Happy Birthday to Lissi!

Lissi Diehl celebrates her 

100^th birthday on 27 December 2013! 

She was born Elizabeth Diehl on 27 Dec 1913 in Marburg, Hessen, Germany to Jacob and Lina (Schraub) Diehl.  She had two younger sisters, Margarete and Hildegard.  During the Diehl Family Gathering in Butzbach, Germany in 2007 she met many cousins from other countries, including Finalnd, Sweden and the USA.  She still lives in her home in Butzbach under the care of her nephew Alfred Häuser.

Hilde and Lissi in 2007

What is in a Name?

Genealogy Tip of the Day
Names that Appear from Nowhere

Those middle or first names of family members that appear out of the blue could be from relatives you do not yet know about, famous people, locations, or someone's maiden name.

And it is always possible your ancestor simply pulled the name out of thin air.

Used with permission © Michael John Neill, “Genealogy Tip of the Day,” http://genealogytipoftheday.blogspot.com, 7 Aug 2013.

The 3 Merles

                      When I read this tip it resonated with me!  I share a middle name with my mother, who was named for her maternal aunt and godmother.  All three of us have October birthdays.   My children have their own unique first names, but their middle names are after family members.  My sister used the same naming convention with her children – unique first name, family middle name.

                In doing family history research, it is apparent that there were naming conventions in many of my “branches.”  One direct line has 5 generations of Henrys, along with a plethora of Samuels, Benjamins and Williams!   We also have three women in three generations named Merle in our family tree.  Merle Davies was my great-grandmother Mamie’s younger sister.  (Mamie’s full name was Mary Elizabeth Davies Kell.)  Mamie named her daughter Merle Elizabeth.  Merle Elizabeth then named her daughter Merle Jean.  The middle name Jean came from her younger sister, Sarah Jean.

                Recently my mother revealed how her daughters got their names in her Living Story.  It seems in high school my parents discovered that the middle letters of their first names were the same. When Mom found out she was pregnant, they assumed the baby would be a boy and he would be Aaron.  Surprise!  I turned out to be a girl, so they stayed with the middle letters and named me Caron. (The nurse in labor and delivery warned her that I would hate her for the unusual spelling, but I like it!)  During my mother’s second pregnancy, they once again anticipated a boy, who would be called Donald, after my father’s cousin.  Turns out it was a girl, my sister Donna, still named for her godfather Uncle Don!   When my mother was pregnant a third time, the baby was referred to as Amos by all of us.  When the baby was a girl, she was called Amy with her middle name for her godmother.

                My paternal grandmother gave her first born son family names as middle names.  My father was the second son.  She named him Aaron Leon.  Those names appear NOWHERE in our family tree.   She is no longer available to ask the origin of that name so I can only speculate.  She was a church-going lady and so perhaps Aaron was a Biblical reference.  No idea where Leon came from.  Asked my mom, she doesn't know either.  Another family mystery!

Carol’s Living Story

                 I won a raffle prize at the DuPage County Genealogical Society’s Annual Conference in St. Charles, Illinois on February 23, 2013. My prize was a Living Story for the subject of my choosing by Janette Quinn of LivingStories.us.  In May 2013 I asked her to work with my mother Carol (Koepke) Primas and write her story.

                Janette met with Mom twice to interview and digitally record her memories in her Lombard home.  I provided many family pictures and documents to help stimulate Mom’s memory (she is 82 and still pretty sharp!) for the interviews.  Janette used the family history and photos and also conducted independent research about the places, people, activities and circumstances of Mom’s life. She also encouraged Mom’s own writing about memories and messages she considers to be most important. Finally, Janette melded it all into a book almost 50 pages long.   

                My sisters and I were anxious to hear what Mom had to say.  While I provided old family pictures, my sisters sent her questions they wanted answered and other suggestions.  Even though Dad is no longer with us, there was a lot of his information in the book as well.  Mom and Dad had been married over 50 years when he died and they had a lot of history together.

                We received the final copy a few weeks ago.  It is wonderful!  Mom has read it several times and we have shared it with other family members.   Mom’s brother Dick passed away in 2002.  His children were grateful to hear about his childhood through Mom’s story.  

Dick and Carol c. 1935

                From my perspective, it was a great family bonding experience.  I think Mom may have been a bit more open with an “objective third party” listening and taking notes than she would have been with a daughter.  It stimulated discussions about other family members which never made it into the book.  The younger generations learned about things they might not have otherwise known – like as kids, Mom and Dick jumping on the bed and breaking it.  The Living Story is a great legacy.  We had copies made for all the daughters and there are enough copies each grandchild will have one of their own as well.

                After reading the story, we are already planning additional “chapters”.  It was also noted that while Mom talked about daughters and grandchildren, no mention was made of son-in-laws!  We also decided we would like more pictures – but then we are a picture-oriented family.

                We as a family agree this would be a wonderful experience for all families!  Thank you to ISGS and Janette for this great gift!           

                LivingStories.us is a member of the Association of Personal Historians and the Association of Senior Service Providers. Its principal, Janette Quinn, lost both of her parents at ages 55 and 60 to cancer on September 17, 1973 when she was 18. Her personal and corporate mission is to preserve families’ most valuable assets, the stories of elders in their own words, before it’s too late. She holds a B.S. in journalism from Northern Illinois University and an M.S. in management consulting from DePaul University.

Can I Say I Told You So?

All Europeans are related if you go back just 1,000 years, scientists say.  

“A genetic survey concludes that all Europeans living today are related to the same set of ancestors who lived 1,000 years ago. And you wouldn't have to go back much further to find that everyone in the world is related to each other.”

“Family researchers have long known that if you go back far enough, everyone with a European connection ends up being related to Charlemagne

The concept was laid out scientifically more than a decade ago. Now Coop and University of Southern California geneticist Peter Ralph have come up with the evidence. Their findings were published on Tuesday in the open-access journal on: none;">PLOS Biology.”

You can read the full study,  "The Geography of Recent Genetic Ancestry Across Europe," and a less technical synopsis of the research on the PLOS Biology website.

For the Love of Spreadsheets

                Yesterday I attended DuPage County Genealogical Society’s 38^th Annual Conference:  Discovering Early American Roots.  My first session was Jeanne Larzalere Bloom’s presentation Spreadsheets 101: EXCEL, the Genealogist Underutilized Tool on using Excel Spreadsheets.  I have always been a spreadsheet aficionado, so I thought I might pick up some pointers.  She had some good examples of how she documented her research using customized spreadsheets.

                In her syllabus Jeanne cited Gary Minder’s www.censustools.com.  So of course, I had to go check it out.  This website has also been written up in Dick Eastman’s newsletter.  In the responses to Dick’s article on Gary’s spreadsheets, there was one from Dae Powell of Shoestring Genealogy.  He suggested a key spreadsheet was missing on censustools.com – one to track city directory finds.  Since I have one of my own for that, I wanted to see what Dae came up with.  I was pleasantly surprised to see 22 forms offered for download on shoestringgenealogy.com as well as a wealth of other material he has compiled!

                I reviewed Gary’s spreadsheets, which include more than just census sheets by the way.  I liked them enough I bought the package of 40 spreadsheets.  I may not use them all, but it was a fair price for the work Gary has put into the spreadsheets.  Why did I buy these instead of downloading the ones at Shoestring Genealogy?  I liked the idea of having spreadsheets I could actually enter data into on my computer – Shoestring is a download of a PDF file.  You will need a pencil or pen to use those.  Then how do I get them back into my computer or manipulate the discrete data elements?

                Everyone has their own way of managing their genealogy data.  One of these sites may have something that will help you!

Circuit Court of Cook County Archives on-line

            I recently visited the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives on-line at http://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/NR/about.aspx.  I found it by chance via a Google search.   

            I found a few people I was looking for in the database search, downloaded the form, completed it and mailed it, per instructions on the web site, with my check.  I was totally surprised to receive it back with the documents in about a week!   I received a copy of the original Declaration of Intent which was loaded with details I did not have before:  the ship of arrival, the ports of departure and arrival, place of birth and physical description with “visible distinctive marks” (in this case a birthmark on the left cheek).

What I received in the mail

Here is the detail from the web site:

The Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives is home to more than 500,000 naturalization petitions covering the years 1871 to 1929. More than 400,000 of these records are Declarations of Intention, 1906-1929 which were usually the first papers to be filed by those who wished to become U.S. citizens.

Because the Declaration may be the only public record of an individual immigrant, it is a significant source of documentation for genealogists and scholars.

Also, taken as a whole, the Declarations of Intention document the social changes of the immigrant experience during this era and so can be of interest to scholars and researchers from many disciplines.

This database of Declarations of Intention was created thanks to a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a division of the National Archives.

Where do I find records filed before 1906 and after 1929?
For records filed before 1906 in Cook County refer to the following Clerk of the Circuit Court Archive web page:   http://12.218.239.55/?section=RecArchivePage&RecArchivePage=naturalization_search

After 1929, the local Cook County courts stopped granting naturalizations, and the task was given entirely to the Federal Courts. To find local naturalizations after 1929, please contact a local branch of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Chicago is served by NARA Great Lakes Region. You can find them here:  http://www.archives.gov/great-lakes/.

Holocaust archive rescues lost identities, reunites family after decades

Nearly 70 years after the end of the Second World War, a Holocaust archive in Germany is helping victims and survivors of Nazi atrocities to find clues about the past -- and is still reuniting families. NBC News' Andy Eckardt reports from Bad Arolsen, Germany.

   Read the entire article here.