. Try not to get that genealogy myopia that would have you think people couldn't move, travel, or live past a "border" be it a city, county, or country. Don't think that certain ethnic groups wouldn't deal with each other because you'll find that there are stereotypes to bust. Ethnic and religious intermarriage, for instance, did happen. 

I'm communicating this because people using passenger list databases sometimes disqualify a listing over ethic identity or location.

We also need to research the changes in the names of settlements, some which have had three different names in a short lifetime. More obscure even with today's maps on the Internet that zoom, are tiny settlements that back in the day locals knew as farmsteads.

I once searched a half dozen paper and on line maps looking for a location an immigrant gave as the place he left, which appeared on a ship passenger list. In 2020 a Polish genealogy site listed this habitation and to my surprise hundreds of people lived and died there over a hundred years with about a dozen surnames repetitive. Yet it was not on these maps. At another location however, on another map listed a huge Communist Era "commune" named after one of these families. Today I understand this place must have been like - like a vale of hobbits* and only one decided to go on an adventure to America! Finally I found a reference to it in a text, basically alluding to it as a fork in the road. Maps often have some criteria such as listing only places that have a population of, say, 500 or more.

With change of place name also comes the difference in the way a place is spelled and how it's pronounced by a native speaker who also has a regional accept and may also speak a "high" or "low" form of that language. Great Grand Ma kept saying she was from a certain place but you can't find it. (It turns out she was naming the biggest city, not her suburb! Kind of like what some men do to state their football team preference as Boston Celtics so you think they're from Boston when they're from Massachusetts.

You've got to run that place name past a native speaker.

Along with ethic identity, consider the reportage. I've seen so many manifests where it seems men are ghettoized by an ethnic identity or assumption. Hey, maybe they stuck together the whole trip. But maybe not. I wonder.

I can imagine these men having conversations. Why they're traveling. Where they left and where they're going. What kind of work they're seeking and who is waiting for them. Giving advise on trains, boarding houses, and employment. Who has an unmarried sister who needs a husband? I also see how immigrants helped each other, some brothers, some brothers of a different mother, I think we today could envy the friendships they made.

C 2021

*Hobbit as in Bilbo Bagging.

ELLIS ISLAND PASSENGER RECORDS and THE MYTH OF NAME CHANGES and ETHNI NAMES #3

There's a popular myth that passengers debarking from steerage (3rd class) off steamships at ELLIS ISLAND sometimes had their surnames changed by authority figures - clerks. It's not true. 

However, if you were an illiterate passenger who spoke your name in your own language, it's possible that the person hearing and recording your name could make an error. But wait a minute! You have a ticket. You were added to a list of passengers departing from another port where your surname was also recorded, and by someone whose first language was German or your native language. Even if you never went to school and couldn't read and write in your own language, you might have learned to sign your name. (And signing your name might mean that on American census, when asked if you're literate, the answer is yes.)

Did some immigrants change their own names or the spelling of them, given and/or surnames? They did. Sometimes more than once. Usually they did so informally, by use, rather than what we do now, go to court. Making a break from the Old World and starting anew in the New World was an opportunity to develop a new identity. (And yes, some immigrants would drop a religion they felt held them back or disappear and never send for a wife left behind.)

What this has to do with finding an ancestor on a database that includes the port of New York - or really any other port - is that you might be looking for the name of the person to be consistent with the name you know them by, which might be the name on a census or naturalization papers or not.

My experience is that the given name is the first to be changed to be Americanized. There are thousands of Maria's who become Mary's. I found one who became Mammie. That's easy. 

You should always consider the name and its variants, Americanized, then go back to ethnic origins. Doing so and running a given name through databases has helped me find some ancestors whose surnames were really screwed up by census takers and other recorders. Screwed up in spelling or in confusing bad handwriting that was then transcribed into bad text, but not, if you go forward, changed after all.

Take the name Walenty. I found him using not Walter, but Valentine. An accurate translation by the way.

Elizabeta became Betty, Beth, and Lizzy.

Consider Lawrence, a man who self identified as Polish and left a village near the Ukraine, which was Galicia. (But who turned out to be Ruthenian and in Greek Catholic records.) In Polish his name is Wawrzyniec. In German, one of the languages he spoke, Lars. Lorenz, Lauren, or Leuz. In Russian, Lavrent, Levrentiy. And so on. Lawrence went to work as a crew member on a ship where his given and surname were Germanicized.

Although you might think that English versions of a name were prioritized, for central and eastern Europeans, German was a second language so using German equivalents was more comfortable and useful. German speaking people were already in America and used that language in common, especially in the workplace. So I've seen Slavic given and surnames become German by spelling or meaning. 

Consider a name change when your ancestors just doesn't seem to be on records you seek.

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

A RIGHT AND PRIVILEGE

 

STEAMSHIP MANIFESTS and CITIZENSHIP IN THE UNITED STATES #2

The original ELLIS ISLAND searchable database now uses slidey bars that I find annoying. These are especially difficult to use on cell phones and by some seniors and others who have arthritis or shaking in their hands or are otherwise unable to easily achieve exactitude using them. I like to input a range of dates and other information by typing.

You don't have to use it. The National Archives New York branch also has passenger records and detailed information for New York Harbor.

See PASSENGER ARRIVAL LISTS. U.S. Customs Service was the agency.

Do you need to search through many lists of names at all?

Most immigrants were aware of the rules for obtaining American Citizenship, also called Naturalization. They knew they would be making a Declaration of Intent, which we call First Papers. After about two years of working and being on good behavior, they could continue the process, making an application. About seven years living in the country was the fastest process for citizenship on average. Of course there were a number of reasons why it could take longer ranging from their own uncertainty about staying and making that Declaration of Intent to historical events like World War I and changes in government rules. Certain ethnic groups were considered suspicious and their process was stalled out during that war. Another consideration was the cost. If you were scraping by poor, you might not have the filing fee. That said, the typical Industrial Revolution immigrant didn't face complications that would require hiring a lawyer. So, your good behavior and ability to support yourself was proof you qualified to be a welcomed new citizens and swear your allegiance to The United States of America.

Then at some point quotas based on country/ethnicity were determined which slowed immigration down considerably. This was tied in with the understanding that America had enough workers in factories and manufacturing.

The amount of information to be found on a citizenship application varies from State to State and when the application was filed. Generally in 1906 forms required more information and there was less regional difference. Pennsylvania, for instance, has space on their form to list the names of wife and children who would all become citizens at the same time. Other places seem to have been much less formal. A man walked into a court house and raised his hand to swear he was giving up, say, the King, accompanied by a friend from work who was already a citizen to witness and walked out. A clerk wrote his name and address in a book. It's brief. That was that.

All this is said because if you already have the citizenship papers, the applicant may have listed the date of arrival and the name of the ship. You can go right to that information on the passenger lists and may be rewarded with some interesting details. 

Be aware that a function of Ellis was also to keep records so if an immigrant lost their information, they could ask for a certificate. I personally haven't seen any certificates but I have seen notes on manifests indicating someone looked at them and found a person's name to provide that information for their citizenship.

Therefore, there can be a relationship between the date of entry into the U.S. and moving forwards in time and finding citizenship papers as well.

C 2021

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

U.S. CAPITOL HISTORICAL SOCIETY

U.S. CAPITOL HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

The U.S. Capitol building began in 1793 and has Roman and Greek architecture styles. The building itself has undergone reconstruction as well as restoration over time. Congress started meeting there in 1800 when it was a room. Today there is over 16 acres of floor space. The rotunda of the domed building is one of most iconic in the world. Now you can take tours of historic areas of the building as well as areas in use today. Learn more about historic America, George Washington, and this non-profit at the linked site!

ELLIS ISLAND STEAMSHIP PASSENGER SITE : HOW NOT TO USE IT #1

ELLIS ISLAND : ROMANTIC

I'm one of the people who got up in the middle of the night to get into the original passenger lists database site when it first opened years ago, sure I had ancestors who came to the United States, processed through ELLIS ISLAND. Oh, that site was just so jammed up. 

I was half right. I eventually learned ancestors came through New York before Ellis. Other ancestors avoided steerage class - third class tickets - and thus getting off at Ellis. First and second class passengers got off with ease at Castle Garden first and did not have to go through the medical inspection required at Ellis. Ancestors bought tickets for other ports. It depended on where their final destination might be but prices for tickets could be competitive. New York Harbor was busy with ships. It seems to me immigrants were unloaded by the hundreds. 

The city was daunting for people who left villages and an agricultural way of life. Though the medical examination was brief - about five minutes - and focused on noticeable eye infections and obvious mental illness, it was an intimidating exam. Unscrupulous cab drivers and thieves and con artists awaited the unsuspecting immigrant with a difference in language and village innocence. Sometimes the person was thieved of the money they had taken years to earn. As a result authorities wanted to know that an immigrant had a contact - somewhere to go - or that someone was meeting them just outside.

What New York had going for it was the trains. You could get almost anywhere if you got off a ship in New York and then made your way to the train station.

Millions of Americans do have an ancestor who came through Ellis Island though. Their people came into the U.S. witnessing the Statue of Liberty holding her torch high above the New York Harbor. They were filled with so much hope that this country would be the place to have a better life. They'd been on board from 10 days from German ports to a week leaving Southhampton. Or they had crossed from Liverpool or sailed the Mediterranean. Steerage immigrants had not seen much of the ocean during their trip though. They were usually only allowed on deck to stretch and breath for an hour a day. Then it was back down into the least desirable part if the ship, called steerage because a passenger could feel the movement of the ship. It could be dim, crowded, noisy, and smelly. It was not the place for a pretty young woman alone though more than once now I've met people whose ancestors met on the boat over and decided to marry.

So the other day I decided to revisit the original Ellis Island database, which has an "excuse our dust" apology up as the promise is made that it's being upgraded. I tried the password I had remembered twice and it didn't work. So I decided to change my password. In the associated email, which was consistent, came the message that the deed was done. I went to login at Ellis again with the new password but I got an alert that due to three password attempts my "account" was blocked. I tried more than a half hour later. Still blocked. So I followed the link to Administrator, where I filled out a contact and complaint form. Up came the capcha. I filled that in correctly and it fed me another one; it presented the whole form again blank. At that point I'd wasted a half hour and was too frustrated to continue. Is this the "dust"? My opinion? The only reason this site wants you to have an account to use it is because that's tied into their increasingly feeble offerings to fund raise. They went and sold their data to other databases that charge fees to use them years ago, databases which are not as temperamental. Sorry, but if they thought their data was this precious to be restricted they shouldn't have. And this site started out free to use without a login.

Maybe another day. 

So. You may decide to navigate the original Ellis Island database site or use another database which contains these records.

Note that "New York" ship records found elsewhere will possibly include records of 1st and 2nd class passengers, crew, and pre-Ellis records. You might also find those detained or hospitalized. That could be interesting for your family history narrative.

Be aware that you may eventually find the same passenger coming in more than once, which means they may have first gone on a vacation, a go see, meeting up with relatives or friends, and then they went back to put their affairs in order.

(The Breman, Germany lists of departures from Europe are the only ones I know of.)

Typically men came first and then sent their wives tickets, or went back for them and came with a family group. I found one young lady who'd been orphaned who crossed with a designated escort. In some cases men went back and forth as seasonal laborers - this was common of Hungarian and Italian men. What happened in those months couples were apart?

I'll post the next advisory in a few days.

Continue to the best of your ability to stay safe.

C 2021 

This post is part of a series of posts focused on Ellis Island, New York Harbor, and Industrial Age immigrants.

INTO THE FUTURE AND STEPPING INTO THE PAST

Hello to my ANCESTRY WORSHIP genealogy readers here in the U.S.  and Europe. I want to start the New Year, 2021, with a message of hope. I really do. Oh, I know, we have all been put to the test due to the restrictions of living in plague times. We are lonely, bored, cranky, crazy. Some of us are in grief and many are dealing with loss. We are having bad dreams when we sleep.

Humanity as a whole has been through plague before. I hope we can move on from this bad time. It does take cooperation and collaboration to survive.

I don't know about you, but genealogy practice and family history research has given me a greater understanding of human perseverence. And though not much changed on New Years day with Covid-19 - the vaccinations have begun but the statistics are frightening - it's still a symbolic new start. In this case, here at ANCESTRY WORSHIP - a genealogy blog - to use research to go back to the past and learn more about our ancestors and perhaps relearn to stand on their shoulders to make it through our days.

As a quick update first, for those if you following the Italian citizenship quest, no, the archive in Italy has not responded in any way to the letter and money sent there three months ago. Asked what to do, I said don't send more money but Italy us decimated so let's wait.

So, I'm going to start the new year by posting on ELLIS ISLAND and using ship manifests -passenger arrival records- to locate ancestors in the Old Country. 

Let's try to start anew.

Someone sent me this photo and I have no idea where it came from. Do you?

 

Ancestry Worship - Genealogy