Two New Pages Added to This Blog!

I'm so excited - I actually accomplished a technogeek thing today (thanks to Thomas Macentee's easy-to-follow instructions on GeneaBloggers) and added two new pages to Greta's Genealogy Bog: The Texas Team and The South Carolina Crew. These pages contain lists of blogs that have a Texas or South Carolina connection. If your blog has that connection and you do not see it on the list, let me know in a comment to this post or by using the Contact button on the left of this blog and I will add it. The South Carolina Crew in particular could probably use an update. The next page to be added will probably be a list of the families that I am researching.

52 Weeks to Better Genealogy – Challenge 6, Online Databases at the Public Library

On to the latest of 52 challenges for improving our research skills posed by Amy of We Tree. This one I have known about for quite a while. The closest library to me is the Falls Church City Public Library. I have been accessing Heritage Quest using my library card there for almost as long as I have been doing genealogy and had already been using it for several months before I signed up for Ancestry. I still go back to the census images on Heritage Quest when the image is poor on Ancestry; sometimes it is better and sometimes not. Even when the image is not much better, an image may appear very dark on one of the services and very light on the other, and between the two you may be able to figure out what is written. PERSI is also available through Heritage Quest and I sometimes use it for that.

Live from Falls Church, Virginia, It’s the Third Annual iGene Awards!

It's Academy awards time... time for the Academy of Genealogy and Family History, aka AGFH, to honor their best blog posts of 2009 in the following 5 categories: Best Picture, Best Screen Play, Best Documentary, Best Biography, and Best Comedy. Start digging back into your archives and choose which of your blog posts deserve to be recognized for outstanding achievement. This is not a competition between bloggers but a chance for you to spotlight your own shining efforts at recording your genealogy and family history in 2009.

Thanks to Jasia at Creative Gene for sponsoring this 90th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.

Best Picture: I have been extremely lucky during my four and a half short years in genealogy to be on the receiving end of some amazing generosity by my “research cousins,” and this year I received from my cousin George a picture of my paternal grandfather, Lawrence Carroll Brinlee, as detailed in Wordy Wednesday: About That Happy Dance. Having been born after both of my grandfathers died, I have always felt there was something missing, but at least I now know what they both looked like and know a bit about their lives. And if you look at the picture of Grandpa Lawrence, you might see some resemblance to my Uncle Bill.

Best Documentary goes to a series of posts, though I did not present them as a series, on my music-making Moore family: Memory Monday – Fiddles and My Family, I Was Wrong, and Musical Instruments – More on the Fiddling Moores. The first outlines how fiddles came to occupy such a place of importance for the Moores, the second has a picture and obituary of my Uncle Howard the fiddle-maker, and in the third I share some additional materials I found on my Uncle Howard and Aunt Joy as well as a video featuring the Violano Virtuoso, an unusual mechanical instrument that my Uncle Howard owned. If you made a movie from these posts, the best part would be the soundtrack (think O Brother, Where Art Thou?).

Best Biography goes to Uncle, Uncle – William Henry Lewis: A Little Man Who Stood Tall. W. H. Lewis was such a fascinating person and led such an interesting life in his 95 years that this article practically wrote itself. And yet, I almost missed learning all of this; only my curiosity at seeing him and his wife twice listed as boarders in the household of another family led to a series of events that ended in one of my biggest finds and a real genealogical treasure chest.

Best Screenplay would go to the two-part series submitted for the Orphans and Orphans Carnival of Genealogy: Searching for Preston Moore and The Two Preston Moores. It is in the form of a mystery and takes place in two centuries, the 19th and the 21st. At the heart of the story is the “why” behind our search for our ancestors; it is not just an endless pursuit to learn the names and accomplishments of our direct ancestors, but often becomes a heartrending quest to find our “forgotten” relatives. Filling the main roles would be Gary Cooper and Mildred Natwick as Preston’s parents Spencer and Emily Moore, with a young Jeffrey Hunter or a teenaged Tommy Rettig as Preston, and as the researcher … hmm … how about Sharon Gless?

Best Comedy goes to The Language of Cats: An Illustrated Glossary. Another post that wrote itself. After I spent hours selecting the pictures, that is. The cinematographer never gets any real credit.

Now for my long-winded acceptance speech.

This is usually the part of my blog post where the “spoof” starts. However, I’m going to buck the trend and get serious here (even though the purpose and spirit of the iGenes is mainly a light-hearted self-review of our blogs over the past year).

I have often said that I never really learned how to research until I started genealogy. The other thing that has surprised me is that writing a genealogy blog and reading others’ blogs has taught me a lot about writing.

When I say that the geneablogging community is like an online university, I mean it. And this applies to our writing efforts. When we submit our work, however, instead of getting a paper back all marked in red, we see what attracts our readers’ attention initially and what keeps their attention and compels them to comment. And by reading others’ blogs we see what works for them. So it is a very gentle way of “teaching.” We learn that we should strive to do our best, but that we cannot always be perfect and occasionally we have to hit the PUBLISH POST button when we can tweak no longer. The information should be shared, whether or not the post has been polished to gem-like perfection. And when we learn that lesson, we are able to write and publish quickly enough and often enough that we can learn from the experience – practice may not make perfect, but it sure makes a heckuva lot better.

We have learned to develop our own styles. Some are chatty; some are laconic. Some are matter-of-fact, while others exercise their imaginations to walk a few steps in their ancestors’ shoes. Some of our fellow GeneaBloggers came to blogging from professions or avocations that were centered around their writing skills, so blogging has been a way to focus and sharpen these skills even further. “If you enjoy writing, you should start a blog!” The problem was, I did not enjoy writing…. In my profession, where I translate other people’s words, I used to see writing my own words as a time-consuming chore. Everything had to be perfect, as though it were a paper submitted for a grade in a class. The way I got around that inhibiting “need to be perfect” was to imagine myself speaking to another person, a sympathetic audience of one, write the words down as they came into my head, and then edit out excess verbiage and make corrections and improvements. And I learned that sometimes we need to remove that mask of insouciance and detachment and write with sincerity.

I do not kid myself that blogging has made me a “real” writer or that my skills do not still leave much to be desired, but I am enjoying my “classroom experience” in the GeneaBlogging community. I enjoy seeing new bloggers take those first few tentative steps, just as I did in the fall of 2008, interact with their readers and fellow bloggers, and acquire the skills and confidence to try new things and write about their genealogy research and other subjects with both precision and panache.

To my fellow GeneaBloggers, to those such as Jasia, Thomas, footnoteMaven, Amy, and Randy who orchestrate Geneablogging community efforts and encourage new genealogy writers, to those who write blogs, and to those who read and comment on my blog: Thank you. You are my teachers.

It’s Deep … and Getting Deeper

The Blizzard of 2010

Here was the view out our front door early this morning.




Here is the view out the back.




The bamboo has started to bend over.



Our regular visitors are here. All are welcome, even the “pests.”



First they start to gather in the trees.





And see what they can find on the ground.



My husband dug out a path on our deck so that he could refill the birdfeeders, but that has already started to fill in.




R.B. wonders what all the fuss is about.



More snow is coming....

Family and Friends Newsletter Friday 5 February 2010

Have returned from trip. Back to research and blogging!

Research

Norman

Back to work on the Sudie Norman family.

What do you in your genealogy program do when a divorced couple has remarried? I cannot find an option for this on Reunion so I just put it in the “Memo” field next to the first marriage. (This must be “Genealogy Program Marriage Entry Workaround Week” – see Geder.Genealogy and Elyse’s Genealogy Blog).

Blogs

Sandy of Cemetery Divas is out having ankle surgery. Prayers and best wishes for as speedy and painless a recovery as possible.

At T.K.’s Before My Time I found a reference to Dana Huff’s blog, Our Family History. It has a Texas connection, so I have added it to the Texas Team.

This has been mentioned on other recaps, but you must read Chery’s story of her search for her father at Nordic Blue.

Read Tipper’s interview of Appalachian author Peggy Poe Stern and then link to the excerpt from Peggy’s book Heaven High and Hell Deep over at Blind Pig and the Acorn. You’ll be hooked!

Nest Pic Challenge – Can You Tell We Can’t Wait for Spring?

Over at Linda’s Flipside and Carol’s Reflections from the Fence. They have some great pictures of nests in trees. Well, ladies, here’s my contribution.


OK, it’s not very spectacular. But notice the home décor, i.e., the plastic ribbons hanging down. I have seen chickadees hovering near this nest, but I don’t think it is a chickadees’ nest. Speaking of which, here is what I hope to lure the chickadees to nest in this spring (it was a Christmas present):



Off-Topic: Beware of Crash Blossoms!

First there were Phantonyms, now there are Crash Blossoms! "Crash Blossoms" is the name now given to a phenomenon that owes its existence to the practice of compressing headlines into the fewst number of words possible, so that the little words that could prevent ambiguities are eliminated. In his latest “On Language” column for the NY Times, Ben Zimmer describes the evolution of the neologism for this phenomenon and how this name caught on. The original headline was “Violinist Linked to JAL Crash Blossoms.” I’ll cite one more such headline – “British Left Waffles on Falklands” – to whet your appetite for more and recommend that you read the full article here.


Meanwhile, here in Northern Virginia, it is snowing. And snowing. And snowing….

Transcription Tuesday: Materials from the Alabama Department of Archives and History

I am a big fan of state archives, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History is a shining illustration of the reasons why. About a year ago I sent in a request for materials on my great-great grandfather, William T. Sisson. On the request form you can select four types of documents for them to search for the fee ($15?). They found three of the four types (and the fourth, his Civil War service record, I obtained from Footnote) and sent photocopies of the records, a research report, and a copy of a page from the unit rosters for Alabama Confederate soldiers.

Below is the beginning of my transcription of these documents. I will begin with the Confederate Widow’s Pension application of William T. Sisson’s widow, Susan C. [Caroline] Tant Sisson.

As I started to transcribe these documents, it became clear to me that I should have done this much earlier. Although I scanned them for information when I received them, they contain so much more, and compelled me to change, add, and update information in my genealogy program.

[First page – parts of three papers]

[Paper at left, typewritten]

Sisson, William T.
Co. C, 30th Ala. Inf. Reg.
Private.
April 1862, Talladega, Ala.

[Middle paper, typewritten]

Alabama Pension No. 31780
Elmore County
Name of Pensioner Susan C. Sisson
Widow of W. T. Sisson
Rank pvt Co. H 25 Regt.

Ala Infantry/ Cavalry/Artillery/Navy

Enlisted _____ at
County of _____
State of _____
Name of Com’n’d’r _____
Discharged _____ at
_____
Wounded _____ at
______
Witnesses R. H. McKinney
Jno. J. Sparks
Remarks /initials/

[Paper at right, handwritten]

[Private] age 29 [or 79]
Mar. 5th 1862 – Talladega, Ala,
3 years ---
Muster in Roll dated Camp Curry, March 26th 1862 –

[Second page – appears to be photocopy of a record card, handwritten entries]

MILITARY RECORDS DIVISION

VETERAN’S NAME Sisson, William T.
PENSIONER “
Sisson, Susan Caroline
COUNTY Coffee & Calhoun & Elmore
MILITARY RECORD Pvt., Co. H, 25th Regt.

[Third page – beginning of application. Entries are typewritten.]

WIDOWS BLANK FOR RECLASSIFICATION UNDER SECTION 11, AS AMENDED BY ACTS OF LEGISLATURE APPROVED OCTOBER 5th, 1920

State of Alabama
Coffee County

Give your full name Susan Caroline Sisson
Your present, permanent, complete post office address Elba, Alabama, R # 4.
What is your number on pension roll? (Elmore Co.)
With whom are you now living? W. T. Sisson, her son, Elba, Alabama, R # 4.
Where were you born? Place Talladega County County Alabama State ____
When were you born? Month October Day 12th Year 1835.
Sate name of your father John J. Tant
If living, his present address Not living.
If dead, when and where he died Has been dead 25 years or more, Talladega Co.
What was the name of your husband? William T. Sisson
When and where did you marry him? 1874 in Talladega County, Alabama.
When and where did he die? 1892 in Talladega County, Alabama.
Were you living with him one year prior to his death? Yes.
Were you ever divorced from him No. If so, when and where? None.
Have you been married more than once? No. If so, give name of husband and date and place of marriage None.
Have you been on the pension roll of any other county in this State at any time? Yes. If so, state in what counties and the years of your residence there, County Elmore County year 1897, County Elmore, year, County ___ year ____. Have you ever drawn a pension in another state? No. If so, give the State None, County ___, and years ____.
Are you now receiving a pension from any other state? No. If so, give the name of State ___. Did you ever apply for a pension in this State and had your application rejected? No. If so, give year ___ and reason for rejection ___.
Has your name ever been dropped from the pension roll? No. If so, state in what county you were then drawing and the reason given None.
Have you ever lived in any other states? No. If so, give name of states____ Counties___.

Items of interest and information

1. Confirms his unit number (Company H, 25th Regiment). Cryptic references on the left-hand piece of paper on the first photocopy page to the 30th Regiment. The only reference in the body of Susan C. Sisson’s application is to the 25th Regt. The dates on the handwritten scrap of paper on the right side of the page do not seem to have dates that add up either for William or Susan, so these may have been from adjacent files. There may have been a William M. Sisson in the Talladega area (perhaps a relative). Searches in the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System do not really provide a lot of additional information. I’ll have to do some more nosing around in Footnote. Also need to get unit histories.

2. Confirms that Susan C. Sisson’s full name is Susan Caroline Sisson and that her maiden name was Tant. This was a big deal when I first received the photocopies, because I was not sure the Susan C. Sisson shown living with daughter Martha Edna Mulkey on the 1900 census for Talladega County, Alabama was the Caroline Tant Sisson listed on the Sisson Family Genealogy pages.

3. A year of 1874 is given as the date of marriage of Susan C. Tant and William T. Sisson (which does not match the 17 October 1875 date listed in the marriage records for Talladega County).

4. An approximate time frame for the death of John Tant is given (would be around 1898 or earlier). (Note to self: This is a family I want to do more research on. There was also a daughter named Martha, and she would have been the right age to be the same Martha Tant who married Lafayette Lee, the half-brother of my great-great grandfather J.M.C. Norman.)

5. My previous entry for the death date for Susan C. Sisson in my genealogy program – before 1920 (may have been based on the fact that I did not find her in the 1920 census) – was incorrect and had to be changed to "after 11 April 1923," based on the date of the application.

6. Route #4, Elba (Coffee County) is given as Susan’s place of residence on the date of the application. The other counties listed may also indicate other places of residence of Susan’s daughter Martha Edna Sisson Mulkey and her husband Ruben Mulkey. Although Susan is listed as living with her son W. T. [Wiley Turner] Sisson in 1923, on the 1900 and 1910 censuses she is living with her daughter (and I can't find her on the 1920 census, either). Edna and Ruben may have moved to Georgia in around 1920-23; they are living in Georgia in 1930.

7. 1892 is given as the year of William T. Sisson’s death, which does not agree with the date of 12 February 1894 indicated on the Sisson Family Genealogy pages.

8. Based on the replies in the form, Susan C. Tant had no husbands prior to William Sisson; she was his third wife and was somewhere between 35 and 40 when she married him.

So, after only a few pages, a lot of information has been provided and several discrepancies and unverified pieces of information appear that need to be followed up.

Memory Monday: True Confessions

***

If you are reading this, the “True Confessions” part of the title may have lured you in. So, what is this “true confession” about – some sort of youthful indiscretion?

Sort of. That is, some people would consider it a youthful indiscretion because they would be reluctant to confess something like this had they indulged in it. But I don’t (consider it an indiscretion) and I’m not (reluctant to confess it).

You see, in my youth I … used to read science fiction. Still do, occasionally.

Moreover, I … used to watch science fiction movies and television shows whenever I could. Still do, occasionally.

And, most revealing of true nerdhood … I attended science fiction conventions. More than one. Maybe as many as four.

And this wasn’t even in my childhood or adolescence, nor was it even in my undergraduate days.

It was in my graduate student days. You know, that part of life and that section of the population in which one of the pinnacles of achievement is to reach the status of “intellectual sophisticate.” Any connection whatsoever with science fiction disqualifies you for that status. Maybe not among science, engineering, or mathematics students, but among liberal arts students (including Slavic Studies), it’s an Automatic DQ.

It was, in fact, one of my fellow graduate students, fellow “liberal arts” (Classics, no less) students, and a dorm mate who lived just down the hall in Conant Hall, one of Harvard’s graduate dorms, who introduced me to the Science Fiction Convention life.

“H” was just a couple of doors down from me, and perhaps I should have noticed that she had replaced her vanilla nameplate with a personally illustrated, SF-themed nameplate, but I hadn’t.

I did notice, however, when I heard the Star Wars theme blasting from her room one day. My reaction was immediate but confused. You know how it is when you immediately recognize something very near, dear, and familiar to you but the context is wrong? That was the feeling.

I was at that stage of development in life in between the “shy and introverted” stage (my entire childhood and adolescence) and “will talk to (almost) anyone she encounters anywhere” stage (the rest of my life, much to my daughters’ chagrin). This was Important. So I walked over to H’s room, knocked on the door jam (the door was open), smiled, and said, “I like your music.” This was in the 1978-80 timeframe; Star Wars ruled. Star Trek had not yet made The Great Comeback (come on, you know that Star Trek: The Motion Picture doesn’t count).

The rest was history. H introduced me to the nerdy world of science fiction fans in the neighborhood of Harvard Square (more substantial than you would expect, due in part to the presence of a first-class science fiction book store run by Spike, a local legend). I introduced H to my nerdy boyfriend (now nerdy husband) from Georgetown when he came to visit.

H was a science fiction and fantasy artist. One of the main venues at which she sold her art was science fiction conventions. So in February 1979 we tagged along to our first science fiction convention: Boskone. Boskone is one of the more venerable of SF conventions, having originated in 1941 and resumed in 1965. It was a big deal. There were big-name SF authors as guests, as well as big-name SF artists.

We did not go in costume, or much of a costume to be precise. The geekiness was there, but we just didn’t have the money. But we did participate in as many science fiction activities as we could cram in:

- Late night viewings of blooper reels. Sort of new in those days, and hugely popular. There was no YouTube, so a convention was one of the few places you could see them. There were also comic shorts (Hardware Wars) and technical wizardry shorts (Mike Jittlov’s The Wizard of Speed and Time was a huge cult favorite).


Wizard of Speed and Time
(If you like this, look up “Mouse Mania – StopMotion Animation” on YouTube. Then there is my favorite, Jittlov’s StopAnimation (aka pixilation) takeoff on The Time Machine – done to music from The Red Pony. I cannot seem to find it on YouTube; there may be copyright issues, since the featured machine is the one from the 1960 Rod Taylor movie. If anyone knows where I can get hold of a copy of this, please, please, please tell me. Oops, sorry, geeking out again.)

- Talks by authors and room parties with authors as guests. A chance to meet and greet up close. Other celebrities and featured speakers, such as Chuck Yeager, might drop by.

- Talks by people involved in upcoming SF movies and TV shows – a chance to hear “the scoop.”

- Riding the elevator. Once. One ride in an elevator filled with fans was all you needed to realize that you did not need to repeat this experience.

- The art show. This was a big part of our experience, as H had given us a thorough introduction to the SF art scene. The bidding and auction were not to be missed.

- The costume show and contest. “Amazing” doesn’t do it justice. SF/Fantasy spoof movies justifiably make fun of fans in costume, but the artistry of some of the creators of SF/Fantasy costumes is real and has to be experienced to be believed. One that I particularly remember was an eight-person display of the playing card suits (King and Queen for spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds). The first year that we attended, 1979, was, I believe, also the last year in which full-body paint – without any clothing – was allowed. After that there had to be some sort of clothing, however nominal.

- If we were still there on the evening of the last day of the convention, “Dead Dog” parties and a filksing. If you know what “filksing” is, you are a Nerd. Capital “N”.

A filksing is a gathering at which filksingers perform filksongs. The name is said to have originated as a typo for “folksong” or as a drunken mispronunciation of “folksong,” take your pick. The music may be taken from well-known (or arcane) actual folk songs or it may be original, but the themes are generally those of interest to SF convention-goers: science fiction, fantasy, computer programming, etc. There is a good description here.

We attended another Boskone, the 1980 Noreascon (which was the Worldcon that year), as well as a Balticon and a Disclave. Okay, so I attended five in all.

And that’s about it. In 1981 I left graduate school (ABD – Hooray!), and real life – aka a job – intervened. I haven’t been back, but I enjoy reminiscing. Galaxy Quest is one of my favorite movies. I like it because it’s so realistic.

*** If you recognized anything among the items featured in the photographs above, that could mean that you are both a geneablogger and SF fan. Yeah, you, John, Kirill, and a few others.

Items shown above – two of our “science fiction” bookshelves (neither is exclusively SF – organization of books leaves something to be desired in our household) and one of my “pride and joy” items – my Doctor Who scarf, purchased at the 1980 Boskone. It is included among my “Please Keep These Things,” but a reminder may not be necessary. My younger daughter has already claimed it. That is, stolen it.

Bandit’s A Blogger’s Best Friend Award

My warmest thanks to the much-respected Genea-Bloggers listed below for presenting me with Bandit’s A Blogger’s Best Friend Award. I love following their blogs and find their writing so interesting and intriguing that I couldn’t NOT comment:

Karen at Ancestor Soup
Lori at Genealogy and Me
Carol at Reflections from the Fence
Nancy at My Ancestors and Me

Since these four ladies are also loyal followers and commenters on my blog, they would definitely be on the list of awardees from me, but since I have been out of town, I have had to postpone my participation until now.

The terms of the award include passing it on to two of our most loyal followers, so I’ll take the liberty of including two bloggers per award:

Linda at Flipside
Amy at They That Go Down to the Sea
Apple at Apple’s Tree
Judith Richards Shubert of Genealogy Traces and Tennessee Memories
Leah at Random Notes
hummer at Branching Out Through the Years
Tipper at Blind Pig and the Acorn
Amanda the Librarian at ABT UNK
Joan at Roots ‘n Leaves

Oops, that’s nine. Oh well, I can’t count. And I can’t omit any of them, as they and the four ladies at the top all write blogs that entertain and educate me. Oh, heck, I might as well admit it – I am always reading things on their blogs that I wish that I had written.

Awardees, you may acknowledge and/or pass on the award as you wish. I’d just like to say “Thank you” to all of you for visiting my blog and for providing such rich food for thought on your blogs.