First, I take my paternal grandfather’s year of birth, which is 1888.  Then I divide that by 100 and round off.  My number is 19.  Then I’m supposed to find number 19 on my pedigree chart and write three things about this person.  Number 19 on my pedigree chart is Marthe Magdeleine Labourdette.

Three things I know about Marthe:

1.  She married Pierre Charles Segalas in 1855 in Ogeu les bains, France

2.  She was born on 28 Jul 1830, Buziet, France

3.  Her parents were Michel Labourdette and Jeanne Capdeville.

I was thrilled when companies began digitizing records and adding them online as I hadn’t been able to use a microfilm reader for a couple of years. Now I’d have records at hand. I could save them to my computer and input directly from that.

Yeah…right…that’s how it was supposed to work. As my health worsened, I continued to research, but I didn’t do much with what I found. What’s has happened is over the years I’ve become a collector of records but not much of a disseminator of information. So I have hundreds if not thousands of records on my computer bursting with information and I have no clue what that information is!

You see, I forgot an important step. Even though I was collecting information, I still had to do something with it. I’ve slowly been inputting records as my physical abilities will allow. I’m not anywhere near finished. But, it’s made me rethink how I research and how to be a more effective genealogist.

Recently, I started working in the French civil records as they’ve been digitized and put online. It’s slow work since I don’t know French, but not impossible. Once you learn the pattern of foreign records you can read the necessary information easily.

I decided that I was only going to translate these suckers once. I’m taking notes as I go. Then I can read what I have offline for further review. I can input from my notes once I figure out if I’ve found a relative. I have a saved copy just in case my notes don’t make sense. It’s slow going since I can only write three or four entries before my hand gets sore, but doing 3 or 4 hear and there is much more efficient than having a hundred records and not knowing what’s in them.

This has made me realize that I created my own problem. I really should have been taking notes as I went. And, not scribbly little notes on scrap paper. Real research notes on binder paper with the lines, notes that I can organize and refer to. I can work with them when away from my computer, too.

Don’t fall into the trap that I did. Just because records are easy to access and easy to save, doesn’t mean you should treat them differently that those found the old fashion way.

I hope some day to clear out my backlog. I want to be someone with a brilliant family tree, not a collector of a bunch of disparate documents.

The announcement made me a little sad.  Kodak cameras are a big part of my childhood memories.  My Dad had a Kodak camera that he kept in the glove compartment of the car.  I can remember when my sisters got cameras for Christmas and their birthday.

Oh, how I wanted my own camera!  It seemed so grown up.  When I was 8 or 9, I got my very first camera.  It was a Kodak Pocket Instamatic.  I can still remember the yellow box with a cartridge of 110 film and a flash cube.  I loved that camera!

Throughout my life I’ve had several Kodak cameras.  I had a couple of Instamatics, a disk camera, and a 35mm flip flash that I loved because there were no more flash cubes!   Kodak made cameras you could carry around with you, that were durable, and easy to use.

There were the “Kodak moment” commercials.  They were the commercials that always made you cry.

Then digital came around.  For someone like me who could take 7 rolls a film on a weekend at Yosemite, digital was a dream come true.  No more costly developing of photos that didn’t turn out as I planned.  No more hassling with tried to load film in the camera.

So, today it seems like a little bit of America’s history has died.  Thanks for all the wonderful photographic memories, Kodak!  You brought photography to the average American and kept it affordable.  Our memories are forever entwined with our Kodak cameras.

camera:

I was never satisfied researching a single line or my pedigree.  I tracked every darn cousin–including the 45+ Pacheco cousins of my Grandfather.  Each time I found someone living, I collected information on both sides of their tree.  It provided me with a glimpse into how the different families from Kauai, Oakland, and Monterey County intertwined.

What I didn’t realize was this was going to provide me with a way to give back to those cousins who so generously gave me their time and memories.  I was able to put them back in contact with their own family.

My Grandma Shellabarger was alive when I started the tree.  She was in her early 80s.  In the course of research, I found Adelia (Hughes) Cosma, who married a Pacheco cousin and Eva (Ventura) Nunes who was the sister of my Great Aunt Minnie (Ventura) Nunes.  Both of them had been close to my Grandma in the 1930s and 1940s, then lost contact after my Grandparents divorced.  I also found her nephew Ted who the family had lost contact with sometime in the 1970s.

My Grandma who was not happy about the tree at all was thrilled to hear that her friends, Dee and Eva, and her nephew, Ted, were still around.  I got permission to give each other phone and mailing information.  Ted phoned my Grandmother regularly.  Dee visited her on occasion.  She and Eva wrote letters.  I believe that it made my Grandma happy to reunite with these folks from her past.  The 40-50 years in between didn’t seem to matter.

Over the years, I been able to reconnect a few cousins with lost family.  Recently, I was able to do this for my cousin, Betty.  One of her grandmother’s cousins in Hawaii, Teresa, contacted me after seeing one of my blog posts that mentioned her line.  Before Thanksgiving, I was able to send off some photos to Betty that Teresa had sent me and tell her about her new cousin.  She didn’t have any contact with Hawaii anymore.  Betty hadn’t been feeling well lately, so I thought this might cheer her up.

I gave Teresa her number and they were able to have a nice phone conversation a couple of weeks ago.  Today, I received a very nice letter from Betty.  She was so delighted!  She wanted to thank for putting her cousin in contact with her.  And, she was very eager to see what genealogy tidbits might be fleshed out.

When I started my tree, I didn’t realize I would have the opportunity to put people who hadn’t seen each other in decades back in contact.  I didn’t know that I’d be meeting new cousins and then putting them in contact with other cousins and rebuilding connections that were lost through migration, friction, drifting away, and time.  As a genealogist, you sometimes feel you are the one always taking.  I have often wonder why people who are strangers would give so freely of themselves to me just to satisfy my little historical obsession.

But, it’s a pleasant reward. An extra added bonus.  It makes me happy to be able to do this for people who’ve done so much for me.

If you are stuck with your Portuguese research on Kauai, I might be able to help.  I will do a look up for free.   If I find your people, there is a fee for the copying of documents and compiling of information.

The fee varies depending on how much information I have on the family.  In some cases I only have one or two records on a family.  In other cases, I have been able to go from the original immigrant to current generations.

Also, I will do look ups in Portuguese Hawaiian Memories, the Azorean Passport book, ship immigration indexes, and the census for all islands for a fee.

If you are interested in these services, please email me at: islandroutesATgmaildotcom

Tonight, I was working in the baptismal records for 1761 and came across this page:

These drawings and the ones on the page 10 years later are by the same person, Jospeh Lapenne of Ogeu (aka Ogeu les bains).  The entry above it is a typical baptismal entry.  Catherine and Raymond Lapenne were the godparents–perhaps relatives of our Monsieur Lapenne.

There are math calculations on the page, the drawings, the reference to 1806, what looks like “Jesus Crist” on the right hand side.

Was he doodling out of boredom?  Do these drawings represent the LaPenne family in some way?  Was he making some sort of political statement?

I don’t supposed I’ll ever know.  Just another one of those interesting things we find while doing research.

One of the most interesting things I have found in these French records is the amount of unwed mothers being recorded in birth records.  They use the terms Fils Naturel and Fille Naturelle, meaning a male or female child born out of wedlock.

In the records the women are listed by their full name.  And, in many cases their Father is the one who has presented the information to the recorder.  Isn’t that intriguing?  No one seems to be hiding the fact that Jeanne Marie has had her third child out of wedlock.  Yes, 3!  And, sometimes 5.

I’ve learned from a relative that in this region it was common for a couple to hold off getting married until they had the money to do so.  I didn’t really see evidence of this in the records from 1800, but I do in the 1780s.  In these records, after fils naturel, the fathers name is listed too!  In this period it is more rare to see a child unclaimed by the father than claim by him.  I have found a couple, not many, couples marrying several years later.

My own 4th great grandmother gave birth to at least two children out of wedlock.  One was my 3rd great grandfather, Augustin.  Her mother was the one who reported the births to officials.  I believe her father was deceased by the time they were born.

I suspect where there is poverty people do what they need to do.  It cost money to get married officially–even in 1780.  I imagine that more often than not, the situation was the same for everyone so it wasn’t such a shocking thing to be done.  Of course, Queen Victoria hadn’t yet made it on the scene and Victorian morals hadn’t spread across the globe.

Sure shakes up my notions about my seriously Catholic ancestors.  I’ll need to revise my stereotypes once again.

In most cases pre-1900 women are a non-entity.  Their full name might be record and it might now.  They could be known by their first name or the more frustrating Mrs. So and So.  And, even worse “wife of” or “daughter of”.

In the Azorean records, women aren’t associated with a surname for the most part.  They use a religious name like dos Anjos, da Conceicao, etc.  This religious name may change from childhood to adulthood making it difficult to know if Maria dos Anjos is the same as Maria de Jesus.

In the French records of the Oloron district in Southern France, women seemed to have captured a separate identity from their husbands, brothers, and fathers very early on.  In the 1800s, they are listed in records under their maiden name.  They even sign their name showing a level of literacy.  I’m back to the mid 1700s, even in this period they are still recorded with their full maiden name.

One of the most fascinating things I’ve found is that women can be witnesses and informants as well.  In these records someone tells the official recorder the information to be recorded.  Most of the time it is not the parents or spouse themselves, but another relative.  It’s interesting to see the matriarch of the family being the one who presents the information.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that the women of this region had professions.  In the Azores most people, male and female, were laborers.  If you’ve worked in American records, you’ve noted the conspicuous blank spot next to women on the census–even those you know work.  In these records in the periods after 1800 where professions are listed, the women are weavers, laundresses, artisans, day laborers, domestics, cooks, and so forth.  Their profession is listed on the marriage and birth records along side of the men.

As I’ve researched my French ancestry, I’ve noticed a certain independent streak.  Women who traveled alone as early as 1880.  Women who were listed with occupations in the 1900 census.  Women who took over the family business when their husbands died.  Women who were politically active just after receiving the right to vote in California.

I do not know if this is indicative of French women as a whole.  Perhaps the Southern region produced independent women.  All I know is that it is wonderful to see.  Just knowing that my ancestor was a weaver or that she could write her name adds a little more to the stories in my tree.

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