Famous and ...Notorious Relatives

Are you related to anyone famous? How about notorious? Got a black sheep in the family? A mystery? Maybe there is a story somewhere in the family history that is just a little bigger than life, worth repeating, sharing, and savoring.

Maybe you've found it, and maybe you've found many such figures and their stories.

And maybe that story is out there waiting to be found.

Think about where, when, why, and how to find them.

First you find out who is in your tree, and then you find out what has been left to learn about that person.

 The more you use search engines on their names, the better your chance at finding their interesting bios.

Great stuff to add to the notes in the family tree and to pass along to relatives, both close and distant.

You may have some of those early American ancestors linked to or themselves  the early members of local or federal governments. Many of those early Americans were involved in some way, whether in the formation of early militias, or serving on town or county juries, or as town clerks, or perhaps as governing officials, even on the federal level. In that case, you will find that the digging for historical gems is relatively simple. Finding more and more details may take more dedicated attention,  and possibly the expertise of  a genealogist, but the surface details can easily be found by anyone .

Or...it maybe that the story is not so much about fame or infamy, but rather about the nuances of settling in a new area and encountering the challenges of the frontier.

Examples can easily be found--for starters, if you've got any ancestors from the wild west, there you go... and the east was not that much less wild at times.

Search for the ancestor's name with any combination of the following--locations where he/she settled,  dates of birth or death, occupation (pony express) or name of company or town....and keep going!

Just found some great info on distant relative William Augustus Brown, myself. For years I only had the information of his name and a note that he had been murdered in 1853 (California was a baby in the nation at that time)  in Stockton. But things are different now, and the story of his life is easily expanded. Search engines now provide so much info in various forms that I know he ran a pony express (and I can see examples of the stamp he put on the letters). He's neither notorious nor particularly famous, but he was a victim of a wild west shooting. The story is good, and remains contemporary, as even the auction house Christie's offers some of his stamped envelopes for auction.

Photo from Western Cover Society:


Update 2015: the name of the murderer and the entire narrative of the murder have been uncovered in old newspaper articles.

Find those great stories about the family history, and make sure to keep looking for the best details and the tie-ins to the growth of the country or the current culture and economy.

See an example of  Pony express covers for sale at Western Cover Society. Use search engines to see more examples of covers and stamps. They are all interesting.

Reenactments are a great source of historical information

The re-enactors of historical battles are a sort of mise-en-abime resource for researchers to learn from. Initially, as you stroll the battlefield and see the men and women in period dress, you take in the visual sense of what once existed in history.

You may have a chance to speak to one or more of the re-enactors, and learn about the authenticity of the clothes he or she wears, the food he or she is eating, and so on. You might meet a British spy, or an officer's wife, as I did. They all have stories, and the character they represent informs their appearance in the re-enactment. If the officer happens to die on the battlefield, I learned, his wife has to find another officer to marry, or she will not be traveling to the next battle re-enactment, as only a certain number can go along.

You might learn that the buttons on a jacket might be authentic, while the cloth they are attached to is a reasonable reproduction. The swords of some of the re-enactors may be authentic, owned by those who fought in battle while those of others are not. In any case, they must have been produced, or represent what was produced, from a time either preceding or of the time of the battle in question. They can't be later models.

If you have a chance to speak and listen to the stories of how the re-enactors got their materials, that alone will be informative. What was the original color of the metal in the sword? How did that change over time? How long did it take to load the guns? Who were the fighters--trained military or local residents? What were some of the strategies and how did they lead to failure or success?

Attending a battle re-enactment is not only informative, but also stimulating. You might end up with more questions than answers, both about how re-enactments are created, and and also about how they reflect historical events.

They are an excellent resource for learning about the history of a place and time from the viewpoint of the individual. The images below are from the bicentennial re-enactment of the Battle of Sackets Harbor in the war of 1812, a re-enactment that was of major historical value and which took place in a beautiful, serene location. The re-enactment could have attracted more interest but seems to have been a pearl viewed by a small and fortunate audience. See the description of the economic and political issues here (NY Times article) :
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/nyregion/war-of-1812-bicentennial-disorganized-in-new-york-state.html?_r=0

Images of War of 1812 Sackets Harbor Battle Re-enactment

Digitized marriage records, county histories and more at HathiTrust

The HathiTrust Digital Library is an excellent repository of information on books, many of which are digitized and readable on the website, while others, under copyright restrictions, cannot be read but can be searched for terms and names. The website is a result of a partnership between a number of institutions and organizations working together to preserve cultural information.

I found many easily accessed records of marriages and births for New York and for other States as well. There are also county histories and interesting records of jail censuses, agricultural reports, and political actions.

This is an excellent resource to check into when you are looking for that one more place to find your ancestors and their histories.

There is no charge to readers.

See HathiTrust to learn more and to begin the search there!

Gedmatch --subjective view--June 2013

Many of the hits on my blog are looking for information on Gedmatch.

Here is my brief subjective review of how things are at Gedmatch--many of the wonderful utilities, including triangulation and chromosome browser are on hold--but they should be back at some time, and will be amazingly helpful to researchers of all levels and abilities.

Of the utilities currently available, I find the one-to- many matches utility to be the most helpful, especially since there are at least three companies from which people can upload their results.
I have to say, that although this is great, and allows  us to see comparisons between FTDNA, 23andme, and ancestry.com, this is often just a lead to nowhere.

The frustrating aspect is that the aliases used by those tested are often very effective in hiding who has been tested. If an email has been provided it can be a clue, or it can be used to try to contact the person tested, but often this effort is futile. It is understandable that every tester wants to protect their privacy--but the result of the protection is that comparison is impossible or very difficult. As I have said before, what researchers want is information about the ancestors. Perhaps Gedmatch could provide a way for testers to give that information, as does Ftdna, which allows gedcoms, but only starting at least 100 years out from the present.

The person being tested is not, or should not be, of interest, unless living cousin connections are desired.

Main point--I'm sure Gedmatch will recover all of the utilities--just a matter of time and it will be working again. Like many dna-related websites, keeping it up and running well can be a challenge for many reasons, so if you find something working--use it--strike while the iron is hot!