"Just a Piece of Tin..."

 

Just a piece of tin, lying in the dirt.

To the finder it meant nothing, to a family, more hurt.

For removal and return proper steps were to follow.

To a community back home more pain, grief and sorrow.

A journey of  time and in decades lost

Of a round trip in miles and of the thousands it cost.

Of the man who had worn it so many of us knew,

A young man on our streets just like me and you.

Of a life never lived, or adventures untold

Of one life to give, a young never to grow old.

Just a piece of tin, lying in the dirt.

I photographed this  poem framed and on the wall in a museum back east while on a trip. It was penned by Charles Stage, 30 May 2016. It quite touched my heart and I saved it to share with you in our "memorial month."  

Ask Google if you'd like to know more fascinating history of U.S. military dog tags. 

****Bet you didn't know this "dog tag" trivia: People in the 1950s lived under constant threat of nuclear war and had tags made for their elementary age school children in districts across the U.S. New York City was the first public school system to issue the "identification tags" in Feb 1952, spending $159.000 to provide them to 2.5 million students. 

Wheat for Washington

We eat wheat most every day in some form or another. And mankind has been eating wheat for thousands of years. (Did you have toast, bagel or cereal for breakfast?) 

 How many types of wheat are there, would you guess? How many types are grown in Washington? Well, there are six main types or classes of wheat with many sub-categories under each of the six.

Wheat was first planted in the U.S. in 1777 and is still today the primary flour for U.S. grain products. Wheat is grown in 42 U.S. states with Kansas as the largest producer. Our own Whitman County produces on average 32 million bushels of wheat annually. Lincoln County produces 22 million bushels. (Need I remind you that many of our ancestors came to Eastern Washington back in the 19th century primarily to grow wheat?)

What's the best wheat for what product? 

Hard Red Winter wheat: general all-purpose

Hard Red Spring wheat: breads, rolls, croissants, bagels, pizza crusts

Soft Red White wheat: cakes, pastries, Asian noodles, flat breads

Hard White wheat: Asian noodles, tortillas, flatbreads

Durum wheat:  with a high protein content, perfect for pasta 

It's a real science to today's wheat farmers to know what to plant, where and when. Which type is best for their fields; which types best resist disease. Each farmer has to make a decision, sometimes field by field, about which wheat variety will work for  them. 

**Amazing wheat factoids: In 2022, the U.S. shipped 205.3 metric tons (about 250,000 pounds) of wheat overseas; this wheat export had the value of $7.3 billion; and the U.S. is the 5th in the list of wheat exporters. There are about 100 different varieties of wheat crackers to be found in your favorite supermarket. 

Warm Fuzzy Genealogy Stories

 

(Thank you Facebook for the photos.)

I confess that I only read the human interest stories in our local newspaper. And the funnies, of course! Those are usually so heart-warming. So I will share two recent ones with you today.

Originally from the Washington Post:  John Mills never gave his surname much thought until he learned that many of his ancestors were enslaved. His great-great-great grandfather, Ned Mills, was the first of the name which was given to him by the man who enslaved him. Ned Miles grew up on a Georgia plantation in the 1830s and after the Civil War, when he was a free man, spent the rest of his life as a farmer and blacksmith. 

After finding his own family history, John Mills founded an organization to help other previously enslaved people to find their family history too. "My great-great-grandfather lives on in me," and gives Mills the inspiration to help others.

Story #2:  Sandra Poindexter was at an auction in Lynchburg, Virginia, when she spotted a pair of bridal portraits and was "just mesmerized by them." Sandra won the portraits for a bid of $5 thinking "these are special to somebody." So Sandra began her search to find the couple or a descendant.

The photo was taken in 1959 and wonderfully the bride's name was written on the back: Harriet Elizabeth Marshall (Galbraith). Enlisting the help of a more seasoned genealogy researcher, Harriet's son was located in one day! And Harriet was still alive and living in Texas!

Sandra and Harriet exchanged many phone calls and stories concerning the back story of the "travels" of those portraits. "Seeing the portraits again brought back wonderful, happy memories," Harriet said. "It couldn't have happened to a nicer person and I'm glad to have been a little part of it," said Sandra.

Smarter Searching from Cyndi Ingle

 

Last February the EWGS program featured Cyndi Ingle. Her (too-short) time with us was fact-and-tip filled and her 8-page handout was a thorough reminder of what she taught us that day.

I'm typing in purple because (if you couldn't guess) purple is Cyndi's favorite color!

Some quick-and-always-good-to-review points to keep in mind:

• Records were and are created by humans.
• Humans make mistakes.
• Humans misspell things.
• Humans are inconsistent.
• Humans miscommunicate things.
• Just because many more things are digitized now doesn't mean that searching is really any easier than it was before. 
• We MUST think about ow and why humans created any set of records and the circumstances of their times and methods in doing so.
• We must consider how archivists and librarians catalogued their records' collections. 
• We must consider HOW those records made their way into the digitized world. 

Cyndi also explained that mysterious word database. What is a database? A database is a container filled with records. Think of a phonebook; it's a database filled with records, no? So Ancestry is a database of records, right? Then to be worthwhile, a database must be indexed for the words, fields and records to be searchable. 

With a big smile Cyndi said that "every database is unique depending on the data it contains and depending on the software used to create it. Everybody did it their own way!"

Then search engines. These are tools we use to search databases. And as with databases, every search engine is unique depending on the software and hardware used to make it.

** While Cyndi's handout from that day is not still available on our EWGS website, I'd bet you could ask your EWGS friend for a copy of theirs. 

Plants on the Oregon Trail, Part 3

 

This is Part 3; parts 1 and 2 were in the immediately-previous posts. 

The travelers remarked on the lovely larkspur flowers but quickly learned that wild larkspur was very bad for horses but okay for oxen and that chockcherry was bad for oxen. Animals, being animals, too often just munched away but were too important and valuable not to be watchful of.

The Oregon Trail travelers eventually learned about other plants:

• Western Buttercup - Indians used it to poison arrows
• Snakeweed - toxic to kidneys and liver
• Death Camas - white ones WERE deadly but BLUE ones were okay; only way to tell was when they flowered in spring, a luxury the immigrants did not have.
• Selenium - an element in the soil taken up into the plume grasses which cause digestive problems for the animals.
• Greaseweed - they started seeing these plants about Chimney Rock and quickly learned that it was good/safe for animals to eat in early spring but poisonous in summer.
• Horsebrush - this was toxic in many ways to animals
• Locoweed - there were many kinds of "loco weed"
• Texas Blue Bonnets - very toxic, producing birth defects in both men and animals
• Water Hemlock - growing vigorously along rivers but toxic
• Wild Parsnips - ditto
• Wild Milkweed - ditto

By the time they reached Owyhee County, Idaho, "there was scarcely a train without sick oxen on it" due to the many bad plants in the alkali areas which they couldn't keep the animals from eating. In the Blue Mountains of Oregon, the journal entries were pretty routine by this point. Little mention is made of plants except poison ivy. "They must have encountered this all along the way but only here is it often mentioned," Ms. Packard said.  

Following Grandma's advice that "if you don't know it don't eat it," was sound advice but to hungry people, they had to learn on their own. Children helped show the way!

Plants on the Oregon Trail, Part 2

 

This is Part 2, continued from Part 1 in the previous post.

Leaving time for the wagon trail was keyed to practicality: grass. Horses could bite short grass; cows and oxen could not. Horses eat by wrapping their tongues around longer grass. Journal entries spoke often of plants and grasses, which are remarkable considering they were seeing many new plants daily. The "tall grass prairies" had more feed than the "short grass prairies." Many wagon trains began with a high number of wagons but this number was reduced enroute simply due to the available grass factor for the animals. 

Pat Packard said she'd never found mention of their finding, picking and then cooking any kind of greens along the route. She did find mention of fruit (in late summer) such as chockcherries and currants. While the adults avoided unknown berries when they saw the red-berry smears on the faces and fingers of their children, they realized that berries weren't poisonous. Packard did mention the finding of wild onions, at least on the plains, but not in the far west. Fear of "death camas" was real and the pioneers hadn't the knowledge to see the difference between wild onion and death camas. Cactus was mentioned as bein new and so pretty but not to eat....and stepping on them was rarely mentioned. 

On they they learned to make was "mincemeat" most likely of berries and chopped buffalo meat. This was a pemmican-like product that they learned about from the Indians. 

By the time they reached the Rocky Mountains, they were hungry for fresh greens but none was to be had. They were still somewhat fearful of unknown berries and then they encountered the huckleberry! Again, their unafraid children showed them the way. By the time they reached the Rocky Mountains signs of scurvy were really showing up. The "bloom" of the trip had definitely worn off and also by this point "pretty plants" were seldom mentioned in the journals.

Also by this time the grain was gone as was the wild-grass-seed-grass so the horses were really in a bad way. This ongoing problem of feeding the animals dictated every decision made along the trail. Sometimes this led to making river crossings at dangerous fords (like the second crossing of the Snake in southern Idaho). They also had found that in the deserts of the West, everything "sticks, stings or stinks." Ms. Packard got a big laugh at that one. 

In 1852, some 72,000 people crossed the plains in more than 20,000 wagons. Imagine: 20,000 times four oxen or horses is a huge animal population needing feeding and leaving dung everywhere. No wonder the trail spread out with all those animals...and dust.... ahead of you. And remember that likely the children walked barefoot. 

Ms. Packard also explained the physiology of why plants affected horses and oxen differently. Horses take the food straight down into their stomach, where any in-plant poisons could immediately affect the animal. Oxen would take the food down into their "holding tank" stomach where the poisons could be neutralized before the food passed into the digestive stomach. 

TO BE CONTINUED.....................

Plants on the Oregon Trail, Part 1

 

In preparation for our EWGS May meeting, I thought I'd share something I submitted to our BULLETIN back in March 2009:

These are notes that I took in August 200-8, when I attended the Oregon California Trails Association (OCTA) Conference in Nampa, Idaho. Pat Packard was one of the featured speakers. She spoke on the plants of the Oregon Trail and how the folks perceived the plants and used them as they went along. I thought our EWGS readers might enjoy "hearing" her too. 

Plants fueled the trip for both men and animals. Plants dictated the route, the leaving times, the stopping times and points for the entire trip. They could not pack and carry with them enough food for their animals as they went along; horses and oxen had to eat along the way. 

Most of these families had already moved an average of five times. They thought of themselves as "movers." Because of that, they had experience with new plants in new places. Also because of that, they had developed a theory that if they didn't know what the plant was, and could not name it, they it was to be considered poisonous and not to be eaten. 

Most think they did glean and eat along the way. Not so, according to Pat Packard, for these reasons: 

(1) they were often in desert country where there was nothing to eat

(2) they travelled in summer when food-plants were less abundant

(3) they constantly encountered unknown plants and were fearful

Their basic diet was beans, bacon and biscuits. This is a diet high in carbs and protein. There was very little Vitamin C, and scurvy was the third highest cause of death on the Oregon Trail. English sailors had long ago discovered that limes helped and could be carried on long voyages. They got the idea that acid/sour substances were the cure for scurvy. The immigrants didn't have limes, but they did have vinegar. In her research, Ms. Packard found little mention of the pioneers searching to find vinegar or pickles to pack and take with them. This seems obvious to us now but not to them then. They really needed fresh fruit and greens. They had some dried fruit but unfortunately drying the fruit destroys the Vitamin C. They kept in mind the old advice about beware of poisonous plants and even as they saw various fruits and greens, they were fearful to use them. On the Mormon trains it was better because in many cases folks had been over the same trail before and their advice was passed along to new immigrants. Nearly 100% of the Mormon pioneers utilized the wild plants they found. 

TO BE CONTINUED

Ulster Settlers Database

 Likely you cannot read the faint print of this snip, so I  copied it for you. The important-est statement is this, to my mind: "historical data relating to the English and Scottish men and women who settled in Ulster in the period 1609-1641..."   Those are/were what we've come to understand as the Scots-Irish! Those hard-to-find-hard-to-trace rascals who came to the colonies and happily settled on the frontier away from anything of "officialdom." 

My hubby's Phillips line is Scots-Irish and I've had minimal success with it. Bet you're in that rowboat with me, eh? I'm going to have a great time clicking around on this website/database......... and, if you Google "Ulster Settlers" several parallel websites pop up, offering more insight, knowledge and information to you! Hooray!

The Ulster Settlers Database, an exciting biographical and historical resource, is now available to researchers. Making innovative use of historical data relating to the English and Scottish men and women who settled in Ulster in the period c.1609-1641, the database is a searchable account of a community in flux.

The initial phase of the project was funded by the Royal Irish Academy through the Hunter Digital Fellowship. Beginning in early 2022, the project was co-hosted by the Institute of Irish Studies at Queens University Belfast and Maynooth University’s Arts and Humanities Institute. 

Taking on the challenges involved in working with incomplete biographical data, this project models existing data into life events and then digitally links all these related events to reconstruct a searchable prosopography or biographical map of the entire settler cohort. 

The Ulster Settlers database is available to search here: https://ulster-settlers.clericus.ie/

By the by, never say "Scotch-Irish." David Rencher, CEO of the FamilySearch Library reminds us "that Scotch is a drink."

FamilySearch WIKI

 

Have you accessed the wonderful, fantastic, FREE resource that is the FamilySearch WIKI? When you click to www.familysearch.org/WIKI this is the page that opens up to you. From this menu, you can "order" among over 106,000 articles......... articles about places all over the world, records of all types, and what records can be found where. When my Puerto Rican friend, Leticia, wanted help with her family tree, the first thing I did was to go to the WIKI and print out all the pages of tips, helps and websites. 

Danielle Batson at the 2023 RootsTech, gave these tips in her talk:

• "The WIKI is your online genealogy guide linking you to all known records of the entire world!"  How can you top that??
• 
  
• WIKI is constantly adding newly found links/sites.
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• WIKI offer strategy papers.
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• Search by locality, she said. "That's where things happen!"
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• Search top-down.... ie, start with Denmark or Virginia and then work your way down through the menu.
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• Realize that some countries ("Bulgaria for instance") hasn't as many records.
• 
  
• Don't over look the sidebar with links to other related records.
• 
  
• You can also join a community group for your target area and ask locality-specific questions.
• 
  
• Wiki offers Guided Research..... Wiki offers guides to where you might look next.
• 
  
• You can book your free Virtual Genealogy consultation, a 20-minute time one-on-one with a FamilySearch specialist for that area or type of record. 
• 
  
• And this, the best words she said were these:

"The FamilySearch WII is your researchers' Golden Ticket!"

Tips For Southern Research

 Right off the bat, I'll bet you're surprised to see the number of states included under the umbrella of "southern," as in Southern Genealogy Research. Surprise, indeed!

I attended the 2023 RootsTech and listened to a speaker (whose name I didn't scribble down) speak about Southern Research and giving some tips for same:

• Learn as much history on/from your family as you can! 
• Reason out the facts......... was it indeed a southern state?
• Brush up on your U.S. history from 1763 to 1775 for starters.
• Then progress to the Civil War time period. 
• Know that Georgia was only 1/2 British and was 1/2 Native American.
• Yes, while many courthouses were burned and records lost, not everything was lost. The documentation of the county's wealth and income was all important (how to levy taxes if you didn't know who owned what land?) and were reconstructed.
• Search the land records and deeds of target states.
• Attempt a time line for each family in your target location.
• Plot the family's migration into and then through the Southern states. 
• Check newspapers for that time and place.
• Correlate info from all available records: land, census, probate, court, military
• BE AWARE OF COUNTY BOUNDARY CHANGES!
• Use period maps.
• Watch for name changes or just misspellings.
• Southern "speech" often use "brother/cousin" when there was no relationship
• Each southern state has historical societies and archives as do many of the counties in those states. Many of these societies had many much of their holdings available online. 

Example: My hubby's great-grandfather, Seaborn Phillips, born 1844 in Georgia and died in 1906 in Texas. Why Texas? He was a Confederate soldier (was at the Battle of Gettysburg, he said) and after the war, Georgia was devastated and had no resources to pay pensions to veterans, so he moved his family west to Texas where pensions were to be had (Texas was not heavily impacted by the war). 

Filles du Roi

 Was your ancestral mother a filles du roi? If so, be proud. These women are known as the founding mothers of Canada.

Here's the history:

To secure his colonial claims in North America, King Louis XIV of France had to strengthen his settlements in New France (Nova Scotia). French officials recruited girls and women to migrate to New France to increase the population. They became known as the filles du roi, or King's Daughters.

From 1663 to 1673, nearly 1000 women came to New France. In exchange, the women received money, clothes and household items. Almost all of these women married and had children, doubling the population. 

From the perspective of the French Crown, the program was a success. However, little has been recorded of how these women viewed their experiences. 

The women were to be of child-bearing age and especially so, in good health. The women picked for this "adventure" were chosen by their age, health and physical strength, not necessarily for their looks. They had to be "in good health and strong enough for field work and have strong skills when it comes to domestic tasks..."

There are many Canada-based societies dedicated to preserving the memory, experiences and descendancy of these so-called King's Daughter. Also, YouTube offers several video-stories. 

So be proud if your great-x-time-grandmother was a Kings' Daughter!

Are You A Francophone?

 

A francophone, simply put, is one who speaks French primarily as a first language. We might guess that there are many French speaking people in Canada and Louisiana but I never would have guess that there are so many francophones in the rest of the world, especially Africa. 

According to an article in American Ancestors, Fall 2010, by Felix Lafrance:

Between 1840 and 1930, more than 900,000 French-Canadians left Canada for the U.S. This massive exodus was the result of many complex factors. In 19th century French Canada faced significant economic and socio-cultural changes as it transformed from a rural society to an industrial economy. ...... as economic development exploded, the lives of the working people became worse.... pricing, lack of farmland, poor quality of arable land, debt.. left many French Canadians without a home or a job.

So they came to the United States. But where? By 1900 there was a sizable French-speaking population in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Smaller groups were in New Hampshire, and Maine. And they did well in their new home. 

What attracted them to the U.S.? If lack of jobs, debts and poverty were the primary reasons why French-Canadians left their native land, the pull exerted by America was a factor.  By the end of the Civil War, American industry found itself with a shortage of workers in all sectors..... housing, construction, dam and canal building, installing and maintaining roads, sewage and aqueduct systems, farming, timber and especially industrial manufacturing. These industries experienced unprecedented growth due to the influx of French-Canadians eager to work.  

American life itself was a powerful attraction. American cities promised a new way of life and escape from agricultural work. "City delights" attracted the young. 

Bottom line, the "fever of departure" caused almost one million French-Canadians to immigrate to the U.S. between 1840 and 1930. Perhaps your ancestor was among them??

Do you still speak some French?? 

Are You Your Own Brickwall?

 

In genealogy, the term “brick wall” is often used to refer to tough research problems, apparent dead-ends that after many hours of searching still yield no answers. 

We all think we know about brick walls because most of us have them..... or have had them in our family history research. Am I right? Ever considered that you might be your own brickwall??

A handout from FamilySearch identifies some common genealogical mistakes and offers strategies for overcoming them:

• GETTING STARTED
• Talk to family!! Do not skip this step.
• Realize that there is information beyond the Internet.
• Realize that while online family trees are great CLUES, unless they are well documented, they are not to be taken as  gospel.
• Get over the "if it's not free, I don't/can't/want it." (There is a cost associated with creating and maintaining websites, obtaining and organizing records, etc)
• THE RESEARCH PROCESS
• Plan your research; don't succumb to SOS (Shiny Object Syndrome)
• Don't start at the wrong end.... meaning start with today, document your ancestry from today on back .... and you'll likely find clues to that end-of-line ancestor.
• Focus on one family at a time... NOT an individual. Not one man or woman was totally alone but was surrounded by family, friends and neighbors. (In those olden times of the 1800s, where did an ailing old widow go? To live with her children or grandchildren! There was no Social Security.)
• Be aware of spelling variations: Phillips, Philips, Phillipss, Filips, Flips, etc. are all the same surname (most likely, spoken by one who could not spell). 
• WORKING WITH RECORDS
• Aim to access the "real" or bottom-line source, not a derivative source. Ask: where did she get that information as shown on her online tree????? SHE is not a source for you! 
• Do you collect names and bits and pieces of likely-looking information in hopes of fitting the puzzle pieces together? Doesn't work well, does it, and soon you have desk overflowing with papers! Take the time..... make the time... to analyze your findings. Take time to spread it out on a table and think how it might or does fit. 
• It is most worthwhile to write up your idea, your analyzing, your thoughts. Just because you've gathered a bunch of facts about an individual or a family, do you have the right family and/or all the information? A school notebook is great; you're not writing a novel but just jotting ideas. 😐

There are dozens of websites offering "Overcoming Brickwalls" and many YouTube videos of the same. Instead of giving up, or quitting when all the low-hanging fruit is picked, or succumbing to SOS, give yourself a shake and learn how to NOT be your own brick wall!

Trivia..... No April Fooling!

 

Today dinner time often means sharing a pizza....... at the table or in front of the TV or computer. But it was NOT like that in the olden days.

An old Miss Manners newspaper column gives the courses, and the order of these courses, for a 19th century dinner....... all served with different and appropriate dishes, silverware and wine:

• Raw oysters
• Soup, often a cream soup
• Hors d'oeuvres
• Fish
• Entree... not what we think today but vegetables like asparagus, artichoke, corn
• Sorbet
• Hot roast
• Cold roast
• Game
• Salad
• Pudding
• Ice Cream
• Fruit
• Cheese

"Never fear, "Miss Manners touted "these were times when thinness was considered not chic, but pitiful. But even then, guests were not supposed to et everything. It was like an entire (menu) from which to pick and choose."

Keep in mind, that at these L-O-N-G dinners, you're wearing heavy, formal attire (corsets, full skirts, sleeves) and there was no AC in summer and it was considered bad manners to absent yourself from the table. If invited, would you attend???

Cajun & Creole

 (The above was snipped from The Historic New Orleans Collection; used with thanks. The map below was snipped from the website of the Laura Plantation; again with thanks. The bottom information was snipped from the website Explore Houma, Louisiana's Bayou Country; with thanks.)

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CAJUN & CREOLE

The term Creole can have many meanings, but during the early days of Louisiana, it meant that a person was born in the colony and was the descendant of French or Spanish parents. The term is a derivative of the word “criollo,” which means native or local, and was intended as a class distinction. In present Louisiana, Creole generally means a person or people of mixed colonial French, African American and Native American ancestry. The term Black Creole refers to freed slaves from Haiti and their descendants.

Still another class of Creole originates with the placage system in which white and creole men took on mixed-race mistresses in a lifelong arrangement, even if the men were married or married later. In this arrangement, the women had property, their children were educated and entitled to part of the man’s estate upon his death. In New Orleans, these people made up the artisan class and became wealthy and very influential.

“Cajun” is derived from “Acadian” which are the people the modern day Cajuns descend from. These were the French immigrants who were expelled from Nova Scotia, and eventually landed in Louisiana after decades of hardship and exile. Hearty folks from many backgrounds married into the culture, including Germans, Italians, Free People of Color, Cubans, Native Americans and Anglo-Americans. French or patois, a rural dialect, was always spoken. Due to the isolation of the group in the southern locations of Louisiana, they have retained a strong culture to this day.

ANY QUESTIONS? Ask Google!

Museums...... Best Places For Learning

 

Bet you had no clue that there was a museum in Spokane having over 19,000 articles from the fire fighting industry?? I did not! But I do want to go!

There are plenty of museums in the Eastern Washington area. Below is a copied bit from the Washington State Genealogical Society (www.wasgs.org) where you'll find a pages-long list of museums spread all around our Evergreen State! (The list was mostly compiled by EWGS member, Duane Beck.)

As that list on the state society webpage covers the entire state, even in your travels you might/could/should/ought to visit a museum and get some extra "larnin into your noggin."  (Speaker George Schweitzer used to say that.) 

There were these many listed for the Spokane area.....the entire list was PAGES long...... so there are plenty of museums in your area to learn from and visit!

P.S. The list was compiled some time ago. If you wish to visit a particular museum, I'd strongly advise you to check out their website and/or their Facebook page.

In The Olden Days....

 

This lovely old photo is my hubby's grandmother, Mary Ethel Leverich Oswald (1886-1967). This was her high school graduation photo....... today's high school graduation photos look nothing like this, do they?? Yes, the Olden Times were different...... for instance:

If We Didn't Have It We Used:

• Q tip  --  cotton wound around a match
• Scouring powder  --  wood stove ashes
• Glue  --  raw egg white
• Hot water bottle  --  heated rock or bag of heated rock salt
• Toothpaste  --  salt mixed with baking soda
• Paste  --  flour mixed with water
• Bandage  --  torn-in-strips old bedsheets
• Adhesive tape  --  needle and thread
• Deodorant  --  baking soda
• Ice  --  hailstones or blocks cut in winter from a pond or river
• Waxed paper  --  found inside cereal boxes
• Sandwich bags  --  waxed paper
• Foil  --  gum wrappers
• Ink  --  laundry bluing
• Group transportation  -- truck with seats in back
• Tire repair kit  --  can of rubber patch and glue
• Air for tires  --  hand operated tire pump
• Toilet tissue  --  Sears or Wards catalog
• Salad dressing  --  cream, sugar and vinegar mixed well
• Sanitary napkin  --  old sheets
• Pencil sharpener  --  knife
• Fingernail clipper  --  kitchen scissors
• Salve/Ointment for wounds  --  lard mixed with kerosene and turpentine
• Hand lotion  --  cream or lard
• Laundry soap  --  you made it from grease and lye
• Lunch pail  --  lard bucket with a handle
• New mop --  old clothing on a mop stick
• Cough syrup  --  raw onion and sugar syrup
• Fresh milk  --  milked a cow twice daily

So do you really think life was better in the good old days? How would you have fared?

(Thanks to Nostalgia Magazine, Nov-Dec 2010 issue for this wonderful article by Leone A. Browning.)

Stronger Together!

Remember getting rope-burned-hands playing tug-o-war with a rope? And too often neither side "won," and sometimes one side got pulled into the mud! Remember?

If there is a job to be done, isn't it better to work together? Nobody's hands get rope-burned that way! And the job gets done!!

I LIVE IN SPOKANE AND AM AN ACTIVE MEMBER OF EWGS....... AS YOU READ THIS POST, SUBSTITUTE YOUR SOCIETY'S NAME!!!!

I'm aiming today to sorta follow-up on our EWGS January meeting..... dedicated to service...... service to EWGS. Are some of you still on the fence about stepping up to do something for EWGS?

WHY? WHY come/mix/join/support EWGS? Here's why:

• EWGS people are "your kind" of people and are your friends.
• 
  
• EWGS people will welcome...and listen to.... your discovery-stories!
• 
  
• EWGS people have years of combined research knowledge and are always willing to help you. (But you gotta ask.)
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• EWGS meetings are FUN..... prizes, contests, raffles and cookies!
• 
  
• EWGS meetings are INFORMATIVE..... the EWGS board strives most diligently to offer programs of worth and interest to us. 
• 
  
• EWGS offers multiple learning opportunities.... TAG, Refocus, RootsMagic
• 
  
• EWGS offers you a way to give back to the genealogy community through service...... through volunteering to help however you can. The definition of service is, simply put, HELPING.
• 
  
• In EWGS, sometimes you're the helper and other times you're the helpee. (Don't look in the dictionary for that word; I made it up. 😌)

Please click to www.EWGSI.org, especially if you've not in a while, and check out all that's offered to YOU. 

And know that EWGS needs you help, big or small.  😁

 

Good Idea? Bad Idea? Online Trees! Part 2

 

Many of us have been blessed to sit beneath the 150-year-old banyan tree in downtown Lahaina, Maui. (Which is said to be showing signs of life after the devastating August fire. Yahoo.) Looking at the city-park-wide spread of this tree, one can imagine an equally large series of roots reaching back into time and bringing the beloved tree back to life.

The Maui Banyan is the metaphor I choose to share with you today. All that we see, from the ground up, is our growing family (pretend you're the tiny white person/spot). But what we cannot see is the equal number of roots/ancestors that brought us to this point. 

It's those people/ancestors whom we genealogists seek. The question on the table to day is how to organize and keep that information in a safe and a usable way?

Let's take a peek at the different safe-storage-for-long-term methods:

• Individually Managed Family Trees.. meaning YOU are in charge, period:
• American Ancestors TREES
• Ancestry -- private member trees
• MyHeritage -- private member trees
• Findmypast --- private member trees
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• Keeping your tree online on these websites means nobody/no how can add/substract/multiply/divide or mess with your information.... but you can give permission for folks to see your tree. 
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• Collaborative Family Trees.... meaning folks do work together to add/edit/mange profiles. BUT know that others can and might make changes to "your" profile. Not supposed to without giving documentation. 😉
• FamilySearch Family Trees..... nearing 2-billion online trees
• WikiTree..... 36 million trees
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• Programs on your own computer...... meaning you are solely in charge; both have a free and paid version.
• LegacyFamilyTree ---- can sync with FamilySearch
• RootsMagic ----- can sync with Ancestry

Certainly there are other online programs and other at-home computer programs. I'm just giving the bare minimum here to kick-start your decision making process as to what are YOU going to do with all your family history information????? Remember, your "Maui banyan" might burn to the ground next time. 

Good Idea? Bad Idea? Online Trees? Part 1

Is there such a thing as One World Tree? One tree that documents every ancestor back to....... well, as far as records exist. Those advocating a One World Tree believe (as do I) that we're all children of God and therefore we are related. Somehow. Somewhere in time. But the information on those 20th generation ancestors is beyond our ken and our reach, isn't it? 

Let's talk practicality. Ask yourself these questions: 

• How far back can I, or do I want, to find (and document) my ancestors??
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• Aren't we mostly happy if we can find records back into the 1500s? That's 20 generations, a million names! Can we keep track of a million ancestors? Can we know a million ancestors? I think not. I cannot!
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• Do we really care what path other genealogists might choose to pursue?
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• What do know about the last 5 generations of ancestors? (That's nearly 200 years!) Isn't that the point of doing family history.... to get to know at least something of an ancestor's life and times? 

Once those questions have been answered in your mind, consider these:

• Do I want to share my tree/information or keep it (safely) to myself?
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• Back 200 years (or more) are those folks just your ancestors? Hardly. 
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• Besides, how many answers have I gained for my family tree/ancestors from others?? Isn't sharing really the best option?
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• Lisa Louise Cooke (FamilyTreeMagazine, May/June 2022) advocated YES for sharing but to "keep the heart of our genealogy at home..... a master family tree of your family tree, built on your own computer, is the key to securing your family history now and for generations to come." 
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• While I greatly respect Lisa Louise, I puzzle her answer. Just keep my tree on my computer? What if my computer crashes/floods/burns in a fire...... and I've not kept backups regularly? And/or shared them with family? All will be lost. 
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• Everything I've read, and from all the genealogy/tech gurus, say this: DO have an online tree, do keep it backed up in multiple places, and DO keep your tree in a home computer program on your own computer. 
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• Puzzle and ponder your answer to these questions and "problems"............ Part 2 next time. 

Buffalo Soldiers In The Northwest

 American Plains Indians who fought against these soldiers referred to the black cavalry troops as "Buffalo Soldiers" because of their dark, curly hair, which resembled a buffalo's coat and because of their fierce nature of fighting. The nickname soon became synonymous with all African-American regiments formed in 1866. (Wikipedia)

Idaho has strong connections to Buffalo Soldiers. Units from Ft. Missoula and later Ft. Wright participated in restoring order during the 1890s mining wars, as well as help rescue local townsfolk from the Great Fire of 1910. 

Wallace, Idaho, in June 2019, hosted a group of Buffalo Soldiers re-enactors. They came to shine a light on a little-known chapter in the annals of U.S. Military History. On 14 June 1897, a force of 20 African American soldiers along with two white officers, a doctor and a newspaper reporter set off on an epic 1900 mile bicycle ride from Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri. 

Nicknamed the Iron Riders for both their heavy one-speed bikes and their iron hard constitutions. The intrepid group made the trip in six weeks, having battled poor roads, every kind of weather, meager rations and prejudice. But they did receive a hero's welcome when they arrived in St. Louis. 

Nothing I read explained WHY did they make that ride but it was an extraordinary achievement. 

To learn more about the Buffalo Soliders, click on YouTube and search for The Bicycle Corps, America's Black Army on Wheels. There is also a Buffalo Soldier National Museum in Houston, Texas. 

To me, every tidbit of American history, done by ANY of her people, I find fascinating. Hope you do too. 

Railroads..... Museum & Facts

 

Have you been to the Inland Northwest Rail Museum just a hoot and holler west of Reardan?? If you're into trains, train history, engines, different rail lines, anything "railroad," this is the place to go. While not open every day year round, they have plenty of regular open days and a host of special events. Do check it out. 

Coming up on Saturday, May 11th, there are Big Happenings planned for the entire weekend and I will be offering a class on "Did Your Ancestor Work For The Railroad." Come, enjoy the displays, the train rides and, on that day, the class.

Railroad Facts you perhaps did not know (according to a 1990 factsheet I have):

• Freight traffic on major U.S. railroads is measured in "ton-miles." This is a term denoting the movement of one tone of freight a distance of one mile. Our U.S. railroads achieve millions of ton-miles every year
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• There are no legal limits on how long a train can be but there are practical limits, such as power of the engine.
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• During WWII, railroads moved practically all the men and supplies of the American Expeditionary Force to seaports. 
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• From 1 Dec 1941 to 30 Aug 1945, U.S. railroads carried approximately 44-million service men and women in special troop trains, hospital trains and in special cars attached to regular trains.
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• The first known instance of mail being moved by rail occurred in South Carolina in Nov 1831. By 1840, railroads had begun to provide space and facilities for handling of the mail enroute. But as the movement of mail by air grew, the railroads' mail business declined. The last mail run, between Washington and New York, was in June 1977. 
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• What are the commodities carried by railroads? Coal ranks first in tonage, followed by farm products, chemicals, nonmetallic minerals, food and kindred products, frozen products, lumber and wood products.
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• Railroads are deemed vital to the U.S. economy. The steel industry depends on railroads to deliver its ore and coat; the car industry depends on railroads to deliver the steel and parts of making cars and then to carry cars to their destination. 
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• There are more railroad-railroading websites available to you than you likely have time for. Use Google and go for it! 
• The place your railroading ancestor lived
• The railroad he worked for
• Railroads have historical societies and archives!

 Remember all the good railroads have done for our country, and still do, the next time you're stuck seemingly forever at a railroad crossing. 

Fairchild Air Force Base

 Those of you who drive onto Fairchild Air Force Base have surely noticed the B-52 parked a short ways inside the gate. Well, we know for sure that my father, Col. Francis H. Potter, commanded that very plane for many missions during the Cold War of the 70s. How do we know that? This is a photo of that B-52 and our son, Benjamin, and his son Austin. Ben researched the serial number of that plane and discovered this wonderful bit of family history. And to think that it was OUR father's plane that was chosen for permanent display!

Fairchild has quite a history. Several battles of U.S. Cavalry vs. Native Americans happened in that very patch of ground. Groups of immigrant settlers established homes, farms and orchards in that same area. The area looked prime for wheat farming. But Spokane was growing in population and that population needed transportation and the opportunity for business. 

By 1939, Spokane was in a serious business decline when James A. Ford came to the rescue. Ford had been active with the Spokane Chamber of Commerce since 1917 and during that time he had worked incessantly to bring aviation to Spokane. But the Army Signal Corps reported that "the city is located in a valley between high hills, with contrary winds and there will never be much, if any, aviation in Spokane."

At this time, Spokane has two airlines flying into Felts Field, United and Northwest. Ford knew Spokane would soon need a bigger airport. And, just as important, he could see the war clouds gathering around the world and hoped a larger airport would attract an Army Air Force Base. 

Ford's work worked and in 1940 a WPA project started to clear and level the county land, donated by the county, for the new field and the Army Air Forces moved right in. The airport was renamed Geiger Field; after WWII it became Spokane International Airport. 

About this same time, the announcement was made that the Army Air Force needed a separate and larger base for its operations. Again, James Ford to the rescue. It was a real battle of words, but those on the West side of the state wanted the new depot in their backyard. 

The Spokesman Review trumpeted the headline on September 11, 1941, that Spokane would get the $20-million air depot. This was great news for Spokane for it meant an estimated $8-million dollar payroll in the area due to 5400 new jobs. Not to mention the military personnel's spending in the area. 

It turned out that having a military depot so close to a civilian airfield had its advantages, primarily being that a rail line bisected the area. 

Citizens of Spokane might have been jubilant but the eleven farmer-land-owners were not. Four sections of prime wheat land would now be gone forever. 

The town of Airway Heights got its start during the war years mostly because there was no military family housing at the depot. In 1955, the town of Airway Heights was incorporated. 

In 1951, the name was changed from Spokane Air Force Base to Fairchild Air Force Base in honor of Gen. Muir S. Fairchild, a native of Bellingham, Washington. 

(Thanks to a 1976 little book by Peggy Bal, Fairchild: Heritage of the Spokane Plains. Please forgive me if I garbled the facts a bit.)