Comments on: Update You Miserable Machine!!!

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 02:35:27 +0000

My Father’s side dispersed all over the US, while my Mother’s side tended to stay in central New York, although few are still in farming. I know that the majority didn’t think ‘the good old days’ were all that wonderful. They like vaccines, antibiotics and pain meds. They approved of electricity and cars that went faster than 20 mph.

They wouldn’t approve of the way we have lost ground since the 1980s.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 05:14:13 +0000

One of my grandfather’s siblings on my father’s side was alive during my early childhood, my grandfather’s younger sister (18 months younger). I only met her twice though because she lived in Lake Charles and we did not. She died when I was ten years old, not really old enough to understand what I should be asking her about her early life. On my mother’s side I even had one of my great-grandfather’s siblings alive until the late 1990’s (he was the youngest of 13 kids, my great-grandfather was the oldest of 13 kids). There’s a lot of history on that side of the family that’s all right there in the family cemetery, which is behind the church where the family donated the land (previously there had been a school there, but school consolidation took the school away and the family reclaimed the land and gave it to the church since it had been merely rented to the school board for $1/year for the duration of the school board’s use of the land as a school). Sadly, seems like the younger generation of that side of the family is pretty much dissolving thanks to meth, oxycontin, and worse :(.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 11 Sep 2016 00:58:57 +0000

On the 1920 Census my great aunt Minnie [Dumka] Schmalz’s eldest child was listed as Henriette F. Schmalz, a 17yo female, which is odd as in 1910 and 1930 the child is listed as Henry F.

I didn’t know any of my Grandfather Dumka’s siblings as they had all died by the time I was born. Working in the woolen mills does that to you. OTOH, I met 16 of my Grandfather Emhoff’s siblings, as well as his parents. The missing sibling, a great uncle died young as a result of being gassed in WWI.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Sat, 10 Sep 2016 06:08:15 +0000

SNERK! You should see the census forms for my South Louisiana ancestors. None of them spoke English, but the Census forms were in English, so the Census Bureau had to hire a lot of bilingual people who were literate in only one of the languages and guessed at spellings in the other. Spellings of names are all over the place. My grandfather’s siblings have a different name on every census form that I find them! In the 1940 Census they don’t even have my father’s name right, they refer to him by his middle name (which he hated, which was why my grandfather insisted on calling him by that name, because my grandfather was a bitter twisted little man due to the harsh circumstances of his upbringing and life). I don’t even know how I have my current Anglo last name, because according to the Census bureau, everybody on that side of the family spoke Cajun French at home. All I can figure is that an Anglo man married into a Cajun family and then went away, either voluntarily or via death, because my grandfather and his siblings are all alone with their mother in 1900. I haven’t done enough genealogy work on that side of the family to know, the problem is that I never knew most of that side of the family because both my grandfather and my father married relatively late in life, they were mostly all dead before I was 10 years old and knew enough to know I should ask questions. And now that the War on Terriers has ramped up, getting access to official records to look up historical information is like getting access to Fort Knox, everybody seems convinced that if you get access to a birth certificate that you’re not entitled to get, then the Terriers win. Why not Labradors, I dunno, maybe Labradors are too goofy silly, but so it goes.

Meanwhile, on my mother’s side of the family I can go all the way back to my great-great-grandfather who was a teenager by the end of the American Civil War and oversaw the migration of the clan from northern Alabama to northern Louisiana in the aftermath, northern Alabama having been rather conclusively destroyed by multiple armies marching through it during the course of the war. He died a few years after the conclusion of WW2. Wow, talk about some history he saw during his life! But they were all native English speakers so didn’t get their names mangled like my Cajun ancestors, so I can track them through the Census records without much problem…

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 10 Sep 2016 00:46:51 +0000

For centuries, literally, the primary male line of of my Mother’s father flip-flopped between Johannes and Jakob, her mother’s family did the same with John and David. The genealogy was a mess.

Then you get into the spelling of names. My surname was spelled Doemke when my great grandfather arrived at Ellis Island and Dumka when he left.

My Mother’s maiden name was orignally Imhof, but it was spelled Emhof or Emhof, depending on the person filling out the birth certificates.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 21:11:54 +0000

Yep. Up until somewhere around 1.5 centuries ago, marriage age was much lower, 13 wasn’t uncommon. Mainly due to short life expectancy and high childbirth mortality.

My surname is very common around Europe, especially Italy, Sicily & Malta. One of my ancestors a few generation or so ago was PM of Malta. I have several cousins here with exactly the same name & one with the same & DOB (though that was accidental as I was born several weeks premature.) The male side of my ancestors tended to be unimaginative with names! Joe (Joseph or Giuseppe) being extremely common!

My name was going to be Joseph, but Mom cased a family feud when she put her foot down at the Christening (literally apparently) and said loudly “There are too damned many Joseph’s in this family already! His father’s name is Joseph! I will not have two people in my home with the same name!” The priest apparently convinced the paternal (very stubborn and highly Catholic) side to accept Paul as a very good Christian name. LOL I am so happy Mom did that! And I have to thank the priest also. Not something I would usually do! 😉 Irish stubborn pretty much trumps any other stubborn in the World! LOL

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 19:16:37 +0000

Brides were in their midteens and the upper class had a half-dozen plus surviving kids until genetics caught up with them. That doesn’t factor in all of the illegitimate kids that were known about, and would add to the lines of descendants. Hell, my Mother’s father was one of 18 and my mother had over 50 first cousins. I’m related by blood or marriage to about 10% of the people in central New York. within 8 generations.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 10:48:42 +0000

Ehhh! He’s the Prez! He can do whatever the F* he wants (according to the wingnuts. Though, they only apply that to Wingnuttia Pezidents!) LOL

Someone from LA commented (on that news item):

Really?? I”m surprised to hear this talk of conspiracy and even any kind of shock and awe with this discovery. You could probably take anyone with a colonial American ancestry (that’s primarily English), or even anyone in North Western Europe to make this connection. 1215 was just under 800 years ago. If you fathom that between 1215 and 1800 new generations appeared about every 20 years, and after than about every 30 years, then you have about 36 generations of people born since then. If you assume each generation includes 3 to 4 children you would then deduce then that if Richard had three children (no idea how many he had), and each of those three children had three children, and each of those 9 grandchildren had 3 children and so on and so on, the number after 36 generations amounts pretty much to the population of a small country and therefore his descendants could be practically anyone.

So, not all crazy. 😉 😀

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 01:26:43 +0000

He couldn’t send AF1, but he could arrange other travel. It has been over 900 years, so it isn’t surprising that any group of can trace back to common ancestors, especially if they have British roots. Charles Dickens was writing about a London of approximately 10,000, not 10 million. Given the large percentage of immigrants from the British Isles it should have been assumed.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Thu, 08 Sep 2016 21:49:37 +0000

I love it! It’s driving the right-wingnuts into a frothy frenzy! LMAO Though sadly, this does include their typical attacks on the 12 yo author. Because, you know, the bible tell’s them to abuse children!

I mean, the apparent fact that Obama (and other evil hated liberals) are related to Reagan, the Bushes etc… *BOOM* LOL

Oh yes! I love this precious young lady! Even if her work may prove to be somewhat inaccurate. But so far, it’s holding up. 😀

Now if Obama actually did have half a brain, he’d not only invite the lass to the Whitehouse to present him with a personal copy, he’d send AF1! LOL But… Politicians! Though, I suppose his run is done, so what the heck. *shrug*