genealogy Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Not editing a book

time is not fungible

I’m not editing a book.

A few months ago, a friend asked me if I would edit a book written by the adult child of a famous deceased person. The parent is a name that at least some of you would instantly recognize.

I said yes. This was probably a mistake because I had not read the book before I agreed to edit it. The writer was also peculiar in that they were very concerned about the possibility that I or somebody else might exploit them based on their parent’s name. It was a weird interaction.

As I started editing the book, I had far less time to work on it than I anticipated. In the summer of 2023, my wife worked almost the entire summer; I think she took off perhaps a week or so. My daughter also worked several hours a week at a clothing store.

Different this time

In the summer of ’24, my wife took off for eight weeks, which was good and proper. But we had lots of projects to do in the house that needed to happen because of some insurance issue that is more in the weeds than I need to get into here. My daughter was working fewer hours than she hoped at the new store she was working at. Moreover, we went on vacation, a week at Chautauqua and a week in DC.

So, the time I thought I had available to work on this project did not exist. Still, it became very difficult for me because I was fussy enough to want to fulfill the obligations.

After talking to a couple of people, I contacted the person who asked me to edit the book, and they said OK, we don’t want you to go crazy. Then I had to talk to the author. I sent them an e-mail, which they obviously didn’t see. So I texted – one does not just call – and they wrote back: “Book seems like a curse. No one finished it. Crazy.” Did I mention I was not the first to take on the book? The notes from a previous editor were still in my version.

Reboot

But this episode got me thinking about the other things I’m doing in my life, the things that are working for me, what I really want to do, and what I don’t.

I want to work on genealogy, which I have not spent enough time on. My sister Leslie had talked to both our third cousin on our mother’s side and my father’s first cousin and did a lot of work when she was in Binghamton in July, filling in some holes in our genealogy. The problem is that I haven’t even had time to enter some of the records that I have or the 1000 cues that ancestry.com has provided me.

I want to sing in the church choir. Our choir will sing the Bach Magnificat on Friday, December 6th, at 6:00 PM at First Presbyterian Church in Albany. You should come.

My wife and I are going to see plays and movies.

So, other things have to go off the table. I’ll just have to, in the words of Nancy Reagan, just say no. It won’t be easy at times, but my sanity requires it.

Dad’s cousin Ruth

tracking Walkers

Here’s my dad’s cousin Ruth (R) with two of her children. My sister Leslie and I saw her in October 2022 at the church we all grew up in, Trinity AME Zion in Binghamton, NY. She pointed out a room that used to be a Sunday school classroom where my paternal grandmother Agatha Green used to teach Sunday school to me and a bunch of other kids. It is now a room of noted members of the Trinity family, and she asked us for large photos of our parents for the wall, which we still need to get for her.

The most recent time I saw her was in August 2024, in Horseheads, NY, at the Elmira Jazz Festival. She and her two daughters went to see my niece Leslie’s daughter Rebecca Jade in concert.

She told the story, which I had heard before, about how, after I was born, my father was at her house. He was furiously scribbling on a piece of paper, but she had no idea what the heck he was doing. He was trying to figure out my name, and he wanted to get it to spell out something with my initials and name. Hence, ROG = Roger Owen Green. So she witnessed my naming.

Walker clan

In July 2024, sister Leslie was in Binghamton for her high school reunion. She went to see Cousin Ruth. Ruth gave her a whole bunch of information about the genealogy of the Walker clan. Ruth’s father was Earl; Earl was my paternal grandmother’s brother, so Ruth was my father’s first cousin. She was over a dozen years younger than him, so she didn’t know all the early stories about my father, but she knew him like a big brother.

She has kept track of the Walker genealogy, knowing all of Earl and Agatha’s siblings’ birth/death dates and those of some of their descendants. This will be very useful once I get a chance to work on it. She is my oldest living relative, so I’ve known her even longer than I’ve known Leslie.

I want to thank Ruth for the opportunity to delve into my father’s history. Had he been alive, my father would have been 98 tomorrow. He died in 2000, yet he remains a mystery in various strange and subtle ways.

Green beer and other traditions

Long Black Veil

Even though I don’t drink green beer, or indeed ANY beer, I find it necessary to note St. Patrick’s Day. As I’ve mentioned, I’m at least a quarter Irish. As Ancestry refines its processes, I become MORE Irish, 28%, in fact, as opposed to 19% Nigerian.

This means, of course, that my mother’s father’s mother, Margaret Collins Williams (1865-1931), and her still unidentified parents, even if they were wholly Irish, are not my only ancestors from the Emerald Isle. I must have OTHER ancestors to find, including on my father’s side. Parent 1 is my mom, and Parent 2 is my dad.

The Census Bureau is always useful in noting holidays, and this one is no exception. “Originally a religious holiday to honor St. Patrick, who introduced Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century, St. Patrick’s Day has evolved into a celebration of all things Irish.”

Six years ago, I noted a group called The Burns Sisters out of Ithaca, NY. I was fascinated by them because their late father, John, was the mayor of Binghamton when I was growing up. He and his wife had twelve kids. Here are Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral and Prayer Of St. Francis.

Chieftains

I was very fond of the group The Chieftains. Kelly wrote about them a few times, including this farewell to Paddy Moloney. He links to other videos as well.

But I decided to get really lazy and found something called Best of The Chieftains 2017, which has a YouTube chain of several videos. It includes most of the tracks from a 1995 album called Long Black Veil, which I love, and several from Irish Heartbeat, an album with Van Morrison that someone used to play in my office back in the day. And there are a bunch of other songs. Did I mention that there were 250 videos?

Finally, I found this loud, raucous cut called Irish Blessing by a group called JOETOWN.

Professional Irishman

Malachy McCourt, “who fled a melancholic childhood in Ireland for America, where he applied his blarney and brogue to become something of a professional Irishman as a thespian, a barkeep and a best-selling memoirist, died… in Manhattan. He was 92…

“In 1952, when he was 20, the Brooklyn-born Mr. McCourt reunited with New York.

“He embarked from Ireland with a ticket paid for with $200 in savings sent by his older brother, Frank McCourt, who had emigrated earlier and was working as a public school English teacher.”

Lydster: the grown-up stuff

American Community Survey

My daughter is experiencing the grown-up stuff.

About a week after returning to college, she received in the mail at home what I assumed was a jury summons. After texting her for permission – something I needed to do with my now-adult progeny – I discovered I was correct.

I called the number on the form and spoke to the very understanding representative on the other end, explaining my daughter was currently in another state. “No problem.” They’ll contact her again in mid-May.

She was chagrined; she was looking forward to working that summer. (That $40 per day is not very robust.) Of course, she may not be called beyond one day. Incidentally, I haven’t been called for jury duty since 2014, when I wasn’t chosen.

Census

Then, in early October, she got a notification that she was supposed to contact the campus about a letter she got from the US Census. She wondered if it was legit. I asked her if it was about the American Community Survey, and it was.

The ACS “helps local officials, community leaders, and businesses understand the changes taking place in their communities. It is the premier source for detailed population and housing information about our nation.”

The ACS is the source of much of the more granular data the Census releases. Unless one is a Census nerd like I am, people don’t know about it because only a random sampling of people receives it each month.

The letter from the college was delivered to my daughter’s room, directing her to contact a person with Census. I verified that this person worked for the Bureau because that’s what fathers and librarians do.

Tidy

When we visited our daughter at college in October, her mother and I marveled at the great organization she had implemented in her tiny room. Everything is in its place. At home, her bedroom is… a work in progress.

On her wall at college is this banner. She painted the flags on the cloth, representing her DNA from Ireland, Nigeria, England, Cameroon, Scotland, Benin, et al. The blue flag I did not recognize is a banner for the Bantu people.

I may never leave town again

US Mail (not US male)

I seem to be involved in a lot of stuff for a retired guy. I may never leave town again. The period following my trip to Las Vegas was hectic.

Fri, Sept 29: I had my annual physical., which my wife took me to. My physician’s office has moved thrice in the past few years because St. Peter’s Health Services/Trinity Health has bounced her around to Delmar, then to Slingerland, and now to Rensselaer (all in the metro but in different directions). The last move would take me an hour to get to and well over an hour to get back by bus, which is how I had gotten to her previous locations.

Taking a term created by another patient, my doctor declared me welderly, a portmanteau of well and elderly.

My wife had booked a trip to a Wyndham timeshare property in western Massachusetts well before I planned my Las Vegas sojourn. I went with her largely because I wouldn’t otherwise see her.

Sat, Sept 30: In the morning, we returned to Albany to attend the funeral of Dwight Smith, and I sang in the choir. I learn so much at a funeral, even about people I’ve known for years. Then, my wife returned to Massachusetts with a friend to see a play the next day.

Trivia!

Sun, Oct 1: I went to church. When I got home, I waded through too many emails.

Then, I went to Fort Orange Brewing for a trivia contest, a benefit for Empower Ethiopia. We started slowly, but we were in the upper half of the teams by the second round, and in second place, only two points behind the leaders, after the sixth and penultimate round.

The category of the final question was US Mail. In what decade did the price of a first-class stamp reach double digits, i.e., ten cents or more? I distinctly remember a four-cent purple Lincoln stamp when I was nine or ten, so the 1970s seemed reasonable. (It was March 2, 1974. ) The team in first place bet nothing but said the 1960s. We bet 213 of our 220 points, making sure we’d beat the third-place team if they got it right, and they had bet it all, assuming we were also correct. Janna, Annika, Chuck, and I won. Fist pump!

One thing to another

Mon, Oct 2: I went to Labcorp for fasting bloodwork at 10:30 a.m., the earliest slot I could get.

At 2 p.m., I recorded a five-minute video for the upcoming conference of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (NYG&BS) about my great-great-grandfather, James Archer. I hope they use it.

Finally, at 4 p.m., I went to Capital Rep to the Wizard’s Wardrobe Reader’s Theater with my wife. I helped greet the readers and escort them to the “green room,” as it were. At the risk of sounding boastful, I’m pretty good at that.

That evening, the power went off for about five minutes, then three minutes, and finally well over an hour, so I went to bed.

Tues, Oct 3: Finally, the restart of my church’s Tuesday Bible Guys on ZOOM.

Then I had to figure out an introduction of Marina Antropow Cramer, who was doing an author talk at the Albany Public Library about her historically-based fiction books Roads (“When Nazi forces occupy the beautiful coastal city of Yalta, everything changes.”) and Marfa’s River.

Wed, Oct 4: Aside from making pancakes for dinner and watching baseball, I did almost nothing, flipping back and forth between two games.