If The Shoe Fits

I just tracked a Carr family back through the England Census from 1901 to 1841 in response to an email query. They were mostly boot makers and shoemakers. When I got back to the 1841 England Census (by subscription), I couldn't make out the occupation listed for the patriarch, James Carr. His job title looked sort of like the word container but it started instead with cord. What could it be?

I went to Wikipedia, of course. I took what I was relatively sure of and used an asterisk to represent the parts I couldn't make out. The asterisk, as in many software programs, will serve as a wild card or place saver. My search for cord*ainer pointed me right away to what I needed. A cordwainer is a shoemaker. The term goes back to the 13th century and led to the formation of the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers two centuries later. These artesans often worked in Cordovan soft leather, thus the name. The English eventually stopped distinguishing between shoe repairmen and shoe makers, so terms like cobbler and cordwainer disappeared.

So when you're stuck in your research because you can't make out a terminology or a name, remember that you can use an asterisk in Wiki to represent the section you can't make out. Like Bedf*shire will point you to Bedfordshire, Bar*illai will give you a list of people with the first name Barzillai, and *ama bin laden will find the notorious Osama bin Laden. (Someone needs to find him, that's for sure. Might as well be you.)

The image of the cordwainer above was found at the Honorable Cordwainers Company website, which provides a formal definition and more information.

Relatives South of the Border

When you have a surname database posted at Rootsweb WorldConnect instead of your personal family line, you occasionally get emails from people who think you're a newfound cousin because their relatives are in your online file. Once in a great while it truly is a cousin, but most of the time I doublecheck my records and have to write back to explain the surname database concept and how we're not related as far as I know. I always offer to help them with any Carr surname connections they might have that need fleshing out.

By the way, I've noticed that more and more people use the expressions to flesh out and to flush out interchangably. It creeps me out when I hear them used inappropriately. You can flesh out an idea by putting meat on a bare bones concept. Or you can flush out an idea using brainstorming to draw it out. (I'm not sure you ever want to talk about flushing out your relatives, at least not in a genealogical sense. Save that expression for the hors d'oevres table gossip at your next family reunion.) But I digress.

This weekend I had an email suggesting that I was the cousin of a Mexican living in El Paso in the 1930s. Since my roots are mostly English and German, I haven't had much experience searching Hispanic genealogies. After we exchanged some messages and sorted things out a bit (we're not related), I was able to find her ancestor entering the US in the summer of 1918 at the El Paso/Juarez border crossing. I ended up finding him in Ancestry.com's Immigration Service border crossing record images online.

The record (paid subscription only) showed that this man was 23 years old and born in San Julian, Jalisco, Mexico. The form gave his height and the color of his hair and eyes. It provided his wife's name but didn't say whether she was accompanying him. The form asked all sorts of questions regarding his purpose of visit. He wasn't crossing the border for temporary employment but planned to stay in El Paso for a year.

I received a nice note back from this weekend contact after I sent her a summary of what I found. "Wow thanks so much! That is exactly what I was looking for!"

Image found at http://www.bailadoresdebronce.org/dances.html

Sorting Out A Conflict Is Never Easy

It's always difficult to assign the blame for "starting it" when you're looking at a long-running struggle. If you pick a side in any conflict, you can always latch onto the latest atrocity of the opponent and begin to carry a banner.

I have my favorite in the Gaza struggle, for example, but I don't really know anything. Why do I have an opinion? Because of the media coverage that has come my way. There's no foreign press in Gaza at the moment, so everything I'm seeing is controlled.

If we go back to the June ceasefire, we can assume that all the parties are starting with something of a clean slate. Hamas still had an Israeli prisoner of war that Israel was hoping to have returned, but we have to start somewhere.

It wasn't long after the June ceasefire was signed that Hamas began lobbing missiles into Israel. Two in the first week. Despite calls for retaliation, the Israelis were hoping to get back their captured soldier and instead went to Egypt for further talks with Hamas. (New York Sun)

The June ceasefire got a serious jolt in November when Israel destroyed a tunnel between Gaza and Israel. There were plenty of sparks after that. Hamas had continued to fire rockets into Israel now and then, but the rocket attacks blossomed with three dozen launchings after the tunnel incident. Hamas claimed the tunnel incident was an attempted incursion by the Israelis, while the Israelis saw it as an effort to stop Hamas militants from coming into Israel to kidnap more soldiers. (MSNBC)

This is the Israeli explanation for the tunnel attack back in November:

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that while Israel wanted to continue the truce, it could not tolerate tunnel digging.

"When Israel agreed to the truce it didn't agree that while there was calm, Hamas would exploit it to dig tunnels, whether they are for smuggling weapons, for perpetrating attacks or kidnapping soldiers," she said. "Therefore, if it becomes clear that is what's happening, it is the government's responsibility to act."

"The [Tuesday night] operation was necessary in order to preserve Israel security," she continued. "Israel cannot tolerate such blatant violations of the truce." (Jerusalem Post)

Wikipedia says the truce ended a little over a week ago and that the ceasefire was only one part of a longer ongoing struggle. Who's to say the truce didn't end back in June, the week after it began, with the resumption of Hamas rocket fire? Or maybe it ended in November when Israel attacked the tunnel?

You can always find information online, but the truth is rarely in the details. So, the blame game can become complicated pretty quickly. Probably best not to play. David Quigg, a blogger at Huffington Post, wrote a piece that suggests that we not be so quick to cast blame. He's got the right idea.

.... So few of us would be able to face the ghosts of the dead and justify why we cheered on Israel or why we made excuses for Hamas. We should shut up.

Aberdeen NJ Life

I've just started a new blog that deals with living in and around Aberdeen, New Jersey. The new blog offers me a place to discuss issues that don't precisely fit here in Musings, where I focus on research methods. I expect the new blog will attract a different audience and that's fine. My emphasis here will remain on local history, genealogy, and Wikipedia.

The holidays are over; it's time to get to work.

The historic image of the Matawan Railroad Station is from http://64.106.243.185/matawan/General/RAILROAD%20INFORMATION/

Wiki Roles

I believe that group collaboration leads only haltingly towards logical structure. That is why the history of the Blagojevich articles mentioned in my previous blog piece can be difficult to follow. Articles tend to become more organized only after many people deliver data and a few people take a stab at sorting things out.

I'd say that Wiki articles are launched by a combination of data providers and data sorters. The providers collect the data and toss the results loosely on the pile, while the sorters pick through the take, order the information, and try to make it flow logically so it is retrievable. (In intelligence, these roles would be labeled collectors and analysts.) The final touches are added by editors, those who pick at the smallest details for accuracy or form or challenge the whole text as irrelevant or biased. They may be text editors fixing sentence structure, source checkers looking to see if the data providers have done their homework, and format stylists who categorize, hyperlink, add or touch up images and maps, and those who otherwise dress up Wiki articles.

Articles that are heavily trafficked by data providers, data sorters, and editors can become very detailed and accurate. They can also be influenced by media coverage, as most of the third party sourcing used in Wiki articles comes from online news sources. Statements may occasionally be marked citation needed, which indicates that the data are unsourced.

While you may not wish to get into the details, you should at least read the Blagojevich article and test its objectivity.

Rod Blagojevich in Wikipedia History

Sometimes Wikipedians need to make room for all the information that is coming their way. "This town just ain't big enough for the two of us!" the gun slingers used to say to one another. Wiki can be like that.

You'll see a useful example of why some Wiki articles must spawn offspring when I show you the edit history behind the current media circus regarding the Illinois Governor. Wikipedia already had an article on Rod Blagojevich when news of a Federal investigation broke in the news. In fact, there was already a lengthy Controversies section in the governor's article.

The earliest edits to the Blagojevich article to mention the investigation were made soon after the news conference. After all, someone needed to add this important element to Blago's biography. Within hours, that article had a distinct corruption section. (Check out how furious the editing was taking place in the first 24 hours.)

But it was becoming clear that this was going to be a complex news story, so the next morning a wise Wikipedian created a wholly separate article just for the corruption scandal. In six hours, the corruption article had really begun to take shape as Wikipedians scoured the web for more details, by then citing seven good sources. After only twelve hours, the article had three times the detail and sourcing. Presently, the corruption article has multiple sections and sub-sections plus over 80 sources.

Note that the Blagojevich article has a temporary warning across the top of the page:

This article is related to a current event: Rod Blagojevich corruption charges.
Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

The corruption article also contains a temporary warning:

This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

These notices are to help remind you to edit the right article in such circumstances. If his biography needs to be modified, edit the article on him. If the scandal story needs updating, edit that article.

Image found at http://www.chicagomag.com/core/pagetools.php?pageid=7444&url=%2FChicago-Magazine%2FFebruary-2008%2FMr-Un-Popularity%2F&mode=print

2009 Anniversaries

At the start of a new year, you might want to know what events from history will be marked this year. You could always wait for CNN to tell you what happened 50, 100, or 200 years ago, but what if you wanted to check it out yourself by using Wikipedia? How would you do it?

Wikipedia is chock full of dates, so you can use sophisticated category searches to find what you're looking for. You can search a particular year right from the search window. But Wiki categories might be a better option. To move around freely among the years in Wiki categories, click the years category or put Category:Years in the search window. If you happen to be on a year category page, go to the bottom of the page and click the years category. Once you're on the main Years page, you can readily move between centuries using the box at the top, then use the list of years within a century to move about.

So, in our case, click on 1500 in the box on the Years category page. Once you have a list of individual years, select 1509 to see events that will have their 500th anniversary this year. You'll see in 1509 Births that John Calvin was born, certainly a major event that will be celebrated among some Christians this year. Maybe you'll see something in those lists that interests you?

Let's take a look at the Wiki category for the year 1809. Across the top of the page is a convenient time line, which allows you to move between years within the decade 1800-1809, as well as to move one decade either way -- 1790s or 1810s. The 1809 page lists some common subcategories for 200th anniversary events for the coming year.

• On the second page of 1809 Births, for example, you will see a listing for Abraham Lincoln, as well as the father of Oliver Wendell Holmes.
  
• 1809 in Law lists the Treaty of Fort Wayne signed September 30th led to Tecumseh's War. Oklahoma State University hosts a site with the text of Indian Affairs:Laws and Treaties, edited by Charles J. Cappler in 1904, which shows the text of the 1809 treaty. (Someone may wish to add the dates of signature and proclamation to the Wiki article.)

I did a similar search of 1009 to see what might be a millenial event this year. (Note that there are fewer and fewer known events the further back in time you go.) You'll see that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was destroyed in 1009 in a local effort to discourage Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Lands at Easter time. This provoked a backlash in Christian Europe that eventually led to the Crusades in 1099. Don't be surprised if current day terrorists seek to mark October 18th, the day that a Fatimid caliph began carrying out the destruction of the memorial to Christ's tomb by hacking down the edifice to its 4th century foundations.

If you want to try some websites other than Wikipedia, try WordPress's IdeasForWriters blog, which lists forthcoming historic events. (I stumbled upon the April 2009 blog page, but you can dig around on the site for other tools.) The British Society for the History of Science also has a 2009 Anniversaries page. NPR's All Things Considered points out that we're coming upon the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe's birth and the 50th anniversary of Alaska's statehood. The Washington Post's Travel Log adds Henry VIII's ascension to the throne and the fall of the Berlin Wall as notable anniversaries in 2009. (The Berlin Wall is categorized in Wiki as a 1989 disestablishment, btw.)

I checked my FIOS system after writing yesterday's blog piece and found that I can set up favorite places. There is a cute little heart on the remote that switches Favorites on and off. Unfortunately, FIOS switches the option off at the drop of a hat for who knows what reason, so I have to keep checking to see whether I am plowing through a thousand channels or just the ones I want to check.

Thanks to all you who read my blog. I wish you the best in the coming year. Have fun and work hard in whatever might be your endeavors. Pursue your genealogies and local histories, and be sure to support Wikipedia.

The artwork above is called Celebration 3 and can be found at http://www.abm-enterprises.net/fractals/celebration3wallpaper.html.