Wordless Wednesday

Working on the Judge Project

Lavinia Schwarz and Judy Bodycote

Photograph courtesy of Arlene Miles, November 16, 2009, Oakland, California.

Honored by Family Tree Magazine!

Diane Haddad, Managing Editor of Family Tree Magazine informed me that the California Genealogical Society and Library blog was named to the "Family Tree 40" after being voted one of the Family Tree Magazine 40 Best Genealogy blogs!

The awards were given in several categories, as follows*:

All-Around

• Creative Gene by Jasia Smasha
• footnoteMaven by footnoteMaven
• GeneaBloggers by Thomas MacEntee
• Genea-Musings by Randy Seaver

Cemetery

• The Association of Graveyard Rabbits by several authors
• Granite in My Blood by Midge Frazel

Corporate

• Ancestry.com Blog by various authors

Genetic Genealogy

• The Genetic Genealogist by Blaine Bettinger

Heritage

• George Geder by George Geder
• Scottish Genealogy News and Events by Chris Paton
• Small Leaved Shamrock by Lisa
• Steve’s Genealogy Blog by Stephen Danko
• Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog by Schelly Talalay Dardashti

How-To

• Family Matters by Denise Barrett Olson
• Genealogy Guys by George G. Morgan and Drew Smith
• Genealogy Tip of the Day by Michael John Neill
• The ProGenealogists Blog by various authors

Local & Regional

• California Genealogical Society and Library Blog by Kathryn Doyle
• Sandusky History by the staff of the Sandusky (Ohio) Library Archives Research Center
• Midwestern Microhistory by Harold Henderson

News & Resources

• The Ancestry Insider by theAncestry Insider
• DearMyrtle by Pat Richley-Erickson
• Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter by Dick Eastman
• GenealogyBlog by Leland Meitzler

Photos & Heirlooms

• The Family Curator by Denise Levenick
• Shades of the Departed by footnoteMaven

Personal & Family

• Ancestories: The Stories of My Ancestors by Miriam Midkiff
• Apple’s Tree by anonymous
• BeNotForgot by Vickie Everhart
• Educated Genealogist by Sheri Fenley
• Greta’s Genealogy Blog by Greta Koehl
• Heritage Happens by Cheryl Fleming Palmer
• Herstoryan by Herstoryan
• Janet the Researcher by Janet Iles
• Kinexxions by Becky Wiseman
• Little Bytes of Life by Elizabeth
• Our Georgia Roots by Luckie Daniels
• WeTree by Amy Coffin
• West in New England by Bill West
• What’s Past is Prologue by Donna Pointkouski

In the online version of the magazine article, which appears in the May 2010 issue, Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, had this to say about the CGSL blog:

Even though I don’t have California roots, this is one of my personal favorites—you get a feel for this community that hangs together to solve genealogical problems. Society member Kathryn Doyle delivers news about the group, as well as local genealogy events and resources. On Wordless Wednesday, you get a peek behind the scenes of the organization.

Thank you, Maureen; thank you Family Tree Magazine and thank you to everyone who voted! I'm honored to be listed with such august company!

*Links reprinted here with permission of Diane Haddad, Managing Editor, Family Tree Magazine.

Kate's Story in the Missouri State Genealogical Association Journal

In the Missouri State Genealogical Society Journal, Volume XXIX, No. 4, 2009, member Patricia Burrow chronicled the story of her ancestor, Kate Stuedle McCormack, who she discovered in 2007 when she obtained her grandmother's adoption papers.


Kate's Story is Patricia's "tribute to a hard-working family that serviced the westward migration of this great country." In it we meet Kate's father, Balthasar Stuedle, who built wagons for the families that made their way across the Santa Fe Trail and learn how Kate helped settle Oklahoma Territory and rear a family during the Great Depression.

Patricia consented to share some of the backstory of the document that was the key to unlocking her family mystery.

My grandmother was adopted. According to her children, she did not know about this until she was into her senior years. My aunt gave me a small scrap of paper that was supposed to be the link to the adoption but no one knew any details. The paper was from the Recorder's Office, Jackson County, Missouri, September 1902. It was pure gold. I wrote to the Recorder's office, sending a copy of the paper but got a reply that nothing was there. For four years I wrote to other offices and even the surrounding counties but never got a positive response. In June of 2007 we were visiting relatives in Arkansas, and made a detour to Independence, Missouri. I was determined to find SOMETHING. I marched into the Court house, showed the clerk a copy of my paper and within ten minutes had a copy of the adoption record from 105 years before. I believe that, because Missouri has closed adoptions, when I requested the information by mail, they saw that it was an adoption and dismissed the record's existence. Harder to do when I was standing there reading the microfilm with the clerk. Happiness was mine. He got so excited about it that he looked up the marriage info on my adopted great-grandparents and produced a beautiful copy of their license right there on the spot. It was a good day, about to get even better. I went to a local library and worked with the librarian to find the birth mother, Kate STUEDLE, and her family, in city directories and censuses. We were never able to find an actual birth record.

I have researched this family back to their emigration from Wittenberg, Germany, 1854. Balthasar STUEDLE married Christina Ann SCHWAB, also from Wittenberg, in 1870, Lafayette County, Missouri. These were my gg-grandparents. Using the internet, I met some wonderful people, some new cousins, and some of the most generous genealogists in the world – all willing to help. While writing the article for the Journal, I realized that I did not have Kate's final resting place. Somewhere there was a reference that she died in Cortez, Colorado. I knew that her son was buried there because I found his headstone on the internet. At 1:00 p.m. one sunny afternoon, I shot off an email to the address of the person who had photographed that headstone and asked if they knew if Kate was in the same cemetery. At 4 o'clock I got an email back that he, the photographer, had gone out to the cemetery, found her grave and took pictures of the headstone for me. Is that not a wonderful community?

I found the adoption record in June and was sitting in a genealogy class in September when someone new to the class began to introduce herself and tell who and where she was researching. My ears perked up when she said "SCHWAB" and gave their migration from Germany to Missouri and Kansas and then to Oklahoma. THOSE ARE MY SCHWABs!!! I would never have paid attention if I had not found that adoption record just 90 days before. Timing is everything. It turns out Betty Martinez is a third cousin! The lesson here is, never stop panning for gold. Betty followed up on many of her own leads and eventually handed me a photograph of my own g-grandmother, Kate, looking very much like her first child, the loving grandmother who held me on her lap, sang to me and fed me buttermilk biscuits that she baked in her old wood stove.

Kate Stuedel McCormack (1881-1963)

Photograph courtesy of Patricia Burrow.

Mountain View Cemetery Walking Tour - March 24, 2010

Mountain View Cemetery

5000 Piedmont Avenue
Oakland, CA 94611

Wednesday, March  24, 2010

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Private Tour of Mountain View Cemetery
Member Gaye Lenehan will lead an exploration of an Oakland gem. The walking tour of Mountain View Cemetery will start promptly at 10:00 a.m. – everyone should gather in front of the main office. If Mother Nature cooperates, attendees should witness a spectacular show since the tour has been timed to occur when the tulips are in full bloom.

Founded in 1863, Mountain View was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, renowned landscape architect of New York City's Central Park. The historic, not-for-profit cemetery is nestled in the foothills of Oakland and Piedmont. Gaye will tell a bit of history of the cemetery and lead us past the final resting places of some interesting people. She's including a climb up the hill to Millionaires' Row.

Please note: Walking shoes are recommended; the tour covers almost two miles on hilly terrain. It is not suitable for those with walkers, canes or the need to sit down frequently. There is plenty of parking along the roads in the cemetery. If it is a nice day bring a brown bag and plan for a picnic. In case of rain, the tour will be rescheduled for the following Wednesday, March 30, 2010. Please E-mail events@californiaancestors.org or call the libary at 510-663-1358 to register for this event.

Gaye is one of two society members who serve as docents at the cemetery. The upcoming schedule includes:

February 27 — Free Docent Tour led by Gaye Lenahan, 10 a.m., Black History Month Tour.

April 24 — Free Docent Tour led by Chris Pattillo, 10 a.m., The Trees of Mountain View. (If you can't make this, Chris has a self-guided tour on her blog, Historic American Landscapes Survey.

Learn more about the cemetery at Michael Colbruno's Lives of the Dead: Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland - a Graveyard Rabbit Association blog.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Tim Cox and Ron Arons

Photograph by Kathryn M. Doyle, Oakland, California, 1/15/2010.