Tombstone Tuesday - And the Tombstones are Slowly Eaten by the Ground

I've seen pictures of graveyards with tombstones leaning to and fro.  They actually have a unique beauty too them, but as those tombstones lean they are coming closer to the end of their lives.  I have a few tombstones like that in my family.  You can still read the stones very well....at least for the part that is still above ground.

I come from a coal mining town.  I don't know if these graves start to sink because of the labyrinth of mines beneath the city (that's actually a fairly disturbing thought after living there for 20+ years) or if it's just soft soil and lots of rain over the years.  Either way, it's happening and it's hindering some of my research.

As you can see the tombstone for my 3rd great grandparents, Edward and Susan Lee nee Phillips, is sinking and leaning (well maybe you can't tell that it's leaning but take my word for it).  As a result I can see Edward's information just fine (1820 - 1904), but Susan is not so easy to read (1821 - 188?)  It looks like it's 1882, but I can't be sure.  I have quite literally danced on my ancestors' tombstone here trying to trample down the earth far enough to see her death date.  My funny little Irish jig did nothing for my research, but it did tick off a small ant hill that was there (that was not a good experience).  I suppose I could have dug away a bit of the earth to check, and maybe I will do that this year, but I try not to make a habit of walking into graveyards with a shovel.  You tend to get strange looks....

So I suppose what I really need to do is to contact the church and ask what the burial date is for Susan.  They don't always have it and I may only be able to find out when the plot was purchased, but I suppose this is my next step.  Unfortunately for Susan she was a woman that died in the 1880s and the chances of me finding on obituary for her are somewhere between slim and none.  I'm hopeful only because her husband's death 20ish years later (if memory serves me correctly, because my filing system right now isn't) actually was front page news and his obituary called him one of the town's most highly respected citizens.

Edward and Susan are two of my brick walls, but I'll keep chipping away at them and hopefully find out more about them and their journey.

Sunday's Obituary - Blogging Gets My Butt in Gear

Green Bay Press-Gazette (abt 1951)

I've said it before and I'll say it again, my blog gets me into my research.  We blog to connect with other genealogists, but we also blog to get the names of our families out there in hopes of making connections, and I know that I blog to get my work done.

Think about it, I'm dedicated to my genealogy research but everything ends up getting in the way.  Life just has a tendency to do that.  When I started my blog a little over a year ago, I told myself that I wasn't going to give it up.  I didn't know what I was doing, but I was going to post and I was going to post regularly.

Even if I only transcribe an obituary, I'm looking at it and making sure it's in my tree and citing it.  I've got tons of obituaries that haven't made their way into my tree so this is a good thing, but I've been trying (when the kids aren't saying, "Mommy, mommy, mom, mom, ma..." every 2 seconds) to do more then just transcribe.  I'm trying to see if there's anything new that I can find online while I'm doing it.  Sure not everything is online, but not looking doesn't help, and when I conduct this research I can always put into my Research Log what I need to do offline.  Research and planning at the same time.  Sweet!

So this is what I'm tackling this evening as I watch the playoffs...

"Long Illness Fatal To Frank Dart, 49

Frank Dart, 49, 1203 Reber street, died in a local hospital early Wednesday evening following a lingering illness.  He had been employed by the Van Drisse Motor company for 28 years, and for the last year by the Checker Yellow Cab company.

Survivors are his wife, the former Mildred Van Caster; two sons, Donald and Cletus, Green Bay; and a daughter, Mrs. Bernard Motquin, Green Bay.  Also surviving him are six grandchildren; his mother, Mrs. Louise Dart, Green Bay; and two brothers, George, Green Bay, and Richard Algoma.  He's father died a year ago, and a brother, Harvey, preceded him in death four years ago.

The body is at the Schauer and Schumacher funeral home, where the rosary will be said at 8 o'clock each evening.  Funeral services will be held at 10 o'clock Saturday morning in the Cathedral.  The Rev. John Gehl will offer the requiem mass and burial will be in Allouez cemetery."

Since this was one of those clippings that I have with no publication information, I had to do a little research on the newspaper.  I confirmed my suspicions (using Google maps) that 1203 Reber Street is in Green Bay, Wisconsin, so I'm fairly certain that the newspaper was The Green Bay Press-Gazette. As for the date of death and birth.  Sadly only an age was given for Frank Dart and no birth. I do have Frank (and his siblings) already in my family tree, but I had no birth.  So here we go...

I searched on Ancestry.com and found a record for his birth on December 1, 1903 (in the Wisconsin Birth and Christenings Index, 1826-1908, FHL Film# 1302886) to John B Dart and Louisa Jadin.  This was a great find since I had no maiden name for his mother and no death date for his father, Jean Baptiste.  Now, I'll at least be able to estimate since the obituary tells us he died a year earlier.  I also didn't have any information on his brother, Harvey's, death so I can estimate that one too.

I actually had no spouse for Frank previously.  Now I do and there is another Van Caster in my family tree already, not Mildred, but it may be a relative.  All the same region!  No proof yet though.  Moving on....

Since I had no spouse for Frank, I had no children.  Now I've been able to add and cite them.  Of course I have no name for his daughter since, at that time, it was acceptable to say nothing more than "Mrs. Bernard Motquin".  An irritant to genealogists everywhere...er...I mean an exciting new puzzle to try to solve!

A quick online search wasn't favorable for finding a name for his daughter, but I have high hopes of finding her, Jean Baptiste, Harvey, and many more people as I get through the hundreds of newspaper clippings that were passed on to me and my blog will help me get there.  I just need to persevere!

[Frank Dart is my husband's 1st cousin twice removed].

21COFH - Develop a Digital Organizational Scheme

This is my first week participating in the 21st Century Organized Family Historian, and I'm getting kind of a late start at it, but I wanted to get this post up.  Michelle Goodrum's (Turning of Generations) assignment for this week is to choose one or more of the following tasks:

-Have an organizational plan for your hard drive

-Develop a naming format for digital files

-Use tags or metadata to find files easier

I've posted before about how I organize my digital photo files and how I organize my genealogy research by surname.  You can read each post by clicking on the links.

I really like my way of organizing my files, but the bottom line is it works for me.  I really haven't had to use tags for files because of the way I sort them, but I do need to start using them regularly for photos. Even though I like how I organize my photos, because they are done by location, it can be difficult to find pictures of specific events or people unless you use tags or metadata.  Something to shoot for, I suppose.  Baby-steps though.

I'm still kind of in the process of transferring all my data from my old PC to my Mac, and I have noticed that things do appear differently on my Mac.  Not sure if I like it or not, but I suppose that it's just because I'm not completely used to it yet.  Only time will tell whether I change my system with a new computer, but I don't think I'll need to.

I have made one revision as far as my post on sorting by surname.  Nothing major.  I had previously placed a research log in each surname so I could just add information I needed that was relevant to that surname only.  I still really like this idea, but it's not practical for me.  I want to save paper and I don't want to be printing out a sheet for each of the many surnames I have.  When I research, I tend to be researching on a bunch of surnames at once.  So what to do?  I'm tempted to leave the logs in each surname folder and just update them from a master research log that I take with me when heading out to conduct research.  Hmmm.  I've got to think on that a bit more and see what works best.

Are you going to get better organized in 2012? 

Wordless Wednesday - Another Repaired Photo

Repaired Photo

Well, nearly wordless...I love this picture.  The lady in the middle is my grandmother, Mary Ann Brown nee Quirk.  My mother is the older daughter on the left and my Aunt Cathy is the youngest on the right.  The two elderly ladies sitting on either side of my grandmother are her aunts, Mary (far left) and Catherine (far right) Quirk (let me know if I got them mixed up, mom!).  They never married.  They helped raise Mary Ann and loved her and her children dearly.

I love this picture because when I look at my grandmother, I see my mom's face.  The repair isn't perfect, but I'm pleased with it.

Original

Tuesday's Tip - Stitching Photos Together...I Cheated

Did I cheat?  I'll let you decide...

So most of you have seen me fix photos before on my blog.  I use Serif PhotoPlus X2 to do photo editing and have had some great successes with it.  I love it.  It was cheap and it's effective, but I really like being taught how to use things.  Sadly, there's no class to teach me how to use PhotoPlus. Just a lot of hard work, instruction book reading, and swearing....a lot of swearing.

I'm sure my program has a way to stitch together photos, but I haven't bothered checking it out because I've discovered a really neat trick.  Many of you probably know this trick already, but just in case you don't I'll let you know my little cheat...I use Power Point.

I took these two images below and lined them up on one Power Point slide until they matched flawlessly (or almost flawlessly). 

Then I selected both images at once, right-clicked, and selected "save as image".  Simple and done.

So what do you think?  Did I cheat by taking the easy way out?

My Top 10 of the Year

I saw some of my fellow geneabloggers doing this and thought it was pretty neat.  I then asked myself, "What were my top ten posts of the past year?"  Well since my blog is only a little over a year old (I'm still a small-time blogger here!), so I'll just list my "Top 10 of All Time" and here they are...

#10 - "Family Recipe Friday - Bunny Buns" -  Two food posts made it into the Top 10 here and this is an Easter favorite in our family.  My mom used to make them for us and I now make them for my family.  A nice bread with a hint of orange.

#9 - "Sentimental Sunday - A Senior Class Picture with No Yearbook to Call Home" - Hmmm...beware before reading this.  I let a 10 foot tall 500 lb skeleton fall out of my very own closet with this family tidbit.  You have been warned...and no laughing at my hair!

#8 - "Wordless Wednesday - My Aunt is So Going to Kill Me" - My aunt probably won't be cheering (or twirling flaming batons) that this post did so well.  It surprised me too, but what else can you expect with such a beauty!?!

#7 - "Treasure Chest Thursday - Another Reason I'm Lucky" - Oh a genealogical gold mine bestowed on me by my mother-in-law!  And I rescued it from it's slow demise stuck in a "magnetic" photo album.

#6 - "Remembering Veterans & Veterans Within My Family" - So good the first year, I reposted it the second year.  As a vet, I'm incredibly proud of all the veterans out there and those in my family that served.  I was delighted to be able to add on to that over the past year too!  Although I still need a picture of my aunt in uniform (ahem...hint, hint, Aunt Cathy!)

#5 - "Motivation Monday - Cherie's Got Her Groove Back" - How despite being pulled in all different directions by volunteerism, volunteering one hour to a friend gave me the motivation to refocus on my family and genealogical goals!

#4 - "Sunday Supper - Guinness Stew over Colcannon" - My desire to find and create Irish food that was actually good ended here with a new family favorite.  A creation of my own for Saint Patrick's Day and, well, I impressed myself with my own mad-skills.

#3 - "The Peshtigo Fire - A Miracle From the Ashes" - The Peshtigo Fire occurred the same day as the Great Chicago Fire, but is only a footnote in history, but it's not a footnote in my family history.  After a week of posts about the fire (and the Chicago Fire paled in comparison), I ended on this positive note.

#2 - "Military Monday - Vietnam Virtual Wall Searching for Pictures" - I posted about my cousin, Michael Paul Brown, and ended up getting contacted by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.  An incredibly awesome project.  They are trying to get a picture to go with every name on the Vietnam Wall.  There's so much more to this post than I can briefly tell here.  I'm glad that this post ranked so high.  I hope it means that more pictures are being sent in!

And the #1 post of All Time.....

"Tech Tuesday - FilmScan35 I Negative/Slide Converter" - I was a bit stunned that this was my top post.  It hadn't been until recently.  I can only imagine that this post's popularity increased over the Holidays as all good genealogists got their very own negative converters from Santa.  I guess Santa reads very untechnologically sound reviews!

Well, that was a fun trip down memory lane.  I'll be excited to see what posts will be at the top next year!

Thanks for reading and have fun tending those roots!

My Two Cents - Complain, complain, complain

And complain some more.  I've been stunned by posts and comments I've seen regarding "Who Do You Think You Are?" and even, more recently, for "Finding Your Roots".   Everyone certainly has the right to voice their opinions and to complain a bit.  We all do it at some point in our lives, but I guess I'm a bit disappointed in the actual complaints.  They don't make sense to me at all (am I complaining...sure...I suppose I am).  The complaining has been going on for quite some time.  It hasn't been all at once, but it was a recent complaint that made me say to myself that it's time for my two cents, so here goes (and I'll be brief).

The first, and most frequent, complaint that I noticed was that only celebrities are on the shows.  Well, to be blunt, I don't think NBC's ratings would be quite so good if they advertised, "Next time on WDYTYA?, the family tree of Cheryl Cayemberg..."  I just don't think it would have the audience pull.  Now, that's not to say our genealogies aren't interesting.  Of course, they are, but honestly if we want to continue to see this show broadcast, NBC needs to worry about ratings.  I do think that it would be quite a good idea if NBC held a WDYTYA? contest and the winner got to be one of the people they did a show on.  Would it work for every show?  Most likely not.  We're drawn to celebrities, but I do think that it could showcase that everyone's genealogy is interesting.

Another comment that drew my attention was that it should showcase the skills and techniques used to get the research done.  Even to show how much research costs.  Well, what a way to scare the living daylights out of a newcomer!  I know we'd all like to sharpen our skills, but this is why we join genealogy societies, go to webinars, take classes, etc.  Sure I'd like to see just a little more explanation as to a couple of techniques used, but honestly it can't go too in depth or you'll lose your audience.

I'm not saying that these shows can't improve.  Everything can do with a little sprucing up as time goes by, but right now I think they're on the right track.  I can't speak for "Finding Your Roots" since it hasn't aired yet, but I think WDYTYA? has been doing a pretty great job.  I'd like to see more episodes in a season, but I'll take what I can get, and you know what...these shows aren't just for those of us that are already into genealogy.  They're for the newbies too.  They're there to draw more people in to genealogy.  To increase interest.

My husband hears me ramble about genealogy and family history all the time.  He reads my blog and shows mild interest in my discoveries in most cases, but he wasn't overly excited to know that there would be a TV show on genealogy distracting me too!  Being the wonderful husband he is though, he dutifully sat there and watched it with me and he ended up getting pretty sucked into WDYTYA? too!  If my hubby enjoys it, they're doing something right!  Just be happy that we have these shows out there bringing such great publicity to what we all love to do!