I know a lot of guys who simply walked out when their wive's got sick. Some said it was so she could get better care, some said so the state would take care of her medical needs. That did work back then, but not so much these days.
I never wanted any of my wive's assets or property, I've always felt it should go to their kids. Which it has on all counts, even the house I'm in now. Sure I bought out her sisters share, and spent the money to renovate the house, but my name is not on the deed, and now it is only in Debi's sons name. I do have a request that if he chooses to sell the house, that my son gets a little something for the money and labor I put into the house. My request is for only 1/7th of the sale price of the house and land, which I think more than a fair amount to go to my son.
There are many phases to doing genealogy work. The primary phase is the Paternal blood line of course. And then we have the Maternal to Paternal bloodline, basically meaning the wife's fathers bloodline. From there we move into the Maternal bloodlines going back into history. From there we go back to the Paternal bloodline of the husband, and find all of his brothers and sisters, and work down the descendants of those. Then in turn, do the Maternal to Paternal bloodlines of their wives. Then we step up one generation to grandpa's brother and sisters and work down from there first, and then back to their parents, etc. ad infinitum.
My family tree has grown to over 170,000 individuals that all have a link through the chain back to me. But then I've been working on it for over 40 years too. Long before we had computers and access to records on-line.
Even with the ease of computers and on-line searches, it is actually harder to find accurate data, because some folks use these research places like a game, and just keep adding people to their tree whether they are correct or not.
Heck, even sometimes while doing research I may be following the wrong line for a short time, before I figure out they are not the right branch. Although I remove them from my tree, they still appear on places like Ancestry under my research. Ancestry never deletes anything it seems, even if I delete it from my tree. They just show it as detached is all.
Then there are the world family tree websites where there is only one tree that everyone works on, now those have more errors in them than Carter's has pills, because once again, to some it is a game, a race to see who can get the most people.
So you cannot trust anything you find there anymore at all.
Ironically, if we go far enough back in time, technically, we are related to everybody else.
You know your parentage count doubles with each generation. You have 2 parents, they each have two parents so that 4 for that generation, 8, then 16, then 32, etc. so by the time you get back to the year 1400, you would have 1,073,741,824 gggggggggreat-grandparents. Here is the problem, in the year 1400, the world population was only 450,000,000. Because of this, you would be related to everybody TWICE, hi hi
I have my direct Paternal bloodline documented and verified all the way back to the Holy Roman Empire, including how they migrated through France, and Germany, before coming to the U.S. of A. And if you add in as many brothers and sisters as you can find, just from them alone, your family tree would be over 50,000 easily, looking at only descendants.
In some ways it is a phun hobby, in others it's a lot of hard work, and a lot of wasted time trying to find documentation that is accurate.
Pencil Sharpener
Forum rules
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Post a new topic to begin a chat.
Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
You brought this up a few times in the past and it made me curious every time. Does Carter STILL make Little (Liver) Pills? According to my friend Google, they do, but they are not easy to find. Apparently somebody on Amazon will sell you Carter's Pills, but I never tried to verify that. I recall seeing them advertised when I was a kid and they did sell a lot of them back then. I don't think Carter has a lot of pills left in 2022.
I''d say genealogy is a labor of love. I've met only a few people in my days who have gone to the extent you have with their family trees. My wife's mom and her family had a reunion every year in Iowa and the tree was on display there for people to add the missing links. I can't see how any records before the Computer Age would be accurate or verifiable. I've hear stories of the only record for a person's birth is written in the family Bible, days, months, or years after the event. My wife's sister-in-law was born in Ireland, or so the family claims. But there is no official record of her being born there. Not sure how it happened but the family claims she was born on a certain date while she thinks she was born a couple weeks later. She had to be born in the '40's, a time at which I would think birth records were reliable. Apparently not in every country of the world. All this makes me appreciate what you have done to verify all your family connections. It seems like an impossible task.
The only time I've seen family members get concerned over blood lines is when somebody dies and an inheritance is involved. Some of the battles I've heard about are truly bloody. I would think out of respect for the deceased there would be a desire to transfer assets as seamlessly as possible. That probably happens most of the time. But the biggest family feuds I've heard about usually involve one of the relative's assets.
I''d say genealogy is a labor of love. I've met only a few people in my days who have gone to the extent you have with their family trees. My wife's mom and her family had a reunion every year in Iowa and the tree was on display there for people to add the missing links. I can't see how any records before the Computer Age would be accurate or verifiable. I've hear stories of the only record for a person's birth is written in the family Bible, days, months, or years after the event. My wife's sister-in-law was born in Ireland, or so the family claims. But there is no official record of her being born there. Not sure how it happened but the family claims she was born on a certain date while she thinks she was born a couple weeks later. She had to be born in the '40's, a time at which I would think birth records were reliable. Apparently not in every country of the world. All this makes me appreciate what you have done to verify all your family connections. It seems like an impossible task.
The only time I've seen family members get concerned over blood lines is when somebody dies and an inheritance is involved. Some of the battles I've heard about are truly bloody. I would think out of respect for the deceased there would be a desire to transfer assets as seamlessly as possible. That probably happens most of the time. But the biggest family feuds I've heard about usually involve one of the relative's assets.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Ironically, you can still buy Carter's Little Pills on Amazon. The FDA made them remove the word Liver from their packaging.
https://www.amazon.com/CARTERS-LITTLE-P ... B072JP39KM
My aunt Mary, who passed the genealogical work on to me, had thousands of pieces of paper, and documents for birth, baptism, marriage, and death for my immediate paternal family going all the way back to the 1700s. Many of these records contained the names of spouses and their parents and sometimes grandparents. Plus all the kids born to the brothers and sisters of each generation. So I had a good healthy start for getting going strong. I organized all of her papers into binders with vinyl sleeves for documents, and paper sleeves for old delicate photographs. To help preserve them, many of the photo's were screened so they could be Xeroxed. Xerox copies had to be kept in paper sleeves, because they would stick to vinyl sleeves or even to glass in frames.
One of the major helps for me acquiring more documents had to do with our family has always been Catholic. And the churches were a wealth of information, if you knew which churches to go to, or where the records were sent. 95% of my family from my dad's era and earlier were all buried in Catholic Cemeteries, who also kept excellent records. In addition to those records, many of our family members were in business, so had much documentation associated with their companies as well.
It also helped that families usually stayed in the same area, or only rarely moved, until the days of rapid transportation.
You are right about the dates easily messed up. Most kids were born at home, and when the doctor came by about once a month or so, he would write things down to get them recorded to the capital city of the state, and they either often lost some of their notes, or found them hard to read when they did enter the data, so made mistakes that way also.
Plus, not everyone could read and write, so they butchered names all to heck.
Many foreign type of names were changed when they emigrated to the U.S. of A.
For example: My gggGrandfather-in-law, Gotlieb Andreas Schaumbergers name was changed to Franz Berg, and there is an interesting story behind that too. He fled Germany when the French took over, and since he was in politics there, the French were out for his hide. So he disguised himself as a woman and set sail for America. Before departing the ship Gallia, he changed back into his nice male clothes and went through the Castle Island immigration lines that way.
In this day and age, I've been able to verify all of my immediate relatives and ancestors by searching on-line databases and getting many more documents which either all agree with each other, or in many cases, don't agree exactly, but have the family names correct, so you know the document itself is the right one.
I was also able to find out why some of the records from the late 1700s showed our name as Teutschmann, instead of Deutschmann. Turns out the curator of documents wrote in a very elegant script, and those who took over after him could not make out the difference between his Ds, Ts, Cs, so the new clerk filed all the documents he couldn't read under the letter T. And then when they got copied over and typed up for easy transfers, all those people got sent with the letter T as the first letter of their last name. Fortunately, all the corresponding documentation from the churches all used the letter D.
We have something like that going on right now in our family. My aunt Helen passed away, and although she did have a Will which outlined what to do with her estate, one cousin who was named Trustee for her, decided to put it through Probate. The whole purpose of a Will is to avoid Probate which often takes close to half of the estate.
The way she worded her Will, her assets were to be divided among her brothers and sisters children, since all of them were deceased. Well it turns out that one of her brothers is still alive and living in a full-care nursing home. That particular brother is already wealthy, and I guess wealth builds greed. The family of the living brother contested the Will and said since a brother is still living, her estate should go to him, and then after his death be divided only among his children.
We all know her intent was to divide up the estate amongst all the living children of her brothers and sisters.
But the greedy family of the rich uncle want's it all for themselves, since he survived her, and is therefore the sole heir.
The attorney for the estate has said, my aunt assumed all of her brothers and sisters were deceased, and that is why she said the statement the way she did. So the attorney has tried to hold up the disbursion of the assets until after that uncle passes away. But their family wants it all, even though it isn't that much. The entirely of her estate is only worth about 250 to 300k depending on how much her house sells for, which is what the Trustee was burdened with doing. If I recall there is something like 50 or 60 cousins, so each of the cousins would only get about 300 to 500 bucks is all. Less than that if it goes through Probate. If the contesting family wins, the entirety of her estate will fall on one person, the youngest daughter of the uncle.
https://www.amazon.com/CARTERS-LITTLE-P ... B072JP39KM
My aunt Mary, who passed the genealogical work on to me, had thousands of pieces of paper, and documents for birth, baptism, marriage, and death for my immediate paternal family going all the way back to the 1700s. Many of these records contained the names of spouses and their parents and sometimes grandparents. Plus all the kids born to the brothers and sisters of each generation. So I had a good healthy start for getting going strong. I organized all of her papers into binders with vinyl sleeves for documents, and paper sleeves for old delicate photographs. To help preserve them, many of the photo's were screened so they could be Xeroxed. Xerox copies had to be kept in paper sleeves, because they would stick to vinyl sleeves or even to glass in frames.
One of the major helps for me acquiring more documents had to do with our family has always been Catholic. And the churches were a wealth of information, if you knew which churches to go to, or where the records were sent. 95% of my family from my dad's era and earlier were all buried in Catholic Cemeteries, who also kept excellent records. In addition to those records, many of our family members were in business, so had much documentation associated with their companies as well.
It also helped that families usually stayed in the same area, or only rarely moved, until the days of rapid transportation.
You are right about the dates easily messed up. Most kids were born at home, and when the doctor came by about once a month or so, he would write things down to get them recorded to the capital city of the state, and they either often lost some of their notes, or found them hard to read when they did enter the data, so made mistakes that way also.
Plus, not everyone could read and write, so they butchered names all to heck.
Many foreign type of names were changed when they emigrated to the U.S. of A.
For example: My gggGrandfather-in-law, Gotlieb Andreas Schaumbergers name was changed to Franz Berg, and there is an interesting story behind that too. He fled Germany when the French took over, and since he was in politics there, the French were out for his hide. So he disguised himself as a woman and set sail for America. Before departing the ship Gallia, he changed back into his nice male clothes and went through the Castle Island immigration lines that way.
In this day and age, I've been able to verify all of my immediate relatives and ancestors by searching on-line databases and getting many more documents which either all agree with each other, or in many cases, don't agree exactly, but have the family names correct, so you know the document itself is the right one.
I was also able to find out why some of the records from the late 1700s showed our name as Teutschmann, instead of Deutschmann. Turns out the curator of documents wrote in a very elegant script, and those who took over after him could not make out the difference between his Ds, Ts, Cs, so the new clerk filed all the documents he couldn't read under the letter T. And then when they got copied over and typed up for easy transfers, all those people got sent with the letter T as the first letter of their last name. Fortunately, all the corresponding documentation from the churches all used the letter D.
We have something like that going on right now in our family. My aunt Helen passed away, and although she did have a Will which outlined what to do with her estate, one cousin who was named Trustee for her, decided to put it through Probate. The whole purpose of a Will is to avoid Probate which often takes close to half of the estate.
The way she worded her Will, her assets were to be divided among her brothers and sisters children, since all of them were deceased. Well it turns out that one of her brothers is still alive and living in a full-care nursing home. That particular brother is already wealthy, and I guess wealth builds greed. The family of the living brother contested the Will and said since a brother is still living, her estate should go to him, and then after his death be divided only among his children.
We all know her intent was to divide up the estate amongst all the living children of her brothers and sisters.
But the greedy family of the rich uncle want's it all for themselves, since he survived her, and is therefore the sole heir.
The attorney for the estate has said, my aunt assumed all of her brothers and sisters were deceased, and that is why she said the statement the way she did. So the attorney has tried to hold up the disbursion of the assets until after that uncle passes away. But their family wants it all, even though it isn't that much. The entirely of her estate is only worth about 250 to 300k depending on how much her house sells for, which is what the Trustee was burdened with doing. If I recall there is something like 50 or 60 cousins, so each of the cousins would only get about 300 to 500 bucks is all. Less than that if it goes through Probate. If the contesting family wins, the entirety of her estate will fall on one person, the youngest daughter of the uncle.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
That inheritance story is just the kind of thing I was referring to. You can't deny the importance of wealth, but when it turns to greed things can get ugly. Apparently there is a lot more to genealogy than drawing up that complex tree. Preservation of documents and photographs can be a full time job all by itself. I can understand why you took on the task, but there was so much to learn. It seems like more than one person can assimilate.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
You may remember me talking about some of the family heirlooms I kept in expensive storage, and documents in hyperbaric storage. They had meaning to me, because I knew from whom they came from, and the stories behind them, which I documented on paper also.
But when I could not longer afford to keep up that storage, I offered these artifacts to the families they most closely related to, and not a single person was interested in them. I tried for a couple of years to get various family members to take some of them, to no avail. So I decided to start selling them on eBay. I got a fair amount of money for some of them, but mainly because I had the history behind the items and it was all well documented.
I did hold onto a few items myself, and one of those items sold at auction for 1000 bucks, so you know it was worth ten times that amount, and we had over 18 bidders to get that particular item too, which is what drove the price so high.
Unfortunately, anything else I had sold for pennies on the dollar.
I wish I could find someone to take over my genealogy work. I have two cousins who help supply info, but they don't want the task of taking it over, even though it is basically done as far as our ancestry goes. Only adding in the newer generations as we learn about them.
But when I could not longer afford to keep up that storage, I offered these artifacts to the families they most closely related to, and not a single person was interested in them. I tried for a couple of years to get various family members to take some of them, to no avail. So I decided to start selling them on eBay. I got a fair amount of money for some of them, but mainly because I had the history behind the items and it was all well documented.
I did hold onto a few items myself, and one of those items sold at auction for 1000 bucks, so you know it was worth ten times that amount, and we had over 18 bidders to get that particular item too, which is what drove the price so high.
Unfortunately, anything else I had sold for pennies on the dollar.
I wish I could find someone to take over my genealogy work. I have two cousins who help supply info, but they don't want the task of taking it over, even though it is basically done as far as our ancestry goes. Only adding in the newer generations as we learn about them.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
One of my mom's brothers, my uncle, married but never had any children. He was the youngest of the lot of 8 siblings and as Fate would dictate we had some things in common. The most notable was that we both attended the same grammar and high schools, but decades apart obviously. He was in the army during WW II and earned a few medals plus his name on a monument in DC. I did some research for him to find that name but it was easier than we thought. Google, apparently, knows everything. We corresponded by mail and called each other periodically during the last years of his life. We would lament about the good ol' days and he was a bit distraught that he had nobody to whom he could pass down any of his legacy and/or assets. Some of the things he had included poetry he wrote, radio broadcasts he made during his service years, and bunches of medals from the army and the high school we both attended. When he knew the end was near he asked around the family to see if anybody was interested in his collection. There were no takers, but he did send a box full of goodies to the daughter of his youngest sister. The daughter was my cousin and she did not know what to do with the memorabilia. All she knew was that she didn't have a use for it and wanted to dispose of it. So ... it's now in my basement. Interesting stuff, but I wish there was a way to play those cassette tapes. Even if I had a player, I doubt the tapes would be playable at this point in time.
That's my only experience with family legacy items and it seems to be consistent with what you ran into but on a smaller scale. That family tree and all the documentation represents a lot of human effort and documents things found nowhere else. It's extremely valuable, but perhaps only to yourself. The though of what will happen to it all in the future is not encouraging. The important point to remember, however, is the pleasure and comport it provides you. Not many people could accomplish what you did.
That's my only experience with family legacy items and it seems to be consistent with what you ran into but on a smaller scale. That family tree and all the documentation represents a lot of human effort and documents things found nowhere else. It's extremely valuable, but perhaps only to yourself. The though of what will happen to it all in the future is not encouraging. The important point to remember, however, is the pleasure and comport it provides you. Not many people could accomplish what you did.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I was raised when all of my great-aunts and uncles were still alive, and even though I was young, I would go and sit with them and listen to their stories about their good ole days. As young as I was, I was still very interested in what life was like for them growing up, and in their adult years as well. Some of the pranks they used to pull on folks was quite ingenious to say the least.
But it was not all phun and games either, every child had their daily round of chores to get done, and many of them were very hard chores for a kid to do, but they knew the work had to be done so they did it, usually without complaints.
If it were not for dad's aunt Mary and her photographic memory, much would have been lost. And while she was still sharp as a tack, many of those stories were written down. Aunt Mary knew the birthday, marriage date, and death date, of everyone in our family. How she remembered all that stuff is anybodies guess. But when things were verified with documents, she was always dead on.
The problem I faced when I took over for her, was in our family, for generations, everyone had a nickname to avoid confusing for example WHICH George D. you were talking about. So using nicknames was fairly universal in dad's and previous generations. Then when we get down to my generation, although many did have nicknames, sometimes those nicknames were only used by certain relatives and other relatives had other nicknames for the same person.
My cousin Leonard Paul D Jr. was never ever referred to by that name by anyone. His dad was called simply L.P.
His immediate family called him The Duker. Most of the rest of us just called him Duke, and he hated that for years.
His brother Steve, was called The Auger. A few of us called him Augie. But he became known around town as A.G.
My point in bringing that up, is because my great-aunt always used the persons nicknames in her notes, to avoid confusion, hi hi.
But when you step down a couple of generations, and with nearly every family having a kid named George which was never used, always a nickname. It was very hard to figure out which older now deceased relatives were known to the family under their nickname. While I was alive we had George Leo, Double George, Tall George, Big George, and my grandpa was Snuffy.
George Leo was just called Leo, Double George was called G.G. by many. Most folks thought Big George was Double George, and Tall George was often just referred to as, the Tall One, hi hi.
When I was going through family records passed down to me, I had to know WHO told the story in order to figure out which relative they were talking about.
My dad hung the name Twinkie on my daughter, and Dink on my son. Dink stuck and he is called that to this day, but Twinkie faded away fairly quickly. That was my dad's name for her, while I just called her Bucket. As in get the girl a bucket, because she watered constantly, if you catch my drift, hi hi. It was a joyous day when she was FINALLY fully potty trained, hi hi.
On my mom's side of the family, not one kid was known by their real name. Her mom and dad were Izora and Grant.
The kids were Frances (known as Tootie), Linnie Lee (known as Billie), my mom, Mary (known as Dutch), and aunt Patty, who's real name was Patricia, so that one did make sense. But she was not called Patty when younger, like me, she had a different nickname from whoever was talking about her or to her.
My uncle Andy, Patty's husband called me Joe for as long as I could remember.
My cousin The Duker called me Hairance, because I always had long hair, up until it became popular than I had short hair.
Grandma, dad's mom, called me Little Wince or Little Wincent. My dad's name was Vincent, but called him Vince. Except grandma who called him Wincent. Plus in my years of working in the trades, every single place had a different name for me, none of them nice either, but some not to bad. After my accident with the power lines, they all called me Sparky.
My school years was a different story, there they called me DucheBag, hi hi.
Debi's mom could not pronounce my name and it always came out as Dirtchim, hi hi. Debi worked with her for a long time, spelling out my name in small easy to use sounds like, say Boy, Ok now say Doy. Now say Doych, and it would always come out as Dirch, hi hi. I don't think she ever got it quite right, hi hi.
But it was not all phun and games either, every child had their daily round of chores to get done, and many of them were very hard chores for a kid to do, but they knew the work had to be done so they did it, usually without complaints.
If it were not for dad's aunt Mary and her photographic memory, much would have been lost. And while she was still sharp as a tack, many of those stories were written down. Aunt Mary knew the birthday, marriage date, and death date, of everyone in our family. How she remembered all that stuff is anybodies guess. But when things were verified with documents, she was always dead on.
The problem I faced when I took over for her, was in our family, for generations, everyone had a nickname to avoid confusing for example WHICH George D. you were talking about. So using nicknames was fairly universal in dad's and previous generations. Then when we get down to my generation, although many did have nicknames, sometimes those nicknames were only used by certain relatives and other relatives had other nicknames for the same person.
My cousin Leonard Paul D Jr. was never ever referred to by that name by anyone. His dad was called simply L.P.
His immediate family called him The Duker. Most of the rest of us just called him Duke, and he hated that for years.
His brother Steve, was called The Auger. A few of us called him Augie. But he became known around town as A.G.
My point in bringing that up, is because my great-aunt always used the persons nicknames in her notes, to avoid confusion, hi hi.
But when you step down a couple of generations, and with nearly every family having a kid named George which was never used, always a nickname. It was very hard to figure out which older now deceased relatives were known to the family under their nickname. While I was alive we had George Leo, Double George, Tall George, Big George, and my grandpa was Snuffy.
George Leo was just called Leo, Double George was called G.G. by many. Most folks thought Big George was Double George, and Tall George was often just referred to as, the Tall One, hi hi.
When I was going through family records passed down to me, I had to know WHO told the story in order to figure out which relative they were talking about.
My dad hung the name Twinkie on my daughter, and Dink on my son. Dink stuck and he is called that to this day, but Twinkie faded away fairly quickly. That was my dad's name for her, while I just called her Bucket. As in get the girl a bucket, because she watered constantly, if you catch my drift, hi hi. It was a joyous day when she was FINALLY fully potty trained, hi hi.
On my mom's side of the family, not one kid was known by their real name. Her mom and dad were Izora and Grant.
The kids were Frances (known as Tootie), Linnie Lee (known as Billie), my mom, Mary (known as Dutch), and aunt Patty, who's real name was Patricia, so that one did make sense. But she was not called Patty when younger, like me, she had a different nickname from whoever was talking about her or to her.
My uncle Andy, Patty's husband called me Joe for as long as I could remember.
My cousin The Duker called me Hairance, because I always had long hair, up until it became popular than I had short hair.
Grandma, dad's mom, called me Little Wince or Little Wincent. My dad's name was Vincent, but called him Vince. Except grandma who called him Wincent. Plus in my years of working in the trades, every single place had a different name for me, none of them nice either, but some not to bad. After my accident with the power lines, they all called me Sparky.
My school years was a different story, there they called me DucheBag, hi hi.
Debi's mom could not pronounce my name and it always came out as Dirtchim, hi hi. Debi worked with her for a long time, spelling out my name in small easy to use sounds like, say Boy, Ok now say Doy. Now say Doych, and it would always come out as Dirch, hi hi. I don't think she ever got it quite right, hi hi.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I know my great grandparents from both sides of the family immigrated here from Poland, or what was Poland at the time. That is all I know. There was talk from time to time about the family tree, but nobody seemed to know anything about it. My oldest uncle from my mom's side claimed he knew of family people still in Poland but he never met them or knew very much about them. My dad's family was the same way. My aunts and uncles would express a curiosity about exactly were we came from in Poland, but nobody really knew. The assumption was Warsaw, but that is all it was, an assumption. Nobody really had an interest in the family tree and thus nobody bothered to accumulate any records.
My dad's family was big on nicknames, but mom's side not so much. They all had Polish names and were Americanized in my mom's family. Wojciech --> William --> Bill. I never knew uncle Bill by any other name and everyone knew who he was. He had a son who was named William but he was called Bill Jr to distinguish him from his dad. Pretty normal stuff. My dad's family also had Polish names that were Americanized but they did have nicknames. Franciszka --> Francis --> Frank --> Franusz (nickname). My dad was Joseph and the first boy out of eleven siblings. I don't know the Polish equivalent but he was always called Joe by the family. They claimed he had the nickname of Joder when he was young, but I only heard his siblings call him that on rare occasion. Dad also had another nickname ... Yogi. A neighbor and close friend gave him that name because our family name is pronounced exactly as is the famous baseball player, Yogi Berra. That's odd because our family name is spelled Bara which very few people pronounce correctly. Then, too, I have no idea why it is pronounced the way it is. It certainly isn't Polish. Only my dad's neighbor friend called him Yogi, as did all the brothers of the Moose Lodge which dad eventually joined. Nobody in his family called him Yogi.
So, now you know how I got the name for this account.
My dad's family was big on nicknames, but mom's side not so much. They all had Polish names and were Americanized in my mom's family. Wojciech --> William --> Bill. I never knew uncle Bill by any other name and everyone knew who he was. He had a son who was named William but he was called Bill Jr to distinguish him from his dad. Pretty normal stuff. My dad's family also had Polish names that were Americanized but they did have nicknames. Franciszka --> Francis --> Frank --> Franusz (nickname). My dad was Joseph and the first boy out of eleven siblings. I don't know the Polish equivalent but he was always called Joe by the family. They claimed he had the nickname of Joder when he was young, but I only heard his siblings call him that on rare occasion. Dad also had another nickname ... Yogi. A neighbor and close friend gave him that name because our family name is pronounced exactly as is the famous baseball player, Yogi Berra. That's odd because our family name is spelled Bara which very few people pronounce correctly. Then, too, I have no idea why it is pronounced the way it is. It certainly isn't Polish. Only my dad's neighbor friend called him Yogi, as did all the brothers of the Moose Lodge which dad eventually joined. Nobody in his family called him Yogi.
So, now you know how I got the name for this account.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
That's a shame. It would have been nice if at least one of your relatives held on to the family records.
Our family has always considered our ancestors as being from Germany. The city of Dieffenbach to be exact. But that was only like 4 or 5 generations back. In going through aunt Mary's old records, and records from the churches, I learned a lot more.
The main area we are from, was Alsace-Lorraine, which was part time under French Rule and part time under German Rule.
But I managed to get past that, all the way to the 1600s and found we migrated from The Holy Roman Empire, basically moving along with other Germanic Speaking peoples. I have the routes my ancestors followed, what they did, and why they went one direction when it made more sense to go in another direction. The German Speaking folks all stayed together is one reason why.
But many of my a little bit closer ancestors spoke both German and French out of necessity of the times, and jobs of course.
Once we migrated to America, most of my close ancestors all learned English almost to a fault. And my grandfather, dad's dad, insisted his kids learned English to near perfection. But then he did also, even though he used a lot of German due to many of our employees not knowing English yet, but he taught them too, hi hi.
It seems a lot of folks names changed after the immigrated to the states. I know a few who were given unseemly names by those who worked at the immigration places, hi hi.
Our family has always considered our ancestors as being from Germany. The city of Dieffenbach to be exact. But that was only like 4 or 5 generations back. In going through aunt Mary's old records, and records from the churches, I learned a lot more.
The main area we are from, was Alsace-Lorraine, which was part time under French Rule and part time under German Rule.
But I managed to get past that, all the way to the 1600s and found we migrated from The Holy Roman Empire, basically moving along with other Germanic Speaking peoples. I have the routes my ancestors followed, what they did, and why they went one direction when it made more sense to go in another direction. The German Speaking folks all stayed together is one reason why.
But many of my a little bit closer ancestors spoke both German and French out of necessity of the times, and jobs of course.
Once we migrated to America, most of my close ancestors all learned English almost to a fault. And my grandfather, dad's dad, insisted his kids learned English to near perfection. But then he did also, even though he used a lot of German due to many of our employees not knowing English yet, but he taught them too, hi hi.
It seems a lot of folks names changed after the immigrated to the states. I know a few who were given unseemly names by those who worked at the immigration places, hi hi.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Knowing the derivation of our family name would have been one reason to investigate our ancestry. Bara could be Polish, but it seems a bit unusual. It probably was changed to that somewhere along the line but none of the aunts nor uncles had any clue. Grandma and grandpa died while I was young and they didn't speak English very much, plus I was too young to ask them at the time anyway. It might be possible to find records, but it would only satisfy my curiosity. I don't know where most of the cousins are these days and they certainly have not attempted to find me. So, it's down to nobody really caring much about the family. I get to have the last laugh, however. As far as I know I am the end of the line for the family name. I couldn't think of a better place for it to end.
As an aside, my oldest daughter did some Internet research of our family name. She came up with two or three ancestry sites, and I don't think ancestry.com was one of them. None of the sites she found had anywhere near a complete listing of my dad's family. Some of the information was incorrect as well. She could not determine where the information came from or how it got posted onto the websites, but I was amazed that any of it was correct at all.
As an aside, my oldest daughter did some Internet research of our family name. She came up with two or three ancestry sites, and I don't think ancestry.com was one of them. None of the sites she found had anywhere near a complete listing of my dad's family. Some of the information was incorrect as well. She could not determine where the information came from or how it got posted onto the websites, but I was amazed that any of it was correct at all.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
There are a couple of World Family Trees out there, an Everybody all inclusive trees they are. Members can change the data for anyone though, if they have better research documents than the person who added a name in the first place or built on that name.
I spent a few months on both of them, trying to glean out the errors I found. Providing source data and documentation. Then I had other things to do, and when I stopped back in again, somebody changed things around again, adding the errors back in again, claiming they had documentation also. They did have documentation, but were applying it to the wrong family group. I left a message telling them who and where the family that those documents fit were in the tree, but never saw they put the data where it belonged.
I worked at the LDS Family History Center for about 4 years adding data for them. But I didn't really like how their system worked. It was very hard to use.
If I had the time, I would see what I could find out for you, I have access to many solid sources of reference material right now. But I'm trying to get as much as I can added to my family tree, because I won't be able to afford it much longer. The price goes up 20% in November, so I'm doing as much as I can right now.
We have folks on my grandmothers side on my mom's side of the family who spell their names in different ways. And unless you knew each person individually, you wouldn't know how they spelt their name. Heck, two brothers spell their name different from each other and different than their father spelled it. But when doing genealogy work, I always use the name given at birth, even if they changed it later, in that case I put it in the notes with the date of change.
My grandma's name gets reversed and butchered by nearly every one. Most of her friends called her Izora, or Zoney.
And many official documents have her listed as Izora Z. Giles, which is what she normally used. Sometimes she used Izora T. Giles, which women often use their maiden name initial for their middle initial.
I know what her birth name was, so that is what I use in my genealogy family tree. And I've had folks tell me that is wrong, hi hi. I usually send them a copy of her birth certificate, grade school enrollment forms, and marriage license as proof. After that, a few have changed their databases to show the correct order of her name. Which is Zonia Izora!
I spent a few months on both of them, trying to glean out the errors I found. Providing source data and documentation. Then I had other things to do, and when I stopped back in again, somebody changed things around again, adding the errors back in again, claiming they had documentation also. They did have documentation, but were applying it to the wrong family group. I left a message telling them who and where the family that those documents fit were in the tree, but never saw they put the data where it belonged.
I worked at the LDS Family History Center for about 4 years adding data for them. But I didn't really like how their system worked. It was very hard to use.
If I had the time, I would see what I could find out for you, I have access to many solid sources of reference material right now. But I'm trying to get as much as I can added to my family tree, because I won't be able to afford it much longer. The price goes up 20% in November, so I'm doing as much as I can right now.
We have folks on my grandmothers side on my mom's side of the family who spell their names in different ways. And unless you knew each person individually, you wouldn't know how they spelt their name. Heck, two brothers spell their name different from each other and different than their father spelled it. But when doing genealogy work, I always use the name given at birth, even if they changed it later, in that case I put it in the notes with the date of change.
My grandma's name gets reversed and butchered by nearly every one. Most of her friends called her Izora, or Zoney.
And many official documents have her listed as Izora Z. Giles, which is what she normally used. Sometimes she used Izora T. Giles, which women often use their maiden name initial for their middle initial.
I know what her birth name was, so that is what I use in my genealogy family tree. And I've had folks tell me that is wrong, hi hi. I usually send them a copy of her birth certificate, grade school enrollment forms, and marriage license as proof. After that, a few have changed their databases to show the correct order of her name. Which is Zonia Izora!
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Some of the alphabets used in Europe, for example, have accent marks that do not appear in English. I've seen where those marks simply are eliminated from a family name, but I've also seen where the spelling was changed to match the phonetics as close as possible. Some of those accented sounds, however, simply do not occur in English so that could be a source of confusion. I can imagine what might happen when trying to combine German and French. LOL
I know what I know about the family, but it's all oral history. I'm certain I could dig up the real estate paperwork my grandpa must have been involved with when the family moved to Chicago. That is to say, if the county keeps records going back a hundred years or so. That's about all I'd know about documenting the family's movement. He came from Poland but I can't even say he was born or married there. That's part of the family mysteries. Some long gone aunt or uncle might have known more about grandpa and grandma, but that information died with them. As far as the family name changing is concerned, that is only speculation. It doesn't sound Polish, but who knows? Mom's maiden name was Lis, which also doesn't sound very Polish, but that name directly translates to the Polish term for "fox." It would be interesting if you uncovered some changes to my family name, but that's not the reason I brought it up here. It's a curiosity but nothing than needs urgent investigation. You are a great friend and very generous, but please don't go out of your way to cater to my inanities.
I know what I know about the family, but it's all oral history. I'm certain I could dig up the real estate paperwork my grandpa must have been involved with when the family moved to Chicago. That is to say, if the county keeps records going back a hundred years or so. That's about all I'd know about documenting the family's movement. He came from Poland but I can't even say he was born or married there. That's part of the family mysteries. Some long gone aunt or uncle might have known more about grandpa and grandma, but that information died with them. As far as the family name changing is concerned, that is only speculation. It doesn't sound Polish, but who knows? Mom's maiden name was Lis, which also doesn't sound very Polish, but that name directly translates to the Polish term for "fox." It would be interesting if you uncovered some changes to my family name, but that's not the reason I brought it up here. It's a curiosity but nothing than needs urgent investigation. You are a great friend and very generous, but please don't go out of your way to cater to my inanities.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I never understood why some languages require the use of pronunciation symbols in order to read their words. The context of the sentence should be enough to figure it out like we do. E.g. John said he read the book I wanted him to read.
I don't have access to overseas documents, that costs a whopping amount of money to access, which of course I don't have.
I have to rely on others who could afford it, and who posted the source documents so I can read them for myself.
I don't have access to overseas documents, that costs a whopping amount of money to access, which of course I don't have.
I have to rely on others who could afford it, and who posted the source documents so I can read them for myself.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
o and ó are two versions of the letter O in the English language. They are pronounced differently and are not interchangeable. The accented version has no equivalent in English. The accent is like adding another letter to the standard Arabic alphabet and makes it context irrelevant. Your example of "read" in English leaves room for interpretation regarding how the word is spoken, and its meaning. That can't happen in Polish. I'm pretty sure the German umlaut is used for the same purpose. There are two versions of a, o, and u in that language and they change the meaning along with the pronunciation.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I've seen several poems where two words spelt the same were used in the same sentence, and we always get them right.
I'm sure you have as well.
But I've never seen the o with a caret you mentioned, not once, ever, in usage, in English.
Like Cafe with the slash over the e, is not an English word, although used heavily stateside.
I'm not the worlds best on the English language either, much less all the pronunciation marks used in the Dictionaries for same.
I'm sure you have as well.
But I've never seen the o with a caret you mentioned, not once, ever, in usage, in English.
Like Cafe with the slash over the e, is not an English word, although used heavily stateside.
I'm not the worlds best on the English language either, much less all the pronunciation marks used in the Dictionaries for same.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I don't think the English language uses diacritical marks anywhere. Our alphabet is 26 characters with no variations. Some English alphabet characters have different sounds depending on the word it's in, extra and xenia for example. Then there is Xerox with two different sounds for "x" in the same word. This does not occur in languages such as German, Spanish, and Polish where some letters have diacritical marks to indicate an alternate pronunciation of the same character. This is one of the reasons English is so difficult to learn for non-English speaking people. There are a lot of exceptions depending on context. Those exceptions are few and far between, or actually non-existent, in most other languages.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
We also have a whole lot more words in the English vocabulary than any other language.
This makes direct translation from many very hard, unless you know the English word that replaces their phrase.
An example: Pomme de Terre, directly translated to English is Apple of the Earth, we have a word for them, Potato.
A simple one is Arc en Ciel, directly translated is Arc in the Sky, we have a word for that too, Rainbow.
If you take an English paragraph and translate it to German, then from German to French, then from French back to German, you wouldn't recognize it from the original paragraph. Albeit, some translation engines are getting better. BUT, the big problem is, we have many phrases we use, and so do many foreign languages, that have NO English counterpart that would make sense. Because it is often plays on words. Like, she wouldn't for a Russian, but she would for a Fin. A Fin is Slang for a 5 dollar bill.
I have a phrase I use quite often, usually written and posted on-line.
Vy Iz Der Tzo Minny Moe Orzziz Azzis Dan Der Iz Orzziz?
You almost have to mumble that out loud to yourself to catch what I said, hi hi.
This makes direct translation from many very hard, unless you know the English word that replaces their phrase.
An example: Pomme de Terre, directly translated to English is Apple of the Earth, we have a word for them, Potato.
A simple one is Arc en Ciel, directly translated is Arc in the Sky, we have a word for that too, Rainbow.
If you take an English paragraph and translate it to German, then from German to French, then from French back to German, you wouldn't recognize it from the original paragraph. Albeit, some translation engines are getting better. BUT, the big problem is, we have many phrases we use, and so do many foreign languages, that have NO English counterpart that would make sense. Because it is often plays on words. Like, she wouldn't for a Russian, but she would for a Fin. A Fin is Slang for a 5 dollar bill.
I have a phrase I use quite often, usually written and posted on-line.
Vy Iz Der Tzo Minny Moe Orzziz Azzis Dan Der Iz Orzziz?
You almost have to mumble that out loud to yourself to catch what I said, hi hi.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I've read about some problems translating ancient and even not so ancient languages. In primitive languages the concept of motion, for example, can be stated in a single word but the exact motion being referred to is implied. It could be said a man is moving from one location to another, but there is no way to say whether he is walking, crawling, running, or swimming. The entire context of the concept of motion needs to be known in order to understand what kind of motion that man is involved with. Also, you are correct about the proliferation of words in the English language, and that is a good thing in our day and age. But there is no way to explain to that 5000 year old man that your neighbor is driving his car as opposed to driving a nail.
You and I have talked about the above problem when we discussed translating the Bible. Some things in the original scriptures simply have no English equivalent.
You and I have talked about the above problem when we discussed translating the Bible. Some things in the original scriptures simply have no English equivalent.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
I just love reading some of the advertisements from the early 1800s, the wording they used, although grammatically correct, sounds really weird today. Clark and Son's Mercantile has REMOVED to 816 Elm Street. Why the Removed instead of just Moved?
The letter "J" was not used in writing until the mid-17th century. And the Bible was rewritten in 1769 to make heavy use of this new letter "J." Reading the 1611 English version of the bible can sometimes make your head swim. And then my late wife's two kids were both fluent in Hebrew, and they would read what was written in their Bible for me to compare to our KJV bibles. Many of the phrases in our KJV bibles mean something different than the same phrases in the Hebrew bibles.
Even so, the KJV is considered to be the most accurate translation to English, more so than any other Translation. Also the sources used for the KJV were more accurate than many other bibles got their text from also.
The letter "J" was not used in writing until the mid-17th century. And the Bible was rewritten in 1769 to make heavy use of this new letter "J." Reading the 1611 English version of the bible can sometimes make your head swim. And then my late wife's two kids were both fluent in Hebrew, and they would read what was written in their Bible for me to compare to our KJV bibles. Many of the phrases in our KJV bibles mean something different than the same phrases in the Hebrew bibles.
Even so, the KJV is considered to be the most accurate translation to English, more so than any other Translation. Also the sources used for the KJV were more accurate than many other bibles got their text from also.
Re: Pencil Sharpener
Translating Bible scriptures reminds me of originalist judges interpreting the U S Constitution. The original wording is so vague that certain points need to be brought before the Supreme Court for clarification. That clarification, or translation, is biased by what the jurist believes to be the original intent of the author. In some cases it's obvious, but many times more than one translation is equally valid. I don't know much about the Torah but I do know even that collection has multiple authors whose original intentions can only be assumed. Then, to translate that again into something like the King James Bible can only complicate the matter.