Saturday Serendipity (February 29, 2020)

After a hiatus last week, Saturday Serendipity (SS) returns today for a very rare, indeed a unique, SS posting.   Drum roll please .  .  . 

This is the very first time that Saturday Serendipity has ever appeared on February 29th.  While a 29th day in February only occurs every four years, the 29th of February only falls on a Saturday every 28 years.  The last time February 29th was on a Saturday was in 1992 (long before this blog existed).  The next time the 29th of February will be on a Saturday will not be until 2048–long after this blog will cease due to the absence of the author.

So as not to waste this once in a blog opportunity, here are some suggested reads for Saturday, February 29, 2020.

1.     American Ancestors by the New England Historic Genealogy Society (NEHGS) is the recipient of a significant collection from the Theodore Roosevelt Association.  It includes family papers (with one item being a handwritten genealogy), scrapbooks, letters, period ephemera, and many previously unpublished photos.  You can read more about the donation and see many photos by going here.

2.   For those with roots in Rhode Island, Diane Boumenot of One Rhode Island Family blog, posted a week ago about divorce in Rhode Island during the late 1800s.  While largely about the bases for divorce and the statistics on the results of divorce petitions, she also suggests how one might be able to locate and request copies of the divorce papers.  Read more here.

3.   Having posted tangentially about the Salem Witch trials recently (see here), the post at NEW ENGLAND FOLKLORE blog this week interested me.  Peter Muise provides a list and review of eight films about New England witches here.  [Speaking of the Salem witchcraft hysteria, it is interesting to note that the start of that awful period in our history was on leap day, February 29, 1692, which (not "witch") was 328 years ago today.]

4.   A few years ago Apple changed its photo application from iPhotos to Photos.  I had more than 18,000 genealogy photos and images all organized in family and individual sub files.  I had backups of all the photos and went through the process of moving them into Photos.  And then none of the files were there.  Long story short, I spent three full days on the phone with Apple technicians in Cupertino and the end result was all the files were restored and available in the new Photos app, BUT all my organization was lost and unrecoverable.  I have spent countless hours over the ensuing years rebuilding the file organization (and I'm still not done).  So I was particularly empathetic when I read Marian Wood's experience with hours of work creating transcriptions of years of her mother's letters along with Marian's own context additions.  Read what happened and the end of her dilemma here. 

5.   This week The Weekly Genealogist of NEHGS had an item that jumped out at me.  A little over a year ago we moved from Loudoun County, VA to New Jersey.  We lived in Loudoun County for over 35 years and became well aware of the segregationist past of the county and especially its school system.  Now there has been a discovery of a treasure trove of records and documents in a locked school system building that had been deserted since the 1950s.  Among the finds are many, many records about the schools set up in the past for African American children in Loudoun County.  The records include attendance records, report cards, and much more.  Anyone from the African American community having known or suspected roots in Loudoun County, VA should learn about the project that has been going on to preserve and publish the discoveries.  Read about the history and the ongoing project here.

6.   And finally, every once in a while I recommend an entire book for your reading list (or "pile" as the case may be).  With the major non-election news stories of the last week involving the Covid19 (coronavirus) pandemic and the repercussions on our stock market and the world's economy, I want to recommend two books for deep background and details of the world's worst virus pandemic–the 1918 influenza.  That flu pandemic is thought to have caused the death of about 2.5% of those who contracted the disease–and that translates (under most modern estimates) to somewhere between 50 and 100 million deaths world-wide in about a year!  The two books are:  The Great Influenza by John M. Barry; and Flu by Gina Kolata.  I have blogged about the 1918 flu pandemic a few times; the first time was seven years ago in the midst of the 2012-2013 flu season (it can be seen here).  The second post was on March 11th, 2014 (almost six years ago) on the day in March that is often considered the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1918 flu.  That post can be seen here.

      Yes, the 1918 flu was now over 100 years ago and since then science and medicine have advanced considerably bringing us penicillin, the so-called miracle drugs, DNA research tools, etc.  So why read about a 1918 pandemic?  Because failure to recall history potentially leads to the repetition of history.  We have many more tools than in 1918, but I leave it to readers to decide if we might now (in the age of the jet that brought us an explosion in international travel) be in danger of repeating decisional failures that were made in the age of the rail and biplane.

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Copyright 2020, John D. Tew

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