Saturday, December 21, 2019

Saturday Serendipity (December 21, 2019)


This week's suggested readings are :

1.     For those of you who might have ancestors or relatives in western New York, you should be aware that two library systems in that area have made newspaper databases available on their websites.  The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS provided links to these two newspaper databases. The first is the Pioneer Library System covering Livingston, Ontario, Wayne, and Wyoming counties and can be viewed here.   The second database is the Perry Library System covering newspapers from Wyoming County with a focus on the town of  Perry, NY.  It can be viewed here.

2.     Just this week I was commenting to my wife that we hardly ever see tinsel on Christmas trees anymore.  It was nearly ubiquitous when I was young in New England.  And now this week the NEHGS provides an interesting link to "The Tumultuous History of Tinsel."  The piece is short, but interesting.  Who knew that tinsel was very expensive or highly flammable?  All I remember was directions not to throw it and clump it on the tree.  It had to be placed piece by piece!  Read the history of tinsel here and enjoy a short walk down memory lane. 

3.     Can identical twins have DNA tests that are not identical?  If so, then why could that happen? Read the answers here.

4.     If you have Irish roots, then you should be aware of the project to recreate archives that were destroyed in a fire in 1922.  For example, the census records for the entire 19th century back to 1821 were destroyed. Read about the project, the intent to digitize recreated records, and its results so far here.

5.     If you haven't checked out the recurring "Genealogy News Bytes" feature on Genea-Musing blog by Randy Seaver, have a look at the most recent post here.  You will probably find it very useful. 

6.     Looking forward to the release of the 1950 federal Census in April 2022?  So is Marian B. Wood of Climbing My Family Tree blog.  Read her post on the subject here

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Copyright 2019, John D. Tew
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Friday, December 20, 2019

Friday Fotos (December 20, 2019)

     'Tis the season for visits to and from Santa Claus.

     Yesterday, Molly and I attended the Christmas sing-and-dance-along at our granddaughters' pre-school and, of course, Santa came to visit.  He gave each child a wrapped present and posed for a photo.  Most of the visits went beautifully with a little chat between the jolly old gent and the child on his lap.  But as every parent will recall, some of these meet-and-greets with photo opportunities (no matter how well prepared and planned for) "Gang oft a-gley" as Robert Burns put it.  Some of the children were having none of the strange man in red with the large white beard.

     This made me recall the very first newspaper appearance by my younger sister and me.  It was in the 1950s in Holyoke, Massachusetts.  I was about 4 and my sister was 14 months younger.  One of us, however, was having none of the photo session with Santa Claus.  As shown below, a newspaper photograpgher caught the ephemeral moment in time and it was published (even though our last name was mispelled somehow).







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Copyright 2019, John D. Tew

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Saturday, December 7, 2019

Saturday Serendipity (December 7, 2019)



Here are a few suggested reads for the first Saturday of December 2019:

1.     The Legal Genealogist, Judy Russell, posted about the USCIS outrageous hike in fees for record copies about two weeks ago.  Now James Tanner, of Genealogy's Star blog, joins in with a thorough explanation.  The deadline (December 16th) is fast approaching to register your protest, so read Mr. Tanner's reminder here.

2.     Marian Wood, of Climbing My Family Tree blog, posted a short piece about some ceramic sculptures done by her late mother-in-law back in the 1950s.  The sculptures are pictured in the post.  What caught my eye and mind, however, was the idea contained in the last paragrapgh of the post -- the reason WHY she posted about these family artifacts.  Since I have an accumulation of artifacts I think Marian's idea is an awesome one to preserve not just the artifacts themselves.  What is the idea?  Well you will have to read Marian's post here to find out.  ;-) 

3.     Elizabeth Handler, of From Maine to Kentucky blog, reminds us this week that school yearbooks can be a nice source of genealogy information.  Read her post here.

4.     Peter Muise, of New England Folklore blog, posted about "Folklore Books for the Christmas Season."  If you or someone you know likes folklore, Peter has some gift suggestions for you.  Read about them here.

5.     Many (if not all) genealogists get a special thrill out of finding a document that contains the actual signature of a long departed ancestor or relative.  I have several examples of such signatures in my genealogy documents.  Some years ago I came up with the idea of preserving not just signatures of living family members, but also a sample of their writing that contained every letter of the alphabet in the way they formed each letter. [See the post on this book here.]   It is a small, spiral-bound "book" of 3 x 5 index cards that some years ago could be bought at Staples or Office Depot.  I have each family member (and any new addition to the family who can write) put their signature on one of the index cards along with the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs."  This captures their signature and shows in one sentence how they write each letter.  But here is very neat idea about preserving and displaying signatures that could even make a great gift to family members this holiday season.  See Laura Mattingly's beautiful idea here at The Old Trunk in the Attic blog.

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Copyright 2019, John D. Tew
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