God Save the Queen a Piece of Cake

A website just went live Celebrating the Queen's 80th Birthday. Elizabeth's birthday falls on April 21st, but will be officially celebrated on June 17th, giving her time to recuperate from the family festivities (I hear they're hiring the Chippendale Dancers).

You can send your birthday greetings to the Queen on the website, paw through her photo album, and even view her birth certificate. This last is not the sort of document I've ever run across. Her father's occupation is given as "Duke of York K.G.," the last two letters indicating that he was either a Knight of the Garter or an early advocate of the metric system.

Be sure to take the quiz on the Queen's life before leaving. I scored a surprising 6 out of 20, and only cheated on four questions.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Latrine Duty

If you're the descendant of a Confederate officer interned at the Johnson's Island Prisoner of War Depot in Ohio, you might not want to read this.

Archaeologists have been digging for 15 years at the camp, focusing on the "sinks," which is to say the latrines. It was into these "rectangular pits 8 feet wide by 12 feet long and 2 to 5 feet deep" that the prisoners dropped their most valuable treasures.

The sinks proved to be remarkable time capsules containing objects dropped accidentally or deliberately into the sewage. Understandably, even valuable objects were left. For example, the excavators found a gold locket containing a badly deteriorated photograph and a lock of hair. [Link]

The latrines were also a means of egress from the camp: at least ten prisoners are known to have escaped from Johnson's Island, and evidence has been found of tunnels leading from the "sinks" to the stockade wall.

Escapee's Wife: "Oh, my dear husband! You must have gone through so much to return to the loving arms of your family!"

Escapee: "Madam, you have no idea."

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Let's Wish the Welsh Well

In case you haven't noticed, it's Wales Week in New York—kind of like Mardi Gras with a wind chill advisory.

In New York on March 1, daffodils and red dragons will abound around town, as the Welsh community in New York celebrates St. David and Dylan Thomas, Wales' most famous poet, with weeklong events that include lighting the Empire State Building in red, green and white, the colors of Wales. [Link]

The press release from the Welsh Development Agency goes on to tell us what we'd be missing if not for Wales: principally Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jack-Daniels-induced blackouts.

There's a whole website devoted to Wales Week, with a page devoted to Welsh genealogy. The Wales Tourist Board pitches in a website of its own—Homecoming Wales—with tips on finding your Welsh family, and answers to the question, "What's Happening in Wales?"

What is happening in Wales? A Man Versus Horse Marathon, of course.

I almost wish my ancestors hadn't subjugated the Welsh.

The Da Vinci Co-Opt

The predicament in which Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown finds himself should be familiar to many genealogists. He based his work on the work of his predecessors—in Brown's case, the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail—and now those predecessors want credit.

And several million dollars.

The outcome of the court case in London could hinge on whether the content borrowed—including the genealogy of Jesus Christ's descendants—was factual or fictional. Here's the problem for the plaintiffs: If their book was factual, they may not have a leg to stand on. As all Internet-educated lawyers know, "You can't copyright facts," although the arrangement of those facts may be protected. If, on the other hand, they argue that the Jesus genealogy sprang from their own feverish minds, they'd better stop touting Holy Blood, Holy Grail as an "extraordinarily provocative, meticulously researched book."

The lesson for genealogists is clear: Steal only from people who didn't make stuff up.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

DNA Test Results Not Earth-Shattering

William Popomaronis was born in Baltimore to Greek immigrants, which made him wonder why his eyes are blue and his hair blond.

A DNA sample he submitted to Oxford Ancestors with a $400 check gave him the answer: He shares a bit of genetic ancestry with people from Finland and Northern Norway. Needless to say, the results left him in a state of utter equanimity.

"It wasn't earth-shattering," says Popomaronis, who lives in Phoenix in Baltimore County. "I didn't find out I had a long lost brother or sister somewhere or that I was the illegitimate son of somebody, but it did satisfy my curiosity." [Link]

The Fate of Parfaits

Some family heirlooms are more difficult to preserve than others—and some just won't fit in a scrapbook. For instance, the two ice cream parfaits that a woman in Silvis, Iowa, has been saving for 38 years.

Ty Thomson bought them while visiting a Quincy, Illinois, store with her three-year-old son, who told her they were too beautiful to eat. So into the deep freeze they went, and there they have stayed through two changes of address and four changes of refrigerator.

"At a party, he will tell friends that his mom has ice cream parfaits stored in her freezer that were bought for him when he was a little kid," she says. "People don't believe him. He will still call me and ask about the parfaits." [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Top Ten Signs Your Ancestor Was a 'Barney Fife'

10. Fought in the Civil War, but was allowed only one bullet.

9. Last words to his doctors were "Nip it in the bud!"

8. Spent most of his life locked in broom closets.

7. Never rose above "Deputy Grocery Clerk."

6. Accidentally let Jack the Ripper go free.

5. Unanimously voted out of his church choir.

4. Locked his kids in the basement every time they double-parked their bikes.

3. Married your grandmother Thelma Lou after a courtship of 19 years.

2. Was always misplacing the keys to the Bastille.

1. Named his sons "Gomer" and "Goober."

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Let the Google Fighting Begin

Google Fight compares search engine results for two words or phrases in a bloodlessly violent way. Of couse, I immediately began a survival-of-the-fittest-name contest, pitting the surnames in my lineage against one another, to see which would come out on top.

My mother's kin are French-Canadian and Finnish, and were beaten handily by my father's brutish English ancestors. My paternal grandfather's "Dunham" narrowly beat out his wife's "Coolidge," despite the dead President in her corner. "Dunham," however, fell in the next round against "Morgan" in what can only be called a bloodbath. Somewhere in my distant past I had a "Smith," which flattened "Morgan" in a most unsportsmanlike way.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Geneticists Say 'Uncle'

Scientists are 99% certain that a skull dug up from beneath the floor of a Polish cathedral is that of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. The only way to know for sure is to match DNA from the skull with that of a known relative—a difficult task, since Copernicus was too busy thumbing his crooked nose at the Pope to father any children.

But researchers think they have a solution. They are now preparing another excavation to look for the remains of Copernicus's uncle, the former bishop of Warmia, who is also believed to be buried in Frombork Cathedral. Exactly where, no one is sure. [Link]

If it turns out they can't positively identify the bishop's remains, I guess they'll just dig up one of his uncles.

Beware of 'Fun Facts'

Fun Fact: Gwen Stefani is a distant cousin of Madonna. Her great-aunt's mother-in-law shares the last name with Madonna. [Link]

Here's another fun fact: My great-aunt's mother-in-law had the same last name as actress Liv Tyler. And yet Liv refuses to admit that we're related.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

I Do, I Do, I Do ... No, You Don't

A part-time judge and truck driver in Hildale, Utah, was removed from the bench Friday for having more than the usual number of wives. Walter K. Steed married his first wife in 1965, and proceeded to marry two of his sisters-in-law in 1975 and 1985. By 1995, he had evidently run out of sisters-in-law. Steed has 32 children by his three wives, which explains why he took the judging gig.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says his office won't prosecute bigamists unless some other crime has been committed.

"If you charge one where do you stop? You start prosecuting 10,000 people and have 20,000 kids go into the (child welfare) system?" Shurtleff said. [Link]

Shurtleff didn't mention any other laws Utahns with children can safely ignore.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Points to Ponder

• Today at 7:16 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) the population of Earth will hit 6.5 billion.

• About one of every five people on Earth is Chinese.
• I have two parents and two siblings, and not one of us is Chinese.
• 4.4 babies are born every second.
• 396 women give birth every time I microwave popcorn.
• Four times as many people live now as lived in 1900.
• Most of the people alive in 1900 are no longer contributing members of society.
• People in poor countries have more children than people in rich countries.
• People in rich countries have more edible underwear than people in poor countries.
• If every person on Earth jumped up at precisely the same moment, I'd be very surprised.

Family Tree Exposed

Renee Zamora today gives us a sneak peek at the next great thing from FamilySearch. See her January 9 post for the full scoop on Family Tree—now in its second phase of beta-testing.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Eggs to Dye For

The Braddock District in Fairfax County, Virginia, traditionally dedicates its Winter Town Meeting to senior issues. This year, residents of a local senior center were asked to share stories of their pasts. Stories like that of Lola Petsche, who arrived from Cuba with her four-year-old daughter in 1949:

Upon her arrival, [...] she remembers seeing her host preparing eggs in a strange way, by boiling them and dyeing them bright colors. It was Easter, but Petsche had never seen anything like it.

"I said, 'I think I am going to like the United States, even though they eat weird things,'" said Petsche. [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

If You Like It So Much, Why Don't You Marry It?

A Sudanese man has been forced to marry a goat, after being found in a compromising situation with the animal. The goat's owner took the case before the village elders, who decided that the offender should pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50).

"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said. [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Top Ten Reasons to Doubt a Family Story

10. It begins, "Years ago, when your mother and I were first abducted by aliens. . ."

9. It involves three brothers who came on the Mayflower's second voyage, had their names changed at Ellis Island, and married Indian princesses.

8. Granddad only tells it after he's washed down a fistful of Vicodin with a quart of Jim Beam.

7. It takes place during the Great Flatulence Pandemic of 1876.

6. Your father sometimes forgets to replace Daniel Boone's name with his own.

5. All the main characters have been depicted on coins.

4. It sounds suspiciously like the plot of Brokeback Mountain.

3. Grandma has to pinch herself while telling it to keep a straight face.

2. You first heard it from James Frey.

1. It ends, ". . . and that's how I invented Velcro."

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Not That There's Anything Wrong With Swedes

The current issue of National Geographic has a brief progress report on The Genographic Project.

The Seaconke-Wampanoag tribe was the first U.S. group to participate in the project, members gathering in Seekonk, Massachusetts, last summer to give DNA samples. Chief George Silver Wolf Jennings is hoping the samples will yield clues about the path their ancestors took when migrating to New England, but he doesn't want any ugly surprises.

Says Chief Jennings: "I just hope these guys aren't gonna tell us we're all Swedish." [p. 73]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

New York Has Two-Name Minimum

Genealogists have a friend in Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lucindo Suarez. He ruled that Robbie Bishop can't change her name to just "Robbie."

"That there may be many people with the same surname and even the same given and middle name does not provide a valid reason to set a precedent which could have overwhelming untoward consequences," Suarez found. [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Vandal Gets the Roodhouse Blues

A teenager was tipping tombstones in Roodhouse, Illinois, recently when one of his victims decided to fight back.

Authorities say it took four firefighters to lift a 600-pound gravestone off the 16-year-old boy's leg early Tuesday after he helped knock over that headstone and dozens others. [Link]

Late Night Mudd-slinging

While interviewing Harrison Ford last month, Jay Leno mentioned that former TV newsman Roger Mudd had spent years trying to clear the name of his ancestor Dr. Samuel A. Mudd—imprisoned for tending the wounds John Wilkes Booth suffered the final time he took to the stage.

Trouble is, it wasn't Roger Mudd but Dr. Richard D. Mudd of Saginaw, Michigan, who spent all those years of name-clearing. Dr. Mudd's son couldn't let the error pass, so he sent a letter to Leno, receiving in return a telephoned apology from the Tonight Show host himself.

"He could have had his secretary call," says Thomas B. Mudd, "if anyone called at all, but no. He called me directly and said, 'This is Jay Leno. I want to apologize.'"

This egregious error corrected, Thomas is now steeling himself for the release of Manhunt, a movie in which Ford will hunt for Lincoln's assassin.

"I'm getting ready for battle," Mudd said. "There is not one shred of evidence linking my great-grandfather to a conspiracy plot, and all of this Mudd-bashing is not funny to me." [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Say 'Jeeze, That Hurts!'

Photo restorer Carolyn Schultz explains why there are so few pictures of 19th-century children smiling:

"Because children fidgeted all the time, photographers had a brace that they would put around their waist. A metal rod would go up the middle of their back and clasp around their neck," Schultz says, grimacing. "In some pictures, you can see the rods poking up from behind their ears. It kept their heads still, but it would often make them cry because it was painful. They had to hold that pose for more than five minutes." [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Portuguese Lolitas Are Scarce

Don't even think about naming your kid "Lolita" or "Mona Lisa" in Portugal. Those names are on a hit list kept on the Ministry of Justice's website, together with "Guevara," "Marx," and "Rosa Luxemburgo."

The site has 39 pages of legally acceptable first names, and 41 pages of banned monikers. Some are seeking to scrap the national list, as Norway has done. In Norway, you can choose any name for your child, except "swear words, sex words, negative names and sicknesses."

So what's wrong with naming your kid "Malaria"?

“What it does is handicap a kid who has to deal with it,” said Albert Mehrabian, a University of California professor emeritus of psychology and author of “Baby Name Report Card: Beneficial and Harmful Baby Names.”

Some parents are capable of labours of lunacy. Portugal’s reject list includes Ovnis. OVNI is Portuguese for UFO.

Danish authorities nixed Monkey and Lucifer. Mehrabian knows of an American named Latrina. [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Nothing Comes For Free (Except This)

Just a reminder that you have one more week to enjoy 13 free databases at Ancestry.com. Don't come crying to me when they slam the door in your face on March first.

Here's the list again:

• World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918
• Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874
• 1870 U.S. Federal Census
• 1860 U.S. Federal Census: Slave Schedules
• 1850 U.S. Federal Census: Slave Schedules
• Civil War Service Records
• Slave Narratives
• Charleston, Charleston County, South Carolina, Black Deaths 1871-89
• The First African Baptist Church of North America
• Blacks in the State of Oregon, 1788-1971
• Slave life in Georgia: a narrative of the life, sufferings, and escape of John Brown, a fugitive slave, now in England
• Slavery petitions and papers
• The Black presence in the era of the American Revolution, 1770-1800

A Genealogy of Mythic Proportions

Professor Noboru Karashima puts the rest of us to shame.

The respected Japanese scholar specialising in Indian studies says he has records of his ancestors, including mythological ancestors, going back 74 generations, a timeline that stretches to the days of Confucius in the fifth century B.C. [Link (emphasis mine)]

Says Professor Karashima, "We cannot really rely on records available until the 8th century, when one of my ancestors clearly appears in Japanese history."

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Study Confirms What Everyone Knows

A study published today in Current Biology compares the DNA of 150 randomly chosen men who share British surnames, and finds that some of them are actually related.

We show that sharing a surname significantly elevates the probability of sharing a Y-chromosomal haplotype and that this probability increases as surname frequency decreases. [Link]

It's long been a rule of thumb among genealogists that the rarer a surname is within a limited geographical region, the more likely it is that two people sharing the surname are related. The study showed that there was "no link for Smith, Jones, and Taylor, but a clear link for Attenborough, Widdowson, and Grewcock."

The study summary does raise some interesting possibilities for new CSI episodes.

Within our sample, we estimate that up to 24% of pairs share recent ancestry and that a large surname-based forensic database might contribute to the intelligence-led investigation of up to ~70 rapes and murders per year in the UK.

In a column today at Nature.com, researcher Mark Jobling admits that some of the results were obvious, but that the degree of correlation between genetics and surnames has never been established, and that he could have gone even further.

Interestingly, a search of the UK electoral register turns up some 61 entries for the surname Bastard.

Jobling says that he toyed with the idea of investigating this group to see if their degree of relatedness is lower. But in the end, he says, he tactfully demurred. "We were worried that people would think we were taking the piss." [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Hope for the Desperate Genealogist

A new genealogy e-book—The Desperate Genealogist's Idea Book: Creative Ways to Outsmart Your Elusive Ancestors—is available for downloading. For just $14.95, you get 150 pages of genealogical wisdom from the likes of Lisa Alzo, Joe Bott, Emily Croom, DearMYRTLE, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Charlie Gardes, John Konvalinka, Megan Smolenyak, Maureen Taylor, and Andrew Yeiser. Your purchase goes toward supporting DeadFred.com, a site I recently confessed I do not hate.

A tag-team effort by DeadFred.com and some of genealogy's top ancestral sleuths and accomplished writers, this 150-page e-book is packed with articles and case studies that reveal invaluable tips, shortcuts, resources and even step-by-step instructions on how to use overlooked research tools, conduct specialized searches and tackle brick walls with sheer ingenuity.

OBL Should Try Hotmail

What do Osama Bin Laden and Apprentice washout Omarosa have in common? Neither can get a free Yahoo! email account.

Or at least not using their names as Yahoo! IDs. The company has banned IDs that include the letter-combinations "allah," "osama," or "binladen," among others. (Inexplicably, the Romanized spelling preferred by many, "usama," is allowed, as well as other names for God.)

There aren't too many surnames that include the banned words, but if your name is "Callahan" or "Kallahar" you're out of luck. So also if your first and last names come together in just the right way, like those of the unhappily named Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

The Genealogy Prevention Act of 2004

A Genealogue Exclusive [What's That?]

In the past, genealogists have gone to town offices, county courthouses, and state archives to research their family histories. All that will change when the Intelligence Reform and Genealogy Prevention Act of 2004 goes into effect.

Michael Brown is the Homeland Security Department's new Director of Genealogical Impediment, and he sees a bright future for genealogy in America.

"Imagine, if you will," he says, "a country where birth and death records are kept not in thousands of dangerously unprotected facilities spread out over fifty states, but in one secure location in Washington, D.C. Imagine the convenience!"

The convenience will extend not only to officials of the FBI and NSA, but to any employee of the Executive Branch with adequate security clearance. Genealogists, of course, will not be admitted.

"Genealogists will still be able to search locally through any records that bear their own name," Brown says. "If there's information they need but can't get, maybe they should just ask themselves why they want to lend support to our enemies."

As an added convenience, the names of genealogists who request records will be sent to Washington and compared against lists of known or suspected terrorists.

Brown says that loyal Americans shouldn't be troubled.

"If you haven't done anything wrong—and don't have the same name as someone who did something wrong or might have done something wrong or voted against the President—you have nothing to worry about."

[For more information on the possible implications of the very real Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, see Information is Power]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Got Books?

With the six-month anniversary of Hurricane Katrina drawing near, you may want to consider donating your unneeded genealogy books or journals to the libraries affected by the disaster.

The New Orleans Public Library is now looking for book donations:

The New Orleans Public Library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina. The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections. The rest will be distributed to destitute families or sold for library fundraising. Please send your books to:

Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70112

If you tell the post office that they are for the library in New Orleans, they will give you the library rate which is slightly less than the book rate. [via NYFA Interactive]

The Louisiana State Library website has guidelines for material donations, and specifically asks for "Genealogy-Louisiana or otherwise."

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Family Tree Silences Skeptics

Madison Mackenzie—a third-grader in Newton, N.H., nicknamed "Baberaham" by her stepfather—is related to Abraham Lincoln, but her classmates didn't believe it until her family tree was posted in the hall of the elementary school.

"She was really excited and she told everyone at school, but they were like, 'Yeah right, I'm related to George Washington,' and, 'President Bush is my uncle,'" she said. "She looked at me and said, 'Mom, tell them to stop.'" [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]