Labor Day Memories

Hola darlings!

First of all, HAPPY LABOR DAY to all of us who work so hard doing what we do, whether we work inside the home or outside the home - or do both! It's all good, and it's all worth more than we make in pay, for damn sure!

Labor is under attack today in the United States and it's so sad. We're trying to fight back, but we're outgunned and out-moneyed and out-propagandaed.

2011: Wisconsin public union workers (teachers, policemen, firemen, prison guards, office workers, engineers,
etc. etc. etc. gather to protest outside of Madison's Capitol Building against the Scott Walker and the
Republican Legislature's destruction of public labor union rights. Scores of arrests followed when the
Governor ordered the Capitol building cleared and state marshalls took the law into their own hands,
brutalizing and then arresting teachers, office workers, doctors and nurses for "resisting arrest" when
they were only exercising their state and federal Constitutional rights to peaceably assemble and protest.
The Republicans, who had taken control of the state thanks to the Koch brothers' money poured into the state's
elections, gutted public unions and then passed the most extreme-ever gerrymandered election
districts Wisconsin has ever seen. The Lafolletes are rolling in their graves. Our honored history
of clean government has disappeared into a foul pit of gross corruption, and Governor Scott Walker
is the most corrupt of all, while posing as a "true Christian family man." Gag and puke.

Don't be fooled by people who are telling you there are "makers" and there are takers," doing the old "speaks with forked tongue" trick! The TRUE MAKERS are the people who create wealth, like me -- working away for the past 45 plus years in an office, now making about $25 an hour compared to my boss's $650 an hour. I work just as hard as he does and, in truth, without the work I do he wouldn't be able to do all that he does. But there is really no such thing as "trickle down," nope. Now I'm not crying the blues here because at my pay rate I gross about $51,000 a year, and I'm okay with that. Is it what a person with a master's degree should be making, though, if we Americans value education like we say we do? Hell no!

But, according to stats from the Congressional Budget Office, I'm considered above the median income in this country, I'm in one of the upper percentiles, darlings, woo woo. How fricking sad is that? Seven years of college education -- and I just scratch the surface of the median income...

Of course, those wages are BEFORE DEDUCTIONS. If only I didn't have to pay 40% of that gross income every year to federal and state taxes and things like Medicare and FICA. Meanwhile, my boss is crying the blues to me because his youngest will soon be going off to college and he "can't afford it." Yeah, right. Tell me about it, dude, who makes TWENTY-SIX TIMES MORE GROSS SALARY THAN I DO. He, his wife and two children can't make a go of it on $650,000.00 a year. And they pay less in taxes than I do. For instance, his Social Security tax deduction is capped at $117,000. The rest of his salary is not taxed for Social Security. I pay Social Security taxes on 100% of my $51,000. How is this fair? And yet he and the rich and even richer are screaming about "high taxes."

The TRUE MAKERS ARE THE LABORERS, not the owners of the property. Property rots and rusts away or, if it is land, goes fallow, without the MAKERS. Take a few minutes and just think about this, please.

My grandfather took a billy club to the head during a strike at J. I. Case in Racine, Wisconsin, standing up for workers' rights in 1934! The then governor of the state of Wisconsin called out the National Guard to attack the strikers. This was in the days before labor had ANY rights at all -- rights that we won after hard-fought battles and are now, less than 100 years later, rapidly losing. Yeah, I hear it every single day, they won't ever do THAT, who would work for them, nobody...

Stupid, stupid people! Think it can't happen to you...

Grandpa Newton lost his job as a skilled tool-and-die maker. The family lost their home to foreclosure because Grandpa was blacklisted and couldn't find work -- not that much work was to be found in those years, anyway. J.I. Case hired scabs who worked for pennies on the dollar compared to the workers they'd fired en masse. Grandpa and his family of eight had to leave Racine and the prosperous middle-class lifestyle they'd known and move to Sturtevant, to what they considered a dumpy little house with a couple acres of land, where they grew fruits and vegetables and eeked out a living doing "truck farming" (as it was known back then) and growing much of their own produce to feed their family. They scraped by.

That was before Wisconsin became one of the first states at the time to pass a law imposing a moratorium on foreclosures during the Great Depression, to prevent people who, through no fault of their own, were losing their homes because they couldn't find work! I don't know this for a fact, but the story I remember hearing as a child and as I understand it now, as an adult, is that the bank owner at the bank that held Grandpa and Grandma Newton's mortgage on the Racine home gave them the option of taking the property out in Sturtevant (back then, nowheresville compared to living in Racine) in exchange for the equity in the Racine home, and Grandpa accepted the deal. That bank owner, he didn't have to do it, but he was a decent man. Back then, a lot of business was done on personal knowledge of the character of one's customers, and on a handshake. My beloved Grandpa was a man of principle. And so was that banker.

All I know is that I loved that house, with its magestic allee of trees alongside the gravel driveway, and the ever-fascinating acreage out back that offered endless hours of exploring and play-time and fantasy. And the family, at that dumpy little house, survived the Great Depression, and Grandma actually sheltered people less fortunate than they were in the basement (the cellar, as they called it back then, which was not then finished in concrete block). She had what was called back then "a soft heart." I inherited mine from her, in more ways than one. It's from Grandma's side of the family, I discovered through my geneological research, that I inherited this genetic lung disease (Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension) that will, ultimately, cause my heart to fail and kill me. Well, we all have to die some time.

Grandma Newton was famous locally for her canned and preserved foods, jams and "goodies" (a form of candied fruit -- I wasn't allowed to eat any because it had brandy in it). Some of my earliest memories are of watching Grandma and Aunts Lolly and Mary Olive (her oldest and second-youngest daughters) working in the teeny kitchen of the only Grandma and Grandpa Newton house I ever knew, and loved. The three of them were moving in what seemed like high speed around a tall butcher block "island" stirring, tasting, seasoning, ladling steaming hot concoctions into mason jars, the room filled with moisture from jars boiling in water and fruits and vegetables cooking on a six-burner stove. I don't remember if it was gas or a wood burner, I assume it was a gas stove, as I was born in 1951 and we're probably talking about 1955 and after. And then there was pickling, done on different days.
The Great Depression didn't end until the start of World World II, when the United States geared up to feed the war effort that was going on in Europe and, ultimately, sucked the USA in, too, including my Dad, who went off to join the Army when he was about 20.

The Frank Newton and Ida Belanger family, left to right, back row: Aunt Faythe; Aunt Mary Olive, my Dad
(John Francis Newton) in his WWII uniform, Aunt Laurel (Aunt Lolly), Aunt Valerie.
Front Row: Grandma Ida Belanger Newton, Uncle Gregory, Grandpa Frank Newton, son of David Newton a/k/a Villeneuve.

Dad was wounded and awarded a Purple Heart, and suffered severe frost bite to his feet. Those feet of his, they caused him much pain and suffering afterward until the time he died. But back then, a man didn't complain about such things. He was changed in ways no one should ever have to be changed. But he survived. Millions did not.

My family was fortunate, compared to millions of other families. We survived the Great Depression, and we more or less prospered. We survived WWII, and we more or less prospered.

Oh my. The older I get (I turned 63 on August 19th, sigh), the more these memories become so precious to me. I've no children of my own (THANK GODDESS!), but I am an aunt, and a grand-aunt, and a great-grand aunt. Geez! What will happen to those children of my nieces and nephews?

All those descendants will think it is absolutely normal to work for $5 a hour and not have employer paid-for health insurance, no paid vacation, no paid sick days, no paid maternity leave, no retirement benefits, no profit-sharing, hell no! They will be, ahem cough cough cough, INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS. Yeah. A fancy name for 21st century slavery. And, because none of the kids now graduating from high school knows any history or knows, really, how to read or write (they think "HOW R U" is writing), they will believe all of this is perfectly normal, and even worse, the way it should be... They will believe that if they're not at the apex of the pyramid, it's because they're stupid, or lazy, or both. Because that is what they are being taught -- they are being brainwashed into believing -- right now, as I write this. There is a reason "1984" is no longer mandatory reading in high school...

Do you REALLY wonder why Congress has done nothing about the epidemic of illegal aliens flooding into our country? Darlings, they're CHEAP LABOR. That's the ultimate bottom line. Now they're importing them as children, even easier to brain-wash.

Real speak: If Romney had won the presidential election in 2012 instead of Obama, we wouldn't be hearing a THING about the so-called crisis of 40,000 or 50,000 CHILDREN crossing the border between Mexico and the United States during the past few years.

Think about it.

More Discoveries on the Family Tree

Hola darlings!  Happy New Year to all of you, and Goddess Blessings!  May 2013 be better for all of us than 2012.

Today was a domestic day.  It's cold as Hell out there, wind chills below zero (dropped like a rock yesterday from a balmy 34 degrees F during my morning walk to the bus stop yesterday to go to the office, to a very uncomfortable walk home last night in brisk winds and wind chills hovering around 5 degrees F, brrrrrrr!) 

I didn't venture out.  Instead, I've been been putzing around the greater part of the day.  First I touched up nicked furniture legs on my bedroom furniture; then I dusted the cold air returns and heat registers, then I re-framed various prints for my bedroom and worked on plans for finally refinishing the family room re-do.  Yes, it has been torn-apart since March of 2012!  In between times, I was working on the family tree.  I have been busy since Christmas Day (on and off) printing it out and adding updates, including printing out interesting stories about our venerable ancestors and cleaning-up lines of descent. 

Today I came across an ancestor who has sometimes been called "the Father of Wisconsin."  HOLY HATHOR!  Along the way, I also confirmed suspicions that developed early-on in my research a couple years ago that in my mostly French paternal side of the family on both sides of the Canadian-USA border, there is plenty of mixed French-Native American ancestry.  Of course, back then, borders were a much more fluid concept and the French traders and fur trappers who ventured far into the Great Lakes region didn't care that the land around La Baye (eventually became the city of Green Bay) was in territory that would eventually become the state of Wisconsin, or that Mackinaw/Mackinac was in territory that would eventually become the state of Michigan.  The French traders, trappers and soldiers garrisoned in Detroit and at Mackinac had much friendlier relations (for sure!) with the Native Americans than most of the Anglaise, who looked down their noses at the Native Americans as "savages."  Those Anglaise later on became known as the Yankees.  No wonder I hate those damn Yankees!

I digress, ahem.  Direct line of descent going back in time --numbers in brackets [--] are for convenience to denote generations:

[1] Me
[2] Dad, Francis John Newton (1922 - 2002)
[3] Ida Newton nee Belanger (1893 - 1962)
[4] Mathilde A. Belanger nee Forsyth/Forsythe (1861 - 1943)
(Before around this time, the French tradition that married women kept their "maiden" names held sway in settlements primarily French, before the Anglaise tradition of erasing a woman's prior identity after she got married took root.  I employ that naming tradition going back:)
[5] Theotiste Marie Susane Brunette (1824 - 1904)
[6] Domitelle Grignon (1787 - 1847)
[7] Louise Domitilde de Langlade (1759 - 1823), daughter of Charles Michel de Langlade (1729 - 1800, or 1801 or 1802) and Charlotte Ambroisine (Ambroisie) Bourassa (1735 - 1817)

It is [8] Charles Michel De Langlade who has been sometimes called "the Father of Wisconsin."  We have a county in Wisconsin named after us, har :)  It's true! 

Going back one more generation, to the parents of Charles Michel de Langlade, his father was [9] Augustin Mouet de Moras dit Langlade, a French trader from Quebec, and his mother was Domitilde, a Native American of the Ottawa people.  Domitilde's brother was Nissowaquet (spelled phonetically), who became a Chief of the Ottawa.  The French called him "La Fourche." 

When Charles was about 10 years old, his Uncle, Nissowaquet a/k/a La Fourche, had a dream of great significance.  He dreamt that young Charles would be fighting at his side when they conquered a distant enemy.  And thus, Charles was called forth from his family to go fight with La Fourche and his warriors.  Despite propaganda that indicates otherwise, the battle ended in a stalemate and a peace treaty was entered into between the two tribes.  Nonetheless, Charles was designated a hero from the battle, and this experience was to color his life for decades to come. 

Here is a Wikipedia entry about my venerable ancestor. Also noted at the Wisconsin Historical Society's website. And for further history on the subject of French and Indian marriages with information about the Langlades and the Grignon families, see The Founders of Green Bay: A Marriage of Indian and White. 

Okay, so my question is this:  With my family background, why aren't I now governor of Wisconsin???  Hmmm....

Yard Work, Genealogy and Apple Pie

Whew!  The front yard is cut, probably for the last time this season unless we get an extended Indian Summer (so far no sign of one this year; sometimes we don't get them at all).  I still need to do the trimming around the edges because things are looking a bit straggly.   And then, the really hard work - the back yard.  It's a mess again with large limbs down and branches all over the place courtesy of the two or three windstorms that have blown through since the LAST clean-up about a month ago!

I am getting exercise, that's for sure.

I am thinking about writing a brief article for the Seguin Family Association about how I tracked down  my Villeneuve and Seguin ancestors, since our family name in Wisconsin has been Newton since great-grandfather David first moved to northern Wisconsin to work in the lumber industry in 1881.  I knew from stories my dad told that his side of the family was French, but Newton - how very English!  He also went to pains over the years to tell us that we had some Irish blood on Grandma Newton's side but NO English blood.  The English were not looked upon kindly in my dad's family.  Once I discovered the French Canadian family roots, I realized why!  There is a lot of bad blood going back at least 400 years between the French Canadians of Quebec and the English who moved in and took over, screwing over everybody including the First Nations people, in the process.

Well, that's neither here nor there, but it does explain a remarkably pure French Canadian and French ancestry on my dad's side of the family tree, all the way back to about 1550 in what I believe was a small village in Brittany.  The French and the English didn't mix much - except for the Kings and Queens of France and England, of course.  William the Conqueror, anyone???  Oh, the irony, the irony :)

So how did I get from Newton to Villeneuve?  By luck, mostly.  I've written about this before here at the blog.  I always figured there was at least some truth in the few family legends I remember dad telling us for years and years, so I thought the French version of our name which, translated into English, means "new town," was something like Neville or Neuville.  So much for four years of high school French (of which I remember little today - although I can still count to ten in French).  Actually, I learned later that there are some branches of the Villeneuve family that carry names similar to Neville or Neuville, as well as some Mexican branches under the name Villeneuevo, but I didn't know that when I first started out!  Soon after I first signed up at Ancestry.com, I met Rose, who had a death certificate for my grandfather, Frank Newton. Rose was researching Grandpa Frank's sister, Myrtle.  I hadn't even known what his father's or mother's names were.  That is how I learned about David Newton and Laura Ruth Bailey.  I had spent weeks tracking down information on a Newton family with a David who lived in Vermont or New Hampshire, but it wasn't the right family. 

Rose also had a death certificate for David Newton, and his parents were listed as "Anton Newton" and "Adell Latterault."  It was the reading of a message board about Newtons where I came across the name Villeneuve and my brain went BINGO! That explained why I was having NO LUCK trying to find David Newton's family. When I started looking for a David Villeneuve, I found the family - in Ontario, Canada, where a branch of the family had moved to settle in new territory, away from crowded Montreal and environs!  The parents were Antoine Villeneuve and Mary or Marie Louise Seguin.  It took further detective work, though, to confirm that I had the correct Villeneuve family. 

Anton to Antoine was not a big leap, and Newton to Villeneuve, that too could be rationally explained.  But nowhere could I find an Adell Latterault.  Was she the same person as Mary or Marie Louise Seguin?  Rose and I did further research.  Again, just by accident, I came across an article that discussed the migration of some French Canadian settlers in Oregon, and I came across the name Latterault and - the important clue that was spelled out for me clear as a bell - also known as Laderoute!

I had a new name:  Laderoute!  Rose and I dug further, and found out that Laderoute was a "dit" name for the Seguin family.  So, we were now pretty sure we were looking for an Adell Seguin or Adell Laderoute-Seguin.  We couldn't find her, though.  There were several possible females who might have been her, but none of the details we knew matched exactly.  Only Marie Louise Seguin seemed to be a match, but we couldn't find anything that confirmed that "Adell Latterault" and Mary or Marie Louise Seguin were one and the same woman.  The marriage record, the death record, the birth records of her and Antoine Villeneuve's children - all referred to her as Mary or Marie Louise Seguin.

And then, while searching for records for one of David's brothers, Joseph Villeneuve, I came across Joseph's death certificate and the final clue was presented:

It's a little hard to read, but you can see listed "Name of father: Anthime Villeneuve."  Antoine's full name was Antoine Anthyme Villeneuve.  Also listed is "Maiden name of mother:  Adele Seguin."  The birth places of both of Joseph's parents were listed as "Rigaud, Quebec."  This matched what I knew about Antoine Anthyme Villeneuve and Mary or Marie Louise Seguin. 

At last!  There was written evidence that Mary or Marie Louise Seguin had also been known as Adele Seguin.  Adele Seguin, the mother of David Newton's brother Joseph, was the same person as Adell Latterault on David Newton's death certificate.  "Latterault" was a phonetic spelling of "Laderoute", a Seguin family dit name. 

Along the way to solving this mystery, I learned quite a bit about  French Canadian naming convetions and dit names, which came in handy as I dug deeper into the old French language records to trace back the family lines. 

Now, about that apple pie!  I baked one yesterday, my first, but not my last, of the season.  T'is the season for baking apple pie and making chili.  Yesterday I opted to bake rather than make chili.  The new Pick 'n Save - I have to say it has a splendid selection of apples, many on sale right now, some types I've never heard of before and have no idea what they may taste like.  I am tempted to go back to the store today and buy one of each unknown type just to taste them and see what they're like!  This is peak Wisconsin apple season although I'm sure some of these apples are coming in from other states, too.  Beautiful, gorgeous big apples!  I've never seen such big Cortlands in my life!  I bought five yesterday on sale for $0.98 a pound but with my card I got them for $0.89 a pound, weighed in at 2.68 pounds!  Five apples weighed that much!  I bought the Cortlands because I know they're a good baking apple; they don't get mushy and watery, the death of a good apple pie. 

Here is my pie:

Beautiful, if I do say so myself :)

It has a crumble topping and a store-bought bottom crust that doesn't need to be pre-baked.  The prep time takes the longest; putting the pie together itself is fast once the prep is all done.

Hmmm, it seems I haven't written about my apple pie recipe before.  Amazing!  This is the same recipe I handed out to the CCR (the ladies of the bus) last week and also posted for the family at Facebook last night:

9" pie crust, unbaked - put into pie plate
5 -7 apples
Core and peel, slice into eighths (mine are irregular; these were really big apples and eighths were just too large, so I cut some of them slimmer)
Layer prepared apples on top of crust.  Some people start from the center and work outwards; I learned from Grandma Newton to start on the outside and work toward the center, filling in odd gaps with pieces of apple.
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Mis sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle over the layered apples.

Crumble Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour or baking mix
(I also add a dash - and I do mean just a dash - of salt, but the original recipe does not add salt)
1/3rd cup cold butter (5 tablespoons)
Mix sugar and flour or baking mix; cut in cold butter until mixture is crumbly.  Don't use room temperature butter, and don't work the mixture too long cutting in the butter, it will turn into pie dough!  I this know from experience... It helps the "cutting" to have a pastry mixer instead of a fork, and to cut the cold butter into little pieces and then add into the dry mix.  The correct texture of this mixture will be dry, with coated lumps of butter dispersed throughout.  Distribute the mixture over the apples, trying to get an even coating.  This forms the "crust" on top of the pie. 

Bake at 400 degrees F for 40 minutes OR until the pie is bubbling and the top is light brown to brown (not burnt!)

Using the Cortlands resulted in a sweet pie that holds together very well and there is no excess juice to make the crust soggy at the bottom of the pie.

I was an absolute Ms. Piggy last night.  I hate a full quarter of the pie and enjoyed a rare evening cup of coffee with it.  It was cool last night so I had a fire going as I enjoyed my coffee and pie.  Heaven, simply Heaven!  The only thing that would make it better is some French Vanilla Ice Cream.  Hmmm....

Personal Stuff - You Can Skip This, Darlings...

THANK YOU, LUCILLE! 

Lucille and I are related through the Makuski line on my mom's side of the family tree.  She sent me an email yesterday that I didn't get to read until this morning.  HOLY GODDESS!  It has information that I did not have before, including the name of the parents of one Josef Jablonski, whom I had not been able to trace back beyond his stating on old census records that he came to America in 1871 from Poland.  The information includes the names of his parents, which did not previously have!  It also has contact information to a descendant of one of Josef's children, but it's from 2004.  I will try and follow-up.

So - tonight I'm going to be working on family tree stuff because Christmas is looming -- it will be here sooner than I think!  I've got to get the major family lines firmed up and printed, and then add photographs, obituaries and histories to round things out.  A major undertaking.

Tomorrow it's C-DAY!  The Hales Corners Chess Challenge XIV is upon me. EEEK EEEK EEEK!

LOL!  Seriously, darlings, I'm not ready for prime-time but I have to tell you, I had some of the most interesting chess conversations today that I've ever had in life.  What's more, on the one that took place coming home tonight from the office, half the bus listened in on it and had input!

I'm not kidding you!  Damn, this is one time I wish I had one of those fancy-pants cellphones where I could have recorded what happened, it was just so much fun.

As you know, I'm a relatively new member of the CCR (Crazy Cougars Rock).  But we don't restrict ourselves to cougars.  I'm the oldest at 60; "Thelma" (not her real name, it has to do with a long involved conversation we had about "Thelma and Louise" and - well, the less said about that, the better) is our newest member, and she can't be more than 25.  She's ridden the bus with one or more of us, off and on, for some years -- you know how you get to recognize regulars along your route, morning and night -- but it was only during the last week or so that she started sitting with JJ, A, D and others in the morning, and joining JJ, A, D and I on the evening ride home.  We're non-discriminatory.  We have male members, too, but they mostly sit and laugh riotously at whatever we say :)

Anyway, tonight we were minus two of our regulars.  I sat down next to JJ and next stop, Thelma got on.  The conversation went along, and at one point JJ asked me what I was doing tomorrow.  I said tomorrow's the tournament.  She knew what that meant, but Thelma didn't, and when JJ explained that tomorrow I was going to be playing in a CHESS TOURNAMENT (and that's just how she said it, in ALL CAPS), Thelma was not only duly impressed, it seemed most everyone else on the now crowded bus was, too!  I mean, darlings, it was just one of those priceless moments when all eyes are on YOU in a GOOD way and you feel like a GENIUS!  Me and my 579 ELO!

Oh Goddess, it was priceless! 

When I modestly (ahem) declaimed that I was a very poor player who would have her butt whipped tomorrow by 10 year olds, advice started pouring in!  The lady standing next to my seat told me about a 9 hour event she'd played in, and thought she'd die but she did okay!  And the young dude sitting in front of us (who had been laughing at our conversation earlier, well, we are pretty funny broads, if I do say so myself, although he was trying hard not to show it, his shoulders were shaking; and when I declared to the bus in general that the New Middle Age was between 60 and 80, and after 80 I intended to be an Old Bitch, he just couldn't hold it in anymore) - he had some words of advice.  Good advice, actually, hmmm...

Thelma, who has never played a game of chess - gasp! - wanted a lesson then and there.  JJ, whose significant other sounds like a very competent and competitive chessplayer, who gets into staring-at-the-board-matches-for-long-stretches-of-time with one of his brothers, explained to Thelma and everyone else who was within shouting range (she's rather LOUD, if you know what I mean) with air drawings how some of the pieces move, and I filled in here and there with timely narrative. 

I had so many "good luck" and "you beat their little 'bleeps' off tomorrow" yelled to me as people exited the bus (JJ and I don't get off until near the end of the route) that I was getting hoarse shouting back at ya'll.  THANK YOU.  I doubt any of you read this blog - but here's to you, darlings, just in case :)

Thelma wants lessons.  How we can manage that on the bus...

Speaking of which, today I gave my very first chess lesson to a fellow employee, who wants to learn how to play so that she can teach her son, who is three and absolutely precious.  We had a very productive lunch hour lesson.  I explained and showed her the basic moves of each of the pieces, I explained the "j'doube" rule, I explained what "shah mat" (checkmate in English) actually means and where the original term came from, and gave her just a little bit of the ancient tradition of The Royal Game. For our second 30 minutes I "tested" her on what the pieces were and what their moves were (she did very well!), and showed her basic situations of how a king can harried by the other pieces. 

By Goddess, I think she's got it.  But you know what, it's so easy to teach someone who is eager to learn.  So I'm still feeling like a GENIUS. 

I am hoping that some of the Chess Magic that happened in my life today will carry-over to tomorrow, and give me a draw!  That's all I want, just ONE DRAW!

Then... and Now...

Today I've been working on the Family Tree project - it's never-ending!  Since I missed last year's self-imposed deadline to put a "book" together of the primary family lines for the family (paternal and maternal), I want to get it done this year.  That is, as done as it will be as of the time I print everything out and have it copied and bound!  I am constantly discovering new lines of inquiry into branches of the family, mostly not direct lines but fascinating in their own right, nonetheless!  Today, for instance, I discovered photographs of Andrew Forsyth, Jr. and some of his daughters.  Andrew Forsyth, Jr. was the oldest son of Andrew the Soldier, of whom I've previously written about here.  Andrew the Soldier's second son was Jerome Forsyth, my direct ancestor.  It was a daughter of Jerome, Mathilda Forsyth, who became by great-grandmother.  In looking at those old photographs of Andrew Forsyth, Jr.'s girls, I saw echoes of my own grandmother, Ida Belanger Newton (daughter of Mathilda Forsyth and Edward Belanger, Jr.)  Andrew, Jr.'s daughters and my great-grandmother were first cousins.

While looking at some other old photographs I've already posted to the family tree, I came across one of my sisters Yvonne, Darlene and me with Grandpa and Grandma Newton.  Judging by how young we look, I believe it was taken in either late December, 1959, or early January, 1960.

I was struck by how much I look in this old photo (enlarged and cropped from the original) like I do in a more recent photo:

Me in 1960

Me, early October, 2011.

Gee, I haven't changed very much, LOL! I guess I shouldn't be so amazed -- eyes, nose, mouth, and those cheeks --- still the same, oh my!  Even the hairstyles are similar, separated by 50 plus years! 

Sorry I haven't been posting much

It's been HECTIC around here, to say the least.  We're in a big push at the office to get everyone taxes filed on time and/or get extensions signed and filed!  There are, literally, thousands of returns our Trust Department pushes out every year, and while I am not a member of that Department we share Estate/Probate/Trust Admin work responsibilities and this time of year everyone helps out whenever one can.  I've been typing so much at the office my fingers are about to fall off and I just don't have much get up and go left when I get home the past few weeks.

Add to that - things have really been hopping with my other sideline (besides all the chess stuff) at ancestry.com where I have five (yes FIVE) separate family trees going, including my own, which is the biggest and baddest of 'em all, Yeah Baby!  I'll take ancestry back on pater's side of the family to 1550 anytime, thank you all very much :)  Hell, back in 1975 I thought it would be a great thing if I could actually prove true my dad's story about one of my Grandma Newton's ancestors who fought in the Civil War taking a bit of an unauthorized leave to come home - just for awhile.  The CIVIL WAR, I thought.  Holy Cow Goddess! 

Well, I have proved that story to be TRUE!  And I discovered many Forsyth relatives (a very interesting group, I must say) who had sons who also fought in the Civil War. that's a big thing this week because of the 150th anniversary of that horrible episode in American HIStory.  Women would have never acted so stupidly.  Well, that's what happens when we let macho men rule the world.  Slaughter, innocents killed all over the place, useless loss of life while the officers were far back from the battle lines directing things like on a video game (where the director of the action never feels any real pain or loss), all for "principle."  Yeah, right. 

I have not been able to prove true by testimony or written documentation another old family story that members of the local Indian Tribe (I think it was probably the Potowatomi) came up to the back porch of the Jerome Forsyth homestead in Bay Settlement, Brown County, Wisconsin every morning during season begging for jam and bread because they loved the sweetness of the jam!  This would have been during the middling 1800's. 

Anyway, just this past week (fewer than 7 days, actually), I've been contacted by three different individuals who either are or may be related distantly to people in my various trees - and - well, it's been hectic.  And frustrating, because I just don't have the time right now to devote to these inquiries as they deserve to be responded to.  I'm getting ready for vacation, people!

Of course, the five pounds I laboriously managed to lose over the prior two weeks of eating salads and counting every single gram of fat, I somehow managed to regain over the course of last Saturday and Sunday.  @%#A*@+%@#!  How do I say that in French? 

People, if you have not been watching "Who Do You Think You Are?" on NBC on Friday evening at 7:00 p.m. Central Standard Time, get with the program and tune it in!  Honestly, you're going to be sucked into the story lines of the celebrities who come on each week and trace a family member or two (or sometimes even three) backward through time. Watching that show may even get you itching to start digging around a bit in your own ancestry.  I encourage you to do so.  You will be amazed by the people you meet - who they were and what they did!  I know it sounds corny and if you watch the t.v. show (link above) you'll hear people say it over and over again - this has been a life-changing experience.  But you know what - it really has been! 

The Continuing Saga of the Search for Newton Ancestors

It was a few weeks ago that I discovered that the Wisconsin Historical Society has a great deal of information available online.  To make a long story short, I discovered that it had a death record for one of my ancestors, Andrew Forsyth, Jr., son of Andrew the Soldier Forsyth.

One of my family mysteries involves Andrew the Soldier Forsyth is his wife, Susan.  I have written before about their marriage.  Andrew the Soldier was born about 1795.  Susan was born about 1781.  That is quite a gap in their ages (14 to 15 years, depending upon when census records were taken).

Through connections I made with distant family members online, I received photocopies of some Forsyth family records, but nothing on Susan.  According to my contact, Susan's family name was AUGARNEL and she was born either in Belgium or the Netherlands in about 1781.

I could find no records online for anyone that might be Susan.  I couldn't even find any record of a family name AUGARNEL. 

I have searched under various spellings beginning with "A" and "O" and I have found - nothing.

Finally, a  few weeks ago, while digging around online records yet again, I turned up a record of the death of Andrew Forsyth, Jr., who died on August 7, 1902 in Preble, Brown County, Wisconsin.  He died on one of the family farms that was created out of land originally purchased by Andrew the Soldier (his father) way back in 1837. 

That death record was abstracted - an image of the actual record was not available.  It stated that Andrew, Jr.'s father was "Andrew Forsyth" born in England and his mother was "Susan Orugwhiel" born in Belgium.  However, I discovered I could order a copy of this record from the Wisconsin Historical Society for $15.00.  I gulped, and did so, via secure network and paid for the record with a credit card.  I could spend a fortune ordering records online and generally, I have avoided doing so.  But this record - I wanted to see.  My thought was - what if someone misread Susan's surname? What if it contains the vital clue I NEED in order to find out more about her and her antecedents?  After ordering ensued the waiting period for the record to arrive...

As far as I know, Andrew Forsyth, Sr. (whom I call Andrew the Soldier) was born in Granard, Granard Parish, County Longford, Ireland, in about 1795. Although I have not been able to find a church record of his birth or the names of his parents, from other military records I have found and that were sent to me by my online contacts, including Julie Neal, I am certain that Granard, Granard Parish, Longford, Ireland, was the location of this particular family Forsyth.  Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any Forsyths living in Granard Town or Longford Town, or County Longford, Ireland from available online records, which date to about 1835, some 22 years after the last record I have of the brothers Forsyth, who enlisted (all three of them) in the 37th Regiment of Foot at Monmouth, Hants County, on 30 November 1813.

I have discovered online that unfortunately, many records have been lost or destroyed by fires over the years.  It is also possible that this family Forsyth were killed in the Irish famine of 1816, or they may have been wiped out in one of the many cholera epidemics that swept through Ireland again and again during the ensuing years.  Indeed, it is probably remarkable that my three Forsyth brothers:  Andrew (born about 1795), James (born about 1790), and John (born about 1788), survived and thrived in the New World. 

Back to Andrew the Soldier's wife, Susan. On Andrew, Jr.'s death record, she is listed as Susan ORUGWHIEL.

AHA! I said.  But I couldn't find any family names online remotely similar to this name, either.  So - another dead end.  At last, the photocopy of Andrew Forsyth, Jr.'s death record arrived.  Alas, it recorded in very clear handwriting that his mother, Susan's, last name was ORUGWHIEL.  Damn!  Another dead end.

Other than U.S. census records which list Susan as "Susan Forsyth," I have no records on hand or online that actually mention Susan except a birth record from Montreal, Quebec of her and Andrew the Soldier's son, Andrew, Jr.  Thanks to the records at ancestry.com, I have a photocopy of a microfiche entry in a church record from Andrew, Jr.'s baptism.  "Susan, wife of Andrew Forsyth" is listed as the mother, her maiden name is not provided.  This was an Anglican church record, not a French church record, which would have listed the mother's maiden name.  Drat! 

Do AUGARNEL and ORUGWHIEL sound alike? If Susan was, indeed, born in Belgium, my guess is that she was of French ancestry, and in a French accent spoken by Susan and with people not familiar with the language, they may have spelled Susan's surname out phonetically. That's the problem, of course.  If Susan's name sounded something like Augarnel or Orugwhiel, it could be almost anything.  I was searching under as many different variants as I could think up and wrote down (I've got name lists all over my kitchen table and in my notebooks, LOL!).  My best guess at this time is that Susan's surname sounded something like Aug-well or Org-well, or possibly Aug-wheel or Org-wheel. 

This is hopeless task at this point.  To demonstrate the difficulties of surname spellings and how they changed, I discovered another ancestor's wife, also born in Belgium:  Maria Fredricka Susan Ouise - as best I have reconstgructed her actual name. She was born in Belgium in about August, 1863, and married Benjamin Pierce Forsyth, who was the youngest son of Andrew Forsyth, Jr. and his wife, Annie McGinnis. The couple were married in 1881.

Maria Fredricka Susan Ouise was listed on census records after her marriage to Benjamin Pierce Forsyth as "Mary F" (1900), "Mary" (1910), "T Mary" (1920),  and "Mary" (1930).  It was thanks to birth records of her children that I found at familysearch.org that I learned she was variously listed as:

Maria Frederick, born Belgium -- on birth record of daughter Esther L. Forsyth, born 18 Nov 1894 in Scott, Brown County, Wisconsin

Maria Wise, born Belgium -- on birth record of daughter Esther L. Forsyth, born 18 Nov 1894 in Preble, Brown County, Wisconsin (yes, a second birth record for Esther L. Forsyth)

Maria Onise [Ouise?], born USA -- on birth record of female child Forsythi, born 04 Jul 1891 Bay Settlement, Brown County, Wisconsin

Susan Wise, born USA -- on birth record of son Chester W. Forsythe, born 05 Mar 1889 Bay Settlement, Brown County, Wisconsin.

I also found her on various family trees and other records listed as Wyse, Wise, Weiss.  Not as Ouise, which is my best guess at an original surname spelling from Belgium.

So, you see the problems one encounters when trying to decipher family relationships, kinship and surnames from the past!

Another note of mystery from the family line.  This is from Benjamin Pierce Forsyth's line - this line would be cousins to my family line.  At one point, Benjamine Pierce Forsyth and his wife, Susan Ouise (Wise/Wyse/Weiss) lived in South Dakota.  On the 1900 U.S. Census, when they were living in South Dakota, they listed Chester and Martha as children, which I have confirmed through other records.  In addition was listed as a daughter Ellen I. Forsyth, born March 1887 in South Dakota.

From a family tree of a relative, I found Ellen I Forsyth listed as Helen R. Forsyth.

Further digging produced the following information:

Hellen Ida Forsyth, born 7 Mar 1888 in Charles Mix County, South Dakota.
Father: Andrew Hanson Forsyth
Mother: Isabelle Paulson

I do not know what the relationship is between Andrew Hanson Forsyth and Benjamin Pierce Forsyth, but given the surnames, I assume they are somehow related.  I also assume that since Hellen Ida ended up in the household of Benjamin Pierce Forsyth and Susan Ouise/Wyse/Wise/Weiss, that her parents (Andrew Hanson Forsyth and Isabelle Paulson) died.  But - back then, who knows?

I can also tell you that I found records showing that one Helen Ida Forsythe born in Dakota gave birth to a son, Edwarfd Puyleart, on 06 Jun 1903, in Preble, Brown County, Wisconsin.  She was married to Victor Puyleart, born in Belgium.  The marriage records indicates that the couple were married on 25 Nov 1902 in Brown County, Wisconin, and the groom's father was Frank Puylaert, his mother was Mina Spanhoven, and the bride's father was Benjamin Forsyth and her mother was Mary Weiss.

So it goes.  I continue the search...

Obsessed with Andrew Forsyth!

An ancestor - drat!  Can't get the dude out of my head.  The back-story -- I want to KNOW what the frigging back story is.  WHY did he marry a woman almost 15 years older than he was, when he was 21, in 1816, somewhere in Belgium, after the end of the Napoleonic Wars? Susan was 36 at the time of their marriage. That's a big difference, even today.  Older men marrying younger women, yes, still the norm, but younger men marrying older women - except for Ashton Kutchner and Demi Moore - not common at all!

What was Susan's story?  Why would she marry a man who was young enough to be her son? Was she a widow?  Was she a camp follower who tricked a much younger man into marriage?  Did she nurse him through a wound and out of a sense of obligation he married her?  Was she a wife or spinster sister of a friend or a fallen comrade whom he promised to look after on a dying oath? 

After further examining accessible records at ancestry.com this evening, I was able to discern from the birth record of Andrew's and Susan's first-born child, born in Montreal and baptised at the Anglican Garrison Church in the autumn of 1818, that he was a "Col- something --"  I know I wrote about this before.  Tonight I looked closely at that hand-written birth/baptismal record and saw that Col-something--- was attached to the 37th Regiment, which further research tells me was the North Hampshire (England) Regiment of Foot Soldiers. 

The "Col- something--" looks like the letters L o y 't.  What could that possibly be?  What is a Col-Loy't? [Added on April 8, 2011: Andrew was actually a "color sargeant" - he bore the colors - flag - of the regiment.  This task was often assigned to young boys! Later, in the United States, Andrew enlisted his two sons, Andrew, Jr. and Jerome, in the United States Calvary when Andrew, Jr. was about 13 and Jerome was about 10!]

Ancestry.com's records include U.S. Army enlistment rolls dating back a lot ways.  As far as I can tell, "my" Andrew Forsyth first enlisted with the U.S. Army on May 27, 1830 in New York (city) when he was 34 years old.  He was 5'7" tall, blue eyes, brown hair, light complexion.  He was born in Longford County, Ireland in 1795. 

Andrew the Soldier subsequently re-enlisted with the U.S. Army on the following dates:

• Age 39, May 21, 1835, at Fort Howard
• Age 43, October 9, 1838, at Fort Howard
• Age 48, August 9, 1843, at Detroit

I know that his first-born son, Andrew, was born in Montreal in September, 1818.  I didn't write down the exact date in my notes but I saved the record to the family tree at Ancestry. com.  Too tired to dig it out and look again tonight.  Andrew the son was born in September, 1818 and baptized the next month by an Anglican Chaplain for the Regiment. 

I found two U.S. Military Pension records for Andrew the Soldier.  He received a pension of $8.00 a month for his military service.  I do not know if he received a pension for his service in the British Military.  On the first pension record I found, it appears that his pension started on July 5, 1847, and his rank was listed as something like "Quar M--- Loyt."

On the second pension record I found, his pension continued until his death on June 2, 1861, and his pension was "pd in full 4 qr 1861" which I take to mean that his family/beneficiaries received the balance of his pension payments for the year, as Susan, his wife, had died in 1860 according to other family histories I have found (but no official death record).  In that pension record, Andrew the Soldier's rank was listed as something like "Qr Mrs Sargi."

Quarter Master Sargeant? 

I've no idea.  I know less than nothing about military ranks in either the British Army or the U.S. Army of the periods involved (1795-1861). 

I found some information about the 37th Regiment North Hampshire Foot Soldiers.  It appears they left from Pouliac, France (not certain that Pouliac was/is located in France) sometime in 1814 for Canada.  But Andrew the Soldier could NOT have been with them then, since he married Susan Augarnel in Belgium in 1816.  The next time I find Andrew is in September, 1818 in Montreal where he is listed with the 37th Regiment as "Col-Loy't???"  So - what happened?  If Andrew the Soldier was part of the 37th Regiment, why did he not ship out with his Regiment from Pouliac in 1814?  Was he wounded and left behind?  Or was he initially attached to another Regiment and then transferred to the 37th after his marriage?

Another mystery - who gave Andrew permission to marry while he was in the British Army?  I haven't done a lot of research on this, but I did find information that stated that a soldier needed permission from the head of his command in order to marry, and that was not very often given back in the day!  Out of several hundred men, perhaps to 5 or 6 a year.  What does this mean in Andrew's case?  Was he a favored soldier for some reason, to earn such coveted permission to marry? 

Another mystery - after the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain started decommissioning their armed forces and entered into a Great Recession on the home turf, which led to all sorts of problems and even popular uprisings of starving, unemployed former soldiers.  No doubt in hopes of forestalling more unemployable soldiers returning home to Ireland and England from Canada as the Regiments there were disbanded, the Canadian authorities offered the troops and officers free land in western Quebec and in Ontario, with certain conditions.  Did Andrew the Soldier take the government up on its offer, try it out, and decided it wasn't for him?

I do not know.  There is a gap between the birth of Andrew the Soldier's and Susan's son's birth in Montreal in 1818 and Andrew Soldier's enlistment in the U.S. Army in 1830 in New York.

Help!  And way past my bed-time.  Enough for tonight!