What's happening at the Genea-manor?

I expect blogging on Genea-Musings will be light on Sunday and perhaps Monday also.

My tech guru is coming on Sunday to see if he can wake up my desktop machine. Failing that, a new hard drive may be in the offing. Hopefully, the lost data can at least be recovered.

We have a family dinner scheduled for Sunday afternoon - my brother is in town with his family so I won't have much genea-blogging time on Sunday, assuming I can access the home wireless network (it has been flaky - many dropouts). Aren't computers wonderful, indispensable, and frustrating?

The home remodel is almost done - the painting is done, the kitchen cabinets and countertops are installed. We have the laminated wood floors installed this next week. We've been packing stuff up (from the china hutch, the angel hutch, etc) and hiding it in the garage, all the while unpacking the kitchen stuff and hiding it in the new kitchen cabinets.

I hung a lot of the family pictures on the walls today (in order to get them out of the boxes and off the floor). We decided to make the dining room the "San Diego room," the family room the "San Francisco room," and the living room the "Betty Seaver room" - featuring my mother's copper enamel work. That leaves the entry way and the hallway to the bedrooms to display the large family picture collection. We're going to have recent family photos in the entry way, and the old family photos in the hallway. I filled up the available hallway walls, but still have about half of the picture collection unhung. This happened because we had most of these pictures in the family room before, and there was more wall space. I made several photo sheets of the family pictures in 3 x 5 and 4 x 6 sizes today so we could put them in the large collage frames - perhaps we will use those instead of the large family pictures (some are 24 by 36 or so).

I went to the Family History Center today and saved about 20 pages of South Kingston RI probate records to my flash drive. The records were for Joseph Oatley who died in 1815 and Joseph Champlin who died in 1850. I ordered two more films - one for Westerly RI probate records and the other for Portsmouth RI probate records. When I got home, I loaded the images onto the laptop and printed the pages out. I found that I lost about 20 images of probate records in the computer crash, but I had already printed them before the crash. My next task is to transcribe all of these records into the ancestral database. See - I even did some real genealogy work today.

Our CVGS meeting is on Monday, and I usually don't get home until after 2 PM because I take the speaker to lunch. Therefore, I anticipate blogging on Monday afternoon, but probably not before that.

If you have to scratch your genealogy itch, go watch some of Roots Television. I love it.

"Flat Stanley" has roots!

Do you want a great laugh?

Go watch the "Flat Stanley's Family Tree" video at Roots Television - http://www.rootstelevision.com/ It is in the "New and Featured" tab right now.

Check out the family tree names about halfway through the piece. Very imaginative! Are they in WorldConnect yet?

Besides being funny and absolutely priceless, it may be one of the most effective ways to get kids interested in genealogy and family history. I guess it helps to have Megan Smolenyak as a favorite aunt!

More Effective Googling for Grandpa

Dick Eastman has a post with a note from Peter Wood about using certain letters or words to cut down on the number of hits you get when you are using Google to find other researchers.

Peter recommends using quote marks for the full or partial name of your target ancestor - such as "frank seaver" or "frank walton seaver." This technique is well known (although many experienced people marvel at the novelty of it when they first hear about it) and it works fairly well to cut down the number of hits to search through - it separates the wheat from the chaff in the Google haystack.

NOTE: In the following, I have used brackets to denote what I put in the Google search box.

Peter also recommends using the letter "b" in conjunction with a name (e.g., [ "frank seaver b" ]) by itself in order to find text that starts out "Frank Seaver, b. ..." or "Frank Seaver, born" or "Frank Seaver birth". I've played around for 15 minutes trying to make Peter's idea work (I used names that I know are in several sites of mine on the web), and have failed miserably. Maybe I've just not used the right combination. Google finds hits for the string [ "frank seaver born" ] but not for the string [ "frank seaver b" ]. For example:

If I Google [ "frank seaver" ] (with quote marks), I get 532 hits.

If I Google [ "frank seaver b" ] I get 0 hits.

If I Google [ "frank seaver" b ] I get 161 hits, many of them middle initials of someone else.

If I Google [ "frank seaver born" ] I get 2 hits.

If I Google [ "frank seaver" born ] I get 62 hits.

I have found that Googling the name in quote marks, and then adding the first or last name of the spouse, and/or the year of birth or death, and/or the place of birth or death, to be very effective.

For instance:

If I Google [ "frank seaver" "hattie" ] I get 15 hits, but not some of my own sites (mainly because my web sites have his middle name, Walton).

If I Google [ "frank * seaver" hattie ] I get 10 hits, including my own sites with the middle name of Walton for Frank Seaver - notice I used a wild card "*" where a middle name might be.

If I Google [ "frank * seaver" leominster ] I get 7 hits, all from my own web pages. If someone was looking for descendants or ancestors of Frank Seaver and Hattie Hildreth, they would find me easily.

If I Google [ "frank * seaver" 1852 ] I get 11 hits. Again, another researcher could find me easily.

Don't forget to put last name first for some of these searches - there are many web sites with names in alphabetical surname order, especially cemeteries and BMD indexes.

If you know a person's middle name, you could Google [ "walton seaver" leominster ] and find another researcher. This is especially useful when the surname is very common.

For example, there are a lot of [ "john smith" mary ] hits (over a million), but using John Russell Smith's middle name ala [ "russell smith" mary ] cuts the hits down to just over 100,000. Using birth or death years, full spouse's name, and locations can winnow the Google crop. If I Google [ "russell smith" "mary jones" 1884 chicago ] I get 45 hits, which is a lot more manageable. Even so many of those are for people named "Russell Smith" and not "John Russell Smith" - but you get the idea.

Google, and other search engines, are wonderful tools for the genealogist. You can usually find another researcher easily, if s/he has dropped the names, dates and locations on web sites for others to find. Unfortunately, Google doesn't find these names in the online databases that are dynamic - like WorldConnect, IGI, Ancestry, etc. Google will find the names on the Ancestry and Genforum message boards but not on the Rootsweb mailing lists.

Do you have other Googling for Genealogists tips? Please share them!

"Interpretation of Handwriting" Program on Monday

Our next Chula Vista Genealogical Society program will be on Monday, February 26th at 10 AM in the Chula Vista Civic Center Library auditorium (365 F Street, Chula Vista).

Our speaker will be Dona Ritchie, a well known and active San Diego genealogist who has edited the "German Connection" (published by the German Research Association) and "BIGRA News" (published by the British Isles Genealogical Research Association) local society newsletters for about 10 years.

Dona's topic will be "Interpretation of Handwriting." She will cover the handwriting peculiarities of early to 19th century US and English records (census, immigration, probate, land, etc.) and German records (church records and certificates). She will also offer helpful techniques for transcribing and translating documents, and using the available websites, books and pamphlets to assist in translating foreign materials, or just obsolete terms in old documents (Latin, German, etc.).

This should be an interesting talk - and one that I am keenly interested in. Maybe I can finally learn to read that tricky Elizabethan script that I find baffling.

If you are a San Diego genealogist, please attend our meeting on Monday. Guests and visitors are welcome - there are refreshments, too!

One hundred years ago...

Here are some of the U.S. Statistics for the Year 1906:

• The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years.
• Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
• Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
• A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
• There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S., and only 144 miles of paved roads.
• The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
• Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily populated than California.
• With a mere 1.4 million people, California was only the 21st most populous state in the Union.
• The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
• The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.
• The average U.S. worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
• A competent accountant could expect to earn $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
• More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
• Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education. Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and by the government as "substandard."
• Sugar cost four cents a pound.
• Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
• Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
• Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
• Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
• Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were: 1. Pneumonia and influenza 2. Tuberculosis 3. Diarrhea 4. Heart disease 5. Stroke
• The American flag had 45 stars. Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn't been admitted to the Union yet.
• The population of Las Vegas, Nevada, was only 30!
• Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea had not been invented yet.
• There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
• Two out of every 10 U.S. adults could not read or write.
• Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
• Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores.
• Back then the pharmacist said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health."
• Eighteen percent of households in the U.S. had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
• There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.
• The population of the US was 85,450,000

Isn't it amazing what a difference 100 years makes? What is the same now as it was then? Not much, eh?

Genealogy Blogging presentation

I am scheduled to give a presentation on Genealogy Blogging on March 17th to the Computer Genealogy Society of San Diego. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to say about genea-blogging, but I thought I would ask my loyal readers to help me out.

My outline for the 60 minute talk (on a laptop with Internet access and a projector) is:

1. What is blogging?
2. Why do people blog?
3. What are genealogy blogs good for? Not good for?
4. Different types of genea-blogs - news, tips, personal research, quiz, humor, etc.
5. Blog host sites
6. Carnival of genealogy
7. Demonstrate setting up a new blog on Blogger
8. Demonstrate making a post
9. Demonstrate editing a post
10. Demonstrate changing blog format
11. Demonstrate Bloglines
12. Visit a number of typical blogs
13. Visit Blog aggregators

What else should I talk about? What genealogy blog sites should I visit (I can hear all the bloggers saying "MINE!"). Any other ideas? Please put them in comments. Thanks.

Calling all correspondents

Due to my desktop computer crash, I lost all of my email correspondence over the last two plus years.

If I owe you an email response, please contact me again - so we can re-establish contact again.

I am trying to remember email addresses, or find them on assorted pieces of paper, so if we have corresponded before, and you want to maintain contact, please email me at rjseaver(at)cox(dot)net.

Thanks -- Randy

The house I grew up in

The topic for the next Carnival of Genealogy is to describe "Shelter from the storm, stories of the home and hearth" -- a family home, the history of it, and memories of it.

I choose to discuss the house I grew up in on 30th Street in San Diego. The house was built before 1900 by my great-grandparents, Austin and Della (Smith) Carringer.

Here is what I know about the house itself:

In 1894, Della Carringer bought a lot of land in San Diego for $450. The lot was bounded by Ella (now 30th Street), Watkins Avenue (now Hawthorn Street), Horton (now Ivy Street) and Fern Street in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of San Diego. Her mother, Abbie (Vaux) Smith also bought a lot on the same block.

Austin was a carpenter, and he built the house on the southwestern corner of the block at Ella and Watkins Streets (now 30th and Hawthorn Streets) facing Watkins Street. They occupied the house by 1898 until their deaths in 1946 and 1944, respectively.

A photograph taken in 1900 shows the house with Austin Carringer, his wife Della, their son Lyle (my grandfather), Austin's parents D.J. and Rebecca Carringer, his brother Edgar Carringer, Della's mother Abbie (Vaux) Smith, and the family horse.

This house had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a parlor on the first floor There was a staircase in the center of the house up to the second story. The second story had at least four rooms - including at least two bedrooms, topped by a widow's walk. There was a large front porch on the west and south sides

In about 1927, the house was moved to the middle of the block on 30th Street, and renumbered as 2115 30th Street. The house front porch was modified so that it faced only south, and a living room and den were added on the west side (essentially where the west porch was). A separate second story flat was created by adding to the existing rooms, eliminating the inside staircase, and building two staircases on the north side for the front entry and the kitchen exit, resulting in 2119 30th Street. The structure was then stuccoed over, and the roof was flattened, so that the original frame of the house could not be discerned.

The picture below is from about 1929, the time of Della's Journal. The two-story house in the front of the picture is the 2115/2119 flats. As you can see, the original house has had a full second story added on. The entry for 2115 30th, which is where Della and Austin lived, is on the south side of the building (the side facing to the right).

The San Diego Union of September 11, 1937 has an article headlined "Honeymoon Trip to S.D. Extends Half a Century," with a picture of Austin and Della entitled "True Vowers View Letters on Golden Wedding Day." In the article, Della says "We have lived here on this corner for 39 years. We built this house. On our lot we have planted and grown most every kind of fruit and vegetable that grows in California. Flowers always have been my hobby."

Della designed some of their furniture, and was a painter. She was quoted on their philosophy of life: "We have worked hard as partners and tried always to be kind and helpful to others. After all, we are of the opinion that this is the best religion to make a happy and successful life." The article says that Austin did all of the finishing on their home and also built some of their beautiful furniture.

Now for my memories about the house.

I grew up in the second story flat at 2119 30th Street. It had two bedrooms and a sun room on the south side (over the porch). My family moved in in 1947 after my brother was born. We initially shared the bedroom in the southeast corner. My mother did her artwork, pottery and copper enameling in the sunroom. There was only one bathroom on the east side of the flat, with a bathtub (no shower until about 1960). One of my hideouts was the cubby-hole over the entry staircase - I could watch the street and not be seen by anyone inside or outside.

When my youngest brother was born in 1955, my brother and I moved into the sun room. My dad built a long desk and we had a stand-alone closet. From our bedroom, we could see the buildings in downtown San Diego, the end of Polint Loma and occasionally ships at sea. My father's desk was in the entry way at the top of the stairs. A wall heater was also in the office - a very popular place on cool mornings. The dining room had a large bookcase and a large dining room table.

From about 1951, the downstairs flat at 2115 30th was rented to tenants. There were several long term tenants who enjoyed the hand-built rooms. I loved going downstairs and seeing the living room, den and dining room especially.

After my grandparents died in the 1970's, my parents moved to their Point Loma house, and my younger brother rented the upstairs flat for several years with his young family. My parents sold all of the property in 1983 to a neighbor, who had purchased 2130 Fern Street (the house that my grandparents built) earlier. I still drive by occasionally, and have even taken pictures of the current house (now painted a sort of nectarine color). I've thought about knocking on the doors and asking to see the flats, but haven't done so. If they ever go on the market, I'm going to go look at them to refresh my memories of the room layout. And I'm going to look for my baseball card collection from the 1950's in my secret hiding place.

That's the story of "my" house. If only the walls could talk and tell me stories - I would go listen by the hour!

Happy 275th Birthday - George Washington

Happy birthday, George!

275 years after his birth, the Father of His Country is one of my heroes. His life is ably summarized by his Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_washington

I think the quality I most admire about George is his persistence and determination. He rarely won a battle before Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown in 1781. But he kept the Continental Army together throughout the 6 years of the War, over the protests of sunshine patriots and loyalists. Then he served his country again as our first President for eight years, creating a government form and making it work, and then set an excellent example by retiring after two terms.

George and Martha had no children, and so there are no known descendants of George Washington. This is probably a good thing, actually - he stands alone in history with no decendants to embarrass him. Was he perfect? Of course not - he was human. He had slaves, he made mistakes, but he got the United States of America off to a great start with the other Founders.

I thank God for George Washington (1732-1799).

List of Global Online Repositories

Miriam Midkiff, in her excellent Ancestories genealogy blog, found a wonderful list of worldwide online repositories. Her post is at http://ancestories1.blogspot.com/2007/02/jackpot-global-list-of-repositories.html. The Repositories of Primary Sources is at http://www.uidaho.edu/special-collections/Other.Repositories.html. The site is described as:

"A listing of over 5000 websites describing holdings of manuscripts, archives, rare books, historical photographs, and other primary sources for the research scholar."

The web site listings of repositories are divided up by location. The Western states are in one list, and the eastern states are in two separate lists. Canadian provinces are mixed in with the states. There are lists for Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa, etc.

I went looking for interesting web sites in Massachusetts. I browsed through the Concord Free Public Library site at http://www.concordnet.org/library/scollect/scoll.html. They had a link to the Wheeler Genealogy (George Wheeler is one of my immigrant ancestors in the 1630's). The Wheeler page had a picture of the Wheeler-Scotchford house, which I had not heard of before. There is a link to the Old Hill Burying Ground in concord at http://www.concordnet.org/library/scollect/GraveMarkers.htm.

Manuscripts held by large and small repositories are often underused by genealogy researchers, especially those searching mainly on the Internet. This Repository of Primary Sources site will really help all of us determine what is held at repositories in the localities, and may lead to new discoveries of our ancestors family history.

I will spend hours looking for interesting and useful data at the Repository site! Into the "Libaries" list of Favorites it goes.

Thanks, Miriam, for finding this and telling us about it.