Filiopietism Prism

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Saturday Serendipity (January 11, 2014)

Saturdays often allow a more leisurely approach to life than work days. I can more easily post links to some blog posts or other materials I have discovered during the week, or even to those discovered during a Saturday morning coffee and extended surfing of the blogosphere/internet.

Here are a few recommendations for inclusion on your reading list.

1. As this particular item is being written a few days earlier than usual, we are covered in snow here in northwestern Virginia and bracing for cold that could break records -- although as a New Englander the depth of the snow and the bite of the cold is not what I recall from New Hampshire in the early 1960s. Nonetheless we will be paying special attention to the weather forecasts for Saturday, January 11th because we are attending my nephew's wedding in Philadelphia today. So this weather-conscious event and a post last Saturday by Judy Russell at award winning blawg, The Legal Genealogist, have emphasized the importance weather can have on our family history and memories. Judy tells a nice story about her experience of awesome winters, but she also provides some great links to use to check weather facts for your memories and family histories. Read "The Storms of Memory"here and get some very useful links provided by Judy.

2. One of the discoveries that we often make about our ancestors and the times in which they lived, is that child labor outside the family home and off the family farm was treated much differently than it is today. The Vault provides some nice graphics in the form of U.S. maps showing child labor regulation in the early 1930s. A series of maps illustrate: the ages each state established for when compulsory day school attendance ended; the minimum level of educational attainment by grade required for children going to work under age 16; the states that required physical examinations of children going to work; the hours per day that children under age 16 were allowed to work; and the states that allowed children under 16 to do night work in factories and stores. It was a different world for child labor in the 1930s and depending on which state a child lived in, it could be a VERY different world.

3. A post from Up Front With NGS provides a timely reminder of the importance of analyzing documents used to substantiate genealogical claims and conclusions. The post also provides useful links to tools for assisting in one's analysis.

4. Speaking of discoveries that are made during genealogy research . . . how about coming across a possible murder in the family? Diane Boumenot of One Rhode Island Family is one of the more thoughtful and thorough genealogy bloggers around and her research posts are always a pleasure to read and admire, but her post this week, "Using Evidence to Solve a Murder," is especially engaging and instructive regarding how to ferret out and use sources. It is a top drawer read for this week!

5. Judy Russell, our Legal Genealogist, scored again this week with a fun post about songs that could serve as theme songs for genealogists. Go to her post "Singing a different tune"and be sure to read the many comments that answer her query about other songs that could fit the bill. There are many links provided so you can listen to several of the the songs recommended.

6. NEHGS has just announced the launch of a new blog titled, "Vita Brevis." The blog is a vehicle for "offering short essays by the Society's expert staff on their own research processes, methods, and results, as well as news of the greater genealogical community." Have a look at the first posts . . . and by the way "Generatio longa, vita brevis" (the title of the very first post) translates to "A generation is long, life is short!"

7. The Weekly Genealogist newsletter by NEHGS alerts us to the newly available, digitally enhanced, on-line version of The Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States by Charles O. Paullin. The atlas is a composite project begun in 1903 and contributed to by many scholars. At 162 pages of text and almost 700 maps graphically depicting subjects such as the routes of explorers, settlement progress, political developments, etc., there is a lot of interesting and useful data to be gathered from this resource (which can also be viewed in hard copy at the NEHGS library).

8. Here is a delightful read about an amazingly serendipitous "Eureka Moment" by Jana Last at Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog. It involves a wonderfully kind Good Samaritan in Ireland, some very old picture postcards found in a Galway second-hand market, and . . . well just go to the link and read it for yourself! [I wanted to make Jana's story a post in my Samaritan Sunday series, but I will be out of town at a wedding and how could I possibly tell it any better than Jana's has already done!?]

9. Finally, I posted here back in October about the importance of recording our experiences of present events for the benefit of our ancestors. And last August I posted here about how I was concerned about the ability to record and preserve our gathered genealogy research, stories, and data in such a way that it is not lost due to obsolete digital formats or by the immediacy of a simple press of a delete button. I wanted us to contemplate the beauty, permanence, and easy accessibility of the paper-based medium. Bill West of West in New England muses on these same issues in "Some Say The World Will End In Fire, Some Say In Ice." I think we should all remind ourselves of the importance of creating AND preserving all our genealogy data for the really long term. Bill mentions his plan to preserve his blog in book form, which is an excellent idea that I discussed with my cousin Heather Rojo some months ago. For several years now Heather has periodically preserved her blog in book form using Blurb. On her recommendation, I have now begun doing the same. [See Heather's April 22 & 23, 2010 posts about preserving her blog on Blurb by scrolling down after clicking on her "Blurb" label in the right margin of her blog home page.] The first volume of my Blurb blog book [say THAT five times fast!] became a Christmas gift to each of my sons just two weeks ago. I plan a future post about the experience and the result. If you blog or plan to, read the posts linked above and then resolve as a high priority New Year's Resolution to preserve and share all your efforts in the good ol' permanent, easily accessible form of a paper-based blog book!
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Friday, January 10, 2014

Friday Fotos (January 10, 2014) -- The Medical Alumni Association of the University of Toronto (June 9, 1967)

Dr. George Douglas Jeffs (front row right) is the maternal great grandfather of our two sons. He was born in Havelock Township, Peterborough County, Ontario, Canada in November 1893. He died in Lake Worth, Florida in February 1980. He and Eulalie Lillian Mary Jeffs were married in York, Ontario, Canada on October 4, 1919.

Dr. Jeffs was a "graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Toronto, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Medicine on May 2, 1917."

As the photograph above indicates, Dr. Jeffs was an active member of the Medical Alumni Association of the University of Toronto. The photograph was taken at a meeting of the Association on June 9, 1967. The exact location is unknown, but it is presumably in front of a building on the University campus in Toronto. The Association members pictured in the photograph are as follows moving left to right by row starting with the front row standing on the sidewalk.

Front Row: J.C. McClelland; J.S. Crawford; N.B. Beardmore; R.M. Harvie; and G.D. JEFFS

Second Row: S.J. Evelyn; E.D. Hutchinson; J.F. Adams; W.P. Tew; G.M. Dobbin; J.H. Howell

Third Row: F.H. Boone; C.S. MacDougall; C.V. Mills; J.L. King; J.W. MacKenzie

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Original photograph and certificate from the family genealogy collection.

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Thursday, January 9, 2014

Those Places or "Travel Thursday" (January 9, 2014) -- St. Petersburg, Russia

The former Winter Palace now The Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, Russia
as seen from across the Neva River (November 2006)

As Geneabloggers informs us, today* is the anniversary of the 1905 "St. Petersburg Massacre" in Russia. In January 1905 demonstrators marched to what was then the Winter Palace to present a petition to Czar Nicholas II. Soldiers opened fire on the demonstrators not at the palace itself in Palace Square, but rather as they approached the palace from various points in the city center. Both sides disputed how many people were killed or injured during the shootings, but today most estimates agree that about 1,000 were either killed or wounded from shots and from being trampled by the panicked and fleeing crowd of demonstrators. The utter disregard for the ordinary people who were killed and injured simply trying to present a petition to the Czar shocked and angered the country and a strike spread throughout Russia. Over 400,000 people refused to work during January 1905 and when the movement persisted authorities eventually shot or hanged 15,000 peasants and workers, injured another 20,000 and sent 45,000 into exile. It is generally considered that the massacre of Bloody Sunday and the disaster of World War I for Russians led to the Russian Revolution of 1917 -- which began in St. Petersburg on October 25, 1917 (Old Style calendar, November 7th New Style calendar) with a blank shot signal fired from the cruiser Aurora to announce the storming of the Winter Palace.

The cruiser Aurora docked in St. Petersburg (November 2006)

In November 2006, a friend and I took a quick trip to Russia when excellent airfare rates suddenly presented themselves. We flew into Moscow on Delta Airline and then on a Russian domestic plane to St. Petersburg. Our arrival in Russia was significantly impacted by flight delays and cancellations getting out of the U.S. and so our planned two days in St. Petersburg was trimmed down to one very long and jam-packed day. We then took a late overnight train back to Moscow where we spent a few days before flying home. The night train looked almost brand new and the sleeper compartment and service were excellent. We were awoken with a tray of hot tea and a light breakfast of some biscuits and fruit just before we pulled into the Moscow train station!

Because our time in St. Petersburg was cut in half from what we had planned, our itinerary was quickly adjusted with the driver and tour guide we hired prior to arriving. The cost for the driver and guide was amazingly inexpensive and proved to be well worth the expense in any event. Our guide, Tatiana, was a Ph.D. engineer who had to support her pensioned elderly parents. She told us that since the fall of the USSR, she could make more money doing tour guiding than she could in her former position with the government and the pension her parents had was entirely inadequate for them to attempt to live on alone. Tatiana spoke excellent English and was very knowledgable about the city and its history. She and the driver, Yevgeni, took us to local restaurants, places to do some shopping, to a Russian folk dancing and singing show, and to various historic sites in the city. In addition to seeing the site where Rasputin was killed, St. Isaac's Cathedral and the Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood, the Peter and Paul Fortress, the cabin of Peter the Great, the cruiser Aurora where the start of the October Revolution was signaled with a blank shot, and other sites, we spent several hours at The Hermitage museum (pictured at the top of this post), which is the old Winter Palace -- the destination of demonstrators on Bloody Sunday 1905.

The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood (Church of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ) built on the site of the assassination of Czar Alexander II by terrorists. It is considered St. Petersburg's answer to Moscow's famous and ornate St. Basil's Cathedral, which sits in Red Square.

St. Petersburg is a beautiful city built on some 100 islands nestled within canals in the Neva River delta on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea). There are 342 bridges in St. Petersburg and it is not surprising that the city is often called "The Venice of the North." The founder of the city was Peter the Great and he named the city in honor of St. Peter, but the city's name has changed many times. From 1703 until 1914 it was known as St. Petersburg ("The City of St. Peter"). In 1914 the name was changed to Petrograd and then in 1924 it was renamed in honor of Vladimir Lenin and it was known as Leningrad until the fall of the Soviet Union when it returned to the name St. Petersburg in 1991. St. Petersburg is the most northern city in the world with a population of over 1 million (5 million as of 2012). St. Petersburg, Florida was named in honor of the Russian city by Piotr Dementyev (Peter Demens), a Russian-born railroad builder in the U.S.

Aerial view of St. Petersburg, Russia -- "The Venice of the North" -- looking at The Hermitage museum (the former Winter Palace) top center below the water and then across the water to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

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All photographs by the author (November 2006) except the aerial view of the city, which is from http://www.saint-petersburg.com/virtual-tour/introduction and you are encouraged to visit that website if you are ever contemplating a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia.

* Actually, today is the anniversary under the "Old Style" Julian calendar. Under the "New Style" Gregorian calendar the anniversary date is January 22 -- so if you follow any links to the anniversary today you might be confused if you see the site stating the anniversary of the massacre is January 22nd and not today -- January 9th. For a reminder of how calendar dates for historical events and milestones in our genealogies can be different than we expect if the calendar used is not specified, see the more detailed information on the differences between event dates under the "Old Style" Julian calendar versus the "New Style" Gregorian calendar, here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates

For more detailed background on the "Bloody Sunday" St. Petersburg massacre, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1905)

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Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Wordless Wednesday (January 8, 2014) -- The Herbert Beverly Jeffs Family 1893

Herbert Beverly Jeffs, Eulalie Lillian Mary Jeffs, and Elizabeth Ann (Fennell) Jeffs

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Original photograph (circa 1893) in the family genealogy collection.

The baby is the maternal grandmother of my wife Molly and the great grandmother of our two sons. Eulalie was born in Bond Head, Ontario, Canada in 1893 and died in Burlington, New Jersey in 1984. Her mother, Elizabeth Ann Jeffs nee Fennell, was born at Bradford, Ontario, Canada in December 1866. Her father, Herbert Beverly Jeffs, was born in March 1864 in West Gwillimbury, Ontario, Canada.

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Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Travel Tuesday (January 7, 2014) - The Trip To "The Long Count Fight"

In September 1927 my paternal grandparents, Arnold G. Tew, Sr. and Huldah A. (Hasselbaum) Tew, decided to take a road trip with another couple in my grandfather's car. They drove from Rhode Island to Chicago to see the World Heavyweight title rematch of Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney at Soldier Field. This photograph was apparently taken in a roadside field or meadow during a stop along the way.

The fight became famous as "The Long Count Fight" after Dempsey, who was once again favored over Gene Tunney, The Fighting Marine, lost as 104,943 spectators looked on.

New, but not yet universal, knockout rules had been negotiated for the fight so that a fighter who was knocked down had 10 seconds -- after his opponent had first removed to a neutral corner (meaning one with no trainers in it) -- to get back up under his unassisted power . Dempsey had a habit of standing near and over his opponent so that if he got back up after being knocked down Dempsey was right there to immediately resume the attack. Since he was not used to the new rules, when he staggered and dropped Tunney in the seventh round for the first time in Tunney's career, Dempsey hung over him for 3 to 8 seconds before the referee could get Dempsey to go to a neutral corner. As a result Tunney, who has been truly stunned by a flurry of punches from Dempsey, had about 13 seconds total from the time he went down until he stood after Dempsey finally went to a neutral corner. Tunney recovered from the knockdown and, in turn, floored Dempsey in the eighth round. The referee started the count right away and before Tunney had moved to a neutral corner, but Dempsey regained his feet. The fight went the final two rounds and Tunney dominated. In the end, Tunney retained his title when he defeated Dempsey in a unanimous decision.

I have no evidence that my grandparents were boxing fans to any degree, but the Dempsey-Tunney rematch was a very big event in 1927 and probably attracted adventurous young adults in the same way that rock festivals would later sweep up young men and women four decades later. It was a road trip that promised adventure and the spectacle of what was sure to be an epic fight. The fight was the first $1 million gate and the first $2 million gate at the same time (equivalent to some $22 million today).

The trip certainly had some adventure and must have made for some great stories to recount in later years. The next photograph, which is taken from the other side of the car, provides evidence for the basis of what was surely one of many stories the travelers recounted after their return.

Bill Reilly, a friend of my grandparents and a fellow traveler,
shown changing the tire on their car.

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Photographs from the collection of the author.

For more details on the 1927 Dempsey-Tunney "Long Count" rematch, see "The Long Count Fight" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Count_Fight .

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Monday, January 6, 2014

Amanuensis Monday (January 6, 2014) -- Eber Miller's 1819 Poem

Eber Miller is my 3rd great grandfather. He was born on April 24, 1805 most likely in Cumberland, Rhode Island. He died on March 21, 1877 in Cumberland. He was the son of Asquire Miller and his wife Amey Bishop.

I have written about Eber Miller previously. See, for example, the posts of October 21, 2103 and October 14, 2013.

Today's post is the transcription [complete with errors] of a poem written by Eber Miller when he was just three months shy of 14 years old. So far as I know, it is an original poem, but it is possible it is one he just copied since it seems a bit despondent and mature for a 13-year-old. The spelling errors could argue against a copied poem unless the poem that was copied also had spelling errors.

The poem was written in 1819 and is either the oldest or among the very oldest documents I have that was written by one of my ancestors. Unfortunately, the original was folded at some point and the paper is now quite fragile. One of my other ancestors wrote in pencil -- barely visible in the lower right corner of the paper -- that Eber was "born 1805," which is correct.

HOPE

Ah wo is me from day to day

I drag a life of pain and sorrow

Yet still sweet hope I hear thee say

Be carm thine ills will end to morrow

The morrow comes but brings to me

No charm disease or grief releaving

And am I ever doomed to see

Sweet hope thy promises decieving

Yet false and cruel as thou art

Thy dear delusions will I cherish

I cannot dare not with with the part

Since I alas with thee must perish

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Eber Miller of Cumberland

January the 29 [??} 1819

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Original poem in the collection of the author.

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Sunday, January 5, 2014

Samaritan Sunday (January 5, 2014)

[If you should choose to adopt this prompt to contribute your own stories of folks who have gone out of their way to lend genealogy-related assistance to others, I would greatly appreciate a mention to Filiopietism Prism whenever you do so. Thank you! And please do use the same photograph below to illustrate the prompt. ;-) ]

Alfred T. Cabral is 88 years old now. He lives in an assisted care facility in Worcester, Massachusetts, but his home town was Hudson, Massachusetts in 1943. Like many of his generation, he served in the military during World War II. He enlisted in the Army as an 18-year-old and after first setting foot in Italy on a beach in the vicinity of Anzio and Nettuno as part of Operation Shingle by the Allied forces on January 22, 1944, he survived the "Battle of Anzio" where there were 43,000 Allied casualties (7,000 killed and 36,000 wounded).

Mr. Cabral participated in some of the bloodiest battles of WWII including against the Germans' Operation Nordwind. Nordwind (North Wind) began on December 31, 1944 in Alsace Lorraine in northeastern France. It was the last major German offensive of WWII on the Western front. The German objective was to break through the lines of the American 7th and French 1st Armies in the Vosges Mountains to allow for the German move against the American 3rd Army. This was during the famous Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 16 - Jan. 25., 1944) that started further south in the Ardennes just two weeks before Nordwind began.

On January 10, 1945 during the battle in the Vosges Mountains, Alfred Cabral stepped on a land mine buried deep in the snow and almost had his left foot taken off. Alfred was evacuated and his foot was saved due to the use of a fairly new drug called penicillin. He spent the remainder of the war in military hospitals and eventually returned home to Hudson where he joined the police force and progressively advanced to Police Chief before retiring in 1979. He is the recipient of the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star for his service in WWII.

An unnamed Good Samaritan was walking on a beach in Nettuno, Italy (the area along with Anzio where the initial Allied landing took place) the past year, when he came across a bit of metal in the sand. It turned out to be a very old dog tag. Rather than keeping it as an artifact of WWII, the man thought it must have belonged to a soldier killed during the famous battle that occurred on the beaches of Anzio/Nettuno in January 1944 -- seventy years ago this month -- so he decided he would not keep the dog tag and instead made the effort to turn it into a local military cemetery.

The day after this past Christmas, December 26, 2013, the American Battle Monuments Commission (which has responsibility for military cemeteries and memorials for fallen Americans all around the world) sent an email to the Cabral family. The Commission had come into possession of something that belonged to Alfred T. Cabral.

Read the full story of Alfred Cabral and the family history that the simple act of one Good Samaritan has renewed by going here. You can also see a photograph of Mr. Cabral in his WWII uniform with his mother, father, and two sisters around taken around 1944.

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Photograph of the The Good Samaritan sculpture by Francois-Leon Sicard (1862 - 1934). The sculpture is located in the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, France. The photograph is by Marie-Lan Nguyen and has been placed in the public domain by her. See, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Good_Samaritan_Sicard_Tuileries.jpg

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Saturday, January 4, 2014

Saturday Serendipity (January 4, 2014)

Here are a few recommendations for inclusion on your reading list.

1. If you have not seen "Portrait of Lotte," then you realy, really, really want to go here and view this 2 minute 45 second video of a girl named Lotte from birth to age 12. [Skip the dog breath ad.] I am so envious of this fantastic genealogical treasure. What wouldn't we all give to have such time-lapsed documentation of the growth and maturation of our ancestors and descendants?

2. The Weekly Genealogist brings us a link to a paean to heirlooms, family stories, and family memorabilia in the Bangor Daily News. It will not surprise any of us to learn that a 2012 Allianz Life Insurance survey "discovered" that elderly Americans and baby boomers consider preserving family history and stories as the most important legacy they can leave behind!

3. Rebecca Onion at The Vault never disappoints! You really need to check out this time elapsed illustration of what humans knew of the world from 2348 BC through 1828 AD. The map images are taken from the 1830 Historical Atlas of Edward Quin, an Englishman, and then are very cleverly sewn together into a time lapse presentation as viewed through a dissipating cosmic cloud. Way cool!

4. Ever hear of Canadian-born singer/entertainer Eva Tanguay (1878 - 1947), the self described "girl who made vaudeville famous?" Neither had I. At least I had not heard of her until I saw this post at the history blog Holyoke, Mass on January 2nd. It seems Miss Tanguay returned to Holyoke for a performance on January 2, 1914 and it was stated that, "Theatergoers are still disputing as to whether the original 'nut' comedian is really shrewd and clever, or actually crazy." This post-performance assessment and the photo of Miss Tanguay on the blog intrigued me. It appears she was very big in vaudeville and grew up in Holyoke after moving there from Quebec when she was almost six years old. By 1910 she was earning $3,500/week! Read the Holyoke post and then discover more about Eva Tanguay, a vaudeville star your grandparents or great grandparents surely knew about and might have even seen on stage, by also looking at the Wikipedia article on Miss Tanguay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Tanguay

5. The different ways families have of celebrating holidays and developing traditions have always fascinated me. As an example, for years I have had a habit of asking a round robin question at holiday banquet tables or other social gatherings, "What foods are traditionally on your family's table for Thanksgiving (or any other major holiday)?" The answers are always interesting, informative and fun as everyone lights up while sharing and describing their memories of family feasts. So naturally I found "Christmas Pie" at Donna Catterick's This I Leave blog a different but very interesting addition to a Christmas menu. Have a look at the photograph of the family about to dig into the pie and see if you don't agree that the Duncan family had some creative cooking as part of their holiday tradition.

6. This week Mini Bytes at UpFront With NGS provides links to two resource sites worth knowing about. The first, 250+ Killer Digital Libraries and Archives , lists open access online libraries and archives where digital formats are viewable and usable by the general public. The second is the Repositories of Primary Sources site compiled by Terry Abraham where one can discover a worldwide collection of over 5,000 websites describing holdings of rare books, historical photographs, manuscripts, and other primary sources of interest and use to researchers. Any links that are new or revised at the site within the last thirty days are marked as {New}, which is a very useful feature. [A note of caution is that a quick check of the 19 Rhode Island website links found two links that were not working or not current.]

7. Harold Henderson at Midwestern Microhistory blog recommends the post "Proof of the Pudding" by Tony Proctor at Parallax View blog about the concept of "proof" and the difference in proof/evidence in pure science v. genealogy. Harold offers some of his own views on the subject and the recommended post. In particular Harold makes a nice point for genealogy about the difference between "information" and the use of information formed into "evidence."

8. And finally, score one for our favorite genealogist lawyer, Judy Russell at The Legal Genealogist blog -- or maybe we should say at the champion "blawg." Congratulations to Judy in her well-deserved victory as the No. 1, Top Dog, Summa Cum Laude law blog in the "Niche" category of the American Bar Journal's 2013 Blawg 100 contest. Blog on Judy!!

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