Thanksgiving Greetings to 12513 Lancelot Avenue in Cleveland

On November 23, 1910, a first cousin sent this penny postal greeting to Wallis W. Wood, my husband's uncle. 

At the time, the Wood family was living at 12513 Lancelot Avenue in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. 

The house was built by Wallis's father, James Edgar Wood (1871-1939), who built dozens of homes in and around that area. Typically, James would construct a home on spec, finish one floor, move his family in, and slowly complete the inside while framing the outside of yet another home. The family wound up moving every year or two as James sold off each house. 

His homes have stood for more than a century!

At left, a street view from Google Maps of 12513 Lancelot Avenue in Cleveland, dated 2022. Clearly, this house is still going strong.

The Wood family celebrated a couple of holiday seasons there before moving to yet another almost-completed home.

Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.

The End of the #GenChat Era

The social media genealogy chat #GenChat began in 2013. (For more about its history and evolution, see here.) Christine McCloud became #GenChat co-host in 2018 and sole host in 2022. Sadly, this chat will end in mid-December, as shown in her announcement.

 

Christine presided over some major changes during her long tenure. Most important, as the social media world evolved, Christine expanded #GenChat from the Twitter platform to the Mastodon platform. This meant she hosted four chats each month instead of two. 

Then, when many genealogy folks fled Twitter, she moved #GenChat to BlueSky and contributed to the vibrant genealogy community there. 

Christine has maintained the two chats format twice per month, a challenging schedule on top of mastering the technology to operate both chats.😲 Not to mention that she actually has a life of her own!

Meanwhile, BlueSky gained two other genealogy chats, #GenHour (on Thursdays) and #AncestryHour (on Tuesdays). Both of these chats are weekly, lively and unmoderated, with BlueSky folks posting informally about their current genealogy activities and sharing ideas and info with other chatters. 

The final two #GenChats will be November 28/29 (Friday on BlueSky, Saturday on Mastodon) and December 12/13 (Friday on BlueSky, Saturday on Mastodon).

A heartfelt thank you to Christine for keeping #GenChat going with such enthusiasm and dedication! You have done a superb job, and you are much appreciated. 😍 

Happy Anniversary to Mom and Dad

 

On Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend in 1946, Daisy Schwartz (1919-1981) and Harold Burk (1909-1978) were wed at the Hotel McAlpin in New York City. Above, a photo from their wedding album, showing them reading congratulatory telegrams (the text messages of the time).

The Hotel McAlpin was a gigantic hotel, built in 1912 and boasting a Turkish bath, an in-house orchestra, plunge pool, and even a women's only floor. 

Mom got dressed in her gold lame wedding gown and matching gold shoes in her room upstairs (I can see from the photos). After the ceremony, she returned to her room to pick up her suitcase and put on her Persian Lamb winter coat for the train trip to honeymoon in Atlantic City, New Jersey. 

Happy anniversary to Mom and Dad, much loved, much missed, never forgotten.

Update: US Veterans Affairs FOIA Appeals Under Review

 

I'm beginning to hear back from the US Veterans Affairs authorities about my appeals of requests for ancestor veterans' files, which I asked for on the basis of the Freedom of Information Act. 

The very first request I sent, way back in early December of 2024, was for my Dad's veteran's file. Many months later, I was sent a skimpy extract with bare-bones info. I followed the terrific advice of the Reclaim the Records experts and appealed. Then as more skimpy extracts or denials arrived, I continued to appeal.

Above, the email I received this week from the US Veterans Affairs office, telling me they are "obtaining relevant records and/or information concerning" this particular appeal, and can't even estimate when my appeal will be completed. I imagine all the responses will look similar to this.

Just looking at the letter above, you can see how long the VA took to respond to my request for this particular veteran. More than 8 months, to be precise. And now I have no idea when I will receive a determination. I expect to have to wait. And wait. And wait. 

PS: Already I have 6 of these letters in 2 days, with more on the way. Identical in wording, only the case number and veteran's name are different on each letter.

Deeply Wrong Results Via AI Deeper Dive

Every year around this time, I redo my research on Leona "Lee" Wallace (1903-1989), who ran the legendary Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from the late 1940s until the early 1950s. Lee was born on November 24, 1903 in Poland. She was my aunt Dorothy's life partner and is remembered fondly as a devoted aunt. I really enjoy keeping her memory alive through my role as family historian.

Of course I use genealogy and newspaper sources but I also use a regular ole Google search just in case. And...the online search results were interesting, to say the least.

No relation to the actor Lee Wallace

My initial Google search included the above "AI Overview" of results. It says "Lee Wallace is primarily known as an actor, but there was also a Leona "Lee" Zonna Wallace who, along with her company, helped manage the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade and its special events." [Correctly, it indicated no info connecting the actor Lee Wallace to this parade, and went on to list some of the actor's film credits.]

OK, the AI results do show "Lee Wallace Associates" which was, in fact, my aunt Lee's company. And there's a distinction in the results between the actor and the person who ran the Thanksgiving Day Parade, also true. Mind you, the info used by Google's AI was directly from my own genealogy blog posts about Lee Wallace Associates. 

Google's AI next asked whether I wanted to take a deeper dive into the AI results. Sure. 

Deeper dive: cue the hallucinations

See the deep-dive results above? The assumption is that Lee Wallace was male. Nope.

Then came fascinating and utterly fanciful hallucinations about Lee Wallace's "portfolio of events." 

Some of the parades and events listed in the so-called results didn't even begin until after my Aunt Lee retired. There is no possible way that Aunt Lee had anything at all to do with the St. Paddy's Parade or the NYC Marathon. Not the Orange Bowl Parade either. Hallucinations!

These deeper dive AI results gave me and my family a big laugh. But no correct or usable info in this case. 

Good news - New news stories!

Anyway, I did find a new (to me) newspaper story about Lee when I searched NewspaperArchive. It was a human interest feature that appeared in late December, 1950 in several Midwest newspapers, about Lee planning the 1951 Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in New York, also discussing her early working career. A nice new article I hadn't yet uncovered. It's fun to see how far and wide the Macy's parade was known.

Ask for a Newspaper to Be Added to Database

One newspaper I would dearly love to search is The Home News, originally The Bronx Home News, from my hometown of Bronx, New York. The microfilm for these issues is available at the main branch of the New York Public Library, in Room 315.

I know my mother's family appeared in this newspaper more than once, because Mom saved clippings about her twin sister (who served overseas as a WAC in World War II). 

At left, one such clipping from April, 1944, with notations in my mother's handwriting.

My guess is there are more news items from The Home News that I simply don't know about.

Although getting to New York City and back from where I live is an all-day project, it's doable. Or I could hire a researcher and provide a list of names and addresses to be searched.

But there's something else I can do (and did do): Ask the big newspaper databases to look into acquiring and digitizing this run of newspapers.

Being a GenealogyBank subscriber, I used the "Contact Us" link on the Help menu to provide "feedback" in the form of a request for this newspaper to be added. I included a link to the Library of Congress description (shown at top). I received a reply thanking me and saying the request would be passed along to the acquisitions department for follow-up.

I also submitted a "Newspaper Addition Request" to newspapers.com, including a link to the New York Public Library's research page for newspapers. (I subscribe to newspapers.com as well.)

Plus I submitted the same request to OldNews.com, with the same link to the NY Public Library, because I'm a subscriber via MyHeritage. The same day, I received an appreciative response saying my request would be forwarded to the development team.

These newspaper databases invite such requests and want to hear what subscribers are interested in. With luck, my request for The Home News will translate into digital availability sometime in 2026. 🤞🤞🤞 Acquisitions and digitizing take time.

I encourage you to speak up and submit requests for specific newspapers to be acquired and digitized!

More Background on WAC Experiences in World War II

Recently, I was contacted by a researcher interested in my blog post about a magazine article describing the tense World War II trans-Atlantic crossing of the RMS Aquitania in 1943. 

My Auntie Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001) was among the 650 members of the Womens Army Corps who sailed on the Aquitania on July 8, 1943. Also on board were many thousands of soldiers and support personnel, sailing from New York to Scotland, amid heightened U-Boat activity and worries of German attack. I happily shared my copy of the article with this researcher.

Seventy years after that voyage, I was very fortunate to be introduced to my aunt's lifelong friend Penelope, who met Dorothy on that voyage. They bonded over their anxiety about enduring days at sea without a military escort. Penelope also told me stories of the antics of the male troops trying to attract the attention of the WACs, in defiance of official edicts against socializing. 

The researcher who contacted me was kind enough to share a link to a book that provided broader background about the Aquitania and other Cunard ships that carried troops to war. The book was written by an officer in the Royal Australian Navy Volunteer Reserve who served on the RMS Aquitania for that voyage, among other voyages. I had not known about this book and was glad to have the link.

Available for free on Internet Archive, Running the Gauntlet is a well-researched and often personal account of Alister Satchell's experience on the Aquitania during wartime. Shown here is a page from that book, in which he describes the presence of WACs on board in July, 1943 as being "mental diversion" for the servicemen. Well, that was his view as a member of the crew, anyway. 

By the way, "WAC" is not in the index so I had to look for that voyage by following the chronology of the chapters. Always a good idea to look beyond the index and table of contents! 

Satchell also provides lots of historical details to frame the achievement of how the three Cunard ships successfully carried one million men and women to war during the 1940s. He also notes, poignantly, that if even one of those Cunard ships had been sunk while carrying troops, it would instantly have sent some 10,000 mothers into bereavement. 😓

Finally, the author has his say about everyday life in Scotland, England, and big American cities during the war. He had time off to see sights and particularly enjoyed New York City and Washington, D.C. during his travels. Interesting to think about the home front, not just the experiences of service personnel.

Remembering Nurse Emily Hartman from World War I

For Remembrance Day and Veterans Day: My paternal great uncle Abraham Berk married Anna Horwich in Manchester, England, in 1903. He was Lithuanian-born, stopping with relatives in Manchester before continuing on to build a new life in Canada. Anna followed him across the Atlantic in 1905, leaving behind a family that would soon be caught up in World War I.

Anna's first cousin Emily Hartman (1895-1918), a daughter of Aron Hartman and Dora Hurwich Hartman, volunteered her services during World War I. She trained as a Nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the British Red Cross. After a month of training in a Manchester hospital, she was sent to the Military Hospital at Bermondsey, London on June 1, 1918. 

Less than five months later, Nurse Emily contracted influenza at the hospital as the epidemic swept through military facilities and the general population. Flu led to pneumonia and she sadly died on October 20, 1918. She was buried at Ecclesfield Jewish Cemetery in Sheffield, England, where many of her family were also buried.

Memorializing Nurse Emily

After the war, Nurse Emily was memorialized on the Roll of Honour near "The Sisters Window" at York Minster--a special window dedicated 100 years ago. In addition, the British Red Cross lists Nurse Emily among those who volunteered. Plus, she was memorialized on the Commonwealth War Graves website. And she was memorialized on the British Jews in World War I site.

She has also been memorialized on Remember the Fallen, a free UK-based website created by Sandra Taylor to highlight the lives of those who died during World War I, so they are more than just names on stone. Sandra researched Nurse Emily and posted the results here, along with a brief statement from me pointing to a free Fold3 memorial page I created for Emily. 

If you're researching ancestors who lost their lives in wartime, do cast a wide net because there are many potential sources to check! Nurse Emily was mentioned on the British Red Cross WWI site, on the York Minster site, on the Remember the Fallen site, on Find a Grave, on the Commonwealth War Graves site, and on family trees, among other sites. I created her Fold3 memorial to have sources gathered in one place.

Nurse Emily and the millions of others who gave their lives in service of freedom are not forgotten. 

This is my post for the wartime prompt of Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors challenge. 

Affordable Bite-Sized Family History Booklet

This week I finished another affordable, bite-sized family history project, just in time for a family visit. 

I created this 20-page booklet in Microsoft Word, arranging photos and maps and other illustrations in between and around brief paragraphs to tell the story of these folks from my husband's family tree. 

20 pages = bite-sized?

I broke the project down into multiple bite-sized pieces: researching the parents of Rosemary and John and then moving backwards to research their grandparents. One parent was an immigrant, one the child of an immigrant, who met and married in Cleveland, Ohio. 

I wrote as I researched and I put their lives in the context of time and place, from birth to marriage to families to working lives to retirement and beyond. I included a page or two about the lives of their siblings, who moved in and out of family homes over the years. The purpose was to show that the main focus ancestors were not "dropped from Mars" but grew up in a household with other siblings, and sometimes relatives from older generations staying in the same home.

Adding in burial details, plus photos and maps and lots of other illustrations, the total page count inched higher, one bite-sized bio at a time. I left a half page empty after the final sentence: Please add your memories here, to encourage recipients to jot notes of their own.

The title page previews the story, as shown above. The reverse side of the title page includes the notation "Researched and written by Marian Burk Wood, 2025," so future generations will know the source of the booklet. 

Definitely not boring

Every page has color to draw the eyes of younger relatives, who routinely complain that black and white is boring. Even when I included a black-and-white image (such as a marriage certificate), I tinted it slightly to help it stand out on a white page and I put a narrow color border around it.  

Boring lives? Nope. During my research, for instance, I discovered that one couple lived with the bride's parents for more than 5 years during the Depression--even while they coped with a lack of steady jobs and the tragedy of a stillborn first child. My bite-sized narratives showed the drama and also noted the pride when a much-loved child was the very first in the family to attend college. 

I kept the paragraphs short and punchy, with enough white space to make the text seem less dense and more readable. Each heading was in color and there were plenty of headings to add to the lively look. Interspersing illustrations everywhere spread out the text and mentioning the dramatic twists and turns helped me to entice readers to turn the page and see what happened next.

Professional presentation

I took the advice of the local print shop and had the booklet digitally color-printed on heavier quality paper. The text and images are sharp and clear as a result, more professional looking than something I could print at home. 

The print shop put on a tight spiral binding, with a clear cover to protect the title page and a thick back cover to support the entire booklet. Very professional and much sturdier than stapling the pages together.

Total price: $10 per booklet, printed and ready to pick up in one day. Affordable and professional and readable!

This is one of the ideas I demonstrate in my genealogy presentation, Bring Family History Alive in Bite-Sized Projects. By focusing on a couple or a family (or a special occasion or special place), I can make the family history project practical and doable, not sprawling and overwhelming.

Dance Fest at PS 105 in the Bronx

 

Bronx, New York elementary schools used to regularly hold a summer folk dance festival at PS 105, located about four miles from my neighborhood school at PS 103. The school's yard had a hard surface for playing games or spinning Hula Hoops. It was an ideal level surface for a dance fest, drawing dancers from many elementary schools across the Bronx.

Dancers from each school would prepare in advance by rehearsing specific folk dances with a teacher during a summer program. Then, at the dance fest, each school's dancers would perform in their own circle and finally all would dance as part of the group (see family photo at top). 

I used MyHeritage's "restore colors" photo enhancement feature to turn the faded original color snapshot into a vibrant photo that brings the scene alive.

How do I know the restored colors are even close to being correct? 

I compared the color of the school with a current Google photo of the school, at right. 

MyHeritage got it right! 

I am so happy to have this restored photo to go with the family story of these long-ago dance fests.

Full-Text Surprise: Divorce Papers!

My husband's grandmother Floyda Mabel Steiner McClure died 77 years ago this week, on November 2, 1948. She was 70 years old then, and had been married to Brice Larimer McClure for more than 45 years. 

But 20 years ago, when I first ordered their Ohio marriage license from 1903, I learned this was Floyda's second marriage. That sent me on a long quest to learn what happened. 

Old way: Phone, send $3 for photocopies 

When I first tried to find Floyda's Ohio divorce, I called a couple of courthouses in her area, and was advised to try showing up in person. Not logistically good for me, being in New England. I called back a few years later and spoke with the Clerk of Courts for Wyandot County, Ohio. She kindly listened to my brief explanation and told me to call back in 15 minutes, giving her time to check through the files for the relevant names and dates. 

I waited a full 20 minutes before calling back. Eureka, the clerk found an entire file on this divorce from 1901! I could have photocopies for a grand total of $3 plus snail-mail postage. When the envelope arrived, I was excited to learn the story of how Floyda's first husband was verbally abusive and threatened harm, so she initiated divorce and won alimony too--very unusual and rather courageous for a young woman of that time.

New way: Full-text search for Floyda

With the full-text search capabilities of Family Search, this week I decided to search again for Floyda among the many, many unindexed digitized documents. My search term was Floyda Steiner (her maiden name) and I filtered by dates 1878-1948, her birth and death dates.

Wow! On the first page of results, up popped her divorce papers, among other key documents digitized but not indexed from Wyandot County, Ohio probate and court records. At top, a screen shot showing the handwritten ledger on the left and the AI transcript on the right. The ledger is what the court clerk photocopied and sent me for $3. Now it's freely available through Family Search's full-text search and who knows what else I'll discover! Divorce documentation can be challenging to locate so this was a real surprise. And, as Lisa points out in a comment, finding these documents allows me to have a specific online source I can link to my family trees. 

Full-text search is giving me lots of clues and documents to add to my knowledge of family history. I've been working my way through hubby's family tree and my family tree, plugging in names and dates and places to see what unindexed records might show up. Wishing you luck as you try your searches!

Halloween Last Century and This Century

More than a century ago, my husband's very young uncle in Cleveland received this adorable Halloween greeting from a relative in Chicago. It's still in the hands of his descendants and treasured as a memento of the closeness of family.

Just a couple of years ago, a young relative colored this stack of jack-o-lanterns for us, and now it's a memento of that visit with a kiddo who is growing up fast!

Happy Halloween and may your day be filled with treats, not tricks. 

Showing Lotsa Love for In-Law Ancestors

One of my older cousins began researching our family tree 45 years ago, cranking microfilm and laboriously noting names, dates, places, and events. She also contacted far-flung relatives to ask about our ancestors--and theirs. 

Back then, the families were fairly large and she was able to document many in-laws and their siblings/descendants. In-laws often attended or hosted family gatherings and she knew their names, if not their stories.

This special cousin painstakingly input all this info into a genealogy program, shared printouts with family. Eventually, she uploaded her family tree to a genealogy site, kindly making it public and allowing me to add to it on her behalf in the last few years.

Now I'm updating our joint research on in-laws (including her in-laws) to add documents and facts that have become available in recent years. It's a fun genealogical journey and I hope to turn up some paperwork that will help fill in a few blanks (maiden names, birth places, death places, etc.) Already I've corrected mistranscribed names and incorrect birth places, linking sources as evidence.*

I felt a bit sad that few of these in-laws (and their in-laws and FAN club) were already on public family trees--and when they were, they weren't shown accurately--so I'm fixing that to show my love for in-laws and to honor my cousin's research from back in the day 😃 By adding my cousin's in-laws as well as my own distant cousins and hubby's distant cousins plus their in-laws, I'm paying it forward in gratitude for those who began the research in the past.

*Linda, in her comment, notes that correcting inaccurate info online can be frustrating because folks can change things back or simply ignore evidence that is contrary to their trees. I totally agree--which is why I don't correct on FamilySearch but I do post accurate info and evidence on Ancestry, plus on Find a Grave, and I do share accurate info on WikiTree. Over the long term, I've seen some corrected info gradually percolating through the public family trees. 😀

The Clock Is Ticking: Appeal Denials of FOIA Requests for Veterans' Info

I thought all hope was lost for receiving US military veterans' service and medical info requested since December 2024 under the Freedom of Information Act, at least if I wasn't the documented next of kin for the veteran.

It's thanks to Reclaim the Records that the public has much much much easier access to requesting such records in the first place. They sued on our behalf, won, and created an easy-to-search, free website with built-in request functionality to find the names of US veterans who made some kind of claim to the US Veterans Administration over the past 150+ years. Wow! 

Back story 

I wasn't the only one who searched the database, found veterans in the family tree and the FAN club, and submitted multiple requests to obtain info about veterans in the family tree. My 13 requests were among the approximately 20,000 requests submitted since Reclaim the Records put up its database in late December of 2024. 

But then in the summer of 2025, without warning, the US Veterans Administration began answering such requests with denials, only sending ridiculously "skinny" extracts from the records, rather than the actual records themselves. In some cases, the extract didn't even confirm the veteran's name, let alone the branch of the military or service dates or the veteran's birth or death date. More from Reclaim the Records is here.

Update: ALWAYS APPEAL

Now Reclaim the Records has posted excellent, detailed advice about appealing these FOIA denials. They begin with this advice: ALWAYS APPEAL.

What I particularly appreciate is that the nonprofit has created four suggested letters with detailed legal language for us to use in appealing these denials. You can see the sample letters here.

Time is of the essence. To appeal a denial, I have to send a response to the Department of Veterans Affairs that is received no later than 90 calendar days from the date of the denial letter. The clock is ticking, and I'm copying and pasting from Reclaim the Record's sample language into letters that I personalize as indicated in each sample. 

At top, part of the suggested language for a situation in which I wasn't next of kin but I do know that the veteran was discharged from the military more than 62 years ago.

My fingers are flying over the keyboard. I'll post when I get any response. Go ahead and appeal! 

Register for RootsTech, Browse Sessions Early

 

It's not yet time to assemble a class schedule, but it's a good time to begin browsing the new class sessions already scheduled for RootsTech 2026. Here's the preview page.

The conference is set for March 5-7 in Salt Lake City and registration is here. You can choose to be an in-person participant, going to exclusive lectures and workshops in Salt Lake City for a fee (get an early-bird discount at the moment). Or you can choose to be an online participant for free, watching keynotes and 75+ classes with the option to chat with other online attendees. 

I will be #NotAtRootsTech in person in 2026 but enjoying classes and downloading handouts when available.

Some of the online sessions I plan to put on my 2026 playlist include:

• Linda Debe, "Turning Tick Marks into People" 
• Sunny Jane Morton, "Religious Newspapers in the US"
• Cheri Hudson Passey, "Don't Believe Everything You Find"
• Seema Kenney, "Double Dates and Lost Dates"
• Laura Hedgecock, "Use Community Context to Transform Family Stories"
• D. Josh Taylor, "Resolving Conflicts and Building Sound Conclusions"

Index Alone Doesn't Tell the Story

 

On this day in 1871, Mary Ann McClure (1836-1901) married Reverend John J. Cook (1835-1916) in Wabash, Indiana. Mary Ann was my husband's great-grand aunt. 

Reverend Cook was a veteran of the US Civil War, having fought for the Union in the 124th Illinois Infantry. He was ordained as a Minister of the Gospel three years after the end of that war. John and Mary Ann moved a few times as he led congregations in different places, but they often visited the McClure family so Mary Ann could stay in touch with siblings, nieces, and nephews (I found their visits mentioned in social items in local newspapers). 

At top is their marriage license application, dated October 18, 1871 (a Wednesday), for the ceremony conducted on October 19, 1871 (a Thursday). This certificate was filed with the county in November of 1871.

However, if I had looked only at the index and not at the document, I would have missed the actual date of their wedding. Luckily, the image was easily viewable on Family Search and I was able to confirm that the license was dated Oct 18 while the ceremony was dated Oct 19.

Does a day's difference really matter? Well, I try to be as accurate and complete as possible, and following the Genealogical Proof Standard means looking at the actual image for confirmation. In this case, the license and the wedding were only one day apart.

Happy anniversary to Mary Ann and John, and happy I could clarify the date of their marriage, 154 years ago today.

Register for FREE WikiTree Week Genealogy Activities

From November 2 to November 8, WikiTree is celebrating its 17th anniversary of building a free, collaborative worldwide family tree. Everyone is invited to register for WikiTree Week (to be eligible for free prizes) and join the fun!

Each day of WikiTree Week will have a different theme and activities. All free!

• Nov 2 theme: Connections
• Nov 3 theme: Ancestors
• Nov 4 theme: DNA
• Nov 5 theme: WikiTree Day! 
• Nov 6 theme: Technology
• Nov 7 theme: Symposium - Watch 12 great speakers during this day of genealogy education
• Nov 8 theme: Thank-a-Thon appreciation of WikiTreers who are helping to build this worldwide collaborative family tree.

I've registered and can't wait to dip in and out of activities during the week. Please go ahead and check it out here. 

Saluting Military Bandmaster Ancestors on Canadian Thanksgiving 2025

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

My husband had three great uncles who, after poverty-stricken childhoods in Whitechapel, London, grew up to become illustrious military bandmasters in different parts of Canada. 

The most famous was Captain John Daniel Slatter, who was bandmaster of the 48th Highlanders of Toronto for 50 years. Here is an excerpt from his Find a Grave memorial page with a bite-sized bio and a portrait photo that my husband inherited.

One of John's brothers, Henry Arthur Slatter, became bandmaster of the 72d Seaforth Highlanders in Vancouver, serving from 1911-1925 and then heading up a different military band after that. At left is an excerpt from his Find a Grave page with photo and bio.

Another of John and Henry's brothers became bandmaster of the 7th London Fusiliers in London, Ontario. That was Capt. Albert William Slatter, and his Find a Grave page with bite-sized bio is shown below. 

Saluting my husband's military bandmaster ancestors who lived in Canada, on this Thanksgiving Day!

Big Sale! My Genealogy E-Book for 99 Cents or 99 Pence

To celebrate Family History Month, my genealogy e-book is going on sale!

From breakfast time (California time) on October 9 through the morning of October 16, you can purchase the digital edition of Planning a Future for Your Family's Past for just 99 cents (on Amazon US) or just 99 pence (on Amazon UK).

No codes, no secret steps, just click and buy. 

My concise book provides a simple framework for organizing, storing, curating, safeguarding, and sharing old photos, ancestor stories, genealogical documents, and heirlooms, for the sake of future descendants and researchers. 

Even if you have no obvious heirs for your genealogy collection, my book includes fresh ideas for how to protect and share information and items from family history. I also show sample forms such as a genealogical will to help you get ready to pass your genealogy to the next generation and beyond. 

Thanks very much to readers for making my ebook a #1 best-seller on Amazon! 

Enjoy Family History Month, a great time to plan to protect your own family's history for today and tomorrow.

Happy 85th Anniversary to Harriet and Seymour

On October 6, 1940, my 1c1r Harriet Gladys Wirtschafter (1920-2013) married Seymour Joseph Farber (1912-1998). Harriet was the only daughter of Mary Schwartz and her husband, fashion furrier Edward Wirtschafter. The couple also had a son, Burton, nearly 6 years older than Harriet.

Cousin Harriet earned a two-year certificate at Columbia University before she became engaged to Seymour Farber just weeks after her 20th birthday. The family planned a lovely fall wedding at the swanky Concourse Plaza Hotel in the Bronx, with 65 guests treated to a fancy dinner after the ceremony.

The wedding notice in a New York newspaper described Harriet's outfit in detail: "The bride, given in marriage by her father, wore a white slipper satin gown on princess lines with a V neck, long sleeves and long train. Her fingertip illusion veil fell from a net cap trimmed with orange blossoms, and she carried a prayer book with markers of white orchids."

Harriet's groom, Seymour, was the oldest of three children born to Harry and Anna Farber. Harry was a Polish immigrant who established a successful silver-plating business with a brother, operating under the company name Farber Brothers. Seymour graduated from New York University and was an accountant practicing in New York City and in Westchester, New York. Updating my research for this blog post enabled me to update Seymour's family connections as well!

During World War II, Seymour served in the US Army (from 1943 to 1946.) More than once during his military service, he was able to meet up in England with my aunt Dorothy Schwartz, a WAC also posted overseas. Dorothy and Harriet were first cousins. They all remained in touch and when Dorothy visited Harriet a few years later, she brought a hostess gift: a set of hand-embroidered coasters she brought home from Europe. Harriet kept these coasters and when I met her in 2008, she kindly gifted them to me as a keepsake.

I'm thinking of Harriet and Seymour with affection, on what would have been their 85th wedding anniversary.

Veterans at the Cemetery

I love putting in-laws on my tree and my husband's tree, and really enjoy researching their lives and connections. If any were veterans, I especially want to honor their service to the country.

Last week, I was chasing some details on an in-law's family and found his Find a Grave memorial page. 

The Find a Grave volunteer who manages this memorial page (and 28,000 other memorials) encourages users to transcribe obits and submit as suggested edits.

So I transcribed the in-law's obit, which included dates/details about his World War II military service, and I submitted it as a suggested edit. At the same time, I indicated that the man was a veteran. 

One day later, the volunteer accepted my edits and also sent me the note shown at top of this blog post. "You have lots of Vet memorials that need your time. Time to concentrate on yours."

Even though I was a little taken aback at the slightly snarky tone of this volunteer's note, I took his advice. And I'm very glad I did!

Of course, I don't manage anywhere near as many Find a Grave memorials as this volunteer. Mine number under 700, actually, and many are folks (born in 1870s-1880s) whose headstones are in the same cemetery as ancestors in my family tree or my hubby's tree. Some of my memorials are for parents or children of in-laws who I added to Find a Grave in the course of my research. 

Given the age of the folks on my Find a Grave memorials, I didn't expect to find too many veterans. Many are also married women who came to the United States as adults. So I also researched their spouses, fathers, and sons if linked. That helped up my count as I checked obits, military records, and other records.

After researching all of these people, I found 36 people who served in the US military! Where information was available, I listed the branch of the military, the war, and the dates of service. 

In the case of Morris A. Dworkin, I uploaded this application for a military headstone to add to his Find a Grave memorial when I set the indicator to V for veteran.

Now the little V shows next to the names of those who served in the military, as it does on my Dad's Find a Grave memorial page (excerpt below).

"Cemetery" is Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks genealogy prompt for Week 40.

Bequeath the Story With Your Photos and Heirlooms

I'm writing some family history background to include in the archival envelopes at back of the new shadow boxes I had made this year. 

You can do something similar by putting an envelope or archival sleeve behind any photo frame and tucking in the story to go with the photo or object.

Top right, the page I wrote about the World War II military service of Dad (Harold Burk, 1909-1978). I slipped this page into the sleeve of his shadow box. For other photos, I'll paste a clear sleeve to the back of the frame and slip in a story or three.

Below that, part of the write-up for the shadow box I had made for the childhood jewelry of my Mom and her twin sister (Daisy Schwartz Burk and Dorothy Helen Schwartz). It's tucked into the sleeve behind the frame, too.

I signed and dated these write-ups for the sake of future generations. I included copies of Dad's discharge papers and, at the suggest of my Sis, I will slip a letter or note into the back of Mom's shadow box to show her signature.

There's room for even more in the envelopes behind the frames. My challenge is to avoid overloading the envelopes and overwhelming those who will inherit these frames in the future!

Even taping a paragraph or two to the back of a frame will be a good start to bequeathing a story with your photo or heirloom. I'm also writing a quick story to staple to underside of some wooden furniture so heirs know how they came into the family, when, and why. The last thing I want is for stories to be lost to those who come after.

Photos to Sketches for Ancestor Coloring Book

 

Coloring books are a quick and easy way to introduce ancestors to the younger generation. All you need is old photos turned into pencil sketches with white space for coloring (or scribbling). 

I'm testing different ways of turning digitized photos into pencil sketches, for free. (Ancestor sketches are also good to illustrate a bite-sized bio or any family history materials.)

At top, a scan of a 1903 photo of my hubby's grandmother, Floyda Steiner.

At left, a terrific pencil sketch created by the free Canva Sketchify tool. It looks very much like Floyda and is clear and simple.

I especially appreciate the white space, inviting young ones to color and add special touches to the background.

In addition, I created sketches of a 1903 photo of Floyda's husband, Brice Larimer McClure, using two other free sites.

LunaPic's pencil sketch function offers a variety of options for sketch rendering. This is a great way to experiment with white space and sketch lines. I chose drawing for my sketch, but I also liked pen and ink. Again, an excellent likeness of this ancestor.

Then I tried InsMind.com's photo to sketch function, which includes numerous sketch options. The original photo is shown below with the various possible sketch looks (this is the "before" look, showing some of the many generic possibilities). An anime sketch of Brice might be fun for the preteens in my family!

Note: Some free photo-to-sketch sites require registration with an email, some allow you to upload a photo and transform it into a sketch without registering. Give this a try and see how your ancestors look as a coloring book page!

For more about ancestor coloring books and other creative ways to share family history, please see my book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past.

How I Write a Blog Post

Inspired by Nancy Gilbride Casey's recent post about how she writes on her blog, I'm going to share my process as well. 

Where I get ideas for blog posts

Like Nancy, I often write a post after finding something new in genealogy research, maybe a new database or a new discovery or a new (to me) methodology. For example, I recently had to learn how to appeal a VA denial of my FOIA request for my Dad's military/medical file. I won't know the outcome for months, but I will definitely blog about what happens. 

Other inspirations:

• 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompts by Amy Johnson Crow. Some weeks, the prompt gives me a nudge toward additional research or encourages me to look at ancestors in a slightly different light. Last week, for the prompt "in the news," I wrote about finding a report of my husband's grandmother's divorce, with the subhead: "Surprise of the season."
• Holidays. I like to post about family history traditions and artifacts related to major holidays, including ration books used by my hubby's family on Thanksgiving during World War II. Plus I enjoy posting vintage penny postal cards sent to my husband's family in the first decades of the 20th century.
• Heirlooms. This is a favorite type of post for me. Just last week I wrote about having a custom shadow box frame created for the childhood jewelry of my Mom and her twin sister. This year I also planned a custom shadow box frame to preserve and organize my Dad's World War II memorabilia.
• Book reviews. I recently reviewed a concise and handy new book by Elizabeth Shown Mills and last year I reviewed a terrific genetic genealogy mystery by Nathan Dylan Goodwin. 
• Resources. Just as I appreciate when other bloggers break the news of fresh resources, I also post about updated resources, such as my post about the Fold3 Korean War-era draft cards made newly available earlier this year. A particularly popular post was my discovery of a new (unannounced) index for free digitized New York City Muni Archives vital records. Another well-read post was about FREE sources of downloadable images for blogging, bite-sized ancestor bios, and more.
• Other bloggers. When another blogger writes an intriguing blog post, it makes me think about how that topic or resource or methodology applies to me. This post is a great example of being inspired by Nancy to write about my blogging process. 
• What's happening at the moment. Whether I'm writing a bite-sized ancestor bio or organizing old photos, I blog about it. Trying AI with an ancestor interview in Russian was this kind of post from earlier in the week.
• My two cents. Some blog posts represent me having my say about something, such as why I don't usually change Family Search profiles and sources. I also get on my soap box about planning to preserve family history materials and curating them NOW before we join our ancestors. 

Writing and illustrating a blog post

I type a first draft as it comes to mind, being sure to add links (to outside resources or to my own blog posts) and always including an image to grab attention. However, I don't post right away. I check what the post looks like in draft form, let it sit for a day or two, and then read it over again. 

Using the features of Blogger, I don't have to post anything right away. I like to "blog ahead" by writing posts and scheduling them to appear a few days or a week in the future.

Every post, ideally, should be accompanied by an image for reader interest. Maybe I'll post a family photo, maybe a genealogy document, or a copyright-free image (from Pixabay, Pexels, or RawPixel). The image at top is from Pixabay, and I changed the color slightly as well as adding the name of my blog. 

I don't include citations in my posts, but I do include links to relevant websites or collections or my own posts. Why? Because although a few relatives read my blog, they can get details from my public family trees and the family history books I've prepared over the years. If a reader sends me a comment about a post, I can answer with more info at that point. 

More posts are ahead!

Video to Audio to Transcript to Translation via AI

The well-known speaker Thomas MacEntee recently gave a presentation to my local genealogy club about how to use AI. During the Q&A period, I asked him whether AI could translate and transcribe foreign language audio for free. His answer was a definite yes. So this week I began to experiment.

I have a 1998 video interview of my mother's first cousin, Viola, speaking emotionally about her experiences as a Holocaust survivor and her early years with her family. The interview was conducted in Russian in Israel through the USC Shoah Foundation. A decade ago, a friend who knows Russian kindly translated the gist of this video interview. Now I wanted to see what AI could do for me, for free, in better understanding family history comments that Viola made early in the interview. 

Process: video audio to digital audio to transcript

First, I popped the DVD into my player and as soon as the interview began, I started recording a voice memo on my iPhone. My first audio recording was 11 minutes long. This was important because Thomas said that without a paid AI account, it's better to keep projects shorter and simpler to get things done.

Next, I had to change the m4a recording to mp3 format, which I did with a free online converter (I used CloudConvert but there are other sites out there). 

I tried uploading the mp3 to ChatGPT (free version) and asked for a transcription and translation from the Russian. But the AI responded: "It looks like I can’t run Whisper (speech-to-text) directly in this environment, so I can’t transcribe the MP3 automatically here."

So I uploaded the mp3 recording in Russian to TurboScribe (one of many sites that do this) and I asked for a free transcription. I chose the best quality/accuracy and within minutes, I downloaded the written output as a pdf.

Formatted translation from the Russian

Finally, I took the pdf of the Russian transcription and uploaded it to ChaptGPT, explaining a bit about this being an interview. I asked for this transcript to be translated into English and formatted as interviewer and interviewee. 

The AI had no difficulty distinguishing between the words of the person asking the questions and the person answering. It did ask whether I wanted a summary or a complete transcription (I wanted everything). Also it asked whether I wanted some original terminology left as is, with translation in brackets (yes).

ChatGPT finished that initial translation and asked for me to upload more so it could create a single, seamless document. So I went back and recorded 6 more minutes, going through the audio to digital audio to mp3 conversion rigamarole, next getting the free transcription, and then uploading the pdf from this second segment to ChatGPT.

This time, I named Viola as the interviewee and the AI showed her name in front of all of her responses. In the blink of two eyes, the answer showed me both segments compiled into one seamless interview about Viola's mother, father, and grandparents and their life before World War II. The top of page one is shown here.

Output: Formatted to my specs

Chapt GPT preserved some of the original terminology (see image at top, look for the word for tavern) and some of the less distinct words were picked up and translated, too. 

No cut and paste for me. I just asked for a .docx Word document, which was quickly created for easy and free download. The output is in complete sentences, with proper punctuation, a smooth read. I added a note that ChatGPT had created the document and the date. Done!

Use with caution

ChatGPT warns that it can make mistakes (see image here). I also asked it to please delete the file at the end, after I had finished my download.

Given how many steps were needed to go from video interview to final document, there are multiple opportunities for mistakes/omissions/typos to creep in. Very likely there are some nuances that got lost along the way but in the end, I believe this was a successful experiment. Thank you to Thomas MacEntee for the encouragement!

In the News: Two Marriages, One Divorce

My husband's paternal grandmother, Floyda Mabel Steiner (1878-1948) was married twice, I found out early in my genealogical journey. 

First marriage

The first marriage was "in the news" in several Ohio newspapers, characterizing her first husband Frank Gottfried (1971-1961) as a popular young man. Floyda was just 20, her new hubby was 26 and a son of a successful brick manufacturer in the area when they married in 1898. Their wedding, according to the newspaper, took place at the home of Floyda's sister and brother-in-law in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. I found news reports in more than one paper and more than one newspaper database. The brother-in-law who hosted the wedding held a key job in county government, which added to the newsworthiness of Floyda's first marriage.

Second marriage

Floyda's second marriage, to Brice Larimer McClure (1878-1970) was also noted in a few Ohio newspapers and in more than one news database. Again, Floyda was married at the Upper Sandusky home of her sister and brother-in-law, a couple who would soon move to Columbus, Ohio where he served as a state accountant and auditor. That political connection alone ensured news coverage of what one report called a "quiet wedding." Floyda used her maiden name in the two-year period between the end of one marriage and the start of the second marriage.

Surprise of the season

Having called the local probate court a few years ago, I already have copies of the detailed divorce filings. Here was a 23-year-old wife charging her husband, a well-to-do farmer, with scratching her, threatening to hit her, and verbally abusing her on many occasions. The husband's lawyer asked for the case to be dismissed because "the facts stated therein are not sufficient to constitute a cause of action." Reader, the judge awarded Floyda everything she asked for!

But until now, I had seen no news coverage of Floyda's divorce proceedings. I found it by searching in Newspaper Archive, a database I added only this year. Newspaper Archive has digitized copies of the Cleveland Leader, which for a time was a dominant Cleveland newspaper. 

Searching for "Floyda Steiner," I found this brief paragraph under the heading of "State News Condensed" on April 6, 1901, page 2:

Sues for divorce. Upper Sandusky, Ohio--The surprise of the season was the filing of a divorce case Friday by Floyda M. Gottfried against her husband, Frank Gottfried, one of Wyandotte [sic] County's prominent Democrats. They were married here three years ago, and have no children. The plaintiff charges her husband with extreme cruelty, asks for alimony, and wishes to be restored to her maiden name of Floyda M. Steiner.

I can see why this was the surprise of the season. How often did young women file for divorce in 1901? Not very often...and how often do they win? Descendants can be proud of Floyda's strength and determination to find a way out of her unhappy first marriage and be ready for a new love two years later.

"In the news" is the genealogy prompt for week 37 in Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks series. 

Framing the Childhood Jewelry of Mom and Her Twin

This elegant shadow box, in the works for two months, features the childhood jewelry of Mom (Daisy Schwartz Burk, 1919-1981) and her twin sister (Dorothy Helen Schwartz, 1919-2001). The creative design and meticulous archival framing were done by a truly terrific custom frame store in my area. 

All the jewelry items were gently cleaned and then carefully hand-stitched to the ecru linen background in a graceful arrangement. The 1920s photo, printed by Mpix, should look great for a century or longer behind high quality museum glass. The finishing touch: name/date plaques that identify Mom and Auntie and their birth/death years.

On the back is an archival envelope for storing a few photos, letters, and other documents related to these beloved ancestors, including a page of background about the jewelry items. Sis wants to include an old note with Mom's signature, too. Great idea!

Without question, this is an expensive archival solution to keeping special heirloom items safe and accessible. But off-the-shelf shadow boxes are widely available and less expensive if you want to try creating your own display of ancestral heirlooms.

For additional ideas about documenting and preserving ancestral items and other genealogical materials, please see my book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past.

Appealing the VA's Skinny Extract of Dad's Claims File

A few weeks ago, the US Department of Veterans Affairs finally responded to my request for the claim records of Harold David Burk (1909-1978), my late father.  I faxed my official request to the VA on December 11 of last year. After waiting more than eight months, all I got was this pathetically skimpy, skinny extract (above) with nothing about Dad's military service, no spouse name, not even a birth or death date, only his parents' names. Grrrr.

Following the advice of Reclaim the Records, the nonprofit that aims to make public records actually public again, I am appealing. As next of kin, I am legally entitled to Dad's file.

I have to prove that I am, indeed, Dad's child, as part of the appeals process. But my official birth certificate, shown above (with judicious redactions), has NO NAME in the given name section, just under the words "Certificate of Birth."

Why? Because my parents were completely taken by surprise when not one but two babies were born. They weren't prepared with two names and needed a few days to decide. In the hospital, I was temporarily named "Burk A" and my sister's name was "Burk B".

Our names were filed with the Department of Health a couple of weeks later, then written on the back of our original birth certificates.

I have to explain all of that background in my appeal letter to VA officials. The birth cert clearly states that 2 children were born, and I'm the first. This should help.

In all, I included 7 attachments in my pdf file, including a copy of my appeal letter, emailed to the VA Office of General Counsel.

Unfortunately, I can't imagine that the harried VA officials will take much time to read the fine print in my appeal letter and documents. 😕 But I don't give up easily!

Watch for a post months from now on the outcome of my appeal.