A Princess Found

I believe all amateur genealogists share a common fantasy. We dream of the day when, after years of meticulous research, filing, and archiving we discover a notable ancestor. A notable ancestor is different things to different people. For some it could be a royal or noble connection, others prefer a little adventure in the form of a well-known outlaw.

If you think you have the end of this post figured out all I can say is don't get your hopes up. I've been searching for 25 years and all I have in my tree are a bunch of modest, law-abiding Europeans.

No, this post is not about my family research. Instead, it's about a young woman who hired a private investigator to locate her birth parents and quickly discovered that she was, herself, a princess. That's the very short version of the story, the one where I'm so exhausted from years of research I can barely summon the energy to be envious of what would be a fantastic GEDCOM entry.

The woman is Sarah Culberson and I met her yesterday when she came to speak at the school where I work. That's right, people, I met an actual princess. My blog can beat up your blog.

My original intent was to talk to Sarah about locating her birth parents and the discovery of her new found heritage, but she blew me away when she told me it took a private investigator all of three hours to find her parents. Seriously. My first big interview made a big thud as it hit the floor.

Sarah Culberson was born in Morgantown, West Virginia to an African father and a white mother. She was adopted from foster care by a white family when she was just a year old, and grew up with the desire to learn where she came from. When she was 28 and living in Los Angeles she hired a private investigator to help her track down her birth parents. That investigator really earned his paycheck that day because not only did he deliver the names of both parents he opened an amazing door for Sarah.

Sadly, Sarah's birth mother was no longer alive, but her father was living in a village in Sierra Leone, West Africa.  She learned that she is from a royal family, a Mahaloi, the granddaughter of a Paramount Chief, with the status of a Princess. The discovery of her unique heritage changed her life forever. Now, as co-founder and president of The Kposowa Foundation in Los Angeles, she and many others work to rebuild and improve opportunity for the people of Sierra Leone, and to improve education for the country’s youth. In addition to raising awareness about Sierra Leone, Sarah speaks nationally and internationally about her journey of discvoery, and wrote A Princess Found, a book about her African roots. I'm reading it now and will write a review when I'm done. (I'm pretty sure it will be a rave.)

A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All by Sarah Culberson and Tracey Trivas

Heart and Sole

JANUARY 4, 1887
On this day Great-grandfather Giovanni Battista born in Arnara, Frosinone, Italy.

He emigrated to Williamsport, PA in 1914 and found work as a fireman at the Keystone Glue Factory, a subsidiary of the United States Leather Company ... um, you do the math. Back then glue was manufactured just the way we remember from watching Saturday morning cartoons: with animal hides.

It sounds like a horrible job but like most immigrants he was probably grateful to have it.

FYI
Hunky: The Immigrant Experience
This book isn't about Italians, but I'm from Pittsburgh and I know Hunky.

What? You don't know what a Hunky is?

Merchants, Midwives, and Laboring Women: ITALIAN MIGRANTS IN URBAN AMERICA (Statue of Liberty Ellis Island)
Again, going off topic a bit, but not too much. My grandfather told me many people from Arnara migrated to the company town of Endicott, NY to work in the shoe factory. Turns out the factory was staffed with mostly women immigrants.

Centenario

One hundred years ago today my great-grandmother arrived at Ellis Island with her daughters Lucia, Carmena, and Maria Giuseppa. While her family back home in the Mediterranean celebrated festa dei sette pesci, the Christmas Eve feast of the seven fishes, Angelina's first glimpse of America was the icy air of New York Harbor. Despite traveling in the relatively luxurious second-class accommodations, it was probably not a very happy day for her. And she still had another 200 miles of travel to reach her destination of Muncy, PA, her waiting husband, and her new life. More on that later.

Ticket to Ride: October 30, 1911

The Immigrant Journey

The Feast of the Seven Fishes

This Stuff Writes Itself

These are the days of Movember. Moustache season. According to the Movember site men everywhere are growing moustaches, "mos", to raise awareness for prostate cancer and other men's health issues. Obviously this is a very good cause and the Movember site is well done and a lot fun. And for the lucky few who excel at mo production the site promises a variety of prizes for some lucky guys.

Yes, that's right, competitive moustache growing. There are going to be a bunch of guys running around thinking they look like Magnum PI ... but actually look like Mr. Kotter.

Luckily Movember only hath 30 days because as far as competitions go this one is pretty lame. Get back to me when you grow a 5K mo.

So here's the thing: Jared Roberts, if you can grow a mo as wide and fluffy as my great-great-Uncle Virgilio (pictured) I will donate $250 to your Movember page. In the event that you try to claim your prize, make no mistake, I will need to authenticate your mo, pulling out as much as it takes to prompt me to make good on my pledge.

Jarhead's Mo Space
Please donate! It's a great cause.

Prostate Cancer Foundation

Hair
the Cowsills

Ticket to Ride

OCTOBER 30, 1911
Great-Grandmother Angelina purchased a ticket for a trip from Italy to America on the SS Madonna. The ticket was purchased in October but the ship didn't sail for another two months. The second class fare for Angelina and her three daughters was $115.33. The youngest girls, Carmena and Giuseppina ("Josephine"), occupied "half-spaces".

Did you catch that date? This receipt is 100 years old today! Stay tuned - the big blog-a-bration will be in a couple of months when the ship comes in.

PLAY ALONG AT HOME:
Immigrant Ships Trancribers Guild
Ship lists transcribed by volunteers

Ellis Island
Search passenger records online for free

Try Ancestry.com and get 14 Days FREE!
Search ship lists on Ancestry

Lady Liberty

OCTOBER 28, 1886
125 years ago today the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

If you look closely at the bottom of this blurry picture, taken by an unknown relative, you can see the Statue in the background. At the bottom of the picture are choppy waves.

I love to read personal accounts and interviews of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island. My all-time favorite is Pauline Notkoff, a Polish Russian immigrant in 1917, who describes her experience in the Great Hall:

"They asked us questions. 'How much is two and one? How much is two and two?' But the next young girl, also from our city, went and they asked her, 'How do you wash stairs, from the top or from the bottom?' She says, 'I don't come to America to wash stairs.'" Atta girl.

Statue of Liberty 3D Puzzle Daron

Statue of Liberty National Monument

In Their Own Words: Reliving the Ellis Island Experience
by Juliana Smith

Clan McKay

Scottish genealogy is not my usual flavor, but when a bonny little lass like Lucy struts around for a whole day in a kilt of Clan McKay tartan you take notice. And notes.

The occasion was Heritage Day at the school where I work - special assemblies, native dress, and truckloads of food from around the world prepared by the parents. (I hit the middle Eastern table pretty hard.)

A little informal research on the interwebs disproves almost everything I thought I knew about the tartan. For example, they aren't as ancient as I thought. There was no uniformity (pardon the pun) in pattern until the late 17th or early 18th century, and at that time the pattern was used to identify a region, not a clan. In 1822 highland chiefs were asked to wear their tartans to the festivities celebrating King George IV's visit to Edinburgh. Tartan popularity took off from there, leading to a book which featured clan tartans, the Vestiarium Scoticum, published in 1842.

There is an etiquette to wearing tartan - very confusing, but I'll boil it down for you: Since clan membership passes through the surname, Scots wear the tartan of the father only. If your family does not have a tartan there are several patterns which anyone can wear called universal or free tartans. The Balmoral pattern is reserved for the British Royal Family only. Of course, these are conventions or guidelines only. Technically there is nothing preventing one from wearing the Balmoral pattern except the disapproval of haughty "authorities." It's not nearly as criminal as wearing white after Labor Day.


Scottish Clan and Family Names: Their Arms, Origins and Tartans
by Roderick Martine

Scottish Census
Various censuses for 1851 and 1881

David P. Demarest Jr., 1931 - 2011

Farewell to David Demarest, retired CMU English professor and immigrant history super-hero. His name may not be immediately recognized, but his work certainly is:

Out Of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America, by Thomas Bell
Written in 1941, Mr. Demarest rediscovered this novel in 1976 about 3 generations of an immigrant family who worked in the steel mills of Homestead.

The Millvale Murals of Maxo Vanko
Mr. Demarest's fundraising helped raise money for the restoration of Maxo Vanko's murals in St. Nicholas Croatian Catholic Church. The stunning murals, 22 in all, tell the Slovak immigrant story of religion and poverty. Think Sistine Chapel, but with mill hunkies.

Braddock Carnegie Library
He was instrumental in the rescue of Braddock Carnegie Library and then founder and editor of the Braddock Fields Historical Society newsletter.

Obituary, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

S.S. Presidente Wilson

OCTOBER 5, 1919
92 years ago today my grandfather arrived in America on the Presidente Wilson (passenger #21). But not until he put up a little bit of a stink about it.

As the story was told to me by my grandfather himself, he was just 5 when he and his mother left Arnara, Italy to join his father in Pennsylvania. And the little tyke just didn't want to go. He didn't want to leave his nonna or his little dog. He didn't want to travel to Roma and get on the big ship. According to him he was cranky and disagreeable for most of the trip, picking a fight with his mother as the ship passed through the Strait of Gibraltar. While his mother admired the Rock my grandfather tore the little cap from his head and threw it overboard.

Things went from bad to worse after the incident at Gibraltar. At some point, either during the journey or at Ellis Island, my grandfather was served oatmeal - for the first and last time.

Ask my grandfather anything about this voyage to his new home and he always managed to circle back to that frightening gray blob of oatmeal - very little about the sights he saw, absolutely nothing about meeting his father for the first time. It was always about the food.

Search Ship Lists on the Ellis Island site

Italian Americans: The Immigrant Experience
Leslie Caron Carola

Grannie Annie

If I hadn't been goofing off on Facebook this morning (instead of, you know, my job) I might have missed a post by my friend Kathleen about her 101-year old grandmother.

Kathleen's grandmother, Anne Zimmer, the daughter of a saloon-keeper, grew up on the North Side of Pittsburgh. Do the math: this grandma has tales to tell about Prohibition.

We here at Real Housewives Industries have a real soft spot for grandmas, especially when they become media darlings at 101 (you can read the article below). Mrs. Zimmer is the first nominee for the coveted RHo19 Grammy Award, details to follow.


Prohibition Made for a Dry Climate
Anne Zimmer is interviewed for the Observer-Reporter  

Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America
Edward Behr 

The Music Of Prohibition
Various Artists

Citizenship Day

Today is Citizenship Day according to my pal, Big Mick.

If Big Mick is the source of any information then it's a good idea to check the facts. He's a big-shot, know-it-all Pittsburgh lawyer with a questionable political compass, and he's most famous for endless tirades of trivia that put me right to sleep. The only reason I talk to him at all is he usually buys my drinks - and he's definitely buying now after all this free advertising.

Big Mick's Citizenship Day announcement was almost more useless bar trivia: a federal holiday with no parade, the banks were open, mail was delivered - what's the big deal? But the beauty of this day is the simplicity. It's merely a time to acknowledge American citizenship, be it by birth or naturalization.

The images to the left are from my great-grandmother's copy of "Federal Textbook on Citizenship - On the Way to Democracy". I know it's her book because she wrote her name in pencil on the cover, just like any child in school would do. Except she was a 64 year old grandmother in 1942.  The workbook is comprised of one page chapters on topics such as The Right to Govern and The Convention of 1787, and then a series of simple questions about the information in the chapter. It would be almost impossible for a student not to ace the questions because the answers are at the top of each page. Pretty easy, right?

Great-grandmother Angelina never learned English - she could have been taking the LSATs for all she knew. My guess is one or more of her children helped her cheat her way through the test so she could get the dang naturalization certificate and hang it on her wall. It was WWII, for cryin' out loud. No time to be an Italian citizen in America.

So today, in addition to my own citizenship, I'm taking time to remind myself about Angelina's path.

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day
Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School

Rabbit, rabbit

I have a friend, I'll call her Karen*. On the first day of every month she plays a game with her sister and brother on Facebook where one posts "rabbit, rabbit" very early in the morning, and then is immediately cussed out by the other two. The whole game appears to be over before 6 am, forgotten until the first day of the next month when the sibling rivalry is born again.

I don't get it either.

In my family we play for something more than just bragging rights. Like money. I just figured Karen's* game was some sort of small town weirdness. But today I remembered that I really dig small town weirdness and took to the interwebs to figure out what the heck was going on. Turns out "rabbit, rabbit" is a superstition of unknown English origin, possibly dating back to the 1800's. If a person says "rabbit, rabbit" first thing in the morning, on the first day of the month, he will have good luck for the rest of the month. There are variations of the charm: saying "white rabbit" or the speaker must still be in bed. Not much else to report - vague beginning, middle and end, which is pretty much want you want out of a good superstition.

Poor Karen*. I fear she will never win Rabbit, rabbit - and if her unladylike language after her loss this morning is any indication she also has doubts.

* You can call her Karen, too. Her name really is Karen.

What's so Lucky About A Four-Leaf Clover?
Claudia De Lys

Lightning Never Strikes Twice (If You Own a Feather Bed : and 1904 Other American Superstitions from the Ordinary to the Eccentric)
Vergilius Ferm

Favorite Folktales from Around the World (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)
Jane Yolen

Road Trip: Tenement Museum

A failed attempt to visit Ellis Island last weekend turned into a serendipitous trip to the Tenement Museum at 97 Orchard Street. If you're visiting New York City this is a must-see.

The Tenement Museum web site alone is fascinating, but to actually stand in the dark, creaky building is very moving. The tenement was built in 1863. Rather than bring the building up to code in 1935 the landlord evicted the tenants and allowed the building to remain empty until it was purchased by the museum in the 1980's.

I still can't wrap my head around what daily life could have been like for the people who lived in this tenement.

• Each apartment was just 3 rooms totaling 275 square feet
  If you're in suburbia find the largest closet in your house, and then live there with your immediate family for a few years.
  
• Plumbing wasn't installed until 1901
  Until then, 22 families shared outhouses with a saloon on the first floor of the building.
  
• Residents of 97 Orchard St. tossed their garbage in boxes on the sidewalk
  And so did their neighbors. In 1863, the New York Tribune described garbage boxes as "one festering, rotting, loathsome, hellish mass of air poisoning, death-breeding filth".
  
  

Tenement life was not for sissies.



97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
Jane Ziegelman

Tenement Stories: Immigrant Life (1835-1935) (Raintree Fusion: American History Through Primary Sources)
Sean Stewart

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith

Wedding Day

AUGUST 14, 1934
The beautiful bride is my grandmother Margaret, and the little flower girl is Mary, my grandfather's youngest sister.

Tracking down the county marriage record was no problem, but attempts to locate the church record have been unsuccessful. The church where my grandparents were married merged with another church and the records have been "archived". My plan was to wait a few years and then try again.

A few years has now turned in to 19. Time for me to get to work.

Tracing Your Catholic Ancestors
Used to be difficult, but now not so much

The next two links are PDFs (boo), but very interesting detail about how sacramental records are maintained:
Caring for Sacramental Records
Repair of Sacramental Records

I Love Lucy's Ancestors

AUGUST 6, 1911
The super-fantastic Google doodle celebrating Lucille Ball's 100th birthday was a great way to start my day. The doodle leads to a link in Wikipedia with some interesting tidbits about her family history and I lost about an hour of my day zipping around the interwebs, tracking down Lucy's New England ancestors. The most interesting article I found is from the Chautauqua County GenWeb site, Some Ancestral Remains of Lucille Ball by Lois Barris, and touches on 19th century "poor houses".

And that, not surprisingly, set me on a different course for the day.

The Poorhouse Story
Good resource for learning about the circumstances that brought our ancestors to these institutions, but unfortunately for hard core searchers the actual censuses have been removed.

In the Army Now

JULY 31, 1899
On this day in 1899 Great-Grandfather Raffaele earned this large, impressive certificate from the Italian Army. I heard many colorful stories about Raffaele but it seems everyone forgot to mention this accomplishment. 

Turns out the immigrant shoemaker was also a tiratore scelto, a sharpshooter. 

Italian Military Records
Family Search Wiki

Search Military Records
Ancestry

Who Knew?

JULY 28, 1919
On this date my Great-Grandmother Lucia submitted a Declaration of Intent to Depart for the United States to the American Consulate in Rome.

This document is a big fat surprise for a few reasons:

1) I've been working on my family history for more than 20 years and have never even heard of a Declaration of Intent to Depart for the United States. The delight of discovering something completely unknown is gradually turning to irritation with the document which probably shouldn't be new to me at all. A real genealogist would know what this paper means. I used to love spending hours (days?) flipping through books and clicking through web sites to track down a piece of information ... now, not so much. I've recently taken up gardening.

As first glance it appears to be an application for a passport, but that's incorrect because according to the form Lucia applied for a passport on July 18, 1919. I'll report my findings on this form when I know something more.

2) Usually any document which originated in Italy requires a magnifying glass and Google Translator, but not now - this form is bi-lingual! Below each English question is the Italian translation. Very handy, but odd since Lucia and about 4 million other Italian-speaking cittadini completed this form in Italia. This should have been written in Italian in the first place.

3) I'm not sure why my family was in possession of this - shouldn't it be stuffed in a moldy government file somewhere? Why would my favorite uncle keep this document stuffed in a drawer for years and years without telling me? Is he new? Doesn't he know I need to know everything that happened 100 years ago ... er, now?

Introduction to Immigration Records
The National Archives site

Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives
U. S. National Archives and Records Service

Tracing Your Ancestors in the National Archives: The Website and Beyond
by Amanda Bevan

Every Italian Family Has a Josephine

JULY 8, 1906
Every Italian family has a Josephine - ask around if you don't believe me. In our family she was my grandmother's sister. Her given name was Maria Giuseppa, and occasionally she went by Maria Giuseppina. She is pictured here along with a her birth record from Sannicandro di Bari issued in 1908.

Great-aunt Josephine was not our only Josephine, but she was the main one. We had a few spare Josephines by marriage - technically they count if you're keeping score, depending on your relationship to the husband. For me there is really only one and it has to do with this picture.

My grandmother did not organize her family pictures in any way that would make a family historian happy: stashed in envelopes, stacked in the basement, stuffed in assorted boxes. When i was growing up a typical visit always began with tour of the house, rummaging through drawers of the oldest pieces of furniture, staring at the old photos and trying to identify the people I knew or had heard of.

The day I ran across the picture of Josephine, posed on the chair with her big sassy hat, was the very day the family research began. You see, until I laid eyes on this picture I never even knew my grandmother had a sister named Josephine.

The Everything Guide to Online Genealogy: Use the Web to trace your roots, share your history, and create a family tree (Everything Series)
by Kimberly Powell

Genealogy Online For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
by Matthew L. Helm

Hat in the Ring

JULY 1, 1904
On this day in 1904 great-grandfather Raffaele wrote a letter to the big-wigs in Provincia di Bari. I'm fairly certain I have the letter translated, if not word for word then at least the high points.I'll post the translation in a couple of days - I want to milk this letter for awhile.

Is this is a copy of the letter or the undelivered original? I suspect the original. Two documents are referenced as enclosed with the letter and since I'm in possession of these items it looks very much as if the letter and attachments were never sent.

This letter looks pretty darn good for 100+ years, amirite? It was discovered in 1992 following the death of my great-uncle along with many other delicious family treasures. Hundreds of photos, letters and documents were found in unbelievably good condition considering no special protective measures were taken.

What's that I hear? It's a chorus from my favorite song: Old photos and documents should be stored in archival quality boxes and albums!

Preserving Old Photos & Documents
Warning: This page starts off with a big Warning!

Pioneer Jumbo Scrapbook Storage Box, Sage Green
Acid- and lignon-free rocks

First cousins, once removed

JUNE 27, 1923
Happy Birthday Cousin Helen! Helen's mother and my grandmother were sisters which means we are first cousins, once removed. Until last year I lived only a couple of blocks from Helen, her sister Marge, and briefly, her mother. That was some pretty sweet access to family info. Helen, Marge and Mary gave me deep background on my grandmother's family from Half Moon Hill in Bellefonte.


The Importance of Oral Histories
by Lyman D. Platt, Ph.D.

Relationship chart
Use this to untangle your mess of cousins