Genealogical Gems Hidden In A Cookbook

Do you own a treasured family cookbook?  I have several from my maternal grandmother and my mother-in-law.  We don't think of these hand me downs as genealogical gems but they are!  Take the time to look through each book carefully.  I love the dedication that my mom and aunts wrote to their mom.  They always noted the holiday - Mother's Day, birthday or Christmas - and the year the gift was presented. 
A dog eared page or starred recipe tells much about the previous owner's family, as well.  I come from a long line of sweet toothed individuals and the favorite recipes of old confirm my sugar cravings.
Sometimes you might find a letter or note that was used as a bookmark.  Family relationships and residential addresses can be gained, along with some family gossip.   
If you've obtained community cookbooks then you may win the genealogical prize find.   This type of cookbook combined submitted recipes from members of a local church or civic organization.  Not only will you confirm your family member's name and group affiliation, you'll also identify their favorite food.  Not sure if you're family member's cherished recipes were included?  Visit vintagekitchenheave.etsy.com and omnivorebook.com.  Look for the time period and location where your ancestor resided.  For a low price, you might just discover tasty morsels both edible and historical. Bon Appetit!

Amazing Info Found - The Net As a Beginning Tool

Life has returned to semi-normal after the recent hurricanes.  By semi, I mean the county still hasn't collected the debris, milk and gas aren't available everywhere and several parks remain closed due to damage.  When our power was out for several days, I limited my internet usage to conserve my cell phone battery.  It wasn't until I went to clean my spam filter for my website, Genealogyatheart, that I discovered a message from a distant cousin.  He had discovered my site and our connection through our great grandfather by simply Googling the last name.
I replied to his comment and he included one of his nieces on our messages. Between the 3 of us, family puzzles began to be solved quickly. In the past week, I discovered that my paternal grandparents had hosted a small family reunion at their farm in the 1960's.  My parent's divorce was finalized by that time so my mom knew nothing of the event.  Without my cousins input, I wouldn't have known about it, either.
That got my brain going about unidentified people on an old movie I had inherited from my father.  Hubby and I have had all our 8 mm films and VHS tapes professionally saved to a DVD.  (Side note:  If you think your VHS tapes aren't so old they need to be saved, think again.  The oldest VHS tape from 1984 was fading away while some of the 1950 movies looked as good as new).  The DVD contains still photos of some of the movies so hubby took those of the mystery people, along with another CD we had made of all the old family photos we had scanned years ago, and sent them off to both cousins for help in identifying these unknown folks.
We're fairly certain that the picture above is of my grandmother, Lola, and her older brother, Stanley.  Why?  I have the photo and they have the photo.  They are descended from Stanley and it was in their box of photos of his family.  My step mother had placed all the old photos in one box so I was never sure who any of my unlabeled people were.  Were they a Leininger, Landfair, Kuhn, Kable, Kettering, Bollenbacher, Adams or Duer?  I had tried the old Google Picassa facial recognition feature and it helped somewhat but I didn't have enough identified photos to have it match effectively.  
These cousins sent me a few other photos electronically over the past week to see if it would help but Picassa is no longer supported by Google and it kept freezing so no answers there! I'm hopeful they'll be able to match some of the photos on the CD to photos in their box so at least we can categorize by surname.
The cousin who initially contacted me stated their tale is that the family originated from Ireland and not Bavaria as my line recalled.  I tend to believe them for several reasons.  I've had another family member misidentified's country of origin as Germany instead of being born in the U.S.  Maria Duer Kuhn's death certificate states she was born in Germany but she was born in Ohio.  Her son was the informant.  Her husband was the one born in Germany.  It seems like my Great British ancestors assumed the German culture of those they married in Ohio.  Additional support for their story is that my DNA has a much higher likelihood of Great Britain then it does of German.  Further, Landfair is not a German surname.  When I questioned that years ago I was told that it probably had been changed from Lamphere.  Could be but no proof of that was ever discovered.
One of the cousins also has a copy of my great grandfather's funeral program which she will send me.  I've blogged about him previously - he's the gentleman who "accidentally fell from a platform" and there was a followup investigation a few months after his death resulting in additional paperwork after the death certificate.  The lesson there was make sure you get the complete records you request.
This gets me to the point of today's blog - there remains A LOT of additional information about your ancestors out there - in attics, basements and the brains of the living who recall the unrecorded stories past down.  The internet can help you get to those that hold the key you need but alone, the internet is not enough.  Reach out to long lost family and you just might discover the info you seek.  Happy Hunting!

Genealogy Without Power

Hurricane Irma is long gone and our power has finally been restored!  Four days without electricity was challenging.  I honestly don't know how our ancestors, females especially, survived Florida's heat and humidity back in the day in those long dresses.  The cold water to bathe in doesn't help!
We were fortunate, as were most of our neighbors, in regards to physical objects being spared.  All we had was a leaning fence which we've since fixed, a broken mailbox as the wind tore off the door, several dents in my car hood and lots of vegetation debris to rake up.  Our next door neighbor lost her mother the day after the storm and our neighbor behind us welcomed a new baby.  Nothing like adding more stress to an already difficult time!  The cycle of life continues...
For me, I can't even remember the last week I spent at home and didn't do any genealogy.  It has to have been years ago.  Genealogy is so dependent upon online tools today that there was little I could do without electricity.
I was trying to limit my cell phone usage to conserve it so my response to a few clients was terse.  Two responded they didn't know I lived in the storm's path.  One had found me online and the other through a former client.  There was no need for them to know my physical location but it still surprised me that they hadn't.
I love to read out of print books but I had to limit that, too, to conserve battery life on my Kindle.  I could use my laptop for a bit to work on the current e-Book I'm writing but it's an old laptop and the battery life is short so I decided not to do that.
I had gathered all of my most precious documents and did spend about an hour reshelving them in our office.  That was the extent of my time invested in genealogy.  Now I'm backlogged and better get to work!

Hunkered Down With the Genealogy

The rain just started pummeling us about 5 minutes ago so sorry - no post today as we're going into our closet in a minute to ride out Hurricane Irma which is expected to go right over us early tomorrow morning.  Backed up the computer on that wonderful little device I got on Amazon during Prime Days (tho I am not really happy with you - Amazon - for your price gouging last week.)  The cats must have know cause they found spots in the closet and are cozy right now.
Please send good thoughts/prayers to the peeps in Florida - we're gonna need all the help we can right now.

Maps With A Past

I just love maps!  Check out the following about some unique maps that were new to me -

http://www.atlasobscura.com/lists/13-marvelous-maps-that-go-beyond-paper

What Would You Do?

Happy Labor Day Weekend and the last long weekend of summer.  It's my 40th wedding anniversary, too.  On a not so happy note, it's our 32nd anniversary of losing everything in Hurricane Elena.  We spent that wedding anniversary camping out at North East High in St. Petersburg, Florida with our oldest child and my mom.  Like Hurricane Harvey, the mega rain maker, Elena decided to park herself offshore where she rotated away for several days.  It was the rain that did the most damage.

That life experience made me relate to a recent Washington Post article that asked victims of Harvey what they took with them when they evacuated.  One woman had time to grab her lipstick, another, just his medicine.  For people who have been fortunate enough to not have to evacuate quickly from a life threatening situation those answers might seem ridiculous.  I can assure you they aren't.

I overheard someone in the checkout line yesterday decline to donate for hurricane relief because he said the people should have taken precautions.  I interjected that the initial recommendation had been to stay put and not evacuate.  He considered that and then replied that they should have put together items they needed when they realized the severity of the situation.  Clearly, this man never lived through a disaster.

In our case, we had sold our first home the Sunday before the storm.  With the pending contract, we spent the following days looking for a new one which we found late Friday afternoon.  We placed a contract on it and went out to dinner to celebrate.  We had heard weather reports of a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico but like so many others in late summer, the fickleness of the tract didn't cause us to worry.  We had lived in our home for 7 years and experienced minor street flooding but nothing more serious than that. We went to bed early, skipping the late weather report.

Close to midnight, we were awakened by the sound of a fire truck siren and a loudspeaker announcing, "Prepare to evacuate immediately."  This was pre-cell phone days and reverse home phone emergency contacts.  Following the fire truck was a police car.  We were told he needed the names of our next of kin in case we chose not to leave.  We made the instant decision to go.

So what do you take?  We grabbed a suit case and threw underwear, socks and a few changes of clothes.  We didn't even think about a toothbrush.  I put a few books and toys in a grocery bag for our daughter.  She went into the car seat first and was followed by the cat in a pillowcase which I held on my lap and our lab, who was the only one who was happy about a late night car ride.  We drove to my mom's and discovered she was also being evacuated so she crammed into the car and we headed to the high school.  Mom had thought to pack snacks.

Did I take any insurance papers, family heirlooms, or cash?  Nope.  I had my driver's license in my wallet with a couple of bucks.  The car wasn't even filled with gas and it didn't occur to us that electricity was needed to operate gasoline pumps.  Duh!  When confronted with an emergency, fight or flight kicks in. All the long term planning in the world gets down to what can you take in an instant.  If you've never experienced that I hope you never do.

We returned to our destroyed home 5 days later.  The flood waters had receded leaving tell tale water lines on the walls, particle board furniture that had collapsed, broken windows from wind damage with curtains blowing outside, and soggy smelly carpet.  Nothing is spared.  Think of your kitchen and bathroom cabinets sitting in 3 feet of water for a day.  Now imagine it for even longer.  My husband's grandmother's wicker doll carriage was destroyed, along with my paternal great grandmother's china sugar bowl that had fallen to the floor when the hutch collapsed.  It's not pretty.

Thankfully, the camera was high up on a shelf in the closet so we could take pictures for FEMA of the damage.  Our important paperwork was also spared as it had been kept in the top drawer of a file cabinet in our home office.  Pure dumb luck!  We weren't so lucky with the home sale, though.  The buyer of our home cancelled the sale.  FEMA lost our paperwork which included the pictures and we had to resubmit (hooray for negatives).  We had no electricity for 2 weeks so my daughter and I stayed at my mom's while my husband guarded the home with the dog as looters were coming out as bad as the critters.  Disasters sure bring out the worse in humanity.

I swore I'd be better prepared next time.  Technology has definitely helped as I've scanned every photo and document in case it doesn't make it through the next time.  Those items are saved in a cloud, on CDs that I've given to several individuals and on one that is in my plastic tub where I store important paperwork.  If there's time, I can take the plastic tote and if not, hopefully, the contents will be safe until I return.  I haven't been able to find a fireproof device but that would be best option.

Now that I think about it, it's almost miraculous that any object survives to be past down for more than a generation or two!  That thought makes me treasure what I've received and marvel at the historical events that have item has survived.  If only they could talk!