in the end you become your own teacher -- musing

 My mother sewed for our household, doll clothes, household linens, and innumerable alterations from day one. and sewed or altered our clothes from day one.  I remember her making overalls for baby/toddlers with snaps all the way round on the inner seam, so no undressing was needed to change diapers. And I remember what a welcome gift they were. 

And I remember that she could rub a piece of fabric between her fingers and tell you what the fiber was. Her years of handling many gave her that skill. I can do similar with yarns. I have a friend who can taste a dish and know what spices were used. 

I remember reading more than one monograph about being you because only you can be you, and while you can be a successful you, you will be at best an adequate copy of someone else. 

And becoming your own teacher takes time. Copy work is easy by comparison, developing your own discernment is tough. 

A visual artist is not training their hands, they are training their eyes but even more their minds. A musician is training their brain and their ears. The instrument, or the plastic medium is the means by which the understanding of beauty and order is expressed. Starts to explain how painters successfully wander into furniture, fashion, jewelry or architecture...? cf. Frank Lloyd or daughter Picasso.

I was asked, during last summer, what courses I was taking this fall/winter. I am signed up for a few small things, but mostly, I am sitting in my own patch, and letting what I have heard, and read, and taken notes about, percolate and become habit. And thanks big time to the many who have provided fodder for this process ---- live, through books, and music, and visuals of all sorts. 

see you on the other side of thanksgiving - may your turkey or whatever graces your table be truly wonderful. 

best, Liz

 

checking in the corners ---

 My family tree is a bit like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Not full and luxuriant with 10-15 sibs in each family and the delightful complication of double cousins, but generations of families with one, two or three sibs, and traveling 4-6 generations back before the sib count grows. Ah well. 

Anyway, with head counts of this sort, one does have a closer look at people on the fringes, ala John Cecil Ferguson, known as Uncle Jack, and possibly known to some of you since he is the example used in my "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" lecture. He was my father's great uncle, and died in the 1960's. I saw him most as a young girl, when he and wife Alice lived in a house on the lakeshore outside of Madison, Wis. 

When I first did their b,m,d grid I was surprised that Jack's marriage to Alice was his second.  Returning to this question last year, creative use of data bases including newspapers, led me to Francis Walker for John Cecil's first wife. Connecting newspaper items offers the following timeline: 

• John C. to France, 1917 - 1919
• John return to US, May-ish 1919
• John marries Frances, 10 November 1920
• Baby Francis born, 29 January 2021
• Baby Francis dies, 20 February 1921

Newspaper articles added that wife Francis had moved to Bloomington about a year before she and  Jack married. John married wife number two, Alice, in 1929 by which time Francis should have been divorced or dead. That question is still open; no paper has yet been found.  

However, Francis Walker female preemie baby's death certificate at 23 days on 20 February 1921 was found, as was her gravestone on Find a Grave.   Francis Walker and John Cecil Ferguson, are listed on the baby's death certificate in Family Search. A count of the months could offer a hypothesis about their marriage timing, perhaps inform why Francis and Jack did not stay together, and/or why they married. "One answer opens the door to more questions." 

Now THIS question is now on my continuing questions list. 

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on other endeavors - 

?? do you remember grandmother or great aunt talking about "spring cleaning" ?  My family didn't do spring cleaning, we moved, but now I am involved in spring cleaning my genealogy paperwork. I am reading and filing well, with fervent hopes that this is the last re-do required, as I work into and through both years of my work, and my mother's. So... while on the surface it looks like little is being accomplished, as done, I can pull up any document in my library, to check a detail or move into a new line of research. Lots still to go through, but what is done is lovely. 

It's time to hibernate -- and sort -- and WRITE...

Through the years I have made and have MANY pages of research findings in the cupboard and computer - and also lots of info on my shelves and resting in my brain from the incredible courses taken before and during covid time. 

so...  now to actively assimilate and incorporate all, rather than suppose it will enter my brain by proximity. (which would be nice but come now.... really...)

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the running tally... so far in 2022 - (not a bad list)

--- for this time around I was lead on CAGGNI's bi-ennial conference, GeneaQuest 2022, held on 17 September, and now tucking in the ends. Doing lead on a gen. conference brought to mind the Japanese proverb about climbing Mt. Fuji, "not climbing Mt. Fuji is the action of a fool, climbing Mt. Fuji more than one time is the action of a fool." 

--- published a piece in Chicago Gen Quarterly "naming the stillborn" which added two non-acknowledged births to the family tree on my mother's side, at her generation. 

--- did an ISGS SIG this year on Discovering Documents, a short (30 min) teaching/exploration/expansion talk about one of the basic documents found/used in genealogy - birth certificate, death, marriage, ww registration, square land, metes & bounds, city directories, newspapers. It was good to do, but I'll not be continuing in 2023 -- as mentioned at the top of this post, there is lots (one hesitates to say too much) in my cabinets to address. 

--- finishing up the writing: Proving a father for Patrick Ross...

--- finishing up the writing: Manerva & CW pensions...

--- lectures out and about

&&&

dealing with a new phone (apple 10) and discovering that pictures taken on the phone will not transfer via cable to my computer (pc). thanks a lot apple for improving how the phone works (NOT). if anyone out there wants to tell me i'm mistaken, please write here, or message liz london on facebook. 

and yes, I'm signed up for rootstech --- 

and am through the interview process to be a 'helper' at the Wilmette Family History Center. 

 

Mining the Closet... musings

 

Originally published Fall 2002 in Clan Ross News.

Between 1993 and 2003 I was editor of Clan Ross News, the quarterly publication of ClanRoss America, a national Scottish Heritage Organization.  The following was obviously written speaking to that context, but the underlying message certainly applies to everything done by every genealogist/family historian.  

 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

 I am currently (2022) in the midst of long term tidying of my computer. For too many years I have treated my electronic memory as a back bedroom, stacking finished work on shelves and in drawers, with little thought spent on how a specific piece will be found in the future. Ah well.... 

    Since it is unlikely that I will ever publish a full book of "musing", I'm collecting those thoughts here.  Edited and small changes in April 2020. Small additions and changes made in September 2022. 

                          +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

 Fall 2002: 

I have just returned from the AGM – a grand celebration of Scottish and Ross culture and heritage in Livonia, Michigan. I was one of the four volunteers (I know, I know, never volunteer for anything) who organized and ran the weekend for Ross Assn., so for me the time was a lot of fun, and a lot of work. Every so often the question of “why” comes up – our lives are certainly full up with jobs, and family and keeping clean socks in the drawer.

This spring I read The Songcatcher by Sharyn McCrumb.  In her afterword is the best comment about the “why” of CRAUS [Clan Ross Association of the United States] (leastwise for me) that I have ever encountered. 

McCrumb speaks of going to college and learning the latest Joan Baez song, and taking it home to sing for her Dad, who startles her by knowing all the words.  She writes, “My father smiled, “Why, that’s John Riley…I had that song from my grandmother, and she had it from her grandmother” … and I went to the Record Bar and paid $6.98 for it.

McCrumb continues, “I never forgot that lesson, because to me it symbolized the fragility of one’s heritage.  Each of us is the link between the past and the future, and it is up to us to pass along the legends, the stories, the songs, and the traditionsof our own families.  If we don’t they will be lost, and your children may not be lucky enough to find a bit of their past going for $6.98 in a store somewhere.  They may never find it at all. Since then I have been mindful of seeking out my heritage and doing what I could to preserve it and celebrate it….”

The book is a wonderful story, and her comments a wonderful reminder.

               Cheers, Liz

I have a small codex that I make a point to read every year. This has earned a place. 

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Doings elsewhere: GeneaQuest 2022, CAGGNI's bi-annual conference, is happening this coming Saturday, 17 September 2022. I have been lead on this enterprise. Lots of work, lots of enjoyment, and truly made possibly only because of the assistance of many wonderful volunteers. 

    In elsewhere genealogical, I am going through my holdings, working on pieces toward publishing. It's a good way to spend days. 

Preaching to the Choir: Researching 102 - Principles and Anecdotes.01

 How to start -- how to proceed -- 

• Move from the known to the unknown 

Consider a chain.  Dungeons spring to mind, but with Christmas approaching, (at least when this was written!), I prefer to go with paper chains, to festoon a tree or a room. In all chains, each link is the base for the next link, which in turn becomes the base for the following link, ... "rinse and repeat."  

         I met my grandparents when my mother took me to a house and told me that this man was her father and this woman was her mother.  The next week my grandfather took me into the city to meet his mother, my great-grandmother.  This chain is as solid as the memories and lives of the people involved.  My great-grandmother knew her parents, by name, and could tell me that. 

• Test every hypothesis
• Look carefully at all information available

... and/but in genealogy, paper proves it. Should you get information from a conversation with an aged relative, or someone who knows about your family, see if you can run a tape during the conversation. If a tape is not welcome, or is not possible given the setting, grab paper as soon as you can and write down ALL the particulars of the conversation - and be sure to date the paper. I have such paper on conversations with my grandmother, and my dad.  

 

• The further back, the fewer records

Fewer people, fewer records.  More years passed, more chances for destruction (fires, floods, a few little wars), fewer records.  "That" information was not important to keep, fewer records.  Letters and journals are always wonderful.  Samplers and shaving mugs are wonderful remembrances, but, when seeking to connect people and lineages, 'follow the money' is always useful. 

 Follow the Money

Where is the money?   Historically (and in New York & Tokyo) the money is in the land, not in the skill.  Visit Plymouth Plantation, and its residents will tell you, almost to a man, that they are farmers, and "oh, I shoe horses when needed" or "I build furniture when it's needed."  

        And with the money in the land, how does land change hands?  Inheritance, marriage, "sale" to family, and, way down the list, sale to non-family.

A number of years ago, I was downstate Illinois to research both land and probate records.  Working in the courthouse in an age when everyone was much more relaxed about access to records, I was shown the stairs to the basement, and told that probate was to the right and land to the left.... and please turn the light out when I came up.  The difference between the probate side and the land side was amazing, and made perfect sense when thought about for more than one second.  All probate records are dead records; everything in those records has been settled, and if a question arose, looking for the answer could take time, and time was not an issue.  On the other hand, or rather, the other half of the basement, land records were very much of the moment. Anyone in the county might need a record from yesterday or 15 years ago to 'do something' with the piece of land bought or sold, ... whenever.  Probate is the archive.  Land is the tickler file. 

        As a consequence, the probate side was, to put it mildly, quite untidy.  On the land side, you could almost eat off the floor, and all the books were all in order.

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other pursuits: I'm tending my files, and emptying, so just a few days gone by. looking ahead I've registered for SLIG for advanced German research in January 2023. My recent ancestors (past 150 years or so) group in Chicago and downstate Illinois. All but a few tiny branches of those trees track back to Germany, some faster than others, and this course/learning seemed a good next step after the GRIP courses on Germany. I will put in a plug for any/all institute courses. Think of it like immersion learning of a language. Come and learn. Come prepared and learn more. 

best till next time. 

Organization - musings and ruminations -- first

 

• Look carefully at all information available

• Decide early (like today) how you are going to keep your information

consider how you keep the rest of your life papers.  Are bills in a drawer, a filing cabinet, the corner chair in the DR (or LR), or the dining room table because you always eat in the kitchen? or is every piece of paper instantly digitized and most of your bills arrive electronically? you get the drift.  Deciding to use a system that is at odds with the rest of your life will cause GREAT angst.  

    ... however, there are things in genealogy that will arrive or be found on paper. 

                    Deal with it!

and... ps. decide if you will be traveling with the information you have assembled. If so, briefcases, or at least sturdy bags with handles will work better than the dining room table.

• Full recording of where you got the info ("citing your sources") is VERY VERY VERY important -- with a number of conditions. 
• the gen community (GC) accepts that books are available many many places. Therefore it is not necessary to tell your readers, through the footnote, at what library you read a given book. You might want to include that info in your research notes so YOU can find it quickly for a re-up on the info, but not for your readers.
• the same exception applies to all newspapers, and all other serial publications which appear on paper. IF/WHEN a publication appears ONLY as a web entity, I take huge numbers of screen shots, because the whole piece may be replaced or edited at any point, and I would rather not fight the "way-back" machine for a copy.
• Why VERY VERY VERY important? Much (most?) genealogical writing today is an equation in words. Is Matthew Smith b. 1832 in Delaware the same Matthew Smith who fought in the Civil War in the New York 3rd Inf. Regiment? or Was John Mayer married to Martha Compton, daughter of Henry and Sara in 1783 or married to Martha Compton, daughter of Robert and Martha in 1784?Another researcher must be able to follow your exact path and have all the material to evaluate whether or not you got to 2+2=4 or if you ended up with 4.5 or 3.75.

Posting for now - think you can comment... shall work on that before next posting. 

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in other life - since the last post - LOTS, but the closest to now are 2 GRIP institutes in June/July: Citations with Tom Jones and GERMANY with Amy Arner. good learning and good brain stretching. Also, a trip to Midwest Genealogical Center in Independence, Mo. for research, material for article, and vacation. All three accomplished in style. The article is in the August CAGGNI newsletter. Also, with COVID becoming integrated into the new normal, I am again lecturing in person, and loving it. In the past 2 weeks I've had the pleasure of talking about "Manerva Barbee gets a CW pension (finally)" and "follow the yellow brick road" All great -- and now to do it lots more.