Family History Month: Three Belles in the Bronx

Until I wrote this blog post, I didn't know what to call the technique used in this reverse-glass-painted picture that graced the walls of my childhood bedroom for so long.

This appears to be a modern form of tinsel painting, a 19th-century folk art where people or objects are painted in reverse on glass, then embossed foils from cigar boxes or tea packages are placed behind the glass to add dimension and texture.

Sis and I remember that our parents knew the person who painted this mid-20th-century piece, which features three graceful Southern Belles. Her memory is that the guy was a dentist whose hobby was tinsel painting, and many people saved beautiful foil for him.

Maybe the painter didn't know it would be displayed in the bedroom of three little girls growing up in the Bronx, New York?

The photo above doesn't do justice to this heirloom. Each area of the glass has a different embossed foil behind it. The fashion details are painted just as carefully as the delicate facial features. Now these belles are being passed down to the next generation, along with the family story.

Family History Month: Ancestor Landing Pages as Cousin Bait

Yes, ancestor landing pages really work as cousin bait--attracting people (often real relatives!) whose online search for a particular surname brings them to my blog pages.

To see what I mean, you can click on one or two of the landing pages across the top of this blog page, the tabs with titles like "Wm Tyler Bentley's story" and "Abraham & Annie Berk's story." 

I first put up ancestor landing pages in January, 2013, after reading about the idea on Caroline Pointer's blog.

I use these to summarize what I know about each surname or family in the various family trees that I'm researching. I include not only photos and sometimes documents, but also links to specific blog posts about that person or family.

Six months after first setting up these landing pages, I had views but no cousin connections. In the nearly five years since I first posted these pages, I've gotten thousands of views and have actually connected with a number of cousins as well!

So if you have a blog or are thinking about creating one, consider landing pages or a similar mechanism. As you can see from the current statistics in the table at top, people keep clicking on my pages. Most aren't related to my ancestors or my husband's ancestors, but the few who are related (or researching a particular name) know how to get in touch via my blog now.

By the way, the McClure family from Donegal is by far my most popular landing page. Second-most popular is the page I created with free sample forms and templates from my genealogy book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past.

Family History Month: Noting My Cousin Connections

Among the sample templates and forms on my blog is a simple table for keeping track of all my cousins. As shown above, I record the names of my cousins, contact info, and notes.

Until last year, I felt I didn't really need a formal listing. Then I nearly forgot to tell one new-found Farkas cousin about a mutual cousin I had located months before. (With the permission of both cousins, I shared their contact info and they have since met in person.)

A reader just asked whether I note all my cousins or only cousins who are interested in our family's genealogy. My answer: I note all my cousins. The notes section indicates when I last spoke with each and whether I requested or received family history info, but that's not as important as compiling a complete listing of who's who among my cousin connections. In the distant future, after I join my ancestors, I want relatives to be aware of the many cousins we have and how to connect with them, should they wish.*

Of course, as my DNA research continues, I hope to be adding more names to my ever-growing list of cousin connections. And by noting names of cousins, it helps the genealogists of the future to understand exactly who's who in my family tree.

*This is one of the many tips in my book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, so that the next generation doesn't lose touch with their cousins.

Family History Month: Search Google Books for Places, Not Just Names

What was it like living in Wabash, Indiana, as a 19th century pioneer?

I want my grandchildren to know that their ancestors, Benjamin McClure (1812-1896) and Sarah Denning McClure (1811-1888), experienced the challenges and rewards of Indiana's frontier life--and lived long enough to see the city and county thrive.

That's why I looked for history books about Wabash county in Google Books. Up popped a book titled History of Wabash County, Indiana, published in 1914. Full text is available for free, and I read through it.

In addition to recounting the history, this book also names settlers, civic leaders, educators, military leaders, and more. There are also photos and drawings of other well-known buildings, plus descriptions of land, agriculture, school life, and lot of other details that bring Wabash's history alive, allowing me to imagine something of the daily life of my hubby's ancestors.

At top is a page featuring a photo of the new city hall, built in Wabash in 1883. Because Benjamin was involved in the county and the town government for many years, I feel sure he and his wife Sarah would have attended the dedication with great pride.

Have you searched Google Books yet?

*Note: Dana Leeds recently posted a tip about searching newspapers for a specific address. That's a great idea that might also work for searching old books.

Family History Month: Auntie Dorothy in "With Love, Jane"

My aunt Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001) was a WAC in WWII, as I've written before. She enlisted on September 11, 1942, the only female member of the family to serve in the military. She finally returned from overseas postings three years after enlisting.

During my Gen Go-Over, I've been searching newspapers for mentions of my ancestors, including Auntie Dorothy. Eureka!

I discovered my aunt's name at the end of a book review printed in The New York Times on Sunday, November 18, 1945. Her letter home was included in a compilation of letters written by 37 female service members. The volume, edited by Alma Lutz, is titled: "With Love, Jane." I've requested that my local library obtain this via inter-library loan so I can see the letter in its entirety.

The brief quote from Dorothy's letter, as excerpted in this book review, reads:

"There is no advantage in war except what the individual makes for himself. In the army we lose eccentricities, prejudices, pettiness, because they cannot survive in the face of matter-of-fact and non-luxurious living." - Sgt. Dorothy H. Schwartz, WAC

Family History Month: Grandma's Ship Comes In

My maternal grandma, Hermina "Minnie" Farkas (1886-1964), left Rotterdam on October 31st with an older brother and two younger siblings, aboard the S.S. Amsterdam. Minnie celebrated her 15th birthday at sea, just two days before the ship docked in New York City.

I used to wonder how great-grandpa Moritz Farkas (1857-1936) knew exactly when the S.S. Amsterdam was going to dock in New York, carrying four of his children. No doubt the family in Hungary wrote ahead to let Moritz know when the children, including my future grandma, were leaving port and the name of the ship. Moritz had a general idea of arrival, but since weather was unpredictable, and a trans-Atlantic crossing might take an extra day once in a while, how would he get updated information?

Newspapers to the rescue. Back in the day, newspapers carried listings of ships arriving and leaving--news of interest not just to individuals but also to businesspeople.

I clicked to Chronicling America's free newspapers from New York City and found the New York Tribune for the ship's arrival date of November 12, 1901. On one of the last pages, the paper printed this listing of "incoming steamers" including port of departure, date, and steamship line. And that, I imagine, is how great-grandpa Moritz got an inkling of when grandma's ship came in. 

Family History Month: Who Needs an Official Record?

Too often, states only want to sell "official" vital records, charging fees that are more than I really want to pay.

So I applaud the Ohio History Connection for making death certificates available for just $7 each. These are uncertified and not for any official use, but perfect for genealogy! All I want is to  pull every last detail from such records.

Of course, not all of the details are going to be accurate. Case in point is this death cert, obtained through Ohiohistory.org. It's for hubby's grandfather, James Edgar Wood.

The most accurate piece of info on this is the death date. The informant's name is completely incorrect, the widow's name is incorrect, the father's name is completely incorrect. No mother's name is shown, and the birthplace of the mother is entirely incorrect. Note that the handwritten name of deceased had to be corrected from "Woods" to "Wood."

Let me say how glad I am that I only spent $7 on this unofficial copy! I'm collecting and digitizing all BMD and naturalization records for everyone in my direct line and that of my husband, so it's great to be able to save a few bucks. And to help other researchers, I always post purchased records like this on my public family trees.

For more in my Genealogy, Free or Fee series, click here.

 

Family History Month: Top 10 Surnames on the Family Tree

Picking up a great idea from Colleen G. Brown Pasquale at her Leaves & Branches blog, I learned how to use the "surname statistics list" report function on my Roots Magic 7 software. No surprise that for my husband's family tree, Wood was the top surname by frequency, followed by Larimer.

But I also realized, with a pang, how many people appear without surnames in that tree. Uh oh. These are mainly missing maiden names, stretching back to the 1500s. This means I'll have to intensify my Genealogy Go-Over to see how many missing surnames I can identify. Perhaps new information has become available since I added some people to the tree? Turns out that these statistics can also reveal gaps in research...

The top 10 surnames that appear most frequently on the Wood tree are:

1. Wood (earliest instance: 1551)
2. Larimer (earliest instance: 1719)
3. McClure (earliest instance: 1660)
4. Steiner (earliest instance: 1802)
5. Slatter (earliest instance: 1811)
6. McKibbin (earliest instance: 1766)
7. Hilborn (earliest instance: 1794)
8. Denning (earliest instance: 1775)
9. Smith (earliest instance: 1724)
10. Cushman (earliest instance: 1578)

PS: Randy Seaver made this "top 10 surnames" theme the subject of his Oct. 21 Saturday Night Genea-Fun.

Family History Month: Two Graduates in Dad's Family

For Sepia Saturday, two old photos of graduates. My Aunt Mildred Burk (1907-1993) was the oldest of the four children of my grandparents, Henrietta Mahler (1881-1954) and Isaac Burk (1882-1943).

This photo of Millie with her parents, taken between 1920 and 1925, shows a young lady holding what looks like a diploma. By 1925, the NY census shows Millie as a stenographer, and the 1920 US census shows her as a student. Thus, my guess that she's graduating high school in this photo, the first in my paternal family to attain that level of education.

At right, a photo of my father, Harold Burk (1909-1978), third-born child of Henrietta and Isaac. He's holding a diploma for what I believe is his grade-school graduation (since he's in short pants).

I have Dad's diploma put away in an archival box, safely stored flat, along with this photo (in an archival sleeve). Saving my family's past for the future!

Family History Month: Hyper-Local Research on Linkpendium

Another of my favorite free genealogy research sites is Linkpendium. This is the place to look for hyper-local family information, accessed via the millions of links listed on this site. I've clicked on this site a lot during my Genealogy Go-Over.

For best results, don't search using the box at top of the page. Instead, browse by locality (state, county, city/town) where your ancestor lived (or worked) and click to see what records or information are available.

The locality links will lead you to other sources, including Family Search, Ancestry, libraries, local genealogical societies, etc.. Dig deep enough, and you'll get all kinds of ideas and clues.

For example, the links at left were found deep in the Bronx, New York listings. These lead to photos and postcards of Bronx people and places. Wonderful background to help me imagine the area where my parents and grandparents lived decades ago.

Some links do lead to fee-based sites, as indicated by the green dollar sign. Everything else is free unless noted!

Go ahead, click to Linkpendium and see where its hyper-local links lead you during Family History Month.

UPDATE: In March, 2018, Amy Johnson Crow wrote a detailed post about using Linkpendium here--well worth reading!

Family History Month: Take a Virtual Field Trip to Ancestors' Homes

During Family History Month, I'm captioning old photos and writing a paragraph or two about who, what, where, when, and why.

Above left is a family photo showing my late father-in-law, Edgar James Wood (1903-1986) and a younger brother in front of a home built by their father, master carpenter James Edgar Wood (1871-1939).

I knew the address in Cleveland Heights, thanks to postcards mailed to the family and saved for more than a century. So I did an online search for the house and presto! Up popped this street view of the very same home, still intact and recognizable.

The carpenter's descendants were very happy to see that his home was handsome enough and sturdy enough to survive for more than 100 years. I've done a similar search for other addresses where the Wood family lived and found nearly all are still standing today.

Alas, the virtual field trip doesn't work for every old address. A number of the Manhattan tenements where my immigrant ancestors lived a century ago are long gone. But at least I can click around the neighborhood, looking at schools and parks and other highlights without actually going in person.

Have you taken a virtual field trip to see where your ancestors lived?

Family History Month: Picturing My Maternal Line

As I plan write-ups about the different branches of my family tree and my hubby's tree, I'm organizing my photos. Today, I wanted to picture my maternal grandparents (Hermina Farkas and Tivador/Theodore Schwartz) and their parents.

Top row shows Lena Kunstler and Moritz Farkas, my Grandma Minnie's parents.

Bottom row shows Hani Simonowitz and Herman Schwartz, my Grandpa Teddy's parents.

All six of these maternal ancestors were born in Hungary in the 19th century. Hani and Herman remained in Ungvar. Lena and Moritz came to New York City very early in the 20th century.

Grandma Minnie and Grandpa Teddy were a love match, not an arranged marriage, and they wed on October 22, 1911. Their names were shown on the ketubah as Chaya Sara (bride) and Yechezkel (groom).

According to family lore, the family rode to the wedding at the Clinton Street Synagogue by horse and carriage--but the groom was late because his horse had run away.

Family History Month: A Pony on the Sidewalk in the Bronx?

Telling the story behind old family photos will help the next generation understand not only who but where, when, and why. That's my goal during Family History Month. The story doesn't have to be elaborate or even formal. Here, for example, I put the photo into an acid-free archival sleeve, wrote a quick caption on an adhesive label, and stuck it to the outside of the sleeve. Story told!

Someone had written "Fred" in faint handwriting on the frame, identifying the child as my uncle Fred Schwartz, older brother of my Mom. Once I researched my uncle Fred's birth date, I was able to estimate when the photo was taken--a winter in the very early 1920s. Now I knew who and when, but not where or why.

Then I began asking my older cousins about the photo. One cousin explained that ponies were used as photo opps, something she remembered from her childhood:

Entrepreneurs would bring ponies around to residential neighborhoods in New York City and offer to photograph children in the saddle, for a small fee. 

Next, using street-view images on Google, I compared the brick background of the apartment building behind the pony with the brick on the building where the Schwartz family was listed in the 1920 Census. That building still stands, visible online. And it turns out my uncle Fred was photographed right outside his tenement on Fox Street in the South Bronx. Mystery solved, story recorded for future generations.

By the way, doing a search for images showing "children posed on ponies in New York City 1920" returns a handful of similar photos. And when I show this photo to New York-area audiences and ask about the pony, usually a couple of people remember seeing similar photos in their family's possession!

Family History Month: A Century-Old October Postcard

About 100 years ago this month, this colorful postcard landed in the mailbox of my husband's uncle, Wallis W. Wood (1905-1957). It was sent by Wallis's Aunt Nellie (Rachel Ellen) Wood (1864-1954) and Uncle Art (Samuel Arthur) Kirby (1860-1939), who frequently spelled this nephew's name incorrectly.

The Wood family lived in Cleveland, aunt and uncle Kirby lived in Chicago, and all kept in touch via postcards for every holiday (and in between). Nellie had two children from her first marriage to Walter Alfred Lervis Sr. (1860-1897). Sadly, her daughter lived just 10 years and her son's only child didn't make it to her 8th birthday. Perhaps that's why Nellie and her second husband doted on their Wood nieces and nephews. I'm honoring their affection and memory during Family History Month.

Family History Month: My Favorite FREE Genealogy Sites

I admit to playing favorites! My three favorite free genealogy sites are Family Search, Heritage Quest, and Find a Grave. I use all three nearly every day. Especially if I'm researching someone new to my tree, I'll check all three to see what I can find. 

• FamilySearch.org - Not only does this comprehensive site have an incredible amount of information available for free (registration is required to view some images), the scanned images are also different quality than on other sites. If I look at the scanned Census on some other genealogy site and it's too light to be read, for instance, I can click to Family Search and see a different scan of that same Census. Even vital records scanned and posted on Family Search are often of different quality than from other sources. Case in point is the marriage license of hubby's maternal grandparents, Floyda Mabel Steiner (1878-1948) and Brice Larimer McClure (1878-1970). I paid for a copy nearly four years ago--then it turned up, for free, on Family Search three years ago. And the free copy was better quality than the paid copy! Plus Family Search's indexers may transcribe a name or place differently than the indexers used by other sites. This means I might find someone on this site after striking out on another site.
• Heritage Quest - Many libraries offer cardholders free access to Heritage Quest from home. And it's a gold mine, not just for US Census data (including special schedules like the veterans schedule) but also for Revolutionary War pension and bounty-land records, Freedman's Bank Records, some immigration and naturalization records (newly added), Social Security Death Index, and much more. Ancestry "powers" Heritage Quest, so I suspect we'll see even more content available in the future. Remember, the scanned images and indexing is not the same as on other sites. No wonder I check here when I can't find someone or an image elsewhere isn't clear enough for me to decipher all the details.
• Find a Grave - So many volunteers who create memorials and post grave photos on this site go above and beyond. It's always worth checking for an ancestor on Find a Grave because we may get lucky enough to see a death cert along with a memorial, or a transcribed census record, or a photo. I've been on a mission to indicate relationships on all of my ancestors on Find a Grave, linking parents to their children, for instance, as well as spouses to each other. Although I always double-check anything I find on this site, it's very helpful to see the relationship links and any additional details posted by volunteers. Gives me clues when I begin researching someone I don't know!

For more posts in my Genealogy, Free or Fee series, see here.