THE NORMANDIE " THE FRENCH LINE'S MOST LAVISH LINER EVERY BUILT"

These pictures are from the book "THE FABULOUS INTERIORS OF THE GREAT OCEAN LINERS IN HISTORIC PHOTOGRAPHS" which is published by Dover Publishing.

 

This French Line ship is just one of many covered.  If you have immigrants coming by ship into the United States you may want to see this book to see if their ship is listed.  It has information on the on-board life style,  details like the menus, the service, and much more.  It is one thing to see a post card of the exterior of the ship and another to see the accommodations.  You quickly realize that the Titanic wasn't the only luxury ship!

DNA AND INCEST - WILL FAMILY SECRETS BE DISCOVERED IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM ?

DNA is the most fascinating subject to me and I read articles that mention it in every category from True Crime, Animal Husbandry, and of course, Genealogy and Family History.

One night I decided to research DNA and incest.  Some very interesting websites and news came up and basically, there are many companies offering the test.  More often than an individual wishing to discover if they are a product of incest, a child is hospitalized and doctors order a DNA test to help diagnose the child who has a rare or strange disease, and up it comes that the child has double or missing DNA proving it is the product of incest!  incest can increase the chances of certain diseases.  (At the same time if a community that is free of certain illness, say a mental illness, intermarries, such as in the Amish, that community will stay free of that illness.  In some communities in which there were cousin marriages and close village marriages over time, such as is the case with many Eastern European Jewish people, certain diseases are amplified.  In order to no longer have those diseases some Jewish communities are actively testing for genetic diseases and avoiding marriages with others who carry it!)

In a college anthropology class I once learned that the subject of incest came under a theory of TABOO.  At the time scientists didn't think that there was much else wrong with incest but that so many cultures around the world made it taboo for their own reasons.  After all "primitive" societies were not savvy about DNA or genetics and attributed a lot of things to forces in nature such as Spirits or Gods.  Whole social structures were developed to avoid intermarriage with brothers and sisters, first cousins, parents, aunts and uncles, though we know that brother-sister marriage was practiced to keep blood lines (and inheritances) "true" in other cultures. Such was the case with Cleopatra of ancient Egypt, for instance.  I personally have met people living today whose parents were first cousins in Italy.  Missing or duplicate Genes did result in one of the sisters in such a family being developmentally retarded.

There are many articles on the Internet that ask the question of what a doctor should do if while treating a patient he or she discovers they are the product of incest.  What is the ethical and moral thing to do in 2014, this culture?  What about the people who DO NOT KNOW THEY ARE CLOSELY RELATED when they met and have children, such is the case with children born of sperm donations or who were adopted.  Makes you think...

Well, the scientists are also saying that SMELL has a lot to do with who we pick as a sexual partner, and well, we don't  feel attracted to people who smell too much like us!  There are also those who say that taking the contraception, "The Pill." cannot smell so well.

WILL NATIONAL LANDMARKS BE UNDER WATER IN THE FUTURE : NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ON CLIMATE CHANGE

This summer many people will spend vacation time touring NATIONAL LANDMARKS.  Will they be underwater in the next 20-30 years due to climate change, rising oceans, and so on?  As I read about the flooding in Serbia-Croatia-Belgrade and the wild fires in too dry California, I worry.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - CLIMATE CHANGE - NATIONAL LANDMARKS

EXCERPT: "Along the Atlantic coast north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, sea levels have risen four times the national average, and historic downtowns face inundation. Boston's Faneuil Hall, where the Sons of Liberty plotted the Boston Tea Party, lies within the city's hundred-year tidal flood zone, which has experienced as many extreme high tides in the past decade as it had in the previous 80 years."

WASHINGTON MOMUMENT OPENS TODAY AFTER YEARS OF EARTHQUAKE REPAIRS

WASHINGTON POST ON WASHINGTON MOMUMENT  full article

Engineers have spent nearly 1,000 days on an extensive analysis and restoration of what was once the tallest structure in the world. A 5.8-magnitude quake in August 2011 caused widespread damage. It shook some stones loose and caused more than 150 cracks. From massive scaffolding built around the monument after the quake, engineers and stone masons made repairs stone by stone.

DOG GENEALOGY! DOG REINCARNATION! BACK FROM VACATION!

I'm back from vacation!

But like in the old Norman Rockwell painting of the family that leaves for vacation excited and comes back spent, I'm not so rested! 

Oh it was so good to come home to my dog!

I had a neighbor walking my dog for ten days and was sort of torn up when I heard she'd cried for me for a long time!  My poor dog!  She doesn't want to loose me!  I love her so much!   When next we saw this neighbor my dog was so excited, I never saw such an exaggerated tail wag!  I thought she was ready to go live with my neighbor and forget all about me!

Which reminds me of when I adopted her.

You see, I was out at the local city shelter looking for a cat for a friend when I first spotted her.  But while I knew I wanted to get a dog, I was thinking in a couple months.  I'd been reading dog training books and videos, trying to relate to the latest theories, and I believed that I would need to buy a fence and a kennel first.  Well, instead of the cat for a friend I got a dog for myself.  I brought her home and learned right away that she was totally housebroken and wanted to sleep with me.    My dog has become my personal trainer, insisting that I walk her for at least an hour a day, which I usually do in two or three walks.  I gave up the gym for her!

Ever since I brought her home I've known that I'm dealing with a soul that has incarnated into a dog this time around.  Of course I know she's not a human - a person - but she does have personality! 

Imagine my surprise when I went to pay her license fees in person after one year of ownership and the receipt print out was actually a RAP SHEET, or a kind of PAST HISTORY VIA DOCUMENTATION.  In our city you must show that you've had the dog vaccinated for rabies, and I get her other vaccinations that are not required as well.  To me these are a very good bargain if they prevent a dog who encounters all sorts of other dogs on walks and at the local dog park who have not been vaccinated from becoming ill.

I got home and looked at the three page receipt.  It started out with a description of her that said she was a year and a half old and white.  I called the City because this wasn't right.  Oh yes it is, said the clerk, that's about her WHEN SHE WAS FIRST ADOPTED FROM US!  I continued to read.  At age 2 she'd been picked up by the DOG CATCHER! (Animal Control) and she was roaming, in her third trimester of pregnancy. It meant her first owner had dumped her at the City Shelter, paying a $20 fee.  Her second owner paid higher fees so that she could take her out of there to be bred!  My dog had then become a mother, at least once, before she was SPAYED AND MICROCHIPPED!  That owner came and got her.
But when she was five, someone, a "possible owner" paid another $20 to dump her back at the city shelter for possible adoption.  She'd been in DOG JAIL three times!

That wasn't the end of her story, because the day I got her, I really was determined to get that cat.  I walked in fifteen minutes after the shelter opened to the public.  When I walked past the kennel she had been in for 10 days (when they usually only keep a dog for 5 days) and her picture was down and she was gone, MY HEART SUNK INTO MY STOMACH.

"I want her!"  I heard the words coming out of my mouth with a little squeak at the end.

"I'll go see if she's still available," the clerk said.  I heard "If she's still alive!"

So the clerk went into the door of the room where the dogs are in cages waiting to be put to death.  Came out fifteen minutes latter and said "You can have her!"

Luckily I actually had more than $20 on me that day.  Her fees were discounted.  I later learned that because she had such a sweet temperament and was so cute, they had actually done a lot for this dog.  Her before pictures testifies to neglect.  She was covered in dreadlocks.  They had bathed and puppy shaved her.  She probably had been roaming again, and had been eating garbage, because they had to deworm her.  She came in at 15 pounds.  When I got her to the vet a couple days later she was only 12 pounds.  She wasn't eating.  She was scared and crying.  When we put her on the table she started to shake.  They had given her a year's worth of vaccinations. She's still afraid of any metal table, any high table. 

He said "A cat would rather die than eat something it doesn't like.  But a dog, after four days, will eat anything - unless it's sick.  Give her one more day."

So I did.  I went to the grocer and brought back the hearts and livers of a chicken.  When I started cooking these, my dog came running.  She also came running the next day when I was steaming a cauliflower. 

Once she started sleeping with me, I realized she had not been crying to be taken to the curb at 3 am.  Once I started taking her to the curb I realized she need to walk a bit before she goes.

Sometimes I wonder about her other owners, what her life was life, if she ran away out of unhappiness or just got caught out chasing a squirrel, if they loved her, if they died, and I can never know, though I want to tell someone "it's OK I have her and love her now.  She wasn't put to death!"

Sometimes I just tell her "I know you are a little person in a dog body this life.  I know you've had it hard.  I know you have children out there somewhere, and maybe grandchildren."

I can tell you that my dog listens. She moves her ears.  She makes eye contact.  She was never trained to obey commands in any language but since she's been living with me, she knows GO, WALK, TREAT, SIT, and GO IN YOUR ROOM.

I asked the vet if he agreed with her paperwork when it came to her mixed breed.  He said "probably."  I asked him if people who were more concerned with breed than me had DNA tests run on their dogs.

He said, "Yes, and you would be surprised.  A dog the size of yours, just two generations back, could be from a dog like this..."  He spread his arms.

HOLA MAGAZINE and SPANISH ROYALTY AND ARISTOCRATS : AMERICAN CITIZENS GIVE UP RIGHTS TO ARMS !

I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who comes from Costa Rica, and is of a heritage that would be considered "Mixed" ; Spanish, German, Chinese, Native American.  We were talking about Hola Magazine, which I look through when I'm at certain libraries that subscribe to it, and which seems to me to be very focused on Spanish Royalty and Aristocrats.  Of course this makes perfect sense since it is a magazine that covers the Spanish world, the country and culture that brought Europeans to the New World of Central and South America.  This is also THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

American History and genealogy tends to be very oriented towards England - Great Britain - and the Protestant.  It's almost as if the French and Spanish were never here, as if they had no influence, though of course they did.  You have to live in California to learn about the Spanish in these parts, and even tour guides at some of the Missions have an anti-Catholic bias.

My friend holds the snobby people of Costa Rica who claim to only be "Spanish" in contempt.  He thinks in reality everyone is "Mixed."  (I think DNA is proving that!)

I was telling him that sales of products with family crests are strong in the United States, even though WHEN A PERSON BECOMES AN AMERICAN CITIZEN THEY GIVE UP ALL RIGHTS TO TITLES, CRESTS, and all that.   But does it hurt to wear your tartan for fun?  Of course not!

The European systems of inheriting titles and regalia was generally very focused on these going between father and first son.  Daughters had to marry someone else with a title to have one and in some countries if a daughter married a commoner she lost her birth status.  Second sons almost fled to the Virginia Colony to have a chance.  Second and subsequent sons, looking for an opportunity they wouldn't inherit, had to become self made.  Many of them joined armies.  Some of them became Knights through military or other service to the Crown and thus earned their own titles to use and pass on.

In Germany, it was the youngest son who stayed with the parents and eventually earned the family farm.   In Hungary only men of the upper classes could vote, though higher class didn't necessarily mean the family was also rich.

This emphasis and preference for sons and first sons seems sexist to (most of) us now in the West but is still the way in so many countries, India, China, the Middle East.  Women even get ultrasounds to detect female fetus and have them aborted to begin their families with a male.

So family history research is always also HISTORICAL and CULTURAL research!

BLACK DEATH !

ABC/ AP story SKELETONS REVEAL BLACK DEATH SECRETS

EXCERPT: This week, Don Walker, an osteologist with the Museum of London, outlined the biography of one man whose ancient bones were found by construction workers under London's Charterhouse Square: He was breast-fed as a baby, moved to London from another part of England, had bad tooth decay in childhood, grew up to work as a laborer, and died in early adulthood from the bubonic plague that ravaged Europe in the 14th century.

The poor man's life was nasty, brutish and short, but his afterlife is long and illuminating.

 

***

 

THE BLACK DEATH is interesting to me because if you're European, there's a good chance you're a descendent of a survivor of the Black Death.

 

***

 

EXCERPT: To test their theory, scientists took one tooth from each of 12 skeletons, then extracted DNA from the teeth. They announced Sunday that tests had found the presence of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, in several of the teeth, meaning the individuals had been exposed to — and likely died from — the Black Death.

CITY DIRECTORIES - BEFORE THERE WERE PHONE BOOKS

CITY DIRECTORIES are publications that were put out in communities mostly so people could locate each other.  They are like a pre-Yellow Pages and pre-White Pages combo, though a lot of abbreviations are used and since people paid to be listed, the emphasis seems to be mostly on professions - business - work.  Retired persons and widows are usually listed as "at home."   I've noticed listings that are all male but on the census you find the women in the family were not listed in the directory. On occasion you will notice that a young woman who has just become a marriageable adult has herself listed as well; she wanted the young men to know where she lived if they wanted to look her up.

CITY DIRECTORIES ARE GOOD TO USE TO FIND INFORMATION BETWEEN CENSUS such as addresses.

While most City Directories were published for smaller towns, I've found some that were for a series of towns linked by a railroad line, you could say along a transportation route where people had businesses.

If you are working with a common surname, or immigrant families who not only had common surnames but also common first names, finding the profession and address may help you narrow it down to the family you seek.

TOWN BOOKS - A WEALTH OF INFORMATION WHEN THEY EXIST

A town book may or may not provide addresses and phone numbers.  It is not a city directory.  It's a bit closer to a yearbook, but historical.  One client I worked for came from a small town in the deep south.  I was surprised to find many volumes of Town Books at the Los Angeles Public Library which included black and white pictures of some of his ancestors who he best remembered as a small child!  The stories were very much about how these citizens contributed to their community so in them we found out who was the big deal at the Baptist Church as well as who was the temporary mail carrier!

Town Books are usually written and organized and published by people who are VERY PROUD, VERY PATRIOTIC about their town.

They are often put in special collections or archived so you may have to ask about them and order them to be brought out in advance.  Ask large out of town libraries as well because who knows how it is that Los Angeles Public got copies from this small town!

A TOWN BOOK can give you a snapshot of the town as it existed around the publication date!

IRISH - AMERICANS - THE ORANGE AND THE GREEN - DIFFICULT GENEALOGY SEARCHES

Be it Catholic (Green) or Protestant (Orange) Irish,  a resource for finding out exactly where in Ireland ancestors once lived in Ireland is SHIP RECORDS.   But Irish immigrants were coming to the US before Steam Ships, and you may find that the pre-steam ship or early steam ship era ship records are not as good as the ones you see on databases such as Ellis Island where more information was taken.  On some of these ship lists there is only a surname and a headcount of family members under the surname.

I've personally run into some trouble with using ship records because of common surnames and the descendants lack of knowledge about things such as height or coloring of their ggg grandpa or ggg grandma.  I also question how accurate some of those height measurements are as I found more than one ship that had hoards of men all the same height - 5 foot 6"!  As for coloring, words like "fair" could mean White, Blonde, or simply lighter than other passengers on the ship from a certain country (i.e. If you're Italian you can't be "Fair!"

In one case I had over 16 possibilities.  The client was upset because I was able to find one grandparent with a less common surname and a sure immigration year and village in less than an hour and the other could not be verified though I spent several hours. 

So many people are "sure" they know the year of immigration but in the end they are off by a year or three.  As this client was.

As a result a multitude of resources must be used.

The U.S. Census is still the backbone of American genealogy but "Ireland" is what most people reported, though sometimes - rarely - there will be a county or other commentary.

How to narrow it down?  Try the World War I draft registration cards for birth dates and the name of the birth place.

Try for death records - cemetery records.  The person who reported the information may not always be accurate either.  I've seen "another country" as the information given, but the place the person was born should be there.

Try finding people on the census and, based on religion, search for the cemetery they were likely buried in during that era in that town, such as a church graveyard and CALL THAT CHURCH IF ITS STILL IN SERVICE to ask where they archive membership records.

Another thing that's come up is that on the ship they asked where a person was living before they got on the ship, which is not the exactly same thing as a home town village. 

Many Irish immigrants went from a village to a port city and lived there a while before they got on the ship to leave the country.  So it's not unusual to see "Liverpool" or "South Hampton" as the place they left or were living at before they got on the ship when the village or town they left family is different.  The reason they did so was usually economic.  They needed to make some money first to afford the trip.  Imagine this in more modern times.  These days we are supposed to change our address with the DMV within 10 days of moving but how many people manage that?  So a person leaves their village, pretty sure they will never see their family again, they go to what is the Big City and work for a few months, then board the ship, make it to a town that has promises of work with other Irish immigrants, and find they have to move again and again before they "Settle."

I've heard horror stories of immigrants coming from Ireland on ships that let them starve and let them stay in filthy conditions - until the ship was close to port when people were expected to help clean the ship.

Irish came to the early Americas as servants with contracts that were almost as good as slavery.  After many years - seven - twenty!  They were "free" to go work somewhere else.

As a result of the conditions of immigration and living in the country, many early Irish immigrants married late or not at all and did not leave descendants. 

But today, a great many Americans have that "wee bit of Irish" in them... and have made up for these deprivations for sure!