Disaster Avoided, Thanks to Old Technology

Letter written to Mom (Daisy Schwartz) and postmarked
the day before her birthday, on December 3, 1941

For her entire life, my mother (Daisy Schwartz Burk, 1919-1981) kept a box filled with letters she received in the period 1935-1946.

As part of my family-history efforts, I've mined those letters for insights into Mom's life, activities, and feelings.

Adding Context for Future Generations

I transcribed all of the letters nearly a decade ago. It took a few weeks of deciphering handwriting and taking a magnifying glass to the postmarks. I also looked up the people's names, not always sure of who they were.

For the sake of future generations, I began adding photos and historical notes for context. Otherwise, how would Daisy's grandchildren and great-grandkids understand that it was commonplace to mail a letter in the morning in the Bronx or Manhattan and have it delivered to the Bronx or Manhattan that same afternoon?

I also added other context I considered significant, such as the fact that the envelope shown above was postmarked December 3, 1941, the night before Daisy's 22nd birthday--and only four days before Pearl Harbor, which precipitated America's entry into World War II. Young relatives might not make those connections so quickly.

Uh-oh, Potential Disaster

What I didn't realize was that 50-plus pages of text, interspersed with dozens of images and color highlights, would result in a BIG file.

When I went to open that file as background for my forthcoming family-history booklet on Mom and her sister, I discovered it was so old and so gigantic that it wouldn't open.

I'm not sure of the technical reasons, but trust me, I was concerned. It would have been a disaster if I was forced to transcribe from scratch and add all the images and context all over again.

Unfortunately, the files on my two external hard drives and my cloud storage were exact copies of the file that wouldn't open. I was more than a little worried when I couldn't get any of those backups to open.

Old Technology to the Rescue! 

Just when everything seemed bleak, old technology came to my rescue.

I remembered that I had a backup of this big file on a CD, believe it or not, from the old days. Luckily, I was able to open that file on the first try!

I immediately copied and pasted half of the pages into one new file and saved it. Then I copied the second half of the pages into a second new file and saved it. I used descriptive file names to indicate the specific years covered by each of the two new files.

Let me point out that I did have a second possibility to avoid disaster if all else failed. I had long ago printed the entire transcript file and stored it with the letters. If necessary, I could have scanned the transcription--but it wasn't necessary.

Back Up For Yourself and For Future Generations

Turns out, old technology was what I needed to avoid disaster. In the days before cloud backups, I burned CDs and kept them.

Then there's good ole paper. More than once, I've blogged about how I appreciate new technology but I like paper. I print important documents as a backup, and file them in the appropriate folder or box.

This way, my heirs will find the printed versions when they open my genealogy folders and boxes in the distant future, after I've joined my ancestors.

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This is my post for week 9 of #52Ancestors, the prompt being "Disaster."

Thank You for Sharing

Handwritten note by Brice Larimer McClure, naming his ancestors

My husband's grandfather, Brice Larimer McClure (1878-1970), left several scraps of paper with notes about his family tree.

As shown above left, one of these scraps begins with the sentence: "I am Brice Larimer McClure, a son of . . . " He then proceeds to name his grandparents and great-grandparents and back as far as he knows.

Are the details all correct? Maybe yes, maybe no. This note was written from memory, I suspect, reflecting what Brice was told about his ancestors as he was growing up. Even if the names and dates aren't entirely accurate, they gave me good ideas for further research.

This first-person account of McClure and Larimer genealogy was so unique, I couldn't keep it to myself. I decided to share it on a public family tree on Ancestry back in 2011. As shown above right, I attached it to eight ancestors whose names appear on the note.

Since then, a total of 99 other Ancestry members have saved it to their family trees. This is far more people than have ever saved any other single photo or document from my public trees to their trees.

By sharing, I hope to give others clues for researching names, dates, and relationships in their trees, just as I've learned from clues in unique documents and photos shared by people who attached them to their public family trees.

Thank you, everyone, for sharing. Please go ahead and use any unique photos and documents you find on my public trees to jump-start your own research. And remember--unique items like this can be excellent cousin bait! 

Happy Twin Birthday!

Twins in black and white

Today is the birthday of two girls, born two minutes apart--my Sis and myself, shown here eating lunch side-by-side in our "baby butler" twin high chair.

Twins in color!

Above, the same photo, automatically colorized by MyHeritage. It's fun to see us in color at that age, even though the colorized version makes our hair look a bit more auburn than reality.

Happy birthday to my beloved Sis!

Philip Markell's Path to Prosperity

Naturalization index of Philip L. Markell

One of my favorite in-law families is the Markell family. My paternal great-aunt Mary Mahler (1896-1979) married Joseph A. Markell (1895-1975) in 1921. Mary was one of the match-maker aunts who set up the date on which Dad met Mom. No wonder I'm really interested in these in-laws!

Through research, I learned that great-uncle Joe's father, Barney (Benjamin) Markell, and three of his brothers left Vilna, now in Lithuania, to come to America before 1905.

Philip L. Markell (1880-1955), the eldest brother, followed a non-linear career path from newly-arrived immigrant to achieve solid economic status fairly quickly. What I particularly appreciate is that he was able to adapt to the times, over and over throughout his life.

Philip Arrives, Enlists, Is Sent to the Philippines and Back

Philip Markell landed in Boston on December 20, 1894, part of a wave of Eastern European Jews fleeing to America. He was nearly 15 years old.

From Eastman Museum collection

At age 19, he enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year period of service beginning in January, 1899. The enlistment shows his occupation as "florist."

In 1900, he was enumerated as part of the 9th Infantry in the Philippine Islands, during the Philippine–American War.

Having served his three years in the army, he was discharged "at sea on Kilpatrick" in January, 1902. Above, an early photo of the U.S. Army Transport Kilpatrick, which entered service in 1875 and was retired in 1914, a dozen years after Philip sailed back from his Army service.

Salesman, Merchant, Manager, and Moving Pictures

In 1910, Philip was enumerated in a Jersey City (NJ) boarding house as a salesman of sewing machines. As shown at top, he was naturalized in 1911. In 1912, when he married Etta Kaplan (1890-1967), Philip told Boston authorities he was a "merchant."

When Philip filled out his WWI draft registration card in 1918, he and his wife Etta were living in Dorchester, just outside Boston, and he said his occupation was "manager in a baking plant."

By 1920, Philip was telling the U.S. Census that he was a "commercial traveler" (meaning salesman).

By 1923, however, Philip had switched careers. He was manager of the Roxbury Theatre in Roxbury, MA, where he remained well into the 1930s.

In the 1930 Census, his occupation was "manager, moving pictures," referring to his position at the Roxbury Theatre. But possibly there was more!

From Theaters to Sales

According to a news story, Philip and his brother Barney Markell were partners in owning the Atlas Theater in Adams, MA, a large opera house that very likely showed movies at that point. The Markell brothers sold it in 1935. (The theater burned down in 1937, by the way.)

A 1931 news story showed a Philip Markell as part of a group incorporating the Franklin Theater corporation in Springfield, MA. There was a Franklin Theatre operating there in the late 1930s, but I didn't find any documentation that Philip was actively involved at any point.

By 1933 and for years after that, Philip was again listed as a "salesman" in the Boston city directory. On his WWII draft registration card in 1942, he was listed as a salesman, age 60.

Moving pictures were quite the thing in the 1920s and 1930s, and Philip was in the right place at the right time. Although I don't know why he left the business, I do know he was quite adept at adjusting his careers to the changing times--from florist to soldier to salesman to merchant to manager to moving pictures to salesman.

This is the prompt for week 8 of Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors series for 2020.

Census Day Wasn't Always April 1st

Who cares when the Census was taken? 

Turns out, knowing when Census Day falls can be helpful in narrowing down possible birth, marriage, and death dates.

One New York ancestor was enumerated with her parents in the 1900 US census, then with her husband in the 1905 NY state census, taken on June 1st. By searching between June, 1900 and May, 1905, and using creative spelling, I was able to find her marriage in early 1905.

By the time of the 1910 US census, she and her husband had one daughter...later that year, after Census Day, another daughter was born who wouldn't show up in a NY state census until 1915.

For the upcoming release of the 1950 US Census, I was particularly interested that enumerators were required to fill out a separate Infant Card for every baby born in January, February, or March of that year. If someone was born in the census year of 1950 a few days or weeks before the Census Day of April 1st, there will be an Infant Card for that person, loaded with extra details about the parents and the baby! Unfortunately, Infant Cards were not retained so we never saw those. Darn it.

Census Day Was Not Always Fixed

As shown in the graphic at top, Census Day wasn't always one fixed date. Early in the nation's history, enumerators visited households to record information as of the "first Monday in August." The idea was to avoid taking farmers out of the fields during planting or harvesting.

In 1830, Census Day was standardized as June 1st, another date that didn't conflict with agricultural responsibilities.

In 1910, the date was changed to April 15th...in 1920, the date became January 1st...and then, in 1930, the date was fixed as April 1st, where it remains.

I like to keep this list of Census Day dates handy so I can correlate with other clues as I research my family's past.