Adventures in #Genealogy . . . learning new methodology, finding out about ancestors, documenting #FamilyHistory, and connecting with cousins! Now on BlueSky as @climbingfamilytree.bsky.social
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My husband and I began our journey of curating our family history collection in 2013. We had hundreds of theater and concert programs to donate, collected by Wood ancestors and our relatives from the 1920s to the 1990s. Our family agreed with the idea of donating because no one wanted to keep these programs any more. NOTE: If you have questions about donating (or selling) items with monetary…
My Dad, Harold D. Burk (1909-1978), passed away in the Bronx, New York, OTD in 1978. He was five weeks from his 69th birthday. I've added Dad to Find a Grave here with a bite-sized bio, noting his service in the US Army during World War II. The shadowbox frame above holds his military memorabilia, organized and identified for the next generation and beyond. Before his death from heart problems,…
OTD in 1867, Train Caldwell McClure (1843-1934) married Gulia Swain (1847-1920). Train was my husband's great-grand uncle. Train was 23 at the time of his marriage, 159 years ago today. He was a veteran of the US Civil War, having fought for the Union while in the 89th Indiana Infantry, from 1862-1865. Gulia was 20 when she married Train. They had four children together. Train was active in the…
Last year, Ancestry announced "Smart Search" in beta, intended to be a more intuitive search form with "enhanced logic" for focusing on more relevant results. It has shown up on my family trees and last week, I tried it for several ancestors, some I knew little about and some I know lots about. One of the striking things about Smart Search is the way results are formatted into three main…
My Mom, Daisy Schwartz Burk (1919-1981), was born a few minutes after her twin sister, Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001). Their mother made most of their clothes and usually dressed them alike, as shown in this photo taken at their elementary school in the Bronx, New York. Dorothy is on the left, slightly taller and bigger than Daisy, standing on the right. The girls were told they were fraternal…
Inspired by Linda Stufflebean's recent blog post about captioning and donating old school class photos, I checked with my Sis about the possibility of donating our elementary school class photos and our mother's old school stuff. She agreed we should look for a good home outside the family, to preserve these items for the future. Mom, JHS class of 1933 Daisy Schwartz (later Daisy Burk, 1919-1981)…
John Nelson (1825-1907), a distant ancestor of my husband, was among the brave "Iron Men" of the Indiana 44th Regiment fighting at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, during the US Civil War. He was a son of John Martin Nelson and Susannah McKibbin . Born in Ohio, as a young man he moved to Indiana with his farming family. In the fall of 1861, with the Civil War underway, Nelson and many other men from…
ChatGPT has better artistic skills than I do, so I asked it to do the following: Create an image titled "unsourced family trees = genealogy slop" with a stylized family tree and random genealogy words in a slop whirlwind. Chat took the initiative to insert some typical "family legends" such as an ancestor of royal blood, a Mayflower ancestor, a witch trial victim. It sprinkled phrases like…
In 2013, I created ancestor landing pages on this genealogy blog to summarize what I've written about specific ancestor families. You can see them arranged (alphabetically by surname) in rows below the title of my blog. I took this screen shot about a month ago, so the numbers in the image are already outdated. Landing pages are great cousin bait as well as a convenient way of organizing blog…
I've long been a fan of Genealogical.com's "At a Glance" four-page, laminated guides to genealogy research in specific places or about specific cultures. Written by experts, they're concise, affordable, and quite convenient for reference, including detailed resources to consult. The publisher recently sent me a free review copy of Judy Nimer Muhn 's informative Acadian Genealogical Research, newly…
Paul Chiddicks recently wrote an insightful post about separating truth from error on official documents like birth, marriage, and death certificates. Sometimes ancestors didn't know, sometimes they didn't want to tell, sometimes they flat-out made mistakes or omissions when providing information to authorities. Case in point: My 3c1r Milton Weiss (1920-1995) enlisted in the US Army on January 29,…
On this day in 1863, my husband's 1c3r answered the call to enlist in the Indiana "minute men" Infantry and prepare to defend against attack from Confederate forces during the US Civil War. Wilson Caldwell (1845-1921) was just 18 and living in Posey township, Fayette County, Indiana with his farming family when he enlisted on July 10, 1863 in the 104th Indiana Infantry, Company K. On this map,…
This summer, I've been helping my neighbor learn more about her ancestors, particularly her father's family history. Here are my take-aways about researching and documenting a non-relative's family tree. Listen carefully to old family stories--twice. My neighbor had some memories about ancestors, and also had written down what older relatives said before they passed away. A handful of these…
Here's a new Ancestry feature I'm exploring: Tree Compare , now in beta. I discovered it while looking at some ancestor-in-laws such as Alice Hopperton, who was the second wife of my husband's grandfather. Of course I don't rely on any online tree as a quote fact unquote. But trees often have great clues such as family photos and record sources that I can examine and evaluate to determine…
Celebrating Independence Day and America 250 with this penny postal greeting sent to my husband's family in Cleveland, Ohio, 119 years ago today. What a colorful Uncle Sam!
Three special events took place on the Fourth of July in my and my husband's combined family tree: Samuel Schwartz (1883-1954), my maternal great uncle, was born on July 4th in what was Ungvar, Hungary (now Uzhhorod, Ukraine). He came to America in 1904, became a naturalized US citizen in 1909, and got married in Bridgeport, Connecticut, less than a week later. I've been in touch with his…
In my father's family tree, when Vilna-born merchant Samuel Markell (1885-1971) married Boston-born Marion Goldstein (1885-1961) in Revere, Massachusetts in 1911, the new bride took her husband's surname--and also his nationality. He was "Russian" and she became "Russian" at the moment of their wedding. This was due to the US law known as the Expatriation Act of 1907 , which tied a woman's…
Putting together this most recent bite-sized family history project, Sis and I had an abundance of photos and ideas. The trick was to streamline the project by selecting some of the photos, not all of the photos--and some of the info, not all of it. That's why we focused only on the first decade of family life. Even so, we had to make decisions about what to put in and what to leave out. And we…
In June of 1906, my maternal great-grandfather became a naturalized American citizen in US District Court, Brooklyn, New York. Moritz Farkas (1857-1936) was born on July 3d in the small country village of Botpalad , Hungary. He arrived at Ellis Island in August of 1899, aged 42, having been financially ruined when a hail storm wiped out his uninsured crops. Moritz became a tailor (and cloak maker)…
For Father's Day, I'm remembering Dad (Harold D. Burk , 1909-1978). Sis and I rediscovered this snapshot while assembling content for a photo book of our family's first decade. Dad has a big smile on his face while sitting at the Pulitzer Fountain , near the famous Plaza Hotel -- and opposite where the luxe Savoy Plaza Hotel once stood. Dad owned a travel agency located in the lobby of the Savoy…
Last year, Sis and I put together a custom shadowbox frame featuring a photo of Mom (Daisy Schwartz Burk , 1919-1981) and her twin sister ( Dorothy Schwartz , 1919-2001) and a few pieces of their childhood jewelry. The shadowbox includes an archival envelope on the back, where I've stored paperwork explaining about the twins and their jewelry. Ready to be passed down to future generations! I just…
Researching my husband's family tree, I'd long been looking for the death of Henry Canner Harvey (b. 1875). Henry married my hubby's 1c1r Maud Victoria Slatter (1887-1963) in 1911 in Ontario, Canada. They had two children together, one born in Canada and one born in New York State. Maud born in Cairo, Henry born in England Maud interested me because she is the only ancestor in my husband's family…
As Sis and I continue our bite-sized project about the first decade of our family life, we're putting "meat on the bones." Thanks for riding along with us as we work on this project. What will help us tell the story of our first 10 years? Photos! Lots of photos! But not every photo (more in a later blog post). I also included a snippet of a map to show where my fam vacationed when Sis and I were 3…
On June 10, 1903, my husband's grandparents were married in a small family ceremony at a relative's home in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Brice Larimer McClure (1878-1970) was a master mechanic working on major railroads, and Floyda Mabel Steiner (1878-1948) was a plucky 25-year-old who had divorced her abusive first husband two years earlier. Looking at Brice, I thought again about a conflict surrounding…
I admit (and not for the first time) that I married my husband for his ancestors. 😂 Such interesting stories! I've been looking at his Steiner family (relatives of his grandmother Floyda Steiner McClure). His grand-aunt Addie married Charles S. Deering and they had one child, Marie Pauline Deering (1889-1918). After Pauline's death in March of 1918, at the age of 28, more came out about about her…
Researching my husband's Steiner ancestors, this social item on page 1 of the Crawford County News (Bucyrus, Ohio), August 28, 1884, caught my eye: Addie Steiner, formerly of Nevada [Ohio], was recently married at Plankinton, Dakota to C.S. Deering. Adda "Addie" Forrest Steiner (1860-1915) was my husband's 1c2r. She grew up with her parents and siblings in small-town Nevada, Ohio, according to the…
Leading up to this year's special America 250 celebrations and Independence Day, I recently read two books that I highly recommend. The Greatest Sentence Ever Written The first is a fairly quick read: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written by famed biographer Walter Isaacson. This 80-page book dissects and provides context for this powerful sentence that stands out from the Declaration of…
