J is for Jewelry

Jewelry is small, fraught with memories and family connections, passed down through generations, and usually really,  really pretty.

It behooves every genealogist to have a sit-down with each of their relatives, especially the women, and take an annotated stroll through their baubles.

My jewelry box includes a wedding band engraved with my grandparent's names and wedding date, and a ring given to my mother on her 16th birthday (along with the story about how it was presented, in a set of 16 nested boxes, the smallest a ring box, and the largest the size of a toilet paper carton).  I also have my great grandmother's embroidery scissors, the only item remaining from her dresser set,  and the ID bracelet my father had engraved with his name and military serial number.  (Old school; now the military uses Social Security numbers as ID's.)  I wear the rings from time to time, and use the scissors when I sew. 

As part of your recording, be sure to include items that were added to the collection by the person doing the talking.  I often wear ring with overlapping leaves, chosen as a celebration of my work in genealogy.  It's not a particularly valuable piece of jewelry, but the story makes it valuable to my family's history.  Another favorite was bought on holiday with husband Bob.

And of course, you are going to take good clear pictures of the jewelry, and LOCKSS the resultant record -- :-)

Till next time,

Liz

(L is for LOCKSS... stay tuned)

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2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

I is for Immigration

OK, so that is a gimmee. Start researching and the basic information collected enlarges from birth, marriage, death,  to birth, marriage, death and "new place."

Even though cold in Chicago, the first day of spring was this past week, and that induces thoughts of buds and green leaves, of planting and enjoying flowers, all images of "new growth." 

Immigration… the same.  Immigration for many (most?) included the hope, the belief that things would be better in the new place -- house, county, country -- and therefore the willingness to undertake both the considerable bother, and the considerable expense of moving.  [I know, technically the first two moves are emigration, but the point is still true.]  Leaving "the old country" might well be prompted due to duress -- the potato famine, pogroms, wars, conscription -- but the other side of the coin was the tied belief that the "new country" would offer better options.  Hard probably, extremely hard, perhaps, but still, for whatever reason, or reasons, better options than the current situation in "the old country" had on the table.

And let's be honest.  The "standard" mental image of immigrants is the Ellis Island era, the "tired and poor" arriving with their possessions in bundles and chests.  This was true, for thousands.  But … immigration is not done.  YoYo Ma immigrated, and became a US citizen: his naturalization card is on Ancestry.  My friend and banker immigrated from Vietnam.  

Additionally, enlarge your mental construct past the US-centric sphere, where all roads lead to USA shores.  Historically, and now, people leave the US as well come to the US, and move between other countries (which shouldn’t surprise..)  And many traveled with a stop-over, months, years, a generation, before arriving in the US. (ie. England --> Canada --> US).   If you can make a case for a certain immigration route, it probably happened, at least once.

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Practicum: When your immigrant ancestors are recent enough for you to know the European hometown, and you have living known relations in that town, get out your saving information tools, asap.  Get all the documents, BMD, and pictures of all people/houses/churches/farms.  You have a great gift waiting to be tied up with a bow.

When you don't have recent immigrant ancestors, hit the 1900/1910 US census, and check the Naturalization column, which may produce a homerun to the tiny hometown named as birthplace on the naturalization application/certificate.  Ditto for the obit, and look for the obit not only in the appropriate English newspaper, but also look at the native language paper published for that area.  (and don't forget to check the obit of sibs.)   And,… look for every scrap of paper that relates to these people on this side of "the pond."  Everything that you find will be useful if not vital.

"May the road rise up to meet you. 

May the wind always be at your back. 

May the sun shine warm upon your face, 

and rains fall soft upon your fields."  

Traditional Irish blessing.

Till next time,

Liz

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2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

H is for History

H is for history.  People live in a context.  Now, then, and in the future.  I like to think that reading lots of science fiction prepared me for genealogy, because while the people in these alternative realities are often human (or mostly so), their contexts made different paths and choices the norm.  (cf. Handmaid’s Tale; any Heinlein, Ribbon World, I Robot series).  So read.  Maybe science fiction, maybe not.  Certainly read the histories of the location, and for the late 19th century you have the bonus of easily reading the history of a place which was written in that time (aka county histories).  Read not only the novels written in that time,  but also read speeches given and newspapers written at that time (not only the obits), and as possible the school books used.  All will reveal a world with different suppositions, different mental constraints, which are as powerful or more powerful than physical or legal constraints.  If all women KNOW that they cannot live as single women, …. If every tailor’s son KNOWS that he will become a tailor…

"you cannot do what you cannot imagine"

A great way to jump start entering another time is to visit one of the encampments which do first person interpretation.  Join the population of Plymouth Plantation, Massachusetts, where Goodwife Abigail is sure that it is the rose infused oil and not the temple rubbing which eases her husband's head aching, and all are sure that God has blessed their enterprise because their town has not been afflicted with any of the great illnesses (cholera, diphtheria).  Travel a different direction and spend a day in Conner Prairie. When I visited there (over a decade ago) the entire town was on one script, years before the Civil War, and living life in middle Indiana.  The buildings for the town were gathered from all over Indiana, set down just north of Indianapolis, and the year depicted was around 1857.  You strolled the town, learning that you could barter a woven coverlet (not sewn together) for siding for a house, or $4. cash.  And where the general store, run by Mr. Terwilliger (no joke), was stocking ready-made shirts, but he "can't really believe that people will buy them because they certainly won't fit right."

Now the situations above are across decades and centuries, but closer to my time the same appeared in my family and possibly (probably?) in yours.  One grandmother lived in a mental world where she believed she needed her father's permission to do the big; she wanted to be a teacher, and her father wouldn't permit her to attend university.  She stayed home and worked in the family store till she married; her three brothers went to university. The other grandmother and great aunt lived in a family/world that believed in educating daughters, and they did go to college, and taught high school, and did this in a town that was 60 miles away from their hometown … [until marriage, because that was the world then.]  Their father was an entrepreneur and engineer, and also he had two daughters. 

Yes, for successful research, you do need to know county formation, and starting dates for various documents, but I think it also matters how far one could travel in 4 hours, what the family did for a fever, and what was used for light after sundown (and how much that light cost).

There is a most interesting novel titled "Time and Again."  The book postulates that there are thousands of threads that connect you to your present time, everything from the fibers in your clothing, to food ingredients & food preparation options, to how you travel, and continues the supposition (necessary for the plot) that if you can break those threads you can walk around the corner, and be in that other time. 

On a personal note, while I think that 1900 or 1720 would be lovely for a visit, but I will stay in 2018, despite the many current difficulties.  I appreciate greatly that food is available all year, my home is warm in winter, antibiotics are known, computers aide my work, and occasionally I learn or vege with TV.   You?

Till next time

Liz

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2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, any letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross

G is for Grunt Work

Every discipline has it.  Skaters have school figures; musicians have scales and etudes; football players drill and watch films, take ballet class & yoga, visual artists do endless color studies & sketches, and so on, and so on. 

And what does the grunt work get you?  A trained body, a trained eye, or ear, and always a trained and disciplined mind, which controls all the rest.  Grunt work gives you mastery of the medium, so that you can forget the "how you do it" and just do.  

CS Lewis said that as long as you are counting 1,2,3 you are not dancing.  

So should genealogy be able to avoid grunt work?  It can't.  Genealogical research is a discipline, more of the mind than the body, (though being able to sit long and continue to concentrate certainly counts on the body side.)

Genealogical scales & etudes also includes organizing the information (and often includes figuring how to organize the info for "this particular situation").  Information is so much fun to collect, and revel in, and amaze your friends and family, and do the "look Ma!"  thing, but that is only half.  The second part is doing what needs be done to integrate each wonderful morsel into the web of a long-ago life, and that often (dare I say usually) includes grunt work.

Currently I am working on a large lineage project.  Some of my notes go back to 1998; that's a long time in dog years, or research years, and a long time to work on one project.  Yes, it is my family, and so that time-line can be tolerated, but not forever.  It's now time to tie up all the ends.  For this particular project that includes getting every piece of information in chronological order to facilitate (great word, huh..) discerning all the cross connections, as in "How old was Billy (baby of the family) when oldest sister Helen married and moved to Oregon?"

With some of the information in my files that process has to move back one step (or two or three) because before I get to analyze the data found, I get to play detective to discover the date and source of … say "great aunt Sally's" obit.  I have a copy of the obit, which was torn out of the middle of a newspaper page, Xeroxed and sent around.  There is no date on the page, printed or written.  There is no header to offer the name of the paper.  Am I glad to have the obit? Absolutely.  Do I want (do I need) more than her name, survived by, and what cemetery gets her?  Absolutely -- both to satisfy my curiosity, and to meet current research standards.  This happens, and rarely solicits a "Look, Ma!"  More likely a grump, and definitely Grunt Work.

Do you remember your university orientation meeting in the huge hall with a row of profs on stage?  Do you remember the comment that "for every hour in class, you should expect to spend 4 hours on homework"?  Ditto for "Genealogy Done Right."  Read "researching" rather than "in class," and "analyzing and citing" rather than "homework," though it is homework, in the truest definition.

Ah yes, a pain in the keister but the reward is a Flight of the Bumblebee, a flipped omelet that doesn't land on the stove-top, elegant and engaging prose, or a strong, sturdy, and totally reliable family tree.  

My grandfather was a noted southern Illinois basketball coach who told his players, "We can do it if we are willing to work and work hard."  And let the genealogists say, "Amen."

Till next time,

Liz

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2018 begins with an "ABC-darium," a walk through the alphabet expanding into short comments on matters genealogical.  Published on Tuesday and some Fridays, a letter may be visited more than once before moving on.  

© 2018, SE Ross