At that time it was not statutory rape, they were legally married ZOMBIES…
Her mom, by the way, is a lovely woman and one of the best music teachers I’ve ever had.
Tell us more.
Okay, I was in grade school, and Vanessa was Miss New York, so we renamed the school paper after her, and she was going to sing at field day, and then all of a sudden halfway through the school year all the adults got very quiet about Vanessa.
That being said, her mother was one of the few music teachers I had who didn’t just stuff recorders in our mouths. She taught us about blues and rock and all kinds of things that I wish I’d paid more attention to, because she knew what the hell she was talking about.
I just watched the Vanessa episode. It was cool seeing the photos of those guys from way back–I didn’t even know what a “tin image” or whatever they called it was. (I wish they had elaborated more on that technology, but I guess it’s a show about people, not photography).
Vanessa’s lineage was interesting to me because I imagine that many of my ancestors have “mulatto” classifications as well. Indeed, my grandfather was labeled that on a census when he was a little boy, though looking at him you would have just pegged him as a “regular” black guy. But his mother, IIRC, was indeed biracial and looked it. We tend to think of race in terms of black and white, but at least for census purposes, the government did see “shades of gray.” I wonder when that changed (again, I wish they could have talked about that some more).
I didn’t like how that one historian made the leap from “born in an area where cotton was grown” to “must have been born a slave”. Some evidence in the form of property records or something would have been nice to see as a follow-up. And if he had been born a slave, it would have been really interesting to find out how he came to be an educated man. And how old would he have been at Emancipation? I know the show only lasts so long, but there were gaps in that dude’s story that I wish they had filled. (Like, why were they calling him “esquire” when he was just a school teacher? And how did he become justice of the peace? I’m confused.)
I saw Rosie O’Donnell crying at the beginning of the show. I know geneology and ancestry are important to some people, but I can’t possibly guess what could be behind all that boo-hooing.
They were popular from just before the Civil War til the 1890s. The images weren’t as good as the paper and cardboard ones but they had a major advantage: you could take them with you that day rather than having to wait several days for the development. The problem is that the images weren’t as lasting: I have some of my ancestors that, like the one of Vanessa’s ancestor, are basically black with just a little bit of detail in lighter colors.
[QUOTE=monstro]
Vanessa’s lineage was interesting to me because I imagine that many of my ancestors have “mulatto” classifications as well. Indeed, my grandfather was labeled that on a census when he was a little boy, though looking at him you would have just pegged him as a “regular” black guy. But his mother, IIRC, was indeed biracial and looked it. We tend to think of race in terms of black and white, but at least for census purposes, the government did see “shades of gray.” I wonder when that changed (again, I wish they could have talked about that some more).
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“Mulatto” was a classification until the early 20th century then went away for a while. In modern censuses they have categories for “two or more races”. Mulatto was usually used for people of mixed Afro and Euro heritage of course, but could also mean people with American Indian or almost any other mixture of ancestries.
Mississippi and Louisiana had a larger Chinese and Filipino population than most people would realize in the late 19th/early 20th century (many of the Chinese and southeast Asians who came over to work on the railroads settled in the south later where land was cheap and the climate often similar to the places they’d left back in southeast Asia) and some married local blacks. It was illegal for blacks and whites to marry or for whites and Asians to marry but nobody much cared if blacks married other non-whites, and the offspring of blacks and Asians were sometimes called “mulatto” in records.
Interesting to me is that Chang & Eng Bunker, the Siamese Twins (shown here with their wives and two of the 22 children they respectively fathered) were listed, along with all of their children, as W(hite) in the Censuses taken in their lifetimes, but some (not all) of their children and grandchildren were listed as M(ulatto). Caleb V. Haynes, one of the first major generals to earn his stars in the USAF, was a grandson of Chang, carried the nickname “Chink” throughout his life, and in some of his records his race (he was roughly 3/4 Euro and 1/4 Asian [the twins were of mostly Chinese ancestry but grew up in Thailand] is left conspicuously blank probably because the census taker couldn’t figure it out.
[QUOTE=monstro]
I didn’t like how that one historian made the leap from “born in an area where cotton was grown” to “must have been born a slave”. Some evidence in the form of property records or something would have been nice to see as a follow-up.
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Averages probably. Even though Tennessee had more liberal laws about free blacks remaining in the state than many southern states their 1860 Census tabs show that they had 7,300 free people of color v. 275,000 slaves, or roughly 2.5% free/97.5% slave.
How he learned to read is an excellent question but one that would probably take a very long time to find out if it’s even possible. It’s possible he learned after the war, when he would have been a young adult. Since most people who become literate after adulthood never become good enough to qualify as a teacher (which he was) it’s more likely he learned before he was free, probably from a master or master’s family; this was illegal, but it happened. Jefferson Davis- always an enigma (a white supremacist’s white supremacist even by the standards of his day- who almost always entrusted his most important duties regarding his family and his property to black people [don’t look for logic there]) had several of his slaves taught to read, as did Thomas Jefferson and many other less famous plantation owners. In general- many exceptions- mulattoes were better treated than dark skinned slaves and less likely to be field hands often because they were the children of their owner or a member of his family and while acknowledging them was exceptionally rare they could be sort of unofficially acknowledged with special favors like learning to read or being given special training in a field (e.g. the sons of Sally Hemings [who were almost certainly Jefferson’s as well] were taught to read and trained as carpenters). That said, the vast majority of slaves were of course illiterate.
Nowhere has biracial ancestry and skin tone been more important to history than Haiti. The mulatto classification is still a major class distinction. Most of the early leaders of the revolts and the governments were mulatto for the simple reason that because of their white fathers they were the most likely to receive education and freedom. To this day a marriage between a light skinned Haitian and a dark skinned Haitian is a bigger deal than an interracial relationship in the U.S..
I think the show’s researchers should have gone into much more research on this ancestor’s background and mentioned at least part of it on the show because there’s a lot of unanswered questions there. Also, the fact he’s from the Memphis area poses lots of things that would be interesting to look into- for example, the most successful slave trader in Memphis was Nathan Bedford Forrest (one of the few rags-to-riches self made millionaires in southern history)- very possibly a connection there. It would also be- I would think- not impossible to track down white people of his surname in that region of Tennessee for possible hits. Slaves were the most valuable property you could have- an adult slave in good physical condition was usually worth more than a small farm with a herd of cattle and a house on it- so while they weren’t named in the Census there were all kinds of records kept, especially in wills and estate inventories. They dropped the ball a bit in my opinion.
I thought the Tim McGraw episode was pretty boring, even with ancestors murdered by Indians. The Palatine Germans being scammed to go to England to get free passage to America though – that was interesting. I’d like to know more about that.
Saw the Vanessa Williams one. That was pretty amazing how much shit they dug up about her ancestors. One of the better episodes, IMO.
Oh, I wish I’d seen it for that reason – one of my multi-great-grandfathers was a Palatinate German who came to Virginia as an indentured servant in the 1730s.
I started a genealogy project on the ancestry.com/nbc.com thing. I fully expect to get continuously spammed, but it’s a pretty slick setup, and I can see the type of information linked (e.g. 1870 U.S. Census) without actually subscribing to ancestry.com.
A distant relative traced one line back 600 years in Germany - I can’t wait to see where that leads.
For six years, I’ve researched my family on Ancestry.com but the most info I got was from a cousin I didn’t know I had (he saw my query on Ancestry); he had gotten a family tree on our father’s side that went back to the 16th century in Europe. Research on my mother’s side has taken me back only to my great-grandmother and a mystery re her life and her children in Washington, D. C. Chasing down the clues and researching the various documents of the various states takes a lot of time, and I haven’t spent much time on it recently.
Here’s a thought: could this site support another forum for genealogical purposes?
Start a thread in ATMB - there may be enough interest (although I seldom read that subforum).
The Aristocracy would disagree with you. To them, your family history really IS who you are.
The Rosie O’Donnell episode was more interesting. She’s Irish – the family name is Murtagh, Americanized to Murtha – and her ancestors emigrated during the Potato Famine after spending time in a workhouse.
Her great-grandfather’s first wife died in a fire, when a kerosene lamp exploded. The newspaper account revealed that the poor woman survived for 20 days, and that an infant she was holding survived. Ancestors of the infant were found in New Jersey, and Rosie met them.
The best part was a tour of a British workhouse. Families were separated in the workhouse – men and women were separated, and children were segregated by age. According to the historian who did the tour, they slept in large rooms on straw-filled mats on the floor. There was a trench down the middle of the floor – good God, did those serve as privies?
Haven’t watched this episode yet (forgot) so I look forward to it on hulu.
[QUOTE=AuntiePam]
Her great-grandfather’s first wife died in a fire, when a kerosene lamp exploded. The newspaper account revealed that the poor woman survived for 20 days, and that an infant she was holding survived. Ancestors of the infant were found in New Jersey, and Rosie met them.
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Damn they must be old.
Henry Morton Stanley, immortalized for the line “Dr. Livingston, I presume?”, recorded some of his experiences growing up in one and it is bonechilling. He was routinely starved, beaten, sexually abused by other kids (he was small for his age) and adults there, and never given anything remotely like affection. He was brought there by relatives who told him they were taking him to the zoo (melodramatic but true); when his mother came by a few months later he was briefly excited but she was only there to drop off another illegitimate kid. The experiences left him an empty shell of a human who developed an almost stalker-like need to attach himself to people (one that turned off others, including to an extent Livingston), an inability to achieve sexual intimacy, and at the same time an astonishing lack of compassion in dealing with African natives during his careers on that continent.
I watched this show a bit last year and then saw the episode last night, with Rosie O’Donnell. Naturally, they play up the melodrama, but I don’t think Rosie or anyone in her family knew about the great grandfather’s first wife or her tragic death. Nice to see that Rosie has met a whole new side to her family through this!
The workhouse segment wasn’t unexpected, though it is a shock to imagine what it must have been like. There were poor houses in the US also and some of my ancestors spent some of their youth there, unfortunately. (This is very hard to find on the census records, btw). Geneology takes a very large committment once you get into it, and it is definitely not the easiest thing to search for. Even just looking up census records can have your head spinning and your eyes twirling in short time. Plus like some of the archivists and genealogists pointed out, you’ve got to try a variety of spellings of the names. I was looking for an ancestor in the 1900 census, I think, and nearly missed them because the census taker made a fancy looking H that had been interpreted as an S, I think.
It’s an interesting show, no doubt about that, and Rosie’s segment was moving. I only wish that everyone had the help of a show like that with their genealogy!
All day I’m wondering what I said wrong in that post but can’t figure out what it is. Then last night it hit me – ancestors came before, descendants come after. :smack:
I signed up at ancestry.com. Maybe in a month I can do trees for my husband’s family, mine, and my first husband’s. I’m finding some misspelled names, which is understandable when looking at handwritten census records.
Does anybody know why the federal census records seem to be accessible only through ancestry.com? And who’s doing all the work? Who’s scanning all those draft registrations and naturalization records? Is that how they do it – scanning? I’m amazed at what’s available.
Auntie Pam, go to the LDS church library site, you should be able to get links to many sites there. The LDS church makes/shares much of the geneological information they uncover.
I don’t know who is scanning records, but whew, it is NOT me! LOL In all seriousness, though, much of that information is probably there online due to the LDS church. The 1940 census will be the next one to be released - they are held for 75 years, I think. The 1930 census was the first to show my Mom and Dad, so I was really pleased to find them on that when the 1930 census came out.
[QUOTE=AuntiePam]
I signed up at ancestry.com. Maybe in a month I can do trees for my husband’s family, mine, and my first husband’s. I’m finding some misspelled names, which is understandable when looking at handwritten census records.
Does anybody know why the federal census records seem to be accessible only through ancestry.com? And who’s doing all the work? Who’s scanning all those draft registrations and naturalization records? Is that how they do it – scanning? I’m amazed at what’s available.
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Ancestry is actually pretty good about misspellings. Searching for my ancestors with the surname Caton, for example, will bring up Catton, Cayton, Keaton, and other spellings (that may or may not be accurate but I wouldn’t have even thought of looking under). I lived on ancestry.com for longing than I care to acknowledge (it was kind of my version of The SIMS) so if you ever have any questions feel free to PM me. I’ve picked up a lot of Google tips along the way also.
Something I wish FLICKR or some other photo site would do is dedicate a large space exclusively to pictures of ancestors for genealogy researchers. Whenever I’ve uploaded some of the few pics of ancestors I have they’ll be instantly copied to a dozen trees and then to two or three dozen more of various descendants or other relatives, and I’ve managed to find a couple as well; I’d love to see a one-stop place where people can google ancestral names and find out if any pics are available.
I’ve never been a Rosie fan but have to admit I like her better after this episode and thought it was the best one in a while. The workhouse scenes were very effective and she was right- it seemed just like a concentration camp. I would guess the “trough” in the middle was strictly as a walkway because the beds would have been ass-to-elbow with people, though I’m sure in the kids wards especially there would have been urine and other disgusting stuff in that trough. It was also probably there so that they could bring up buckets of water once in a while, pick up the mattresses, and douse the floors in an attempt at cleanliness. It’s worth remembering that at this time the germ theory of disease was still unknown and it was thought illness was caused by polluted air (miasma) so cleaning the place took precedence over cleaning the people.
This one also had a lot more about real genealogy leg work, such as the church and parish archives in Quebec and Ireland (stuff less likely to be online). None of my ancestors appear to have been Catholic since the Reformation era anyway so I haven’t had any luck with parish records, but county courthouses often have records that are fascinating and far more detailed than just land records but rarely available online. Since my ancestors were southern and many owned slaves their wills and estate inventories often mention their slaves (and their farm animals) by name, which never ceases to be jarring; if an ancestor bequeathes “Barney and Liza” to a daughter it might be his horses or a husband-wife slave couple. (Horses and mules, both of which were expensive but neither as much as a slave, were mentioned by name; cows and other livestock usually just mentioned by number, though I have seen a bull mentioned by his name in an estate record and appraised at $100 (1850s) as he was a champion- usually they were $20 or less at that time).
Regarding Auntie Pam’s, Ancestry.com doesn’t have exclusive rights to reproduce the federal records or anything (that would be illegal in fact), but to do so is a HUGE expense so there just aren’t that many people with the means and resources to do so. The database company LexisNexis, a leader in digitizing Congressional and SCOTUS and other federal records nobody else has done, was planning something with the Census a few years back but no idea how they ever progressed on that; they’d be the only one to give Ancestry, which is pretty much a monopoly (not due to unfair trade or anything, just because of scope) any competition. I’ve wondered if ancestry has already commenced digitizing the 1940 Census (which will be available for release to the public in 2012) or if they have to wait until the “72 year deadline” before they can start that.
I’ve written emails that I think were well worded to Google before urging them to get into for-profit genealogy since they not only have the financial resources but have already digitized a gazillion books and are already the best search engine for armchair research, but have never heard anything from them. I still think they’re missing out on a goldmine.
Something I’m surprised they didn’t address in this episode and that I’ve wondered about:
I know that none of Rosie’s kids are her’s biologically. I seem to remember her (ex?) spouse gave birth to at least one of them but I’ve no idea if any are genetically related to her. While I completely believe that genetics is the least of a parent-child relationship I do wonder how she’ll relay this info to her kids. The events that formed Rosie’s family did of course affect them also since they were adopted into it.
With all of us one randy great-grandma jumping the fence could of course make any ancestral work before that point for naught in that line and we’d never know it anyway unless it happened to be in a line that could be proven or disproven by DNA genealogy (and to date that’s really only the straight maternal line [i.e. your mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s etc. ad nauseum- babydaddy’s make no difference in mitochondrial DNA] or the Y-chromosome paternal line [father’s father’s father’s father’s father’s etc.- baby mama’s make no difference in the Y chromosome]). For that matter adoption was often a very informal matter: here’s a baby who needs a home, here’s a family willing to take it in, matter resolved, no paperwork necessary [especially common when adopting a relative’s baby*] which could also make any research before then irrelevant from the genetic perspective, so I suppose we all kind of have a leap of faith there.
*Even in the 20th century it can be hard to know. Two well known cases: singer Bobby Darin and Jack Nicholson were both grown before they learned the woman they knew as their older sister was actually their birth mother. I didn’t realize until a friend legally adopted her stepdaughter that the birth certificate is re-issued in cases of adoption with no mention of the birth mother or of the fact it’s a reissue.