Conference Keeper

Who has heard about Conference Keeper? For those who haven’t, it is time you got over to this website: https://conferencekeeper.org
It is the place to be! Having said that, I admit that I go there about once a week. Sometime after I get an email from them, I click on the conference link. I find it easier to go directly to the site, rather than reading the updates in the email. However, for some, they go to the site, subscribe to the weekly email then just read that rather than going back.

They state that it is their mission is to help individuals to increase their knowledge, skills, and enjoyment of genealogy. According to their own claims, and I’d easily believe it, they are the most complete calendar of genealogy events- anywhere.

Subscribe? Do I have to subscribe to something? Do I need to pay for this? No and no. It is a free website and the subscription is also free and optional. I find it helps as a reminder in my busy weeks that the site exists.

So, what is this site all about? It’s in the name. They “keep conferences.” That is they keep track of conferences going on in the genealogy world. There is a listing of conferences from all over that are coming up. Many of them are US-based, but there are ones in different countries around the world as well.

Each listing will tell you if the conference is virtual or in-person or both. Also, if there is a fee, a $ sign will appear. There is a title of the conference and a brief blurb telling you a little about that particular conference. Click on the title of the conference and you will be taken to a web page by the organization with even more information and a chance to register for that event (if you need to, of course).

There are links to look at conferences in different ways. You can see just Virtual conferences, for example, or by area.

There is so much more available as well!

Are you a speaker looking for new conferences? They have a call for papers section as well. For those unfamiliar with this phrase, many conferences send out a call for papers when they are planning a conference. Potential speakers then submit their proposal for a talk and a committee selects the ones they feel are the best fit and contribute good variety for their conference. Often the proposal is an outline of the talk with a blurb about it and sometimes as far as the handouts that participants see in the syllabus. Although almost always the syllabus pages are done long after the speaker has been accepted and closer to the time of the event.

Looking for educational opportunities? There is a page where I counted 18 different institutes and other long-term educational opportunities. These are the ones that go more in-depth than a speaker at a conference can do. Of course, they cost money. Want to take advantage of these programs, but can’t afford to? There’s also a page of grants and scholarships that might be able to help you out. Both years that I attended IGHR, I had a scholarship that helped me with the expenses. I forget how much the first one was, the second covered my tuition and allowed me to register ahead of time, thus securing the class I wanted. Classes at institutes fill up fast and it is sometimes hard to get into the one you really want to take.

There are Volunteer opportunities if you have some extra time on your hands. Also, podcasts that you can listen to whenever you have a few minutes. Good at genealogy but need a job? Conference Keeper even has a page of job opportunities in genealogy available.

Yearn to travel with genealogy? There’s a category of Travel, Tours, and Cruises. Although I think I’d hold off on that aspect until COVID is over, it never hurts to dream!

As you can see, there is much to Conference Keeper and a website that you really need to check out. I just skimmed over the various offerings and I’m sure I missed something. In fact, before writing this column, I didn’t realize some of the pages that are available myself!

Wordless Wednesday: Second Christmas

 

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Lights

 

Wordless Wednesday: Thanksgiving

 

Geneanet

Actually from the Family History Center in Salt Lake

 Geneanet, a company founded in France in 1996, was recently acquired by Ancestry. The agreement was announced in a press release of August 31, 2021. Originally Geneanet was called LPF, an acronym (in French) for list of surnames for France.  It will remain an independent company within Ancestry’s portfolio of companies that it owns. We all know about Ancestry with over 30 billion in over 80 countries, but who or what is Geneanet? To quote Ancestry:
“With a large and growing European community of more than 4 million members, Geneanet is available in ten languages and more than 25 countries. Combining Geneanet's free family tree platform and engaged community with Ancestry’s global subscriber base and unparalleled historical records will enable family history discoveries and connections for even more people around the world.”

To quote from Geneanet themselves:
“Geneanet is the largest community of genealogists involved in mutual aid and sharing in Continental Europe. It’s a website with almost 7 billion of data provided by members, collaborative projects, and partners.
The contributive side is about family trees and attached documents (family pictures, archival records, etc.). These are 1.3 million family trees and almost 1.4 billion individuals.
The collaborative side is about projects supported by Geneanet like pictures of graves and cemeteries all around the world (“Save our Graves”), indexes, and registers (parish, notarial, military, and other archives).”
In other words, Geneanet is a database search site similar to FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, Fold3, and all the others. Only, their information concentrates on France and much of the rest of Europe. It could be a valuable resource for anybody doing research on their ancestors in Europe, not only France where it started.
Of course, for many of us, cost is a definite factor. We only have so many dollars to spend on resources at a time. The beauty of this site is that basic access costs nothing more than registering with the site. In other words, free! A premium access package is available for $12.50 for 3 months. From what I’ve heard that would be of value for people with ancestors in France, itself, rather than other countries. This also gives you added features such as customization, alert tools, and printing from the website.
Besides searching the family trees available on the site, you can also enter information on your own trees or upload GEDcoms of those trees. This might be handy for people looking to store and make available their research on European families. A French researcher can be hired under “Ask An Expert” for $45 per request.
It has been noted by some that a lot of their free content is available also at FamilySearch and Internet Archives.
So how do you get to it? Their site is located at: geneanet.org, or of course, you can just google it.

There seems to be some advantages to this site although, it is a lot of family trees and information that can be found elsewhere. Of course, it is helpful to have stuff on one area or country all gathered together in one place to look through. I’m sure the value of the site will vary from person to person.

 I have not tried it out myself as I don’t have many French ancestors. I have a few Huguenots, and one who reportedly changed his name somewhere between France and here at about the time of The French Revolution. I should find the time at some point, to check them out on this site and see what more information I can find. I hope others who have more French ancestors and who are researching them more than I am mine, will check this site out and let us know a little more about it, especially now that Ancestry has acquired it as I’m sure it will start growing under they patronage.

Jefferson County Genealogy Christmas Party

For any in the area who may be interested in attending:

 

Wordless Wednesday: Autumn Leaves

 

A Sad Anniversary

 I never got today's blog post finished, so it will move on to another time. In the meantime, today is the fifth anniversary of a sad event- the day we said goodbye to my mother. Here is the post I made a few days later:

In Memoriam

Alice A. Ward

AUBURN—Alice Adelle Wooster Ward, 92, of Auburn passed away November 2, 2016, at Auburn Community Hospital.

Alice was born January 26, 1924 in Skaneateles, N.Y., to Marion J. and Alice Jennings Wooster. She attended Skaneateles schools and was a 1942 graduate of Skaneateles High School.

She married Gordon J. Ward on January 26, 1943, in St. James Episcopal Church, Skaneateles.  Gordon J. Ward died December 10, 1998. Gordon owned and operated Ward Oil Company in Auburn from the early 1950s until his death.

Alice is survived by three children, James G. Ward of Sahuarita, AZ, David J. Ward (Debora) of Fleming, NY, and Nancy Ward Remling (Richard) of Syracuse, NY, as well as by six grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. She also is survived by one brother, Kenneth J. Wooster of Auburn, NY. She was predeceased by her parents, two brothers, and a daughter-in-law.

Alice was a member of Saints Peter and John Episcopal Church. For many years she was active as a nursery school teacher, a leader of the church bazaar, and in the women’s guild at the former St. John’s Episcopal Church. She had been active in local PTAs and in Cub Scouts. She and Gordon had been active campers and members of various camping groups.

Alice was a very talented and creative craft artist. She participated in craft shows and was noted for her knitting and crochet work. She was an active participant in Home Bureau and Cayuga County Home Extension groups. For twenty years she owned and operated a craft and yarn shop on Rockefeller Road in Moravia, NY. She was also a volunteer leader for many years at The Gallery in Moravia.

Arrangements--------

This is the beginning of the obituary that my brother, Jim, wrote for Mom. Thank-you for doing that. 

The arrangements were finalized today. Calling hours are 10:00 Monday (November 7th) at Farrell's Funeral Home, 84 South Street, Auburn, NY. The funeral will follow at 11:15 and burial is in Evergreen Cemetery, Scipioville, NY.

Mom never like having her picture taken so she would be unhappy with me, but I'm including a couple pictures of her. 

In Memoriam

Alice A. Ward

AUBURN—Alice Adelle Wooster Ward, 92, of Auburn passed away November 2, 2016, at Auburn Community Hospital.

Alice was born January 26, 1924 in Skaneateles, N.Y., to Marion J. and Alice Jennings Wooster. She attended Skaneateles schools and was a 1942 graduate of Skaneateles High School.

She married Gordon J. Ward on January 26, 1943, in St. James Episcopal Church, Skaneateles.  Gordon J. Ward died December 10, 1998. Gordon owned and operated Ward Oil Company in Auburn from the early 1950s until his death.

Alice is survived by three children, James G. Ward of Sahuarita, AZ, David J. Ward (Debora) of Fleming, NY, and Nancy Ward Remling (Richard) of Syracuse, NY, as well as by six grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. She also is survived by one brother, Kenneth J. Wooster of Auburn, NY. She was predeceased by her parents, two brothers, and a daughter-in-law.

Alice was a member of Saints Peter and John Episcopal Church. For many years she was active as a nursery school teacher, a leader of the church bazaar, and in the women’s guild at the former St. John’s Episcopal Church. She had been active in local PTAs and in Cub Scouts. She and Gordon had been active campers and members of various camping groups.

Alice was a very talented and creative craft artist. She participated in craft shows and was noted for her knitting and crochet work. She was an active participant in Home Bureau and Cayuga County Home Extension groups. For twenty years she owned and operated a craft and yarn shop on Rockefeller Road in Moravia, NY. She was also a volunteer leader for many years at The Gallery in Moravia.

Arrangements--------

This is the beginning of the obituary that my brother, Jim, wrote for Mom. Thank-you for doing that. 

The arrangements were finalized today. Calling hours are 10:00 Monday (November 7th) at Farrell's Funeral Home, 84 South Street, Auburn, NY. The funeral will follow at 11:15 and burial is in Evergreen Cemetery, Scipioville, NY.

Mom never like having her picture taken so she would be unhappy with me, but I'm including a couple pictures of her. 

 

Wordless Wednesday: Witchy Ways

 

Willard Psychiatric

 As a child, I heard about Willard and had a vague understanding that it was a hospital for people with mental problems. It seemed to be a common threat among parents in the area that “you’re driving me to Willard.” My mother had a twist on it that I was going to have her driving the bus. But what was this really?

Officially it was Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane and was located in Ovid, New York. A group of Victorian buildings situated between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes in the Finger Lakes region, they were intended to be a better alternative for people with mental disorders and other illnesses that rendered people incapable of taking care of themselves.

And it was better. Willard was better than the almshouses of the early 1800s where people were crowded in together, both the poor and those in need of mental help with no regard to their condition or health status. Here at least doctors and medical staff attempted to treat and take care of the patients. Little was known as yet about mental health conditions, but they did their best to care for people that were often left at the doorstep and forgotten about by their families.

New York’s Surgeon General, Dr. Sylvester D. Willard was the main person behind the founding of the hospital which bears his name. Abraham Lincoln signed off on the proposal for a state-run hospital just 6 days before his death. The doors opened to patients in 1869 and they soon came flooding in. People in all kinds of conditions came from various places, especially almshouses across the state. One even arrived in a chicken cage! As so little was known about mental health in these times, it quickly became a dumping ground for undesirables. Both severe mental and physically handicapped people were sent here,. Others were sent for such things as “feeble-mindedness” and “nervousness,” As you can surmise, all kinds of people were sent to Willard in this time period.

I have come across letters where a distant cousin had been sent here. Her husband visited her once or twice, as well as her son, and thought she might be improving. From the husband’s descriptions, it sounded like she had what today might have been defined as severe depression, or perhaps she was showing the early signs of dementia. It is hard to decipher what is wrong with her. She seemed to have an appetite, yet needed to be fed, and this might be why she only stayed a little over a month or so before passing away, It is especially sad when you realize her family must have wanted her home, and although the doctors gave little hope, probably were hoping for some sort of recovery. Her husband describes the trains he has to take to get there from Auburn and the fact that he had to spend the night in Geneva.

The campus was built like many other Victorian-era institutes. There was a women’s side and a men’s side to it. Violent and non-violent patients were kept in separate areas. The administrative buildings were in the center. Originally it was supposed to be an agricultural college before Cornell University took over that role. Therefore, there was plenty of land that would be used for gardening and raising produce for their kitchens.

Although there were various entertainment facilities and patients were allowed to walk the grounds at will, it was very much a hospital. No patient could leave the grounds without permission. Electro-shock and ice bath treatments were used and there were operating theaters on the grounds. Likewise, there was a morgue and a cemetery where patients were buried with only a number to identify who was in each grave. My cousin was perhaps one of the luckier ones as she was returned to the family after her death and buried in the family plot next to where her husband would be buried upon his death in a few years.

The asylum operated until 1995 when it closed completely. Today the campus is shared by New York States corrections and a residential drug treatment program. Both areas are kept secure for obvious reasons and the old buildings can be seen just from the nearby roads that surround the old campus.

Wordless Wednesday: Montezuma Refuge

 

Wordless Wednesday: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

 

Titus House

The Titus House

Where did people stay when they traveled in the early United States? People were traveling by land in stagecoaches and wagons as well as on foot and horseback. Some people were migrating and others were moving about on business. Many could not reach their destination in a day. Some would camp out along the route, but this was very uncomfortable, especially in wet or cold weather. Thus, inns sprung up along the trails and routes that crisscrossed through the wilderness to settlements, towns and cities. Many were spaced the distance apart of a days travel. Others were placed near where travelers would stop such as the edges of cities, near ferries or even just before a toll bridge.

One such inn was known as the Titus House. It was on the Genesee Trail going across New York State. Originally situated fairly near the ferry on that road, it was an ideal place to wait. The ferry took travelers across Cayuga Lake at the north-end, just short of the swampy area that leads into the Montezuma Marshes. Later the long bridge was built near this ferry as a replacement. It was at one time the longest bridge in New York State. How near to the bridge was the Inn? A traveler looking out the front windows of the could gaze out over Cayuga Lake and slightly to the north, the bridge. It would take less than one minute to reach the east-end of the bridge from the front door of the Inn.

It had various owners over the years, however the most well known was David Sands Titus. Born in Dutchess County of the Quaker family of Gilbert and Jane (Hoag) Titus, he migrated westward in 1829. His somewhat unusual name comes from a son of a Presbyterian minister. The original David Sands joined the Quakers at Nine Partners meeting in Dutchess County and was instrumental in the founding of Cornwall monthly meeting in Westchester County. Many Quaker boys were given the compound name of “David Sands” in his honor. It was not unusual for a Quaker to settle in Cayuga County. A meeting, their name for a church, was just south of Cayuga in the village of Union Springs. In fact, they later moved the Oakwood Seminary (a Quaker boarding school) from Dutchess County to Union Springs.

David Sands was a farmer originally, but had also been a butcher while living in Beekman in Dutchess County. Here he opened the inn, but was often absent from there.He also had another job collecting tolls on the Erie Canal at nearby Montezuma. While gone from the tavern, his wife, the former, Julia Coapman, and son, Hiram would run it. He also held office in a training regiment for the district for about three years.

A story that has been told about the determination of Julia is the following: David Sands was going to Albany on business and wife, Julia, wanted to go with him. Now, David Sands Titus was a strong-willed man and didn’t hesitate to tell her “no.” He left without her, went to Weedsport and caught a Canal boat to Albany. Checking into the hotel at Albany, he opened his hotel room door to find sitting there, waiting for him, none other than Julia who had arrived earlier by train!

Hiram who helped in his father’s tavern, became a farmer as an adult. He owned a great deal of acreage in the town of Aurelius. He raised prize-winning cattle and horses, His home, a house on the Genesee Road with massive columns across the front, still stands today,

An older brother, Daniel Titus, was postmaster in Aurelius, from 1835-1841. Primarily a farmer, he owned land in Aurelius. He was killed in a rather grizzly railroad accident when tried to race his horse and buggy across the tracks late at night as a train approached. The train was much closer than he apparently realized. The Cayuga Chief newspaper printed the story of his demise in detail and blamed alcohol for it. They later retracted some of the blame which leads me to believe that a weary Daniel was trying to reach home and urged his horse on thinking he had more time than he did. Daniel was 53 when he died, leaving his wife Maria (Lockwood) Titus to care for their 9 children ranging in age from Samuel, 24, down to Marion, three. Samuel was my great-great grandfather.

Hiram Titus' Home

Wordless Wednesday: Hobart & William Smith Colleges

 

Jefferson County Genealogy Society's Next Meeting

 

Who Is Copper John?

Many people who live in, work in, or frequently visit Auburn don’t know Copper John. Yet there he stands looking over the city, Where is he? He is high above the city at the entrance to the prison, When going down State Street, pause near the entrance and look up and you will see him, a Revolutionary Soldier standing guard.

In fact, that is one of the things about Copper John. Anybody in Auburn can see his face except for one large group— prisoners within the walls of Auburn Correctional Facility. They cannot see his face, as he is gazing towards the outside and there is only a small open space between the administrative building and the outside wall.

He has stood guard at the top of the administrative building since 1821, although the original statue was wooden. It was in 1848 that a new soldier exactly like the original was created in the prison’s metal shop out of copper. This is where his nickname comes from and what he has been called ever since. Copper John is about 8’ 8 1/2” tall and with his rifle stands over 11’ in the air.

Copper John was refurbished in 2004. The corrections department decided to smooth out his physique. Let’s just leave it at he is now less endowed and more of a “Ken doll.”

The prison itself was built in 1817. This would be New York State’s second prison after Newgate in New York City. Massive blue and gray limestone walls face State Street, Wall Street, and Washington Street. The fourth side goes along the Owasco River and a little tiny street called Tehan Avenue.
The building of the prison brought about rock quarries and a water system in and around the growing city of Auburn.

The prison itself is a maximum-security prison and the original of “The Auburn System” of running prisons. Based on hard labor and silence at all times. Eventually, overcrowding in prisons made the silence unenforceable and things deteriorated into lax and corrupt routines by the guards. This system ended implementation in 1900. The stereotypical uniform of black and white stripes was developed under this system. Products produced in the shops were sold on the outside to help support the prison. Workshops of various kinds existed over the years. Perhaps the most well-known is one that continues to this day— producing license plates. At one time women were housed there as well in a separate building on the prison grounds.

Executions were done at Auburn prison. Do you know who “Old Sparky” is? That would be the nickname for the original electric chair. The first execution by electric chair was done in Auburn prison. A local bar has a chair that is said to be the original one.

It has been rumored that there was a choice between getting the prison and the Erie Canal in Auburn. Auburn chose to get the prison over having the Erie Canal come through the city. The path of the canal, however, does not support this story. It runs several miles north of Auburn through Weedsport and Port Byron. It would have had to have been diverted south to go through Auburn and would have added many miles of digging to do so.

Another rumor is that it was a choice between the prison and the state capital. Although possible, the state capital had long since been established at Albany by the time the first prisons were built in New York State. Would the state have gone to the trouble of moving the capital? I find that doubtful.

Wordless Wednesday: Mount Green Cemetery Romulus