I ♥ NY, Sorta

Oh, New York. I want to love you. I do. But those mountains of paper make it hard, not to mention the records you won’t even let me see. Thank goodness for all those hard-working people who are trying to bridge the gap between us.

Today’s happy discovery is AmericanAncestors – New York Resources. AmericanAncestors is the reincarnation of the old New England Genealogical Historic Society web site, which – hello, has the words NEW ENGLAND in it – and therefore doesn’t seem very New Yorkish. Don’t be fooled.

My current research includes the SNECKNER family, many of whom were bakers and master confectioners in NYC from about 1830 to 1900. They owned storefronts. Put ads in papers. Published recipes. Lived in the same spot generation after generation. And they were pretty easy to find through ProQuest’s digitized New York Times archives, city directories, and census records. But AA-NYR had even more juicy goodness, and thanks to their attention to smaller newspapers and transcribed announcements, I was able to fill in a few blank dates and find some remarkable personal news coverage.

Thanks, AmericanAncestors!

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Thanks, Virginia!

New Year’s Day, 1863 dawned with surprisingly cold skies. The weeks before had felt more like early summer, but the sudden cold snap reminded the people of Virginia that it was, indeed, the Christmas season.  History would later call this a special day, the day President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and freed the slaves of the Civil War south.* But it made no difference to Elizabeth. For one thing, like a third of the black people who lived on the Eastern Shore, she was already free. And even if she weren’t free, the Eastern Shore was an exception, decreed in the document to be left “precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”

Photo courtesy of Eastern Shore Public Library

So begins the project I just finished. African American genealogy is new to me, and I tiptoed into it the way you might wade into a muddy swamp. I knew the tangled vines and quicksand were there – I just couldn’t see them. But this project was for a friend, so I really wanted to do it despite the challenges.

When I began this project I assumed I would hit a wall in records before 1865, the year the Civil War ended. I knew that slaves weren’t enumerated by name in census records and that birth, marriage and death records would be almost non-existent.

How lucky, then, that this family turned out to be part of a free black community in Accomack County, Virginia. There they were, in census records beginning in 1800. And – joy! – a tiny handful of vital records had survived. It was enough to get started, and I turned to my usual favorite research sites.

Hah.

There were no cemetery records – unmarked graves were the norm for people of color. There were no church records or newspaper accounts, no city directories, and no military anything. So I put on my beginner’s mind and started fresh. What did I want to know? Who could help me?

Three resources were profoundly helpful to me. So helpful, in fact, that they’ve inspired me to start my own little “Gratitude Grants” program. Beginning with this project, I will donate a percentage of my project fees to a non-profit organization (or two – or three!) that was crucial to my research.

• Accomac Roots** is clearly a labor of love, an effort to uncover and preserve the heritage of the black families living in Accomack County. Their work was a solid stepping stone for me in understanding the local culture of the time, not to mention the family lines.
• Library of Virginia has preserved many unusual records, including deeds of manumission (the documents used to free slaves) and early census records of free blacks. Using interlibrary loan from my own beloved public library I was able to access all of this information for practically nothing.
• Eastern Shore Public Library. Because the family I was researching had very common first names and very few records, it was incredibly useful to research the white families they were living near or working for. The ESPL’s Miles Files helped me untangle the families, wills, and land records that indicated where and how my research subjects were living.

To Accomac Roots, The Library of Virginia, and Eastern Shore Public Library – thank you! The check is in the mail.

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* Today we imagine this momentous event happening with speeches, banners, balconies, and cheering crowds. In fact, it was just a single sheet of paper, signed without ceremony in front of a handful of people, then sent to the Department of State to be sealed and deposited in the government archives. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/emancipation.htm

** Don’t get hung up on the spelling. Accomac is a town in Accomack County, which adopted the “k” in later years just to confuse genealogists.

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Of 1940 and Roller Skates

Uncle Elmer could fly, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at him. He was a big man, not much for small talk, with feet planted solidly on the ground. Like his sister – my grandmother – he was made of equal parts honey and vinegar, and fools quaked in his presence. Including me. As a 13-year-old girl I was by definition foolish, and so he rarely paid attention to me. Except at the roller rink. The women his age weren’t too keen about strapping wheels onto their feet and spinning under a disco ball. I was only too eager, though.

Uncle Elmer was a strong and confident dancer on skates, while I was scrawny and awkward (read “easy to push around”). My only job was to hang on for the entire glorious flight. It was impossible to fall – sheer momentum kept me moving forward. But if I let go I would surely go sailing into a wall.

Much later I learned that Elmer Mason had been a professional roller skater in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. By day he worked in a shoe mill. At night he performed with “The Whirlwind Trio” at fairs and festivals throughout Maine, with unlimited practice time at the nearby rink managed by his brother, my Uncle Roy. But there are gaps in my knowledge. How close did he live to his brother? To the rink? Did he make much money at it? Was he consistently employed at the mills, or was his wife – a nurse – the more stable breadwinner?

This is why I am volunteering to help index the 1940 US Census:  I want to know more about the man who could fly.

The Whirlwind Trio of Lewiston, Maine (newspaper unknown).

The Whirlwind Trio, circa 1940. (Photo courtesy of private family collection.)

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Of Sturdy Germans and Photocopied Pioneers

I have spent the better part of the afternoon paging through the 1906 Atlas for Carroll County, Iowa. Pictures! Pictures galore! But alas – not many from the families I’m looking for: Buchheit, Beiter, and Hannasch. Still, let’s admire all these sturdy German immigrants who were their friends and neighbors. Here’s dear old J.P. Lasher of Sheridan Township. Was he upset when he saw his picture and realized his eyes were closed? Or did he close them on purpose? And here is the Reverend B.A. Schultz, superimposed on a photo of Sacred Heart Church. Frown lines crease his brow, but the tiniest slip of a smile plays at the corner of his mouth. Ah – and here is the thin, bird-like Verena (Huber) Bowman, with her ill-fitting dress and sad eyes. She had died 26 years earlier, but evidently was still a valued member of society.

I was thrilled and relieved to discover this atlas in the Iowa Digital Library. Thrilled because – hello – it’s awesome. And relieved because earlier I had found the same atlas in NewspaperArchive.com and … it sucked. Rather than being scanned, it had been photocopied, and the pictures (while better than nothing) were awful. This is not to knock NewspaperArchive (too much). They’re one of my primary sources for newspaper research, and they do tons of great work. And who knows what the backstory is – whether they even had access to scanned versions. And neither version was well indexed – which is why I had to look at each photo individually. Still, the difference is huge. So thank you Hawkeyes!

The photocopied photo from NewspaperArchive.com

The scanned photo from Iowa Digital Library

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