Cheers for the Magic of Crowdsourcing

It is possible, of course, for some members of our family trees to still be alive, one hundred years later—but not usual. So I was stymied by the apparent lack of any resources confirming that the woman in the hundred year old baby picture I found had passed away. Did that mean Lorraine Frances Lewis was now a centenarian?

In case that was actually the reason I wasn't able to find any obituary or death information on Lorraine, I held off on sharing the links I've discovered on what happened to Lorraine Lewis in the many years following her December 1916 birth in Artesian, South Dakota. But with the comment yesterday by reader Jan, providing a date of death for Lorraine, I feel a bit less restrained about reaching out to search for remaining family.

It's the crowdsourcing aspect of the community effort that always has been genealogy's strong suit that makes such connections happen. Those who have researched their family history pre-Internet may remember sending queries to society newsletters far and wide, asking for copies of obituaries, or to connect with distant cousins over difficult research problems. Even in the early days of online genealogy, we had forums at places such as Rootsweb and Genealogy.com to connect in an electronic version of those old queries.

And now? We have multiple online outlets for publishing our family tree, hoping to turn our research into further cousin bait. And if that isn't enough, we have Facebook. Yes, Facebook is turning into the new go-to place for connecting with other "genies" for help in puzzling over our brick walls. If you don't think so, take a look at Katherine Willson's database of over twelve thousand Facebook resources for genealogy. That's a lot of potential links to the answers you are seeking.

I took a look to see what connections there might be on Facebook for Reno, Nevada. Why Reno? That's apparently where Lorraine Lewis settled in her later years, and possibly where she died. I do know that is where her second husband—Harold Enderlin, an alumnus of both Stanford and Harvard—died in 2006. Hopefully, one of Lorraine's sons also lives in the area, though I haven't found any reason to believe that yet.

Pursuing genealogy resources via Facebook, I did locate the page of the Nevada State Genealogical Society. Not only that, but I discovered that someone else has been rescuing abandoned family photographs, some of which she has posted on the Nevada society's Facebook page. I contacted that researcher and asked how long she's been doing that—she's got me beat: twenty years! She finds old photos anywhere she can—estate sales, flea markets, garage sales, antique stores—and once she researches them, she posts the info wherever she can. In this case, I found her because of her posts to the Nevada society's Facebook page, but she posts wherever she thinks she can make a viable connection.

If the key to finding an answer is to maximize how many eyeballs can see the abandoned photo and know its story, that would make sense. No matter how it's done, though, it's when a bunch of us put our minds to solving the puzzle, adding our own expertise or effort to the mix, that makes the difference. Just one of us may not be able to tackle every problem alone, but when we join together, each one adds something unique to the effort. Hopefully, in the case of Lorraine Frances Lewis' baby picture, that will be what makes the difference, and we can send her home to family. After all, who wouldn't want an adorable baby picture like that?!

Oh, Henry

It's hard enough to read some sense into a cryptic label slapped on the back of an old photograph, but doubly frustrating when enigmatic phrases get interpreted the wrong way. In the case of our current mystery photograph from Guelph, Ontario, we've been trying to locate the daughter of someone named John "Reed" and then see if she had any connection with someone named Henry.

The verdict on this approach? I'll give you the Reader's Digest version: it isn't working.

The photograph whose subjects we're trying to identify came with a two-line explanation. The first line said simply, "Henry + cousin." A second line followed up, just as unhelpfully: "John Reed Daughter."

We've already tried our hand at locating a possible John Reed in or near Guelph during the approximate time of the photograph (the 1890s). We've discovered two such men in Wellington County: one named John Reed (alternately spelled Reid) and another named John Read. Each had daughters of an age to approximate the youthful appearance, in the 1890s, of our unnamed subject. Yet none of these candidates had a connection to an older brother or husband whose name was Henry.

That observation was enough to provide the nudge to take the label on the back of the picture more literally. It's not enough to look for a candidate for daughter of John Reed. The relationship needs to be fixed with Henry, not John Reed's daughter. And the woman sitting next to our mystery Henry needs to have been either his cousin or daughter of his cousin John.

Normally, I would have taken the time to examine both Johns' family trees, pushing back another generation to find any cousin candidates for the enigmatic Henry. However, this time, I discovered a shortcut: there was a well-researched family tree on Ancestry.com for the more likely of the two John Reeds.

Of course, sending a letter out of the blue always runs the risk of being ignored—but then, again, sending that note to someone on Ancestry means, at least, that I'm talking to a fellow family history fan. It's more likely I'd receive a response there than, say, through Facebook Messenger.

So I reached out to a relative of John Holmes Reed, the former teacher and (sometimes) farmer from Erin Township, that twenty mile drive from the city of Guelph. I asked, among other things, whether this descendant might either have photos of John Reed's children, or at least have connections with other extended family members who might have those coveted photos.

While my newfound Reed contact did not know of any specific photos of the daughters, he did treat me to a rundown of the possibilities for cousin connections to John's two older daughters, Mary and Lavinia. Here's his thinking:

John Holmes Reed had eight siblings. One of these siblings was named Henry, who named one of his sons Henry Reed (born 1851)....a sister Francis Ann, who named one of her sons Henry G. Easton (also born 1851), and another sister Margaret who also named one of her sons Henry Awrey (born in 1858), and a brother Robert Alexander who had a son he named James Henry Reed (1867). So "cousin" Henry or brother Henry could have been any of these Henrys. 

As for the woman in the photograph, this Reed descendant weighed in: "I suspect that it may be Lavinia or Mary Reed."

There, with one simple email, a family member provided me a lightning-quick tour of the Reed family tree, saving me the time of looking down each of eight branches of the tree to which John Holmes Reed was connected.

Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that. You know I always wonder how a photograph made it from its origin, so far away from California, to the point at which I located it in an antique shop in Gold Rush country. Taking this Reed family member's suggestions, I started examining the descendants of each of the Henrys, and something popped up that caught my eye: another connection to the Contra Costa area where so many others of the pictures I've found originated.

Above: Closeup of a man identified only as Henry, from a photograph taken, circa 1890, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Photograph found in antique store in Jackson, California; currently in possession of author until claimed by a descendant of this family.

The Last Trip Home Is Happening

Some hundred-year-old photographs, when I find them discarded in antique shops, clearly provide all the information needed to send them back home to family.

Others don't.

Some of those others, though, are so precious that I can't bear to leave them languishing in the dusty bin where I found them.

So it was with the circa 1917 photograph labeled with the names of "P. Emile" and Lucien Hallée. On an Azo postcard marked "made in Canada," the handwriting, in French, was obviously the work of a proud parent living far, far from California, the place where I found the photograph.

While I could try my hand at researching the family trees of French-speaking Canadians, resources available to me—despite my international subscription to Ancestry.com and access to the international records at FamilySearch.org—limited my ability to confidently confirm the identity of the children's family. After a while, I began wondering if I would ever be able to return the photograph to family members. I needed help from someone closer to the geographical source of the picture.

That's where Montreal blogger Gail Dever came in. Willing to post an entry about my dilemma on her blog (and Facebook group by the same name), Genealogy à la carte, she also posted an entry in a Facebook group concerned with Quebec genealogy. An answer to the puzzle came back within a few hours of her blog post, describing the right family. One of the blog's subscribers sent the photo and article to a Hallée family, just on the chance that it might be the right family.

It was.

But the recipient didn't speak English, and asked a cousin to translate the message. That's what led that person to respond in delight with the explanation of how the two children in the hundred-year-old photograph were related to her: uncles.

From that point, it wasn't long before she and I were communicating via email. And now, thanks to crowdsourcing and some helpful readers, Gail Dever's willingness to help connect a French Canadian family with a picture of their ancestors has resulted in another photograph making its way back home from the foothills of northern California.

With [a Lot of] Help From my Friends

What do you do when you stumble upon a hundred-year-old photograph and feel the call to return it to long-lost family? You put your genealogical research skills to work and find a way, of course.

But what if that photograph had the information written in a language you don't speak? Ah, that introduces an entirely different problem. There are people from other countries researching their family history, too. After all, we don't have a monopoly on how to trace family trees. But when I find the names I'm seeking in a pedigree chart chock full of words from a language I don't speak, Google Translate can only go so far to help me out.

Especially if the language in question happens to be French. French, after all, is not simply a language. It is a work of art. And it would not be very appealing to the stranger I am accosting—assuring her I only want to mail her a photograph of her father as a child—if my message sounds more like baby talk.

In the case of the adorable children, P. Emile and Lucien Hallée, portrayed at three years and one year of age in an Azo postcard from Canada, my challenge was that they were likely born somewhere in Quebec. Thankfully, I have a world subscription to Ancestry, so the initial research is no problem—besides, I can access Canadian records via FamilySearch as well. But I could not find these children in any family trees at Ancestry that fit the description or the date parameters. And the trees on Ancestry for any family Hallée were written entirely in French.

While that's a roadblock for me, at least that was an encouraging clue.

The only thing I can think of, when stumped like this, is to call for help. So I did.

When I think of Quebec, Canada, and genealogy blogging, of course I think of Gail Dever, whose blog, Genealogy à la carte has been on my daily reading list since at least 2014. I've been in touch with Gail before. She is, after all, known for her active participation in several social media venues, including her Genealogy à la carte Facebook group, her informative Tweets, and her boards by the same name at Pinterest. Gail would be just the person to help me out.

I've long been convinced of the power of crowdsourcing. Blending crowdsourcing with social media supercharges the potential exponentially. When we're stumped with a problem, never underestimate the ability of others to come up with an answer. So, when those two adorable Hallée children had me stumped, I turned to Gail Dever. Could she? Would she?

Just this Monday, she did. Including the hundred year old photograph of the Hallée children—and the inscription with their names included on the reverse—Gail put out a plea for help to her readers. I'm sure Gail has readers from around the world, but because she is located in Montreal, hers was the perfect origin to issue an all points bulletin for descendants of this French-speaking family.

I don't know if there is sainthood for genealogists who go above and beyond the call of duty—although there is Rockstar Genealogist status and induction into the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa Hall of Fame—but Gail has my vote for going above and beyond. Not only did she blog about the photo, she posted it to her Facebook group and included it in her Twitter stream.

But it was the one more thing above all that which may have brought the answer. Emailing me barely two hours after her original post went live on Monday, she asked, "Mystery solved?" That morning, Gail had also posted the entire story to another pertinent Facebook group, the Quebec Genealogy group. A member there responded, 

Donat Hallé married to Marie Tardif: Paul-Émile born in Thetford Mines, Oct. 4 1913 and Donat Lucien born in St-Isidore, Aug. 29, 1915. Paul-Émile married Irène Longchamps, Lucien married Rita Bilodeau. Both are dead.

The member then went on to name the children of our two babies, Paul-Émile and Lucien, and noted that two of their children—now obviously adults, themselves—might be on Facebook. I took a look. Sure enough, it appears to be so—two of the named descendants each having a Facebook page which includes the other's name among their "friends." The only drawback: everything on those pages is written in French.

We're working on that part.

Above: Photograph from Canada of Paul-Émile and Lucien Hallée, found in an antique store in northern California; hopefully soon to head back home to family in Quebec.

 

One Way to Keep That Forward Momentum

I recently read a blogger who mentioned that, unlike others who periodically choose a book to read, he usually kept a collection of five or six volumes on his active reading list. He would bounce between books according to mood. Sometimes, it was fiction that took his fancy. Other times, when he wasn't quite up to industrial-strength intellectual pursuits, perhaps he'd turn to an autobiography.

Eventually, he'd finish the entire collection and move on; he didn't find the segmentation of his reading list to be distracting in the least. That way, he matched his reading interest to his current energy level and point of fascination. It kept him reading through his book bucket list, instead of getting stuck at a boring impasse in the middle of his sole selection.

Perhaps it may seem like my blogging style is matching that person's reading style. While I'm grinding away at making genealogical sausage, I'm flitting from one discovery to another. Then the roadblock looms, and I switch research tracks. Again.

I admit it must seem difficult to follow such jagged story lines. But I also realize how tedious it can be to read the blow-by-blow of the research process. Then, too, stuff is popping up while other stories languish: a text from Ireland brings me a photo of that little lost photo album making its way home after eighty years; a cousin re-surfaces after years to connect over DNA testing. While I'm stymied in the research doldrums, refreshing breezes like these are a welcome change.

And so the pattern continued this past weekend as I received a response to a chance message I had sent by Facebook. In the hunch that this social media site is now where genealogical connections are happening, I had sent a message to a fellow Davis researcher whom I hadn't contacted for years. Maybe decades. Having spotted her name in a book on the very area where descendants of my potential Mayflower connection may have settled in Tennessee, I thought I'd chance connecting by Facebook.

Just a few days ago, my hunch was confirmed: she answered my message. Even better, she informed me that she had completed her application for membership in the Mayflower Society, herself—the very goal I was wanting to discuss with her. The good news was: she was accepted into the Society. What's more, she's willing to help me get all my documentation in order, as well.

This is the kind of stuff that generates a genealogical happy dance. We share a common ancestor just four generations removed from me. Bringing the documentation forward from my second great grandfather Thomas D. Davis, who died in 1892, should be rather straightforward. It's all the twists and turns to carry me from his mother, Mayflower descendant Rachel Tilson Davis in Tennessee, back to John Alden and Priscilla Mullins of Plymouth Colony, that I'm concerned about.

There's always been something about working with a friend on a project of interest. Not that I couldn't do the work alone, but the encouragement of someone who has already been down this road is helpful. Not to mention, it's always fun to meet a new cousin—especially someone who understands just what it is about this genealogical research that makes our eyes light up. Meeting up with a cousin like that is a double bonus.

Doubting Thomas

During last week's Jamboree conference in southern California, I noticed one thing: I barely managed to Tweet one item.

Yes, me. Actually, I haven't posted on Twitter much for the past several months. Nor on Facebook. As far as connectivity goes, I guess I've been losing my touch.

Wondering whether that might have been the case for other Jamboree attendees, I took a look at the official hashtag designation on Twitter, #SCGS2017. After all, despite thirty minute breaks between each conference session, I found myself running all day long, every day. Besides taking notes, checking the online download of syllabus material for each class, making conversation with fellow attendees, and cruising the exhibit hall, I hardly had time to think of anything else, much less talk about what I was doing.

Perhaps the classes were packed with more noteworthy material this year? I did find plenty of stuff to write down—but that sort of one-liner entries makes for more Twitter-worthy fodder than the mug shot plus look-which-class-I'm-attending-now comments. In my book, Twitter should be a conversation, not a monologue. So why couldn't I post a few entries of my own? Was I really that breathless and focused on just being there?

When I gave that social media question some thought—admittedly, in the relatively rare lulls encountered in the week's proceedings—I couldn't help but dwell on Thomas MacEntee's very depressing assessment of the State of Blogging:

Over the past two years I have been able to document a notable decline in genealogy blog traffic while at the same time a greater increase in social media traffic by genealogists and family historians.

Granted, my main focus when reading Thomas' statement was his report of the "notable decline" in blog traffic. For a blogger, that sort of report hits hard. After all, this is a blog you are reading. If enough of you don't bother coming by here anymore, I might not have enough of an audience to want to continue using this blog as my virtual stage. I do, if you haven't noticed, enjoy having an audience.

However, there have been other eras in flux, in which the then-current technology has been forecast as doomed to fall into disrepair and neglect. Technologies come and go—even books have been predicted to be among the formats soon to be forsaken. Besides, in the MacEntee assessment, Thomas did later add, "Blogging is not dead; it's just that the blog post itself cannot garner enough traffic without social media as a partner."

So what about that social media? Yeah, those Tweets I didn't churn out throughout that information-ripe weekend conference run. What about that?

While analysis of data will always trump a snap decision about what's current, I can't help but recoil from such assessments. Statements have come and gone about what's hot and what's not—even genealogy itself has taken the heat for sliding numbers in the past, with predictions that the "fad" will eventually lose traction. In our increasingly niche-market-inspired world, though, it's my guess these dire predictions won't turn out quite as assumed.

In some cases, we might see either-or yield to both-and scenarios: books and e-books, blogs and Facebook, in an ever-expanding information market. On the flip side, with ever-shrinking free time versus expanding content, perhaps it will become the battle between doing and being. After all, I can't get much actual, you know, work done while I'm posing for selfies in all the right places.

Then, too, there is a difference between what's possible to achieve as a content generator and what's possible to consume as a media customer. As the media ramps up more dense information squeezed into the same space, it becomes harder to dive for deeper meaning per unit of time invested. The more information coming at us at the same time, the less of the message we are able to grasp per information unit.

Perhaps what Mr. MacEntee is really signifying by his dismaying assessment last month is that the kind of blog traffic which would generate click-throughs to other material (most likely ads) has, for online content entrepreneurs, gone down. In other words, the type of reader who lands on one virtual property but can be quickly lured away by a bright-shiny to another web space is now failing to show up in sufficient numbers on blogs-as-commercial properties.

Breathe a sigh of relief, all ye who blog for altruistic purposes. Your goals are not the same. It is still okay to generate content for purposes other than income generation—especially in the traditionally giving field of family history. It is still okay to think large thoughts and transmit them in mere, humble words. It is still just fine to take the time to craft your work unhampered by the kind of frenetic multi-tasking said to assure simultaneous appearance in all the "right" virtual places.

Doing a project takes time. Often, that action cannot yield sufficient results when sabotaged by demands to simultaneously talk about what you are doing. Sometimes, it's got to be do first, then talk later. If that's the way it was at a simple conference last week, it's surely the way it will be for the more significant accomplishments of life—at least, if we actually hope to ever make them. 

An Unexpected Gift

I've already mentioned that, in my quest to locate a descendant of the family who dispatched that mystery photo album from Ireland in 1936, I finally made contact with one of Harry and Alice Reid's grandchildren the morning after Saint Patrick's Day. I had been running that morning, trying to get out the door and catch a flight to Florida, so I didn't actually bother to check my messages until I settled in at the airport. But yes, for me, it was still morning when I read the news.

The message came in on Facebook Messenger, the same medium which I had used to send the plea to the Cork Genealogical Society Facebook group—the request that made its stellar debut on Saint Patrick's Day.

This time, the answer wasn't as mundane as the mere granting of permissions to access a website. But it was a definite answer in the affirmative. After a polite "good morning"—remember, Irish time and California time differ by eight hours—my correspondent went on to confirm, "Yes, you've found the right family!"

The woman messaging me confirmed some details about the family of Harry and Alice Reid we've already noticed from the photo album. The Reids were her grandparents, and yes, they did live at a place called Bride Park. She confirmed the location in Ovens, County Cork. Wrapping up, she thanked me for being "so tenacious" and welcomed our continued correspondence.

You can be sure, airport setting or not, I was ecstatic—and lost no time in answering the message. Of course, I had to explain that we were en route to the other side of the continent, and that I wouldn't be able to say much more for the remainder of the day, but that—oh, believe me!—I certainly wanted to talk her ear off. There were so many more questions I still had to figure out.

As it turned out, what seemed like the unfortunate timing of having to be out of touch at the very moment in which a cascade of questions had erupted worked out for the best—and in the most charming way. While the success of my connection with the Reids' granddaughter was eclipsed by the necessities of air travel, my newfound friend in County Cork had her own schedule complexities to navigate.

You see, the same day she received my message, she was celebrating a special day of her own: that very day just happened to be her birthday. Bet she had no idea our connection would make its debut during her birthday festivities.

Above: "When the Boats Come In," oil on canvas by Irish Impressionist landscape artist, Walter Frederick Osborne (1859 - 1903); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

From Forums to Facebook

Once genealogists discovered the power of the Internet, researching our family history changed—for the better, in my opinion. My quest to connect with a living descendant of the Irish couple whose 1936 family album ended up in an antique store near my home provides a case in point.

Used to be, in the early days of online access, a researcher could post a "query" on a forum geared to readers who shared the same interests. There were a number of such communities online, of which the old Rootsweb forums are still in existence as one example, thanks to the fact that they are now hosted by Ancestry.com.

Anyone wishing to ask anything from simple requests for obituaries to more complex questions on a wide variety of topics could pose their question to a ready-made audience of other genealogy fans on these forums. Free, easy, with ready access, forums were an obvious go-to place for researchers in the 1990s and early years post-Y2K.

The buzz has migrated away from those old forums to new digs, now. With "everybody" on Facebook lately, it was a logical jump to ditch the old fashioned forums for a perkier place for instant access to genealogical answers.

Don't think that is a lightweight choice. The same social media which bring us mind-numbing digital drivel ("and this is a photo of what I had for lunch today") prove to be quite effective at dishing up instant answers to our research questions.

In fact, so many people have voted with the click of their mouse to head to Facebook that there are apparently over ten thousand Facebook pages and groups in the English language alone dedicated to talk about genealogical pursuits.

That fact was not lost on me when I puzzled over the best strategy for sending my mystery photo album back home to Ireland. I knew that many of the Facebook genealogy groups were organized by geographic location. If there was a group dedicated to researching genealogy for County Cork, Ireland, I wanted to find it.

It's easy to find organizations on Facebook: just enter the terms you are seeking in the search bar at the top of any Facebook page. The only drawback is that there are two types of entries on Facebook. One is for "groups" and one is for "pages." If an organization chooses the "groups" format when they set up their Facebook entity, they may choose to make that group open or closed.

Unfortunately, the County Cork entry on Facebook was a closed group. The bright side, though, is that most closed groups are quite willing to grant admission, just upon the mere request to be allowed to join. So I asked.

And waited.

It was then that I noticed the Cork Genealogical Society also has an open page, so I followed the links. Eventually, I noticed a sidebar mentioning the group's Facebook Messenger link and, next to a link with the words, "Message now," the promise, "typically replies within a day."

That was the spot where I jumped at the opportunity and sent my query. Even if the Society didn't permit me access to their closed group, I could still send my message. Hopefully, someone there wouldn't mind seeing if my target Hawkes and Reid families had descendants who still lived in the area.

Just before heading to bed the night before Saint Patrick's Day, I sent my official query via Facebook Messenger to the Cork Genealogical Society. By 1:51 the next afternoon (my time), the group's contact person informed me that I had been admitted to the closed group, and added, "Would you like me to cross post [my query from the open page messenger system onto the closed group] on your behalf?"

As soon as I could, I sent back a resounding, "Yes!" About fifteen minutes after that point, she responded, "I'll tag you so you can see the comments."

By that time—in the matter of one hour and eleven minutes of members' comments on that Saint Patrick's Day—the discussion thread was thirty responses deep. I had clippings of newspaper articles regarding the family, hints from other Society members, and a claim to have obtained the address of a specific, named, living descendant. It was at that spot in the sequence that someone mentioned recalling that the descendant may have been on Facebook, herself.

That was when I held my breath and tapped out a quick note to a total stranger, asking forgiveness for my intrusion on her privacy but...would she possibly be the granddaughter of one Harry and Alice Reid?

Facebook is wonderful in that it brings researchers together to crowdsource the answers to our research problems, but in no way can it actually guarantee that one participant will answer the question posed by another Facebook user. While this Saint Patrick's Day did indeed bring me some exciting news, the day closed without my actually achieving my goal of contacting the Reid family descendant I was seeking.

The Lightning Speed of Social Media

Like money burning a hole in my pocket, the mystery photograph album I found in a northern California antique store has been yearning to be set free and sent back home. You may recall that, just the other day, I decided to do something about that. After all, I've had that album for at least two years, and have blogged extensively on it for two months—without a nibble of inquiry.

So, I put out the plea for genealogically-minded friends and family to help me spread the word. I want to see that album returned to family, even if that family is still back in County Cork, Ireland.

I posted on Facebook, asking people to share the post with their own network. A few of my friends and family members—ironically, only the ones who haven't been smitten by the genealogy bug—were kind enough to oblige.

I put up some tweets on Twitter—strategically posted throughout the day, especially during times in which Irish readers might be online—but heard not a peep from the few retweets I was able to glean.

Perhaps switching tactics might do the trick, I thought, and went looking for logical places to seek aid in this search. Realizing that the entire genealogical world has shifted from utilizing the old forum settings of the 1990s (even if they are still hosted at Ancestry.com), I started looking at the social site genealogists now call home: Facebook. There, as Gail Dever of Genealogy a la Carte has often pointed out, there are thousands of Facebook groups dedicated to pondering local genealogy questions.

Of course, one of those groups was located in County Cork. Perfect. That's exactly where our Hawkes and Reid families once lived. The goal now was to try and connect with a descendant of that family.

I requested admittance to the closed Facebook group on Saint Patrick's Day and sent my rather long-winded query. By early afternoon the next day, I was receiving all sorts of hints and direction about what could be found on the family from the Irish side of the research equation.

Long story short: I now have a name and a possible address. Next step: take in a deep breath and reach out to see if I can connect. Hopefully, the answer will be yes, and that little unassuming family photograph album will soon be finding its way back home.

Apoptosis and Genealogy

About a week from now—just as everyone is buttoning up their Memorial Day commemorations for another year—I'll be unzipping my suitcase and packing for another of those annual trips south to attend my favorite conference, the Southern California Genealogical Society's Jamboree.

My registration is completed and paid for—thankfully, as advanced registration closed just last night—and I'm wading through the myriad class selections to at least present the vague impression that I'm organized. Once again, I'm not only going there to attend the classes, but I'm hoping to meet with interesting fellow researchers and make some connections. After all, to my mind, that's what conferences are for: being with people.

It wasn't long ago—although quite far away—that another genealogical conference finished its last session and waved happy attendees goodbye. No sooner was the National Genealogical Society's annual event over than out came the observations about this year's attendance. It seems the numbers appeared to be down, and people were speculating as to reasons why.

In one blog post with off-the-charts reverberation—generating ninety comments to the post itself, plus a significant number of shares on social media—genealogist Amy Johnson Crow mused, "Are In-person Genealogy Events Dead?" Thankfully, her take on the matter was that no, they are not—but only if we are wise enough to capitalize on the reasons why people tend to do things in person (versus, say, save all that money and watch proceedings from the comfort of their own easy chair at home).

While I heartily endorse Amy's recommendations—and hope you stop by to see what she has to say in its entirety—her thoughts, juxtaposed with this upcoming venture to our west coast version of a genealogical conference, of course triggered other ideas on my part, ideas which veer far from the beaten path. You know me: rabbit trail thinking style. One thing always leads to another. There's just no guarantee that the path from thought to thought will lead in a straight line of reasoning.

You see, I'm very concerned about the health and well-being of genealogical gatherings, myself. I have a vested interest in those of a more local kind, being on the board of a local society. But I also see the need for us to continue gathering together in these larger genealogical events, as well. The educational value is superb, the range of options unparalleled at state, regional and national events. But the chance—and the need—to keep gathering together is an imperative, in my estimation.

Here's my jagged-line thought process, thanks to another interest in my life. Besides genealogy, I'm consumed with reading about nutrition, organic gardening, and health topics in general. In one particular nutrition site I frequent, I recently read the following, about a topic called apoptosis:

When a cell recognizes that it has become too compromised to continue functioning in a healthy manner with other cells, it stops proceeding through its own life cycle and essentially starts to dismantle itself and recycle its parts. It's critical for a cell to determine whether it should continue on or shut itself down, because cells that continue on without the ability to properly function or communicate effectively with other cells are at risk of becoming cancerous.

Apoptosis, if you haven't heard the term before, refers to programmed cell death. While death may seem like a morbid topic to discuss, at a scale as minute as the cellular level, it is important that cells go through a normal life cycle, then retire and become dismantled in an orderly fashion. Otherwise, drastic results such as cancer may result.

When I read about topics like this—not just regarding apoptosis, but referring more broadly to overarching concepts about cell messaging—in my mind, I get this picture of cells joining together in groups, sending each other messages, like, "Okay, jump!" (I know: not very scientific.)

Some messages—at least, in my highly imaginative but scarcely scientific mind—are probably very supportive, and not only the tiny cells in our bodies, but we, ourselves, need those micro-messages sent and received. After all, we are—even more so than those tiny cells we are made up of—social beings. We need to connect. We need to stay connected. We learn from the messages we send back and forth with other people.

If the very elements that keep us functioning in a beneficial manner follow such a pattern, perhaps we can benefit from heeding the lessons gleaned from that process of intercellular communication. After all, each of us needs to be in touch with each other, too. Not just in a digital, cyberized sort of way, but face to face, where we can take in all the visual and audio cues around us, and be in touch—literally—with each other.

For any organism to grow and thrive, being able to receive and heed the messages exchanged between parts of the whole is critical. I'd say the same is so for organizations—especially our genealogical groups, whether local societies or national establishments. It will be through our ongoing connections—the communication shared between the parts—that we will have the kind of adaptive growth that responds to both our internal needs and the imperatives of the environment in which we operate.

I know, I know: what a long, strange post this has been. Bet you hadn't bargained for a journey through such sidelines as these, just to talk about why we shouldn't forsake gathering ourselves together on a regular basis as genealogists. Of course, the warning is always lingering in the background: if we don't keep in touch to keep up to date with the needs of our constituents, that cell message received may someday become, "Okay, jump!" Hopefully, though, we'll not only remain attuned to the messages sent by those within the body of genealogy, but become pro-active in adapting and re-inventing ourselves to remain relevant to every aspect of our body of knowledge.

As for the event I'm heading south to attend in just over a week now, I'm hoping to give it my all in connecting, talking, listening, learning—even using the social media hashtag #scgs2016 and tweeting about it. I hope to see you there, too—but if not there this year, at a future event, whether in southern California, Fort Lauderdale, Springfield, or with another group at another time and place. Whatever you do in genealogy, find a way to get together with the others who speak your language.

Above: "Young Hare," 1502 watercolor by German artist and printmaker, Albrecht Dürer; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.
 

Bound to Happen Eventually

After all that work on the family tree, adding names of descendants and then entering their spouses names as well—then repeating the process each time we push back another generation—at some point we're bound to run into unexpected connections.

I'm not necessarily thinking of those hey-I'm-related-to-someone-famous moments, right now—think close encounters of a more common variety. It's just that I'm seeing too many coincidental connections to surnames I know from other places, showing up in my family tree.

Take those frustrating DNA test matches. I administer not only the results for my own tests, but for my husband's, as well. Granted, when one is dealing with literally hundreds of surnames, they are bound to start swimming around in our memory, so I can excuse some confusion. But more than once, now, I've been working on my husband's results, and a match pops up for him with surnames from my family tree.

What gives, here? I mean, after all, we couldn't have come up with two more divergent family histories (at least for people living in the same country, that is). His immigrant family settled in Chicago; mine in New York. His DAR-material maternal line came from solid Catholics in colonial Maryland who moved further west through Pennsylvania to central Ohio. Mine was staunchly affiliated with the Old South. Yes, the Great Depression got my family roving the country in search of work, and World War II was the catalyst that got my husband's military family moving not only around this country, but to England and Japan, as well.

And yet, though they never met, my mother finished high school in a city not sixty miles from where my mother-in-law lived.

I watch as I piece together my extended tree—taking care to build it out to show all the descendants of specific ancestors I'm tracing—and see all sorts of potential close encounters of our families. Though my mother-in-law's family was ensconced in Perry County, Ohio, for generations—far, far from my southern family—I end up seeing one branch of my maternal tree move from coastal Virginia to the western side of the state, which then became an entirely different state (West Virginia), from which they then removed to, of all places, Perry County. Oh well, there are coal mines and oil fields in Perry County; maybe it felt just as much "home" as West Virginia had. It makes me wonder how many more generations it would take before parts of my family would intermarry with my husband's.

My husband's DNA tests keep insisting that he is connected to distant cousins sporting the surname Withers. Funny, we have a good friend by that very name. No relation, of course. Or maybe there is. Though he is California born and bred, come to find out his mother has a sister who lived in the very town where my mother's sister lived. Granted, it's a city of forty thousand people, so that shouldn't be surprising...until we realize that it's twenty five hundred miles from here. With chances like that, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that we're fourth cousins or something. I suppose anything is possible—and I'm getting more convinced of it, every day.

It boggles my mind to dwell on the possibility of connections. After all, we have the technology—and, as genealogists, the propensity—to ferret out familial connections. The farther back we can trace our ancestors, the more likely we are to bump into someone—online, at least, if not in person—who is a distant relation. I'm thinking, right now, of a friend in our local genealogical society, who told the story of contacting a Find A Grave volunteer about a memorial he had placed on the website for her great grandmother. When she emailed him to say she'd like to know if he had any more information on the woman, his response was, "Wait! That's my great grandmother! Who are you?"

I've met people online who turned out to be distant cousins, especially on my long-established Taliaferro line. That might seem like a slam-dunk, since there are so many of us out there just waiting to be found, after all these centuries of documentation. But it's not only the facilitation of online communication that helps us find these distant cousins; I met one right here in the city where I live.

Of course, it helps that we are both genealogists, and that is likely the catalyst for making such connections. But I'd also like to consider the possibility that we may see more of this sort of thing happening, as time goes on, for several reasons.

For one thing, there seems to be an inverse relationship between the drifting apart of extended families in modern times and the deepening desire to know more about our roots. While in real life, second cousins may have no knowledge of each other, as they learn how to research their own family history, they start reaching out to each other through online services, connecting and sharing what each one knows to piece together the family's lost saga.

Second, those online services, themselves, become catalysts in connecting distant cousins. Posting trees—whether on the Rootsweb of genealogy's yesteryear, or the free service at FamilySearch.org, or subscriber services such as Ancestry.com—gets the word out there like one giant billboard, advertising our desire for connection with others researching the same family lines. Social media—whether the 1990s style forums or Facebook groups currently in use—help aggregate us by surnames or by place names.

Third, there is such a flurry of information available to inspire newcomers to the field. Television programming brings heart-rending stories—whether about the famous or the commonplace—of finding one's roots, and with the addition of another series in the lineup this season, seems to indicate rising interest in the pursuit. Adoptees in particular have a wealth of volunteer support in encouraging them to attempt finding their birth families, including a new program set to air this spring.

And, of course, advertisements for services like DNA testing get people thinking maybe they can jump into this search, as well.

With all these people taking a long and serious look at their roots, considering their relationships with others, making connections with other researchers, it would not be a surprise to discover relationships we had no idea had existed. It's as if our pedigree charts have pulled a curtain aside to let us see the invisible connections between us.

Even if we can't figure it out yet—and I'm surely among those stuck on the results from my DNA tests—if we keep working at it, we'll likely trace some surprising connections, eventually. You know it's bound to happen.

Above: "View of Gloucester," undated watercolor by British landscape artist Thomas Hearne (1744-1817); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Gearing Up For Team #scgs2015

One week from tomorrow, I’ll be hopping in the car and making the marathon drive down south for my favorite genealogy event of the year: the Southern California Genealogical Society’s Jamboree.

Don’t think that means I’m packing, this far in advance. I tend to do that sort of prep work all in one swoop, the night before heading out.

There is one aspect I am attending to this early, though: planning my networking strategy. After all, one of the virtues of attending conferences in person is meeting people. Otherwise, why endure a six hour road trip? I could just stay home and check out live streaming of key sessions in the comfort of my own living room.

That, however, wouldn’t offer the opportunity to get to know my fellow genealogy enthusiasts—and certainly would not afford me the chance for face time with my favorite geneabloggers. We all spend enough time connecting online, as it is. It’s good to switch things up and go the personal route sometimes. I may be a wallflower, but I’m certainly not a couch potato.

So, when I read that another geneablogger is going to be at Jamboree, I send her a tweet to make initial contact—or an email, if we’re not connected via Twitter. I’ll never forget the time I learned, through a blogger’s post after Jamboree, that we had both been in the same sessions but hadn’t realized it! I don’t want to come away from this four day extravaganza (including DNA Day) without meeting with people I know from blogging and research connections.

Granted, those are online connections. You and I might spend a few virtual minutes together each day—at the very least, tag teaming it—over the posts at A Family Tapestry, but if I were to cross paths with you in real life, it’s quite likely we’d both be oblivious to that fact. Unless, that is, we had some way to be alerted to that detail and to then introduce ourselves.

This is our chance to give each other that heads up.

Besides—okay, you shrinking violets out there, back me up on this!—how many of us are quite handy at walking into a room full of strangers, sticking out our hand at random and shouting, “HI! MY NAME IS….”

Isn’t it so much nicer to discover who the other person is, ahead of time? To make plans to find that person and grab a moment to chat?

I’ll never forget the time I realized I was sitting across the aisle from fellow blogger Melanie Frick: it was after tweeting a comment about the Jamboree session I was attending. I had used that year’s Jamboree hashtag; right away, she saw it. The inevitable follow-up:

            Where are you?

That is how we met. If not that way, I’d likely had never known she was there.

I would much rather meet people that way, than to shoulder my way through an army of strangers in hopes of connecting with someone I’ve never seen in real life. Yeah, I know: shy and retiring. But I have lots of company.

I once went to a place for lunch, a restaurant in the Bay Area whose cheeky menu invited comments—even complaints. “You have a mouth; use it” was their tag line.

Now we’re in the twenty first century. That motto may as well read, “You have a Twitter account; use it.”

At least, I do; it’s @jacqistevens. If you have a Twitter account too, and are planning to attend Jamboree, why not do two things during this week leading up to Jamboree Day One:

• Send me a tweet saying you’ll be there too, and
• Use the Twitter hashtag #scgs2015 for all your tweets during Jamboree.

Consider yourself deputized to become a part of Team #scgs2015. In today’s world of social media, anyone can, really. Together, we’ll not only blanket the social media genea-sphere with our take on Jamboree proceedings, but send out a signal that says, “Hey, I’m here, too!”

That way, you and I and everyone else there can connect on a more personal level. After all, if we’re not connecting while we’re all there together, we may as well have taken it all in from the couch-potato hermitage of our own homes.

A Different Direction

Confession: another rabbit trail was calling my name yesterday and…I listened.

Yes, I caved. I took the bait. I fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

And I think I will be down at the bottom of a big pile of data for a long time.

Here’s how it happened:

Once upon a time, long, long ago—yes, in fact, back in June of 2009—I took an old family photo that my cousin Skip sent me, scanned it and posted it on my Facebook page. It was probably a little something I did in honor of Father’s Day, even though my father has been long gone, himself. In the photo—a family grouping that included my grandmother, her brother and their parents—my father was peeking over the shoulders of the women in the back row. At the time, he was a teenager. My aunt, all perky in her summer dress, was sporting a big white bow on the top of her little blonde head.

As things sometimes go on Facebook, some friends and family saw it and commented on it, over the next few days. The comments dribbled off after that. Then, some other relatives saw it the next winter and commented, starting the conversation back up again.

And that was the end of it.

Until Monday morning.

I don’t know why Facebook photos resurrect, but they do. And once someone gloms onto a photo—writes another comment—the thing is back in circulation again, as fresh as if it were posted within the past hour.

This time, more relatives shared their memories of the family mystery—the shock is, after being told we were Irish all our growing-up years, it turns out we are actually Polish on my dad’s side of the family—and we got to compare notes on what each of us knew about the “secret.”

Chapter Two: a blogger dangles the bait. I’ll just come out and say it: it wasn’t really blogger Randy Seaver’s fault for leading me astray, but his post yesterday about how FamilySearch.org has added more New York City records reminded me that I really need to see what’s gone online since the last time I poked around the data at any of the usual genealogical places.

While the records Randy mentioned were all just indices, not digitized images (which I hope will someday be forthcoming, as well), believe me: an index is infinitely better than trawling through miles and miles of microfilm. Take my word for it. The last time I seriously looked at my paternal branch of the family tree, it was when microfilm was the only game in town.

It was time for an update.

Gone was the afternoon, before I knew it. I looked not only at FamilySearch.org, but at the latest additions at Ancestry.com, as well. I kept keying in names of my family, seeing whose documents made the cut in this latest release of genealogical treasures. I can’t say I made stellar progress—there is an unexplained instance of a radical name change—but stumbling upon one single document, I located several key facts about this family. You might say I garnered a genealogical grand slam.

Of course, being a document which captured the reporting party’s assertions, in a way, the record is not providing me anything more than hearsay. But it is the word of a father, reporting such juicy tidbits as the name of the ship he sailed on, the names of the rest of his family, and the date at which he arrived in New York harbor.

Better yet, that one document became the Big Reveal by sharing the name of the town in which my grandmother’s brother was born. If he was born there, let’s say I have a pretty good guess as to where she was born.

You know I can’t stop with just this one document. Every detail on that page becomes a hint to lead me toward another document. Each clue equips me with the tools to ferret out yet more details. It’s the chain reaction of research.

Something tells me I’m going to be on this rabbit trail for a long time.

Above: Photograph of various members of the Laskowski family in or near New York City, circa 1917; photograph in private collection of the author.

It’s That Time Again: Southern California Jamboree

Some people are so dedicated to their pursuit of family history that they don’t miss any opportunities to connect with the genealogy community. The minute the conference season is upon us, they are rocking their registrations at primo events like RootsTech, NGS or FGS conferences.

Meanwhile, here sits the likes of me, green with envy but unable to join in the fun.

Not so, when it comes to the featured event in our corner of the world. Jamboree is coming to Southern California once again—the annual event every June that combines world class speakers on subjects both in genetic genealogy and genealogical research. With a mere six hours’ drive time, I can join in the fun, after all.

And that’s exactly what I’m planning. This is an annual event to look forward to, in my book. I’m all registered and ready to get to Burbank and network, shop (for genealogically-related material, of course!), and…oh, yeah…learn, too.

If you are not familiar with the SCGS Jamboree, take a look here at all their offerings this year. And don’t think this is just a show for the locals. Jamboree was where I got to meet Heather Wilkinson Rojo of Nutfield Genealogy—all the way from New Hampshire. Had a great conversation with Gena Philibert Ortega. Jamboree is where you can get some face time with the likes of Lisa Alzo. Judy Russell. Thomas MacEntee. Hoosier Daddy? story-weaver, Michael Lacopo.

Coupling the genealogy conference with DNA Day provides a family history double header, in my opinion. Genetic genealogy has a steep learning curve, and I’m still climbing my way upwards on that slippery slope. I glean a lot of tips from the sessions on this day—and it helps to be able to ask specific questions directly of the experts on the areas where I’m stuck. Once again, face time trumps every other learning opportunity I know.

I don’t know whether this Jamboree event has been growing astronomically over the years, but I do know the coordinators are urging early registration—before the early bird cut-off on April 30—as well as early reservations for those wishing to stay in the host hotel. I’ve learned it’s best to just take care of these details as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

In the meantime, my strategy is to get a jump on the networking by connecting via Twitter—I’ll use the official conference hashtag #scgs2015, once the event nears—and make plans to connect with fellow bloggers I’d like to meet this year. For the shy and retiring, I’ve found this is the best way to break the ice. I’ll never forget how I discovered fellow blogger Melanie Frick was sitting across the aisle from me during one Jamboree session last year—by reading each other’s tweets.

If you happen to come across enough good fortune to get you to SoCal for Jamboree this year, please do let me know! You and I could use some face time, too.

The Changing Face of Genealogy Networks

Face it: genealogy researchers like to share what they’ve found almost as much as they liked the finding of it. And that means they’ve always needed a way to connect.

Remember queries, those hopeful letters sent to society newsletters and genealogical publications, probably by the thousands? I remember sitting in our local library, with stacks of pertinent society publications—plus Everton’s Genealogical Helper—poring over the listings in the back of each issue, hoping to find a match.

It’s been a long time since I tried that routine.

How about the listserv? Have you ever played that game? I remember one electronic mailing list I subscribed to, hosted at the University of Pennsylvania. I think I was on others through the University of Virginia. Whoever the administrators were, they became the middlemen enabling each of us to pass along genealogical information to hordes of desperate researchers.

Once online forums made their debut, they became the logical next step in assuaging that ever-increasing hunger for more genealogical information. I played my part in the early days of both Rootsweb and GenForum, both now greatly fallen from use—and GenForum about to become a read-only archive. They, too, served their purpose in their own time as the means with which genealogy researchers connected to compare notes.

With the advent of social media, it only made sense that we would once again congregate and do what we’ve always done: share and compare notes. The #genealogy hashtag is alive and well at Twitter. I’m sure Google+ has its own set of genealogical communities. There is even an APG chapter which virtually meets at Second Life.

And then there is Facebook.

While I’ve been on Facebook for a number of years, I hesitated to dive in to the genealogy scene there. I dunno…maybe because I always saw Facebook as a place to share more privately with people I really knew, face to face. I’ve always had that need to have a secluded space to call my own, even in the midst of all the public hubbub. So I resisted the urge to even go exploring.

Now, Facebook has experienced widespread use by genealogical organizations. Many societies boast their own Facebook page. And many Facebook “groups” have been set up—whether sponsored by a society or through other means—to facilitate communication between long-distance researchers who want to know more about a specific area.

That’s where Facebook started calling me back for a second look. I’ve been desperately seeking some local input on where to find resources on site in each of the Irish counties we’ll be visiting in the next few weeks. While I’ll spend a solid week poring over books, microfilms and records in Dublin, I have two additional weeks for leisurely journeys to the counties from which some of my husband’s ancestors emigrated. I want to get some suggestions from locals on where to go and what to see—not of a tourist nature, but regarding the local history and local resources.

For those kinds of questions, Facebook became my sole answer. I started entering the name of each county in the search bar at Facebook, and found at least one group for each destination. Granted, each was a “closed” group, but it involved the simple matter of requesting permission to join. One group even turned out to have, as its administrator, an American-based genealogist I’ve already met online: Terri O’Connell, co-founder of The In-Depth Genealogist.

In the few days I’ve been a member of each of these Facebook groups, I’ve gleaned several great suggestions and been directed to some worthwhile resources. One gentleman in a Tipperary group opened my eyes to the fact that our Denis Tully family came from a townland—Tountinna—which was (contrary to my assumption) high up in the mountains. Another member shared his work on maps, graphically demonstrating the surname distribution of his Carroll surnames; while this is not a surname I’m pursuing for this trip, it was enlightening to read about his work.

No matter which way we’ve done it—electronic email lists, online forums, or social media—it’s always been great to have a way to pose a question and see its answer come back at us almost instantaneously. On the eve of our trip to Ireland, I know it’s been a gratifying experience for me. Right now, I certainly can use the last-minute advice!

Above: "Rock of Cashel" in County Tipperary, mid-1850s drawing by geological surveyor and Dublin-born artist of Huguenot descent, George Victor Du Noyer; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.  

One More Daughter

I’d almost say it’s a wrap, concerning the children of Thomas and Bridget Kelly of Lafayette, Indiana. Following the list gleaned from the 1880 census, we’ve found their sons James and William. While sons John and Thomas still have me stumped, we’ve discovered the married names of their daughters Rose (Miller) and Mary Ann (Munger)—no small feat in its own right.

But there’s still one more daughter: Bridget. Whatever became of Bridget?

The ever helpful Journal and Courier index didn’t seem to be of any help here, and the usual search titans of genealogy—Ancestry and FamilySearch—seemed somewhat weak-kneed at their task as well. Admittedly, there was a Bridget Kelley who died August 4, 1919, according to the Journal and Courier index, but Find A Grave reminds us that this was the mother Bridget who died, not the daughter.

It was on one of those late night searches—the kind where you either love or hate the search engine that is serving up results for your inquiries—when something flashed past my eyes. At first, I thought it was yet another of those horribly mismatched results—you know, the kind that make you scratch your head and wonder what the connection might be. The name—Elizabeth O’Connor—was totally unrelated to anyone in this Kelly family, but all the other details seemed to fit in perfectly.

            Father’s name: Thomas Kelly

            Mother’s name: Bridget Dolan

            Parents’ birth: both born in Ireland

            Child’s birth: Lafayette, Indiana

Only one problem: this person was born September 22, 1874. But the only child in Thomas Kelly’s household born in 1874 was named Bridget.

Who was Elizabeth?

With all those details provided in the Cook County death certificate lining up so neatly with our Lafayette Kelly family, this presented an odd predicament. I decided the best thing to do would be to seek an obituary.

The challenge would be to obtain one. Elizabeth had died in nearby Kane County—possibly visiting an adult child at the time—but her residence was given as Chicago.

Chicago, if you haven’t discovered by now, is a city with newspapers not given to the cooperative spirit of including themselves in digitization projects. Unless you live in or near Chicago and can access microfilmed copies of their newspapers, there are not many ways to obtain Chicago obituaries that don’t have additional price tags attached to them.

I thought I’d try a second route to figure out how this Elizabeth O’Connor connected with Thomas Kelly’s family: checking Find A Grave for an entry. After all, the death record even gave me the place of her burial: Mount Carmel.

But when I entered the data at Find A Grave, there was no result.

While Chicago may have some petulant newspaper publishers unwilling to play nice with the digitizing game, it is a city whose residents have a wonderful esprit de corps. One evidence of that assessment is the Chicago Genealogy group on Facebook—a next generation version of the old genealogy forums. I had signed up for this group long ago. While I’m not often on Facebook, I have found occasional visits to their site to be very informative for genealogical research tips regarding Chicago ancestors.

I posted my query, and it wasn’t long before people came to my rescue. Someone even mentioned that this Elizabeth—whoever she was—had faced the tragic moment no parent ever wants to face: the loss of her own young daughter. The Chicago group member posted the link for me. It was to a Find A Grave entry for Marie O’Connor. And it was at Mount Carmel.

Hoping against hope that the volunteer who posted the information for Marie was like some go-the-second-mile troupers I’ve encountered at Find A Grave, I clicked over to the memorial, and was not disappointed. There was the link to the entry for Marie’s mother, Elizabeth O’Connor.

Why was I not able to find that entry, myself? Who knows what gremlins lurk in my computer’s operating system.

That was not the only entry for which I had had zero search results. Trying to find Elizabeth and her husband, Joseph, in the census records was bearing no fruit as well. But last night, I tried again, and—how do these things happen in a logic-driven universe?—lo and behold, results popped up for Elizabeth and family for every census: for 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940—all at the same location on South Parnell Street in Chicago.

Evidently, this Elizabeth and Joseph O’Connor had two daughters—Mary, as the census records listed her, and her older sister, Catherine. Perhaps at some point, I can continue down the line and discover who Catherine married—and whether she was the one living in Elgin, Illinois, whom her mother was visiting on the fateful day of her 1946 passing.

Before I get carried away with what genealogy researchers are so well equipped to do, there is one specific point that needs to be established: despite the seeming coincidence tying Elizabeth Kelly O’Connor to our Thomas and Bridget, was she really the Kellys’ daughter Bridget, going by a middle name? Or do I need to keep searching?

Energized by Possibilities

I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.

            ~American Playwright John Guare in Six Degrees of Separation

In a moment in which blog posts become influenced by the previous day’s harvest of reader comments, I saw the possibilities in what reader Intense Guy mentioned yesterday:

I think it would be cool if we (all your readers) could find a link, no matter how "loose" or "vague" to each other!

Mind you, I’m not out to propose that we all pull out our pedigrees and plat maps and compare notes to find connections. But we could. And we’d likely be amazed at the common ties we’d discover.

We already have made some connections here at A Family Tapestry. Taking a brief tour through all the comments in the last six months or so, I found a number of posts by readers, mentioning some way or another in which we connect.

First and foremost, I can’t forget the comment by blogger Susan Clark, entered after one post about my Tennessee roots. Predictably, this would catch Susan’s eye—after all, the title of her blog is Nolichucky Roots, her own catalog of ancestral connections in that same east Tennessee region where my grandfather grew up. After one post, Susan commented:

I have been so negligent about commenting, Jacqi, but I am adoring the Erwin connection. Today's entry sent chills down my spine. Your Nellie lived only a block and a half from my great-grandparents in Johnson City. Your names today were so familiar to me that I dug around a bit. Her husband's death record gives a street address that shows up at the corner of Southwest and Maple. My Williams great-grandparents lived in the next block, at 415 W. Maple. I have no words for joy this gives me.

After completing my series on the Bean family in the San Francisco Bay area—and subsequently further north in Santa Rosa—another reader added some comments which revealed a neighbor who actually remembered this family from childhood. The comments were added to the post three months after it was published, so you may have missed reading them, but all of them point to a re-connection. Here’s one of the comments:

I believe I know this neighborhood. I think the young woman on the right is Marilyn Bean. If that's her mother, Mrs. Lincoln, on the left, she is looking very young to me, but I knew her only as a very elderly woman. She babysat me when I was 4 - 5 years old. She had a large stuffed owl in her den, with big, staring eyes, guaranteed not to let a little kid sleep.

In finding my posts about the Stevens family military travels, someone stopped by to compare notes with a couple comments like this one:

I commented on the USNS Gen. Alexander M. Patch and our voyage on it from Bremerhaven to New York in 1952 when I was 15 months old. The stateside home of record listed for us on the passenger list was Greenville, South Carolina, which had become my mother's home city in 1942 when she was 16. My parents married in Greenville in July of 1949 and went to Germany the following month. I was born in Frankfurt in 1951. So, there is another connection we share.

One of my most delightful discoveries was not through a comment to a post, but in subsequent emails with another blogger—Lisa, known online as “Smallest Leaf,” whose blogs include Small-Leaved Shamrock and 100 Years in America. Lisa’s grandparents, as it turned out, lived in the same town in New York in which I grew up. Talk about close connections of the non-related kind!

This all reminds me of the proverbial “Six Degrees of Separation”—the speculation that any two individuals may likely be connected by, at the most, five other people. Remember that sociology class I mentioned in yesterday’s post? It was thanks to that class that I first became aware of the Stanley Milgram experiment, attempting to get a package from a randomly-selected person in a Midwest city to a target individual in Boston, Massachusetts, via only people that the sender knew personally.

While psychologist Stanley Milgram was not the one to coin the descriptive tag “Six Degrees of Separation” that was later given to the “small world” phenomenon, the concept has been mused over, written about, mathematically toyed with and academically pontificated over since at least 1929. As it turns out, many randomly-selected strangers may be connected by as little as three links.

Given the much more limited pool of ethnically-connected ancestors you or I might have in common, it is actually no surprise that we would find some sort of connection between us genealogically, either.

Of course, I’m still awaiting the glorious day when someone emails to inform me that he or she is my long-lost twenty-seventh cousin. Until that happens, however, connections like these from readers really make my day.