Vol. 24, No. 23 — June 5, 2019
Missing Persons Listings in Old Newspapers: Use Them to Find Your Ancestors
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In the old days, before telecommunications, it was challenging for people to keep in touch when someone moved far away. In fact, when people immigrated to other countries, like to the United States, they almost always did so with the knowledge that they may never see or even hear from their loved ones in the “old country” again. Of course, most of them always hoped to stay in touch via letters (there was always the odd
person who left the home country intending to disappear, but this was the exception rather than the rule). However, the practicalities of moving far away and making a new life in a new country often meant those letters never got written, or received (especially if the immigrant moved around a lot once he or she arrived in the new country)...
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The Connecticut Witch Trials: Witch Hysteria in America Long Before Salem
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If you thought the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692 were the only incident of witch hysteria in colonial America, that is understandable. This incident is widely known and talked about, probably because of the sheer volume of numbers of people who were convicted and accused. There were twenty victims who were unjustly executed, while hundreds more for miles around and from far outside of Salem were accused and spent
time in jail before the hysteria ended. However, the incident in Salem Village was not the first or only time this happened in colonial America. There are other incidents of witch hysteria or individual witch accusations that are simply overlooked. One of the most notorious of these “forgotten” witch incidents happened a generation before Salem in Hartford, Connecticut...
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The History of Jungle Jim’s: Homeland Cooking from Around the World
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One of the wonderful things about genealogy is discovering your ancestral homelands. Remember, unless one is Native American, one’s ancestors always came from another country before coming to North America, and it was in the recent past (usually the past three to four centuries, which is relatively recent, genealogically speaking). Learning where our ancestors originated opens up so many intriguing things to research and
try, including customs, traditions, methods of dress, and food. Food is one of the biggest pleasures, and many people do want to try the food of their ancestors...
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American Folklore: New Mexico
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Admitted to the union in 1912 as the 47th state, New Mexico was inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years before the first European explorers showed up. When the Europeans came in the late 1500s, it was the Spanish who arrived first. They named the territory Nuevo Mexico, after the Valley of Mexico in the Aztec civilization. This naming was done more than 250 years before the modern-day country of Mexico was
founded, so the state is not named after that country.
Mexico was a Spanish colony until 1824 when Mexico declared independence and took the territory for its own. It then transferred to the ownership of the United States in 1848 after the Mexican-American War and remained a U.S. territory until it was made a state. It has a lot of folklore associated with its long and storied history. Here are some of the highlights of it...
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The Lost Treasure of Francis Wainwright, Chapter 19: The Treasure of Francis Wainwright
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The Willick grandchildren have tracked down the true treasure of Francis Wainwright. And, quite a treasure it is, too. Even more valuable than Philippa’s statue, this is the treasure for which generations of their family have been searching. The only question now is, what do they do with it?
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A new e-book is now available to download. My wonderful daughter finished compiling the individual posts from America's First Ladies series into a convenient e-book.
This 287-page e-book is absolutely free of charge today, although you are welcome to give a gift of any amount you chose to help with future projects. Thank you so much!
Today's Photography Article
Planning Photos to Suit Your Market
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The act of creation is a personal thing. Other people—unless they happen to be our subjects—don’t often enter into the equation. All of the steps necessary to produce a photographic print, everything from the hours spent imagining shots and planning shoots, to the actual day of the shoot, and the post processing that comes afterward are all things that we do on our own, for the most part. And because of this, it’s easy
to get wrapped up in the imagery and sort of forget other people entirely.
But there comes a time when we have to stop and remember others. The simple truth is, all those other people? They’re our audience, our potential clients, and the people we may be selling prints to in the future. So if you plan to market your photography, it’s not enough to simply create images that you enjoy. You’ll also need to take your future audience into consideration so that you’re producing something that they have a reasonable chance of enjoying, too.
Subject material is only a small part of this formula. For the most part, whatever you photograph, as long as it’s photographed well, there will be an audience out there for those particular subjects. When it comes to making images ready for consumption by others, the larger part of the equation is actually the way you present those photographs. Let me show you what I mean...
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