Friday, April 12, 2013

Well, it's obvious that I haven't been blogging! I refuse to feel guilty; after all, that's why this blog is named as it is. I've been helping with some local Civil War research, doing some Unclaimed Persons stuff, finishing an Indiana Genealogical Society newsletter, preparing blog posts for FGS 2013 as part of the local publicity committee; creating and teaching Library Education Unit classes for library staff, doing a few presentations, and other matters.

On the research front in the past year, I was surprised to find Dad's great-aunt Kate (Katherine/Kathryn? Donelly Morgan) buried in East Palestine, Ohio (thank you, Find A Grave!). Dad was born there; his parents moved there to find work at the behest of Kate's son, Grant Morgan, who was Grandpa Charlie Herrick's cousin and best friend, and who is also buried in EP. So I don't know why it should surprise me to find Kate and Grant there, but it did. I don't know if Dad's family kept track of Kate in later years. 


Finding that helped lead to other records showing that Kate seemed to be married to Thomas Morgan. Grant is listed in various records as Thomas G. and Grant T... after his father, apparently. I'm guessing Kate & Thomas divorced, since I think Thomas appears in later censuses, while Dad knew Kate's husb (friend? Significant Other?) Louis/Lewis Henderson as "Uncle Lou." (Um, okay, was Kate the one who ate her dessert first, or the one who drove all the way from Chicago to Ohio, but didn't know how to back up? Or maybe she was both of them. The stories are mixing in my head.)

I may have even found g-gm Maggie and Kate's other sister, whom Dad called "Aunt Mary Liz" Bishop. Seems as though Mary Donelly married an Edward Curtis in Rock Island Co., IL, and had at least 2 children (daughters). I don't know what happened to Edward, but Mary later marries Rankin Bishop and they reside in Iowa with the Curtis girls. All this, of course, needs documentation, etc. I found the online stuff but of course have not gotten around to the nitty-gritty of documenting, charting, etc. because my name is Linda and I am a procrastinator. Still, it's further ahead than I was at this time last year, for which I'm grateful.





Thursday, December 13, 2012

Blog Caroling 2013

Well, footnoteMaven says it's time for blog caroling. Never having done that before, I hope I'm doing it correctly.

My favorite carol is O Come All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles for you Latin buffs), probably because our family had this plastic church with a built-in music box (like this photo on ebay) that played that song. We kids wore that music box out, but the church still is stored in the garage. Dad never threw anything out.

I'm posting only the first verse because that's about all I can get through before I burst into tears. Same thing happens if someone sings O Holy Night or Silent Night. I don't know why those songs touch me because I'm not at all religious, but if I start to hear them, get ready for the waterworks.

     O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
     O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
     Come and behold Him, born the King of angels;
Refrain
     O come, let us adore Him,
     O come, let us adore Him,
     O come, let us adore Him,
     Christ the Lord.

 http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/o/c/ocomeayf.htm
 
The second verse is one I've never heard of, but is similar to the Nicene Creed. Apparently I've been singing it wrong for decades — I've always gone directly from the first verse to the third ("Sing, choirs of angels..."). Who knew?

I try to do stuff like harmonize with Silver Bells when it's played on the radio, but I'm a lousy singer. I consider Silver Bells a Christmas song, but not a Christmas CAROL. (Do you differentiate between carols and songs?)

Most modern holiday songs don't do anything for me. I hear Santa Baby, no matter the singer, and I want to spew fruitcake. My ex knew all the words to all the songs in that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer video from the 1960s. Silver and Gold by Burl Ives was his favorite. Until then I'd maybe seen it once. 

My previous post explains how Bing's album with Mele Kalikimaka was just about the only Christmas album my uncle and aunt had. It reminds me of all the great times our family had each Christmas Eve. 

White Christmas makes me cry too, but I don't relate to that movie; I love Holiday Inn, the first movie in which White Christmas was featured. Except for the very un-PC part with the minstrel scene. Oh my. (No, I'm not going to post a link. You can find it on your own, if you're so inclined.)

Just thinking of all these make me flash back to Jimmy Osmond's If Santa Were My Daddy. Yikes! 

Speaking of Jimmy...

I do like listening to Jim Brickman's holiday music. About 14 years ago, when I worked for a newspaper, I was lucky enough to do a phone interview with Jim to promote his upcoming holiday concert in Chicago. I also did a phone interview with his special musical guest that year, Donny Osmond.






Saturday, December 8, 2012

My Answers to the Christmas Geneameme

Randy Seaver challenged us to participate in a Christmas genea-meme posted by Cassmob in the blog, Family History Across the Seas, in which she asked questions relating to how we spend Christmas. Here are my answers. Like Randy, I put the questions in green, and my responses in red.



THE 2012 CHRISTMAS GENEAMEME
1.          Do you have any special Xmas traditions in your family?  Not any longer. When I was small, we’d go to my maternal grandparents’ house. (Grandma was born on Christmas Eve; Grandpa on Christmas Day.) Grandpa and my uncles would spend the entire day playing pinochle at the kitchen table, except when Grandma made them stop because we needed the table for dinner. Uncle Ed K. (one of 3 Uncle Eds that I had) would film the festivities. He always brought his 8 mm. movie camera. I wish I could see those films; I don’t know if they still exist. On my paternal side, we usually went to my Uncle Ed Herrick's house for Christmas Eve. That was always fun, with a lot of food and laughter and family. (See #5 below.) After my uncle died, one of his daughters started doing it. This year will be tough because my aunt died just a few weeks ago.
2.          Is church attendance an important part of your Christmas celebrations and do you go the evening before or on Xmas Day?  No; I'm not religious.
3.          Did/do you or your children/grandchildren believe in Santa?  I did when I was young. Once my mom went out for the evening. Wouldn’t you know it, Santa visited just 15 minutes later! ;) I don't have kids, so I don't have to worry about spoiling the magic.
4.          Do you go carolling in your neighbourhood?  No.
5.          What’s your favourite Christmas music?  Traditional hymns. I don’t like the more modern songs. Now, if you’d ask which song was most memorable, I’d say Bing Crosby singing “Mele Kalikimaka.” That album was about the only Christmas album my uncle and aunt had, so we heard it a LOT.
6.          What’s your favourite Christmas carol? O Come All Ye Faithful. Or Silent Night. Or O Holy Night. I hate to sing Christmas carols - they always make me cry, and I can’t get through the song.
7.          Do you have a special Xmas movie/book you like to watch/read?  I like to watch The Bishop’s Wife (the original, with Cary Grant and Loretta Young… not the Whitney Houston remake.) Sometimes I’d watch It’s a Wonderful Life and I'd yell at the screen, “George Bailey is such a WIMP. He should stop putting aside his wishes and do whatever the heck he wants!” I work in Hammond, Ind., the boyhood home of Jean Shepherd, whose A Christmas Story is kind of autobiographical. I watched the film once and (shhh... it may be heresy, but...) I don’t find it funny at all. I just don't get it.
8.          Does your family do individual gifts, gifts for littlies only, Secret Santa (aka Kris Kringle)?  I give gifts to my nieces and nephew. Mostly gift cards.
9.          Is your main Christmas meal indoors or outdoors, at home or away?  Always indoors. I’m single with no kids, so if other family members are hosting dinner on Christmas, I may attend. The older I get, the more I dislike big noisy gatherings, so sometimes I just veg out at home with take-out and a bottle of wine. When my siblings and their families and I get together to celebrate Christmas, it’s never ON Christmas; it’s whenever they don’t have another holiday family commitment. It could be Christmas Eve; it could be New Year’s Day.
10.      What do you eat as your main course for the Christmas meal? For this year’s “family” Christmas, we’re having pizza. We’ll have a few desserts. Low-key is our motto. I really, really hate to cook, and my siblings don’t have the time or energy.
11.      Do you have a special recipe you use for Xmas?  No.
12.      Does Christmas pudding feature on the Xmas menu? Is it your recipe or one you inherited?  We've never had Christmas pudding.
13.      Do you have any other special Christmas foods? What are they?  My sister-in-law usually makes pizelles. There are some appetizers that I know I'll have at my cousin's house this year.
14.      Do you give home-made food/craft for gifts at Christmas?  No.
15.      Do you return to your family for Xmas or vice versa?  One of my siblings usually hosts the family Christmas (which, as I mentioned, is never on Christmas).
16.      Is your Christmas celebrated differently from your childhood ones? If yes, how does it differ?  Yes, we now make use of gift cards and the Internet. Plus our parents, grandparents and aunts/uncles are all gone, so we don't get together for a dinner like we used to.
17.      How do you celebrate Xmas with your friends? Lunch? Pre-Xmas outings? Drop-ins?  No. Sometimes I’ll go to a business-related function, but that’s it.
18.      Do you decorate your house with lights? A little or a lot?  No. I have two small lit trees inside, but nothing outside
19.      Is your neighbourhood a “Xmas lights” tour venue?  No, but I know of a few.
20.      Does your family attend Carols by Candlelight singalongs/concerts? Where?  No, we never have.
21.      Have any of your Christmases been spent camping (unlikely for our northern-hemisphere friends)?  No.
22.      Is Christmas spent at your home, with family or at a holiday venue?  Usually at home.
23.      Do you have snow for Christmas where you live?  I live in the American Midwest. Sometimes there is snow; sometimes not. Last year we didn’t (it was a VERY mild winter. I love those!).
24.      Do you have a Christmas tree every year?  Yes, a small one.
25.      Is your Christmas tree a live tree (potted/harvested) or an imitation?  Imitation. We had live trees when we were little, until Dad bought one of the early artificial trees in the mid-1960s. It’s still in storage in the garage. It wasn’t one of those silver aluminum trees like my maternal grandparents had, with the turntable and that revolving light wheel. Ours was green and the branches' "needles" look like green cellophane.
26.      Do you have special Xmas tree decorations?  I made a bunch of decorations over the years but I’m throwing those out. There are a few old ornaments from the trees of my childhood that I'm temporarily borrowing, and two photo ornaments of a dog I used to have.  
27.      Which is more important to your family, Christmas or Thanksgiving?  As a religious event, neither. As far as the number of family obligations, Thanksgiving for my family means fewer people to visit, no presents to buy, and much less stress. But I imagine they would say Christmas is more important.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Illness, injury, affliction: have you found them in your lines?

OK, it's been two months since my last post. I knew I named it "Round Tuit" for a reason! Since then, I attended Midwestern Roots 2012, a conference sponsored by the Indiana Historical Society (great work, Margaret Bierlein and crew!). A few projects for work had to be completed, and I've been helping research soldiers for the South Shore Civil War Trail project.

I also had surgery for a foot fracture, so a big walking boot is on my left foot, and the shoe is on the other. This blog, and a random Facebook post, are about the only places where I mentioned this surgery. What sort of events, illnesses, or accidents happened in your ancestors' lives that you never knew about?

I was reading the Summer issue of Four Score and Seven, a publication of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation. An article by James M. Cornelius, Lincoln Curator at ALPLM, is titled, "Provenance and the Pursuit of the 'Mysteries of Ownership and Authenticity'." It mentioned new finds about Lincoln artifacts and interpretations. In a 1851 printed endorsement for a Peoria doctor who fixed children's crossed eyes, Abraham Lincoln's name is one of a list of "references." Cornelius says that Robert Lincoln's crossed left eye was fixed somehow, and that he went blind in that eye later in life, but finding Lincoln's name on the endorsement does not prove that Robert had surgery by that doctor. (I never knew about Robert Lincoln's eye, but I was familiar with the condition because years ago, I worked for a doctor who surgically straightened crossed eyes.)

Have you ever seen early photos of Helen Keller with her teacher, Annie Sullivan? Annie and Helen appear to be clasping hands, but unless you knew Helen's story, and that Helen used her fingers to spell words into Annie's palm, you'd likely miss the significance. If you're lucky enough to have photos of your ancestors, have you ever noticed that great-great-grandpa is missing some fingers, that great-aunt Josie's left eye looks cloudy, or that an ancestor is sitting in a wheelchair, or using a cane?

While traveling through Illinois, I've had occasion to go through the village of Dwight, home of the original Keeley Institute, a commercial medical facility that offered treatment to alcoholics. I've read that, in the day, if someone were offered an alcoholic beverage, a reply might be, "No thanks; I've been to Dwight" or "I've taken the cure." Are there any family letters, diaries, or newspaper accounts that might document an illness, affliction, or injury to your ancestor?

In tracing a family through the census, do you assume that a child present in 1870, but not in 1880, had died? Maybe that child attended a school for the deaf, or was residing in some other facility. If you found your uncle in Chicago, and your aunt in Arizona, do you assume they divorced, or might she have been in a warmer climate for health reasons, such as tuberculosis?
 
Have you checked all those columns to the right of your ancestors' names? Many of our ancestors could not read or write, but a red flag should go up if a child could not read or write, yet the parents and siblings could. Some censuses asked whether the person was deaf, dumb, blind, insane, or idiotic. Remember to view such information through your ancestors' eyes, as well as through present-day filters. Afflictions that required institutionalization years ago may today be managed through medication or treatment. I think of Landon, one of my collateral ancestors who lived at home most of his life. Apparently he was a resident of the county home on occasion. His niece recounted how the staff at the home would have to take his shoes away, because he kept running off.

A friend asked for assistance for someone whose ancestor was found dead on some railroad tracks. The family suspects that the ancestor may have been the victim of foul play. I didn't find any newspaper accounts online but perhaps those issues just aren't online yet. I did find that person in a coroner's inquest database. Those records may contain information of interest to the family. (In another "Round Tuit" moment, I never have gotten around to requesting the inquest records for my great-grandmother, who died a few weeks after having been struck by a car. This would be useful, as I have very little information about her. Definitely a case of "do as I say, not as I do.")

 



 

Monday, May 28, 2012

New Civil War Trail is unveiled in Northwest Indiana

Wow, it's been a month since my last post. Not unexpected, for me. I spent a week at NGS and had an informative, enjoyable, exhausting time!

It's the end of the Memorial Day weekend. After a lovely picnic at my cousin's house (where some genealogy-related items changed hands), I spent today at Maplewood Cemetery in Crown Point, IN, where the local American Legion and VFW were conducting a joint ceremony. Afterward, Marc Chase from The Northwest Indiana Times led a ceremony to dedicate the new South Shore Civil War Memorial Trail. Chase has been spearheading efforts to replace worn headstones of some of the Calumet Region's Civil War soldiers.


While Indiana's Civil War soldiers are remembered in Indianapolis, and in small towns and counties all over the state, I think we in the urban industrial areas of Northwest Indiana have forgotten that a number of residents were involved in the War Between the States. Most of our Civil War-era buildings are gone, except for the Lake County Courthouse, and the GAR-built Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso.

Government-issued headstones exist for some Civil War veterans, although many, many more have private stones that do not address their service. It sounds as though a concerted effort is being made to identify these veterans. 


This project dovetails with efforts to restore Hammond, Indiana's Oak Hill Cemetery, the final resting place of many Civil War veterans. (Oak Hill is, for all practical purposes, abandoned, with no perpetual care funds and thousands owed in back taxes). Volunteer efforts (especially by Kara Graper) put Oak Hill on the radar of local media and the North Township Trustee's Office (NTTO). Thanks to volunteers, the NTTO and the Diocese of Gary, Oak Hill is looking better than it has in many, many years. Hundreds of photos have been uploaded to FindAGrave. Many stones have been uncovered that do not appear in two different cemetery readings done in the past 20 years (one by South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society in Illinois; the other by the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society). A troop of Cadette Girl Scouts is creating a database from the cemetery's burial cards to assist the NTTO in determining who is buried there.

The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War has a list of hundreds of GAR posts in Indiana at http://suvcw.org/garposts/in.pdf. According to that list, GAR posts in Lake County were:
  • Crown Point (John Wheeler Post 161) 
  • Gary (William A. Ketcham Post 593) 
  • Hammond (Lott Bloomfield Post 145; William H. Calkins Post 502; and Robert Heath Post 544) 
  • Hobart (Hobart Post 411)  
  • Lowell (Burnham Post 276)

    Those in Porter Co. included:
  • Chesterton (A. B. Wade Post 208) 
  • Hebron (Walters Post 229) 
  • Valparaiso (Chaplain Brown Post 106).
Many veterans' names will be found in Indiana Civil War Veterans: Transcription of the Death Rolls of the Department of Indiana, Grand Army of the Republic, 1882-1948 by Dennis Northcott (2005) (ISBN 0-9728344-1-9, soft cover, 416 pages). Northcutt has done a similar publication for Illinois, and another covering Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. Details are at http://www.ngpublications.com/index.htm

I cannot help but think back a few weeks to a genealogy class I did for South Suburban, on the use of directories. My admonishment was one I learned years before: check the entire book, including the prefatory material! A Valparaiso, Indiana directory entry for J. S. Louderback mentioned his store and goods. If one merely looked alphabetically, one would have missed a page near the beginning of the book on which is found a biography of Louderback, including his Civil War service, capture by Confederate troops, and imprisonment at the infamous Andersonville camp.

The South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority is assisting with the Civil War Trail, providing space on its website: http://www.southshorecva.com/civilwartrail/

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Old dogs can learn new tricks.

I'm looking forward to seeing old friends at the Indiana Genealogical Society's annual conference in Ft. Wayne. Looking forward to NGS also, and Midwestern Roots. Why? There is always something to learn, someone new to meet, someone with whom to reconnect. Believe me, in genealogy, if you snooze, you lose. Been there, done that, have the T-shirt (well, no, but I did get 2 cool T-shirts at FGS last year — one from FamilySearch, and one from Fold3).

Where was I? Oh yes - snoozing/losing. Next week I'm giving a class at my home society on using directories and using newspapers. Both are talks I've done before, locally and nationally. The last time was back in 2006. Then life happened and — oops! Genealogy happened, too. It's not that my old handouts were obsolete as much as they needed to be revamped to add SO much new information. This is not your grandmother's genealogy, I've heard it said. It's true. Just a few years off the grid, and I felt lost.

I stuck a toe back in the water in — 2008, I think it was, when Megan Smolenyak started her Unclaimed Persons group on Facebook. Whoooaa! What the heck is social media, and how did I get here? FB was definitely something I didn't think I could learn.

Blogging? Heck, I didn't even write in my journal consistently. But while I was gone, some new faces appeared on the scene. Thomas MacEntee was one of them, he of the "learn to create a blog in 5 minutes" fame. He created GeneaBloggers, a group of people who looked as though they were having a blast. I felt like a kid looking through the window of the candy store.

Lots of other Young Turks came to town when I wasn't looking. People like Josh Taylor, who I had the pleasure of working with (along with Thomas, Julie Cahill Tarr, Paula Stuart Warren, Pat Oxley, Susie Pope, David Kent Coy and all the rest of the wonderfully talented FGS 2011 Conference Committee).  People like Elyse Doerflinger, whom I met briefly at my first Southern California Genealogy Jamboree in 2011. People like Nick Gombash, creator of Hungary Exchange (whom I've not yet met, even though we're in the same neck of the woods). People like Tina Lyons, vice president of the Indiana Genealogical Society and author of the blog Gen Wish List. As editor of the IGS Newsletter, I've had the pleasure of seeing Tina bring many new ideas to the table. There are others, but it's late and I can't think of them all right now.

I'm still involved with Unclaimed Persons, but now we do our work in a forum. I'm lucky to know the giving, talented people that serve as directors and case administrators, bringing closure to families whose loved ones have passed. Blogging? It took me a few years to get a round tuit (uh, remember the title of this blog?), but I wanted to get in on that fun. And it is fun, even though I don't blog consistently. Facebook? I'm on most days of the week. Twitter? I have an account but I don't tweet— I can't find time! Pinterest? Ditto.

So am I saying that I'm a dinosaur; that there is no longer room in genealogy for someone like me? Not at all. What I am saying is that I can learn from the Young Turks; that I won't just walk away from genealogy because there are new tools/toys to play with. Conferences and webinars and social media and chats help me get up to speed. 

Genealogy will continue, whether I (or you) am involved or not. 
And you know what? It's in good hands.



Thursday, March 29, 2012

1940 census archives.com What can you find in the 1940 U. S. Census?
Look at this cool infographic from the National Archives for step-by-step directions. The census release is Monday, April 2.

Who will you find?