Checking Out AncestryDNA's "The Unique Sound of Your Ancestry" List

It asks for the top 5 ethnicities, I only seem to have 4 main ones, so I also included Germanic Europe since Mom has that (I guess I could have chosen France instead).

I looked at the AncestryDNA/Spotify promotion of "The Unique Sound of Your Ancestry."  I haven't heard of a lot of these bands/songs:

The first three are world famous British bands (Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, and The Beatles).  I am not sure who Alan Walker and Karin Park are (Norwegian and Swedish apparently).

Never heard of any of them: Store P (Norway), Evneverk (Norway), Razika (Norway), The Coronas (Ireland), and The Script (Ireland).

I know who Nenah Cherry (Sweden) is, but Soule (Ireland), Foy Vance (Northern Ireland), GRANT (Sweden), and 1987 (Sweden) are new to me.

Never heard of them: The Tallest Man on Earth (Sweden), Mocky (Canada, traces back to England), Lions Head (German via USA), Alle Farben (Germany), and Capital Bra (Germany).

New stuff to listen to!


© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Johannes Magendanz (1878-1964), Musician

How did this German pianist, born in what is now Gniew, Poland, on January 22, 1878, and educated at Berlin University, find a place in my extended family tree?

An examination of his arrival in New York on board the S.S. Rhein in 1905 provides a substantial clue: he was bound for Tuskegee, Alabama, where some of my great great great grandmother Timney P. Watts Warren Phillips' descendants were still living.

[I found this image at The Linosaurus]

[Year: 1905; Arrival: New York, New York; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Microfilm Roll: Roll 0619; Line: 1; Page Number: 62. Ship or Roll Number : Roll 0619. Ancestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897.

Microfilm Publication M237, 675 rolls. NAI: 6256867. ]

[Detail of above page]

The above snippet gives us a further clue for his destination. Dr. John Massey was the President of the Alabama Conference Female College from 1876 to 1909.*

[Courtesy of Huntingdon College Archives and Special Collections]

The year after his arrival, Johannes married a student at the college, Velma De Bardeleben (1884-1967), Timney's great granddaughter and my second cousin, twice removed.** The couple's oldest child was born in Alabama in 1907.

By 1910 the family was living in Lincoln, Nebraska, where Johannes had been named Director of the Conservatory and Head of the Piano Department at the Nebraska Wesleyan University.

[Piano Recital, Johannes Magendanz. Source: Nebraska Memories]

However he doesn't appear to have remained in Oklahoma for long as the 1911 second semester catalogue for the college shows:

[Catalogue by Nebraska Wesleyan University, 1911-12. Source: Archives.org]

And in 1912 he had moved his family to New York State, where he and Alfred H. Jay were Directors of the Utica Conservatory of Music.

[The Ogdensburg journal. (Ogdensburg, N.Y.) 1868-1916, August 18, 1913, Page 2, Image 2.

Image provided by Northern NY Library Network]

Here's his listing in a Who's Who in music published in 1918.

[International Who's who in Music and Musical Gazetteer: A Contemporary Biographical Dictionary and a Record of the World's Musical Activity, Current literature publishing Company, 1918. Source: Google Books.]

Johannes and Velma remained in Utica for the rest of their lives and established a musical dynasty. Here's a photo of Johannes and son Felix taken the year before his death.

[Source: Old Fulton NY Post Cards By Tom Tryniski]

And an article from the same source about the family.

[Source: Old Fulton NY Post Cards By Tom Tryniski]

*Originally founded as the Tuskegee Female College in 1854, it's now called Huntingdon College and was moved to Montgomery in 1909.
**Here's her family tree back to Timney and her second husband John P. Phillips.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Revolutionary War Soldier Owen Madden's Songbook

You may have noticed that there was a fifer and drummer in my ancestor Abraham Heath's company of the 6th Virginia Regiment.

[Revolutionary War Rolls, the National Archives (NARA #602384) fold3.com]

To better understand the vital role of these musicians, you can read what historian John U. Rees has to say on the subject here.

"The position of a fifer or drummer was not necessarily an easy one to fill. They were expected to learn the many tunes played in the army, from popular melodies like "Roslyn Castle" to practical beats such as "Water Call" or "Roast Beef." In an eighteenth century army music was used to transmit orders and to regulate the daily routine of the soldiers. In camp the reveille and tattoo denoted the beginning and end of the soldier's day. Other calls signaled the men to assemble for meals or for detachments to gather wood and water. If the army was ordered to march the routine of the troops prior to setting off, and the accompanying music, was adjusted accordingly. While on the move music provided a cadence to regulate the rate of march, and in battle drums and fifes could transmit or supplement the commands of the officers and would hopefully bolster the morale of the soldiers to some degree."

The Museum of the American Revolution has added a number of video in which their intern Matt Skic plays his fife along to a tunebook in their collection that was owned by Owen Madden, a fifer in the 3rd New York regiment.

[Scale Pages]

[Peggy's Brandy]

[Putman's Height]

[The 7 Stars]

[Boston March]

While I can't guarantee that the 6th Virginia Regiment's fifer Reuben Tucker played any of these tunes, it's great to hear the sort of sounds that Private Heath and his fellow soldiers would have heard daily.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Do You Have a Music Theme When You Are Doing Research?

Ace Ventura is looking for a championship ring with a missing stone in it.

I look for names (page by tedious page) in probate records on FamilySearch.  It seems more fun when I imagine the process as a montage in a wacky movie.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Old Time Music

Genealogy as commonly practiced is a quiet undertaking. But we have to remember that the people we're researching didn't live in a silent world (and it wasn't always just chickens and cows they were hearing).

[Music's Charms, c1896 Photo by Leo D. Weil.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA]

Our immigrant forefathers (and mothers) brought music with them from their homelands, whether they arrived in the early 17th century or stepped off the boat at Ellis Island one hundred years ago.

When Francis Scott Key was inspired to write the lyrics to our national anthem after seeing the flag still flying over after the British had bombarded Fort McHenry in 1814, he set it to an old popular tune, The Anacreontic Song, originally from London. But not all American music of the period was imported from abroad as the sheet music below demonstrates.

[The heroe of New Orleans battle of the memorable 8th January 1815 - composed ... by P. Laroque

Date Created/Published: Philadelphia : G. Willig, 1818

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540]

Music was used to stir up support during political campaigns like this 1840 tune for William Henry Harrison and his running mate John Tyler:

[Tippecanoe and Tyler too! A comic glee, Published Philadelphia: G.E. Blake 1840

Library of Congress, Music Division]

Just as our 19th century ancestors had access to fashion trends no matter where they lived, the same improved printing methods made a wide variety of sheet music available to consumers all over the country.

[Sweet Memories of Thee, c.1849 Original Copyright by Wm. Hall & Son. Lithograph by Sarony & Major, N.Y.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540]

North and South had their patriotic songs during the American Civil War, and songs to mourn the fallen afterwards.

[Chicora the original name of Carolina. Respectfully dedicated to the patriotic ladies of the Southern Confederated States of North America, 1861. Drawn by F. Roeth. Published by Thomas Sinclair, Philadelphia.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540]

[Hail! Glorious banner of our land. Spirit of the Union, c1861 Gibson & Co. (Cincinnati, Ohio).

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540]

[O'er graves of the loved ones Poetry and music by John P. Ordway, M.D

. Boston : Published by Oliver Ditson & Co. ; c1867.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540]]

And of course enslaved Africans brought their own musical traditions that profoundly influenced American music, beginning with Spirituals and Gospel, continuing through the Blues, Ragtime, Jazz, Rock and beyond

[Summit Avenue Ensemble, Atlanta, Georgia; Photographer: Thomas E. Askew, 1850?-1914

Part of  W.E.B. Du Bois albums of photographs of African Americans in Georgia exhibited at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900

Daniel Murray Collection (Library of Congress)]

We're fortunate that we can re-capture some of the sounds our ancestors enjoyed through collections to be found at Smithsonian Folkways and the Library of Congress.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.