Once upon a time in America (rhymeswithplague chapter)

[Editor's note. A no-longer-active blogger, David Barlow a.k.a. Putz out in Utah, would be very complimentary regarding the family research that went into the creation of this post. Putz, if you are still around, I salute you even as you, I trust, are undoubtedly somewhere saluting me. I would say "It was nothing" but that would be untrue. A great deal of time and effort went into the creation of this post. --RWP]

Solomon Aarons, whose grave in Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in Philadelphia you see above, was my great-grandfather. He was born on August 11, 1847, in Spitalfields, Middlesex, England, the fourth child of five in the family of Noah Aarons (born about 1811) and his wife Mary (born about 1815). At the time of the 1851 British census Noah and Mary Aarons lived in Whitechapel, Middlesex, England with their children Nathaniel (born about 1836), Catherine and Rachel (possibly twins, born about 1846), Solomon (my great-grandfather), and Joseph (born in 1850).

I do not know when or how or why, but at some point before the U.S. Civil War, Solomon Aarons emigrated to the United Sttes as a child or young teenager (whether with or without his family I also do not know). As a young teenager he served as either a bugler or a drummer boy -- I'm not sure which -- in one of the Philadelphia (Irish) Brigades during the war even though he was Jewish, not Irish. He was 17 when the war ended. He married Rachael DeWolf after the war, had a large family, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 12, 1902. He was my mother's mother's father and he died eight years before my mother was born. His widow, Rachael DeWolf Aarons, lived until 1932, two years after my mother received a teaching certificate from West Chester State Teachers College.

Solomon and Rachael Aarons had a large family, nine children in all. There were Noah (born 1867), DeWolf (born about 1870), Mary (born July 1872), Sophia (born August 1873), Nathaniel (born November 1875), Rosetta (born October 16, 1878), Joseph (born November 1881), Elizabeth (born January 1883), and Augustus (born April 1886).

Noah Aarons married Bella and they had a daughter, Rae Aarons, who was born in October 1890. I remember hearing my mother and her sister speak of their Uncle Noah, who lived to be a very old man.

DeWolf Aarons was given his mother's maiden name. I know nothing else about him.

Mary Aarons, known in the family as Aunt Mamie, married a Mr. Beck and had one son, Solomon (born about 1892). When my mother and I visited Pennsylvania in the summer of 1955, I met Sol Beck and his wife Myrtle in their sixties when they drove up to Philadelphia from Baltimore, Maryland, to visit family (my grandfather, 80 at the time, was Sol's Uncle Nat). Sol and Myrtle Beck had no children.

Sophia Aarons, known in the family as Aunt Sophie, married Julius Peiser in 1899 and they had two daughters, Esther (born about 1901) and Rae (born June 20, 1909). Esther Peiser never married, but Rae Peiser married Amos Scotese and they had a son named Robert (born about 1938). Rae was my mother's favorite first cousin as they were about the same age. I met her on that same trip. Rae died in May 1994.

Nathaniel Aarons was born in November 1875. I know nothing else about him.

Rosetta Aarons was born October 16, 1878. She married Nathan Silberman in 1897 and had four children - Marion (born January 29, 1899), Solomon (born 1903), Jacob (born January 13, 1907) who was known in the family as Jack, and Ruth Elizabeth (born April 10, 1910), who was my mother. Rosetta, my maternal grandmother, died December 8, 1937.

Joseph Aarons was born in November 1881. I know nothing else about him.

Elizabeth Aarons, known in the family as Aunt Bessie, was my mother's favorite aunt. Bessie was born in January 1883 and married Joseph Singer in 1905. Their honeymoon was a trip by ship to China, where they bought pieces of furniture for their home. I saw some of that furniture when I met Joe Singer, a widower and a Philadelphia lawyer, on that same trip to Pennsylvania in 1955.

Augustus Aarons, known in the family as Uncle Gus, was born in January 1886. I know nothing else about him either.

On that trip to Pennsylvania with my mother in 1955, I met all of my maternal cousins. We were five in all. Aunt Marion's son was Philip Caracena, six years older than me. Uncle Jack’s son was Jack, Jr., a year older than Philip. Uncle Sol's two daughters were Eileen and Joan. Joan was the oldest cousin and Eileen was the same age as Philip. I was the youngest of the group.

My cousin Philip married Virginia Burquest of Sarasota, Florida, and had three children — two boys and a girl — Chris, Kurt, and Elise. My cousin Jack married Sylvia Funghi of Hershey, Pennsylvania, and had three daughters - the twins, Lisa and Anne, and their younger sister, Linda. Both marriages ended in divorce. Philip was married at least two more times and died at 81 in Edmond, Oklahoma, a couple of years ago. Jack died a couple of decades ago in New Port Richey, Florida. My cousin Joan married Herman Rush and moved to California, where they still live, 88 and 89 respectively, in Ventura County. Their children were James and Mandie. My cousin Eileen married Bud Stone and moved, I think, to Connecticut. After 1955, I saw Philip one more time, in 1958, when he was engaged to Virginia, and I saw Jack one more time, when he came through Texas on a post-college-graduation trip around the U.S. with a friend, but I never saw Joan or Eileen ever again.

Chris Caracena lives in Atlanta. Kurt lives in Colorado Springs. Elise is divorced and lives with her son in Tampa, Florida. Lisa Silberman lives in Seattle. Anne lives in New Mexico. Linda travels a lot and most recently has spent time in New York, Spain, and England. Mandie Rush lives in California.

We are a far-flung family. I have no contact with any of my maternal relatives except for an occasional comment on Facebook from Kurt or Lisa, two of my first cousins once removed.

Good gravy, Marie (as panelist Brett Somers on the old television show Match Game used to say), I didn't tell you anything at all about my mother's father's line (Silberman) or my bio-dad's (Minor) or my non-bio dad's (Brague).

Pick one:
A. Shame on me.
B. Thank God for small favors (British, favours).

He ain't heavy, he's my third cousin eleven times removed

My blogger friend Snowbrush out in Oregon published a very interesting post recently about the result of some of his genealogical research. He mentioned that he includes only direct ancestors in his family tree, and that there are 512 people in it. By my math, if he doesn't include the extended families of his direct ancestors he must know every direct ancestor for nine generations back (2 to the ninth power is 512).

Unlike Snowbrush, I include everybody I can find, not just direct ancestors. Not only do I have siblings of direct ancestors, I have spouses, step-relatives, in-laws, relatives of in-laws and step-relatives who are not really my relatives, lots of people you might not expect. I don't copy from other genealogies except when I receive very reliable information from sources that I trust. I have 3669 people in my file (which I thought was a lot until I learned that Jane C., a woman in our former church, has more than 8000 people in her file), but only about two dozen are direct ancestors and descendants:

• I have 3 children and 6 grandchildren. That's 9 right there.
• On my mother's side I know her of course, plus both grandparents, all four great-grandparents, and two of my eight great-great-grandparents. That is 9 more.
• On my non-bio-dad's side (I don't really know if he adopted me officially, but his name appears on a birth certificate issued when I was six, the only birth certificate I have ever had, even though he didn't meet my mother until I was 5), I know him, his parents (I suppose they are my pseudo-grandparents), and all four great-grandparents. That's 7 more, but I also suppose they don't count at all. It is on this non-bio Brague side, thanks to a treasure trove of information that a distant relative sent me, that I am supposed to be President Grover Cleveland's third cousin, 11 times removed, through Dad's maternal grandmother, Bloomy Jane Cleveland. But it is a fiction since my dad is "non-bio".
• On the bio-dad front, the one that really counts in genealogy (but in no other way), I know his name, both grandparents, two of the four great-grandparents, and even two of the eight great-great-grandparents.. That's 7 more.

So out of the 3669 names, there are 9 direct descendants and 16 direct ancestors. All the rest of the 3669 stem from the fact that one of my grandmothers was the sixth of nine children and the other one (but she was the non-bio one) was the eighth of ten children, and my stepmother (again, a non-bio person) was second oldest of ten children. I have included their extended families in my tree since we are, after all, somehow related. It may not be, how you say, kosher, but the names have to be somewhere so I included them in my family tree.

The moral of this post is: (vote for as many as apply)

A. RWP is a liar, a cheat, and a charlatan of the worst kind.
B. RWP tries to be thorough.
C. RWP is an extremely needy person.
D. RWP is kidding himself.
E. RWP is pathetic.
E. RWP is a brilliant researcher with an unusual background.
G. RWP is to be pitied.
H. RWP is a pilgrim in search of a city.
I. RWP is _________ (fill in the blank yourself).

I close this post with an assignment for you. Watch and listen to Sister Sledge sing 'We Are Family' (3:26) from 1979 and then try to get that earworm of a chorus out of your head.

Rant

Find-A-Grave is not reliable.

There, I said it and I'm glad.

I am the amateur genealogist in our family. My Family Tree Maker file has nearly 3,500 names in it what with all the aunts and uncles and in-laws and offspring and second cousins three times removed and all. I admit it. I do enjoy learning about relatives and even relatives of relatives. It's like a sickness, an itch that can't be scratched.

So I dig through online census pages and as many free things as I can find. I'm often tempted to break down and spend actual money to be able to look at old newspaper obituaries and ship passenger manifests and other stuff of which I am not even aware, but so far I have resisted the urge. I am nothing if not thrifty. Frugal. Okay, cheap.

In the meantime, it's an engaging hobby, but I have found that the site Find-A-Grave has bad information mixed in with the good and it's impossible to tell which is which unless you already know the truth.

Case in point: There's some accurate information about my stepmother, Mildred Louise Williams Houston Brague Fuller, such as her date and place of birth, date of death, and place of burial, and even a photograph of her headstone, but then it goes off the rails with erroneous information about her parents. Find-A-Grave says Mildred's parents were Charles Erasmus Williams and Maud Lee Gamewell, and that is just plain wrong, Wrong, WRONG. I knew her father, Russell Sterling Williams, Sr., personally and his second wife, Virginia, whom he married after his first wife, Pearl Cannon, died. I happen to know for a fact that the mother of Russ's 11 children was Pearl Cannon. Russ and Pearl's offspring were Cleo and Mildred and John and Margaret and Kenneth (who died in infancy) and Russ, Jr., and Marvin and Billy and Faye and Freddie and Sue. I knew all of them except Kenneth. How can Find-A-Grave be so right at times and then so wrong at other times? And what is even more important, how can researchers trust what they find if they also find information they know is not true?

Furthermore, while it is apparently very easy to enter erroneous information into Find-A-Grave, it is very difficult to get it corrected. I stay exasperated.

Another case in point: I found information about my biological father, who is buried at a certain cemetery in New Jersey. Find-A-Grave's page has his written information correct, but the photograph of his supposed grave is not his at all; it is actually another person with the same first and last name but a different middle initial, with different birth and death dates, and who -- if you do a little digging (no pun intended) -- is buried in a different cemetery in a different town.

My stepmother Mildred is probably unique in that all three of her three husbands are buried around her. Find-A-Grave, however, lists a fourth husband out of the blue that none of us have ever heard of, an obvious mistake.

I wish people who think they are helping would do a little more research and verify their information before they publish it for the world to see.

And I hesitate to pay money to access information when the free information cannot be trusted to be accurate.

Would you?

One little, two little, three little Indians....

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA, which means Democrat from Massachusetts), whose picture I am not going to show -- you can look it up for yourself -- finally underwent DNA testing to prove once and for all that she is of Native American heritage. She said she was Native American on an application to be a professor at the Harvard Law School a couple of decades ago, and Harvard, eager to comply with the desire of the U.S. Federal Government that there be minorities on their faculty, hired her. It may not have happened in just that way or for just those reasons, but that is how it looked from 50,000 feet to the casual observer in the general populace.

This week the Boston Globe reported the results of Senator Warren's DNA testing, then issued a correction, then issued another correction. It first said that Senator Elizabeth Warren was between 1/32nd and 1/64th Native American, then said she was between 1/32nd and 1/1024th Native American, then said she was between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American.

As the parole board told Nicholas Cage in Raising Arizona, "Well, okay then."

This is very confusing to the casual observer, and even to the observer who is not so casual.

Senator Warren now feels exonerated and is demanding that President Trump pay up on his offer to donate a million dollars to a charity of her choice if she is Native American. He denies making such an offer, but even if he did, wouldn't it be fairer if he donated 1/1024th of a million dollars ($974.56) instead?

Here's an interesting footnote. An expert (some people say an expert is anyone more than 50 miles from home carrying a briefcase; others break the word down into its component parts, saying "ex" is a has-been and "spurt" is a drip under pressure) has determined that Senator Warren is 0.09% Native American, slightly less than one-tenth of one percent. He also says that the average European-American is 0.18% Native American, or slightly less than two-tenths of one percent. Here's another interesting footnote. Leaders of the Cherokee Nation, whose politics I am not aware of, said yesterday that the amount of Native American blood Senator Warren has does not qualify her for membership in their tribe.

That is all backdrop and prelude to the real subject of this post, which is:

Genealogy is fascinating, but it also can be very confusing.

For example, what does all that stuff mean, 1/32nd, 1/64th, 1/1024th, and how do they know, and where do they come up with those strange numbers?

I will tell you.

It's really simple.

It all has to do with the fact that everyone has two parents, a father and a mother. You would not be here if you didn't have two parents. I could go into more detail and speak at length of XX and XY chromosomes, but I will not. The very astute among you may also note that you have (or had) four grandparents because your father had two parents and your mother had two parents.

It has to do with powers of 2. Yes, math. Sorry.

If you think of your parents as being one generation back from you (because they are), and your grandparents as being two generations back from you (because they are), and your great-grandparents as being three generations back from you (because they are) -- you can carry this on as far back as you can find names and data -- you can determine the number of direct ancestors you have in each generation by thinking of the powers of 2. That is:

2¹ = 2, 2² = 4, 2³ = 8, 2⁴ = 16, and so on. If math makes your eyes cross and your head hurt, I'll put it into words. Two squared (2 x 2) is four, two cubed (2 x 2 x 2) is eight, two to the fourth power (2 x 2 x 2 x 2) is 16, and so on. Let's fill out that table a little more fully:

2¹ = 2
2² = 4
2³ = 8
2⁴ = 16
2⁵ = 32
2⁶ = 64
2⁷ = 128
2⁸ = 256
2⁹ = 512
2¹⁰ = 1024

and so on and so forth. If your eyes are glazing over, hang in there just a little longer. It will be over soon.

Simply substitute the phrase "In the xth generation before me, I have y direct ancestors" where x is the ordinal number instead of the cardinal number of the power of 2 and y is the number after the equal sign. That is:

In the first generation before me, I have 2 direct ancestors (my parents).
In the second generation before me, I have 4 direct ancestors (my grandparents).
In the third generation before me, I have 8 direct ancestors (my great-grandparents).
In the fourth generation before me, I have 16 direct ancestors (my great-great-grandparents).
In the fifth generation before me, I have 32 direct ancestors.
In the sixth generation before me, I have 64 direct ancestors.
In the seventh generation before me, I have 128 direct ancestors.
In the eighth generation before me, I have 256 direct ancestors.
In the ninth generation before me, I have 512 direct ancestors.
In the tenth generation before me, I have 1,024 direct ancestors.

I have used American-style nomenclature here. It is my understanding that in the U.K. what we call great-grandparents are called grand grandparents, and the greats are one off after that. Continental differences cannot be helped in this post.

So if one, count 'em, one of Elizabeth Warren's 1,024 ancestors in the tenth generation before her was a Native American, she is claiming to be Native American for purposes of Harvard Law School being able to report to the U.S. Federal Government that their faculty included a minority.

I think the Boston Globe waffled in order for Senator Warren to save face, for she had always said that either her 3rd or 4th great-grandmother was Native American. If that were so, she would be 1/32nd or 1/64th Native American, the numbers used in the Boston Globe's original story. To be 1/1024th Native American, the ancestor would be her 8th great-grandmother, several generations earlier.

The total number of direct ancestors you have to the tenth generation before you is cumulative: 2+4+8+16+32+64+128+256+512+1024 and that's a lot of direct ancestors.

Maybe next time we'll explore Fibonacci numbers and the "golden spiral". Then again, maybe we won't.