Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy Submissions Are Due Wednesday!

I just want to remind everyone that Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy submissions are due Wednesday. (If you need an extra day, please let me know.) The topic for this edition is on folklore, legends, ghost stories, myths, etc, and the edition will be posted on Halloween. Enjoy!

Now, if I could just get my submission done ...

26th Shades Of The Departed Guest Column Posted!

The 26th Shades of the Departed guest column has been posted! The author of this week's column is Melissa Strobel, and you can read it here. Enjoy!

Blog Changes and Other News ...

I'm playing check-up for the past few days as I realize I have forgotten to mention a few things. First off, I have added a Coming Soon paragraph to the left side of the blog, just above the Genealogy and History Thoughts section. I plan to use the paragraph to list topics for future posts. I do not know if anyone noticed, but I created that section earlier this week. Hopefully, I will get to some of the posts that I want to write for this month and in the future.

I also noticed a few days ago on the Rochester Area Research Aides blog that there was a post on an index of names in old Rochester newspapers recently posted on the Monroe county, New York library website. The indexes are split up into groups of numbers and into two time periods. The first time period is from 1818 to 1850, and the second period is from 1851 to 1897. Since my Havens ancestors were in Rochester, New York around 1850, I decided to take a look at the indexes, and I found a couple things that might help me in my research. (I'll post on those index findings in a future post.)

In addition to forgetting to mention the items above, I forgot to mention that FamilySearch Lab's Record Search has added a couple more databases to their site. They added civil vital records for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and a census for Buenos Aires, Argentina last week. In addition, the site has been adding more names to the 1850, 1860 and 1870 U.S. censuses over the past few days.

Finally! I've gotten around to posting this news!

Just A Quick Reminder!

I just want to remind everyone that entries for the 12th edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy are due in a week from today (on October 29). The topic for this edition is on "folklore, myths, legends, and ghost stories. Since this edition will be posted around Halloween, I thought that this would be a good time to have a carnival on area folklore, myths, legends, ghost stories, traditions or festivals of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The submissions do not necessarily have to be a part of your family tradition; it could be a submission on a historical event or it could just have been a part of the culture of your ancestor." You can submit your article here.

The Truth About The "Close Encounters" Stories ...

As I promised at the end of my post for the 58th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, I am now announcing the truth about whether or not these two stories were true or fiction, but before I do, I am going to post the results for the poll I created in relation to that post.

For the poll, I asked, "What Do You Think About the Stories in the 'Close Encounters ...' post? Four people voted in my poll, and the results are:

• Story One is true but the second one is false - 1 vote
• Story Two is true but the first one is false - 1 vote
• Both are true - 2 votes
• Neither are true - 0 votes

Of course, I should also mention that five other people left comments at the end of that post, and those five believed the stories were true.

Well, guess what? I apparently can't fool you. Both of the stories are true. For the first story my great-grandfather really did die three days before my mother and her family found out. Of course, this is according to what my mother told me, and from the way she told me, it sounds as though my grandma had a dream about him around the time he died, which was three days before they learned about his death. As for the lapse in time, my great-grandfather lived in the United Kingdom, and when something did happen, my mother's family was usually the last to hear about it because family members over in the U.K. would have been the ones taking care of the arrangements. Of course, by the time my mother's relatives in the U.K. had a chance to contact my mother's family, three days had gone by. (As strange as this might sound.)

As for the second story, I did start shaking in the car as my grandpa drove out of the cemetery. To this day, I still do not know what was the cause of the shaking. We visited the cemetery in late July, so there wasn't any reason for me to start shaking. Of course, unless I was reacting to the air conditioning in the car, but I do not recall it being an extremely hot or humid day. The other possibility that I can think of is that it was an unconscious reaction to being in the cemetery. I did write in a post last year that I do not like visiting cemeteries, and it could be that my dislike of being in cemeteries resulted in me shaking. (Well, I think cemeteries are creepy.) Of course, those are the two most likely possibilities, and I don't think I want to think about any other possibilities ...

Before I forget, I just want to say thank you to those who voted, read my post, and left comments on the post. Thank you for doing so.

Tombstone Tuesday

For this week's Tombstone Tuesday, I am reposting a photograph that I posted before. This photo happens to be the tombstone of my ancestor, Barbara (Householder) Detwiler, the first wife of Jacob Detwiler. She is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Three Rivers, Saint Joseph County, Michigan.

Announcing My New Genealogy Blog!

Yesterday, I created a new genealogy blog, and I joined the Association of the Graveyard Rabbits. You can view my new blog here. I hope you enjoy it!

Politics and My Ancestors ...

For the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, I am supposed to write about my ancestors and their connections with politics, either through beliefs, as politicians or as members of a political movement or party. I have written briefly before about a couple of my ancestors' political beliefs, but I still do not know very much about what they might have believed.

Last year, I wrote an article on my ancestor, Benjamin Oswalt and his son, John, and their political beliefs in relation to the 1856 Presidential election. In past elections, Benjamin and John had apparently voted for the Whig party, and it appears that as the Whig party collapsed, they switched their political alliance to the Know-Nothings and then to the Democratic Party. Obviously, I do not know how long they might have allied themselves with the Know-Nothings. From the newspaper article, it appears as though it was a temporary alliance in a previous election. Of course, that was what my ancestor in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. I have no idea, if his son, Adam (my ancestor), was a member of the Whig Party. In fact, I do not know anything about Adam's political beliefs. The closest I have come so far is finding out that he was part of the G.A.R. when he lived in Rockford, Illinois, as I wrote in a previous Carnival of Genealogy entry.

As for my Detwiler ancestors, I do not know as much about their political beliefs as I do for my Oswalt ancestors. The only possible political belief that I have been able to uncover is that John Detwiler (my ancestor's older brother) was a member and officeholder of Park Township Saint Joseph County, Michigan's Grange Party, and I found out about that membership through reading about it in L. H. Everts & co.,'s History of St. Joseph county, Michigan (published in 1877). (For some more information on the grange movement, the articles here and here are a start.) Again, this is for the son and brother of my ancestors. I have no idea what John's father, Jacob, believed, as of the writing of this article.

For my Stout ancestors, I also have the same problem. The closest information of a possible political belief comes from my ancestor's brother, Reuben Stout. According to his biography in the Chapman Brother's Portrait and Biographical Album of St. Joseph County, Michigan (printed in Chicago in 1889), Reuben was a member of the Democratic Party. As for his younger brother, who is my ancestor, I have no idea what his political leanings were. I wonder, though, if they shared same political philosophy.

As for my Householder ancestors, I just have a suggestion as to what it might be. I believe the father of Barbara Householder, Jacob Detwiler's first wife, was John Householder; however, my only evidence for that connection at the moment is the 1850 U.S Census of Walker Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania where John Householder is living with Jacob and Barbara Detwiler's family, and the biography of a nephew that lists her as one of John's three children. (The biography is of John F. Householder in J. M. Runk's Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley, comprising the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry Pennsylvania. The book was published in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 1897.) That biography states that her father was a Democrat, but my main problem, outside of an incorrect death year for him, is that I do not have any other primary source documents connecting Barbara to John Householder except for the 1850 census. (Of course, if anyone can help me strengthen this connection that would be greatly appreciated.)

As for my other ancestors in America, I do not know what their political beliefs were, especially when it comes to my German ancestors who came to the U. S. in the late-1800s and early 1900s. And then there is my possible ancestor, Christoph Friedrich Cotta who had a role in the French Revolution, in trying to spread it to the German states, but I am not going to say anything further about him as his beliefs would need a separate post to cover. As for my British ancestors, I have no idea what their political beliefs were or when they would have been able to vote (outside of the fact that women in Britain were given the right to vote in 1918). Until I am to do research into their political beliefs, I will not know. I hope, though, as I continue to do research on my family that I will be able to uncover more information about them, especially in relation to what their political beliefs were.

Wednesday Evening - You'll Find Out The Truth!

You still have a few more days to vote on whether or not my Carnival of Genealogy stories were fact or fiction. On Wednesday evening, I'll post the results from the poll and what the reality is for those two stories. Until then, enjoy!

Carnival Deadlines Reminders!

I just want to remind everyone of a few carnival submission deadlines that are coming up with the next week or so. There are about four carnivals that have deadlines, and they are:

• Carnival of Genealogy - November 1. Topic: "Politics and Our Ancestors."
• Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture - October 25. Topic: Halloween in Irish culture
• Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy - October 29. Topic: Folklore, myths, legends, ghost stories
• Polish History and Culture Challenge - End of October. See here for more details.

Of course, if you do not have any posts yet, do not worry. I still have to write posts for three of these carnivals. Enjoy!

Poll Results For the Michigan History Poll!

The poll on the time periods of Michigan history is now closed, and the results are in. The question for this poll was, "Which time periods in Michigan's history interest you?" Four people voted, and the results are:

• Pre-1763 - 0 votes
• 1763-1796 - 0 votes
• 1796-1837 - 0 votes
• 1837-1865 - 3 votes
• 1865 - 1900 - 3 votes
• 1900 - Present - 1 vote

It looks like I'll be focusing on a time period between 1837 and 1900 for a few of articles on Michigan's history. I think my first article will be on the 1871 fires in Michigan, and I will post that article some time next year. Stay tuned for this article and others to come! Enjoy!