My Bit for Genealogy

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typewriter, writing

photo: Steve Depolo, creative commons license

What makes a set of records helpful to people researching their families? Having it digitized for search. And, how does that happen? Not easily. We forget that up until about the 1960s many public records were hand-written.  Before the typewriter was invented (1860), all records were written completely by hand. As a mystery writer, I find these historic documents—and their tantalizing glimpses of the-story-behind-the-story—fascinating!

Believe it or not, early county clerks were not selected based on the legibility of their handwriting. Add to that possible errors and idiosyncrasies in spelling, particularly of names, where parental creativity sometimes trumps convention (note the sly RNC reference; Freud at work). These make deciphering documents a challenge requiring Sherlock Holmes’s extra-large magnifier.

A 72-hour Challenge

To get some help with the massive task of digitizing, FamilySearch.com sponsored a three-day event last weekend, in which volunteers from around the world examined original records and entered data into pre-designed forms. In fact, some 116,475 people indexed over 10 million records in those three days!

I entered data extracted from hundreds of handwritten Kentucky marriage records from the 1930s and 1940s, as well as some from the 1880s—before the clerks used forms. Also English probate records for loads of people, last name Cox. Also 1920 census pages for Montreal.

Here’s what I learned:

  • Mothers of couples married in the 1930s and 40s in Kentucky were very likely to be named Eula, Lula, Effie, Bessie, or Elsie. There were many Hatties and Hesters, Mabels, Myrtles, and a Flossie (not married to a Freddie, which will disappoint you if you grew up reading The Bobbsey Twins series). Great ideas for naming characters born in that period.
  • I liked the sense of humor of the parents who named their son Pearley Bates. There was a second man named Pearl, too. And a woman.
  • This data entry volunteer was left to wonder why some marriage records had written at the top “Please Do Not Publish.”
  • On one day, Ray O. Schomberg divested himself of two daughters, ages 17 and 19, to men of the U.S. Air Force from exciting California and not-so-exciting Ohio.
  • Many couples came from Ohio to be married in the border counties of Kentucky. If memory serves, there was no waiting period from license to ceremony in Kentucky. Some of these were church marriages nevertheless, some by Justices of the Peace, and some in “police court.” Eyebrows raised.
  • Most couples were of legal age to marry without parental consent (established how?) —21 in those days.
  • A few brides were only 16 and one was 15—the groom another Air Force man, age 24—and the clerk of court noted that the witnesses were “John Smith (the bride’s father) and James Smith” (holding the shotgun, probably). Without question her father would be there, and the shotgun too, if not in fact, in the groom’s imagination.
  • In the 1880 records, many men signed their marriage licenses with an x (“his mark”); by 1950, I saw only one record where the groom could not write his name.
  • The English probate records documented the other end of the continuum of family relationships. One told how Arnold Cox, dentist, left his estate of £54 to Maude Cox, spinster (his sister?). To spend your life as a village dentist and die with only £54 to show for it seems more than a little sad.
  • I was intrigued by the number of Coxes from northern England who left bequests to Archie Cox, chemist. In England a chemist is a pharmacist, and I just wondered whether our Archie might have helped some of his ancient and ailing relatives along, just a bit.

This project provided the chance to indulge in speculation about the lives of previous generations, as revealed through their documentary trail. And I was glad to know that if any of the descendants of the perhaps a thousand people whose stories I helped record are interested in those lives, I’ve made their job a little easier.

Family Search.com is a free alternative to Ancestry.com. Both are maintained by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and each has strengths and weaknesses. I’ve found considerable information about family members using both.

P.S. — See that photo by Steve Depolo? If he has family from Kentucky, their marriage records may be online now. I happen to know!

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

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Hunt for the WilderpeopleThis New Zealand comic gem (trailer) is about 13-year-old misfit Ricky Baker, whose last-resort foster placement is way, way out in the bush. Frankly, he’d rather be in urban Wellington or Christchurch, hanging with his homies, busting out to his walkman, tagging prime real estate, and living the gangsta life (in his head). But it isn’t to be. He’s too far and too needy to make it back. Not for want of trying.

When Ricky (played superbly by Julian Dennison) disappears into the bush with his foster uncle Hec (Sam Neill, almost unrecognizable under a beard), the child protective system moves into high gear to “rescue” him. This dramatic and high-profile effort to save the boy, one can only imagine, comes after a dozen years of ignoring his needs and the quality and suitability of his placements atop no real understanding of what children need.

Directed with great energy by Taika Waititi, who also wrote the script, it has perhaps one chase scene that goes on too long, but as it occurs, the viewer is still basking in the enjoyment of Hec and Ricky’s hilarious encounter with a real bush man. Colander, anyone?

Manohla Dargis in the New York Times acknowledges Waititi’s effervescent touch reminiscent of Wes Anderson, and says, “Charming and funny, it is a drama masquerading as a comedy about an unloved boy whom nobody wants until someone says, Yes, I’ll love him.” And you will, too.

The credits include mention of drone pilots, and, though there are numerous helicopters in the plot, drones enable an amount of aerial photography heretofore prohibitively expensive. In the film’s travelogue dimensions, also awesome.

Rotten Tomatoes critics rating 100%!; audiences 92%.

Coriolanus

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Coriolanus

photo: Jerry Dalia for STNJ

Shakespeare’s most political play—Coriolanus—is on stage at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (STNJ) in Madison, N.J., through July 24, and a stunning production it is. You cannot help but draw the rough parallels between the story of Caius Martius Coriolanus and the current U.S. political climate, though these associations result more from Shakespeare’s uncanny insights about human strengths and frailties than a precise forecasting of electoral politics, 2016. (UPDATE: The timeliness of the issues in this play were further explored in an August essay in Guernica.)

Director Brian Crowe’s notes say the play has been various interpreted over the centuries, and that “Shakespeare does not take sides outright, and we will attempt to avoid doing so in this production as well.” There is room for people of all political views to see themselves and their foes in the play’s stirring words. STNJ calls it “a perfect Shakespeare play for an election year.”

Coriolanus (played by Greg Derelian) is a military hero, and when he returns triumphant from the battle of Corioli, the Senate wants to appoint him consul, Rome’s highest office. But because of his disdainful regard for ordinary Romans, the two tribunes who represent the commoners oppose him and inflame the mobs against him. The tribunes, played to perfection by John Ahlin and Corey Tazmania (in a brilliant bit of gender-blind casting), are so convinced of the righteousness of their cause, they set in motion forces they cannot control that could lead to Rome’s destruction.

As a result of their hectoring, Coriolanus is banished from the city and allies with his former foes to march on the capital and seek revenge. Only at the last moment does the pleading of his wife and, especially, his mother Volumnia (Jacqueline Antaramian) persuade him from his course. Volumnia, who has some of the play’s most powerful speeches, asserts that her son’s valor comes from her. But she is also politic, whereas Coriolanus is rigid and uncompromising. He believes the noble patricians should rule the city by birthright (classic 1% thinking!), while the people’s tribunes say, “What is the city, but the people?”

Throughout the play the metaphor of the “body politic” appears, first formulated by patrician Menenuis Agrippa (Bruce Cromer) and mockingly referenced by Coriolanus in addressing the plebeians: “What’s the matter, you dissentious rogues, that, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion, make yourself scabs.”

It’s exciting to see a cast of some two-dozen players—all of whom appear on stage in several well choreographed scenes (director Crowe is STNJ’s Director of Education). The minimalist set is visually interesting and opens to reveal a shining Roman eagle, variously lit to dramatic effect. Kudos also to the excellent sound design. An exciting theater experience!

For tickets, call the STNJ box office at 973-408-5600 or visit http://www.shakespearenj.org.

(A version of this review previously appeared on the NYC-area theater website: TheFrontRowCenter.com.)

****Our Souls at Night

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Our Souls at Night

photo: Mitchell Diatz, creative commons license

By Kent Haruf – My book club selected this short novel, 192 pages, a gentle story about aging and that difficult transition between when parents think they know what’s best for their children (and usually tell them so) and children come to think they know what’s best for their parents (and do tell them so).

Addie, a widow, and Louis, a widower, are neighbors in small-town Holt, Colorado, in the eastern, high plains portion of the state. In the book’s first chapter, Addie pays a call on Louis and proposes that he visit her at night, lie in bed with her, and have a companionable conversation. Sex isn’t exactly off the agenda, but it’s not at the top and rather beside the point. This unusual arrangement begins, and before long the whole town knows about it. Soon thereafter word spreads to Addie and Louis’s far-flung and scandalized children, who want it to stop.

The conversations between Addie and Louis are low-key and unsentimental. They talk about their marriages and the deaths of their spouses, about their children, about many things. Author Haruf’s unadorned writing style (not even decorated with quotation marks) gives their interactions a deceptive simplicity. For example In speaking about Addie’s son Gene, who is losing his store and has to start a new career, Louis asks:

What is it he wants to do?

He’s always been in sales of some kind.

That doesn’t seem to fit him, as I remember him.

No. He’s not the salesman type. I think he’s afraid now. He won’t say so.

But this could be a chance for him to break out. Break the pattern. Like his mother has. Like you’ve done.

He won’t, though. He’s got his life all screwed down tight.

Both of them find in their late-night conversations a closeness, a connection they never achieved with their spouses. Addie asks, “Who does ever get what they want? It doesn’t seem to happen to many of us if any at all.” Except these lucky two, who at least know what they want. Says Louis, “I just want to live simply and pay attention to what’s happening each day. And come sleep with you at night.”

This restrained style works perfectly well in a novel about the places and people that are Haruf’s subjects, in this book and his others. It is a lean diet, stripped of fat and garnish. Yet the meat of Our Souls, the struggle against pettiness and small-mindedness, is worthy of consumption.

People seem to like this book. All seven copies in the Mercer County Library System were out, so I had to snag the large-print version. I’ve since learned this was Haruf’s last book, the sixth in a series set in Holt, finished a few days before he died in 2014.

Zero Days

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Zero Days, Iran, nuclear

Former Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inspecting centrifuges at Natanz.

This two-hour documentary released Friday, July 8, and playing in selected theaters and streaming online, traces the history and consequences of Stuxnet, a sophisticated piece of malware unleashed on the world in 2010 (trailer & theater list).

Before you yawn and click away, there’s an important feature of the Stuxnet worm and others like it that makes this story of vital interest to you. Stuxnet was not designed to invade your home or office computer, but to attack the industrial control systems (specifically, programmable logic controllers) that manage critical infrastructure. These systems make sure trains and airplanes don’t crash, control car and truck traffic, maintain oil and gas production, manage industrial automation, ensure you have water to brush your teeth with and electricity to run the coffee maker, keep life-saving medical technology operating, and, of course, give you access to the internet. Cyber-attacks on these systems cause real-world, physical destruction, even widespread death.

Behind the Computer Screen

The Stuxnet story—still highly classified, but revealed over time—began with an effort by the United States and Israel to thwart Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons by destroying centrifuges at the country’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility. The software was diabolically clever, virtually undetectable, and essentially untraceable. In theory.

The fact that it was a Zero Day exploit (that is, that the attack would begin before the software problem was discovered and attempts made to fix it or shut it down) and that the Stuxnet code contained not one, but four zero day features, was remarkable. Once it was inside, it worked autonomously; even the attacker could not call it back.

The Israelis, apparently, were impatient. They assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists, and they changed the Stuxnet code, and it spread. It ended up infecting computers worldwide, at which point it was no longer secret, people were looking for it, and the Russians and others found it. “Israel blew the [malware’s] cover and it could have led to war,” the film says.

Another consequence is that the day when something similar can be unleashed on us grows ever closer. It will come from one of three sources:

  • Cybercriminals, in it for the money
  • Activists, intent on making a political point or
  • Nation-states seeking intelligence or opportunities for sabotage.

U.S. security agencies are not complacent. While they talk publicly about our cyber-defenses, in fact, there is a large (unexamined) effort to develop offensive cyber-weapons. There are reports of an even more draconian cyber-weapon embedded throughout Iranian institutions. Warding off its activation is believed a primary reason the Iranians finally struck a nuclear agreement. Certainly it prompted the rapid development surge in Iran’s cyberarmy.

In putting this story together, writer and director Alex Gibney interviewed former high-ranking U.S. and Israeli security officials, analysts from Symantec who teased the code apart, personnel from Russia’s Kaspersky Lab, and many others, including CIA/NSA/DoD officials unable to speak on camera.

“Fear Does Not Protect Us”

The documentary makes a persuasive case for who holds the smoking Stuxnet gun, but it also suggests that finding fault is not the primary issue. The climate of international secrecy around Stuxnet—and the inevitable clones that will follow—makes an open discussion about them impossible. Nor does it allow development of rational strategies for managing the risks, regardless of how urgently needed those strategies are. Cyber-risk management will never be easy, but as one of the film’s experts points out, “it will never happen unless you start.”

The subject is “hideously overclassified,” says Michael Hayden, former director of both the NSA and CIA. (The climate of secrecy is so extreme that even the U.S. Department of Homeland Security cyber team was unaware that Stuxnet originated across town and spent countless resources trying to track it down.) We, of all nations, need this debate, because there is no more vulnerable country in the world, when it comes to systems’ connectedness.

“Evil and good live side by side,” says an anonymous agent of the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. Keeping secrets is a good way to prevent being able to tell one from the other.

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 87%; audiences 69%.

Our Kind of Traitor

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Our Kind of Traitor

McGregor & Skarsgård, Our Kind of Traitor

Our Kind of Traitor is my kind of movie (trailer). A political thriller that avoids the eye-rolling tropes of so many films in the genre—the relentless testosterone-fueled special effects, vehicular mayhem, and beyond-evil bad guys. Instead, it relies for tension on the attachment it craftily develops between viewer and character, thanks to an excellent script and solid acting.

Based on the 2010 John Le Carré novel, as adapted by Houssein Amini, and directed by Susanna White, Our Kind is a movie about trust. While it shows that people at the highest levels of public trust may not necessarily have the public’s good at the top of their agendas—no news flash in this genre—trust at the personal level is still possible. And trust is entails risk. Life-and-death risk.

Low-key London academic Perry Makepeace (played by Ewan MacGregor) and his wife Gail (Naomie Harris) are in exotic Marrakesh trying to revive a fading relationship. When she leaves him alone in a restaurant, he’s befriended by a Russian at a neighboring table, Dima (Stellan Skarsgård, brilliant!), who convinces him to go to “a Russian party” extravagant even by oligarchical standards. The next day Dima persuades Perry and Gail to drop in at his daughter’s 16th birthday party, where it’s just the usual—you know, bands, fireworks, sword swallowers, bejeweled camels.

At the party, Dima pulls Perry aside and confesses he’s the chief money launderer for the Russian mafia and in imminent danger of being murdered in an internecine war. He gives Perry a flash drive and asks him to get it to MI6. He says a big bolus of dirty money is about to land on British shores by way of a shell bank headquartered in the Mediterranean. Dima wants to defect, and he wants the Brits to protect him and, most of all, his family.

Plots featuring the “average man” work because you inevitably wonder, “what would I do?” The operational guys in the British security services (sly Damian Lewis, especially) like Perry’s information, but the big bosses don’t want them to follow up, for reasons of tangled agendas noted above.

After that it’s cat-and-mouse, with Dima and Perry two little mice and pretty much everyone else in the role of fat cats. Says critic Scott Marks of the San Diego Reader, “The mid-summer release of an adult, effects-free British thriller relating to the collapse of Europe’s global financial system timed out perfectly. You’ll Brexit knowing that your entertainment dollar was well spent.”

Rotten Tomatoes critics rating: 67%; audiences 57%. The principal complaint seems to be that not much blows up (exactly what I liked about it!). Except of course, for people’s lives. Don’t believe the naysayers. It’s a subtle gem.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)(revised)

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Shakespeare Theatre of NJYou may recall with delight the Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), whose madcap condensation of Shakespeare’s plays began making the rounds in 1981 and became one of the theater world’s most-produced plays. Some of the funniest material from the play’s many international productions has made its way into this new version—“updated for the 21st century”—by the three founding members of RSC: Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield.

It’s a fast-moving farce, well suited for The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s (STNJ) annual outdoor stage production. This new production has new surprises, including a rap version of Othello (thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda). As directed by Jeffrey M. Bender, it’s as antic and energetic as its predecessor. It would have to be, since (abridged)(revised) presents all 37 plays and the sonnets, after a fashion, in 97 minutes. There’s one intermission an hour in—Red Bull break for the cast, methinks.

The cast includes STNJ regular Jon Barker (a master of body language), Connor Carew, and Patrick Toon, each changing personae at the blink of an eye or slapping on of a wig. Carew’s Ophelia is hilarious, and Toon is a lustily belligerent Romeo. From time to time, there are bits of audience participation, perfect for the relaxed atmosphere of the outdoor stage.

The clever set comprises giant volumes of the Bard’s works. The books’ spines conceal doors, prop drawers, and the like. While the set and the setting are great, and the cast does an amazing job, the script itself fits my mother-in-law’s ambiguous phrase, “it is what it is.” A couple of the most familiar plays—Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet—receive more attention than the others, and the roller-coaster ride through the comedies is great fun.

We overheard that some of the reworking of material was intended to make this play—and perhaps Shakespeare’s works themselves—“more attractive to a younger audience.” In line with that goal, tickets are free for kids 18 and younger at the Outdoor Stage, thanks to grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Bank of America.

Presumably, the younger audience in question means 14-year-old boys, given the emphasis on bawdy humor of the type that makes them giggle knowingly. The script has enough gags—verbal and sight—that there’s no need to tarry in some of the more obvious places (“the last four letters” of Coriolanus, for example). While what people will find funny is heavily a matter of individual taste, Sunday’s audience at STNJ found enough of what they liked to give the performers steady laughter and an enthusiastic reception.

Through July 31 at the beautiful outdoor Greek Theatre on the campus of the College of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, New Jersey. Arrive early, take a picnic.

For tickets, call the STNJ box office at 973-408-5600 or visit the box office online.

****The Bitter Season

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Samurai

photo: David Pursehouse, creative commons license

By Tami Hoag – The Bitter Season is Hoag’s latest crime thriller featuring the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based team of police detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska. This time, the pair is split up, because Liska has joined a new Cold Case unit, hoping for more regular working hours that will let her spend time with her teenage sons.

The first case she’s assigned is the 25-year-old murder of a fellow detective, Ted Duffy, a star in the department’s sex crimes division, was shot to death in his back yard. The man’s family is less than enthusiastic about dredging up the details of the crime again. Repeated investigations over the years have plowed the same unpromising ground, unearthing nothing more than painful memories.

Meanwhile, Kovac has a new partner, newbie Michael Taylor, who is not only easy to look at, but actually knows a few useful things. An adolescence spent watching martial arts movies comes in handy when Kovac and Taylor are assigned to a brutal new murder case. Lucien Chamberlain, a University of Minnesota faculty member in the running for the chair of the East Asia studies department and his wealthy, socially connected, alcoholic wife Sondra have been viciously murdered in their home. They were slashed and stabbed with items from the professor’s collection of martial arts paraphernalia—a collection that is, the medical examiner’s investigator says, “a homicidal maniac’s wet dream.”

Out of the woodwork comes a parade of victims. Or are they suspects?

Despite working on separate cases, Kovac and Liska interact fairly often, and the banter between them and their teams’ other detectives is lively. They’re experts at bringing in a spot of erudition, too. “Shakespeare would have had a freaking field day with these people,” Kovac says, and another detective responds, “ʻThou hast spoken right, ʼtis true. The wheel is come full circle . . .’”

But are Kovac’s and Liska’s cases truly separate? Through fast-moving chapters written from alternating perspectives, you see these skilled detectives work their way through to the core of their respective cases, culminating in a surprising confrontation that demonstrates how skillfully Hoag has laid out her clues.

A longer version of this review appeared on CrimeFictionLover.com.

Igniting the American Revolution

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Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware_by_Emanuel_Leutze

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze

The David Library of the American Revolution is a history gem, just up the road from Washington Crossing (yes, THAT Washington Crossing) Historic Park in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. As a preamble to July 4, last Saturday historian Derek W. Beck gave a lively talk about “the war before the war”—the goings-on in Massachusetts before the Declaration of Independence, before the formation of the Continental Army, and in the earliest days of George Washington’s command.

Paul Revere

photo: Kathy, creative commons license

Beck tries to present both sides of the conflict and in his efforts exposes certain myths that arise when historians wear partisan blinders. Would Paul Revere have ridden through the countryside hollering, “The British are coming, the British are coming!”? Not likely, Beck says. If he did, he’d be greeted by puzzled looks and scratching heads, because practically everyone considered themselves to be British. They didn’t necessarily want independence from England (yet); they just wanted to be treated like any other British citizen. But in our mythologized history, with the clarity of hindsight, we know who the enemy was, and we name him.

Another example is “the shot heard round the world”—the first gunshot of the Revolution, traditionally fired at Lexington, Massachusetts. Who fired it? In the verse by Ralph Waldo Emerson,

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

It was to the Americans’ advantage to be the aggrieved parties, the victims, so preferred the view that the British fired first. However, Beck says, forensic evidence suggests that the very first shot wasn’t fired by either an American militia member or a British soldier, but a bystander outside a pub. (Figures.)

Beck considers it a plus that his two books (Igniting the American Revolution and The War Before Independence) are said to “read like action novels,” and he consigns the documentation that ordinarily fills history books to a thorough set of notes at the end. Such details are of vital interest to historians but make books much less interesting to those of us who merely want to gain a better understanding of our country’s past and establish a stronger connection to it.

Noble train, Henry Knox, Ft. Ticonderoga

The Noble Train of Artillery

Another myth he debunked was the one in which poor General Henry Knox struggled through heavy snows with the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga (“the noble train of artillery”). Histories (and many artworks) commemorating this episode depict them being pulled by oxen. Indeed, that was Knox’s plan. However, the farmer who owned the oxen so inflated their price, that at the last minute, he used horses instead, and he wrote about the change in his diary at the time.

Beck’s insights were informative, entertaining, and memorable, just as history ought to be!

Fueling Creativity with—YES!—Boredom

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Handwriting, boredom

photo: David Hall, creative commons license

In her faculty days, President of the Rhode Island School of Design Rosanne Somerson used an unexpected teaching tool: boredom. In a recent Metropolis essay, she says,

When I used to teach graduate students in furniture design, I would assign them an abstract problem that required them to sit in the studio and draw through free association over a long period of time without getting up from their seats.

 

After about 45 minutes, most students would start to squirm and get uncomfortable . . . I encouraged them to push through the discomfort because . . . right after the “squiggly” stage, something incredible happens.

Often, she said, students would stumble upon a completely new direction for their work, “something completely new and unexpected.” So, no getting up for a drink of water, no texting, no checking email, no snacks.

Somerson thinks of this purposeful elimination of distraction as creating time and space for the imagination to reawaken. Her drawing through free association sounds much like the freewriting practice writing gurus recommend for authors, with much the same motivation behind it–breakthrough.

Constant connectivity has made de-distracting our lives increasingly difficult. By filling our mindspace with constant and, let’s admit it, often mindless media consumption—yes, I watched the video of the cat playing the piano—we don’t clear the mental field for “creativity and discovery.” As Joshua Rothman said in a New Yorker essay last year, “Like typing, Googling, and driving, distraction is now a universal competency. We’re all experts.” Well, maybe not driving, not here in New Jersey.

If we set aside some distraction-free time, and, as Somerson suggests “bring back boredom,” we may find ourselves both more creative and more appreciative of today’s limitless fount of stimulating, intelligent, and entertaining distraction.