Farkas Family Tree Says: Go Fish!

My mother's Farkas Family Tree loved planning outings for the whole family.

I know this because I am lucky enough to have 30+ years of monthly minutes from their meetings. Also, even though I was just a tyke, I have memories of going on a number of these outings years after the traditions began.

Something's Fishy: A New Tradition

Formed in 1933 to keep the bonds strong between the eleven adult children (and many grandchildren) of Moritz Farkas and Leni Kunstler Farkas, the Farkas Family Tree began a new tradition in 1938 when one of the members suggested that a fishing trip be held on June 19th.

Faster than you can say flounder, the boat was chartered, to carry 50 passengers for a grand total of $50. The next set of minutes, on September 12, 1938, reported: "Our June fishing trip had been a huge success and all who attended requested an encore."

Encore Fishing Trips

Building on the momentum from the first year, the Family Tree decided to hold a second fishing trip on June 4, 1939. The minutes from one week later say it was "a wet success. A number of people disappointed us, owing to weather and illnesses. We were indebted for $50. The expenses came to $68, and collections amounted to $56." The tree association made up the difference.

During World War II, gas shortages and tire shortages forced the tree to suspend many of its annual outings, not just the fishing trip but also some summer picnics and/or summer beach trips.

The Entertainment Committee, charged with arranging fishing trips, reported in May, 1946, that no fishing was possible that year because boats were not available. A summer picnic was arranged, however.

Skipping ahead to 1949, the minutes of June 5th report "on a most successful fishing trip...Many fish and many kinds of fish were caught" not to mention all the eating and drinking on the boat. Dozens of fish were fried at a member's house that evening and "those who didn't realize how tired they were played gin [rummy] until midnight." The minutes even note who caught the first fish, who caught the most fish, who caught the largest fish, and who caught the first flounder.

Remember the Flounder

Sis and I went on several family fishing trips during the late 1950s and early 1960s. My father (Harold Burk) was brought up in the heart of New York City, and he loved these outings for the opportunity to feel the wind on the water. He was delighted to introduce his little girls to fishing, using a hook knotted onto a nylon line.

I remember catching a flounder using one of these hand-held fishing lines and being so excited I could hardly wait for Dad to pull it up for me. Sis actually caught more fish than I did, but we both had a fun time. Being a picky eater, I wouldn't even taste the flounder we caught when they were cooked up later. Some kids just don't know what's good!

As the tree meetings became fewer and farther between, so did the fishing trips. The last report of a fishing trip was in the Historian's Report of 1964, which was "successful both in the number of people who attended and the number of fish so skillfully wrested from the deep." That was the end of a popular tradition.

James Elmer Larimer's Civil War Telescope

Civil War telescope of James E. Larimer

James Elmer Larimer (b. 1840 in Pennsylvania, d. 1923 in Elkhart, Indiana) was my husband's first cousin, 4x removed.

James's father died at age 40, having been accidentally thrown from a horse.

His mother later left Indiana to go with her brother to gold-rush California, and never returned east. She fretted about leaving her children behind, but was determined to pioneer in California with her family.

James was a child at the time, and he didn't join his mother. His siblings went west to California after they were grown, but not James. Just months after the start of the Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army.

James E. Larimer in the Civil War 

Thanks to documents such as his pension record, I can see James enlisted in Company A, Ohio 17th Infantry Regiment, on 13 Aug 1861. He was 21 years of age, and had no way of knowing that he would remain in the Union Army (with different units and at different ranks) until just after the war ended, in the spring of 1865.

Civil War Pension record for James E. Larimer and his widow, Rhoda Amelia Ward Larimer

The Larimer Telescope

Not long ago, I heard from a collector who was researching the name engraved on a Civil War-era telescope: J.E. Larimer.

From the engraving, it appears to be the telescope used by my hubby's cousin, James E. Larimer!

At top, a view of the telescope when extended for use. Below, the telescope retracted. At right, part of the engraving, which also mentions the 17th Regiment, Larimer's unit.



Thanks to Justin McLarty for these photos of the telescope, which is now more than 150 years old.

"Hennery Brown Eggs" Cost 73 Cents in 1934

Tivador Theodore Schwartz (1886-1965) in the Bronx, New York

From about 1917 until the late 1940s, my maternal Grandpa Tivador Theodore Schwartz (1887-1965) and maternal Grandma Hermina Farkas Schwartz (1886-1964) owned one small dairy grocery store after another in the Bronx, New York.

They would operate a store for a number of years, sell it, and buy or open another in a busier or more convenient neighborhood. It was not an easy way to make a living, keeping the store open early and late, even on weekends, to accommodate local shoppers.

The first record I have is of their 1917 grocery store at 985 Avenue St. John, near Southern Boulevard in the Bronx (thanks to Grandpa's WWI draft registration card). The store shown at top, with Grandpa Teddy at the counter, is a later store. This one was located at 679 Fox Street, just a few steps from the apartment building where my Schwartz grandparents lived. (The address was written on the back of the photo, and another copy of the photo included a 1934 date.)

"Hennery Brown Eggs" at Teddy's Dairy Store 

Teddy's Dairy sold at least five different types of eggs in 1934, ranging in price from 63 cents for "good using eggs" to 79 cents for "brown eggs." Apparently "hennery brown eggs" at 73 cents were different from and less desirable (meaning cheaper) than the more generic-sounding "brown eggs."

Assuming eggs were priced by the dozen, the "hennery brown eggs" that sold for 73 cents in 1934 (85 years ago) would cost $13.89 in 2019! Try the inflation calculator for yourself here.

Selling the "Gold Mine"

At right, the outside of Teddy's Dairy, circa 1934. Grandpa is standing at the right, near his name on the window, "Notary: T. Schwartz." The store was still in this location in 1940.

Standing on the other side of the display window is Grandpa's long-time assistant, John. According to family legend, John called the store "a gold mine" and eventually bought the business from my grandparents.

Once they retired from retailing, Grandpa and Grandma went on a much-delayed honeymoon. Married in 1911, parents by 1912, parents again in 1919, they finally got to Florida to relax and recuperate from selling eggs more than 35 years after their small family wedding.

Thanks to Amy Johnson Crow for the #52Ancestors prompt of "12."

From Photo CDs to Family Hands

If you're lucky, a family member has one or two or, say, two dozen photo CDs. You know, the kind you got in the "old" days when you brought photographic film into the local store to be developed and pick up prints, along with a CD of the images, digitally ready for viewing. The old CDs actually had software that ran the photos as a show.

That was then. This is now: Who has a CD reader built into a PC or Mac any more? Time to retrieve those digital photos before the CDs are unreadable.

Old Digital Images Meet New Technology

Happily for me, Sis has saved all these old photo CDs from the turn of the century up through 2010 or so, when she ditched her film camera for digital.

So rather than having to scan snapshots, I took each CD and put it in my external CD drive, hooked up to my Mac. Copied each one, which takes less than 90 seconds, and named it according to what I saw on the images.

You know what else is great about these CDs? Don't need no stinkin' negatives when I have high-quality images directly from the developer!

Name and Date That File! 

Each image on each CD has a number and date attached by the developer (see at right for one example).

So as I cleaned images up, I added the month and year to each new image name.

Admittedly, not every photo is worth cleaning up and saving. In fact, I usually cleaned up only 6 or so out of 24 (or 36) images on a CD. I didn't delete any of the other images! I just opened and fixed the few photos from each CD that showed recognizable people, or something else meaningful.

I cropped, lightened or darkened, straightened, and otherwise tinkered with the best images from each CD, leaving the original exactly as it came off the CD. Then I renamed the cleaned-up images with the names of people in them (such as "Marian_Halloween_2009").

Share Those Images Now

I'm not waiting until I look at every single image on every single CD. After cherry-picking the best 6 or so from 4 different CDs, I emailed those cleaned-up versions to family members now.

Later, I'll put all on flash drives to send to relatives. But why make them wait? They're happy to see faces from the past. Me too. As I open and check more images from more CDs, relatives will be surprised to see the past in their inboxes. The more people who have these images, the more who can pass those images along to the next generation and beyond.

--

Sharing family photos, stories, and other details is a great way to not only interest relatives in genealogy but also keep family history "in the family" for future generations. For more ideas on safeguarding family history, please take a look at my book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past.

Fáilte to Ancestors from the Emerald Isle

It's that time of year again, when I send younger relatives St. Patrick's Day cards, along with my updated list of their Irish ancestors. In the past, I've noted Larimer, O'Gallagher, Smith, Shehen, and McClure (lived in Donegal area for several generations, but family originally from Isle of Skye).

This year, I'm saying fáilte to a new Irish ancestor in the long list I send with my cards. "New" means "new to me" now that I've extended the Wood family tree far back enough to find the clue, thanks to a hint from Ancestry's new ThruLines feature.

Zerviah Wood Senior's Mother-in-Law

Hubby's 4th great-grandma was Rhoda Eldridge (1730-1799), married to Zerviah Wood (1731-1817). ThruLines suggested that Rhoda's mother--Zerviah's mom-in-law--was Hannah O'Kelley or Killey (1703-1734). Several records indicated that connection and I added her to the tree, continuing to research for more confirmation.

Judging by her name, Hannah O'Kelley was most likely descended from a family from the Emerald Isle.

Jeremiah O'Kelly, Son of David "The Irishman"

Records were admittedly sketchy back in the 1600s, but two compiled family histories mention that Hannah's father, Jeremiah O'Kelley (16??-1728) was the son of an immigrant, David O'Kelley or O'Killia (1645?-1697). David's nickname in the Cape Cod area where he lived was "the Irishman."

David "the Irishman" O'Kelley was probably my husband's 7th great-grandpa. More research is in my future to confirm the details!

For St. Patrick's Day, I'm saying fáilte to this newest on the list of Wood ancestors from Ireland.

Cleaning Up Online Trees, One Ancestor at a Time

One ancestor at a time. Because I use my Ancestry trees as my main tree (and sync to my RootsMagic software as backup, then backup my backup), I'm cleaning up my online trees. (Also known as a Genealogy Go-Over.)

Trying to be systematic, I'm working backward from my husband on his tree (and from me on my tree).

As shown above on hubby's grandma, my goal is to have a MyTreeTag for each ancestor AND sources attached as media for each main fact.*

My process, generation by generation, is:

• Starting with parents and grandparents, I'm adding a MyTreeTag (new Ancestry feature) to indicate that these people are verified. Ancestry defines that as "I have done my best to verify the facts of this ancestor’s life with records which are attached." All true. I'm reluctant to say "Complete" because, despite thorough research, something new is liable to pop up someday. But verified indicates I've attached proper sources and used them to support the facts in the ancestor's timeline.
• When I don't have enough records attached, I'm doing a search to turn up more records. If little shows up, I'm tagging these ancestors actively researching or, in some cases, unverified. Several are, unfortunately, still hypothesis, meaning I'm still testing whether they truly belong where I put them on the tree.
• Ancestor by ancestor, I'm taking a screen shot of each source and uploading it as media visible by anyone who wants to see my source for a given fact. This makes my sources public and viewable. At a glance, someone can click and see a birth, marriage, or death cert--and save it or download it if desired. I don't mind sharing records I've spent money on! Others have been generous enough to do this, and I'm paying it forward by sharing mine.

Another by-product of this ancestor-by-ancestor go-over is that Ancestry hints tend to pop up on people I'm looking at. Woo-hoo!

This is a good project for when I have 10 minutes here or 10 minutes there. Inch by inch, making progress.

*UPDATE: Before attaching any sources as images visible on public trees, must check that they will not violate copyright or terms of service for the site.

Ancestors Had Large Families, Descendants Had Small Families

My pre-1900 ancestors and those of my husband usually had large families. Their late 19th/early 20th century descendants had markedly smaller families. It's a familiar pattern, repeated over and over again, with fewer children in each succeeding generation.

Wood Family: 17 Kids

Hubby's paternal great-grandfather Thomas Haskell Wood (1809-1890) and great-grandmother Mary Amanda Demarest (1831-1897) had 17 children together.

Unfortunately, 7 of the children didn't survive to adulthood. Of their grown children, one had 10 children but most had only a handful of kids. Rachel "Nellie" Wood had 2 children with her first husband, Walter A. Lewis, for instance. Families were smaller still in the following generation.

Descendants tell me that when the oldest of Thomas's and Mary Amanda's children were grown, married, and raising families, their much younger siblings were still in school.

McClure Family: 10 Kids

Hubby's maternal great-great-grandfather Benjamin McClure (1812-1896) and his wife Sarah Denning (1811-1888) had 10 children together. Two didn't survive to adulthood (still checking on the fate of one of them).

None of their grown children had as many children. One married but had no children. By the next generation, the largest number of kids was six; one in this next generation married but had no children.

Mahler Family: 8 Kids

On my father's side of the family, great-grandfather Meyer Mahler (1861-1910) and great-grandma Tillie Rose Jacobs (185?-1952) had 8 children together. All but one survived to adulthood.

Three of the adults had no children, the rest had 5 or fewer children, the usual pattern. By the time Meyer & Tillie's grandchildren were marrying, the families were even smaller.

Farkas Family: 11 Kids

On my mother's side of the family, great-grandpa Moritz Farkas (1857-1936) and great-grandma Leni Kunstler (1865-1938) had 11 children together. Two of the sons never married (and were "bachelor brothers"), one son married but had no children, and the other 8 married and had either 2 or 3 children apiece.

Thanks to Amy Johnson Crow for this #52Ancestors prompt.