October 29, 2005

Communicating With The Dead?

Ted Danson, the former star of the Cheers television show, was once a skeptic. Now Danson says that he is convinced that everyone will someday have a hotline to dead loved ones in his or her lifetime. Danson urges cynics not to afraid of crossing over.

Danson and his wife, Mary Steenburgen, were amazed when they sat down with best-selling psychic author James van Praagh in a bid to contact the actor's late father. Now Danson is to play Van Praagh in a new TV movie, "Living With The Dead."

Danson says, "To be able to talk to the dead is a wonderful gift. I had the most amazing experience. For some reason in this culture it's like this big woo woo thing. I can't think of anyone who hasn't lost a loved one and said, 'I had a dream last night - something bizarre happened that I can't explain.'

"The idea of communicating to people that have passed over is imbedded into most cultures except ours - Native American tribes depend on their ancestors and communication with them.

"I'm sure it won't be long before we're all conversing with people who have passed. It's a growing trend."

Assuming that Danson’s prediction comes true, I know a lot of genealogists who will be standing in line to use that phone booth!

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October 28, 2005

Dead Men Do Tell Tales

It was late afternoon in the summer of 1923. A man stepped off the curb and straight into the path of a speeding automobile. He was killed instantly. Who was this man? Who was the driver of the automobile? Why did it happen? Who were the witnesses and how do they explain the circumstances of the accident?

In every county in the nation, by law, this kind of accident must be investigated by the county coroner or medical examiner. The results of such investigations may generate reports in the form of a few lines or several reams of paper. Case files are frequently full of personal information and rare glimpses into the personalities under investigation.

In the case described above, a coroner’s jury listens. The witnesses are called to the stand one by one. In their own words, they tell what they saw. Did the dead man look both ways before he began to cross the street? All agree that he did. Did the dead man appear to be under the influence of alcohol? A neighbor who witnessed the tragedy testified that his friend never touched a drop of liquor and was avidly opposed to "the drink." Had the deceased been ill, or was his hearing or vision impaired? Well, yes. He had suffered from the flu for many weeks and wasn’t quite up to strength. He was beginning to feel his age, and his eyeglasses had been bothering him a bit as of late.

The son of the deceased was asked to describe the events as he saw them. "Well, my father had a tradition of going to the candy store across the...

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October 15, 2005

Ancestry of Drew Barrymore

Given that her father, grandparents and great-grandparents were all famous actors, acting may very well be in Drew Barrymore's genes. Drew began acting as a child and appeared in her first commerical before she was a year old. At age seven, she landed her most famous role as Gertie, the little sister in E.T: The Extraterrestrial (the movie's director, Steven Spielberg, is her godfather). Since then, she has continued to work steadily and has even formed her own production company.
See my tree!

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October 11, 2005

Divorce

Let’s face it. Not every marriage is made in heaven. Some may even be said to have been made in an entirely opposite place. As usual, your ancestor’s troubles might have lead to records of genealogical value, in this case a divorce.

Contrary to the belief of some, divorce is not a late twentieth-century invention. Couples have always had problems, and divorce while uncommon was not entirely unheard of in an earlier era. Finding the records is the problem. Early divorces might have been granted by the colonial governing bodies or the state legislatures and these records may be in a state archives or library. Later divorces were typically granted by a county court and will typically be found at the county level.

The amount of information contained in these records varies, but generally increases over time. The person bringing the divorce case to court would have to show grounds for divorce, usually focusing on the behavior of the other spouse. Requirements for a divorce are governed by state statute and have changed significantly in the last two hundred years.

The content of divorce records can vary. Those granted by a colonial or statewide body, tend to provide sketchy information. Divorces granted by county courts may be more detailed. In some cases the records may include more detail than some descendants want to know...

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October 3, 2005

Thoughts from the BMV

I’ve had plenty of time to think about this article these past couple days. I realized that we hadn’t received our new registration for the car in the mail, and when I went out to check when it expired, I found that we needed to get it real quick. Instead of renewing it online like I usually do, I would have to brave the long lines at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Noooooooooooo! Not the BMV!

Once I recovered from the horror of it all, I decided that there must at least be a column in it for me. So without further ado, here are some random thoughts from the BMV:

1.) Using Online Tools and Phone First.
2) Bureaucracy Has Its Perks.
3) Bring Reading Materials.
4) Keep a Notepad Handy.
5) Be Kind to Them, and They'll Be Kind to You.

October 2, 2005

Finding Treasures in Interesting Places

My mother decided to move into a retirement complex in 1988. As a result, my brother, my sister-in-law, and I were recruited to help her select the things she would take with her from a three-bedroom home into essentially an efficiency apartment. In the process, my brother happened to lift the corner of her bedroom carpet which happened not to be tacked down. Imagine his (and our) amazement when he found two $100 bills! Further searches under the rug, in books, and inside antique covered casserole bowls in the china cabinet yielded a whopping $4,200! This is certainly a lesson to those of us who have to clean out a parent’s or other relative’s home.

Money isn’t everything, of course. For genealogists like me, scouring bookstores, vendor booths at conferences, flea markets, and other places can yield some forgotten period book that contains information that can expand my knowledge of context or help locate other resources. I’d like to share some of my finds and to encourage you to start looking too.

- Local Conference Yields Place Name Gold
- Used Bookstore Sells History
- Hooray for eBay!
- Flee to the Flea Market!
- Go for the Gold!