To Burn or Not To Burn

From The (Staunton, Va.) News-Leader of Dec. 31, 2005:

Demolish the old courthouse? Some said 'yes,' some said 'no'

By Charles Culbertson/contributor
mail@stauntonhistory.com

[snip]

Almost no one, it seemed, agreed on anything having to do with the Augusta County Courthouse at the corner of South Augusta and Johnson streets.

[snip]

Two letters to the Staunton Spectator and Vindicator in December 1897 epitomized the arguments of both sides.

[snip]

South River [...] advocated piling up useless papers, books and other "valueless stuff" and burning them in order to create some room in the courthouse's storage area.

[snip]

"Shades of Aladdin! What is this useless stuff? The marriage licenses of our ancestors for 150 years, the wills of our ancestors for the same period signed with their own hands and seals. The deeds that they have written and signed ... All the papers which go to show every act, civil or religious, of which any record was required.

"About as well burn the family Bible," [his opponent "Augusta"] noted.

Unable or unwilling to abandon this angle of attack, Augusta wrote that South River would, naturally, want this stuff burned because "possibly he never looked in these files for a paper in his life."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Oh, What Fun It Is to Drive a Four-Wheeled ATV

From The Fairfield (Ia.) Ledger:

Piece of family history returns to Lamanskys

By: LACEY JACOBS
12/30/2005

A piece of Lamansky family history, a one-horse sleigh that was sold at an auction in 1972, is now back in the family.

According to Harry Roy Lamansky, the sleigh originally belonged to his great-grandparents, Peter and Anna Lamansky.

[snip]

Although Lamansky has even built a tongue to pull the sleigh with a four-wheeler, the Lamanskys haven't yet had a chance to test it out.

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

The 2005 Genealogue Awards

The time has come to honor the best Genealogue news articles of 2005 (and by "best" I mean the best I could round up in the last fifteen minutes).

The award for Worst Family Reunion Ever goes to . . . "Worst Family Reunion Ever." The runner-up is "The Next Best Thing," which describes a planned reunion of people whose ancestors had lunch with Abraham Lincoln.

The coveted Double Entendre of the Year Award goes to "Archivist Finds Faithful Cock in Cornwall," with a second-place finish by "The French Keep Track of Their Seamen."

In the category of Worst Location for a Graveyard, the winner is "Cemetery in Middle of Road Perhaps a Bad Idea." Runner-up: Six Feet Under the Sunoco Station.

Winner of the I Hope This Doesn't Catch On Award is "A New Way to Publish Your Family History."

There was a tie in the voting for Dumbest Desecrater: "Criminal Geniuses" and "Grave Desecration Taken to New Low." Runner-up: "Just Say No."

There was one clear winner for Worst Last Request: "Better Late than Never . . . I Guess."

The Easiest Pun Award goes to "New Orleans Long Plagued by Luters."

The Weirdest Cause of Death was difficult to decide, but the award goes to "The Dangers of Cold Water." Other contenders: "Is Death Contagious?" and "Cause of Death: Acute Henpecking."

The award for Most Needlessly Topical Title goes to "Bodies Dug Up in Front of White House; Karl Rove Not a Suspect."

The NSFW Award goes to "Rasputin Remembered and Dis-membered."

There were two rivals for the Strangest Japanese Census Article Award. The winner was "Census Taker Takes Leave of His Census," which barely nudged out the follow-up story, "The Catchiest Census Jingle Ever."

Best posts in the Cosmogenealogy category are "Astro-Genealogical Interference" and "Space Cadet Approves of Astrodome's Use as Shelter."

The winner of the Dysfunctional Family Award is "Family Honors Relative Out of Spite." In second place is "Man Prefers Deportation to Marriage." A third nominee — "Nothing Says 'I Love You' Like a Homemade Casket" — was disqualified when the family depicted proved to be odd, but not dysfunctional.

Finally, in the category of Cemetery Mishaps the winner is "Belgian Woman Starts Out Drunk, Ends Up Stoned." Running a close second is "Next Time, Use the Gate," in which a woman discovers what those spiky things on cemetery fences are for.

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

The Bushranger Who Couldn't Shoot Straight

From the Melbourne (Australia) Herald Sun:

Ned Kelly under fire, again

Danny Buttler
31dec05

BUSHRANGER Ben Hall's great-grandson has fired a salvo at Ned Kelly, more than 125 after he was hanged.

Shepparton man Ben Hall Jr said his famous ancestor, who was shot by police in 1865, was a better bushranger than Kelly, who swung from the gallows 15 years later.

Mr Hall, 79, said his great-grandfather was known as the "gentleman bushranger" who never killed anyone, despite committing 600 crimes in just three years.

"He didn't shoot anybody because he was an awfully bad shot," he said.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Tacky Prom Dress Now a Suit

From the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader of Dec. 30, 2005:

Trial set over Rebel flag prom dress
SCHOOL VIOLATED HER RIGHTS, TEEN SAYS

By Beth Musgrave
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER

An August trial has been set for a woman who sued a Kentucky school district for turning her away from her senior prom for wearing a Confederate flag-themed prom dress.

Jacqueline Duty sued the Russell Independent Board of Education in December 2004, alleging the school system violated her First Amendment right to free speech and her right to express her heritage.

[snip]

Included in the documents filed this week are genealogical records showing that Duty's family includes at least two Confederate soldiers, William and George Tackett, who were members of Kentucky units of the Confederate Army.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Huge Private Genealogical Collection Still Private

From The (Logan, Utah) Herald Journal of Dec. 30, 2005:

Everton Collection collecting dust

By Adam Benson

Nearly six months after Logan Mayor Doug Thompson announced the city’s acquisition of one of the largest privately held genealogical collections in the country, the exhibit still remains closed to the public and is still something of a political football.

All that’s standing between the 82,000-piece Everton Collection opening its doors, Logan Library Director Ronald Jenkins said, is the hiring of a full-time librarian to catalogue and oversee the daily operations of the $1.7 million collection.

“So far, we don’t have a person who has the qualifications we need,” Jenkins said. “If we had a person, we could probably have it open within a week.”

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Roving Stones Reunited

From the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal:

Out-of-place gravestones puzzle police

Last update: December 30, 2005

ORMOND BEACH -- Police have a mystery on their hands in the form of two cemetery headstones.

Bearing the names "John H." and "Pearl L.," the headstones were found Wednesday and Thursday at two separate locations in the city, Sgt. Kenny Hayes said.

[snip]

Police believe the headstones could be sections of another stone because they have adhesive material on the back and because the people named were close in age.

John H. was born in 1880 and died in 1965. Pearl L., meanwhile, was born in 1882 and died in 1964.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Update (Dec. 31, 2005): The stones have been claimed by the couple's great-great-granddaughter.

You Get What You Pay For

From Ynetnews.com, posted Dec. 28, 2005:

How Jews Got Their Names

For all those Jews wondering where their last names came from

Edith Dinar, ESRA Magazine

[snip]

In general there were five types of names (people had to pay for their choice of names; the poor had assigned names):

[snip]

Bought names:

Gluck (luck); Rosen (roses); Rosenberg (rose mountain); Rosenblatt (rose paper or leaf); Rosenfeld (rose field); Rothman (red man); Diamond; Koenig (king); Koenigsberg (king’s mountain); Spielman (to play); Lieber (lover); Berg (mountain); Wasserman (water dweller); Kershenblatt (church paper); Stein (glass).

Assigned names (usually undesirable):

Plotz (to die); Klutz (clumsy); Billig (cheap); Drek (shit).

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

California Does the Least It Can Do

From Scripps Howard News Service:

Mass eviction to Mexico in 1930s spurs apology

By PETER HECHT
Sacramento Bee
28-DEC-05

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Carlos Guerra was only 3 years old when Los Angeles County authorities came to his family's house in Azusa and ordered his mother, a legal United States resident, and her six American-born children to leave the country.

It was 1931. The administration of President Herbert Hoover backed a policy that would repatriate hundreds of thousands of Mexican Americans, more than half of them United States citizens.

Amid the economic desperation of the Depression, Latino families were viewed as taking jobs and government benefits from "real Americans."

[snip]

On Sunday, Senate Bill 670 — the so-called "Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program" — becomes official. It acknowledges the suffering of tens of thousands of Latino families unjustly forced out of the Golden State that was their home.

[snip]

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill Oct. 7, but vetoed a companion measure — Senate Bill 645 — that would have created a commission to study paying reparations to survivors of the 1930s repatriations.

[snip]

Jose Lopez Sr., was a factory worker at the Ford assembly plant when his family was ordered to Mexico after nearly two decades in the United States. He wound up cutting sugar cane and died in poverty in the Mexican state of Michoacan.

"I think an apology is the least they can do," said his son, Jose Lopez, 78, a retired autoworker in Detroit who came to testify on behalf of the California bill.

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Recoloring the Decolored Past

Dick Eastman wrote Wednesday about a free software application for Windows that colorizes black & white photographs.

My first effort with Recolored put some color back into the cheeks of my great-grandfather, Elton Dunham:

Rendered speechless by his stunning good looks, I immediately clicked over to MyHeritage.com to see which celebrity he most resembled. The results were better than I had hoped: my great-grandfather was a 70% match for Niels Bohr — generally considered the most attractive 20th-century Danish physicist named "Niels."

With a little practice you'll find that Recolored offers results on a par with the hand-tinting of yore. Skin tones are the biggest challenge, and may require some manual tweaking to avoid giving your ancestor a funeral-parlor complexion.

The program is incredibly easy to use, the only problem I found being an infuriating bug in the "Color Picker" that made entering RGB codes difficult. The beta version is free for non-commercial use, with a commercial version coming early next year.

My next colorizing project: see what Michael Jackson would look like if he were black.

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

1940 Census Release Countdown

Why spend your New Year's Eve in Times Square waiting for a ball to drop when you can spend it staring at your computer screen? Here's a countdown that really matters: the days, hours, minutes, and seconds we have to endure before the 1940 U.S. Federal Census is released to the public.

Take This Surname and Shove It

From The Rising Nepal:

Haiu community changing their surname to Rai

By Our Correspondent

RAMECHHAP, Dec. 27: The Haiu community, a minority group in Nepal, residing in Ramechhap and Sukajor VDC and Ratanchura of Sindhuli district have started changing their surname to "Rai", after finding that doing so would open up lucrative job prospects for them in the British Army and elsewhere.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

In Case You're Wondering What Brings Folks Together

From The Ann Arbor (Mich.) News:

Vandalism brings folks together

Village volunteers work to repair toppled and smashed cemetery gravestones

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

As Unadilla Township Police still search for vandals that smashed and toppled 108 grave markers in mid-October, volunteers are patiently repairing and returning the stones to the 160-year-old Plainfield Cemetery.

"It's a lot more work than I thought," said Unadilla Township Supervisor Jim Peterson. "But it's been really interesting. You start reading the stones and then you go back and look at the history. I've learned a lot about where I live."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Top Ten New Year's Resolutions for Genealogists

10. Post no more than thirty message-board queries a day.

9. Learn to accept that the 1890 U.S. Census is gone, and isn't coming back.

8. Quit calling the Obituary Department for leads.

7. Interview those relatives most likely to die from bird flu in 2006.

6. Pay off your debts by replacing your laptop with an Etch A Sketch.

5. Go for a daily jog somewhere that doesn't require hurdling tombstones.

4. Read at least one book in which nobody dies of consumption.

3. Stop citing the The Da Vinci Code as a source.

2. Perform one Random Act of Genealogical Kindness for each time you've run over a neighbor's cat.

1. No more transcribing while intoxicated.

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Genealogist's Christmas Gifts Misunderstood

A Genealogue Exclusive [What's That?]

Maxine Ford of Brentwood, N. Y., worked for months on her Christmas gifts this year. Each present required hours of research and labor to create. But on Christmas morning, she received nothing in return but polite "Thank yous."

Ford is a genealogy fanatic, and for each member of her family this year she created a fake obituary — a brief life history, with all of the recipient's accomplishments listed. The obituaries were matted and presented in fine oak frames, but her relatives didn't seem to notice these details.

"At first I thought they were just speechless with happiness," Ford says. "But then they looked at me with these confused expressions. I've never felt more embarrassed."

Ford's brother, Harold Knox, says the gifts caught the family by surprise.

"We know her heart's in the right place, but . . . obituaries? On Christmas?"

Most disturbing was the obituary given to matriarch Florence Knox, who turned 97 in October. It included her date of death: December 30, 2005.

"Now she's convinced she's gonna die next Friday," says Harold Knox. "She asked me this morning to cancel her TV Guide subscription."

Maxine Ford is heartbroken that her hard work was so misunderstood.

"I should have followed my first instinct and just gotten them cemetery plots."

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

No Fear of Cremains, But Clowns Are Creepy

From the Quincy (Ill.) Herald-Whig:

Quincy duo documents, puts to DVD burial of Civil War veteran

Monday, December 26, 2005

By Casey Lewis
Herald-Whig Staff Writer

The re-enactment of the funeral for John Peyton Byrne, the last soldier from the Civil War to be buried, is captured on a DVD that was filmed and produced by local filmmakers Randy Dickerman and Dustin Hall.

[snip]

"The Last Farewell" captures a historic and personal ceremony on film, but for Dickerman and Hall, it also taught them about the history of the Civil War, provided experience and sparked an interest in documentaries.

Dickerman said they hope to do a documentary about the history of Quincy, and another about coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Leave It to Beaver's Mom to Lie About Her Age

Sharon Elliott at BackTrack reveals the truth about Leave It to Beaver star Barbara Billingsley: she's been lying about her age all these years.

Billingsley, of course, is best remembered for uttering the line, "Cut me som' slac' jak! Chump don wan no help, chump don git no help."

[Hat tip: EOGN's Other News]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Santa's Gravesite Found?

From Mirror.co.uk, posted Dec. 24, 2005:

GRAVE NEWS OVER SANTA

By Aidan Mcgurran

FATHER Christmas died more than 400 years ago - but there's no need to worry.

He was another Father Christmas, who lived in the Essex village of Dedham and was buried there on May 30, 1564, according to ancient parish records.

A spokeswoman for Essex records office in Colchester said: "We don't think the real Father Christmas is buried there. It will just be a person in the village who happened to be called Father Christmas."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Prince Charles Wants Grandfather's Job and Name

From The (London, U.K.) Times of Dec. 24, 2005:

Call me George, suggests Charles

By Andrew Pierce

THE Prince of Wales has discussed rejecting the title Charles III when he becomes King to avoid unhappy associations with some of the bloodiest periods in the monarchy’s history.

The Prince’s favourite alternative name is George VII, in honour of his grandfather — one of the best-loved monarchs of the past century.

[snip]

Patrick Cracroft-Brennan, a genealogist from Cracroft’s Peerage, said: “There has been a tradition over the last century for the regnal title to be different to the christian name. The change would make sense.

“Monarchs called Charles have not had much luck. One was beheaded, one was in exile, and one was a pretender to the throne.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

He wouldn't be the first Prince to change his name.

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Land Patents for Christmas

The Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records are finally back online, and make great stocking stuffers. The land patents have been off and on and off and on and off the web since 2001.

Inactive Plots Given Second Chance

From The (Colorado Springs, Colo.) Gazette of Dec. 24, 2005:

Unused cemetery plots are reclaimed by city

By ED SEALOVER - THE GAZETTE

Every year about this time, Will DeBoer goes into Evergreen and Fairview cemeteries and repossesses hundreds of grave sites.

It's not grave-robbing: He's not hauling out caskets or disrupting bodies.

What DeBoer, the manager of Colorado Springs' city-owned cemeteries, does is check the books at Evergreen and Fairview to find plots that have been inactive for 100 years.

If no descendant of the site's owner is found, the land goes back onto the cemeteries' books and is open for others to claim as their final resting place.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

The New Face of Genealogy

A soon-to-be-released website will allow you to search for relatives based on facial characteristics — a technology sure to render traditional genealogical research obsolete.

The beta launch of MyHeritage.com is scheduled for January 2006, but an alpha test — "Find the Celebrity in You" — is already up and running: "Just upload a photo of yourself or family and in a few moments we'll automatically show you which celebrity you resemble the most!" This blogger's boyfriend was a dead ringer for Bette Davis, Cat Stevens, and Mao Zedong.

Here's the gist:

Once you teach MyHeritage.com what your relatives and friends look like, it recognizes and tags them automatically in your photos and in photos submitted by other users (subject to privacy settings that you specify). So you can find any photo you're after by searching for those in it, and find photos of yourself, your ancestors or people who resemble you, even in albums contributed by other users. Our face recognition technology is built to scale to hundreds of thousands of faces, and to recognize peoples' faces throughout different ages of their life.

MyHeritage.com also promises more conventional genealogical fare:

What else will we have here? For lovers of genealogy, there's MyHeritage Search: the world's first search engine built specifically for genealogy – a great tool if you're searching for your ancestors or trying to uncover your heritage. Family Tree Builder is our very own genealogy program for setting up a family tree. And there are also searchable genealogy message boards for sharing info with others. All our products are multilingual and multicultural and will support 10 languages initially and additional languages later on.

Update (Dec. 24, 2005): Interesting results when I uploaded a picture of Don Knotts: the closest matches were Yuri Gagarin and Jesse Jackson. For really fun results, go to The Smoking Gun's mugshot archive and borrow the mug of your favorite celebrity.

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Humble Birthplace Marked By 38-Foot Monument

From The Washington (D.C.) Post:

Millions of Mormons Fete Founder's Birth

By JENNIFER DOBNER
The Associated Press
Friday, December 23, 2005; 3:55 AM

SHARON, Vt. -- On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith's birth, church President Gordon B. Hinckley voyaged to the Vermont hillside where Smith was believed to have been born.

Looking up at the monument built in Smith's honor, he had just one observation: "Beautiful."

[snip]

Records from Smith family diaries place his birth on Dec. 23, 1805 on the country hillside, near the New Hampshire border. A hearthstone and a moss-covered front step are all that remain of the original home where the Smith family ran a small farm.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built and dedicated the 38 1/2-foot monument to Smith — one foot of granite for each year of his life — in 1905.

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Woman Meets Granny Pocahontas

From The (Newport News, Va.) Daily Press:

CW meets Hollywood

Rolling out the glitz amid the gravel at the film's debut draws some stars, and those hoping to see them.

BY MIKE HOLTZCLAW
December 22, 2005

WILLIAMSBURG -- The red carpet sprawled out in two directions on Wednesday afternoon outside the entrance to the Kimball Theatre.

To the left was the line of guests waiting to see the East Coast premiere of the historical epic film "The New World," filmed on location at nearby Jamestown last year. And extending straight out from the front door was the ceremonial crimson for the stars and other celebrities.

[snip]

The 15-year-old screen newcomer [Q'Orianka Kilcher] who plays Pocahontas stole the show at the premiere even more than she stole it on screen.

[snip]

As she made her way up the carpet, she stopped to pose for photos and sign autographs. Jackie Spangler, of Williamsburg, exchanged pleasantries with Kilcher over the velvet rope and came away gushing.

"I really came out here today to meet her," Spangler said. "I do a lot of genealogy, and Pocahontas and John Rolfe are my grandparents if I remember to say 'great' 11 times. I'm glad I got the chance to meet her."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

I Was Hoping For 'Larry Christmas'

From Discovery News:

Farmer Named Roger 1st Father Christmas?

By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

Dec. 21, 2005 — A genetic study is underway in England to determine the first man with "Christmas" as a surname, and indications are that he was a fellow named Roger who lived in Sussex in the year 1200, according to Oxford Ancestors, a British company that specializes in analysis of ancestral DNA.

[snip]

The DNA study, however, has just begun, so another individual may take the Father Christmas title away from Roger. Any male bearer of the last name Christmas may participate through Oxford Ancestors.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Funny, She Doesn't Look Chinese

From the National Post (of Don Mills, Ontario):

The Xs and Ys that bind

A new project uses DNA samples to dig deeper than your family tree and trace the migratory patterns of your ancestors

Mary Vallis, National Post
Published: Thursday, December 22, 2005

When I was a Grade 4 student in Leduc, Alta., my teacher gave my class what seemed like a simple assignment. Mrs. Newman asked us to find out about our ancestors.

[snip]

I did as Mrs. Newman asked and went to my parents for help. My mother hauled out my baby book and showed me what it said. My parents were both born in Montreal. My stubby family tree had few branches: A few great-grandparents went back to England, and one to Ireland. But the source of my surname remained a mystery: All I knew was my paternal great-grandfather was born in Newfoundland.

[snip]

What little I knew about my ancestors didn't seem exotic enough. I looked past the countries the other students were pointing at and decided to invent something better. When it was my turn to stand in front of the class, I told them all I was from China.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

City Bans Bucket-Kicking

From BBC News, posted Dec. 14, 2005:

Brazil city proposes ban on death

Municipal regulations normally ban anything from smoking in public places to parking in certain zones.

But officials in the Brazilian town of Biritiba Mirim, 70km (45 miles) east of Sao Paulo, have gone far beyond that.

They plan to prohibit residents from dying because the local cemetery has reached full capacity.

Mayor Roberto Pereira says the bill is meant as a protest against federal regulations that bar new or expanded cemeteries in preservation areas.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

[Hat tip: Legacy News]

tags: genealogy, family history, family tree

Death Database Released on DVD, Panned by Critics as 'Derivative'

From U.S. Newswire:

Social Security Administration's Death Master File Official Version Now Available on DVD

SPRINGFIELD, Va., Dec. 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Official Version of the Social Security Administration Death Master File is now available on DVD. The Death Master File is the complete and official SSA