All My Ancestors

This week I’ve been caught up in Chris Dunham’s Genealogue Challenges.

I recently read one genealogist’s statement on “why I do this,” meaning research one’s family, and he or she (don’t remember which) said in what I took to be a rather superior tone that they certainly didn’t do genealogy because they loved puzzles.

I must be the inferior type because that is part of what I love about family history–solving the problems. And Chris’ challenges provide just the thing.

I do have to admit to wondering how (and maybe why) he puts them together. Whatever that process, I enjoy the chase. It provides an opportunity to sharpen my skills and learn new resources. I’ve had fairly good success with solving the challenges and what I’ve learned!!

The most recent was a chase to find out Irene Ryan’s birth name and how she was listed on the 1920 census. I learned her mother was an Irish immigrant, that Irene was born in El Paso, and that even at 17, she was listed as an actress on the census. The “extra credit” was to confirm that the woman she was buried with was her sister–I didn’t make it that far, but others did. I could make a fairly good circumstantial case, but I had to give up and go to bed before I could put the final nail in the case.

In the chase to find the name of one of the undertakers for Frank James, I discovered that “racket store” was a variety store–I thought that’s what the census said, but I’d never heard the term. Now I know. My having worked in a very old small town in western Oklahoma across the street from a former furniture store that had “caskets built” still lettered on the window came in handy on that search.

I also learned that Barnett Kulp’s “most famous granddaughter” was Sara Lee. Solving that one entailed learning where Barnett Kulp died, locating his death notice in LA that said he was to be buried in Chicago. That enabled me to find his obituary, with his survivors, including the married names of his daughters. When I finally decided to run their names through Google, sure enough, daughter “Tillie Lubin” emerged as the mother of Sara Lee–Mr. Lubin bought a chain of bakeries in Iowa and Mrs. Lubin insisted on naming the cakes for their daughter.

Big Nose Kate was a fun chase as well. That name sounded vaguely familiar, and sure enough, she was also known as Katie Elder, off and on companion of Doc Holliday. Lesser known, though, is that she lived her last 20 years with a man named John Jesse Howard and was executrix of his estate. The challenge was to find his full name, and the name of his estranged wife. The Arizona death certificates and birth certificates from that era are online, and they provided the names.

Some I haven’t done so well on–Chris wasn’t kidding when he said the one about Casey Stengel was trickier than it first appeared. I not only learned a lot about Casey Stengel, I learned to remember to use more of the free resources out there–Google books, e.g.

Did you know there really was a Chef Boyardee?

The chase isn’t always about famous or infamous people, but nearly always, I go to some of my favorite sources. There’s Joe Beine’s Online Searchable Death Indexes and Records, which includes links to the necrology index at Cleveland Public Library and the death and birth certificates in Arizona and Missouri.

Check out Chris’ site–he’s also got top ten lists, links to current news stories with a genealogical twist, and he maintains a genealogy blog finder if you’re looking for more to read.

This week at work I’ve been researching an Oklahoma family who had a family member imprisoned just prior to statehood. They said the family tradition was that he was at McAlester–site of the federal penitentiary here in Oklahoma.

However, a visit to the state’s Department of Corrections website about the establishment of “Big Mac” states it was not built until 1908. It goes on to say that inmates from Kansas were returned to Oklahoma to build the prison. I would have assumed that prisoners from that time period were sent to Fort Smith and maybe Muskogee–there was a federal court there, not sure about a prison. But this indicated to me that they were also sent to Kansas–guess that makes sense since it’s a neighbor and it did have federal prisons by then.

Materials I found on the family indicated that the man in question had served his time in Detroit prior to Oklahoma statehood in 1907. I wondered if this could be another Detroit besides Detroit, Michigan, but after a bit more digging, I believe it must have indeed been in the Motor City.

I decided to take a look at the 1900 federal census for Detroit. Sure enough, part of Ward 7 was a listing of the prisoners in the “House of Corrections.” There were probably about 350-400 male prisoners listed and 75 female–on separate pages, of course. But my estimate is that 15 or so of the male prisoners were from “Indian Territory” or Texas. I did not find the person I was seeking, but I believe he served his time a little later, about 1902 or so.

I used the “Ask a Librarian” function on the State of Michigan website and got a prompt response. Sure enough, even though the Detroit prison was not built as a federal prison, there had been a public law passed in 1899 that enabled them to contract for federal prisoners from other states.

Another lesson learned. A confirmation that there’s usually a grain of truth in family stories, but they must be confirmed. And who would have thought that persons from Indian Territory would serve time in Michigan? And, again, I’m reminded of how grateful I am to have such great access to this sort of info from the comfort of my computer chair.

One more bit of info for those of you who are interested in McAlester’s history, and we frequently get questions about ancestors who were imprisoned there–the listing for the cemetery at the prison is online. Over 300 of the graves have entries at FindAGrave. It’s listed as Department of Corrections Prison Cemetery in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. Just so you know.

This is a fun site–The Baby Name Voyager.

You can track the popularity of a first name through history.

It also pretty much confirms my theory that if your name is any iteration of Debra, I can guess your age within 5 years.

Here in Oklahoma, we’ve heard a great deal about the “time capsule” of the 1957 Plymouth Belvedere that was buried at Oklahoma’s semi-centennial in 1957. There have been lots of news stories, both local and national. There’s a website devoted to the car.

Today I was at work and one of our regulars came by the desk to show me what he’d found in the 1957 Ardmore newspaper.

His grandmother had won a brand new 1957 red and white convertible Plymouth Belvedere 50 years ago. He’d found the newspaper story about her win and a picture of the car. He was trimming the articles and putting them onto a sheet of paper. He said his grandmother was still living and that she’d told him the story. He could hardly wait to get home to show her.

She told him they drove it home and then sold it the next day. They needed the $1800 or so that the new Plymouth cost at that time. I encouraged him to let some of the media know about his story–I thought it was a great corollary to the Tulsa story. I hope I read or see his grandmother’s story soon.

When it appeared in my “Bloglines” a second time, I went back to read the comments posted at Simply Recipes in response to an entry entitled Rendering Bacon Fat. There were lots of questions about whether it has to be refrigerated and how long it will keep. What really surprises me is that there are people who had no idea that bacon fat, aka bacon grease, as the author points out, would be a good thing to use in cooking.

It made me think of the small brushed aluminum canister that used to sit on our stove at home–it had a strainer inside–not wire mesh but with little pin-sized holes in it that fit right around the lip of the canister. You had to take the strainer out if you wanted to dip out the fat. Both of my grandmothers has similar containers on or near their stoves as did nearly any one else’s kitchen of the era.

Was it a “southern thing?” I don’t remember when they disappeared–I just remember really yummy vegetables seasoned from that canister–and one of my friends’ mom made hot bacon salad dressing that she poured over young leaf lettuce. It was to die for.

It sounds kinda gross writing about bacon fat in this day of health-consciousness. But when I read all the questions and comments on that blog, it made me think again about my family and friends and the food we ate–growing up in the Texas panhandle wasn’t exactly “the South,” but the roots of those folks were definitely southern–Alabama and Tennessee.

What does it mean if I say I’m glad no one has to explain bacon fat to me?!

I’m not sure that anyone really reads this blog, but if you’re out there, let me encourage you to use the opportunities that may come to you during the holidays to learn more about your family’s health history. About Genealogy has a good story, with a link to a free piece of software to help you at http://genealogy.about.com/od/health_history/a/medical.htm.

You doctor will be thrilled to have this info and it may even improve your quality (and quantity) of life.  There are good tips on what to look for as well as what to do if most of your family is deceased or you don’t have access to the information.

I find myself wanting to record some of the stories I’ve heard about and from my family members as well as wanting a place to muse about some of them. This seems to be a way to do that. We’ll see how it goes. I’m still working on getting my info up on the web at www.allmyancestors.com–my lack of knowledge about php keeps me from doing all I want to do, but I have helpers. Thanks, guys!!