Cemetery, Historical No comments yet

Time Changes Modern Human’s Face

By on January 27th, 2006

I don’t know that this falls into the area of genealogy, but some of you may find it interesting. Rebecca Morelle has written an article for the BBC News, Time changes modern human’s face, about how the human skull has changed quite a bit over the past seven centuries.

Excerpt from the article:

Modern people possess less prominent features but higher foreheads than our medieval ancestors.

Writing in the British Dental Journal, the team took careful measurements of groups of skulls spanning across 30 generations.

The scientists said the differences between past and present skull shapes were “striking”.

Hints & Tips, Historical No comments yet

Inflation and Genealogy

By on January 27th, 2006

One of the websites mentioned in the previous article, is definitely one genealogists should book mark: www.westegg.com/inflation – it covers inflation in the USA between the years 1800 through 2005, and lets you calculate what something bought in say, 1825, would cost in today’s dollars.

Here’s an example from the website (look at $30 in 1865, a typical monthly salary for many professions):

What cost $30 in 1865 would cost $354.24 in 2005.

Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2005 and 1865,
they would cost you $30 and $2.54 respectively.

Where this comes into play for a genealogist – when you come across such things as bills, receipts, or the mention of how much something cost in an old letter, you can convert it to today’s dollars, and attach that information to it. It’d make for an interesting presentation at a family reunion, or perhaps you could use it to get kids involved have them go through old records you’ve copied or scanned, and convert the money.

As far as other nations – if you have any information concerning inflation in years gone by, by all means include it in a comment here – you don’t need to be registered to make a comment.

Hints & Tips, Historical, News No comments yet

Differing Forms of Money Found in Old Records

By on January 27th, 2006

Connie Lenzen has written another great genealogy article for The Columbian (Vancover, WA), This time it’s about Differing forms of money found in old records, and covers something many of us don’t pay attention to when scanning through old records – money. She also brings up something else besides the varieties found – inflation. Even through the 1860s you will find lots of localized forms of currency.

Excerpt from the article:

(Thomas) Jefferson’s proposal for dollars, dimes, and cents took a while to put in place, and we find old monies used for a number of years. In 1785, Henry Goodman and Thomas Barnes of Gates County, N.C., put up a marriage bond for “Five Hundred Pounds, current Money of the State Aforesaid.” In 1810, James Carty and Sally his wife of Cumberland County, Ky., sold 40 acres to William Ryan for $166 Kentucky money.

Cemetery, Genealogy Rights, Historical, News No comments yet

Cemeteries on Private Land in Tennessee

By on January 26th, 2006

Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter has word that there is a bill being sponsored in the Tennessee state legislature that would “require property owners to grant access to graveyards on their property to visitors. The visitors are defined as “family members, descendants and close friends of the deceased persons buried there.” Visits would be legal for the purposes of visits the graves, cemetery maintenance, genealogical research, and for possible future burials.”

While I am very sensitive to property rights of landowners, there needs to be some kind of middle ground – as an example -according to Dick Eastman, this bill was inspired by a lady who had a child buried in a cemetery on private property – the property was sold, and the current owners would not allow her acces to her child’s grave.

As more and more cities grow into what were previously rural areas, and more land is bought and sold, this could become a major issue over the coming years.

Celebrity, Hints & Tips, Historical, Media Coverage No comments yet

Stephen Fry discovers that he is just another ruddy peasant

By on January 26th, 2006

Ian Bell has an article in The Herald (UK) covering the hit BBC series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and discusses some of the things that Stephen Fry, the English comedian, learned about his family through the course of the show. ‘Who Do You Think You Are?‘ focuses on genealogy and helps people with their family history.

Excerpt from the article:

But then there was great-great grandfather Henry Pring, “pauper inmate” of Lewisham Union Workhouse. There was Henry’s brother, Ernest, turning up in Knutsford Gaol. “I’m beginning to wonder,” said Fry, “how much further down the social scale my family’s going to tumble.”

His point was that barely a century elapsed between Henry’s death and his own graduation from Cambridge. Was that merely luck, as understood by the British class system, or something more profound? Grandfather Neumann, his mother’s father, found a job in a Bury St Edmunds sugar works a few years before Hitler came to power. Back home, the rest of the family perished. Fry, struggling with tears, scanned records that ended abruptly in 1943: “That f**king word, Auschwitz.”