Archive for January, 2011

Surname Forum Activity
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George Manley was my great grandfather.He married Harriet Yelding, a cousin of “Lord” George Sanger another circus owner.George Manley was born in 1837 and died in 1912 after being hit by a lorry in Croydon.Ownership of the circus passed to his son James, my grandfather who lived at 418 Lower Addiscombe Road ,Croydon where my mother Frances Manley grew up.My mother walked on the slack wire at age 12 in 1921.
George Manley was the son of Harry Manley proprietor of Manley’s Chinese Circus.Harry Manley was born in 1817 and died in 1887 whilst the circus was on tour in Plaanen,Saxony.Have stacks more info if you need it.My email is archeryfan@bigpond.com and I am located in Australia.Regards,Tony.
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Surname Forum Activity
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My mother was Frances Manley and I have logged details of all the Manley family who were involved with English circus.Manleys Grand Palace Circus.Emmeline Manley was my mother’s aunt and sister to my mother’s father James Manley the proprietor. Emmeline was born in 1875 and married Alfred Edward Brown in 1898 when she left the circus and settled down in Battersea about 1900 with her husband and subsequently two children. Emmeline was in the circus and was described as “petite and auburn haired” she was an equestrienne and rope walker “a charming and daring artiste” She had also featured with Gennetts circus in 1888.My email is archeryfan@bigpond.com regards Tony.
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Did any of your ancestors come to the United States?
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I have fairly complete info on Manleys back to pre 1800. My mother was a Manley and walked on the slack wire in 1921 when her father James Manley owned the circus from 1912 through to its close.Am located in Australia these days and would be keen to hear from any other family members and exchange information.Tony
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News from around the web.
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A few weeks back, I introduced the launch of a new collection, WWII U.S. Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941–1945, by sharing the story of Gene Jacobsen. Maybe it’s the dramatic circumstances behind the capture of many of these POWs that makes for the dramatic stories surrounding this database. Stories like Gene’s—or Ari Self’s.

“Ari Self was my uncle. He was my father’s younger brother,” Nancy Kolstad explained recently. “During the Depression Ari lived with my parents for a couple of years when he was fourteen years old or so.  Later on he was a frequent visitor at our house and as a result, a favorite uncle among his nieces and nephews. He was already the favorite brother to all his siblings.” This would have been shortly after he appeared with his family in Soledad City in the 1930 census.

Which was about a year before this picutre was taken:

Nancy knew, too, that Ari had been captured by the Japanese, made the Bataan Death March, and died at Camp O’Donnell. That’s how Ari found his way onto the list of WWII Prisoners of the Japanese:

Nancy says, “I’m not exactly sure when my parents learned of Ari’s imprisonment. They, of course, knew that the Americans had surrendered there in the Philippines, but at that time they didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. I have a Christmas card my mother mailed to him December 17, 1941, and it is marked Return to Sender, Service Suspended. I also have a letter from the Red Cross dated February 5, 1942. In this letter, the Red Cross is responding to my mother’s request for information regarding Ari. My parents knew the Japanese had taken prisoners but didn’t know if Ari was among them. I suspect they had no information until they received word from the War Department that he had died.”

Nancy has been able to fill in some of the blanks since with additional records on Ancestry.com, including Ari’s enlistment information:

None of the records alone tell the rest of the story, though.

After the war, a man who had been with Ari on the Death March and at Camp O’Donnell came to visit Nancy’s father. The War Department said Ari had died from dysentery at Camp O’Donnell, which was how many men in the camps died. But the visitor explained that Ari hadn’t died from dysentery at all. He had been killed when he was caught stealing food, another fact of life for the starving men at Camp O’Donnell.

“My aunt told me that Ari was the first Salinas Valley boy to give his life for his country in WWII,” Nancy says. “I don’t know if there is any way to determine if this is true or not. It certainly could be since he died within six months of the start of the war.”

But that’s the family historian’s job: Digging up the hard truth, filling in the gaps between the records, then telling the world the rest of the story. So if you haven’t already, check out the WWII U.S. Prisoners of the Japanese collection yourself and see if you can locate one of your military ancestors and a story that’s just waiting to be told.

News from around the web.
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We are experiencing some temporary site problems. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause. Our development and web operations teams are working on the problem and we will have it resolved as quickly as possible.  Thank you for your patience.

UPDATE AS OF JANUARY 13, 2011 AT 5:15 PM MT/7:15 PM ET

We are pleased to inform everyone that the temporary site problem we experienced earlier has now been resolved.  Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused and truly appreciate your patience through this situation.

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As I mentioned in a blog post last week, we’ve launched a new way to view your tree.   A few of you have been asking me about features that were available on the previous version of the tree viewer.  I thought other members might have some of the same questions, so I put together a list of the commonly asked questions and answers about the tree viewer changes.

When I close my browser and return to my tree, why is my view the new “family view” and not the “pedigree view”?   We felt that some users prefer pedigree view to the family view and vice versa.  The tree now remembers which view you were in last.  If you prefer one view over the other, just select that view prior to leaving your browser and it will open your tree in that preferred view the next time you view it. 

Why doesn’t my root person in my tree change when I select “return to tree” from a person’s overview page? We made it possible to return to your tree the way you left it.  We also made it possible to view the tree with a different person at the root from the person’s overview page.  If you want to go back to your tree the way you left it, select “return to tree”.  If you are on a person’s overview page and want to see the tree for that particular person, click “view his family tree” and you will go to the tree viewer with a new person in the root position.

Where did all my navigation links go like “tree settings” and “family group sheet”?  We made the navigation on all tree pages consistent.  Prior to the change, not all options were available everywhere in trees.  We consolidated the links in the header under two dropdown lists.  If you mouse over the link next to the tree name in the header that says “Tree pages” a dropdown list will appear with “Tree settings” “Family group sheet”, “Tree overview”, “Media gallery” and “Share your tree” as selectable options. 

Where did the “Last person viewed” link go? If you mouse over the “Find a person in my tree” area on the right, the options of “Home person”, “Last viewed Person” and “List of all people” will appear.

Why did all the links on my person overview page change? They only changed names and position, but all the features that were there before are still available.  Here’s a list of the new link names along with what the links used to be called:

•  Search records (formerly Search historical records) – We moved this link from the middle to the first position on the left and it works exactly the same as it did before the changes.
• View his family tree (new link) – This link will take you to the tree viewer with the selected person in the root position. 
• View relationship to me (same name) – This link is the same, we just took away the “new” label, gave it an icon and moved it over
• View family members (formerly View Immediate Family) – It works the same as before; we just moved it over to the right.
•  Print (formerly Print & Publish) – does the same things, we just made the link title shorter.
• More options (same name and location) – No change

How do I print more than 5 generations with the pedigree view? We increased the number of generations that can be printed in the pedigree view.  You can print more than 5 generations by expanding a selected family branch and hit print.  It should print as many pages as necessary to fit all of the expanded branches.  Based on feedback from Mac users, there may be an issue with printing using a Mac that we’re looking into.  We also realize that printing from the site is an area that could be improved.

What is the “See what’s new” blue bar at the top of my view? We added a new feature to help users understand the changes we made called “What’s new”.  If you mouse over the feature boxes in the blue area at the top of the tree viewer, little feature boxes appear that tell a little bit more about what changes have been made.  Once you’ve reviewed the changes, you can click the little “X” at the right of the blue area to close it.

I’d like to thank all of you who have given us feedback on what changes they’d like to see.  I know that some of you have mentioned issues or bugs that you’d like to see addressed or fixed as soon as possible.  If you are seeing a bug or have a suggestion, please email me at newtreeviewer@ancestry.com with the specific issues you’re seeing so we can address them as soon as possible.

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Have you ever wanted a personal tutor to sit at your computer and show you how to use Family Tree Maker? We have a solution. Family Tree Maker has a variety of short video tutorials (each about 3 to 5 minutes long) that can help you quickly learn how to add, organize, and share your family history. They’re perfect for visual learners or anyone who wants a little direction or help using the software.

Here’s a list of the eight tutorials that are available:

Workspaces–teaches you about the seven workspaces that make up the Family Tree Maker software.

Building Family Tutorial–Shows you how to add spouses, children, and parents, and navigate in the People workspace.

Building Person Tutorial–Explains how to add events, facts, and media items for an individual.

Places Tutorial–Explains how the place authority works and teaches how to resolve unrecognized place names.

Media Tutorial–Illustrates the various ways to add media items and record details about them.

Sourcing Tutorial–Shows you how and where to create sources and source citations.

Publishing Tutorial–Explains the Publish workspace and also chart/report options and settings.

Web Search Tutorial–Illustrates Ancestry hints and search results and shows how to merge this information into your tree.

You can access all these tutorials online on the Family Tree Maker website. If you’re using versions 2009, 2010, or 2011, you can also access these tutorials within your Family Tree Maker software; simply select the Help menu, and choose Training Tutorials.

News from around the web.
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• The Civil War Preservation Trust, a battlefield preservation group, has shortened
  its name to the Civil War Trust and adopted
  a new logo. President James Lighthizer explains the changes will “modernize our image
  to better reflect the Civil War Trust’s mission.” See
  the new logo and read more about the change here. 

• The University of Texas at Austin has launched a new history website called Not
  Even Past to provide “dynamic, accessible, short articles on every field of
  history.” Using the Read, Watch, Discover, Listen and Texas links at the bottom of
  the page, you’ll find book excerpts and articles from history faculty and graduate
  students at the university. Content is sparse so far, but this could be a site worth
  keeping an eye on.

• If you have an ancestor who served during the Korean War (especially a veteran whose
  personnel file was destroyed in the 1973
  fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis), today’s
  Family Tree Friday post on the NARAtions blog might be of interest. The post describes Korean
  War-era Command Reports, which include reports, operations journals, staff studies
  and other documents from Army commands, staffs and units, and can help you learn about
  the activities of your relative’s Korean War unit.

• The nation’s largest online digitized presidential archive will provide access
  to papers, records, photos and recordings of President John F. Kennedy’s time in office.
  Visit the website of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum to learn
  more about the digitization effort and search
  the archive. View
  the announcement about the archive here.
  

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Are you working on a family history or historical preservation project for your family
or community, but don’t quite have the funds to complete it? Subscription genealogy
website Archives is launching a grant program
that may help.

Each month, a recipient will receive up to $1,000 to help fund a family history research
or historical preservation project. The first grant will be awarded at the end this
month.

The company is seeking any project that “contributes to the promotion and advancement
of family history research and preservation.” That might be document preservation,
historical artifact restoration, record transcription or promotion of historical events.

Both individuals (whether amateur or professional) and organizations (such as libraries,
historical societies and archives) are eligible to apply.

You can learn more about the
grant program on the application page and send questions to grant@archives.com.

See
Archives’ full announcement here.