Category: Travel

Tombstone Tuesday: Graves of Memphis

7/7/2014

My family and I are on vacation this week. We made a two-day stop in Memphis, Tennessee on our way to our final destination, and, not surprisingly, I have photos of gravestones to share. And, although these graves have nothing to do with my or my husband's family histories, I still found them fascinating.

Our first destination was Graceland, former home of the late Elvis Presley. Towards the end of the tour, we were able to view his family's burial plot on the grounds of the estate. Neither me nor my husband are fanatical Elvis fans, but we do enjoy his music from time to time and we appreciate his strong influence on music history. The burial plot was beautiful, with a lovely, clear fountain, and a semi-circular pergola and brick wall with some really nice stained glass windows embedded in it.

He is buried with his parents, Vernon Elvis Presley and Gladys Love Smith Presley, and his paternal grandmother, Minnie Mae Presley. There is also a small memorial plaque dedicated to Elvis' twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley, who was stillborn. The tributes written on the plaques of each stone are just very endearing and you can tell they were written with love.

The small print on Elvis' stone reads, "He was a precious gift from God we cherished and loved dearly. He had a God-given talent that he shared with the world, and without a doubt, he became most widely acclaimed, capturing the hearts of young and old alike. He was admired not only as an entertainer, but as the great humanitarian that he was; for his generosity, and his kind feelings for his fellow man. He revolutionized the field of music and received its highest awards. He became a living legend in his own time, earning the respect and love of millions. God saw that he needed some rest and called him home to be with Him. We miss you, Son and Daddy. I thank God that He gave us you as our son. By: Vernon Presley"

Later that evening, we took a drive to Memphis National Cemetery. The weather was nice, and we wanted to spend some time outside so that the kids could walk and run around a little. (Yes, normal parents would probably look for a playground or park, but we're not normal :-))

Memphis National Cemetery

It was a good decision, because the kids enjoyed it and it was the first time they had ever been to a national cemetery. We had to explain to them that these were the graves of people who served in the military and their family members. My son tried to read some of the stones, but he needed help with some of the military abbreviations and state names. My daughter found the graves with the prettiest flowers and wanted me to take photos of her next to them.

We looked around at some of the graves, just kind of noting where these people were from and when they served in the Armed Forces. There isn't a whole lot of information on these small stones, but my husband found one that was particularly interesting and told a bigger story indicative of the time and place in which this man served. Dale Moore was a sergeant in the U.S. Army and served in Korea and Vietnam. He passed away at a relatively young age, possibly while on duty. Buried with him is his wife, Yung Min Moore, a woman he evidently met while he was serving in the Far East. She lived a good deal longer than her husband, but it doesn't appear that she remarried. And the baby, born in 1962 - just tugs at your heartstrings.

We were initially surprised to find large monuments for the states of Minnesota and Illinois, but not after we looked around and saw how many Civil War soldiers from those states were interred here. Once we got there, we also did a little reading about the cemetery (aren't smartphones wonderful?) and learned that this cemetery has the second-most number of 'unknown' interments of any national cemetery, with over 8,800 interments being unknown.

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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I'm Going to the FHL! - And I Need Your Help!

5/3/2014

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Family History Library (Source: Wikicommons)

Two weeks from today, my husband and I will be on our way to Salt Lake City. There is a short conference/class that my husband wanted to attend for work, and he suggested that I come along and we make a little non-kid vacation out of it. (And, yes, he knew when he mentioned it to me that I wouldn't be able to refuse! He knows the power of the Family History Library, lol!)

This will be my first trip to the FHL. I will only have two days of research time. I am going into this experience with realistic expectations of how much (how little) research I will probably be able to accomplish in that short period of time. I will only be concentrating on a couple of family lines, and I will be primarily searching for microfilmed records that I have already found to be indexed on FamilySearch.org. All of the films are international. I know exactly which microfilms I will need, and I will be using this online form to request them ahead of time, so they are ready to go when I arrive. I have printed out copies of the indexed records and paper-clipped them together with a single-page print out of that portion of the family tree. I will have a stenographer's notebook where I have written down who and what I am looking for in each family, and I will also use it to take additional source notes, if necessary. I also plan on bringing my iPad so that I can access all of my family tree records that I have put online, if I need to look something up.

If possible, I would like to avoid having to bring my laptop, mainly just for travel reasons. I plan on using a USB flash drive to collect records, and I will copy what I find onto my OneDrive 'cloud' or Google Drive just to be on the safe side. I actually want to invest in a new flash drive for the occasion - any recommendations or suggestions?

So, for those of you who have done research at the FHL, what am I forgetting? Any advice or suggestions for a newbie? My husband and I will also be taking some time to tour Salt Lake City and the surrounding area, and I'd love to hear suggestions for what to see, where to eat, etc.

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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Visiting Ancestral Places...From Your Living Room

6/29/2013

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Family history researchers usually do a 'happy dance' when we discover a clue that leads us to that exact village or city where our ancestors once lived before "crossing the pond." And rightfully so - knowing exactly where great-grandma was born opens up so many doors as we try to research generations further and further back in time. And, once we find those special places in our family's history, we immediately feel a desire to go there - to see the buildings our ancestors may have lived in, to walk down a street they walked down everyday of their lives. But, let's face it, traveling thousands of miles is oftentimes not possible. Not to worry: Internet to the rescue! Below, I've listed some Internet resources and tools I have used to "see" these villages that are so far away. Give them a try, if you haven't already!

1.) Google it! Try seeing what an 'old-fashioned' Google search will get you if you type in the name of your ancestor's village. Nowadays, even some of the smallest European towns and villages have websites of their own. This is exactly how I found this website about my great-grandmother's village of Skrudzina, which is located in southern Poland. Using the Google Translate feature on my toolbar, I've been able to learn a little about the village's history from the site. Even if your ancestral village does not have its own website, there is a decent chance something from Wikipedia will pop up in your Google search. Also, when doing your Google Search, don't forget to click on the 'Images' button at the top of the search bar. Doing so will often return images of the town itself.

2.) Google Maps The Street View feature of Google Maps is a wonderful way of simulating a walk down the street of an old family neighborhood or town, as it looks in the present day. The Street View feature is still not available in all locations, but their coverage is getting better and better. I was surprised when I recently looked up my maternal grandmother's birthplace and found that there is indeed Street View available for Iselle, Italy, a very small town on the Swiss-Italian border. Isn't this a gorgeous view? I just love seeing all of the mountains in the background. (Click on photo to see the image directly from Street View.)

Google Street View in Iselle, Italy.

3.) Google Earth If you haven't yet downloaded Google Earth, do it...now. Like, stop reading my blog post and do it. The aerial details of the satellite images are scary-amazing - vegetation, land use, and urban development can all be deduced from looking at these images. Links to user photos posted via Panoramio are posted right on the satellite image, so all you have to do is click on the photo icons and the user-submitted photos pop up right there. Below is a screen shot of one of my husband's ancestral towns, Coesfeld, Germany. There are many, many photos available for viewing! And when I click on an icon, there is the photo! (That, by the way, is a photo of the church where my husband's ancestors were baptized and married; the present structure was built post-WWII because the previous building was destroyed by bombings.) The ability to view satellite imagery and photos is just one of the many great features in Google Earth that can be applied to genealogy; I highly recommend watching this video about Google Earth for Genealogy by Lisa Louise Cooke.

Google Earth Satellite View of Coesfeld, Germany.

After Clicking on a Photo Icon. Jakobikirche in Coesfeld.

4.) 360cities.net I recently discovered this website and really cannot express to you how much I love it. On this website, you can find 360 degree panorama photos for locations all over the world. Right now, it is the larger cities that have more "coverage," but their database is growing all the time as users continue to add to it. This, like Google Earth and Google Street View, is great for seeing what locations look like in the present day. Below is a screen shot of a panorama from a rooftop in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, where my great-grandfather was born. The detail of the photos is just wonderful and, of course, I can rotate it all the way around if I choose. There is also this cool street map utility on the left side that shows you exactly what your field of view is in this image. The map also can be zoomed in or out and closed and opened at your convenience. (Panorama shown below by Martin Kacvinsky.)

Rooftop in Palermo from 360cities.net

5.) WhatWasThere I have blogged about this website before, so I'll direct you to that post for the details about this site's features. WhatWasThere helps users upload historical photos and overlay them onto the Street View feature of Google Maps. Site users then have the ability to fade in and out between the old photos and the present-day street view. This site is a lot like 360cities in that the places YOU are interested in may or may not have photos associated with them. But, also like 360cities, their photo database is continually growing, so it's worth checking back often.

6.) Postcards. Old vintage postcards are GREAT for looking into the past. In the world of postcards, those that show scenes of villages, countrysides, city streets, buildings, etc. are referred to as 'topographical.' eBay is, by far, my favorite place to find postcards of places. I especially love that eBay is international and that purchasing items through international sellers is relatively easy using PayPal. Through eBay, I've been able to find and purchase the three postcards shown below. two of them depict ancestral villages as they were almost 100 years ago. When looking for postcards, don't forget to search for postcards of old buildings that may have special meaning to your family. That postcard of the hospital in the center is where one of my great-grandmothers died in 1919. She was only 29 years old and my grandfather was only four when she passed away, so nobody in our family knows anything about her, other than that she was a Polish immigrant. This postcard gives a little more substance to her story. (The building itself was torn down decades ago.)

Iselle, Italy, birthplace of my maternal grandmother

Cleveland's St. Alexis Hospital

Réchésy, France, one of my husband's ancestral villages.

7.) Facebook. Type in the name of a town or village in the Facebook search bar at the top, and see what comes up. Just like with traditional websites, many of even the smallest towns have their own Facebook pages. Recently, I even found a personal Facebook blog all about one of my husband's ancestral villages, Hannonville-Sous-Les-Côtes in France. The page manager posts some lovely photos of the village and surrounding countrysides on a regular basis - I truly feel like I have been there. And, thanks to the fact that she knows some English, we've also been able to 'talk' a little bit about genealogy and family surnames, too!

8.) Books. Yes, I said it. Books are still a great way to learn about ancestral places. Genealogists can spend hours in libraries and archives trying to dig out information about specific people in their family trees, but what about the places where those people came from? Sometimes locating information about a small town will mean combing through a book about a larger administrative district or state. OR sometimes you may get lucky and find a book or pamphlet that is specifically about your town of interest. I was recently able to find (on eBay again) a book about Lauterecken, Germany, one of my husband's other ancestral villages. It is being shipped straight from Germany, so I have not received it yet, but I'm excited to learn more about the town and to see what types of images are included in the book.

©2013, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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Treasure Chest Thursday: National Parks Passport

4/11/2013

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Today's family treasure is not something I have inherited from an ancestor, nor is it something of mine with a lot of monetary value. It is my family's National Parks Passport book. For those of you unfamiliar with these books, they are published by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS). Just about every NPS-designated national park, historic site, memorial, monument, scenic river or trail, etc. has a rubber passport stamp that you can get at the visitor centers. The stamps show the name of the park, the date, and the location. My husband and I purchased our book on our honeymoon in 2004. We drove out to the Black Hills area of South Dakota and spent a week exploring the area and visiting NPS sites like the Badlands, Wind Cave, Jewel Cave, and Devil's Tower in Wyoming. Since then, we've visited many other NPS locations all over the country, and we still like to plan our trips in areas where we haven't yet collected any stamps. I hope my kids and grandkids hold onto this book after I'm gone. It's a memento of a hobby both me and my husband enjoy greatly and, because each stamp is dated, it tells the story of our travels during different points of our lives.

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Casimir Pulaski Day and Fort Pulaski National Monument

3/4/2013

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Casimir Pulaski

Today is the official observance of Casimir Pulaski Day. Casimir Pulaski was a decorated Polish soldier who fought with the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Among his many accomplishments during the war, he played a pivotal role in the Battle of Brandywine in 1777, perhaps saving the life of George Washington in the process. He was an experienced war horseman and is credited with greatly improving American cavalry forces during the war. In October 1779, he was mortally injured during the Siege of Savannah. In 2009, Pulaski was granted an honorary U.S. citizenship, an honor which has been given to only seven people.

Casimir Pulaski Day is a major holiday in places with large Polish-American populations, such as Chicago. I really like this holiday, not only because I'm descended from Polish immigrants, but also because it makes me feel like "my people" were truly a part of America's fight for freedom. (I do not have any genetic ties to patriots who fought in the American Revolution, which I've already discussed here.) Plus, my grandfather's name was Casimer, so the holiday makes me think of him, too. :-)

In the 1830s, a military fort was built at the mouth of the Savannah River on Georgia's Coast. It was named Fort Pulaski in honor of Casimir Pulaski. Today, it is a National Monument and focuses on educating visitors about the Civil War. We visited the fort in 2010, so I thought I would post some photos from our trip. Mr. Bub loved the canons! Little Girl was also there, too, just in my belly! If you are ever in the Savannah area, we highly recommend visiting!

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Travel Tuesday: Adele's Postcard from London

2/5/2013

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In May and June of 1949, my great-grandparents Louis and Adele Licciardi took a trip to Europe. My grandmother saved most, if not all, of the postcards she received from her parents while on this trip, so I have pretty good idea of their basic itinerary. In Italy, they visited Turin, Rome, Palermo, and Naples. This was probably their first trip back to their homeland since they left in 1920, so I'm sure they visited with friends and family members. But they also spent some time in London. Below is the postcard that my great-grandmother addressed to my grandmother. It reads, "I will call you on the phone June 29 at 7:30PM instead of 2PM. This is a large city but the food is very bad here. -Pa & Ma London, 6-25-1949."

This is how Adele was - she told it to you straight. I'm not sure when all the jokes about poor British cooking started, but clearly she was not trying to make a joke :-)

Back of postcard

Front of postcard

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Lauterecken, Germany

8/16/2012

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Engraving by Matthaus Merian, early 1600s. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Thanks to the awesomely awesome genealogy website maintained by the Mormon Church (FamilySearch.org), I recently dug up a bunch of info about one branch of Tony's family tree (on his mom's side) for which I previously had very little documentation. The family's surname is Antoni and they came from Lauterecken, Germany. So far, I've been able to go as far back as Henry and Christina (Schott) Antoni, who were Tony's (are you ready for this?) great-great-great-great-great grandparents. I found their marriage record from 1777 and the birth/baptism records for most (if not all) of their children.

Whenever I discover a new person/family in my research, especially when I'm looking at the European ancestors, I always do a Google search of where they lived. Even though Germany has undergone a lot of political and leadership changes over the past three hundred years or so, the names of individual towns seem to have stayed fairly consistent down through the generations, which makes finding ancestral records and villages fairly easy. Anyway, I started looking at some of these photos of Lauterecken on Panoramio and fell in love (Photo1 Photo2 Photo3). This town is going on my list of places to visit when I someday go back to Germany.

Lauterecken is in western Germany, not far from the French border and is in the German state of Rhineland - Palatinate (often called Rhineland-Pfalz).

Now, I know that there are a lot of picturesque, quaint little towns all over Germany, each with their own distinctions. And I'm sure that there are other towns that have better travel ratings, lodgings, food, "charm," and so on. But tell me how cool would it be to go with my husband and children with the knowledge that we are walking some of the SAME streets that their ancestors walked hundreds of years ago? I don't know about you, but that kind of stuff gives me goosebumps :)

©2014, copyright Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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Tombstone Tuesday: Graves of Memphis

I'm Going to the FHL! - And I Need Your Help!

Visiting Ancestral Places...From Your Living Room

Treasure Chest Thursday: National Parks Passport

Casimir Pulaski Day and Fort Pulaski National Monument

Travel Tuesday: Adele's Postcard from London

Lauterecken, Germany

Emily Kowalski Schroeder

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