This is a census of the members...
FAMILYSEARCH CHURCH CENSUS This is an information page and will bring up some data but you'll have to go into your FamilySearch account to go further.
Recently I advised someone I'll call Monica, who was doing an adoption search for her elderly mother and was feeling frustrated with traditional genealogy, to do the paper-trail genealogy anyway because even if a DNA database offered some matches, she and the other party were still going to have to figure out the relationships. Taking a DNA test doesn't mean you won't need to do the genealogy.
Basically, and perhaps simplistically, because scientists are working on it but do not know for sure how all our DNA is moved along each generation and know there are mutations and changes, it goes like this: We have two parents (each giving us 50% of our genetics), four grandparents (each giving us 25% of our genetics), eight great grandparents (each giving us 12.5%...) We also share percentages with cousins, second cousins, and so on
Monica is only 1/4th genetically related to her unknown grandparents on her mother's side who are very likely not alive to do any DNA testing. And she says she is only getting into this because her mother doesn't want to die not knowing who her people are. Monica herself says she knows who her parents are and isn't interested in being tested.
People get really confused by their test results when it comes to how related they are to someone else. The measurement of relatedness is called a CENTIMORGAN and is defined as how much you're related, not just by percentage but by which strand of DNA you and another person share. The higher the shared centimorgan, the closer the genetic relationship. But when it comes to a database match, you could share that 12.5 percent with a cousin who is alive and tested rather than a great grandparent who is long ago deceased.
Monica's mother, in her 80's now, can submit her DNA for testing through one or more companies and approve that she wants to be informed if there are any matches. To find her parents, just using a DNA test and database, a full or half sibling, likely in Europe, must also test, and then tell her who they are. Full or half siblings may not know they have a full or half sibling in America. A question she should ask the various DNA companies is if they have a comprehensive database full of customers in Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.
Other persons Monica's mother is genetically related to will have to also pick the same company and give this approval. Then they will both be told via e-mail what the relationship is via percentages of relatedness, which usually translate to sibling, cousin, etc. She and/her mom are not going to get a message that says "your mother was _________, your father was ____________," and provide a genealogy chart. No, at that point she and the other person will need to share knowledge and research.
Since Monica is an only child, she would not get any sibling matches if she did test. She might get some cousin matches, or second or third cousin matches. However, the best case scenario for her mother is a sibling match. Though in her 80's, if her parents went back to Europe and had more children, there could be people in their 60's alive there who are her siblings. It's worth a try.
But let's look at the cousin thing.
From my own research, I would say that I'm likely related to a huge number of people whose ancestry comes from a certain town in Europe, people who lived there in the 1800's. Why? While my own chart reflects the straight lines of parent to grandparents and so on, I have very many family group sheets too. Two binders worth. If I include my grandparent's parents siblings and half siblings, and their parent's siblings, I can connect genetically with dozens of surnames in the 1880's, perhaps every surname in the town. I might even share genetics in some way with thousand of people by following back and forward to a great great grandfather's siblings, ten of them, who they married, and their children, who were marrying in another town in the early 1800's. However, if I took the DNA test I would only be united with those who also took the DNA test for the same company. Even with all the charts I've made, I might have to make new charts to find the way we link. In my case when it comes to learning about people who lived before the records available for those towns, I would have to link up with someone who is the keeper of the family archive. Rumors and stories are interesting but no archival documents means it's not genealogy. My best hope when it comes to records going back past about 1800 there would be if the family was nobility. Then the family records might be held in an actual archive.
I have concerns for Monica and her mom - who could have started this quest years ago by using Adoption Registries - even before there was DNA testing - for other reasons.
Because all that her mother was told or remembers is considered "known facts" when there is no proof, it might be that genealogy myopia is wrongly focusing the research. There is no original birth certificate, which even then might not be 100% true, since some birth mothers lied about not knowing who the father was or gave a fake name or gave the name of an ex husband, such as in the case of Marilyn Monroe, where does this leave her? The search is for the truth, right? Yet rarely is it "just the facts." However. as this is all she has to go on, Monica is focused on Chicago.
In looking at some adoption records available through FamilySearch for Chicago I noted that while sometimes both parents were named, often just the mother was named. Implied is that the babies were born in Chicago, I noted that marital status was not mentioned. That what is available there is not very useful.
The story goes that her mother's parents "went back" to a European country after leaving her mother for adoption in Chicago. This was between World War I and World War II and during the Great Depression. Two surnames came forth with an oral history somewhere along the line but while one may check out because it's fairly common, the other seems to not be spelled or pronounced right. It would probably be spinning the wheels to look at immigration records for the common surname just to see if there was some trend of immigration, some town or country consistently mentioned for the common name.
As for the surname that seems false, there are rare surnames but frankly with so much on the Internet, if you put in a search in Google for that name, and it is not coming up any which way and no suggestions are coming up either, well, maybe it's never been a surname. I tried some variations and maybe if we knew for sure what the ethnicity was, we might be able to find someone native in that language and see what they know. We might be able to find surname lists and see if there is any name that is close.The Soundex used on Slavic names is German and that's not a match, sorry. Wish there were a Soundex for Slavic names!
My feeling is that this would be putting the cart before the horse.
The story went that in the late 1930's this immigrant couple had this child and gave it up before returning to their home country. It happened, but there is no proof they were married. It's not certain then that they were immigrants who were simply too impoverished or ill to make it in America... There's no proof they were immigrants. There's no proof they went back anywhere.
Any situation could have been the reality. The woman could have been raped. She could have had an affair. They could have had very many children already. (I once met a man whose parents had 13 children.They kept the first ten and adopted out the last three, he being one of them.) However, if they were a young married immigrant couple and had this one child, a first child who was healthy, it's my feeling that in their culture, unless they were both without family themselves, very likely by returning to Europe with the baby, they could have had family support there. The steamship ticket back to Europe cost some money, even for steerage/3rd class and I don't think there was an extra charge for an infant. But OK, they thought giving the baby up was the only thing to do.
Ah well, we know it is all speculation. Speculation as well as understanding what was happening in the time and place that all these things happened can sometimes get us to where we want to go with research.
Now, this is where the paper trail genealogy for the family that adopted Monica's mother is also important. Based on Monica's testimony about where her mother was raised, where her mother went to live after both of these adoptive parents died, we did some research.
(Note added February 16th. Please read this carefully. The following is about Monica's mother who is in her 80's and wants to know who her people are and what we learned about the people who adopted her...)
We learned that her mother's adoptive parents died, one after another and not long after she turned 18, something Monica did not know and had not been told. Certainly her mother knew that. Where her (adoptive) mother took Monica to live after she was alone in raising her, connected to her (adoptive) mother's side of the family. Yet Monica had never met any relatives! Whatever happened, her mother did not keep or have these connections for long enough for Monica to connect with them. Perhaps they too heard some stories?
I discovered the adoptive family had relatives in other states but not that the adoptive parents ever lived or worked in Chicago during the census periods. Based on the adoptive father's profession on the census, I could imagine he could have gotten work there, maybe even gone to school there, and then moved home. How is it that a woman from Pennsylvania married a man from Kansas? Knowing where the adoptive couple met and where they married, what church perhaps, would allow for some questioning and clues. It appears that the adoptive parents started out life in two different states and went to live closer to the father's side.
The very large city of Chicago was very likely a hub for parents who wanted to surrender their new born baby for adoption though they came from elsewhere or were just passing through. It could be traveled to from many parts of the country due to outstanding train services. Couples who wanted to adopt from all over could go to Chicago to find a baby. For a mother or parents who wanted a baby to get a good home, or who wanted to not be local to the adoption, a big city might be the answer. But Chicago was certainly not the only place a baby up for adoption could be found in the 1930's. Finding an original birth certificate for Monica's mother issued in Chicago, Cook County, or in Illinois is the logical step.
The first stop for religious people to adopt a child was often an agency or organization run by the very church they were members of. That's why I want to know if the couple married in a Church, what religion. It might lead me to a care home for babies or an orphanage. This adoption through a Church run place was once considered very important. Still is to some people. So Catholics might go to a Catholic orphanage. But if you were not religious, not affiliated with any church, then you would likely go to a county or other agency. A couple could also do a private adoption in which a doctor or lawyer might find you a child, usually one of their patients or clients who presented that possibility.
By doing the paper trail genealogy, the traditional way, we were able to find some interesting truths about Monica's mother's life that she had not mentioned. Monica's mother never said that her adoptive parents both died or why or how and so soon after she turned 18. Death certificates could be compelling. Monica's mother never mentioned an early marriage not long after she turned 18. Or a divorce. She has only admitted to two marriages and two divorces. However, it appears that, after her parent's death, relatives on both her adoptive mother's side and adoptive father's side must have been concerned for her and that she might have lived with them a while before that first marriage, based on locality. Perhaps, as was the case again with Marilyn Monroe, this early marriage might have been considered the best case scenario for her, an arrangement that proved to be based on desperation.
Everyone is entitled to their privacy, their secrets. Monica's mother might have deep emotions she felt best to bury when raising Monica. However, that she kept some of these secrets does make me wonder about the information she's provided in hopes of finding her heritage.
I advised Monica that there are different DNA tests for different purposes and the one her mother took a few years ago was only for ethnicity. I urged her to continue with the other options such as putting herself and her mother on adoption registries and to continue her Chicago based research, as some new options have opened up in Illinois.
Note: In order to keep the privacy of the individuals in this genealogy case which is presented here for educational purposes, some changes have been made.
C 2023 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
You can bring up my adoption posts here at Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot by clicking on the label 'Adoption" or for the series Adoption Strategies - AWG.
I've been trying to find out what has been happening with the archives in Ukraine, the projects that were digitalizing to preserve records before the war broke out, and so on. There is not much in the news. So what I'm relaying here is mostly what is making the rounds.
First of all, there have been numerous digitalizing projects throughout Ukraine, which is actually the size of Texas. These projects came up within provinces. As horrid as the war is, there are cities that have not been touched, since the focus seems to be around the Black Sea and the eastern border. FamilySearch is involved and some permissions had been given. My understanding is that:
Some archivists have had to flee.
Some archivists are still working to digitalize.
The State Archives of Ukraine may still be operational: ARCHIVES GOV UKRAINE - Anatolii Khromov
However, the site does not seem to have posted updated events since last fall, before the war began. Also, there are some fund raising drives.
One archive was destroyed QIRIM : ARCHIVE DESTROYED In Chernihiv Region
Russian soldiers went in and set it on fire. "In the Chernihiv Region, the occupiers destroyed the SBU archive. There were documents about the repression of the Soviet regime against Ukriainians. This was announced by the head of the State of of Archival Service of Ukraine Anatolii Khromov.
I DO BELIEVE THAT WAR CRIMES ad GENOCIDE ARE BEING COMMITTED.
The 1950 census will be released on April 1, 2022. I anticipate being one of the people who will hit that site within the first day or two, hoping it doesn't crash. What discoveries I hope to find! Here is an interview with Stephen P. Morse ie Steve Morse, and his ONE STEP TOOLS.
FIND A GRAVE, the web site that features volunteers and others posting private information on where a human has been buried, has changed its policy, giving some credence to the sensitivity of living family. It is not enough. They have determined that they will allow family to grieve for three months before posting the location of the burial. (FIND A GRAVE WILL GIVE YOU A CHANCE TO OBJECT, if you register with them, then they will hold off for a YEAR.)
The lack of privacy in death that the deceased person and their loved ones has makes me feel some outrage at the whole situation - costly burials and the whole lousy funeral industry included.
Apparently if you are living in the United States, you have about 70 years of privacy when it comes to census records, but almost none in death, and since most people who are alive have family who have died THIS ERODES THEIR PRIVACY TOO. It is no wonder that fraudsters, including people who call up old widows and try to get their money, operate so easily. They see an obit, do a little research, and soon they have the person's address and phone number thanks to some of the most popular genealogy databases. It's shameful.
I know someone whose parents were robbed of their life savings by such a fraudster and he knew all sorts of things about them and their children, which the criminal used in his story.
Someone else I knew, who was in very deep grief over the death of his wife, was solicited by some lonely widows! (To his credit he joked that he could not move to Florida because there would be even more of them after him there! He had no interest in dating or remarrying.)
I had this experience years ago when a loved one died after a long, horrible illness. I was still in grief when I found out that the expensively paid for funeral and grave site - supposed to be on HOLY GROUND in a RELIGION-BOUND CEMETERY YET, was posted on FIND A GRAVE. I recall seeing this on the Internet and a sick feeling spread through my stomach.
Apparently, the whole cemetery had been tramped on as a couple went around taking down information about the tombstones but when? I called the cemetery and tried to express my displeasure and got a snotty person on the phone who did not give a damn. She sure wasn't going to contact these people for me.
This person, who I was calling long distance, previously also did not want to reveal to me where my very own ancestors were buried in the cemetery - apparently it would take a visit to find out. Since then I have to wonder how many cemetery workers just think "go look at the FIND A GRAVE web site!" Since then others have died and been buried in that cemetery and the same thing - the information is exposed to the world!
It was at that time that I decided if I myself was buried I would NEVER WANT A TOMBSTONE. (We really need to rethink why we need to have a tombstone at all. I don't think too many people actually visit cemeteries and the whole kneeling on the grave, looking at the tombstone and saying prayers thing, which I've witnessed others doing, is something I will not do. That person is gone. The best embalming and the heaviest locked up casket will not stop a body from decaying, be it in the ground or above ground.)
Though the couple who did this outrageous privacy invading reportage did post that if you objected you could contact them and they would take the information down, I had to wonder how many people even knew what they had done and who they were! Latter Day Saints in a Catholic cemetery? People who were with the local historical society? Did they have any family buried in the cemetery? What about the cemetery management and the church that claims this is Holy Ground - a great place for co-religionists to wait it out until The Second Coming resurrects them? Maybe Jesus has his own database?
The idea that someone will offend you first, and then if you object, they will backtrack on the Internet yet, which is after all is world-wide, is sort of like when some man you're out on a first date with grabs your breast (or worse) and only if you object will he remove it. In other words, FIND A GRAVE and their cohorts seem to be, like some social networks with empire building agendas, speculatively depend on being caught and you making a fuss rather that ASKING YOUR PERMISSION IN THE FIRST PLACE. That is simply NOT DECENT.
Further, FIND A GRAVE has turned into a place where people are posting private genealogy information as well: this is something I NEVER do as a professional. It is one thing to find out someone who died in 1906 in Austria is buried at a certain place, another to find out your mother's grave has been revealed.
Privacy Rules for the Deceased and Their Families should be the same across the board. Leave the dead to rest in peace and their loved ones alone too!
There are many other privacy deprivations in place in the world of genealogy including in databases, and you can be sure FIND A GRAVE INFORMATION IS SHOWING UP ON ANCESTRY (The genealogy database: This blog has no relationship with it.) and well, lots of other places, including FAMILY SEARCH.
I do wonder if FIND A GRAVE just decided to foist all that free, volunteer-given work over to ANCESTRY or if ANCESTRY PAID THEM? FAMILYSEARCH? There is nothing wrong with contributing your free time and knowledge to a database but they need to be held accountable for privacy invasion. I await the day when someone who has been a victim of crime can point to these sites as to how the criminal found them and hold them accountable.)
Can cemetery sites help you with genealogy? Certainly. But let's get PRIVACY LAWS IN PLACE to show respect. Let the person rest in their grave without the world knowing where to locate them until decades have passed.
C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy.
(By the way, you are under no obligation to publish an obituary, and the funeral businesses putting obits and a plea for commentary and soliciting people to buy flowers and so on the internet, can also be insensitive. If someone has died and you have been informed, the thing to do is make a personal contact with the loved ones, not post on the Internet. If they are not personal enough to you to have been notified, you're just minding other people's business. This solicitation of posting remarks on Internet obits has become a sort of pressured activity, and funeral businesses are behind it. If you want your privacy in death, be sure that your contract with the funeral home and cemetery include a contract in which they will not post and will not allow your burial site to be revealed!)
