Ghost Busting

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

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?

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....

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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


2. 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.


3. 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.
  

4. 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.)
   


5. 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

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

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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: