Now, 108 years later, let me wish you a new year of health, happiness, and peace, with a lot of lucky ancestor discoveries!
The colors are still bright and so is the greeting to you, dear readers!
Here's a hearty greeting from me and mine,
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas time.
My good friend Mary just finished indexing the genealogy book her husband wrote about his Brown ancestors. Once it's printed, it will be sent to family members and donated to selected repositories, enabling researchers and relatives to learn more about this family's background.
The index and sources are important elements, showing at a glance who's mentioned in the book and citing specific resources as evidence. The original materials remain with Mary's family, to be passed down to future generations.
Who wants your family's history or artifacts?
If you're thinking about donating some or all of your family history materials or artifacts, consider repositories in geographic locations where your ancestors were born, died, married, lived, worked, or frequently vacationed/visited. Also consider major genealogical institutions that have a broader scope.
Check each institution's specific requirements and ask permission to donate before sending or bringing anything to any repository!
Above, the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library (Fort Wayne, Indiana) emphasizes that donated family histories, including family record pages from family Bibles, will be preserved and available for other researchers. It welcomes both print and digital materials.
Below, FamilySearch.org actively invites donation of genealogies and genealogical materials, if they meet criteria as shown here. Donated family histories will be digitized and available for viewing online.
Don't overlook local repositories
Many local libraries and historical groups want donated family histories and artifacts, as well. Browse their websites or call to ask.
Above, the Henderson public library (Henderson, Nevada) outlines what it accepts, and provides both email and phone contacts for the library. Maybe your local library or historical museum or genealogical society would be interested in your family's materials, but you'll never know until you ask.
LOCKSS
Remember, LOCKSS (lots of copies keep stuff safe).
Especially if you have no heirs for your genealogy collection, donating copies and/or originals is a practical way to preserve your materials. Keep family history out of the recycle bin in 2023 and beyond!
For more ideas, please see my popular guide, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past, available from AmericanAncestors.org and from Amazon (US, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia).
Printed in beautiful color in Germany, some of the penny post cards sent to the Wood family were purchased in Toledo, Ohio, and others in Chicago, Illinois. All the cards are still in great shape, in the family's hands more than a century later!
Customizing a family calendar offers a great opportunity to capture family history in the making! Today's family activities are, after all, tomorrow's treasured memories.
The genealogy angle is that parents, grandparents, and other beloved relatives who have passed away aren't forgotten because we put many of their faces somewhere in the calendar. When recipients turn the calendar page and see faces they remember or can't quite place, the stories start to flow.
Last year's calendar had a special series of photos with my three nieces resting their heads on a favorite uncle's shoulder. The earliest photo was from 1990s, most recent photo from 2021, a reenactment of the first in the series. Fun!
This is an easy project when using present layouts on major calendar websites. Our family prefers lots of photos but even a few photos per month will keep those memories alive for the future.
Marion was born in Toledo on August 29, 1867, the 13th of 17 children of Thomas Haskell Wood and Mary Amanda Demarest. Marion was a life-long Toledo resident, becoming a carpenter like his father and most of his brothers. He and his first wife (Wilhelmina "Minnie" Caroline Miller) were married in Toledo in 1890 and had two children in the city. Their Toledo home was also the first site of the Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, which they helped organize in 1917 as charter members.
Sadly, Marion had many losses in his life, including the death of his daughter in 1895 (buried in Forest Cemetery), the death of Minnie in 1918 (buried with her parents in Detroit), and the death of his second wife, Johanna in 1928 (buried in nearby Woodlawn Cemetery with her first husband). Marion died on December 13, 1947, at age 80, and was buried in Forest Cemetery's section P. He was survived by his third wife, his son, three grandchildren, five great-grandkids, and two sisters.
According to a book by local historians, Forest Cemetery is the final resting place of nine police officers, 13 firefighters, 16 Toledo mayors, multiple Civil War veterans, a founder of the University of Toledo, and ship captain Samuel Allen.
As well, Forest Cemetery is the final resting place of many Wood ancestors, including spouses and some of their children.
"Tradition" is Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors prompt for this week.
I already knew Carrie's parents' names, from her marriage license...but I didn't have Carrie's birth certificate, and I did hope to harvest a few more details about her early life to include in the bio I'm preparing. Since she was born in New York City, I knew just where to look for her actual birth cert--for free.
New York City Vital Records online
For months, I've enjoyed the convenience of searching for birth, marriage, and death certificates on the New York City Municipal Archives site. The trick is to have an actual cert number to conduct a search and receive a result.
As it happens, Ancestry has a searchable index to New York City births, 1878-1909, which includes the birth record number. But this isn't always the case. Many times, Italiangen.org is my first stop for a NYC ancestor's vital records number.
First stop: Italiangen.org
Happily, this returned one index result: Carrie J. Etschel, born on April 25, 1885, in Manhattan. This matches what I knew from Carrie's marriage license. The key element on this index result is the CertNbr (meaning cert number), 426034.
Next stop: search historical vital records for NYC
Read the cert!
Reading the above cert carefully, not only did I learn the exact address where Carrie was born on First Avenue in Manhattan, but also the birthplace and age of both parents, father's occupation, mother's maiden name, plus how many children the mother had in all (8) and how many were now living (only 3).
Now I have lots of interesting details about Carrie's family that I can include in her bite-sized bio to be posted on multiple genealogy websites.
Nope.
My cousin is very much alive and well, as I know from speaking with her last week! I hadn't added her to the Family Search tree and I was flabbergasted to find her there, before her time.
Changing status to living
The help center of Family Search explains how to change my cousin's status to "living." This is important for privacy reasons, to be sure living people are not visible in the collaborative family tree.
At top, an excerpt from the process. You can find more detail here. More than one person had contributed to my cousin's profile, so I had to submit a request to the system administrator. UPDATE: My cousin is no longer visible on the tree!
Getting unauthorized photos off the tree
That same contributor also scraped family photos from public Ancestry trees that feature my family and posted them on FamilySearch. Without permission from the copyright holder, photos cannot be simply taken from an outside source such as Ancestry and posted on FamilySearch.
Shown here, one of the photos posted as a "public memory" on an ancestor's profile (see arrow). At bottom right of screen (see orange oval) is the name of the contributor. I clicked on the contributor's name and sent a message, saying I recognized the photos as being taken from Ancestry and I wanted those photos removed.
I further noted that unless permission was specifically granted by someone in my family, posting photos taken from elsewhere violates the FamSearch terms of service. See the excerpt below for background on this specific issue:
Unless the family photos are removed quickly, I will submit a report to FamilySearch. The last time this happened, with a different contributor, my message resulted in family photos being removed within 24 hours.
Have you visited or followed your ancestors lately?
If you haven't visited your ancestors on FamilySearch lately, I suggest you take a look now. Be sure no living relative is visible and mistakenly shown as deceased. At the same time, you might want to check for family photos copied without authorization from outside sources and pasted on ancestors' profiles.
You can "follow" any ancestor visible on the tree and receive weekly notifications of any changes made to that person's profile. While my cousin's status is set to "deceased," I can follow her profile and see when and if her status is changed to "living." I'm also following dozens of other ancestors, mostly to monitor research updates made by cousins and other interested parties.
This helpful article explains exactly how to "follow" someone shown on the collaborative family tree. Go ahead, follow your ancestors!
Left, Dorothy (1919-2001) and right, Daisy (1919-1981), about 1921.
In the year of their birth, 103 years ago, the Great War was finally over.
It was also the year that the pop-up toaster was invented...rotary dial telephones were introduced...and the famous cartoon character Felix the Cat debuted.
Remembering these wonderful women, with much love, and missing them still on this anniversary of their birth.
My methodology: begin with one sibling/spouse cohort in each generation on my tree. Then switch to one sibling/spouse cohort in my hubby's tree, and continue up and down the generations, alternating between my tree and hubby's tree. Switching things up kept me fresh and on my toes!
By now, I've gotten nearly all bios done back to great-grandparents. Not quite all, because my maternal grandma (Hermina Farkas Schwartz) had a LOT of siblings and most were married with children. Where I haven't yet added spouses/children, I'm naming them in the bios as I write. Their names will be remembered long after NaGenWriMo is finished, because I'm posting on multiple genealogy sites.
LOCKSS - lots of copies keep stuff safe.
Harold the Baseball Player, balloon shown in the 1946 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Courtesy Macy's Event Media.
Leona Zonna "Lee" Wallace was born 99 years ago yesterday, on November 24, 1903, in Lodz, Poland. She was the director of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from the late 1940s until the mid-1950s. Importantly for family history, she was my aunt's life partner starting in that period and continuing for 40+ years.
To honor Lee's memory during this week of Thanksgiving, I've written and posted the following bite-sized bio as part of my NaGenWriMo initiative to document family history online.
Born in Lodz, Poland on 24 Nov 1903, Leona Zonna "Lee" Wallace had two younger brothers who she helped support after the family arrived in America in 1909. Lee worked during the day and attended high school classes at night. In her spare time, she took art lessons, she told a newspaper interviewer in 1952.
During World War II, Lee worked in labor relations for the Quartermaster Corps, headquartered in Washington, D.C. After the war, she applied to Macy's department store in New York and worked her way up to head of the store's high-profile special events group--including directing the biggest holiday event of the year, the famous Thanksgiving Day Parade. By the 1950s, Lee had earned a national reputation for superbly directing all aspects of the annual parade, from planning to execution.
In 1952, Lee formed a business partnership with her partner, Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001). The company was called "Lee Wallace Associates, Parade and Special Events, Consultants." Together, they managed not only the Macy's Thanksgiving parade but also the five-day Bridgeport (CT) Barnum Festival on July 4, 1953. Dorothy (twin sister of my Mom) soon left the business and started a career in high school education.
Lee and Dorothy shared a deep love of art, theater, and culture. They were devoted to their nieces and nephews, visiting often and taking them on outings to the beach, amusement parks, etc. In later years, Lee's health deteriorated as she suffered a series of strokes. Lee Wallace died on 18 Sept, 1989, at the age of 85.
Today, I'm thinking of my aunt with affection as I keep her memory alive for the future.
In 1916, maternal cousin Jennie Mandel married Isidore Hartfield. They had two children, although one was born so prematurely that she sadly lived only two days. This couple was at my parents' wedding!
In 1917, paternal cousin Louis Jacob married Katie Rosenberg on the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend. They were wed in Brooklyn, New York and never left the borough, where they raised their daughter.
In 1935, maternal cousin Ernest Roth married Fay Barth on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. They had two children together. Ernest's older sister Margaret was at my parents' wedding!
In 1940, my maternal uncle Fred Shaw married Daisy Ida Katz on Thanksgiving Day. They had two children (my first cousins). Of course this aunt and uncle attended my parents' wedding!
In 1945, my paternal 1c1r Norma Berg married Allen Mador on Thanksgiving weekend. This couple was at my parents' wedding!
In 1946, Mom (Daisy Schwartz) and Dad (Harold Burk) were married on Thanksgiving weekend at the Hotel McAlpin in New York City. The photo at top, taken just before the ceremony, shows L to R: mother of the bride Hermina Farkas Schwartz; maid of honor Dorothy Schwartz; and the bride, in her glittery gold lame wedding dress.
Thinking of these ancestral couples with affection and remembering their happy wedding days during this Thanksgiving week!
