Setting Down Roots

the four of us & Grandma Crusham

Today is the last day of the BlogHer challenge to write about roots. There were a number of days that the writing prompt did not appeal to me or inspire me, so I simply skipped them. I wanted to end the month on a high note though, and today's prompt is asking whether I still live in the place I was born and if not, why did I move. As I mentioned earlier, I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio where many of my relatives still reside. But when I was only a couple of months old, my dad took a job with a new company in Chicago. He had gone on ahead to find a house, so my mom boarded a train headed for Chicago with my sister, age 11, my brother, age 9, my other brother, age 18 months and me, age 2 months. Can you even imagine? I can't. Poor mom! I know my sister was probably a big help, but still! Dad had found a house in a new subdivision, located on a cul de sac. It was a great place for kids! Unfortunately it was also very near O'Hare, so a quiet place it was not. The house also only had two bedrooms, because my dad decided he could finish off the upstairs of the home by himself. In the meantime the four kids shared one bedroom. Eventually dad finished the upstairs into two additional bedrooms, and the boys had one room while the girls took the other.

We lived in Chicago until I was 5, and then my dad accepted a job in Des Moines. This time dad purchased a three bedroom home with a walkout basement. The house was on a dead end street surrounded by cornfields. It was a great spot for kids as well, and we could play kick the can and four square in the street without worrying about cars, and many a baseball game was held at the end of the road just before the cornfield began.

I loved Des Moines and pictured myself staying there. But college graduation and marriage had other places in store for me. I enjoy making trips back there, whether by car or just in my mind.

Supporting Local Authors

Michael with my niece and me

This afternoon I went to one of our locally owned bookstores, Left Bank Books, for a book reading and signing by St. Louis author Michael Kahn. He is a traditionally published author (which probably explains the wonderful food and drink spread as well as the jazz musician), who just released book number 8 in the Rachel Gold mystery series. The Flinch Factor was the subject of his reading today. I don't believe I have read any of his previous books, but after hearing one chapter of the book today - containing several laugh out loud moments - I decided to purchase The Flinch Factor. I am always looking for new authors to follow, and the fact that several of his books are set in St. Louis adds an additional layer of interest.

Following the reading he addressed questions from the audience. He got the typical ones such as when do you find time to write, how did you find your agent, etc. But a woman asked the question on my mind. How does a male attorney come to write a book with a female attorney as the protagonist? As it ends up, that isn't the way he began the story. But then he experienced several situations in the courtroom where the young female attorneys were treated very disrespectfully by the other attorneys and judges. He decided his protagonist would be a female facing those obstacles. As he explained to us, his wife (a female), his mother (a female), his agent (a female) and his editor (also a female) helped him along the way. He currently has two other books under his belt written under the pen name Michael Baron as he wanted to try his hand at writing a story with a male protagonist.

It is always a good day when you can support a local author and a local business at the same time. You can catch Michael at the St. Louis County Library on June 25th at 7:00 p.m.

Is There a Patriot in My Tree?

The next few writing prompts from BlogHer did not inspire me, so I am going to talk about another root I have been tugging on. I have a subscription to ancestry.com, so my family tree is online. When Ancestry thinks they might have a match for someone in your tree, they dangle a shaking leaf off the name on the tree. It is like a Siren's call - I must go click on the leaf to see what waits out in cyberspace. After reviewing the information you can then determine if you think the hint offered is a match. And then you can add the information at your own risk. If it came off of the tree of someone else, then you need to determine if they have any backup for the data provided. If
it came off of a record such as a census and the family names match yours, then it is probably a good hint. Sometimes you will find a tree where the "genealogist" has a child who was born before its mother, or a child born after the mother is dead. So you always need to take these things with a grain of salt.

Through several trees on Ancestry I have identified a man on my father's side of the family tree who was a Patriot, meaning he fought or aided in the Revolutionary War. I know this because a man had filed with the Sons of the Revolutionary War on Jacob Christopher Kern. And this man referenced a filing by his sister on the same Patriot to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Up to this point, nearly every ancestor I have identified came over to the United States in the 1800s. I was struggling to find someone who fought in the Civil War much less the Revolutionary War. This was an exciting discovery! If it is accurate, and that is a big IF.

Jacob Kern

Saturday the Olde Towne Fenton branch of the DAR held an informational meeting, which I attended.  They walked us through the process of applying for membership in the DAR, as well as the documentation that is required. In essence, you must prove the birth, marriage and death of each generation (husband and wife) all the way back to your Patriot. (Or until you can tie yourself into the application of someone else who has researched the same Patriot.) A review of applications for Jacob Kern revealed that some people applied through his son Joseph, while a couple applied through his daughter Magdalena. I would be applying through his son Peter. So essentially the other applications will not help me. Story of my life with genealogy and house history research.

Obviously birth, death and marriage records only go back so far in the different states. Then you have to get your hands on other records such as church baptisms and marriages, obituaries, census records, etc. I can see that this process will not be easy or cheap. And I may be barking up the wrong family tree. But I won't know until I try.