Amanuensis Monday - Obituary Joseph Melzer

"Joseph Melzer

Joseph H. Melzer, 86, of rural Allenton (Town of Wayne), died Monday, Aug. 21, 1989, at St. Agnes Hospital.

He was born Aug. 23, 1902, in the Town of Wayne, a son of Frank and Mary Schweitzer Melzer.  On Nov. 15, 1927, he married Elizabeth Batzler at St. Kilian Catholic Church, St. Kilian.

Mr. Melzer was a member of St. Kilian Catholic Church and the church's Holy Name Society.

Survivors include two sons, Robert and his wife Janet, and Joseph and his wife Theresa, both of the Town of Wayne; eight  grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and one sister, Sophie Weninger of Lomira. His wife preceded him in death on Feb. 6, 1962.

Funeral services will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. at Miller Funeral Home, Kewaskum, and at 10:30 a.m. at St. Kilian.  The Rev. Victor Kemmer will officiate. Burial will follow in the parish cemetery.

Friends may call today from 4 to 9 p.m. at the funeral home where a parish vigil will be held at 8 p.m."

This was a newspaper clipping that was handed down to me by my mother-in-law, Dolores "Lori" Cayemberg nee Kuehl.  There is no date on the clipping, although I would imagine it was near the date of Joseph's death in 1989.  There is no mention of which paper this clipping came from but the family is from Wisconsin and has been for generations.  Melzer is a family name on Lori's side, but I still need to figure out where Joseph belongs!

Sunday Supper - Booyah! It's a Wisconsin Thing!

Patrick Cayemberg's FAMOUS Chicken Booyah! If dad was making Booyah, everyone would be stopping by for a bowl! Booyah is a Wisconsin thing. As I'm told it's not even an ENTIRE Wisconsin thing. There are pockets of Booyah tribes all over Wisconsin. Our tribe is from Green Bay.

Now the Booyah recipe is enormous. That's not an understatement. If you try making this recipe in just a soup pot, it's never going to work. You'll have to halve the recipe or make it like a 'Sconnie does and get an enormous pot (or even an old beer keg) on the gas camper cooker and start that bad boy up! Dad used what looked like an oar to stir the doggone thing! It was awesome...and it took all day! It was a project. For dad, it was a passion.

After Dad passed this past May we all decided to celebrate his memory by making Booyah (sadly I have no pictures of Dad making the Booyah.  All of the pictures were of us making it in his memory).  We made the full recipe and served it up the day that we were supposed to have had Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary party (so many people had originally planned to be in the area for the party).  Friends and family came to offer support for our family and by the end of the afternoon there was one bowl of Booyah left!  Yes, it's THAT GOOD!

Patrick Cayemberg's Chicken Booyah

Cook 1st
2 (14 ½ oz) containers chicken broth
1-1/2 gallon water
1-1/2 lbs oxtail or beef bones
1 lb lean pork, cut up
10 lbs stewing chicken, quartered
¼ c. salt
1 tbsp pepper

Cook 2nd
2 lbs cabbage, chopped
2 lbs onions, chopped and divided
1-1/2 bunch celery, chopped and divided
1 small rutabaga, chopped
3 tbsp chicken base (Tones brand)
2 tbsp beef base (Tones brand)





Then
4-5 lbs red potatoes, medium dice
3 lbs carrots, large chop
2 cans peas
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can cut green beans
1 tsp accent
½ tsp rosemary
2 tbsp poultry seasoning
1 (40 oz) can vegetable juice
1 (28 oz) can chopped tomatoes
¼ lb butter (1 stick or ½ cup)
1 lemon, juiced (abt 1 tbsp)

Add meat, bones, water, broth and half of the onions and celery to the booyah or soup pot.  Add salt and pepper.  Boil meat until done.  Remove meat and set aside to cool.  Debone.  (This can be done the night before).

To the booyah pot add cabbage, rutabaga and the remaining onion and celery.  Bring to a boil.  Add beef and chicken base and poultry seasoning.  Boil 45 minutes.

To the booyah pot, add potatoes and carrots.  Boil 30 minutes.

Add deboned meat, tomatoes, tomato juice, canned peas, corn, and green beans.  Bring to a boil then add accent, rosemary, lemon juice and 1 stick butter.

I know the recipe may seem a bit odd in places, but seriously...don't change a thing!

Sorting Saturday - Photo Files

Benjamin and Daniel Cayemberg with their Papa, Patrick Cayemberg.

So last Saturday I was looking for pictures of my boys picking apples in Wisconsin. It was about 3 years ago that we went and I had some great pictures of my boys having fun with their parents and grandparents in the orchard.  I couldn't find the pictures on my laptop.  My desktop is a hopeless wreck and is soon to be replaced...I wasn't even going to attempt to log onto that thing!  But I swore that they should have been on  my laptop!  Couldn't find them.

Over the summer I had installed Windows 7 over my crap program, Windows Vista (an evil joke Microsoft put out that should have been labeled as malware considering how it wreaks havoc on everything).  I suppose because we tried installing it over top of the old program it took up more space and we had issues with me running out of room on the hard drive.  I'll stop trying to be technical, because I can only pretend to understand the headache that was my computer in past months...fixing the technological train wreck was my hubby's job.  The point is, after we resuscitated my computer and fixed the space problem I noticed pictures missing.

Benjamin Cayemberg - Wisconsin, Autumn 2007

All was not lost.  I do have a backup on an iomega drive (I do need to back it up more frequently though), so I pulled out the iomega and started transferring files back over to my laptop, and then actually backing up my laptop (not just pictures, but everything).  What I realized was that I needed to reorganize my files.  I had a good system, but grew neglectful of it.  So that's what I spent a few hours of my time doing last Saturday.  It felt good too.

So what's my system for sorting my photos?  Well, I used to file them by date when I was younger.  That's wonderful if you can remember when something happened.  I found that through the years I couldn't remember, but I could remember places. 

Daniel Cayemberg - Wisconsin, Autumn 2007

I haven't been outside the U.S. yet (apart from a couple short day trips to Mexican border towns that didn't include pictures), so my  folders are by state.  I upload my pictures to Shutterfly, so within each state folder I have at least 2 sub-folders..."for upload" & "uploaded".  Pretty self-explanatory.  I don't take a lot of video with my camera (I'm bad...I should take more), so if I actually have video, I put that in it's own sub-folder.

It's a system that works for me.  It may not work for everyone.  I mean, the bottom line is that you've got to be able to find your stuff.  As long as you can find your files, that's what really matters!

Funeral Card Friday - Richard List

I was given a treasure trove of funeral cards from my mother-in-law.  About 200 in all.  The artwork on some of them can be truly gorgeous.  This card is for Richard List.  He was a truck driver and my husband's uncle.  He died in a truck crash three years before my husband was born.  My husband was named Richard in his honor.

52 WTBG, Week 45 - East Bell County Genealogical Society

I've been a member of the East Bell County Genealogical Society since June of this year.  I don't have family (that I know of) from Bell County or Texas for that matter, but I'd never had the opportunity to join a society before and figured it was time to do so.

I'm still feeling my way around as the new kid, but everyone has been extremely welcoming.  Many were surprised that I was driving the 30 minutes from Killeen to Temple for the meetings as there had been a society closer to Killeen.  It didn't really matter if there was a closer one...I knew where EBCGS was meeting and had paid my dues so I wasn't planning on going anywhere!

I didn't know what to expect at my first meetings, and felt a bit awkward sharing my recent research at monthly meetings...knowing it wasn't pertinent to anyone else in the room (little to no chance of connections or shared names), they were all as respectful listening to me as any other member.  What I was surprised and delighted to discover (and had been clueless about) was that we got a lovely presentation/class at each meeting!

My first meeting had a class on organizing your files.  While I didn't share the viewpoint of the gentleman giving the class I was able to glean some information to use in my own organization (color-coding my files, but I only intend on coding my 2 husband's grandparents and my 2...the gentleman giving the course went on coding and I wondered when he'd run out of colors! :) )

The second class was presented by a lady, Dr Patricia Rye, who spoke to us about the book she had just researched and written called, "My Father's War" (although I have not been able to find a copy of her book yet...I will have to ask about that at our next meeting!).  She also introduced us to another book, "The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men  Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II" (an exceptional tale and I do intend on purchasing/reading it...it's on my "wish list"!).  She found information on some of her father's air crew in the 2nd book so they tied in nicely for a brilliant story.

Our last meeting was on the SAR (Son's of the American Revolution) and the process of joining.  While I don't believe anyone in my immediate family has even the slightest possibility of joining the SAR or DAR, I did find the information useful.  If I ever need to submit an application for anyone else, I've got some excellent starting information.

I look forward to our next meeting!  You can check out the East Bell Count Genealogical Society's website (through Rootsweb) at: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txebcgs/

The site gives you important information regarding joining EBCGS and what their preservation projects are, their library acquisitions, and much more!

I'm also a member of other local, state, national societies (The Greater Hazleton Historical Society, The Wisconsin Historical Society, The National Genealogical Society, etc) even though I'm too far away to attend most meetings.  These societies do so much and rely on your membership to do their good work.  If you haven't joined ones pertaining to your research, why not?

Treasure Chest Thursday - Veterans Are One of Our Greatest Treasures!

I want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has served honorably in our Armed Forces. Without our service members past and present our country would not be where it is today. We would not have gained our independence, we would not have unified a divided country, we would not have stopped the atrocities of 2 World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. There are many conflicts not mentioned which do not make light of the sacrifices that servicemen and women made in them. Sometimes the sacrifice was in time away from family and long hours. At times it was witnessing the horrors of those wars or even succumbing valiantly to them.

Not everyone serves their country as a Veteran does and not everyone can or should. You are unique, respected and given a burden that many would not be able to bear. Whether you served many months or many years in our Armed Forces makes no difference. You served. Thank you!

I'd like to now pay tribute to my family members who have served (I hope I didn't miss any!).

Wisdom Wednesday - So far so good

Starting on Monday I sat down at my office and dedicated my day to my job...genealogy.  It felt good to not be running around doing PTA and Cub Scout stuff.  Why didn't I do this sooner!

As I lay in bed on Sunday night mentally preparing myself for what I had plans of conquering first on Monday I realized that I wasn't happy with how my sources were cited.  Furthermore, I'm sure that they weren't 100% perfect.  What I mean is that I was sure there were some elements to some citations that were missing.  That's not how I want to start out.  So I decided to go through all of my sources and ensure that they were properly cited.  Sounds like an incredibly daunting task, but it really isn't too bad and this is why...

About 4 years ago I took an online course on genealogy.  "Family History Studies: Genealogy I" through Monterey Peninsula College and Karen Clifford was the instructor.  Even though I had been doing genealogy for about 6 years, after talking with a friend who had taken Karen's course I had decided to start with the basics.  Jenn (my friend) told me that there was plenty to learn about organizing your materials and that it was worth starting at the beginning.  It was great advice.  I loved Karen's course.  I would have loved to have taken the remaining courses, but my infant turned into a toddler and it just wasn't in the cards at the time.

When I took the course I began using the Personal Ancestral File (PAF) genealogy program that you can download from FamilySearch.org for free.  I was planning on using it just for ease in the course, but I actually found that I rather liked it and have been using it ever since.  For a free program it's incredibly good.  But I digress...back to fixing my sourcing/citations.  When I was in the course a suggestion was made (please forgive me if I get this one wrong, Karen) that in the "Notes" section for each person to include the following areas:

-Sources
-History (could be of the region, family, any background information)
-Notes
-Facts
-Traditions (family legend that has not been verified with facts yet)
-To Do

I thought this was brilliant.  Still do actually.  The problem I noticed was that it takes a lot of paper printing reports out if you have those headings complete with ALL the sources in each person's notes!  Plus, if you go to print out a Family Group Record and have cited a census for several of the family members, it prints out under every person in that FGR (because it's been transcribed into the notes!).  Not necessary.  I was killing trees like crazy.  I love sources.  I don't just stop at a birth certificate.  I want everything I can find regarding the event.  Mistakes can be made and you want to be accurate!

In addition to taking up space when you print, it's potentially problematic when you have to go back and make a correction to the citation.  You have to figure out which people have, say, the "1920 US Federal Census for the Thomas Brown household" and fix each one.  Talk about a headache!  So what I decided to do was to take the source/citation information and transcription (yes I transcribed each source...I'm a bit anal that way) and transferred it to the area meant for citations.

In the citation area it had fields for:
-Source Title
-Author
-Publication information
-Repository
-Call number
-The actual text (great for my transcriptions)
-Comments

It would then show you a sample footnote at the bottom AND you could attach the image of the source to the citation itself.  Drawback - if your source had 2 pages to it (say your family continued onto the next page in a census) you can only attach one picture.  If you had to change the citation, however, you change it in that one place and it's fixed for everyone linked to the citation.  Awesome.

What was less awesome is the 36 pages of people that I have to adjust citations on.  I will persevere though.  In the past 2 days working 3 to 4 hours each day, I've gotten through 8 pages.  It'll be well worth it knowing that it's done properly.  It needs to be done properly.

The bright side is that I'm catching that glitch and fixing it now.  I had started reentering my entire tree into the PAF program when I took Karen's course.  I didn't transfer the gedcom file from my old program because I knew there were flaws in my old tree and after learning the right way to do things, I realized that the best way to make sure my conclusions were sound was to start over...no matter how huge a task it seemed, I knew it was the right thing to do.  I hadn't finished reentering even half of the tree when Danny became a toddler so the task could have been greater.  I prefer looking at that bright side!

So I figure in another week to week and a half I'll be back at the actual research and data entry for my family tree.  I've got a busy couple of weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, but won't be deterred from my job.  All in all, so far so good!

(Please allow me to beg forgiveness that this "Wisdom Wednesday" and the series I will be including on Wisdom Wednesday isn't based in the past. It's any wisdom and experience I'm gaining as I travel down the road to accreditation. There are certainly tidbits of wisdom to be gleaned by anyone else that may choose to take the same path!)