Notes from NGS

Thomas W. Jones, Elizabeth Shown Mills, Warren Bittner, D. Joshua Taylor, Jane E. Wilcox: people I had heard about, but by whom I had never attended a presentation before this week. Ceil Jensen, David Ouimette: familiar faces in the crowd and speakers I had met before. Building evidence, computer applications, women's resources, context of place: familiar topics with new tidbits gleaned.

My most intriguing potential new source of information: Presidential libraries! Which of my ancestors are most likely to have written a letter to a sitting President? Jane Wilcox presented a copy of a letter she had written to President Nixon, retrieved from his library. She had also made a search through the collection at the FDR library in Hyde Park, which is not indexed. I'm pretty sure that my parents would have written to the White House during my lifetime. Were there other political activists in my family tree? I will have to see what I can uncover.

Who Got Married Here?

I am looking forward to attending my first National Genealogical Society Family History Conference in Las Vegas in two weeks.  It is fresh on the heels of the New England Regional Genealogical Conference in Manchester, NH, where I had a great time conversing with other bloggers in person and attending a few sessions on Thursday.  I had to cut my stay short to attend my son's wedding. An exciting event to add to the family tree!

I don't see a session on the NGS program covering "Las Vegas Weddings" - maybe there should be.  You see, after meticulously planning my first trip to Las Vegas - a week-long vacation - around the NGS conference in May, my son surprised me with an announcement that he was getting married in Vegas in April!  In this way, my first trip became my second trip and I scrambled to figure out how to organize a brief weekend jaunt.

According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau, an average of nearly 100,000 marriage licenses are issued there annually. Well over 1,000 of them generally take place on Valentine's Day.   I checked the web page for the Clark County License Bureau and confirmed that they are open daily until midnight to serve the romantic public.  Numerous chapels with a wide variety of themes are available, as are the facilities of the resort hotels.  I was much more of a traditionalist when I married and will admit I never considered an Elvis wedding.  My son and his lovely bride did!

It proved to be both a fun and touching event, pictured above.  The wedding package at the Graceland Chapel included a reproduction of the wedding certificate of Elvis and Priscilla Presley. As a genealogist, that was of much less interest to me than my son's wedding certificate.  Of course it lists the names, dates of birth, and residence of the parties.  Parents' are listed (he spelled mine correctly.) This license came from Virginia, where he is currently living.  I looked closer.  It was executed on March 1, 2013.  It was signed by a Virginia Civil Magistrate.  Wait a minute!  The ceremony that we had just celebrated, although it had all of the words and legal standing, was NOT a wedding.  Technically, I suppose it was a renewal of vows.  Vows that were officially taken seven weeks earlier!

Is this a genealogist's nightmare?  I have a certificate and therefore the date and place of marriage.  A future researcher might find this certificate again someday by searching indices.  The groom is  Massachusetts resident, stationed in Virginia in the U.S. Army.  The bride is a Slovakian, temporarily working as an au pair in Maryland. There is no telling where they may move next.  Rumor has it that there may be yet another wedding in a European church next year.  Without the stories to go with this marriage, the photographs may lead to all kinds of erroneous assumptions.  Good thing this is going on my blog.  The internet is forever...

P.S. When you don't tell Mom the whole story, she will eventually figure it out.

Viva Las Vegas!

What is more fun than a room full of genealogists?  A hotel full!

The largest gathering I have attended was NERGC in Springfield, MA in 2011, within commuting distance of my home.  I have considered the genealogy cruises, but never took the plunge.  When the location for the NGS 2013 Family History Conference was announced, I was more than tempted.  I have never visited Las Vegas, and my favorite traveling companion was game.

We anxiously awaited the opening of registration, and made our plane reservations.  There will be side trips.  One of my father's most memorable trips was his flight over the Grand Canyon out of Las Vegas, and he was not usually a willing traveler.  The research of a range of possibilities continues.

Then a week ago I learned that I had been planning my SECOND trip to Vegas.  My son announced he will be married in the Elvis Chapel on April 20.  I wouldn't miss it for the world!  And I'll be adding that date in the family tree very soon.

Meanwhile, I'll be blogging about the conference.  I am honored to be selected as an Official Blogger and will be sharing my experiences as a first-timer!

My Mother is Not a Genealogist

My mother liked her stories.  I can imagine her being the quiet one, sitting by with a book while the adults talked.  She said her ancestors came from Connecticut.  She said her cousin Edith disappeared.  She pointed out Lucius Colman's name on the bridge near her house.  Lucius and Lucien were the twins, she said, her great-uncles.  When she was twelve she visited in Holyoke.

Mom's photograph of Samuel and Nabby Colman's grave in Richfield Springs, NY was the beginning of my search for family history.  She transcribed the stone - inaccurately.

Except for the witch, she was only interested in people named Coleman.  When I told her that further research indicated we weren't descended from Susanna North Martin after all, she continued to tell people about the witch in our family tree.  She never forgave Governor Jane Swift for pardoning the accused at Salem.

I spent a lot of time searching for Edith Colman.  Sure, she showed up in the 1880 census with her parents near Cooperstown.  But anything could have happened in the 20 years until the 1900 census. Lots of women married, changed their names, moved west, died in childbirth.  Where did Edith go?  The world of searchable newspapers at FultonHistory.com finally yielded her story.  It is a tragic one after all, but that is a story for another day.  When I finally got the facts together for Mom, she didn't remember Edith.  But over the years I have enumerated Edith's descendants, and I may meet one in person next month.

Every time we drove up Rt. 91 she remarked on the Holyoke exit.  It was another world for a 12 year old from the country - apartment blocks with courtyards and laundry hanging in between.  I would prompt her, "Uncle.....?" First names, last names; were they Brodericks or Meeneghans?  I may never know. They were cousins.  Just like the cousins in East Springfield they used to visit on the farm.  I'm still looking for the right relationship to place them on the famiy tree.
Social notes in small town newspapers from the early 1900s are a gold mine for family historians.  Teas, vacations, visits from successful adult children all are revealed by the roving reporters.  I found Mom's school plays, Girl Scout camp adventures, and finally in 1936, a trip to Holyoke.  Who did she visit?  Relatives!

[From the Utica Daily Press, Friday, July 17, 1936]

Where Were You?

People of a "certain" age now have two defining moments in our lifetimes.  For almost 40 years, the "where were you?" question referred to the assassination of President Kennedy.  In 2001 that changed with the terrorist attacks by airplane.  In the first case, I was a kindergartener, but I clearly remember disbelieving the older kids on the school bus, because how could a President be shot? 

On September 11, 2001 I had gone to shower at my mother's apartment because I was in the midst of another bathroom renovation.  The background noise from the little TV soon became the centerpiece of our morning.  Peter Jennings became our closest informant. Although there was a special horror for Massachusetts folks because of the flight that originated in Boston, my focus was on New York City, where I had a personal attachment to the skyline from my years of living in Clifton, New Jersey.  It was in many ways the same sense of disbelief I had felt at the age of five, and in other ways very different as an adult and a parent.

We all know about the range of emotions that came in the days and months after.  I am not going to try to put it into words.  The feeling of silence struck me, though, knowing there were no planes in the sky for days afterwards. Empty.

Philadelphia Remembered

Anson Colman was New York State doctor in the early 1800s who took his education very seriously.  His story is detailed in an earlier blog post here. His view of Philadelphia, expressed in a letter to his father, seems worthy of transcribing in its entirety.  I didn't adjust his spelling, and there are a few words that I couldn't discern. Note that Franklin and Charles are his brothers.

Philadelphia
25th December 1831 

My Dear Father

When I arrived in this City early in October I had not the least idea that I should almost have entered upon a new year before I had performed the pleasing duty of writing to you. As my time has been constantly occupied with the special object of visit and stay in this city, I hope you will excuse my negligence. I arrived here in verry indifferent health, bringing with me the remains of a lingering in--- which had harrassed me more or less for seven weeks before I left home. I am now however quite recovered.

I find the medical University here quite equal to my most sanguine expectations. The School of Anatomy in particular transcends every thing of the kind on this side of the Atlantick, and perhaps if we except the Anatomical School of Paris is not surpassed even in the old world. Surgery too (as well as the other branches of) is verry ably taught. The practice of medicine not less so. The patients in the Surgical & Medical wards of the Pennsylvania Hospital and Philadelphia Alms House have exceeded three thousand in the two establishments ever since I have been here. To these institutions as well as to the Lectures and dissecting rooms the students have ample access by paying for the several tickets which are to be obtained. The other branches of the medical Professsion, if we except that of Chemistry, are not better (do not surpass) if they are as well taught here as they are in Boston.

Philadelphia has improved verry much since I was here. The extension of a large and beautiful city, laid out with the most perfect regularity presents a verry imposing appearance. We talk in Rochester of the magick influcene wrought in our village By the erection of two hundred houses in a year, many of which are indifferent enough. But here more than two thousand noble edifices have been erected within the present year, whole streets in this vast city built up with lofty four story buildings. The city contains now rising of 19,000 inhabitants. Here two there are many of those reminiscences of “the olden time” It is the city of the Penns!! The theatre on which a Franklin, a Rittenhouse a Rush have performed their import parts. Where too was assembled, at a period which tried mens souls, the uncompromising --- spirits who pledge their “lives their fortunes and their sacred honor” to the instrament of American independence. Where Washington spent the eight years in which he presided of the civil, and most of the time that he wielded the military destinies of the nation. The house in which he lived is still standing. It is a plain two story brick building with the door in the center and the gable end to the street. Often as I pass its unpretending front I strain my eyes as if it we(re) to catch a glimpse of the man “first in peace, first in war, first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

The old House of Congress, the hall in which was debated, the yards in which it was first publickly declared that “America is and of right ought to be free,” the bell which first peeled to the joyous sons of liberty a nations birth, still remain: and as you gaze upon even these relicks of that great day the mind drinks in a deeper veneration for memories of those whose feat it was.

I hope you hear often from Charles and that what you hear is to his a---. Charles is left in circumstances of some responsibility during my absence. But to the perfection of my plans in regard to my own professional interest I decided it best for me to be away this winter, not believing it to be my duty to stay at home on his account. I placed him under particular supervision of Mr. Whitehouse who will neglect no means of rendering himself useful to Charles.

We are now completely ice bound, the Delaware having been frozen over for two weeks so as to bear the heaviest ---. I hope to see it clear of ice in the --- of January as I wish to go to Washington to spend the last week in January. Should the Hudson & Delaware be open at the first of March when I hope to leave here I shall return by New York and Albany and shall of course stop to spend a day or two with you. Should the rivers be closed however I shall return across the back part of this state by way of the Big Bend of the Susquehannah and the head of Cayuga Lake which is much nearer. 

Please say to Franklin that I am shall write to him before long. I wish you to write me as soon as convenient. I hope you have been so fortunate as to preserve your health during this inclement winter. Assure my dear Mother of my continued affection for her notwithstanding the difference of our views in regard to “raising boys.” Make my affectionate respects to my brothers and their families and believe me your affectionate son 

A.Colman

Addressed to: Samuel Colman, Esq.
East Richfield
Otsego County, New York

Titanic Connection

My mother, her mother, and her aunts periodically worked for the Ryerson/Salvatore family who spent their summers on Otsego Lake, just north of Cooperstown, NY. I remember going with them to open the big house called Swanswick in the Spring, letting the fresh air in and removing the sheets that covered the furniture. This was a relationship that lasted for four generations, as my great-grandmother received an invitation to the wedding of Ellen Ryerson in Chicago in 1917 and my great aunt cared for her children and grandchildren in Cooperstown, Scarsdale, and Washington DC over the years.

Ellen "Nell" Ryerson was the daughter of Arthur Ryerson and Emily Borie. While Nell and her brother Arthur jr. were in school in the Spring of 1912, their family was traveling in France. Arthur, a student at Yale, was the victim of a fatal car accident on April 8 in Bryn Mawr PA. Upon receiving the news, the Ryerson family booked passage on the next available ship - the Titanic sailing on its maiden voyage.

Arthur Ryerson, lawyer and steel baron, went down on the ship, after seeing his wife, daughters Emily and Suzette, and son John into the lifeboats with their governess and maid. The 1997 movie reportedly mentions that the fictional character of Jack Dawson (actor Leonardo DiCaprio) filched a coat belong to Arthur Ryerson.

As an aside, it was reported that Mr. Ryerson caught the attention of Juliette Gordon, future founder of the Girl Scouts at "an outing in Providence" in 1883, prior to his marriage. See this article.

(Photo from Encyclopedia Titanica)