Still Doing the Same Detour

Some detours take longer than others. When I mentioned, two weeks ago, that some sudden discoveries required me to veer from my research plan, don't think I was staring down an easy fix. On the contrary, those very welcome "interruptions" have turned into my constant research focus for the entire two weeks between then and now.

The first one was in response to some well-laid cousin bait, in which a distant cousin on my mother-in-law's Gordon line reached out to connect, inadvertently gifting me with an entire missing branch of that part of her family. Ever since then, I've been plugging away, adding all the descendants—and their descendants—from that line to my mother-in-law's tree.

To give you an idea how many new names that includes, my mother-in-law's tree bumped up 107 names in the last two weeks, and now stands at 16,911 individuals. Oh, by the way, I'm not anywhere near done yet. This is just one branch of a typical Catholic family of the past centuries, and that missing branch led back to a woman who was born in 1851.

The other detour occupying my time these past weeks has included that recent DNA discovery on my father's side. Another work in progress, so far that lead has added thirty eight names to my dad's family tree, which now totals 612 people. While I realize that 612 is a far cry from the 19,123 in my mom's tree, I'm ecstatic to have made any further progress at all on this brick wall line. What I haven't been able to discover through traditional means and documentation, I've been led to, thanks to revealing results in DNA testing.

Of course, when detours budge me from my stated research plans, some other items stand still—such as my father-in-law's tree, which is still stuck at 1,551. But that's okay; it was only a month ago when an unexpected report from a subscription service had shown me an obituary that allowed me to add to that tree.

While there is no way to predict when a distant cousin is going to spring for a DNA test—or when an equally unknown distant relative's name will appear in an obituary—these are part of my research system for filling in all the blanks in those pedigree charts. In the meantime, when no other surprises pop up, you know I'll be back to business as usual, sticking to that long-term research plan, and adding to my mother's tree, the one with the count which hasn't budged at all these past two weeks. But it's fun to throw a little genealogical confetti around and celebrate those unexpected finds when they happen. I enjoy them when I can; that regularly-scheduled program will be back to normal in no time.

Now Indexing: More Draft Registration Cards

Every month, I try to set aside time to do some volunteer work on indexing digitized records which are part of the collection at FamilySearch.org. Indexing is the process whereby the pictures of those many pages of genealogically significant documents are translated into searchable terms—the gold standard that makes them so valuable to family history researchers. Without the process of indexing, all we would otherwise have would be thousands and thousands of pictures; we could browse through them, but we'd have no way to pinpoint our search efforts to get to just the right document.

Lately, I've been working on the draft registration cards filled out by countless young American men, once our country became involved in what later was called World War I. I like to focus on the cards completed in New York because that's where my father's family lived at the time. Of course, I keep hoping it will bring some of my distant cousins to light, but barring that type of serendipity, at least my small effort will help others find their ancestors' records more easily.

This weekend's effort didn't go as smoothly as hoped. For some reason, I ended up choosing short batches to index—apparently, batches that someone else had worked on before me. The record sets were previously organized as if there were information on two pages, when each record gleaned all the data needed in the first page—thus, leaving a second page blank. But you couldn't say that second page was blank—and I could find no way to go back and correct the previous entry to indicate that there was only one page of information per record. So I had to come up with a work-around...and I'm sure my choice wasn't the correct way to handle it, but what could I do? The many pages of instructions at my fingertips spoke not a word about such a dilemma.

Since the batch was such a short batch, I opted, as usual, to do a second batch. This one didn't go so well, either, for right before the final record, I got a phone call. It must have lasted longer than the website granted for my downtime permission, for when I returned to wrap up that last record, all that remained was an error message that the website had retracted my batch and I'd have to call up another entire set if I wished to do more work.

Though such quirks—especially those I've never run across previously—can be annoying, I know there is real value in being part of the vast army of volunteers that makes these digitized documents available for all to use freely. If you've ever looked up a census record, or marriage document, or any other genealogical record from around the world on FamilySearch, you've benefited from the indexing work of a volunteer. Anyone willing to follow the process is welcome to become a volunteer. For the most part, instructions are straightforward and available, any time you wish to refer back to them. The work is served up to volunteers in batches, and each batch is small enough to handle in a minimum amount of time. I've heard people mention that they'd do a "batch before dinner" or during other brief waiting times.

The effort illustrates the beauty of the saying, "Many hands make light work." The results are something every genealogy practitioner appreciates, made possible by the multitude of small, achievable tasks done by many willing people.

I just keep waiting for the moment when I end up indexing a missing record for one of my own family members. But even if that never happens—after all, what are the chances?—it feels good to know that the effort will eventually help someone else.

Grappling with Foreign Phonics

Early in my public school years, I began what ended up being five years of Spanish. By that last year of high school, I could read it, I could write it, but I couldn't speak it. Not really. The phonics were easy—a, e, i, o, and u were just that: exactly what they said they were. But grasping the meaning behind the proper pronunciation? Let's just say foreign languages are not my forte.

You'd think I'd get a clue. Sometime at the close of my undergraduate years, I took the notion to spring into learning French. After surviving my first year of that attempt, a brilliant instructor took the approach of teaching the rationale of the phonics behind those useless unpronounced strings of letters at the end of so many French words. Once I understood that the French handle their phonics—and the history behind those phonics—much differently than do the English, at least I could tackle pronunciations with a bit more ease.

That point, I believe, can be credited with opening up a whole new world of seeing foreign words: even if I didn't know what those words mean, at least I could learn how those people pronounce them. When it comes to learning how our surnames might have been pronounced in The Old Country, it can go a long way to helping us make genealogical connections.

Take this latest DNA match I found. It's been over five years since I arranged for that first DNA test to solve the mysteries on my father's undocumented side of the family history. Almost the entire time has been spent doing one thing: waiting. And then, this year, all of a sudden there come not one, but several matches to shed light on just where my paternal grandparents came from. The wait used to seem like it was telling me I wasted my money, but I've learned it takes two to make a match. Waiting for that match can lead to some priceless answers.

This match, the one showing up this week, was for my paternal grandmother's line, though that wasn't apparent at first. The name of my grandmother, as I had it in my records, was Sophie Laskowski. Of course, I had already learned that, in Poland, a surname is varied to adjust for whether the person being spoken of is a man or a woman, so in Sophie's case, the surname would be written as Laskowska—as was the record for the entire family when young Sophie came to America with her brothers and her mother, but not with her father. The entire household was listed, by the German shipping line, as Laskowska, following her mother's stated name.

Once they arrived in New York—and met up with Sophie's dad, who would have given his surname as Laskowski—all records continued to agree with that correct information. Why would it ever have been recorded differently?

Apparently, there was a possibility for that name to be recorded differently: by someone basing the spelling on how it sounded to English-speaking ears, rather than to Polish or German sensibilities. Think about it—especially if you, unlike me, had opted to learn German for your high school foreign language classes. How would a German (or Polish) person have pronounced a name containing a "w"? Like it was a "v," of course.

When a Laskowski arrived in America and pronounced his name like one would expect in The Old Country, an American might hear it as "Laskovski."

That would be if that record-keeping American were being careful and attentive. More likely than not, those American ears might have missed the "v" sound in "Laskovski" and just assumed this poor immigrant was reporting his name to be Laskoski.

Much differently than the "ow" in Laskowski, the pronunciation handed down to us two generations later. And so, I never gave it a second thought when scouring the Internet to find documentation on my grandmother's family: of course it would be spelled Laskowski.

It just so happened that some DNA matches had no matching surnames to mine, other than this oddly-spelled Laskoski. Should I take it?

What do you think I did?

Of course, I checked out far more than the alternate spelling. And that is another story. But for now, finding this new DNA match—and the surnames listed on her 23andMe account—have helped me tie up some loose ends on a couple I could identify in Polish marriage records as one of the siblings in my great-grandfather's Laskowski line, but didn't know much about when it came to that man's descendants.

It has been experiences like this that have convinced me of the utility of learning the phonics of the language of my family's origin. As foreign as it is to me, it will serve me well to be able to understand just how those names were originally pronounced, and what could possibly go wrong, once that name met its international interface in the immigration process. We'll see, next week, how some of those names could have gotten mangled, and how DNA is helping me piece these details back together again.

Above: Entry for my grandmother Sophie Laskowska, along with her mother Marianna and her brothers Johann and Miecyslaus, from the Hamburg passenger records for the steamship Wieland (remember, think German pronunciation here); image courtesy Ancestry.com.

When in Doubt, Head to Poland (Figuratively Speaking, of Course)

I'm stymied by lack of response from any family members descended from the Samuel and Annie Tucker whose family portrait I found in a northern California antique shop. I'd love to return the photos to someone in their family, of course, but who that candidate would be or how I could send the photos homeward has yet to make itself known.

I don't do waiting well. Nevertheless, I'll have to give the project some time, in case the second person responds affirmatively to my message—but once another week or two goes by without any answer, I do have a third contact to try. In the meantime, waiting doesn't make for scintillating conversation, so let's switch tracks and pick up on another topic we've lately put on hold.

With this latest discovery of yet another DNA match on my paternal side, it looks like this is a good time to delve back in to that paternal Polish heritage. There are many barriers to such research—I am here, while the paperwork is there, for instance (and I have no plans for traveling to Europe any time soon)—but there are still many armchair-researcher tasks that can be accomplished long distance, especially given the number of Polish websites coming online to speak to this research need.

Plus, researching a heritage I've previously been unaware of—my father, and his father before him, were always very reticent to say anything about their ethnic origin—requires an immersion in a history and culture I never grew up knowing. Cues from the broader picture of a national or ethnic heritage can add so much to understanding the experiences of a smaller family unit coming from that background. But before I can benefit from that understanding, I need to learn those basics.

It seems research comes in waves. We find a branch of the tree with many clues, and we rush headlong into the success of finding so many helpful documents, photographs, letters, even ephemera to help us learn more about that family line.

And then, we get stuck. We park our notes in a file, or a box, or within an account in the cloud, and wait. Waiting for the appropriate time to pick up a research thread once again can mean having a sense of timing which relies on stuff that is seemingly invisible. How can we know that now is the time when more documents in our specific line will show up, easily harvested with the click of a mouse? But then the next wave comes in and lifts us higher and then we can see that the time is right.

My wave this time is labeled DNA, and apparently, I have some more matches on this branch of the family. One tiny bit of information can provide the clue to lead to a second answer, and then a third. That is what is happening with this latest DNA match: figuring out this match's family enabled me to spot how that person connected with another DNA match. And then, filling out the pedigree chart in even more detail is leading to other clues. It's a chain reaction, all from one research step at a time.

Let's take a look, tomorrow, at this latest DNA match, and what it tells me about the extended Laskowski family from a little town called Zerkow in Poland—as well as what the differences between DNA testing companies can yield the persistent researcher.

One of Those Days

Gotta chalk yesterday up to being "one of those days."

Most days, I manage to squeeze in some time for family history research—and a corresponding blog post to catalog my research meanderings—just about as regularly as most people melt into their easy chair to laugh away the stress after a long day at work with their favorite sitcom. I find research—in small doses, but on a regular basis—to be my kind of way to relax and unwind after the day's end.

Not so, yesterday—no, make that the entire weekend. Between the workday ending last week and the one opening up this week, I managed to witness more to-do items checked off than I dreamed would be possible (for me, at least).

Talk about back-to-school: got that checked off the list, sending she-whose-name-must-virtually-never-be-mentioned off to grad school at a hybrid home-plus-campus program based out of Los Angeles. But not before she pre-arranged financing and took the family up north to scope out a possible new-to-her truck to purchase for the twice-per-semester 350 mile commute. Nothing is ever easy, however, so while she returned to work yesterday, her behind-the-scenes crew (that would be me) scrambled to switch all the arrangements so the vehicle was properly insured before the trek down south. And make sure lodging arrangements were properly taken care of (nothing is ever easy). And be on hand, in case the final details of financial paperwork needed to be hand-delivered to the designated parties.

Of course, no way any other work could be done in between all the phone calls, office deliveries, and other necessary connections. So...I did what I could: squeeze in a bit of research. There is always time for a quick lookup. Conveniently, my email alerted me to a new DNA match at one of my less-active testing sites, so I checked it out. That spare moment catapulted into several spare moments throughout the day, so I could squeeze in the several newly-discovered family members tied to this one DNA match, linking names with documents as the hints started pouring in.

A little here, a little there—but it doesn't always add up to something scintillating to share in a post. When I do my biweekly tally next weekend, though, I'll have something to report on my dad's tree, which I'm always excited to see. But not much to report for today's post.

In the meantime, there hasn't been any response to my message to yet another Samuel Tucker descendant, so it's still quiet on that front as well. Some days, it's hurry up and wait. Today was just one of those days.

The Challenge of Finding Just One

If that was money, the hundred year old photograph I found of the Samuel Tucker family would have long since burned a hole in my pocket. For some reason, despite having had at least eight children, Samuel and Annie Tucker have descendants who are either hard to find, or just don't answer email. I'm still wishing to find just one who will say "yes" to my offer of mailing these family photograph treasures back home.

If you've been following along with me at A Family Tapestry as I attend to my photo-rescuing project, you've seen how it works. I find an abandoned picture—including enough clues to help with identification—and do the research to find the right person and build his or her family tree. I then look at online genealogy sites to locate a researcher who is a direct descendant of the subject in the photo—although, in some cases, a diligent descendant may find me first through online searches of surnames.

In the Tucker case, despite having posted about several members of that family, I haven't heard from anyone related to that line. So, it's on to searching for direct descendants.

There are always others who include my target person in their tree. Some of those are trees much like my own—numbering in the tens of thousands of individuals—and the person who built the tree is not necessarily a direct descendant of that target person. Once I discover that is the case with a tree I'm reviewing, I set it aside and look for other possibilities among those researchers more closely related to the target person. Sometimes, almost all of the trees fall into this distant-relationship category.

Then there is that one tree which lines up well enough to demonstrate that we are looking at the right person, and that the target person is indeed a direct-line ancestor of the tree's owner. That qualifies as Happy Genealogy Dance Number One. But it sometimes is a dance which doesn't last for long.

In the case of the Samuel Tucker family, I did find one direct ancestor fairly early in the process. Unfortunately, I could tell almost right away that the chances of hearing back from this individual were slim. For Ancestry's "last signed in" category on their messaging page, this researcher was last seen "3-11 months ago." That didn't sound too promising.

Nevertheless, I sent my message. And waited. And heard nothing.

Once my research progress moved on from the parents to eldest son Jim Tucker and then to next oldest daughter Eva, it was encouraging to see that Eva had some grandchildren whose families might have been active in family history research. The only problem now is, if I message a second candidate to receive the photos, Murphy's Law dictates that the first person I had contacted will immediately show up in my inbox, delightedly claiming the photographs. Having two candidates is much more messy than having none.

As of now, that's a moot point, as I await an answer from candidate number two. Hopefully, that person will reply in the affirmative, and I'll send off the Tucker photographs, thus qualifying me to do Happy Genealogy Dance Number Two. In which case, I hope you will join me in the celebration.

Celebrating How Far We've Come

When we look back at all the media and stories of the origin of Labor Day in the United States and elsewhere around the world, we can't avoid the realization of how far we've come in working conditions for our jobs. Though this century's new occupations don't represent the hazards of prior generations—coal mining, for instance, has seen such a reduced demand, once people no longer heated their home in this way—there are certainly more details to address in current, though evolving, workplace issues.

No matter where you work—especially in comparison to where your great-grandparents once worked—I hope you enjoy this closing holiday of the summer season.

Above: Entrance to a West Virginia coal mine; photograph taken in 1908 by American sociologist and photographer Lewis Wickes Hine; courtesy U.S. Library of Congress via Wikipedia; in the public domain.