Earworm Farkas Family Tree Song

Moritz Farkas, patriarch of Farkas Family Tree,
with twin granddaughters, Dorothy and Daisy 

When the Farkas Family Tree association held monthly meetings, 1930s through 1960s, members would all sing the family song, loud and strong. As a tyke, I quickly learned the melody, which is Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Why use the music from that song? My guess: It was easy for adults of ages to dredge up from memory and easy to teach to the littlest Farkas folks. Like me. It's an earworm to this day.

Here are the first stanza and chorus of the song, written by my great-aunt, Ella Farkas, a daughter of the Farkas patriarch and matriarch:

The Farkas clan has now all gathered
One and all are here
Time for all cares to be scattered
Faces bright and clear,
Jokes and puns and smiles and fun,
Are ready to begin,
The clan has gathered now!

CHORUS:

Farkas, Farkas is the password.
Sing on high that it can be heard
That we all are here and now cheer:
The Farkas Family Tree!

As the children of Moritz Farkas and Leni Kunstler Farkas married and had children of their own, Aunt Ella expanded the song. Eventually, she wrote two additional stanzas to include the married surnames of her Farkas sisters and the married surnames of the next generation. The final stanza concludes: A proud family tree . . . as the Farkas Clan grows on!

When a group of Farkas descendants got together a decade ago, we sang the song and recalled the fun of joining in the musical tradition during family tree meetings in our youth.

MUSIC - This week's #52Ancestors prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

Binge-Watching VGA Genealogy Webinars

During this weekend's heatwave, I binge-watched several webinars hosted by the Virtual Genealogical Association.

And truly, it was like attending a genealogy conference to see expert speakers, but without the costly travel and crowded auditoriums. (Plus I could sip homemade lemonade while I watched.)

There was a lot of wisdom on offer, and the programs were well worth the modest membership fee. Although I only had time to watch 3 of the webinars, I'll return again to view some I missed and more that are scheduled in the coming months.

• Thomas MacEntee's "Future Trends" talk provided much food for thought about what's coming in the near and far future. A great way to consider what might be in store for the genealogy community as tech trends evolve (such as: is blockchaining for genealogy on the way?).
• Randy Whited's DNA introduction was illustrated with excellent and informative slides. A thorough and easy-to-digest overview of genetic genealogy, with useful "third-party tools" listed in the handout. Inspired me to check out more of my DNA matches, after a brief summer hiatus.
• Katherine R. Willson's "Voyage to America" talk reinforced my admiration for the hardships faced by my ancestors crossing the Atlantic. It also encouraged me to do a better job of analyzing which ports were used by specific individuals and families--and why they chose these particular ports.

Ancestral Travels to America

How much distance did my grandparents and great-grands cover in coming to America from their homelands in Eastern Europe? All apparently sailed in steerage, never telling descendants very much about what must have been a difficult and uncomfortable trip. None lived near a port, so their travels also included a journey by foot or wagon or train to the port where they boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic.

• 4430 miles. Above, my maternal grandfather's "as the crow flies" route from Ungvar, Hungary (now Uzhhorod, Ukraine) to New York City in 1902. Grandpa Theodore Schwartz was a teenager and the first in his family to leave for America. With his encouragement (and probably his financial help), an older brother and a younger sister also came to America. Happily, I'm in touch with their grandchildren, my 2d cousins.
• 4460 miles. My maternal great-grandparents, Morris Farkas and Leni Kunstler Farkas, left for America as adults, coming separately from where they had married and lived in the area of modern-day Berehovo, Ukraine. Morris arrived first, with Leni arriving later (and their first 8 children joining them afterward in two groups). Morris missed his homeland and longed to return, but Leni wanted a better life and more opportunity for their growing family. 
• 4200 miles. My paternal Grandma Henrietta Mahler arrived from Riga as a preteen. She sailed past the Statue of Liberty in the year it opened (1886). I'm still following up on the possibility that Henrietta was a cousin of some kind to her husband, Isaac Burk, connected through the Shuham part of their family trees. 
• 4670 miles. My twenty-something paternal Grandpa Isaac Burk took the journey to North America in two hops. First, he left Gargzdai, Lithuania for Manchester, England. After staying with relatives and learning some English for a year or more, he sailed to Canada but got very seasick. He got off the ship at the first stop in Canada and continued to New York overland. Of all my ancestors, Isaac Burk had the longest journey from his home town to America.

Thank you to Amy Johnson Crow for this week's "Travel" prompt in her #52Ancestors series.

Lessons Learned in My Virtual Research Trip

Today, when I was clicking my merry way through online records pertaining to my husband's Slatter family, I discovered one shortcut and was reminded, yet again, of the value of checking originals.

Above, the shortcut I found to cut through the clutter of hints. My husband's Slatter family tree on Ancestry has more than 9,000 outstanding hints. Most of those are for ancestors too distant to be a priority. So I clicked on "records" to choose only those hints, then brought up the "filter by name" sorting option. (The default is "most recent" which means when Ancestry added that hint.)

By entering "Slatter" in the surname search box, I was able to view only record hints containing that name. Of course, I could have searched by first and last names, but given the creative spelling in so many records, I wanted to click through all Slatter record hints individually. Focusing on one surname enabled me to make progress, rather than being sidetracked by hints unrelated to my current research.

Now for the reminder about original records vs. transcriptions. The three dates on this record of marriage banns from a London church are 1 Dec, 8 Dec, and 15 Dec. The handwriting is very clear. At top of the page, not shown here, is the handwritten year--1907. Yet the transcription of this record says the year is 1908.

By reading the handwritten record, I was able to enter the correct dates for the marriage banns of Thomas Albert Slatter and Jessie Alice Elms. Also, the marriage license original confirmed the actual wedding day as 28 December 1907.

It's never safe to assume a transcription is accurate, let alone complete. It took only a few more clicks to view the originals and extract every possible data point.

My starting point for today's post was Elizabeth O'Neal's Genealogy Blog Party, July edition: Virtual Research Trippin'.

Review of "The Mayflower" by Rebecca Fraser

Browsing the new book section in my local library, I found The Mayflower: The Families, the Voyage, and the Founding of America by Rebecca Fraser. My husband has Mayflower ancestors,* so I eagerly dove into this 2017 book.

The book begins with two excellent maps, one of 17th century North America and one of Southern New England circa 1675, before the major war with Native American tribes broke out. These maps remind the reader of when the major settlements were established and which countries were backing those settlements. (I admit, I didn't realize there was a "New Sweden" in 1638 in Delaware.)

One of the strengths of the book is its British perspective on the "Puritan experiment." By beginning with the Winslow family's background in 1590s Droitwich, England and following that family and its relatives/in-laws through to 1704 in England and the colonies, the author shows what the Puritans were leaving, and why--and what they sought to accomplish, and why. This is as much a personal story as a historical account, intensifying the human drama of flight from religious persecution and life-and-death wilderness survival.

Although most U.S. readers already know that the Puritans had commercial backers with financial requirements for the colonies ("plantations"), I was surprised to find out how long the payback was expected to continue. I was also unaware that Plymouth had no royal charter and was therefore often threatened by shifting political winds in the mother country.

My only basic grasp of English political twists and turns meant I didn't immediately understand the author's discussions of governmental turmoil and the effect of the "Civil War" on the colonies. Once I adjusted my thinking to not default to the "War Between the States," I was better able to follow events and implications as they played out on both sides of the Atlantic.

Another strength of the book is how many strong female characters play active roles. From Anne Hutchinson's story of religious belief (and excommunication and exile) to Susanna Winslow's life of balancing between new and old worlds, the book shows how several generations of Puritans fared in a constantly-changing colonial situation.

Finally, I enjoyed the author's insightful narratives of Native American tribes' interactions with the Puritans and other colonists during the decades following the Mayflower's arrival. In particular, I was interested in the "Praying Town" movement, part of the Puritans's efforts to convert Native Americans to Christianity, and in the fact that during the mid-1600s, wampum was demonitised (that's a quote).

You don't need Mayflower ancestors to enjoy Rebecca Fraser's unique take on the founding, growth, and evolution of Plymouth and the personalities who were part of this era.

* Mayflower ancestors are: Isaac Allerton, Mary Norris Allerton, Mary Allerton, and Degory Priest. And Francis Cooke!

Robert Larimer, Born and Died in July

One of the notable July births and deaths in my husband's family is that of Robert Larimer. He was born on July 15, 1792 and died on July 30, 1850, at the age of 58. Robert was the oldest son of hubby's 4th great-grandparents, Isaac Larimer (1771-1823) and Elizabeth Woods Larimer (1773-1851).

Both Robert and his father Isaac, then living in Fairfield county, Ohio, enlisted to fight for the United States in the War of 1812.  According to the History of Ohio, Isaac enlisted in Capt. George Sanderson's Company of Ohio Militia and was captured in Detroit. As a militiaman (not a regular US Army soldier), Isaac was paroled to return home and permitted to keep his sword, which became a treasured heirloom in the Larimer family for generations.

According to a June, 1921 letter to the newspaper written by Robert's nephew, Aaron Work (1837-1924), both Robert and Isaac Larimer were with General Hull's division of the US Army at Detroit. The letter explains that when "the old Tory" (meaning Hull) surrendered to the British, Robert was also paroled but instead of going home, he fought for the US side until the war ended in 1815.

Military service in the War of 1812 entitled Robert to land bounty--which he used to acquire land in Ohio in September, 1834, for his growing family.

By the way, Robert's brother, John Larimer (1794-1843), served in the War of 1812 as a "90-day man," according to his nephew Aaron Work. Both John and his brother Robert are buried in Eldridge Cemetery, Middlebury, Elkhart county, Indiana.

Which Ancestral Family Arrived First in Elkhart?

Of my husband's three intertwined ancestral families--Larimer, Short, Work--I wondered which was first to settle in Elkhart county, Indiana. In my earlier post, I mentioned the Presbyterian church records showing these three families worshipping together in Bremen, Fairfield county, Ohio, around the turn of the 19th century.

Summer of 1903

I also had a couple of newspaper clippings describing the intertwined families meeting for reunions early in the 1900s. This 1903 clipping from Elkhart, Indiana, says the Larimer family was first to arrive in Pennsylvania and then moved to Ohio, followed by the Short family. From there, descendants went to Elkhart and that area. But could I confirm this?

I constructed a rough timeline as I looked for clues. Also, I read through the genealogical booklet "Larimer Family, 1740-1959" by J.C. Work (he's mentioned in the 1903 clipping). The booklet's names, dates and details aren't always entirely accurate, but the numerous family stories are fascinating and enlightening. You can see the Larimer booklet on Family Search here.

According to the Pioneer History of Elkhart County, Indiana, the Larimer family was first to pioneer (see excerpt at top of post). Abel E. Work (middle name is actually Everett or Everitt) arrived in 1841, a few years after his brothers-in-law, James and John Larimer. Abel was married to Cynthia Larimer, sister of James and John.

Further research confirmed that John Larimer (my husband's 3d great-grandpa) did indeed acquire Elkhart county land on April 5, 1836 and more land on March 15, 1837 (according to Family Maps of Elkhart County). Moses Larimer, hubby's 4th great uncle, acquired land in Elkhart county on May 30, 1837, adjacent to one of John Larimer's parcels.

Thomas Short married hubby's 3d great aunt Margaret Larimer in Elkhart, Indiana, in January of 1842. The bio of his two doctor sons (John and Isaac Short) says that Thomas bought land in Eden township in 1841, in LaGrange county due east of Elkhart county. Eden is where he and his bride settled after their marriage.

Finally, in the Larimer genealogical booklet, I read about Cynthia Hanley Larimer, who married Abel E. Work. Here's an excerpt:

Abel Everitt [sic] Work was a blacksmith, had a shop on the N.E. corner of the crossroad 2.5 miles east of Bremen [Ohio] and one mile north of Bethel Presbyterian Church. In year 1841, he made a trip to Elkhart Co., Indiana and purchased land from James Larimer, his brother-in-law. John, James, and Robert Larimer had settled in Elkhart Co., year 1835. The big move to Indiana began Oct., 1842. [Goes on to state that several members of the Work family moved there in 1842.]

My conclusion: The Larimer family migrated from Ohio to Indiana first (1835 or 1836), with the Short and Work families moving to Indiana a little later (1841 and 1842). Hubby's McClure family also pioneered in Elkhart, circa 1844, which is where William Madison McClure later met and married Margaret Larimer, becoming my husband's maternal great-grandparents.

Happy Independence Day to these pioneer families in my husband's family!