Research Obsessions

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by wildernesse

I am working on a set of little booklets of my grandparents' ancestors for Christmas, so if you have ever done something like that, advice would be greatly welcomed.

Try your best to put it in a narrative form for the booklet. It reads like actual people that way and is more engaging.

[wildernesse]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Try your best to put it in a narrative form for the booklet. It reads like actual people that way and is more engaging.

I've been writing my basic facts up that way actually, because I've been sharing it with some family members who aren't genealogy freaks and it has made a lot of difference in the way I have been able to think about the people, too. I want to have a family tree chart so that it is easy to see how those distant people connect, and then I think I am going to just focus on telling the story from 1776 forward. Just direct line, because I don't have time (or the inclination) to trace all the cousins and what not. 1776 because the booklets have to have an endpoint or this project is a never-ending rabbit hole. Not that I expect to get everyone back to 1776, but it's a goal I can work towards until Oct. 31, when I have to stop and work on formatting and printing.

I've written about a dozen unposted posts on this topic over the past couple of months, which has really helped me think about where I'm having problems.

One of my adventures was finding my ancestors who came to the US, but most of the time I can't get them out of Virginia in the early 1700's or late 1600's. Unless, of course, they spontaneously generated.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Liv, BB2 will be happy to talk your ear off about WWI. It's one of his favorite subjects.

For me, this weekend has been about learning about being a librarian.

[LadyShea]

One of my adventures was finding my ancestors who came to the US, but most of the time I can't get them out of Virginia in the early 1700's or late 1600's. Unless, of course, they spontaneously generated.

Colonial US is a bitch, because so many people just showed up on boats and took up residence without any records.

We have one set of brothers that came from Germany, and we found some sort of public blessing from their German church for the settlers who were leaving there. The rest were like fugitives or stowaways or adventurers and just appeared.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Try your best to put it in a narrative form for the booklet. It reads like actual people that way and is more engaging.

Or you could write it like the Bible. Just a long-ass series of begats.

[livius drusus]

Yes hello! I am currently in the midst of a huge new research obsession that has taken me all kinds of fascinating places in just a few hours.

It all started with the 1940 Census records. They're being released online April 2nd and I'm psyched as hell about it because my parents were born in 1937 so this is the first census that will (hopefully) include them. In preparation for that happy day, I looked up their enumeration districts (the area covered by a given census taker) so I'll be armed and ready as soon as the population schedules are published.

I found a map of my father's enumeration district which covers the entire tiny town he lived in as a boy and lives in now, and on said map there was a spot labelled "Marlboro Mills." As far as I knew, this town was a farming community and a one-horse one at that, so I called my dad to ask him if he knew of any mills, like, two feet from where he grew up. He did not but it piqued his interest so he called up the local historian and asked her.

It turns out there were indeed mills in that spot starting in the early 19th century, several of them, in fact, all dedicated to the production of a blue cotton stripe fabric sometimes known as osnaburg but most often known as "Negro cloth" because it was sold exclusively to Southern plantation owners for slave clothing.

According to Missus Historian, these textile mills were worked by Irish and Italian immigrants who lived in shanties on the mill property and were reputed to be brawling drunks. Murders, one hears, occurred. The Yankee farmers did not approve.

Disapproved of or not, the mill workers enjoyed regular refreshment at a certain saloon close to their living quarters. This was not the lovely and historic tavern at the center of town where respectable travelers could find appropriate food and lodging. This was the dive bar. That same building would later become the package store where my father purchased his first legal alcohol when he turned 21. That same building is now the town arts center where my mother is a docent.

But wait, there's more! One of the workers at the mill during the 1820s was a 14-year-old John Colt, brother of Samuel Colt of revolver fame. Little John turned out to be something of an accounting prodigy, working his way up to assistant bookkeeper within a year. Then he quit and wandered the country for the next 15 years or so, doing stints as a riverboat gambler, a teacher and author of hugely popular textbooks on double-entry bookkeeping.

In 1841 he was living in New York City with a pregnant woman not his wife. When printer Samuel Adams showed up to collect a debt, they argued over the amount owed and Colt took a hatchet to his skull. He tried to dispose of the body by packing it in salt in a crate and hiring a carter to bring it to a ship that was supposed to leave for New Orleans the next morning.

The ship was delayed, Adams family raised a stink, various people saw him and Colt argue and saw the carter take away a large crate. The mayor of New York asked the city Superintendent of Carts (!!!!), William Godfrey, to track down that carter and he did. Next thing you know, stevedores were pulling a salt-packed body out of the ship's hold. Colt was arrested and because his brother Samuel was famous and because of John's seedy past and present, the murder made huge news. It wiped the previous popular murder (of pretty white cigar girl Mary Rogers, later fictionalized by Edgar Allen Poe in "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt") off the front page.

The trial was crazy. Samuel Colt was called to testify. John Colt was seen as arrogant and unrepentant and nobody bought his self-defense excuse. He was convicted. He appealed and lost, his last appeal rejected by New York Governor William Seward, as in future Secretary of State William Seward. On the morning of his execution, he married his pregnant girlfriend in the Tombs, then he stabbed himself in the heart and died.

So. What have y'all been up to today?

[LadyShea]

Dude!

[Kyuss Apollo]

Oh that's absolutely brilliant liv!

Just wait 'til you get your hands on the actual census.

[livius drusus]

I know, right?! I seriously cannot wait.

Oh! And I forgot to say that after the Civil War, the mills never really found a market for their goods again. Two of the mills burned down in the 1860s. They were rebuilt and set to manufacturing silk ribbon, but they soon went out of business. Another fire in 1907 left nothing behind but the foundations and that was the end of industrial production in this wee Connecticut town. They stuck with farming from there on in.

My father was born 30 years later and even though he was raised literally yards away from the ruins, he had no idea until I called him today that there had ever been textile mills right next door to him.

[livius drusus]

OMG latest discovery!!1 The apartment John Colt lived in where he axe murdered Samuel Adams was on the second floor of a building on the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway, in what is today toney Tribeca.

Fifteen years after the murder, Delmonico's Restaurant moved in to the apartments directly underneath Colt's. Delmonico's. The first restaurant to be called a restaurant. The first restaurant with an a la carte menu, whose inventions include such unparalleled classics as Eggs Benedict, Lobster Newburg, Oysters Rockefeller and Baked Alaska.

[LadyShea]

Okay, that is an awesome rabbit hole adventure, and only a day or so??

[Ymir's blood]

Whilst reading up on Tammany Hall, I discovered the organization actually lasted until the '60s, when a coalition led by Eleanore Roosevelt kicked in their doors and smashed in their teeth destroyed their power in revenge for ruining FDR Jr.'s chance of winning the NY governorship.

Also Boss Tweed once escaped jail and attempted to flee to Spain. He was recaptured because someone recognized him from Thomas Nast's political cartoons.

[Crumb]

Sure, but did you turn up the 2007 recently re-released (via Kickstarter) board game? Tammany Hall | Board Game | BoardGameGeek Huh?

[Ymir's blood]

Um, yeah. It was on the first page of Google results.

[Crumb]

Oh. Ok then.

[koan]

Got side tracked yesterday researching Israel's slaughtering of hundreds of Egyptian POWs in the Six Day War. Had one POW dig a hole, then shot him and others while they stood in it until the grave was full... repeat. They claim it's too long ago to hold anyone legally accountable for the mass murders. Hmmm. I didn't realize there was a time limit on how long war crimes matter.

Came across the subject as one guess on why Israel attacked the USS Liberty... for which it is also immune.

[BrotherMan]

This is where I meant to put this.

I thought this might be, sort of, kinda, tangentially relevant to interests here. CGPGrey, youtuber and explainer of things, writes about his process. Watching his youtubes and listening to his podcast (with co-host Brady Haran), I shouldn't have been surprised at how much effort he puts behind his videos.n I was amazed at how many collections as he calls them he has.

[Crumb]

I love their podcast!