Quaker ancestry: the Mollineaux/Molyneaux/Mullinex/Molliner family of Westchester County and Flushing, New York
The Zooey Deschanel episode of this season of "Who Do You Think You Are?", where she researches her Quaker ancestry, made me want to look a little closer at my own Quaker ancestry. I know a little bit about that line, the Mollineaux/Molyneaux/Mullinex/Molliner family (gotta love those names with a bajillion spellings...makes it soooo fun to do any kind of search on them...), which married into my Raynor line, but not very much. While Zooey was looking at her Pownall line in Pennsylvania during the mid 1800s, just prior to the Civil War, my Quaker roots are in Long Island and Westchester, New York in the 1600s and 1700s - but even that far back, I can find anti-slavery sentiment among my ancestors. In fact, one of my ancestors was one of the earliest New York Quakers to raise opposition to the issue of slavery, and to free his own slaves.
So, here we go: My 6th great-grandparents (yes, we have to go THAT far back) were John Raynor and Phebe Mollineaux. They are the parents of my 5th great grandfather, Whitehead Raynor, whom I know quite a bit about and who intrigues me more and more the more I find out about him (he seems to have been quite wealthy and influential around town, and according to my grandmother, he is our family "celebrity," having been quite involved and influential in the Ku Klux Klan...guess he didn't take after the Quaker line of his family!)
Anyway, John was from Long Island. I don't know if Phebe was born on Long Island or how she and John met, but apparently her family is from Westchester. God bless the Quakers, who much like the Germans, kept pretty organized records. You can find minutes from their monthly & quarterly meetings on Ancestry.com (and I'm sure other places...I would imagine the Society of Friends today still keep those records pretty organized; I may have to go to them directly to find out more about this line), and those minutes include birth, marriages, and deaths of their members.
If you have New York Quaker ancestry, Swarthmore College, the same place Zooey went for info on her family, has a great database of names available online. You can find the database here.
Okay, so Phebe Mollineaux was the daughter of Moses Mullinex and Hannah Farrington, who lived in Westchester County, New York. Moses' father was Horseman Mullinex. What a name, huh? Horseman (or Horsman as I've sometimes seen it spelled - that's a name, like the name Whitehead, that I would LOVE to know where it came from!) died in 1725. That's more than 50 years before the start of the American Revolution. He lived in Westchester County and in Flushing, Queens. And we have it on public record that in 1701, Horseman freed one of his slaves, a man named Jack. We also have it on public record that at the quarterly and yearly meeting of the Friends in Flushing, New York, Horseman and a man named John Farmer publicly voiced their opposition to slavery. It is said they were the first New York Friends to raise opposition to slavery.
Now, New York is not a southern state. So how prevalent was slavery in the North? If you go back far enough, even your northern ancestors probably owned a slave. Maybe not a plantation full. But certainly one or two. It was just commonly accepted, a societal norm, as unbelievable as that can seem to us today. It's something most of us in genealogy have to deal with and confront, learn about and then learn from.
So, here we go: My 6th great-grandparents (yes, we have to go THAT far back) were John Raynor and Phebe Mollineaux. They are the parents of my 5th great grandfather, Whitehead Raynor, whom I know quite a bit about and who intrigues me more and more the more I find out about him (he seems to have been quite wealthy and influential around town, and according to my grandmother, he is our family "celebrity," having been quite involved and influential in the Ku Klux Klan...guess he didn't take after the Quaker line of his family!)
Anyway, John was from Long Island. I don't know if Phebe was born on Long Island or how she and John met, but apparently her family is from Westchester. God bless the Quakers, who much like the Germans, kept pretty organized records. You can find minutes from their monthly & quarterly meetings on Ancestry.com (and I'm sure other places...I would imagine the Society of Friends today still keep those records pretty organized; I may have to go to them directly to find out more about this line), and those minutes include birth, marriages, and deaths of their members.
If you have New York Quaker ancestry, Swarthmore College, the same place Zooey went for info on her family, has a great database of names available online. You can find the database here.
Okay, so Phebe Mollineaux was the daughter of Moses Mullinex and Hannah Farrington, who lived in Westchester County, New York. Moses' father was Horseman Mullinex. What a name, huh? Horseman (or Horsman as I've sometimes seen it spelled - that's a name, like the name Whitehead, that I would LOVE to know where it came from!) died in 1725. That's more than 50 years before the start of the American Revolution. He lived in Westchester County and in Flushing, Queens. And we have it on public record that in 1701, Horseman freed one of his slaves, a man named Jack. We also have it on public record that at the quarterly and yearly meeting of the Friends in Flushing, New York, Horseman and a man named John Farmer publicly voiced their opposition to slavery. It is said they were the first New York Friends to raise opposition to slavery.
Now, New York is not a southern state. So how prevalent was slavery in the North? If you go back far enough, even your northern ancestors probably owned a slave. Maybe not a plantation full. But certainly one or two. It was just commonly accepted, a societal norm, as unbelievable as that can seem to us today. It's something most of us in genealogy have to deal with and confront, learn about and then learn from.
Rudolph Stutzmann aids Colorado flood relief in 1921
This terrible, devastating flooding currently happening in Boulder County, Colorado jogged a memory of a newspaper article I came across on the newspaper archive website http://www.fultonhistory.com/ about another Colorado flood almost 100 years ago and how my great-great grandfather helped those who had been affected by it.
On June 3, 1921, the town of Pueblo, Colorado was devastated when the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek flooded. 1,500 people lost their lives and there was $20 million worth of damage. It is referred to as the Great Flood of 1921. You can read about it here.
On the other side of the country, a June 8, 1921 story in The New York Times tells how the citizens of New York City banded together to raise funds for those affected by the natural disaster. Sixteen men were named to a citizens' committee to receive donations toward the cause, with a goal of raising $5,000, the equivalent of more than $65,000 today. My great-great grandfather Rudolph Stutzmann, an undertaker and banker in Brooklyn, was always active in his neighborhood and within the German-American community, and even though he had done well and become successful in life, he seemed to always give back. This time he gave back to people who had suffered outside of his locality, as he was named one of the committee members. The story doesn't say, but I hope and believe he gave not just of his time, but of his wealth as well.
Let us all keep those affected today by the flooding in Boulder County in our thoughts and prayers, that everyone remains safe and that their ordeal ends soon.
On June 3, 1921, the town of Pueblo, Colorado was devastated when the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek flooded. 1,500 people lost their lives and there was $20 million worth of damage. It is referred to as the Great Flood of 1921. You can read about it here.
On the other side of the country, a June 8, 1921 story in The New York Times tells how the citizens of New York City banded together to raise funds for those affected by the natural disaster. Sixteen men were named to a citizens' committee to receive donations toward the cause, with a goal of raising $5,000, the equivalent of more than $65,000 today. My great-great grandfather Rudolph Stutzmann, an undertaker and banker in Brooklyn, was always active in his neighborhood and within the German-American community, and even though he had done well and become successful in life, he seemed to always give back. This time he gave back to people who had suffered outside of his locality, as he was named one of the committee members. The story doesn't say, but I hope and believe he gave not just of his time, but of his wealth as well.
Let us all keep those affected today by the flooding in Boulder County in our thoughts and prayers, that everyone remains safe and that their ordeal ends soon.
'Who Do You Think You Are?' renewed for second season on TLC
Yay! Or as one of my ancestors might say, "Huzzah!"
From The Hollywood Reporter by Michael O'Connell:
"The second wind for Who Do You Think You Are? will continue on TLC. The cable network announced Tuesday that it's picked up the unscripted series for another 10-episode season.
News of the reality show's renewal comes just a few months after TLC
revived it after a three-season stint on NBC ended in cancelation. Who
Do You Think You Are?, based on a British format, is executive produced
by Lisa Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky Is or Isn't Entertainment and Shed Media.
Exploring celebrity ancestry for a total of 35 episodes by the conclusion of its current run, the TLC season has featured episodes focused on Christina Applegate, Kelly Clarkson, Cindy Crawford, Zooey Deschanel, Chelsea Handler, Chris O’Donnell, and Trisha Yearwood. It concludes Tuesday with an episode following Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons.
The next season sees the episode order upped from eight to 10. This season has averaged 1.8 million viewers in first runs."
The article can be found here.
From The Hollywood Reporter by Michael O'Connell:
"The second wind for Who Do You Think You Are? will continue on TLC. The cable network announced Tuesday that it's picked up the unscripted series for another 10-episode season.
Exploring celebrity ancestry for a total of 35 episodes by the conclusion of its current run, the TLC season has featured episodes focused on Christina Applegate, Kelly Clarkson, Cindy Crawford, Zooey Deschanel, Chelsea Handler, Chris O’Donnell, and Trisha Yearwood. It concludes Tuesday with an episode following Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons.
The next season sees the episode order upped from eight to 10. This season has averaged 1.8 million viewers in first runs."
The article can be found here.
Thoughts on "Who Do You Think You Are?" episodes: Trisha Yearwood and Jim Parsons
Can't believe the season is over already! It flies by so quickly...boo! :( Anyhoo, onto my thoughts:
- Quick two things about the Cindy Crawford episode that I thought of after I wrote my post...one, that I've met Chris Child, the genealogist who presented Cindy with her New England ancestry at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. I thought I had, but Cousin April over at Digging Up the Dirt on My Dead People confirmed it. Nice guy, good genealogist! And two, that some of the information on her Thomas Trowbridge ancestor was found in another man's military records (I believe...correct me if I'm wrong, please! It's been awhile since I saw the episode and my brain is wonky from sleep deprivation!) Anyway, whether it was this ep or not, the point is, that sometimes you can find mention of your ancestors in the records of neighbors, friends, colleagues, etc. It basically means you should look everywhere, ha ha...but seriously, obviously you can't. But when you hit a dead end or brick wall, remembering this little factoid could be the key to getting to finding out more and getting to that next step!
- Okay, now on to Trisha! I really don't know her...not much of a country music fan. But she seemed down-to-earth and nice, although again, we had somebody who seemed, jokingly or for real, disappointed that her immigrant ancestor was not going to lead her to a royal relative. Hey, I'm not royalty, but I hope one day, 200 years from now, one of my descendants will be interested in finding out more about my life!
- I learned quite a bit from this episode, which I always enjoy - did not know about the black act in England that made poaching a capital offense. It seems like a sad piece of history, as the poor struggled to survive. I also was not familiar with the fact that England sent convicts to the Americas. Everybody knows they sent criminals to Australia - in fact, there are quite a few Gorrys Down Under, which leads me to believe there were some colorful, not quite law abiding characters in that Irish branch. But I didn't know that in the 1700s they were sent to America as well.
- I liked when Trisha referred to 1700s Georgia as the "wild west" of its day, because back then, with the land stakes and not-quite-friendly Indians and being on the fringe of civilization, it WAS the "wild west." I often think of my Raynor ancestors, who never made it off the East Coast but who arrived at a time when it was nothing but woods and not-quite-friendly Indians and was on the fringe of civilization, as having lived in the "wild west."
- I was quite curious about what happened to Samuel Winslett's brothers, at least two of whom were arrested with him. Were they also shipped to the colonies? Were they hanged? I wish they had addressed that at least a bit.
- Samuel sounds like quite a tough character, someone who knows how to survive, from poaching the noble's deer to apparently escaping his servitude in Georgia. He might not be nobility or royalty, but these are the interesting stories we all hope to find!
- It reminded me of my own criminal cousins...or uncles, actually. Well, I guess the only commonality is the criminality. Samuel gave me the impression he committed that crime in order to survive - sort of like Jean Valjean, y'know? Ha ha...my relatives, John Ricklefs and Charles Ricklefs, were just career criminals. But boy, are they some of my most interesting relatives and two of my favorite to research.
- Okay, last night's Jim Parsons episode, which I watched this morning - maybe it's the fact that today is 9/11 and already an emotional day for me, but I started crying when Parsons was talking about his father, and how much his father had loved him and supported his dream of becoming an actor.
- I think we all look for things in ourselves in our relatives, and when we don't see it in anybody else - like in Jim's case, nobody else in his family is artistic - we wonder where it comes from, so it was nice that he was able to find someone on his line who was a different kind of artist, but an artist nonetheless.
- It's always nice to have family rumors substantiated - glad Jim was able to document the New Orleans and the French connection (get it? The French Connection? Ha ha ha...) - his surprise that he had entrenched New Orleans roots, when everyone he had known about in his family came from Texas, reminded me of my discovery that my Haase/Reinhardt family lived in New Jersey for at least two generations - until then, everyone in my family who wasn't a Raynor or Raynor line connection had lived in New York (and even the Raynors hadn't lived in a place other than New York since the 1600s...) - and even though it was just the next state over, that was an amazing discovery for me, that my 4th great grandfather Charles Haase fought for a New Jersey regiment in the Civil War, that my 3rd great grandfather Edward Haase was born in New Jersey, and that my 5th great grandfather John Reinhardt is buried in New Jersey (John's daughter Barbara was Charles' wife).
- I think part of the reason we all want to find royalty in our lines, besides the obvious name-dropping rights, is that when all we have are the ordinary, every day folk, eventually the paper trail dies, and usually sooner rather than later. History does not remember the names of the little people. I can't trace any of my Irish roots past my immigrant ancestor because in many cases, there just aren't any records. This is a huge problem that I face in tracing my fiance's Latin American roots as well. So part of what I loved about Jim's discovery about the Trouards is that, for the most part, they were everyday folk, but because they worked in influential circles, there is a paper trail for them at least a little further back than if they had just been run-of-the-mill architects.
- How cool would it be to stand in a building your ancestor designed almost 300 years ago?
- I think the next coolest thing to being related to John Adams, Ben Franklin, or King Louis XV is to be related to someone who hung out with them!
- I don't watch The Big Bang Theory so I'm not really all too familiar with Jim Parsons, but he just seemed so down-to-earth and nice and I totally want to hang out with him! His awe at every discovery, even the mundane, was refreshing - he wanted to know more about the people, not necessarily see how far back he could go - and he seemed so sincere in his thanks to everybody who worked to help him on his journey.
- It was a nice change to see someone trace their French roots, instead of the go-to English ancestry...and I say that as somebody with a loooot of boring English ancestry. I joke. I love it. But damn, after awhile, it gets boring! On my tree, on the show - throw in some variety! I feel like the first season, and maybe the second, I don't really remember, featured a greater variety of backgrounds, and I miss that. When I'm doing my family tree research, I always pray that maybe this time I'll find somebody who wasn't English, Irish, or German!
- I do have Danish ancestry, but that's been next to impossible for me to trace at this point because I don't read Danish - so thank God for all that English and Irish ancestry! Lol - Jim needed a translation for all the records he looked at in France, and whenever I do German family research, I have to bring a million notes on German words, German lettering, etc. The grass is always greener, right?
- His Hacker great-grandparent's involvement in the yellow fever epidemic of 1853 made me think of my 3rd great-grandmother, Mathilda Rau Stutzmann. She died in Brooklyn in 1880 at the age of 35 from bilious fever - more commonly called yellow fever. I know very little about her or about the disease - reading the description Hacker wrote of the illness was a little disturbing, to think that's how poor Mathilda died. But I wonder if she was an isolated case or if yellow fever always occurs as some kind of epidemic...I really don't know. But I'd love to find out - if anyone knows anything about this, please leave me a comment!
- One last thought - once again, as with the Chris O'Donnell episode, I love that what stood out for Jim Parsons was not the great achievements, but the little things, so to speak, that were passed down from generation to generation - the love of education he saw over and over, the love of a father for a son, and helping that son achieve his dreams...things he could relate back to qualities he remembered about his own father, whom he obviously loved very much, and qualities he saw in himself.
Wordless Wednesday: where Clifford Raynor was born
Nothing special. The house on the left is 97 Archer Street in Freeport, Long Island. The house was built in 1908 and my grandfather, Clifford Monroe Raynor, was born there in 1914. You can find him living there with his parents, Monroe Raynor and Amelia Berg Raynor, and two older sisters Helen and Norma in the 1915 New York Census. I just happened to be walking through that part of Freeport last week and decided to take a slight detour to take a look at the house again. By 1920, they were living on South Main Street, a few blocks away, where his neighbors, Dan Cronin and Mary Cronin, became his best friend and eventually his wife, respectively. I always think it's cool to see the actually buildings my family lived in...little bits of history all around us!
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| 97 Archer Street, Freeport, NY - where my grandfather, Clifford Monroe Raynor, was born in 1914. |
Thoughts on "Who Do You Think You Are?" episodes: Chris O'Donnell & Cindy Crawford
I feel like this season of "Who Do You Think You Are?" on TLC is just flying by! Last night was the Cindy Crawford episode; last week we saw Chris O'Donnell. Just some random thoughts on these two eps:
"Who Do You Think You Are?" airs on TLC Tuesdays at 9 p.m. (Repeats from the previous week air at 8 p.m. prior to each new episode, which is great because my DVR keeps cutting off the last 30 seconds or so...grrr)
- Chris O'Donnell always seemed like a nice guy by the roles he played. Obviously, just because you play a nice guy doesn't mean you are in real life - hence, the acting. But on his episode, he still came across as nice, family-oriented, and down-to-earth. It's always nice when people turn out to be the way you always imagined them. Chris talking about not knowing what love was until he had children and tearing up while talking about his dad? Heartwarming...
- Once again, so jealous that, like Chelsea Handler's grandmother's memoirs about post-WW I Germany, O'Donnell has a relative who wrote a memoir, this time a great-grandfather remembering his time helping others through the St. Louis cholera epidemic. Such a great way to learn not only a part of your personal history, but putting that personal family history into the context of world history.
- Love that Chris had to go to his niece to learn about the McEnnis family line - young genealogists unite! Somebody has to carry on the research for this generation! :)
- Loved that for Chris, his ancestors Michael McEnnis and George McNeir were "heroic" not for their military participation but for choosing to leave the military and return home to care for their families.
- I know I always get excited when I come across a photo of one of my ancestors, so it was exciting for me that Chris found photos of Michael McEnnis.
- Learned a little bit about our American history, as I'm not well versed in either the Mexican-American War or the War of 1812.
- The only two things I know about the War of 1812 - that the British burned Washington D.C. on my birthday, August 24; and what the episode was building up to as Chris was standing in Fort McHenry and learning about the battle his ancestor took part in - that this was what inspired Francis Scott Key to write the poem that eventually became our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. I was surprised Chris didn't see that one coming. I thought everyone knew about that...
- Okay, onto the Cindy Crawford...wow, she looks incredible still! Even if she's had work done, it's very natural looking...
- Couldn't get over that Cindy knew many of her great-grandparents...I hope she realizes now how rare that is and how lucky she was.
- I could identify with A LOT of her story - I, too, consider myself an American mutt. When your family has been here so long that you have to go back past your great-grandparents to get to an immigrant ancestor, you really can't help but just feel American (although my great-grandfather Timothy Cronin WAS born in Ireland and I do identify with my different ethnic backgrounds on different days...but one of those "ethnic backgrounds" I sometimes identify with is American...). And she didn't know anything about her ethnic background. We might like being "American," but like she said, everybody came from somewhere, and it's nice to know where.
- Nice to see that she actually is related to Ernest Hemingway, if only as a distant cousin. I wish Ernest Hemingway was my distant cousin...
- I thought it was very typical that she was hoping to find somebody famous on her tree - I think everyone does at some point or other, and especially those who don't really do genealogy. But I appreciated her amending that statement to say that really she wanted to know her personal history in the context of history on a whole, that by learning about someone on her tree, that it personalizes world history and makes it more interesting. I totally agree. Finding people on my tree makes me interested in what was going on in that time and place in general.
- Love that Cindy had to go to the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston. That place is a great resource for anyone with New England ancestry, and the genealogists working there are very knowledgeable. They've featured the Society in past seasons, but since those episodes aired, I've been there myself with Cousin April and it was cool to see the building and rooms where we had actually been...too bad Cindy Crawford wasn't in the house then!
- Another reason I could identify with Cindy's story is I also have Great Migration ancestry. The Raynors, of whom I speak much, and the various families who married into the Raynors, were Great Migration families.
- My Raynors, like Cindy's Trowbridge ancestors, also left the Massachusetts Bay Colony because they were unhappy with the state of affairs there re: people's religious convictions. My Raynors also went to the New Haven Colony, where they were one of the founding families of Stamford, Connecticut, before once again leaving and eventually settling in Hempstead, Long Island, New York (well, that's where my ancestor, Edward, finally put down roots - his wanderlust-suffering uncle, Thurston, uprooted one more time before settling in Southampton, Long Island). But anyway, that parallel between her family and mine was pretty cool.
- I did not like how they skipped over whole generations, like 300 years worth, to focus on Thomas Trowbridge, because I hated seeing all those names and dates with no further information leading back to Thomas - but Cindy's question was about where her family had come from, and they had to skip over all those generations to answer her question.
- Then talk about skipping generations, when she went to London and was handed that scroll of her family tree all the way back to Charlemagne! Cousin April and I have an inside joke that just once, while researching our family tree, we'd love to go someplace and just be handed a scroll of our family tree, without having to do any of the work for the information!
- It was very cool that Cindy, who knew nothing about her family's origins, was able to trace her family back to Charlemagne. I would've liked the episode to address the fact though that this wasn't really anything special - okay, it's special, but it's hardly unique. Charlemagne had 20 children. If even only half of those children had children who had children...well, you can see why many, many, many, many, MANY people of European descent can count Charlemagne as one of their ancestors. The key is to be able to trace your family back to someone of nobility - once you have that in, it breaks everything wide open. If you're related to one noble person from back then, you're related to them all, and you can almost definitely count Charlemagne as one of your forebears. I am actually one of those lucky few...I mean, millions. (Hey Cousin Cindy...call me! We'll compare notes on Great-granddad Charlie! :))
- I DID like the first person account Cindy got to read describing Charlemagne. Like she said, it put a human face on an almost mythical historical figure - and that's really what she was looking for, a personal connection the history.
"Who Do You Think You Are?" airs on TLC Tuesdays at 9 p.m. (Repeats from the previous week air at 8 p.m. prior to each new episode, which is great because my DVR keeps cutting off the last 30 seconds or so...grrr)
Thoughts on the first four episodes of Who Do You Think You Are this season
So, so far we've seen Kelly Clarkson, Christina Applegate, Chelsea Handler, and Zooey Deschanel research their family trees (or, more accurately, they've had their trees researched for them) - This show is always a little spotty for me. Some episodes just don't interest me, although they still usually make me cry by the end - I'm a sucker, what can I say? - but some episodes are just so full of emotion and soul-searching and thought provocation and just show what genealogy can really be all about. Anyway, thoughts so far:
- Despite my own Civil War ancestry, Kelly Clarkson's episode just didn't really grab me. I guess a lot of times, I relate to the reactions of the celebrities and she just wasn't all that emotional about what she found out. And despite Isaiah Rose's time spent in the Andersonville POW camp, which sounded absolutely horrific, his story just didn't do it for me. I can't even describe or explain it...emotions are arbitrary like that.
- Christina Applegate's episode was possibly one of the best episodes and stories I've ever seen on this show. What a tearjerker. And usually I don't get pulled in to stories that go back only one or two generations, but Christina's empathy for her father's troubled upbringing and her horror and sadness as she learned more and more as her grandparents' story unfolded, the closure she was able to bring to her father regarding his complete lack of knowledge about his mother and her life and death, and how it seemed to bring her and her father closer together...ugh. Talk about a compelling story. I think this is an episode everybody interested in genealogy should see. We all want to find the heroes and royalty that we're related to, but we forget that genealogy is really a study of the lives of normal, everyday people, people who were flawed, who made mistakes, who hurt people, who were just trying to get through each day and live their lives. I think I also related to the gravesite with no headstone. That's the story of just about everybody on my dad's side of the family. But as you can see in this episode, even without a headstone, you can still find out who is buried in the plot - cemeteries are great resources!
- Chelsea Handler. Eh. She doesn't do it for me as a comedian, and her story had the potential to be so compelling, researching her grandfather's past in Nazi Germany - so many ordinary Germans who weren't necessarily Nazi sympathetic but actively or passively participated in a great evil to protect themselves and their own families...makes you question what you yourself would've done in that situation. This episode is an example I guess of how one or two generations back doesn't usually interest me. I guess I also don't always love when the celebrity goes into the show with a burning question about one particular ancestor they already know about - although, as you can see by my reaction to Applegate's episode, I don't always hate that. I guess I'm just more drawn in usually by the episodes where the celebrity doesn't really have much knowledge about their tree, or only knows rumors and stories, and gets drawn along for the ride, the discovery. Anyway, I think the most interesting parts of this episode were the translation of Handler's grandmother's memoir about everyday life in post World War I Germany - that was a fantastic family find. We should all be so lucky to have relatives who did that! - but also the Jewish-American soldier Chelsea talked with in France who recounted his war story and his personal thoughts on the enemy soldiers he was fighting. I also didn't know about the World War II POW camps here in America, so that was an interesting historical factoid to pick up. But Handler didn't really seem all that emotionally invested in her grandfather's story and so I guess I wasn't either.
- Zooey Deschanel. Her story had the potential to be blah like Kelly Clarkson's, but I actually rather enjoyed her journey. I found it a little heartbreaking that she didn't begin looking into her family until after her granny died, but I guess it's those life events that usually prompt us to begin the journey. I don't like when people are LOOKING for a specific person or personality, a la Zooey's "long line of strong women," but rather when they FIND that this is the case, but I did like when these people really start to identify with a specific ancestor. Loved hearing Zooey say that she felt protective of Sarah Henderson Pownall. I also loved that even though she was handed a tree back to Sarah and her parents, that Zooey stated that as she went on her journey, she discovered Sarah's identity - genealogy for me is always about more than collecting names, dates, and places. It's discovering the people themselves, and Zooey realized that. I was also particularly intrigued by the Quaker history she was researching. I did not realize that Quakers were quite so progressive on all equal rights fronts, and it was interesting hearing her family's personal connection to Underground Railroad activity. I actually have Quaker ancestry as well, which I know very little about, so this has made me interested in finding out more about that. I will post what I do know in an entry as soon as my little girl lets me (she's sitting in my lap right now trying to type this blog post with me...genealogist and blogger in the making!!)
Thoughts on HBO's show Family Tree
I don't get HBO but my dad does, so whenever I've been going over there I've been checking out the Christopher Guest series Family Tree on HBO On Demand. If you haven't heard about it, it's a mockumentary format wry comedy about a man, played by Chris O'Dowd, who inherits a box of mementos from his late great-aunt and not knowing much about his family to begin with, finds a picture of someone he assumes is his great-grandfather. Investigating that mystery sets him off on finding out more and more about each of the crazy and colorful characters he learns about on his family tree.
I'm a genealogy buff - how could I not love it? But to be more specific:
I'm a genealogy buff - how could I not love it? But to be more specific:
- Even if you're not a genealogy fan, if you are a Christopher Guest fan you should check this series out - it is classic Guest. It's a mockumentary in the vein of Guest films like Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman, with the usual wacky cast of characters and many of Guest's usual suspects, such as Bob Balaban and Fred Willard, popping up. It's funny in a wry, dry, deadpan sort of way.
- Chris O'Dowd is great. You might know him as the police officer/love interest in the movie Bridesmaids, but I knew about him years before that from his role as an Irish IT nerd in the Britcom The IT Crowd.
- The specific genealogy bit that I love about this show is that yes, O'Dowd's character uses the Internet and yes, he takes a DNA test, but his genealogy journey is about photographs of unknown people and other family heirlooms and mementos that raise questions about who he is and where he came from. He goes to genealogy research centers but he also goes to cemeteries, he connects with cousins, he visits old homes of his relatives and talks to neighbors and old co-workers, anybody who might know the stories, anybody who might be a living resource. And I guess that's what I love the most about the genealogy aspect. He's not collecting ancestors. We all do that to an extent. I know I do. He wants to know the stories - he finds a picture of a great-grandfather he never knew but also wants to know what he did for a living and what others thought of him and funny stories about his days performing as the rearend of a two-person horse. And just as we all do, he's trying to connect himself to those stories - he's trying to find bits of himself and his personality and his journey in the ancestors he's discovering and learning about. And he finds cousins during his journey! I have found cousins, amazing cousins who are both great people and great resources - that's one of the best parts. Strangers won't care about your personal family tree finds. Friends and even some family members won't even care. But cousins, fellow researching cousins, will! There's really no point in finding the stories unless you also find people to share them with!
"Who Do You Think You Are?" returns next week, y'all
I don't know about you, but after NBC failed to renew the family history program "Who Do You Think You Are?" I was definitely disappointed. For anyone who reads my blog regularly, you know that I cry at pretty much every episode. And that my genealogy passion gets reinvigorated after each viewing. Well, in case you didn't know, TLC picked up the show and new episodes air beginning next Tuesday, July 23, 2013.
Also in case you haven't heard, the Kelly Clarkson episode is available to download for free from iTunes. In it, she traces the journey of her Civil War soldier ancestor Isaiah Rose. As someone with my own Civil War ancestor, Charles Haase, I find those stories intriguing. Clarkson herself didn't really draw me in so much but in answer to your most pressing question, yes, I did tear up anyway during the episode. I blame it on the hormones and on being a new mother, but the trend continues. And while I didn't LOVE this first episode, it did whet my appetite for more stories. I always get a little jealous when I see people who don't know anything about their family history finding out all these new things. I just have to remind myself that even though I feel like I know everything about my family tree, I don't. Even though I've made a lot of those new exciting discoveries, there are still stories and people and hidden gems to find.
WDYTYA isn't a perfect show. It's basically an advertisement for Ancestry.com. I'll admit that. It's no secret. And while the celebrities involved do pretty much NONE of the research, they DO go beyond using Ancestry.com to go to actual research repositories and visit actual historical and research locations, which is SO important in any genealogical pursuit. But no matter how you feel about that, you have to appreciate anything that makes genealogy more mainstream and brings it to people's attention - the more people who become interested in researching their family trees, the more personal family history knowledge and heirlooms and stories and records will be available for all of us!
So, July 23 on TLC - be there!
Also in case you haven't heard, the Kelly Clarkson episode is available to download for free from iTunes. In it, she traces the journey of her Civil War soldier ancestor Isaiah Rose. As someone with my own Civil War ancestor, Charles Haase, I find those stories intriguing. Clarkson herself didn't really draw me in so much but in answer to your most pressing question, yes, I did tear up anyway during the episode. I blame it on the hormones and on being a new mother, but the trend continues. And while I didn't LOVE this first episode, it did whet my appetite for more stories. I always get a little jealous when I see people who don't know anything about their family history finding out all these new things. I just have to remind myself that even though I feel like I know everything about my family tree, I don't. Even though I've made a lot of those new exciting discoveries, there are still stories and people and hidden gems to find.
WDYTYA isn't a perfect show. It's basically an advertisement for Ancestry.com. I'll admit that. It's no secret. And while the celebrities involved do pretty much NONE of the research, they DO go beyond using Ancestry.com to go to actual research repositories and visit actual historical and research locations, which is SO important in any genealogical pursuit. But no matter how you feel about that, you have to appreciate anything that makes genealogy more mainstream and brings it to people's attention - the more people who become interested in researching their family trees, the more personal family history knowledge and heirlooms and stories and records will be available for all of us!
So, July 23 on TLC - be there!
DNA shows Irish people have more complex origins than previously thought -- Secret History -- Sott.net
DNA shows Irish people have more complex origins than previously thought -- Secret History -- Sott.net: http://www.sott.net/article/263587-DNA-shows-Irish-people-have-more-complex-origins-than-previously-thought
Independence Day discoveries: United Methodist Church cemetery, established 1859, in East Meadow, NY
I love cemeteries. If you read this blog regularly, you know this. If you're my father or siblings or fiance, you know this. I am very easily distracted by cemeteries, and the older, the better.
So two days ago, on a very hot, very humid Fourth of July, my fiance and I took our daughter for a walk around the neighborhood. We live in East Meadow in Nassau County on Long Island, not far from where my Raynor ancestors settled in Hempstead in the 1600s. But East Meadow is also an older settlement (though not colonial old) - my great grandmother, Amelia Ellen Berg, born in 1884, grew up in East Meadow, and her father, Theodore Peterson Berg, and his father, Peter Hansen Berg, both had farms in East Meadow. In fact, very cool fact, if you drive from my apartment to where my Raynor ancestors lived in Hempstead, you pass right by the house Amelia grew up in on Front Street. It's still standing, although it's a chiropractor's office or physical therapy place now or something.
It's not really a digression. The point is, I have deep roots in East Meadow as well, but I don't really know the town well and you don't really see much history around here. Except for the small patch of original Hempstead Plains still standing in nearby Eisenhower Park, there's really just a lot of 20th century housing and mini strip malls, like most of Long Island. So my fiance and I were walking down East Meadow Avenue, a pretty busy commercial-residential street. I was looking at the churches we were passing (I love old churches, too, bt dubs) and on the walk back, a sign caught my eye. It was a historical marker for the United Methodist Church cemetery, established in 1859. It's funny the things you notice when you're walking, not driving. Now, the current Methodist Church is in a modern 1950s building about a block or so north, but there was another church across the street that looked a lot smaller and a lot older, that probably once housed the Methodist Church until the congregation outgrew it. But I had never noticed a cemetery, and I *still* didn't see one. But we did see an apparently empty yard behind the church, so we decided to take a walk over. Now, it was super hot and sticky out, like I said, and my fiance had *just* told me he had to pee...see how easily I am distracted by even the possibility of a cemetery?
There was in fact a sign on a fence saying United Methodist Cemetery established 1859. Looking at the empty field I figured the graves had been moved. A lot of people buried in small graveyards around here have ended up in Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale. But when I saw the gate wasn't locked and walked in, I discovered the church yard wasn't empty - all the headstones were lying flat! It was like I had entered the past - here was this tiny, old cemetery off a modern busy road right around the corner from where I lived and I never knew! And on Independece Day no less, when we think about the past, and our families, many of whom came here for the freedom we celebrate every July 4th. I'll have to go back to see if I recognize any of the names of the people bried there.
So always keep your eyes open - look around, especially around corners. History - our own history - is everywhere!
United Methodist Church Cemetery
So two days ago, on a very hot, very humid Fourth of July, my fiance and I took our daughter for a walk around the neighborhood. We live in East Meadow in Nassau County on Long Island, not far from where my Raynor ancestors settled in Hempstead in the 1600s. But East Meadow is also an older settlement (though not colonial old) - my great grandmother, Amelia Ellen Berg, born in 1884, grew up in East Meadow, and her father, Theodore Peterson Berg, and his father, Peter Hansen Berg, both had farms in East Meadow. In fact, very cool fact, if you drive from my apartment to where my Raynor ancestors lived in Hempstead, you pass right by the house Amelia grew up in on Front Street. It's still standing, although it's a chiropractor's office or physical therapy place now or something.
It's not really a digression. The point is, I have deep roots in East Meadow as well, but I don't really know the town well and you don't really see much history around here. Except for the small patch of original Hempstead Plains still standing in nearby Eisenhower Park, there's really just a lot of 20th century housing and mini strip malls, like most of Long Island. So my fiance and I were walking down East Meadow Avenue, a pretty busy commercial-residential street. I was looking at the churches we were passing (I love old churches, too, bt dubs) and on the walk back, a sign caught my eye. It was a historical marker for the United Methodist Church cemetery, established in 1859. It's funny the things you notice when you're walking, not driving. Now, the current Methodist Church is in a modern 1950s building about a block or so north, but there was another church across the street that looked a lot smaller and a lot older, that probably once housed the Methodist Church until the congregation outgrew it. But I had never noticed a cemetery, and I *still* didn't see one. But we did see an apparently empty yard behind the church, so we decided to take a walk over. Now, it was super hot and sticky out, like I said, and my fiance had *just* told me he had to pee...see how easily I am distracted by even the possibility of a cemetery?
There was in fact a sign on a fence saying United Methodist Cemetery established 1859. Looking at the empty field I figured the graves had been moved. A lot of people buried in small graveyards around here have ended up in Greenfield Cemetery in Uniondale. But when I saw the gate wasn't locked and walked in, I discovered the church yard wasn't empty - all the headstones were lying flat! It was like I had entered the past - here was this tiny, old cemetery off a modern busy road right around the corner from where I lived and I never knew! And on Independece Day no less, when we think about the past, and our families, many of whom came here for the freedom we celebrate every July 4th. I'll have to go back to see if I recognize any of the names of the people bried there.
So always keep your eyes open - look around, especially around corners. History - our own history - is everywhere!
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| Dorothy Wright headstone in the United Methodist Church cemetery in East Meadow |
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| Historical marker at the old United Methodist Church on East Meadow Avenue, East Meadow, NY |
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| United Methodist Cemetery, established 1859, East Meadow, NY |
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| A seemingly empty field is covered in headstones at the United Methodist Cemetery in East Meadow, NY |
United Methodist Church Cemetery
PBS announces new genealogy show: "Genealogy Roadshow"
And the interest in genealogy television shows continues to expand...
Television will hop onto any bandwagon that seems to be gaining popularity or steam, which has been happening over the past few years in regards to genealogy. This then causes people in the general population who watch these shows and become intrigued to hop on the genealogy bandwagon. It's a vicious cycle. I don't mind. The more people even peripherally involved in genealogy, the more info (hopefully more good than bad) that circulates, the more we can all help each other fill in our trees.
PBS is the latest to hop on the band wagon, premiering a new genealogy show, "Genealogy Roadshow," which will attempt to investigate ordinary, everyday people's unverified claims that connect them to a historical person or event. I think that's the draw for a lot of newbies, that they might discover they're connected to somebody or something famous. Seasoned genealogists, I think, tend to find the ordinary just as exciting as the extraordinary. Still, I wouldn't say, "No thank you, not interested," if it was possible to connect to something or somebody historically significant not just to me and my family but to the general public, too! :)
So, the show sounds interesting. I will definitely be checking it out. How about you?
Find the full press release here.
Television will hop onto any bandwagon that seems to be gaining popularity or steam, which has been happening over the past few years in regards to genealogy. This then causes people in the general population who watch these shows and become intrigued to hop on the genealogy bandwagon. It's a vicious cycle. I don't mind. The more people even peripherally involved in genealogy, the more info (hopefully more good than bad) that circulates, the more we can all help each other fill in our trees.
PBS is the latest to hop on the band wagon, premiering a new genealogy show, "Genealogy Roadshow," which will attempt to investigate ordinary, everyday people's unverified claims that connect them to a historical person or event. I think that's the draw for a lot of newbies, that they might discover they're connected to somebody or something famous. Seasoned genealogists, I think, tend to find the ordinary just as exciting as the extraordinary. Still, I wouldn't say, "No thank you, not interested," if it was possible to connect to something or somebody historically significant not just to me and my family but to the general public, too! :)
So, the show sounds interesting. I will definitely be checking it out. How about you?
Find the full press release here.
Happy Fourth of July!
Today is the Fourth of July. In America, this is our Independence Day.
On a side but related note, I am a European mutt. I have family from all over and then some, and I love tracing all those lines to their immigrant roots back to the motherland...and then some. But on a day like today, I think of all my Italian-American metro NY friends who are second generation Americans, whose grandparents were born in Europe. My best friend and fiance are both first generation Americans - their parents were born in Latin America. Even my daughter is a second generation American. My most recent immigrant ancestor generation wise is my great-grandfather, born in Ireland. Timewise, it's my great-great grandmother, who came over from Germany. They were both here before the turn of the 20th century. I have no ancestors who came through Ellis Island because they were all here already. In fact, a whole branch of my tree was here 150 years before the United States even won their independence from England. They've been here for more than 350 years. So I don't have any cultural traditions handed down to hold on to, because my family has been here for so long, but because my family has been here for so long, I am unequivocally American.
Oh, except for the fact that most of my colonial ancestors were AGAINST independence during the Revolutionary War...yep, them Raynors be Loyalists!
Oh well. They lost, but they stayed, so here I am, an American, wishing everyone a very happy and safe Fourth of July!!
On a side but related note, I am a European mutt. I have family from all over and then some, and I love tracing all those lines to their immigrant roots back to the motherland...and then some. But on a day like today, I think of all my Italian-American metro NY friends who are second generation Americans, whose grandparents were born in Europe. My best friend and fiance are both first generation Americans - their parents were born in Latin America. Even my daughter is a second generation American. My most recent immigrant ancestor generation wise is my great-grandfather, born in Ireland. Timewise, it's my great-great grandmother, who came over from Germany. They were both here before the turn of the 20th century. I have no ancestors who came through Ellis Island because they were all here already. In fact, a whole branch of my tree was here 150 years before the United States even won their independence from England. They've been here for more than 350 years. So I don't have any cultural traditions handed down to hold on to, because my family has been here for so long, but because my family has been here for so long, I am unequivocally American.
Oh, except for the fact that most of my colonial ancestors were AGAINST independence during the Revolutionary War...yep, them Raynors be Loyalists!
Oh well. They lost, but they stayed, so here I am, an American, wishing everyone a very happy and safe Fourth of July!!
Family Tree: The Next Generation
Today I took my daughter to visit my grandmother, Mary Cronin Raynor, for the first time. My cousin had a son last June, but Elena is my grandmother's first great granddaughter. They almost had the same birthday - I went into the hospital on April 5th, my grandmother's 98th birthday, and Elena was born the next morning. My grandmother, god bless her, will probably outlive us all, but at 98, I was afraid she and my daughter would never get a chance to meet. So I was very excited once Elena was cleared by the doctors as being old enough to go out to public places once she hit 2 months. Although we didn't actually make it to the assisted living facility until now, just shy of her turning 3 months. But everything finally went smoothly! Elena took a (very rare) nap today and was on her best behavior - she and Grandma were both so excited! My grandmother is still fairly with it for an almost-centenarian so was asking me all sorts of questions about the baby, and it was so wonderful to see Grandma want to hold the baby and to see her making faces at her and talking to her. In addition to the fact that I had been wanting to visit my grandmother since I hadn't seen her since my baby shower in March, it was a weight off my shoulders for them to finally meet each other - Grandma's the one who got me interested in genealogy and laid the groundwork for not only the research on my mother's side of the family tree but also some of my dad's branches, so I think it was especially meaningful for both of us for her to meet one of the members of the next generation, one of the next budding branches on our tree.
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| Three generations of Marys |
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| Great-grandma and Elena finally meet! |
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| 98 years and 1 day apart...but finally close enough to hold hands! |
Happy Father's Day to all the dads in the world, past and present
Family history pays a majority of its attention to patrilineal lines of genealogy but besides passing along to us our names, fathers have a great influence on their children and who their children become through both their presence and their absence, in that way influencing each successive generation. So today we remember all the fathers on our trees, as well as the mothers who act as both father and mother either through choice or loss, we remember the good and the bad about them, because everything they did or didn't do, whether it be your father, grandfather, or seventh great grandfather, has influenced the person you are today...isn't that cool?
A special shout out to my own father, Tim Gorry, who is the only member of my immediate family who thinks genealogy is as fun and interesting as I do...thank you for letting me share all my discoveries with you and not have your eyes glaze over, and thank you for all the research and fieldwork you do yourself to help grow and enrich our family tree! And another special shout out to my fiance Sam, who is celebrating his first Father's Day today - thank you for the gift of our beautiful baby girl, the next generation of our now combined family tree!
A special shout out to my own father, Tim Gorry, who is the only member of my immediate family who thinks genealogy is as fun and interesting as I do...thank you for letting me share all my discoveries with you and not have your eyes glaze over, and thank you for all the research and fieldwork you do yourself to help grow and enrich our family tree! And another special shout out to my fiance Sam, who is celebrating his first Father's Day today - thank you for the gift of our beautiful baby girl, the next generation of our now combined family tree!
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| Sam and our 10 week old daughter Elena. |
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| Old school - with my dad at the beach. Probably Jones Beach, probably 1980. |
Indiana Jones and the genealogical pursuit
My 2-month old is down for a rare nap and not only was I inspired yesterday to write about this but Cousin April over at Digging Up the Dirt on My Dead People just wrote about this too so it look like it was meant to be!
First, the thoughts that were going through my mind - yesterday I was watching a documentary on Indiana Jones and real life archaeology and as with anytime I see or hear anything about history, it was making me itch to do some genealogy. And while I was thinking how cool it would have been to be out in the field, in search of mystery and adventure, like an archaeologist like Indiana Jones and lamenting the fact that the golden age of archaeology was long over, I was thinking about how genealogy is kinda like archaeology, because the fieldwork is so important to finding and solving those mysteries about our family trees.
So Cousin April was talking about the broadcast yesterday on Radio Boston about the impact of technology on genealogy - please visit the link above to read more about the interview and April's opinions on it. As I've stated before, I love that the Internet has exposed more people to genealogy and piqued their interest in it, that it's made more documents and databases available to us and helped us break down previously impassable brick walls, and that it has helped us connect with distant family members and share our collective knowledge about our trees. The Internet has also, unfortunately, helped spread a lot of bad information, because it's so easily accessible; it has made genealogy a copy-and-paste hobby for a lot of folks; and it has made some people forget (or maybe they never realized!) the importance of genealogical fieldwork. It's not just about finding your grandparent's address in a census on Ancestry.com - it's, if possible, visiting the address or neighborhood and seeing if the house is still there and how much the neighborhood has or hasn't changed. It's not just finding a death certificate or record on Familysearch - it's going to the cemetery to visit the headstone (or lack thereof - that alone will tell you whether or not your family was poor or well-off) and seeing if you can find out who else might be buried there and who the plot belongs to. And it's realizing that some of the most pertinent information you are seeking probably ISN'T online - it's in a tiny church's hand-written recordbooks, or in an old newspaper that's only available on microfilm at the library, or in the dusty archives of your local town hall, or maybe even in your own grandmother's photo album or diary.
So, technology, yay; but also, fieldwork, yay.
The other thing I was contemplating as I fell asleep last night was how multi-disciplinary genealogy is, which Cousin April also touches on. Genealogy doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens in a geographical area, and it happens in a historical time period. It's not just about collecting names and dates, although that can be fun. It's about what happened in between the birth date and death date, about our ancestor's lives. I love a name and date when I've finally broken through a brick wall, but eventually, I want a place, too, and maybe an occupation. In my dreams, all my ancestors would be fleshed out individuals - I would be able to know their whole stories. That will never happen. But each of us has at least one ancestor we can round out - when and where did they live? Did they grow up on a farm or in the city? Did his mother die when he was young? Did he have any siblings? Did he follow in his father's occupational footsteps? Did he emigrate to another country? Why did he - were the reasons economic? Religious? Was he escaping a war? Was he a youngest son with no other prospects? Was he just an adventurous spirit? Are there any newspaper articles about him? Was he a productive member of society? Was he a social misfit or pariah? When he died was he able to afford a funeral? His own cemetery plot? A headstone? Are there any photos? Do I have his eyes or his mouth? His temperament? These are the things I want to know as a genealogist. These are the mysteries I want to solve. When it comes to genealogy, I want to be Indiana Jones - how about you? :)
First, the thoughts that were going through my mind - yesterday I was watching a documentary on Indiana Jones and real life archaeology and as with anytime I see or hear anything about history, it was making me itch to do some genealogy. And while I was thinking how cool it would have been to be out in the field, in search of mystery and adventure, like an archaeologist like Indiana Jones and lamenting the fact that the golden age of archaeology was long over, I was thinking about how genealogy is kinda like archaeology, because the fieldwork is so important to finding and solving those mysteries about our family trees.
So Cousin April was talking about the broadcast yesterday on Radio Boston about the impact of technology on genealogy - please visit the link above to read more about the interview and April's opinions on it. As I've stated before, I love that the Internet has exposed more people to genealogy and piqued their interest in it, that it's made more documents and databases available to us and helped us break down previously impassable brick walls, and that it has helped us connect with distant family members and share our collective knowledge about our trees. The Internet has also, unfortunately, helped spread a lot of bad information, because it's so easily accessible; it has made genealogy a copy-and-paste hobby for a lot of folks; and it has made some people forget (or maybe they never realized!) the importance of genealogical fieldwork. It's not just about finding your grandparent's address in a census on Ancestry.com - it's, if possible, visiting the address or neighborhood and seeing if the house is still there and how much the neighborhood has or hasn't changed. It's not just finding a death certificate or record on Familysearch - it's going to the cemetery to visit the headstone (or lack thereof - that alone will tell you whether or not your family was poor or well-off) and seeing if you can find out who else might be buried there and who the plot belongs to. And it's realizing that some of the most pertinent information you are seeking probably ISN'T online - it's in a tiny church's hand-written recordbooks, or in an old newspaper that's only available on microfilm at the library, or in the dusty archives of your local town hall, or maybe even in your own grandmother's photo album or diary.
So, technology, yay; but also, fieldwork, yay.
The other thing I was contemplating as I fell asleep last night was how multi-disciplinary genealogy is, which Cousin April also touches on. Genealogy doesn't happen in a vacuum. It happens in a geographical area, and it happens in a historical time period. It's not just about collecting names and dates, although that can be fun. It's about what happened in between the birth date and death date, about our ancestor's lives. I love a name and date when I've finally broken through a brick wall, but eventually, I want a place, too, and maybe an occupation. In my dreams, all my ancestors would be fleshed out individuals - I would be able to know their whole stories. That will never happen. But each of us has at least one ancestor we can round out - when and where did they live? Did they grow up on a farm or in the city? Did his mother die when he was young? Did he have any siblings? Did he follow in his father's occupational footsteps? Did he emigrate to another country? Why did he - were the reasons economic? Religious? Was he escaping a war? Was he a youngest son with no other prospects? Was he just an adventurous spirit? Are there any newspaper articles about him? Was he a productive member of society? Was he a social misfit or pariah? When he died was he able to afford a funeral? His own cemetery plot? A headstone? Are there any photos? Do I have his eyes or his mouth? His temperament? These are the things I want to know as a genealogist. These are the mysteries I want to solve. When it comes to genealogy, I want to be Indiana Jones - how about you? :)
TLC Brings NBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are?' Back From the Grave (Exclusive)
Thanks to Cousin April of Digging Up the Dirt on My Dead People for passing along this info to me. As anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, I love this show (even went to a panel discussion for it featuring Lisa Kudrow, Blair Underwood, and Kim Cattrall at the Paley Center last year), so all I have to say is...woo hoo! :)
TLC Brings NBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are?' Back From the Grave (Exclusive)
New episodes premiere July 23.
Read about the WDYTYA panel discussion I attended, which was awesome by the way, in my blog post here.
TLC Brings NBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are?' Back From the Grave (Exclusive)
New episodes premiere July 23.
Read about the WDYTYA panel discussion I attended, which was awesome by the way, in my blog post here.
Introducing the newest blossom on my family tree...
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| Happy birthday, Elena! |
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| Elena at 5 days old, already deep in thought and contemplating the world around her... |
On April 6, 2013, I welcomed my daughter, Marielena "Elena" Luz Hall, into the world, the newest blossom in my family tree, and the first of the next generation on my particular branch (my parents' first grandkid).
If you can't tell, she's named after me, Mary Ellen. Her father is Honduran, and so it was important for me to incorporate his ethnic and cultural heritage, and therefore my daughter's, into her name, especially since her last name, Hall, doesn't reflect her Latina heritage at all. Hence, Mary Ellen en espanol becomes Marielena - and because that's such a mouthful for such a little girl, it becomes Elena for short.
Mary Ellen in particular is an important family name for me, a tradition that goes back generations on my father's side of the family. But Mary and variations of Ellen individually are important recurring names, and so, Marielena is the latest in a long line of women I'm so proud to call family, and her name honors them all, including but not limited to my mother, Margaret Mary; my aunts, Mary Ellen and Ellen; my grandmothers Helen Stutzmann Gorry and Mary Cronin Raynor; my great-grandmothers, Mary Ellen Tormey Gorry, Helen Haase Stutzmann, Amelia Ellen Berg Raynor, Ellen Marie Casey Cronin; my great-great grandmothers, Mary Ellen Horgan Gorry, Ellen Prendergast Tormey, and Mary Enright Casey; my 3rd great grandmothers, Mary Corr Gorry, Ellen Prendergast, and Mary Story Poole, and I'm sure many, many more even further back than that.
On top of it all, Elena came very close to sharing a birthday with her great-grandmother, Mary Cronin Raynor...I went into the hospital April 5, which was my grandmother's 98th birthday. I was kinda hoping for them to share a birthday but I think my grandmother was happy her first great-granddaughter got her very own day (happy belated birthday, by the way, Grandma!)
Having a newborn and being a new parent is both extremely exciting and extremely overwhelming, so I probably will not be updating this blog for awhile, and at least not as frequently as I have in the past - to everyone who has followed me over the years, thank you so much, and I promise I'm not disappearing forever - please check in on me every once in awhile to see when I start back up again. In the meantime, continue all your good genealogy work, and the best of luck in finding all the family you're searching for!!
Social media breaking down family history barriers
Great story by Dana Rimington of the Standard-Examiner out in Utah. If you've seen this story or follow this blog (or any blog or tweets or Facebook posts etc etc), you already know how influential social media has become in helping us share our family history stories and research. A couple of good quotes from Thomas MacEntee over at Geneabloggers.com. The physical legwork of genealogy remains largely the same - for example, a cousin of mine trekked out to Lutheran Cemetery today to visit a gravesite and get info on that site from the cemetery office, but social media has changed the availability and dissemination of that info - for example, this is a cousin I've never met, and we've connected through the online genealogy community. His physical visit is helping grow my family story, and vice versa in other situations. All I can reiterate is - keep sharing!
Social media breaking down family history barriers
Social media breaking down family history barriers