Luxemburger Gazette

I don't know what the Luxembourger word for Cowabunga or Eureka is, but if I did I would be shouting it from the rooftops right now. Why? Because the Luxemburger Gazette newspaper, an essential resource for anyone doing Luxembourg genealogy research, is now available as browsable-images through FamilySearch. Published by Nicholas Gonner between 1871 and 1918 in Dubuque, Iowa, the Gazette featured news of Luxembourg and Luxembourgers across the United States. It can provide critical clues to an ancestor's village and dates for deaths and marriages which took place before civil registration was enacted in many Midwestern states.

In addition to newspaper publishing, Gonner also wrote a seminal work about Luxembourg immigration, Luxembourgers in the New World. The 1987 reedition was translated from German to English and also contains an every name and place index to the Gazette. Having access to this index is the first step for using the Gazette. Check WorldCat to find a copy of Luxembourgers in the New World at a library in your area. Even armed with exact dates and pages an ancestor's name appeared on, however, using the Gazette still requires a bit of practice.

For starters, it is written in German. Google Translate can help you get a pretty good sense of what an article is about provided you can make out the text. Typical of German newspapers of this era, the Gazette used a German Gothic typeface known as Blackletter or Fraktur. (Check out this interesting history of Blackletter and where you can still find examples of it today.)

There are a variety of guides online to help you learn Blackletter and you can even download the font to your computer. An even easier method is to go to Steve Morse's One-Step web page for Converting between old Germanic Print and Cursive in One Step.

You can type in a name, or any words or phrases you are looking for and the tool will show you what that word looks like in a German Gothic type, such as I've done with the name Maggie Uselding. Knowing what I am looking for makes finding an entry in the Gazette easier.

For example, the news item on the right is an announcement about my great grandparent's marriage. It reads "Village Grafton [WI]: Married last Tuesday by Rev. W. P. Peil at St. Joseph's Church: Nicholas Ney and Maggie Uselding. In the presence of their many guests, the joyous wedding was celebrated at the home of the bride. The young couple will live in Chicago.“

The index contains the name exactly as it appeared in the newspaper so there can be variation. For example, Nicholas Ney might be listed as Ney, N.; Ney, Nic.; Ney, Nick; or Ney, Nicolas. There are fewer surname spelling variations than in the U.S. census, presumably because the newspaper's editors and contributors were Luxembourgers themselves, but it is still something to take into consideration. It is also important to keep in mind that nouns are also capitalized in German, not just proper names. Unfortunately, the perceived pro-German sympathies of the paper, during World War I, contributed to the paper's demise during an era of anti-German sentiment in the US.

In spite of the learning curve, the Gazette is one of the most important resources for anyone researching their Luxembourg-American Ancestry. I may not know how to say Cowabunga in Luxembourgish, but I do know how to say thank you. Villmols merci, FamilySearch for making this important resource available for all!

My Mother's Mother's Mother's Mother

Rhoda Cryder Smith, me, Mom, and Lois Smith Ney.

Mother's Day 2017 is wrapping up for the year, but my thoughts are still with mothers everywhere. I am blessed to have my Mom just a phone call away. We enjoy traveling together and are always planning our next adventure.  

I've always envied pairs that were so clearly mother-daughter; they looked that much alike. I never thought I much looked like my mother but there is no denying I am her daughter. Just as there is no denying she is her mother's daughter, despite the fact they don't look much alike either. Our "resemblance" is evident in many other ways. Creativity, craftiness, common sense, problem solving, resilience and independence to name just a few. 

Mary Greenwalt Cryder

And an occasional disregard for rules. I was visiting my grandparents on Mother's Day one year and we attended church together. They were handing out red carnations for people whose mothers were living and white to those whose mothers were not. Despite the fact my great-grandmother had been gone for over a decade, my grandmother helped herself to a red flower. I was aghast and sure she were going to be challenged for her selection. I asked her why she did that. "I like the red ones better" was her nonchalant reply. I've admired that attitude many times over the years and happily adopted it for myself.

The female half of my ancestry has always been more interesting to me than the male half. Maybe it's because these women have been harder to find, hidden behind the names of their husbands and discovering their stories feels like a victory. Maybe it's because -- along the lines of Ginger Rogers doing everything Fred Astaire did "backwards and in high heels" -- the women in our families have been responsible for so many things that don't get the appreciation they deserve. 

I had already been pondering the four-generation family photograph above when The Family Circus offered up its own version earlier this week. I don't know exactly the reason behind my sourpuss expression, but I do know that that picture represents where I come from. You may not think we look alike but deeply embedded in our DNA are the strands that bind us together, that have carried our talents and traits forward. Thank you Mom, Lois, Rhoda, Mary, Louisa, Sophia and all the previous generations waiting to be discovered, for making me the person I am.

What's in a {Presidential} Name?

Over the past few years I've noticed an resurgence in popularity of 'presidential' names including Truman, Lincoln, and Harrison, to name just a few. This got me to thinking about the presidents in my own family tree including:

• George Washington Shultz (b/d 1877)
• George Washington Sutton (1914-1982)
• Jefferson Cryder (1802-1839)
• Andrew Jackson Kirkendall (1861-1941)
• Abraham Lincoln Brower (1879-1896)
• Josiah Lincoln Greenwalt (1867-1922)
• Woodrow Wilson Sutton (1921-1988; brother of the aforementioned George. They also had a brother named Robert E. Lee, but that’s another story.)

Statistician Howard Steven Friedman talks about the “presidential baby name bounce” in his article When Did Americans Stop Naming Babies after the President? Presidents weren't the only ones who inspired others to name their children after them. If you've seen the movie National Treasure you may recall the main character is named for Benjamin Franklin and his father for Patrick Henry. 

Understanding naming patterns is an important skill for genealogists and learning more about the names of our ancestors can be an entertaining pursuit. The census bureau tracks the popularity of baby names by year and there are some fun visualizations on the web such as Six Decades of the Most Popular Names for Girls, State-by-State and Popular Baby Names By Decade to help you put naming patterns in context with popular culture. Not sure if any names in your family tree are connected to former presidents? Check out this list of baby names inspired by American presidents and first ladies. 

What names will the Madisons and Reagans  – born at the end of the 20th century – name their children? Only time will tell! In honor of Presidents Day, what presidential or patriotic hero namesakes do you have in your family tree?

Serendipty

"… you don't reach Serendip by plotting a course for it. You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and lose your bearings… serendipitously." *

Is there any other word related to genealogy that inspires more giddy gratitude than serendipity? That accidental discovery of something which changes the course of your research, fills in a long sought-after detail or provides a critical connection which makes you want to jump for joy... otherwise known as the genealogy happy dance.

The word serendipity is taken from Sarandip, the Persian word for Sri Lanka. The characters in the fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip experience the phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought in their travels, from which emerged our modern use of serendipity.

For the past six months I've been immersed in researching the stories of fifty-eight students and alumni of the University of Washington who died during World War I as part of an exhibit I curated, Washington on the Western Front: At Home and Over There. Their stories are varied and encompass all aspects of the war, including a number who died of the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. I found something about nearly all the UW's casualties. (Except one, but he's a story for another time.) I had limited success with several of them, however, and I had a hard time putting aside their incomplete stories and moving on to the next one.

One of those whose story proved difficult was Edward C. Cunningham. I knew from the 1919 Tyee – the University of Washington's yearbook – his rank was that of Musician and he served in the 161st Infantry, within the 41st Division. The 161st was a Washington National Guard unit and because I was never able to locate a draft card for Edward I believe he may enlisted before the war began. Another detail was that his hometown was given as St. John, in Whitman County, located in the state's southwest corner.

Edward Charles Cunningham
18 Mar 1899-1 Dec 1918

Despite my efforts, I wasn't able to definitely identify Edward's parents or locate him in the federal census and it was time to publish my findings on Facebook in a brief biographical sketch. Resigned, I moved on to the next student casualty. Then, just this week a gentleman visited Special Collections interested in learning more about... you guessed it! Edward Cunningham.

He was coming at it with the knowledge that Edward was a member of Foster High School's second graduating class in 1916. Foster is in Tukwila nowhere near St. John! No wonder my research wasn't leading to anything conclusive. I still don't know what Edward's connection to St. John was but, thanks to a wonderful instance of serendipity, I was able to identify Edward's parents, locate him in both the 1900 and 1910 census, and gain a more complete understanding of his short life. I look forward to the next happy accident and wherever it might take me in my genealogical pursuits!

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* Barth, John. The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991.