Sears Catalogs From Days Of Yore: 1897

 

Bust cream or food for only $1.46? " unrivaled for developing the bust, arms and neck, making a plump, full, founded bosom, perfect neck and arms, a smooth skin which before was scrawny, flat and flabby." 

You could have your very own sewing machine for only $22.50! Note that it was a foot-powered model but it did come with a 10-year guarantee!

Only $39.90 for a Michigan A Grade Family Wagon.... "we must sell 1000 of these vehicles before the close of the season." And a 3% discount was offered if you pay in full with your order. Horses not included. 

"The Most Stylish Suit Ever Sold!" The dresser has a fancy pattern shaped mirror, 30x36 inches in size. All drawers are fitted with fancy brass handles. The bed stands 

6-feet high and 4'6" wide (full size today width is same), and is made from the choicest quarter-sawed oak. The footboard is one solid piece......  all three of these pieces, plus a washstand (not pictured) would set you back $59.00. Imagine! 

Remember The Sears Christmas Wish Book?

 

How many of us remember drooling over the pages of the Sears catalog Christmas Wish book? I do!

The first Sears Christmas Book debuted in 1933 and came in the mail for 60 years, until 1993 (when Sears went totally out of the catalog business). 

Through the decades, the items offered varied. In 1937, tractor sets and Shirley Temple dolls were offered. By 1949, Western TV shows and movies exploded and the book offered a wide variety of Roy Rogers inspired gifts and even school supplies. As America entered the space race in 1968, children everywhere dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Marking America's Bicentennial in 1975, nostalgic theme toys appeared: fife and drum sets, Colonial dolls and models of the USS Constitution.  Transformers exploded on the scene in 1984. 

What likely did your grandparents or parents or YOU order from the Sears Christmas Wish Book???

Want A Picture Of The Ship Your Ancestor Came On?

 

Then www.shipindex.org is the website for you to find that image!!  I know the copied image above is fuzzy but the first paragraph says it all:

"ShipIndex.org simplifies vessel research. Whether you're a genealogist, a maritime historian, a researcher, or just curious, we can help you learn more about the ships that interest you. We tell you which maritime resources, such as books, journals, magazines, newspapers, CD-ROMS, websites and online databases mention the ships that interest you. We enhance these references by noting which ones include illustrations or crew and passenger lists and where you can find or purchase the resource."

You can barely see that "our full database had 3,151,517 citations to ships in 1004 resources."

You can do a quick first index search for free but you'll need to subscribe to view the citation............. a whopping $6.00 for two full weeks. 

From the Mayflower to the Titanic to the Queen Mary this website will delight you and enhance your family history stories, I guarantee.

A Dangerous Eggnog

"The hens only lay egg-nog at Christmas-tidek but egg-nog will lay a man any time he tackles it," reported the Idaho Avalanche on January 3, 1880. In 1881, The Herald, in Omaha, Nebraska, also found eggnog a subject for humor:  "Hens favor sobriety. They generally quit laying when the egg-nog season approaches."

Big thanks to a decades-old issue of True West magazine for this December-timely article, penned by Sherry Monahan. 

Out on the frontier, eggnog was not just a holiday beverage, but also a saloon drink year-round. In 1881, eggnog was ranked as the eighth most popular saloon beverage and it was served hot or cold. 

Here is the recipe for Victorian eggnog, adapted from the Idaho Daily Statesman, 

12 Dec 1892:

                    3 eggs, separated

                    1 cup powdered sugar

                    1 1/2 cups cream

                    1/4 tsp nutmeg

                    1 TB powdered sugar for egg whites

                    1/4 cup brandy and rum

                    1 cinnamon stick for grating

                    Beat the egg yolks and sugar; set aside. Beat egg whites with 1 TB sugar until stiff and refrigerate. Heat cream and nutmeg to just a boil, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and gradually add hot cream mixture into the egg and sugar mixture. Return everything to the pan and cook until the mixture reaches 160oF. Remove from heat, place in bowl, set in 'fridge to chill. Fold the egg whites into the mixture when serving and served with grated cinnamon and nutmeg.  Serves 2

Too much work for me! I'll just go to Safeway or Rosauer's thank you very much. Bet you will too. 

 

Washington, World War I Veteran's Compensation Fund Applications

 

Bet you've never heard of the World War I Veteran's Compensation Fund for Washington state veterans of the "war to end all wars."

These are now to be accessed in FamilySearch.org and are a Department of Veterans Affairs bonus record set. World War I veterans could apply for compensation from the state of Washington between 1921-1925. 

The World War Adjusted Compensation Act, or Bonus Act, was a U.S. federal law passed on 19 May 1924, that granted a benefit to veterans of American military service in World War I.  The value of each veteran's "credit" was based on each recipient's service between 5 Apr 1917 and 1 Jul 1919, with $1.00 awarded for each day served in the U.S. and $1.25 for each day served abroad. The maximum payment was set at $500.00. 

To search this collection (on FamilySearch), it is helpful to know the name of the soldier and the state where he enlisted.

I, too, have questions. Was this a U.S.-wide program? Which paid, the federal government or the state government? 

If you wish to know more, click to the FamilySearch WIKI and then Washington (state).  Also click to Wikipedia for the World War Adjusted Compensation Act. 

Herbert Franklin Niccolls, Jr. Prison Inmate At Age 12 in 1931

 

Jarred by an old newspaper article, I had to dig into the sad story of Herbert Franklin Niccolls, Jr. Most of this information comes from Find-A-Grave. 

Born in 1919 in Boise, Idaho, to Bert and Hazel Niccolls, he was one of the younger children. The family lived in extreme poverty. When Herbert was 9, his father was declared insane and committed to an asylum. Hazel, with no other recourse, gave away her sons. 

Herbert was incorrigibly delinquent. The loving foster parents who took him in had to send him away after he repeatedly lied and stole from them. Herbert finally was released into the care of his paternal grandmother "a religious zealot who was determined to starve and beat the sin out of him."

On the night of 5 Aug 1931, 12-year-old Herbert broke into a store for candy and tobacco. The break-in was discovered and 73-year-old Sheriff John L. Wormell entered the store to investigate. Herbert, crouched behind a vinegar barrel with a stolen gun, fired one shot, hitting the sheriff in the head and killing him instantly. 

The arrest of the 12 year old killer, barefoot and dressed in ragged overalls, made headlines across the country. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Herbert, 80 pounds, 4 foot 8 inches, with delicate features, curly brown hair, bright and polite, became a poster child for reform of the incarceration of juveniles. 

Herbert fared fairly well in prison. He was kept under close supervision of the wardens, kept away from the general population and assigned tutors and mentors, and achieved a good education behind bars. He remarked to his brother many years later that prison saved his life.

Herbert was released from prison at the age of 21. After a brief, unsuccessful start at a bakery job just after his release from prison, Niccolls worked in the accounting department of a Tacoma shipyard and there he excelled. He subsequently moved to California and joined the accounting department at MGM and later worked for 20th Century Fox in Hollywood. He married and had a son, John.  

Herbert died of a heart attack in 1983, having lived a crime-free life since his parole 42 years earlier.

Montana's Silver Dollar Bar

 

Everybody stops there; the gravity and allure of the place (not to mention clean restrooms) pulls you in right off of I-90 if you're on your way east from Washington state.  You've been there, right? Probably more than once!

Here's the history of the famous bar:  The story begins in 1951 when Gerry and Marie Lincoln moved from Libby, Montana, to Alberton, Montana. Two miles west of this small Montana town on what is now I-90, they built a small bar and named it "Cherry Springs." Soon, however, they realized that people needed a reason to stop, an attraction, and they got an idea.

At that time the local customers (loggers and miners) were paid in silver dollars. Also, travelers to Montana always received their change in silver dollars. They weigh a ton in your pocket! (This is why loggers wear suspenders.) So on October 1, 1952, Gerry cut a round hole in the bar top, hammered a silver dollar into it, and inscribed he and Marie's names beneath it. 

The idea caught on and by December 1953, over 2000 people had placed their coins and names in the bar top. As a result of this, the name was changed to Lincoln's 2000 Silver $ Bar. The original bar top is still intact and in use. It contains 2115 pieces and all the other coins in the collection are embedded in boards and displayed around the barroom. Each coin is the possession of the individual who left it and many people, or their children or grandchildren, return year after year to visit "their" coin. 

Today, according to their website, there are over 75,000 silver dollar coins on display! If you haven't, maybe you ought to stop on your next trip east. 

Facebook: Love It Or Hate It But Use It

Whether or not you use, or even like Facebook, it's here to stay. Mega-millions of posts every prove that people like you and me are using Facebook for a wide variety of reasons. Like I said, love it or hate it, it's here to stay so why not use it to your advantage?

Katherine Willson recognized the genealogy potential of Facebook many years ago. She began compiling a list of genealogy and family history groups that have a Facebook presence. As of 2021, it would take 436 pages to download that list of some nearly 17,000 listings. 

Nearly every genealogical and/or historical society in Washington boasts a Facebook page! Wouldn't you guess that every state has a page or two (or more) of such listings? Don't you think you might could learn something from them???

To access Katherine Willson's list, click to 

http://socialmediagenealogy.com/genealogy-on-facebook-list

As of 2021, Willson turned over management and updating of her list to CyndisList. So do check that out, too, for the most recent updates....... all categorized. 

Facebook - Under Construction

**Currently under construction**
This category is dedicated to Katherine R. Willson who created the original Genealogy on Facebook list. Katherine turned over maintenance of the list to me in January 2021 so that I could carry on that work.

Is There A Black Sheep In Your Family?

 

Looking for the shady characters in your own family tree? Whether they were bootleggers or brothel owners, black sheet are some of the most interesting ancestors you'll ever trace. Our "10 Things to Know" will help you figure out why.....and where to turn to her your own family's black sheep.

1. The black sheep of the family is the one who went against the grain negatively. Look at the enumerators comments in the census and elsewhere.  (I have one example: "makes her living by lying on her back.")

2. Black sheep often have deep paper trails..... newspaper records, court records and even prison records. 

3. Black sheep often surface in family stories...which might or might not be true.

4. Black sheep ancestors often adopted a new name...like escaping the law or a jilted lover.

5. Black sheep are often mentioned in other people's histories..... if they lived in the same town where your black sheep ancestor roamed, they might have included those stories.

6. Black sheep were more prevalent in the American west which was big and wild and no papers were ever asked for identification.

7. Black sheep had reason to travel...to get away from something. Check out passports, passenger lists and out-of-town newspapers.

8. Black sheep do have mothers..... check census and newspaper records.

9. Black sheep were often tracked by the government.... 1880 census of Defective, Dependent and Deliquent individuals who were imprisoned in prisons or aslymns.

10. Black sheep are often not mentioned by other family members.

*** Thanks to the Ancestry newsletter for this information. 

Was Your Ancestor Color Blind?

What do most of us see when we look at this image? An orange 6 against a green background, right? Not so for colorblind folks. 

According to Ask Marilyn in the Sunday Parade magazine up to 8% of men and only 0.5% of women, depending on their ancestry, have some degree of color deficiency, usually caused by defective or absent photo-pigments in the retina. The most common types are inherited, so if a family member is known to have a color vision problem, it's important to test all the children who may be unaware of their disorder. 

** Did you have an ancestor who was colorblind? Likely they never knew............ they did not have to match a necktie to a shirt. 

** Both Robert Redford and Prince William suffer from colorblindness. 

 

History of Ancestry

 

1983  --  Ancestry Publishing is founded, publishing over 40 family history magazines and genealogy reference books

1990 - Ancestry publications move to floppy disks

1996 - Ancestry.com is launched, paving the way for online family history

1997 - Ancestry offers family history on CDs (compilations of those who use Family Tree Maker)

2000 - Ancestry launches first census images; completes 1930 census in 2003

2001 - Ancestry reaches the 1,000,000,000 record milestone; Ancestry.co.uk debuts

2006 - Ancestry introduces Australian, Canadian and German sites/records

2006 - Ancestry adds new customer-centric innovations (shaky leaf hints and member trees)

2007 - Ancestry adds more international sites, inc. French, Italian, Swedish and Chinese

2009 - Ancestry reaches the 1,000,000 subscriber mark

2010 - Ancestry offers the first season of  Who Do You Think You Are?

2011 - Ancestry unveils the Ancestry app for iPad and iPhone

2012 - Ancestry hits the 2,000,000 subscriber mark

2012 - Ancestry DNA is launched

2013 - Ancestry announces exclusive agreement with FamilySearch to digitize one billion records

            from its Granita Mountain Vault

2015 - Ancestry releases exclusive collection of U.S. wills and probate records

2018 - Ancestry achieves 10,000,000 people tested via AncestryDNA; 15,000,000 in 2019

2020 - Ancestry reaches over 3.5 million subscribers and 27 billion records

2021 - AncestryDNA tests over 20,000,000 people

2022 - AncestryDNA becomes worldwide

** The above image shows Ancestry's first magazine publication, 1985-2010. These early publications can be accessed via Google Books. 

A Sad Story From 1811

John Cleves Symmes, 1742-1814, was the delegate from New Jersey to the Continental Congress. The following is a letter he wrote to his grandson, John Cleves Short, from Cincinnati and dated "March the 3rd, 1811."

"My dear grandson, your letter of the 18th I received this day a week ago, and the day after I arrived in town. ........ I have now, my son, a Melancholy piece of intelligence to communicate. I left home in the morning of the 22nd of Feby and went first to Springfield, then crossed the country to Columbia, cane to this place on Saturday the 23rd...went again to Springfield on the 27th and returned here on the 28th...

(In this letter I learned that )my house at Cleves with all its contents was reduced to a heap of ashes in the afternoon of the 1st instant..... the flames burst out and by three o'clock that valuable pile that 14 years ago cost me $8000 was in ashes. All my maps, deeds, mortgages, receipts, ledgers, day books, many of my bonds, and thousands of other important papers are lost. All my books, and yours, your clothes and mine, save what I have on m

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y back, all my bedding, my years provisions, ten barrels of beef and pork of the first quality, 100 lbs of tallow, 100 lbs of old sugar, a stock of butter and cheese, all sorts of furniture.....not a cents worth has been saved that could not burn and what is not combustible is either melted, broken or in some way spoiled. $30,000 cannot repair my loss. But to all this I must submit and give up the idea of ever being able to keep house there again during my life. 

I have no appetite, my sleep is short, my thirst feverish. I hope however, my son, that it will not drive me mad. I know that I came naked into the world and I can but go naked out of it..... Man projects, but God frustrates the most sanguine prospects." 

As I read this sad tale, I wondered how much paper-documentation-of-history has been lost through the years to fire????

 

Miscellaneous Tidbits Of Useful Information

 

War Bonds:  debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditures in time of war.  

Chain:  a chain is a unit length measuring 66 feet, or 22 yards, or 100 links. There were/are 80 chains in one statute mile. The chain was used for several centuries in Britain and in some other countries influenced by British practice. (Can you imagine dragging this through the dense woods of the forests of Eastern America, up and down hill????)

Scurvy:  Our long-sea-voyage-seafaring ancestors often suffered from scurvy. After three months at sea, with no Vitamin C in their diet, the sailors would become irritable, lethargic and with bleeding gums leading to tooth loss. Once this was realized, captains would take jugs of vinegar on board for these long voyages. People in third-world countries still get scurvy today. 

Gretna Green:  A Gretna Green was a favored marriage place when a couple wanted to run away from home to get married...... a place with fewer marriage restrictions. Maybe they wanted to marry without parental consent, marry at a younger age, wanted to avoid paying a marriage bond, etc. The original Gretna Green is a town by that name just over the border in south Scotland. Most all U.S. states have a Gretna Green. 

Books To Share

    

  Found these three books in a going-to-the-dump

pile and rescued them! Will send them to you for postage.

Garden of the Sun: History of the San Joaquin Valley: 1772-1939 by Wallace Smith, 2004

Collected Poems of Robert Service, "poet-bard of

the Yukon"

The Fountain & the Mountain: The University of Washington Campus, 1895-1995, by Norman J. Johnston

Halloween: One Picture Says It All

 

Starting in early September, the stores are already stocking Halloween stuff and I for one do not like that. By October the offerings include 100 different "ghoulish goodies." It's always fun to find something really different.

I spotted this Mickey Mouse Pumpkin Lamp in a thrift store! Was only $22. Now this is my kind of Halloween decoration. 

Military Records

 

The above iconic image is from the Civil War. But clear up to today, it's the same: In war, young men die.  (Col. Blake, M*A*S*H, "and rule #2, doctors can't change rule #1.")

Many, if not most, of us have ancestors that participated in a war. Have you searched out all you'd like to know about a certain conflict?

World War I lasted from 28 Jul 1914 to 11 Nov 1918;  the U.S. entered the war on 6 Apr 1917

World War II lasted from 1 Sep 1939 to 2 Sep 1945; the U.S. entered the war on 7 Dec 1941

There are literally dozens of resources for you to learn about your ancestor's service. You might start with this book (less than $5 via Amazon): 

Fold3 is the premier collection of Military Records. This is a subscription website but they periodically do offer specials. From this website you can find information and links to records on these conflicts:

• Revolutionary War
• Civil War
• War of 1812
• Mexican & Early Indian Wars
• World War I
• World War II
• Korean War
• Vietnam War
• International Records

YouTube has hundreds of "war documentaries" and thousands of books have been written about these "American conflicts." 

Bottom line, if you want to know more, go find out. The resources are out there. 

        

When Did Your Ancestor Arrive In The Colonies?

 

When did your ancestor arrive in the colonies?

American Ancestors offered this chart:

Year        Geographic Area                    Resource

1620            Plymouth Colony                     Mayflower Families books (silver books)

1607-1657    13 Original Colonies                Founders of Early American Families

1620-1633    Plymouth & MA Bay               Great Migration Begins

1634-1635    Plymouth & MA Bay               Great Migration

1607-1650    New England                            Founders & Patriots (by Kolket)

1620-1640    New England                             Great Migration Directory

1620-1650    Massachusetts                           Pioneers of Massachusetts

1641-1700    New England                              Early New England Families

by 1699        Maine & New Hampshire        Genealogical Dictionary of ME & NH

to 1700(marriage, not arrival) New England    Torrey's New England Marriages;

                                                                            New Englanders in the 1600s

EWGS Tours the Archives at Cheney

 

 Did you know that between 1863 and 1879 there was no Spokane County? The area was all part of Stevens County; the dispute over the separation and boundaries stalled in the courts for all those years.

That was just one small factoid that fifteen EWGS members learned when we had a personal tour by Lee Pierce of the Eastern Washington branch of the Washington State Archives, out on the EWU campus in Cheney. Lee has been an archivist there for 17 years and he really knows his stuff and the collections under his jurisdiction. He sticks to the rules: we all put our purses in a locker (except for David J) and could only take in our phones. He encouraged us to take photos, especially in the stacks.

Lee began our tour by explaining that “our archives is most unique in the archives’ world. China, Germany and Australia have come to learn from us. And no other state in the U.S. has an archive that is as totally geared for citizens’ access.”

The Washington Digital Archives collects both state and local governmental record groups. Lee explained that he spends most of his summers officially traveling to county  courthouse archives in Eastern Washington discussing the state of their record holdings. (He then spends the winter processing said acquisitions.)

This archives is scanning their holdings as fast as funding and people allow. Some 4,000,000 documents have already been scanned but “that’s barely 1% of what we hold,” said Lee. “The county is under no legal obligation to give their records over to us, but as time passes and shelves get full, they’re more agreeable to let us house their records forever while they keep digital copies.”

The tour progressed into the stacks, where the temperature is held to 60o and the humidity to 40%.....yes, it was cold in there. The stacks have 33,000 feet of shelf space and 28,000 feet is already full. “We hope to give back to western Washington some of their records that take up our space,” Lee quipped.

  

Lee showed us examples of some of their holdings; he’s holding an 1898 book of Spokane Jailhouse records. “Spokane was a rowdy town then and people were stupid enough to do things in public and get themselves arrested.”

It would take paragraphs and pages to outline just what all records are housed there in the “Cheney archives.” To see just what is there, first go to the main Washington Archives website and see the list there was his advice. The website we’ve all used (www.ditalarchives.wa.gov) also has such a list. Lee explained that authors wanting to write narratives or historical fiction about Spokane or eastern Washington come first to the “Cheney archives” to do local research.

SPECIAL NOTE: This was not just a tour of our Washington Archives but a reminder that while no state has quite what we have, all states do have an archives and are making strides to make their records accessible to citizens. You may not have ancestors in Washington, but realize that you do need to dig into your ancestral state’s archives to completely find your ancestor. Don’t give up!

We fifteen were all glad that we’d made the effort to come take this tour on a sunny fall October day. Most said that yes, they wanted to come and do some real research. (Mondays-Thursdays-Fridays, 8:30 to 12:00, 1:00 to 4:00, with an appointment.) 

Lee finished his time with us by saying, “I don’t care why you want a record; I’ll just help you get it …… and make copies!” (Unless the records are restricted and some are.)