Names - A Light Moment

Naming is probably one of the biggest problems for the genealogist and also for the persons transcribing documents of genealogical interest.  The spellings of our ancestor's names drives us up walls; the meanings of names escapes our ken; the audio aspect - how a name sounds- is often pure conjecture.

Here's a good example:

"Sexauer is an ordinary German name referring to one who came from
Sexau, in Germany. Looking for a Mr. Sexauer, a man in Washington
called at the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee.
Helping him, a girl employee called the Banking and Currency Committee
by telephone to check, and inquired politely, ‘Do you have a Sexauer
over there?’

    ‘Listen,’ the girl switchboard operator snapped, ‘We don’t even
have a ten-minute coffee break anymore.’ "

– Elsdon Coles Smith, Treasury of Name Lore, 1967

For further reading:  any of E. C. Smith's vast works on names.

Genealogy: An Activity of Ecstasy & Grief

It’s been a good week, for Faith Hope Macey, and it’s been a momentarily disastrous week, in her ongoing family research.

The thrill of a new document found by happenstance – that act sets off tremors through the body of a genuine genealogist.  Faith found several.  ”Oh, boy – look I’ve got two new cousins!”

Sure enough, there they are: and look – as they are tracked through recent history, they lived in some of the same areas where Faith lived.  More research:  ”Oh my God – one lived 10 blocks away from me in 1986.”  ”Jim, see if you can google and find an e-mail address for them”

Well, as some of you can surmise, further research led to the SSDI:  both cousins had died in the last few years.  And now they must remain unmet, un-talked with, un-hugged.  There would be no sharing of stories, no questions answered,  no offspring introduced to each other.

Genealogists all know this facet of our endeavor: where we are literally beside ourselves one minute and crushed with disappointment in the next.  And we recognize that it is our very nature to feel the joy of discovery  and the tears over the what-could-have-been.  The moral of the story: don’t lose touch and keep searching…

• In Memoriam:  Joyce Elaine Schaefer Adams,  1933 – 2010
•                          Robert E Schaefer, 1926 – 2010

Further reading:  the books of Boyd Magers on westerns, serials, and Gene Autry give insight into the life of Armand Schaefer, father and uncle to the cousins above.  Armand was the number two man in the Flying A Productions, and was a minority owner in the Angels baseball team.

Welcome (...sung to the tune of the William Tell Overture)

In the heart of the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico comes the thundering hoofbeats of meandering, swirling, coalescing thoughts from the proudly parabolic mindstream of a blue-eyed, Norman-blooded bard of deep Celtic origins in the wild black forests of far-gone history.  And these writings are his story and your story, so sit back and enjoy the history of both of us...