Tika & Civil War Trivia

One of the first things I did upon returning from my month-long trip to the East (from the West) was to snuggle my Tika in our chair and tell her some of the wonderful stories and things I learned on this trip. She was all ears as I explained some Civil War trivia bits:

"Cush" was fried fatback (like bacon) and then hardtack biscuits crumbled (worms and all) up in the grease ("rendering the hardtack chewable and the worms crispy").  "Goober peas" were peanuts. This Southern staple originated in Brazil and then went to Africa and finally came to America with the enslaved African-Americans.

"Graybacks" were body lice; the soldiers regularly had "grayback races." Only the officers were issued toilet paper. The officers smoked cigars, the juniors smoked pipes and the foot soldiers chewed. For most of the men the war was 80% boredom and 20% sheer terror. Only 50% of the men in the Civil War could read and write. One musical instrument the men played was "bones," using two animal ribs about 7-8" long, to click together.

During the Civil War, over a million horses were killed. "Quickest way to disable an officer was to shoot his horse from beneath him." During the three days at Gettysburg, some 7,000,000 bullets were fired and 53,000 men died.

Only the fatback and crumbles really interested Tika, and worms? "I'm okay with them too!" she said.

Tika & Top Ten Genealogy Mistakes

This was my sorry-looking little Tika when I made the mistake of giving her cooked hambone from a pot of hambone and beans. Those gelatinous bites solidified in her tummy and intestinal tract and she barely escaped having surgery (the laxative worked). But it was a Big Mistake that I shall not never repeat!

What, do you suppose, are the Top Ten Commonest Genealogy Mistakes? From a 2005 list compiled by the Connecticut Society of Genealogists they are:

1.  Misspelling the word genealogy.
2.  Believing everything you find in print is correct.
3.  Assuming you're related to XXX because your surname is XXX too.
4.  Being content with finding names, dates and places only for your family.
5.  Believing an undocumented 1908 family history must be correct.
6.  Accepting without question the family stories and legends.
7.  Believing that any variation in the spelling of your surname means it is not your surname.
8.  Never writing down a source.
9.  Believing that everything you find on the Internet is correct.
10. Not bothering to talk to all relatives and searching out new cousins to talk to.

Do you identify with any of these mistakes??

Tika just says, "Please don't bring me to this place ever again!! It smells awful!!"

Tika & Fraudulent Pedigrees

Have you come across a nice tidy genealogy of your family compiled by one Gustave Anjou?? Sorry to have to tell you, but no doubt it is all untruths.

Gustave Anjou, born in Sweden in 1863, made a good living in New York City by pandering to those folks wanting to have good solid European ancestry by giving them what they wanted....... no matter that many of the sources he cited did not exist.

I learned about Anjou from speaker Gordon Remington at an FGS conference back in 2004 and kept this story all these years to remind me to beware.

Gordon told the audience that over 300 fraudulent pedigrees by this fellow have been identified to date. A list of the principle names for these pedigrees can be viewed at this website:

http://www.geni.com/projects/Gustav-Anjou-Fraudulent-Genealogist/4449

Maybe this is not news to you but I hate to think of so many eager-beaver upcoming genealogists who tend to believe anything they might find on the Internet. Surfer, beware!

Tika reminds us that she has no pedigree; all she knows is that she is from Idaho.

Tika's Laughs

I've been away from my Tika for a month now enjoying being a Southern tourist and attending a national genealogical conference, finishing up with some Library of Virginia research.  Found this delightful "dog" bit (quoted from C.R. Humphrey Smith's "Kentish Names & Arms" in Kent Life, 17 Nov 1972:

"..... on the thirde day of January 1579 was a decree for doggs and proclaymed in the church of St Nicholas after Evensong that all inhabitants of Newe Romney disposed to keep any dogg or curr, should before the twelveth of the said month enter their dogges and after observe the decrees in order as they were read, uppon payne in those decrees expressed. These were admitted to keep dogges.... William Eppes, three red spaniels, one bitch all spotted red....."

In other words, William Eppes, living in the town of New Romney in Kent, England, in 1580 had to "license" his "dogges."

For 400 years our dear doggers have had to be officially noted! Did you realize that?

Tika & Dog's Names

Tika asked me today how I came to name her Tika?  "To be honest, I made it up," I answered and she seemed satisfied. "At least you didn't give me a cat name!" she retorted.

So what about dog's names? According to a 2013 polling in Massachusetts the most popular names for dogs were (in order): Bella, Max, Buddy, Bailey, Molly, Lilly, Lucy, Maggie, Daisy and Charlie. 

And check out this article:  

http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2010/0608/Is-it-okay-to-give-your-dog-human-name

Few years back I remember reading that Brazil had passed a LAW banning people names for dogs..... here's the link to that story:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2004-11-01-brazil-pets_x.htm

We have always given non-people names to our dogs. Over the years we've had Senna (Irish Setter), Mitzen (German Shorthair), Kira (German Shorthair) and now Tika. We have Dolly, too, another German Shorthair, but she came to us with that name.

A good friend of mine once named her mini-longhaired dachshund "Puddles." Wondere how the darling got that name????

Tika & Bible Records

Tika happily sits next to me in our chair when I do my almost-daily scripture study. She even pays attention when I tell her the stories.........but there are not many dog stories in the Bible.

Was explaining to her the other day that in days or yore, families had few places wherein to keep records of the births, marriages and deaths in the family. They quite often did have a big family Bible and usually in the center of the tome were some pages as a place to specifically record the vital record events of a family.

I know that as late at 1920 my Potter family Bible was in Latah County, Idaho (about 100 miles south of where I live now). But where on earth it is now???

Here's a website for those of us trying to locate our family Bible:  www.biblerecords.com . Doing a search on this website for the Potter name, I saw that they searched 1232 records (Bibles?) and came up with 13 hits (none of which was the one).

I also know that the Daughters of the American Revolution in their Washington, DC, headquarters has a Bible collection as does the National Genealogical Society's library. So there are places for us to look for that lost-misplaced (won't say long lost) Bible belonging to an ancestor.

Maybe, hopefully maybe, I'll find that Potter family Bible................  Tika licks my hand and says "Of course you will!"

Tika & It's A Dog's Life

Did our ancestors keep dogs for pets or for food? For companionship or to help haul burdens?

The Non-Sequitur cartoon in our paper today showed a fellow sitting on a bar stool with a sign on his back: "Treat me like a dog." The bartender tells somebody looking at the sign: "He's hoping someone will take him home, feed him, and let him sleep all day." That's a dog's life for sure!

But has it always been so? Since the 1660s a proverb has explained a dog's life:  "It's a dog's life, hunger and ease."  In common usage today, a dog's life usually means that life is hard and unpleasant.

But if my Tika is any example, a dog's life is pretty cushy. She's kept safe (baby gates on the deck), fed only good-quality kibbles, walked only on a leash and tucked in warmly at night (into our bed). Some dog's life.

My grandfather, George Louis Gurney (1895-1964) had a little black Cocker Spaniel appropriately called "Blackie," whom he doted upon. My Dad and his father had "Turk" a rangy looking hunting dog and I have several B&W pictures of father, son, rifles and dog.

My opinion: I think besides being food, carriers-of-burdens and hunters, I think dogs have been companions of mankind since very early times. Does this rock art prove that???

Tika & State Archives

Lee Pierce is an archivist at the Eastern Washington Branch of the Washington State Archives and he gave my genealogical society a grand tour and explanation of just what is and what is not available to you at a state archives. (I was telling Tika all about this but she was bored so I decided to tell you!)

To use an archives, Lee explained, you must know why the archives keeps records........ why THAT archives keeps WHAT it keeps and WHY. Then you must ask yourself, what of their inventory would be helpful to me in my research?

"Using archives for research is not like stopping by the 7/11 for a quick gallon of milk," Lee continued. "Using archives means learning to use a wide variety of resources. Even smaller or private archives might have more and completely different records and resources than does a state archives. One example would be police records. Here in Eastern Washington we have a wonderful Law Enforcement Museum and older police records are housed there." Another example would be the Diocesan Archives of the Catholic Church, also here in Spokane but covering all the parishes in Eastern Washington. "Those archives have materials that we don't and never will have," Lee stated.

Just look at my photo of the old books above that contain early deed/land information for Spokane County. Would you search in them by name? By address? By date? Would they be digitized and available online?  Also look at the endless rows of document-storage boxes......... what treasures might they contain about your ancestor?

What you will not see are family history books or any files on specific families. You must look for your specific family in the records that they left behind.......... school records, voting records, naturalization records, etc. Those sorts of records are what's in an archives.

Tika was really snoring-fast-asleep when I finished explaining all of this to her! She is a dog after all.

Tika & Choices

The other day I posed my darling little Tika to tempt her decision making process. A Milk-Bone dog chew or a fresh cookie?? (And no, I do not give Tika chocolate.) She would have happily chomped down both treats but I posed this picture to illustrate a point: We all face decisions daily in our lives.

This is so true in genealogy. I've been working on a couple of projects for other folks and I've relied heavily upon Ancestry.com. Almost any tree you set up on Ancestry will have some waving green leaves to lure you deeper into the website and some of those leaves will point to good records and some will not.

Example: Surely, I thought, Fitzroy Chapin was the son of Paul Fitzroy Chapin, whose mother surely was a Fitzroy. The name was unusual enough that it seemed logical. BUT. Fitzroy Chapin was born in 1821 and Paul Fitzroy Chapin was born in 1824, so that hardly works out. But it looked so good! There probably is a family connection here but Fitzroy cannot be the son of that Paul Fitzroy.  That was my "chocolate cookie" answer. I had to keep looking and that's not nearly as fun as chomping down the cookie right off the bat.

Most leaders in the genealogical community these days are teaching and touting proper research processes and procedures and documentation to the "enth" degree. And of course they are right. This is the "Milk-Bone treat" answer, ie, the better answer....... or path to getting the answer.

"Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made," said Wayne Dyer. 

May I paraphrase:  "Our family history is the sum total of the choices we have made." 

Tika & Native American Research

The Spokane River is the boundary between Spokane and Stevens counties. Also, the north shore of the river borders the Spokane Indian Reservation. Boating there once, far up (east) on the river, we spotted an Indian cemetery high on a sandy bluff. I was explaining to Tika (who never misses a boat trip) about our local Native American peoples.

While I've learned that in my pedigree I have no Native American ancestry, I'm sympathetic to those who are so lucky. To that end, I picked up a flyer at the Family History down in Salt Lake City that details Finding Your Indian Ancestor. So I was explaining these tips to Tika:

1.  Find out where your ancestor lived.
2.  Find what tribes were located in the area where your ancestor lives, and learn who kept the records.
3.  Search all record types for your ancestor's time period and location.
4.  Identify and locate specific records by using the Family History Library Catalog.
5.  Search the records for your ancestor.

While I don't know if you can request a copy of this little flyer, I do know that if you click to www.familysearch.org and then "search" and then "Wiki" you will get 3996 hits for "Indian" and 1755 hits for "Native American."  

And I learned this tidbit:

Did You Know?

• The term Indians of North America is the traditional term used by English-speaking non-Native Americans. Despite the widespread use of the term, both within the Native American community and the North American population, many people prefer to use the term Native Americans, acknowledging the fact that these peoples were the original inhabitants of the continent. The term is associated with the 1960's Native American campaigns for civil rights - campaigns which helped to change the policy of the federal government to one of self determination for the tribal communities.

Tika says, "Don't ever give up on finding your Indian ancestors.... just keep looking and learning about new records and resources."  I agree! 

Tika & Southern Research Tidbits

Ever since Tika was a little #2 puppy (late fall of 2009), I've been teaching her how to do Southern research. Since there is a long list of reasons why researching in the southern U.S. is a tad more difficult than for other localities, I thought today that Tika and I would share some resource tidbits with you concerning Southern research.

1.  Tyler's Quarterly Historical & Genealogical Magazine began publication in June 1919 and continued under that name until 1952. Clicking to this link, https://archive.org/details/tylersquarterlyh03,  you can freely access a wealth of information on southern families.

2.  DAR Magazine Index:  1892-1997 is just what it says, an index to the Genealogical Notes & Queries published in the DAR Magazine beginning in July 1900. Over 40,000 queries were published in that magazine up to 1997. I looked at this 3-volume index at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, but here's a tidbit for you: http://blog.familytreemagazine.com/insider/2009/11/19/SearchDARGenealogyIndexesFreeOnline.aspx

While the DAR may not have this 105-year index available freely online, they do offer a parallel search service. It's free; why not check it out?

3.  Edward Pleasants Valentine Papers:  Abstracts of Records in the Local and General Archives of Virginia Relating to (various Southern) Families. Again, I looked at these books at the Family History Library but we both can now access this southern database via Ancestry.com! If you are not a subscribing member, you can use Ancestry for free at your nearby FamilySearch Center.

On a lighter note, and since it's springtime and windy time, here is a little poem for you from William Howitt, (1792-1879):  The wind one morning sprang up from sleep, Saying "Now for a frolic, now for a leap!  Now for a madcap galloping chase! I'll make a commotion in every place." 

Tika likes to "frolic in the wind" and at a "madcap galloping chase!"  If I left her off her leash, she be "making a commotion" over in your county!!

Tika & Smiling

Was sharing a good quote with Tika the other day:  "Want to know how the secret of how to wake up in the morning with a smile on your face? Go to bed with a coat hanger in your mouth." (Richard G. Scott).

Now does that not make you laugh? Or at least smile at the image? Tika says, "Hey, I'm smiling without that coat hanger!"

So why is Tika (and me too!) smiling? Because the snow is almost gone!! Tika is so eager to get outside and frankly so am I. Cannot help but think about my ancestors snowbound in their dimly-lighted little cabins, with a passel of sick children, for months and months. At least we can get out and go places. And we still complain about being sunless and housebound. "Buckle up!" says Tika. "If they could do it, we can do it too. But (woof, woof) I'm so glad spring is here!!"  Me too, Tika.

Even without a coat hanger.

Tika & Hawaiian Cemeteries

When Handy Man and I returned from Maui, of course Tika was overjoyed to see us. After all the obligatory doggie kisses, and after we were all "squared away" (Handy Man's old Navy term), I settled Tika into the chair next to me and told her what I'd learned about Hawaiian cemeteries.

It's not particularly good news. More and more development is terribly encroaching on ancient as well as newer cemeteries or burial grounds. Here is one just a bit north of Lahina, squashed between the highway and the beach, and you can clearly see what is happening:

This last one has a lei made from those old pop-top cans. Yes, the place looks a bit neglected but that is not the point. On a busy beach day the cars would park everywhere if not held back by those ropes.

A local newspaper carried this tidbit:  "One of the reasons land developers tend to get bad press is that their hotels, resorts and shopping centers often disturb the remains of those who lived here before the arrival of Westerners. The general rule is that any bones (iwi) found during construction must stay where found. If that can't happen, then those who dug them up must rebury them as close as possible to their original site.

Apparently, this plan of action, which is actually part of state law, isn't working too well, because now the state Senate is kicking around (a new bill) which proposes that we simply bury all the bones we can't really find a place for over on Kaho'olawe.

Hawaii's Senate is considering a bill that would designate the island of Kahooalwe as the resting place for unknown or inadvertently discovered Hawaiian bones when those remains cannot be buried nearby."

(This was copied into the local newspaper from an AP story reported on 31 Jan 2014.)

Tika thought that sounded like a good idea; what do YOU think of such a proposal? What if your state designated a specific place for the common reburial of Native American remains???

Tika & RootsTech

I kissed Tika goodbye a couple of days ago and went on a Delta silver bird down to Salt Lake City to attend RootsTech. While I do not expect there will be a class on "Finding Your Dog's Ancestry," I'm very much looking forward to almost more learning than my brain can handle.

I understand nearly 10,000 people will be attending....... 10,000!! It is so exciting to think that so many people are interested enough in family history and the technology that makes it possible to spend the time and money to come to RootsTech.

For those unable to attend in person there will be much great stuff posted after the conference as well as live streaming during the three days.

I am 100% convinced that to really make significant progress on learning about your family history, you must employ technology. There are dozens of helpful websites and tutorials to teach you and more dozens of online databases wherein to search for your ancestors. (Think of it as lots of lakes with fish and you get to go fishing. But you gotta learn how to fish and where are the lakes.)

Tika promises to stay awake as she snuggles by my side when I get home and go to tell her all about it. We'll see......... I really don't think she cares too much about RootsTech, but I do!!

Tika & Roots

Tika and I were out in the sunshine last summer when we spotted this Ponderosa Pine tree. It was growing on a fairly steep sandy bank and only those tangled, deeply embedded roots, kept the tree from falling down the hill.

Tika and I had a nice discussion about roots and not the Ponderosa kind. Our roots are our forebears, our ancestors, those who have gone before us in time. The sometimes tangled lives they led have become the foundation which holds us up straight and tall in the sunshine of today. The deeper into the earth the roots reach, the stronger the tree.

The strength of our personal roots are the stories of our ancestors. Just to know the vital statistics of their lives is not very interesting. But to learn how they learned to overcome the big rocks, the lack of water, and the ever present danger of falling down the hill, as with a Ponderosa, will make us strong too.

Tika listened for a while and then dozed off in the sunshine. She only knows that she is from Idaho; her doxie roots are shallow.

Tika & Maps & History

Tika does watch TV. She prefers dog shows (wolves, coyotes, dogs) or cat shows (cougars, cheetahs, cats) but most anything that moves catches her attention. A friend sent me this link and while I held Tika on my lap and we watched this moving-map-video, the was, alas!, not very interested. But I surely was! So I thought to share this link-website-opportunity to learn with you. Enjoy! And share with us what new tidbits of history and/or geography that you learned, please? 

Moving Map Of The Country ( UNIQUE HISTORY LESSON! ) Probably the best capsule of the history of our country ever put together, free! (:) It's fascinating to watch the evolution of growth from the 13 colonies up to the present day -- with dates, wars, purchases, etc. all included. As much as you may know about American history, I guarantee you'll learn something from this short video clip. Best history lesson you'll have in a long time.  Click on the link below; when it opens, do not click GO at the bottom, but rather click on PLAY at the top.    www.animatedatlas.com/movie

 

Tika & Ancestry.com

Tika asked me the other day, "Does everybody know about Ancestry.com?"  (I've told you before what a smart little dogger she is.) "Most genealogists do," I assured her. "Let's tell them what we've learned about doing research on Ancestry," she eagerly told me. "Great idea!" I replied.

The first thing I might share with you about doing research on Ancestry.com is that as you look at the hints (the waving leaves) for a person, and then evaluate the information and perhaps add that person to your tree, more hints come!

The next thing I recommend is to go through all the "wavy leaf" hints and take the time to study what you will or will not add to your tree. Don't swallow them all "hook, line and sinker." 

The last thing I realized is that Ancestry.com found references that I had not yet thought to look for.... or that new information brought to light. 

Paying attention to detail, research on Ancestry.com can be a delightful "finding" experience.

"Oh, by the way," Tika spoke up. "Don't leave me out in the snow too long!!"

Tika & Birds

Tika is ever on guard against birds. She watched The Birds movie with me once and has had a personal vendetta against birds ever since. She sits with us in the living room watching out the window for whatever might be flying by or flying around. And when a big Southwest or Delta "bird" comes by in a landing pattern, she launches immediately into a barking rage. Good dog, Tika. :-)

Ever thought about what birds might have been in your ancestor's yard? For instance, my Michigan and Illinois ancestors enjoyed Bluejays and Cardinals whereas we here in Washington state have neither. But we have Magpies and they don't! Neither of us have Road Runners that live in the southwest.

Read a neat story in Readers Digest once about when they cleaned out great-grandma's house somewhere in the flat plains of the midwest, they found a very dried-up little bird carefully wrapped in tissue. Of course they marveled but some reading of Great-Grandma's letters (lucky folks) showed that moving to the midwestern prairies was hard on Grandma and the thing she missed terribly were the songbirds. So somewhere along the line she got one to keep in a cage and when it died, could not bear to bury it.

Birds in our environment are powerful to us in many ways. Always has been so and always will be. And Tika is always on the lookout for them!

Tika & Christmas Letters

When Tika gets snapped onto her rope out in the yard, it's a snowy yard at this time of year. But snow or not, doggers must go outside even for short bursts. Few days ago when I let her back in, Tika came bounding to me with snowy paws and a cold nose and announced that she had something important for her blog this week. I was all ears.

"You know those sometimes-boring Christmas letters that family members often send to one another?? Well, aren't they a chronicle of what's happened over the past year to that family?" Tika asked with her big brown eyes.  I had to agree; those boastings and postings that make up the family Christmas letter are indeed a family history record for the year.

"They should be kept as a family history source document," Tika said with emphasis. And I couldn't agree more. I did not send out a family epistle this year but I did receive several.............. I shall think twice about what I really should be doing with them.

What about you?? What do you do with those family Christmas newsletters???

Tika Wonders: Don't You Like Me?

Tika wonders, "How come nobody "likes" me or "comments" to me? She does read and follow her blog, remember. "I surely do not know," I pet her head and tell her. "Well, we'll just keep trying!"

I was reading to her from a recent issue of Family Tree Magazine about World War II Draft Registration Records. We learned that 16 October 1940 was the first day of the World War II Draft Registrations and all men between the ages of 21 to 31 living in the U.S. had to register. This does not mean they served, but they had to register. Both naturalized immigrants and aliens had to register for the draft as well. These registration cards yield many tidbits of good information.

A man typically registered at the draft board in the precinct, ward, city, county and state where he lived. He typically signed his name, so you get a signature. He stated who he worked for and his occupation. He stated his age, date and place of birth, which may help you confirm you have the correct ancestor if you're searching a common name. He gave information on  the "person who will always know your address" and the "relationship of that person."

Tika and I discussed that to keep current these days in genealogy you almost have to read the genealogy magazines and keep up with the blogs. You not only keep current but you learn more in depth about the records you're using. Family Tree Magazine does help with that learning.

Now Tika says, "Please sign up for my blogs if you like me and what I try to teach. Please?" And then she asks me if it's time for dinner. She is a dog after all.