Showing posts with label Misc.. Show all posts

I know, I know. I have been away for a while. Nothing new is happening in my research as I don't have a lot of time lately. But I did come across this fun post and thought I might share. Spoiler Alert - If you want to try to solve the puzzle, don't read click the link yet.

BestWeekEver is a funny sarcastic blog that I read from time to time (when I have... time). In this post they decided to tackle a common genealogical dilema of trying to reconstruct ages of people in a family from an oral (in this case filmed commercial on YouTube) history. Can you figure out the kids age from the video below:



There's actually a second video with a few more details:



Ok, figure it out yet? Now go read the post on BestWeekEver.

I am not sure what the appeal is with the awful show called Jersey Shore, but I guess MTV has to air something since they don't show videos any more. So the whole Snooki phenomenon has gone insane and with it a couple of sites that let you download a PNG file of the orange one where you can insert her into other images (site 1, site 2).

I decided to have a little fun and add Snooki to some historical images. If you decide to make your own, post a link in the comments!

I have not read this book yet (although I hear it's terrific), but the sale price cracked me up anyway:

I pretty much missed it, but this blog turned one a couple of days ago. I can't believe I've been at this for a year now. In the past year I've had over 4,300 visits from about 3,500 unique visitors from 91 countries. Many of the more popular posts had to do with free templates and reviews I did of Geni and MyHeritage. So instead of listing the most viewed pages I think a more significant list would be the posts that meant most to me during my first year as an amateur genealogy nut:

1. My grandfather had a twin brother nobody knew about!
2. My second daughter was born and we named her after my great grandmother.
3. My mother brought a lot of old photos and documents on one of her visits.
4. I found out why City Directories are so great.
5. I took my family on a local ancestors field trip.
6. I translated a chapter from the Dolhinov Yizkor Book about my great-grand-uncle.
7. I wrote about the annihilation of my Dombek line in the Holocaust.
8. I am still trying to figure out who Margret Bishop/McElrath really was. I now know that her maiden name may have been Margret Timmons.

I think those are my top findings/posts for the past year. Along the way I have connected with several lost branches of the family and found out about many of my second/third/fourth cousins.

I look forward to many more years of exciting research and findings. Thanks for reading.

When my parents arrived for a visit a couple of weeks ago, my mother told me an amazing story about a good friend of hers that was reported in the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot (latest news). I asked for permission to tell the story, because I think it is truly fascinating and wanted to share it with as many people as possible.

The article was printed on July 8th, 2009 in the "24 Hours" section of the paper. The cover of the section has a big family picture with the title of this post as the headline. It then says "One day, at the age of 83, Meir Bachar found out that he has seven brothers and sisters of which he had never heard about before, and they knew nothing about him. How did it happen? His father, Ben-Zion, had a relationship during his marriage with his wife's sister. The result? An impossible reunion."



How about that for an intriguing headline? I won't translate the whole article or go through all the details, but here's the main story.

Meir "Maxi" Bachar witnesses Kristallnacht in Vienna on November 9th, 1938. His fair hair and blue eyes helped him blend in with the angry mob who rampaged through the Jewish quarters, looting, burning and destroying 95 synagogues in the Austrian capital. Maxi left for Israel shortly after at the age of 14 and a half and 71 years later he was on his way back to meet a family he never knew.

It all started with an email that his daughter got one day from her cousin in London, England, telling her about a letter they got from Vienna claiming that Maxi has a brother in Amsterdam and two sister in Vienna - all children of Ben-Zion Bachar and his aunt Malka "Miriam" Lindenaur, the sister of his mother Frida. All this was very confusing because the family had only known of one sister, Suzy Morris, that had lived and then passed away in London. Nobody had heard about other family members before.

Turns out that another cousin found amongst her late father's possessions a folder that had a note with Malka Lindenaur's name on it along with her seven children. One of those names was her 82 year old mother's. And she also recognized another name of a woman who was supposedly a distant friend of her mother's. This cousin dug deep into the Vienna archives and realized that her mother was adopted along with her six siblings and they were all the children of Ben-Zion Bachar and Malka. Only three of the seven were still alive.

Almost a year later Maxi flew to Amsterdam to meet his brother Herman Kolomoyer. Their birth certificates show that they were born in the same house to two sisters who were involved with the same man. The father's identity was purposefully omitted from Herman's birth certificate as well as the other 6 illegitimate children. Even though he fathered 7 children with Malka, he refused to have any relationship with them and sent them one by one to orphanages for adoption. From his legal wife he only had two children, Maxi and Suzy.

Like the rest of the children, Herman was sent to an orphanage at the age of 2 and was supposed to be sent to a family in South Africa, but the war broke out and he was placed with a Christian Dutch family instead. Even though his birth certificate noted that his mother was Jewish and Herman found out about it at a young age, he hid this detail from the rest of his family and later on from his daughters as well. The two sisters in Vienna also had no idea that they came from a Jewish family and had lived their entire lives as Christians.

It turns out that growing up in Vienna, the family was poor and lived in a two room apartment. In one were Ben-Zion and his wife Frida, in the other was Frida's sister Malka and the children slept in the kitchen. The father was a gambler and a drunk who abused his children and did not provide for them. Maxi remembers looking for his father in card clubs and bars in order to get some money for food. He does not have fond memories of his father at all.

In 1938 his father was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp and Maxi was spared because of his mother's pleading. His sister was later sent to London and in 1940 he left for Israel with other Jewish children on a long trip through Yugoslavia, Saloniki, Turkey, Beirut and Damascus. At the age of 17 he joined the British Army. According to some testimony, his mother, Frida, and her sister, Malka, both perished in the Holocaust, but in 1945 while serving in Italy he found out that his father had survived and remarried. So he went to see him in Vienna.

In 1959 his father's new wife called to let him know that he was very sick. Overcoming his tough childhood memories and dislike of his father, Maxi stayed by hi bedside for three months. During all this time, Ben-Zion never said a word about all the orphaned siblings that were given up for adoption. Surprisingly he has no recollection of any of the children his aunt had with his father, even though most of them were born after him. Maxi has no way to explain why his mother stayed with his father or why her sister kept living with them all those years.

I think this is a fascinating story. Since the mothers of all these children were sisters, this keeps the gene pool intact. Would a DNA test be able to prove that there were different mothers or would they look like real siblings? My own great-grandfather, Avraham Smorgonski, married two sisters, Ester and Henia Segalchik. But that was only after Ester passed away and not behind her back.

Part of the reason I started this genealogy quest into understanding and learning about my family history was to try to reconnect with my ancestors who I know nothing about. I know many of them lived through terrible pogroms and hardship and most of them were eventually murdered by their neighbors or the Nazis just because they were Jewish.

Some of my new relatives, who I discovered during my research, send me interesting e-mails from time to time. I found this one to be especially interesting and on point in light of the global resurgence of antisemitism, soft-core holocaust denial as well as full blown denial (to read more on these topics you should definitely go read Deborah Lipstadt's blog).

Well said Vanessa!

My parents were in Argentina for a group trip earlier this month and this is the best photo from the batch my mom sent:

Doesn't that look amazing? It's almost looks computer generated.

It's funny. Since I started this new genealogy hobby I seem to be getting more and more history related e-mail. You might remember the last one I wrote about: Prohibition Poster - Fact or Fiction?.

This time I got an oldie but a goodie: The Real Spin - Makes you wonder about your family tree:

Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher here in southern California , was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Harry Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.

The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory:



On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: 'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'

So Judy recently e-mailed Congressman Harry Reid for information about their great-great uncle.

Believe it or not, Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:

'Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory . His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.'

NOW THAT is how it's done folks! That's real SPIN.

So the first thing you do when you get one of these is check Snopes.com and of course this story is false. It's been running around since 2000 and has been applied to whoever is a recent newsworthy politician: Remus Rodham, Gunther Gore, Robert Dion (for you canucks), Remus Stevens and finally Remus Reid.

According to Snopes:

This item is merely a very old bit of humor (dressed up with an accompanying photograph of train-robbing outlaw Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum) which has been adapted into a "one-size-fits-all" political jibe - all one need do is simply alter the text by changing the surname to match that of the disfavored politician du jour, then send it winging around the Internet yet again.

The Ketchum page linked in the Snopes article is very interesting and has several other photos.

By the way, does anyone know if Judy Wallman is an actual person and a professional genealogist?

If you remember a few weeks ago I mentioned the amazing story of Straight No Chaser an a-capella group of 10 guys from Indiana University who were discovered by the president of Atlantic Records after seeing them on YouTube. Well, their album is number 1 for all music on Amazon and iTunes:



They sang at the White House, at a Green Bay Packers game and a bunch of TV shows. And they were on the Today Show this morning:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Their album is really terrific and if you don't have it yet - go out and buy it. You can also order it online and follow the band on their website: www.sncmusic.com.

Amazing!

I know some of the people reading this blog give lectures and presentations. Other's might just be casual users of PowerPoint. I found a terrific free bundle of PowerPoint templates from TechSmith, the makers of the outstanding Camtasia Studio, Snagit and others.

You should just head over there while they're still in a generous mood and download these free templates. Here's the link. And here are some examples:

America:


Spores Theme:


Birch Trees:


Enjoy!

One of my recently found potential cousins sent me this hilarious video of Alan King. Since it has some genealogical significance I decided to post it here for everyone's enjoyment.

My mother-in-law rented a house in the north Georgia mountains in the amazing serene and beautiful community of Big Canoe. Uncle Glenn and Aunt Jane joined us from Florida and we spent a terrific long Thanksgiving weekend in front of the fireplace, rubbing our full bellies.

On the day we arrived, I looked through the bookcase in the living room and found a booked titled "Wolfscratch Wilderness : A Backward Walk in Time in an Old North Georgia Settlement" by Charlene Terrell. It's a big book (700 pages) with a complete history of this enchanting area, from the days of the Creeks and Cherokees, through the Georgia Gold Rush, Trail of Tears and eventually up to the beginning of the Big Canoe development.

But what truly amazed me are the chronicles of the families who lived here. The Potts, Disharoon, Cox, Cowart, Sanderlin, Pettit, Fields, Gaddis, Vandiver, Fouts, Glass, Brooks, Heath, Hendrix, Blackwell, McElroy, Wigington, Whitley, Byess and Tate families either won land in lotteries or acquired some of this rough terrain and lived here through cold winters, poverty, moonshining, wars, infant and childbirth mortality and other excruciating hardships. The family chapters include testimonials from living family members and amazing photographs of these tough mountain people.

The chapters read very easily and are compiled from census information, court and land records, family bibles, letters and interviews. The author did a terrific job of researching the family histories and added some literary glue around them. There are lots of details and dialogues as well as several letters written by the family members and descendants. I will probably put up a couple of interesting photos that caught my eye, like the family that always took a picture with a big Bible, the girl with her pet bunnies or the moonshiners playing cards.

We also spent a day in Dahlonega, the gold capital of Georgia, which was a short drive away. We visited the gold museum and went panning for gold in one of the nearby mines. I was fascinated by it all and thoroughly enjoyed our day. In the town square were several interesting stores with antiques and other memorabilia from the region. I was on the lookout for a bookstore I read about in a travel guide that promised to have genealogy books, native American literature, old flags and maps. But it had closed down about three years ago and nobody knows where the owner went. The only other store that had antique books was more on the literary side. I did see a couple of extremely expensive books dating back to 1700's including a 3-volume English Baronage from the early 1800's and a couple of old map books. I was kind of upset that these were not in a library somewhere but I guess the store owner has to make a profit somehow, right?

The most expensive book I saw at the store was a 1st edition, 1st print 'Gone with the Wind' with an original letter by Margaret Mitchell. Price? Almost $11,000. Good luck selling that one.

So to sum it up, we had a very relaxing and fun-filled Thanksgiving weekend. Maybe we'll turn it into a family tradition?

Sorry for neglecting this blog lately, but as usual time slips away when you're busy with family, work and life, in general. In an effort to organize my thoughts and make sure I start posting here more frequently I have decided to write a list of future posts:

1. Cobb County Library Card & a couple of library visits.
2. False hope in the search for Margaret Bishop/McElrath.
3. So much new information from City Directories.
4. Connecting with distant cousins through Geni.
5. Touchy subjects - Should I leave them alone?
6. So many amazing photos and original documents to share.
7. NewspaperArchive.com - Worth the trouble?

So as you can see there's a lot to get to. I have some fascinating stories to tell. Stay tuned.

I am always behind the times when it comes to the almost weekly regular blog carnivals and missed the 58th edition called "Fact or Fiction". But when I came across this e-mail from a friend yesterday I figured some of you readers will get a kick out of it. It reads:

Comment: If you were around in 1919 (just before prohibition started) and came upon the following poster ...

Would you quit drinking?

So I wanted to find out if it was a spoof or a real poster (which I didn't believe it was). I typed in 'prohibition poster' in Google and the first hit was a Snopes.com forum page discussing this poster. You can follow the discussion (and some of the snide remarks) here.

I followed some of the links and found out this photo was listed by the National Park Service archives as "Caption: Movie Still, "Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Not Touch Ours." in the Black Maria; Unknown Date; {23.430/25} (jpg)." That looked interesting. So I tried to find out what the movie Black Maria was about and at first tried to search IMDB but came up with 3 foreign films that obviously didn't match. Then I found the entry to Thomas Edison's Black Maria studio on Wikipedia.

So this dates the picture back to 1893-1901 when the studio was in operation. But the 18th amendment was passed in 1919. So that didn't make sense to me until I read a little more about the prohibition movement and found out it started in the mid 1800's. Now it all makes sense.

Still, this is a very progressive, satirical way to fight prohibition almost a century ago. When I scan through century-old census enumerations and see mostly farmers and day laborers I tend to forget that other parts of the US were thriving with cultural and "modern" occupations. A movie studio making a spoof on prohibition never really crossed my mind!

One last tidbit about the poster. The words on the poster are from the name of a song that was received at the Library of Congress on May 11, 1900, but was created in 1874 and published in San Francisco:

LOC has 34 entries under 'temperance' for these kinds of songs. So it was a legitimate phrase from the temperance movement. The LOC listing comes complete with sheet music too. So all you musicians out there can download and play it.

Even a funny e-mail spoof can lead you down an educational historical sleuthing adventure. I hope you enjoyed it.

The power of the Internets is astounding! One of my buds was part of an a cappella group in college and for their ten year reunion they posted a couple of videos on YouTube. 8 million views later they got a call from Atlantic records and are now releasing their first album at the end of October:



Spread the word! These guys are awesome! Buy their album! Buy it as presents for all the people you don't know what to get! Buy it as stocking stuffers! BUY IT!!!

And check out their official website here: www.sncmusic.com

You can even pre-order it right now. Do it! Now!

I don't even know where to start. I guess this will turn into kind of a to-do list.

1) Uncle Glenn sent his father's medals and they are amazing. I will put up a post shortly with some pictures and more stories. Apparently this was a swimming family, including Olympic trials.

2) The Geni.com site is a hit with everyone. People are logging in, sharing information and updating the tree. I think this will be fantastic.

3) I've found a lot of similar (and rare) surnames in the Geni.com site and I have contacted a lot of people with questions about possible family connections.

4) I've done a lot of work on the Smorgonski (paternal grandmother) and Kilchevsky (paternal grandfather) trees with the help of Eilat Gordin Levitan who runs the Dolhinov site.

5) I have been reading a lot of testimonies by my relatives from Dolhinov about their escapes, joining the partisans to fight the nazis (no freakin' way do I capitalize that word, no matter what spell-check thinks) and memories of their beloved town. I found the Yizkor book (online at the NYPL) where my grand-uncle Shlomo Shamgar wrote some beautiful chapters. I am going to try to do him justice and translate them and post them here and on the other sites (JewishGen and Eilat's site).

6) I found a not so distant cousin on my wife's side who was the Governor of West Virginia in the early 1990's. I will have a post about him as well.

7) And I have a bunch of photos I need to scan and tell stories about.

8) I backed up my blogs to WordPress after reading about one too many blogs being crushed by the Google empire.

So much to do, so little time.