Baack in New York Times

Posted on September 18, 2007 by

It was just announced today that the New York Times is offering it’s searchable archives from 1851 to 1923 for free. I couldn’t pass that up, so I started looking for information on Baacks (searching for “Valley”, as you may already know, is a bit of a fool’s errand).

I’ve found a few obits so far, but this little bit from Jan 12, 1871, caught my eye:

“Judge Blatchford, of the United States Court, has granted the motion of the plantiffs in the case of the Manufacturer’s National Bank of Chicago vs. EDWARD BAACK and EDWARD BAACK, Sr., of this City, for the appointment of a receiver and for an injunction, holding that the court had full jurisdiction in the case.”

Interesting, eh? At the time, the Baack clan was living in West Farms, Westchester Co. (for the most part), and 2 years after this notice, Ed Jr. loses an election to become the county receiver of taxes. G.E. Valley Jr. did a lot of research regarding a family legend centering around the Baack dynasty: That H. Edward Sr. had gained quite a lot of money, but then lost most of it after the Civil War due to having sold bugles to the Confederates. His research eventually turned up nothing surrounding this legend, but this little hit in the NY Times may be some indication that the family was going through financial troubles anyway at around the same time period.

The internet is a wonderful thing, eh?

Posted in Family Curiosities | Tagged | Leave a comment

DNA Testing Now Available

Posted on September 7, 2007 by

image51
Originally uploaded by Thomas.Valley

In the past, when you want your DNA tested, you could find a lab to test it, and give you a paternity or maternity match up, as long as they had also tested a relatively close relative. It was typically used to prove that a father was a father or a mother was a mother. Recently, companies have started gathering data for genealogical relationships.

One such company was recently purchased by Ancestry.com, and they hope to combine the massive amounts of data already available online with the approximately 600,000 DNA samples already tested.

If you’re even remotely interested in the world’s greatest game (genealogy), you should be able to understand how excited over this I am. Now, Ancestry’s even opened the sampling doors in a beta test of sorts. They’ll send you a testing kit, you swab the inside of your mouth and send it back. After a few weeks, you get an email with your results, and another email every time someone else enters the database as a match.

For me, this could really break down some barriers. I’ve got an adopted great-grandfather, and an adopted grandmother. While both of them have identified with their adoptive families their entire life, and no one would question their familial relationship, I can’t help but be curious about the biology involved. Particularly in my great-grandfather’s case, this would answer the question for us if his mother had given him up for adoption just to adopt him back into the family legitimately.

For some of these questions, we can answer them through getting a bunch of cousins to get tested. At 200.00 a pop, however, it’s going to be a lot to ask. My aunt has suggested we just take a road trip to Green-Wood Cemetery and do some grisly exhumation. While that would certainly get to the root of the matter expediently, that would probably raise eyebrows and hackles all through the family.

As with all genealogy, the meaning of the search and the addiction to the hunt are focused on identifying ourselves in this world and its history. Can I really be satisfied with just telling people I’m an average American “mutt” heritage? Is there not some intrinsic value in knowing the trials and work and hardship through which your ancestors lived to get you where you are today?

As soon as I can rationalize taking the money out of my budget, I’m getting tested. If you do, let me know — we’re probably 16th cousins.

Posted in General Genealogical | Leave a comment

Here’s a tissue

Posted on September 5, 2007 by

image73
Originally uploaded by Thomas.Valley

As I work through the photos, I hit a picture every now and then that I now will send my mother running for the tissue box.

That’s me. That’s dad. I can safely say that Dad and I had some of the best moments of our short relationship those first few years. We had yet to disappoint each other, so everything went pretty well. When I got older, he realized that I wasn’t everything he had expected, and I eventually realized that he was a human being.

But here, right at this moment? I’m his golden boy, and he’s a freaking superhero.

Dammit, who’s got some tissues.

Posted in Image Archival, My Immediate Family | Tagged | 1 Comment

RIP, Aunt Helen

Posted on December 7, 2006 by

On December 5th, my Great Aunt Helen died. I’ll always remember her as the smiling wife of my Uncle Bud. That great smile that you see in this picture is about 2 steps away from a good chuckle, until she’d fill family reunions with a hearty laugh.

With every passing, a family loses a small key to the past; an individual’s view of the inconsequential events that had personal significance to those that shook the world. We can only be consoled in our grief at the loss by the hope and promise evident in our children and our children’s children.

You may not have known Helen, but I’m betting that a small contribution in her name to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America in Helen’s name would be appreciated by her family and anyone else suffering from this disease.

Posted in R.I.P. | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Photos Of the Departed

Posted on October 6, 2006 by

Posted by Picasa It’s done. I’ve scoured my grandfather‘s complete collection of slides and photos and I’ve scanned in every one of them that included a family member. While some of the landscape shots were certainly interesting, and probably added to the story he was trying to tell at the time, they’ve lost their relevance over the decades, and what’s remained is the value of the person that may have posed in one or two of the shots.

There are some real gems, like what I found at the bitter end, last night (great pictures of my great-grandparents, Fred and Anna).

If you want prints of any of those pictures, you can do a few things:
1) At the bottom of the gallery page, click the link “Download Picasa”. It may require that you register as a Google user, but that’s pretty painless.
2) Once you’ve downloaded and installed Picasa, you can click the “Download” web link while looking at the page for any particular photo, and it’ll load it into Picasa for you.
3) Now, when you view the photo in Picasa, there’s an icon at the bottom of the screen that’s labeled “Order Prints”.

If the resolution or quality of any of the photos you see isn’t where you’d like it, I have the original high-resolution version on my hard drive, and would be willing to email them to you. Some of the really old pictures I’ve scanned are in really high resolution, so the file sizes can get pretty big. If your email account can’t handle it, I can still burn it to a CD and send it to you via snail mail.

I’ve now begun scanning in my own personal photo collection. While certainly not as extensive, it contains a wider variety of relatives than just the Carlson clan.

If you’ve got a collection of family related photos you’d like to see in the gallery, please let me know, as I’d be willing to get those digitized as well. A couple of things to remember:
1) I had a hard time identifying even some moderately close relations, due to what they may have looked like at various times in their life. The best thing to do is label your snapshots and/or slides with the subject matter, so I know who it is I’m scanning into the system. If there’s a relationship of which I’m not aware (like a 2nd wife, the 3rd cousin of a distant uncle, etc), then you’ll need to inform me of that as well, so I can properly link them up on the site.
2) You can go ahead and mail me anything you want, but I’m only scanning in family members, right now. The job is big enough without scanning in yet another photo of the White House or some pretty flower.
3) I’m willing to send the photos back to you by USPS parcel post when I’m done with them. It’s a slow method of shipping, but it’s good and cheap and reliable, and it’s not like you need the photos immediately, right?

If you’re having trouble working the galleries or any of the software I’ve set up, please drop me an email.

Posted in Image Archival | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bragging Rights to William the Conqueror

Posted on October 3, 2006 by

William of Normandy was known as William the Conqueror (and, incidentally, King of England) after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Any student of history will tell you how pivotal and important that battle was to the population of Europe at the time, and how the echoes are still being felt in the genealogical archives today.

Hell, I keep reading the Bayeux Tapestry over and over again. I just can’t put it down.

Why am I suddenly embarking on a history lesson? Well, as it turns out, anyone with a bit of the UK in their genealogical makeup is actually related to everyone on the island in 1066. How is that possible? Statistics, my friend.

Joseph Chang has an interesting study posted here, where he says:

“with high probability for large n, in each generation at least 1.77 lg n generations before the present, all individuals who have any descendants among the present-day individuals are actually ancestors of all present-day individuals.”

That means if the UK had a population of 1 million people in 1066, it would take only 35 generations between you and 1066 for you to be related to everyone on the island if you’re related to at least one of them.

I’m mentioning this because I’ve heard from at least 3 relatives that they can trace back their family name (Comyn/Cummins, Fitzgerald, and Williams) back to knights that came over from Normany with William to conquer the island and set himself up as king. You can probably find one or two of your own direct ancestors noted in the Doomsday Book

So, the next time some old lady down your block claims that she’s got better genes because she’s related to some knight in William’s court, let her know how you’re related to all 999,999 other residents of the isle at the time.

Posted in General Genealogical | Leave a comment

Hey, I Should Play the Lottery

Posted on October 3, 2006 by


Have you ever experienced one of those coincidences where you’re forced the question the nature of the event over and over again until it’s solidly in your mind as a good reason to go down to the local convenience store to play the lottery? Either that, or just stay out of lightning storms.

Well, a few months after I created my family tree site, my brother forwarded me a URL for an obituary. It was the announcement of the death of my great uncle, G.E. Valley. Because of a falling out between my grandfather and his brother, I never knew much about my great uncle. I read through the obituary in awe: Not only had George been instrumental in helping the Allies win World War 2, but his interests and lifestyle seemed closely matched to mine. I only wish I’d known him when I was in A.P. Physics in high school. That would have been a trip.

At the bottom of the obituary, it lists the “survived by…” section, which genealogists all over know is a true goldmine of information, particularly when you’re dealing with an unknown person. My brother had forwarded the obituary in the first place because of one name on the list: John W. Valley, who’s residence was listed as Madison, Wisconsin.

I googled him and quickly found that he is a professor at the University here in town, and I got his office phone number. One email and a phone call later, and I’d found my cousin (once removed).

Having never met before, and coming from families where even his generation of cousins had never met him personally, it was particularly interesting to both of us to meet up. After finding out that he lived about 5 blocks away from me, I started to have those lottery feelings again.

Anyone got a scratcher?

Posted in My Immediate Family | Tagged | Leave a comment

Good Stories

Posted on September 24, 2006 by

You know what I like best about doing this sort of research? It’s the family lore that wanders down through the generations. For example:

1) Annie Anderson had 6 children with Knud Hagen and then died, presumably from exhaustion. Knud, realizing that he couldn’t do this by himself, sent a letter back to family in Norway, asking them to send him a new wife. They dutifully looked around and found a 16 year old girl by the name of Klara to fill the role, and then packed her off on a ship to America. When she got to Minnesota, Knud bundled the family up and homesteaded to South Dakota, where he and Klara proceeded to have another 6 children.

2) George Valley decided to make something of himself, but couldn’t afford the train ticket from Ogdensburg, New York to New York City. So, he rode his bicycle across the state to get there. While there, he studied with Nikola Tesla before opening up an electrical shop of his own.

3) Robert Fitzgerald boarded a ship in Ireland to come to America with his wife. Once they entered the Boston port, apparently the port officials looked at the family, told them there were already “too many Irish” in Boston, and sent them on their way to Canada. While in Canada, he and his wife had 2 boys, who eventually immigrated from Canada to the greater Chicago area, where apparently they had a few more openings for the Irish.

4) Thomas Valley, Sr. had a disease in his early teens that put him in a coma for nearly two years. After waking from the coma, his mind was, in the words of my uncle “completely wiped”. He had to be totally re-educated. Even after this tragedy, he grew up to be a very successful businessman, heading a national distribution business at the time of his death.

5) Alfred Valley lived in Montreal, but idolized the New York Yankees. Once, when visiting his son who was living with relatives in New York, he tried out for the team, having played some minor league ball himself. The problem was that he was in his 40s at the time. The managers humored him, and let him hit a few balls and run the bases. He wasn’t accepted on the team, of course, and this angered him greatly, causing him to vow never to return to the United States. Ironically, the first ball game I ever took my boys to see was the Yankees vs. the Blue Jays. The Yankees won, of course.

6) Torrence Carlson and Ruth Aanestad met for the first time 2 weeks before they were to be married. Almost immediately after the marriage, Torry shipped off for the war. They corresponded throughout the war, and Ruth came to visit him while he was on base in Texas. Torry luckily never saw any real action, having the Japanese surrender just as his ship was approaching its first real fight off the Philippines. Ruth, coincidentally, is said to have fallen in love with Torry while accompanying him in a production of South Pacific.

I’ve certainly got more stories, and I keep hearing more and more from the other family branches as I continue with this research. If you’ve got some interesting stories to tell, drop a line in the comment area of this post.

Posted in Family Curiosities | 1 Comment

Making Contacts: Dale Carlson Family

Posted on September 23, 2006 by

I talked with Mickey Carlson the other day, and we had a nice long discussion. I’ve been trying to get hold of Scott, Mark or Todd for some time now, but I can never seem to catch them at home. I don’t have even a little contact information for David, and from what I hear, Dale has his good and bad days on the phone, so I haven’t really tried to call him, yet. My mother recounts recent phone calls with him, where he says, loudly: “I CAN’T HEAR YOU.” I love Dale…that’s classic.

Mickey let me know that her children are, in fact, not married and she isn’t yet a grandmother. For some reason, I had that linked on my site straight out of my grandfather‘s research. I know he’s not infallible, but this sort of error seems a bit egregious. I made sure to correct the site. From her information, Chad‘s in New York, living the single life, and Amber is soon to be married (for real, this time).

Hopefully, Scott and his brothers can find their way here, and maybe someone can sit Dale down in front of a computer and show him around. There are some fascinating pictures of Dale on the site. *grin*

Posted in Tracking Research | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Enigma of Timothy Cummins

Posted on September 23, 2006 by

As you may or may not have read in Frances Davis Cummins’ recounting of her husband’s earliest Cummins ancestor, Timothy Cummins, no one knows from where he originated himself. Here’s a quick time line of what we know about Timothy:

1689(?): Born in Scotland(?).
1727, Sep 26: Marries Agnes Horton.
1731, Aug 4: Buys lot of land from Thomas Wells in Dover, Delaware
1731, Sep 3: Daughter Hannah born
1737, Jul 28: Son Daniel born (future Senator from Delaware that would ratify the US Constitution)
1742, Apr 12: Bonds himself with land to a Michael Cummings, his wife and son. No one knows who this Michael Cummings is, or from where he came either.
1746, Apr 12: Timothy dies.

Sure, there were any number of other land purchases in between that time, and his the original inn that he built on his first land purchase apparently still stands (in some fashion) in Dover, but prior to 1727, we have absolutely no hard evidence on Timothy.

There are a number of issues that bar us from finding anything more:

1. J. Thomas Scharf, the author of “History of Delaware”, a multi-volume publication that hit the shelves in 1888, does not attribute his information about Timothy Cummins to any source. I’d imagine that his most authoritative information on Timothy was family history, and we all know that’s easily embellished. I tend to think that Scharf embellished a bit himself, as there should have been any number of other pieces of evidence to support his claims.

2. No inbound ship to Oxford, Maryland (an important port, at the time, and the place that Scharf claims Cummins entered) lists a Timothy Cummins on their lists of passengers. That isn’t authoritative evidence that he didn’t enter that port, mind you, as he certainly could have been on the crew of one of those ships, or simply come in prior to the time when passenger lists started to become a requirement for the new government of the land.

However, a William Cummins landed in Oxford as a passenger of a ship transporting Jacobite prisoners from Scotland in 1716. In the book “Oxford, the first 3 centuries” by Dickson Preston, a librarian in Oxford related to another researcher: “… 106 rebels. Some were sold to Talbot planters and the rest were sent over to Annapolis for sale there.” So, if Timothy had come from Scotland on the boat in 1716, spent 7-8 years as an indentured servant (during which time indentured servants were not allowed to marry), and then spent his time after serving to find himself a wife, it would fit nicely into the time line.

However, the William Cummins aboard the Johnson that came over in 1716 also has no records that I can find, so he may just as well have been a coincidence.

3. Frances Davis Cummins suggests in her book that there’s no authoritative evidence across the pond that Timothy came from there during the period that Scharf documented. I don’t know what this research entailed, but none of my searches on the publicly available indexes for the UK turn up anything on a Timothy Cummins (Cummings, Comyns, etc) either for that time period.

4. A singularly large migration of Cummins/Cummings lived in Virginia at the time that Timothy popped onto the genealogical scenery. They predate our line by nearly 100 years. If Timothy, rather than coming over himself, had originated from that family, this might explain the complete lack of immigration information on him, and might also provide us with a solid connection to the Michael Cummings to whom he generously gifted land 4 years before his death. As with all research for this person, that idea came up with another fat zero.

So, what are we left to assume? Edith Cummins, my great-grandmother, swore up and down that she was half Scottish and half German. She disdained all other races, and, being from a general Presbyterian and Lutheran family background, had a high disdain for the Catholics (I’m saying that nicely). Certainly, folks will occasionally get themselves to believe something is true by saying it’s true all of their life, but that doesn’t lend it any more credence than an anecdote. We could probably settle the ancestry with a DNA test, but there’s no telling where the Scottish may have crept in from other lines of the family, as we’re all a good deal mutt just about now.

As more and more records come online, perhaps earlier evidence of Timothy will become available. Until that time, he’s left to us as an enigma: Was he escaping the clutches of a Cromwell-fueled anti-Catholic London, was he the 4th or 5th generation of Scottish tobacco farmers in Virginia, or was he simply yet another of the endless stream of colonists to the new world, shedding his earlier life for an identity that encompassed everything about the early American dream?

Posted in Tracking Research | Tagged , | Leave a comment