Ep 16 - LUUUCEEE, WE'RE RELATED

Springing ahead into a new family direction.  We discuss RootsTech family history conference - just finished from Salt Lake City, or as I like to say, The Mothership.  And prepare ourselves for some Deep American/Dutch roots.  Also, - what famous people could we be related to?????
START YOUR TREE: 
 https://www.familysearch.org/
https://www.ancestry.com/
https://www.findmypast.com/
https://www.myheritage.com/
LEARN FROM ROOTSTECH: 
 https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/topic/genealogy
WHERE WE ARE HEADED:
https://www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/blog/reformed-dutch-and-german-churches-manhattan-and-bronx

Transcript

Kim: 0:00

Hello, and welcome back to Chasing Hazel's Tails, a family history podcast presented to you by two registered nurses and off-duty sister searchers, or a K a family historians. I'm Kim McLaughlin.

Laura: 0:13

And I'm Laura Ireland. And what a special day this is to be recording. This is March 6th, so that means it's Hazel's birthday. Our grandmother, Hazel, this is the hundred and 14th anniversary of her birth, So Hazel's 114th birthday, and this is the first time I can honestly say, in all of my life that I really feel connected to her and I wanna celebrate this day. Today it's like, it feels like it's a special day, that it's her birthday. Born in 1909, as most of you would know in Dear Isle, Maine, cuz we've gone over this many times. But you know, and her mother died very soon thereafter. And then she was adopted by the family in Enfield, the Langs where, and she would eventually marry and raise her own family in Enfield, including her son. Our father, Roscoe and Hazel died very young when Roscoe was just 11 years. And when we were growing up, we just, we heard very little of her. We knew nothing more really than her untimely death. And she was essentially just an image in a photograph. No one spoke of her. But the d n a results received in 2017 would spark a lot of questions for our family and eventually ignite a fire of curiosity that would lead us to the truth of her existence in life. And. For me personally, I have to say I'm very grateful for the experience of learning about Hazel. It has filled a void that I didn't know I had, and telling her story through this podcast, chasing Hazel's Tales, has allowed me to process a lot of feelings surrounding all of our unexpected D n A findings. And there were many, we've, we've to told this one story, but every, every family. these types of things. But anyway, it allowed me that ability to process a lot and to learn about her

Kim: 2:04

So what do you think would be an appropriate celebration? What should we be doing other than podcasting?

Laura: 2:12

Being that it's March 6th in Maine and the wind is howling out there, really, for me anyway, it, the weather kitty says it's about 40 degrees, but the wind chill says differently. It's about 10. But so no celebrations outside, I guess.

Kim: 2:29

I think we could probably just raise a glass and say happy birthday to Hazel.

Laura: 2:34

Cheers to Hazel and to knowing

Kim: 2:35

your truth. Excellent. Here's our, we'll raise a glass to her. Raise a cup of tea. We're both drinking tea, so this is gonna be, you know, woo-hoo. Big party. That's right.

Laura: 2:48

All right, so we took a little bit of a break after celebrating Salvador and Ruth's Italian legacy and for those who listened to those episodes, you'll recall that the family is throwing a special 100th wedding anniversary party this summer right here in beautiful Maine. And we will definitely let you know how many descendants attend. I think it's going to be epic. I think so too. Or as Stefan would say, it's going to have everything. Yeah.

Kim: 3:21

Stefan. Mm-hmm. that maybe Stefan should come. I don't know. I,

Laura: 3:24

yes. Maybe we can work on that.

Kim: 3:27

Okay. So we are recharged and ready to get back at it. And if you don't. if you are not the into genealogy as much as me, roots Tech just finished in Salt Lake City. And if you're saying what's Roots Tech well, Shame It's a shame that you don't know what Roots Tech is. This is the Ultimate Family History Conference in my book, in my mind. And it's, this is the first year that it was back as an in-person event. So it was a big deal. People were happy and people were learning and celebrating this conference. So Roots Tech is a product of family search.org, which is located in Salt Lake City. Or as I like to call it, the mothership, some. I have yet to be to the mothership, but I'm going one of these days

Laura: 4:17

soon. It's not in area 51, is

Kim: 4:19

it? No, it's close though. It's not even close, but it is the mothership of genealogy to me. So it came to be from the efforts of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter Day Saints or the Mormons and their efforts to document families in relation to their beliefs about the afterlife. And I'm not gonna get into that technicality, but

Laura: 4:38

how did they get to that place in Italy and copy all those records, like, well, that's a small town in Italy. So the right, the Latter Day Saints from Salt Lake City, Utah. Have been to this tiny little Italian village to copy

Kim: 4:52

all their records in many places. Many places. And that's part of their belief system. In a core belief. I be, you know, and I, and I'm not Mormon, so I couldn't really speak. About this, but we're gonna put the link in here about how this all came to be. But what, what I read from the website was since 1894, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has dedicated time and resources to collecting and sharing records of genealogical importance. So that's over a hundred years of sending people. from their faith to go and collect records and record them.

Laura: 5:27

And that's why they're

Kim: 5:28

the mothership. That's why they're the mothership since 1894. Mm-hmm. but also, you know, the cooperation from government archives, churches, and libraries, the church has created the largest collection of family records in the world with information on more than 3 billion deceased people. 3 billion. Wow. I mean, so you imagine, so what they did was they had their church members go out into communities everywhere and just start recording these things. it has something to do with the afterlife and being able to join your families in the afterlife and baptizing people perhaps after they were dead. I might be wrong. If I am, people just let me know. But their beliefs are that after you die, you rejoin your family after death. And there is a baptismal effort as well baptizing them. I don't know what it is, but I would have to do a really deep dive. Also So government archives, churches and libraries went along with them and said, yeah, this is important to document this information. And they allowed them access to these records. So, you know, kudos, kudos to them. this effort was originally facilitated through the Genealogical Society of Utah and now through Family Search, which is a nonprofit organization sponsored by the. from there, once you get to Family Search, then they started hosting Roots Tech.

Laura: 6:54

So they've been putting on these Roots Tech since 2011, and this is the family search people who are part of the, do I understand that right? They're part of the right, the Latter Day Saints. Yes, we are. So this is all through their stuff. All right. And it's a family gathering unlike any other. And the annual conference first held in Salt Lake City, Utah, has grown and changed since those early days from in-person to the entirely virtual worldwide conference just held last year. And I guess Covid probably really stepped that up, right? Like the. Changed probably the way they

Kim: 7:35

presented. Exactly. They had two years in a row where it was entire, the first year of covid, they, they canceled it all together, I think. And then they went virtual and they, and they elevated the bar on virtual gatherings. Mm-hmm. I mean, the, they had so many people at this conference. they were able to handle all that traffic and do it seamlessly. It was amazing how good the conference was. Little different than what you're used to, but nonetheless mm-hmm. a learning opportunity which everybody could partake in and it was free. Entirely free. That's something.

Laura: 8:09

Yeah. And so what they consider it to be, they say that Roots Tech has always been a celebration of connection, past, present, and future. And that sounds just about right. I would say.

Kim: 8:20

Yeah. That's, that's. Belief system in family. And, I have very little knowledge, so I'm not even gonna go there. But we can't elaborate too much. I'd love, but we know what it's, but, but I better not So Roots Tech has four major sponsors this year, and I say these names just so that if anybody's interested in starting their family history journey these are names that you would know. Family Search, okay, which is a website and it is affiliated with the Mormons. Then this ancestry.com, my heritage. and storied. Those are the four major sponsors. And before the conference even started, cuz I, you know, I signed up for the free event cuz I couldn't go. So I, I got the access to some free information. They asked, you know, they asked you through email if you wanted to know if you're related to any of the other attendees. So basically if I had put a tree out on family, then if my tree connected with somebody else's tree for someone who actually is going to the to the conference, they'd tell you, Hey, your cousin's here, your eighth cousin, your 12th cousin, whatever it is. But nonetheless, your trees connect and you know, it's just an opportunity to get together and say, Hey, and maybe get some information exchange. Who knows? Yeah. Or have lunch or get you got new family. Mm-hmm. So of course I asked that. And then of course they come out with, are you related to this famous person? And of course Oh no,

Laura: 9:41

ding,

Kim: 9:41

ding, I need to know am I related to these people? So I had to check my primary tree. For the record is on ancestry, but I put a skeleton tree on family search a while ago when I forgot about it from that skeleton tree. I have found out a lot, so I'll let Laura, I informed Laura who we're related to, so I'll let her introduce them to you.

Laura: 10:03

I feel special

Kim: 10:04

now. You are, we're related to special

Laura: 10:06

people. All right, so here are some of the famous relatives in no particular order. Lucille Ball. Ninth cousin.

Kim: 10:16

Our ninth cousin, Lucy, we're related. I wonder if anybody will get there. Are we old?

Laura: 10:28

I, yeah. I, I, I think people who would listen to this probably will get that. Okay. All right. Martha Dandridge, six cousin, five times removed. Because I don't know history that well. Her husband, George Washington. Woo woo. There we go. Ancestor in the White House.

Kim: 10:48

That's right. And where else, and,

Laura: 10:51

well, I don't know how many people can say this. Probably a lot, but I guess Queen Elizabeth was our 10th cousin twice removed through her mother's line.

Kim: 11:03

I like that. Where is Mike Crown? Where's Mike? I wonder, I wonder if I can bump Prince Harry out since he's probably not gonna get in line. I think maybe

Laura: 11:14

I could. Yeah, I think he's probably given up that one. Yeah. and a a couple others on the list. Winston Churchill and John Wayne. There you go. I used to note, what was John Wayne's name? Marion.

Kim: 11:29

Something Robert Morrison, professionally known as John Wayne. Also the. That's cool. All right,

Laura: 11:39

Okay. So do you think Kim, that Roots Tech is something that people would find helpful if they're just beginners at this genealogy game? You know, if they're like, Some people have gotten their DNA done and like they're, they see all this stuff and they don't know what to do with it, or they might not have done that and they're just curious, you know, where their grandparents came from or something. Do you think Roots Tech would be helpful for somebody like that if they're trying to, if they're new at this game and trying to figure

Kim: 12:09

this stuff out? I most certainly. So Roots Tech is a free website that you can go to, and there's all kinds of learning there. And it is also connected to Family Search, of course, which we just mentioned. Mm-hmm. and Family Search is the research side, whereas Roots Tech is the education side. You know, it's the conference where you could learn. So family search, you could put your grandmother's name in there and hit search and see what comes. you could search for her birth record depending on the age. Of course, you know, not all records are quite available yet, but like if you were to get back, you know, to your grandparents, you generally can find something on them, whether it be a census or rec, birth records, marriage records that kind of thing. So, and

Laura: 12:53

did you say, does it cost money to join

Kim: 12:55

Family Search? Family search is absolutely free. Always, always.

13:00

Have

Laura: 13:01

you ever searched yourself?

Kim: 13:03

I've not searched myself. I searched dad and I searched. That would be one of the first things I do. I've done it on ancestry and the things that come up now are yearbooks and Oh really? We're like, yeah, and yearbooks and maybe newspaper articles, and lots of times it's, Hey, public records, this was your phone number when you lived in Enfield, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. from a phone book, so those kinds of records pop up there too, but, Yeah, so if someone wanted to do it roots Tech, you could go to the Roots Tech website. They have all different types of education based on what you wanna know. If you're a beginner, they have beginning. they have beginning little classes and some of them are pretty short and educational. If you're more advanced, you wanna learn about dna. They have classes about DNA N that you can access. And I think they may have archived previous years, which you may be able to get access to as well. But these things don't really cost anything. The live in-person event this year did cost, and I'm not sure exactly what kind of what is available from the live con. So, yeah, you can do it absolutely free. So you can start your tree there. You can start your tree on paper. You don't even need to have a computer. You can just start your tree, get and start with you and then go from there with your grandparents and what you know. If you don't know your grandparents, perhaps you could look it up or you could find someone. maybe one of the first things you might want to do is find out, hmm, who in my family is interested in this and might have records that would help me. Because generally there's somebody, somebody like me, you know, that, that has collected all kinds of stuff. Like they say,

Laura: 14:41

there's one in every

Kim: 14:42

family, there's one in every family, and it's, you know if you're lucky, this too but then, you know, you get, you get to know what's already been researched and what people know. and, you know, and in the beginning it's a lot of talking and connection so that you know where to go for information. Mm-hmm. If you don't have that information, you can get on Ancestry as well. And there are many, there are four or five major online archives that you can use, but you don't have to have it. Hmm. for me, the paper trail is fun. I mean, going in person to say, when I first started and someone told me that I was related to General Johnny Burgoyne, I just went, well, all right I'm gonna start looking at this. And, and I started out with trying to find out about all the Burgoynes in Howland. you know, my grandfather and those kinds of things. I went right to the Howland Town Hall, I said, and that was, to me, that was like, this is exciting. I went to the, the Howland Town Hall and I was able to look at their registers of people that were born in Holland, back in the early 19 hundreds, one being my grandfather, so, mm-hmm. That's how you get records. but that's how I did it back in the day. So you can use paper, you can use a desktop application, like Family tree maker or you can have an online tree, like, which is ancestry or family Search, whatever you choose to do. It's, it's easy. And some of it can be, a lot of it can be free. And

Laura: 16:09

probably the biggest part maybe is to just start like right. the hardest step is to just, just make that first right effort. And then from there I think the curiosity builds and you just Right. Kind of keep on

Kim: 16:23

going. And even like, even if you think you know everything, one, one thing that you, and I found when we started looking into, you know, a lot of our family history, we looked into the Old Town, Maine library, had access to all the old town papers, newspapers. Had it all digitized and we stuck in our mother's name. And what we found out was that our mother was a correspondent for the high school. She was, she wrote for the newspaper.

Laura: 16:51

I know. That was funny. She never told us that. I, she never told us.

Kim: 16:54

I can remember. And she had multitudes of articles in the Old Town paper about what was going on in high. And so you just don't know what you're gonna find out. You know, if you start looking, she hid that one from us, didn't she? Yeah, she did. She was reporter on the loose and we didn't even know it. So yeah, even if you think, you know, you don't know everything and it's just fun to find out for, for the most part. Right.

Laura: 17:20

So speaking of mom, I think that next we're gonna be diving into her side of the family. Her father was Manley Smith, senior of Old Town. Yep. That's the last name. Smith

Kim: 17:36

So we, we looked

Laura: 17:37

it up and Smith is the most common surname in Maine and the United States, followed by Johnson, Williams and Brown. You know, have fun with that. Right. And the name, the Smith name, and I mean he does, there is ancestry from England, so this makes sense. You know, our DNA stuff, I guess I would say lines up with Right. Makes it's anoc. Yeah. It's an occupational surname originating in England and it's the most prevalent surname in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada. and New Zealand and the fifth most common surname in the Republic of Ireland.

Kim: 18:20

people. help me see what we're dealing with. The most common name in the United States, in the uk, and holy moly. Anyway, so it was quite a roadblock and it still is when you're looking for someone specific and you can't, you just don't know that that's Steven Smith that you're looking. is the right one. And unless you,

Laura: 18:45

there could have been 12 born

Kim: 18:46

on that day. Right. And if you go back just a century, records weren't really so detailed to say, or accurate. Or accurate for that matter. If

Laura: 18:56

you look at our grandmother's birth certificate, the, that's just a mess. Well, that would be Thelma. The one. The one from Medway, right? The mother's name is not even listed

Kim: 19:09

correctly in No, and it was totally threw me off. I said, who the heck is Nina? It wasn't Nina, it was Edna. Edna Oh,

Laura: 19:20

well, but those mistakes happen. Yep. All right, so what does the Smith name mean? And so in looking it up from find my past.co.uk Smith is one of the most popular surnames in the English speaking world, which is what we just kind of went over, but particularly common among those of English, Scottish, and Irish heritage, but also used by African-Americans as a result of the enslaved being given the name. The surname of their slaves Smith dates back to the Anglo-Saxon era and derives from the occupation of Smith from the old English Schmid.

Kim: 19:58

kind of sounds like

Laura: 19:58

a drunken

Kim: 19:59

slur, but that's okay.

Laura: 20:01

which means to hit or strike, and was used to describe someone who worked with a metal, like a blacksmith or something. the Smith surname would've been given to those with a connection to this occupation in the era before surnames were inherited and due to the occupational nature of the surname, there are many diverse branches of the Smith family and there's believed to be no common line of origin to be traced back to. in all honesty here. I had to google Anglo-Saxon era because history was my least favorite subject in school, when I was a kid. I love it now, but did not pay attention to what was going on in school. So anyway, and maybe some of the, some of the listeners aren't aware of it either, but, So according to history.org.uk, it was from four 10 to 10 66 AD previously known as the Dark Ages and sometimes now referred to or called the Early Middle Ages or early medieval period there. So yeah, So it was that time period and the earliest occurrence of the Smith surname in our family history documents from 1418 and we currently. 24,662,412 records where Smith appears. Yeah, that's

Kim: 21:23

from fine. My pass, that's just a few, which is just a few. Yeah, a few. And that's fine. My pass, which is mostly British. That's British records. Yeah. And. Yeah. So there you go. That's, that's, so Smith is as old as time, almost, you know? Mm-hmm. recorded time and and it may seem cool, right? Like, wow, it's a really great name. But to genealogists, like you said, it's a nightmare. So the furthest back smith that I can find is Steven. Yeah, right. Let's just, let's just do a search. Yeah. Hundreds and thousands of them, and he comes from the Hudson Valley, New York, or Manhattan, one of the two. I've seen it written both ways, so I don't know which. I just, I have not been able to find him past that. Maybe I'll have a renewed effort again. I've tried, I've tried in the past. I've gotten nowhere. I'm just, I haven't, I, you know,

Laura: 22:18

so we need to make a road trip, is what

Kim: 22:19

you're saying? Road trip. Okay. Yeah. Road trip. That's what we're doing. So our first connection that, that's my first connection back to New York through that line. It was through his paternal, my grandfather's paternal line. And we could trace him, like I said, to the Hudson Valley. It says that he was born in either 6/17/62 or 1770 on Long Island or Hudson Valley, and there are no primary records. But because he was a loyalist, he has written about in a. So that is the only record that I have. Not to mention family history that has been passed down through the Smith family. But no record in my hand that says, oh, here's his birthdate, or here's his British records or anything. I don't have anything on him. Mm-hmm

Laura: 23:02

So that loyalist piece explains why in more recent years, the family has come down out of Canada.

Kim: 23:11

So they were the Smith. The Smith and a bunch of the fam, the family over there was in New York during the revolution. And they were on the wrong side. They were on the losing side. So they ended up getting kicked out to New Brunswick where they got free land. But that's what we're gonna go over next week. But it's really quite interesting and. our next area of research I think will be common to so many people because every time we bump into someone, it seems like recently we've been saying, oh my God, we're related. You go to Terrytown New York, you go to Sleepy Hollow, the same thing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And it's like, oh, we're related. And that's happened several times to me and it really is quite interesting. And once you get to that area, the Terrytown New York or Sleepy Hollow, then you're talking about the Dutch reform. Which is the most, the, the one of the best examples of record keeping, early record keeping. We're talking back to the 16, 17 hundreds in the United States. So and another connection. When, you know, I kind of briefly looked this over and it's, there's a Dutch settler and his name is Dirk Storm. And I thought, oh baby Dirk Storm, that is the best name I've ever heard. It's not Smith and it's not Joe, it's Dirk Storm, you know? So I thought, all right, this is, this is getting somewhere. And. It turns out that one of the connections that we have through Hazel when we were talking with, Her Aunt Maxine. Oh, Aunt Maxine. So when we were talking with Maxine, there was someone at her house and it was her son-in-law, her son-in-law, and his his connections were Van Tassel. I said, van TAs, what?

Laura: 24:54

So, and only Kim would do this, by the way. Yeah.

Kim: 24:58

And, and he did too though, it was

Laura: 25:00

like they were both holding up the genealogical Spock sign, They understood each other immediately.

Kim: 25:11

That's right. So he, his family goes all the way. To the early 16 hundreds. I ha I still have the envelope right here where he broke right. With his email yeah. With his family history that was written down in 2.2 seconds. Oh, yeah. But he's also the Sleepy Hollow, right? Sleepy goes right to Sleepy Hollow. Mm-hmm. Sleepy Hollow in Terrytown and right side by side. And that is where there is a bulk of people from New Brunswick, from Maine. That's where they came from. And it was a huge connect. I'd like to go to that. I'd like to go to that family reunion, But that's what we're gonna be talking about next because it's really quite interesting about life in that area and it's worth a road trip. So I think that we'll go. How's that sound? Mm-hmm.

Laura: 25:55

I think we should.

Kim: 25:56

Okay. So we'll be discussing our people in that area, which includes Terrytown, sleepy Hollow, and New Amsterdam, which is Manhattan. And I think that there is a bar that is still there that used to be in the Dutch. The Dutch, the Dutch used to run it a bar or a. You know, some sort of pub or something. And I, I'm gonna do some research on that, but the Dutch came, they came and droves and they were prosperous. Oh yeah, I get it. Live long and prosper, right? Yeah, we left that right up. That was nerdy. So tune in next week and start spreading the news. Get it. New York. New York, I've gone off the rails. I may have to just maybe you should've sung a few bars. Yeah. if I could pay to get without royalties, I would have that music playing in the background. Yeah. Yep. I'll let you finish it up. All right,

Laura: 26:50

so if you haven't started your family tree, there will be links in the show notes that can help you do that or follow along with us for some more starter tips. We'll be adding those in each week and make those connections with your family and write those stories down. And if you have a really cool connection in your tree that you want to tell us about, maybe talk to us about. You can email us at chasing hazels tales gmail.com.

Kim: 27:15

If you get an opportunity, go to wherever you get your, your podcast and rate or review or recommend. Share this with your friends and we'll have some fun in the coming weeks. Tracking down people in Sleepy Hollow. but until then, we'll say goodbye.

Laura: 27:34

Goodbye, goodbye.