Robert Zimmerman Revisited

I spent a couple of hours in a large room with Bob Dylan tonight, and was reminded that this challenge remains unanswered. Here's an additional clue. Anyone want to give it a shot?

Update: We have an answer.

Challenge #125 Update

The last Challenge was a hard one, so let me give you another clue:

The question perhaps should have been phrased "What was Bob's family connection to the town?" Say, prior to 1977.

Genealogue Challenge #125

I just ordered tickets to see Bob Dylan next month, so here's a challenge in his honor.

Kennett Square Borough, Pennsylvania, is The Mushroom Capital of the World.

What's Bob's family connection to the town?

Update: Another clue.

Update: We have an answer.

Genealogue Challenge #97

Is this the World War I draft registration card of gospel blues pioneer Blind Willie Johnson? Michael Corcoran thinks it's possible.

Johnson’s widow, Angeline Johnson, said that Johnson had been blinded at about age 7 when a girlfriend of Blind Willie’s father threw lye in his face to avenge a beating. In the 1918 document, when Johnson was 21, he says he’d been blind for 13 years.

The death certificate, with information provided by Angeline Johnson, has Blind Willie’s birthdate at Jan 22, 1897; draft card puts it at Jan. 25, 1897. Considering record-keeping of the time, especially among itinerant African Americans, that’s close enough. Death certificate says he was born in Independence, near Brenham; draft card puts his birth at Pendleton, near Temple, which has long been thought of as Blind Willie’s birthplace. Could it be that Angeline said “Pendleton” and the doctor heard “Independence?”

What additional evidence (circumstantial or otherwise) can you find that this document indeed refers to Blind Willie?

In Tune With Her Ancestors

Forget genetealogy. Jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater found a way to trace her African ancestry without swabbing her cheek or spitting in a cup.

A genealogical search for ancestors led back only 150 years, then the trail went cold. Bridgewater found a way to bridge the gap: “I’m a very intuitive person. I decided to just listen to music. I thought when I heard the music of the country my ancestors are from, I would recognize it. When I heard the music of Mali, it struck a very deep chord, and I just knew.” [Link]

The same thing happened to me! I wasn't sure of my Finnish heritage until I heard this.

[Photo credit: Dee Dee Bridgewater (ii) by Bruno Bollaert]

Genealogue Challenge #58

Here's another challenge courtesy of Genealogue reader Debbie Atchley.

W. C. Handy is known as the "Father of the Blues."

On what date were his parents married and who officiated at the ceremony?

And an extra credit challenge from me:

On what date did W. C. Handy's wife die, and what was the cause of death?

Genealogue Challenge #18

I'm going to leave Challenge #17 open until this evening. In the meantime...

On what date did George and Ira Gershwin's mother arrive in America?

Extra credit: On what date did her father die?

Genealogue Challenge #17

This challenge is presented with the help of Bob Dylan, circa 1965.

Click here.

A Clarification From Keith

Keith Richards has corrected that crazy story that he snorted his father's ashes "with a little bit of blow."

"The cocaine bit was rubbish. I said I chopped him up like cocaine, not with.

"What I found out is that ingesting your ancestors is a very respectable way of, you know, he went down a treat." [Link]

Glad he cleared that up.

A Terrific Gene

I didn't think I'd be writing about the White Stripes again so soon, but then I read this news out of Canada:

When Jack White, the driving force behind rock's Grammy-winning band the White Stripes, said recently that he thought he was related to Cape Breton's famous fiddlers Buddy MacMaster, Natalie MacMaster and Ashley MacIsaac, not a few media types suggested that the claim be taken with a grain of salt.

Confirmation of Jack White's blood connection to MacIsaac et al. was provided yesterday by Antigonish lawyer Daniel J. MacIsaac, 56, who's a cousin to Ashley and (yes!) a first cousin once removed to Mr. White Stripe himself. "I think Jack White would like to be able to defend that he is related to Ashley [MacIsaac] and Natalie [MacMaster], but he's not quite sure of it," Daniel MacIsaac said. Now he is -- "and that's a terrific gene, isn't it?" [Link]

How I'll Spend My Summer Vacation

I'll be taking one of my nieces to a White Stripes concert this summer in an effort to convince her I'm not really as old as she thinks I am. For those of you who really are old, the band's two members—Jack White and Meg White—claimed to be brother and sister when they first became famous five or six years ago. The sexual tension onstage was just plain disturbing until their marriage license and divorce record came to light.

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]

Papa Was a Rolling Stone's Jones

We all have different ways of honoring our fathers. Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards inhaled his.

"The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father," Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.

"He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive." [Link]

[Thanks, John!]

A Rising Tsar in the Music World

Eleven-year-old Georgian pianist Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili is proud of the great-great-grandfather from whom he inherited his name. You probably know his ancestor better by his nom de guerre: Josef Stalin.

Josef said that he knew who his great-great-grandfather was — “President of Russia!” — and had admired his portrait hanging in his grandfather’s home.

“He was very clever and everybody knew him because he ruled all the world — he was a tsar,” he said. “I want to be famous, too. But I want to be a pianist, not a tsar.” [Link]

Something tells me young Josef has been skipping history class to practice his scales.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Rolling Stone's Ancestors Discovered Gathering Moss

A couple of amateur genealogists in Britain have been on the trail of Mick Jagger's ancestors.

And Sir Mick’s love of music is obviously genetic – one of his Whitehaven ancestors, Charles, was an organist, piano teacher and composer in the town and another relative went by the name of Johann Sebastian Jagger! [Link]

Organist Charles Jagger continued performing well beyond his prime, and ended up breaking a hip while crowd surfing at the Royal Albert Hall.