Posting Ancestor Bios for Memorial Day

With Memorial Day only weeks away, I'm busy writing and posting brief bios of my ancestors and my husband's ancestors who served in the military.

Some of these bios were previously written for bite-sized family history projects. I'm condensing and repurposing the content to share more widely on genealogy websites, including Family Search, MyHeritage, Find a Grave, WikiTree, Fold3, and more.

Where I have no bio written, I'm doing research as the basis for a short narrative of each ancestor's life, with particular emphasis on military service. This is a plus for my genealogy research, because I'm double-checking my trees, adding people/facts/sources where missing, and getting more familiar with military databases.

At top, excerpt from the three-paragraph "memory" I posted to FamilySearch.org, honoring my husband's 1c3r Ira Caldwell (1839-1926), a Union Army veteran from the U.S. Civil War. I used the topic tag "US Civil War" to identify the topic of this story beyond the ancestor tag.

Below, part of the bite-sized bio of Train Caldwell McClure (1843-1934) I posted on MyHeritage.com. He was my husband's 2d great uncle, another Union Army veteran. As I compiled facts for this bio, I added family members and research to my tree, and resolved a couple of inconsistencies. 

After I finish documenting the Civil War vets in my hubby's tree, I'm going to write brief bios of veterans of other wars (from his tree and my tree) and post online to honor their memory for Memorial Day.

Coloring The Mom-in-Law I Never Met

Although I never met my mother-in-law, Marian Jane McClure Wood (1909-1983), it has been my honor to keep her memory alive through family trees and bite-sized family history projects. And captioned photos!

At top, a page from the ancestor coloring book I created for the Wood family. Marian is shown with her husband, Edgar James Wood (1903-1986). 

I began with a color portrait of the two, then used photo software to turn the color into black-and-white. Next, I used the "pencil sketch" feature to soften the contrast and allow plenty of white space for coloring. 

This page of the coloring book mentions relationships, for their grandchildren to note when they color. I'll change the relationship info for the youngest generation soon.

Posting Photos and a Bio on Genealogy Sites

Another way I'm memorializing my mom-in-law is to post photos (with attribution "courtesy: Wood family") on Family Search, MyHeritage, Find a Grave, Ancestry, and other genealogy sites. I've also posted her brief bio on these and other sites. 

I feel a bit sad that I never met my mother-in-law...but every day is Mother's Day as I memorialize her for future generations.

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Mother's Day is this week's #52Ancestors prompt from Amy Johnson Crow. 

Make Moms Memorable By Retelling Stories

For Mother's Day, I'm retelling the stories of generations of moms in my family tree. Not just in writing (here, and on many genealogy websites) but also in person, as I attend the first family gathering since the pandemic began. 

My goal is to have future generations recognize the faces and retain the stories of ancestors who are gone but not forgotten.

My maternal grandma Hermina "Minnie" Farkas (1886-1964) was a talented seamstress who almost certainly made the dress she's wearing in the photo above. The photo was taken in New York City, when Minnie was in her early 20s. This was a few years before she married my grandpa Theodore "Teddy" Schwartz (1887-1965). Both were immigrants who came through Ellis Island when they were young teens.

I didn't see this photo or hear this story until decades later, when a cousin explained that Minnie's parents wanted her to marry someone they considered more suitable. When this man came to the apartment with an engagement ring, Minnie threw it out the window! Supposedly, her brothers scrambled down the stairs to retrieve the ring, but that part of the story is a bit murky.

Grandma finally convinced her parents to let her marry Grandpa Teddy, who was then working as a runner for steamship lines in lower Manhattan. Family story is that he arrived late to the wedding because his horse had run away. Later, after Grandpa opened a small dairy store in the Bronx, New York, Grandma worked beside him while raising three children.

Retelling stories like these will keep Minnie and Teddy alive as three-dimensional people with hopes and dreams, not just names and dates on faded photos.

Happy Mother's Day to my Grandma, who married Grandpa nearly 110 years ago.

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For more ideas about keeping family history alive for future generations, please see my best-selling genealogy book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past. Available on Amazon and through the bookstore at AmericanAncestors.org.

Great Uncle Orville's Bootlegging Charge

Was my husband's great uncle Orville J. Steiner (1856-1936) guilty of bootlegging? Orville was the only brother of hubby's grandma Floyda Mabel Steiner McClure (1878-1948). 

Every year, I rotate newspaper subscriptions and plug in ancestors' names, looking for news stories. Most of the time, I find social items. This time, when I researched Orville, I found a surprising legal charge and a surprising outcome to the case.

Charged with bootlegging, fined $50

The Marion (Ohio) Daily Star newspaper of December 31, 1908 reported that Orville Steiner and two other men were being charged with bootlegging, selling alcohol in violation of temperance laws in the "dry" area. 

The men were arrested after a "prosecuting witness" named Drell Blue filed affidavits about the liquor purchases. Blue appeared in court with a detective from the Law & Order League, a group advocating for decency and enforcement of laws related to liquor, vice, and other activities (see this brief summary from Chicago). The reporter said this was a long, tedious, and "uninteresting" trial.

In January 9, 1909, the paper reported that the mayor had found Orville guilty of "selling intoxicating liquors" and fined him $50 plus court costs. 

What happened to the whisky? 

In the Marion (Ohio) Daily Star issue of January 29, 1909, a longer story explained the background of the case. "Prosecuting witness" Drell Blue said he bought two half-pints of whisky from Orville. However, Blue would not tell what he did with the whisky, fearful of incriminating himself. 

The witness's refusal to say what happened to the whisky put the entire legal proceeding into doubt. As a result, the judge reversed the mayor's guilty finding and threw out the $50 fine levied on Orville.

That was the last newspaper mention of bootlegging for this ancestor. In the eyes of the court, great uncle Orville Steiner was not a bootlegger--at least not in 1908-9.

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Crime and punishment is the #52Ancestors blogging prompt for this week.

Memorializing Moms in My Family Tree

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Sunday is Mother's Day, and also the 140th anniversary of the birth of my paternal grandmother, Henrietta Mahler Burk (1881-1954). I'm in the process of preparing bite-sized ancestor biographies, and decided to jump Henrietta to the top of the list in honor of her special day.

Using my research notes, I wrote a few paragraphs summarizing Henrietta's life as an immigrant ancestor and mother of four. I'm the manager of her Find a Grave memorial, which makes it fast and easy to update the page with a basic bio (see excerpt above). Previously, I had posted a gravestone photo and a head shot with digital caption showing her name and the photo's date. I used this opportunity to double-check Find a Grave links to other family members and add Henrietta to my virtual cemetery.

Then I posted Henrietta's bio on WikiTree, where her head shot was already in place on her profile. 

This version of the bio includes brief source citations inside square brackets, to be filled out later with more detail. 

Soon I'll be adding more relatives to Grandma's part of the tree, with sources and photos. 

WikiTree asks for an explanation when profiles are changed. I wrote: "enriching biographical sketch."

I've also posted Henrietta's bite-sized bio on MyHeritage. And on Family Search!

Posting bios and photos online keeps Grandma Yetta and other ancestors alive for future generations.

Happy Mother's Day to the Moms in my family tree!