Wordless Wednesday

 

What Do You Mean, You Don't Like It?

I'm celebrating National Beer Day by reminiscing about drinking Guinness at the brewery in Dublin, Ireland.

I'm shocked to realize that it has been almost 30 years since I was in Dublin.  How did that much time go by?

But that's how long it has been.  In 1996, I managed to wrangle Gaming Guests of Honor invitations for GaelCon, the national Irish gaming convention, for myself and one of my best friends, Chris Williams.

While both Chris and I had been working in the adventure game industry for several years, neither of us was of the stature of the big names.  I knew that, so I worked a different angle to nail down those invitations.  I submitted our gaming resumes and asked if we were going to be in the United Kingdom already, perhaps the convention would consider flying us over from London.  And our resumes were definitely good enough to carry that.

So we flew into Gatwick, got through customs, and trundled immediately over to the gate where we boarded our Ryanair flight to Dublin.  Even now, my strongest memory of that flight is the one flight attendant who was very, very tall, but the flight attendant jumpseats were very, very close to the deck.  That poor girl had to fold her legs totally under the seat, and she looked so uncomfortable.

I don't really remember the details of our arrival in Dublin.  I think we were picked up at the airport?  We somehow arrived at the bed and breakfast that was to be our home base for the next week and a half.  They had incredibly good, homestyle food, and we loved eating there.  That was the first time I ever had milk that still had the cream on top.  Heaven!

The first several days were spent attending the convention, and we had a great time.  John Tynes was the major guest of honor, and I vaguely recall something about him having to shave his head because he didn't remember to bring Hamish back to Ireland with him.

After the convention was over, we spent a few more days in Dublin being tourists and sightseeing.  And one of the things we did was visit the Guinness brewery at St. James's Gate to take the tour.

I have been a fan of Guinness for many years.  I like my beer dark and chewy, and Guinness is the epitome of that.  So I had been looking forward to the tour since we arrived.

When we bought our tickets and checked in, we also received two coupons, each good for a half-pint of Guinness after the tour.

At this point I unfortunately don't remember the details of the tour, but I recall that it was interesting and had a good amount of history about the making of stout in general and about Guinness in particular.

I do remember that at the end of the tour everyone was pointed toward the tasting room and given instructions on how to redeem our coupons.

As I mentioned, I like Guinness, so I quickly gave both of my coupons for a full pint.

Chris, on the other hand, redeemed only one coupon and got a half-pint.

We sat down and I happily started drinking my Guinness.  Yum!  I decided that it really does taste better in Dublin.  Now that I think about it, that is one thing I remember from the tour:  We were told that the reason it tastes better in Dublin is because the water comes from the River Liffey.  I'm willing to concede that's the case.

Chris, however, took two sips from his glass, pushed it away, and said, "I don't like it."

Shocked, shocked I was!  And I said, "What do you mean, you don't like it?"

"I just don't like it."

There's no accounting for taste.  But I wasn't going to let that good stout go to waste.  I took his glass and finished that along with mine.

The ironic thing is that after we returned to the United States, he started drinking Scotch.  I guess there really is no accounting for taste.

Image by Aneil Lutchman and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

Where's Grandpa?

My grandfather wearing his Shriner's fez,
whose whereabouts are also unknown.

Today, April 6, was my paternal grandfather's birthday.

Bertram Lynn Sellers, Sr. was born April 6, 1903 in Mount Holly, Burlington County, New Jersey.  He died January 23, 1995 in Niceville, Okaloosa County, Florida.

When I thought, "Where's Grandpa?", the first thing that came to my mind was the humorous link on Steve Morse's One-Step Website.  But that's actually looking for your great-grandfather.

What I'm really thinking about when I ask that question, though, is where is what's left of my grandfather.

I know from my grandfather's death certificate that he was cremated.  So what's left of him are the cremains.

But I don't know where they are.

When Grandpa died, he was married to his third wife, Adelle Cordelia Taylor.  She was the only person he was married to during my life; they married the year before I was born.  Adelle was a very quiet woman, and Grandpa pretty much controlled her life.

About a year or two before he died, Grandpa had a stroke.  Adelle couldn't care for him, because she was about 80 years old at the time.  So Grandpa was moved to a rehabilitation facility in town.  Adelle didn't drive, so she could only visit when someone took her there, which wasn't often.  She was left sitting at home most of the time.  I'm sure she went to church quite a bit, because it was just across the street, but I don't think she did much else.  Her niece visited Grandpa every day and helped with his physical therapy.  She may have been living in the house with Adelle during this time.

But then Grandpa died.

My Aunt Carol, Grandpa's youngest child, asked me one day if I could find out what happened to her father's cremains.  So I started trying to figure it out.

The death certificate doesn't state who received the cremains, only which company handled the cremation.  I started there.

And learned that the facility that handled Grandpa's cremation no longer exists.  I found the name of the company that bought its business, but the new company didn't get (maybe didn't bother to get?) all of the records from the old company (or at least that's what they told me).  So they couldn't tell me what happened to Grandpa's cremains.

And the trail stopped there.

I'm thinking, "Aren't there laws about this?  Doesn't someone have to keep track of where these things go?"

But it was several years after the fact that I started looking for this information, and by that time Grandpa was already lost.

My best guess is that Adelle probably received the cremains.  After settling Grandpa's estate, she moved about 20 miles north of Niceville to Crestview, to live with her nephew.  I know that she brought a bunch of Grandpa's papers and photos with her, because another aunt was given those several years later (see the next paragraph).  So it's a reasonable guess that she brought the cremains with her also.

A little more than five years after Grandpa died, Adelle passed away in Crestview, on May 25, 2000.  And a few years after that, Adelle's nephew contacted my Aunt Dottie to give her all of my grandfather's papers that Adelle had kept.  If he had the cremains, one would think he would have offered to give those also.  But if they weren't in an urn and were just in a plain box, maybe no one realized what they were and they were tossed out (which is why I need to label the little urn that has some of my father's cremains in it, so it doesn't suffer that fate).

I am still very disappointed that I couldn't answer the question "Where's Grandpa?" and return his cremains to my aunt.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Was Your Biggest Genealogy Wild Ancestor (Goose) Chase?

I'm sure everyone has had at least one wild goose chase that would qualify for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver, right?

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  All genealogists are human, and most of us have made gone on wild ancestor (goose) chases in our genealogy research careers.  What was one of the wild ancestor chases in your research?  Explain the situation and how you (hopefully!) solved the puzzle.

2.  Tell us about your biggest genealogy wild ancestor (goose) chase in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

I've written previously about my biggest wild ancestor chase.

Way back when I was 13 and started researching my family, my father, my aunt, and my grandfather told me that my great-great-grandmother was Kate Moore and treated her name as though it were her maiden name.  So that's what I wrote down and then began to look for.

I searched for a Kate/Katherine/Catherine Moore marrying a Sellers and having a son named Cornelius Elmer Sellers for years and couldn't find her.  I searched lists of marriages and other records with no success.

I even bought a book about the Moore family of Burlington County, New Jersey, because that's where my family was from.  I found a Catherine Sellers who married George W. Moore, but that didn't fit what I was told, which was Kate Moore marrying a Sellers.  I kept the book, though.

Not long after I had read the book and decided it didn't have the person I was looking for, I spoke for the first time with my grandfather's last surviving sibling, Aunt Betty, the baby of the family.  After warming up to me, she was giving me information about the family when I said something about her paternal grandmother, Kate Moore.  She responded, "Well, you know that Moore was her second husband."

Well, no, I didn't know that.

Aunt Betty explained that her father's father had died young and that her grandmother had remarried, to George W. Moore, a few years after that.  That's when she became Kate Moore.  And George and Kate had a son, Howard Evans Moore.

Whoops!  Time to restart all my research!

That conversation was on a Sunday.  The next day at work, we were having our staff meeting and talking about what we done over the weekend.  I was telling them about my talk with Aunt Betty when I suddenly remembered the book about the Moore family, which was still sitting in my van a month after I had read it.  I jumped up, ran down to the van, got the book, and ran back into the office.

I excitedly found that entry about Catherine Sellers marrying George W. Moore and looked to see if they had had any children.  Well, whaddaya know?  They had a son named . . . Howard Evans Moore!

So I accidentally had found Kate Moore after all.  Her maiden name, by the way, was Catherine Fox Owen.

The second half of the wild goose chase, however, came when I learned through DNA testing that my grandfather — and by extension my entire family line descended from him — was a Sellers through informal adoption.  Elmer Sellers was not the biological father of my grandfather; he had married my great-grandmother when my grandfather was seven months old and had raised him as his own.  All the research I had done on the Sellers family, back to Hans Georg Söller, born in 1615 in Weinheim, Baden, had been on my adoptive line.  Still my family, just not in the way I had originally thought.

I'm still working on that part of the puzzle.

Wordless Wednesday

I Found Out Where We Had Our Vacation!

It's amazing what you can learn once you find the right people to ask.

Back on November 8, I posted a series of photographs from a vacation my family took, probably around April 1970, when most of the photos were dated.  Some photos were at picnic tables, some by a tent, some by a lake, and some of different family members standing in front of rock formations.

I still remember that we visited Lake Mead when I was young, so that was my guess for the lake in the photos.  But I had no idea where the rock formations could be.  I threw the question out to anyone looking at the blog post.

No one posted any comments on the blog, but I did get several comments on my Facebook page.  One in particular, from my cousin's wife, suggested that the rocks might be at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area in Nevada.  So I looked it up online, found an e-mail address for questions, and sent a link to my blog post, asking if anyone there could tell me if the photos were taken at Red Rock.

The person who first received my message said he would forward it to people at Red Rock to look at.  It took a couple of weeks, but a very nice person from Red Rock responded and said the photos didn't look like Red Rock, but maybe they were at Valley of Fire State Park, also in Nevada.  He sent me the URL for Valley of Fire's site.

So I visited the Valley of Fire site, found an e-mail address there to send questions to, and went through the same routine.  This person thought the photos did look like Valley of Fire, and he said he would forward them to staff at the park to see if they could find the locations.

This time I waited much longer.  I realized after three months that I had never heard anything back, so I sent a follow-up message.  My contact said he would poke the staff at Valley of Fire.

Three days later, a message came from a new person, someone at Valley of Fire.  She said yes indeed, those photos sure did look like they were at her park, and she was going to ask some staff members to try to find the locations.

And two days after that, woo hoo!  Not only did they find all three locations, they took photos of them while holding up printouts of my photos from 1970!  Look what they sent me:

First we have the photo of the Toyota station wagon, and then just the rock formation.

Here's the photo of my father, and next the same rock formation without the photo.

Last but not least, the photo of the three of us kids being held up in front of the same rocks, and the rocks by themselves.

And now I know that all of these photos were taken in the Seven Sisters picnic area at Valley of Fire State Park.  Since there were photos of us sitting at a picnic table, I'm guessing that table was not far from the rock formations.  I hope that the picnic tables from 1970 have been replaced by now, although I'm amazed that the rocks look almost exactly the same as they did 55 years ago.  I know geologic time is slow, but I would have expected more erosion.

It's almost exactly 55 years ago, in fact.  I realized that we probably took this vacation during Easter break (yes, back then, before political correctness, it was Easter break, not spring break as it's now called), because my parents weren't really big on having us miss school unnecessarily.  Looking at the calendar for 1970, Easter fell on March 29 that year.  If I remember correctly (it has been a while, after all), Easter break was the week before Easter, so we would have been there during the week leading up to March 29.  And that was just last Saturday.  If Easter break came after Easter itself, then it's 55 years ago this week.

I'm so stoked that I was able to identify the locations for these photos, and also figured out when!  Next up, I think I'll see if the people at Lake Mead National Recreation Area can tell me where at the lake those photos were taken (the person who sent me the URL for Valley of Fire also sent me the one for Lake Mead).  I'm feeling lucky.

And I did receive permission to post these photos on my blog (because of course I asked; I didn't take the photos, so I don't own the copyright).  I'm still waiting on an answer from the park interpreter on whether she wants name credit for the photos.

Addendum, April 1, 2025:  The park interpreter has decided she wants to stay anonymous.  But I gave her a big thank you for helping me solve my mystery!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: The Occupations of My 2nd-great-grandfathers

I'm sure I have most of the information for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver, but I don't know if I have it memorized.  I'm going to test myself.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Our ancestors had to work to support themselves and their families.  Do you know what occupations your 2nd great-grandfathers had?  Tell us about them.  If one intrigues or mystifies you, ask a free artificial intelligence tool to tell you more about the occupation in that place and time.

2.  Tell us about the occupations of your 2nd-great-grandfathers (and any AI created descriptions of those occupations) in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

Okay, let's see how I do.

My eight 2nd-great-grandfathers and their occupations are:

Joel Armstrong (about 1849–?), laborer

James Gauntt (1831–1899), wheelwright

Frederick Cleworth Dunstan (1840–1873), file grinder

Simcha Dovid Mekler (?–before 1904), possibly carpenter

Gershon Novitsky (originally Gershon Nowicki, about 1856–1948), wood turner, Hebrew teacher

Victor Gordon (originally Avigdor Gorodetsky, about 1863–1924), businessman, furrier

Morris Brainin (originally Mendel Hertz Brainin, about 1861–1930), shoemaker, peddler, rabbi

And that's only seven of them, because I still don't know who my biological great-grandfather was on the Sellers line, so I can't know who his father was.  If I include Sellers, my adoptive line:

Cornelius Godschalk Sellers (1845–1877), printer

I actually did very well from memory.  I did not remember the birth years of James Gauntt, Frederick Dunstan, and Cornelius Sellers or the earlier occupations of Gershon Novitsky and Morris Brainin.  Everything else I knew.

I still don't know when Joel Armstrong died.  I've seen it listed in a few family trees as 1921, but I have seen no documentation of his death (I don't think I've seen a complete date).  I keep looking.

Simcha Dovid Mekler never came to the United States.  I'm happy to know his name.  My guess for carpenter as his occupation is because his son, my great-grandfather Morris Mackler, was listed as a carpenter when he immigrated here, and many sons follow in their father's occupations.

And I just noticed that all eight men had different occupations!

I know that a carpenter and a wood turner are not the same thing, but I decided to search for the difference to clarify what they each do.  Google now automagically returns an AI synopsis at the top of the results page most of the time.  It said:

"a wood turner focuses on creating symmetrical, rotational objects using a lathe, while a carpenter focuses on structural and functional wood construction [such as] framing [and] trim, and installing fixtures."

So Randy can be happy that I did an AI search for my post.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Tuberculosis Is Still with Us

I was reading the Wikipedia page about World Tuberculosis Day, which falls today, March 24.  I had not realized that in the 1880's TB was the cause of death for one in seven people worldwide.  That's roughly 14%.  Current numbers that I found by searching online suggest that the world's current population is around 8.2 billion and that about 1.25 million people die annually from TB, for a percentage of about .0002.  Many more people, but a significantly smaller percentage of them overall.  So even though it is still with us, we seem to have improved a little in keeping people healthy.

March 24 was inaugurated as World Tuberculosis Day in 1982 because it was the 100th anniversary of when Dr. Robert Koch announced in 1882 that he had discovered the bacterium that causes tuberculosis:  Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  The purpose of World Tuberculosis Day is to draw attention to the fact that it still kills far too many people even now, in pretty much every country, including the United States.

Many well known people historically have suffered from tuberculosis.  There's even a page devoted to them on Wikipedia!  Just a few names I noted are Aubrey Beardsley, Sarah Bernhardt, Anne and Emily Bronte, Anton Chekhov, Frederic Chopin, Edward VI of England, W. C. Fields, Robert Heinlein, Vivien Leigh, Christy Mathewson, Amedeo Modigliani, Moliere, Edvard Munch, Florence Nightingale, George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), Junipero Serra, Igor Stravinsky, and Henry David Thoreau.

I wrote about World Tuberculosis Day in 2016 and had only one relative at that time whom I knew had died of TB.  In searching through my family tree program, I now have found three more cousins who died of tuberculosis.  I as yet have not found an ancestor who died of TB, although I have a note that one of my Hananiah Gaunt grandfathers supposedly did.  I'm still looking for documentation of that.

Henry H. Gauntt, son of Hananiah Selah Gaunt and Margaret S. Scott, died October 16, 1916 in Lumberton, Burlington County, New Jersey.  He was 42 years old and is my 1st cousin 3x removed.

Robert Francis Gauntt, son of John Benjamin Gaunt and Sarah Virginia Woolston, died July 17, 1917 in Norristown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.  He was only 28 years old and is my 1st cousin 2x removed.

Ridgway Eacritt Zelley, son of Joseph Ridgway Zelley and Sarah R. Eacritt, died September 10, 1928 in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas.  He was 50 years old and is my 3rd cousin 2x removed.

Although the primary affliction we hear about spreading through World War I boot camps is influenza, tuberculosis also was a problem.  What's interesting about Robert Francis Gauntt is that his draft registration, dated June 5, 1917 — only six weeks before he died — indicates that he was having lung problems then.  If he was already sick, he probably wouldn't have made it through induction, so he appears to have acquired tuberculosis without being drafted and going to boot camp.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Plans Do You Have to Pass On Your Genealogy Work?

I've been thinking about this for a while also, Randy, but it's good to prompt people with a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  What plans, or potential plans, do you have to pass your genealogy work to relatives and/or descendants, or posterity?

2.  Tell us about your plans to pass your work on in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

And just because I've been thinking about it doesn't mean I've figured out the answer yet.

Seriously, I have no idea.

So far no one in my family is interested in carrying on the work, that's for sure.  Whenever I stop, I'm pretty sure that'll be the end of adding information.

I've been sharing information with family members for literally decades now.  Every year for Christmas and Chanukah I used to mail updates to each family member I was in contact with for every family line that person descended from.  Some have become interested in specific people — for example, my cousin Yoni has developed a strong focus on our great-great-grandmother; my cousin Jeff was so struck by learning that his grandfather's family name had originally been Gorodetsky that he created that domain, but it doesn't appear that he has kept it — which is nice, but that's pretty much where it ends.  The information is out there, though, so it probably won't disappear entirely.

I suspect the best thing I can do for posterity is to create a "family report" style book that is well documented for each of my family lines and give copies of them to the FamilySearch Library.  That will help keep the information available to everyone, as I don't expect the LDS church to disappear.

The physical items that I have, particularly photographs, are likely doomed.  I don't think anyone else will want to maintain them, especially the ones that are still not identified.  "Why would we want to keep these?  We don't know who those people are."  My father's racing trophies?  They'll be gone.  Even my family ketubot will have trouble finding someone willing to keep them.

I better stop here.  I'm making myself depressed.

Celebrating the Flowers in My Father's Yard

There really is a "national" day for just about everything, isn't there?  Today, March 21, is National Flower Day, at least according to National Today (but it isn't listed with National Day Calendar, National Day Archives, or Days of the Year; I guess you have to pay each individually).  No background was provided on how the day was officially started (or who paid for it), although they do tie it to the vernal equinox and the beginning of spring.  Notwithstanding all of the suggestions they provide for ways to celebrate National Flower Day, I'm going to celebrate it by sharing a bunch of my father's photos of flowers.

I believe that all of these (or at least most of them) were flowers growing in Daddy's back yard in Mary Esther, Florida.  He loved photography and taking photos of just about anything, and he took lots and lots of photos of things in his back yard, including the flowers.  So to celebrate National Flower Day, here is a small selection of my father's flower photos.  My identifications are based on Google Image searches; if I have something wrong, please let me know.

Azalea

Southern Magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora

Closed African Lily, Agapanthus inapertus

Amaryllis, Amaryllis belladonna

Brazilian Orchid Tree, Bauhinia forficata

Crape Myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica

Jerusalem Thorn, Parkinsonia aculeata

The Second Tuesday of Next Week

The International
Date Line

While I was growing up, my mother was known for using interesting turns of phrase.  She would talk about the "oneth of the month" (the first day of the month).  She and my father both used Spoonerisms deliberately, so we saved Chublip Stamps instead of Blue Chip Stamps and ate chotato pips instead of everyday potato chips.  One of my favorites, though, was my mother threatening to knock us into the second Tuesday of next week when we were being, um, precocious.  But, of course, there is no second Tuesday of the week.

Until there was!

When my family moved to Australia in 1971, we flew on a Pan Am 747 and crossed over the International Date Line.  When we did that, the day we lost was a Tuesday.

When we returned to the United States in 1973, we took a Greek cruise ship, and of course we had to cross the International Date Line again.  On that trip across the date line, we happened to repeat a Tuesday.  So not only did we make up for the Tuesday we lost, we finally had the second Tuesday of next week!

And yes, we gave my mother a bunch of crap about all the times she had said that to us.  She had somehow finally succeeded in knocking us into the second Tuesday of next week.

Unfortunately, my parents have both passed away, and neither my brother nor I remember the specific Tuesday we repeated.  But we know we came back in March, and the Tuesdays in March 1973 were 6, 13, 20, and 27.  So I picked today to write about it.

And I am pretty sure my mother would love the fact that I still remember.

Wordless Wednesday

 

My First Musical Instrument Was the Recorder

I bet it was for a lot of people.  Wasn't it a standard thing around 3rd or 4th grade to introduce young students to music by teaching them to play the recorder?

I always figured that had become established because the recorder is a relatively easy instrument to learn to play (although it does take time and effort to learn to play well, without sounding like a screeching cat; recorders are kind of like clarinets in that way).  Once they were available in plastic, they were also pretty affordable.

Whatever the original impetus for schools was, I think I learned to play in the 4th grade, while I lived in Australia.  I don't remember the recorder from when I was in the 3rd grade in California.

And why am I writing about recorders today?  I guess you didn't know that today is Play the Recorder Day, did you?

Play the Recorder Day (PtRD), celebrated on the third Saturday of March, grew out of a one-day event held in 1989 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the American Recorder Society (ARS).  ARS started PtRD in 1992, to be an annual event.  Play the Recorder Month came after that, just to promote the recorder even more.

I have to admit, after originally learning to play recorder, I didn't do too much with it, even though I kept my instrument through several moves (kind of like keeping my Barbie dolls).  That was until I started participating in the Renaissance Pleasure Faire (the vestiges of which are currently called the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire and owned by a for-profit corporation, but not the for-profit corporation that bought it when the original in which I participated ran into financial problems and was sold).

And hey, I suddenly had a place where I could play my recorder!  So I did!  And I had a lot of fun!

We didn't use plastic recorders at the Faire, of course, because they wouldn't have that "period" look.  I found a very nice wood recorder and played in the opening and closing parades.

I continued to play for several years.  I became interested in expanding my range from the standard alto recorder and picked up a soprano recorder.  I experimented a bit with tenor and bass recorders also.  I could produce decent notes on a tenor, but I had problems with the bass.  I never invested in purchasing either one, though, sticking to my alto and soprano recorders.

I haven't played either of my reorders in many years, but when I found out about Play the Recorder Day, it encouraged me to reminisce and document a little bit more of my personal history.

The Invisible Man Turns 75

That's not actually what people used to call my stepfather.  They didn't say he was invisible.  They used to question whether he existed at all.

Ric was (and is) a very hard-working man.  So if we were going on a trip, he opted out, because he stayed at home and kept working.

So the running joke from people outside the immediate family became that he wasn't really there at all, and that my mother had made him up as a cover story.

But he's real, and he's still here.  He took good care of us after my parents divorced and he married my mother.  He took good care of her, or as good as he could, even when she didn't make it easy to do so.

And he has made it to 75 years old!  Something he had seriously questioned whether he was going to do.

I figured he would make it.  He had a good role model with his mother, our Grandmama, who lived to see her 90's.

So happy birthday, Ric, and congratulations on making it to three quarters of a century!  Let's see you make it to 100!

We love you!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Hooray for Barbie!

No, I'm not talking about the movie (which I have seen, and once will be enough, thank you very much, dear daughter-in-law).  I'm talking about the actual doll.

March 9 is National Barbie Day because the Barbie doll was introduced at the American International Toy Fair on March 9, 1959, so today is Barbie's 66th birthday, making her older than I am, if not by much.

I don't remember if Barbie was my first doll — I might have had a baby doll before that? — but she was the first doll I remember, and I still have my first Barbie.  I think my second doll was a Stacey, which I recall as a redhead.  (I might have been given Stacey as a gift because my sister's name is Stacy.  Hey, they should have come out with a Laurie doll!)  Number three I believe was Midge.

I have taken my dolls with me from California to Australia, when my family moved there, then back to the United States when we returned in 1973, and across country when I moved back to California in 1979.  Then they moved with me from Los Angeles to Oakland in 1989, and up to Oregon in 2017.  I have never left a single doll behind.

I never got into the collectible Barbies, because I didn't want to leave them in the packaging ("never removed from box").  I wanted to take them out and play with them!  I have only one collectible Barbie, which a friend bought me for Christmas one year.  It's Barbie as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, in the green and white barbecue dress.  And yes, I took her out of the box.

Barbie is what really got me into sewing.  I had a sewing class in the 5th grade while my family lived in Australia, and when we came back to the States I started making clothes for my dolls.  I have dozens of patterns for Barbie clothes, most of them officially licensed by Mattel and produced by the big pattern companies.  The majority are from Simplicity, some are from McCall's, and a few others are from different companies.  I also have a few unofficial patterns, including some for Elizabethan clothing a friend gave to me when we were both performing at an Elizabethan faire.

Unfortunately, most of my dolls are still boxed up and in storage from when I moved to Oregon.  Not long after my arrival I tore my rotator cuff, and I've never regained the momentum I had for unpacking since then (it was probably the momentum that caused the tear in the first place).  But I've been adding to my collection since discovering groups such as Buy Nothing on Facebook.  It is amazing how many people give away Barbies and their accessories.  Now I have things I could never afford when I was younger, such as a Barbie airplane, car, condo, and house.  Soon I will be adding an RV!

One of my recent acquisitions, obtained specifically to pair with my dolls, is a dollhouse in the style of Victorian painted ladies.  I'll need to find (or make?) some patterns for Victorian clothing so that my dolls will look totally at home in their beautiful residence.

j

It's National Genealogy Day!

National Genealogy Day is not to be confused with Family History Month.  The latter is observed during the entire month of October.  It was established by Congress in 2001 and has stuck around since.

National Genealogy Day, on the other hand, was created in 2013 by Christ Church, a United Presbyterian and Methodist parish in Limerick, Ireland, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of that specific church (which was not always associated with United Presbyterian and Methodist).  Church records were brought together from Christ Church, Church of Ireland parishes, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons).  People were invited to come and research their ancestors in the church records.

The celebration of National Genealogy Day has carried on and has spread to other areas after the 200th anniversary of Christ Church.  It's one day to focus on researching your genealogy and family history.

I am the family genealogist, and I don't do research on only one day, or during only one month, for that matter.  What I'm celebrating today is that most of my family members know that I'm the family genealogist, and they know they can ask me questions about the family.

Recently my brother asked me about specifics on relatives who died in or who survived the Holocaust.  I learned he was asking because my niece had to do a report on World War II and chose the Holocaust for her specific subject.  I was able to point my brother to my annual blog posts on Yom HaShoah, where I list all of the relatives I know/believe died in the Holocaust, including one cousin who was murdered in Auschwitz.  I also gave him details about several cousins who would be classified as survivors.  I may have drowned him in information, because I didn't hear back again after sending a long message.  I figure that meant my niece had enough for her report.

But I don't do research only on my own family, and even "extended family" members know who to turn to.

My uncle's wife is my aunt by marriage, but I've been researching her family for about 30 years.  A few years ago her sister's daughter, who had previously shown little to no interest in family history, sent me a message out of the blue, asking whether I still had all that research I had done on her family, particularly her father's side.  Of course I did!  And I sent her copies of everything.  She didn't use the information to do research per se, but to connect with people she was matching on DNA tests.  They also shared family information, a lot of which I received, so now I've added more to her tree.

Of course I did research on my ex's family.  Two different times after he was my ex, he called me because someone was asking him about his family history, and he knew I could do a much better job of explaining it.  Once he had me on the phone, he just handed his phone to the person who was asking (the same person both times), and we had a lively conversation about his family.

A more unusual conversation about his family came when I had just landed in the Portland, Oregon airport and was waiting for my luggage.  My younger stepson texted me with a question about his family, which I answered.  Then came another text with a new question, and I responded to that.  This went back and forth for close to ten minutes before I finally just called him and asked what it all was about.  As with my niece, it was for a school project, and he knew I had the information.  I told him that rather than giving him bits and pieces by text, I would wait until I was at my computer and send him all the information then, which worked much better for me than one dinky little text at a time.

So today I am celebrating National Genealogy Day and the fact that I have the opportunity to share family information with so many people!

William Brainin, Victim of the Spanish Flu

Although cases occurred before this date, a generally accepted start date for the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 (commonly called the Spanish flu epidemic) is March 4, when a U.S. Army cook by the name of Albert Gitchell at Camp Funston, Kansas was recorded as being ill.  In a very short time more than 500 men at the camp had been reported sick.  Only one week later, on March 11, the flu had reached Queens, New York.

One of the groups that was hit hard by the flu was men being inducted into the U.S. Army and attending boot camp, where close quarters and the effects of physical activity helped the virus spread quickly.  My great-granduncle William Brainin was one of those men.

I don't know much about Uncle Willie, as Bubbie (my grandmother) called him.  He was born about 1892 (he used the birthdate October 23, 1892 here), possibly in Kreuzberg, Russia (now Krustpils, Latvia).  He immigrated to the United States as Wolf Brainin with his mother, Ruchel Dvojre (Jaffe) Brainin, and three siblings — Chase Leah Brainin, Pesche Brainin, and Kosriel Brainin — aboard the Caronia, arriving at Ellis Island on October 3, 1906.

The Brainin family was enumerated in the census on April 20, 1910, living at 236 East 103rd Street, Manhattan, New York.  In the household were parents Morris [Mendel Hertz] and Rose Dorothy [Ruchel Dvojre] with children Lena [Chase Leah], Sarah [Sora Leibe], William [Wolf or Welwel], Bessie [Pesche], and Benjamin [Kosriel], everyone having chosen American names to use here.  William's occupation was ladies' tailor, a common job for young male Jewish immigrants at that time.

I have not found William in the 1915 New York census, but he might have already moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to live with his older brother Max Joseph [Nachman] Brainin and his family.  Certainly he was there by June 1, 1917, where he registered for the Army draft.  I don't know when he entered the Army, but I have seen a photo which Bubbie identified as, "That's my Uncle Willie in his Army uniform."  (Unfortunately, the photo disappeared soon after that identification.  I'm still trying to figure out where it went.)

By the time of the 1920 census, William had returned to live with his parents in Manhattan.  They were enumerated there on January 12, 1920.

William had no occupation listed in the census, suggesting that he was probably already sick when the census taker came by.  Two weeks later, on January 26, William Brainin died in Manhattan.  His cause of death was given as pneumonia caused by influenza.  He was buried in the Workmen's Circle plot of Mt. Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens on January 27.

I'm fortunate that some of Bubbie's memories, which were usually spot on, have proven to be inaccurate.  She told me that Uncle Willie had come home sick from the Army while my great-grandmother Sarah was pregnant with my grandmother, that my great-grandmother became ill, and that Uncle Willie died before Bubbie was born in 1919.  But that is Uncle Willie with his family in the 1920 census, and it's definitely his death certificate, so he absolutely did not die before Bubbie was born.  Finding him with the family in 1920 made it easier to identify him in the death index and get a copy of his death certificate.

So far Uncle Willie is the only member of my family I have found to have died due to the Influenza Pandemic.

Steinfirst Serendipity

Bird's-eye view map of Titusville, Pennsylvania, 1896, by Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler

The city of Titusville, Pennsylvania, in Crawford County, was incorporated on February 28, 1866.  So today is the 159th anniversary of that event.  Happy birthday, Titusville!

But I've never had family in Titusville, so why do I care about this city?

Well, you never know when or where you're going to find people researching the same families you're working on, or even used to be working on.

Last year I was giving a presentation to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Pittsburgh.  The topic was resources to help find maiden names, one of those perennially difficult research areas.

Several of the examples I use in that talk come from research I did many years ago on the (Jewish) Steinfirst family of western Pennsylvania.  Various members of the family were in Pittsburgh at different times, ranging from 1880 through to the present day.

And would you believe it, someone at the presentation recognized many of the names in the examples I used?  That's his family!

I began my research on the Steinfirsts in 2005 and pretty much stopped in 2010.  I had never determined where they emigrated from in Europe or even whether Steinfirst was the original family name.  One branch of the family, the Stones, I knew did not start out with that name, but I had not learned what the name was in Europe.

And now I know!

Steinfirst, which I had thought was a name the family had created here because I couldn't find anyone outside the family with that name, was actually the name in Europe, albeit spelled a little differently.  Stone was originally Stamm; I had been focusing on names that either started or ended with "Stein", so I was way off and doomed to failure.

More records have become available since I stopped researching the family, which made some of these discoveries possible, along with dedicated research by other individuals.

And even though I am no longer actively researching the Steinfirsts, I am still fond of the family because of the amount of time I put into the research, and I was really excited to have answers to some of the questions I was stuck on years ago.  Plus I'm sharing the research I did with the person at my presentation, so I'm adding to his knowledge of his family.

That's one of the really cool aspects of genealogy:  helping other people find more information about their families.  It just makes you feel good.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Did Your Ancestor Have a "Different" Occupation? Try "Sam the Digital Archivist" on ChatGPT

I still think it's much more beneficial for people to do their own research rather than have AI do the work for them, but I am participating in this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  Did one (or more) of your ancestors have a "different" occupation?  If so, try to find out more about that occupation in Steve Little's "Sam the Digital Archivist" custom prompt using the free ChatGPT4 artificial intelligence tool.  Click on the "Exploring unique ancestral occupations?" button and tell Sam in the "Ask anything" box to define and/or describe the occupation.

2.  Tell us about your ancestor's "different" occupation, and what Sam had to say about it,  in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

So I had to start by creating a login for ChatGPT4, because I have not used it previously.  After I did that, confirmed my e-mail address, and logged in, I used Randy's exact phrasing, substituting the information for my 2x-great-grandfather.  He didn't have a particularly different occupation, but so far none of my ancestors did.  I chose him because I have previously researched what a file grinder did, and I wanted to see whether ChatGPT4 would reveal anything I had not found.

So I typed the following question for Sam:

"My 2nd great-grandfather Frederick Cleworth Dunstan (1840-1873) resided in Hulme, Lancashire, England in 1871. The census record says he was a file grinder.  What was he doing?"

And this is what Sam/ChatGPT4 told me:

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

Great question! Your 2nd great-grandfather, Frederick Cleworth Dunstan, was a file grinder, which means he had a tough, dangerous, and highly skilled job in the metalworking industry. Let’s break it down:

What is a File Grinder?

A file grinder was responsible for sharpening, shaping, and finishing metal files used in various trades, from woodworking to metalworking. The job was part of the cutlery and tool-making industry, which was booming in industrial-era England, particularly in places like Sheffield and Lancashire.

The Process:

 Rough Shaping: Workers took raw, forged metal files and ground them to the correct shape using massive, high-speed grinding wheels made of sandstone.
 Sharpening the Teeth: The characteristic teeth of a file were cut (often by hand) and then refined on grinding wheels for precision.
 Smoothing & Polishing: Final grinding ensured the files were smooth, sharp, and ready for sale or use.

The Danger Factor 

File grinding was one of the deadliest industrial jobs of the 19th century due to:
 "Grinder’s Rot" (Silicosis & Lung Disease): Grinding metal and stone created a fine dust that workers inhaled daily. This led to serious lung diseases, often fatal.
 Exploding Grinding Wheels: If a stone wheel cracked or ran too fast, it could shatter, sending razor-sharp debris flying. Many workers were killed or maimed this way.
 Sparks & Fire Hazards: Grinding produced intense sparks, increasing fire risks, especially in factories filled with flammable materials.

Working Conditions

• File grinders typically worked in dimly lit, poorly ventilated workshops called grinding hulls.
• Most worked long hours (10-12 per day) for low pay.
• Protective gear? Ha! Workers had little to no protection, and safety regulations were practically nonexistent.

Why Was This Job in Hulme, Lancashire?

Hulme was part of the greater Manchester industrial area, known for its ironworking, tool-making, and manufacturing industries. Though Sheffield was the heart of steel grinding, Manchester had its fair share of metal and tool trades feeding into the broader economy.

Given that Frederick died in 1873 at only 33 years old, it raises the question:
 Could his occupation have contributed to his early death? Many grinders didn’t live past 40, succumbing to lung disease or workplace accidents. If his death certificate lists lung-related illness, consumption (TB), or a sudden accident, it could be tied to his trade.

What Next?

 Check Frederick’s death record—cause of death could confirm if his job played a role.
 Look for trade directories—they might list his employer or the workshop he worked in.
 Explore Hulme’s industrial history—find out more about metalworking in the area.
 Something else? What do you want to dig into next?

-- >< -- >< -- >< -- >< --

Well, no great revelations here.  As I wrote above, I have previously researched what work a file grinder did, including health hazards on the job.  Frederick Cleworth Dunstan died of chronic bronchitis, which is indeed a lung-related illness, so his fatal illness likely was related to his trade.

The only thing Sam told me that I had not read before was that a file grinder was a highly skilled job.  My research has indicated it was more the opposite, the type of job that people who couldn't find better ones ended up in.  Part of that reasoning was related to the job hazards due to the dangerous conditions.

Welcome to America, Mr. Gorodetsky and Sons!

1914 passenger list for Wigdor, Chaim, and Moische Gorodetky (first page)

February 19, 1914 (111 years ago!) is the date on which my great-great-grandfather Wigdor Gorodetsky and his two youngest sons, Chaim and Moishe, arrived in New York on the Nieuw Amsterdam, a ship of the Holland-America Line.  I'm going to look at every piece of information about them on the passenger list for their trip, which I have found.

They traveled in steerage.  They are on lines 6, 7, and 8 of the passenger list.  The first page shows that they departed from Rotterdam, the Netherlands on February 7, so the trip took almost two weeks.

Their names are written as Wigdor, Chaim, and Moische Gorodetky (someone apparently lost the "s").  Wigdor is 46, Chaim is 11, and Moische is 5, and Chaim and Moische are noted as being Wigdor's "Sons" in handwriting that is lighter than that on the rest of the page.  From his 1888 marriage record, I have estimated Wigdor's birth year as around 1863, whereas an age of 46 in 1914 would have him born around 1868.  He might have "youthened" himself for the trip, so as not to appear too old (maybe rumor said that being 50 or older might make you seem too old to be able to work?), or he might not have known how old he really was.

I have previously found the Russian birth records for Chaim and Moishe.  Chaim was born November 16, 1899, so he was actually 14 years old.  I'm not sure how beneficial it would be at his age to have fudged those three years, or again they might not have kept accurate track of his age.  Moishe was born November 13, 1908, so he really was 5 years old!  After looking at so many census records over the years, the younger someone is, the more accurate the reported age often is, so maybe that's why his age is correct.

They're all noted as male.  Wigdor is married, and the boys are single.  Wigdor was a furrier, while the two boys had no occupation.  Chaim could read and write (in Russian?  Hebrew?), while neither Wigdor nor Moishe could.  They are all listed as Russian subjects and of the Hebrew race, meaning they were Jewish, and their last residence was Kishinew (Kishinev), Russia (now Chisinau, Modolva).

For Moishe, in the columns for marital status, occupation, and ability to read and write, above the answers to those questions is some additional handwriting in heavy black ink:  2-479123 (505) 11/16/36.  Then two columns to the right appears "Rech 4/17/39."  I am pretty sure the 1936 date points to a Certificate of Arrival being generated when Moishe (by then known as Morris) applied to become a naturalized citizen by filing a Declaration of Intention, and the 1939 date was when he filed his petition.  I have copies of his naturalization paperwork (which I can't find right now); he became a citizen on June 4, 1940.

No similar notations for Wigdor and Chaim indicate they probably did not become U.S. citizens.  I do know I haven't found any naturalization paperwork so far for either one.

The name and address of the nearest relative where they had departed from were Wigdor's wife, Surki Gorodetsky (they found the "s"!) in Kishinew, Bess, which is short for Besserabia, the gubernia (province) in which Kishinev was.  There might actually be an address written, but I'm not sure what it says.  My best guess is Sessiona Pilenetz 7.  For all I know, it might not be an address.  Any takers?

Surki is Sura Galperin, my great-great-grandfather's second wife.  While the passenger list says that Surki is Chaim and Moishe's mother, she was actually their stepmother.  I have found an index entry for their marriage, which took place May 26, 1911 in Kishinev, but I don't have the complete marriage record.  My great-great-grandmother Esther Leah Schneiderman died December 8, 1908, less than a month after Moishe was born.  (The death record says the cause of death has something to do with blood.)

And that's everything on the first page!

The second page of the passenger list has "pecXam" to the left of the number 6, which is Wigdor.  The person two lines above Wigdor has "SpecXam."  I am interpreting both to mean Special Examination (Inquiry).  I looked through all five Special Inquiry pages for this sailing of the Nieuw Amsterdam that are online at FamilySearch.org, but I didn't see his name.  I also checked the five pages for Detained Aliens and didn't find him.  When I looked again at the first page, however, I noticed that the person on line 5, Menasche Biczowsky, is marked SI and deported, but there is no notation on that page for Wigdor.  In addition, Mr. Biczowsky does appear on the list of aliens held for Special Inquiry.  I think the notation by Wigdor on the second page is misplaced and was intended for the person on line 5.

The final destination for all three is New York, and they're marked as having a ticket to that destination, which is conveniently where the ship docked and where they offboarded.  Their passage was paid by Wigdor's son and Chaim and Moishe's brother (probably Joine, the person they are coming to meet here).  For the question of whether they are in possession of $50 and if less than that how much, $15 is noted by Wigdor's name and nothing by the two boys.

The number 13 and a mark around it are written under the $15.  Two lines above Wigdor is the number 35, and two lines below Moishe is 43.  Similarly, other numbers are written in the same column on the page.  I don't know what these are for.

The two columns asking whether the passengers have ever been in the United States before and when have a short dash for almost everyone on the page, including Wigdor and the boys, indicating none of them had.  On Wigdor's line is handwriting in a lighter ink that I don't understand.  It looks like a word and then the numeral 2.  The "word" almost looks like "dau &", but there's no girl, so that doesn't make sense (more on this below).

Next come the name and address of the relative or friend the passengers are going to join, where it says "son[s] Joine Gorodetsky c/o M [?] Brainin 1651 Madison Ave. N York."  Joine is my great-grandfather.  He is indeed Wigdor's son, and on the line below is written "brother", as he is Chaim and Moishe's brother.  M Brainin is my great-great-grandfather Mendel Hertz Brainin, father of Sarah Libby Brainin, who married Joine on April 4, 1914, less than two months after Wigdor arrived.  Joine was a boarder in the Brainin household, and that's how he met Sarah.

The [s] after the word son is confusing.  It's in the same lighter writing as "dau & 2."  Was it intended to make the word "son" plural, which is what it seems to have done?  Maybe the word I'm reading as "dau" is referring to Wigdor, and it's saying "& 2 sons" for Chaim and Moishe?  I noticed that the lighter handwriting for this looks similar to the word "Sons" on the first page.  In that case, "dau" must be something else and I just can't read it.

The next six columns are ditto marks for all three of my relatives (and for everyone on the page except the person on the first line), indicating that they are not prisoners, beggars, insane, anarchists, polygamists, coming on a work scheme, or crippled and that they are in good health.  Wigdor is 5'4"; no height is listed for the two boys.  All of them are marked as having fair complexion, brown hair and eyes, and no identifying marks.  All three were born in Russia.  Wigdor was born in Kamenetz, which would be Kamenets Podolsky, now in Ukraine; both boys were born in Kishinew.

A large block of handwriting in heavy ink goes at an angle across many lines, including the ones for Wigdor, Chaim,and Moishe.  It mentions certs, likely meaning certificates; two dates; and Scranton.  Three passengers were going to Scranton (the three lines after Moishe), so I think it's related to them and not to my relatives or anyone else on the page.

1914 passenger list for Wigdor, Chaim, and Moische Gorodetky (second page)