Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Workday Wednesday: The Family Pitches in for the War Effort

During 1943, my family was doing a lot to fight WWII. Not quite single-handedly, of course, but they were in the service AND in defense industries. For example, my Auntie Dorothy Schwartz, shown above, was a WAC and during 1943, her service training took her to Daytona Beach, FL, Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, Camp Polk, LA, and Ft. Devens, MA. She ended the year in Scotland.

Dorothy's first cousins were in the Army Air Corps, in the Army, and stationed around the country and around the world. Family members visited sons, daughters, and siblings whenever they could. The family regularly bought War Bonds (and those who had stores, including my grandparents Teddy Schwartz and Minnie Farkas, also sold War Bonds to customers). One of my great-aunts was also a "Rosie the Riveter," working at an aircraft factory during the war.

To lighten the mood, the family's newsletter of 1943 doings says that the military members of the family "still have time to gain one of these titles: Corporal Punishment, Major Calamity or General Nuisance."

In 1944, according to family tree newsletters, Sgt. Dorothy Schwartz was temporarily assigned to Oxford, England for a week's training at Oxford U. By 1945, Sgt. Schwartz was in Belgium and she wrote about celebrating V-E Day.

Meanwhile, my father Harold Burk (left) and his brother, Sidney Burk (the taller brother), were in Europe with the U.S. Army. Harold was with the Signal Corps, in a support role behind the lines in the European theater.

Harold and Sidney were in Europe on assignment when their father, Isaac Burk, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1943. They weren't able to return for the funeral, which must have made things even sadder for their mother, Henrietta Mahler Burk.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Timelines, Family Trees, and James & Mary's Wedding Day

My local genealogy club was lucky enough to recently host a talk by genealogy/history expert Laura Prescott. She spoke about "Timelines: Placing Your Heritage in Historical Perspective."

Among the many things I took away from that presentation was the idea of creating timelines to show my ancestors in the context of their family's events and local/national/international events. Laura mentioned free sites like xtimeline.com. (A wonderful find!)

She also mentioned that we have the ability to publish timelines, among other things, using Ancestry and the family tree data we've already posted. I'd never looked at that "Publish" button along the top row of the Ancestry home page. Pushing "publish" started me on the easy process of printing an 18 x 24 inch poster for my hubby's siblings, showing the four main families that correspond to each of their grandparents. (If you don't want to buy the tree poster, you can still print it free on your home printer--I did that too.)

Along the way, I enlisted hubby's help proofreading the family tree before we published the poster. He noticed I was missing an exact month and date for his grandpa's marriage.

In another browser window, I opened Family Search and quickly found an updated database of Ohio marriages. Info that wasn't indexed or digitized a year ago has been put online! (My lesson: Keep searching for those elusive ancestors or events--eventually new clues will present themselves.)

With just a couple of clicks, we now have the marriage document of James E. Wood of Toledo and his bride, Mary Slatter, who were married on 21 September 1898. All because we wanted to put together a family tree poster (see below).



The poster points up a glaring hole in the tree: We still don't know the parents of Mary Amanda Demarest. Cousin Larry has been on her trail for decades.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Holocaust Remembrance Day: The Schwartz Family of Ungvar

Sad to say, the Holocaust wiped out most of the family that my grandpa Teddy Schwartz left behind in Ungvar, Hungary (briefly part of Czechoslovakia, then Russia, and now Uzhorod, Ukraine). This post is in remembrance of my family and others who were Holocaust victims.


Teddy lost his mother, Hani Simonowitz Schwartz (at left) in the Holocaust (UPDATE: She died a few years earlier). His father, Herman Schwartz, had died many years earlier.

Also, two sisters, Paula and Etel Schwartz were killed in the Holocaust. At right, Paula and her daughter Violet (who survived and later submitted Paula's name to the list of Holocaust victims). Possibly some nieces or nephews also perished.


In 1977, my mother (Daisy Schwartz Burk) wrote down what she knew about her father Teddy's family, more than a decade after he had died. Here's what she wrote:
"He came from peasant people in Czechoslovakia and never spoke about his home life. He came here at 13*. He was always silent about who staked him and how he got here, except that steerage was the most common method; neither he nor Mom (Hermina Farkas Schwartz) ever elaborated on the ocean voyage but it must've been sufficiently unpleasant for them to never to have unlocked their lips over it.
"Anyway, he lived as a boarder with a Hungarian family on the Lower East Side [of New York City] as many others did, and worked as a runner for the steamship lines and then he tried to be an insurance salesman and finally started a small grocery business--the first couple failed.
"The letters from Europe [from Ungvar] I remember asked for money constantly.  They all thought we lived in the lap of luxury here; and he always sent money home. Just before WWII he stopped hearing and never head again; later he learned his family was wiped out. His brother and sister had come here also**, but the exact timing I don't know."
*Actually, Teddy was 14 (nearly 15) when he arrived on the S.S. Moltke from Hamburg on March 20, 1902. He was shown on the manifest as Tivador Schwartz from Ungvar, along with this note: "Passage paid for by father, 14 years old, student." Below, a photo of the S.S. Moltke showing steerage passengers readying for the landing in New York City.

**Mom didn't realize that Teddy had helped both his older brother Sam and his baby sister Mary come to New York. Nor did she remember that both had kids and grandkids--and those grandkids are my 2d cousins, who I've come to know thanks to genealogy research.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Wishful Wednesday: Meeting the Kossuth Ferenc Society

How I wish I could have seen my Farkas and Schwartz ancestors at a meeting of the Kossuth Ferenc Hungarian Literary Sick and Benevolent Society, founded in New York City in 1904. Above, a photo from the group's fifth anniversary jubilee. My great-uncle Sandor (Alex) Farkas (born in Berehovo, Hungary) was one of the founders, and great-uncle Bertalan (Albert) Farkas was a long-time leader! They are in the picture, along with other relatives (see below). This society reached its peak in 1924, when it had more than 600 members.

The Kossuth family (father Lajos and son Ferenc, for whom the society was named) were leaders of the Hungarian independence movement. According to a Fulbright scholar's research (this link leads to an explanatory pdf), the founders of the society asked permission to use his name (and apparently his likeness, shown above in a chair at the very center of the photo).

The society's goals were to establish a library and reading room; raise money for charitable purposes, especially to help new immigrants; and sponsor sports or other special events. The society also participated in March 15th celebrations every year, remembering the Hungarian Revolution of 1848.

Hermina Farkas, 1909

The photographer Gustav Beldegreen, who had a successful studio in New York City's Lower East Side, was obviously a big supporter of the society. He produced the big photo above, along with individual portraits of the members that are included as cameos.

At left, my future grandma Hermina Farkas as she appeared in 1909, in the big photo above. She was born in Berehovo, like her brother Sandor. Two years after this photo was taken, she married grandpa Theodore Schwartz (born in Ungvar, then part of Hungary and now known as Uzhorod, Ukraine).

Also here's a photo of the Kossuth statue that was erected in 1928 New York City (along Riverside Drive) to honor this leader of Hungarian independence.

From the Kossuth Ferenc Society booklet, spelled as in the original and in the order it appeared, I want to include the complete Tagok névsora (list of members)

Altman, Sándor
Altman, Rosie
Altman, Bertha
Altman, Malvin
Aurbach, Emma
Ábraham, Isidor
Bleich, Ármin
Blau, Sámuel
Blau, Sámuelné
Berman, Dezsö
Burger, Jenö
Burger, Miksa
Burger, Géza
Burger, Lajos
Burger, Rosie
Burger, Harry
Braun, Ferencz 
Braunstein, Jenö
Böhm, Máli
Berkowitz, Márton
Berkowitz, Sadie
Beldegreen, Gusztáv (the photographer/printer)
Braun, Jakab
Brummel, Frida
Berger, Pepi
Berger, Isidor
Breuer, Márton
Cohn, Sarah
Davidowitz, Jenö
Deutsch, Dezsö
Deutsch, Samu
Deutsch, Ferencz
Diamand, Ignátz
Eichler, Hermina
Ehrenfeld, Bella
Farkas, Sándor  (my family!)
Farkas, Bertalan (my family!)
Farkas, Hermina (my family!) 
Friedman, Jenö
Friedman, Adolf
Friedman, Isidor
Friedman, Annie
Feldman, Herman
Fischer, Sarah
Fischer, Rosie I
Fischer, Rosie II
Fischer, Jenö
Fischer, Harry
Fischer, Julia
Funk, Deszö
Fried, Sámuel
Frank, Mihály
Fábián, Jenö
Fábián, Jenöné
Greenberger, Bertha
Greenberger, Max
Green, Malvin
Green, Cili
Green, Herman
Goldstein, Lina
Goldstein, Márton
Greenfeld, Irén
Greenfeld, Bertha
Greenfeld, Sámuel
Gross, Isidor
Gross, Etel
Gross, Ida
Gross, Jenö
Gross, Márton
Grossman, Jenö
Grossman, Etel
Grossman, Annie
Gerendási, Béla
Gerendási, Márton
Gottlieb, Julius
Grünwald, Albert
Goldstein, Giza
Greenstein, Vilmos
Gellért, Ármin
Gellért, Miksa
Gewirtz, Jenö
Greenbaum, Dávid
Gáspár, Anna
Grünwald, Selma
Hohenberg, Bérnat dr.
Hochheiser, Dóra
Hirschfeld, Jenö
Herskowitz, Máli
Hartman, Ármin
Horowitz, Fáni
Hartman, Wm. L. dr.
Jäger, Sadie
Jungreis, Antal
Klein, Jenö I
Klein, Jenö II
Klein, Jenö III
Klein, Jenöné
Klein, Szerén
Klein, Lajos
Klein, Isidor I
Klein, Isidor II
Klein, Máli
Klein, Bernath
Klein, Vilmos
Klein, Ida
Klein, Regina
Klein, Helen
Klein, Róza
Klein, Mór
Katz, Bertha
Kornfeld, Heinrich
Kraus, Hermina
Kraus, Bernath
Kallisch, Teréz
Kellner, Árpád
Katz, Ida
Kestenbaum, Jack
Klausner, Sam
Kraus, Matild
Lehner, Etel
Leffkowitz, Rosie I
Leffkowitz, Rosie II
Leffkowitz, Helén
Lessauer, Sam
Lebowitz, Max
Lax, Harrz
Leggmar, Sarah
Markowitz, Herman
Markowitz, Hermanné
Markowitz, Isidor
Mayer, Adolf
Miesels, Sam
Moor, Max dr.
Neuman, Vilmos
Oppman, Gizella
Rendler, Annie
Rosner, Dávid
Reschowsky, Lajos
Rosenfeld, Fülöp
Roth, Helén
Roth, Margit
Rosenzweig, Boriska
Radóczy, Irma
Rosner, Bertha
Singer, Szerén
Schwartz, Nathan
Schwartz, Nathanné
Schwartz, Isidor
Schwartz, Theodor (my family!)
Schwartz, Malvin
Schwartz, Alex
Saffran, Bertha
Schwartz, Szerén
Schwartz, Bernath I
Schwartz, Bernath II
Strauss, Eszti
Smidt, József
Schwartz, Eszti
Schönwald, Emma
Schönwald, Rosie
Schwartz, Sam (my family!)
Spitzer, Vilmos
Saffir, Rosie
Süsskind, Pinkusz
Spitz, Áron
Stark, Miksa
Schwartz, Marie (actually MARY, my family!)
Schreiber, J.H. dr.
Selymes, Ferencz
Schwartz, Sarah
Stark, Sándor
Salamon, Rosie
Schwartz, Bertha
Schwartz, Sadie
Schwartz, Hannah
Staub, Matild
Spiro, Annie
Steuer, Paulin
Steuer, Jolán
Tresenfeld, Rosie
Tresenfeld, Ármin
Wolf, Adolf
Weitzner, Janka
Weitzner, József
Wolitzer, Sándor
Weiss, Dávid
Weiss, Harry
Weiss, Sámuel dr.
Weiss, Max
Weiss, Helén
Weiss, Feri
Weiss, Bernath
Weiss, Piroska
Weiss, Sam
Weiss, Margit
Weiss, Ida
Williger, Helén
Weltman, Ernö
Wellner, Henry
Weinreb, Márton
Zimmerman, Harry


Monday, April 1, 2013

Matrilineal Monday: Daisy's Violets on Velvet

My mother, Daisy Schwartz Burk, enjoyed crochet, crewel, needlepoint, and embroidery.

Here's a crewel piece Mom did on black velvet fabric. This has been in the family for about 60 years, and the colors remain beautifully vibrant. Now it's Sis's turn to enjoy it in her house. She's going to have it reframed and include a note about who made it and when.

Hermina Farkas Schwartz, my grandma and Daisy's mother, was a talented seamstress who helped to support her parents and siblings by working in a tie factory when the family came to New York City from their native Hungary. Grandma (known as "Minnie" to her sibs) sewed most of her niece's and nephew's clothing as well. We grandkids still remember playing with her treadle sewing machine when we were tiny tots, opening the little cubbyholes in the cabinet and taking out the extra belts and accessories. I still have some of Grandma's hand-embroidered linens, which I treasure.

Grandma's and Mom's love of the needle has been passed down through the family, and the next generation also enjoys embroidering and crocheting the heirlooms of tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Wedding Wednesday: Hello to My Farkas Relatives

From the 1946 wedding album of Daisy Schwartz and Harold Burk, who got married at the Hotel McAlpin in New York City, here are some photos of my Farkas side of the family, showing my grand-aunts and -uncles and lots of cousins.




Saturday, March 23, 2013

Sibling Saturday: Schwartz Sis & Child in Ungvar

This lovely lady is possibly Etel or Paula Schwartz, both of whom were younger sisters of my grandpa Tivador/Theodore/Teddy Schwartz.

When Teddy, his older brother Sam, and their baby sister Mary Schwartz all left for America, sisters Etel and Paula stayed behind in Ungvar, Hungary.

Later called Uzhorod, this small city formed part of Czechoslovakia after WWI. And before Uzhorod became part of Russia, the photo on the left was taken and sent to my grandpa Teddy in New York City.

The reverse side of this lady in profile has the wording shown below left. The date appears to be March 24, 1929--84 years ago tomorrow.

The circular stamp is the name of the photo studio in Uzhorod, Ungvar.

Szeretettel translates from the Hungarian as "with love" or "affectionately." "Blankatol" doesn't match either Paula or Etel, but the lady looks a lot like one of the Schwartz sisters.

At right is the inscription of a baby photo from Ungvar. Again signed, "affectionately," but with a different name, "Yenaketol" perhaps, followed by Uzhorod and the same date as the lady in profile (March 24, 1929).

Also there's a sentence that refers to "Yenake" which I suspect is a nickname for the child who is shown in classic baby pose, below.

(Please, if anyone can read that final sentence in Hungarian, would you let me know?)

So the three Schwartz siblings, who lived in or near New York City after leaving Hungary, probably never saw this sister again and never met this niece or nephew.

Now, 84 years later, the photos are part of our family's genealogy research, memories of the family's Hungarian hometown of Ungvar. (By the way, when asked where he came from, grandpa Teddy would tell me, "Czechoslovakia.")





Thursday, March 21, 2013

Thankful Thursday: Philly Cousin Found Me!

Welcome, cousin! A 2d cousin from my Schwartz side connected with me this week, thanks to my Ancestry tree and this blog.

Grand-aunt Mary and Grand-uncle Edward
She's the granddaughter of Mary Schwartz, the youngest of the Schwartz siblings who left their home town of Ungvar, Hungary to journey to New York City.

Thank you to my Philly cuz for the photo (left) of Mary and her husband Edward, a lovely photo I'd never seen!

Mary was my grandpa Teddy's baby sister. Teddy (original name: Tivador) came to New York in 1902, followed by his older brother Sam (original name: Simon) in 1904. The two brothers pooled their money to bring Mary to America in 1906.

Etel and Paula Schwartz
Alas, the two remaining Schwartz siblings (shown right, Etel and Paula) never joined the rest of the family in New York, nor did Hana Simonowitz Schwartz, the matriarch. None survived WWII, sorry to say.

On the bright side, my Philly cuz and I are having fun getting caught up on decades of family news and doing a little more research together on our ancestors. Philly, here we come!


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Have You Heard of the Connecticut Military Census (WWI)?

Did you know that Connecticut conducted a "military census" during WWI? One of the people in my extended family tree filled out such a form. I've never seen it before, although Jim Sanders found two for his family just a few months ago. All men over the age of 16 had to answer this single-page questionnaire. I discovered that this ancestor could handle a team and drive an auto and a motorcycle, but he couldn't swim.

So here's what Connecticut asked: Can you do any of the following...
  • Ride a horse?
  • Handle a team?
  • Drive an automobile?
  • Ride a motorcycle?
  • Understand telegraphy?
  • Operate a wireless?
  • Any experience with a steam engine?
  • Any experience with electrical machinery?
  • Handle a boat, power or sail?
  • Any experience in simple coastwise navigation?
  • Any experience with high speed marine gasoline engines?
  • Are you a good swimmer?

Monday, March 18, 2013

Military Monday: "650 WACs Defy the Subs"

My aunt Dorothy Schwartz was one of 650 WACs in WWII who sailed aboard the RMS Aquitania from New York City on July 8, 1943, arriving at dusk a week later in Gourock, Scotland. It was a risky voyage because the ship sailed alone, without a convoy, under absolute secrecy. They never knew when a German submarine might follow or attack.

RMS Aquitania in Southampton, England
Before the trip, the WACs were held incommunicado at Camp Shanks in New Jersey (guarded by MPs) until they were taken by train to the ship. As historian of the WAC Detachment of the 9th Air Force, Auntie wrote that the WACs "enacted an Ellery Queen radio mystery drama concerning the importance of being security-minded."



Doris Fleeson's article is the cover story


Famed war correspondent Doris Fleeson sailed along with Auntie and her fellow WACs, as well as hundreds of British military personnel. Later that year, Fleeson's long article about the voyage was published in Women's Home Companion as "650 WACs Defy the Subs."

In reading Fleeson's article, I was struck by her mention of "gangplankitis," which she says is "the fear of boarding a ship that might be attacked. Men soldiers have succumbed to it. Sometimes they are hospitalized. Sometimes they are carried aboard. The Wacs entirely escaped gangplankitis."

Once the Aquitania docked and the WACs disembarked, they were met by dignitaries including US Army Captain Sherman, who told them: "You are here safely. The safety of the troops to come depends upon your discretion." Quite a solemn welcome to WACs who would help the Air Force coordinate bombing of enemy targets.

The oral history of Mary Williams Elder was another good source of info about what it was like to be aboard the Aquitania as one of the 650 WACs.

NOTE: This is my "Uniqueness" post for the April 2018 "Genealogy Blog Party" by Elizabeth O'Neal.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Genealogy by the States: New York state of mind

There are so many wonderful New York City sources to help with my genealogy research that I scarcely know where to begin. My Schwartz, Farkas, Birk, and Mahler ancestors all sailed past the Statue of Liberty from Eastern Europe, so my genealogy naturally has a New York state of mind.

Here are four of my favorite sites for NYC genealogy:
  • NYC brides, grooms, births, deaths, and naturalizations: My top go-to site is the Italian Genealogical Group. It's free and the volunteers who transcribed the records and developed the databases have done an incredible job. 
  • 1940 NYC directories, old photos, and much, much more: online and in person at the NY Public Library Milstein Division. Browsing the Digital Gallery brings me back to the New York City of my grandparents' time.
  • Ellis Island and Castle Green sites are helpful in finding immigrants who landed in NYC, although I prefer Family Search's Ellis Island passenger lists and Ancestry, not to mention Fold3's naturalization documents.
  • Linkpendium's city and borough-by-borough links that that of the Bronx are quite useful. Actually, Linkpendium is great for any state!
Now for my most recent New York genealogy adventures in following the Markell family. Barnhart (Barney, Bernard) H. Markell (1874-1944) was the father-in-law of my grand-aunt Mary Mahler Markell. As I wrote earlier this year, Barney came to New York from Boston with his son Joseph after the early death of his first wife, Rose Lebowitz. I've followed the paper trail of Barney and his progeny via US and NY census data, but have yet to discover exactly how Julius and Barney Markell are related.


On Friday, hubby and I took a field trip to Riverside Cemetery in NJ, where Barney is buried (above). In the same plot were: Barney's second wife, Esther M. Markell; Esther's daughter Ella Markell and her two husbands, Albert Brown (originally Brownstein) and Jeremiah Match; and Albert's brother-in-law David Zenkel. RIP.

This weekly prompt about New York is part of the "Genealogy by the States" series by Jim Sanders.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Surname Saturday, St. Patty's Day edition: Smith from Limerick?

Last year on St. Patty's Day, I wrote that I married hubby for his Irish ancestors. This week I found out, via fam trees on Ancestry with documententation, that hubby's 5th great-granddaddy, William Smith, has a link with Ireland.

William's will, dated April 14, 1786, refers to some property he owns in his homeland:
I give and bequeath to my son William Smith the sum of ten pounds with my right and title to my father's estate in Ireland and ye ten pound note to be paid untill [sic] it can be collected from the book debts.
Brice Smith is buried in Fairfield Cty, Ohio
The elder William Smith had another son, Brice, hubby's 4th-great-granddaddy, who inherited land, bedding, a horse, heifer, money, sheep, and other possessions.
 
Now it's going to be quite a trick to trace Smith family connections to and within Limerick, the place where they are probably from. So many ancestors, so little time!

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Workday Wednesday: What the Men Were Doing

Home built by James Edgar Wood   
My husband's male ancestors (Wood, McClure, Steiner) were often carpenters or did other skilled work with their hands.
  • Thomas Haskell Wood and seven of his sons (William H., Alfred O., Francis E., Charles A., Marion E., James E., and Robert O.) were carpenters, machinists, or painters in the early 20th century. Hubby's father (Edgar J. Wood, an insurance adjuster) tells of his father James building a home and moving the family into it while finishing the interior and starting to build a new house...then moving the family into the next new house after selling the previous house...and on and on.
  • Thomas H. Wood's father Elihu Wood (late 1800s) was the captain of a merchant ship, and his father William was a glazier. Further back in the Wood line were more captains.
  • Edward George Steiner was a carpenter. I'm still tracing his brothers.
  • Brice Larimer McClure (early 20th century) and his father, William Madison McClure, were both machinists. Further back in the McClure line were several generations of farmers.
Other male ancestors had other occupations: Brice S. Larimer was a railroad station agent but his parents/grandparents were farmers. Joseph W. Rinehart was a farmer. In the Slatter family were cooks, laborers, and wallpaper cleaners (and, later, bandmasters in Canada). Shehen ancestors (1800s-1900s) were laborers and bricklayers in Ireland and England.

The male ancestors in my family (Burk, Mahler, Farkas, Schwartz) came from Eastern Europe and chose occupations with "low barriers to entry" in the United States--meaning you needed a skill and maybe a few tools.
  • Isaac Burk was a cabinetmaker, highly skilled it seems because he worked continuously in Canada and the United States from the early 1900s onward.
  • Meyer E. Mahler was a tailor in the late 1800s/early 1900s. My cousin Lois has his cutting shears!
  • Moritz Farkas was a farmer in his native Hungary but in New York City he became a sometime peddler and a sometime presser, ironing clothing in the Lower East Side's factories at the turn of the century and later.
  • Teddy Schwartz was an interpreter at Ellis Island after he arrived from Hungary, and then worked as a runner for the steamship lines. He briefly sold insurance before opening a grocery store in the Bronx.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Genealogy by the States: Virginia (after arriving from Donegal?)

Hubby's 3d great-grandparents (John McClure and Ann McFall) married in Rockbridge county, Virginia, in 1801. One of their sons was Benjamin McClure (1812-1896), the subject of my Facebook genealogy experiment (which has attracted one McClure researcher so far).

There is strong evidence that the McClure family (specifically, John's father Alexander and grandpa Halbert) was from Donegal.

Actually, it seems to be a Scots-Irish connection. I still have more work to do proving the connection, of course...

How appropriate that I can showcase one of hubby's three Irish ancestral links during the week leading up to St. Patrick's Day!

This weekly prompt about Virginia is part of the "Genealogy by the States" series by Jim Sanders.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Surname Saturday: Searching for Slatter, Shehen, and Steiner

Steiner sisters of Wyandot County, Ohio
 On hubby's side of the family tree, I'm searching for these surnames:
  • Steiner. Jacob S. Steiner (1802? - ?) married Elizabeth UNK (1802-1864) and brought up a big family in Crawford, OH area. Jacob's granddaughter Floyda Mabel Steiner McClure (1878-1948), shown with her sisters Carrie, Minnie, Maggie, and Blanche in the studio photo above, is hubby's grandmom. I wrote about Floyda and Maggie here and more about the Steiner family is here.
  • Slatter. John Slatter Sr. was born in Oxfordshire in 1811, married his wife Sarah in 1832, and the last time I can find him in the UK census (with any certainty) is 1841. His children are Fanny, Thomas, John, Sarah, William, and Daniel, all born between 1833 and 1850. John Sr. is hubby's 2nd great-granddad. I summarized what I know about some of this family on the "John & Mary Slatter" tab at top of the blog. Someday I hope to get at least one generation back from John Sr.
  • Shehen. With St. Patty's Day just a week away, I'm thinking about John & Mary Shehen, hubby's 2d great-grandparents, both born in Ireland just after 1801. Their daughter Mary Shehen married John Slatter in 1859. Passing down given names from generation to generation makes it a challenge to keep 'em all straight and locate the right ancestors, I can tell you! Where in Ireland were the older John & Mary Shehen from? Who are their parents/siblings? How and why did they move from Ireland to England?