SNGF - WDYTYA Starring Apple!

For this edition of Saturday Night Genealogy Fun at Genea-Musings, Randy proposes:

1) Pretend that you are one of the subjects on the Who Do You Think You Are? show on NBC TV.

2) Which of your ancestors (maximum of two) would be featured on your hour-long show? What stories would be told, and what places would you visit?

3) Tell us about it on your own blog, in comments to this blog post, or in a Note or Comment on Facebook.

My episode will kick off the "Ordinary People" season of WDYTYA, all of the celebrities in the US either having been featured in previous seasons or having declined to be on the show.

After the opening credits the scene will be the annual 4th of July picnic in my backyard where I'll be surrounded by grandchildren hanging onto my every word as I tell stories of their ancestors. I'll pause when I finish telling of Anna's life, sigh deeply and say, "But, alas, Anna was adopted and 'though I've searched these many years I have no idea who her biological parents were."

The cameras will then follow me inside where we'll sit at my newly purchased kitchen table (after one look at my old battered the table the production crew decided it simply would not do!) and the camera will pan across the pile of letters and other documents that I have, focusing finally on this picture of a Camfield family gathering. Anna is on the far right and they zoom in on her.

I will be driven the 25 miles to Syracuse and the next scene will show me walking into the Onondaga County courthouse, where I'll be met by a professional genealogist who will very somberly explain that in the 1850's sometimes there simply were no records made of informal adoptions. The camera will pan back to me as I wipe a tear from the corner of my eye.

Seeing my disappointment, the professional genealogist tells me that they have found something on my great-great-grandfather, Michael Camfield. I perk right back up and exclaim, "Oh, how wonderful! I can't believe it!" The cameras follow us as we walk across town to the Erie Canal Museum.

There I am given a quick tour and told more about the canal and what Mike's life would have been like guiding horeses and mules along the canal. (I already know all of this of course, but the history of the canal makes for good TV.) We then walk to the Onondgaga County Historical Society where I am shown a magical document. I gasp and exclaim, "Oh my God, I can't believe it!" (I have no idea what the document is, if I did I'd have already shared it!)

I'll now be told that they have found when and where Mike entered the US and I'll be shown waving from the window of a Greyhound bus on my way to New York City and Castle Garden.

 

Photo from National Park Service

Walking up to the entrance we'll bump into Steve Danko and Lisa Alzo having their picture taken together in front of the entrance. It turns out that they will be helping me on this leg of my journey! They'll show me Mike's ship manifest which will reveal his correct surname and I'll exclaim, "I never imagined that spelling! How on earth did you find this!" Right on cue, Blaine Bettinger joins us and expains yDNA to the audience and tells how they actually determined the correct surname by testing the DNA of one of my male Camfield cousins, entering the details of the test into a DNA search engine and finding a match!

 After that excitement I'll look again at the document and I'll gasp and squeal again, "Oh my God, there are his parents, brother and sister too!" I will then be shown a photo of a painting of a ship in the general class that Mike traveled and told how lucky I am that I have been chosen to repeat his journey. The cameras will follow me as I head for the dock and my own Trans-Atlantic journey. I'll be traveling steerage, just as my ancestors did and the camera will pan away from me as I stow my few belongings in a corner of the hold. I'll be heard screaming, "Oh, no! Please don't leave me here in these deplorable conditions! I want to fly!"  as the scene fades to a commercial for Ancestry.com.

The cameras will pick me back up at the dock in Le Harvre, France and from there I'll be whisked away to the Alsace-Lorraine region on the border of France and Germany. There I will be shown walking the hillsides as I make my way to the home of  the Camfield cousin with whom we were able to get a DNA match. Our meeting is very touching and will pull at the heart strings of the audience. (We may need several takes to get the perfect emotional balance for TV.)

The show will conclude with shots of me flying home in my coach seat reflecting on all that I've learned, what a wonderful journey it's been and how it has changed my life forever.

Next time on WDYTYA............

Bathroom Follies

While I'm away I thought I'd share one of my travel follies from a few years ago. This originally appeared at The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree. While our destination was different on that trip I've found that the experience is pretty much the same no matter where we roam.

John and I aren’t quite yet to the point where we need to buy a trailer to tow a blue-boy when we travel but we do make fairly frequent stops. I dread the filthy gas station facilities so we usually try and stop at public rest areas.

Most of the places we’ve stopped have commodes that flush for you. Are they on a timer or something? It’d be really nice if they’d wait until I was done! Am I the only one that this happens to? Then you get out to the sinks. Nobody else seems to have any problem but there I am waving my hands all over trying to get the water to start. At one stop I gave up and moved to the next sink and started waving again only to have the first sink turn on. Then I have to make the huge decision – paper or air dry? I have yet to get one of the new “no touch” paper dispensers to work without touching the red sensor. The air dryers involve more wild hand waving. In the interest of saving both trees and energy I usually opt for the seat of my pants.

We stopped at one rest area that had a little cut out in the wall and was labeled that it would give you water, soap and then air all in one spot if you’d simply place your hands in the wall. It must have been designed by a tall man but since there was nobody else around I decided to give it a try. I lifted my hands up to shoulder level and plunged them into the wall. Of course nothing happened so I started wiggling my fingers and then waving my hands as much as the small space would allow. Luckily for me they had an old fashioned sink. John said they had the same set up on the mens side and it turned on after he’d moved on to the regular sink, so it’s not just me! We’re lavatory challenged as a couple!

At our first hotel things were pretty straight forward. I was quite pleased that I didn’t need an instruction manual to turn on the shower. My luck changed when we got to the resort. The commode worked fine but I could not get water to flow from any of the three sinks. I called the desk and they sent maintenance down. Seems they’d turned off the water to the unit earlier in the day but failed to turn it back on. The unit has a really pretty corner unit - combo jetted tub/shower. I can’t reach the water controls until I get into the tub first! The water was scalding hot so I kept moving it towards the blue. Red for hot, blue for cold right? Wrong! I finally got the temperature right but there was nothing there to switch over to the shower. I pushed and pulled on everything until I gave up, got out of the tub and went in search of John. He got in the tub and proceeded to push and pull on everything to the point that I thought he was going to pull the thing right off of the wall! He finally pulled down on the ring where the water was flowing out and eureka! I later tried to take a bath but couldn’t get the jets to work. John to the rescue again. I simply hadn’t held the button down long enough. A couple of days later John went to take a shower and after getting in the tub discovered that we had no hot water. Hopefully I won’t run into any more new designs on this trip but I have a bottle of hand sanitizer in my purse just in case!

This is also the first trip where I have been provided reading material in the stall. At the resort they have “mini-billboards” on the stall doors so I can think and think about what shows I want to see. At the one of the visitor’s centers they had the schedule of events posted there and that was how I discovered they had a butterfly garden. With informative reading like that you better hope the line doesn’t get too long!

Dad's Campfire Songs

Randy asked us to pick just one favorite song for this weeks Saturday night genealogy fun. Sorry Randy, I just can't do it! Music has always been a very important part of my life and I could never pick just one favorite.

My love of music is surprising because I grew up in a home without a radio. I used to love to ride in the car with Dad because he'd turn on the car radio to catch the news and sometimes forget to turn it off when the news was done. Mom would sing to us when we were little and my grandmother sang once in a while. I know all of the Gay '90's hits!

The only time Dad sang or showed any interest in music at all was around the campfire on our summer vacations. So for my Sunday morning fun I'll share my two favorite songs that he used to entertain us with. Picture us in a state campground singing these. I wonder what the other campers thought?

The first I have not been able to find the music for. The only place I've been able to find the lyrics in an old Boy Scout song book. Was Dad a Boy Scout? (Dad's lyrics varied slightly)

Once I went in swimmin'
Where there were no women
Down beside the sea
Seeing no one there
I hung my underwear
Upon a willow tree
Dove into the water
Just like Pharaoh's daughter
Dove into the Nile
Someone saw me there
and stole my underwear
and left me with a smile!
I don't care, I'll go bare
Bye - bye B V D's

This next one I sang to my kids and now my grandkids. They all think I'm nuts. I'd did find music to go with this one so feel free to sing along.



Washington & Lee Swing

Once again Dad's lyrics were slightly different from what I found.

We'll take the legs from some old table
We'll take the arms from some old chair
We'll take the neck from some old bottle
And from the sofa get some hair
we'll get some hair
We'll put them all together
With the aid of wire and glue
And we'll get more love
From the gosh old dummy
Than we ever get from you!

What songs did your family sing?

What Is and What Could Be

This was written for the 81st edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, Blog Obituary, to be hosted at Tracing the Tribe.

What would I like to see written if my blog disappeared ten years from now?

What would be written if it happened today?


Genealogy World
Circulation 250 Million

September 26, 2019

Apple's Tree Ceases Publication

Snowville, NY - Genealogists world wide will be shocked to learn that Apple's Tree, one of the most highly rated family history blogs of the last decade will cease publication after a final, farewell post today by blog author, Apple.

Apple's Tree began in 2006 and quickly gained a small following of other genealogy bloggers through participation in the Carnival of Genealogy. The blog struggled the first three years and almost folded in 2009 according to author Apple. "It was great fun when I started but there came a time when I started worrying about building a following and blogging became work. Another job was the last thing I needed. When it stopped being fun the quality went right down the drain. I stopped worrying about who was reading and went back to writing for myself and the rest is history!"

Since mid 2010 Apple's Tree has consistently entertained readers with biographical sketches, articles on both local and regional history, how to tips and family history stories.

When asked, "Why stop now?', Apple responded, "I've written all I know about my family, transcribed all the records and letters I've been able to find. I've finally retired from my day job and I plan to travel the country and visit all of the places my ancestors did and meet some cousins along the way. After that I plan to re look at what I have written and publish several books."

Although there will be no new articles published at Apple's Tree the archives will be maintained as a valuable resource for other family historians.

Apple assures us that she will still be checking in with her blogging friends and commenting on their work.


A girl can dream can't she? In truth, were I to cease publication today, the article would look more like this:

GeneaVillage Gazette
Circulation 250

December 14, 2009

The editors have learned that Apple's Tree ceased publication sometime back in September. We only noticed that the blog had disappeared when we were asked if we had a link to "that letter blog."

Apple's Tree got off to a shaky start less than three years ago but after a few months started to show promise and picked up a small following. There was a two year period when there were well written articles on a range of topics, however earlier this year quality articles were supplanted with day after day of boring letter transcriptions and not much else. We're told that readers unsubscribed in droves and who could blame them?

The comments left by blog author, Apple, will be missed by all. However the blog itself will be missed only by a few of it's loyal followers and is no great loss to the Genea-blogging community.


I have been dissatisfied with the direction that Apple's Tree has taken over the last several months and I'd like to thank all of you that have stuck with me. I will continue to publish the transcriptions of my family's letters however I will be making a concerted effort to shift the focus of this blog back to family history and research.

Carnival poster courtesy of footnote Maven.