Book Review: Searching for Sisters by Sunny Jane Morton

So far as I know, there are no Catholic nuns in my family tree or my husband's family tree. But if I did have a female ancestor who became a nun, I would absolutely buy this book in a heartbeat.

Written by the well-known genealogy expert Sunny Jane Morton, Searching for Sisters is a highly readable, highly practical guide to researching the lives of Catholic nuns in your family tree.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Religious Life for Women (including proper terminology and community structure)

Chapter 2: Did She Become a Sister or Nun? (finding out whether the ancestor actually took the vows)

Chapter 3: What Institute Was It? (identifying the ancestor's religious order)

Chapter 4: How to Find the Archives (online searching and beyond)

Chapter 5: What's in the Archives? (very meaty discussion of what records may exist for Catholic nuns in the United States)

Chapter 6: Looking for a Sister in Other Records (researching the non-religious side of a nun's life)

Chapter 7: Concluding Thoughts on Telling Their Stories (recognize and respect the complexity of their life stories)

Must-Read Case Studies

Appendix A, B, C, D, and E each contain a compelling case study. I am such a fan of methodology that I skipped to this part of the book first. Each case made the reader feel like a detective along on the hunt to solve a genealogy mystery.

The cases demonstrate a variety of creative ways to approach the research challenge of finding female ancestors who were Catholic nuns. Clues, research steps, discoveries, documentation, photos--these cases have it all, including detailed footnotes if you want to see the full citations in black and white.

Archives Listing in Appendix F - Plus a Great Index

Another appendix gives the reader a head start in looking for archives that may hold records pertaining to Catholic nuns. Nearly seven full pages of archives are included.

Too often, a genealogy book's index feels skimpy. Happily, the index of Searching for Sisters is excellent, with much more detail than the table of contents.

Heartily recommended! 

Please note: I received a free copy of this book for review purposes from Genealogical Publishing. However, the opinions in this review are entirely my own and not influenced by receiving a complimentary copy of the book.

My Husband Is Wearing Green Today

In honor of my hubby's Irish ancestors, on St. Patrick's Day:

Smith

Hubby's 5th great-grandparents, the Smiths, were born in Ireland, according to US Census of their children (question about country of parent's birth). William Smith (1724?-1786) and his wife Jean (1724?-1805) may have been from Limerick, as suggested by probate documents from a family member. 

Their children were born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Son Brice Smith got "Ohio Fever" and moved from Pennsylvania to Fairfield County, Ohio before 1820. The Brice name was passed down in the family tree to Smith's grandson and great-great grandson. 

Larimer and Gallagher

Robert Larimer (1719?-1803) was born in the North of Ireland, according to the genealogy booklet Our Larimer Family. Sailing to North America to seek his fortune, he was shipwrecked and brought to Pennsylvania. He was forced to work for years to repay his rescuer, but eventually left his master.

Robert married Irish-born Mary Gallagher (or O'Gallagher) (1721?-1803) in Pennsylvania. Mary and Robert also got Ohio Fever and brought their family to Fairfield County, Ohio. They were hubby's 5th great-grandparents.

Shehen or Shehan

Hubby's 2d great grandparents were born somewhere in Ireland, according to the 1841 UK Census. John Shehen or Shehan (1801?-1875) and wife Mary (1801?-1874) left Ireland and moved to London by 1834, where the first of their children was born. John was a laborer and Mary was a laundress. Sadly, both seem to have died in a poorhouse. 

McClure

The McClure line really originated in Scotland but relocated to County Donegal at some point before ancestor Halbert McClure's time. Halbert (1684?-1754) married Agnes in County Donegal. Agnes and Halbert were hubby's 5th great-grandparents. 

They sailed to Philadelphia together with other family members sometime in the 1740s. Not as indentured servants, but with money to pay passage and buy land in the colonies. The McClures all walked as a group to Virginia, where they kept buying land as their sons married. Their grandson caught Ohio Fever and his descendants moved further west to Indiana. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Printing the Farkas Family Tree Book

 
Remember that gigantic pdf file I created for my newly-updated Farkas Family Tree book? I wanted to print a master copy for myself and a second copy for my twin sis. 

Unsure of whether the print shop could manipulate a pdf of nearly 700 MB, I included pdfs of Parts 1, 2, and 3 plus the big file when I brought my flash drive to the printer.

They strongly advised against printing one giant book with spiral binding. Instead, they recommended I pick a suitable place to break the book into two parts, and create two separate pdf files. The shop would then create two spiral-bound volumes (Part 1 and Part 2), each with a clear cover and a sturdy backing.

A good place to split the big pdf file, I decided, would be after the end of World War II. Now Part 1 contains minutes and reports from 1933 to 1945, and Part 2 runs from 1946 to 1964. This meant redoing the title page for Part 1 to indicate it was 1 of 2.

Also I created a new title page for Part 2, as shown at top. For an illustration, I chose a photograph of the Ellis Island Memorial Wall inscription for my maternal grandparents. Grandma Hermina was a charter member of the Farkas Family Tree and her husband, Grandpa Theodore, was one of the early officers. This is a way to honor them as big movers and shakers within the family tree association. Grandpa Theodore carefully checked over the finances and insisted on receipts for expenditures!

Note: Only men were allowed to serve as President or Vice-President or Treasurer, while women were allowed to serve only as Secretary. This was codified in the family tree constitution 😆 

The result: two digitally-printed, spiral bound books, Parts 1 and 2, a total of 300 sheets/600 pages, with a clear cover and a heavy back cover. One for me, one for Sis. Easy to browse, very legible pages, and easy to pass down to next generation.

Lessons learned

• Ask the expert (print shop people).
• Consider what makes sense for your project (I split the file so Part 2 begins at the start of a new year, after the war was over)
• Communicate clearly (label part 1 and part 2 clearly)
• Use every opportunity to add some tidbit if room allows (my photo of the Ellis Island plaque)
• Consider this a worthwhile investment in perpetuating family history for years to come.

Updating and Sharing the Farkas Family Tree Book

For the past few months, I've been reassembling the digital scans of 31 years of meeting minutes from my maternal family's Farkas Family Tree. This family tree association was formed by the children of Moritz Farkas and Lena Kunstler Farkas in 1933, and it met regularly until the end of 1964 (or possibly very early 1965).

Lessons learned at the end...

Updating the original

The original book, shown above in all its 600 page glory, was created from printouts of my scans in 2014. My mother's first cousin Ron kindly lent me bound volumes of the family tree written minutes and historians' reports (really) to scan. I also assembled the family tree song lyrics, the written constitution (really), and other info about the tree. 

Missing from the originals were the minutes from many of the World War II years, but I scanned everything that was available at the time. I spent weeks indexing the name of everyone named in these documents. Then I mocked up a cover with a 1958 family photo and a cousin's handwritten names of each person, and through a local copy shop, printed one for myself.

Quickly I realized it was better to split the volume into two spiral-bound books for ease of browsing. I have the original gigantic volume, which I prefer because I like everything in one place, but everybody else has two volumes.

More recently, the meeting minutes from the war years were found and so I scanned those and distributed them separately, after adding the names to the index.

Reassembling and then splitting the updated file

Now I want to digitally share the fully-assembled book with as many of my second cousins as possible. It took a long time to get every pdf scan into a single document. Then I discovered that this one document, in pdf format, was a hefty 698 MB. 😟 Even when I tried to reduce the size by compacting, it was way, way too large to be emailed.

Way too large to be worked on, in fact. The software app Adobe Acrobat would not allow me to do anything with it, advising that the gigantic file be split into smaller files.

In my next iteration, Part 1 had 219 pages (ending at the end of a month's minutes) and Part 2 had 219 pages (beginning at the start of the next month's minutes). Part 3 had the final 160 or so pages. I compacted each part and the files became a more reasonable size, the largest "only" 150 MB. Still too large for email.

Free digital transfer - LOCKSS

One of my 2d cousins agreed to be my guinea pig for a digital transfer using the free site WeTransfer.com. I signed in, then uploaded Parts 1, 2, and 3 to WeTransfer, added my cousin's email, plus a cover note, and included a reminder that the transfer would expire in 3 days. 

The same day, my cousin accessed and downloaded the digital files. He wrote a quick note to confirm that the parts arrived safely, telling me how many pages in total he had received (so I could compare with what I sent). Hours later, he told me he couldn't stop reading. Now he plans to digitally share the files with his kids. He agrees this is important for LOCKSS - lots of copies keep stuff safe. 

The next day, I emailed several more 2d cousins to ask whether they would like to have the digital files. YES! I've already transferred files to three and will be sending more soon. The more cousins who have the digital files, the longer these family documents will be alive for the future. 

Update: a cousin requested that I share the files via DropBox, which is also free, and I'm happy to say he was able to easily download the three big files from there. 

Next step: reprinting

My next step is to reprint this updated version. More in my next post.

Lessons learned

• Don't be afraid to update if and when new details and/or documents become available. We want to leave future generations complete and accurate info, if possible.
• Find out about technical limitations when digitizing. I didn't realize that a pdf could be too big! Luckily, there are always options. In this case, I subscribed to Adobe Acrobat for a month to have the capability to work with pdfs.
• Make it easy for relatives to receive what you want to share. I wrote emails first and explained (touted) what I wanted to share and why I couldn't just attach the pdf--then said how easy it would be to use WeTransfer. One cousin just said he'd visit me with a USB in hand so I can load it and send it home!

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Planning a future for your family's past? Please take a look at my book for practical ideas about keeping family history safe for the next generation and beyond.

Paying Attention to Handwritten Notes in Published Genealogies

When I began my genealogy journey 28 years ago, I was exceedingly fortunate to have a photocopy of The Larimer Family, 1740-1959 by Work and Work. This privately published booklet was the product of decades of research and dedication, including outreach to dozens of living cousins. Later, my husband inherited the original booklet--complete with handwritten changes made by his mother and grandfather.

Today, the Larimer booklet is digitized and available to view or download from FamilySearch.org, donated by someone else in the large family tree. But back in 1958-1959, when my husband's family provided information for the project and received the booklet, the little book and then later photocopies were the only way to access these nuggets of family history. A really great start that allowed me to build out the family tree beyond immediate relatives! But of course not all the info was accurate, let alone complete.

I especially treasure the original my hubby inherited because of the changes made in ink and pencil. At top, one example: the entry for Margaret Jane Larimer who married William Madison McClure. These were hubby's great-grandparents. The death date for Margaret was corrected in blue ink in the booklet handed down in the Wood family. I confirmed the death year, but learned that the birth year was off (actual birth was in 1859). At least the handwritten death year was a better clue than what was printed, 1917.

Similarly, the pencil change shown above was a good clue because I would never have guessed Enoch's middle name was Beery and, more important, there is a pencil notation of the death date and place of this distant cousin. At the time the Larimer booklet was compiled and published, Enoch was still alive. I confirmed both birth and death dates, and other details. This entry is typical and provides lots of clues to follow up.

Best of all, I know who made these changes because I've seen their handwriting on many other documents. One is my late mother-in-law, and one is her father. That adds to the credibility of the Larimer printed genealogy that I will be handing down to my heirs in the future.

The handwritten notations are a great reminder that living relatives provided this info to the people who compiled the family history. From then on, it was up to those who received the printed booklets to mark corrections and updates. Handwritten notes are a heads-up that someone cared enough to make the updates and therefore I should pay particular attention.

"Changed my thinking" is this week's #52Ancestors genealogy prompt from Amy Johnson Crow. 

Not At RootsTech But Downloading Handouts

I absolutely love meaty presentation handouts. I always check the handout (if available) in advance of a program or webinar. This gives me a good idea of what the speaker will cover, and helps me consider what questions I might have about applying the content to my own genealogy challenges. Then I save the handout in a digital folder, in case I want to refer to it in the future. This happens from time to time, as I realize I need a hint from some program in the past.

This year I will again not be at RootsTech and so I created a playlist of online sessions to watch, sometimes live but usually at my own pace and at my convenience.

However, some interesting presentations are NOT going to be available online, as shown in the excerpt above. 

That's where handouts really come in handy! Even though I can't watch Adina Newman live, I can (and did) download her syllabus. It's ten pages long and chock full of excellent information. 

Adina's handout includes multiple links to search and for background on various US ports of entry, categorized by port. Plus she has links to Canadian border crossings to the US, another way immigrants entered the country. Added to her detailed explanations of how and why to search, make Adina's handout a must-save for me, one of dozens of handouts I'm perusing this week.

If you're #NotAtRootsTech, be sure to check sessions that will not be recorded--and download relevant handouts for future use. 

What Will AR-2 Reveal About Eva, Who Married Joseph in 1890?

 
On March 2, 1890, my great-great uncle Joseph Jacobs (1864-1918) married Eva Michalovsky (1869-1941). Both were immigrants, born in "Russia," and both lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Joe was the brother of my great-grandma Tillie. (The certificate calls him Joal but he was Joe or Joseph on other documents.)

It was the first and only marriage for Joe and Eva. One of the witnesses was "M. Mahler," very likely Joe's brother-in-law Meyer Mahler. I downloaded this free full-color marriage cert from New York City Historic Vital Records. Looking at the three Xs and "signatures" of bride, groom, and one witness, I think the signatures were written by the same hand. (Not by the rabbi, whose handwriting is different.) 

Of Eva and Joe's six children, three sadly died very young. Joe was a capmaker for years, until his health declined due to Parkinson's disease. I found him enumerated in a hospital for chronically-ill patients in the 1910 US Census, the hospital where he died in 1918.

Eva was supported by her children after Joe's death, living with son Frank until she died in 1941. Frank had been seriously wounded during his military service in World War I and he later became an advertising executive.

I discovered, thanks to an Ancestry hint, that Eva filled out an Alien Registration form in 1940. She never became a naturalized US citizen. My next step is to request a quote for that AR-2 form, with the hope of learning more about Eva's background. 

UPDATE: AR-2 received just 10 days after I requested the quote and paid. Eva said her maiden name was Michel, birth year was 1871, she had 3 living children in 1940 when she signed the form with X and had it witnessed. 

Why Edna Wrote Teddy and Minnie, 1943

My aunt Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001) was in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. She served in the WAC detachment of the US 9th Air Force in England, France, and Belgium from spring, 1943 until summer, 1945. 

It was the first time New York City-born Dorothy had been overseas. The pressure of wartime duties also weighed on her, I know from letters home. But my aunt was dedicated and determined to serve. 

How Dorothy met Edna

In the summer of 1943, walking in the countryside of Shropshire, England with two WAC buddies, Dorothy came upon Mrs. Edna Griffiths walking her dog. Edna, a friendly widow, struck up a conversation. 

She asked Dorothy and her companions to join her and have a drink at Edna's father's home. Later, Edna asked permission to write Dorothy's parents, my grandparents Theodore "Teddy" Schwartz and Hermina "Minnie" Farkas Schwartz. 

Edna's letter to Dorothy's parents

Edna, a kind and thoughtful mother of five, realized how Dorothy's parents must worry about her--and decided to write a note of reassurance. In part, Edna's letter to my grandparents read:

I have had the very great pleasure of meeting your daughter Dorothy and I thought I would like to write and tell you how we enjoyed seeing her. Ours was the first English home she had been to and that makes me very thrilled.

I was taking my little Scottie dog for a walk and met Dorothy and her two friends. I was so anxious to meet them and we finished the evening at my father's home. I really think they enjoyed themselves and they were most interested in all we had to tell them. Since that evening we have met so many of your country women. How we do admire them! We all "fell" for them...

I am sure you all miss Dorothy but she will be happy with the English people, we're to make them feel at home but of course we are not so easy to know, that's what I think. I think we are all beginning to feel the strain of this terrible war... 

 I hope if Dorothy is ever short of a house during her leaves I hope she will come to us. My home is always hers while she is in England. She is really  a beautiful girl and I am sure you are both proud of her.

My best wishes to you both and may we soon see the end of this awful war. Yours very sincerely, Edna S. Griffiths

What happened next

I only have letters from Edna to my family, not letters from my family to Edna. But reading those letters, I can see that the correspondence went on for about two years. 

When Dorothy was moved to France and Belgium, she continued to write Edna and send gifts, such as silk stockings that were just about unavailable in wartime England. 

My grandparents were busy working in the small dairy store they owned in the Bronx, and so my mother Daisy--Dorothy's twin sister--quickly took over the correspondence with Edna. 

Edna's letters reveal thoughts and feelings about where she lived, coping as a widow, pride in her children, and hope as her country joined with the Allies and battled the Axis powers. The letters also show real interest in Dorothy and Daisy and family, and Edna's wish to visit New York City after the war. 

After consulting with a distant cousin of Edna's family, I am offering these handwritten letters to a museum in England. I want to preserve the letters for the sake of future generations and researchers interested in the inner thoughts of those on the British home front during World War II.