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. 


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GENEALOGY'S ROLE IN HEALING and WORKING WITH TIMELINES

Over the last few months I've had a lot to contemplate about the role of genealogy research when dealing with family, in particular family problems.  Genealogy can sometimes be an instrument of healing if understanding results from documents and can sometimes bust through mythologies that family believes as truth.

In one situation that was and is very difficult I finally came up with the solution: a time line.
I don't always use time lines and when I do I often find them to be most helpful as a reminder of what time-sensitive documents I may want to look for or perhaps overlooked as valuable.  In this case it was developing the time line of a person's grandmother and mother than created the beginnings of a healing, for it is what the person does with the information for themselves that is most important.

The situation was that the mother had due to illness and poverty had to give up the child to the care of others, which included her parents, fostering programs, and eventually an orphanage while the mother was in long term care.  The child had also been taken in by one particular aunt and uncle who had a few children to support and raise of their own, and one of these children, now an adult, had reported to me that the situation was never comfortable. 

Before the person who needs the healing was an adult, his mother had died and his father was remarried, fathering several children, but not available to him as a father.

He and his wife were bitter that his grandparents had "thrown him out."

Did they really throw him out when his mother, though ill, was alive?

First by developing a time line for the grandmother, we were able to reveal her childhood poverty, her lack of formal education (which must have been frustrating, for she was an intelligent woman, and the poverty of the family she and her husband had established in America.
During the 1940 census era, one adult child was supporting his parents and all remaining children in the household.

Using maps, we situated their row house not far from a river and using history of the area we were able to establish that this row house was across the street from a factory spewing fumes at all hours.

We were able to show that the family had not been in the city directories (which charged a fee for listing) or had a telephone until well past the point where most neighbor's did.

Using census we were able to establish that the older children left home by 14 to work as servants, other's joined the military to begin self supporting adult life.

Using church records we were able to establish that the family found religion important to them and had sacrificed to send their children to at least three first years of school in an ethnic church where they were able to begin to learn to read and write in English.

Using Social Security applications, we were able to establish the family expectation that all children begin to work for pay by 16 even when in high school.

But the time line was what made the difference because we progressed Grandma's life year by year.  Giving birth, having so many children in the household already. 

Very simply, by the time she had a grandchild to raise, this woman was worn out, exhausted, and by today's standards old enough to enjoy senior discounts.  Her husband, the grandfather was even older.

So if you find yourself or someone else in need of healing through understanding, I recommend doing a time line.


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QUESTION : WHAT CAN I USE TO SUBSTITUTE FOR A BIRTH CERTIFICATE I CAN'T FIND SO I CAN APPLY FOR SOCIAL SECURITY FOR MY GRANDMA? : QUESTIONS FROM READERS of ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY

Question for ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

Grandma was born in a foreign country and has no birth certificate. She doesn't know where she was born. She came here as a small child and doesn't know for sure if her parent's were naturalized. To be honest, we are not sure how old she really is. She might have been adopted informally - brought over with relatives. She doesn't drive. She doesn't vote. Grandpa had his own business. We don't know if he paid taxes or what. None of this was a problem until, reckoning she's 65, we decided to help her apply for Social Security. How can we document Grandma?

Answer: If Grandpa had his own cash business and never paid into Social Security or didn't pay into the program long enough, Grandma may not be eligible! Have you asked Social Security? Does Grandpa or Grandma have a Social Security number? If so there must be some record of him and her, so my guess is she does not. I would check on grandpa and a legal marriage first.

OK. I would try using church or temple records, some evidence of her having a child who was born and baptized long ago, her wedding record, something like that. Social Security used to accept this kind of evidence that a person was old enough to mother or father, but these days who knows just how old is considered old enough! Pull up census records and anything else you can to BUILD A TIME LINE full of evidence of Grandma's life.

C 2014 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy