Category: News

Here’s What I’ve Been Reading

Kris Hocker on 19 Jan 2018

I regularly share links to articles that I’ve been reading around the web through my social media accounts. They don’t, however, get shared here. I’ve been thinking I should change that. So, here are some of the posts that I’ve been reading and sharing.

The Legal Genealogist

http://www.legalgenealogist.com/2018/01/14/big-steps-forward-at-myheritagedna/

The DNA Geek

MyHeritage Overhauls Their Matching Algorithm

Kitty Cooper’s Blog

An Awesome Ancestry Add-on

Genealogy Tip of the Day

200B For the Cause of Death Does Not Mean Death by 200 Bees

The DNA Geek

What’s Coming Down the Pike: AncestryDNA

And also:

What’s your opinion? Should I keep sharing links like this?

FamilySearch Adds New Features for Digitized Films

Kris Hocker on 7 Nov 2015

Good news. FamilySearch is adding new features to their site this month. A new thumbnail gallery is being added to the fill-screen image view and new icons are being added to the catalog which will indicate if films have been indexed or digitized online or still need to be ordered as films from the FHL.

Check out this post on the FamilySearch site for the details!

1918 Pandemic Flu Gravesite Found in Pennsylvania

Kris Hocker on 19 Aug 2015

Last week a highway construction worker in a small Pennsylvania town made a grim discovery with links to a deadly pandemic that killed millions around the globe nearly a century ago… According to the Pottsville Republican-Herald, approximately 17,000 residents in the region around Schuylkill Haven fell ill. Close to 1,500 of them died, leaving as many as 3,000 children orphaned.

Archaeological Evidence Reveals Prehistoric Blue-Eyed Hunter-Gatherers

Kris Hocker on 11 Feb 2014

Scientists used to think that blue-eyes were introduced to Europe by farmers who arrived late to the continent. New research shows that the genes responsible for blue eyes may have already been there amongst dark-skinned hunter-gatherers.

An analysis of the DNA of a 7,000 year old skeleton found in a cave in Spain showed that the male carried the African version of genes responsible for the light skin pigmentation of Europeans—meaning he had dark skin—along with the genetic variation that causes blue-eyes.

Makes me wonder where along the line the genetic variation occurred. I doubt this is the very first blue-eyed person.

I’d always thought it likely that blue-eyes and light skin were a genetic response to the need for less pigmentation due to the weaker sunlight of northern Europe. But maybe not. I’d hardly call Spain a northern climate.

I guess we’ll have to see what future scientific discoveries can tell us.

To Cite or Not to Cite?

Kris Hocker on 12 Jan 2012

In my recent travels around the web, reading genealogy blogs, I’ve seen a number of articles about whether or not blog writers should cite their sources. There have been numerous thoughtful, articulate posts written for both sides of the subject. Michael Hait’s blog Planting the Seeds even has a list of blog posts from around the geneaweb on the subject. Now, I’m not going to take a stance on what blog writers must do. Instead, I’ll just tell you why I’ve decided to use source citations.

If you’ve poked around my site at all, it’s pretty obvious that I believe in citing my sources—perhaps to the point of overkill. I won’t pretend that my citations are perfect; I’m pretty sure they’re not. However, they are sufficient to serve my purposes for including them in the first place which are:

1. To let readers know that there is a source.

That may seem like a no brainer, but when I’m searching for information online I will pass on by anything I find that doesn’t include a source. Same with any information where the only source is another FTM or GEDCOM file. If there’s no source, how can you verify the research? How can you determine the accuracy or validity of conflicting information?

I was able to correct a mistake regarding my ancestor George Hoover’s father because I not only verified the sources, but through a re-examination of the sources found a misinterpretation of the information. This led to the identification of two George Hoovers and I was able to determine which was my presumed ancestor.

2. To document where the information came from.

Since the raison d’etre for my site is to share my research and help other researchers, it’s important that I know where the information I’m sharing came from. It not only helps me keep track, but it means that other genealogists can duplicate my research and evaluate it based on their own findings and form their own opinions of its validity.

3. To make sure that it all makes sense.

When I write up a research post, it generally takes me several hours. Why? Because as I take the information from my database and turn into a narrative, I examine every fact, determine where it came from, and whether it makes sense amongst all the other information. Often, I’m pulling up and re-examining documents and sources to double-check the information. While my database allows me to collect information, a blog post requires that I pull those facts together into a logical sequence.

I’ve been able to think through a problem and reach a fairly well justified conclusion during this process for things that I either hadn’t thought through or had taken for granted previously.

3. To produce a quality post.

For me, writing these posts is the equivalent of writing a research report. They may not be up to the standard of a professional journal (and I may be the only person who ever reads them), but I want them to be the best example of what I know—at that particular moment—that I can produce. Later when I revisit the research or add new information, I want to be able to see what I’ve found, what conclusions I reached, and how I reached them. To my mind, that requires source citations.

That said, I don’t believe that every blog post out there should use source citations. Some posts just don’t need ’em. It depends on your audience and your purpose for blogging in the first place.

How do I add footnotes to my posts?

I use a nifty plug-in called FD Footnotes. It works with self-hosted WordPress blogs. It allows me to insert footnotes simply by adding the citation directly in my text like this:

1

The plug-in will automatically add the footnote reference in the text and link it to the full citation added at the end of the page.

My New Book!

Kris Hocker on 30 Jul 2011

Marriage and Death Notices in the Harrisburg Chronicle, 1820-1834
Marriage and Death Notices from the Harrisburg Chronicle

Marriage and Death Notices from the Harrisburg Chronicle, 1820-1834

Marriage and Death Notices from the Harrisburg Chronicle, 1820—1834

I’ve been working on this book on and off since my previous book was published. The editing, formatting and indexing took the longest. Then in the excitement of research successes, I forgot about it. After recently finding it again, I polished it up and decided to give self-publishing a try. And now—after some trials and tribulations in getting it ready for print—it’s available for sale!

This book includes 175+ pages of marriage and death announcements from a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania newspaper published in the 1820s. Because newspapers of the time commonly shared information, there are announcements from multiple Pennsylvania counties as well as other states.

During this period marriages and deaths were not recorded by the state, so church records, newspaper announcements, and family records may provide the only documentation of these pivotal events in our ancestors’ lives.

“Monday, 5 August 1822, Vol. X—No. 10

Married—At Huntingdon Pa. on the 11th July last, John Williamson, Esq. attorney at law, of the borough of Indiana, Pa. to Miss Eliza Steel, daughter of Samuel Steel, Esq. of Huntingdon, Pa.”

The book is available in both paperback and downloadable formats. It includes an every name index.

Support independent publishing: Buy this book on Lulu.

Pages: 236
Binding: Perfect-bound Paperback
Interior Ink: Black & white
Dimensions (inches): 6.0 wide × 9.0 tall

Print: $21.99
Download: $12.99

Available for purchase on Lulu and Amazon.

This book is a follow-up and continuation of my previous book Marriage and Death Notices in Harrisburg Area Newspapers, 1835-1845.

Preserve and Honor

Kris Hocker on 30 Apr 2011

Preserve and Honor screenshot

A teenager named Ricky Gilleland has created a digitized record of the graves of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His website—Preserve and Honor—allows you to enter the name, branch of service, date of birth and date of death of the fallen to search for their gravestone and burial location.

Preserve and Honor screenshot

Preserve and Honor results page screenshot

The results provide all that information, plus a photo of the grave marker, the location of the grave and a link to the soldiers obituary. The site is beautifully and respectfully done and is a tribute to our fallen soldiers. Excellent job, Ricky!

Read about this on Dick Eastman’s blog or the full story in the Los Angeles Times.

Triangle Factory Fire: Identifying and Remembering the Victims

Kris Hocker on 21 Mar 2011

Almost 100 years ago on March 25th, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floor of a factory in the Asch building in New York City. Within 18 minutes 146 people were dead. Many threw themselves out of the ninth floor windows to escape the flames. Six of the victims were too badly burned to be identified.1

Survivors recounted horrific stories of their escape from the building. They found locked exit doors that blocked their escape.2 A fire escape that bent under the weight of everyone trying to flee. Firefighter’s ladders were several stories too short and the water from their hoses didn’t reach the top floor.

The Triangle Waist Company was like many other sweatshops of the time. The workers worked excessively long hours in poor and dangerous conditions for low wages. The were young, mostly immigrants—very often women. Workers were often sourced by sub-contractors, who paid the workers and took a cut of the profit. Owners sometimes didn’t know who were working for them, or even how many people were working for them at any given time.

This system made it difficult to identify the victims. No newspaper or city agency at the time had a complete list of the victims’ names. Many of the names on the existing lists were found to be misspelled, belonged to survivors of the fire or even people who’d never worked at the factory.3

Now, thanks to the hard work of research Michael Hirsch all 146 victims have been identified. Mr. Hirsch, a co-producer for the upcoming documentary “Triangle: Remembering the Fire,” consulted approximately 32 newspapers from the time period, including both mainstream and ethnic papers. He, then, matched his discoveries against census records, New York vital records, records kept by unions and relief agencies, and spoke with descendants. He was able to identify the last six victims as:

  1. Josephine Cammarata (age 17), possibly a cousin of Concetta Prestifilippo
  2. Dora Evans (age 18)
  3. Max Florin (age 23)
  4. Maria (Tortorelli?) Lauletti (age 33), her younger sister Isabella Tortorelli also died
  5. Concetta Prestifilippo (age 22), possibly a cousin of Josephine Cammarata
  6. Fannie Rosen (age 21), changed her name from Faiga Reznik

Many of the techniques used by Hirsch can aid in family research—compiling and comparing information from a variety of sources in an attempt to positively identify an individual. What fascinates me about this story is the wider benefit that family historians can create with their research. An acknowledgment and some sense of closure as we learn about the tragedies that befall our family members. The descendants and relatives of these six victims will now have the public acknowledgment of the loss their families suffered that terrible March afternoon in 1911.

You can learn more about the Triangle Factory Fire at the Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire website or the website for the HBO documentary Triangle: Remembering the Fire.

What tragedies have you found in your family research? How did you learn of them and what follow-up research did you do on the event?

The Neanderthal in You

Kris Hocker on 22 Dec 2010

Researchers have determined that somewhere between 1% and 4% of the human Eurasian genome is Neanderthal. It has always been believed that Homo Sapiens and Neanderthal were separate lines of descent from a common ancestor. So, how is it that we carry some of the same DNA?

“The most likely explanation, say the researchers, is that there was limited mating, or “gene flow”, between Neanderthals and the ancestors of present-day Eurasians.

This must have taken place just as people were leaving Africa, while they were still part of one pioneering population. This mixing could have taken place either in North Africa, the Levant or the Arabian Peninsula, say the researchers.”

What genes might they have passed on to us? The most telling differences between the two species are found in our physical appearance. The Neanderthals had stockier, more muscular physical frames. But there were likely behavioral differences too. Those traits that were carried on were likely those that proved useful to survival in our gene pool.

“So when we see that their anatomies are gone, this isn’t just chance. Those things that made the Neanderthals apparent to us as a population – those things didn’t work. They’re gone because they didn’t work in the context of our population.”

You can read the full article on the BBC News website.

A Grave Matter

Kris Hocker on 30 Aug 2010

Jacob and Catharine Ritter had nine children who all died between 1834 and 1852, none older than 2 years. They—and other family members—were all buried in the family cemetery on the family farm. Unfortunately, no one is quite certain where the cemetery was located.

In June construction crews working on a development in Penn Township, Lancaster County uncovered 21 gravestones for Ritter children and other members of the Ritter, Longenecker, Wolff and Minnich families, wood and what may be bone. The stones were all stacked on top of one another, indicating that they’d been moved at some time, possibly in order to till the plot. Work at the site immediately stopped.

Now it’s time to decide what to do with the remains. The final decision may be based on determining where the cemetery actually was. So far, the lawyers for the developer have not been able to find a record of the cemetery. The farm was owned in 1869 by Jacob Ritter and in 1879 by Peter Longenecker. Through deeds they’ve determined that some of Peter Longenecker’s heirs were Minnichs. They attempted to contact possible relatives in the area via mailing, but received no response.

The developer would like to move the headstones to Mellinger Mennonite Cemetery, 12 miles away. Grave Concern believes the burial site should be preserved and would like the area fenced off. A Lancaster County Judge has asked them to look into a compromise. A Penn Township manager has suggested the artifacts could be moved to one of two lots on the site that were slated to remain open ground.

What do you think they should do?

For more information you can view an article in the Harrisburg Patriot-News or a follow-up in the Lancaster Intelligencer.