52 Ancestors Week 40: Preservation

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 40 is "Preservation." Not only is October Family History Month in the US, it's also Archives Month. What artifact or story are you working to preserve? Of course, there are other things that can be preserved, like food. Be creative with this theme!

The comic is in near-mint condition, actually...

    Preserving things is important and as a comic collector I've preserved many comic books in the most environmentally unfriendly way I could think of. I put them in plastic polybags, put a board on them and then place them in a cardboard box. Other people go that extra mile and put them in long boxes and store them someplace dry.  Preserving comics is one thing. How do you preserve things on the genealogical front?

Such an adorable baby. ;)

    In my family albums, I have many pictures like this one that I want to keep. That's me with my grandma Ollie and grandpa Marco. Aren't I adorable? The picture is the only one I have of Marco and I and as a result it's very special to me. It's probably more special than even his "Coming to America" photo with his parents, Vincenzo and Maria. I'm not saying that one isn't important. They ALL are. It's just that he died when I was four and I don't really have any memories of him and as a result pictures of me with nonno are extremely rare.

    With all that in mind, how do I preserve this photograph? The original is in a photo album on a shelf in my parents' den. It's high up so none of the elements or even furry creatures can dare get at it. It's good right where it is and the album itself is in fantastic condition. However, steps were made to take this and other photos I love into the digital age!

    When I reviewed comic books on YouTube, I would scan various comic books using our wireless Canon scanner/printer. It's a very handy device as images were beamed directly from the scanner to my computer where I would crop out the images I needed and straightened out the pages in a paint program. Believe me I straightened out a LOT of pages. Word to the wise: Always make sure you have the image straight before you push that scan button! That and scanning a hard bound trade paperback of your favorite storyline is tricky. Oh so tricky.

I'll give you one guess when this was taken.
Hint: Look at grandma Ollie's clothes!

    Of course I didn't just scan comic books back in the day. I've scanned my fair share of photographs and now they are in a special genealogy folder on my computer. In the folder, I have scans of everything from documents to photos and news articles I've found online or scanned. 

    There's quite a bit of information. How do I prevent all of it from getting lost? That's a good question. You never know when your hard drive will crash and your motherboard will just stop working. What do you do then? Luckily, I use a keychain-sized Sandisk jump drive. It's got a decent amount of space and I already use it for my Starbolts webcomic and various animations I've made. Not bad, right?

    You can also preserve the images by uploading them to your favorite genealogical website like WikiTree or family tree program. Storing images on a data cloud is a good idea, too. The possibilities are endless!

    I'm all set when it comes to saving images and making sure very important pictures and documents are saved. Remember those boxes of genealogical gold I have? Well, they're stored in dry places and sealed up much like my comic collection. Nothing can get at them and various docs and photos inside have been scanned. Preserving pictures is fun and I always keep in mind what I've learned as an avid collector of the funny pages. It's hard work and it's worth it for when relatives what it look at a various picture.

    What if the reverse happens? What if a relative of yours e-mails you a picture of your ancestors. How do you preserve that? That's easy! When I got this picture of Marco Ferraiolo and Caterina Coppola earlier this year from a cousin I saved it to my computer, uploaded it to WikiTree and saved it to my jump drive.

    If you're like me, you're going to want a physical copy of the photograph. Getting one is pretty easy. Just print it out on a piece of paper and be done with it. Yeah. You could do it that way. Or you could get really creative and have it look completely brand new! 

    When I was reviewing comics, I had a background full of classic comic book covers such as Avengers #1 and Amazing Fantasy #15. I clearly didn't have those comics. If I did, I think I would have REALLY kept those comics in mint condition!  I didn't just print them out, either.  There is a type of paper you can use which mimics a photograph. If you have enough ink, you can print out an old photograph from your computer and it will look like a real photograph guaranteed! Technology is amazing!

    These are just some of the tools you can use to preserve a document. The one thing I suggest you don't do is laminate something. You think polybags are environmentally unsafe? What about those laminated things? Avoid laminating objects like the plague. If you want to save articles, scan them and save them to your computer or cloud. There are just so many options available. You can even e-mail photos to yourself and save it in your inbox. Just change the password every once in a while.

    Genealogy in the 21st century has come a long way and it's always a good idea to adapt to the current methods of saving documents. That way things will never be lost. And if you have an object that you want to keep safe store those in a safe spot or display them in a spot where no creature can break it. Looking at you, cats of the world!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 39: Steps

 From Amy Johnson Crow: The theme for Week 39 is "Steps." There are many ways you could interpret this theme. You could be literal and talk about an ancestor who walked a lot. You could think about the "step-" relations in your family tree. You could outline the steps you took to identify an ancestor. Remember: There are no wrong ways to interpret a theme!

Step one: Create a banner in five minutes.

    Whoever said genealogy is easy is lying to you. It isn't just researching your ancestors in the hope that you find something or prove you have that connection to some king who lived centuries ago. There is a lot of hard work involved in proving connections and family lines. It gets even harder when you try to prove how a DNA match is connected to you. Neither of which are impossible. So, don't lose faith! Keep at it because you never know what you might find!

    Last February I talked about a DNA match of my great-aunt named "Alex" in this blog. I mentioned how he shared over 100 cMs with her and talked at length about how I should reveal what I found to his adoptive mother. Believing that "with great power, comes great responsibility". 

    I handled the situation with the utmost tact and skill. I didn't want to enter any drama. I presented the facts and left "Alex" to decide what he wanted to do with the information I gave him. I washed my hands clean and went on my way. Despite my detective work, I never really went into detail on the steps I took to prove my connection to "Alex". I made slight references here and there to various programs I used. I just never SHOWED the work. I think it's time we rectify that mistake!

Step One: First Contact

    Contacting "Alex" was a little awkward. I've been reassured that it's always awkward contacting a DNA match. What I do is state my name, why I'm contacting the person, where I think we might be connected and offer the person a chance to ask questions. Very rarely do I put in the cM counts because most of the people who do tests on Ancestry and the other vendors don't really understand what a cM or a centimorgan is.

    Sometimes people respond and luckily "Alex"'s adoptive mother answered and we talked for a bit. I mentioned that we had a lot of shared matches who descend from Paolo Coppola and Rosa Suverato, my 3rd great-grandparents. She was impressed and a little taken aback by how much Italian her son had and offered to let me look at his DNA matches. I said "Sure". 

Step Two: The Leeds Method

    Popularized by Genealogist Dana Leeds, the Leeds Method allows you to sort your DNA matches into color coded boxes. It usually groups them by great-grandparents or great-grandparent pairs. Read all about it here.

Taste the rainbow!

    Looking at the chart I made, I could clearly see the Coppola/Suverato group in Blue. Those Italian last names weren't the only ones that caught my attention. Several of his matches had a person with the last name "King" in their tree. Paolo's son, Paolo married a woman named Lena King in 1909. They had nine children together until her death in 1918. That narrowed things down quite a bit.

    Then I saw another familiar last name from my research.--"Cheney". Paolo and Lena's daughter, Mary Rose married a Cheney!

Step Three: Second Contact

     Feeling confident that there was a connection in the Cheney and King families, I sent several messages to "Alex"'s closest DNA matches in those families. Their last name was "Cheney". They had to know something about what I'm talking about. I got a reply back from a nice lady who told me a lot of information about Mary Rose. She had a few children and she told me about the girls. I sat back in my chair and write back "Did she have a son?" I asked because "Alex's" connection to me would have to be on the paternal side give what his adoptive mother told me. The lady replied saying "Yes. She had one son." I shook my head a piece of the puzzle was solved. Now I needed to put theory into practice!

Step Four: The Complicated DNA Stuff!

    Once I finished talking to the Cheney match, I went over to DNApainter.com to see just what the odds were of "Alex" being connected to my great-aunt. At 144 cMs, I had quite a few options thanks to all of the genetic genealogical gold Dr. Blaine Bettinger, Dr. Leah Larkin and Jonny Perl put on the website.

    Leah, aka the DNA Geek, has a tool called "What are the odds?" or "WATO" on the website. I decided to use it to determine just where "Alex" was in the tree.

    Using the program, I first put in my great-aunt and built the tree up to Paolo and Rosa. I then added known DNA matches the match and I shared. I knew where they fit thanks to my research and my own family tree. All I did was substitute my cMs shared with his own numbers. After adding six DNA matches from the Coppola family, I then hit the "Suggest Hypothesis" button. I was a bit surprised by the results!

    Six possible  hypotheses returned after I had put in three of Paolo senior's children: Concetta, Paolo and Caterina and the matches who descended from each of them. Concetta and Caterina were almost immediately taken out of the equation. I added people like my father and Caterina was removed, too!

    I will admit that sometimes the highest hypothesis isn't always the correct one. The other day I was playing around with my mother's Legault lines and it didn't gel completely with established paper trails. It's always a good idea to keep in mind that it is just a hypothesis. Even the most likely ones can turn out to be incorrect. It really just depends on what information you put into the program and the number of close matches. The more you have, the better. That tends to increase the odds along with adding birth dates. Sometimes WATO will be accurate. Sometimes another hypothesis may turn out to be correct. 

    In the end, "Hypothesis four" turned out to be the most logical answer. It had the highest score and that meant that it had the highest probability of being the connection. I put in "Alex"'s age and Mary Rose's son's name in and became even more likely that "Hypothesis 4" was the correct way to go based on ALL of the information I obtained. I gathered my thoughts, and started talking about what I could do next.

    That's where the Spider-Man comparison from the other blog came in. I had an obligation to report on what I found for "Alex". With great power and all that. I know I sound like a nerd when I talk about Spidey. But, the statement still holds. When you find something this huge, you should try to be objective and report on what you find. That way the person you are talking to can make their own informed decision. It still amazes me that I went from Dark Knight to Wallcrawler over the course of working on this match.

    I had great success using WATO and I've used it for other matches who vexed me. Trust me I have a lot of DNA matches who are confusing. In time, I'm sure I'll solve the puzzle. Right now I feel pretty good about how I went about solving this puzzle. There are other ways to go about solving genealogical puzzles. This one was probably the easiest for me because I'm a visual learner. I need to see things in action before I can make a conclusion. There are other steps people can take and this was the best one for me given what I already knew about my family's history.

   I just hope "Alex" is happy with the results as I hadn't heard much from him or his adoptive mother since the big reveal. Maybe that's the old "Spidey luck" creeping up. I don't let it bother me. I did what I had to do and I learned how to do some pretty cool things along the way thanks to Dana, Leah, Blaine and Jonny. They're good people! Follow 'em on social media and I'll see ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 38: Fun and Games

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 38: It's "Fun and Games" for Week 38! Are there any fun traditions in your family? (My family has "Thanksgiving craft time" after the big meal is done.) Maybe you've made an especially fun discovery or found how your ancestors spent their precious free time.

WOOOOOOOT!

    Over the years I've been blogging I've talked about many of my family's traditions. I've talked about the big Christmas eve parties, fun at the marina and Thanksgiving. There's still one or two family traditions I can talk about here and there. The well hasn't completely dried up! In between all of the holidays, we still managed to have HUGE family gettogethers on my mother's side of the family. One particular event occurred in June of 2013. It was a surprise party for my grandfather, Robert Hamel.

Robert Hamel, master of stealth

    I was thinking about him a lot in the last few days because at the time I am writing this entry it has been exactly four years since he passed away at the age of ninety-four. I can say with certainty that it hasn't been easy since he's been gone. He was the only grandfather my brother and I really, really remember. He was basically the blueprint for all other grandfathers to follow. He was just that awesome and I can say with absolute certainty that all ten of his grandchildren (including my brother and I) would agree!

    In June of 2013, it was decided by my mother and her five siblings that they should turn one of our annual family gettogethers into a surprise birthday party for their father. His ninetieth birthday was approaching and we wanted to do something special for him. Plans were made to have the party at my aunt Linda's house and it was my parents' job to pick him up at the airport and have him sleep over until the day of the event. Naturally, I helped and played it cool.

   

     The fun actually started when we picked him up at Manchester airport. My cousin and I were supposed to get him at baggage claim and when we went there.....he wasn't there! We both looked at each other like "What the heck? Where's Grandpa?" We shook our heads and went back to where our parents were and sure enough there he was waiting for us WITH EVERYONE!  I said to my cousin "We're totally gonna get him back for this."

    The next Saturday was the big day. It was his birthday and what would have been his sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. My grandmother had passed away in 2004. That didn't stop family from the Felker clan from attending! Keeping the surprise a secret was a simple task. I was talking to one of my other cousins on Facebook messenger while he watched golf on our television....with the television muted. I never figured out why he did that. Golf isn't exactly known for its boisterous fanbase. Though, it would be cool to see some of that excitement in the game. I'm not going to lie.

Ninety-four candles is a fire hazard.

   My aunts and my cousins came by that night and I talked about the party to my cousins in the kitchen while our parents and siblings were in the dining room with our grandfather. You might think it was like being sent to the kids' table and you might be right on the money. It worked out because we got down to brass tacks with limited commercial interruption from the group in the dining room. That was until my uncle cracked open a lobster and juice hit the ceiling. We still have the stain there. Nothing gets lobster juice out. NOTHING! The best part was that he thought the lobster party was his actual birthday party. Nope!

   

     We said our goodbyes and prepared for the big event the next morning.

    When I woke up, I sent some messages to my cousins and they asked if Grandpa suspected anything. Thankfully, he didn't. The event was going to be slightly formal and to keep up with the charade I had to wear a decidedly informal Boston Celtics t-shirt. I swear I felt so out of place. Nevertheless, I grabbed my camera as I wanted to film as much of the event as possible and we were on our way.

    My mother even made chicken wings for the party and my grandfather asked why she was making so many wings. Gee. I wonder where I get my curious streak from! She made some lame excuse and he totally bought it.

The grandkids (minus 2). 

    When we got to the house, I got my camera out and my grandfather asked what I was doing. My dad said "He's gonna take a picture of you." I chuckled and whispered "Nice save". My aunt opened the door and greeted him as he walked ahead of everyone. She said we were "having a picnic in the back". He walked up the steps and I was still recording. He went into the house and everyone shouted "SURPRISE!"

    And man was he surprised! I took a panoramic shot of everyone clapping and turned the camera off until it was time for cake. I wasn't about to walk around with a camcorder the whole day! I did film more clips. I was basically filming for posterity and for my brother and cousin who couldn't make it to the party.

    We did take plenty of pictures! If there's one thing my family does is take photos. Lots of photos. The only problem is that sometimes we're all looking in different directions in group shots. Luckily the one above has most of us looking in the same direction.

Psst. Can I has cake? 

    Throughout the afternoon I spent quite a lot of time talking to my cousins, my great-aunt and several of my mother's cousins.  Everyone talked about how much my grandma Natalie would have liked being there. She would have. She'd have loved the surprise party. I do wonder how she would have kept it hidden from Grandpa Bob, though. She'd have gone along with it. I just wish my brother and one of my other cousins could have been there. But, it is what it is.  At least a few of the great-grandkids were there! Needless to say he had a great time and was all smiles during his speech.

   

     Birthday parties and family gettogethers have always been a great chance to get a ton of genealogical information. You have a few laughs and talk about the things you never knew about your family. Over the years we had many and that one was the second to last party we had before he passed away in 2017. The last party we had was in 2016 when he was at my cousin's wedding.  That was a fun time. He did not know what to make of "Uptown Funk".

    It's hard to believe four years have passed since he passed away. A few more great-grandchildren were born and one great-great grandchild is on the way at the time of this blog's posting. Time may move on but the memories will last a lifetime. Parties are a great way to solidify those memories and I have plenty of them and pictures! When I got home from the party, I loaded up Ancestry for the first time in a while and made some updates based on what I learned. I smiled and said "I'll get back to you later". My genealogical adventure was about to begin anew! 

    I put the videos I took up on my Facebook and I share them whenever they show up in my Facebook memories. It's a good way to share the memories with cousins who weren't able to attend. I've even saved the videos onto my computer and a flash drive. Moments in time are now forever captured and will be cherished for years to come.

See ya next time!