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?

Just for Fun

I collect names into my tree for entertainment value. These folks are usually poorly sourced and I have no intention of tracking down and proving the relationships. I can here some of you gasping through my internet connection. Lighten up! It's ok to have some fun with your tree and you never know who may fall out.

When I first started working on my mother's genealogy she really wanted me to find her a pilgrim. Since there wasn't one to be had, I distracted her with Mary Towne Esty and Roger Conant. She was impressed - once I explained who they were. Edward I, King of England, now that got her attention. Was he really her 33rd great-grandfather? Neither of us care, it's just fun to think about. One tree I've found has Odin as my 57th great-grandfather. I'm a big SG-1 fan so this find was particularly fun. (Odin was the ruler of Asgard.)

Our family also has it's own stories of famous relatives. It turns out I'm not really a Princess but it's a fun story none the less.

Yesterday, TK had a post about her family's story that they are related to Zachary Taylor. As far as I know nobody in my family ever claimed a relationship to the president. I am a distant cousin of both the Bush's and Franklin Pierce. Just to check I searched One World Tree at ancestry for my grandfather's name, Daniel Michael Carlisle. Once I had his record I clicked on the "Find Famous Relatives" link. Zachary Taylor was not there.

I was very surprised at some of the names that did come up! I will be doing some research to see if Thomas More (1478-1535) is really my 12th great-grandfather. I hadn't taken the line back that far. (This one I will source ;-)

I copied down a list of some of our famous relatives so I could take it to Mom's today. Then, of course, I forgot to take it. She was a little blue today so I tossed out some of the names from memory. There was a Pilgrim - William Brewster was my 9th great-granduncle it seems. Mom was happy to have a pilgrim at last but still unimpressed. So I tried somebody more contemporary - Lucille Ball and was rewarded by a "You're kidding!"

I followed Lucy up with Amelia Earhart. The look on Mom's face was priceless!!! She moved to the edge of her chair and told me not to tease her. She is always interested in our genealogy but I don't think I have ever seen her this excited before. I did point out that she was a distant cousin, 7th, twice removed. Her reponse was that it didn't matter we're still related.

I did use the link, "Show Relationships" and found some errors due to a step relationship in my old tree that Ancestry used but for the most part the relationships seemed reasonable. They are not something that I'm going to spend a lot of time on.

Still, it is fun to think about the famous and in some cases infamous people we're related to. Here are my ten favorite from the list at Ancestry. What famous people are lurking about in your tree?

Eli Whitney, 1765-1825

Samuel Morse, 1791-1872

James "Wild Bill" Hickok, 1837-1836

Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1867-1957

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959

Amelia Earhart, 1897-1937

John Steinbeck, 1902-1968

George Orwell, 1903-1950

Lucille Ball, 1911-1989

Julia Child, 1912-2004

Fun Charting Relationships

Reading Becky's post at Kinexxions yesterday (yes, I am way behind in my reading!) started me thinking about some of the unusual relationships in my own tree.

Michael and Sarah Ann Camfield were my 2nd great-grandparents - twice - except not really, now that I know that their daughter, Anna, was adopted. Now if it turns out that their son, Joseph, was also adopted they aren't really on my tree at all! Always fill in your charts in pencil - you never know when when we'll have to give an ancestor you've become attached to the old heave-ho. My mother and I are cousins, except not anymore. I still say "Hey, cuz!" every now and then when I see her just to get her going. Ashley Carlisle's aunt was his mother, it's in a history book and everything! Besides that, he addresses her as "mother" in his letters, what more proof do I need? My great-grandfather, Joseph Berry's brother was also his brother-in-law so my grandfather's mother was also his aunt mother. You'd think a marriage like that would cause some kind of fun blip in the tree. I appear in invisible ink on my son's tree. Humf- I may not have been in the delivery room when he was born but since he has caused me so many gray hairs you'd think he could at least pencil me in!

I'm sure there are other dual relationships in my tree that I haven't thought of. What about your tree?

Now I have this song stuck in my head. This version has a chart to help you follow along - or not.

Everybody Loves A Parade!

Bill West is having a parade at West in New England and I've been busy trying to find everything I need for my float and trying to decide who to invite to ride on it.

Because so much of my family history has a connection to the Erie Canal, the center piece of my float will be the packet boat currently housed in the Erie Canal Museum. I think we can get it right out of the end of the building. The float will be pull by a team of mules, led by my great-great-grandfather, Michael Camfield. Mike met his wife, Sarah Wisner, on the banks of the canal so we'll have the entire family on the float.Sarah's father, William Wisner owned land along the canal so we'll have Sarah's family too, including her grandparents, Anthony and Mary Elizabeth (Bookhout) Badgley and some of her aunts, uncles and cousins.

I picked a packet boat because they had flat tops where the passengers often rode in nice weather. So we'll all sit outside on top of the boat and take turns sitting in the rocking chair that is said to have come from the porch of a hotel in Syracuse, NY. I can't find any reference to any of my family ever being connected to a hotel in Syracuse so I think it was actually from the Clinton House in Rochester, NY. Isaac Ashley owned the Clinton house and it was located near the canal. His wife was Charlotte Carlisle. The family must have thought a lot of Mr. Ashley as Charlotte's brother, Daniel Carlisle, named one of his sons Isaac Ashley Carlisle. Ashley, as he was known, is in the one with the beard in the center of the family photo, having married Sarah Camfield. I'm not certain which members of the family worked on the construction of the canal so I'll send out a general invitation to all of those that did to come ride on the float and see who shows up!


I haven't quite worked out the construction details but we need to have water surrounding the boat. Because Bill is having the parade in winter it should freeze nicely so that we can invite my paternal grandparents, Kim and Mary Kelly Berry, to ice skate on the float as they did on the canal when they first came to Syracuse. Grandma really tried to teach me to skate.

Of course my family will all be on the float too, so that they can all meet their ancestors. Mike has has flutephone lessons in school so he'll give half of our crew a quick lesson while I teach the rest the Erie Canal song, a song I grew up with and know by heart:

I've got a mule, her name is Sal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal
She's a good old worker and a good old pal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal

We've hauled some barges in our day
filled with lumber, coal and hay
And we know every inch of the way from
Albany to Buffalo.

Chorus:
Low bridge, everybody down
Low bridge for we're coming to a town
And you'll always know your neighbor, you'll always know your pal
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

We better get along on our way ol'gal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal

'Cause you bet your life I'd never part with Sal,
15 miles on the Erie Canal.
Git up there mule, here comes a lock,
We'll make Rome about 6 o'clock
One more trip and back we'll go, right back home to Buffalo.