Day Research Faux Pas

Day Research Faux Pas

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber May 2012

 

The past several years I have been dusting off many years of research and have been carefully scanning and double checking documentation. Amazing what a good review will uncover.

Scanning my Day research I realize I was one of the contacts James Edward Day made shortly before his death.  He had written Descendants of Christopher Day of Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1959.  His 1994 letters state that he now knew the parents of Christopher were Christopher Day and Elizabeth Gowland from Eston, Yorkshire.

It was not long until I was able to find what I always term a “red flag” in research.  Many of the web sites that are floating state that Christopher Day of Bucks County was baptized  22 March 1689.  My own website has not been updated and is in ERROR.   [Not only did I key in the baptism as 22 March 1689 using secondary material but I also put that he was possibly born in the Province of Pennsylvania.   I must have been sipping wine at the time!]  

The Yorkshire records are now readily available.  But apparently no one has looked at them closely or chose to ignore the burial records.  The Eston Parish records were transcribed by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society & Yorkshire Parish Register Society and I did plow through the transcriptions .

J. Edward Day was correct that a Christopher Day married Elizabeth Gowland  30 January 1677 [Eston Register page 36].  It is followed by the baptism of a daughter 26 August 1677.  Three more daughters were baptized between 1678-1687.  Then on 22 March 1690 Christopher son of Christopher was baptized at Easton [page 46]. It was followed almost immediately with “Christopher Day son of Christopher Day Bur ye 8 Day July” 1690 [page 46].

The following year Christopher and Elizabeth Gowland Day have another daughter Elizabeth baptized and recorded.  The elder Day’s both died within a month of each other at Eston in 1721.

They may have had another son after the death of Christopher in 1690. It was common to name a child after a deceased infant.   It is doubtful there was yet another Christopher with son Christopher during this time when the records for this parish are reviewed carefully.  

There are  other red flags.  Our ancestor, Christopher Day resided in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

The first recorded land purchase  mentioned for a Christopher Day occurred  in 1689 in the Province of Pennsylvania within what is Bucks County.  The purchase was from Arthur Cooke for a portion of a 2000 acre survey.  1689 places all of the issues cited at Eston in England as infants.  

The History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania mentions an Arthur Day and Richard Day as landowners in Plumstead, Bucks County that J. Edward Day never connected to the family  and warrants further research.

The Christopher Day of this topic is said to have married wife Martha 4 November 1714 and then baptized two days later at Pennypack Baptist Church in northeastern Philadelphia. The church was first known as Lower Dublin Church. Portions of the church wanted Saturday as the Sabbath when Keithians [dissident Friends   sometimes called Christian Quakers] merged with Lower Dublin.  J. Edward Day commented in correspondence that Christopher was a witness to a Quaker wedding in 1722.

Using a mathematical assumption [the word we never want to use in genealogy] that places Christopher of Bucks County just coming of age at his marriage in 1714 – his birth could be about 1693.  Even this presents a problem.  According to The History of Bucks County Thomas Dungan sold 50 acres to our Christopher Day in 1708.  This is about one mile above Cross Keys where Christopher Day is buried.  Dungan was the minister at Pennypack Church.   Using the same mathematical assumption had he just become of age in 1708 he would be born about 1687.   This makes linking Christopher who dies in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1748 even less likely to be the son of the Day family cited in the Eston records above.

No one, to date, has been able to pinpoint Christopher Day's age when he made his will in Bucks County in 1748 [WBK 2 p 141].  If he died age 80 he would have been born about 1668. this places him as an older gentleman when he married at Pennypack.  He and Martha had six children including Nathaniel [my line] and Christopher Jr. born about 1723.

This is not the first time that erroneous material has been regenerated.  It is not the first time I have made an error.  When one makes a faux pas it is just best to get it out there and hope that this will also "regenerate" so that the questions can be answered.

Looking at Minuscule Genealogy Clues

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber 

March 2012

Tucked away in ornate lacquered box in my mother’s possession was a red season’s ticket to the Monarch Roller Rink.  When I discovered the ticket I immediately noted that it was assigned to “Feiler Reporter” and dated July 1885.   Two aha clues! I already knew that the box was from Portsmouth, Ohio.  But was the ticket from Portsmouth or had it traveled with “Feiler”?

I had worked diligently on my Feiler/ Feyler heritage.  Edward Leopold Feiler made his way to Hamburg from Hungry and boarded the Ship Coblenz on 10 August 1883.  The ship list calls him Leopold, a watch maker from Kenti, Galicia.  The ship sailed to Glasgow where he then boarded the ship Ethiopia and arrived 29 August 1883 in New York.

City directories usually have a lag time of six months to a year on individual listings.  Thus a person could be deceased yet show up as a resident in the same year of death.  The 1884 Indianapolis [Indiana] City Directory lists Leopold Feiler boarding at 84 S. East Street.     This is not far from Union Station and the Jewish Community.  On 29 March 1884 Feiler appeared in Marion County Circuit Court to declare an oath of allegiance.  

The next three years of Feiler’s life in America are murky.  According to his obituary published in the Portsmouth Correspondent, 29 June 1900 he migrated to America in 1884.  We know from the ship lists the newspaper clipping is incorrect by one year.  The same article says he got a position in Indianapolis and came to Portsmouth in 1889 as a help to Mr. C. Cohen.    Again erroneous information as we plow deeper into minuscule details.  While there is error in this German newspaper it was well worth my time to locate it by doing a physical search of the original microfilm.  In 2000 Jeffrey G Herbert abstracted and translated many of the death notices from this paper and after editing by Barbara K. Gargiulo it was published as Translated Abstracts of Death Notices in the Portsmouth Correspondent 1894-1908.  However they completely missed this almost column long obituary of my ancestor.  Thank goodness I follow up, when possible, with the original source material.

Tucked away in my jewelry box is a beautiful blue garnet ring inscribed 17 December 1887 E. L. F. to D. M. C.  D. M. C. is his future wife Dessie Mae Clayton.  There is no indication that she was in Indianapolis in 1887.  She became a member of Bigelow United Methodist Church in Portsmouth, Ohio in August 1885.  There are no family stories of how they met. 

 

On 26 March 1888 Edward Leopold Feiler appeared in Probate Court of Scioto County, Ohio to finalize his naturalization.  The clerk wrote his name as Feiler and then penned over the I with a Y.  With the stroke of a pen his surname became Feyler and all subsequent documentation appears to carry the surname as Feyler.  

And now I am directed back to the two clues on the Monarch Roller Rink Ticket. #1. The spelling is Feiler and #2. The date is July 1885.  When filling a chronology of an individual’s life no one wants a three year gap.  Where was Monarch Roller Rink and where was Feiler in 1885?  I searched the city directories of Indianapolis and found no listing for a roller rink of this name.  I searched for histories of Roller Rinks and yes I searched NewspaperArchives for “Monarch Roller Rink.”  And there is the minuscule computer search error that almost left my trail cold.  

I recently posted the ticket on the popular social network, Facebook on a created wall “You Know You Are From Portsmouth Ohio If?”  With 2120 active members I felt certain if this roller rink were in the area someone would know.  Chris Lewallen jumped in and after a search came back with no location found for “Monarch Rink.”  Not discouraged after several hours he pops back with a rink in Distel Hall in 1917.  When Chris wrote “Monarch Rink” I realized my error in research tactics. Shame on me!  I immediately hit the search engine again.  The Portsmouth Times at NewspaperArchives.com came back with many hits by removing the word “roller” from my search. The search term Monarch was too broad.  The earliest hit is for 5 December 1885 when the city solicitor announced that Monarch Rink had already taken out a license for the skating rink and opera house.   

My chronology now shows that Edward Leopold/Lee Feyler was in Indiana in 1884 and was in Portsmouth, Ohio in 1885.  

The same year he naturalized, 1888,  the Portsmouth Times announced that Ed Lee Feyler who had been associated with Charles Cohen accepted a position with E. Corriell.  The following year he opened his own store on West Second Street.  In 1890 Dessie and Edward Lee Feyler were married at Bigelow Church.  A son, Howard Clayton Feyler was born in September 1893.  Deeds, advertisements, and personal items fill in the years of his short life in America.  Edward Leopold Feiler/Feyler died 25 June 1900 from stomach cancer.  

From articles Feyler had an interest in bicycle racing.  But for now being a reporter at Monarch Roller Rink remains a bit of a curiosity.  Through the years the Monarch held balls, banquets even Temperance Meetings.  The 17 November 1888 Portsmouth Times describes the building as “The old barn like Monarch Rink…”  That same year they ran ads to rent the Rink to responsible parties for fairs, festivals and political meetings.  

My grandfather was just a 3 months short of his 7^th birthday when his father died.  His mother, Dessie, kept postcards that had been exchanged with a cousin and his grandfather in Europe.  Those few minuscule lines sent across the ocean from one country to another have opened doors to learn more about my European heritage and to be introduced to surviving cousins from the Holocaust.  They have led my research from Temisvar now Rumania, Budapest in Hungry,  Bielitz, Austria Silesia and even Komarom Czechoslovakia.  

To date I have not found a record of Edward practicing his Jewish faith in Indianapolis or Portsmouth.  He married, as I have mentioned at Bigelow  United Methodist.  Yet once again I find a minuscule clue  buried within the pages  of the History of Scioto County, Ohio by Evans in 1903 “…and to this day most of the members of the choir at the Temple are also members of the choir of the Bigelow M. E. Church.”

Minuscule clues open the door to wonderful genealogy and historical avenues.

Jomar

Jomar

Compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber

March 2012

When John Geer Martin was just a little boy he told his mother he had a dream. He was going to own a big horse farm.  He housed his horses in the detached garage by his house on Waller Street in Portsmouth, Scioto County, Ohio.  He went out to Scioto fairgrounds regularly. As he grew he knew that whatever he did it must involve horses. His father sent him to Blacksburg to VPI where he studied engineering.  But he really wanted to be with his horses. 

When World War II started he was one of the first to register.  He became a cargo pilot and flew the Hump.  His daughter and this compiler have all the letters he wrote home to his mother. Among them he told her he would name his farm “Jomar” for John Martin.  He could already visualize what it would look like.  He also acknowledged that engineering was not for him and that he truly wanted to be a veterinarian.   When the war was over, he went to Ohio State University, married, dabbled in journalism and finally with a DVM degree in hand moved across the river to Kentucky.

His wife, Mary Helen Feyler had made a childhood friend with a circus that had been in Portsmouth.  By the time they married she was taking him to meet her friends.  She often joked that his dream farm Jomar stood for John and Mary not just John Martin.  And over the next few years the network of circus associations grew along with his reputation as a circus animal doctor.

In 1961 the dream became a reality.  Martin  had purchased acreage in Boyd County, Kentucky at Cannonsburg.  With the help of his dear friend Michael Polakoff, aka Coco the Clown, they cleared the land.  I remember huge stacks of brambles and sticks and fires.  One of the funny incidences was when “Uncle” Mike was sent to get a tractor just down the road.  By dusk he was nowhere to be found and the call came “Doc I am in a town called Catlettsburg and I am lost.”  He had driven that tractor all afternoon when it should have been a ten minute ride. 

Painting by John Geer Martin

As the house was being built my father ordered brass plaques for the gates he designed.  JOMAR on one side and his name on the other.  His dream became a reality.  To celebrate he invited many of his circus friends.  It must had been the first time that the circus community knew he was calling the farm JOMAR.  They were quick to ask if it was named for John Ringling North’s circus car Jomar.  The car had been named for John and Mable Ringling.  My parents, surprised were quick to tell everyone their story and agreed it was a serendipity moment to tie his loves together.  The county named the newly graveled road Jomar Road.

For a while the train car was used by Rudy Bundy and in the 1960’s my father toured the “graveyard” of circus wagons and old trains rusting and off the track in Florida. There is a short grainy film he shot showing the burning of beautiful circus wagons and the train standing abandoned in the background.

Jomar in Boyd County, Kentucky was full of laughter, horses and circus friends for many years.  Besides the wonderful saddle bred horses that we showed, several retired circus horses lived out their lives on Jomar.  Ringling boarded a beautiful stallion named Royal resplendent with his Kings Range brand.  Royal, retired from the circuit, lived out a happy life with our family.  Hanniford’s left two retired horses to pasture.  Robin who was notorious for scratching his huge back, breaking the fence, usually when my father was out of town; leaving mother to chatter away at him as he followed her back across where he belonged.  The second horse Sherry was a gentle white and my son John got the honor of taking a ride when he was small.

My husband and I were excited when an auction in the Zanesville, Ohio area advertised circus items.  Circus Fans came from all over to bid on what appeared to be mostly posters.  However, my eyes quickly found the familiar Jomar china in one lot.  I remember my husband and I wondering if Circus Fans would realize the value and history of the china but resolved we would add the items to Jomar in Kentucky.  As we began to bid I realized that the group was all looking my way.  Apparently, while I thought I was unknown, these fans knew Jomar and in honor of my parents nodded and did not bid. 

One of the items my parents did not have in the hodgepodge of china was any coffee cups.  Jennie Howerton, mother of Dr. Paul Savage, in Ashland, Kentucky matched the burgandy lettering color perfectly creating a set of six porcelain cups.  While a bit more dainty than the heavy original Jomar china it is a nice addition.

This is not genealogy but is the provenance of something that our family treasures and is as much a part of our history as our lineage.   The provenance of artifacts in history are as important as the people who utilized them.

Today Jomar in Kentucky sits quietly, in need of fence repair and laughter.  My father passed away in 1999.  My mother is still matriarch at Jomar but Alzheimers has stolen her memories. There is talk of restoration of the Ringling rail car Jomar that was in such disrepair so many years ago and its history is well documented.  

The history of Jomar in Kentucky and the legacy my parents left will continue.  My father loved many things in life including flying and journalism.  When he retired from veterinary medicine he decided to write. He wrote two war histories and two books about his life as a veterinarian.  Doc My Tiger’s Got An Itch tells a few of the many tales he had as an assistant veterinarian with Ringling and as veterinarian of many other small shows including Mills Brothers now also only a memory. So many beloved friends – human and animal. 

Our first son is named for his grandfather.   John’s wife is Marina.  Serendipity!  Jomar lives on.

Oh Han Kook

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber

February 2012

When we begin a genealogy quest we concentrate on the individual, then the family unit.  When researching census records we concentrate on the family unit and are introduced to the residents and neighbors that live in close proximity.  As we delve into court records we are introduced to more people that have interacted with our subject through court proceedings. Some of these people may be related, some may be friends and a few may be foes.  Finally, if we are lucky enough, we gaze with delight at photographs that give a glance into the every day life of our subject and usually shrug when we run across one of unrelated people that have been tossed into the mixture.

Among that ever growing multitude of people there may be one special person that played a significant role in your subject's life.  There may also be stories handed down about these people. I wonder how many researchers take time to include that person with their genealogical data?  How many try to validate all or part of the stories they may have heard about these unrelated people that held a close relationship with our subject?

This is the story, as I know it, of Oh Han Kook who played a role in the lives of three generations in my maternal family.  Luckily I knew and loved him as a part of our family.  From the time I could toddle my grandfather and parents told me the extraordinary story of Kook. By the time of his first visit I ran into his arms and delighted in the twinkle of his eyes and his soft voice as he called me "missy".

The family story tells of Oh Han Kook's birth in Korea [giving his birth as 1 January 1887 on legal documents].  From August 1910 until August 1945 Korea was occupied by Japan and to escape the situation, Oh Han Kook stowed away on a cargo ship only to find out it was destined for Japan.  He again stowed away and eventually reached Hawaii.

The story continues that in due time he was befriended by Howard Clayton Feyler [my grandfather], Captain in the United States Dental Corps who trained him to be an orderly.  He served at Schofield Barracks under Feyler until the family left the island and returned to the mainland.  When the ship landed, Oh Han Kook had once again stowed away, this time to be with Captain Feyler and his family, who he considered his adopted family. The story, told and retold, said my grandfather managed to have Kook enlisted in the US Army.

Kook was stationed in San Antonio, Texas and I looked forward to letters and small gifts as I grew up. He gave me my first watch with a blue wrist band and when I was twelve he gave me my first radio. It was a big cream colored plastic desk radio that picked up several stations.  When I turned 14 he provided me with my first portable radio.  Over the years I realized that he called all of us -my grandmother, mother and aunt-"missy".

Letters were addressed to Sgt. Kook and I never gave a thought to the sequence of the story I had been told.    I went off to college and on 10 January 1968 my family called to tell me he had died peacefully and would be buried in the National Cemetery in San Antonio.   Among our many moves I have always carried a picture of Oh Han Kook with me.

The same picture hung in my grandmother's home and to this day hangs in my mother's home.  When one of my dearest friend's moved to San Antonio I asked her if she would locate his grave in the National Cemetery.   Not only did Denise locate the grave and photograph it for me, she honored him by placing flowers there.

Ft. Sam Houston Cemetery, Section X site 2595

I decided it was time to try and fill in a few of the gaps about Kook.  Dr. Howard C. Feyler married Katherine Marie Halderman 30 November 1918 in Portsmouth, Scioto County, Ohio just after the close of the war.  My grandfather had made 1st Lt. in the US Army Dental Corp in January 1918.  They were married shortly before leaving for duty in Honolulu. Many of his military records have been lost so the exact date that he and his wife left for Hawaii is unknown.  But prior to their move to Hawaii Oh Han Kook was already in Honolulu living on Incen Street as a cook for A. Vincent. On the 31st of July 1817 he filled out a World War I draft Registration card stating he was an alien from Chung Yang [as spelled on document], Korea. He was single and said he had 2 sisters and 1 brother.

From family stories, I knew that Kook was already in the household when my aunt was born in Honolulu 12 October 1919.  He adored and  tried to spoil her.  On 10 April 1919  Kook became a naturalized citizen of the United States [Petition 938M, Vol M-4, certificate 1171340] while Hawaii was still a territory. Persons born in Hawaii after 30 April 1900 were native-born citizens of the United States. 

On December 27, 1919 Katherine Halderman Feyler's parents, Dr. Stephen S. and Anna Gorath Halderman sailed on the SS Sachem    to meet their baby granddaughter and were introduced to Oh Han Kook. They returned to the mainland in February 1920 on the SS  Lurine.  In June Feyler received his Captain's certificate.

My grandparents soon returned from Hawaii with toddler Betty in tow and settled back into life in Portsmouth, Ohio. 

By 1930 Oh Han Kook was listed at Kelly Field in Texas. Texas became his home.  His military headstone shows that he served our country in both World War I and World War II.  

Kook re-enlisted several times during his career.  NARA has created an "Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File ca. 1938-1946", Record Group 64 [AAD]which shows Kook's enlistment as Kelly Field in 1940.  This would be a re-enlistment showing him still in the Dental Corp.

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There is always more to a story.  By definition an  orderly is an attendant working in a hospital and can also be a soldier assigned to perform tasks for his superior officer.  World War I was officially over in November 1918.  His tombstone clearly states he served in World War I.  Finally the juridical definition of a stowaway is an alien coming to the United States by plane or vessel without legal status.   Kook was a citizen of the United States when he came to the mainland.    My childhood memory is intact and I like the aura of mystery that still surrounds our unofficial family member.  I am extremely proud of him and know his love of our family is undeniable. May his memory and his story remain with my family for many more generations.

Conundrum

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber

February 2012

For some time now I have been musing over the title of this blog.  I love Eastern Kentucky with a passion.  I write from Eastern Kentucky.  I have researched extensively in Eastern Kentucky. All roads in my life have led me back to Eastern Kentucky.  

That said, I was born in Scioto County, Ohio and the ribbon of the Ohio River between Portsmouth and Ashland has always felt like a homing beacon in my head.  By the time I was six months old my parents had firmly planted my roots in Boyd County, Kentucky.  My research endeavors and family have led me through Germany, Romania, Hungry, Austria, Poland and many other places far from the Appalachia I love.  As a family we have set up housekeeping several times in Ohio and New Jersey but again all roads led home to Eastern Kentucky.

Now that I can honestly say I have retired my client base and Family Lineage Investigations I can devote more time to share my research experiences and stories with family and readers.  I certainly will continue to write about Eastern Kentucky families but I already have veered several times from the path my blog title suggests.  Thus, I toyed with the idea of a second blog but quickly gave it a veto.  This is my journal and journal writing usually does have twists and turns.  It is who I am with ebb and flow and  the evolution of change that happens in everyone's life.

My father instilled my love of writing and expressing myself with words at a young age.  He always said had he not become a doctor he would have majored in journalism and was editor of  a magazine called The Speculum while at Ohio State University.  He went on to write four books after he retired from veterinary medicine while mastering the computer in the twilight of his years.  I have maintained a personal journal for many years, sometimes daily, sometimes not so frequently.  I don't profess to have mastered punctuation and wish now I had taken some journalism and writing courses in college.  But I, as other bloggers, feel the need to express myself.  Hopefully my children and their children will read a bit and learn something of their ancestors and the product I call me.

Which leads me back to the conundrum.  Eastern Kentucky Genealogy implies all that is nestled in my lovely hills.  Eastern Kentucky Genealogy is a wall post compiled by someone else on FaceBook; it is a title of a conference held in Johnson County as well.  Do I change the title that so many of you have followed these past couple of years or do I let my journalism flow without a change because my readers know that I do my best writing while I glance out the window at the cliffs and hills of my beloved home - Eastern Kentucky?

Deadly Photography

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber

February 2012

I can honestly say I have taken thousands of tombstone photographs over the years.  Many of them individual stones in Boyd County, Kentucky.   I have taken quality photographs, poorly lit photographs, and photographs that I climbed in, over and around brambles to get.

My office library contains a well worn copy of A Graveyard Preservation Primer by Lynette Strangstad.  Page 28 of her publication shows a figure on the proper light for tombstones with camera on tripod.  I do wonder if she has ever hiked a ridge with camera equipment that included a quality tripod to get to the family cemeteries we have in eastern Kentucky.

There are a number of web sites that discuss cemetery photography.  Flickr has a group discussion  that seems to be mostly non-genealogist based but a fun read. 

City of the Silent states that "Nearly any camera is suitable for cemetery photography."  He goes on to give information on Single-lense reflex cameras.  I think you can do so much more with an slr.

Some of my most cherished photographs are older shots which I have used in  "matching" stones still standing when I pay a visit.  

Sexton Cemetery aka Pigeon Roost Cemetery, Boyd County, Kentucky

Locust Grove Cemetery, Adams County, Ohio 

Descendent Ruhama Halderman Anderson by stone.

When I started photographing tombstones, in the early 1970's,  I carried a Canon AE1. After waiting to pick up the developed frames I quickly found out that I needed some way to assure that photographs were clear before I left the site.  I do not profess to be a professional photographer no matter how much I love a camera and while practice sometimes makes perfect I did not want to chance a bad photo in an out-of-the way cemetery.  Thus my new kit included a Polaroid camera.  I would do a "reading" and write the information, take photographs with the AE1 and also take an immediate shot with the Polaroid, knowing that the Polaroid paper would in time fade.  

Even though I was knowledgeable about the proper way to "read" a cemetery I think excitement would take over and I would sometimes forget to take an "overview" shot of the layout of the cemetery.  I would scribble a quick plat like drawing of where the stone was in the cemetery and most assuredly I wrote down directions and made notes.  The other factor was the cost of developing film so the individual stones were shot and the "overview"  tended to be neglected.

With the dawn of digital photography I shed a few tears as I sold the old slr on Ebay along with many lenses and wonderful polarizing and uv filters.  Sticking with Canon  I wore out a PowerShot tromping the hills of eastern Kentucky but was never as happy as I was when I could adjust an f stop or use a nice filter for better quality.  

With a new slr I am now able to set the properties within the camera.  Each of my photographs has ownership described along with comments.  I am getting in the habit of checking the properties and giving proper file extensions so that future generations won't look at a tombstone or cemetery photograph and wonder where in the world it is located.  Some camera's are now equipped to automatically put gps coordinates in the properties.  Technology is wonderful!

I do agree with Strangstad that a tripod gives the most stable photograph but in the field it is not always possible to lug a full sized one.  I went the extra mile to get an image stabilizer on two of the telephoto lenses that I think I will utilize the most. A circular polarizer does not effect metering.  However simple UV filters seem to affect contrast on stones so I usually take several shots with various filters and settings.  Something I was hesitate to do with the cost of developing years ago.

With new lenses being offered for camera phones the latest consumer report from the past holiday states that camera sales were down. I think a pictures does "speak a thousand words" and any picture is better than no picture.  But I do believe that good equipment improves the situation and will continue to adapt with the new technology while hopefully improving my photographer skills.

The Modern Genealogist

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber

January 2012

Genealogy home offices are evolving with  modern technology.  It's 2012 and microfiche and film readers are being relegated to attics and junk piles.  With the National Archives  skipping microfilm and releasing the 1940 Federal Census as digital scans and replacing older model copiers with new high tech copier/scanners the end of these clunky machines is near at hand.  My own microfiche machine has become a convenient place for post-a-notes.

The most astonishing modern technology notion has given me more than pause.  A recent news release announced that schools are slowly removing cursive from grade school curriculum's .  Why? Because of the use of keyboards.  Students identify with print on those tiny little keys.  During a family discussion this past month my 12 year old granddaughter proudly reported she is proficient in cursive.  Thank goodness!  When I asked how my family thought future generations would decipher documents, if not taught cursive, it was suggested that students would choose it as either an elective or a specialty course.  After all we genealogists already have lectures and even Kip Sperry's wonderful book Reading Early American Handwriting when deciphering hand written documents.  And if the truth be told my handwriting is not what it used to be.  I refuse to blame it on age but will contribute it to the fact that 99% of my communication is with a keyboard. 

Reflecting back, I remember feeling very modern when using my first microfilm reader.  It was certainly exciting and very modern when the Commodore 64 was installed in the office.  Then I danced a jig  as the large clunky monitor was replaced with a sleek flat screen.  I loved getting that little extra bit of space on my desk.

My office library is still intact with rows of beautiful bound books. I confess I have turned to the ereader for novels and general reading and freed up much needed space on the shelves for more genealogy hardbound copies that I would not part with. I am thrilled with all the wonderful genealogies that have now been digitized so that I don't have to find that one special copy at a library hundred's of miles away.  We can have it both ways.

The microfiche machine is leaving the premises.  Ah, much needed space on the desk for new gadgets!   But, but, but, I am having trouble letting go of my microfilm reader because filmed court recorded in my office have not been scanned to date.    

All this makes me wonder if my grandchildren know what carbon paper and memeograph machines are/were?  Does it matter when modern translates to improved and knowledge at our fingertips?  As fast as technology is evolving, what tools will the modern genealogist include five or ten years from now?  You are never to old to be modern.  You just have to be quick enough to keep up with what is new.  Blink these days and you will miss it.  

I will close my January 2012 modern rambling thoughts because of the need to send another document to the "cloud."  Maybe I will red flag this to reread in 2024 and get a giggle from what I thought was so modern today.