Health and My Family Tree

What's the pattern of health and disease in my family tree? I'm starting to track this so I can understand some of the possible health risks that I and my generation will face. I know a good deal about my immediate family but info on the horizontal links in the family tree is far from complete.

Privacy laws mean that I can't always find out why a relative died, even when I get a copy of the death cert. And sometimes people hesitate to talk about illnesses and death in the family, so details can be sketchy. Quite a sensitive topic to bring up when I do locate long-lost relatives--what's the best, most discreet way to ask: "What did your parents die of?"

Resolutions for 2010

My top 3 genealogy resolutions for 2010 are below. What are your resolutions? Whatever they are, happy new year! 2022 update: I've gotten much better at recording my discoveries by adding to multiple online trees and writing family histories, as well as bite-sized biographies of ancestors. 

1. Document my relatives and their movements. I'm about 12 mos behind in writing down what I've learned. Instead of throwing slips of paper into the files for each family in my tree, I need to slow down and document details promptly.
2. Recheck. New info and reinterpreted details are coming online all the time. One cousin has found new info (in Hungarian, from 1909) that was never before available, info that might shed new light on our ancestors' lives and motivations. So this resolution is to review what I think I know, look for more details, and keep looking for info on distant relatives and ancestors I know very little about.
3. Communicate, communicate, communicate. In the past two years, I've been lucky enough to connect (or reconnect) with a lot of cousins. I want to keep those family connections alive in 2010, not just for genealogy but because I want my cousins to be part of my life.

The Bronx, 100 years ago

The Bronx...my hometown and the place where my immigrant grandparents settled to raise their family and establish a grocery store. Mom went to James Monroe High School in the Bronx, NY.

The Bronx Board has a nostalgic series of narratives about life in the Bronx "back in the day." It also has photos, b/w and color, of Bronx people and places of the past. Very helpful as I try to reconstruct the world that my grandparents lived in and what it felt like to be a Bronxite early in the 20th century.

2022 update: I've been browsing the Bronx County Historical Society website for additional insights and historical context. 

Magic Blue Membership Card

A fellow family researcher, seeking original documents by mail, was told by a certain town that our ancestor's death cert wasn't available, that he didn't die in that town (and the town grabbed the fee for "research"). 

Fiddlesticks. We know he did die there, because the date and place showed up in a reliable cemetery listing and in a family prayer book, not to mention death notices in his hometown newspaper. I have other research to pursue, so I joined the CT Society of Genealogists.* 

When the blue membership card arrived, I took myself down to town hall, smiled sweetly, flashed the magic card, and presto! I got into the vault and found the ancestor's name, in black and white, listed in the town's death index (and the only person of that last name to die that year, by the way). 

Then I turned to the death cert in the book of bound death certs. Alas, all this effort for very little. No name of father or mother, no town of birth, not even the spouse's name (which we know anyway). Just death date, place, name of doctor, name of undertaker, and name of embalmer (TMI). 

But now we KNOW for sure where and when, which is something. Next stop: The main library in the town where this man lived for decades, and the vital records area. So many ancestors, so little time!

*2022 update: The town clerk in Manchester, CT, lists the membership cards that are acceptable as proof that someone is accessing records for a legitimate genealogical purpose. 

For Veterans' Day

My aunt Dorothy Schwartz was on active duty with the Women's Army Corps starting Sept. 11, 1942. She got her separation papers on August 31, 1945 after having been stationed in Europe.

She was discharged with the rank of Sergeant, having received a Certificate of Merit and a Bronze Star for "meritorious service in direct support of military operations" from 1943 to 1945.

One of her letters is included in the book With love, Jane, a compilation of correspondence from American women on the war front.

In addition, she was the historian of the Woman's Army Corps Detachment, HQ, 9th Air Division in 1944-1945.

In honor of Veterans' Day, I honor her memory and salute all our vets.

Queries on message boards and social media

I've had some good luck answering queries at surname message boards and locality message boards on sites like GenForum and Ancestry. 

2022 update: I've had success connecting with researchers and cousins on social media. FB allows sufficient space in a post for detailed queries on focused genealogical pages such as New York City Genealogy and Tracing the Tribe.

Going to the Movies, 1945 style

Same letter to Mom, written on October 9, 1945 from Oakland, Calif, says the writer saw two movies: Three Strangers and Love Letters. He recommended Love Letters: "I enjoyed it, and I think that you will too when it finally gets to New York" (where Mom lived). I looked both movies up. Both are noir and very of the time.

Good thing movie plots have changed. Three Strangers strains credulity. Peter Lorre is the rogue/romantic lead, but that's not the weird part of the story. He and two friends, Jerome (played by Sidney Greenstreet!) and Crystal, buy a sweepstakes ticket together just before the Chinese New Year and make a pact to share any winnings. Of course the ticket is a winner but Crystal refuses to give money to Jerome, so he bops her over the head and kills her. Somehow Peter Lorre winds up with the winning ticket but he wants to go straight so instead of cashing in the ticket, which he fears would reveal his previous life of crime and connection with the other two in the pact, he burns it.  

Love Letters is also preposterous. Two soldiers are serving in Italy during WWII. Soldier #1 asks #2 to write love letters to his girl, Cyrano de Bergerac style. Of course the girl (Jennifer Jones) falls in love with #1 on the strength of letters written by #2. Back home, girl and solider #1 get married but #1 is boozy and abusive. One day when he's beating up his wife, the wife's stepmom stabs him. Stepmom has a stroke...wife gets amnesia from the shock of the death...pretty convenient, wouldn't you say? The Jennifer Jones character is convicted and serves a year in jail. Soldier #2 hears the story, visits with her, and they fall in love. 

Letter of October 18, 1945 mentions "A Song to Remember" which is a biopic of Frederic Chopin, starring Cornel Wilde as Chopin. Ruby, writing to Mom, says "I was favorably impressed with Cornel Wilde. I think that he will go places, and very soon at that." And that's exactly what happened. Too bad so many of Wilde's early films aren't available on DVD as yet. 

Letter of October 29, 1945 says: "I saw Rhapsody in Blue and enjoyed it, if only because of the Gershwin tunes. I like them very much, altho I too think that the picture was a little too long. Cab Calloway is too noise for me. I don't like him at all." The movie was 135 min long, and since the main movie was accompanied by a short, a B movie, a newsreel, and who knows what else, it made for a long night in the auditorium.

Updated in 2022 with new links.

Michigan Rummy

One of the letters written to my mother in 1945 says: "Poker may not be your strong point, but then I don't think that Michigan Rummy is either." Not a very cut-throat gambling game, but lots of fun and not demanding, either. 

Mom and Dad taught us Michigan Rummy as we grew up and it was a favorite rainy-day family activity, using pennies for the jackpot and pot for each "money card" we hoped we could play from our hands. We had an official set with a tray to hold the pennies for each pot and money card, so we needed only a deck of cards and we were ready to play. 

Today the Gorgeous Game Girls group in my town play Michigan Rummy when we want to laugh and talk. No official set, just little bowls to hold the piles of pennies for each money card (especially the 9 and 10 of spades). There was no real rummy angle to this game when I played as a child, and we don't play it as "rummy" today either.

2022 update: Here's one set of rules for Michigan Rummy.

Ancestors Hidden in Plain Sight

If my ancestors in the old country never owned land or held an important job, their ordinary everyday lives might be invisible to my present-day genealogical researcher's eyes. Hidden in plain sight, just farmers or peasants or peddlers--who knows? But their lives are important to me and I hope I'll come across some tiny clue to their existence, other than cemetery inscriptions. 

Being unimportant might have been an asset during the years when villages were sometimes considered part of one nation or empire and then became part of another nation or empire later as a result of war or political shenanigans. Religious beliefs played a role as well. Then there was the matter of not being eager to lose sons to military service. I can understand why my ancestors might not have wanted to be very visible. But I still hope I'll get a glimpse of their lives and aspirations through my research. 

Even ancestors who lived in this country in this century are sometimes partially hidden because they weren't "anybodies." This week I got the marriage certificate of a relative who came to the US just after the turn of the 20th century and got married in the Cherry Street Synagogue in Bridgeport, CT, a place that no longer exists. 

According to the certificate, Sam Schwartz worked in a factory at the time of his marriage. Wonder whether the factory is still there? Wonder how Sam met his future wife, Anna Gelbman? I know he later opened a grocery store with another relative in Astoria, NY. But how and why did he get to Bridgeport? What did Anna think of moving away from her family? I'm still trying to puzzle out these ancestors' movements, let alone their motivations. Hidden in plain sight?

2022 update: Link to Cherry Street Synagogue added. And I don't know actual answer to why Sam chose to go to Bridgeport when he arrived in America from his native Ungvar, Hungary--but I suspect it has to do with availability of jobs for men with his skill (he was a printer). 

September 1945: Big Strikes in Big Apple

One of the letters written to my Mom comments on her apparent mention, in her letter, of the big elevator operator strike of September, 1945. According to the book Working-Class New York, this was a huge strike of elevator operators, maintenance people, doormen and others, a strike that brought business in the Big Apple to a virtual halt. 

Time also covered the strike, quoting both NYC Mayor LaGuardia and New York Governor Tom Dewey on their successful efforts to get labor and management back to the bargaining table. 

In those days, self-service elevators were practically non-existent, so having the operators go on strike meant no elevator access to offices and showrooms on high floors in tall NYC skyscrapers. On the other hand, because of mandatory wage freezes during WWII, many workers were anxious for raises, and the strikes reflected this pent-up frustration. 

The Empire State Building, having been accidentally hit at the 78th floor by an airplane in July, 1945, was just getting back to normal when the strike posed new problems for commercial tenants and their visitors (not to mention mail carriers). I wonder how many office workers climbed 20 or 80 or even 90 sets of stairs to go to work every day? 

One story tells of a big group of stockbrokers (on the 31st floor of the Empire State Bldg) ordering sandwiches and giving the delivery person a $75 tip for walking up all those stairs! Interestingly, my Mom's friend in the Navy writes that there are plenty of strikes in San Francisco, the big city closest to where he is stationed. He also mentions major fires in the area, the result of prolonged drought. "You will probably see pictures of the fires soon in the newsreels" he writes, since at this time the major news outlets were newspapers, radio and newsreels shown in movie theaters.

2022 update: fixed broken link.

Idle Gossip Sinks Ships and Win the War Stamp

Over the years, Mom saved dozens and dozens of letters from a few close friends and relatives. I'm still transcribing a few every day. Just looking at the envelopes is an education in history. The envelopes of letters sent by one friend, writing from an Air Corps training camp in Goldsboro, NC, are stamped "IDLE GOSSIP SINKS SHIPS." The dates are late 1942 through mid-1943. The stamps are purple with an eagle holding its wings high and the phrase "WIN THE WAR." 2022 update: added image from Smithsonian.

FamilySearch Labs - Obsolete

Wow! Tom Kemp of NewsBank.com gave a wonderful talk to my local genealogy group last night. Lots of great tips and ideas to get us back to our keyboards for more research. Among the many online gems he mentioned was FamilySearch Labs, a site with lots of almost-ready-for-prime-time tools and resources. 

2022 update: This post is obsolete, as the site is no longer in operation.