Wordless Wednesday

Genealogy as a "Cool Job"

A few months ago I responded to a request for people with cool jobs to be interviewed for an education site.  The person doing the interviews agreed that genealogy sounded pretty cool (how could she not?).  And I love talking about genealogy!

I just found out that the interview has been posted.  I hope it gets people interested in working in genealogy!

Former Jewish-owned Businesses in Berlin

Jonass & Company, Berlin

Do you have Jewish roots in Berlin?  Before Hitler's rise to power, more than 50,000 Jewish-owned businesses were operating in Berlin, according to an article in Tablet Magazine.  Dr. Christoph Kreutzmüller of Humboldt University in Berlin has been meticulously researching these businesses in an attempt to reconstruct Berlin's earlier life as a center of commerce.  As a result of his research, he has published a book, Final Sale: The End of Jewish Owned Businesses in Nazi Berlin, and has created an online searchable database of (currently) more than 8,000 of those businesses.  The Tablet article includes an audio file of an interview with Dr. Kreutzmüller about his research.

Wikipedia Newspaper Page Additions

Several new links have been added to the Wikipedia newspaper archives page, most of them European.  This time around, all the new links are free.

• Denmark (first link for this country!):  Illustreret Tidende [Illustrated Journal], 1859–1924.  Magazine-style newspaper.  Browsable by volume or year; includes two searchable indices.  Uses DjVu, or you can download PDF's.
• France:  La Gazette de France, 1786.  Downloadable PDF that includes issues 1–104.
• France:  Mercure François, 1605–1643.  Browsable by date, but no search.
• Germany:  Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung [Augsburg Post], 1768–1839.  The paper carried national, scholarly, historical, and economic news.  This one has a search function.  Plans are to digitize issues through 1848.
• Ireland:   Free State (1922), Hibernia Magazine and Dublin Monthly Panorama (1810–1811), Leprecaun (1905–1909), and Walker's Hibernian Magazine (1811).  These are part of the Villanova University Digital Library.
• Netherlands:  Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1618–1995.  Historical Dutch newspapers from the Dutch East Indies, Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, and the United States.  The search allows you to specify distribution location and type of article; currently the options to choose newspaper title and place of publication are not available.
• Sri Lanka (another new country listing!):  Journal of the Dutch Burgher Union, 1908–2005.  This is posted as PDF files with no search.  The site also has many genealogies and information about the Dutch Burgher Union itself.
• Switzerland:  Bande Mataram ("Monthly Organ of Indian Independence"), 1913–1914.  This was published in English.  Three issues are available.
• Alaska:  Petersburg Herald (1924–1926), Petersburg Press (1926–1931), Petersburg Weekly Report (1914–1924), and The Progressive (1913–1914).  These are online at the Petersburg Public Library site, which allows you to search or browse.
• New York:  Fatherland (1914–1917), The Vital Issue/Issues and Events (1914–1919), and World War (1914–1916).  These were German-American publications in English, published in New York City.  World War was a translation of the German publication Weltkrieg.  These are part of the Villanova University Digital Library.
• Pennsylvania:  Clan-na-Gael Journal (13 issues between 1902–1918) and Irish Press (1918–1922).  These were Irish-American newspapers published in Philadelphia.  They are also part of the Villanova University Digital Library.

Wordless Wednesday

New Online Database of Arkansas Deaths

The Arkansas History Commission has added a database of Arkansas deaths covering 1819–1920.  The database was designed to supplement the official state vital records, which began recording deaths in 1914.  The results from a search give the source of the information and the date recorded there.  Sources include cemetery records, mortality censuses, newspaper obituaries, church publications, and records from the Arkansas History Commission’s holdings.  Only the name is given for the source; if it isn't something you recognize, I would guess you can e-mail the Commission staff and ask about it.  The database is being created by Commission staff and volunteers, who continue to add new records every month.

I tried some sample searches.    It appears that the search does not support wildcards.  The search is by exact spelling, but it looks for names that match or begin with your search term.  For example, I searched for "robins" and got results for Robins and Robinson.  When I searched for "seller", however, I got all the Sellers results twice.

In addition to the new database, the Arkansas History Commission (which is the state archives) also has search pages for newspapers, military records, photographs, land records, and more.  This is a great resource for Arkansas research.

Things My Mother Taught Me

Most parents teach their children; it's part of the job, after all.  But along with the things they consciously set out to teach you -- potty training, how to dress yourself, the manners you need to get along with others, responsibility, respect for others -- there are the things you learn by observing them and what they do.  Some of those lessons can be profound, while others just help make you the unique individual you are.

I learned a lot about tolerance and acceptance of others from both of my parents, but I think especially from my mother.  When I was about 5 years old, my father's ex-wife and my half-sister came to live with our family (my parents, my brother, my sister, and I).  Not exactly what most women would be willing to do!  But we all got along fine.  My mother worked a graveyard shift, so my dad's ex-wife would get us up in the mornings and ready for school, and my mother would get home in time to see us before we left.  My half-sister and I even went to the same elementary school for a while, and the administrators sometimes got the two different Mrs. Sellerses confused.  Even after they moved out to a place of their own, we visited often.

Long before multiculturalism was talked about, our family had a wide range of friends -- black, Hispanic, Indian (from India), and even gay.  We children were taught open-mindedness and acceptance, and that people are just people.  And I grew up knowing that Rock Hudson, Raymond Burr, and Montgomery Clift were gay, though I've never figured out how my mother knew.

My mother always told me I could do anything I wanted to do and be anything I wanted to be, from the time I was little.  She told me I could succeed on my own and didn't need someone to help me.  I believed her and have carved out my own unique corner of the world, first as an editor and now as a genealogist.  (When I did follow my own path as an editor, though, she couldn't understand why I didn't want to work for the CIA or the UN, and why I wasn't rushing to get married and give her a granddaughter.  So not every lesson is perfect!)

My mother loved to watch movies.  She taught me how to listen to the actors' voices and recognize them, which gives me a nice party trick today.  She explained how to watch actors who were portraying musicians and what to look for to see if they were really playing the instruments.  She also explained that it took someone who really knew what he was doing to portray a character who didn't.

My mother loved to play with words.  She taught me to do crossword puzzles, which I still enjoy.  She would flip words around, like spoonerisms, so we had chublip stamps (Blue Chip Stamps) and chotato pips (potato chips).  I still tell people to have a happy "oneth of the month" when a new month rolls around.  And she taught me an appreciation of foreign languages, which definitely influenced my choice of a major in college.

I don't think my mother met a cuisine she didn't like.  We grew up eating Chinese, Mexican, and Indian food; if Thai and Vietnamese had been available at the time, we probably would have had them also.  My mother used to call us kids the vultures -- there was never any food left on the table after a meal.

Unlike the stereotype that is prevalent even today, both of my parents enjoyed watching sports.  As soon as she walked into the house, my mother would turn on the television, often to sports.  So we watched football, baseball, basketball, gold, boxing, car racing ... if it was on television, my mother would watch it.  I find that I still tend to be a minority among most women I know because I enjoy watching sports and have a good working knowledge of most of them.

If my mother were still alive today, I like to think she'd enjoy my working as a genealogist, since she's the one who started me on that path by telling me stories about my family.  Thanks, Mommy.

Antique and Vintage Maps of India Discovered

1863 Map of Delhi

Last year, an Indian woman who was walking around London and browsing through items on the roadside found a large collection of old maps of India.  Though she originally planned to cut them up and reuse them for other purposes, friends advised her to have someone evaluate what she had found.  What she had thought about turning into placemats and coasters turned out to be some of the Survey of India's first maps of India, ranging from 1871 to 1928.  India was part of the British Empire during this period.

Some of the more significant items are a 1912 map of Delhi (now Old Delhi) and a 1928 map of Mt. Everest.  Also dating from about 1928 are accurately detailed travelers' maps of two UNESCO World Heritage sites, the Ajanta and Ellora caves in the state of Maharashtra.  The earliest maps are for areas that are in or near present-day Bangladesh.  The maps were purchased by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, and about 30 of the items were displayed in their offices until the end of April.

Maps are useful in genealogy because they show the development of cities and other areas over time and often include buildings and roads that may be connected to family members.  For example, the Delhi map shows the early British occupation of the city and the areas of the city where the native Indian population lived.

More information about the maps is in a Times of India article.

Wordless Wednesday