Sunday, March 31, 2013

Black Sheep Sunday – People vs. Horn


In 1886 my Prussian-born great great grandfather, William Horn of St. Louis (Sierra County, California), pointed his shotgun at a man and was subsequently arrested by the local sheriff for assault with a deadly weapon.
1863 wedding painting for William Horn and Amelia "Bridget" Keenan.
From there the case takes an unusual turn. The sheriff returned the shotgun to him without checking whether it was loaded. During the trial, William Horn's attorney contended that the gun was not loaded since a weapon is not a weapon unless it is capable of doing harm. Since the District Attorney wasn't able to prove that the gun was loaded, the judge "instructed" the jury about the law in that regard. To nobody's surprise, the jury returned a not guilty verdict.

This didn't sit will with the District Attorney who wanted a new trial and appealed the case saying the judge should have "advised" the jury. The case worked its way up to the California Supreme Court. That Supreme Court apparently didn't see much difference between instruction and advice, ruling that a retrial was out of the question due to the protection of double jeopardy.

From a genealogical perspective, there is good news and bad news.

Good news – During several months in 1886, the Mountain Messenger (local newspaper) included a lengthy article about the case on an almost weekly basis.

Bad news – Surprisingly little information of genealogical interest was present in those articles. The level of repetition was high and any new material was a legal discussion of the case.

During this time, William Horn owned two saloons and possibly some mining claims. His primary saloon competitor was Charles Brundage. According to my aunt (quoting a series of people leading to one of his daughters), he wasn't the easiest to get along with. Ten years later, after the last of the daughters got married, his wife Bridget (Amelia Keenan) walked out to live with one of her daughters saying "I divorced him." That was a bit surprising since the born-in-Ireland Bridget was supposedly a devout Catholic.


Submitted and posted by Richard Hanson

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Society Saturday - Thomas MacEntee's Visit to Sacramento

[Editor's Note: Today's post was written by Denise Hibsch Richmond who had the pleasure of being Thomas MacEntee's escort during his visit. Photos are courtesy of Judy Nissila]

Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society is very thankful for the time Thomas MacEntee spent with members before, after and during the Spring Seminar on Saturday, March 16, 2013.  Thomas was very generous with his time and members took advantage of it from the moment he arrived until departure.  He was queried about using technology and social media for society operations and personal family history research....and then there was the seminar itself!

We have a few more pictures of Thomas's nonstop visit to Sacramento for you to view.  First up, a slideshow of the seminar...          

 
 
 
Thomas's visit wasn't all business.  Admittedly, we bragged a lot about our society's projects but we also partied and ate a lot.  The proof is in the pictures.  
 
 

Above two photos - Before the start of the general membership meeting on Thursday, March 14th, Thomas joined the Special Interest Group for Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio that was facilitated by Sandra Benward.  How fortuitous that he could provide some research tips for Illinois (he lives there)!   
 

 
Above two photos - Thomas is seen here on Friday, March 15th at the Center for Sacramento History.  In the first photo, Root Cellar member Marilyn Ulbricht,  Chairperson of the Extraction Committee (left), and Pat Johnson, Senior Archivist at the Center, show Thomas the many indexes of Sacramento County records that the Society has published.  In the second photo, Thomas poses with Pat Johnson  and Extraction Committee members  (l-r) Lois Shumaker, Sammie Hudgens, Sandi Benward and Marilyn Ulbricht.  Many other committee members were on vacation that day.
 
Senior Archivist Pat Johnson gave Thomas a tour of the vault at the Center for Sacramento History.  Looks like he found an interesting record. 

Next, we drove to the Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society Library housed at the California State Archives in downtown Sacramento.  Thomas went directly to the Illinois section and posed with a book that the Illinois State Genealogical Society has just republished, Soldiers of the American Revolution Buried in Illinois.  Thomas was very impressed with the scope of our library.
 
After lunch with the Root Cellar Technology Committee (oops, no photo), we drove to the seminar venue where set-up was underway.  Leland Meitzler, owner of Family Roots Publishing Co., the seminar book vendor, took a break from unpacking books with son Dale to chat with Thomas.
 
With set-up complete we finally let Thomas have some private time at the hotel before his welcome and seminar volunteer appreciation reception Friday evening.     

We heard that Thomas was celebrating his milestone birthday all year long culminating on Dec 25th.  This might be one of his first birthday cakes of the year.  
 
 
The birthday boy himself had to cut the cake with Glenda Gardner Lloyd assisting.

Thomas is sitting with Judy Nissila (middle) and Billie Helms.  Thomas and Judy learned they were distant cousins on the 2011 Legacy Family Tree cruise.  Cousin connections can happen where you least expect them!
 
 
A good-looking group of Root Cellar members surrounded by the man of the hour, Thomas MacEntee. 
 
Showtime!  Saturday, March 16, 2013 at the Spring Seminar.  Thomas MacEntee presented four sessions on using  technology and social media for genealogy

Facebook, Twitter, Wikis - we learned new ways to connect with cousins and more.
 
After a successful seminar, it was time to relax with a tall cool one (mine was a double Shirley Temple) at Thomas's thank you and farewell dinner.  So many members wanted to bid him adieu that the restaurant moved us to a larger room.

 
Can't celebrate a birthday too much - this time with lemon meringue birthday pie!

 He likes it, he really likes it!
 
We had three days of fun with Thomas MacEntee at the annual Spring Seminar for Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society. Thanks Thomas for your generous time, advice, tips and tricks in using technology and social media for genealogy.  We learned a lot.
 
P.S.  Thomas, thanks for serving as co-pilot and being my "shifter". -D 

Society Saturday - RootsTech Session Review

[Editor's Note:  Today's post was written by Denise Hibsch Richmond who gratefully acknowledges the contribution by Fran Marlow.  Photo courtesy of Judy Nissila.]

Well-over 5,000 people descended on Salt Lake City, Utah last week to attend RootsTech 2013, a genealogy conference about connecting with your family roots using technology.   Several members from Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society were among the attendees.

The RootsTech organizers were very generous.  They seemed to understand that not everyone could attend in person so once again, livestreaming of select sessions was made available for viewing from your home computer.  If you couldn't view the session being livestreamed, an archived version or "recap" is still available.  Warning: this could possibly entice you to attend in person next year.


Fran Marlow
Root Cellar member Fran Marlow was one person who watched the session by James L. Tanner from the comfort of her home.  She told me that "attending conferences is always more fun than watching online, but we take what we can get for we can't attend all of the conferences.   I ....found Mr. Tanner to be an interesting and down-to-earth speaker.  He holds the audience's attention but without talking down to the more experienced genealogists in the audience."

At my request, Fran wrote a summary of Mr. Tanner's session titled "Finding the Obscure and Elusive: Geographic Information on the Web".

The location where an ancestor was born or lived may not have kept the same name through the years.  Mr. Tanner stressed the fact that we need to know the exact location for ancestors at the time of an event, such as the birth or the death.  We may have a family group sheet stating the person was born in one place but that may not be entirely accurate.  We know surnames can be incorrectly spelled on records and names of towns can also be spelled incorrectly.  The person recording a document wrote down what he thought was the name he'd been given, but it wasn't always correctly spelled.  The pronunciation as given is also a valid reason why a name may not be correctly spelled.

Boundaries changed therefore official records may not all be located in the town or county where we think they are. That's another reason we need to know exactly where these records may be found which could be in different locations.  No matter how many times a town's name or a county changed names or boundaries, we need to find the records from each location.  What we thought was the correct name where our ancestor lived may in fact not actually be the correct name.
 
Being a researcher we need to find exactly where that ancestor was born, or where they lived by using latitude and longitude coordinates on a map.  That means we check websites for maps to find a specific location and also to get map coordinates. Certain websites can be used to pinpoint a location and map the latitude and longitude such as History Topical National Geological Survey National Map, Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), as well as Google maps. For historic maps try the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Historic Topographic Maps Collection for they have digitized 141,000 of their 180,000 maps.  Another website for historic maps is David Rumsey Map Collection which focuses on rare 18th and 19th century maps of North and South America.  Historic maps of the World, Europe, Asia and Africa are also on this site.
Thank you Fran for your report.  Now, we're challenging all Root Cellar members who attended RootsTech in person or from home to send us your comments about the experience.  We'll post it on the blog.

Monday, March 25, 2013

March Madness Monday: Final 4 Ancestors

[Editor's Note: Today's post is written by Denise Hibsch Richmond, Publicity Chairperson and Tech Committee member for Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society.]


Many people around me are talking about their brackets in the 2013 NCAA College Basketball Tournament currently in progress.  It started me thinking about how genealogy could be applied to "bracketology", the art of selecting which teams will advance to the final game.  Fans use a template like the one shown below to record their selections.


Source: Vertex42.com

With my genealogy glasses on, the template sure is reminiscent of Family Pedigree Charts, shown below, used to record information about direct-line ancestors.  Sort of a genealogy bracket if you will.
 
Source: www.FamilySearch.org 
Skipping past the "Sweet 16" and the "Elite 8" of the tournament, I wondered who would be in my "Final 4" genealogy bracket and the champion.  Who are my favorite ancestors?  Maybe my finalists are my most frustrating ancestors - the brickwalls.
 
Then, in keeping with the spirit of the tournament, I needed a "pool" of other genealogists to join the contest.   No money will be involved.  The winner(s) will be those who make a "genealogy slam-dunk" - a cousin connection by virtue of their participation.  So I sent an invitation to a few members of Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society to create my pool.  The following are their genealogy brackets:
 
Martha's Final Four Ancestors
  1. Alice Bird (b. 1853, Asbury, Warren County, NJ, d. 1918, Newark, NJ)
  2. Daniel M. Curtis (b. 1804, Warren County, NJ; d.1875, OH?)
  3. Lucinda Curtiss (b. VT; d OH?)
  4. Adriana Wilkinson (b. 1783, NJ; d. ?, NJ?)


Alice Bird
Courtesy of Martha
Champion:  Alice Bird.  She is quite short (bird-like) compared to her husband, my great grandfather, who was well over six feet.  There is a nice, nature centered photograph of her with flowers in the forest.  Finally, she willed her only blood grandson (my father) her piano.  Music has been very important in our family and she supported that on my father's side.
 
Barry's Final Four Brickwall Ancestors
  1. Willis Joseph Travis (b. 1823, New York City; d. 1873, Houston, TX)
  2. Susan Travis (b. 1825, New York City; d. 17 Jul 1902, Dobbs Ferry, NY)
  3. William Levi Travis [went by Levi] (b. 13 Oct 1826, New York City; d. 15 Dec 1866, New York City)
  4. Unknown Travis
William Levi Travis
Courtesy of Barry
Champion:  William Levi Travis.  He is my direct-line ancestor. All of my Final Four are children of unknown parents.  I have two death certificates but I record their parents as "unknown." DNA evidence also shows me to be related to another Travis line, and to a Whitney line. The latter may be linked to the unknown sibling. All four were orphaned, probably in the late 1820s.  Do you know who their parents were?

Glenda's Final Four Brickwall Ancestors
  1. Barbara - wife of Conrad Zile. Married about 1795 as the first child, John, was born 13 Oct. 1796, Frederick Co, MD. Barbara died 26 Feb. 1843 in Carroll Co, MD.  I need Barbara's maiden name, parents, date and place of birth. Some researchers online say her maiden name is Tener. I have searched Teners and find no Barbara anywhere.
  2. Patrick Jeremiah Donovan – b. 1814, Ireland; d. 10 Sep 1855, Grass Valley, Nevada, CA.  Married Mary Bradwell 11 Sep 1840 in Jamestown, Grant, WI. Appears in 1840 census in Galena, Jo Davies, IL. Purchased land in Jo Davies County in 1840, 1842 and sold it in 1852 when he moved to California. Need place of birth in Ireland, immigration record.
  3. John D. Grimes – b. about 1811, Maryland, probably Baltimore County. Married Margaret Zile 16 Oct 1832 in Baltimore Co. In Adams County, OH in 1850 census. In Mahaska County, Iowa in 1856 state census and remained there until his death 20 Aug. 1881. Need names of parents and date of birth. I believe David C. Grimes is his brother, born 1805, died after 1880.
  4. Samuel Crawford – b. 25 Jan 1799, probably Fleming County, KY, son of James Crawford and Sarah VanZandt. Named in father’s will, written in 1835. Need name of wife, date and place of marriage, date and place of death. His daughter Mary Ann married John P. Cockern 26 Dec 1837 in Fleming County, KY. An uncle of Mary Ann and brother of Samuel, James Crawford, signed the marriage bond.
Champion: John D. Grimes.  He's my most frustrating ancestor having researched him for many years.  I still don't know who his parents were, do you?
 
Denise's Final Four Ancestors
  1. Jane Clark - b. 1846 Adams County, OH; d. Aug 1918 Athens Insane Asylum, Athens, OH
  2. Thomas Brown - b. 1843 Jackson, Highland, OH; d. 1927 Blanchester, Clinton, OH
  3. James Hutson or Houston - b. about 1859 Wisconsin or Scotland; m. 1878 Osage, Mitchell, IA; death unknown
  4. Ida May Brown - b. Jul 1868 Worth County, MO; d. May 1955 Covina, Los Angeles, CA
Champion:  It's a tie.  James Hutson is frustrating because he seemingly vanished from records until 1895 when his wife Ella Pillsbury divorced him based on abandonment.  Ida May Brown's childhood fascinates me to frustration.  Was she really born in Missouri?  Why were her parents in Missouri?  They otherwise lived their entire lives in Ohio.  Her father, Thomas Brown, divorced her mother, Jane Clark, in 1873; her mother was institutionalized in 1881 when Ida was about 13; her father Thomas Brown remarried in 1880 when she was about 12.  She's not in any census with her father.  Who raised Ida May Brown, my great-great grandmother?
 
Hoping for a Cousin Connection
Readers, can you provide "an assist" to these genealogists in discovering more about their Final Four Ancestors?  Please leave a comment on this post or send an email to rootcellarsgs@gmail.com.  Thanks for following along with our fun with these genealogy brackets.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Area Event - Seminar at Sonoma County Genealogical Society

[Editor's Note: Today's post is by Denise Hibsch Richmond, Publicity Chairperson for Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society.]
At the Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society Spring Seminar on March 16, 2013, I had the pleasure of meeting Madeline and Carl from the Sonoma County Genealogical Society (SCGS).  They happily reported that they enjoy Root Cellar's seminar and attend the every year.  They also sent me information about their society's upcoming seminar which is announced below.

Sonoma County Genealogical Society
Spring Seminar
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Santa Rosa, California
 
Featuring Barbara Renick, nationally known genealogical lecturer and writer
 
Topics:
  • Cloning your family tree on the Internet
  • Online tools for genealogists
  • Online: How you get there does make a difference
  • Overcoming idiosyncrasies of genealogy database sites 
More information and the registration form is on their website http://www.scgsonline.org/events.html.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Society Saturday - Root Cellar Hosts Geoff Rasmussen in 2014

[Editor's Note: Today's post is by Denise Hibsch Richmond, Publicity Chairperson for Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society.]

SAVE THE DATE

Geoff Rasmussen
(Source: FamilySearch.org)
Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society is happy to announce its 2014 Spring Seminar with featured speaker Geoff Rasmussen Saturday, April 5, 2014.

Geoff Rasmussen is a popular speaker who is known world-wide in genealogy circles.  As host of the Legacy Family Tree Genealogy Software Webinar series, he has spoken virtually in nearly 100 different countries.  He has authored numerous books, videos, articles and websites.  Tidbit - he met and proposed to his wife in a Family History Center.  They now have four young "budding genealogists" and live in idaho.

Geoff Rasmussen has been featured at Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society's Spring Seminar before.  He's an audience favorite and always presents the latest tips and tricks on a wide-range of topics for genealogical research no matter what genealogy software program you use.

The all-day seminar will be held at the Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church, 11427 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks, California.

More details to be announced here and on the Root Cellar website and Facebook page.  Share the wealth - post this announcement on your Society's online and print media.

Contact: Denise Hibsch Richmond, rootcellarsgs@gmail.com.

Society Saturday - Root Cellar's April Calendar

[Editor's Note: Today's post is by Denise Hibsch Richmond, Publicity Chairperson for Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society.]

Thursday, April 4
Board Meeting, members welcome

Time: 10 am – noon
Location: Sylvan Community Center, 7521 Community Dr, Citrus Heights, CA

Thursday, April 11
Membership Meeting, visitors always welcome
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Program: Your Ancestors are in the Cemetery & Field Work by Paul Hodel
About the Program and Speaker
Location: Christ Community Church, 5025 Manzanita Avenue, Carmichael, CA
NEW! 6:30pm - 7:00pm: Special Interest Groups - States:
(1) Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, & Nebraska
(2) Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota & Ohio

Wednesday, April 17
Workshop, visitors always welcome

Program: Help with brickwalls; helpful research and tech tool tips
Time: 1 pm – 3 pm
Location: Sylvan Community Center, 7521 Community Drive, Citrus Heights, CA

Wednesday, April 24
Reunion for Mac Special Interest Group, everyone welcome
Program: Brainstorming solutions to users’ problems and questions
Time: 10:30 am to 12:30 pm
Location: Family History Center, 2745 Eastern Ave, Sacramento, CA
Contact: Ron Setzer, PreservesEditor@rootcellar.org to be added to email list

For more information about these meetings, contact Root Cellar at rootcellarsgs@gmail.com.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Federation of Genealogical Societies Urges Changes to Technology and Privacy Laws for Records Access

The following is an excerpt from Thomas MacEntee's posting on the FGS Voice blog. It deals with an issue that all genealogists should be aware of. These technology and privacy laws threaten future use of records for family historians. Please go to http://voice.fgs.org/2013/03/fgs-joins-records-coalition-senator-orrin-hatch.html for the complete article.


March 18, 2013 – Austin, TX. The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) has joined the American Library Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology, as well as other organizations, in an effort to ensure continued access to records for the genealogy and family history communities.

The coalition, in a letter dated March 19, 2013, is urging Senator Orrin Hatch (Utah) to take a leadership role on important issues involving technology, privacy and genealogy records access. These include:
updating the laws and regulations governing the use of the "Death Master File" of the Social Security Administration and its commercially available Social Security Death Index (SSDI); and
updating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA).
FGS and other coalition members have called upon Hatch to take action due to his “contributions to facilitating genealogical research . . . commitment to both law enforcement and privacy, and . . . interest in promoting development of the technology sector.”

The coalition seeks changes to recent laws and policies which threaten access to records vital to the field of genealogy as well as “genealogists who work to identify military remains, who work with coroners’ offices and medical examiners, who are forensic genealogists, heir researchers, and those researching individual genetically inherited diseases.”

To follow the latest developments involving these issues important to all genealogists, follow the Records Access and Preservation Committee blog at http://www.fgs.org/rpac/.

Posted by Ron Setzer

Placer County Genealogy Society Presents…


The Placer County Genealogical Society (PCGS) will hold its regular meeting on Thursday, March 28, 2013 from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Beecher Room of the Auburn Library at 350 Nevada Street.  The topic this month is "Old Genealogy Books Online" presented by Jim Rader. Visitors are welcome to attend.

Jim Rader has been involved in genealogy since 1987.  He has taught computerized genealogy to senior citizens and others as a California Credentialed Adult Education Teacher. He has been a guest lecturer on genealogy and DNA for the past 20 years, with an extensive range of topics.

He has published many genealogy books and has done a quarterly surname newsletter for 10 years. He has two websites: www.rader.org and www.jimrader.com which are his tools for sharing genealogy information worldwide. He has gathered and researched a database of 95,000 surnames and is now trying to gather European Raders.

He is retired after working for 48 years as a civil engineer, mainframe computer programmer and financial manager.

Submitted by Alora Lipsmeyer
Posted by Ron Setzer

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Bockbierfest Celebrated by Turn Verein in April


Turn Verein Celebrates Bockbier from Germany at the
45th Annual Bockbierfest
On Friday & Saturday, April 5 & 6, 2013

Spring starts in earnest with the annual celebration of the famous Bockbier coming to the Sacramento Turn Verein on Friday & Saturday, April 5 & 6, 2013. This traditional Bockbierfest will present authentic German Bockbier from Germany, great German music and a variety of German foods. Wonderful German dancing music will be provided by local favorite bands, plus special performances of German traditional dances by the Alpentänzer Schuhplattler.

On Friday evening, doors open at 6:00 p.m. with food service and bar available, with dancing from 7:00 until 11:00 p.m. The Grand Opening ceremony will take place on Friday evening at 6:45 p.m. with an exciting flag parade and keg tapping. On Saturday, the Bockbierfest will observe expanded hours by opening at 3:00 p.m. with all activities available to enjoy until 11:00 p.m., German dance music will be provided in the Main Hall by The Gruber Family Band on both Friday and Saturday. In our Banquet Hall upstairs we will feature the great local band AKA-LIVE performing Friday and Saturday. Enjoy the bands from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. each evening. The Turn Verein’s popular Kaffeehaus serves specialty desserts, and the new outdoor Biergarten will have unique Bockbier from Germany plus our delicious curry wurst.

General admission is $20 for adults; children up to 12 years, $5.00.

German Food, Bockbier from Germany, Biergarten, Pretzels, Wine, Champagne, & Kaffeehaus

The Sacramento Turn Verein, founded in 1854, moved to its present location in 1925. Now recognized as the center of German culture in Sacramento, the Turn Verein, the oldest still-active institution in Sacramento, supports seven special-interest sections and hosts several monthly and annual events to foster German culture. Additional information may be found on the Turn Verein website at www.sacramentoturnverein.com.

Submitted by Sacramento Turn Verein
Posted by Ron Setzer

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

More Pictures from Root Cellar's Spring Seminar

One of the exciting parts of the Seminar is the drawing of tickets for the sixteen baskets. These large baskets are created with a theme and each holds a tremendous variety of items, mostly genealogical. The baskets are so large and heavy that they have to be wheeled out to the winner's vehicle on a cart. Here are a few of the winners:












You can find more of the winners on Root Cellar's Facebook page and in the next edition of our Preserves.

Posted by Ron Setzer

Monday, March 18, 2013

Root Cellar's Spring Seminar – Great Success!

Everyone learned something from Thomas MacEntee on Saturday at the Spring Seminar. Thomas covered "Building a Research Toolbox," "Internet Archive: A Gold Mine for Genealogists," "Social Networking: New Horizons for Genealogists," and "You Use WHAT for Genealogy? Wonderful Uses for Unusual Tools." We all went hope to try some of the new ideas.

Here are some of the pictures from the event and the days around it.


Celebrating Thomas's birthday the evening before the Seminar.


The baskets waiting for the doors to open and the crowds to arrive.


Thomas MacEntee delivering his overview of his session.


Root Cellar's booth with the book sales behind.
More pictures tomorrow.
Posted by Ron Setzer

Friday, March 15, 2013

Saturday Society - pre-Root Cellar Spring Seminar

Saturday is finally the day for Root Cellar's 2013 Spring Seminar with speaker Thomas MacEntee. With all the final tasks being done we are ready for 200+ participants. The baskets are complete and are being put in their places this afternoon. Our vendor's are unloading and getting set up also.

We will be ready for all of you in the morning with registration packets, breakfast goodies, table with free information, vendors ready to service you, 16 huge wonderful gift baskets for the raffle awaits you, and Root Cellar Sacramento Genealogical Society ready to show and shine.

Thomas MacEntee flew in from Chicago, IL Thursday afternoon and was met at the airport by Speaker Transport crew "Denise & Scott Richmond" They had dinner and Thomas checked into the hotel.

Timing is everything.........  our regular General Meeting was Thursday evening also and Thomas and transport arrived just in time for all the pre-meeting activities. Of course we are trying something new this month........... 2 Roundtable Discussions. I was thrilled to have Thomas  sit at my table and interact with the members about Minnesota, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan. The other table was discussing Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Just a half hour of discussion but everyone seemed to enjoy it and want more. So we will try it again in April.

Thomas and Judy Nissila are reunited... turns out that they are cousins. ahhhhh!!!





Our main speaker for the evening was Cheryl Crockett presenting "The Slade Phenomenom". Her presentation was really well planned and organized.



Friday really was a busy day for Thomas and his transport crew. They showed up about 9am at the Center for Sacramento History where our transcribing group led by Marilyn Ulbricht meets each Friday AM. It was a small group today but still we were hard at work.........  Marilyn Ulbricht, Sandi Benward, Lois Shumaker, Sammi Hudgens and of course Patricia Johnson, Senior Archivist & Volunteer Coordinator from the center. Thomas was able to see what we do, & what we have done and then take a tour of the Center- vault and all. I think he was impressed.




At noon the Tech Committee, Ron Setzer, Denise Richmond (transport crew) and Sandra Benward meet with Thomas over lunch (lots of pizza - what else is there!). Lots of questions and more than we expected in answers. It was a great discussion, with lots of super ideas for the society.


After lunch and discussions, Thomas was driven over to the church so he can check out the room, the sound system and internet connection. All around him were set up people and Root Cellar volunteers tranforming the room. Alot of action at the delivery entrance, all those 16 gift baskets for the raffle were arriving. Wow, you are going to be surprised when you see them........  amazing. What a logistics problem, getting each of those huge baskets to the Church AND IN ONE PIECE TOO and they did it. Lots of van's and trucks. Thank you to everyone that helped in that effort. Vendors were also arriving and setting up. It is going to be a fun day Saturday.




 
....and of course the Techie corner and asking 'what did we forget?'




Tonight, Friday, Diane Maltase, invited all the board members and seminar committee volunteers - for a special 'Sweet & Greet" Gathering at her home. Everyone brought sweets to share. It was an opportunity to have a one on one discussion with Thomas (well, maybe 7-10 to 1 is more accurate). Great idea.

To bed, & up early - getting ready to greet all the participants for the day.

Big thanks to Diane Maltase and Denise Miller,co-chairs and to the many volunteers that helped.


                       WE ARE READY TO SHOW AND SHINE ONE MORE TIME.

                                                 See you at the Spring Seminar!



posted for your enjoyment by Sandra Gardner Benward

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Funny Friday - Babies Swap Tot Sister for Yellow Cat. YIKES!!

Newspaper Article Title Reads: Special to the Post Standard 1909

"Cortland Babies Swap Tot Sister For Yellow Cat"

Mother Finds Little Trader Caring Well for his Adopted Sister........ Cortland, NY Aug 7
.......... an amusing story of a 'swap' between juveniles of a neighboring village is told here. Two brothers, 4 & 6 years of age, traded their baby sister to another 6 year old boy for the latter's yellow cat.
The deal had been discussed for several weeks between the three lads. Yesterday the brothers were detailed to enterain the baby sister by wheeling her in the baby carriage. The time for perfecting the negotiations seemed ripe, and the baby and carriage were left with the former owner of the cat. The two marched home in triumph with their new yellow acquistion. A hurry trip on the part of he mother of the baby was made to the other end of  the village, where the little boy 'owner' was found giving his adopted baby sister the best of care. The foster brother argued that the birthday of the baby and his own were identical and that established his right of ownership.


[Mable BRISTOL LITTLE - mother of the baby  
Gladys LITTLE - baby that was traded  
Kenneth & Harold LITTLE - (actually 2 & 6 NOT 4 & 6) traded their baby sister  
Percy HILES- (10yr old NOT 6) boy who  owned the yellow cat] - not related

Just a funny story with relatives that I actually know, have interacted with & love very much.They are all First Cousins.  Unfortunately, all have passed on now.


Posted for your amusement by Sandra Gardner Benward


Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Wordless Wednesday - BRANFIELD


 
Mountain View Cemetery, 2400 North Fair Oaks Ave., Altadena, California


 
 John E. (Edward) BRANFIELD my Granduncle  1883-1944 and                                                        his wife Erma B. (Belle) (nee KLINE) BRANFIELD 1883-1959 
 
I will be uploading the information and pictures to Find a Grave and Billiongraves.              
This cemetery has not be photographed by locals because the cemetery does not permit it. An individual is certainly welcome to visit and take their own picture (as I did). The cemetery says that they are very open to people calling and they will go out and take the picture and send it to them.
I don't know if there is a cost for this service. 
 
posted by Sandra Gardner Benward