TYPE IT UP!

 I learned to type on a non-electric typewriter 

and I was no good at it.  

Even my first electric typewriter was frustrating for me. 

I was always making errors that needed to be corrected.  

PILGRIM COUPLE

 Image from Graphics Fairy

 

AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY RECORD CIRCA 1880 SHOWING PROGRESS IN FREEDOM

I love the Before and After the Civil War of the African American farm family illustrated in this chart, which is held by the Library of Congress Collection.  It was produced by Krebs Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.  It's a chromolithograph and is circa about 1880, about fifteen years after the slaves were freed.

BEECH

Image From Graphics Fairy

 

TILL WE MEET AGAIN IN THE NEW YEAR

Friends, I'm taking a little blogging break for the Holidays but promise you I will be back in the New Year.

This past year the big news was the release of the 1950 census. I'm still tangling with it a bit and love that it held some surprises.  What discoveries will we make in the coming months?  What mysteries will we solve?

In the New Year there will be a number of excellent books I'll be telling you about and recommending you read too. It's my hope that we will all maintain our sense of adventure about our research.

If you have any books or other materials that you would like me to know about, please use the Comments Feature to leave me a message.  I read all comments before publication and if you do NOT want me to publish your message to me, just say so and I will respect that.

I'm also open to some questions.  If you are blocked in some way, please leave as detailed a comment as you can explaining where you are in your research.

I'm always seeking resources that are new or that I don't know about. I'm sure that even as the big genealogy database companies load more and more on there is plenty more that one must find using older, pre-Internet methods.  I meet people who do not know that you can call an archive or even a library local to your ancestor's location to see what they may hold in special collections. If you are determined you seek it all.

Wishing you some Relaxation and Rejuvenation!

Christine

A DAY TO CELEBRATE AMERICAN LABOR

 

COURT RECORDS and WILLS in EARLY AMERICA - PERSONAL FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS - WHEN CENSUS HAS ONLY STATISTICAL INFORMATION

Court records such as wills, probate, and the purchase and selling of land (and slaves) are quite useful to better understanding your ancestors and how they lived and who they were and how they are connected to other families.  I've had some fascinating journeys using these and so might you.

Where the courts and lawyers were used and how well these records have survived is key, of course, but if your roots are in pre-Revolutionary times into the mid 1800's, these records may make all the difference. (Gentleman's agreements - handshakes -  witnessing by family and friends or neighbors - also occurred where people trusted each other or could not afford lawyers and courts.)

These records can especially enhance the information on early census records, which appear to be quite basic and statistical compared to later census. 

If you're looking at 'head of household' data on an early census, which is usually the oldest male in the family (And so might not be the HUSBAND), looking further within that town, county, or state, archival records can bring up things such as:

The names of family members. Sometimes birth order/ages. (Including the names of wives, daughters, and daughters-in-law that are elsewhere missing and thus marriages.)

The location of property. (Follow up with maps, as place names may have changed.) Often the descriptiveness of where the property lines are defies any survey.

Who was favored in a will, and sometimes why.

Sometimes letters to the court with petitions and adjustments. (For instance letters a daughter sent to her father asking him to please send certain slaves to her, though she was in a territory where there was no official slavery. He did by the way.)

How much was paid. (Follow up with an inflation calculator): You may get a feel for if that person was rich or poor, if they owed money or were in debt. (Don't be too surprised. Our Founding Fathers and their families often were.  Thomas Jefferson, George Washington were in debt.)

WHERE TO FIND THEM:

Although certain subscription genealogy oriented databases have loaded on some of these documents, which are in English or German for early colonial, pre-Revolutionary, and post-Revolutionary times, there is much more out there.

I still believe the so-called "Old Fashioned" methods such as looking in books, historical societies, local and state archives, NARA, and libraries, are useful.

If you think you have found family on census in a certain place, focus on that place and see what libraries may contain books that were published in that area.  (The population was much smaller so one book might contain the information on every person who owned land in that county.)

You may be surprised to learn that big city collections far from that area also have Will books and other records of legal proceedings.  In one big city library I found information on many counties in the Southern United States. Sometimes you wonder how those books got there. (They may have been donated.) However, start where the location on the census is and expand out from there.

Consider:  The largest city, county, and state archives.  The college or university libraries (even if they are 2 year community colleges.)  SOMETIMES THE LIBRARIANS or ARCHIVIST may NOT have what you want BUT THEY MAY BE ABLE TO TELL YOU WHERE THE DOCUMENTS ARE HELD.

These early records are almost always in handwriting.  Sometimes the handwriting itself is puzzling as is the terminology. 

C Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

CLAYTON RESEARCH LIBRARY in HOUSTON HAS ONE OF THE LARGEST GENEALOGY COLLECTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES

CLAYTON RESEARCH LIBRARY in HOUSTON

Yes, you'll likely have to go there to use most of these offerings, but that doesn't mean you can't call to find out more information.  Go to the site, click on research and check out those databases and special offerings.

MARRIAGE RECORDS; POLAND GENEALOGY #4

I hope if you have not yet, you'll read the  previous posts of this series.

Without reading headings, it's obvious you're looking at a church record for births, marriages and deaths. Indexing projects seem to focus on births. While this is helpful, it's not the start of research for some. So it's my hope that marriage indexes will be next, be it the Polish Genealogy society people busy indexing at GENETEKA or the Latter Day Saint's FAMILYSEARCH projects.

You'll probably be able to make out the names, ages, parents of the couple, and so on.

If a surname seems unreadable or questionable, try running a Google search for the surname as you think it's spelled. Often a suggestion will come up that's the correct spelling and if not then my guess is that if you keep reading you will find it spelled clearly in better handwriting elsewhere in the book.

Some things to consider:

The given name in Latin has a Polish equivalent. Watch the Ls turn into Ws. The Ws into Vs. Valentius is Valentine is Walenty.  (Wally, Wallace, or Val in America?) Is your Aunt Betty not Elizabeth but Bronteslava? (Bronte?) So much is in Latin but consider the translation of given names.

Next, if a person has been widowed it will be noted and it may say who they were married to previously and that's before the name of the parents and grandparents! This is terrific if you can find the birth/ baptismal too, the previous marriage, all the children and step children.

Ok you're maybe going to see three dates, say, 1/4, 1/11, 1/18. Or I, II, III. These are the banns of marriages, the announcement of the intended marriage. Today these are posted in church bulletins and even end up on the net. Soap Operas / Day Time dramas love to include into the plot that during the very marriage ceremony someone will object to the marriage. But the original idea was to cause a person with an objection to come forward to the priest before the ceremony to cancel it. Objections in the 19th century and past could include knowing someone is already married or that someone is homosexual, or that they are a criminal on the run, or that an agreement about who will live where or own land has not been peacefully decided. 

My research leads me to think remarriage was a pragmatic contract but there were more concerns too as I have found records where there's no mention of banns when it's two never- married individuals joining their lives but only on the remarriage of those widows and widowers! 

Now, there are often notes that need to be translated as well. I believe one priest was writing in 2 or 3 after "widower" to state the person lost two or three previous wives. Also, I've seen notes that banns were posted in two villages. Maybe they were stuck on a door of a church but since few could read and write, I think verbal announcements were made.

Another note on marriage records is a house number. Possibly if you can find a cadastral map of the habituation from the same year you can see where they lived but these don't usually relate to today's house numbers.

Testifiers or witnesses may or may not be related to the couple. Note them but sometimes they are elders of the community, employers/ farm owners (implying the groom has employment), and you'll see two, or three, or four, all or mostly men. In villages where surnames are repetitive be especially careful not to assume the testimonial people are related. Don't think of them as best men, maids of honor, or the wedding party. 

Also valuable are those records that include where the person was born and where they live/habituate at the time. If no remark is made, the person is local, a part of the parish. That may mean a neighboring village which is part of that parish. If they're from somewhere else you'll go to those records for baptismal.

I've noticed some listings that give the birth dates of bride and groom. Thank You!

Remember, priests were hard working, had influence, were called upon for advice, were able to read and write, and church was central to the people's lives.

But farmers and farm laborers couldn't always make it to church. They didn't have tractors back in the day and had to hoe, plant, water, and harvest by hand or might be lucky to have horses or mules.

Professions may also be listed but more by industry. Agriculture is general and covers a wide range of possibilities.

Cobbler. Military. Official.

D. may indicate a person is of nobility - implied is of importance. Note the Germanic names in the Austrian Empire.

Notes can include statements. One I read was "person is low" a servent. Another was "this man is rustic." 

So what was a peasant? Actually peasant is supposed to mean that they lived a countrified existence; that was most people. Peasant started to infer that a person was ignorant or poor, perhaps maintaining folk beliefs, and became a put down. There's no reason to think that way. Landless people who could not live off their own land became like our migrant farm workers, going from farm to farm to work odd jobs or harvest. Others went into trades and became skilled craftsman and artisans. There were traveling salesman and shop keepers and some few became more educated. 

See if a statistical almanac or gazetteer is available for the habituation. Learn about mines, forestry, and industry. Oil wells, steel mills, and market towns.

Finally, note the name of the priest and try to find the name of the church.

There's a lot on line, especially the beautiful churches that tourists go to see with Baroque interiors. The wooden churches of the Greek Catholics are also wonderful.

Once you've found s marriage, see what the church where the marriage was performed looked like.

C 2021 Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot

 

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.

THE LONG WEEKEND - ENJOY IT PLEASE!

No, our lives with Coronavirus-19 are not normal and I don't even want to think about "New Normal."  I've got my mask on.  I've just gotten a new client who I'm helping so that she can get her citizenship in Italy, and I plan to respect that wee bit of fall in the air - even though we are also going to experience a "heat dome" by making a soup with navy beans and lots and lots of new harvest tomatoes.

I will be back - and so will YOU!

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S VALENTINE for MARTHA CUSTIS

An artist named John Wolcott Adams (who lived 1874-1925) designed this valentine which is supposed to depict the romance of Founding Father George Washington to Martha Custis, the widow who would become his wife, dating it 1758.

It was published in magazine Collier's weekly, February 1913 and is part of the collection of the United States, Library of Congress.

Go to the site to look for historical images that might apply to your genealogy research.

2020 is CELEBRATION of 100 YEARS OF WOMEN's VOTE

Whatever your political persuasion, and though many feel their vote is worthless, I hope that all my readers who are citizens of the United States will use their vote in upcoming election which I feel to be more important than ever.  

This year is 100 years since women (but for African American women in some states and Native American women) got the right to vote.  It was hard won.  Women called "suffragettes" rather than "feminists", fought for this right. It took over 40 years.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE GOV: HISTORY OF WOMEN'S RIGHT TO VOTE

EXCERPT: Even though they were legally able to vote now, African American women were often barred from the polls. American Indian women were also not considered U.S. citizens until 1924 and could not vote.

image from Wikipedia

It was a process.

Once Women got the right to vote in 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified, they also got the right (and responsibility) to file for their own citizenship.  If you are doing African-American research, you want to check what state your ancestor was in and when African-American women there got the right to vote. Remember that there were local and state efforts by women to gain the vote as the momentum built over decades.  Learning the niche history of your ancestor's voting and citizenship status can be an interesting addition to your family history writing.  Before this it was assumed that the head of household - a man - voted as a representative of his family and that women's opinions ought to reflect that of their husbands.

So before women got the right to vote, they could become citizens by being included in their father's petition - also any children under the age of 18 would have been included.  And yet, there was a punishment in place for women who married men who were not citizens yet and that was that they lost their own citizenship. 

In my years as a genealogist, I have seen that some widows petitioned for their own citizenship and that of their children. So many immigrant men did dangerous work and lost their lives and there were many widows on their own until a possible remarriage. Perhaps remarriage was easy for the 20 somethings but an older widow with many children could find herself living the rest of her life without a husband to support her. 


C 2020 Ancestry Worship Genealogy - BlogSpot
All Rights Reserved

SOME INTERESTING BRANCHES

I'M FOR the CITIZENSHIP QUESTION on U.S. CENSUS and AGAINST REPARATIONS - HEAR ME OUT

A friend I talked to said a Japanese friend of hers, whose parents were relocated during World War II and lost everything, refuses to cooperate with the U.S. Census because he says our government used it to locate Japanese-Americans or Japanese aliens to do this. I'm not sure officials did use the census to locate Japanese people or Japanese-Americans for the purpose of relocation. I realize this was a terrible experience for those effected by it - whole communities.

I know that here and now, if there were any group to be targeted for any purpose whatsoever, there would be ways to find those in the group. The fact is, there are other ways to locate people these days besides a census, many more ways. 

I suspect that back in the day authorities knew where ethnic groups were ghettoized or where they preferred to live, among others who spoke the same language and had the same cultural expectations.  My own ancestors lived in these ethnic ghettos as immigrants.

Our multiculturalism and mixing no longer guarantees that a given name or a surname identifies the person on a census as one ethnicity or another. Therefore I wonder about the validity of "identity politics."  Are we not creatures of personality and character and soul and not just what we appear on the surface to be?  Our own self-identity is what matters to us now. Besides thinking or feeling yourself to be a certain race or ethnicity though the facts (such as a DNA test or genealogy research) may indicate that you are a mix, that self identity also includes our gender and sexual orientation. The fact is that census takers used observation to determine that someone was male or female, W, M, or C, back in the day.  (And I've seen the person considered C or M in the South to be considered W in the North on census.)

I had a client who immediately assumed because some names of his ancestors were German that they were Jewish. He was wrong. I asked my friend who is upset about the Japanese internment, well what if they used the census to identify and locate Jews for round up? She gulped.

What is the purpose of a census?  It's statistical. It is used to determine what's what - what's needed - and to ask for money from the government (as well as common citizens through taxation or donations) for various purposes and to make policy.

Certainly no census has ever been done for the purposes of future genealogy buffs. 

An example that many Americans can understand is homeless counts, which are usually under counts since many homeless people do not cooperate or cannot be found to be counted.  Agencies and the government look to this count to ask for and get funding appropriate to their location. They don't get enough money to deal with all the people who come through their doors asking for help because maybe a third of those who are actually homeless were counted.

We can't know if we will be for or against any particular change that might be based on census, but we certainly would like to know how many citizens there are so we can also know how many are voting.  We'd like to know how many children live in a district to plan for their education.  And I think we'd like to know how many people are living in the U.S. who want to be citizens.

Several years ago I met a school teacher who showed up to teach in the fall and had an almost empty classroom.  Due to housing costs many students had left that school and their parents seemed to not have re-enrolled them elsewhere as there had been no requests to have grades or other documents transferred to another district. (It was assumed that these families had become homeless and not enrolled their children in any school.)

And there is a precedent as any genealogist who uses the past U.S. Census knows of asking these questions: Are you an alien? In process of citizenship? What year did you become a citizen? (And we genealogists depend on these documents to find out where people came from so we can cross the ocean with our research.)

I once wondered if my own ancestors hid out, afraid to answer the door because of the conditions they lived in prior to America, but I did find them - their surname horribly misspelled - on one of those pages that is faded and damaged.

There is also a historical precedent for blocking or not allowing the citizenship process to go forwards which prevented those of a certain ethnicity - including mine - to be considered a potential threat to the security of the United States because of World War I. Thus some immigrants who wanted citizenship years earlier had to wait until after that war.

As for reparations, I cannot even imagine how we would decide who deserves "reparations" for slavery prior to the Emancipation decades ago other than using DNA tests and coming up with some mathematical formula for how many dollars for what percentage of slave-identified genetics. And what of so many of us who never owned slaves and come from families that never owned slaves?  Why would we pay, assume we are "guilty" of enslaving for our skin color, and owe others based on their racial identity because of our racial identity?  That's not fair.  I'm not responsible for what anyone in my family history (and mine came here after the abolishment of slavery) did in the past.  I'm not responsible for the actions of people I never met and wasn't raised by. I'm only responsible as an adult for my own actions in this life. 

As they say, you can't choose your family, you can only choose your friends. I don't want to punish others for their ancestry any more than I want to punish some upstanding citizen who happens to have a criminal in the family. What about those people who have slave heritage but generations later have moved beyond it or those who have African heritage but were never slaves? 

Should those of Catholic heritage ask for reparations from WASPS because they were horribly exploited by the Robber Barons as immigrants (pre-union) who worked six days a week, back to back "shifts" of 14-16 hours, for example?  

When does prejudice end?  

It ends with our personal behavior in this life.

One person mentioned to me the reparations for Jews who's families were killed in the Holocaust or had property seized.  While I don't know exactly how that worked in Germany - or Israel - there are some differences.

The first is that living people were able to PROVE what they lost, mostly because it was fairly recent history, so names, photographs, addresses, titles to property and so on could be used. Secondly, Jewish-Americans have told me that they did not ALL get the money. Rather one person in their family proved what they had lost, did the applications and got whatever was offered.  So they would say to me, "I didn't apply because so and so already got the money." And it was generally not much.  Generally it was a token - a token apology of sorts.

It's not that I don't have a heart.  I'd rather see the money spent on education and other programs to help those who need help here and now, no matter what their heritage.

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International rights

This post was edited for clarity on September 3, 2019

DNA TEST and SENECA NATION TRIBAL : QUESTIONS FROM READERS of ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

Q:  My DNA Test came back and I'm 1/4th Native American.  My grandfather was Native American.  So how do I join the Seneca Nation?

Marilynn
Pennsylvania

A:  SENECA NATION ORG

EXCERPT:  Please be aware that the tribal census records of the Seneca Nation of Indians do not date prior to 1858.  Therefore, we are unable to assist you with searches prior to that year.  Also, enrollment/membership in the Seneca Nation of Indians is based on MATRILINEAL descent. In other words, the mother must be an enrolled member in order for the children to be enrolled. Keep in mind that our census records list ONLY members. If an enrolled Seneca man married a non-Seneca woman, the names of the wife and the resulting non-enrolled children DO NOT APPEAR in our records. As an additional point of information, too often we receive inquiries from individuals who erroneously believe they descent from the "Iroquois Nation." Please note that "Iroquois" is a non-native term which is used collectively to represent six aboriginal nations which united to form a confederacy, a.kl.a "The Iroquois Confederacy."  These six aboriginal nations are" The Seneca, Cayuga, Onandaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora. Each is a separate political and geographical entity with its own government, land base, and membership. ...

COMMENTARY:  Since it's MATRILINEAL (the mother's side) that counts with the Seneca, I don't think you have a chance,  However, you still might find the genealogy department at the tribe able to help you go further back in documenting your connection to the tribe.

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY - A DINNER WITH ONE ONE HALF IRISH PERSON : IRISH GENEALOGY

Since American genealogy often includes Irish ancestry, because we supposedly all have "a wee bit" of Irish in us, I asked at the Saint Patty's dinner I attended who actually had some Irish.  

As it turned out, only one person in 25 there had some.  He was half Irish and Catholic and half English Protestant. We elected the one "Irishman" there to do a jig for us.  He camped it but said actually he was first an American and second an Angeleno (from Los Angeles).

Still, everyone enthusiastically ate their corned beef and cabbage, which included some perfectly uniformly round potatoes and perfectly uniformly sized baby carrots; I suspect these days big potatoes and carrots are put into machines to create these shapes and sizes.  


How attached to ethnicity any American is is up to debate but I generally see that immigrant Americans define themselves by the country or ethnicity they left behind, first generation refers to this also, but by the second or third generation memories of old country and old ways have diminished significantly. Recipes and eating habits are brought forward.

As for Irish-American genealogy, the practice follows the usual paths until one can jump across the ocean and deal with the archives of Europe, in particular church records. Common surnames confound as usual.

I was able to tell one Native American person at the dinner about the "grass eaters," the Irish starving because of the Potato famine who ate grass until their mouth area was tinted green. I told about the exploitation Irish immigrants experienced on the ships where conditions could be filthy. The immigrants were expected to scrub the ship and clean up before coming into port. Many of the "grass eaters" were skeletal when they boarded and some died before they got to America. From the potato famine immigration generation, came the ancestors of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

If you're doing Irish-American genealogy, you may go back before steamships. I feel that finding Naturalization papers should come before finding ship information as it should mention the name of the ship and possibly place of birth or place left in Ireland. This sometimes helps when dealing with common surnames. Be aware that some Irish left their homes and first found work closer to ports in order to buy their tickets - or eat enough to be healthy when they boarded. The place they lived temporarily may not be their place of origin but is listed on the ship manifest.  Sometimes a World War I draft registration can be a better informational source for villages of birth or origin.

C 2019 Ancestry Worship Genealogy
This post has been edited with more information given July 2019.

AND THEN THERE WERE NONE ; ARE YOU THE LAST IN YOUR FAMILY?

Some of you are realizing that not only has your once huge genealogy chart turned into an inverted pyramid, but you may just be the last descendant of the family, or the last carrying the rare name.

If you're reading this blog, ANCESTRY WORSHIP -GENEALOGY, you may also be thinking about or in the process of documenting the family you're from, as that last member.

Some thoughts on this.

A man who knows not much about the Latter Day Saints, said to me "And every man gets his own planet or something."

I said that was my understanding too.  The man and his wife, and all their descendants.  But think about this. The Latter Day Saints may have a certain cosmology in place when they envision the after earth life in eternity, but they also know how family charts connect, and so really this is a vision of a connected membership of their church in the after life.  And they are interested in collecting the work of non-members because these also connect to LDS families and provide opportunities for more Ordinances to be done.

(My understanding is that by uploading your information to their databases,  THEY ARE CLAIMING COPYRIGHT.  If this is true, well, I don't like it. It challenges the notion that everyone whose name appears on a chart or who can be connected to dead persons don't mind their privacy being invaded.)

What I'm getting at is it might turn out that there are some living persons who you are connected to as family who aren't in your pyramid at all, inverted or upright.  I can't say that you'll find them through any means and that they'll welcome you to visit. I have met people who were invited to family reunions after connecting due to genealogy. (There are even family reunions for people with certain surnames, related or not.)

Soon after talking to this man with the idea that every LDS man gets a planet, I attended a Fundamentalist Christian Bible Study with a new friend. There people at the Bible Study were talking about End Times and the Rapture. The group leader was asked a lot of questions.  One person asked, "And we'll all be naked?" The group leader said, "We'll be like Adam and Eve again." She meant before the fall, when they themselves didn't notice or care about nakedness or feel any body shame.  My answer was that a person in the After Life (I'm assuming heaven) would be in their Spirit Body was not well received. Probably the term "Spirit Body" was a bit New Age for this group. When asked "Will we recognize each other?" the group leader said, "Yes, but we won't be MARRIED anymore."

Instead we'll all be united with God.

So, here is where the Latter Day Saints vision is different. In LDS afterlife you are still married if Sealed to the same spouse you have. You will be with your family.

Frankly, I like the idea that you could perhaps want to go it alone after a long earthly marriage, and you could choose to. I also like the idea that you will be you. And recognize your friends. At least at first, until you move on to a "higher plane" of heaven.  As a society we are just getting used to the frequent occurrence of Near Death Experiences and trying on the notion of Past Life Regression. We can only say that a person has been to heaven - and back - if they tell us how it went.

I'm fascinated by it all.

C 2018  Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot
This post has been edited July 2019.

FOURTH OF JULY