Helen. Dear, Sweet Helen.

As I re-scan the photographs from the old family albums (the same ones that got me started in genealogy to begin with), I also have started re-visiting some of my old research and picked up where I've left on some of my lines. It never fails that whenever I delve back into this wonderful process of researching my family tree I make new cousin connections.  I'm very excited to announce that I may well have found another cousin, this time of a family line that I have been stumped on for quite some time.

I've been looking into the wife of my paternal great-grandfather, Edward HODICK. Her name was Justina, and we've been told her maiden name was "NAUCHODILE". No one ever knew the spelling; just that the /ch/ was pronounced from the back of the throat ala German style. So a month or two (three??) ago, I finally stumbled on a key clue when I found Justina's obituary which just happened to have mentioned a surviving sister named Mrs. Julia Wodesheck.  This past week or so I finally remembered this obituary and decided maybe it was time to start searching for this Julia Wodesheck in hopes that it would lead me back to Justina. During my searches for Julia I've gathered some pretty convincing evidence that Julia Nahodil had married a John Wodeshick and that Julia was indeed, my great-grandmother's sister.  I've noticed that Julia and John had a daughter named Helen. Which I thought was exciting, knowing that there was a photograph in these old albums that looked like this:

The writing is not mine; I think it was either grandma Hodick-McHugh's or her daughter, my aunt, Noreen. The page from which this photo came from in the albums also happened to imply that this Helen was "Grandma's Niece" (written by my dad's sister, which would make the referenced "Grandma" my great-grandmother).

Which I felt just happened to bear a resemblance to my paternal grandmother, Mary HODICK:

So I decided to search for Nahodil on the Family Trees section at Ancestry.com.  And found someone whose tree included Julia NAHODIL WODESHICK. 

And so I wrote to her. And she wrote back. And we're now trying to see if the connection she has to Julia is parallel to my connection to Justina. Stay tuned. This is looking very promising. I leave you with one more photo that I just came across for the first time tonight:

The woman in the dark dress is my grandmother, Mary (HODICK) McHugh. The children are: Marianne (standing against Mary), Norie (on ground with the dog) and Dennis, my father. I believe the woman holding my dad is his grandmother, Justina (NAHODIL) HODICK. I do not know who the other woman is.

Genealogy: In-Depth

I've been wanting to re-activate my genealogy blog for a while now, and what better day to do it than on Friday, 15 Jun 2012?

Why, what's so important about 15 Jun 2012, you might ask?

Simple: It marks the debut of my first article for my new column at the In-Depth Genealogist!  The column is called "Ancestral Profiling" and the first article is entitled "Journey to Me".

Not sure what Ancestral Profiling is all about?  Head on over to The In-Depth Genealogist and sign up for the monthly newsletter today!  Not only will you learn a lot, you will love the price: It's FREE.

Why Bother Researching My Family Tree?

 

My very first BLOG POST at The Oracle of OMcHodoy addressed the question of “Why Bother Blogging?”.  The end result of that post was the following answer:

“While Internet databases provide me with the means to find information, message boards, email groups, personal web pages and blogs provide me with the means to connect with people”.

It’s now almost six years removed from that post and today I want to switch things around and answer the question, “Why Bother Researching Your Family History?”.

When I started researching names on the Internet (via Rootsweb, Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com, Google, etc) I was amazed at the mass of information available. As with many people, I was drawn in to Ancestry.com, with its wealth of digital images, indices, names and dates. I started by plugging in the name “John J. Doyle” in an effort to determine the relationship of the subject of a photograph to me. Before I knew it I wandered off the name of “John J. Doyle” and found the names “Edward Hodick”, “James O’Rourke” and “Dennis McHugh”. With every find I felt a surge of excitement. But I also felt so much more.

Fast forward five years. My research in this time period waxed and waned, with periods of utter joy at finding a genealogical gold mine and periods of utter disappointment at not even having time to research. My father had moved in with me, adding the new role of “Caregiver” to my resume. I changed jobs. Later, I dealt with the death of my father, and a move that was to lead to a second move in a matter of months. And I bought my first home. It may sound strange, but it was this latter process that provided me with the answer to the question, “Why Bother Researching Your Family Tree”.

There were many obstacles in front of me when I began my home search. The branch manager at my lending company was shot down and killed. A friend using the same company went through hell trying to close on her own home because of the sluggishness of the money-handlers. I had a spreadsheet of 20 homes to wade through, worried that I’d ultimately choose the wrong one. But alas, fate intervened.

After looking at my top five choices, I told my realtor to set up a walk-through of the 18^th house on my list, which had three major strikes against it: It was a little further west than I wanted to go, it was only a two-bedroom (I wanted at least a three-bedroom), and it had polybutylene pipes, which are known to burst without warning. In spite of these things, something screamed inside me to look at house number eighteen. My realtor met me there at about 6:00 one evening and unlocked the front door. I took one step inside and said ‘It’s mine”. I felt an instant connection to this house. After about 45 days of negotiating a very significant repair (the seller did re-pipe the house), I moved in.

The move-in occurred on 31 Jul 2010. To this day I have nary a doubt that I made the right choice in bumping house number eighteen up to house number six. From day one I’ve felt the presence of my parents in this home that they’ve never seen – that was built in the same year I moved to Tucson. The  spiritual connection I feel to this house is what tells me that it was truly meant to be mine.

So how does that story provide me with the answer to the question “Why Bother Researching Your Family Tree”?  Because for six years running I’ve had that same exact feeling of spiritual connection with every ancestor found.

And while I know that documented evidence is the standard in the field of genealogy, it still cannot compare to the standard of connection. 

That Was Then, This Was ... Well, Then, Too

I often think I had a charmed life as a child. Everything was as it should have been: Nice home on a nice-sized lot in a nice-clean neighborhood where everyone knew everyone and watched out for everyone else's kids. Summer days were "da-bomb", and could be straight out of an Erma Bombeck book (Rest in Peace, Erma).  A typical late summer day might look like this:

8:00 a.m.: Up, eating breakfast and getting swim clothes together.
8:30 a.m.  Waiting in the Farthings' driveway, waiting for a ride to Niagara Wheatfield High School pool for swim lessons.
9:00 - 12:00: At  NW pool.
12:30:  Back home to scarf down some breakfast.
1:00 Walking to the park at the end of the street for softball practice or game.
3:30 Back home to watch tv, play with the other neighborhood kids, or just hang out.
500: Eating dinner with the family
6:00 - Whenever: outside playing "Tag", "Spud", "Hide and Seek", "Search" or "Ghost in the Graveyard" with the neighborhood kids.

Unless it was Friday during summer, which would mean eliminating everything past 1:00 and substituting "packing for and driving to the weekend camping trip to Bedford Beach, Arrowhead, or Rainbow Lake (or, God Forbid, Mockingbird campground). With, of course, the Barry's, Hughey's, Sayers', Curry's, and anyone else who cared to join our caravan.

 (Ray Barry firing up the Hibachi during one of our neighborhood camping trips. I think this was at Bedford Beach Campground in Western New York, a site we frequented for years). Photograph in the collection of Colleen McHugh.

Tonight as I was searching the Pennsylvania Digital Repository for my dad's uncle, John HODICK (1900-1978), I found the following article:

( Courtesy of Access Pennsylvania Digital Repository, http://www.accesspadr.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/wbsunind&CISOPTR=28135&REC=5)

 

In case it's hard to read, it describes my great-uncle's "well-handled" baseball game and standings of teams in his area of Northeastern Pennsylvania. 

For some reason, I always find articles like this -- ones that describe life outside of the coal mines, railroads and other labor industries -- rather comforting. I've read so much about life in the coal mines and rail cars of NEPA and I've researched enough about how hard people had to work to earn a measly buck that I enjoy reading that my ancestors, too, had time for family, fun, games, and relaxation.

What Have I Been Up To?

Besides working and continuing to settle into my house, I have, actually, squeezed in some research, too.  A cousin of mine sent me a link to a databank of newspaper articles from all over Pennsylvania.

http://www.accesspadr.org/cdm4/search.php?CISOROOT=/wbsunind

This site has been a gold mine of information for me. I not only have learned names and dates of people on my tree (I even confirmed the family of my maternal great-grandmother from an obituary I'd found!), I have been given a few glimpses into the lives and personalities of some of my ancestors.Thanks, Pat for sharing this site with me!

After finding numerous articles, obituaries and advertisements containing many of my common surnames (Doyle, McHugh, O'Rourke, Kelly, Hodick, to name a few) I began wondering if I'd be able to find a comparable site for my Western New York research. Thanks to Charley Berry Grabowski, of "Apple's Tree", I was able to research the paper of my hometown, The Niagara Gazette. Articles from this newspaper were included in the databanks available at the site below:

http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

 

 

 

 

 

In the months to come I'll share here some of the things I have learned through my ongoing searches of these newspapers. If anything rings a bell or strikes you as interesting, feel free to comment here!

Fire in the Hole?

Many of you may know that there are large areas of Arizona that are on fire right now. There is one about an hour south of me that has been going strong for a month with the first signs of containment now upon us (Horseshoe 2 fire). The Murphy Fire to our south has burned over 50,000 acres. as well.  The biggest fire right now is in Eastern Arizona in the White Mountains. This fire, known as the Wallow Fire, has burned over 230,000 acres in less than 2 weeks.

I was talking with my co-worker yesterday, knowing her family has a cabin in Greer, Az which is in the direct path of the Wallow Fire. I asked her if her family left any personal/sentimental items there such as photographs or collectibles. She stated that they do, but they weren't allowed to go up this past weekend to get anything so they're just  hoping and praying their home will be okay. My prayers are with all the affected families and the firefighters who are battling the blazes throughout our state.

What would I grab in case of fire or evacuation order? Obviously my dog Izzie. Then I would grab the typical items: Photographs and albums, the few collectibles my dad got in England in 1974. I'd grab my hard drive and the laptop; the monitor and printer/scanner if I had time.

And of course, I'd grab one of the most amusing Christmas gifts I'd ever received:

 Thanks, Cindy. But I have to admit, even after receiving this several years ago, I still sing the song every Christmas season!

These are the Faces of Genealogy

The John J. and Jane Doyle family, ca 1910. Pittston, Luzerne County, PA. Photo contributed by

Michael Doyle.

** This post is in response to a poorly thought-out photograph posted by the LA Weekly in conjunction with an article on the upcoming Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree. I want the publication to see the true faces of genealogy.