Gerry Did More Than Mander

Elbridge Gerry is remembered most for inspiring the invention of the word "gerrymandering" by creatively redrawing the electoral map of Massachusetts to his party's advantage. One of his descendants wishes his other accomplishments were as well remembered.

Elbridge T. "Elbert" Gerry Jr., the great-great-great grandson of the former governor, took exception to the historical pigeonholing of his ancestor as an electoral usurper, pointing out that the late Gerry had signed the Declaration of Independence, was a Bay State delegate to the original Constitutional Convention, and represented the new nation in the XYZ Affair, a diplomatic spat with France that led to the two-year "Quasi-War."

Asked if he has been troubled by the mispronunciation of the family name - pronounced with the hard "g" sound, while "gerrymander" is typically pronounced with a soft "g" - Gerry replied, "Been trying to correct it for years." [Link]

Graveyard Voyeurism

Google Maps now offers street-level photos of New York, Miami, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Denver. The shot at right is of Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

If they ever improve the resolution so we can read the inscriptions, it'll save us a lot of legwork.

Keep Grandma on the Porch

Someone has finally figured out how to combine wind chimes with cremation urns.

LifeSong Urns also plans to offer in the near future, twin vaulted urns as memorials for husbands and wives and other life relationships. These twin vaulted urns may also be used for individuals with the second vault used as a time capsule to hold small keepsakes. Another innovation from LifeSong Urns is the optional "biography or genealogy" plaque. This plaque tells the story of your loved ones life on earth and further personalizes your LifeSong Wind Chime Urn. [Link]

Too Sick to Sink

Dee Peters' great-grandmother Matilda Tovey probably made the right decision back in April of 1912.

Her young son, Jack, had suddenly come down with an illness just before the family was to leave for Canada.

Given the sick lad's condition, the prospect of a weeklong sea journey across the Atlantic in third-class was enough for the Toveys to postpone their trip and take the next ship out.

A few days later, they learned that Jack's illness had saved their lives.

"They were all ready to get on the Titanic," says Peters. [Link]

Warren's Ancestors Didn't Come From Margaritaville

The new genetic genealogy company everyone's talking about is 23andMe—mostly because one of its founders, Anne Wojcicki, is married to Google founder Sergey Brin. The company's first order of business was to set up a website and get Warren Buffett and Jimmy Buffett to spit in cups.

About two months ago Warren and Jimmy submitted DNA to 23andMe. (Warren "just kept spitting into a little receptacle, and then we FedExed it. Not very elegant," says his assistant. Jimmy did the same.)

When the results came back a month later, Wojcicki - a 33-year-old Yale grad and former health-care industry analyst - and her associate Joanna Mountain called Warren from 23andMe's offices, just half a mile from Google's Mountain View, Calif., campus, and broke the news that he need not include Jimmy in his will. In fact, "I'm as closely related to you as Jimmy is," said Mountain, the head of 23andMe's ancestry product line and a former professor of anthropological genetics at Stanford. [Link]

I wonder if company executives will personally deliver the news to everyone who sends in a DNA sample.

And Then There Were Three

Frank Buckles, 106, is one of only three living U.S. veterans of World War I, and will serve as a marshal in the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington today.

The other living World War I veterans are Harry Landis, a 107-year-old in Sun City Center, Fla., and Russell Coffey, a 108-year-old in North Baltimore, Ohio.

After the last Navy veteran and the last American woman to serve in World War I died days apart in March, the Department of Veterans Affairs made a public appeal to identify additional veterans of the war besides Buckles, Landis and Coffey. There were no responses. [Link]

One Coffin, Slightly Used

Elaine Underwood has in her basement a coffin once owned by Col. McLane Tilton—a U.S. Marine who lived in the house and died in 1914.

Tilton used to store his clothes in the box and occasionally would entertain guests by getting in. According to a certificate written by Dennis Claude, the antiques dealer who held the coffin for so long, Tilton had "contracted with an old black man to bring his wagon, place him in it and bury him in St. Anne's Cemetery when he died.

"His children would have no part of this," the certificate says. [Link]

A Great Day to Hang in the Park

On Saturday, descendants of Alse Young, historians and onlookers gathered in a Hartford, Connecticut, park to mark the 360th anniversary of Young's hanging for witchcraft, and to remember Colonial Connecticut's ten other executed witches.

As each of the names of the nine women and two men was read, a bell was rung, and a white rose laid at the base of a tree, over which a hangman's noose dangled. A 12th rose was laid to remember the children of the executed.

"When's the hanging, yo?" asked one passer-by, a man astride a bicycle, prompting several of the assembled to walk over and explain why they were in the park. [Link]

Will There Be Pillaging?

"Are You A Viking?" is a new exhibition at Jorvik Viking Centre in Coppergate, York—a place that boasts of its "trademark 10th century stench."

This interactive display helps visitors to trace their ancestry by studying archaeological evidence, migration and trading routes, and the development of language and dialects.

You can compare your diet, habits and lifestyle to those of the Vikings, trace the origin of your name and study food, bones and artefacts.

You are met by a Viking trader, wall displays, barrels to test your senses of Viking touch and smell and a computer game to see whether your hair colour, clothes, and favourite foods suggest a link to the Vikings. [Link]

Europe's Exit Door

A new museum is opening July 5th in Germany called Port of Dreams - BallinStadt Emigrant World Hamburg. It's the mirror image of Ellis Island.

BallinStadt re-creates the world of the emigrants. Who the people were who left their homes in eastern and middle Europe, and why. How they got to Hamburg. What life was like in this last stop before their trans-Atlantic adventure. What happened to them at Ellis Island. Where they went next and how they fared in the New World. Some historians estimate that 20 million Americans may be descended from these Hamburg emigrants. [Link]

A Monumental First Step

Joshua Jones was dismantling his porch step when he found a granite slab underneath.

"I could see the tip of it sticking up, and I said, 'God, I have a headstone in my backyard,'" Jones recalled. "Please don't let me find a grave."

Fearing what he might find, Jones took a hose to the dirt-encrusted chunk -- and let out his breath.

The water revealed a marker chiseled with "United States Military Academy" and "Stewart Field, West Point, N.Y.," and the names of a general and two colonels.

His porch step, it appeared, had historical significance. [Link]

[Thanks, William!]

Hands on Headstones

Here's a weird hobby. The proprietor of this website is collecting data on hands found on headstones.

Hands are nineteenth and early twentieth century icons. They particularly interest me because they allow an immediately date range for a headstone. If only because no one else has found them peculiar enough to study, I decided to do an anthropological analysis.

[Photo credit: Meet in here by Michelle Souliere]

There Was a Flaw in Her Plan

A Civil War letter valued at $1,000 was stolen from the car of Susan V. Hughes on Monday.

The letter was described as being written during the Battle of Bowling Green. Hughes, who declined comment to the Journal, told police the letter was a family heirloom, and she had been planning to take it to a safe-deposit box.

[Deputy Police Chief Mike] Marshall said the car was not locked. [Link]

Doughboy Diaries In Demand

The superb Veterans History Project has launched a new effort to collect firsthand accounts of the First World War. Learn more at Experiencing War (World War I, the Great War).

World War I is among the least documented wars of those covered by the Veterans History Project, and the number of collections relating its experiences are not likely to grow dramatically. Because all but a handful of WWI vets are no longer alive, oral history interviews are out of the question, so we must rely on the generosity of relatives and friends of deceased veterans to donate written accounts in letters, diaries, and memoirs, as well as precious collections of photographs.

Like Your Ancestors, Except Sexier

Golden Door—an award-winning film about sexy immigrants heading to Ellis Island—is now showing in selected cities.

On a perilous steamship journey from his Sicilian village, the widower Salvatore Mancuso (Vincenzo Amato) encounters a ravishing, mystery-shrouded Englishwoman, Lucy (Charlotte Gainsbourg, The Science of Sleep) — as the Old World literally collides into the New with seductive results.

Amid a harrowing crossing, an unexpected love story unfolds all the way to the halls of Ellis Island, where both Salvatore and Lucy will stop at nothing to make it through the GOLDEN DOOR to the America of their imaginations.

According to IMDb, there is "brief graphic nudity," so I may have to see it twice.

How Little We've Grown in 1,000 Years

Despite what you may have heard, your medieval ancestors were not dwarves. After examining 3,000 old skeletons, scientists have concluded that people have not grown substantially in the past millennium.

From the 10th century through to the 19th, the average height of adult men was 5ft 7in or 170cm - just 2in below today's average.

Women were an average of 5ft 2in or 158cm - just over an inch shorter than today.

But what about all those low doorframes in medieval buildings, and the tiny suits of armor cluttering museums? Sebastian Payne, chief scientist for English Heritage, explains:

"The reason why you get small pieces of armour is they are the ones made for rich small kids which didn't get heavily used and so survived.

"Small doorways are more to do with heating efficiency than anything else." [Link]

The Hasbins Have Been Hasbeens

In the course of collecting material for a book on the Dunbar community in Georgetown County, South Carolina, Joyce Cox-Holmes learned from John Hasbin the origin of his unusual surname.

He told Holmes that his family came from a plantation near Greenfield owned by a man named Hazard or Hazzard. The slave people rented from Hazzard. When they were freed, they changed from Hazard to Hasbeen. That’s now become Hasbin. The name developed because these people “has been a slave no longer.” Holmes said, “It’s a change, a make-up name.” [Link]

Her Second Car Parturition

Stephanie Green needs to move closer to a hospital.

For the second time in 17 months, Green had a baby Tuesday while en route to a hospital. Doctors planned to induce labor Thursday, but baby Zaria had other plans.

"I thought I was gonna make it this time, but she changed all that very quickly," Green said. [Link]

[Thanks again, Nancy!]

They Believed in Witches, But Not in Jinxes

Have an ancestor named for a dead sibling? There's a word for such a recycled name: necronym. They were especially popular in colonial America.

Necronyms—names of the dead—were given 80 percent of the time when a child of the same sex was later born. Ephraim and Elizabeth Hartwell of Concord, Massachusetts, lost their five children, Ephraim, Samuel, John, Elizabeth, and Isaac, to "throat Distemper" in a single month in 1740. The parents survived and had nine more children, named Elizabeth, Samuel, Abigail, Ephraim, John, Mary, Sarah, Isaac, and Jonas. [Link]

Saving Private Ryan a Few Bucks

Ancestry.com has added a ton of new content to its U.S Military Collection: stuff like Civil War POW records, U.S. Marine Corps muster rolls (1893-1958), World War II Army enlistment records, and old copies of Stars and Stripes. Best of all, the Collection is free through D-Day (June 6th).

A DNA Dilemma

Nancy Bovy has sent me another great item. Either Raymon Miller or his twin brother Richard Miller is the father of a 3-year-old girl. But there is no scientific way of knowing which one planted the seed.

The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman's testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court. [Link]

Since identical twins are genetically indistinguishable, a DNA test can't rule out either brother. Whichever brother is saddled with child support can argue that he isn't the father. (This is also a good way to beat a murder rap on Law & Order.)

Vintage Propaganda at Ancestry.com

I've just noticed that Ancestry.com has a new collection of WWII 'United News'™ Newsreels, 1942-1946. The 267 newsreels—averaging about 10 minutes in length—were produced by the U.S. Office of War Information, and include shots of Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima, MacArthur returning to the Philippines, and Colonel Klink unwittingly letting a prisoner escape in the trunk of his car.

OK, not the last one.

Happy Birthday to Few

According to mental_floss (citing a 2001 study), today is the least popular day to be born.

According to the inquiry, an average of 12,576 people are born each year on the 5th of October. It also suggests that some 968,000 Americans celebrate this day annually.

Which birth date is the least common? May 22nd with an average of 10,259 persons born each year.

Meat Shop Merits a Mention

I was tipped off today about this must-read post at The Ancestry Insider. I wonder if Ye Ol' Geezer Meat Shop sponsored the obit.

If You Can't Grow Older, You Might As Well Molder

I first blogged about Swedes freeze-drying corpses back in 2005, but Nancy Bovy has alerted me that it's back in the news.

Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh and her company Promessa have specialised in the freeze-drying method, and the company has applied for patents in 35 countries.

Promessa has promoted the idea of using the human remains, like compost, to feed plants and shrubs. [Link]

Wiigh's patent applications in the U.S. are titled "Method at mouldering" and "Method for treating organic matter to promote mouldering." The first includes this disconcerting passage:

[T]here is a belief that we shall return to earth, which is reflected in the expression "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust" of the burial ceremony, which provides the basis for all our life philosophy. Facts show, however, that we do not return to earth but flow away in liquid state.

The Civil War in Four Minutes

If you found the Ken Burns Civil War series too long to watch, you might like this exhibit from the Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

"The Civil War in Four Minutes," also known as The Electronic Map, is a map of the war with battle lines that continuously move, showing the changing progress of the war. Here, each week of the war has been condensed to one second. In the corner of the map, a casualty counter tracks the mounting butcher's bill - an odometer of death. [Link]

[Hat tip: Neatorama]

He Was at the End of His Rope

The Toronto Star has an interesting profile of John Radclive—Canada's first professional hangman.

Quite apart from his profession, Radclive was a hard man to warm to. In 1892 he started a brawl in Hull after he announced in a bar that he had "come to hang a Frenchman, and hoped it would not be the last." He was badly beaten and had to be rescued by a wagonload of police.

A few years later in Vancouver, the Star reported, he proposed to cut off the queue (pigtail) of a condemned Chinese man "and divide it up as souvenirs of the occasion, and altogether expressed himself in ways that show him to be a person of coarse temperament."

He was also notorious for selling rope to the curious after hangings – that might or might not have actually been used.

Interviewed in the 1930s, [Arthur] English said a British Columbia sheriff once actually caught Radclive in a hardware store buying lengths of rope to sell. [Link]

Spider-Mensch

It was debated in an episode of Seinfeld Friends whether "Spiderman" is a Jewish name. Now comes confirmation.

“Peter Parker’s a nerd who grew up in Forest Hills, his middle name is Benjamin and he’s motivated by guilt…I see a connection,” jokes Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, author of “Up, Up, And Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero."

Weinstein’s suspicions about Spider-Man were confirmed when he came across golden age comic book illustrator Patti Cochran, who told him that the Marvel Comics editorial staff always worked off the belief that Peter Parker was Jewish. [Link]

He Finally Kicked the KFC Bucket

Emma Carroll says she's lived to be 112 through "Good clean living and hard work." Fellow Iowan Edward Harlam, who died in 1997 at 117, had a different approach.

Harlam said he came to the United States in 1911 and was kicked off a boxcar at Columbus Junction in 1916. Harlam claimed that he stole cars for legendary mobster Al Capone, fathered a son at 84, and fought in World War I. He celebrated his birthday with a non-filtered Camel and some Kentucky Fried Chicken. [Link]

How Bad Could Their Spelling Bee?

All the patients buried at North Dakota's state mental hospital since 1885 can be identified, despite some creative spelling on their stones.

"Many of the early markers were made at the hospital," [George] Barron said. Most of the names on the grave markers are misspelled, or "were shortened to fit on the stones," made either from concrete or granite, he said. Some of the older markers are 6 feet tall, he said.

"They're all marked but almost all except in recent times have goofy spellings," Barron said. "They didn't know how to spell - but they're close enough to figure out who they are." [Link]

The First Lady's Pin Money

Listed in the annual financial disclosure forms filed by President and Mrs. Bush is a curious item: "Henry G. Freeman Jr. Trust — $12,000."

The payment was to Mrs. Bush from an annuity created by Freeman, a prominent Philadelphia landowner, when he wrote his will in 1912.

Freeman, who died in 1917, directed that after the last named beneficiary of his estate died, $12,000 a year would be paid "to the lady termed the first lady in the land; that is, the President of the United States [sic] wife, or anyone representing the president as such, should he not be married or should she die during his administration." He specified that the money be for the first lady's "own and absolute use" and the payments "shall continue in force as long as this glorious government exists." [Link]

Freeman's "last named beneficiary" died in 1989, and first ladies have receiving funds from "The Henry G. Freeman Jr. Pin Money Fund" ever since.

Not Enough Memories For a Memoir

The lead singer of the Rolling Stones has lived an interesting life—or so he's been told.

In the early 1980s, Mick Jagger snagged a $1.6 million advance from Bantam for his life story, but returned it several years later.

"We were told he said he couldn't remember enough to do a book," said Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House Inc., which also owns Bantam. [Link, via The Daily Dish]

A Reckless Rescuer of Records

Christine Zywocki has spent twenty years archiving monument transaction and burial records stored in a building in West Toledo, Ohio.

The records, some written in a loopy cursive and others by typewriter, give more than just a name and date of birth and death. Many include biographical information, handwritten correspondence from the deceased’s family members, and details and whereabouts of headstones the family bought.

The now-abandoned Lloyd Bros. Walker Co. building was looted by thieves last winter, and may be demolished with some 20,000 records still inside.

Mrs. Zywocki succeeded in rescuing a few thousand records from the building’s basement in early March and deposited them for safekeeping in a Toledo-Lucas County Public Library warehouse.

Her efforts to remove more were thwarted by city code enforcement officials, who quickly boarded up the building’s entrances and threatened her with arrest for trespassing.

“