(Not So) wordless Wednesday - Family Photographs: Post 82 - Seaver Christmas Tree

I'm posting old family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be wordless Wednesday posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

This photograph is from the box of loose photographs given me by my mother between 1988 and 2002:


This photograph is from Christmas 1970 (I think) and was taken in the living room of the Seaver home at 2119 30th Street in San Diego. The people shown are my father, Frederick Seaver (age 58 at the time), my brother Scott (age 15 at the time) and my mother Betty (age 51 at the time). This was my first year to be married, and I don't have digitized pictures of my first Christmas together with Linda.

From the mid-1960s on, my parents bought white flocked trees at the Christmas tree lots around town. My mother, ever the artiste, enjoyed decorating them. My father and my brother, ever the chow-hounds, just enjoyed the Christmas goodies and the gifts!

Advent Calendar: Day 23 - Holiday Food

On the 23rd Day of Christmas,
My Angel Linda gives to me
Turkey, mashed potatoes, and peas.

1) Did your family have any traditional dishes for the holidays?

Our Christmas dinner (sometimes on Christmas Eve, sometimes on Christmas Day) in San Diego was always turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, peas, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and mince pie. I doubt that I had anything else when I was a child and young adult, at least at my parents or grandparents homes.

After I was married and we visited San Francisco, Linda's parents had one more item - creamed onions.

When my family has Christmas dinner now (us, my brothers, our kids and grandkids), we have - guess what - turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, dressing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. It rarely changes!

2) Was there one dish that you thought was unusual?

For me, it was the creamed onions in San Francisco.

3) Not on Tom's question list, but ... I just have to share it, because it was associated so closely with the dinner.

The absolute highlight of the Christmas dinner was the family competition that followed the meal, but before the dessert. The game was "toss the pea into the glass." In the beginning, it was just my dad and the three boys. There were always leftover peas, so one of us would commandeer the pea bowl and pass peas to the other contestants. Then we would spread out around the table and set up our water glass at equal distances from each other.

The game was to see who could toss the most peas in the water glass opposite them. Of course, the misses weren't contained on top of the table. And the misses were greeted by howls of laughter and derision. Those who put their pea in the glass, shouted out the number of peas they had made so far.

My mother, my wife and the other females would withdraw and not watch, but often commented about "boys being boys." My mother really didn't like this game, and I think she intentionally made fewer peas each year.

To try to assuage her anger and keep family peace, the game has devolved to throwing wadded up paper napkins into the glass or cup. My competitive daughters, and now my sons-in-law (and I'm sure it won't be long before the grandchildren) all participate in the Betty Seaver Memorial Pea Toss - but using napkins in deference to her wishes.

This post was originally published on 3 December 2007.

Orphans of two kinds

The topic of the 85th Carnival of Genealogy is "Orphans and Orphans." The first type of orphan refers to those ancestors or relatives who lost their parents when they were young. The second type of orphan would be those siblings or cousins of our ancestors who could be called “reverse orphans.” They are the relatives who, for whatever reason – death at a young age, never having married or had children, or having children who did not survive to provide descendants – have no direct descendants of their own, so it falls to us, their collateral relatives, to learn and write their story.

Part 1 - they lost their parents

I know of at least one orphan (of sorts) in my family tree. He is, of course, Devier James Lamphear alias Smith - who I have discussed in these posts:

* Stymied on Devier J. Lamphear Smith problems

* Resolving an Evidence Conflict - Post 2: The Evidence

In short, Ranslow and Mary (Bell) Smith of Henderson, Jefferson County, New York adopted Devier J. Lamphear (may be Lamphier, Lamphere, Lanphear, Lanfear, Lanphier, Lanphere, etc.) beforem oving to Dodge County, wisconsin in about 1843. Devier J. Lamphier legally changed his name to Devier J. Smith on 21 March 1866, and went by that name for all of his life. I have been unable to track down his birth parents to date, although I have some decent candidates in the children of William Lanfear and Isaac Lanfear, both of Lorraine, Jefferson County, New York. One of their sons may be Devier's father, or one of their daughters may have had Devier out of wedlock.

The unfortunate part of finding out about Devier being adopted by the Smiths is that it took away a fascinating Hudson River Dutch ancestry of Mary Bell through her mother, Cornelia Bresee. I worked several years on that, and now it sits dormant in my database without a connection to my family tree.

Type 2 - the ones that died young

My aunt Marion, Aunt Geraldine and Uncle Ed never failed to remind me that there were children in our ancestral families that died young, including:

* Clarence Hildreth (born 24 May 1874, died 21 February 1878), son of Edward and Sophia (Newton) Hildreth of Leominster, MA. Clarence was the only sibling of Harriet Louise (Hildreth) Seaver, my great-grandmother. The Massachusetts Vital Records entry (Volume 303, Page 345) for his death says the cause was "Ac. poisoning." I wonder if that means "acute poisoning," "accidental poisoning" or some other type of poisoning? There is a listing down the page for "Ac. drowning" so it probably means "Accidental poisoning." I don't have a picture of Clarence Seaver.

* Howard Edward Seaver (born 8 August 1893, died 10 April 1900), son of Frank Walton and Hattie (Hildreth) Seaver, my great-grandparents. Clarence was a sibling of Frederick Walton and Harry Clifton Seaver. The Massachusetts Vital Records entry (Volume 506, Page 389) lists the cause of death as "meningitis from disease of middle ear." I don't have a picture of Howard Seaver.

* Stanley Richmond Seaver (born 20 October 1905, died 24 April 1910), son of Frederick Walton and Alma Bessie (Richmond) Seaver of Leominster and Fitchburg MA, my grandparents. Stanley was a brother of my father, Frederick Walton Seaver (1911-1983), who named his second son after him. The Massachusetts Vital Records (Volume 43, Page 70) for 1910 says that Stanley Richmond Seaver died of "scarlet fever" on 24 April 1910, age 5. I have a picture of him here.

Finally, there is Devier David Carringer (born 19 August 1889, died 10 May 1890), son of Henry Austin and Della (Smith) Carringer, my great-grandparents. Devier was the only sibling of my grandfather, Lyle Lawrence Carringer. I posted a picture and the death card of Devier here.

CVGS "Heirloom Discovery Day" Highlights

The Chula Vista Genealogical Society "Heirloom Discovery Day" program was last Wednesday with Georgie Stillman, ASA, as our superb heirloom appraisal expert.

The heirlooms presented by eleven of our members are summarized in "Heirloom Discovery Day" Program Highlights - 11/25 and pictures of five of the heirlooms and their presenters are in Some Heirloom Photos from Georgie Stillman program.

The CVGS events for December are listed in Genealogy Days in Chula Vista - December 2009 .

Advent Calendar: Day 24 - The Christmas Tree

This post is number 1 in a series of 24 for the 2009 Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories.

On the 24th Day of Christmas,
I'm supposed to talk about the Christmas Tree.

Did you have a real tree, or was it artificial? How big was the tree? Who decorated the tree?

When I was a kid ... we always had a real tree, but a dead one. My folks would get it from a tree lot somewhere. The tree was usually 6 to 7 feet tall, and was almost always a Douglas Fir. I think we had several flocked trees over the years.

The tree was set up in the "cubby-hole" at 2119 30th Street in San Diego - the upstairs flat. It was visible from the street. I think my dad attached the tree stand, and strung the lights - they were multi-colored bulb lights on a continuous string - if one went out, they all went out. My mom would put most of the ornaments on the tree, especially the "nice" ones that were up at the top where little boys couldn't touch them. Then she had a gauzy white covering to put over the tree stand.

The "cubby-hole" was out of the traffic areas of the living room, but it was highly visible to anybody in the living room. If one of we boys were caught shaking, feeling up or opening the wrapped gift boxes, there were threats made about taking them back to the store.

There were other Christmas trees in my life as a kid. My grandparents always set up a tall Douglas Fir in their living room - in the corner by the window looking out toward the Bay. We went there for Christmas Eve because they had a fireplace (made sense - Santa could visit us much better - although he never neglected us at 2119).

The other Christmas Tree was at cousin Dorothy's house in Kensington. Dorothy was my dad's first cousin - her mother Emily (Richmond) Taylor was my father's mother's sister. Dorothy was an artist, and always had a non-traditional tree. Not an evergreen - usually a manzanita bush without leaves, or some other hand-cut bush or tree. She decorated this tree with hand-made ornaments of her own design. My mother always loved the originality, to we boys (including my dad), this wasn't really a Christmas Tree.

A side note: I'm going to concentrate in these posts on my childhood, rather than on my married family times, or the current post-children years. My goal in writing these is to be able to provide a nice collection of memories so that my children and grandchildren can read them if they are interested.

Note: This post was originally written on 30 November 2007. It has been edited slightly.

"Find My Family" on ABC-TV

Did you watch the new ABC-TV series, "Find My Family" last night? I saw a reference to it at 8:59 p.m. and was in front of my TV at 9:01 p.m.

In last night's episode, two cases were solved that both featured adopted children trying to find their birth families. In the first case, titled "Wonder Moment," Ashley, adopted at birth, was reunited with the brother she knew existed, and the younger sister that she didn't know about. The show researchers found Ashley's family by searching Ohio birth records - first for Ashley, listed with no name in the index, but with an uncommon mother's surname, and they found the other two children with the same surname, contacted them and the match was made. Pretty basic research, but effective. The match would have been impossible if the surname had been more common.

In the second case, titled "Mom Moment," Jamie, a single mother of three, meets her birth mother, June, after a long search for June in the online directories. The case was solved by checking all of the places June lived and finding someone in the neighborhood that knew where she lived.

Both cases were heavy on the dramatics, the tears, and the joy of the reunions. The reunions take place on a small hill under a large "family tree" - kind of hokey, but good visuals. The people then sit and talk on a bench under the tree to get to know each other. Eventually, they meet the extended family.

Both subjects in last night's episode had searched for years in online resources, but without success. Little time was spent on the actual search for the relatives. It is difficult to tell how long the search took, and if resources unavailable to "normal" genealogists were made available.

This is a reality show, and in prime time, but was only bought for six episodes. The first episode was last week, and I missed it.

If this type of program interests you, then tune in next Monday evening to ABC-TV at 9 p.m. EST/MST/PST, 8 p.m. CST.

Cyber Monday Genealogy Specials

Today is supposed to be the biggest online shopping day of the year. Here are some genealogy-related specials for your shopping pleasure - for the genealogist that just needs to have everything!

* Footnote has a $39.95 one-year subscription Cyber-Monday special here. Good only on 30 November. Retail price is $79.95 for one year.

* Michael John Neill has a Casefile Clues subscription for $12 on Cyber-Monday here. Good only on 30 November.

* Leland Meitzler's Family Roots Publishing has Cyber-Monday specials on many titles here. Good through 30 November.

* OneGreatFamily has a Cyber-Monday special of $59.95 for one-year, plus two free months, here. Good through 30 November. Regular annual membership is $79.95.

* Lisa Louise Cooke is offering discounts on her Genealogy Gems book and Premium Channel here, through 30 November.

Diane Haddad on the Family Tree Magazine blog listed several other deals here, which I just saw as I wrote this post.

Getting Help for Family Tree Maker 2010

There are two places that a Family Tree Maker 2010 user can get instructions for using the program or obtain help to answer questions or solve problems.

The first place is within Family Tree Maker 2010 itself - on the Help menu item shown in every workspace. When a user clicks on the "Help" menu item, a window opens with a Welcome screen, and tabs for Contents, Index and Search are in the left-hand sidebar:




Using the "Help" menu, a user can usually find an answer to a specific question or step-by-step directions to perform an operation.

The second place to obtain help and instruction is from the Family Tree Maker website at http://www.familytreemaker.com/. If you click on the "Support" tab on the top menu of the site, you get the "Getting Help with Family Tree Maker" page:



There are an umber of links on this page to different FTM helps. For instance, the Getting Started Guide to Family Tree Maker 2010 link provides a PDF file (for downloading) with directions to begin your first Family Tree Maker project and master the program’s basic features:

The Knowledge Base link provides a long list of articles with up-to-date information about Family Tree Maker and related products and services:

If a user clicks on one of the articles listed, or an article found by using a Search query, the article provides detailed information about the subject. for instance, here is the article titled Uploading my file from Family Tree Maker to Ancestry.com:

Back on the FTM Support page, there is a "Tutorials" link in the left-hand sidebar for Family Tree Maker 2010, which lists eight different video tutorials:

Another link on the left-hand sidebar is titled "Webinars." Clicking on this link takes you to the Webinar page specifically for Family Tree Maker (all recent variants):

Webinars are, when they are online live, interactive with the speakers discussing and showing a presentation, and the online audience can ask questions and participate in surveys. After the event, any user can hear and view the webinar content by registering to do so.

What if you have a question that you cannot find help for, or have a great idea for a new feature or capability for Family Tree Maker? Well, you can click on the "Enhancement Requests" link on the "Support" page. When you do this, you see a form that requests your email address, your idea or problem, and a description of your problem or idea:

The Family Tree Maker "Support" Page also has links for getting help with earlier Family Tree Maker versions, including FTM 2009, FTM 2008, and FTM Versions 2005, 2006 and 16 (the earlier versions that are completely different from FTM 2008/2009/2010). There are no visible links to even earlier versions of Family Tree Maker.

However, the Family Tree Maker Software Message Board on Rootsweb/Ancestry, and the Using Family Tree Maker message board on Genforum, have thousands of queries from users and responses from other users and FTM volunteers for most of the earlier and current versions of Family Tree Maker.

Lastly, Russ Worthington has the Family Tree Maker User blog that shows FTM 2010 features and functions.

Why is Genealogy Software so Complex?

One of my society colleagues recently told me:

"All I want is a software program that lets me input my names, dates, places, notes, sources and photos so that I can organize my genealogy research. Then I want to be able to make nice charts, print out genealogy lists and reports, and upload my family tree to Ancestry.com. Why do they have to make this so hard?"

It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Just a database. Oh, I want all of these features. And I want to be able to share it.

Having written some engineering software a long time ago, I know that "it isn't really that easy!" I marvel at the capabilities of all of the available genealogy software programs - they have not only the features that my colleague wanted, but almost everything that you and I, and the other million or so genealogy software users, want! Is it any wonder that genealogy software is so complex?

Genealogy software is very complicated these days because the genealogy industry is so competitive - each company wants to offer a complete suite of features, and a new capability from one program is often in later versions of the other programs. Also, genealogy research can be extremely complex (think about multiple and preferred facts, hundreds of source types, multiple spouses, adoptions, DNA, same-sex, LDS ordinations, etc.) - and the software programs need to include all possible capabilities so as to attract as many customers as possible.

Consequently, the software has been designed to satisfy the needs of beginners and professionals alike, and most commercial programs have advanced features in order to be competitive and to satisfy all of their users. In general, they all succeed at adding features and being competitive.

However, the users are often befuddled by a genealogy program and its capabilities. After the software installation on your computer, whether from CDROM or downloading from the Internet, how do you start inputting data? Some users have GEDCOM files available, or the new software permits an upload of an existing database from another program. But beginning researchers have to start somewhere, with Person #1. And then spouse, children, parents, grandparents, and on and on until they have built their family tree out to, perhaps, thousands of persons with facts, notes and sources.

Where do they find help to get them started, and to help them input data correctly? The answer is twofold - every software program has a Help item or tab on their menus, and most programs have online Help features.

In other posts, I will provide links and some detail about the Help features of Family Tree Maker 2010, Legacy Family Tree 7 and RootsMagic 4. These are the three programs that I am somewhat familiar with and that many researchers currently use. Earlier versions of these software programs have similar Help functions, but the online support may not be as extensive as it is for the three programs noted above.

Best of the Genea-Blogs - November 22-28, 2009

Hundreds of genealogy and family history bloggers write thousands of posts every week about their research, their families, and their interests. I appreciate each one of them and their efforts.

My criteria for "Best of ..." are pretty simple - I pick posts that advance knowledge about genealogy and family history, address current genealogy issues, provide personal family history, are funny or are poignant. I don't list posts destined for the genealogy carnivals, or other meme submissions (but I do include summaries of them), or my own posts.

Here are my picks for great reads from the genealogy blogs for this past week:

* 19th and 21st Century Culture Clash in Middle America by Bernie Gracy on the HistoricalTownMaps Blog. Bernie and his son took a road trip and they both learned some history.

* Day One Grandma's Genie Camp, Day Two Grandma's Geni 101 Class, Day 3 of Grandma's Genie Camp, and Day 4 --- Grandma's Genie Camp by Ruth on the Genealogy is Ruthless Without Me blog. Ruth set a great example for genealogy grandparents this week - read all of these posts!

* Digitized Records Not Just for Mormons by the writer of The Ancestry Insider blog. Mr. AI sets his correspondents straight about access to the LDS New FamilySearch and Family History Centers.

* Dad Memorial Scanfest, part 2: How we used the images by Susan A. Kitchens on the Family Oral History Using Digital Tools blog. Susan recounts her efforts to put together a memorial for her father -a wonderful example of what can be done.

* Computer Tricks 3 – Naming Electronic Files by Natalie Cottrill on The ProGenealogists(R) Blog. I really like Natalie's naming conventions - wonder how long it will take me to rename all of my images?

* Resources for PDF by Thomas MacEntee on the Geneabloggers blog. Thomas provides links to some tools to work with PDF files.

* Going to the Source by Daniel Hubbard on the Personal Past Meditations - A Genealogical Blog. Daniel has an interesting article about non-conventional sources and their importance.

* An End to File Cabinet Genealogy by Thomas Fiske on Leland Meitzler's GenealogyBlog blog. Tom is thinking ahead about how we save all of our genealogy work, and who saves it.

* How to find Native American Heritage by Amy Crooks on the Untangled Family Roots blog. I really appreciate Amy's post because I've had similar queries and have been unable to respond well.

* A Big Appetite, He must have loved Thanksgiving! by Heather Wilkinson Rojo on the Nutfield Genealogy blog. Here's a fascinating story about one of Heather's relatives, and her research of his life.

* Talking Turkey: Family history holiday by Schelly Talalay Dardashti on the Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog. Schelly's has a classic Thanksgiving turkey story - don't miss this one!

* Evolution of my Slovak Research by Martin Hollick on The Slovak Yankee blog. I am fascinated by the process of how researchers get back to the "old country" - Martin tells his story.

* Indexes are hearsay by James Tanner on the Genealogy's Star blog. James has excellent advice for all researchers about using indexes only as finding aids.

* WAXING POETIC ABOUT GENEALOGY: THE GREAT AMERICAN LOCAL POEM GENEALOGY CHALLENGE by Bill West on the West in New England blog. Bill created this one-time carnival - 15 writers responded - please read them all, a fine collection.

* What's In A Name? Open To the Possibilities by Caroline M. Pointer on the Family Stories blog. Caroline thinks it's a good idea to keep track of given names in the family - excellent advice.

* Taking Them from Names to People by Miles Meyer on the Miles' Genealogy Tips blog. Miles shows how he turned basic genealogy data into family history for one of his great-grandfathers. Well put, and well done.

I encourage you to go to the blogs listed above and read their articles, and add their blog to your Favorites, Bloglines, reader, feed or email if you like what you read. Please make a comment to them also - all bloggers appreciate feedback on what they write.

Did I miss a great genealogy blog post? Tell me! I am currently reading posts from over 540 genealogy bloggers using Bloglines, but I still miss quite a few it seems.

Read past Best of the Genea-Blogs posts here.