3629
Planning our Ireland trip
You wouldn't think a librarian would make such a mistake, but for our 2005 trip in Germany-Austria river cruise, and our 2006 trip to Finland and Russia, I devalued of my travel dollar by not reading! Yes, I virtually ignored the material our tour planners sent us (never did like assigned reading), read only a few things on the internet, and didn't even take a Russian-English dictionary with me (I did read up a little on Finnish architecture, thank goodness, because we did a lot of site tours). That was true stupidity. You might think a dictionary wouldn't be that tough to pick up in a foreign country, but think again. When your tour van is stuck in St. Petersburg traffic where the Russians in huge black SUVs drive like maniacs on drugs, it is not the time to hop out and run into a bookstore!

So I was pleased to see the first book on the bibliography sent to us by the University of Illinois Alumni Tours was How the Irish Saved Civilization. Excellent book. I've already read it and it totally changed my views of not only European history and the so-called "dark ages," but church history. And this week I checked out the Jan/Feb. 2007 issue of Everton's Genealogy without even glancing at the cover, because it always is jammed with interesting material, particularly carefully explained websites (they do a much better job than most librarians). Super, super article on "The Conquest of Ireland," by Charles D. FitzGerald. How anyone traces his ancestry back to the 1100s I have no idea--I feel fortunate to at least make it back to the ships that brought my families, both the German-Swiss and the Scots-Irish to our eastern ports. Anyway, this guy traces his family to Gerald de Barri who wrote Expugnatio Hibernica (The Conquest of Ireland), so using that source and The Song of Dermot and the Earl (a poem, authorship unknown) he puts together a fascinating tale of how Henry II of England took over Ireland in 1170. (Gerald sounds a lot like some bloggers--seemed to record just about everything.) Now I have many interesting avenues to pursue, as I make up for some lost time and regrets on earlier travel adventures.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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3586
The Old man's draft registration
Some time back, I mentioned that I was able to find my grandfather's draft registration for WWI. He was 44 years old and plans were in place to also draft women for support positions. I wasn't aware that there was an "old man's draft registration" for WWII. It's available at Ancestry.com, and I'm not sure I can bring it up at my library's system, because the website is too vague. But if you are a subscriber, you should be able to.

On April 27, 1942 men who were born on or between April 28, 1877 and February 16, 1897 were required to register. That means they were between 45 and 64 years old and not already in the military. This information is useful for genealogists because it includes name, age, birth date, birth place, residence, employer, name and address of who knew the registrants whereabouts, and physical description. Not all states are included yet, and some states destroyed their records. My paternal grandfather (51) would have been required registered, and my maternal grandfather (68) just barely was too old. However, Illinois isn't one of the states on the completed list, and Tennessee (for other relatives) destroyed its records.

As the party of death, destruction and defeat and the media (and you know who you are) attempt to undermine all efforts in Iraq because "American lives are being lost," or "it's a quagmire," or "it's gone on too long," they need to take a look at our history, at a time when we lost more men in one battle than we've lost in this whole war, and when we defeated a world threat by uniting with other free countries--but just barely.

Iraq WarSource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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Monday Memories--Little Alma Fay

Some time in the 1990s I heard about Alma Fay, baby daughter of my great grandparents, born in Illinois after they left Tennessee. The story I heard from my father is that grand dad, as he called him, sold the little property in Tennessee left to him upon the death of his mother, and had a choice to take his family to either Texas or Illinois where he knew someone in both states. Apparently, the train to Illinois came through Dandridge first so the family got on board, and he and his large family became part of the core group who moved north for new opportunities. Many friends and relatives followed, including my grandfather, his brother and his cousin who married three of grand dad’s daughters, and he'd help each family get established. When the large Tennessee Reunions were held in northern Illinois in the 1920s - 1940s, my family was probably related to most of them. Four babies were born after the move, although I never heard my grandmother mention little Alma (her sister). Uncle Orville told me she was born in 1908, but that’s all I knew. Then a few years ago my friend Sylvia and her husband were cleaning up the cemetery records for Plain View where my great grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and sister are buried, and she sent me a photo with the birth and death dates.

I haven't become inspired by this week's Poetry Thursday topic, a version of the "dictionary game," but I thought I'd write an elegy for baby Alma. It is a word you don't hear often. Stay tuned or come back to visit on Thursday.

Monday memoriesSource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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3513 On-line genealogy and tourism

Is on-line research about our ancestors hurting the tourist business in Ireland?

"In the last decade, with the increase in the digitization of genealogical documents and the prevalence of the Internet across the globe, online genealogical research has become a popular pastime among the citizens of the western countries. While this increase in popularity has been an economic boost for online companies that specialize in genealogy, it has had the unintended consequence on Ireland of decreasing the incoming revenue of the genealogy tourism industry." Read article here.

What about Scotland and Germany?Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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Friday Family Photo

My parents wedding photo.



This is when the Scots-Irish side and the German-Swiss-English side of my family got together after about eight or nine generations of pretty much sticking with their own kind. For many years I had thought myself an 8th generation American, but when more information on genealogy became so accessible via the internet, and I joined the Church of the Brethren listserv finding distant relatives, I added a few more generations. Many of them started out in Pennsylvania--I suppose if the roads had been better or if they had spoken the same languages, they might have bumped into each other. However, in the early 1700s, these ethnic groups had little or no social interaction and rarely married outside their own fellowships or neighborhoods. Moving west and south in the 1800s changed that somewhat, and by the 20th century many couldn't have even told you who their grandparents were.

My parents met on a "blind date" the summer before they started college in 1930 because a guy my dad knew was dating a girl in Franklin Grove (a girl friend of my mother) and didn't have a car. So dad drove, and both young men found a wife.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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Monday Memories--digitized ancestors

There are not many in my immediate family interested in genealogy, but if I point, they'll look. I want to mention a wonderful source for your memories available only through your public library (if it subscribes), The HeritageQuest Online, a book collection made up of 7,922 family histories, 12,035 local histories and 258 primary sources with the 1790-1930 census images. It has been on microfilm for some years, but few libraries owned it because of the high cost. It is a ProQuest product and can be accessed at subscribing libraries (I use Upper Arlington Public Library) or by remote access using your own computer and library card. Sometimes library consortia buy it and make it available to the entire state system (I'm not sure about Ohio and whether what I access is in a consortia).

I came across this source just browsing at my library about two weeks ago. I suppose it was publicized, but I hadn't seen it or wasn't doing genealogy just then. The quality and depth is breath taking. You can search by people, place and keyword; you can browse titles with bibliographical data and links. I could easily use the indexes and find the correct pages of the on-line books within this database. Printing the right page was a bit tricky, but considering that in the past you might have had to travel hundreds of miles to examine these sources after frustrating hours of tracking them down, what's a few dollars for printing?

Also at my library, and maybe yours, is the Ancestry.com collection. It duplicates some of Heritage Quest, has some really nice browsing features, but the images aren't as good. My library doesn't allow remote access, but here is a link to the one at Columbia University just so you can see what's in it.

These sources are where I found the photocopy (not just record) of my grandfather's WWI 1918 draft card from Lee County, IL; my great grandfather's public land purchases; the Revolutionary War pension petition by the widows of my don't-know-how-many gggg grandfathers in Virginia; the address of the house where my husband's great grandmother lived in Beaver Co. PA before her husband disappeared. Folks, I've seen a lot of on-line material in my professional and personal life with libraries, and these--for the memories--just blew me away.

Because of name changes, our female family members are difficult to track, so have fun looking for your "lost mothers" in an ever growing digital universe of sources.

P.S. There are also many state archives free on the internet for which you don't need any library access.

family history, genealogical websites, public library, digitized documents, U.S. census

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My visitors and those I'll visit this week are:Anna, Becki, Chelle, Chelle Y., Cozy Reader, Friday's Child, Gracey, Irish Church Lady, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Jen, Katia, Lady Bug, Lazy Daisy, Ma, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Melli, Michelle, Paul, Susan, Viamarie.Source URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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3383 Friday Family Photo

This is family in a larger sense. This is an unidentified photo of a Church of the Brethren congregation in 1917, celebrating some sort of a clean life meeting, perhaps a revival? "Our aim a new life and a clean life" says the sign on the right. The building's sign says "Church of the Brethren Preaching 11 a.m. 7 p.m., several lines I can't read, then "All Welcome." It appears to be summer time--or at least May or June--from the clothing, open windows and doors and trees.



This photo is in a collection of a 3rd cousin. We don't know what congregation or who might be a relative. I'm posting it in hopes that someone among the Brethren will recognize the people or the building. The cousin is a descendant of Daniel Weybright and Nancy Kinsey Weybright of Ohio, but so are several hundred other people, and doesn't know the origin of the photograph. But because it was saved and passed down (unidentified), we're assuming there is a family connection.

Note to self: label your photographs and date them.

Church of the Brethren
old photographs
genealogySource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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3364 Friday Family Photo

Kleppinger Clippinger Klepinger--that's a family name in my genealogy (maternal side). I wish I had a photo of Anna Maria Klepinger, also called Polly. But Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre didn't invent the daguerreotype process until 1839, 11 years after she was married. I'm guessing it was considered a bit worldly in their conservative religious group, even when it became popular.









Insert here
a photo of
the lovely

Anna Maria, b. 1808, d. 1875
and
her husband
Christian Wenger, b. 1805, d. 1885
on their
wedding day
August 14, 1828





Christian and Polly were successful farmers--owning over 1,000 acres of land near Englwood which is near Dayton, Ohio. However, they started married life with almost nothing. My grandfather's older sister, the woman we called Aunt Allie (Mrs. J. Edwin Jay, later President of Wilmington College) related this tale for the Kleppinger researcher: "It is said that when Christian and his bride came to their new home on horseback and dismounted to enter their cabin, he said, 'Polly, this is all we have.' and showed her the coin. It is said to have been 50 cents."

Christian was a Deacon in the River Brethren (Brethren in Christ) which I think was a split off and mix of Mennonite and Dunker Brethren. They had 12 children, and the one I do have a photo of was Nancy, my grandfather's mother. That's probably where Aunt Allie heard the story of her grandparents' 50 cent start in life.

Although I had Christian and Polly in my database (the Wenger family I've written about before), I was able to find this anecdote by using Heritage Quest Online at my public library. You can search census data, or people, places and books. The book Kleppinger-Clippinger Klepinger family history by Stanley J. Kleppinger (Allentown, PA: George P. Schlicher & Son, 1956) 351 p. with its index had been completely scanned and was easily searchable. The next time you have a question about someone hiding in your family tree, ask your librarian if there are any on-line sources available.

Kleppinger
Klepinger
Wenger
genealogy
Brethren
Brethren in ChristSource URL: https://maryelizabeth-winstead.blogspot.com/search/label/genealogy
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