210 W. Washtenaw

A piece of information that my third cousin once removed (Third Cuz) was able to share with me is where in Lansing my second great grandparents lived – the Egans. The street still exists and here is me this morning in front of the corner where they lived.  It is now an insurance company building.

Here’s the building where Francis Egan went to work every day, also photographed this morning. He was Deputy Secretary of State and a rep from Detroit:

I called down to the State Archives to see if they would have records on where his office was but I was told those records don’t exist but I might be able to find out which seat he was assigned in the legislature.

Wow. It is so amazingly easy to do genealogy on a person/place when you A. live there, B. speak the language, C. have access to the Internet to learn so much from others. I have lots and lots of choices among histories of Lansing that will cover the time period in which they lived here, too, all right in the library.  Heck, I took these pictures on my morning break. It’s two blocks from my building to these places.

Third Times the Charm

You never know who is reading your blog. And how far they’ll come to make contact.

Above is me, my mom, and my third cousin once removed. She began following this blog when I wrote about my maternal grandfather Francis William Schryer (in Jan of 2008). He is a family member we have in common through Fran’s maternal grandmother Emeline Wright.  This cousin followed me through several posts, including one in which I noted that I changed my name to my mother’s maiden name in college. She finally hit paydirt when I referred to my Web design business which has contact information on it and wrote me asking, “Are you Francis Schryer’s granddaughter?”

Francis Schryer died when my mother was 15 and my grandmother remarried long before I was born to a man named Jack Hess. Jack is the man I always knew as Grandpa and he never shirked his grandfatherly responsibilities or treated us as less than his own grandchildren – he knew all us cousins from the day we were born. He is in his last years now, suffering from Alzheimer’s, and I have extremely fond memories of him.

But hiding behind the title of “Grandpa” in my life was the specter of Francis William Schryer. I grew up hearing painful stories of the chasm his death left in the family and listening at our regular family gatherings to my mother’s brothers tell their stories – about the remarkably harmonious marriage Fran had with my grandmother. The rhythms of the family’s life in Hillsdale in the 50’s. The days surrounding Fran’s aneurisms and finally his death at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. That night the family minister came back to the kitchen where my mother and great-grandmother were playing Canasta and my great-grandmother asked, “Well, how is Fran?” The minister said, “Not so good, he died about three hours ago.” And in that moment my mother stopped believing in God. She never changed her mind.

When I chose to change my name I knew I wanted to get closer to my mother’s family and his ghost played a part in my embracing the name Schryer and my interest in the Schryer family history. Fran’s family. My family.

“Are you Francis Schryer’s granddaughter?” Despite his shadow over my family, she is the first person to ever ask me this question. I am unquestionably, determindely and joyfully  my grandmother’s granddaughter, but only a phantom relation of his. Yes, I could finally tell someone, Yes, I am Francis Schryer’s granddaughter.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting this third cousin once removed today at a restaurant she chose for it’s Weight Watcher’s-friendly menu (yeah, she reads the blog). She was driving through the general vicinity from Toronto on her way to Chicago and stopped to have a leisurely lunch with me and my mom and exchange family stories.

She is a very, very, very serious genealogist. She gave me and my mother binders of family history information. She’s organized the way you’re supposed to be – CAREFULLY AND WITH FULL DOCUMENTATION. Her notes are impeccable. She has photocopies of census, death and other records in neat, tidy groupings. She has little red dots next to pertinent information so you don’t have to slog through ancient, hand-written documents. She has carefully labeled photographs. She has family groupings that put mine to shame. She has it seriously down. I found myself apologizing for the family history I haven’t even written yet. “Mine’s not like this,” I said. “Yours is a narrative, dear,” my mother said patting my back. The three of us talked until a “narrative” was a very good thing to be writing (and it is, it is).

We had a good time and it was wonderful to meet someone whose knowledge of the family meets ours exactly (she knows one side, we know the other, with just one generation of overlap) but her references to her every-day knowledge of Canada terrified me into remembering how much I haven’t learned yet about Canadian history. The sciatica put an end to family history work for a few months as my recreational sitting came to a grinding halt but now that I’m back to it I need to start in with a few works (in English!) on the relationship between the English and French Canadians in Quebec and the Ottawa River Valley in the early 19th century. Suggestions welcome!

Oh Won’t You Enjoy Tea in My Parlor This Afternoon?

I’m currently reading American Home Life, 1880-1930 : A Social History of Spaces and Services edited by Jessica H. Foy and Thomas J. Schlereth.  The book came out of a conference on “home history” – the formal historical study of the home. The first chapter was a fascinating look at the parlor in American homes. OK, I’m at that point where histories of parlors interest me intensely. It has something to do with that family history bug.

So let me take a moment to reveal my process, which is being specialized, and of which I am quite proud. For each book I read I take a fresh sheet of notebook paper and then tear it into little strips to mark pages.  When I finish the book I summarize it in a Word doc based on all those strips of paper – maybe something 5-9 pages long depending on the book (so I can return the book to the library). Then I have my notes and quotes for whenever I get to that section.

My initial intention was to recycle all those strips of paper for subsequent reads but that’s just one step of hassle I can’t seem to make. Also, it took me a sec to catch on to the strips of paper thing. One of the first books I read I dog-eared the pages I was going to need. Yeah, yeah, so sue me. I have great reverence for Books but not necessarily for mass-produced crap on acidic paper and no of course I didn’t do this to a book at one of my own libraries – I do have sense if not the reverence people might assume a librarian has. But I mean, really, we’d know about mass-produced crap on acidic paper and it is crap. I can’t tell you how much crap just falls apart. What do we do with crap that has fallen apart and is of no use to anyone? I won’t say it out loud…

In any case, would you care for a cup of tea in my parlor? This is the question I was thinking my second great-grandmother Mary Ann might have asked her neighbors. I learned about the way the parlor was a “memory palace” of the home and carefully tended by womenfolk. Its place in the Victorian home. The brick-a-brack. The covered tables. The popular types of wallpaper patterns. The way it was a prized space. The way it gave way to the modern “living room” when conveniences such as central heating and plumbing more than doubled the price of home construction and specialized rooms gave way to more efficient spaces. I had half a dozen strips of paper in this chapter alone. I was already phrasing what I was going to say about “the parlor” in my family history.

Then I remembered.

Then I remembered Mary Ann was widowed four times in her life. She worked as a washerwoman after the death of my second great-grandfather and already had children from two marriages  – including the one to my ancestor Davison – farmed out to family members. Maybe she knew the key to satisfaction in all life circumstances – maybe she was the Oprah Winfrey of her neighborhood – and I certainly hope that she was – but she saw a lot of heartache as well. Maybe she had a parlor. But I doubt she was re-wallpapering it as the fashions changed. And she was not the “upper middle class” this book was talking about. Her parlor was not the one in their illustrations.

After I realized this I started reading the book more carefully. It does a great job of covering the middle but mostly upper middle class. Well, Davison’s grandfather had some money but Mary Ann was broke and y’know what? For the antebellum period I was finding myself a little insulted by a history book that didn’t span class. We were poor at that point, and we counted, too. Maybe the book will get better, and I will definitely print a retraction if that’s the case.

Lumbermen Vs. Timbermen

Remember how I started out with “Canadian History for Dummies” as a point of reference? OK, I have now graduated to the kind of reading I need for specifics, a detailed history of the industry and economics of the Ottawa River Valley in the nineteenth century where my fourth great grandfather Simon lived. His town had fewer than 1,000 people in it in the 1810s and has fewer than 2,000 now. Go Ottawa River Valley!

A quick synopsis of the difference between lumber and timber…

Lumber often refers to sawlogs – where you take enormous trees and square them for ship masts etc. They’re squared in the forest where they’re felled and then moved by water or train to their destination. It’s actually a very wasteful process as much wood is left behind to dry out and then provide kindling for massive forest fires.

Timber is in board feet for building and furniture and such, y’know, the kind of 2X4s we’re used to seeing. They’re produced at saw mills.

Oh! and then there’s pulp, which is the industry the Valley switched to at the beginning of the 20th century when the larger trees played themselves out.

Looks like “Chapter 2″ is going to cover economics as one of its topics.

Vermont?!?!?!

Did I mention I have an ancestor who served in the Revolutionary War? Yeah, you can look him up in the military records of the National Archives and Records Administration: Nicholas Schryer, Yates Militia, 14th Regiment out of Albany, New York.

This is definitely cool genealogically speaking, and it’s not about the Revolutionary War or any war in particular. It’s about records and record keeping. The feds do a great job of keeping track of soldiers. Yeah, yeah, you hear about red tape and all the rest but for the most part the feds do a good job of keeping lots of records on soldiers.

But. But after reading a dissertation on the town where my ancestor served I have learned that while I am still eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution (not that I would people, jesus, you know me better than that), my ancestor served DURING the Revolutionary War but not directly in the cause of the Revolutionary War.

Yates’s militia was formed to quell the violence of the people-who-would-be-Vermonters and those in New York that supported them.

Vermont? Yeah, we defended New York against people who wanted to form the state of Vermont. Who cares about Vermont enough to die for it? OK, not me, that’s for certain. Mostly the would-be’s filed lawsuits in England but they also conducted raids into New York to prove their point. Little I-heart-Vermont riots. Crimany. My ancestor had to get out of bed in the middle of the night because of Vermonters?

The 14th militia, under another general, curbed loyalist activities and did regular Revolutionary War-type activities, but us? We were the riot police.

What a let-down.

Oh? And by the by, my family moved to Vermont pretty much immediately after the stopped them from rioting against New York.

No Pride, No Shame, No Credit, No Blame

The above is a common reference to a good attitude toward genealogical study. Take no pride, no shame, no credit and no blame for the actions, accomplishments and ways of life of your ancestors. They’re them, you’re you.

But you don’t really want to speak ill of the dead, either. So what do you do when people in your family just plain did bad stuff? Do you talk about it when they aren’t here to tell you about it for themselves – either the reasons or the other side of it? Can you try to write about it without being judgmental? It’s one thing to have horse thieves in your family (ho-hum), it’s another when people were sexually abusive. But best of luck trying to abuse Great Aunt Totally Rocks.

Great Aunt Totally Rocks wrote down all of the genealogical information she had and transcribed the family bible for my mother. They also talked for hours and GATR filled in many blanks and told many family history stories. One of them was of visiting one of her sisters when she was a teenager. The sister’s husband touched her inappropriately and she stomped him. As in, he came up behind her and touched her so she lifted her foot, smashed it into his and dug down. And it was hardly the only time GATR defended herself like this.

One of my favorite stories of her is a time she was at work in the 50s or 60s and a boss came over to talk to her and put his arm around her waist while doing so. She yelled, loud enough for the entire office to hear, “Keep your God damned hands off me.” No one there ever touched her again. See? There are ways to address sexual harassment on the personal level. Forget courtrooms, GATR just took it offline with people and nailed them to the wall. Totally love GATR. GATR? I take pride in GATR.

Also, I have come up with a tentative framework for  my family history project. I’m going to take each generation as a chapter of the book and explore what we know about the families through census, military, church, public and other records and weave into that social and political histories of their times. For instance, in the first generation for which we have data – Nicholas Schryer and Mary Eastwood – I’m going to talk about their church, the Dutch Reformed Church, about the political climate (the Revolutionary War and perhaps more importantly the conflict over Vermont. Crimany, but it was a big deal back then), and the town they lived in. The project will be self-printed and is in memory of my grandparents. (BTW, the primary crop in their town when they were there was wheat. Don’t need no stinkin’ New England history after all).

Also, did you know that many Germans and French Huegenots  attended Dutch Reformed Churches in the colonies because their Calvinist churches in Europe also adhered to the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563? Hah, it’s true.

Apparently NOT

I think it’s a good thing when someone tells you that they’re better than you are. I appreciate the time it saves me. That way, I don’t have to spend any of my pretty little time thinking about it or wondering – am I? or am I not?

See, there’s something about genealogy that you might not know. People who have been here the longest (aside from the Native Americans who usually get left out of this unique equation) are better than people who have come later. So, if you escaped Europe during World War I (1914 – 1918  ) you’re not as cool as people who came during the Potato Famine (1845 – 1852). See how that works?

It goes back almost precisely to Jamestown (1607) but Jamestown has been surpassed in I-got-here-before-you-snootiness by the relative latecomers of Plymouth Rock (1620). The Great New England. Published family histories about New England families are legendary. The “best” genealogical societies are in New England. Some of those “legendary” New England genealogies? They won’t include you if you were adopted because you’re not “really” from a pureblood New England family. These people put Lord Voldemort to shame. And even if you don’t buy into the nonsense, you are going to benefit from all of the research that has gone before you and the assorted glories of Those of the Tea Party are going to rub off on you.

‘Cause me? I thought I was from a New England family.

I recently checked out a book called A Long Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England. I was excited to be reading about agriculture! and crop rotation! and yields! and farm equipment! I was going to learn about the bread and butter of my ancestor’s lives. The dirt under their fingernails. The great and noble tradition of family farming.

I finally get the thing, examine the table of contents, and begin reading. Some stuff is good right away such as the difference between saying “subsistence farming” and “self-sustaining farming.” Yo!! Over here! I’m so cool I’m learning politically correct stuff about FARMING!

Then I begin scanning. Something is off.  The states of New York and Vermont keep not getting mentioned, chapter after chapter it’s Boston, Boston, all is Boston. Cape Cod. Yes, he name drops The Mayflower. Finally, I see a really terrific map of New England that breaks out the most important crops in various regional areas. Perfect! I’m going to be able to say what was being farmed in the region my family lived in during a particular time period.

Trick: present day states are outlined but not named. I pull up a GoogleMap of Albany, New York, near where my family lived, and grab and shift until I hit the Atlantic. I compare the maps.

WELL EXCUSE ME. New York is not a part of New England. As the last person to learn this I would like to thank Mr. Howard S. Russell, author of said book, for leading me on this road of discovery. I might reply that Lewis and Clark began THEIR Journey of Discovery in 1803 (I just learned this factoid, too, and it’s really the only come-back I have at hand).

I am left in the rather unenviable position of knowing for sure that I am not as cool as I thought I was.

Eh?

OK, I now know a lot more about Canada during the eighteenth century than I ever thought I would. The first chapter of my family history is in danger of becoming a treatise on the Seven Years War – a bad treatise as I don’t really “get” military history.

Some cool facts include that my ancestor who participated in the Revolutionary War out of New England did so in the 14th Regiment out of Albany. Also, that I’ve found a dissertation called The History of the Town of Schaghticoke, New York 1676-1855, which is where my family lived for a time and baptized at least two children circa 1781. Imagine, an entire dissertation written on a single little one-mule New England town.  Ah, the joys of American history, scraping the bottom of that New England barrel.

Also, I’m looking forward with positive glee to getting my hands on

A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England

I spent 1 1/2 hours kicking back to Battlestar Gallactica this weekend and felt like I was cheating for not working.

What I’m Reading About Where My Family Has Been

I did a genre-jump into Canada last year and the first few books were so dull I discontinued the jump – not that Canada is dull, just these books. (They were probably “good” books, and I know they were chosen by librarians because that’s who I asked to recommend them.) That made me kinda sad.

My image of Canadians is that they are a lot like us on our good days – steadfastedly democratic, friendly, live-and-let-live, let’s-all-get-along, yeah-I-can-help-you-with-that folks. Neighborly. Lefty radical cool people except that everyone is relaxed and polite about being radical which takes most of the bitterness out of it. A no-drama people.

Is all that “basically” true? I don’t even know. That’s how much I don’t know about Canada.

Well, much of my family still lives in Canada and my direct line that I’m researching lived there from shortly after the (U.S.) Revolutionary War until shortly after the (U.S.) Civil War (I will pause here to say members of other lines of my family fought in both of those conflicts – and all on the winning sides as far as I know).

I went searching for a history of Papineauville Quebec (what is 90 miles from Montreal), an English-speaking valley in Quebec, where my family lived. Here’s a map. I quickly realized I needed to take a step back. I know a lot more about European countries than I do about Canada. So, I’m starting with the basics and shall work my way forward. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Pack Your Bags: You’re Going on a Guilt Trip

Day 1 (Friday):  After going to a local public library for “intro to” family history research guides (and being unimpressed) I go to my own library. We’re one of the top 10 gene libraries in the country and so I knew I’d find what I need here even though I’d never been in the gene stacks before. I ask for the circulating collection (books you can take home) and the librarian directs me to some shelves and helps me pick out a few titles. Great. I go to check them out and watch uneasily as the librarian behind the counter has to do circ system voodoo to check them out to me:  THEY’RE ACTUALLY  NON-CIRCULATING, meaning, you can’t check them out after all. Out loud she tells the system not to be silly, I need these for my job, and she creates a due date.  Is she subtely asking if I need them for my job? Or does she really think I need them for my job? even though I don’t work in the genealogy collection. I make jokes to distract her from this dangerous line of consideration.

Next I take the books to Panera where I sit for two hours and read. I splurtz a little Diet Pepsi on one of the books and dry it with my sleeve. I feel guilty. I consider that it is a 2008 mass-produced trade paperback and not actually valuable. That doesn’t really help.

The books are so useful I finish one by Sunday afternoon and another by Monday night. These books are great. I decide I shall return both of them promptly. I take them to work with me on Tuesday. I actually work one building over from the library itself right now so I see if anyone is going over to the library who could drop them off for me. No one is. The thought of walking them over myself in the snow isn’t actually all that appealing. My good intentions are for naught, the books sit on my desk for two days. On Wednesday night I know that the next day I’ll be dropping Hubby off at the library and he can return them for me. Perfect! I take the books back home.

On Thursday morning I tell hubby I have two non-circulating books checked out, can he run them upstairs today? He says yes. An hour later I repeat that I have two non-circulating books checked out, can he return them? He says yes, a little irritably. Hubby, I married you and I love you, but I don’t trust you to return books on time any more than I trust me to return books on time. Returning books on time is not the forte of many librarians. What does that mean for you? It means return your books on time or we’re going to fine you and eventually revoke your borrowing privileges.

God, I hope the head of public services doesn’t see him with those. No one granted me a dispensation to check out these books, it was all a big misunderstanding on the part of the librarian behind the circ desk, and I actually don’t know her very well. Now I have lead her  into a life of rule breaking – and in libraries we are VERY SERIOUS about our rules. I might lose microfilm privileges. This must be handled very delicately.

I consider calling Hubby and asking him for a third time to return the books, this time with instructions to do it sneakily. I don’t. He does not find jimmying a circulation system so you can take a book to Panera to be a high crime and would not find the interruption amusing.  I hope nobody needs that Family Tree Maker manual today.