‘I never thought that at 21, some of my best friends would be 99 and 100’ – I could not love this more! Please read. I promise you, you’ll be glad you did. #genealogy

Photo by jesse orrico on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, August 28 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

‘Busting myths’ about family, sex and work – A little bit of myth-busting about our ancestors. #genealogy

The “Mexican-Hindus” of Rural California – Love learning about multicultural pockets I haven’t heard of before!

Photo by Limor Zellermayer on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, July 17 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Grave Site Maintenance Business Instruction Program – This comes by way of Dick Eastman who finds the quirkiest of genealogical content.

IAAM Center for Family History: “In Search of…Identifying An Enslaver” with Megan Smolenyak – I had completely forgotten about an interview I did on identifying an ancestor’s enslaver for the International African American Museum, but recently tripped across it. I sort of fire-hose the listener with ideas, but I hope some might find it useful! #genealogy

Photo by danyl russo on Unsplash

The post Genealogy Roundup, July 10 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

AI-generated image of the “shiny object ancestor” experience

When I recently delved into Taylor Swift’s roots, I made mention of a phenomenon I refer to as “shiny object ancestor.” And while it was just a passing remark, it resonated with a number of fellow genealogists who reached out to say that they knew exactly what I meant.

Whenever you research any family tree — your own or a complete stranger’s — there’s inevitably an ancestor (though it can also be a pair) who calls more loudly than the others. Anyone who’s experienced this will tell you that it’s almost as if they’re insisting on your attention.

This has happened to me countless times over my decades as a genealogist, so I decided to see if I could explain what it is that makes certain progenitors so irresistible. After a little mulling, I came up with a handful of factors that seem to be at play, and I’m curious whether others will agree.

Accidental discovery

Learning something that makes you do a double take, as often as not, results from tripping across a random tidbit in a newspaper, and this is the equivalent of an engraved invitation to dig deeper. In the case of Katy Perry, for instance, I spotted an article about a gold heist in 1859 San Francisco that featured members of her family. That caused me to follow the trail of her Irish immigrant great-great-grandmother, Anna “Hannah” Maria Mulhare, and reach the conclusion that she’s probably the one who wound up with the haul.

AI-generated version of Katy Perry’s great-great-grandmother, Hannah Mulhare

Similarly, with Barry Manilow, I stumbled across a piece about one of his grandfathers, Harry Pincus, that revealed he was a strongman swimmer — that is, he did stunts where he swam long distances (usually a mile or two) and used a rope in his teeth to pull up to five rowboats with men in them. Sometimes he even did this with his arms tied behind his back. This alone would have been sufficient to lure me, but then I found a prison record for him and had to know more.

Pocket of history I want to know more about

If you’re like me, there are slices of history you have a passing knowledge of — maybe you studied them briefly in high school — but you never truly wrapped your head around them. Every once in a while, I’m fortunate enough to be able to address one of these gaps thanks to a beckoning ancestor.

Ambrose Hawkins, a 3rd great-grandfather of Pharrell Williams, is one such person. I was aware of the American Colonization Society and its efforts in the first half of the nineteenth century to send free people of color to Africa (which they referred to as “repatriation” in spite of the fact that most descended from families that had been in America for generations), but Pharrell’s antecedent left an intriguing paper trail and it wasn’t until I investigated his involvement that I gained a better understanding.

AI imagining of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 5th great-grandparents, David and Sophie Towns

David and Sophie Towns, a pair of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s 5th great-grandparents, were kind enough to take me on an extended ride to learn not only what it was like to be an interracial couple in the early 1800s, but also about the chaotic early days of Texas and the role that slavery played in the revolution that gained its independence from Mexico.

Challenge

Stubbornness in genealogists can be a useful trait because we often encounter obstacles. We tend to refer to them as “brick walls,” and I’ve never met one I didn’t want to kick down or climb over. It’s a bit twisted perhaps, but I like it when the ancestors make me work for it.

I dealt this when unearthing the roots of both Barack and Michelle Obama. In the case of then-candidate Obama, I ventured back in time to see how far you had to go to find immigrants (aside from his father who returned to Kenya). This is how I made my acquaintance with his 3rd great-grandfather, Fulmoth Kearney, from Ireland.

Ireland loves to claim its own, so once word got out that Barack Obama had Irish forebears, I was contacted by members of the Irish media wanting to know exactly where his family was from. One of the most common stumbling blocks in Irish genealogy is identifying the place of origin, particularly if the immigrants left fairly early, and Fulmoth’s departure was Famine era. In other words, figuring out which town or village got credit was not going to be easy. Ultimately, it was a pair of tombstones in Ohio that pointed me to Moneygall in County Offaly. If they hadn’t existed, it might have taken me several years instead of a couple of months to ascertain his ancestral home. To this day, the resulting Barack Obama Plaza, a highway service station in Moneygall, gets rediscovered and goes gently viral once or twice every year.

In the case of Michelle Obama, it was a mother-son pair who grabbed my attention, Melvina and Dolphus Shields. I first observed them together in the 1870 census, living next door to a white Shields family, and also noted that though they were living in Georgia, Melvina had been born in South Carolina. The obvious questions arose, and having done a lot of African American genealogy, I was well aware there would be no simple answers. It took me several months, but I was eventually able to ferret out the answers I sought.

Unexpected locations, heritage, and/or connections

I love those moments when you’re poking around a family tree and come across a surprising location. This occurred not long ago with Taylor Swift when I noticed that one of her great-grandfathers had been born at sea. As I continued to burrow, South Africa and Malta came into the picture — not what I had anticipated when I began.

This reminded me of my probe into Jon Stewart’s ancestry that turned up a document stating that one of his grandfathers, Nathan Laskin, had been born in Manzhouli, now part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. I hadn’t seen that coming.

I was also caught off-guard when I realized that one of Bruno Mars’s grandmothers was Jewish, the daughter of parents from Ukraine and Hungary. Like so many, I was aware of his Puerto Rican and Filipino heritage, but not this aspect.

And then there are the unexpected connections between famous people, but not necessarily that they’re cousins. Perhaps I’m more dismissive than I should be, but when you see such tales in the media, the celebrities cited are typically very distant — 10th or even 20th — cousins — and once you get back that far, we all have millions of cousins, so it rarely impresses me. I prefer stealth links of a different sort.

For instance, when I was asked to look into the family history of civil rights activist and one-time presidential candidate, Al Sharpton, I became fascinated with one of his great-grandfathers, Coleman Sharpton. Imagine my queasiness when I uncovered the fact that Coleman had once been enslaved by relatives of Strom Thurmond, who had run for President with the aim of preserving racial segregation.

Fortunately, most such hidden associations are more pleasant in nature, such as ancestresses of Michelle Obama and Meghan Markle living near each other in Jonesboro, Georgia, and relatives of President Joe Biden and Taylor Swift living in the same pocket of Portsea, England.

Roots claiming them

Finally, I enjoy getting pulled into cases where it seems that a high profile individual was almost destined to become known for a specific reason because, well, their ancestors steered them in that direction. Hannah Waddingham is a classic case. As I pushed my way back on her mother’s side of the family, I waded through four generations of singers and musicians, so it’s no wonder that she’s such a gifted singer and performer. It’s in her blood.

The same is also true of Anthony Bourdain. Yes, he was a vagabond, and once you know that his grandfather, Pierre M. Bourdain, stowed away on a ship to America at the age of 13, and that his ancestors meandered around France, Brazil, Ukraine, Spain, Austria, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Gibraltar, it seems almost inevitable that he would also be a wanderer.

And then, of course, there are the physical resemblances. Please enjoy this sampling.

Top: Bruno Mars next to one of his grandfathers (credit for photo on right: PR Photos); Middle: Jon Stewart and his great-uncle; Bottom: Barack Obama next to his 3rd great-grandfather, Fulmoth Kearney (credit for photo on left: Merlyn White).

So these are the elements that can turn a casual exploration of anyone’s roots into an obsession with one or two of his or her predecessors — at least for me. But what about you? What turns “just another” ancestor into a “shiny object” one for you?

Note regarding AI: While I make liberal use of AI to generate images to accompany my articles (and always identify them as such), it has not been used in any way to write this article — no brainstorming, drafting, editing, or any other aspect.

The post Shiny Object Ancestors: The Ones We Can’t Resist appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

How will you be remembered? Here’s how to adopt a ‘legacy’ mind-set.

BIG win on USCIS fees – Wow, they listened!

23andMe’s Fall From $6 Billion to Nearly $0 – Well, I can’t get beyond the paywall, but this is certainly newsworthy for the genealogy community.

‘I didn’t realise I was so loved’: the people hosting their own ‘living funerals’

Bruce Springsteen accepts Ellis Island award with his mother & aunts – Ah, I see Bruce Springsteen’s mother passed. If you’d like to see a sweet memory of this lovely, mighty woman, you might want to watch Bruce with his mother and her sisters when he was honored at Ellis Island. They join him about 3 minutes in.

Thomas Pursell’s Escape Burial Hatch – Can never be too safe when it comes to burial, eh?

More African Americans work to recover names of ancestors from before 1870 – Renate Yarborough-Sanders!!

At 116, She Has Outlived Generations of Loved Ones. But Her Entire Town Has Become Family. – Happy 116th, Edie!

World War II soldier from Metropolis, Illinois accounted for by Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency – Welcome home, Tech Sgt. William Luster Leukering. Honored to have researched your family.

Photo Credit: exakta under Creative Commons license

The post Genealogy Roundup, February 9 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

National Concert Hall presents You Raise Me Up – The Songs and Stories of Brendan Graham with the National Symphony Orchestra – For any of my friends in Ireland (or expecting to be there soon), please consider attending this concert featuring the music of Brendan Graham. So many have been mentioning his song, “Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears” in relation to Annie Moore of Ellis Island (and BTW, he flew from Ireland to NYC to attend her memorial service), and that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what he’s given us. It’s a new year – treat yourself!

The Clifden Station House Hotel are still waiting for the people to claim their lost luggage from 100 years ago! There is so much history in this place. – Oh, to trace the descendants of the original owners!

Amateur Family Genealogists Researching Their Family History: A Scoping Review of Motivations and Psychosocial Impacts – Want to know what makes genealogists tick? Check this out for the latest study results.

A Montana Visit to Find My Great-Great-Grandfather’s Grave – I think this is the kind of tale many genealogists can relate to.

The post Genealogy Roundup, January 10 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Vibrant Mixed-Media Collages Give a Fresh Perspective on African American Ancestry – Always enjoy seeing examples of genealogy and art colliding, and this is no exception. You can check out more of Stan Squirewell’s work on his Instagram account (link in the article).

6 Things You Didn’t Know about Hannah Waddingham’s Roots – Seems a good time to share this again.

Photo Credit: Nuno Cardoso under Creative Commons license

The post Genealogy Roundup, December 6 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Meg Ryan’s Irish Heritage – In case you hadn’t heard, Meg Ryan’s got a new movie coming out that’s something of a return to her rom-com roots, so I decided to look into her other ones.

Texas WWII veteran to buried in Belton, 80 years after his death – Welcome home, Tech. Sgt. Turner Yearwood Johnston. Honored to have researched your family.

Ancestry Launches Parental Traits Inheritance; Bringing a deeper understanding of which parent’s DNA has the most influence on their offspring’s unique DNA makeup – Interesting, but I already know I’m a spice-loving, risk-taking, eat/drink-anything, boogie-down, non-sneezing introvert – and with the exception of the hothead trait (self-induced ), I know exactly which came from Mom, from Dad, and from both!

The 5 Clones in Argentina’s Election – So the guy who might be Argentina’s next president plans on appointing a “national cloner” due to his beloved 5-pack of cloned dogs.

AI Is About to Photoshop Your Memories – I know we genealogists have been thinking about this.

These identical twins dress alike daily. They are 84 years old. – These two are getting serious mileage out of their twindom!

Don’t ever change, AI:

Top Photo Credit: Quinn Dombrowski under Creative Commons license

The post Genealogy Roundup, October 25 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

An American Puzzle: Fitting Race in a Box – Interesting article on the census (gift link). Main topic is how we’ll have more options for “race or ethnicity” going forward. I know some genies (like me) have been handwriting specifics for the last few decades (Irish-Rusyn!), but we’ll all have more flexibility. This piece also includes a useful historical overview of changes in census records since 1790.

The musical road in Hungary – Would someone please do this with I-95?

The post Genealogy Roundup, October 18 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.

Census Tree FAQ – Hmm. Might be some interesting things that could be done with this cross-pollinated US census data.

Photo Credit: Nikolas Fečunda via YouTube

The post Genealogy Roundup, October 4 appeared first on Megan Smolenyak.