Hats - Did Women In Your Family Wear Them?

Well yours truly is just being silly today, but after seeing Aretha Franklin performing at the Inauguration this past Tuesday, I got to thinking that women just don't wear hats like they used to.

In fact, I looked in The Box and could not find one single photo of my mother wearing a hat - one that would be suitable for a wedding or funeral or a social event. Now it might be a generational thing since there are plenty of photos with my grandmother, great-grandmother and other ancestors wearing hats. I could just see this as a theme for an upcoming Smile For The Camera carnival! Wouldn't that be great to see a parade of hats?

One other hat-related inauguration tidbit which it turns out is more urban legend than it is the gospel truth: many content that because John F. Kennedy did not wear a hat at his Inauguration, it led to a precipitous decline in the number of men wearing hats.

Who Are You? I Thought I Knew . . .

Unknown Boys, 1892. Digital photograph. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

This post was composed for the 9th Edition of Smile For The Camera ~ A Carnival of Images

. . . but now I am stumped. The photo above was one of many in The Box - a large plastic container filled with family items after cleaning out my mother's house in New York back in 2006. On the back is the date 1892 written in pencil on the top. The studio is The World Portrait Studio at 272 Bowery (Manhattan), New York.

The photo is one of many which are unlabeled and while others in a similar state have been solved in terms of identifying subjects and dates, this one remains confounding.  I have my suspicions but I need to mention three other photos which I feel might be related to the one I am calling Unknown Boys.



Elizabeth McGinnis, abt. 1906. Digital photograph. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

Above is a great photo, although its mounting is in poor condition and is one of my top priority conservation projects. It is of Elizabeth Veronica McGinnis, my great grand aunt. She was born about 1889 and died January 23, 1956 in New York City. I love the "Gibson Girl" look and I am assuming that this may have been her high school graduation photo which would date it to around 1906 or 1907.

John McCrickert and Elizabeth McGinnis, abt. 1906-1908. Digital photograph. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

Next, above is another photo which is unidentified but I am positive that it too is of Elizabeth McGinnis with her soon-to-be husband John McCrickert. John was born August 11, 1887 and died December 11, 1955, both in New York City. While I do not have a marriage date, I am dating this photograph around the same time as the portrait of Elizabeth McGinnis or within two years, 1906 - 1908.



John, Maragaret and Edward McCrickert, abt. 1895. Digital photograph. Privately held by Thomas MacEntee, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Chicago, Illinois. 2008.

One photo that is positively identified is the one above. It is of John, Margaret and Edward McCrickert and was taken at the Silkworth Studio in Brooklyn, New York. John was born in 1887, Edward in 1888 and Margaret about 1893, all in New York. Judging from the photo, I place Margaret's age at about two years, dating the photo around 1895. This makes John age eight and Edward age seven based on the estimated date.

So with these three identifiable photos, I thought that the two boys in the first photo might just be John and Edward McCrickert. But to my eye there is not much resemblance between these two unidentified boys and the ones with Margaret McCrickert. I did further research in my database and I thought it might be the brothers of my great-grandfather John Ralph Austin (1896 - 1976). The evidence does not support such a theory since John's oldest brother Maurice Ira Austin was not born until 1890 which would make him two years old in the photo. In addition, the Austin family lived in Lowville, New York near Watertown and would not arrive in New York City until around 1903.

I have no other possible listings in my genealogy database which might help identify these two boys. Another theory is that the photo is misdated in having 1892 written on the back. To my eye, they look older than John and Edward McCrickert in the photo dated 1895. If the unknown photo is mislabeled, it could very well be Maurice Ira and Harry Dence Austin.

So I will work on resolving the mystery of the unknown boys. While not having information placed on the photos frustrates me, I'd much rather have that than what has happened to many of the photos in The Box: in my great-grandmother Therese (McGinnis) Austin's later years, she insisted on circling the heads of photo subjects and writing their names in ink.

A Portrait By Bil Baird

[This post was written for the 7th Edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities]

The portrait above, executed by Bil Baird in pastel crayon, is of my great-uncle Gregory Austin. I discovered it in The Box a few weeks ago while I was selecting items to scan for Scanfest. I had heard stories of Bil from my great-grandparents, John Ralph Austin and Therese McGinnis Austin but I never really understood who he was until I did a bit of research. And that research brought back many memories.

As I was told, Bil Baird lived in the apartment building across the alley from my great-grandparents' building on the Upper West Side in New York City. This was in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Bil would put on impromptu puppet shows for children from one of his windows, so that all the children could watch from across the way. My great-grandparents knew Bil and his wife Cora well enough that he drew this portrait of my uncle when he was about 14 (this is my estimation). This would have been about 1941.

I would wager that not many people under 50 remember Bil Baird or his puppets. Do you remember the movie The Sound of Music? Do you remember the "Lonely Goatherd" song where the children sing a song while the father performs a puppet show with marionettes? Those puppets and that sequence was designed by Bil Baird.

Born in 1904 in Nebraska, William Britton Baird grew up in Mason City, Iowa and attended the University of Iowa and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In Chicago he produced a show for the Chicago World's Fair and more than 30 years later he would do the same for the New York World's Fair. Bil Baird passed away in 1987.

Baird's performance credits also include many television commercials as well as appearances on The Jack Paar Show, Sid Caesar's "Show of Shows." Perhaps his most famous puppet character was Charlemagne the Lion.

Imagine the thrill I got when I discovered this portrait! I was able to establish that various family stories I had heard about Bil Baird are credible. Now I need to do justice to this somewhat worn work of art and get a proper frame!

Funeral Cards

[This post was written for the 5th Edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities.]

I have been working with a large group of funeral cards (also known as holy cards) that I discovered recently in The Box. I've scanned many of them (usually during Scanfest)and then labeled them properly. My next step is to figure out how to incorporate them with my genealogy and family history journey.

I grew up seeing these small (4 inches tall, 2 inches wide) cards printed in color, or black and white, at funeral homes or in the purses of my female relatives. They were distributed by funeral homes, especially those that specialized in services for Roman Catholics.

On one side, there would be a beautiful but sad scene of Jesus's crucifixion or some other Bible episode. On the reverse would be the name of the person who died, their birth date and death date, a prayer or novena, and then the name of the funeral home at the very bottom. They not only served as a way of remembering the person who had passed, but also as advertising for the undertaker.

My collection contains quite a variety of these cards, some with more information than others. When researching my family history, these cards have really helped me identify exact dates of birth and death, where they died, etc. and given me a jump start on the next step in acquiring source information such as obituaries or death certificates.

I have to say that some cards are better than others. I have a few that actually display the cemetery name and even the plot number! The example above includes a small snapshot of the person who died. Some, of course, contain errors which have led me on a wild goose chase.

I remember encountering these cards all over the house growing up: my mother would use them as bookmarks; one aunt would place one or two in the corner of a mirror or picture on the wall; and many of my aunts would pull them out of their purse in church when saying the rosary (since it was difficult to remember the text of all the Mysteries).

Now that I've culled most of the data from these cards, it only seems fitting to either place them in an album (which might ruin the effect of being able to see both sides) or better yet to use them in some digital scrapbooking project.

I'm curious as to how helpful these cards have been to other genea-bloggers and whether or not they exist as part of the funerary customs in other faiths.

Fan of Scanfest

I just want to say a quick thanks to Miriam over at AnceStories for yesterday's Scanfest. It was the first one I attended and while I was quite the jokester, I did get close to 110 pics scanned! Now I need to copy the .tiff files to .jpg files. do some cleanup and add some identifying labels and tags.

And thanks to everyone who joined in yesterday - it was lots of fun!

Living-relative Connections

This post was created for the 40th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy hosted by Jasia at Creative Gene on January 18, 2008.

I've been fortunate enough to make several "living-relative connections" over the past 12 years, but none more rewarding than that which occurred over the Spring of 2007. I was following through on a New Year's resolution to get back to my research after having cleaned out Mom's house in Liberty, New York. See, sometimes those resolutions are worth keeping!

In "The Box" were many photos that seemed to be part of the McCrickert line but one woman in particular could not be identified. Her graduation photo is above, taken about 1939 and her name was Dulcide Veronica McCrickert Sidden. My journey to her identity and the story behind a broken family began in early March 2007.

All I had to go on was this photo, and others of her with my great-aunt Ethel McCrickert Hannan, and a piece of paper listing the name "Dulcide Sidden." I worked from the presumption that Del, her more common name as I found out later, was Ethel's sister.

On March 7, 2007, I sent the following letter to the last known address for Del using the Social Security Death Index and the U.S. Public Records database at Ancestry.com:

"I am writing concerning a genealogy project involving the McCrickert family. Please excuse the formality of this letter – I made attempts to see if you had an e-mail address but to no avail. And I did not feel comfortable calling you directly lest you think this was some sort of scam or joke.

I have been researching my family’s genealogy for the past 10 years and I have recently begun work on the McCrickert side of my family. I did not realize until this past week that my great-aunt Ethel had a sister Dulcide. I am assuming that the Dulcide McCrickert in my family tree is the same Mrs. Harold Sidden, nee Dulcide McCrickert who recently passed away and was last listed at the above address. My condolences on your recent loss. I regret that I didn’t embark on this part of my genealogy sooner – it may have been possible to contact Mrs. Sidden while she was still alive and share information.

I remember my Aunt Ethel (who is actually my 1st Cousin Twice Removed) and in fact she lived with my mother Jacqueline MacEntee, in Liberty, Sullivan County, New York during her final years before she passed away in 2002.

My apologies if this topic is one that you’d rather not pursue – I understand that for some people delving into family matters and genealogy is not a happy venture. I would be very happy to share photos and any other info that I have if you are still interested. I am enclosing two descendant trees so that you will see where we all fit in terms of the genealogy.

Please feel free to contact me at my address or telephone listed above or you can email me at _______________. I appreciate your time and thank you."

I sent off the letter not really expecting an answer since I felt I was just taking a stab at making contact, and it was the first time I'd ever done something like that. Imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail response on March 27, 2007.

It was from Del's son, Harold Sidden, who is my 2nd cousin 3 times removed and living in Long Island, New York. He was able to confirm my original guess that Dulcide McCrickert Sidden was in fact the sister of Ethel McCrickert Hannan. My cousin was able to bring me up to date on his family and children and stated, "what a pleasure it is to hear from someone from that side of the family, I never knew that anyone existed. I never really met any of my mothers family, there was some sort of falling out when I was very small and I have no recollection of anyone."

So this would explain why, when Ethel died in 2002, there were no McCrickert relatives in attendance at the funeral, even though there were many relatives, including her sister Del, still living about 120 miles away.

Over the next few weeks, right before Easter (we celebrate the Orthodox Easter in my household and last year it happened to be the same date as everyone else's Easter), my cousin and I exchanged emails and scanned photos and even an hour-long phone call. These pieces of the puzzle were great to review and look at, but with some information as to the "why" of the rift, they really didn't fit together. Soon it would all make sense.

John B. McCrickert, husband of Elizabeth McGinnes McCrickert and father of Ethel, Del, Grace, John Jr. and Matthew (deceased in 1946), passed away in December 1955. To the left is a photo of Christmas or New Year's Eve Dinner in 1955/1956 at the home of Harold and Del Sidden.

Elizabeth, to the far left, had just lost her husband John two weeks earlier and had moved in with Harold and Del. Within a month, she too would pass away.

It was soon after both parents had passed away, that the rift took place, and as these things usually happen, over something that in the big scheme of things now seems rather petty.

It appears that Elizabeth had left her jewelry to Del including her wedding rings which seemed to upset the other sisters, Grace and Ethel, who were older and always inseperable. So one evening, their younger brother John Jr. went to Harold and Del's house, demanded the return of the jewelry and a fight ensued. Words were said, Del was struck and the police were called resulting in John's arrest.

After that, it seemed that no one among the siblings was on speaking terms with the other. And it would remain that way for the next 47 years. Only Del had kept in contact with my great-grandmother Therese McGinnes Austin for many years until her death in 1988. Del would later pass away in 2006.

Sleuthing does pay off, and taking the chance at making a "living relative connection," while initially awkward, can reward you in different ways. You may find valuable data and great photos but you also may find sad stories of a family fractured.

Sometimes I wonder how it would have been if I had known Del and could talk to her about a branch of the family that I am only now beginning to discover. I could have found out more about her brother Matthew being killed in a plane crash in 1946 and more about her mother's side of the family, the McGinnes branch.

And if you are still reading, I'll get on my soapbox for a minute: if you are currently in a similar situation, please see if you can still bridge the rift with that relative and make even a small connection to maintain. Personally, I've not been on speaking terms with my brother for the past 3 years and my father for the past 32 years. And I can't lecture others if I'm not willing to do the same myself. So, I'm off to make some calls right now and I'll fill you in on how it goes.

Old Man Winter

It is funny that I should be writing this post on the warmest January 6th ever in Chicago. The mercury hit 60 degrees today and broke a 100 year record. Understand that here on the left bank of Lake Michigan this is a big deal. After a very cold winter, people are known to sit out in shorts when the temperature is a mere 50 degrees in April.

Miriam over at AnceStories2: Stories of Me for My Descendants has gotten back into the groove of posting some great prompts for family history blogging, the latest being Week Twenty-Six: Winter.

Some great questions abound so here goes:

What has been your attitude toward winter? Is it "the weather outside is frightful" or "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow"?

This has changed and evolved as I have gotten older and as my living/work circumstances have changed. Growing up in the Catskill region of upstate New York we always got socked with snow, sometimes as early as Halloween and as late as Memorial Day. Nowhere near the amount as Buffalo or up in Lewis County where my ancestors were from. Then there were those 20 years in California and I became "reconditioned." Winter there meant heavy monsoon-like rains and if you wanted snow, just drive 3 hours up to Tahoe, take a quick look and drive back home.

Now that I am in Chicago and I work at home, I really don't mind the winter. It has been cold, as low as -36 degrees with wind chill but there is nowhere near as much snow as I grew up with since we are on the left side of Lake Michigan. There is a saying about winter here in Chicago: Many are cold, but few are frozen.

What are or were your favorite outdoor winter activities? Some ideas to jog your memory include sledding, skiing, skating, snowshoeing, snowball fights, or making snowmen. Where did you go to do these activities? Did you ever have an accident participating in any of the more active sports?

My favorite activity was actually cross-country skiing. We used to do this up on Walnut Mountain in Liberty, New York. My least favorite activity: shoveling snow. Living on the side of a mountain with constant winds meant snow drifts and having to shovel almost every day.

What are or were your favorite indoor winter activities? Did you play board games or cards, listen to the radio or watch TV, do puzzles or needlework, read books and magazines, or write letters, journals, or stories?

I was a big reader as a kid and a reader of history at that. I couldn't stand television or music - I just wanted to be alone with my books.

What do you remember about winter clothing in your childhood? Do you have any stories to tell about long johns, snow suits or snow pants, a favorite or unfavorite pair of boots? Did you wear a pair of mittens with a string connecting them around your neck?

What I remember most are snow pants and boots. We had boots that were hard to get into so my mother had us wear plastic bags around our socks before we put them in the boots. I also remember what a pain it was to put on the winter clothes at school for recess. God bless those teachers - it took 15 minutes to get everyone dressed for a 30 minute recess.

Did anyone ever make you hats, scarves, mittens or sweaters to wear? Were they knitted or crocheted?

My mother crocheted more than knitted and she could make the simple items like scarves but not mittens. Then there was that scary Hippie-style green neon vest she made for me that would put Sonny Bono to shame.

What were your favorite winter foods or drinks? Some ideas include soups, stews, casseroles, hot chocolate, tea, or hot buttered rum.

Hot buttered rum. Mom would serve it to me and all the neighborhood kids all the time. She called it "Mother's Little Helper."

How about the cold? Did you ever get frostbite? Did you ever take a dare and stick your tongue on something metal? Was your bedroom cold at night in the winter? How did you stay warm at night...with an electric blanket, a bedwarming pan, or hot potatoes at the foot of your bed under the covers?

I never got frostbite but I do remember two driving trips where we got stranded and had to stay in the car for a few hours waiting for the storm to pass or the snow plows to show up. Luckily we had all the winter supplies we needed.

My one indulgence now: a heated mattress pad with dual controls. When you're hot, you're hot, when you're not, you're not.

What big storms or hard winters do you have memories or stories of? (Those who live in Spokane may have their stories of Ice Storm '96.)

I remember the Great Blizzard of 1977 which hit upstate New York especially Buffalo. In the Catskills we received lots of snow but not as much as Buffalo.

If you live(d) in areas that get little to no snow during the winter, what are or were your winters like? Windy and rainy? Warm or hot? Did you wish for snow, or were you glad you didn't get any? If it did occasionally snow, did the bad weather shut down your community? Do you remember the first time you saw snow? What did you think of it?

In San Francisco I lived off of Ocean Beach so the rain storms that hit would seem much stronger to me than to friends who lived in other neighborhoods. I remember one January that had 29 days of rain out of 31 days. I felt like I would have webbed feet by the end of the month.

Do you remember stories from your parents, grandparents, or other family members or old timers of big storms or hard winters of the past?

My family always talked about the Great Blizzard of 1966 that took place at the end of January. Close to four feet of snow fell and, as my mother said, there were lots of babies born in September/October of 1966.

Do you have any photos of your ancestors outdoors in the winter, or of their homes or automobiles covered with snow? What about photos of ancestral horses and sleighs?

I do not have any photos among those that I have scanned, but I have not yet reached the bottom of The Box so who knows - I may find some yet!

How Safe Is Your Research?

I’ve been watching the news about the wildfires in Los Angeles and San Diego, California and when I am not glued to the television, I have the live CNN feed up on my computer. Having lived in Northern California for almost 20 years, I can tell you first-hand what it is like to witness a tragedy like this.

In 1989, I was on the 38th floor of my office building in San Francisco when the Loma Prieta earthquake struck. I hid under my desk, said prayers to various deities (Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim – I wanted to cover all bases) but survived. The building had swayed three feet in each direction. After running down 38 flights of metal stairs, I convinced several workers to stay at my place out at the beach that night. I’ve never seen a city come more together than that night – you got to know your neighbors and you shared the unbroken bottles of your wine collection with strangers.

I also witnessed the Oakland Hills fires of 1991. At night I would go up to the roof of my apartment building and just see the orange flames whipping around. I’ll never forget how one friend realized something was wrong: about two hours after the fires started, he was walking in San Francisco and saw someone’s charred recipe card sitting on the sidewalk. Then another, and then another.

After having been through and witnessing these types of events, you make plans. Right after the quake I would ask friends “If you had 15 minutes to evacuate, what would you take with you?” Everyone says that the real things that matter are those that can’t be replaced such as photos, albums, legal documents, pets and loved ones. For me, it would include all my genealogy research. I think now, am I prepared for such an event?

I don’t like being an alarmist but it is in the realm of possibilities that my home could catch fire or be hit by a tornado (I am in Chicago after all). So I’ve done the following:

• I purchased a 250GB external drive. It is very small (about 8” by 5”) and can fit in a firebox or safe. It is also easy to unhook and take with me if I have to run out the door.


• I make backups on a regular schedule. Some external hard drives have a “one button” backup where you can designate what you want backed up.


• Hard drives do and, over time, probably will fail. This has happened to me several times, even with some workhorse laptops. Be prepared – make backups of your data!


• Consider uploading data to an online repository. There are various ways to do this such as a subscription site where you pay a monthly fee. Just make sure they have strict security and privacy policies. I also take advantage of the 5GB of storage space on my Hotmail account and space on my Gmail account.


• Scan all your photos (and label them with accurate file names and descriptions of course). This way if the actual photos are lost, you can send them off to places like Costco’s website to be reprinted.


• Keep items in a secure and in a dry place. When I was cleaning out my mother’s home in New York, items went into The Box – which was actually an 18 gallon Rubbermaid storage container with a tight fitting lid. Since the house had already suffered a major flood from the hot water heater, I knew the photos and items would be dry.

It is never fun to have to think about these and other disaster scenarios. But being prepared can make the difference between being able to pass your work on to others in your family. Just think of how many people in California are going through this ordeal right now. And besides thinking, also send them some good thoughts and some prayers.

Photo: rather than post a fire photo, I opted for one from my California days. This is Minyo, my male bichon frise with his favorite hedgehog toy!

The Hidden - LGBT Family Members and Genealogy

The photo above was found in The Box earlier this year and must have come from either my great-grandmother (Therese McGinnis Austin) or my great aunt (Ethel McCrickert Hannan) when I cleaned out my mother’s house. On the back, it is marked in simple script: Joe and “Friend”. My guess is the date was around 1936 given the swimsuit style and the size of the photo.

Again, it’s a shame that I don’t have more information about these two men, arms around each other, enjoying a day at the beach, probably Coney Island or Jones Beach in New York. In past posts I’ve bemoaned the fact that many of the photos in The Box are not labeled. And while this one is, it is not labeled in a way that helps me identify Joe or his “friend.” Remember: label pictures with full names, not “Auntie Em” or “Uncle Fester.” You may know the people but will the person who later comes across the photo know them?

Who were these men and are they somehow related to me? Were they just good friends or in a relationship? Perhaps the fact that they were in a relationship is indicated by the “quotes” around the word friend and the fact that I can’t get any information from family about them.

As I’ve discussed the plight of women in genealogy, a similar story can be drawn about our lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgendered (LGBT) family members and how, and if, they appear in our family histories. It really is up to the researcher to make sure these people have a voice and a place in the family tree.

My Perspective

I’m gay (in case you haven’t figured that out yet – and my family knows because they’ve seen how I walk) and have been with my partner for close to eight years now. We have registered our Domestic Partnership in Cook County, Illinois, a legal option afforded to all couples regardless of sex, in the same bureau that handles marriage licenses. I have also reflected this in my genealogy database using Family Tree Maker software. To me it is a no brainer – it seems natural to me in a family history to try and identify how your ancestors lived, worked, worshipped, and had relationships with other people. But the topic of including LGBT people in genealogy research opens up a Pandora’s Box of issues at the very root of what genealogy is or is not.

This posting is not some part of the “homosexual agenda” or because I feel like going on a rant today. This posting comes from my actual encounters with data and photos during the journey of tracing who I am and where I come from.

The Challenge

How do you handle the following relationships or situations when performing genealogy research?

• Same-sex Relationships
• Civil Unions or Gay Marriage
• Same-sex Divorce
• Gender Reassignment
• Genetic Parents vs. Responsible Parents

Genealogy or Family History?

Technically, genealogy is how one studies and traces a family pedigree by collecting information (names, dates, etc.) and establishing relationships between these people, all supported by documentation or evidence. Family history usually involves genealogy data but researchers tend to include more information such as oral and written interviews, photos, etc. in order to portray that person as a round character as opposed to a flat one.

There are many researchers who go by a strict interpretation of genealogy and refuse to track what they define as “non-traditional” (and in one case “aberrant”) relationships outside the perceived norm of man and wife. The various arguments made, all of which don’t hold water with me, include:

• Genealogy is meant to trace pedigree and blood lines only.
Oh really? Then perhaps it might be better for you to use a software program from the AKC and use the terms “stud” and “dam” instead of male and female.

• You should only document legal marriages.
Legal by whose definition? Inter-racial marriage was not legal in all 50 states of this country until 1967. Does this mean that the relationship between these two people should somehow be diminished or seen as “less than”?

• Genealogy only tracks relationships that produce children.
Is that so? So what do we do about “outside children” that the father has produced with that other family across town or across the country? What do we do about “childless marriage” such as a woman of non-child bearing age who marries late in life or for a second time? What do we do about a woman who is a surrogate mother for relatives or friends who can’t conceive a child?

Very often genealogy and family history are used interchangeably as is common these days. I guess if I had to delineate my work between one or the other it is developing my family history. The genealogy side of blood lines, dates, etc. has always bored me and in my mind doesn’t adequately represent that person or their relationships. But invariably when you draw lines, margins, and distinctions some people are inside and some people are left outside.

Same-Sex Relationships Have Always Existed – This Is Not New!

It’s a fact and just because a person doesn’t approve or agree, it won’t go away. What we see in modern society are 1) advances in technology that allow people to benefit from having children via surrogate mothers, artificial insemination, etc.; and 2) societies and governments willing to offer to all its citizens the same benefits of marriage that have historically been reserved only for the man and woman marriage.

And these “non-traditional” relationships have existed through history in different forms, forms often not talked about or hidden away. And in order to dispel any notions that, heaven forbid, these were sexual relationships between two people of the same gender, terms such as “Boston marriage” or “romantic friendship” were developed. While we may not yet have evidence that a couple such as Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed had a sexual relationship, such a relationship exists in the realm of possibilities and you have to wonder what, if any, evidence has been destroyed, hidden or altered.

The reality is we just know more now about these types of relationships and the motivations behind them than we did years ago. The same as what we know now about slavery, what we know now about indigenous peoples, what we know now about the environment.

Research Obstacles

As a researcher, many times you want to take data and information as it is for the sake of expediency as well as other researchers citing the same data and documentation. But researchers are also investigators and when I notice relationships or data that “just ain’t right” or “seems odd,” parts of me want to just stop and go down that sleuthing trail. Perhaps the birth certificate was forged or changed years after the birth to cover up a family secret? Perhaps that auto accident wasn’t just an auto accident. As Vera Donovan says in Dolores Claiborne: “Husbands die every day, Dolores. Why... one is probably dying right now while you're sitting here weeping. They die... and leave their wives their money. I should know, shouldn't I? Sometimes they're driving home from their mistress' apartment and their brakes suddenly fail.” I guess I just live up to my first name and the “doubting“ that always goes with it. I’m a skeptic through and through because it makes for better research.

Very often while conducting research or talking with living family members, I hear some “code words” or see some non-verbal language which raises a red flag that some more research is required and perhaps to not take the information at face value. Terms such as “outside family,” “Boston marriage,” or “she was odd,” don’t always pop up and aren’t generally used. But I will see terms like “friend,” “took care of each other,” “had a special friendship,” or “was very dear to him,” used. I look for hidden meanings, read between the lines and try to find out the exact nature of the relationship. Then I decide if it can be documented or warrants inclusion in my family history.

But It’s Uncomfortable!

Yes it is uncomfortable to discuss certain issues or relationships when building a family history. There have always been concerns about listing relationships which include children conceived outside the marriage, incest and even inter-racial marriage and same-sex relationships or gender reassignment. Just as there are some researchers concerned about ancestors who were slave owners or who beat or even killed their wives, children, husbands, sisters or brothers. This will never change.

But think of how uncomfortable it must have been for my ancestors who experienced these relationships or situations. I’d like to think that in the cases of same-sex relationships or gender issues that the person was not uncomfortable with their life and the essence of who they were. But they most probably were made uncomfortable by the society around them for whom they chose to love or how they expressed their true being. They didn’t have the ability to have voices back then, the way we do now. Oh sure, there were pioneering people such as Harry Hay and John Burnside, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon and others. But many didn’t have that opportunity or freedom. They deserve to have their voices and I intend to give that back to them through my research.

I include information on past slave owners in my family, for instance, in order to understand more about society norms at that time, what my ancestor did or didn’t do about slavery, etc. It is called history in context. I find slavery abhorrent, just as I do infanticide or domestic violence but it doesn’t give me the right to avoid including it or discussing it with family members. There are ways to include the information for future researchers that may not directly agitate or anger living relatives:

• Can your genealogy software keep certain items private or password protected, such as research notes?

• If not, can you reference a document in Microsoft Word or some other software that you can password protect?

• Add a note such as: “There are various conflicting facts concerning this person/relationship. Please contact [your name] at [your email address] for more information.”

• When someone does contact you and wants to discuss the issue, determine that person’s need to know, how they might react to the information, and what they intend to do with the data.

Responsibility of the Researcher

As researchers we’ve all encountered or uncovered situations or information that can make other family members uncomfortable: old love letters written to a woman that wasn’t your grandfather’s wife; photos of people that “just aren’t talked about;” and birth certificates or death certificates that just don’t match up to family stories or previous research.

• Avoid judgmental or moralistic terms such as “aberrant”, “tranny”, “alternative lifestyle,” or even archaic terms like “Uranian”. Do some research on sites such as Wikipedia on same-sex relationships, gender identity disorder, etc. and you’ll find that the common terminology includes terms such as lesbian, gay, transgender, gender reassignment, domestic partnership, etc. And please don’t use POSSLQ because that’s just wrong.

• Just stick to the facts ma’am. That means if you receive information about Joe and “Friend” try to find out, in a tactful, non-judgmental way, if friend is really code for lover, partner, or if in fact this was a war or college buddy.

• Don’t attempt to excise facts to protect people nor should you try to make unsubstantiated family secrets become facts.

• What do you want to leave to other family members or researchers in the form of your work? Do you want it based on honest facts and documented research? Or data that has gone through your personal filter of views and values?

To Judge or Not To Judge?

This entire topic of how to recognize same-sex relationships in genealogy and family history research has been raging for years. A typical discussion will often start with a basic “how to” question about a specific software on a message board and then snowball into a petty, judgmental, holier-than-thou discussion about such topic being a sign of the End Times or how this country is going to hell in a hand basket. Dick Eastman, of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter presents some interesting facts about same-sex relationships and the children of same-sex partners.

The Role of Genealogy Software

I guess I was lucky when I chose Family Tree Maker as my software to track my research. In a brief check of currently used programs including Legacy, Roots Magic, Family Tree Maker, The Master Genealogist and others, some programs allow you to either note specific relationship types such as Partnership, Civil Union etc. or create your own custom relationship tags and indicators. And some software programs have a policy of not offering anything besides the man marries woman relationship.

Family Origins
You can create your own “fact types” besides pre-defined fact types.

Family Tree Maker
You can select from several relationship types including Partner. But instead of marriage, the fact appears in the Individual View as “meeting.” You can also create your own customized relationship facts such as Domestic Partnership.

The Master Genealogist
Program allows customization of marriage facts.

Legacy
You can specify your own words for Spouse and Marriage such as Partners and Domestic Partnership.
Also see Denise L. Moss-Fritch’s site on how to alter Legacy for gender changes.

Roots Magic
You cannot use other relationship types or customize for same-sex relationships. On the Roots Magic message boards there has been quite a heated discussion using terms such as “aberrant relationships” and discussing whether people trace genealogy (as in genes) or family history.

Personal Ancestral File
Program does not recognize same-sex relationships or allow customization of marriage facts.

Off-Topic: Blood Test for Alzheimer's Disease

I heard the news yesterday that a new blood test was being developed at Stanford University in California that could help detect the probability of developing Alzheimer's Disease within two to six years.

While the results are still preliminary and the next step is to open up the testing to a larger test population, it has had a 91% accuracy so far.

Some of you know that my mother, Jacqueline Austin MacEntee, was diagnosed with dementia, one of the early indicators of Alzheimer's Disease in 2000 at the age of 58. I can relate to you what I and my family had to endure just to get Mom diagnosed.

The diagnosis currently starts with a visit to a doctor for basic tests (blood, liver, cholesterol, heart, etc.) and then being sent to a specialist for neurological testing such as an MRI. Once everything is cleared as to possible causes, comes a visit to a gerontologist and a test consisting of about 30 questions. Questions are basic (the current day or year, the current president, etc.) and some are more complex (reading a small story and then relating what the story was about or who the main character was). This is usually when the diagnosis is positive as to Alzheimer's Disease.

And so it begins. You know it eventually has to end, and how it ends, but it just seems like it never ends.

You notice a marked change in behavior and instances where Mom just isn't herself. Many times you call and ask her what she did over the weekend or what movie she saw and she can't remember. Then it becomes the lack of remembering simple things like how to drive from point A to point B in a small town where Mom has lived for over 40 years. But you also rejoice when your mother utters her disgust about Bush and the others in his administration who've hijacked our democracy. Part of you says "it's just the Alzheimer's" while part of you says it is clarity and another part of you hopes that all the years of discussing your own views have influenced her.

The disease progresses to affect employment and the means of earning a living and surviving financially. You deal with the chief at the village police office where she works as a dispatcher and clerk when he tells her that she has "psychological problems." She loses the second job at a local restaurant because she can no longer handle the bookkeeping responsibilities. You step in to get Mom out on early retirement via Social Security and still you need to fight, hire an attorney, and attend hearings, meetings, etc. But you feel good that you are able to get Mom out on retirement early so that she can enjoy the few good years she has left enjoying movies, shopping, etc.

And the denial, the denial, the denial -- from both Mom, me and the rest of the family -- that this is really happening. Much of the denial is the realization that by watching Mom and the deterioration of her condition, you could be looking in a mirror held up to your face so that you know your own mortality. Even worse, that you come to the realization that this could be you. "There but for the grace of God . ."

You drag your partner into the mess, the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, the person who may very well be doing all this for you one day. But you know that he'd gladly make the sacrifices just as you would for him or for his parents.

Then there are the financial scammers that come out of the woodwork. Her "financial advisor" at New York Life who talked her into an annuity that only made money for the advisor. And then the same advisor selling Mom expensive health books and vitamins as a treatment for the disease. I know - I cleaned out the house, saw the books, and have the receipts.

And as the months progress into years, the gerontologist's test is given at least yearly and the number of correct answers dwindles from 22 to 20 to 17.

You decide to take the car away after several instances of U-turns through the grassy median of a 4-lane highway. You notice unexplained dents and dings to the car or even to the house or garage. You have to fight and get a letter from the doctor to give to DMV in order to take the car away.

If you are smart or lucky or both, you find a good elder law attorney and you do this early when Mom can adequately communicate her wishes. Wishes such as "do not resuscitate," funeral and burial, will, assets, care, etc. The power of attorney kicks in and you have so much more responsibility than just making sure Mom is comfortable. But you know you and your family are lucky, and smart, because you did this early. You didn't wait to find out that investments were sucked dry by scammers who sell home improvements or driveway repaving or annuities. Boy were you lucky.

While you sort through the tangled financial web of the past five years, you try to arrange for in-home care for Mom, knowing that having the familiar around her is the best thing. You arrange for adult day care at the local hospital where on a given day she is probably the youngest one there and most definitely the most ambulatory. You bring in local women who specialize in elder care to stay with her the other 16 hours of the day and also to transport her to day care and doctors' appointments. You want to keep her in the home she bought 25 years ago, as a divorced parent with two boys and little credit. You know she deserves this and you and the rest of the family make sacrifices so this will happen.

You decide that while you've enjoyed living in California for the past 20 years, you can't handle all the tasks and responsibilities from so far away. The telephone, e-mail and the internet only work up to a point. You move to Chicago so you are at least a short two hour flight away, with three flights to New York each hour from O'Hare. You feel blessed because your employer in California believes in you and your work and the sacrifices you are making so much that they let you work from home in Chicago since they don't have an office there. You thank Heller Ehrman LLP and all your work family from California to London for being so supportive.

You get so caught up in the politics of family, and the squabbling and the pettiness that you decide to walk away altogether. You decide it isn't that you aren't up to the responsibility but that you don't know why family has to make it all so complicated - especially those who are selfish and want this to be about them and not about Mom. A simple Thanksgiving day phone call turns into a yelling match with your aunt who doesn't know how to handle Mom or why she has been accused of stealing a book or moving furniture. You decide you need a break so you don't call for close to six months and you drop out. And you feel guilty, as you should. And every time you are willing to put it behind you and focus on what Mom needs now because you are back in the mix, someone is there to remind you of how you walked away.

And besides bleeding tears, you bleed money. Your mother's money. The money she worked so hard for at the phone company before she went out on retirement due to a bad back. The money she earned working for the state at the police station. The SSI money. You run credit reports and find out there are over 100 credit cards in her name, many from stores like Macy's (where she had six accounts!) with clerks who say "would you like to save 15% today by opening a Macy's account?" knowing that Mom already had other Macy's accounts but the $5 commission was all that mattered. You close all the accounts, cash out IRAs and that damned annuity at a loss. You end up paying federal and state income tax as if Mom earned over $100,000 that year all because you had to cash in the investments for her care. But you also know that this is the best thing to do in this moment because it means months of in-home care, and safety and security. That's why we save for rainy days and right now it is pouring.

And the number of correct answers, at least on that test, becomes 15, then 12, then 10. For the rest of the process there are no correct answers, there are no touchstones because you've never been this way before. Oh how you don't want to be here right now but oh how you do because it's all about Mom.

Besides untangling finances, you have to untangle agreements and understandings that Mom entered into with other family members but had not the mental capacity nor the right to enter into. You deal with the house in Florida and you deal with Mom's home. You deal with the Grahamsville property that Mom inherited from her great-grandmother (Therese McGinnes Austin) for all her years of sacrifice and care. You realize that Mom entered into a purchase agreement with a family member who has since rented the property out but that person can't prove their payments to Mom or for taxes. You know that property meant so much to Mom as a kid but you also know the best thing is to let it go and realize that she was taken advantage of and to just deal with it. You deal, you deal, you deal. Until you think all the cards are dealt.

You fight with other family members who either think they know how to care for an Alzheimer's patient or want to keep denying that their sister has the disease. Because there's a small chance, given that the oldest sister already died from Alzheimer's, that you are next on the list to get it. But you also find other supportive family members who are glad to pitch in and actually make so many sacrifices for your mother when you know they already have their hands full.

Then comes the time to talk to Mom about finding a "facility" for her long-term care when either the finances or patience runs out, or both. You dread the discussion you have to have on Mother's Day, of all days, but you find she takes it well. Then you wonder if she really understands that a facility means a nursing home. You wonder if she is clear enough to figure it out over the next few weeks and retreat back into the denial stage. You have visions of that scene in the Exorcist when the priest puts his mother in an inner city nursing home yelling "Demi, why you do this to me? I'm afraid Demi." But you realize that when you see her a month later that she's lost over 20 lbs, she's eating better, she has lots of activities. She is safe, she is happy, she is living in the moment.

Next you have to clean out the house you grew up in and you don't know where to start. You make six trips in one year, buying boxes when you step off the plane to Newark. Working long hours sorting through every scrap of paper, every wadded up tissue in a sweater or pants pocket because it might contain something of value, every book some of which would have a gold bracelet as a bookmark. You remember that Mom took care of your great-grandmother and your great-aunt (Ethel McCrickert Hannan) in that same house and realize that their possessions are still there. You get angry when you find all the crap and junk she's been sold, be it greeting cards ("Why are there 100 of the same Thanksgiving card from a Hallmark store? I know I won't ever live to see 100 Thanksgivings!"), or the wrapping paper that people sell for their kid's school, or the needless health books, vitamins, and other quackery and the expensive overpriced dolls from China which are probably decorated with lead paint. And you hope that however crappy or tacky or useless, these things brought her joy and made her happy, even if for a moment.

You sort, you throw away. You become cold, efficient, without feeling as you decide not to pause and look at a photo album - you just toss it in The Box. You donate clothing to thrift stores, you sell antique items that no one wants and that you can't send home to Chicago. Your aunt has a great idea to donate most of the 100+ dolls to a shelter for battered women and children. And when you are back home, you enjoy The Box and all its photos, diaries, etc. later in the year - it is the beginning of this project and other genealogy projects. You feel lucky to have photos from your ancestors and to begin to know who you are.

You have lots of help from family members that you can never thank enough. You didn't do it alone although you feel lonely and have a deep sense of loss most of the time. You thank your Uncle Jerry for all the help from the beginning - for attending hearings, meetings, taking care of finances, arranging in-home care and the nursing home. All of this was not possible without him and without Nan's support. You thank your Uncle Lem and Aunt Judy for helping clean out the house. You thank your Aunt Joan for providing a year of room and board to Mom despite the aggravation and the problems. You thank Beth for making the trip from Delhi and visiting. You thank all your other relatives who make visits at the nursing home, visits Mom won't remember five minutes later, but visits that you know make her happy despite the visitor being saddened by what they see or wanting to cry. And you thank all her friends, even the ones who no longer keep in touch because it is just too uncomfortable.

You keep in touch with family and friends who call and want an update on Mom. Or you get updates from them when they go for a visit at the nursing home. While you notice the deterioration in her condition on each visit, you hear from relatives that she has an ankle brace due to a fall, or this problem or that problem. And still you know you've done the best thing for Mom.

The time you get to spend with Mom becomes shorter and shorter - not because you don't want to visit, but because her attention span doesn't enable her to focus on any one thing for more than 30 seconds. You call the nurses’ station to talk to her and after a short conversation, you realize she put the phone on the counter and walked away. Not because there was something more interesting, but because she can't focus.

And the list of correct answers to that test are now in the single digits. You know what the future holds and you dread it. You don't want to go through the first time Mom doesn't know who you are, but you know it will happen. You already see the difficulty she has in eating, getting on and off an elevator (she won't get on because she thinks you are getting off to visit her), or getting in and out of a car. You know what the next steps are because just like this article, you've read them in some blog or book or news article or website. You know Mom will suddenly stop talking, stop walking, stop eating, stop breathing.

But you will always know that you are your mother's son. And that she knew that too.

I've decided that I can either be bitter or I can be better. And bitter won't change my mother's condition - just mine. I choose better and the way I can do that is to:

a) talk about my mother's experience with people like writing this article;

b) mention the bad times as well as the good times, the negative as well as the positive but focus more on the positive - the negative is there as a reminder but not something to regret for it can't be changed;

c) not regret the journey of Alzheimer's for me, for Mom and for the others involved - for a journey has lessons;

d) understand that I did and do the most that is possible for my mother's care given the circumstances, finances and that I was lucky to have other family members involved; and

e) honor my mother and the way she raised me by not forgetting her sacrifices and her love, her challenges and her gifts, her mistakes and her accomplishments.

After all this, would I want to take a blood test, or any test, that would help predict whether or not I was to have Alzheimer's Disease? You're damned right I would. Not only would it help progress the research that has already been done, but it would help me prepare for the future. And I could live life and every day as if it were important and my last. I wouldn't make someone else go through that dark twisting tunnel of care unguided and with those feelings of helplessness. Knowledge is power and power, be it the power of health, finances or love, can help you conquer all adversities.

Would you take the test?

[This is the first off-topic topic that I've posted but in way it does relate to genealogy in that some forms of Alzheimer's Disease is hereditary or genetic (I believe the percentage is 15%)]

Frustrating Search - Searching Newspaper Archives for Genealogy Data

Don't you hate it when you are trying to find information on a known event and the Internet just doesn't seem to cooperate?

I have been trying to document a tragic incident that happened in 1925 to Anna T. McPhillps, the wife of my great-granduncle Maurice I. Austin. From the story that I heard through the family, Anna died in the mid 1920's after being struck by a car that ran up on the sidewalk and pinned her against a building.

I was able to find the New York Times obituary for Anna Austin listed on Sunday, May 10, 1925 using Google's new News Archive feature. I love this part of Google especially since it listed the first line of the obituary ("Anna Austin, suddenly on May 8, wife of Maurice I. Austin" . . .) whereas using the New York Times' website does not reveal any information. NYT wants $4.95 to download the article (their archives are now free but only from 1857 up to 1923). I'm not sure it is worth close to five bucks especially since most of the info is probably already listed in the Google News Archive search.

I have a subscription to the Ancestry website which has many newspaper archives including those on Newspaper Archives (more about this last site in a minute). I thought for sure I would be able to find the article for free. After four hours of searching I gave up.

A warning about Newspaper Archives: I was almost ready to sign up for a month of the service at $16.50 a month (they sell other packages such as one full year for $99 or $8.25 a month) to see if I could find the obituary and other articles I need. Just as I had entered all my info and my credit card details, I thought "better check the cancellation policy." It's a good thing I did! The charge becomes an instantly renewable charge on a monthly basis, meaning that they will continue to charge your card until you tell them otherwise. That is standard practice on many web services but here's the kicker: once you email them the cancellation, you still need to download a form and fax it back to them! What a pain in the tuchas if you ask me (by the way, tuchas is Spanish for "innuendo"). I find it odd that they will easily take your credit card info when you sign up, but then you need to go through hoops to cancel. Don't bother with Newspaper Archives - there have to be other ways of getting this info. One would be to sign up for an Ancestry subscription since it uses Newspaper Archives data or use free websites. I'll write more about free resources especially for upstate New York research in a later post.

The photo: Anna McPhillips Austin, taken around 1923. This is one of my favorite photos from my family.

The Box - Part 2

Well I last wrote about The Box in December after I had finished cleaning out most of my mother's house in Liberty, New York. I made a second pass at it today and feel that there's been some real progress.

I went through and selected photos that I need to scan for the genealogy database. Most of these are photos that were taken from 1905 through 1930, although there are many recent photos and some in between.

The challenge is what do you do with:

- photos that have no date or no names on the back (or front) and you can't identify any of the subjects?

- photos that have names scrawled all over the subjects' faces? Unfortunately as my great-grandmother Therese McGinnes Austin got older, she decided this was the best way to identify the people in the photos for the next generations.

- duplicate photos? How many photos can I have of one person especially in similar poses or outfits?

You just have to be ruthless sometimes and remove your emotions from the process. I really don't have anyone in the family that is interested in the photos let alone the genealogy info.

So I've decided to select the photos that are great quality, most representative of the person or time and place, and can be easily scanned. One example is the photo above - it is my grandfather on my mother's side. His name was Alfred Joseph Austin, 1917 - 1984. The photo was taken in 1922.

Lowville NY

Most of you know that John Ralph Austinor Grandpa Austin, was born in upstate New York in a small town called Lowville. It is in Lewis County near Watertown, New York and is 49 miles away from Utica at the base of the western Adirondack Mountains.

In going through The Box, I came across a great find: a booklet entitled Souvenir of Lowville, NY It is an 18 page booklet printed in 1895 by Kip & Stone from Canton, NY This booklet contains great photos of residences, businesses and churches in the town of 4,000 which was the population in 1895. I was able to scan the photos and transcribe the text (see below).

Besides posting the information here, I've also added it to the Lewis County page of the NYGENWEB at http://www.rootsweb.com/~nylewis/.

Enjoy!


Cover:
Souvenir of Lowville, N.Y.
Copyright 1895, By
Kip & Stone, Canton, N.Y.
Printed by The F. Gutekunst Co.
Philadelphia
Page 2:
Text: “This volume contains view of the Public Buildings, Factories, Residences, etc., within the Village of Lowville, Lewis County, New York.
Lowville is a beautiful village in the Black River Valley, situated one and one-half miles west of Black River, on what was formerly known as the Utica and Black River Railroad, now called the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburgh Railroad, which is part of the New York Central system. The town of Lowville was settled in 1797, and the village was incorporated in 1847. It is the county seat of Lewis County; distance 59 miles from Utica and about the same distance from the St. Lawrence River, and has a population of about 4,000.
It is situated in the midst of a splendid farming and dairy region, its butter and cheese being famous throughout the country.
Lowville has the finest system of water works in the State of New York; the water is pure, cold and soft; brought from springs at the foot of the Adirondacks, nine miles away. The springs are 300 feet higher than Lowville and the pressure is 125 pounds to the inch. The village is lighted by electricity and the streets are macadamized. Here are views of the Court House, County Clerk’s Office, Casket Factory, Furniture Factory, Planing Mills, Lowville Academy, State Street School, Lyons Falls, the Churches, Soldiers Monument, view of State Street, views of Mill Creek, Iron Works, Business Blocks, Hotels, Residences, etc. There are three Printing Offices in the village, the Journal and Republican block is among the business blocks given in this book. Two National Banks, five Churches, six Hotels, all in a prosperous condition.
The streets are well shaded by Elms and Maples, the homes are neat and well kept; prosperity abounds and the residents are all proud of their lovely village.
List of Locations (in order):
Methodist Church
St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church
Presbyterian Church
J.E. Haberer’s Furniture Plant
Lowville Iron Works
Asbestos Burial Casket Co.
Residence of C.R. Blodgett
Residence of James G. Campbell
The Doig Residence
Residence of H.H. Ryel
Residence of Hon. Henry E. Turner
Residence of Hon. Eliada S. Merrell
Residence of Hon. Henry A. Phillips
Residence of E.H. Bush
Residence of Amasa S. Stoddard
Residence of G.A. Blackmon
Residence of John E. Haberer
Residence of Hon. Frederick C. Schraub
Residence of V. Lansing Waters
Residence of Almander H. Crosby, M.D.
Residence of Charles E. Douglass, M.D.
The Brahmer Residence
Residence of Eugene Arthur
Residence of O.P. Hedden
Residence of Dr. A.R. Gebbie
Residence of F.L. Tedmon
Residence of C.D. Manville
Lowville Academy
Residence of Horace Bush
Residence of Frederick S. Easton
Residence of Geo. W. Fowler
Baptist Church
Trinity Church
Lyons Falls
Soldiers Monument
Court House
Clerks Office
Lewis County Court House & Clerks Office
Alms House
Jail
Lewis County Alms House & Jail
Kellogg House
Journal and Republican Office
State Street School

The journey "re-begins"

I've chosen the word "re-begin" since I made quite a headway with my family's genealogy starting in 1998. I worked on this project for about two years and put it aside in mid-2000. So this blog is a way for me to make journal entries on my efforts to learn more about my family and perhaps more about myself.

I've always identified more with the Austin part of my family, mainly my mother's family. In 1998, Mom gave me a photocopy of a genealogy that the family had printed back in 1916. It is entitled "Genealogy of David Putman and His Descendants" and was compiled by George W. Putman. George W. Putman is my 2nd cousin 5 times removed and was born in 1838. It was fairly common in the first 20 years of the last century for families to research and print up their own family histories - partly in an effort to demonstrate that they were more "American" than recent immigrants.

My latest motivation to pick up this project again is somewhat personal but one that should be shared. Over the past six years, as my mother's Alzheimer's Disease has taken its natural progression, I have felt more and more separated from my family, despite more frequent trips back to upstate New York. In 2006, I made at least five trips to clean out my mother's house and to sort through 30 years worth of pictures, clothes, jewelry - the detritus of a life put on hold while my mother took care of her own grandmother and great aunt. But as my mother's world grows smaller day-by-day, I'm committed to expanding my own world of knowledge about her ancestors.

Ask any of her siblings, all nine that are still living, and they'll tell you about "Ma" and "Pa" - my great-grandparents John Ralph Austin and Therese McGinnes Austin. They were a big influence in my life and I had the privilege of knowing them before they passed on. They were strict, they were funny, they were very opinionated and rather conservative; they taught us the right way to hold a fork, how to say "please" and "thank you", how to handle many different social situations; they taught us how to get by and make a buck seem like a buck fifty, how to grow and can your own food, how to appreciate simple things like plumbing, electricity and telephone (do you remember their double-seater outhouse? or the 8-party line?). These are the people that we all thought about when at a family gathering we identified ourselves as "Austins."

The photo above is of John Ralph Austin at age 18 months.

So, with my new copy of genealogy software, my old database files, and a huge storage box of mementos, pictures, diaries, and notes, I'm off on the journey.