"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there" - Leslie Poles Hartley

From The St. Louis Republic. (St. Louis, Mo.), 29 Mar 1903, unpaged [image 68]; digital image, Chronicling America: Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020274/1903-03-29/ed-1/seq-68/) : accessed 21 Apr 2018.

I started out today intending to post about paper dolls in advertising in the 1800s/1900s.  I have long been aware of their existence, as I collected paper dolls as a child and had a Dover publication on that topic.  When I looked up "paper doll" this morning in Chronicling America it confirmed my suspicion that newspapers also occasionally printed paper dolls to interest the younger readers, as the above graphic shows.

But I was derailed from today's topic by the ludicrous and totally random comic below the paper doll:

Let's just say that title would not be allowed today.

The quality is so bad on this image, but it looks like they ended up dismembering him??

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Today's Impulse Buy!

What can I say?

[Mine, all  mine!]

These made me laugh--and they were half price.


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Because It's Been One of Those Days...

Tomorrow will be better.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

A little Thursday humor

FamilySearch is looking for funny stories and humorous memories that you and your family (immediate or extended family) might have and would like to share with the world. We will use them as part of our social media page campaign and post them on our FamilySearch Facebook page. Then you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve made the world a little bit better by making others smile with your funny family story.

Ma Pete, Pete, and a cousin (probably 1950's).  Courtesy of Olive Kennedy.

This reminds me of a funny story I found about my biological grandmother Alta Slater's father Harry Slater, her uncle Pete Slater, and Pete's wife Evelyn ("Ma Pete") and the family pet magpie, Jake.  The moral of the story is, don't repeat language you don't want your pet to repeat.

The story takes place in Niwot, Boulder, Colorado.

***Interview between Don Spangler and Anne Dyni in 1998.  On page 15 of the document there is discussion about local newspapers between A.D. and D.S.  First they talk a bit about a local newspaper man, Lee Newell, then it comes to this:
A.D.: You mentioned churches.  What churches were in town?
D.S: In my time, the Evangelical Church was the only one right here on Franklin Street.  Later there was one built down south of town I have no recollection of.  Now it's gone.  Of course, I don't remember the one on Second Avenue because Harry Slater lived there when I was a kid, with two sons.
A.D.:  Didn't Harry Slater have a little newspaper himself?
D.S.:  Yeah.  I don't know if it was Harry or Pete.
A.D.:  Oh, maybe it was Pete.
D.S.: There's an article in part of Doyle's when he quit the paper.  It was Pete that had that paper.
A.D.: Did you know Pete?
D.S.: Oh yeah.
A.D.: Can you describe him?
D.S.: Both Harry and Pete were bricklayers.  And they had a hod carrier, Tony DiSanto, lived up on the hill.  That's all he did.  All winter Tony saved all his summer money and he just laid around in the winter.  They were bricklayers.
A.D.: What did Harry and Pete do in the winter?
D.S.: They saved their money.  They didn't do anything.  You can't lay brick in the wintertime.
A.D.: Can you describe Ma Pete to me?
D.S.: Not really.  She was a loud-mouth. She talked a lot.  She swore a lot.  The magpie that Herb (her son) had was Ma Pete's voice (laughter).  And he could swear just like Ma Pete.  I remember one story that she told me about Jake the magpie, because that's really the only thing we had in common.  Herb and I didn't hang out together because he was older than me.  She had gone down in the basement.  Jake was kept in the basement.  And of course the windows were open and he whistled at the dogs that went by and drove 'em nuts.  He called "Kitty, kitty, kitty" and every cat in town would come over and look at him and give an "I got fooled again" type of look and walk away.  But that was Ma Pete's voice.  And she was down in the basement doin' something and, I don't know.  He got to pestering her and she kind of pushed him off and gave him a scolding.  She went back upstairs and when she got upstairs she heard breaking glass.  So she goes back down in the basement and here's old Jake...he gets up behind an old fruit jar that's empty and pushes it off on the floor.  Then he turns to her and says, "Go to hell.  Go to hell".  (laughter)
A.D.:  Well what about the time he got loose?
D.S.: Yeah, that's when he got down here.  There was an old guy by the name of Frank Reeves who, after he passed away (he was a little eccentric) and they found his basement was just lined with canned goods.  Because of the war he was afraid of starving to death, of being bombed.  And his basement was lined with canned goods.  He was goin' to last a while. But he had a cherry orchard out in the back yard and the birds constantly raided his cherry orchard.  So he was out there with his shotgun.  And he'd make waves, maybe he didn't kill one of 'em but at least he scared the birds away.  And Herb came whistling past my place on his bicycle.  "Where you goin', Herb".  And he says, "Jake got away." So I got on my bicycle and followed Herb and when we get down to Frank Reeves place, he's standing in his back yard with his shotgun in his hand, and he's white. He's pale.  Herb said, "You didn't shoot my magpie, did you?" He says, "Is that your magpie?"  He says, yeah."  He says, "No, I didn't shoot him.  He told me to go to hell."  (laughter).  It scared him about half to death.  Anyway, Herb retrieved his magpie.  But that Jake was really funny..

***I originally found this excerpt from a longer interview at 
http://www.bouldercounty.org/lu/ludockets/hp/hp_2010/hp100001/hp100001app.PDF, 
but the Boulder County website has subsequently changed and I can no longer find the file.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Har! Pirate Genealogy

The Flag of Edward England, otherwise known as "The Jolly Roger."

Ahoy! Do ye have a pirate ancestor?

Blimey! I don't know of any in my line, but I went to thee prom with a guy who claimed he was a descendant of Jean LaFitte.  Alas! And I believe one of my cousins is married to a descendant or either a pirate or buccaneer.

Thar be places to look if ye suspect a pirate lurks in yer clan tree.

Blacksheep Ancestors (worth a look any time of the year) has a section devoted to pirates.

Yo-ho-ho! The Genealogist had a featured article on thee subject in 2011.

Cyndi's List has a section for pirates and buccaneers.

Ancestry featured an article last year by D. Brenton Simons and Michael J. Leclerc called "They Came from the Family Tree: Finding Scoundrels, Misfits, and Other Colorful Ancestors" that includes pirates.



Wikipedia has a nice article on the history of piracy.

Thanks to SpeakPirate for the translation.






© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

School Days: My Certificate in Pond Biology

I was in a Math/Science curriculum in elementary school. In 5th grade we had a short course/module on pond biology, which included holding a frog.  After that I became a "Pond Biologist." Note that was written in quotes, which reminds me of Chris Farley's character Bennett Brauer's air quote skits:

I'm a "Pond Biologist."

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Hat Tip to a Classmate: Pinterest board "Hot Men from History"

People Magazine has famously been on the case for years.

When I'm doing genealogy research I sometimes wonder, who was the hot guy of this family?  Maybe it was the neighbor next door. Such a shame that since photography was developed so late in human history, we'll never know in most cases.

My classmate Susan has a great Pinterest board dedicated to nice-looking men from history.  I approve and consider this a very important field of inquiry.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Done!

So true.

I got NOTHING done on my own genealogy today. I'm taking the (awesome) Boston University genealogy certificate course and mid-semester brain drain has hit.



© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

The Census Takers: A Little Thursday Humor

Hannibal Lecter: 

"A census taker once tried to test me. 

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."

As someone who uses the American censuses regularly, I often think of census takers.  What was it like to do that job?  The job has always entailed weird and sometimes dangerous situations, but it must have also had it's share of humorous encounters.

The situation of asking perfect strangers questions about their household has always provided comedic fodder for fiction (much of it not politically correct BTW):

• this 2000 SNL "Census Taker" skit, 
• the 1940 Three Stooges "No Census, No Feeling,"  
• the short play "Taking the Census in Bingville" (published 1911),
• the poem "The Puzzled Census Taker" (published in 1883), 

The blog YesterYear Once More found this gem (1830).

The Census Bureau itself posted some humorous examples in the Census in Pop Culture Through the Decades.



© 2014 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Mind the Gap!

Over the years, I've found a lot of information using FamilySearch.org, especially in their unindexed legal and probate records. But sometimes what I'm looking for just isn't there.

And of course, any records regarding the ancestor I was researching had fallen into the gap.

Source: "New Jersey, Probate Records, 1678-1980," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1971-29796-21995-69?cc=2018330&wc=MM1F-8T6%3A1259783228 : accessed 05 Nov 2013), Burlington > Miscellaneous probate records 1749-1804 file no S > images 6 through 9 of 873.

© 2014 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.