Silence

A Guide to Internet Genealogy

I've whipped up a flowchart that lays out in the simplest of terms how genealogists use the Web. It will appear in the appendix of my forthcoming book, Internet Genealogy for Complete and Utter Morons.

Hank Ain't Here!

As sexton of Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama, Phillip Taunton is in charge of 100,000 graves. He spends much of his time greeting visitors, and then telling them to go away.

"Most are here to visit Hank Williams' grave," said Taunton, explaining that while the grave is often listed as being in Oakwood Cemetery, it actually rests in the Oakwood Annex.

"If I had a dollar for every person I told how to get to Hank Williams' grave, well, I'd be doing pretty well right now," he said smiling.

In fact, Taunton still exchanges letters regularly with a visitor who came from England's Isle of Wight to see Hank Williams' grave and came to the main cemetery instead of the annex. [Link]

Into the Lion's Den

Seventy years after his death, the family of Harold Davidson, the Rector of Stiffkey, is still trying to clear his name. He was accused of misbehaving with the "fallen women" he tirelessly tried to rescue.

At the ensuing church trial, in 1932, only one of the 40 witnesses, Barbara Harris, a 17-year-old prostitute bribed with money and alcohol, testified against him. Nevertheless, the Rector was found guilty of "systematic misbehaviour" and "removed, deposed and degraded" by his nemesis, the Bishop of Norwich. [Link]

His trial was a cause célèbre and spawned a media circus, but it was the story of his bizarre death that interested me most. Having been defrocked, he took a job at Skegness playing the part of "A modern Daniel in the lion's den." Standing in a lion's cage, he preached from the Bible and spoke about the injustice he had suffered. On July 28, 1937, his co-star Freddie grew tired of his act and knocked him to the floor.

The lion then grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and stalked around the small cage shaking the poor Harold back and forth. The audience thinking it was part of the act roared with laughter and therefore it was some time before help was called. Unfortunately it was too late for Harold Davidson and he died from wounds sustained a few days later. [Link]

San Fran's Burial Ban

Dead people don't pay taxes and they take up precious real estate, so San Francisco decided in the early 20th century to evict them—or at least to find a way to hide them. This society newsletter from 1992 has the grisly timeline.

1901
The city supervisors prohibited further burials in the city limits.

1909
City supervisors were granted permission to use Golden Gate Cemetery as a park. Mausoleums and tombstones were removed and disposed of down a convenient ravine at Land's End. Those bodies that were not removed were covered over and the area became the Lincoln Park Golf Course.

1914
All remaining burials were ordered out of the city.

Walls, crypts and markers from the Laurel Hill Cemetery were dumped into the bay to become the Marina Yacht Harbor jetty—now home to a nifty Wave Organ. Thousands of displaced San Franciscans wound up in the necropolis at Colma, which was created so the city wouldn't have to trip over its dead pioneers.

If you need help figuring out where your San Francisco ancestors were deposited, San Francisco Genealogy is a good place to start.

He Knew How to Write a Good Curse

The curse that William Shakespeare had engraved on his tomb ("Good frend for Jesus sake forebeare,/ To digg the dust encloased heare./ Bleste be y^e man y^t spares thes stones,/ And curst be he y^t moves my bones.") actually worked.

Philip Schwyzer, a senior lecturer at Exeter University, said: "Shakespeare had an unusual obsession with burial and a fear of exhumation. The stern inscription on the slab has been at least partially responsible for the fact that there have been no successful projects to open the grave."

Anxiety about the mistreatment or exhumation of corpses is found in at least 16 of his 37 plays, with this concern often being more pronounced than the fear of death itself. [Link]

[Photo credit: Shakespeare's cursed grave by James Macdonald]

No Kissing the Queenly Cuz

British royal historian Robert Lacey gives advice on meeting Queen Elizabeth II, who will be arriving Thursday to help commemorate the Jamestown anniversary.

Address the queen as "Your Majesty" or "Ma'am."

"'Liz' or 'Elizabeth' don't go down well," Lacey said. "And you wouldn't shout out, 'Queen!' or 'Queenie!' That would be considered rather aggressive."

If the queen lingers, feel free to engage her in friendly small talk. "Anything in the public realm is allowable," Lacey said. "But not, 'My family history shows that I am related to the Royal Family,' things like that." It's simply too familiar. [Link]

[Photo by Ricardo Stuckert]

SSN Nonsense

Here's another journalist who believes that the SSDI could be useful to identity thieves.

I was doing a little genealogical research and found my father’s Social Security number in three seconds on Google. (SSNs of dead people are most coveted by thieves.) So one must say the horses already are out of the pasture. These security rules create a false sense of security where there is none. [Link]

If the writer is referring to the SSDI, those dead horses are very much still in the pasture. As I've noted before, the SSDI (or "Death Master File") is used to prevent identity theft by letting financial institutions know which SSNs are no longer in service. Valid SSNs are distributed to thieves by an entirely different government agency.

Another Reason to Breastfeed

Somers Point, New Jersey, City Councilman Patrick Bingham defends raising the price of a birth certificate from $10 to $20 by making a weird comparison.

“A baby's milk can cost more than that ($10) a day,” Bingham says, adding that “everybody wins” if the city raises the price enough to bring in a part-time worker to process vital documents. “We can supply them five days a week — right now, it's only certain hours and certain days — and sometimes people are coming from out of state for them.” [Link]

"Everybody wins" except the poor baby who must go hungry for a day so mommy and daddy can afford a copy of its birth certificate.

[Photo by Giuseppe Crimeni]

Now That's a Scrapbook

A previously unknown letter from George Washington has been discovered in a little girl's scrapbook.

It was written in May 1787 and addressed to Jacob Morris, grandfather of Julia Kean, the precocious 10-year-old who started the brown leather scrapbook in 1826 and put the letter under a portrait of the nation’s first president.

The letter paper was too long to fit, especially under the large portrait, so Julia cut a strip off the top and plastered it vertically on the page, next to the letter’s envelope.

Julia also saved a letter from Thomas Jefferson to her step-grandfather, a Polish count who was traveling back to Poland to help Napoleon in a military campaign. [Link]

A Pagan Pedigree

Dennis Callahan claims to be a "fourth generation hereditary witch."

His great-aunt Marion was born with a veil, what is referred to in medical terms as a “caul.” It’s a hood of porous skin that covers the head of a newborn. It’s extremely rare to be born with a caul, which, for many, indicates a “third eye” or heightened psychic ability.

Marion's niece—Callahan's mother—married a man whose sister was a witch.

For the past 400 years, his ancestors have been witches who read tarot. But Callahan’s pagan ancestry stretches even further back to the Druids, who practiced a type of paganism unknown today because they didn’t write. [Link]

I will not criticize the claims made in this article for fear of waking tomorrow morning as a toad.

Dick Cheney's Black Son

Bob Ray Sanders explains in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram how his father, James McKinley Sanders, came to be known as "Dick Cheney."

Dad's mother died when he was 12, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents, Major and Malinda Cheney. He was one of the heirs to their estate.

So it's easy to see how he was referred to as a "Cheney" boy, having been raised on what many in the Riverside area and other parts of the county referred to as "the Cheney ranch." But where does the "Dick" come from? [Link]

The "Dick" comes from Major Cheney's father, Richard.

When asked by his niece, "Do you really suppose we're related to the vice president?" Sanders responded, "Let's not go there."

Try Not to Lose the Plot

When conducting genealogical research in a large graveyard, it is always advisable to stop by the cemetery office before heading out to search for stones. Otherwise, you might end up like the guy in this YouTube clip at GENanon.

A Bad Place to Store Your Photos

Just a month after this strange episode, unusual items have been found in a second Yonkers, N. Y., cemetery.

Yonkers cops are investigating the bizarre desecration of a freshly dug grave after a cemetery worker discovered four smoked fishes - gutted and stuffed with photographs of unidentified people - inside the tomb.

The fish were each wrapped in black cloth and had several spices accompanying them. [Link]

What Were Their Parents Thinking?

JDR at Anglo-Celtic Connections today offers some Unusual names in family history.

One of the two men from the Ottawa Company of Sharpshooters who died at the Battle of Cut Knife Hill on 2 May 1885 was John Rogers, a native of Barbados. While researching for the book "The Ottawa Sharpshooters" I found his mother was baptized Mary Licorish Kidney, one of the most unusual names I've ever found. It rivals a Norfolk man I stumbled on baptized February Backlog.

I recently ran across a guy named "Newport Rhode Island" who served in the Revolution from Massachusetts. At first I thought it was a mistake, but his name appears both in Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors and in the bounty land grant application filed by his widow in Maine. And then there's "Coffin Thing," who lived in Waterborough, Maine, in 1790 (his mother was a Coffin, his father a Thing).

Use This Method Only If You're Stumped

Here's an extreme way to establish the marriage date of your ancestors: chop down their "wedding pair" and count the rings. This is from a story on a Dogwood Festival in Connecticut.

In keeping with the botanical aspect of the festival, visitors will take in views of the spectacular copper beech tree on the green-listed in Connecticut's "Book of Noble Trees" as well as a number of "wedding pair" matching antique trees, a custom dating back to the 1600s and 1700s to mark weddings of our ancestors. [Link]

He'd Rather Be Selling Paper Clips

An interview in the Des Moines Register with office-supply retailer Dick Triplett ends on a sour note.

Q. One more question. What's the nationality of the name Triplett?

A. (Dick) That's a good question. My father was French and English. There's some German. Some day I'm going to research all that. I believe it's a lot more fun selling office products than doing genealogy - the rewards are greater. [Link]

Complaining: It's the American Way

In a misguided effort to pay off the national debt and save Social Security from bankruptcy, NARA has proposed raising the price of a Civil War pension file from $37 to $125. Friday is the last day to voice objections to the whole range of proposed price hikes. Here's how to submit a comment:

1. Read all the nasty details in this PDF file.
2. Go here, search for Document ID NARA-07-0001-0001, then click on the Comments icon.
3. Give them a piece of your mind.
4. Wait for Dick Cheney to arrive in his black helicopter and whisk you away to Guantanamo Bay.

Apostrophic Anger

Out of concern for the integrity of her surname, Margaret C. O'Connor has founded the Society for the Protection of Apostrophes.

I started the SPA because I was frustrated and angered when computers refused to let me enter my whole name. I received threatening messages - "You have input illegal characters" or "You may only enter letters in this field, not numbers or signs".

I do not consider an apostrophe a number or a sign. I am unable to record my leave application in my work system and cannot register for mandatory courses. I have had to use an alias, without an apostrophe, for such basic functions. [Link]

I expect that The Apostrophe Protection Society will spell her name correctly on their cease-and-desist letter.

Bad News For the Balches

Test results appear to prove that the Balch House of Beverly, Mass.—named, as I mentioned before, for one of my ancestors—is not the oldest wood-frame house in America. Tree-ring samples show that it was probably built in 1678—much later than the Fairbanks House of Dedham, Mass.

Among the Balches, whose ancestors first settled in Beverly in the 1620s, there has been a sense of loss and sadness, mixed with stern defiance. "It is still one of the oldest, probably still in the top 10 or 12, even with these later dates," said Stephen P. Hall, a 12th generation descendant of the Balch House's original occupant, John Balch.

Among the Fairbanks, who first arrived in the colony in 1632, there has been a fair bit of gloating.

"We always knew it," said Lynn Fairbank, a 13th generation descendant of the Fairbanks House's first occupant, Jonathan Fayerbanke. "I have to say that every once in a while, a house crops up and says they're the oldest house, but it never pans out. We're the oldest standing wood-frame house." [Link]

Will There Be Watermelon Smashing?

Organizers of the Gallagher Global Gathering have invited two famous Gallaghers to the reunion: brothers Liam and Noel of the band Oasis.

A special invitation has been sent out to the Gallagher's management company and organisers are hopeful the brothers will respond.

Adrian [Gallagher] said: "We haven't heard from them yet but it's early days. I think there will be a surge in the next couple of weeks where we'll get more Gallaghers signed up. We've left their places open just in case." [Link]

Errors of Biblical Proportions

Police in England are hoping to return a stolen Bible to its rightful owners. It contains a Pratt family tree tracing the family from 1797 to 1956, but auctioneer Chris Albury says even that would not make the book especially valuable to collectors.

"Most Bibles after 1750 tend to not be worth very much. There are certain editions that make an exception, and the binding can make it an exception if it is particularly attractive."

Some Bibles are valuable for other reasons, such as a famous 17th century edition which had a printing error so the Ten Commandments read 'Thou shalt kill' instead of 'Thou shalt not kill', and another where the word 'vinegar' is used instead of 'vineyard'. [Link]

Graphoanalyzing the Dead

Dolly Copp is well known in my neck of the woods for the campground that surrounds her homestead and bears her name. Irene P. Lambert learned by looking at her handwriting that Dolly was "strong-willed" but "self-conscious, afraid strangers would laugh at her."

Lambert claims to have considerable success with genealogical handwriting analysis.

In 1998, she was tested by the National Genealogical Society Quarterly, which presented her with handwriting samples from James Ball, a colorful figure born about 1783, apparently in Virginia. She was told nothing about the man, not even his sex. She was told only that one writing sample came from a person who was about 30 years old, and another when that same person was about 65 and suffering from rheumatism.

Her analysis closely paralleled the observations of two of Ball's contemporaries, a newspaperman and a judge, and several latter day biographers. [Link, via EOGN]

My, How Things Have Changed

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine lets you see old versions of websites as far back as 1996—around the time I started my first genealogy website. Here's what Ancestry.com looked like on Oct. 28, 1996, and here's RootsWeb from May 1997. Genealogy.com was home to the German Genealogy Home Page in 1996.

Seeing these pages makes me nostalgic for the good old days when nothing I needed was available online.

Papered-Over Profile Puzzles Prolific Parents

A couple in New Salem, Pennsylvania, discovered a man with a big head hiding in their home.

The drawing was discovered under two layers of wallpaper and glue, said Susan Wood, who lives in the home -- at 38 E. George St. -- with her husband, Robert Wood, and nine of their 10 children.

The writing beside the man's profile reads "Papered by M.H. Glatfelter 1911 Sep 24," Susan Wood said.

Until the family can find the true identity of the man on the wall, he will be called by another name.

"We call him Ghost Glatfelter," Susan Wood said. [Link]

An Enterprising Town

In 1985, Riverside, Iowa, declared itself the future birthplace of Star Trek's Captain Kirk, who is scheduled to be born on March 22 in a couple of centuries. The locals even erected a plaque to show the exact place of his conception.

At local bar Murphy's, a plaque states Kirk was "conceived at this point" - hanging on the wall instead of its original spot under the pool table.

"Regulars got a kick out of seeing Star Trek fans crawl under there to look, but it seemed kind of cruel," said Becky Laroche, who works at People's Bank, the town's only bank. [Link]

Ancestry.commercials

I must admit, I kind of like Ancestry.com's new marketing campaign—including the clever ad in this week's issue of Time that teaches the novice how to jazz up her old family photos using scissors and Scotch tape. You'll find all their print, television and radio ads in the Generations Network press room.

Standing in Another Photographer's Shoes

I love the paired images in Flickr's Then and Now Group Photo Pool, though some of the attempts to recreate historical photographs are more successful than others. Irish Hermit's shot of Perkins Square in South Boston is just about perfect.

In Search of a Gene

Megan spotted a fascinating article about Martin Marshall—a man searching for the father he never knew with little more than a first name, Gene, and a genetic match to the Sizemore family. This led him to track down all the Gene Sizemores who might have canoodled with his mother in the spring of 1948.

How many Gene Sizemores could there be in the United States?

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60, it turns out, and none in Missouri. By consulting an Internet site that offers inexpensive background checks, however, Marshall discovered one Gene Sizemore who had previously lived in the state.

Not only that, this Gene Sizemore had once lived in the town of Louisiana, Mo. Hadn't his mother told him back in 1981 that his father came from a town called Louisiana? Marshall had always assumed that she had been talking about Al Marshall.

But maybe she really meant this man. His real father. Gene. [Link]

It Also Needs More Car Chases

St. Louis Post-Dispatch book editor Jane Henderson had some good advice for the author of an acclaimed book about the Pilgrims.

Nathaniel Philbrick is condensing his popular "Mayflower" history into a book for middle school students, so I asked whether he couldn't add some cannibalism. The cannibalism in his "In the Heart of the Sea" is one of the things that made that whale story so riveting.

"I've had so many teachers tell me that 'Revenge of the Whale' is the only thing they can get their seventh-grade boys to read, because it has the cannibalism in it," he said with a laugh. ("Revenge of the Whale" is the student-geared version of "In the Heart of the Sea," the true story of a whaling ship sunk by an angry sperm whale.) [Link]

How Much for the Barrel of Legs?

Henry Wenneborg was 16 when a train in Springfield, Illinois, severed his foot.

"Gangrene set in," says his grandson, the Rev. Rick Wenneborg of Chatham Christian Church. "They kept taking off parts of his leg until they amputated it almost up to his hip. He almost lost his life."

Henry recovered, and went on to found a thriving business manufacturing artificial limbs.

After Henry died, many of his creations went to his son, Dick. Dick died in 1989. Five years later, the family held an estate sale in which a lot of Henry's handiwork - including a barrel of legs - was sold. [Link]

Can a Virgin Be an Ancestor?

Saturday is the 81st birthday of Queen Elizabeth, who will soon be paying a visit to the United States. The Telegraph marks the event by suggesting that one of the Queen's distant cousins wasn't really a virgin.

This year's visit is for the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, the first permanent settlement in troubled Virginia, a state named after the Queen's ancestor Elizabeth I. [Link]

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that by "ancestor" they mean "someone with the same first name who held the same job."