The Historian's Family

Krumkake this Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Mon, 24 Dec 2012 02:22:00 +0000

Two years ago I published this post about making krumkake (Norwegian waffle cookies) with my grandmother, Karin Nordstrom Hood. Last week, for the first time in probably five years, I actually made some. Here is everything all set up and ready to go: batter, spoons and the iron warming on the stove. I even remembered to place tinfoil under the burner
.

The batter must be place on the iron one spoonful at a time. By the end I had figured out how big the spoonful should be and that it needed to be spread around a bit.

This spoonful was a bit to big. The knife in the previous photo was used to scrape off the excess batter. This photo shows why the tinfoil is useful.

Almost two hours later a plateful of krumkake and family history. Next year, I will buy an electric krumkake iron with automatic heat settings, cool to the touch handles, and a non-stick surface. Some models even make more than one at a time. My mother questions this plan. She asked, in the disapproving way that only a mother could, "Would using an electric iron be the same as using your great-great-aunt's?" Um... no, of course not, but that's not the point. The point is, more krumkake with less effort. Yum!

2nd Blogiversary...

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 19:50:00 +0000

Thanks to Grant and Jim for alerting me that today is The Historian's Family's second blogiversary. I've been so busy at the Board of Elections over the past six weeks, I totally forgot! I've not posted here too much in the past year, but I have plans for this blog in my head so I totally refuse to take it down (or whatever you do to unwanted blogs). Here's hoping for a more productive third year at the Historian's Family.

Europa, Nazis, and Looting - The Book

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 11:53:00 +0000

I wrote the post below on 20 March 2012, but somehow it never got published. Must be Gremlins. In the meantime, I am happy to report I have been hard at work on my book, client research, writing articles, and actually did some research on my Swedish Family. The end of my subscription to ArkivDigital was pretty strong motivation.

Not much news on the Monuments Men movie front. There is a brief mention of it at the Monuments Men Foundation blog (6 June 2012). And I mean brief, about five words; but there is a picture of Robert Edsel with Grant Heslov and George Clooney. I also found something of an introduction to the Monuments Men by Edsel on YouTube (see above). It's not riveting video, but if you don't feel like reading all the books to find out who Monuments Men were, it's worth a look.

*********

This past month [March] I have done absolutely NO research on my family history. Zilch, zero, bupkes. What I have done is indulge my fascination with Nazi looting during the Second World War. My first project to this end was to read The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H. Nicholas.

One aspect of the narrative that was useful for me that it taught me just how awful the Nazis were. I know you are thinking: how could I think otherwise about people who organized the mass murder of six million people. This I do know, in addition to Hitler's exploitation of Germany's economic woes. What I didn't know is that there more ways in which they could be awful. I learned that Hitler had his idea of what was appropriate art and if he didn't like it, it was "degenerate" and not fit for Germany. Works deemed degenerate were purged from national collections and usually sold or destroyed. Not only were the works removed, but the artists who painted them were "encouraged" not to paint anymore. The line between what people can see and create and what they can say, think or do, I would imagine is very fine. I guess what I didn't realize is that Nazi control of the German population extended as far as what paintings could be viewed at a Museum. I also didn't realize that in addition to being war-mongers they were also thieves. From the Jews in France they stole everything from art work to furniture to teddy bears.

This book is not for the feint-hearted as it is almost impossible to keep track of all the German officers who collected art, the Jewish art dealers who were swindled out of their businesses by non-Jews, the families whose collections were confiscated for "safe-keeping", not to mention the artists and their works. The stories of theft, confiscation and destruction are heart-breaking. I almost couldn't read anymore when I read that the precious items from the Museums and Archives of Naples, Italy were moved to Monte Cassino. A few pages later I learned that the Germans moved the collections before the monastery was bombed to smithereens by the Allies.

On the other hand, if the intricacies of the art world or restitution are your thing, then this is the book for you. Nicholas' exhaustive account details Nazi planning (they made lists of art works they wanted to steal years before the war started), their schemes for acquiring these works, and they ways in which the Allies got much of it back and returned what they could.

New Article: Discovering Public Libraries

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 13:42:00 +0000

When I was little the only way to do research was to use our encyclopedia set or go to the library. Both now have entered the digital age. I've written an article on using the resources of public libraries for genealogy research which is in the June/July 2012 issue of Internet Genealogy. There is also an article on top sites for naturalization and immigration records by Diane L. Richard, which sounds like something I ought to have written.

Get your issue today at Books-A-Million, Barnes & Nobles, Chapter, through the app on iTunes, or a pdf version from the publisher.

Happy Birthday Mamaw!

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:10:00 +0000

Today, 3 May 2012, my mamaw, Bennie Eldridge Epperson, would have been 100 years old. Not only was she my grandmother, she was also a sorority sister. She was initiated as an adult when Zeta Tau Alpha came to Baldwin-Wallace College and served as general adviser for many years. Then about thirty years later when I was initiated into the same chapter she gave me her badge. The photo above was taken when she was visiting BWC and we attended the ZTA Founder's Day ceremony.

Mamaw, know that you are greatly missed by one and all. In fact, like Dorothy and the Scarecrow, I think I might miss you most of all.

The Quest of Walter Horn

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Since even I was a little overwhelmed by the Rape of Europa, I was relieved to discover that Hitler's Holy Relics. The True Story of Nazi Plunder and the Race to Recover the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire was a breezy, quick read. Seriously. I finished it in one day.

Sidney Kirkpatrick based his novelized account of Dr. Walter Horn's search for royal regalia of the Holy Roman Empire on various historical documents including 30 hours of oral history interviews with Dr. Horn conducted at the request of Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

Horn, who earned a PhD in art history in his native Germany, left for the United States before the War and ended up as an instructor at the University of California, Berkeley. He became an US citizen and enlisted in the US Army in 1943. With his background he was a perfect fit for the Monuments Men. His quest was to find the Crown Jewels of the Holy Roman Empire which had gone missing at the end of the War. The story details the intricacies of Horn's investigation, his back story, and his rescue of his mother and half-sister from the Soviet Sector. Kirkpatrick also highlights the cult-like aspects of the Nazi regime. He can't be the only individual to have made this connection, but I'd never thought of it like this before. This interpretation was particularly striking to me as I had just finished reading The Rape of Europe which detailed the ways in which Hitler and his followers controlled the art world in Germany

The only thing that didn't seem to fit was the "conspiracy theory" about the Spear of Destiny (reported to be the spear from the Crucifixion) and it's connection to a secret order of Nazi Knights. It's hard to tell from the text whether Horn believed these stories or whether Kirkpatrick highlighted them to make his book more sensational. Other than this minor flaw, the book and Horns search is fascinating and worth a read.

Europa, Nazis, and Looting - The Documentary

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Did I scare you away from The Rape of Europa by Lynn H. Nicholas with descriptions of its complexity and endless details? Fear not, because in 2008 a documentary film of the same was released. The documentary focuses on the role art played in the Third Reich; the plight of art works in Italy, France, the Soviet Union and Poland; and recent efforts at restoration and restitution. Included are interviews with victims and Monuments Men.

I think this 117 minute film is a great introduction to art looting during the Second World War and restitution of such works. It would be great addition to European Art History course or any class or unit on the War. For the latter it provides much of the same background as any standard documentary on the Nazis, but focuses more on their cultural impact as opposed to battles won and lost. There is also a three-disk version with much more material, which I've not seen. Visit the website here.

In Our Time Moment: History and Understanding the Past

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:00:00 +0000

The jumping off point for this March 2000 episode of In Our Time was The New Century by historian Eric J. Hobsbwam. The US edition of this book was published as On the Edge of the New Century in May 2001. Melvyn Bragg was joined by Dr. Hobsbwam and Richard J. Evans.

The panel discussed whether history is useful for understanding the present and future and whether or not the lessons learnt are applied appropriately. I particularly liked Dr. Evans' point that studying societies of the past can give a greater understanding of what it means to be human. Dr. Hobsbwam uses the national and global aspecs of football (soccer) to explain globalization.

The conclusion, I think of the discussion, is that history cannot predict the future, in part because conditions have changed so dramatically. For almost all of human history the vast majority of people have worked the land, now only about 2-3% do, and as Dr. Hobsbwam points out this fact, along with the increases in literacy and education, make the world a fundamentally different place. But what history can do is help explain why things are the way they are and suggest possibilities for the future.

Find this episode at the IOT History archive here or search iTunes.

Have Your American Ancestors Done a Disappearing Act?

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:00:00 +0000

A common complaint amongst genealogists is ancestors who are “missing” in a census or other document in which they “should” appear. And it doesn’t really help that America is a really, really big place – theses ancestors, theoretically, could be anywhere.

An article by Michael P. Conzen, a geography professor, provide clues in his article “Local Migration Systems in Nineteenth-Century Iowa.” In this piece Conzen explores the migration fields in Iowa using the 1895 Iowa State census. A migration field, is simply, the area from which a destination draws its migrants.

What Conzen found in Iowa is that many people moved along the Rivers and later west along the railroad lines. In fact the connection between westward movement and the railroad was so strong, he basically said it wasn’t worth talking about. He also found that the larger the city, the larger the migration field.

On the ground, these means smaller cities in Eastern Iowa, like Keokuk sent plenty of migrants westward and only pulled in-migrants from a few surrounding counties. The two largest cities Sioux City and Dubuque pulled people from all over the state. In Ohio, where I do much research, Wellsville, on the Ohio River, would only pull from a small surrounding area. On the other hand, Cincinnati and later Cleveland, would draw people from a larger area. Similar patterns are seen in Great Britain.

How might Conzen’s study help you find your missing ancestors? For starters if you're trying to figure out where someone was before look eastwards. If you are looking for where they went next, always look west. Yes, Americans did move move in both directions, but the general trend was an east-west migration.

Follow the major transportation networks: rivers, turnpikes, canals and eventually, the railroads. I suppose your ancestors could have gone orienteering with a map and a compass to read their destination, but it’s not very likely.

If your ancestor is located in a small town in one census but not in the previous one, check all the surrounding counties in an expanding radius. If they are in a large town, follow the same procedure, but with bigger radiating circles. Basically, it is more likely that your ancestor would have moved, for example, from Brush Creek Township in Jefferson County, Ohio to either sizable towns of Wellsville or Steubenville than to have moved from Cleveland to Brush Creek Township.

*****

Conzen, Michael P. “Local Migration Systems in Nineteenth-Century Iowa,” Geographical Review, vol. 64, no. 3, (Jul 1974), pp. 339-361. Stable URL from JSTOR is here, which provides access to the first page unless you have subscription to JSTOR. You may be able to access JSTOR through your local library.

In Our Time Moment: History of History

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 13:00:00 +0000

I was quite excited to listen to History of History, first aired in January 2009. Many people who haven’t studied history are quite unaware of how much the discipline has changed since the first Historian, Herodotus, wrote about the Persian Wars in the 5^th century BCE. Since this podcast was billed as examining “how the writing of history has changed over the years” I thought it would be a quick and painless way for you, the reader, to learn about the subject. The panelists were John Burrow, Paul Cartledge and Miri Rubin.

I must admit that I was so frustrated with the podcast I really couldn’t enjoy it. It starts off well, but almost the entire time is spent in the Ancient World, then in the last 10 minutes skips several hundred years to the Renaissance Humanists and then another huge leap to the Enlightenment. Paul Cartledge takes on the inhuman task of summing up the past 50 years of historiography in about two sentences in the last minute of the show.

I suppose that to discuss 2500 years of historiography in 45 minutes was an ambitious task for Melvyn Bragg to set. On the other hand, the panelists didn’t help Bragg out much with all their ‘oh let me add to that comment’ and ‘before we move on, I need to footnote that.’ However, many of these comments and footnotes, to my mind, weren’t really relevant to the task at hand.

While, the podcast might not be what I hoped for, it is an interesting discussion of historiography in the Classical and Post-Classical World. The best bits, I think, are at the very beginning and at the very end.

Find this episode at the IOT History archive here or search iTunes.

History and Art

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 13:00:00 +0000

The Getty Center, Los Angeles

With degrees in art history and history, I have my feet firmly planted in both disciplines. I used to teach in a Humanities program which had several lectures and discussions on several periods of Western Art. Because of my background, I was always dismayed by the approach taken by the lectures for this course, either focusing on the story of the image or the movement to and from the Classical Ideal, essentially does it look like Greek art. Many historians do not seem to understand (or at least the one who prepared the lectures for this course) is that the art is a document of its time just like the texts they assigned and can be analyzed in much the same way. When I had a chance to do the lectures for this course, I totally re-wrote the art ones with this in mind. For example, I pointed out that the neoplatonic philosophy of the Renaissance (they read a bit of Marsilio Ficino) influenced the work of Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo. I don't know if the students appreciated these new lectures, but I learned that I was a better art historian than I realized.

All this is a long introduction to two recent guest posts by Jaquelyn Whiting on "Art and History" at Free Technology for Teachers. This two part blog post (here and here) details ways to use art in the high school classroom. There are plenty of ideas and links. Her curriculum ideas would be useful in college courses as well, and I hope, help historians bring art into their lectures and discussions. Even if you don't teach, here posts provide a friendly entree into the world of art.

In Our Time Moment: History as Science

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 13:00:00 +0000

One of my all-time favorite podcasts is In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg from BBC Radio 4. This series is an exploration of the History of Ideas and has been running since 1998. Last summer the BBC made every episode available to download.

History as Science, aired in 1999, features a discussion between Bragg, Jared Diamond and Richard Evans about Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize Winning book, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.

I purchased this book in 1998, but did not read until several years ago when I read it for a department workshop. I really enjoyed the book, as did most of the rest of faculty, and found the overall thesis interesting. The scope of the book is vast, about 8,000 years, and tries to explain why Europeans conquered the Americas and not the other way round. Diamond’s answer is rooted in geography, people who are more connected to each other can exchange ideas better. Ultimately connections were easier in Eurasia than the Americas. It would have been a great discussion but for three of the instructors in the department (all non-Western, post-1500) absolutely hated it, said they’d never assign it to their students, and generally didn’t have one good thing to say about it. Seriously. I almost walked out.

What these three historians did, in a similar way that Richard Evans does, is to pick on the one thing they knew about and then criticize that particular aspect of the work. Of course this is qualified by words along the lines of “well, he might be right about those parts of history or places that I don’t know about.” I think Evans was more sympathetic to Diamond’s work than my former colleagues, but his comments and tone made me think of the long ago workshop and it set my teeth on edge.

Diamond is a professor of Geography and Evans a professor of Modern History, so they approach the study of the past differently. Some academics are much more willing to work in and with other disciplines. Diamond seems to be one of these academics, while Evans (based solely on this interview) does not. With degrees in history and art history I definitely fall into the interdisciplinary camp.

One aspect of the interview I did find interesting is that comparison of history to science, particularly like geology. I mentioned in an earlier post that John Lewis Gaddis had made this same observation: History is like a Science where experiments can not be repeated.

Find this episode at the IOT History archive here or search iTunes.

Art on a Train, Nazis, and Hollywood

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

In early February as I reading The Monuments Men, I mentioned the plot to my dad and that the book was to be made into a movie. He said, "they've already done that." He was referring to the 1965 film The Train directed by John Frankenheimer and staring Burt Lancaster and Paul Scofield. I realized I needed to see this film and requested it through interlibrary loan. A couple of weeks later, as I was walking out the door to pick it up, my dad said, The Train is on TCM tonight at eight o'clock. How weird is that?

The inspiration for this film is the effort of the French Resistance to stop a train full of artwork from leaving Paris in August 1944. My extensive knowledge of this event is drawn from Chapter 21, "The Train," in The Monuments Men. Rose Valland who worked at a museum in Paris controlled by the Germans was actually a spy. She learned that the artworks from this museum would be taken by truck, then loaded onto railroad cars, then transported to Germany. She suggested to Jacques Jaujard, the director of French National Museums, that it might be a good idea if the train were delayed. He agreed and alerted his contacts in the French Resistance. The train was delayed by strikes, mechanical problems, and low-priority as trains carrying possessions of Germans leaving Paris took precedence. Ultimately, the train never left Paris, but several items were stolen before the Free French army reached the train at the end of August. Some crates of art were recovered immediately, others would remain on the train until December 1944.

The Train is an excellent film - full of suspense and drama expertly executed by an incredible cast. On the other hand, it is a Hollywood film and bears little resemblance to actual events. In an early stage-setting scene, Rose Valland goes directly to the French Resistance about stopping the train. They are reluctant to act, not really understanding the importance of the art, "the patrimony of France." This scene condenses events well and relates the importance of the train's cargo to the audience.

While the men were risking their lives to save the art, it is actually mentioned very little after the first moments of the film. It's all about the train: stopping it, moving it, painting it, hating it, and dying for it. Another component of the film is the contest of wills between the German officer Von Waldheim (Scofield) who desperately wants the art, because he understands it and Labiche (Lancaster) the reluctant member of the French Resistance who has never scene any of the paintings but gives his all to stop the train.

History films, like history books, always say as much about the time they were made or written in as the time they were about. For the life of me, I can't quite put my finger on what it would be for The Train. Perhaps it raises questions about the destruction or stealing of cultural heritage. The Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was passed as a direct result of the rampant destruction of historic buildings and city districts to construct the Eisenhower Highway system. Or maybe it really is all about World War II and putting one over on the Nazis, but I don't think so.

Monuments Men by Hollywood

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Robert Edsel and Brett Witter have crafted an excellent narrative for the events of the Monuments Men, a corps of men from the art world who rescued and protected the cultural treasures of Europe during the last year of WWII. I could hardly put it down. Seriously. I was totally fascinated and have since checked out every book I can find about looting during the war. Additionally, as I knew the book was to be a movie and knew a bit about the process (see this post) I couldn’t stop imagining how the story would be translated to film.

Edsel had already applied story telling techniques to the “event” of Nazi looting during World War II. He focuses on the creation of the Monuments Men, their actions in the field, the search for the Ghent Altar Piece and the Bruges Madonna, and finally, the rush to reach the art repository in mines of Altaussee before they were blown up. Enough background is provided to give the reader insight to the scope and extent of the Nazi looting campaign and the efforts of US Armed forces to preserve cultural resources after the Normandy Invasion.

In Monuments Men, Edsel highlights 10 individuals acting in Northern Europe in addition to dozens of other individuals mentioned. Clearly, several of the characters will have to be combined or left out. A movie audience would totally lose track of seven or eight different men traipsing across worn-torn Europe searching for different repositories and pieces of art. The three most indispensable characters to the story, in my opinion, are George Stout (the role, I think, most suited to Mr. Clooney), James Rorimer, and Rose Valland (the only major female character). I would imagine Eisenhower and Patton will make an appearance, as they do in the book, but what happens with all the other historical characters is anyone’s guess.

Most of the set-up for the activity of the Monuments Men could be handled in an opening montage – the Nazi’s stealing art in Germany, Poland and Austria; museum officials in the US discussing plans to protect their collections; European museums protecting their works of art in rural houses and mines. On the other hand, the real work of the Monuments Men began in June 1944 and opening a film with the D-Day Invasion would be impressive.

Like the book, the film will probably highlight the hunt for the Bruges Madonna and the Ghent Altarpiece. The two most important repositories found by the Monuments Men were in Neuschwanstein Castle and the salt mines at Altaussee. They might even limit their story to just one of these locations. As the salt mines were the repository of these two prominent works of art and were almost blown up, I would image that will be their choice. One event in the book, while not integral to the hunt for the two aforementioned repositories, but would be absolutely fabulous on the big screen, is the discovery of the Merkers mine which, in addition to many priceless works of art, housed the bulk of the Third Reich’s gold reserves. Near this mine, the US forces discovered Ohrdruf, a Nazi work camp.

The time period of the book is already, in the main, the last 10 months of the war, a relatively short time period. The genre for the film will likely be a buddy/war movie. I’m not certain how romance will be worked in. Edsel includes letters the men wrote home to their wives, so perhaps they can work that it as off-screen romance.

I can already see the movie in my head. If you have read or do read the book, you will probably see an entirely different movie. I wonder what kind of movie Mr. Clooney and his production team will see? I hope it's as good as mine.

You can learn more about the Monuments Men here, the Monuments Men Foundation here, and follow Robert Edsel on Twitter @RobertEdsel.

History and Hollywood

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Last month, I read this notice, that reported the book Monuments Men will be adapted for the big screen by George Clooney. To be honest, I clicked on the link because of Mr. Clooney, but I checked out The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History from the library because it totally sounded like my thing – people rescuing Europe’s cultural heritage from the Nazi’s at the end of WWII.

I used give a lecture on history and film which came to mind as I was reading this book. It was the first book I have ever read knowing it would be made into a movie. Historians (myself included) quite often become all bent out of shape over Hollywood interpretations of historical events. Often with good reason. On the other hand, many historians don’t have a firm grip on how filmmakers “work.” Everything I know about film and history, I have learned from Robert Brent Toplin, John E. O’Connor and Robert A. Rosenstone.

Historians write books and paint their stories and arguments with words. They can keep going until the publisher tells them to stop. In these lengthy books, historians have the time to examine the background of an event, the event itself, and then its aftermath. Historians can also investigate abstract historical events, like the history of an idea (democracy) or struggle (emancipation). Monuments Men which falls somewhere between a proper history book and a novel, is over 400 pages. Filmmakers have at most 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Filmmakers may have a STATEMENT to make, but they also need to entertain their audience. Unlike the historian, they cannot present a movie about the causes of Great Depression (which start in the 1920s and are numerous), but they can tell the story about a person during the depression. So the first object of a filmmaker is to reduce history to a story about a person or small group of people. Because filmmakers tell stories there must be a beginning and an end. Of course, life and history aren’t like this. A movie might end with VE Day in May 1945; but in reality life kept moving on to VJ Day and then the Cold War. To make their stories engaging to the widest audience filmmakers take the past and make it more personal and more dramatic. They also simplify it by collapsing or combining historical characters, condensing time, focusing on only a few moments of a crisis, and leaving out “extraneous” details. They also create the past visually, and this, I think, is the benefit of history on film over history in a book.

Filmmakers use traditional story telling methods to turn their chosen historical event into a film. The two main ones are stories told in three acts (exposition, complication, and resolution) and applying a genre (buddy, war, romance, etc.) For the former, Toplin (I think) provides a simple example: of exposition - put the man in the tree; complication - throw rocks at the man; resolution - man is rescued from the tree. Genre, as best I understand it, provides the rhetoric or framework for the story. Audiences expect and anticipate different plots and results in a Romantic-Comedy then a Buddy Movie.

The next time you watch an historical film, think about the different mediums of historical books and historical film and consider whether the tools used by the filmmakers were in a sense “true” to the past or not.

In Search of My Swedish Ancestors – Phase One – Complete

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

When I last tried out ArkivDigital, I was having trouble figuring out what parishes to look in. It was suggested that I look for my ancestors first in FamilySearch and then use that information to find them in ArkivDigital.

I put this project on my to-do list almost every day for a month and finally got to it last week. It didn’t take too long, but did not produce the anticipated results.

Result One – there appears to be either an indexing or microfilming black hole around the city of Lund. Of all my ancestors from the part of Sweden, I found a total of one (yes, one) marriage record. This is primarily the Nordstrom family – my great-grandfather, his parents, and his father’s ancestors. My cousin included them in the published genealogy, but not his sources.
Result Two – I would estimate that most of the ancestors were not in FamilySearch, or at least not as listed by my cousin. Many of these individuals were born in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, so I can’t be sure that they existed, so to speak.
Result Three – I found siblings for several of my direct ancestors. As the published genealogy was at least 20 pages, it does not surprise me that only direct ancestors were included. I will have to remember to keep my eyes peeled for siblings of other ancestors.
Result Four – I discovered that Victor Witting (1825-1906) went to Chicago and died in Quincy, MA. He is buried in the Swedish Cemetery in Worcester, MA. Victor Witting would have been the great-uncle of my great-grandfather, Carl Gustav Nordstrom (1877-1931).
Result Five – Many of these individuals were baptized under a patronymic surname. For example, my great-great Grandmother, who I’ve always known as Christina Gustave Mathilda Petterson was baptized in 1847 as Christina Gustave Mathilda Johannsdatter. I was, obviously, aware of patronymics but I thought they had been abandoned much earlier. Just another challenge.

Next up – phase 2 – activating my ArkivDigital membership and starting the hunt proper for my Swedish ancestors.

Slave Cemeteries & the Army Corps of Engineers

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:00:00 +0000

This recent article from USA Today discusses the Army Corps of Engineers plans for a memorial at a slave cemetery west of New Orleans. Also mentioned are slave cemeteries in New York City (now a National Park), Dallas, and Charleston, SC.

Potential Presidential Relations

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

This post is by no means an endorsement, but I thought this story about Rick Santorum's Italian relatives from the BBC was fun.

Eve and DNAdam

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000

How Mitochondrial Eve Connected All Humanity and Rewrote Human Evolution, was originally published in April 2011 in honor of the 25th anniversary of discovery of Mitochondrial Eve. It includes a good summary of the import of Mitochondrial Eve and the much younger Y-chromosome Adam. There is also discussion of how many potential ancestors you could have (and how many are statistically duplicates) and of our MCRA (most common recent ancestor).

with thanks to @thathistorian

Hair Today...

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Have a photo that you can't date? Like to laugh at goofy hair-dos? Then read this article, A History of Men's Hairstyles, from the LA Times. The text is brief, the picture are plentiful, and, apparently, men haircuts are also inspired by television characters.

Who Do You Think You Are (UK) - Analyzed

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Between 2008 and 2010, Anne-Marie Kramer, then at the University of Warwick, was engaged in a research project to investigate the cultural status of genealogy in the United Kingdom. She quickly realized that her project had to take into account the phenomenon that is Who Do You Think You Are? (WDYTYA?). The program, which premiered on the BBC in 2004, has spawned family tree software, a monthly magazine, 'how-to' books, and an annual family history fair. This is in addition to similar programs on other networks and franchised version of WDYTYA? in Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, South Africa and the United States.

Part of her study included a mass observation in which she sent out a questionnaire to 525 volunteer writers on the subject of family history. Of the 224 replies, over half mentioned WDYTYA?.

The responses and Kramer's analysis include the reaction to the use of a "celebrity guide," the affective impact of the show on the participants (e.g. how they had to cope, on camera, with the trauma of their ancestor's lives), the ability of the celebrities to be their authentic self, and the use of a celebrity to tell the stories of everyday people.

Ainsley Harriott's episode illustrates each of these points. (Harriott, a celebrity chef, participated in Season 5. I haven't seen it; Kramer uses it extensively in here article.). As in the US version, Harriott, and the other celebrity guides, are the hook that baits the audience. Very few people would tune in to watch a show about Joe Smith's or Amanda Epperson's ancestors.

Harriott's family history quest took him to Jamaica where he learned that one ancestor was a slave, while another was a slave owner. The affective impact of this was clear to the audience when Harriott visited a church in which there was a memorial to John Davy, who had owned one of Harriott's ancestors.

The range of emotions experienced by Harriott - being his authentic self - is one of the aspects people enjoyed most about the series. Several respondents, however, wondered if these reactions were authentic - they are actors after all.

Finally, while Harriott might be famous, his ancestors were not. Telling the story of his family, enables him and the audience to connect a personal past with the larger historical narrative. Oftentimes, the celebrities' personal past is in conflict with the "official" historical narrative.

One interesting point made by Tristan Hunt (here) is that WDYTYA? is really about "an interest in identity," not about history. He writes, as quoted by Kramer, that people used to study the past to learn from it, but now people turn to history to find out about themselves.

While I agree with Stephen Fry that family history is a great way for people to connect with a larger national or global historical narrative, I find Hunt's point intriguing. What does it say about me and my new interest in my Scandinavian ancestry? What family lines are you actively tracing and which are you ignoring and what might that say about your identity in the present?

*****

Kramer, Anne-Marie. "Mediatizing memory: History, affect and identity in Who Do You think You Are? European Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (August 2011): 428-445.

An abstract is available here. You can access it at this site for $25, but I wouldn't recommend spending that much on the article. It is not yet available to download at the main journal archives (JSTOR or Academic Search), but perhaps a librarian can help you track down a copy of the volume through inter-library loan. It is an interesting article.

Resting in Norway

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:30:00 +0000

It seems that if when I plan a trip to visit the home of my Larsen ancestors in Norway, I shall have to make time for a drive along Norway's western coast. Not just to see the splendid views, but because the rest stops are architectural gems. You can read about the road trip in the January 2012 issue of Conde Nast Traveler or view a slide show of the seven rest stops at their website here. These small man made wonders create viewing platforms without detracting from the site. In fact, I think they add to the scenic experience.

As all my known Norwegian ancestors are from Lavrik and the surrounding area, on the southeast coast, this trip would be quite a detour for me. But, I think it would be worth it.

Finland & Fate

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:06:00 +0000

Last week I was reminded of how many of my ancestors actually lived in Finland (here). Then the next day I decided to order To the Ends of the Earth: Scotland's Global Diaspora (read about that here).

Before I finalized my order, I spent some time looking through my wish lists to see if there was anything else I wanted. Well, they are actually more like virtual collections of books, movies or cds I that sound like something I might like to read, watch or listen to someday.

About five years ago, I heard a piece on NPR about Värttina, a Finnish folk group, and their new album Miero. When I found it in my wish list this past week, for a bargain price, I added it to the order. It arrived on Friday and I really like it. I don't understand it, but I like it.

Did I trip across this album at a great price, by this Finnish group, at this particular time by coincidence? Or is it Fate? You decide...

Sweden Tweets

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:00:00 +0000

Twitter is a great repository of news, gossip and fun. Recently, it has become a source of information about Sweden. VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute have teamed up to create Curators of Sweden. Each week a different Swedish citizen takes over the @Sweden Twitter account. You can read more about the project here and visit an archive of previous curators here.

I think it's a really neat promotion. Of course, I already wanted to visit Sweden, so my opinion might not count for much with VisitSweden. So far each of the Swedish curators has enjoyed the experience at there end as well. You don't need to be on Twitter to follow the account, you can visit the @Sweden page or the Curators of Sweden page for the most recent tweets.

Museum Box Is a Great Way for Students to Create Virtual Artifact Displays

noreply@blogger.com (Amanda E. Epperson) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:20:00 +0000

Museum Box Is a Great Way for Students to Create Virtual Artifact Displays

This posts is from the Free Technology for Teachers. I've not tried it (and two of the commentors on the post tried it and found it lacking). It occurred to me that if students could make a museum about a topic they were researching, so could anybody else. Museum Box might be worth checking out, but caveat emptor.