Now, Where Was I ?

It's Plough Monday. Time to get back to work!

It took some revisiting of old posts to remind myself of where we left off before the holidays. It was on the Friday before Christmas that I had reviewed the third possibility for the true identity of a man named Albert Roberts—a man who stopped in at a photography studio in Council Bluffs, Iowa, to have his portrait taken with his wife.

I'm still trying to figure out just who that "Mr. and Mrs. Albert Roberts" might have been, so I can return that hundred year old photograph to family. We have one possibility of a man born about 1869, and another of a man with the same name, who was about ten years younger than our first candidate. A third Albert Roberts, partially by virtue of his later birth in 1896, seems most likely to be eliminated from the roundup. So we are now left with a fifty-fifty chance at making the right guess.

Guessing, however, is not what we are here to do, of course. So now what?

For one thing, despite all the holiday festivities, I did manage to check out a few potential routes to right answers. I did a thorough search for family trees on Ancestry.com which contained either of these two couples, to see if any were maintained by close relatives of either of the Alberts in question. One of these has, thankfully, responded to indicate willingness to help us explore this puzzle further. The other trees, unfortunately, were not posted by descendants or close relatives, so I didn't even contact them.

Another route I am taking is to contact the county libraries, as well as genealogical and historical societies, to see if there is any photograph collections there which could help with comparisons. Thankfully, one helpful person—who happens to be connected to such photograph repositories—has indicated willingness to help, as well.

And so, the search grinds onward. Besides reaching out to these organizations and individuals, however, I've learned that there are a few other ways to seek potential answers. For one thing—and I have been reminded of this in past searches—not everyone keeps their tree on Ancestry. Witness one of my first photo-sleuthing stories about Penrose Hawkes and the mystery photo album that turned out to come from County Cork, Ireland: that answer came, initially, through a family tree posted on Geni.com. (Though the person didn't reply to my posted message—which I had to join Geni.com in order to even send—the discovery was of the right descendant, and I did eventually send the album to her, though it was through the Cork Genealogical Society's Facebook group that the nexus was successfully made.)

And again, most recently, I was reminded to look for answers in places like the universal tree kept on FamilySearch.org, where the researcher who discovered the unburied cremains of the Civil War veteran we discussed prefers to post her discoveries.

There is one other way I can circumvent this research brick wall. I can try seeking people who might have more knowledge of the unnamed Mrs. Albert Roberts. Though I don't have her given name—or this search would have been over by now, wouldn't it?!—I do have candidates for each of those names. If anyone is researching any family lines for those two maiden names, perhaps they might have access to photos of the young Mrs. Roberts to help us evaluate which one is the right candidate.

Now that the holiday season is over, we have a full list of items to attempt in completing this photo puzzle. One by one, we'll check them off, as well as check out another possibility—but I'll save explaining that idea for another day.

A Big Christmas Season, a Little Epiphany

The twelve days of Christmas may (finally) be over, but their inspiration for carols we still (sometimes) sing is not. The arrival of the Magi became the genesis, centuries later, for not only numerous portrayals in art, but two familiar tunes: "We Three Kings" and "As with Gladness Men of Old." (For those who may not recall that second catchy tune, take a listen here.)

That trail of Christmas hits of the 1850s may be some of the few vestiges of that entire partying span of time once packaged together as the Twelve Days of Christmas. That, and the fact that, at this very moment (for those of you who are up, reading this post with your morning coffee somewhere back east), my husband's cousins and their children are eagerly pouncing on their gifts, rather than the event others might have indulged in on December 25.

As for the rest of those twelve days, I imagine only the most devout of Catholic ancestors might have paid any notice to the calendar of feast days closing out the old year and opening up the new. (And perhaps a few hearty party-goers might have dragged the celebration out much farther than when everyone else was ready to call it a night.)

So what can we say is our claim on the roots of this holiday season? Do you recognize anything of your holiday traditions that might point specifically to an ethnic background?

Perhaps that is where I received my personal epiphany about this holiday season. Though my family never celebrated any such event (at least that I can recall), I had always heard of the twelve days of Christmas. I became slightly more sensitized to it when I moved from my childhood home in New York to live in "sunny" California (where, I assure you, the morning temperatures do, indeed, dip below freezing). Here, for instance, it is very obviously the custom to not take down one's Christmas decorations until Epiphany—witness all the holiday lights on the housetops and the still-lit Christmas trees leading up to today—a vestige of a culture more influenced by that Twelve Days custom.

Other than that, though, I knew very little about the custom of these twelve days. So, after all these years, I decided to look it up—to see for myself what this was all about.

What I found was a very far-reaching link back to events of historical significance in the Middle Ages in various countries in Europe, and their outgrowth in some customs which became part of the Christmas season. Though some traditions might have been inspired by a particular day—witness the Boxing Day carol we know as Good King Wenceslas for the second day of Christmas—such surprises linking particular Christmas carols to specific days were some of the only connections I could make to an actual calendar of commemorations for these twelve days. Even the church calendar for the feast day designations seemed not to relate to historic events—or to be hastily-contrived redirections for a nascent church emerging on a continent previously held sway by pagan celebrations.

Perhaps, if it were not for that holiday song about the Twelve Days of Christmas, I'd have never given the phrase any thought. After all this personal inquiry, it seems at best in its current vestiges of whatever the original Middle Ages impetus might have been, that the concept of a Twelve Days of Christmas represents a romanticized version of a season of great cheer and celebration. And that—whether with a saint designated specifically for each day—is indeed what we have managed to do. Only now, we've shifted our holiday cheer to precede the event, rather than letting the main event launch the season.

However you and your family have historically celebrated this season we've just completed, I hope it was one which brought you peace and happiness. As for me, with the last of my holiday decorations tucked safely in their storage boxes for another year, I'm looking to getting back to work on family history research projects, especially in preparation for the class I'll be attending at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy in only a short while.

At our home, it won't exactly be "A New Year, a New Me," but I'm looking forward to some research planning, refocusing on specific family history goals for 2019. Holidays are fun, and an extended holiday season at the end of the year comes with its own warm fuzzies, but it's nice to get back to the work of tackling some new research challenges with the energy of a new year.

 

Twelfth Day and Twelfth Night

The twelfth day, much like the seventh day, was celebrated more for the evening it became, rather than the day it was. Just as December 31—the Seventh Day of Christmas—is now known more for its role as New Year's Eve, the Twelfth Day of Christmas becomes the eve of Epiphany. And, in the partying atmosphere of the European middle ages, that same eve became known as Twelfth Night, the culmination of a season of merry-making.

Traditional events for Twelfth Night included playing games (mostly with eggs), going wassailing, and including music played by pipes, especially bagpipes. A typical food during this celebration was known as the king cake—though, unlike the king cake familiar to mardi gras revelers, this rich cake of eggs, butter, fruit, nuts and spices was considered to be more like the Italian panettone than the New Orleans version offered before Lent. Still, it included a hidden token, but unlike the mardi gras version with its baby king, the Twelfth Night cake usually concealed a bean and a pea; those finding the tokens were then crowned the lord and lady of "Misrule" for the night, and dressed like a king and queen.

In some traditions, this same Twelfth Night equated with what we celebrate as Christmas eve, for in some countries, the tradition of gift-giving was not acknowledged on Christmas day, but on Epiphany. Perhaps your family has memories of such a tradition, despite modern pressures to conform to the commercial representation of Christmas; if so, such a clue may lead you right to your ethnic heritage.

With the close of this evening, the Christmastide celebration all comes to a culmination, following this Twelfth Night, with the arrival of Epiphany tomorrow, January 6. Whether your family's custom was to celebrate the arrival of the Magi with gifts for each other on Epiphany, or simply mark the day as when we can—finally!—put away all our Christmas decorations, we've come to the end of a long stretch of partying. And then—at least during the Middle Ages—back to work!  

Eleventh Day

How is it that the designation for the eleventh day of a holiday commemoration devised in the Middle Ages denotes a saint who not only didn't live back then, but came from a country never heard of in that time period? It all makes me wonder what the historic designation was for the Eleventh Day of Christmas, back when this was all created.

For now, in keeping with the tradition of holding a feast day in memory of a saint upon the date of that person's death, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton died on January 4, 1821. She wasn't, however, recognized as a saint until 1975, at which point she became the first native-born American to be designated as such.

Founder of the Sisters of Charity, the first American organization of religious sisters, Elizabeth Seton's legacy extended to orphanages, hospitals, and schools in the 1830s as far apart as Cincinnati, New Orleans and Saint Louis. Despite discovering this, I have yet to find any directions on how one was expected to celebrate this Eleventh Day of Christmas.

So, back in the days before Elizabeth Ann Seton became a saint, who was celebrated on the Eleventh Day of Christmas? According to one reference, that honor was previously bestowed upon Saint Simeon Stylites—although other reports say he is commemorated on January 5. Perhaps that's a good thing: after all, how would we celebrate a saint known for his extreme ascetic lifestyle?

I suspect, though, that many European households, at least closer to the time period in which the Twelve Days of Christmas were kept as a holiday season, were busily preparing, at this point, for the culmination of the Christmas season: the arrival of the Magi, or Three Kings from the east, to present their gifts to the Christ child on Epiphany—not to mention the energetic celebrations to be held the night preceding that, on Twelfth Night. While not many of our modern households may keep that tradition of the old holiday calendar, perhaps some family histories may contain a few reminders of that old custom of giving gifts, not on December 25, but on Epiphany, itself.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas . . .

...we lose our way even further.

Oh, dear. It seems, with today's feast, we have yet another moveable designation. Resources explaining the traditions behind the concept of the Twelve Days of Christmas assert that today is celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus. However, the naming of Jesus, if we follow the Jewish tradition—not to mention the Bible explanation—occurred "on the eighth day." That would bring us to January 1, not January 3 (if, indeed, Christ were actually born on December 25).

As it stands now, there already is a Feast of the Circumcision of Christ—technically, circumcision being when a Jewish son was given his name—and that feast day is held on January 1, the Eighth Day of Christmas. But that is already designated as a feast day to Mary. So what has become of the Feast of the Holy Name?

Well, it seems the church calendar has undergone several variations over the years. This feast day is no exception. The Feast of the Holy Name has been celebrated in the Catholic church since at least the late 1400s. Just when it has been celebrated has been a less constant fixture. The day has been celebrated, for instance, on January 14 (by Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustinians), or on January 15 (by Dominicans), though the Jesuits have always fixed the date as January 3.

Different countries have celebrated this feast on different days, as well, over the centuries. And over time, the different popes have revised the church calendar, too.

Which all makes me wonder about this tradition of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Like the chicken and egg conundrum, I begin to wonder whether we had the saints' days first, or the twelve days—aching to be filled by churchified substitutions for former pagan rites. Perhaps a lack of focus on the purpose for each of these twelve days lies behind the reason why people don't really celebrate the entire season. Or is it that catchy Christmas tune that swayed me into thinking there really were twelve different days, each with its own distinct designation?

After all, I don't really have any family traditions which help me realize this is how my Polish (or Scottish, or Alsatian) forebears celebrated the Tenth Day of Christmas. Perhaps it was just that silly leap of logic: if there really are Twelve Days of Christmas, one of them must be the Tenth Day of Christmas. Right?

Despite this little glitch in my holiday fervor, we do need to persevere through the entire sequence. We still have two more days to celebrate. And around here in my adopted home state, that old holiday tradition demands the Christmas decorations stay put until the proper close of the holiday season.

Ninth Day of Christmas Becomes a Moveable Feast Day

It may be the second day of a new year, but according to a calendar originally devised closer to the birth of Christ than the year 2019, today was known as the Ninth Day of Christmas. The only trouble was: for which saint did the church decide to establish this day's honor?

Apparently, the honors now go to two different men: Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory Nazianzen. Both of these saints lived during the fourth century, a formative period in the history of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Their feast day is now established—well, if you follow the Catholic Church's calendar—on the second day of January, but that wasn't always so.

Saint Basil, for one, had long been celebrated, at least in Greece, as the one bringing gifts to children on—what else?—Saint Basil's Day, January first.

But this is January second.

Somehow, the saint's day was originally set on January first because it was believed it was the day of his death. After all, that is the tradition for many saints' days. But for whatever reason, in the thirteenth century, the saint's day was moved to June 14, because that was believed to be the date of his ordination as bishop in Cappadocia (in modern-day Turkey). Of course, that designation didn't last, either, for in the Catholic church's revision in 1969—and since January 1 was already taken by another designation—Saint Basil's day was finally established as January 2, along with that of Saint Gregory Nazianzen.

As for what people actually did to celebrate, well, all we can determine is that they feasted. At least, that is what we can see for those of our ancestors who claimed their heritage in the British Isles: "continuous feasting and merrymaking." If you think a celebration for Christmas and another for New Year's Eve is over the top, you are apparently not the party animal your English ancestors once were.

Still, it all depends on which religious persuasion your ancestors followed. As the ancestral timeline wound its way toward the present day, the feast day of both saints finds its spot on the calendar to be on many different dates—in Saint Basil's case, for instance, January 10 for the Lutherans, January 14 for the Coptic church, January 30 for the Eastern Orthodox churches, and not until June 14 for the Episcopalians.

Who knows if anyone took their inspiration to celebrate from the lives of either of these saints—whether debating heresy, giving gifts to children, writing autobiographical poems, or even living as a hermit—but one thing is sure: this was a day set aside to remember specific people no longer with us who once provided inspiration in what they did with their life. Today, we might call such people mentors. Even for those weary of merrymaking after the holiday season, we can always use an inspiring mentor to guide us into a new year. 



 

Eighth Day of Christmas = First Day of New Year

The history of the calendar can be so confusing. Today, if you are following the Christmastide calendar, is the eighth day of Christmas. But it wasn't always New Year's Day. That used to fall on March 25, known as Lady Day.

That, however, was only if you were following the Julian calendar, which was the case in England up until Chesterfield's Act was passed in 1751—or 1750, if you were still clinging to the Julian calendar instead of embracing the new new of the Gregorian calendar. Thus, even the switch to the new, up-to-date and technologically correct calendar resulted in inadvertently turning March 25, Lady Day, into Old Lady Day because the calendar change cost us eleven days and meant that New Lady Day, in the new style calendar, now had to be noted on April 6.

See? Confusing. But that still leaves us in March. And we're supposed to be talking about January. That's a loss of another bunch of days. In fact, for every country's conversion to a calendar start on January 1, the previous year got cheated of its full glory. Depending on where your forebears lived at the time, you might have started celebrating New Year's Day on January 1 in 1556 (in Spain, Portugal, and Poland), in 1559 (in Sweden), at the dawn of a new century (1600 in Scotland), in 1700 (in Russia), or not until 1797 (in Venice). And lost a whole bunch of days in the year preceding the big switch.

Not only was that important for marking historic occurrences in European history, but it does invoke some grumbling and head-scratching among the more humble of us who have, nonetheless, managed to push back our personal family history brick-wall challenges to breach the gulf between the Old Style and New Style dating systems.

What's interesting is that the Eighth Day of Christmas—where we've emerged into January, no matter which calendar your ancestor might have been using—was designated as a feast day for the Virgin Mary. But the "Lady" in Lady Day also signified that very same Mary, only for a different feast day: the Feast of the Annunciation. So, whether your ancestors were celebrating the first day of the civil New Year on March 25 (or, ahem, April 6), or the start of the "historical year" on January first, somehow, they were still celebrating Mary.

Now, most people who celebrate New Year's Day likely have no idea of the complicated change of calendars, or even of the religious feast day set for this same time. Perhaps they reach back to a more distant history—at least in European traditions—to fashion their celebrations after the fires (or, now, more confined fireworks), noise-making, and wistful thoughts about the past year and bright hope (and maybe even some resolutions) for the new one.

Perhaps, if you are like me and have even a trace of Scottish blood in you, you might even have tidied up your genealogical books for the year, ready to launch into new research projects in 2019.

No matter what your preferred way of celebrating, here's to an encouraging year for all of us!