Invisible Histories

I am now tackling the staggering backlog that piled up over the last month while I was sick with, then recovering from, the virus. Please have patience! I’ve started with returning personal and project emails/messages but if you haven’t heard from me by now please let me know — I may have missed one in there somewhere.

Next I’ll be updating the Finland Project’s mtDNA maps, will get back to work drafting the project’s Family Finder page, and hopefully have some blog items posted Friday-Saturday.

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This is a recent news story I’m very much hoping gets further researched and expanded on:  Nicole Norfleet of the Huffington Post’s “Slave Children Photo Found in North Carolina Attic.”

I’ve long haunted antique and second-hand stores and one thing I’ve always found heartbreaking is the orphaned family photos — there because no family was available to take the photos after their owner’s death and/or because the existing family didn’t recognize anybody in that particular batch of photos and so they got consigned to the junk pile.

In this case, the photo of the boy John and friend (either as slaves or recently emancipated slaves) sitting on a barrel and taken at some point in the 1860s was part of a photo album discovered in April 2010 during an estate sale in North Carolina. The photo was also associated with an 1854 “purchase” document for John. The photo itself is labeled by the studio of renowned Civil War era photographer Mathew Brady, although this photo was probably taken by his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan.

As the buyer and collector Keya Morgan noted, this is a rare and poignant, painful look into the lives of slave children in the later 1800s, and the details of those lives have been lost:  John “doesn’t even exist in history.” Here’s to hoping we learn more by bringing orphaned photos and stories into the light and collective awareness.

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After returning from a short trip with my husband last week I immediately came down with a nasty cold and cough and have been quite sick. Although I had assumed I’d be feeling a little better by now, I’m worse; according to the doctor it is taking most people about three weeks to fully recover from this virus. However, I am hoping that with extra sleep and minimal distractions I can be on the mend and at least partially back to writing, blogging and project work after the holiday weekend.

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An excellent example not only of the tenacious, indefatigable Megan Smolenyak’s focus when it comes to solving a mystery but also of how a real young woman’s life can become nearly lost to history is that of Annie Moore, the first immigrant to step onto Ellis Island. Perhaps it’s because we in America do tend, generally speaking, towards creating mythological backstory about our origins and the Annie Moore story certainly qualifies. However, the real version that Megan was instrumental in tracking down is heartbreaking and grounded in the gritty and desperate day-to-day reality of immigrants to New York in the 1890s.

A lengthy article but absolutely a must-read.

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My time this week has been devoted to beginning multiple new writing projects while also working on mine and my husband’s family tree. To kick off what will be an extended weekend for us, an ode to moms and mitochondrial DNA inheritance.

[h/t ISOGG]

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A random selection from recent stories of interest in the news and on the blogs; some fascinating stories this week!

• For starters, I am (not surprisingly) more comfortable with the idea of having some Neanderthal DNA than that of a blood-sucking bug. [h/t Mike]
• Ancient plumbing, Mayan style. Perhaps back in the day wait times for plumbing repairs were a little shorter than they are now?
• Spike Lee was the guest for last Friday’s alternately painful and moving season finale episode of NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are.”
• The latest on bog bodies in the Netherlands and Denmark.
• A mayor in England hopes to prove via DNA that emigrants from Devon were the original colonists of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. Good luck with that. [h/t CeCe]
• Interesting, if brief, commentary at 23andMe’s blog The Spittoon on the diversity of Latino DNA in The Widely Whirled New World: A Fresh Look at Latino Genetic Ancestry.
• Scientists may have found the location of memory loss in your DNA. I’m thinking my own is in the couch cushions, behind the fridge or in the junk drawer.
• No link but Megan Smolenyak won the NGS Award of Merit. Well deserved.
• And last but most definitely not least, we are all Neanderthals now. [h/t Mike]

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[Another one from Jari - kiitos/tack/thank you!]

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A detailed post on where we are at the moment with Family Finder is now up on our project’s website.

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Yes, another week primarily spent immersing myself in the study of Family Finder, autosomal inheritance and testing; I’ve been jotting down notes, collecting resources and drafting the Finland DNA Project’s Family Finder page as I go.

Two more successes to add include paper-trail confirmed matches at the 7th and 8th cousin level on my own results with more pending confirmed matches in the works for both myself and my husband. In my four years’ involvement with genetic genealogy these are the first confirmed matches I’ve had for either of us and it’s exciting indeed. And I’m fascinated by some of the larger chromosomal shared blocks I’m seeing between fully Finnish members’ results and matches whose family history, as far as they know, is (to name a typical example) entirely in the British Isles. Genetic archaeology? To say the least, I am intrigued to see what happens as FamilyTreeDNA’s database grows.

Family Finder is now out of the beta phase and being offered to the general public.

Posted in Family Finder, FamilyTreeDNA, Personal History |  | No Comments »

Two of my favorite subjects, and soon to be an ongoing series at Invisible Histories.

A friend recently loaned me The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook: The Story of Our Common Past Told Through the Recipes and Reminiscences of Our Immigrant Ancestors. I’ll be working my way through it, posting photos of the food, notes on the process and excerpts from the family stories.

[Thanks, Natalie!]

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