Think you can learn just how your ancestor celebrated a holiday—175 years ago? You may be on to something.
There I was, by the dawn’s early light, poking about the Internet looking for another patriot ancestor, or, rather, seeking information to prove I had the right Jacob.
It was 1946 and I could not be at home for the holidays. My husband had just returned from overseas. He had seen the end of World War II from the deck of an aircraft carrier off the coast of Japan. With the promise of the G.I. Bill, we left our home in Mississippi and went to Texas to attend Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
The earliest inhabitants of America ate what was available. That may have been an impromptu meal of wild greens or a slice of pemmican carefully stored away months before in anticipation of lean times. Today, we still eat what’s available. That may be an expensive salad of baby greens or a can of soup purchased months ago discovered in the back of the cupboard.
The term “Easter egg” in computer software refers to a small program hidden within a larger software package. The Easter egg does not interfere with the software and often goes unnoticed by even experienced users. It’s usually meant as a secret message by the creator of the software and can give even the most serious user a good laugh.
Heard of the seven daughters of Eve?
Maybe it’s time to make room for the five daughters of Fluffy. A recent study of the mitochondrial DNA of the common house cat found that the felines roaming the streets and sunning themselves in front windows today can all be traced back to just five mother wildcats.
The advent of the steam engine made transporting goods much faster, but the nature of the trains’ goods may surprise you. Some traveled westward carrying as their primary—and most precious—cargo, children. Nearly 200,000 of them.
It’s April 1927, and Arie, who would one day become my grandmother, is feeling familiar labor pains, so my future granddad takes the wagon and drives very fast to get the midwife. He brings her back to their home in Morgan County, Alabama, where my mother is born. She—my mother—is very small. They say that if she had died they could have buried her in a shoe box. She’s not healthy.
You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don’t you call me, ‘cause I can’t go;
I owe my soul to the company store…
From “16 Tons”
by Merle Travis
The work was dangerous. The hours long. And the slim portion of the paycheck that made its way home at the end of the month? It never seemed enough.
Mining.
The good news about this photo is that there is a note in the upper left corner that identifies who is in it.
My grandfather
M. Noonan
The bad news is that we don’t know which M. Noonan is the right one.
The owner of the photo has a list of four possible M. Noonans:
1. Maurice Noonan
b. 1831, d. 1885
2. Michael Noonan
b. 1831, d. ~1900
3. Maurice Noonan
b. 1903, d. 2004
4. Michael Noonan
b.
You know how you think you’ll remember a date, but when you go to retrieve it, it just isn’t there? I was having one of those moments. I was trying to get a better picture of my grandmother’s sister Meredith. I knew someone had once tried to snatch her from behind a bank in town, and I knew that the incident happened not too long ago, genealogically speaking—in the 1970s.