Archive for June, 2011

Surname Forum Activity
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My grandmother’s name is Arline Harkins. She was the only child of Mary Elizabeth Manley (b. 1906) and William Hartley (b. 1903). She was born in Whitinsville, MA. Both of her parents were born in Fall River, MA.

Mary Elizabeth had 7 siblings:
Hattie Mae (married a Barnes)
Mable
Lyman
Irene
Ethel
Robert Lawson
John C

Mary Elizabeth’s parents were Robert L Manley (b. 1866 in Warren, RI) and Mary Wood (b. 1871). Robert’s parents were Lyman Albert (b. 1842 in Smithfield, RI) and Annie Moore (b. 1835, possibly in Ireland).

I’m not very sure of any other information. Mostly, I’ve focused on my grandfather’s line since it’s easier to find his Harkins surname than to jump around with Manley and Hartley and all the rest.

If it helps, Grandma remembers two cousins that she used to play with, both boys. I think she told me she called one of them Billy. I’m pretty sure they were on the Manley side. I think they might have been Hattie Mae’s boys, but I’m not positive. I do know that she lived in what I believe was a shared house of some sort, maybe a duplex or something similar. I think “Billy” was in the military, but I’m not positive.

Any information would be helpful. I’ve not been able to fine much more on the family, and I’ve yet to find anyone that might be related to us.
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There is nothing like meeting and connecting with fellow genealogists. So mark your calendar and join Ancestry.com at the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Washington, DC, August 14-19.

This is the 31st year that IAJGS (International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies) has hosted this conference and we’re excited to be involved for another year. With more than 200 sessions for beginner to expert genealogists, this 6-day conference is invaluable for helping you uncover your family history mysteries. Attend breakfast with experts for help with “brickwalls.” Have lunch and mingle with others researching your ancestral region or surname. And get a chance to meet and talk to the people who design the tools at Ancestry.com that help you discover your family history.

Need more information? You’ll find all the details and be able to register at http://dc2011.org/. Plus, register before August 1 and you’ll save $30 on your registration costs.

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Does your family lore include the story of an ancestor who ran off to make it big in the movies? The Motion Picture Studio Directories, 1919 and 1921, database that went live last week could be a fun place to take a look if you’re trying to vet that story about Grandma’s brush with Rudolph Valentino on the set.
In 1920, the U.S. motion picture industry was on a tear. By the end of the decade, movie tickets would be selling at a clip of around 100 million a week—and there were only 120 million people in the country. The star system was in place, and names like Mary Pickford were known worldwide.

The Motion Picture Studio Directory was the film industry Yellow Pages of the time. Of course, the bulk of the pages went to promoting actors and actresses, including plenty of publicity shots (which is how Louise Huff became my screensaver for an afternoon). But the real meat is the alphabetical listings of industry professionals. They start with actors and actresses, who might include everything from education and a list of credits to height and weight, home address, or telephone number in their biographies. Oliver “Babe” Hardy, for example, stood 6’1” and weighed 350 pounds, had brown hair and eyes, and enjoyed swimming and music.

And speaking of Valentino, it’s interesting to see how his entry changed from 1919:

to 1921:

The stars are fun, but you’ll find more than just the Charlie Chaplins and Gloria Swansons here. There are hundreds of actors and actresses listed in the Motion Picture Studio Directories, plenty of whom—like today—toiled in relative obscurity. You’ll also find pages of “Directors and Producing Executives,” followed by “Assistant, Art and Technical Directors,” as well as writers and editors, cinematographers, studio managers, costumers, PR people, casting directors, and company bigwigs.

So who knows, maybe Uncle Pete really did teach Tom Mix how to shoot or tie Lillian Gish to the train tracks. Check and see. Even if he’s not there, you might still come away from the Motion Picture Studio Directories with a new screensaver.

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• On its History Happens
  Here site, the Missouri History Museum is sharing the Civil War saga of
  soldier James Love and his letters to fiancee Eliza Mary “Molly” Wilson. Museum staff
  post each new letter 150 years to the day after it was written. Catch
  up on the letters you’ve missed here. 

• The free FamilySearch site has added records for 10 countries. The additions
  come from Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Guatemala, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the
  United States (Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin). Click
  here to see details and links for the updated collections. 

• British subscription site FindMyPast.co.uk has
  published the records of over half a million men who served in the British militia,
  the precursor to the UK’s Territorial Army. The militia was made up of men who held
  everyday jobs, but took part in regular military exercises and on occasion, fought. You
  can search the Militia Service Records, covering 1806 to 1915, here.
  

• The National Genealogical Society has created The
  NGS Weekly, a “newspaper” that pulls feeds from various genealogy blog posts.
  You can subscribe to get e-mail notifications when the page is updated.

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On a site called Baptists and the American
Civil War: In Their Own Words, I found a diary
entry by John Beauchamp Jones, a novelist and reporter who went to work for the
Confederate government in Richmond. (The site is a digital project by historian Bruce
T. Gourley, executive director of the Baptist
History and Heritage Society.)

June 22, 1861, Jones wrote about a chance meeting with Confederate president Jefferson
Davis. It begins “Fighting for our homes and holy altars, there is no intermission
on Sunday.”

He goes on to describe a chance encounter with Confederate President Jefferson Davis
in the office on a Sunday, helping Davis find a letter in his secretary’s office. You
can read the entire diary entry here.

A bit from Life
in Civil War America about the Baptist denomination of the time:

On the eve of the Civil War, Baptists were one of the largest denominations in the
country and among those that were considerably more widespread and influential in
the South than in the North.

At the time of the war, there were some 11,219 Baptist churches in the country, with
about two-thirds in Southern states (an especially telling proportion when one considers
that the white population of the North was about three-and-a-half times larger than
that of the South). Value of Baptist church property was an estimated $19,746,378.

In 1845, Northern and Southern Baptists split over the issue of slavery, and the latter
formed a separate denomination under the Southern Baptist Convention. 

Other large denominations at the time included Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians,
Lutherans and Roman Catholics, though Americans were active in many faiths. Interestingly,
Abraham Lincoln was the first US president to use the phrase “One nation under God,”
but he wasn’t baptized and never joined a church.

Here’s our listing
of organizations for researching religious records.

You can nominate a Civil War event for this series—just click Comments below or e-mail
me.

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Hit the road with us this summer! The June
episode of the free Family Tree Magazine podcast, hosted by Lisa Louise Cooke
of Genealogy Gems, offers up advice for taking
research trips and preserving your ancestors’ souvenirs.

We’ll also discuss rapper 50 Cent’s journey to South Carolina to learn about his roots,
the Early American Roads and Trails website, and our state research webinars.

You can listen through
iTunes and on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.

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I’m one of those people who get a little stressed out by clutter. When there’s too
much stuff jumbled around—whether it’s papers on my desk, icons on my desktop, family
photos or genealogy documents—my anxiety level ticks up ever so slightly. (My friends
tease me about the day Leo becomes mobile and starts emptying the kitchen cabinets
onto the floor.)

That’s why the Organize
Your Family History Value Pack is this week’s Editor’s Pick. That and the price,
steeply discounted through June 30

Whether you work on paper or do everything online or a combo of both, getting your
research and your workspace organized is important to keeping track of your family
tree.

Here’s what’s in the Organize
Your Family History Value Pack:

• Organize Your Genealogy Family Tree University Independent Study course digital download

• Organization Made Easy: 5 Simple Ways to Get Your Family History in Order on-demand
  webinar

• Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD

• Organize Now! A Week-by-Week Guide to Simplify Your Space and Your Life by
  Jennifer Ford Berry 

It’ll help you research more efficiently—you’ll develop a system for filing notes,
documents and photos (on paper and your hard drive); learn how to plan and accomplish
your next research step; and make the most of your limited research time. And until
the last day of June, the whole kaboodle is $49.99—72 percent off full price.

Click here to learn more about the Organize
Your Family History Value Pack. 

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So I promised
to share the photo gift my son (with some help from me) gave his daddy for father’s
day:

I had a picture I snapped of Leo with his dad printed on canvas (that’s why there’s
a shiny spot on the left side of the picture—it’s the flash reflecting off the canvas),
so it resembles a painting. I took advantage of a great sale at CanvasPeople.com,
but other photo-gift sites such as Shutterfly and Snapfish can
do this for you, too.

The frame (minus the glass and backing) came from our local Michael’s
store, and the canvas is hung from a picture hanger tapped into the canvas stretcher.

You’ll get more ideas for displaying family photos from our Family
Photo Essentials CD. 

We also suggest family history-themed gifts in this
free “Giving Trees” article on FamilyTreeMagazine.com. 

Surname Forum Activity
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My email address is now: ceya.minder@gmail.com

Please delete all other email addresses that you have for me.

Ceya Minder
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Surname Forum Activity
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Does anyone have a copy of the will for Devereaux Jarrett Meanly (Manley) who was born in about 1760 in VA (Dinwiddie CO or New Kent Co, VA)? It is supposedly on file at Petersburg, VA but not quite sure where. His parents were Absalom Meanly and Susannah Jarrett.
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