BackTrack

Ghost Busting

2011-06-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

Yorba Linda cemetery was founded in 1858 by Bernardo Yorba. He received the grant to 13,000 acres of Rancho Cañón de Santa Ana from the Mexican governor in 1834. I can see the small cemetery, now surrounded by housing tracks, from my back yard on the other side of Santa Ana Canyon.

I have never seen a ghost there.

Alvina de los Reyes is said to be the "Pink Lady," a ghost who haunts the graveyard on June 15th of even years. The story is that she was killed in 1910 when she fell from a wagon on the way home from a high school dance.

Nobody knows how this particular story got started -- it was likely made up to entertain and excite adolescents -- but I can help solve parts of the mystery.

At the Family History Center in Orange -- on a street named for Bernardo Yorba's father -- is a book that lists payments for cemetery plots in the Yorba Linda Cemetery. Frank Reyes bought two plots there in 1910. One for Alvina de los Reyes who was 31 when she died on Dec 2, 1910. The other payment was for Alavina de los Reyes who was born on Nov 25, 1910 and died 28 days later.

Dying when her baby was just a week old, was Alvina's death the result of childbirth? Not according to the Orange County death records on microfilm at the Orange FHC. There it states that she died of pneumonia and her infant died of athrepsia infantum or failure to thrive. In any case, Alvina was not on her way home from a dance.

Another mystery concerns Alvina's origins. According to the Yorba Linda History website, nobody knows who Alvina de los Reyes was. One relative, a grand nephew, believes her maiden name was Entrada. A cousin thinks it may have been Estrada. Fortunately, her children knew her maiden name.

In the 1910 census for Yorba township in Orange County (found on Ancestry.com), Alvina is the wife of Francisco Reyes and the mother of seven children.

The index to California Death Records lists some of her children, including Isadore and twins Frank and Rosa. Their mother's maiden name is listed as Bustamante.

Further poking around in census and death records shows that Alvina's father died when she was young and her mother, whose maiden name was Estrada, remarried a man named Andrade. Andrade and Estrada are close to the names remembered by Alvina's living cousins, showing there is often a grain of truth in many of those stories handed down through the generations.

Except, for me at least and espicially in this case, ghost stories.

Tiffany on Antiques Roadshow

2010-04-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone who watched the recent episode of Antiques Roadshow in Phoenix ran to their computers -- as I did -- when they heard the answer to the appraiser's question about Louis Comfort Tiffany. "Yes," the guest replied, "My grandfather is related to the Tiffany family. I'm not sure exactly in what regard."

The grandparents, the guest explained, had a trading post on the San Carlos Indian reservation. Checking out the 1910 census, I found a Wellington Tiffany living on the reservation.

According to The Tiffanys of America by Nelson Otis Tiffany, available on Ancestry.com, Wellington is the 5th cousin, once removed of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Wellington is the 5th cousin, twice removed of Richard Gere as well, though I don't know that the Roadshow folks have ever appraised a Gere lamp.

How Vital Is VitalSearch?

2010-04-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

As a Californian, I'm often looking for records for my state and know that VitalSearch seems to have a fair amount of them. I've thought of subscribing to it for a long time but I was never sure exactly what they had. I compiled a rough table to lay it out in a readable fashion and thought I would share it here. Note that there may be errors in the table since I do not have a subscription and could only go by what I could make out in the samples.

Finding records on VitalSearch is crude and unwieldy. A few of the collections have a "robust SQL search" capability but most are what they term "primitive search" which is actually paging through copies of microfilm. (Click to see actual size.) You are usually started at the first page of that surname, so although it is "primitive," it is usable.

Some of the collections have pages that are blurry and hard to read. Check out the sample pages on the VitalSearch site as they show a realist view of what you get.

Everyone who does research in California should know that the death index for 1905-1929 is free for anyone to use. Some of the other databases used to be available for free but in the last few years became part of the subscribers-only area.

The cost for a subscription to VitalSearch is $57.95 a year. That seems a bit steep to me; Ancestry costs almost 3 times that but has a bazillion times more records, let alone the best search online. But if VitalSearch has the collection I really need, it could be worth it. Maybe I'll sign up for the 90-day subscription for $25.

The table is laid out by state then county. Type is Index / Record. I added a column to show overlap in records on Ancestry.com since I have a subscription to it. Click the table then zoom to enlarge.

From the Cradle....

2010-03-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

Back in 2006 I visited the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island, NY with my grandkids. I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed the place. I'm not from New York and aviation is not something I've ever really been that interested in, but they did a good job of presenting something I always like: a story. I came away impressed with their collection and felt I had learned about early aviation history and how Long Island figured in it.

I got to thinking about the place and found myself reading some articles on early aviation and woman pilots and found one I wanted to check out: Elinor Smith. From what I found online, I knew her birth date, where she grew up, her father's name and occupation and the name of a brother.

The family proved elusive. On Ancestry.com, I finally found a family in the 1930 and 1920 census enumerations that fit. Dad and brother had the correct first names. Dad's occupation, a vaudeville actor, was right. Freeport on Long Island was the exact place she was born. It all matched except the last name. It wasn't Smith, it was Ward.

Everything I had read about Elinor Smith was unequivocal about her maiden name, which she used throughout her aviation career. I had to believe this was the right family in the census but how to find out for sure? So far I'd spent a fair amount of effort on this hunt. Finding someone in the census with a completely different last name takes some time. I could not give up now!

I found a copy of her autobiography, Aviatrix, at a nearby library and looked for clues. In the credits were several names including some with the name of Ward. This was the name I had found in the census. Case solved.

The only thing I did not know was why she used Smith instead of Ward. I wasn't about to call a 95-year-old woman and ask about her secrets and I didn't want blog about what she might be hiding for some personal reason. It was all very interesting but I shelved my research.

Elinor Smith died last Friday. The New York Times carried the story of her death and included the information that her father was Tom Ward and he had changed the name to Smith because there was another Tom Ward on the vaudeville circuit.

So much for my ground-breaking discovery. But it was a fun ride and I got to know an amazing woman.

Clear skies, Elinor.

Sarah Jessica Parker Connection?

2010-03-07T09:16:00.001-08:00

My g-g-g-grandfather left Logan County, Ohio in early 1849 and headed west toward El Dorado County, California to search for gold. He never came back.

Sound familiar?

If you saw the first episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" you might recall that this also describes Sarah Jessica Parker's g-g-g-g-grandfather.

Her ancestor was John S. Hodge. Mine was William Moore. Not the same person. Just shows how common the Gold Rush experience was. My William was 53 when he died on the way to California. He never made it to El Dorado. Another man in his company kept a journal of the trip and so records William's death in Nebraska Territory.

But that doesn't mean I don't have a connection to Sarah Jessica Parker. William's wife, Anna Askren, had a nephew, James Askren, who married Margaret Hodge, sister of John S. Hodge.

I can't wait for the next episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?"

Meryl Streep in Slow Motion

2010-03-06T08:34:00.000-08:00

If you view the final episode of "Faces of America" in slow motion, you'll see that although Gates is talking about Meryl Streep's maternal Wilkinson line, the graphics are for her paternal Streep line.

Meryl used to think the Streeps were Sephardic Dutch Jews because she was told that there were people with that name today who are Sephardic Dutch Jews. Probably the least reliable indicator of one's ancestry I can think of.

As I pointed out in 2006, her Streeps were from Germany where the name was Streeb.

On the show Meryl said she was disappointed that her DNA showed such a European homogeny. She was probably let down when she learned that she is descended from ordinary German villagers rather than something more "ethnic." But I think Meryl knew the Jewish ancestry story was a myth before she appeared on the show. No sense showing a non-reaction.

Art of the Genealogist

2010-02-03T13:20:00.000-08:00

On a recent Antiques Roadshow, appraiser Kathleen Harwood, had this to say: "Mr. Stiepevich, for an artist who painted such lovely paintings, has very scant biographical information. We know he was born in Russia, probably around 1840, and that he died in New York City, probably around 1910. Clearly he was very well trained as a painter."

A veritable call to action for a genealogist!

Vincent Stiepevich appears in US census records in 1880 (Elizabeth, NJ), 1900, 1910, and 1920 (all Brooklyn, NY). In the latter three census records, he states that he came to the U.S. in 1872. I love this entry for 1880 (click to enlarge). You can read his biography through the birth locations.

According to New York vital records, his wife Francesca died in 1912 and he died in Brooklyn on October 9, 1921 as "Vincenzo G. Stiepevich."

According to his 1887 passport application on Ancestry.com, he was born in Italy on Sep. 14, 1841.

The appraiser was quite correct when she said that he was well trained as an artist. Here is a snippet from an article about him in The Monthly Illustrator of 1895.

The article goes on to say that he was trained at the Royal Academy of Venice by Karl Von Blaas from the Austrian Tyrol. Stiepevich became a member of the Royal Academy of Milan in 1868. In 1872 he received a commission to decorate the Chamber of Commerce in St. Louis, Missouri and he came to the U.S. and eventually settled in Brooklyn. This is the same chronology borne out in the census records!

Somebody must have decided at some time that Stiepevich sounded Russian. His works have even been auctioned in collections of Russian art by major auction houses. If the name Stiepevich does not sound Italian, note that there is a street in Rome named for Italian war hero Danilo Stiepovich from Trieste. Close variants of the name are found in nearby Dalmatia, Montenegro, and Croatia.

Wizened Kid

2009-07-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

Robert Strange McNamara died this week at age 93.

When tapped by JFK to be Secretary of Defense in 1960, McNamara was a registered Republican. Known as a liberal Republican – now an extinct species – McNamara explained later that "… when I had registered to vote in California at age twenty-one, I had registered Republican for no other reason than that my father was." (*)

I understand this to mean that he had registered as a Republican in 1937 because of family tradition and, either through laziness or inertia, had never changed it.

The Oakland Precinct No. 480 voter rolls for November 5, 1940 available on Ancestry.com, include the recent Harvard MBA graduate living at 1036 Annerly Road with his mother Claranel and sister Margaret, both Republicans. Robert S. McNamara, accountant, is listed as a Democrat. This means that sometime between 1940 and 1960 he had, one assumes knowingly, changed his registration to Republican.

His middle name, in case you are wondering, is his mother’s maiden name. The Strange family traces the name back through Missouri and Virginia to Scotland. His mother’s family tree is chock full of Southern Scots-Irish whose American roots go back to Colonial times. In contrast, McNamara’s father Robert J. McNamara, who died in 1938, was the son of Irish immigrants from County Cork. (†)

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* In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. (Robert S. McNamarawith Brian Van De Mark.) New York: Times Books, 1995
† The Living and the Dead (Paul Hendrickson) New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996

Bernie Madoff’s great-grandfather made name for himself

2009-06-29T10:16:00.001-07:00

Berl Miodownik was a middle-aged tailor when he boarded the SS Bulow in 1908 in search of the American dream. He made it all the way through Ellis Island with this name but within two years had changed it to Barnett Madoff.

As is the American way, he worked his way up from tailor to clothing designer. Within a couple decades he had obtained what is for many the ultimate symbol of success, a US patent number.

Barnett’s great-grandson, also an inventor, was sentenced today to 150 years in prison.

Finding Famous Family

2009-03-07T09:10:00.000-08:00

My relatives – the ones I celebrate holidays with, not the famous ones who do not even know I exist – often ask me how I find celebrities in the family tree. One way to do it is to put your family in OneWorldTree on Ancestry, then click on “Find famous relatives.”

If that doesn’t work, here are some suggestions:

Expand your own family tree out as far as you can. Use
proven genealogical techniques and do not rely on online trees.

Learn the surnames of the people on your pedigree who
were in the US or Canada before 1776. You don’t need to be able to recite
then, but you should be able to recognize them.

Connect your tree to one of these areas:

New France. Back in the 1600s, a limited number of people settled in French Canada. They bred like crazy and intermingled so much that if you find yourself related to one Quebecois, you’ll likely find yourself related to all of them. The genealogies of these people have been thoroughly tracked.

New Amsterdam. Though not as insular as New France or as well documented, these settlers in early New York were there about as early and serve as a bottleneck you can tap into.
New England. Connecting to someone in early Plymouth or other colonial New England town can open you up to the mother load of famous relatives.

When you come across an article about Madonna being related to Jack Kerouac or a genealogy blogger bragging about being related to every president, check out the famous person’s tree. Review the names of their end people and see if any of them match any of the surnames on your tree. (I admit, I don’t check out the famous person’s tree for correctness. Linking to a famous person is done on a whim, while building my own tree accurately is an obligation.)

If all your ancestors came through Ellis Island, your best bet is to try to get one of your cousins to try out for American Idol.

40 Famous Relatives

2009-02-24T09:16:00.000-08:00

All the rage lately on facebook are those lists like "25 random things about me" and "100 books we haven't read." I propose a list that has some relevance to genealogists.

I have put an X next to the famous people I am related to. Of course, we’re all related, but these are the ones I can show a link to. Which are you related to?

1. George Washington ( )
2. Barack Obama ( )
3. George Bush ( )
4. Franklin Roosevelt ( )
5. Teddy Roosevelt ( )
6. Jimmy Carter (x)
7. Hillary Clinton (x)
8. Sarah Palin ( )
9. Jefferson Davis ( )
10. The Duchess of Cornwall (x)
11. Robert Goulet (x)
12. Madonna (x)
13. Kevin Federline (x)
14. Clark Gable (x)
15. Clint Eastwood ( )
16. Humphrey Bogart ( )
17. Kim Basinger ( )
18. Brad Pitt ( )
19. Katharine Hepburn ( )
20. Johnny Depp ( )
21. Bruce Lee ( )
22. Paris Hilton ( )
23. Farrah Fawcett ( )
24. Christina Aguilera ( )
25. Elvis Presley ( )
26. Jon Stewart ( )
27. Phyllis Diller’s husband “Fang” ( )
28. Edgar Allen Poe ( )
29. Toni Morrison ( )
30. Jack Kerouac (x)
31. Frederick Douglass ( )
32. Bill Gates ( )
33. Amelia Earhart ( )
34. Thomas Edison ( )
35. Brigham Young ( )
36. Charlemagne ( )
37. Aaron, brother of Moses ( )
38. A woman pictured on US currency ( )
39. A child pictured on US currency ( )
40. A Cherokee princess ( )

Political Tricks & Treats

2008-10-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the answers to my last posting on California politics. A couple of them were a bit tricky.

Ansel Adams ~ Republican when he lived in San Francisco, Democrat in Yosemite
Dorothea Lange ~ Democrat
Roy Disney ~ Declines to State (1924-1954)
Walt Disney ~ Republican (1924-1954)
George Burns ~ Declines to State, later Democrat
Gracie Allen ~ Democrat
Marion Morrison / John Wayne ~ Republican
Milton Berle ~ Democrat
Ronald Reagan ~ Democrat
Buck Owens ~ 1952-1956 Republican; 1958 Declines to State
Mel Blanc ~ Democrat
Shirley Temple Black ~ Republican
Max Baer ~ Democrat
Duke Snider ~ Democrat
Ernest & Julio Gallo ~ Democrats; changed to Republicans sometime in 1930s
John Steinbeck ~ Democrat
Wm R Hearst ~ Democrat (1930s-1950)
Julia Morgan ~ Republican
Frank Gehry / Goldberg ~ Democrat
William Hewlett ~ Republican
David Packard ~ Republican
Mrs Aimee S McPherson ~ 1922-1930 Prohibition; 1936-1944 Democrat
Julia McWilliams Child ~ Republican

---------------------------------------------

One Halloween in the 1950s, my Republican father took me around the neighborhood. As he sent me up to knock on the first door, he told me to say “trick-or-treat” and then, after I got my treats, to say “I like Ike!” I did as he said and was rewarded with an additional handful of candy. Jackpot! I tried it at the next house and again got extra treats.

As I continued down the block this way, I began to feel anxious. I knew my mother, a staunch Democrat, would kill me if she found out. I could feel it in my stomach. This worry was too much for me so for the rest of the block I stuck to “trick-or-treat.”

Whatever your reasons for how to cast your vote, just vote!

~Sharon the Genealogist

Political Test

2008-10-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

Ancestry.com has California voter registrations on their site. The lists are said to be from 1900 through 1968 but coverage varies vastly by county. The rolls include address, party affiliation, and often occupation.

Here is a list of some famous Californians and their listed occupations. Can you guess their party? I’ll post the answers in a day or so.

Ansel Adams ~ photographer
Dorothea Lange ~ photographer
Roy Disney ~ photographer, motion pictures
Walt Disney ~ cartoonist, producer
George Burns ~ actor
Gracie Allen ~ actress
Marion Morrison/John Wayne ~ actor
Milton Berle ~ actor
Ronald Reagan ~ motion pictures, army officer
Buck Owens ~
Mel Blanc ~ dialectician
Shirley Temple Black ~
Max Baer ~ pugilist
Duke Snider ~
Ernest & Julio Gallo ~ farmers, vintners
John Steinbeck ~ journalist, writer
Wm R Hearst ~ journalist
Julia Morgan ~ architect
Frank Goldberg / Gehry ~
William Hewlett ~ engineer
David Packard ~ engineer
Mrs Aimee S Mcpherson ~ evang, minister
Julia McWilliams Child ~ housekeeper

Henry Paulson's Colorful Ancestry

2008-09-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

Henry Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury, has an interesting family tree, with several Chicago lines. These branches are populated by doctors, architects, Montgomery Ward presidents, coopers, and Norwegians.

Paulson’s mother’s maiden name might be familiar to long-time residents of Chicago. Her paternal grandfather, Carl Gallauer, was the founder of Zum Rothern Stern, later the Red Star Inn, a popular German restaurant located on North Clark from 1899 to 1970.

Through his mother’s other line, her maternal side, Paulson is a descendant of Ernst Schmidt, German intellectual, Civil War surgeon, and the first coroner of Cook County. Called the “Red Doctor” not just because of his red hair, Schmidt was a lifelong socialist. As detailed in Der Rothe Doktor Von Chicago, Schmidt was a staunch defender of the laboring poor who led the defense committee for the anarchist organizers of the 1886 Haymarket riot.

Completely unconnected to that event, one of the rocks thrown by the Weathermen during the riot at the 1968 Democratic convention smashed through the window of the Red Star Inn.

Fun with DNA

2008-08-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

I have two children, who we can call "Sandy" and "Chris," and four grandkids, 2 boys and 2 girls.

Following my older grandson’s Y-DNA brings us to Germany, maybe around Bremen. My younger grandson’s Y-DNA goes back to Poland, near Warsaw perhaps. Two of my grandkids’ mtDNA goes to Carinthia, Austria. The other grandkids’ mtDNA reaches to Northeastern Ukraine.

Both of my children had the same father and neither had children by more than one partner. Do I have two sons, two daughters, or one of each?

National Guard Is Reluctant Genealogist

2008-08-13T09:46:00.000-07:00

I had just started The Reluctant Communist and had to put it down and immediately check things out. On page 10 of the book, Charles Robert Jenkins claims that North Carolina did not have a record of his 1940 birth and so he could safely lie about his age and enlist in the National Guard at age 15.

I don't know why the National Guard did not find his birth record; they must not have had a subscription to ancestry.com. In any case, Jenkins got away with it. Not the brightest guy, Jenkins also thought he could get away with deserting to North Korea with only minor inconvenience. Stuck there for 40 years, Jenkins admits that this plan didn’t work out so well.

Reaching Olympic Heights

2008-07-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Gymnast twins Paul and Morgan Hamm are almost 5’6”. Taylor Phinney, who will be competing in cycling in Beijing, is 6’4”. They are descended from Wisconsin brothers Elbert and Russell Carpenter and are 3rd cousins, once removed.

As found on ancestry.com, the 1917 WWI draft registration for Elbert Carpenter, the Hamm ancestor, says he is of “medium” height. His brother Russell’s registration card says his height is “tall.”

Who says height isn’t inherited?

George Carlin Goes Upstairs

2008-07-20T22:31:00.001-07:00

George Carlin died last month. He is the comedian with the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.”

For those of you who don’t know what the words are, they are: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, and #7. (Not only can’t you say them on television, you can’t write them in a blog your mother reads.)

Another well-known George Carlin quote is, “My grandfather would say: 'I'm going upstairs to #3 your grandmother.' He was an honest man, and he wasn't going to bull-#1 a four-year-old.”

I don’t believe he heard his grandfather say any such thing! Here’s why:

George’s parents, Patrick Carlin and Mary Bearey, married in Manhattan on Nov 26, 1930. Mary’s parents were Dennis and Mary Bearey. Grandpa Bearey died when George Carlin was 2 months old. Grandma Bearey had died a couple years before George was born.

Mary left her husband when George was a wee lad so I doubt if they hung around with the paternal grandparents. Besides, the father of the man I think is George’s father was born in 1850. When George was 4, this man would have been 91. While I am sure as an Irish father of 10 he could still #3 his wife, climbing the stairs might have been too difficult.

History Detectives

2008-07-12T19:53:00.000-07:00

History Detectives is a good term to describe genealogists but it’s also the name of a show on PBS. It’s kind of like Antiques Roadshow in that they take an item and tell its history. Much more in depth than the Roadshow; they solve three cases per show. I like how they show that small things can be part of a bigger theme.

They never solve a case in a direct way, however. I think it’s part of their educational aim, telling us the history of the Wild West or a timeline of board-game development to get to the answer. Although they may want me to learn something about history – which I often do – it’s their methodology that I watch it for.

Often times the processes used in genealogy apply to a case. A recent episode I saw showed them solving all three cases by using the Internet to search for records. They didn’t make it obvious but to someone who spends hours a day there, I easily recognized Ancestry.com. I thought perhaps Ancestry.com had sponsored the show, but saw no evidence of it in the credits. I guess it just happens. Kind of like my blogging about PBS shows.

If you like these type of hunts, check out Megan Smolenyak’s latest quest. She is a pro at solving history mysteries and her solutions are always direct and elegant.

Fiddling Around at the Roadshow

2008-07-08T13:39:00.000-07:00

A recent Antiques Roadshow segment featured an evaluation of a violin by M. Nebel, dated 1921. The appraiser, Clare Givens, stated that “… the books say he didn't come to the United States till 1927, but this violin is a clear indication that the book was wrong.”

You can see the segment at the Antiques Roadshow website on PBS.org.

(I don’t understand how other people can watch a piece like that and not scream at the TV, “Well, CHECK IT OUT, you dodos!” It’s like this compulsion that takes over. I can hardly sit and watch the rest of the show without dashing off to the computer. Anyone else have this affliction?)

Here is what I find when I finally check it out. In the 1930 census, where Martin lived in Philadelphia in the same household as his brother Hans, he said he first came to this country in 1923.

The April 27, 1923 passenger list of the SS Hannover includes Martin Nebel, violin maker aged 26, born in Mittenwald, joining his uncle Martin Nebel in New Jersey. He states that he has never been in the US before.

He appears to have traveled back to Germany in 1927, 1929, and 1932. Each time he returned he was asked if he had been in the US before. Each time he said he had first arrived in 1923.

Clare Givens was pleased when she heard about the records. She told me she had thought the label said 1924 but the producers (dodos!) convinced her it said 1921.

I love Antiques Roadshow, the historical insights I gain from it, and the curiosity it triggers. It does make my husband nervous to watch it with me, though, because of my occasional outbursts. But no such outbursts when he appeared with his Disneyland ticket book:

Jesse Helms – A Fatal Case of Pedigree Collapse?

2008-07-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Jesse Helms died recently of “natural causes” and I’m thinking maybe it was because his pedigree finally collapsed completely. A Helms through and through, he had a family tree that was more like a family shrub.

Pedigree collapse is what happens when cousins marry. Their kids get less ancestors because the cousins share the same grandparents. If the parents were not related, the kids would have 4 sets of great-grandparents. But if the parents are first cousins, one couple takes up two slots and the kids have just 3 sets of g-grandparents.

Same thing happens when 3rd cousins marry. They share the same g-g-grandparents, so those branches on the high end of their kids’ family tree get pruned. The kids get 15 pairs of g-g-g-grandparents instead of 16. No big deal, happens to all of us sooner or later. Demographers say that the family tree of a typical English child born in 1947 would have 5% of the ancestor slots filled by duplicates in the generation living in 1492.

In the case of Jesse Helms, his paternal grandfather Joseph Helms had just 12 sets of g-g-g-grandparents instead of 16. Five of Joseph’s 8 great-grandparents were grandchildren of John Isaac Helms and Ann Tilghman who were born in the 1690s.

To make it less abstract, imagine that your parents were first cousins who married each other and had you and your brother. Your brother married a woman from out of town but you married a child of one of your parents’ other first cousins. Your son and your brother’s daughter married and had a child. This describes Jesse Helms’ Grandpa Joseph.

But wait, there’s more. Grandpa Joseph married a cousin who had one quarter of her g-g-grandparents slots filled by grandchildren of John Isaac Helms and his wife Ann. Grandpa Joseph and his wife were the parents of “Big Jesse” Helms, the father of the recently departed Jesse Helms.

Oh, and by the way, the late senator's mother was Ethel Helms, another descendant of John Isaac Helms and his wife Ann.

Jesse Helms’ peculiar ancestry was explored by John Anderson Brayton in the December 1991 NEHGS NEXUS. You can read more on the fascinating topic of pedigree collapse [ overview ] [ in-depth] or analyze Jesse Helms’ pedigree yourself.

BackTrack Back

2008-07-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

I recently attended the SCGS Jamboree and had a blast. One of the highlights was the blogger summit where I got to meet a bunch of great bloggers. I had met none of them in person before but I had read and enjoyed all their blogs. The summit made me nostalgic for my own blog and got me thinking I might see if I could revive it.

So why did I stop? One was technical. Some kind of confusion about my account and identity that I just got tired of trying to figure out. I'm still not sure it's cleared up but I seem to be able to post this. Another reason was that I got busy. One of the motives for this blog's existence was to give me an outlet for my genealogy addiction. Some time before my last post on this blog, I found another way to channel my obsession. No predictions on how I'll deal with this in the future, but I’m here for now.

Back at the SCGS conference, I had a brief encounter that made me smile. While waiting for the start of the blogger summit, I went over to Randy Seaver’s wife (easily identified in her "Geneaholic's Widow" T-shirt) to introduce myself and make small-talk. Randy is, of course, the geneaholic behind Genea-Musings and he was one of the panelists we were there to hear. Linda and I chatted a bit about our families and then she asked me, "So how do you know Randy?" Made me think she might not fully appreciate the impact of blogging and why all those people were in the room.

Prefabrication

2007-02-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

Mike Nifong is the name of the DA who started the Duke lacrosse case. I have a lot of questions about the whole affair, but I will stick to the one that's been bothering me for a while:

What kind of name is Nifong???

I poked around in some records and found that the Nifongs have been in North Carolina for a long time. George Nifong, the DA's 4th great-grandfather, is on the 1790 census in Rowan County. George's father Balthasar came to Pennsylvania from Germany in 1748 with the last name Neufang. The name was quickly corrupted to Nifong (North Carolina branch) or Knifong (Missouri branch).

So you can see that the DA's name has been around for quite some time and is not just recently trumped up.

Discredited

2007-02-22T19:54:00.000-08:00

When Roger and I watch a movie, we always watch the credits at the end. All those names! We enjoy reading and wondering about the names as they scroll by. Not just the stars, but all those behind-the-scenes name that most folks don't see because they are filing out of the theater.

Sometimes we wonder where a name came from. Like, what kind of a name is Garant? It appears in the credits of Night at the Museum. (Pierre Garand, Rouen to Quebec 1665) What about the name Winick in Charlotte's Web? (Abraham Winnik, Russia to New York 1906)

Now and then we recognize a nicely corrupted Swiss name like Niswanger or Lookabill. Or we spot a probable cousin named Robidou or Dutcher.

Some of the names just have to be read aloud. Go ahead, nobody's listening:

Samrod Shenassa
Hazel Catmull
Sergio Mimica-Gezzan
B. Tennyson Sebastian III
Mark 'Guns' Navarette

Speaking of movies, you might want to rent Akeelah and the Bee. If you pay attention, you will see Roger and me sitting right behind Angela Bassett in the auditorium at USC. Besides being able to see us on the big screen, you will probably enjoy the movie.

Our names, however, do not appear in the credits.

Death Spiral

2007-02-18T21:07:00.000-08:00

I've been working with death records a lot lately but the rules various jurisdictions set up can be really frustrating and nonsensical. They are just not set up to deal with genealogists. I'm telling you, without Joe Beine's always up-to-date death indexes site, I could not even find half the places that issue death certificates.

Some places have rules based on how long its been since the person died. In Texas, if they've been less than 75 years, they're not dead enough. Why does it matter how long the guy's been dead? He's dead.

In New York, to get someone's death certificate you need to provide "an original, notarized letter signed by that person authorizing release of their certificate to you."

Utah, bless them, puts the actual certificates on line. Now that's a state that knows genealogy!

California has always allowed anyone to order a death record. But as part of recent "statewide efforts to reduce identity theft," they now stamp it as Non-certified. Can someone please explain to me how someone would use a death certificate to steal someone's identity???

The Only Things About Me You Didn't Know

2007-01-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

There is a rumor that there are some things about a person that cannot be found on the Internet. To rectify that, some bloggers have called on other bloggers to reveal facts about themselves. I've been tagged by eminent genblogger Randy, and yes, I'll come out to play:

1. I have an MS in psychology and was a psychotherapist for 10 years. That was after I was a systems analyst for 10 years and before I was a technical writer for 10 years. I have about 6 years left on my current career.

2. I hate cilantro, though if you have sat near me in a Mexican restaurant you already know that.

3. I met my husband on a BBS called The Hot Line.

4. I have a titanium rod in my right leg. No, it does not set off alarms in airports.

5. My TV debut was on Lloyd Thaxton's teenage dance show on KCOP.

Because of the chain-letter aspect of this tagging thing, I'll only tag Lloyd Thaxton even though I never read his blog and it is not about genealogy. The rest of you can just send your $5 to me and we'll call it a day.

Person of the Year

2007-01-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

Did you see me on the cover of Time a few weeks ago? Well, it was not really me; it was all you other bloggers, YouTubers, and Wikipedians, too.

Time's Person of the Year is usually some powerful person we've all heard of who has shaped our world in some way. I like that they've chosen Every Man this year - it reminds me of my family tree. None of my known ancestors were anything but bit players whose exits and entrances went largely unnoticed by the world, but who certainly shaped my world.

Time says that now, thanks to the Internet, "millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity" have been "backhauled into the global intellectual economy." In other words, we all get to appear on the world stage and we all get speaking parts!

Last summer, the Forward got people curious when they ran an article about the possible Jewish ancestry of then-Senator George Allen of Virginia. They noted that Wikipedia "takes Allen’s mother’s Judaism as a given, saying that 'Henrietta Lumbroso was a Jewish immigrant of Tunisian/Italian/French background.'” The Forward article led to a reporter's question and Allen's head-scratching response.

Could the genealogist who added Allen's connection to the august Sephardic Lumbroso family into Wikipedia have played a role in Allen's apparent implosion, his not getting re-elected, and the change of leadership of the Senate? That's what Time's choice for Person of the Year is all about. Anybody, even obscure genealogists, can now be heard and make a difference.

In that case, my face on the cover is not unwarranted.

To find the voices of genealogists on the Web, check out Chris Dunham's Genealogy Blog Finder with its neat-and-tidy, catogorized layout.

Hello, My Name Is Sharon and I'm a Genealogist.

2007-01-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning while eating breakfast, I read that Yvonne De Carlo had died. Some folks wondered if De Carlo was really her mother's maiden name of if Yvonne really had Italian ancestry. I spent the rest of the morning searching for records on the Internet.

I looked at census, marriage, death, birth, and divorce records for California, British Columbia, and Canada as a whole. I found the death of Yvonne's mother Marie Middleton, which gave her maiden name (De Carlo) plus the maiden name of her mother (Purvis). I found marriages and deaths of people named De Carlo in Vancouver that could have been Marie De Carlo's siblings (John and Constance) and parents (Margaret and Michael). I found nothing in Canadian census records, which only go to 1911.

I also found nothing on Yvonne's father, a man named Middleton, at all. British Columbia marriage records did not have the marriage, but they may have married elsewhere and not all provinces (or states) are indexed, so I did not even know his first name.

Then I made the bed and ate lunch.

In the afternoon, I searched immigration records for American and Canadian ports. I found records for John Purves De Carlo, a merchant sailor based in Vancouver, who was the right age to be the brother of Marie De Carlo, Yvonne's mother, and his middle name matched her mother's maiden name. He said he was born in France.

I found a record of Margaret De Carlo entering the US in 1923 for a visit. She was born in Scotland and had arrived in Quebec in 1902 or 1912 on the Ionian.

I looked at census, marriage, and birth records for Scotland -- which I found little of -- and England, where I found a Margaret Purves the right age born in Scotland, but nothing to tie her to Yvonne.

I did a bit of grocery shopping, ran a couple errands, and made dinner.

After dinner, I returned to the passenger lists for Canada. They are not indexed, but are available to be read online. In just a few hours I found the family. Father Michael, mother Margaret, children Concetta, Mary, and John. All the right ages. The whole family was listed as Italian and Presbyterian and on their way to Vancouver.

A few anomolies, but I went to bed a tired and satisfied genealogist.

This morning, I walked to the library and checked out Yvonne, an Autobiography. In it, Yvonne De Carlo talks about her grandparents Michael and Margaret De Carlo. Michael, she says, was from Sicily. He had moved to France when he was young. There he met and married the Presbyterian Scotswoman, Margaret Purvis. Their children were born in France and they emigrated to Canada in 1912. She talks in the book about her merchant sailor uncle John, her aunt Connie, and her mother's marriage to William Middleton in Alberta.

Aren't books amazing! They're the latest and greatest technology and maybe someday they could replace the Internet.

Relative Claus

2006-12-29T19:54:00.000-08:00

A Christmas card addressed to Stephen Votruba in Winona, Minnesota was somehow mistakenly delivered to the home of Frederick Novotny on Long Island in New York. In the letter accompanying the forwarded card, Novotny told Votruba that his great aunt had been married to a man named Votruba. Noting that the New Yorker is a possible relative, the Minnesota resident calls it a "Christmas miracle." “For all I know, he could be a distant relative from Ellis Island.”

Bzzzzzttttt. Your Votruba ancestors, Mr. Votruba, have lived less than a mile from your Minnesota home since at least 1880, having arrived in the U.S. some 20 years before Ellis Island opened in 1892. Novotny's uncle's family arrived in New York around 1902.

So the two Votruba families were not separated at Ellis Island, but what are the odds that the two men are related? Since Votruba is a not-uncommon Bohemian name and Novotny doesn't even profess any Votruba ancestors, I'd say the odds are just a little higher than for any two men of Czech ancestry.

Christmas miracle? Humbug.

Jeane Kirkpatrick's Sooner Ancestry

2006-12-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

Jeane Kirkpatrick died last Thursday. The former United Nations Ambassador left a rich political legacy. I guess those who help make history don't necessarily know history.

Kirkpatrick once said that one of her grandfathers was in the Oklahoma "Sooner run for land." The first and most famous land run in Oklahoma was in 1889. There were a few more in the next few years but they were over by 1895.

Kirkpatrick's maternal grandfather was Henry Kile. Born in Tennessee in 1871, he never made it to Oklahoma. He spent most of his adult years farming in Texas where he died in 1951.

Kirkpatrick's paternal grandfather was Lee Frank Jordan, also born in Tennessee in 1871. In 1900, the family was in Texas, but by the 1910 census they were in Oklahoma. Their children were all born in Texas, except the one-year-old who was born in Oklahoma. BLM land records indicate he took out homestead papers there in January of 1910.

Looks to me like Kirkpatrick's grandfather missed the Oklahoma land run by about 20 years, but he got there sooner or later.

Silly Genealogist: "Greifeld" Is Italian, Not Irish

2006-12-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

The London TimesOnline was not surprised when the genealogist hired by Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld was unable to find all that many Irish ancestors.

Maybe they think with a name like Greifeld, he can't be all that Irish. I wonder if they really understand the term "melting pot" or if they think that a person's ancestors all had the same last name.

Greifeld should have a goodly share of Irish ancestors. The parents of his paternal grandmother Celia were Patrick and Mary Gannon. Mary was born in Ireland as were Patrick's parents. That means that Greifeld is a quarter Irish.

But Greifeld's mother's maiden name is Cafasso and all her grandparents were born in Italy. Therefore, Greifeld has twice as many Italian ancestors as Irish ones.

Maybe Greifeld's genealogist would find more ancestors by looking near Palermo.

To round things out, Bob Greifeld is an eighth German -- from the Harz Mountains of Saxony -- and an eighth Swedish.

~ via Genealogue

Out to See

2006-11-18T18:56:00.000-08:00

Some of our favorite genealogy bloggers have been out to sea lately. We'll be glad when they get back. Meanwhile, take a look at this picture taken in my neck of the woods last week.

It looks a lot like Dick Eastman with some engineer types, apparently evaluating antique microfilm readers.

Motivational Speaker

2006-10-29T17:27:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we just need a bit of inspiration to get past those road blocks in our family tree. Something to wake us up and spur us into having a go at it one more time!!

CarlisleCockney provides just the thing and shows us that Roots Television is not the only one with stimulating genealogical videos.

A Vacation That's Off the (Pedigree) Chart

2006-09-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

We are off on a strange adventure. For the first time in a bazillion years we are taking a trip to a place where we have neither descendants nor ancestors. I have no idea what to do there.

All our vacations are to either visit kids or explore ancestral homelands. These extremeties of the family tree have taken us to such exotic locales as Queens, New York; Bluffton, Ohio; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Cambridge, England; and Seoul, Korea.

But on this vacation there's not even a slightly-out-of-the-way place to go when that overwhelming urge to do some genealogy strikes. Like last summer's "Here we are in Yellowstone, we might as well swing by Ft. Morgan, Colorado to see where your great-grandfather got hit by the train." Or like a few years ago with my sister in Southern France: "Let's just zip across Northern Italy to see if we can find the coal hut in Austria where Mom's grandpa was born."

Not this trip. We'll be stuck on an island in the middle of the Pacific ocean. No ancestors. No kids. Just the two of us with nothing to do but sit in a hammock all day and sip Mai Tais.

See you when we get home in a week when I'll at least have broadband again. Meanwhile, Randy Seaver blogs about the kind of trip we usually take and suggests there will soon be more at Jasia's Creative Gene via Blog Carnival.

Last Word on Annie Moore

2006-09-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

Megan Smolenyak is probably exhausted from her whirlwind celebrity tour of New York, so while we wait to see more of what she and Brian have on Annie, I've updated my web site with what I came up with in my own research.

I have posted records that ID her brother Philip and her parents Matthew and Julia. I've also put up some records for Annie Schayer that I found after Megan identified her on Friday.

Now that Annie has been found, I can focus on important things. Like the latest celebrities to lie about their age or be confused about their ancestry. Easy pickin's compared to lost girls from the Lower East Side.

Ellis Island on Ancestry.com

2006-09-07T03:09:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg evaluated the upgraded tools at Ancestry.com for building a family tree. I found it interesting that, according to Walt:

The company says the Ellis Island data are coming within months.

A while back, Ellis Island disallowed downloading of manifests. Will Ancestry be making them available for downloading or storing? That would be much better than the tacked-together-screenshot method I am currently using.

Walt's columns on technology are always open about the pros and cons of a product and clearly detailed. He writes about the tools he reviews as if he were a novice. Indeed - he was impressed by the "Family Facts" that appeared while he was searching on Ancestry. He summed up his experience thusly:

Ancestry.com is a rich site that uses a sensible layout and encourages
learning.

Check out the tree-building tools yourself at Ancestry Ancestry.com

Mod Jobs

2006-09-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

Looking back at the 1880 census, Family History Circle (via Genealogue) lists the most popular jobs of the time, including many quaint occupations -- such as saloon keeper, corset maker, and blacksmith -- that harken back to olden days and remind us how far we've come.

But 1880 was a year just brimming with opportunity and invention and the people then were as eager as people are today to adopt the latest technology.

The telephone had been invented just a couple years earlier but already over 1700 telephone workers were on the job. A good number of them were operators, mostly male, and a dozen telephone repairers had found their calling.
The phonograph, slower to catch on than the phone though invented around the same time, was supported in 1880 by 83 "phonographers."
Thomas Edison had patented the incandescent light just a few months before the census was taken when there were 49 men working with electric light. A thousand electricians were already on the job.
The development of the dry-plate process in 1878 revolutionized photography and opened the doors for over 9000 photographers by 1880.
The first typewriter was introduced commercially in 1873. By 1880 there were over a hundred "typists" or "type writers" using the machines. Many of the 900 stenographers were probably also using the device.

You can see a glimmer of today's coolest pastimes in the 1880 census: There were over 50 baseball players, six genealogists, a handful of balloonists -- including one woman -- and, as a possible forerunner of new-age color therapy, one "pyschromatic healer."

In a few years, the people of the 1880 census became eager adopters of motion pictures, automobiles, aeroplanes, and pop-up toasters. No wonder: in 1880 there were 782 inventors working in America.

You can search the 1880 census by occupation at Ancestry Ancestry.com

Days of Wine and Ruses

2006-09-02T08:46:00.000-07:00

William Ingraham Koch, yachtsman and art collector, bought some wine a few years ago that was purported to have been owned by Thomas Jefferson. Turns out it probably wasn't.

Koch spent more on finding out that the story was bogus than he did on the wine itself but there's more millions where that came from and, not to worry, Koch can still go on with his collecting. Some of Koch's collection was on exhibit last year at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which said:

At the core of the collection is Koch’s ancestor, Captain James Lawrence, a naval hero of the War of 1812. Captain Lawrence’s bravado expressed in his dying words “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” later became the motto of the United States Navy. The Koch collection of marines includes several paintings devoted to Lawrence.

Maybe the person who sold Koch the wine is the same person who sold him the story about James Lawrence being his ancestor. James Lawrence was survived by one daughter, Mary, who was born about 1811. She married Lt. William Griffin in 1838.

Tracing Koch's ancestry back to the early 1800s lookng for Griffins or Lawrences turned up Koch's great-great-grandmother Marie, who was born in 1812 to Isaac Lawrence, and who married William Ingraham Kip.

Turns out Isaac Lawrence and Captain James Lawrence both had ancestors who came to Long Island from Hertfordshire, England in the 1630s. I would not be surprised if the two Lawrence guys from Hertforshire are related. But even if they were brothers, that would make William Koch something like 10th cousin, 4 times removed to Captain Lawrence. Hardly an ancestor.

I am more closely related to Madonna than Koch is related to Captain Lawrence and there is not a single portrait of her in my collection.

Nor any bogus wine.

Panned Planethood

2006-08-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

The inhabitants of Earth learned this week that there is one less planet, not the nine they thought they knew about, revolving around the Sun as the earth does.

According to Time.com, this was posted March 24, 1930.

The inhabitants of Earth learned last week that there is another planet, beside the eight they knew about, revolving around the Sun as the earth does.
.
.
.
Clyde W. Tombaugh, 24, an assistant at the observatory, saw a strange blotch of light on a new plate. He hastily took the photograph to Vesto Melvin Slipher, director of the observatory. Dr. Slipher joyfully notified his younger brother, Earl Carl Slipher, and the rest of the staff, including Carl Otto Lampland. They were quite excited.

Astronomy may not be static but history is. Those scientists can be found today just as the census enumerator recorded them 10 days after the article appeared in Time.

From Ordinary Beginnings to the Greatest Generation

2006-08-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

Ira Hayes was a member of the Pima tribe from Arizona, son of a grocery store clerk. Franklin Sousley's father was a truck farmer in Kentucky. As a 4-year-old, Michael Strank came with his mother from what is now Slovakia to join his father in the coal fields of Pennsylvania. Harlon Block's father, the son of German immigrants, had a farm in Texas, just north of the Mexican border. Rene Gagnon's parents were French-Canadian cotton mill workers in New Hampshire who separated when Rene was young. John Bradley, who lived most all his life in the Wisconsin dairy lands, was the son of a railroad brakeman.

On February 23, 1945, Joe Rosenthal, Washington D.C.-born son of a Jewish clothing merchant from Russia, took their picture on Iwo Jima. Joe died last Sunday.

Annie's Family

2006-08-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

As Megan announced, Brian Andersson was the first to locate Annie Moore's family. Congratulations, Brian!

I've started posting records I've found for Annie's family on my research notes site. Brain has even more compelling evidence, so stay tuned to Megan's Roots World for further updates.

Brian, by the way, has access to some wonderful records at the NYC Department of Records. All of us who do research in NY are delighted to have a genealogist heading up the department. One of us! And quite an accomplished researcher, too.

Maybe soon Brian or Randy or another researcher will find Annie. Meanwhile, I'm still enjoying the hunt!

Lessons in Research from the Wall Street Journal

2006-08-17T15:30:00.000-07:00

Today's issue of the WSJ has an article entitled, "Going Online to Mine the Growing Wealth of Genealogy Data." The search by Lan Nguyen, the Journal's Cranky Consumer, for her husband's ancestors offers the opportunity to discuss some basic tenets of genealogical research.

1) People born in New York did not have to travel through Ellis Island to get there. The columnist reports looking for her husband's grandfather, James Jewel, born in New York in 1910, on EllisIsland.org. I would recommend Steve Morse's Ellis Island portal for better results, still it's not where I'd start my search for a native New Yorker.

2) Danish people are not well represented in Jewish genealogical databases. The author says she searched for her husband's grandmother on Jewishgen.org. A great site, but not necessarily the best for looking up the ancestry of a Danish woman who married into a Jewish family in 1934.

3) Women are not born with the last names of their future husbands. The writer evidently did not know that records for events that took place before a woman's marriage will be under the woman's maiden name. All her searches for the grandmother were for "Evelyn Jewel."

4) Researching your family tree takes longer than 5 hours and can even take weeks. The columnist allotted five hours to do the research on her husband's ancestry. After running into so many problems, she contacted the help desk at Ancestry.com for some pointers and was able to find her husband's grandfather in a matter of weeks.

I admit, my own genealogical research has not been much quicker, even allowing for the time I have evidently wasted reading up on the process.

More Castles for Nic

2006-08-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Cage bought a castle in Etzelwang bei Amberg because the ancestors of his mother, Joy Vogelsang, "are all from good old Bavaria." In fact, Nic's great-great-great-grandfather Louis Vogelgesang is the only one I can identify who came from Bavaria.

Maybe Nic'll just buy a château in Alsace in memory of his great-great-great-grandmother Josephine and scoop up a Schloß or two in Prussia in memory of his mother's Muentnich and Daum ancestors. He's got a number of manors in the British Isles coming to him, too, what with his mom's Lewis, Caldwell, Ramsey, and Lockhart ancestors.

And that's just on his mom's paternal side.

I don't know anything about the background of Nic's maternal grandmother. She is 91 and living in Los Angeles so I could just ask her. Though she goes by Louise, Ancestry.com says her name is Della Murray, which, now that I think of it, does not sound particularly Bavarian.

Hat tip to The Genealogue.

Annie to Attend Moore Family Reunion?

2006-07-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

Annie Moore, that long-lost Irish gal who has the genealogy world in hyper-search mode, will probably not be attending the Moore Family Reunion in California next week. I'll be there -- Moore is my maiden name -- as will my parents, siblings, and four generations of assorted relatives.

I admit to being one of those caught up in the search for Annie that Megan fiendishly instigated. Being intimately acquainted with early 20th century New Yorkers -- I searched thousands of them for an urban history project -- I thought I would give it a go.

With my addled brain, I soon realized that I needed some kind of organization for the Annie project. Who said what and when? What's been searched? I am way too easily confused! You can check out my first attempts at organization here.

So far, Annie has eluded everyone's efforts. If she does show up at the Moore Family Reunion next week, I'll let you know.

June Allyson Dies

2006-07-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

June Allyson died Sunday. In 2001, she gave an interview on Larry King Live in which she said her name was originally Ella Van Geisman, a Dutch name. Others have decided, for no apparent reason, that she was Jewish.

The 1920 New York census lists her as Ella, daughter of Anna and Robert Geisman, a chemist. Her parents were married in 1914 at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in the Bronx by the pastor, William Junge. Her grandfather, Henry Geismann, was born in 1864 in Ahsen, then part of Prussia, and christened in the same Catholic church where his parents were married. So again, it appears that the Dutch are really Deutsch.

On her mother's side, Allyson's grandmother's ancestors were from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her maternal grandfather was named James Provost. He may have been a descendant of the early settlers of New Amsterdam, which would make him -- and June Allyson -- Dutch.
______________________________________________________
You can view the census records and more genealogy for June Allyson at Ancestry Ancestry.com

The Devil's in the Details

2006-07-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

Meryl Streep reports that "Streep was a name taken by Jews in Holland in the fifteenth century." In a 1998 interview, she told us that the Streeps were originally Sephardic Jews from Spain.

That may well be true. The name Streep is Dutch. And Jews from Spain did go to Holland in the 15th century.

But when we check out the details -- by, of all things, starting with her father and working backwards -- we find that her branch wasn't even named Streep so we don't care about the origins of the Dutch Streeps.

Streep's father is Harry Streep, Jr. In the 1930 census he is with his parents Harry and Lena in Newark, NJ.

Harry Sr's WW I draft card says he was born February 5, 1884. In the 1900 census, Harry, born February 1884, is in Newark with his parents Frederick and Elizabeth who are both born in New Jersey. Their parents were from Germany and the surname is spelled Streeb. (Those of you familiar with German pronunciation are nodding right now.)

In the 1870 census, Frederick is in Elizabeth, NJ with Godfrey and Christian Streep who are both from "Whertenburg." Records from Madison Street German Presbyterian Church in New York City, where their first child was born, include the marriage of Christine Zeltmann to Gottfried Streebe in 1851.

The Wuerttemberg, Germany Emigration Index says Christine Zeltmann, who sailed in 1846, is from the town of Loffenau. Her husband may be the Gottfried Streeb reportedly born in Loffenau in 1815.

Maybe the Streeps living in Holland today descend from Spanish Jews. And maybe they think they are related to Meryl Streep. But they are not kin unless, long ago, some Dutch Streeps moved to Germany's Black Forest. Maybe the Streebs living in Loffenau today would know.

There once was a women in Prada,
Who sailed with the Spanish Armada.
She says she is Dutch.
I think - not so much.
So it turns out the devil wears nada.

______________________________________________________
You can view the draft card, emigration index, census records, and more records for Meryl Streep at Ancestry Ancestry.com

Who's My Daddy?

2006-06-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of me taken soon after I was born with a man in an army uniform. A staff seargent with some kind of communications patch on his sleeve. Palm trees in the background so it could be California. My mother says the man is my father.

Could the soldier be Marlon Brando? Brando was known to hang out in Southern California sometimes, so that's a good possibility.

Maybe my father is Italian soccer player Alessandro del Piero -- currently playing in the World Cup -- though this seems less likely since Alessandro wasn't born until 1974 and the picture appears to be somewhat earlier.

Perhaps it's Yasser Arafat in a crafty disguise.

Other likely matches are Jon Stewart, Chuck Yeager, George Clooney, and Luciano Pavarotti.

Those are the possibilities listed at myHeritage which uses "sophisticated algorithms that facilitate the use of face recognition for genealogy."

I don't have any sophisticated algorithms. To me, he looks a lot like the guy my mom has always called Fred and I've always called Dad.

Rare Welsh Bits

2006-06-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

According to the National Web Site of Wales, the recent completion of U.S. census records on Ancestry [Ancestry.com] will result in boatloads of Americans beating the bushes in Wales searching for their ancestors.

"Americans are very intrigued about Wales and their Celtic ancestry. If they feel they have half a toe in the Celtic gene pond, they'll be beside themselves with excitement and hot-footing it over here to get more."

I don't doubt that a lot of folks have Welsh roots but they picked these famous people as examples:

Tom Cruise's Welsh ancestry was questioned here and also revised on ancestry.com.

The Welsh site says Tommy Lee Jones's father, Clyde Jones, was Welsh. Clyde was born in Texas in 1926. Both of Clyde's parents were born in the U.S. as were all four of his grandparents, all eight of his great-grandparents, and a good chunk of his family tree for several more generations. Because the origins of most of his ancestors are unidentified, we don't know how many of these lines actually led from Wales.

Dallas, Texas 1930

Kevin Spacey says his great-grandfather was a Welshman named Spacey. Actually, his grandfather Joseph emigrated from Bohemia as a toddler. He changed his name from Spacek to Spacey when he was in his 30's.

Mount Vernon, NY 1920

Hicksville, NY 1930

Half a toe, indeed. Some of those Welsh bits are quite rare.

A Family Heritage That's Hard to Stomach

2006-06-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

In 1930 [census], Golda Hitchcock Bradfield lived with her carpenter husband and five children in their rented home on a tree-lined street in downtown Emporia, Kansas. Three more children would be born in the next five years. In the coming decades, the family would learn that Golda had passed on a deadly inheritance.

Golda died of a rare stomach cancer at age 64. Of her eight children, seven would have the gene that makes the disease almost inevitable. Six of the kids died of it, most in their 40s or 50s.

The next generation -- Golda's grandchildren -- watched helplessly as the older generation died too young and wondered what the future held for them. With the advent of a genetic test for the disease -- and the death from stomach cancer of one of that generation -- the remaining cousins were tested. Eleven of them were found to be at risk. Each of them had to decide whether or not to accept the only available option -- to have their stomachs removed.

A drastic step but eventually they all took that option. "We're all going to die of something," Bill Bradford said, "but I know I won't die of stomach cancer."

Political. Incorrect.

2006-06-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

A recent reviewer of political commentator Ann Coulter's latest book threw down the genealogical gauntlet by suggesting that Coulter could be descended from Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels.

That is patently absurd and was obviously written just to stir up trouble -- yet I did take up the challenge. I found that Coulter's ancestors, at least on her mother's side, are red-blooded Americans, having been in this country for hundreds of years, and have probably never set foot in Germany.

Coulter's mother is Nell Martin Coulter, born in Paducah, Kentucky in 1928. On the 1850 census, Nell's great-great-grandfather, Charles C. Martin, is a farmer in Muhlenberg Co., Kentucky.

He's also on the 1850 Slave Schedule for the same location, the owner of one 18-year-old mulatto male.

Note: Click the census images to enlarge. You can view additional Martin family census images with a subscription or free trial at Ancestry Ancestry.com

Are Baby Boomers Ready to Face Growing Old?

2006-06-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

In its new ad campaign, Genworth Financial is spotlighting the lives of 6 centenarians. According to the WSJ, this is a bold move. Conventional wisdom among marketing types is that Baby Boomers are turned off by reminders that they are getting old. I rather like it -- beats the alternative.

One good thing about old folks is that they have more history that can be checked out. Here's what the records show for the new advertising models.

Helen Green
One of ten children, Helen was born March 2, 1902 in King Co., Washington to Joseph Burcham, a farmer, and his wife Rosa Householder. Helen's twin sister Hazel died in 2001 at 99. Helen has been a widow for thirty years and is an avid genealogist. [1910 census]

Edward Rondthaler
Edward, who just celebrated his 101st birthday a few days ago, is the son of Howard Rondthaler, a Moravian bishop and president of Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and his wife Katherine Boring, the daughter of a Philadelphia pharmacist. Edward married Dorothy Reid in 1930; she died in 2002. [1910 census]

Leonard Ross
Around the time "Rosie" was 11 or 12, his family moved from Wakita, Oklahoma -- where he was born in 1905 -- to Barber Co., Kansas where his father continued to farm. By 1930, his parents had moved to Colorado and bought a hotel though Leonard no longer lived at home. By the time he enlisted in the army during WW II, Leonard was living in Arizona, where he still resides. [1910 census]

Clayton Scott
"Scotty," who will turn 101 next month, was born in Potter Co., Pennsylvania to an English stone mason. In 1920, his father was a jewelry store clerk still in Potter Co., but by 1930, he was working as a grocer in Portland, Oregon. This account differs slightly from the story told on the Boeing Frontiers Web site which says that Clayton moved with his family from Pennsylvania to Portland in 1911. In any case, Clayton was listed as an airplane pilot in Seattle, Boeing's home, in the 1930 census. [1920 census]

Frank Shearer
A retired doctor, Frank's wife, Bernice Deer Shearer, died in 1996 on her 92nd birthday. He was born in 1905, most likely in Saskatchewan, Canada. The first Canadian census he'll appear on is 1911, which will be released to the public in 2011 at which time Frank will be 106.

Roberta Smith
Is Roberta the Rovertia/Roverta Stoker who is 1 year, 1 month old in April, 1910 and living just outside Henderson, Texas? If so, her date of marriage is incorrect in this article; Roverta is still living at home in 1930. But the article has her husband's year of death wrong. Social Security records indicate he died in 1984, not 1980. More differences: The article states that 6 family members died in 1921. But Roverta's immediate family appears pretty healthy and intact in 1930. One last bit of confusion: Public record databases, not totally reliable, indicate that Roberta Smith of Indio, California was born March 13, 1909. If so, she would not be a centenarian for another couple of years. Check out the ad when it airs and see for yourself if she doesn't look a day over 97. [1930 census]

Note: Census images are available only if you have a subscription or free trial at Ancestry Ancestry.com

Senator Finds Cousin's Skeleton in Closet

2006-06-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

When The Genealogue generously shared with us that Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) claimed there'd never been a divorce in the recorded history of his family, you know I had to check it out.

This is from the October 20, 1949 edition of the Council Bluffs Nonpareil (Council Bluffs, Iowa). Lorence Inhofe is the senator's first cousin.

George Raft's Fabled Italian Ancestry

2006-06-02T20:53:00.000-07:00

Did George Raft make up his Italian ancestry or was it his devotees who did it as Italian American Actors suggests? Fan-written Wikipedia says that George Raft had an Italian mother and the FBI says he is Italian, but the American National Bibliography says Raft's parents are Conrad Ranft and Eva Glockner. With this conflicting information, I could not help but want to check it out. I was surprised by what I found.

In 1910, George is with his parents Conrad and Eva Ranft in New York City. His father says he was born in Massachussets and his mother says she is from Germany. The parents give the same birthplaces in 1900. So that confirms it: George Raft had no Italian ancestry.

But what's surprising is that he is only 8 years old in 1910 and does not appear at all in 1900. Practically every source has his birthdate as 26 Sep 1895. Even his gravestone and California death record say 1895.

So now we have evidence that George lied about his age and everybody fell for it. All we have to do is verify it.

The social security death index has his birthdate as 26 Sep 1901. The dates on the California death record and the tombstone were provided by someone else, but George himself provided the date to the Social Security Administration, probably along with proof of age.
The index to New York City Births records a George Rauft born 26 Sep 1901. Remember, George's real name was Ranft. If, like me, you spend all your spare time looking at census records, you know that an N and a U look the same.

Someone who wants to write a biography of George might want to examine the actual birth record, but that's enough evidence for me.

Billy Bob Thornton's Fanciful Italian Ancestry

2006-06-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Billy Bob Thornton, who claims to be one-quarter Italian from his mother's side, will probably be having a wild celebration tonight for the 60th anniversary of the Foundation of the Italian Republic.

In 1930, his mother's parents, Maud and Claud (C.D.) Faulkner, were living in Arkansas next to Maud's parents and grandfather. No sign of any Italians anywhere in the county and certainly not in this household. So where does Billy Bob's Italian ancestry come from?

Some sites identify Billy Bob's great-grandfather, James R. Duce as the Italian in his tree. Perhaps they've found a link between the Duce family of Arkansas and Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator known as Il Duce.

Christina Ricci's Forgotten Italian Heritage

2006-06-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Italian Republic. Don't look for Christina Ricci to be celebrating.

Christina's father Ralph was in New Jersey in 1930 with his parents (Christina's grandparents) Charlotte and Victor Ricci. Both of Victor's parents were born in Italy. That makes Christina's ancestry one-quarter Italian...

"But the Italian blood has been bred out of me. There's an Italian four or five generations back who married an Irish woman and they all had sons. So they married more Irish women, there were more sons, and more Irish women. Now I'm basically Scots-Irish." [Link]

My Advice: Don't Lie About Your Age

2006-05-23T15:05:00.000-07:00

According to an article in yesterday's WSJ, Marie Manning is considered the first American newspaper advice columnists. Writing for the New York Evening Journal as "Beatrice Fairfax," her column debuted in 1898. Manning later recalled, "If I had been 10 years older, I might have hesitated over the Frankensteinian monster I was invoking. But 20 is a fearless age."

Here is Marie in 1880 with her father and several maternal relatives; she is 10 years old. In 1870, she is with her parents and some of the same relatives; she is 1 year old.

Known as witty and astringent, Manning must have been enjoyed supressing a laugh when she said, "If I had been 10 years older...."

Nothing Under the Sun Is New

2006-05-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Someone forwarded an e-mail to me yesterday that started out with the news that this week in 1850, California became a state. California was admitted to the Union in September and this is May, so things are off to a bad start.

Then it says that back then, the state had no electricity, no money, almost everybody in the state spoke Spanish, and there were gunfights in the streets. The e-mail continues by telling us that things are pretty much the same today as they were then but then points out that one real difference between now and then is that back then the men didn't hold hands.

I don't know if this e-mail is saying that California would be out of the 19th century were it not for deregulation, Prop. 13, and the National Rifle Association or if California should be given back to Mexico or what. Though I can't tell what the point of the e-mail is, I can check out some of the facts -- and you know I will.

The population of California in the 1850 census was 93,171. Of those, 6,440 were born in Mexico. For comparison, 10,301 were born in New York, over 5,000 in Ohio, and 4,300 in Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 were born in Germany and a bit more were from England. Though the census did not ask what languages people spoke, I wouldn't be surprised if more people knew German than Spanish.

Of the total population, less than 4,000 were women -- so who were all those men holding hands with?

Tom Cruise's Baby's Questionable Ancestry

2006-05-03T11:24:00.000-07:00

Born Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, Tom Cruise single-handedly tracked his family tree back to his great-grandfather, Thomas Cruise Mapother I. Great sleuthing, Tom!

A couple years ago he was reportedly "staggered" when handed a pedigree chart on national TV which had his immigrant ancestor, Welshman Dylan Henry Mapother, arriving in 1850. If he had been able to do any research on his own further than his namesake ancestor, his being staggered would have been justified: records from Castle Garden show his immigrant ancestor was born in Ireland, not Wales.

Census records of 1860 and 1870 corroborate the Irish ancestry.

Although news to Tom, his Irish ancestry is not news to those who keep track of these kind of things:

If Goldie Hawn had married Walter Matthau would she be Goldie Studlendgehawn-Matuschanskayasky?

2006-04-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

The story of how Walter Matthau came to be identified as Walter Matuschanskayasky is pretty well documented. He made it up himself. After arriving in the U.S. from Poland, his father had changed his name from Matuschansky to Matthow, which was Matthau's surname when he was born in 1920. Making fun of the original foreign-sounding name, Matthau would jokingly say it was Matuschanskayasky and some took him seriously.

This info is from his biography, Matthau, a Life, and I cannot shed any more light on these names. I cannot find the family in the census in any year with any name. His mother died with the name Matthow and there are possible sightings of his father in Ellis Island and draft records but nothing that gives a positive ID.

Goldie's story is quite different. I have no idea who made up the tale that her birth name was Studlendgehawn or what it is based on.

Here's her dad in 1920. He's listed as Rutledge, son of O.D. and Claire Hawn. Here he is again in 1910, this time listed as Edward R., son of Otto D. and Clara. All the way back through the census records for generations -- from Otto to Aaron to Alfred to Sampson to Christian to John -- all the way back to the first U.S. census -- the name is Hawn or Hahn or Haun.

The name is never anything at all like Studlendgehawn. As a matter of fact, I can't find a single person who ever existed with that name, can you?

Death Records Prove Popularity of Woolworth's Wallets

2006-04-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

The California Death Index for 1940 through 1997 shows 36 people with something unusual in common: Minnie Sly, Gene Goldsborough, Albert Bockhacker, James Pappas, Denis O'Callahan, Archie Smith, Lorin Rutledge, Williard Friend, and a couple dozen more. Thirty-one of them were men; only five were women. All of the people died in the 1940s and 1950s except two who died in the 1980s. They came to California from all over the U.S. -- nine were foreign-born -- and none of them knew each other. Their places of death were spread out over the state, from San Diego County in the south to Tehama County in the north.

What they had in common was that they had each gotten a wallet from Woolworth's. The wallet came with a fake Social Security card with a preprinted Social Security number on it, empty spaces where the name and birthdate would go, and the word SPECIMEN stamped across it. When these people died, their next of kin opened the wallet and pulled out the card. They gave the social security number on the card to the person who filled out their loved one's death certificate.

Old news, yes, but I just got around to checking it out. If you have a subscription to Ancestry.com, you can see the death index for yourself. The 36 people are all listed with the same social security number.

Eleven-Year-Old Foreigner Wanders U.S. Alone for Two Years

2006-04-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should have a blog just for immigration myths.

There's a story about Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo that says his 11-year-old grandfather Joseph came to Ellis Island from Italy unaccompanied with a note pinned to his shirt directing that he be sent to Iowa, but he overshot Iowa and ended up in Denver 2 years later.

The story ignores the fact that an 11-year-old wandering off alone at Ellis Island in 1900 is as likely as one wandering through customs in 2006. There were hundreds of workers and immigrant aid society members at Ellis Island to assist and accommodate the recent immigrants. And how did poor Joseph eat on his trek and where did he sleep? Did no one help the child? Somehow the people of sepia-colored America are seen as quite different from people today.

Then there's the passenger list that shows 11-year-old Giuseppe with other Tancredo family members (sisters?) from Potenza on the ship Sicilian Prince landing at Ellis Island in 1903. As required, they each give the name and address of the person they are joining in the U.S. The women name their husbands; Giuseppe names his brother-in-law, Gerardo Marsico. The relatives all live in Denver at the same address.

When Grandpa Joe told the story of his arrival to his grandson Tom, did he forget he had family who traveled with him from Italy and who he lived among on Osage Street?

Tom Tancredo is proud that his grandparents wanted, above all, to leave Italy behind and to be American. He is one of the congressmen who wants to build a fence across the Mexican border because, he says, immigrants of today are different from those of a hundred years ago.

Free Government Graves and Tombstones

2006-04-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

The Washington Post's headline was intriguing: Great-Grandson's Questions Laid to Rest.
After Years of Research, Man Identifies His Confederate Ancestor's Grave.

Rather misleading title. No grave digging or DNA analysis was involved. The guy already knew where his ancestor was buried from a childhood memory, he just did not know his name. The article leaves out all the juicy details, such as how he figured out which of his four great-grandfathers was the one buried there (here's the one he ID'd: Charles Jones) and how we can check it out.

As for the "notarized affidavit," to have something notarized means that the signing of the affidavit is witnessed by a notary public. A notary asks for identification to ensure the person is who they say they are. Notaries are not responsible for the accuracy of anything. That means any of us can show up with a notarized pedigree chart to claim an unmarked grave. And the government will even thrown in a free tombstone.

Waiting for the Phone to Ring

2006-03-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

Madonna was fascinated to find that she is related to both Celine Dion and the former Camilla Parker-Bowles. She was so delighted that she gave the Duchess a call to let her in on the secret. Madonna's genealogist believes that Madonna, Celine, and Camilla are related because of their "unusual French-Canadian ancestry."

Madonna is, in fact, related to a bazillion people, including Robert Goulet, Jack Kerouac, all five of the Dionne Quintuplets, and -- me!

Let's look at the numbers. Zacharie Cloutier and Jean Guyon, through whom Madonna claims relationship to Camilla and Celine, are two of her 9th great-grandfathers. By 1800, Zacharie Cloutier had 10,850 married descendants; Jean Guyon had 9,674.

Play those numbers out over another 200 years and that means Madonna has a ton of relatives -- just from those two ancestors! Now add into the equation the fact that half of Madonna's lineage is French-Canadian. She would have had 512 French or French-Canadian 9th great-grandfathers! Even accounting for pedigree collapse, that would make her related to virtually everyone with early French-Canadian ancestry.

As another cousin, Dick Eastman, says, "I have never met a French-Canadian that I wasn't related to!"

Jean-François Loiseau has great trees showing dozens of the French ancestors of Madonna, Celine, and Camilla.

(Thanks to genealogyblog for tip.)

Like a Kid in a Candy Store

2006-03-14T08:07:00.000-08:00

Maureen Stapleton died yesterday at age 80. In the 1930 census (line 27) she was a 4-year-old living in Troy, NY. Her father was a merchant in a candy store -- every child's dream, no doubt. But look where her mother worked. Who wouldn't want samples from there!!

Wall Street Journal Not Your Best Source for Genealogy

2006-03-11T13:46:00.000-08:00

Today's edition of the Wall Street Journal had an article on Wrigley gum and how the founder of the company ran away from home at age 11 to live on the streets of New York and pull himself up by his own bootstraps. Not true, of course. Here is William Wrigley, Jr. living at home at age 18 and working as a salesman. According to the company, Wrigley is selling his father's soap.

I wonder if the WSJ fails to check out its other stories. Maybe just not those of people who (seemingly) overcome great odds to fulfill the American dream.

Last year there was a great multi-part series in the Journal on upward mobility in the U.S. and the lack thereof in recent times. It gave the example of a James Roberts who went from being the son of a day laborer in western New York in 1850 to being a bookkeeper in New York City 30 years later. Never letting an opportunity to check it out go by, I found that the bookkeeper was in fact the son of a wealthy landowner in Westchester County, NY. (To be fair, the professor who supplied the example has compiled excellent data on 19th century mobility. Yes, Dr. Ferrie, I checked out your data.)

Prosper and Live Long

2006-03-06T19:24:00.000-08:00

They say that Oscar winners live longer than losers. Doesn't seem like winning an Oscar would give much of an evolutionary edge, especially considering the bazillions of actors who don't even get nominated. But that's what the numbers say.

Is this longevity edge evident in other fields as well? I had to check it out, of course.

Here is what the numbers say for winning a Nobel Prize:

There were 235 Americans nominated for the Nobel prize in medicine between 1901 and 1949. Twenty-five won. The average age at death for the winners was 81. Average age at death for the losers was 77.

Now I know what you're thinking. These were old geezers when they got nominated and they probably didn't live long enough to get an award. After all, the average time between being nominated and being awarded a prize was 11 years. So I took off the loser list those who died within 11 years of being nominated. The average age for the losers then came to 79.

For the Nobel Peace Prize, there were 68 American nominees from 1901 to 1951. A dozen won. Those winners died at an average age of 80. The losers died at 76. Removing those who died within 5 years of being nominated (mean interval for peace prize) the average age at death for the losers was 62.

What do these results mean? Is this a statistically valid study? Is this true across all disciplines? I have no idea: I am a genealogist, not a statistician. But for my next project, I will examine the longevity of prize-winning quilters at the Ohio State Fair.

Missing Sandra Day O'Connor

2006-02-22T13:55:00.000-08:00

Texas birth records show that Sandra Day was born March 26, 1930 in El Paso County. Three weeks later, the census enumerator found her parents on the Lazy-B Ranch in Greenlee Co., AZ. No sign of little Sandra. Maybe she was out back roping a steer when the census taker came by.

Inexplicable Epidemic of Death Hits 115-Year-Olds

2006-02-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

In the past couple days, two-thirds of all Americans aged 115 have died. That leaves only one.

Bettie Rutherford Wilson was born September 13, 1890, in Benton Co., Mississippi. She died on February 16, 2006.

Susie Potts Wilson was born October 31, 1890, in Alcorn Co., Mississippi. She died February, 18, 2006, two days after Bettie Wilson.

Lizzie Jones Bolden was born August 15, 1890 in Fayette Co., Tennesee. She currently lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

World-Famous First Winter Olympic Gold Medal Winner

2006-02-18T10:48:00.000-08:00

The winner of the first event of the 1924 Winter Olympics in Chamonix was Charles Jewtraw. A speed skater who took part in events across the U.S. and Europe in the early 1920s, Jewtraw won the 500 meter event at the first Winter Olympics. Born in Clinton County, NY in 1900, Charlie grew up near Lake Placid, the 4th son in a poor family. His parents separated when he was in his teens and he went to live with a businessman who financed Charlie's training.

You'd think the name of the winner of the first gold medal in Winter Olympic history would be world famous. Or, since he was an American, at least famous in the U.S. Although remembered in the speed-skating community, Charlie's name is not as recognizable to the rest of us as, say, fellow speed-skater Eric Heiden or another 1924 Winter Olympian, Sonja Henie, who as an 11-year-old figure skater, finished last.

After the Olympics, Jewtraw attended Harvard for a while and took part in a few more skating meets and exhibitions following the Olympics. He became a spokesperson for Spalding and married a woman named Natalie. He died in 1996 in Palm Beach, Florida.

In case you are wondering, the Jewtraws came to New York from Canada, though I don't know the actual origin of the name. To bolster my theory that census takers never ever asked how to spell a name, between 1840 and 1880, the name is recorded as Jewstraw, Dutrow, Jutraw, Dutrand, Jertraw, and Dutraw.

Here is Jewtraw in 1900, just a month old. By 1910 the family was living near Lake Placid. In 1920, Charlie was living with his sponsor, James Mabbett.

Coretta Scott King Laid to Rest

2006-02-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

As everyone knows, Coretta Scott King was born in Perry County, Alabama on April 27, 1927. Two years and 11 months later, the 1930 census records her age (line 88) as one and 11 months.

Does that mean she lied about her age? Probably not. If you've done even a minimum amount of research in the census records, you will have found that people's birthyears varied quite a bit. When they are this young, however, the parents are less likely to make a mistake. Note that in the case of little Cora, her grandparents were likely the one giving her age, so an error like this is understandable.

How the Government Stole Their Identity

2006-01-24T11:01:00.000-08:00

A century ago, Rosa Schneckelwicz bought tickets for passage to America for herself and her two children. The clerk filling out the passenger list spoke the same language she did and wrote her name as Schnecklewisz. Since spelling was a matter of fashion and changed over time, nobody much cared. The clerk wrote down the name and address of the person she was joining in the U.S., her husband, Itzig.

Rosa lands with her children at Ellis Island. She is asked by the official, who speaks only English, what her name is. Rosa thinks he is asking her what she had for lunch. The official hands her a piece of paper that gives her her new name: Weiner.

Rosa's husband comes to meet his family at the immigration station. She is so happy to see her dear Itzig after their long separation. "Don't call me Itzig," he says. "They did not like the name at Ellis Island so they changed it to Isaac." Rosa blinks and shows him the piece of paper with her new name. He is shocked. He had been given the name Shneck when he arrived last year because the official thought Schneckelwicz was too long. They go back to where the husband had been staying with his brother and discuss it with him. (When the brother had arrived three years ago, he had picked up the wrong piece of luggage at Ellis Island and been given the name O'Reilly when the official read the tags.)

But nothing can be done. There is that piece of paper that was given out at Ellis Island with their new names and it cannot be ignored. The husband lives out his life with the name Shneck and the children all grow up with the name Weiner. (The brother's children all go by O'Reilly.)

The Roots of Poverty

2006-01-20T16:24:00.000-08:00

Did you see Country Boys on Frontline a couple weeks ago? Since I saw it I find myself thinking about Chris and Cody and reading more on Appalachia. The PBS web site has some good articles and I've dug up others that show the history of poverty in the region and why it continues.

As the miniseries did, the records of the Johnson family make the general history personal. We can see the Appalachian themes of illiteracy, ecological exploitation, and internecine fighting played out within the Johnson family.

Randall's father was Noah Johnson. He was born in 1932, two years after the 1930 census. He bacame a mechanic and died at age 68. Here are his parents Eli and Eveline Johnson in 1930. Eli works in a sawmill and they rent their house for $5 a month. Eveline cannot read or write.

Going back to 1910 we find Eli as a son in the household of Daniel R. and Sarah Johnson. Daniel is a farmer and the couple are the parents of 13 children.

In 1932, Daniel Johnson shot and killed his daughter Tiny two days before she was to be brought to the penitentiary for killing her husband. Daniel's sons Eli and Charles testified for the prosecution but were said to have been drunk at the time of the shooting.

Abbott and Costello Part 2

2006-01-20T10:14:00.000-08:00

I seem to have ruffled some feathers with my blog on Bud Abbott. Instead of relying on gossip and oft-repeated stories, I looked at the evidence. Some people have a hard time with that because it challenges their long-held beliefs.

As far as Bud goes, the evidence points to his not being Jewish. Notice I did not say proves. More evidence could tilt the matter another way.

While we wait for that, let's move on to some sleuthing for Costello.

Lou's ancestry is usually given as mostly Italian with some mixture of Irish and French for the rest. They say his name was originally Cristillo and one story is that he changed it to Costello to match the surname of Dolores Costello.

Let's look at the census to see what it says. Remember, census info is evidence and not fact. We need to remember that because we get different info from each census!

In 1930, Lou's last name is Cristillo, his father is from Italy and his mother's parents are born in New Jersey.

In 1920, the last name is Cristillo, father from Italy and mother's parents born in New Jersey and England.

Here's a surprise in 1910: the last name is Costello! Where did that come from? Dad is Italian and mom has the same ancestry as 1920. Mom's dad (Louis Rege) is in the same household, born in New Jersey, half Italian and half French. It appears that his children had two different mothers, one born in England and one in France.

So far we're pretty sure that Lou's dad is 100% Italian but his mom's ancestry is rather murky. So far we have France, England, and New Jersey as possible origins.

In 1900, Lou's mother (Ellen Rege, line 54) is 17 and living with her parents who have been married for 18 years, so the hypothesis of a stepmother appears to be wrong. Her father has the same ancestry as in 1910 but her mother is from Pennsylvania with Irish ancestry. This is completely different from what is in other census records but it matches what it says in Lou's biography written by his daughter and also what we find in 1880 (Mary Tuohy, line 17).

We still don't know for sure where the name Costello came from (why did it pop up in 1910?) but we do have a good idea of Lou's ancestry. Doing the math, I come up with 62.5% Italian, 25% Irish, and 12.5% French. A long trip to find the facts, but worth the ride.

Shelly Winters Dies: Short Schrift

2006-01-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

Shelly Winters was the one who said, "I'm not overweight. I'm just nine inches too short." Here she is, last one on the page in the 1930 Queens NY census, the daughter of Jonas and Rose Schrift.

Happy Anniversary, Abbott and Costello

2006-01-10T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well, I made that up. I have no idea when they met or first appeared together.

But making things up seems to be the norm for stuff about celebrities (or often one's own ancestors). Take a look at this forum posting about Bud Abbott's 1900 census entry. Now take a look at the actual census. Notice how the poster made stuff up, particularly "Religion Jewish." Religion has never appeared on a U.S. census.

Others on the same forum commented on how the grandmother had a "Jewish name." This is in reference to "Rivka" which is what the earlier poster made up as the grandmother's name in the 1900 census. The census actually says "Reyka," a misspelling by the census taker of Ricka, a common nickname for Fredericka.

Here is Bud's mother Rachel, grandmother Fredericka, and grandfather Alexander Fisher (after whom Bud Abbott was named) in the 1860 census. This was long before Northern and Eastern European Jews started coming to the U.S.

So was Bud Abbott Jewish? It does not look like it based on the census info. But here is more grist for the rumor mill: In 1950 Bud and his wife renewed their wedding vows in a Jewish ceremony. Why they did this is not clear. Not do I understand why nobody in the ceremony is wearing a yarmulka.

Who Are Those Aging Baby Boomers?

2006-01-02T19:16:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Newsweek's cover had a lot of famous people born in 1946. But what about the not-so-famous? What happened to all those babies that are now turning 60?

I did a bit of research on a random few of the 442 Californians born January 1, 1946 to see how they turned out. Though they will probably never appear on the cover of a magazine, I'll bet they are more typical of the rest of us baby boomers.

Carol D. was widowed when her husband, a stained-glass craftsman and 13 years her senior, died last year. She has 5 children and 9 grandchildren and lives in Indiana.
James H. was married and divorced twice with two children by his first wife and one by his second. A Vietnam veteran, he got a college degree and worked in aerospace. He died in 2004.
Robert B. is a biologist for the National Park Service. Does not appear to have married.
Judith A. married when she was 18 and a couple months pregnant. Divorced then married again at 28 and had two more kids. The family moved three times since 1993, each time further out of town. The 1500-sq-ft house they live in now has doubled in value since they bought it in 2002.
Albert A. still lives in Watts not far from where he was born.
William E. is a descendant of early Fullerton pioneers and a professor of economics in Nevada. Married in 1968; two children.
Susan I. joined the convent and became a nun in 1964. Left the convent then married in 1975. Has three grown daughters, is a 3rd-grade teacher, and remains active in the Church.
Eric V. was married at one time but no evidence that he had children or that he is still married. Software engineer in Arizona.
Rand T. married in 1968 and had a handful of children. Served in Vietnam. Went to law school and practices law in upstate New York. Runs marathons and skis.
Victoria M. married in 1971. They have 3 sons and live in a newer subdivision of compact homes on the outskirts of a small town in an agricultural area of California.
Melvin A. moved as a child with his family to Pennsylvania. A math whiz in school; enlisted in the army right after high school, later got a science degree from Pitt. Owned an art gallery in Pennsylvania and was a management consultant in Palm Beach, Fla. Never married. Died in 1979.
David S. married in 1968 and has two daughters, one of whom was selected Miss Anaheim while she was attending college. He has lived in the same middle-class Hispanic neighborhood for over 30 years.
Lyndell G. earned a Ph.D. in education and has had two apparently short-lived marriages. One when she was 21 and the second, to a high school teacher, when she was 39. She has lived in Washington, D.C. where she was a college professor, in Eastern Europe where she headed a foundation to support rural development, and currently in central California where she runs a ranch.
James S. married in 1967 and has two sons. Earned a law degree from Notre Dame; admitted to the state bar in 1975; suspended in 2000; resigned in 2001. Gave $100 to Bush-Cheney in 2004.
William H. was killed in action in Vietnam in 1967.
Mary G., of Greek heritage, married in 1967 a man she met while attending UC Santa Barbara, a native Californian of Japanese heritage. She is a licensed psytherapist working on her Ph. D. in psychology and the chairman of the board of an outreach ministry. She and her husband give their time and money to causes such as wildlife protection and religious education.
Twelve of the babies born in California on January 1, 1946, died before they were 3 months old.

While most boomers would not be considered remarkable, the fact that one can find out so much about them on the Internet certainly is.

Pedro Wins!

2005-12-29T13:58:00.000-08:00

I've found dozens of incorrect birthdates on Wikipedia and in celebrity press releases. So far the one that's the furthest from the truth is the age of Efren Ramirez who played the teen-aged Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite. 1983 seems to be the birth year that everyone has.

California birth records for twins Efrain and Carlos Ramirez note that they were born in Los Angeles on October 2, 1973. Ten years earlier!!!

Happy 90th Birthday, Barbara Billingsley

2005-12-22T10:58:00.000-08:00

Most people would be surpised to hear that the woman who played June Cleaver is 90 years old today. Maybe she herself would be surprised. Every reference to her age or birthdate -- going back to a 1961 TV Guide article -- says she was born in 1922. That would make her 83, not 90.

When I checked her out in the 1930 census, I was surprised to find her age listed as 14. Thinking I may have found the wrong person, I checked some more records. The record for her 1959 marriage to William Mortensen indicates her birthdate is 1921, but her 1953 marriage to Roy Kellino has her born in 1918.

The clincher was the birth record for Barbara L. Combes on 22 Dec 1915. Imagine, the Beaver's mother lied about her age! By 7 years!!

Congratulations, Barbara, for reaching 90 and for fooling us all these years.

Surprise -- Wikipedia Has Errors

2005-12-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

I am not surprised to find reports that some of the info on Wikipedia is wrong. Over the past few months I have personally amended several entries. Some of these I've discussed on this blog: Skitch Henderson, William Rehnquist, and Sheree North. Based on census and other record research, I've also made changes to entries for a diverse range of notables including Ted Williams, Alice Cooper, Rodney King, John Derek, and Phyllis Diller.

The errors are usually in birth name, ethnic heritage, or birth year. A lot of these entries must be based on press releases. I've yet to find anyone younger than the age given in Wikipedia.

Andy Rooney Talks About Hyphenated Americans

2005-12-04T13:16:00.000-08:00

Andy Rooney was on the Don Imus radio show last month and seems to have stirred up some buzz when he said that he didn't care for the term "African-American." Some simple-minded people thought this meant he did not care for African-Americans, but one takes that kind of response for granted nowadays. What got my interest was when he said, "I mean, am I an Irish-American?" My response, not surprisingly, was, "I'll check that out."

Turns out Andrew Aitken Rooney was named for a Scottish great-grandfather, Andrew Aitken. One of Andy's grandparents was Scottish. The other three grandparents were all born in England and all of their parents were born in England.

Maybe sometime in the distant past the Rooneys went from Ireland to England. That would make them Irish-British before they came to this country. And so, no, Andy you are not Irish-American. You are Irish-British/English/Scots-American.

1920 Albany, NY

Vic Power Dies

2005-11-29T09:31:00.000-08:00

Baseball Golden Glover Vic Power should really be known in this country as Vic Pellot, Pellot being his father's surname. Power comes from his mother's maiden name. Looking at these Puerto Rican census returns, we can see the pattern of naming that results in many Latinos in the US being called by their mothers' maiden names. Sometimes the word "and" (y) is between the father's surname and the mother's. Note too that sometimes a wife uses her maiden name after she is married and sometimes she would add her husband's last name after her maiden name. I don't know enough about the culture to know the nuances of when to use what name, I just know enough to not take anything for granted.

According to some sources, Vic was born Victor Felipe Pellot Pove. But according to the census records, the family was known as Power long before he was born. Other sources say his mother's name was mistakenly changed from Pove to Power by a 1st grade teacher. If this story is true, somehow this teacher convinced everyone else in the family to change their name as well. But then as I've said, I don't know enough about the culture to take anything for granted.

Ralph Edwards Dies

2005-11-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

Ralph Edwards died a whopping 200 years after the birth of his grandfather. I hope to do the same. Since my paternal grandfather was born in 1884, I've got another 79 years to go. Whippee!!

Ralph's grandfather, John Cummins Edwards, was born in Kentucky in 1805 or 1806. He was 53 when his son Henry Levi Edwards was born in 1859. Henry was then 53 when his son (Ralph) was born in 1913.

Las Vegas Founded 100 Years Ago

2005-11-15T17:32:00.000-08:00

I watched the PBS documentary on Las Vegas tonight. They had Vegas getting its start in 1931 with the dam builders from Boulder City. In 1930, Boulder City did not exist. The census for that year has just a handful of miners living in Nelson township.

Although the TV show didn't mention it, Las Vegas really started with Stewart Ranch. Archibald Stewart's widow Helen sold it to wealthy railroader William Clark in 1902 and Clark auctioned off lots in 1905.

Sheree North Dies

2005-11-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

I didn't recognize her name until I read of her long and diverse acting career. Every obituary states that she was born as "Dawn Bethel" in Los Angeles on January 17, 1933. I searched California birth records for this name and date and came up empty. The closest I could find was a Dawn Shirley Crang born January 17, 1932 in Los Angeles. Her mother's maiden name was listed as Shoard.

There were two Bethel kids born a few years earlier with mother's maiden name Shoard and I found the Bethel family in the 1930 census. GlamorGirls lists North's mother's name and the info matches the birth records and 1930 census -- but it does not really clear things up.

The site states that in 1956, North learned for the first time that Edward Bethel was her stepfather and that her real father was Richard Crang. North's mother was obviously married to Bethel before North's birth. Was she married to him when North was born? North's mother, June, died in 2000. Her last name was still Bethel so she was not likely ever married to Crang. Edward Bethel died in Pomona in 1957 and Richard Crang in Santa Cruz in 1953.

Contrary to what the GlamorGirls site states, North knew by 1949 that Bethel was not her father. She entered her real maiden name -- Crang -- on her daughter Dawn Bessire's birth certificate.

1930 Los Angeles, CA:

Skitch Henderson Dies

2005-11-01T20:24:00.000-08:00

Named Lyle Russell Henderson when he was born in 1918, his official biography and most sources state that Skitch was born in Birmingham, England and did not come to the US until he was 12 or so. He actually was born in Halstad, Minnesota. His mother died in 1920 and he was raised by his Aunt Hatty.

Samuel Alito, Jr. Nominated for Supreme Court

2005-10-31T19:52:00.000-08:00

Just call him "Sal."

1920 Trenton, NJ

Harriet Miers Nominated for Supreme Court

2005-10-04T19:50:00.000-07:00

Two of Harriet's siblings have had long marriages but Harriet's brother Robert is on his third marriage; brother Harris divorced in 1997. Harriet never married.

I'm not sure what it means, but Texas death records state that Miers' father, Harris, was single when he died in 1973. News reports tell us that he was taken care of by his wife after he suffered a stroke in 1963.

In 1920, Harris Miers is living with his family in Dallas. By 1930, the family has scattered. Harris is lodging in a Dallas suburb and his brother, Hudson, is a boarder in Dallas. I haven't found his parents or other siblings in 1930.

Don Adams Dies

2005-09-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Don Adams of Get Smart was originally named Donald Yarmy. His father, William Yarmy, was a Hungarian Jew and his mother, Consuelo Morgan, was an Irish Catholic, though her father appears to have been Dutch. The name Morgan does not seem particularly Dutch.

Anyone seen Consuelo in earlier census records? Adams' father is married with no wife in 1920. The only person close in 1900 is a Consuelo Dieter with an uncle James Morgan.

William Rehnquist Dies

2005-09-05T17:10:00.000-07:00

You will find frequent mention of Rehnquist's Swedish ancestry but that's only half the story. His maternal lineage traces back from his mother, Margery Peck, via New York to the Pilgrims and other early New England settlers giving him a long American pedigree.

1930 Shorewood, WI