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.