Money Laundering in the Kitchen

Tracy Lowe was surprised to learn that her great-grandfather Alexander Menday was convicted of manslaughter, but not surprised that he had run-ins with the law.

She was ... familiar with the tale of how her grandmother had come home one day to find her kitchen decked out with improvised washing lines from which were hanging numerous soggy banknotes.

Menday, a Thames waterman at the time, had the job of recovering bodies from the river, and he and his son had relieved an unfortunate of the contents of his pockets before the authorities arrived - on the basis he didn't have any more use for them.

"We knew they were rogues, the sort of people you would cross the street to avoid," says Tracy. [Link]

Spy's Like Us

When Ben-Ami Kadish wasn't passing classified defense documents to Israel, he was working on his family tree. Who knows what family secrets are now in the hands of the Mossad.

Blogger Exonerates SSDI

Kevin Poulsen at Threat Level reports on a case where someone used the SSDI to steal identities.

Tracy June Kirkland, 42, allegedly used Rootsweb.com to find the names, Social Security numbers and dates-of-birth of people who, shall we say, had no further need for their consumer credit lines. She then "would randomly call various credit card companies to determine if the deceased individual had an … account," according to the 15-count indictment (.pdf) filed in federal court in Los Angeles Tuesday.

She'd then persuade the issuer to change the mailing address for the dead victim to one of her many rented mail drops in Orange and Riverside counties, and in some cases she'd add her own name as an authorized user of the card, prosecutors say.

At least 100 of the dearly departed were allegedly used in the scheme, which prosecutors say began in October, 2005 and continued until last month.

Poulsen went to the trouble of actually asking folks at the SSA and Rootsweb how the SSDI works—unlike the MSM journalists I wrote about here, here, and here. He found that the fault in the Kirkland case lies not with the SSDI itself, but with the lenders who didn't use it correctly. In the words of Rootsweb spokesman Mike Ward, "The reason the Social Security Administration has it out there is to prevent fraud, and when it's used to perpetrate fraud it's because not all the checks and balances were in place on the financial institution's end."

Genealogist Has a Novel Idea

Karen Harrington's interest in genealogy led her to write Janeology—a novel that comes with its own pedigree chart.

Jane, a loving mother of two, has drowned her toddler son and is charged with his murder in this powerful examination of love, loss, and family legacy. When a prosecutor decides Jane's husband Tom is partially to blame for the death and charges him with "failure to protect," Tom's attorney proposes a radical defense. He plans to create reasonable doubt about his client's alleged guilt by showing that Jane's genealogy is the cause of her violence, and that she inherited her latent violence in the same way she might inherit a talent for music or a predisposition to disease. He argues that no one could predict or prevent the tragedy, and that Tom cannot be held responsible.

With the help of a woman gifted with the power of retrocognition—the ability to see past events through objects once owned by the deceased—the defense theory of dark biology takes form. An unforgettable journey through the troubled minds and souls of eight of Jane's ancestors (named below), spanning decades and continents, this debut novel deftly illustrates the ways nature and nurture weave the fabric of one woman's life, and renders a portrait of one man left in its tragic wake.

They Abhorred Hoarding

Model Jodie Kidd's great-grandfather was a shipping tycoon and a baronet. He was also a convicted food hoarder.

In the final year of the Great War the Government introduced strict food rationing. Food cards were issued to everyone, including the King and the hoarding of food had become a serious offence carrying heavy penalties.

The Tyne and Wear Archives holds Gosforth Urban District Council records and specifically those of the Gosforth Local Food Control Committee 1917-1919, including the Profiteering Committee minutes, which details the conviction of one Rowland Frederick William Hodge for food hoarding in 1918.

Chief archivist Liz Rees explains: “We weren’t aware of the scandal. We knew his name and we knew that the shipyard had closed but we didn’t know the story behind it.” [Link]

Belle Letters May Identify Corpse

Belle Gunness was a serial murderess responsible for at least ten, and perhaps as many as forty or fifty deaths. She made a practice of enticing bachelors to her Indiana farm with advertisements in matrimonial columns, and then offing them.

Now Andrea Simmons wants to find out whether Belle is the same woman whose burned, headless body was found in the cellar of her farmhouse following a 1908 fire, or whether she escaped, as many suspect.

Simmons got permission from 63-year-old Suzanne McKay, a great-granddaughter of Nellie Larson, Belle’s older sister who lived in Chicago, to exhume the body. Because of the number of generations that have elapsed and the fact that McKay and her sister are descended from Larson’s son, Simmons said the forensic anthropology team decided not to use their DNA. The best DNA comparisons come from an unbroken line of female ancestors.

However, Belle’s letters to Andrew Helgelien, which once helped entrap him, could now help determine whether his killer got away with the farmhouse deaths, too. Some of the envelopes that Belle sent to Helgelien and his brother will be used to provide hoped-for DNA from dried saliva under the stamps and places where the envelopes are sealed. [Link]

For those who like this sort of thing, gruesome crime-scene photos may be found here.

Genealogue Challenge #37

The grave of Al Brady was marked last week—70 years after he was gunned down by FBI agents in Bangor, Maine.

What were the full names (first, middle and last) of his parents?

Careful Where You Have a Hare

The Derbyshire County Council's Record Office has compiled a list of 19th-century inmates (pdf) and the crimes they committed.

The document features the records of all prisoners held at the County Gaol in Derby from 1800 to 1819.

Reasons for imprisonment included "feloniously milking a cow", being an "incorrigible rogue", "vagabond", or "lewd woman" and suffering from "indolence". [Link]

Other offenses included "Having a hare," "Taking swan's eggs," and "Pretending to have skill."

The Naked Quaker

Diane Rapaport's second book, The Naked Quaker: True Crimes and Controversies from the Courts of Colonial New England, is due out in October. Based on her examination of court records, she has concluded that my ancestors probably did have sex.

“I think most of these stories could end up surprising to readers who imagine Puritan New England was some drab, dull place where people sat around in church and never had fun ... or sex,” she said. “I think people will be surprised by how feisty the early Colonists were.”

The book’s title story involves a 17th century Quaker woman from Hampton, Lydia Wardell, one of New England’s early Quakers, who showed her contempt for Puritan authorities by taking her clothes off during church services. [Link]

Rapaport's first book, by the way, was the indispensable New England Court Records: A Research Guide for Genealogists and Historians. Anyone whose New England ancestor left a will or dropped her drawers at church should own it.

I Ain't Afraid of No Trespassing Citations

JoAnn Kolbus' picnic in an Oregon cemetery was interrupted by a scene from Ghostbusters.

A few minutes after arriving, an extremely belligerent, verbally abusive little man stormed the hill and shouted, “The gate’s closed! I called the police and they’re coming to arrest you!” Let’s call him the (self-appointed) Gatekeeper.

Being a family descendant, I had always had permission to visit at any time. I attempted to explain my connection and associated permission to the Gatekeeper, who called me a “filthy liar and a vandal.”

We waited for the deputy (let’s call him the Key Master), since we didn’t think we should leave the scene of the “picnic crime.” The (deputy) Key Master finally showed up and cited us for trespassing in the second degree. We felt totally slimed! [Link]

Lampoons Are Not to Be Carried

Mitch Traphagen's ancestor was caught carrying a lampoon in 1664.

Willem [Traphagen] was in a world of hurt. He let his emotions get the best of him and uttered a few words that were— well, less than decent. And then, to make matters worse, he was caught carrying a note disparaging a judge. As he spent his time tied to a stake in the center of the town that he had helped to create, he probably wondered if things could get worse. They could — he was also ordered banished from that town.

Believe it or not, my ancestor was convicted as a Lampoon Carrier. Yes, that was the charge for which he was tied to a stake. He also had a note pinned to his shirt describing him as such. [Link]

A History of the City of Brooklyn reveals that the lampoon writer received the same punishment.

Steal a Fish, Go to Australia

Ancestry.com has released the Australian Convict Index, 1788-1868, with data on 165,000 criminals transported to Australia from the British Isles and British colonies. They were the worst of the worst.

Some of the crimes they were punished for included stealing from a pond or river and setting fire to undergrowth.

One convict of note was the father of Ned Kelly, Australia's famous bush ranger. His Irish father, Red, was sentenced to seven years for stealing two pigs and sent to Tasmania.

The first female convict to set foot in Australia was Elizabeth Thackery, sentenced to seven years for the theft of five handkerchiefs. [Link]

The landing page for this database includes the statement "Web sites concerning convicts can be accessed at http://www.familytreeresearch.net," linking to a domain formerly operated by the late Janet Reakes, but now full of advertisements and empty of useful content. The correct address is here.

They'll Be Sequestered for the Duration of the Honeymoon

They met last year during a murder trial in New York, and now Traci Nagy (alternate juror No. 3) and Jonathan Cinkay (juror No. 6) are getting married.

They picked up their marriage license last week, and Queens Supreme Court Justice Daniel Lewis, who presided over the case, is to marry them next month.

"Some juries are serious, some are somber, but this jury seemed like it was full of beaming, happy people," the justice said. "I didn't imagine they were all playing matchmaker." [Link]

The defendant was convicted and will not be attending the ceremony.

A Munstrous Crime

Are we giving identity thieves too much credit for cleverness? Someone from overseas tried recently to sell Herman Munster's identity.

The thieves apparently didn't realize Munster was a fictional TV character and dutifully offered to sell Munster's personal details - accurately listing his home address from the television series as 1313 Mocking Bird Lane - and what appeared to be his MasterCard number. Munster's birth date was listed as Aug. 15, 1964, suspiciously close to the TV series' original air date in September 1964.

CardCops Inc., the Malibu, Calif., Internet security company that quietly recorded details of the illicit but wayward transaction, surmised that a Munsters fan knowledgeable about the show deliberately provided the bogus data. [Link]

Maybe they intended to sell this guy's identity.

He Won't Be a Bad Guy Until 2034

Jeff Scalf's grandmother was the half-sister of John Dillinger, which gives him the right to require anyone who uses the Dillinger name to pay up and portray the murderous gangster law-abiding citizen in a positive light.

"They all have to sign a clause stating that they won't present him as a murderer, cop killer or vicious or mean-spirited," he says. "It's fair to say that he was accused of one killing but was never convicted."

Under a 1994 Indiana law, Scalf and other family members control rights to Dillinger's name and portrayal for 100 years after his death, says Jonathan Polak, an Indianapolis lawyer representing Scalf. Just because Dillinger — and Marilyn Monroe and Rosa Parks, whom he also has represented — are dead, Polak says, "doesn't mean they are suddenly thrown into the public domain. … You're stealing a piece of property." [Link]

Horse Thief Almost Lost in Translation

The recently departed Alice Claire Lehmann Nelson was a devoted genealogist who took classes in German and French so she could translate historical documents.

Still, when she came across a copy of a newspaper article on her great-great-great grandfather, there was a glitch in the translation.

"She thought there was a distant relative who was killed by being run over by a horse," Don Nelson said. "Then she realized he was really a horse thief. He escaped from jail several times.

"Once she got the correct translation of it, it took her two years to tell my grandmother there was a horse thief in the family." [Link]

Not a Life Well Lived

Genealogists Julie Coley and Lynn Wright read a story about a toddler rescued from a deep well in 1918, and knew they had to find out what became of him. It took them a couple of weeks to find the answer.

They began peeling back the layers of time, looking for a young boy named Jack Kee or Jack Key.

Wright pored over old census records while Coley searched through newspaper clippings, birth certificates and death certificates. They both made phone calls to surprised strangers.

The boy, it turned out, was Andrew Fleming Key, who lived a "life of drinking and petty crime," and "always kept a loaded pistol in the front seat and a good supply of whiskey nearby" while driving.

Once during the hunt for the boy in the well, Wright had a clue that the boy might have grown up to be a prisoner of war. Wrong Jack Key.

"That would have been a story," he said. [Link]

A Typical Case of Teenage Angst

An Alabama teenager spent four years after the Civil War searching for Jeff Darter—the man who shot his father.

[Geraldine Locke] said Joseph Moor heard Darter tell people he was going west to escape the Moor family and justice.

"Joseph spent years chasing Jeff Darter until they bedded down at the same campsite," Locke said.

In the middle of the night, Moor cut Darter's throat, got on his horse and rode back to Alabama.

Moor never told family members where he had been or about his actions until he was on his deathbed in January 1937. [Link]

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]

A Long-Lasting Libel

A gravestone in Albrightsville, Pennsylvania, tells the story of a man's unhappy end.

The text is brief and small in comparison to the illustration. It reads, "AQUILA A. HENNING, BORN JUNE 7, 1892, SHOT NOV. 24 1932. AN INNOCENT SOUL SENT TO ETERNITY." [Link]

It was established in court that Aquila had shot at one-armed school teacher Harry Wilkinson, and then was gunned down by his intended victim's brother. The "not guilty" verdict didn't sit well with Aquila's widow, which might explain why his stone depicts an ambush.

The stone shows a man, Aquila, walking through the woods with his hunting rifle. In the background there are trees and bushes, and standing in those bushes is a man holding a pistol. The man has only one arm. Also seen in the bushes behind Aquila are six or seven faces peering out at him.

Harry Wilkinson didn't care for the illustration. He filed a $50,000 lawsuit against the monument company for portraying him as a villain.