Rush Reunion 2015

Tis the season again. I'm addressing Rush Reunion reminders to go out snail mail for this year's reunion. Hopefully, there won't be any snafu's with the city like last year (double-booking the shelter), as we have had the same time, same day of the week and month for many years in the same ole spot, paid in advance. But, just in case we run into the same problem, it might be wise to bring lawn chairs and a card table to hold your contribution to our family potluck or a TV tray to eat from because we're having it there again!

If you haven't gotten a reminder in a while, it could be that you have forgotten to send me your new address when you moved, so if you would like to be reinstated to the list, please drop your current name/ address in the comments below along with a statement about how you are related to the Rush family. I promise I will not publish your address on this website. Please note that spam ad comments WILL BE DELETED. 

If you have never been on the Rush reunion reminder list and would like to be, please drop your current snail mail address in the comments below and tell me how you are related to the Rush family. Again, I promise I will not publish your address nor sell or rent it to any advertisers. I don't like spam in my mailbox anymore than you do!

If you have a question about the reunion, drop it into the comment box below and click on "notify me" checkbox before publishing your question or return in a couple of days for my reply below your question. If you want to keep your identity private, type in only your first name or a nickname. 

By the way, here's a FREE template pattern for the fan above. David's grandmother had a wooden shingle fan with three blades which I traced around to make my blue and white rubber-stamped paper fan above. 

See you at the reunion! 

Cite Your Sources!

Tools = Ancestry, Family Search, Find-a-grave and other genealogical websites are only tools to help you locate sources of documents to prove your ancestors existed, however, not all documents are online. Some you have to go dig out yourself from family members,  local libraries, inter-library loan and/or on-site such as in cemeteries, courthouses, FAN's (friends, associates, neighbors), and historical/genealogical society libraries and museums. I have said that genealogy is much like a scavenger hunt and a jigsaw puzzle all rolled into one!

3 Documents 4 Each Point = According to my schoolteachers, you should have at least three documents for each point you want to discuss in detail in a report and genealogy is essentially reporting on an ancestor. So in this case, to prove not only that your ancestor lived with three documents,  you also need prove each thing that happened to them during the course of their life with three documents apiece or more. And do not disregard the citations, for these help you prove your point(s), should you ever have to do so. Membership in various groups such as Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution or the Boone Society require these. And the more documents you locate, the better you will get to know your ancestor(s) as well.

Timeline = I found it most helpful to set up a timeline for both of the current ancestors I'm researching (my 3rd great-grandparents) with a birth and a death date and filling  in between those two dates with other documents.  It's a given that all people have at least two dates in their life-time -- a birth and a death, but generally, most people have more than that.

* birth records = (primary sources such as family Bibles, letters,  birth certificates, baby announcements, baptism/dedication/church/ministerial records,  census records, doctor/hospital records,   parental wills,  tax records, tombstone/cemetery records. Secondary sources such as published genealogies, county histories, magazine/newspaper articles, etc.)

* death records = (primary records such as family Bibles, letters, death certificate,  funeral leaflet, funeral home/mortician records,  tombstone/cemetery records, canceled checks,  military records, ministerial/church records, hospital/nursing home records, insurance papers, probated wills, and secondary resources such as newspaper death records or obituaries,   published genealogies, etc.)

I have set up a short general timeline of important dates in American history here. Begin with your ancestor's life dates per census records to figure out what they may have experienced during their lifetime. Be sure to figure their approximate age during these events. You may be surprised at what you discover.

Give credit where due = I cite or document my sources this way below, however there are other preferred methods too. Find the one you like and  consistently stick with that form. I'm using the one I learned in school.

* Citation form = Name of article and/or book. Author. Illustrator, if there is one. Publisher; city/state, copyright date. Volume number, if there is one. Page number. Repository location (where the material was found, so other researchers can also find it) or if retrieved from an online source, give website url/address. If shared with you from a family source, also acknowledge their contribution. 

Is it the gospel truth? = Documents can prove or disprove a family story. You begin with the family interview (memorized oral tradition) or family Bible (handwritten record), but then you go out and find other documents to go with it. Memory can sometimes be faulty or the tale may have been twisted in the telling. Remember the "Telephone" game we used to play as children?  Records can also be off  by a year or two, so take that into account. If the census taker did not have good spelling skills and if a transcriber of the records did not have much experience in reading the old script, there may be mistakes in written names, so look for all possible variations.

Be as Professional as Possible = I've been told by several genealogical/historian friends that they will dismiss a family tree as unreliable if there isn't any citations listed, so if you wish to have your claims about your ancestors to be taken seriously, you must cite all your sources as you find them.  Not everyone is endowed with photographic memory, so as you collect more and more information on your ancestor(s), you must add the sources in as you locate your material, because you won't remember them. Get OCD about it!

Good Hunting!


Update = Found a quote that goes quite well with this article:

"Unless you make notes as to the sources of your information they may not be available later for rechecking. Trust nothing to memory. Information that cannot be checked, compared or examined in the original will not bear much weight in genealogy. Be ready to back up all statements with the facts in black and white.

Thus being able to check sources of information is one means of determining the accuracy or competence of a report." ~ Harry W. Mills, Mt. Sterling, KY. Advocate 

"every fact not documented is mythology"

Disneyland 's Ullom Brick

I have never been at Disneyland, but if you are planning on visiting this summer, hunt to find your cousin's special brick in the walkway! Happy feet!

Keepers of Personal History

I recall a recent discussion between a cousin and myself. At the time, he was in the process of moving. Perhaps he shouldn't have mentioned he was throwing out some old posters of his past concerts (he's a gospel singer), because I just had to tell him that he ought to be saving some personal history. He came back and said he didn't want to be a called a hoarder. I was truly surprised at him, because he's been very interested in everything I've been discovering so far on our mutual ancestor. And just where did he think I was getting this information? I bet he didn't put two and two together. *smile* He would be compiling his own personal history for his descendants and I know he has at least two.

Genealogists, historians, and librarians consider journals, photo albums and scrapbooks as treasure troves of information, because so few people keep them. If it weren't for the keepers and savers, we wouldn't have materials to research from. Thanks to a certain cable television show, which I've heard this cousin mention from time to time, people are being led to believe that collecting of any sort is a shameful thing and it makes them fearful of being labeled a misfit of society, not realizing that one poster in a scrapbook does not a hoarder make. This is yellow journalism at its worst -- ridiculing the mentally ill who truly cannot help themselves. Hence the consequences of a throw-a-way society who are constantly bombarded with messages to buy, buy, buy. At one time, thriftiness was considered a virtue.

And while I'm on the subject, I have been urging my fellow paper artists not to recycle/upcycle old ledgers, handwritten letters and ephemera to use in their artwork. In these days of easy photocopying/scanning and printing, making a copy and donating their flea-market finds to their local genealogy/historical society makes perfect sense to me. If it hadn't been for my thrifty great-grandmother and hence my grandmother, I wouldn't have had Hannah's wonderful letters to scan and transcribe like this one:

Dec 18, '29

Dear Tacy, So sorry to hear Laura had the small-pox and you had to be vaccinated. Hope she did not have it very hard and that she is getting along all right.

Am sending a check for $3.00 to you to use wherever you most need it.

Ronald wrote me about Laura. Hope this doesn't put her back in her studies at school.

It turned cold last night and we are in a snow blizzard now. We are promised zero weather soon.

Mildred had a baby girl born to her and Clarence Dec. 10th. Both Mildred and baby are doing well.

Love to all, Hannah

Here's gold! First of all, this letter tells me that Laura had small-pox when she was old enough to attend school. These days when small-pox has mostly been eliminated by immunizations, it's hard to believe that a family member would have this terrible disease in the twentieth century. Laura lived through it and not only did she live through it, but she lived to a ripe old age scar-free. That was a blessing! Not many people did. My encyclopedia says it was the most contagious air-borne disease and was usually considered a death sentence when people were diagnosed with it. The current ebola epidemic in Africa should serve as an example. People had to be isolated in quarantine to try to stop the spread of it and when you had precious little to begin with, burning all the personal possessions of a sick person, because back then one didn't have anti-bacterial cleaners to sterilize the sick person's room with as we do today, was heart-breaking as well. Young people should realize that the risks that come with vaccinations are a lot less than should their children get the real disease. I've seen many young children's tombstones cemetery walking that has made me realize how heart-breaking it must have been to lose their precious heirs to disease outbreaks.

Second, pooled information from other genealogists, may indicate to county historians, who also in the region may have died from smallpox in 1929.

Third, this letter tells me that Hannah was a compassionate woman and knew their need. It also tells me that she lived somewhere above the equator by the weather she was experiencing in December of 1929. And it tells me that she had been communicating with family members, about the birth of a baby girl (her niece). She names names! And last, but not least, we have a sample of her handwriting!

Since I've decoded a few clues from this letter about our family from this single sheet of paper, I can now apply that to a family genealogy chart. For the clueless, genealogy is like a scavenger hunt and a jig-saw puzzle all rolled together. You have to hunt for primary documents (ie. like this letter), then decode the clues from the documents (ie. see above), and fit the clues together to reassemble your ancestor's lives. (Note: And be sure to record where you obtained your clues if you wish to be taken seriously. It has saved my bacon more than once!)


More to Read:
Another of Hannah's Letters

Written by Dolores J. Rush, Updated on 3/23/2020.