PUERTO RICO GENEALOGY RESEARCH? HUNTER COLLEGE RESOURCES MAY HELP!

CENTROPR HUNTER COLLECTIONS - PUERTO RICO

Search around this site.  There is probably more about Puerto Rican arts and culture and important people than average citizens, but it's a start.  Hunter College is located in New York City which has had a substantial Puerto Rico-an population.  And remember when writing your family history to include rich ethnic and cultural details.

FAMILY TREE

JUDAISM as MATRIARCHAL CULTURE : JEWISH GENEALOGY

Walking the dog, I got into a conversation with a new neighbor who happens to be an obstetrician and Jewish.  Still delivering babies though well past the usual retirement age, the joke goes that he's seen half the town naked - because he delivered them. Must say, he is up on genetic testing as well as invitro. He mentioned that he delivered a woman's grandchild, she being the surrogate for her daughter. He also told me - and I had not heard this before - WHY Jewish culture is matriarchal.  Simply, "The men were taken away as slaves and the women had to carry on."

Jewish genealogy is extremely popular and there are many cooperative projects.  Some of this, I feel, is part of the urge towards Americans finding their roots after forgetting about them for a couple generations, some of it is surely because of the devastating effect of the Holocaust on the Jewish people. DNA is adding an interesting aspect to genealogical research because some people are using it to try to confirm Jewish ancestry just as some are using it to try and confirm Native American ancestry.

My experience is that while some European Jewish records are superior to Christian records, because they give interesting information not found in most Baptismal records, overall there are special challenges.  For instance the name of the midwife and/or the name of the Rabbi who did a circumcision, which may indicate the congregation or temple a family belonged to, is listed.  This seems to be about a concern that the baby be handled in a kosher way and a certainty of Jewishness.

I once had a student who started the class with a negative attitude, that because her family had all "perished" she could not do genealogy. This is simply not true.  Genealogy like history is so niche specific. At the time I was teaching that class there were websites for people to register themselves as survivors similar to the ones that match birth parents with children they gave up for adoption. I showed this woman where she could let the world know she survived and possibly someone would find her. 

Today I find the Yad Vashem website to be increasingly comprehensive and a wealth of information.

Truly it seems as if there is more information on Jewish people of the holocaust era than ever.

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SLAVE NARRATIVES - HISTORY and TESTIMONY FOR GENEALOGY

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS - INFORMATION ON SLAVE NARRATIVES

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938  DIGITAL IMAGES ONLINE OF TYPED NARRATIVES.

FROM THE SITE: 2300 first person accounts of slavery and 500 black and white photographs of former slaves... The published volumes containing edited slave narratives are arranged alphabetically by the state in which the interviews took place and are there under by the SURNAME of the INFORMANT (i.e. the slave).... Federal field workers were given instructions on what kinds of questions to ask their informants and how to capture their dialects. The result of which may sometimes be offensive to today's readers...

COMMENTARY:  

Realize that the slaves interviewed were old people in their 80's and 90's. 

I've had ONE genealogy project in which I believed I'd found the FAMILY of the owner of a slave who gave a narrative.  The ex-slave's story was about being cruelly abused by a certain man who was likely one of this family's members in South Carolina. The North Carolina branch of this family had not owned slaves and my client said he'd been told by his father that they did not believe in slavery.

What a find if your ancestor is one of the 500 ex slaves whose photos appear.

For many Americans with Southern U.S. roots (though there were slaves in states not thought of as Southern) slave owners and/or slaves are part of their ancestry.  

I suggest you scan through this collection just to get a feel for it. The collection is NOT inclusive of every ex-slave, just a sampling of those still alive and willing to be interviewed. Try scanning for names in your family. Tie this in with whatever census information.  The place of interview is NOT always the place the person was enslaved.

The interviewing writers were told what questions to ask and did their best to record the stories as part of a Works Projects Administration job.  If you have reason to believe one of your family members worked on this assignment, the writer's names appear also.

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LIFE TIMES by FREDERICK LENZ : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

Some people who do genealogy research or who are into family history collecting wonder if they are like any of their ancestors, ones they never met, whose photo they will never see.

Some wonder if perhaps they have reincarnated into the same family or if their soul was once embodied by a great grandparent or other ancestor.  

Why do we meet someone and have emotions about them that make no sense such as feeling instant empathy for them or greatly disliking them?

If you read around reincarnation hoping to encounter more fascinating or even stunning stories, you may find a few in Frederick Lenz's Life Times : True Accounts of Reincarnation.  A small collection of testimonials in this book are in the category of spontaneous recall, a category that does not require hypnotic regression and seems to me to be the most creative and thus unbelievable. There's a bit about Buddhism and Hinduism here too and the beliefs that are more alike than not. Since I know a bit more than the author when it comes to the belief in karma, let's just say that the author's understanding is not complete and I sense this book was intended to be a short one so there wouldn't be room for that explanation anyway...

For purposes of this blog, which I long ago promised to be a bit unconventional and spiritual, I think my readers would most be interested in defining Twin Souls,  Soul Mates, and Karma-Connected Souls.  The words karma and soul mates have entered our American vocabulary and are used by those who are not Buddhist, Hindu or who are ignorant of their meaning.  I'll paraphrase:

Twin Souls:  People with similar talents or interests who have incarnated with each other for many lifetimes or who are joined by experiences they shared.  They are not necessarily compatible but may enjoy their time together inventing, learning, collaborating on a project.  (page 130)

Soul Mates:  Feeling magnetically drawn to a person is an indication that you actually had a close personal relationship in another life time(s), and implied that this was romantic.  "It would appear that one can have more than one soul mate, and that soul mates can be of either the same or the opposite sex." (page 135)

Karmic Connection: "Karmically connected souls are persons whose karma (actions) have temporarily joined them,until such time as their actions together have been completed. The link between karmically connected individual s is not so highly developed as the bonds between twin souls or soul mates."  (page 145)

C 2019 Review and Excerpts  Ancestry Worship Genealogy

THREE MORE YEARS TILL THE RELEASE OF THE 1950 CENSUS

It's not too soon to learn a bit about this census, the seventeen United States Census, which will include the BABY BOOM generation. It will be released April 1, 2020. Work has already begun on the project to index it.  Here's some information!  STEVE MORSE 1950 CENSUS PROJECT UPDATE

UPDATE July 2019.  The release without indexing.  You'll be able to locate the ENUMERATION DISTRICT of ancestors who you may already know of from the 1940 to get to images prior to Indexing.

Click on the tab  Genealogy Help - 1950 Census to bring up the series!

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.

THINGS THAT CAN BE USEFUL TO GENEALOGY THAT ARE NOT EXACTLY DOCUMENTS

The following list of things that can be useful are not exactly genealogy documents though they can be found in archives, attics, and shoe boxes in closets.

1) Family Bible.  Inscriptions in handwriting of births and deaths in the family helpful to locating other documents or verifying oral histories.  Helpful also if  person who did handwriting can be verified. Be aware in the past PENMANSHIP was key, not handwriting.  What's the difference?  Penmanship emphasized neatness, readability, and conformity of lettering and slant, often practiced.  It wasn't as individualistic as handwriting.

2) Report Cards.  Can verify schools and imply person's age and location.  (But a private boarding school would attract students from many places, so affordability is implied.) 

3) Funeral Home Prayer Cards:  Helps verify age, date of birth and death, implies religion of person or family,  may mention funeral home name, church, or cemetery; just be aware that like business cards people can pay to have anything printed.

4) Diplomas and certificates of classes and education.  (Caution due to ease of printing or calligraphic.)

5)  Letters:  Oh how we love to read old letters, note the stamps (how inexpensive postage was), wax seals, choice of stationary, handwriting, and so on. All this now replaced by texting, email, chats, social networking. You may already know what is expressed but save them for future generations. Be aware that person writing may not be honest or simply be ignorant or wrong.  (A letter sent to me by an old relative got me started on a line of genealogy and proved to have both wonderful leads and horrible errors.)  Identify the writer and who they were to the receiver.

6) Newspaper articles.  It helps if they actually spelled the names right.  If the surnames are common, be sure the people mentioned in the article are the family you're trying to locate.

7) Town Books.  Something like a yearbook with photos and stories, usually printed with contributions and with local pride.  (One provided black and white photos of a client's grandparents and great-grandparents never seen before.)  Surprisingly found at times in big city library collections far away from origins.  Just judge that pride may have resulted in the printing of some untruths, which makes them a lot like yearbooks.)

8) Yearbooks:  How do you really know someone graduated just because they showed up for the yearbook picture in their junior year?  (Some of us wish we had not shown up, since the copyright of yearbooks is rarely renewed and yearbooks have become exploited by certain web sites. I cringe.) I caught hell from someone because I found their yearbook photo on Ancestry genealogy database and that implied their age.  The person actually had been in a hospital for polio and lost 2 years of school and was 20 when they graduated.)

9) Shower and Wedding invitations are also helpful but don't prove the wedding took place or was legal.

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