If I were doing this with PowerPoint, since not everyone has MS Office with PowerPoint on their computers, I would include the free PowerPoint VIEWER from MS on the CD...... Rebecca > Printed with prior permission from Ancestry Daily News, dated 3 Dec 2004 > > I have taken all the old family photographs, scanned them in their original > form and also one or two cropped versions of each picture. I put them into a > PowerPoint program and used either captions or voice over to identify each > picture. When I had all the pictures and their cropped versions (these > really bring faces up close) in the program the way I wanted them, I burned > them onto a CD. I have been able to make copies of the CD and send it out to > all the family. They are then able to take the CD and have any/all of the > pictures developed onto photo paper if they should desire. Whether they > develop the pictures, they can still put the CD into the computer and sit > back, watch, read, and/or hear all they want about the family. > > I have written an entire family history, including 450 scanned photos of > pictures and documents, using this method. Forty relatives now have this > history and it cost me less than one dollar per family member for the CD, CD > case, padded envelope, and postage. > > .. Pat Pugh > > Sally Rolls Pavia

Printed with prior permission from Ancestry Daily News, dated 3 Dec 2004 I have taken all the old family photographs, scanned them in their original form and also one or two cropped versions of each picture. I put them into a PowerPoint program and used either captions or voice over to identify each picture. When I had all the pictures and their cropped versions (these really bring faces up close) in the program the way I wanted them, I burned them onto a CD. I have been able to make copies of the CD and send it out to all the family. They are then able to take the CD and have any/all of the pictures developed onto photo paper if they should desire. Whether they develop the pictures, they can still put the CD into the computer and sit back, watch, read, and/or hear all they want about the family. I have written an entire family history, including 450 scanned photos of pictures and documents, using this method. Forty relatives now have this history and it cost me less than one dollar per family member for the CD, CD case, padded envelope, and postage. .. Pat Pugh Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

What was it like in London during the Second World War? How did Londoners cope with the Blitz , the V1 flying bomb attacks, food rationing and all the other hardships of war? What happened to the children when London was in the front line of the battle against Nazi Germany? HOLNET looks at this and more in the first section of a site dedicated exclusively to the history of London. Its four sections - Air Raids, Daily Life, Children at war and Shelters - contain photographs, paintings, posters, diaries, personal reflections and local newsletters from and about the people of London. http://www.holnet.org.uk/learn_tea/index.htm <http://www.holnet.org.uk/learn_tea/index.htm> Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

www.memoriallibrary.com www.livgenmi.com USGenNet is expanding its services for you. It has created the US Data Repository. http://www.us-data.org This new service is addition to our Legacy program. It is designed to permanently and safely store historical and genealogical data in a guaranteed nonprofit environment. The repository has the same protections as its parent, USGenNet, and a strong contributor friendly AUP too. http://www.us-data.org/fineprint.html To the point: You retain ownership of your files and they will be deleted upon your request. The repository is intended to be generic, that is, not affiliated with any specific project, and of course, not affiliated with commercial pay-per-view companies. Ideally, contributors from any project will be pleased with this new safe-haven for their data. The repository is "Under Construction" -- what you will see is the framework for the pages but no data yet. Once placed in the repository, the URLs will be permanent (we won't shuffle like some archives do). US Data Repository - (within a Nonprofit Corporation) http://www.us-data.org/ Supporting free-access genealogy.

Gabriel Thomas, An Account of West Jersey and Pennsylvania (1698) www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/bdorsey1/41docs/36-tho.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- African Burial Ground - New York More than a decade ago in New York City, archaeologists excavated one of the most significant finds in American history: the largest known intact colonial African cemetery in America, the African Burial Ground. Stretching more than five city blocks, from Broadway beyond Lafayette Street to the east and from Chambers beyond Duane Street to the north, the cemetery was discovered in 1991 during the construction of a federal office building at 290 Broadway. Explore the Burial Ground and learn more about what was discovered. http://www.nypl.org/research/sc/afb/shell.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Historic Jail Study Project http://ourworld.cs.com/historicjails/index.htm?f=fs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Obituaries 101 Death Notices Easy Search Find Lookup US USA Canada Funerals http://www.big101.com/OBITUARIES101.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The University of Virginia has many Bibles scanned and the database is searchable. http://ajax.lva.lib.va.us/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b-clas05&local_base=CL AS05 UofV actively buys Family bibles for their collection. So your ancestors need not have lived in VA for them to possibly have something of interest to you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LIGHTHOUSE PERSONNEL IN ENGLAND, WALES AND THE CHANNEL ISLANDS, c1790-1911 - THE KEEPERS http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/Lighthouses/LighthousesKeepers.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- World War I Biographical Dictionary .. Contained within this web folio are brief biographical sketches and photographs of prominent people of the Great War era. http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/bios-home.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Historic Jail Study Project http://ourworld.cs.com/historicjails/index.htm?f=fs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

Located at http://ancestorsatrest.blogspot.com/ Note from Sally .. the obits from Lottie Clements thru Clarence Rolls are ones I posted.. FUNERAL CARD: Edward Gabriel 1863-1915 DEATH CERT: Daniel Walker 1879-1922 South Carolina DEATH CERT: Herbert Lee died 1918 France DEATH CERT: James Miller, Michigan 1845-1908 DEATH CERT: Houston Grayson 1898-1961 Oklahoma DEATH CERT: William Grayson 1909-1978 California OBIT: William Finn died 1928 Ontario OBIT: Joseph Maculuso, Michigan OBIT: Benjamin Thurmond 1886-1935 Arizona OBIT: Sarah Benner Peters 1833-1920 California OBIT: Ida Stewart died 1961 Arizona OBIT: Mildred Thurmond 1909-1944 Arizona OBIT: Thomas Peters 1867-1939 California OBIT: Thomas Peters 1829-1902 Minnesota OBIT: Fred Peters 1907-1945 California OBIT: Lottie Clements 1873-1931 OBIT: Ronald Pavia 1959-1978 OBIT: John Clements 1897-1965, Missouri OBIT: Jonathan Clements died 1896 OBIT: Blanche Clements died 1994 OBIT: Frank Smith 1866-1919 OBIT: James Pavia 1943-2003, Missouri OBIT: Frances Smith 1832-1908, Missouri OBIT: Elvina Stubbs 1844-1911 OBIT: John Rolls 1920-2003, Arizona OBIT: Nellie Rolls 1898-1988 Oregon OBIT: Georgia Shore 1903-2003, Kansas OBIT: Clarence Rolls, 1899-1960 Kansas OBIT: Sylvia Lake 1914-2004 Missouri OBIT: Annie M Boucher 1933 - 2001, New Jersey OBIT: Valeria Carattinia, Illinois OBIT: Elizabeth Bell Cromie, died 1968 Ohio OBIT: Mary McAnanny Doman Sample died 1922 OBIT: Simon Dunn Died 1863 Ft Morgan, Alabama OBIT: James Cromie died 1964 Ohio OBIT: Julio Maria Caratini died 2004 New Mexico OBIT: William Altrogge, New York OBIT: John Kissane 1863-1954 OBIT: Georgina Bryenton Maltby, 1885-1949 Nova Scotia OBIT: Margaret Maltby 1853 - 1946 New Brunswick OBIT: Donald Ramsey 1920-2001 New Brunswick OBIT: Annie Ramsy died 1993, New Brunswick OBIT: Harry Maltby 1906 - 1982, Michigan OBIT: Howard Maltby, 1908-1977 Saskatchewan OBIT: Hazel Jagoe, 1910-1979 Hamilton Ontario OBIT: Lily Maltby DeWitt 1917-1990, Nova Scotia OBIT: Morrison Maltby 1920-1996, New Brunswick OBIT: Nicholas Bogovich, 1927-2001, Ohio FUNERAL CARD: Charles Cray 1864 - 1887 FUNERAL NOTICE: Marabel McCombs Carr 1923-2003 Ohio MEMORIAL CARDS: Norfolk England MEMORIAL CARDS: Norfolk England (1-8) MEMORIAL CARD: Sarah Watkins 1868-1938 FUNERAL CARD: Augusta Knapp 1868-1902 FUNERAL CARD: Gertrude Huston Cramblett FUNERAL CARD: Shirlee Joan Klima (Klotz) died 1984 Ohio FUNERAL CARD: Mary Cook 1845 - 1901 MEMORIAL CARD: William Ferguson 1874-1922 MEMORIAL CARD: Oliver Watkins 1860-1937 There are more, these are the new Nov ones .

For Bunny - again! Your ISP has not been able to solve the problem because I sent a message at 12 47 and again at 5.22 PM Both have been returned to me. J.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Ours will be quiet, just Mother and I; plus the 11 cats. <http://www.cardfountain.com/do_pickup_ecard.php?pid=289893-0> http://www.cardfountain.com/do_pickup_ecard.php?pid=289893-0 <http://www.cardfountain.com/do_pickup_ecard.php?pid=289912-0> http://www.cardfountain.com/do_pickup_ecard.php?pid=289912-0

Guide for Jewish Genealogy in Chicagoland .. Contains information on more than 75 research locations to aid the Jewish/Chicago researcher. The site contain specifics about each location-including address, phone, fax, e-mail, website, a description of the resources available, and information about accessing the records. In addition to the location information, the website has a section organized by the type of record-including vital records, residence records, life in Jewish Chicago, arrival records, and "old country" information. These webpages guide the user by each record type to the locations where the information can be found. http://www.jewishgen.org/Infofiles/Chicago ============================================================================ ============ Yad Vashem; The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Rememberance Authority Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, is the Jewish people's memorial to the murdered Six Million and symbolizes the ongoing confrontation with the rupture engendered by the Holocaust. Containing the world's largest repository of information on the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is a leader in Shoah education, commemoration, research and documentation. http://yadvashem.org/ ============================================================================ ============ Hebrew Orphan Asylum New York .. Names of orphaned children in Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Manhattan New York from the 1900 census. Includes year and place of birth. http://www.rootsweb.com/~ote/orphans/orphans1900jewish2.htm ============================================================================ ============ Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York .. Names of orphaned children in Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society of New York, Manhattan New York from the 1900 census. Includes year and place of birth. http://www.rootsweb.com/~ote/orphans/orphans1900jewish.htm Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

This is tihe most unusual situation, Bunny. I keep trying to reach you and just cannot get a message directly from my computer to yours. I keep getting the following...... This report relates to a message you sent with the following header fields: Message-id: <000b01c4d026$d7bc6800$6500a8c0@amdxp> Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 16:04:31 -0800 From: June Ridsdale <daler@shaw.ca> To: bunny <bunny@lightstream.net> Subject: Re: [NEWGEN] Bunny - Some little hitch ! Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients: Recipient address: bunny@lightstream.net Reason: Remote SMTP server has rejected address Can anyone see an error in Bunny's address? June BC Canada

No URL's are available as yet. Yad Vashem Central Database of Holocaust Victims to Go Live Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, Israel, will hold a major press event Monday, November 22, 2004 to announce the uploading of its historic Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names to the Internet. The event will take place on Monday morning at Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies Lecture Hall, at 10:00. The Database will be presented and an international 11th Hour Campaign to collect more names of victims will be announced. Special video messages from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Professor Elie Wiesel, and Simone Veil will be presented as well. The Database, which will allow online public interaction and contributions of new names and materials, seeks to capture the names of as many Jewish Holocaust victims as possible. The sophisticated technology allows users worldwide to access a treasure trove of millions of personal, historical and genealogical documents using cutting-edge web search systems from the convenience of any computer. The Names Database is an international undertaking led by Yad Vashem to attempt to reconstruct the names and life stories of all the Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Through interactive features, users can submit information, perform comprehensive searches and take part in educational programs. US National Archives To Offer Old Newspapers Online The government has announced that anyone with a computer will have access within a few years to millions of pages from old newspapers. Available in 2006 will be the first of what's expected to be 30 million digitized pages from papers published from 1836 through 1922. "Anyone who's interested -- teachers, students, historians, lawyers, politicians, even newspaper reporters -- will be able to go to their computer at home or at work and at a click of a mouse get immediate, unfiltered access to the greatest source of our history," said Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He announced the project in a speech at the National Press Club. The Library of Congress already has put together a small sample. It has digitized issues of the U.S. military newspaper "Stars and Stripes" during World War I, February 1918 to June 1919. The National Endowment for the Humanities is working on the project with the Library of Congress, which has embarked on a broader project to preserve records of American newspapers dating from the late 1600s. The span of the joint project is limited because type faces of printers used before 1836 are too difficult for optical scanners to read, and copyright restrictions are in force on papers published after 1923. This huge addition to the newspaper preservation project should be great news for genealogists. Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES" All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

A Feast of Ancestors! Enjoy Free Access to the Register Online Over Thanksgiving Weekend! NEHGS is pleased to offer free access to its New England Historical and Genealogical Register database on NewEnglandAncestors.org over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend! Normally only available to NEHGS members, the Register database will be accessible to everyone from Thursday, November 25 through Sunday, November 28, 2004. We encourage all NEHGS members to spread the word about this offering, and we hope that those of you who are not members find a veritable feast of ancestors in the Register database! Published quarterly since 1847, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register is the flagship journal of American genealogy and the oldest journal in the field. The online database includes issues from 1847 to 1994. The Register has featured articles on a wide variety of topics since its inception, including vital records, church records, tax records, land and probate records, cemetery transcriptions, obituaries, and historical essays. Authoritative compiled genealogies have been the centerpiece of the Register for more than 150 years. Thousands of New England families have been treated in the pages of the journal and many more are referenced in incidental ways throughout. The articles in the Register range from short pieces correcting errors in print or solving unusual problems to larger treatments that reveal family origins or present multiple generations of a family. www.NewEnglandAncestors.org.

Kentucky Biographies <http://shorl.com/bigepurunema> http://shorl.com/bigepurunema 1910 Land Tax Valuation ('Domesday') <http://www.gmcro.co.uk/sources/domesday.htm> http://www.gmcro.co.uk/sources/domesday.htm Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: <http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES> http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

For Bunny: I have sent you a a message twice in 3 days and it has come back as an incorrect address. I can't figure out why! June

As early as 1653, New York City (formerly called New Amsterdam) recognized that it needed to care for the city's minor children, widows, and orphans. In February of that year, the Deacons of the Reformed Dutch Church were appointed to act as Orphan Masters. Their duties were to "keep their eyes open and look as Orphanmasters after widows and orphans..." They were to report to city officials who would appoint cuators if necessary to take care of the estates and effects of these widows and orphaned children. On February 10, 1653, two men were appointed to act, not as Orphanmasters as originally intended, but as Overseers of Orphans. City officials continued to rule in the Orphan's Court, which had been created by Stuyvesant to attend to orphans and minor children within the jurisdiction of this city [New York City]" The Records of this Orphans' Court have been published as "Minutes of the Orphan Masters of New Amsterdam 1655-1663" by Berthold Fernow and "The Minutes of the Orphan Masters of New Amsterdam 1663-1668" translated by Edmund B. O'Callaghan. There were may orphanages and orphan asylums in the 19th century. Some New York early orphanages were: Half Orphan Asylum for Destitute and Abandoned Children Leake and Watts Orphan House Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum (I have been transcribing these records) Hebrew Orphan Asylum, Brooklyn Old Schuler Mansion, Albany Westchester-Temporary Home for Destitute Children in White Plains opened in 1885 Many of these institutions were founded in New York City to care for destitute children of immigrants from Ireland and Russia, Germany and other eastern European countries. Many immigrants found themselves unable to work and thus were unable feed their children. Women died during childbirth leaving a number of uncared for children. Many women also had illegitimate children that they could not provide for. Husbands died, living behind widows with large families. Some parents were addicted to alcohol or committed crimes and wound up in prison. By 1850, New York state had 27 orphanages run by public and private funds but the problem of orphaned or abandoned children left behind roaming the streets begging for food was growing. Reform groups and wealthy benefactors set up orphanages in large buildings in lower Manhattan and provided food, clothing and shelter to children. Many were run by churches and there was an emphasis on moral training and discipline. The children also learned vocational skills from mechanics to tailoring. The Children's Aid Society, founded in 1854, shipped some of these children to homes in the South and West on Orphan Trains. Boys and girls were give a train ticket and sent to the mid-west. Other charities - the Children's Mission to the Children of the Destitute (Boston), the New York Juvenile Asylum, the New England Home for Little Wanderers (Boston), and the New York Foundling Hospital also followed the Children's Aid Society's example, using Orphan Trains to relocate destititute and abandoned children. Westchester began housing destitute children in its Almshouse in Eastview. Opened in 1828, the Almshouse cared for impoverished adults and the elderly, and children shared space with them. Dating back to the colonial era, New York City assumed responsibility for its citizens who were destitute, sick, homeless, or otherwise unable to care for themselves. The city maintained an almshouse, various hospitals, and a workhouse on Blackwell's Island (now called Roosevelt Island) for the poor. In 1880, New York state passed a law that ended the practice of housing children in Almshouses with adults, unless they were born there. ============================================================================ = .. Have list of websites re Orphan Records, just let me know if you're interested Sally Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

Colonial Routes to Kentucky and Tennessee by Johni Cerny, B.S., F.U.G.A. While American colonists knew of the mountains looming less than 200 miles inland from the Atlantic coast, they did not attempt to cross them or penetrate the interior wilderness for over 150 years after Jamestown was founded. Those early colonists found it easier to establish new settlements along the seacoast and follow navigable streams up into the interior. A few adventuresome frontiersmen, explorers, and surveyors ventured west, including Samuel Stalnaker, who told Dr. Thomas Walker how to find his way through the Cumberland Gap. Daniel Boone started the migration route west over the Wilderness Road in 1773 when he moved his and five other families to Kentucky. George Rogers Clark, who traveled the same road, called Boone's Trace, explored the interior in 1775. Very quickly, they were followed by settlers who began to take the Ohio River west to Warrior's Path, which led them south into the interior. That trickle of early settlers became a steady stream of pioneers whose descendants would continue to migrate west until settlements spanned from coast to coast. In 1785, as the fledgling country was taking form, the three million citizens of that new nation began hearing more about the rich land available at little cost in what would become Kentucky and Tennessee. Tales of Daniel Boone's excursions and settlements beyond the mountains spread rapidly, kindling the urge in many to take advantage of the easy terms for acquiring land. Other conditions, such as high taxes, crowded conditions in the seaboard states, and the economic difficulties being experienced by nearly everyone following the war, added to the motivation to move west into Kentucky and Tennessee. Some of them west directly to their intended destination, but others spent some time in places along the way or decided not to continue the journey. Knowing the early routes leading from the coastal states to the interior can lead to finding pioneer ancestors who disappear from one location without leaving a public record that mentions their destination. For the rest of this interesting article, check: www.lineages.com/InfoCenter/FirstSteps/colonialroutes.cfm Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com "We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

U.S. Surgeon General's Family History Initiative Health care professionals have known for a long time that common diseases - heart disease, cancer, and diabetes - and even rare diseases - like hemophilia, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia - can run in families. If one generation of a family has high blood pressure, it is not unusual for the next generation to have similarly high blood pressure. Tracing the illnesses suffered by your parents, grandparents, and other blood relatives can help your doctor predict the disorders to which you may be at risk and take action to keep you and your family healthy. To help focus attention on the importance of family health history, U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., in cooperation with other agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a national public health campaign, called the U.S. Surgeon General s Family History Initiative, to encourage all American families to learn more about their family health history. In addition to the Office of the Surgeon General, other HHS agencies involved in this project include the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). National Family History Day Surgeon General Carmona has declared Thanksgiving 2004 to be the first annual National Family History Day. Thanksgiving is the traditional start of the holiday season for most Americans. Whenever families gather, the Surgeon General encourages them to talk about, and to write down, the health problems that seem to run in their family. Learning about their family's health history may help ensure a longer future together. My Family Health Portrait Americans know that family history is important to health. A recent survey found that 96 percent of Americans believe that knowing their family history is important. Yet, the same survey found that only one-third of Americans have ever tried to gather and write down their family's health history. Because family health history is such a powerful screening tool, the Surgeon General has created a new computerized tool to help make it fun and easy for anyone to create a sophisticated portrait of their family's health. This new tool, called "My Family Health Portrait" can be downloaded for free and installed on your own computer. The tool will help you organize your family tree and help you identify common diseases that may run in your family. When you are finished, the tool will create and print out a graphical representation of your family's generations and the health disorders that may have moved from one generation to the next. That is a powerful tool for predicting any illnesses for which you should be checked. For information on other activities of the Office of the Surgeon General, please visit www.surgeongeneral.gov. Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com “We have not inherited the world from our forefathers, we have borrowed it from our children.” … Kashmiri Proverb List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

Fragments of a war History Forgot Locals on Raasay in the Hebrides risked their lives to aid suffering German POWs held in their midst. So why is their struggle barely remembered? By Torcuil Crichton In a shallow valley, in the middle of a dense English forest, they lie beneath neat rows of blue granite headstones, 5000 dead from two world wars. Colin Lee has been tending the lines of heather-fringed gravestones for the past 20 years. “People living less than five miles away don't know this is here,” says Lee, drawing on a quiet afternoon cigar and scanning the rows stretching up either side of the slope. It should be no surprise then that few have heard of the Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof, the German war cemetery, at Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. Shrouded in birch, pine and larch, the remains of the German dead from both wars were collected from churchyards throughout Britain and re-buried in the purpose-built cemetery in the 1960s. Each stone marks four graves, with two names on either side. There are no regimental markings to distinguish or disgrace the dead. Many of the names are the common Saxon surnames of Britain and Germany, such as Brown (Braun) and Miller (Muller). Most of these were internees, innocent Germans who lived in Britain and were locked up on the outbreak of hostilities. The “internierter” inscription on their graves lends a guilty air to the woodland clearing. After conferring with his gothic-scripted ledger, Lee walks through the grass avenues to plot number 457. The shared headstone bears the names of Georg Kagerer and Paul Sosinka. The sight of those inscribed names closes a circle that has run from Staffordshire to Bavaria and to the Inner Hebrides. The names that share the Cannock grave are also carved on a headstone on Raasay, where these first world war German prisoners spent their last days. Raasay, a long sliver of an island in the lee of the Isle of Skye, was the location of one of the most unlikely prisoner of war camps ever and the setting for a remarkable story of how, away from the slaughter of the trenches, the spirit of human kindness triumphed over enmity. High above the village of Inverarish, the only settlement of any size on Raasay, and tucked behind another copse of trees, is the cemetery. There are few visitors to the massive carved boulder that bears the names of the two German soldiers, but there are plenty of other reminders of the presence of almost 300 of their wartime comrades on the island. The iron ore deposits on the island of Raasay were first identified just before the outbreaks of hostilities in 1914, and William Baird, the iron and mining company, opened a site, complete with a railway, a crusher, firing kilns and a huge pier. With war came massive demand for shells and the iron ore to produce them, and, of course, a lack of civilian manpower to work the Raasay mines. In 1916, Baird arranged for the operation to be run under the ministry of munitions with the labour of German prisoners. This contravened the Hague Conventions, a shameful act which the British government later attempted to cover up by destroying most of the records in 1920. It was only when the wage differential between island workers in the mines and the imported mainland labour led to a strike, that the illegal use of German POWs as strike-breakers became an issue. The story was taken up in the national press and raised in the House of Commons. A young Winston Churchill, minister for munitions, had to respond with embarrassing half-truths. Hidden by the British government, mentioned in passing by most chronicles of the Hebrides and confined to the past with the last generation, the history of the Raasay POWs is fragmented. The enormous concrete supports for the railway viaduct that carried ore from the mines to the pier head remain. They will last forever, but the story behind them has almost slipped through the fingers of time. John Ferguson sits in his front room, wedged in between an upright piano and the welcoming fireplace. In his hands he is tumbling what looks like an aged white porcelain tube. Hollow, about six inches tall, it has an intricate raised rose stem crafted on one side. Only the splayed base reveals that this vase is made not from fine clay but beef bone, carved by one of the German prisoners whose name appears in raised letters on the reverse. It is an amazing piece of work, grotesque and beautiful at the same time, and Ferguson rolls it through his hands over and over again, summoning up the past. “You see, they were very skilled craftsmen, the Germans,” he says, sifting through his memory for stories his father told him. “They were chosen for the work because of their trades. They could make anything from a needle to an anchor, and I've seen both on this island.” They also, he continues, made exquisite lacquered woo den jewel boxes. “And they made the jewellery to go inside them. From a sovereign they could make a ring that would fit your finger beautifully.” Ferguson’s house and mind are a treasure trove of artefacts and island stories. His late father, John Archie Ferguson, worked with the German POWs as a 14-year-old mining apprentice. “All that generation worked with the Germans,” says John Ferguson. “My father got on with them very well and he could speak German until his dying day. I think he looked on them as elder brothers.” There was a reason that the apprentice Ferguson and the prisoners developed a symbiotic attachment. One of his brothers was also a POW, in Germany, and because of that his mother was determined to keep the Germans boys on her doorstep, starving on half rations, alive. Jessie Ferguson (née MacDonald) from Applecross must have been some woman. A widow with seven children, she had lost a young daughter to appendicitis when her two eldest sons went to war in 1914. Kenneth and Fergie were with the Broadford and Raasay B company of the Camerons infantry regiment. Fergie who lied about his age to join up with his brother, was captured fighting in a rearguard action in France. He was the only survivor dragged out of a group of 30 dead and wounded soldiers by a German officer, his nephew recalls. For three years Fergie Ferguson languished in a German prison camp, during which time his mother on Raasay made a deal with herself to feed the German prisoners in the hope that someone would deliver the same providence to her son. “Everyone was living with the stress of waiting for a telegram coming through the door,” says John Ferguson. “She got sneers that she was feeding these dirty Germans and she put up with a lot, but she always used to say ‘these are some mother’s children, and so I hope that someone will be looking after mine’.” More than 280 German prisoners worked the Raasay mine for a two-year period. There is one contemporaneous account by a rather stunned Australian serviceman, on leave in the land of his forefathers, coming across German uniforms he had last encountered on the Western Front, but the people who rescued the history were two oceanographers who stumbled across the disused Raasay mine workings in the 1980s. Focusing on the technical challenge of the mine workings, Laurence and Pamela Draper managed to gather enough material for a slim but timely book on the subject in 1990. They collected first-hand accounts from islanders who are now dead, archive photos and superb surveys of the extensive mine workings. Architecturally, Inverarish is a Highland village. Two rows of miner’s cottages, built by Baird, are now occupied by most of the 200 or so inhabitants of the island. During the first world war half of it was a prison camp surrounded by barbed wire. In the top section were the Germans, and in the bottom their military guard and British mine workers. IN each corner there was a watchtower, just like you see in the films, says John Ferguson, and everyone was searched coming in and going out. And, just like the films, Ferguson’s father had long sausage-shaped sacks, sewn from flour bags, suspended inside his baggy trousers to smuggle oatmeal and flour into the camp for the Germans. Separated from a military supply chain by miles of sea and rail, the Germans survived, barely, on half rations which arrived on a steam packet every three days. Life was not all bad, though. One photo depicts the Germans in celebratory mood in leder hosen and hunting caps, with costumes and instruments they must have made on the island. Apart from what they fashioned for sale, the Germans traded the contents of their Red Cross parcels. Prison tobacco and small luxuries became valuable commodities on an island suffering the privations of war. “As far as I can gather there was very little animosity towards the Germans ” says Norrie Gillies, whose house is a stone’s throw from the site of the former prison camp hall, now the island fire station. “I suppose that was the case wherever people got to see prisoners as human beings, but life must have been pretty miserable for them.” Escape attempts ended in farce. Half a dozen prisoners rowed out to a fishing boat, but were unable to start the engine. Seasick and disgusted, they returned ashore and were captured cooking a rabbit not far from the camp. Others hid out until they were recaptured. “I’m sure they hadn't realised that they were on an island,” says Gillies. Death was another escape. Georg Kag erer was killed by a roof-fall in the mines in May 1917; Paul Sosinka died of unknown causes the previous Christmas. Early in 1919, before the prisoners could be returned home, another dozen succumbed to the fatal influenza epidemic that swept through Europe and the world that winter. “They couldn’t have been very robust by then,” says Gillies. “It’s quite tragic, because the war was over.” While Kagerer and Sosinka were accorded a headstone, the dozen others were given flat grave slabs. Not long before the second world war began, recalls Gillies, the German graves were desecrated. “It was in 1936 or 1937, some people from one of the universities came to the island for the day. There was a lot of anti-German feeling at the time, and somehow these people found themselves in the graveyard and they destroyed the German graves, smashed them completely. People on the island only found out weeks later when they had a funeral.” The team that came for the remains of the POWs in 1967 showed similar disdain for the burial ground. The two-ton carved boulder in memory of Sosinka and Kagerer was cast aside carelessly and only put back upright many years later by the islanders. None of the former prisoners retained contact with the island, although they left behind clues to their identities. There is a postcard of one of the Germans in a tunic which John Ferguson has unearthed. Many more photos may exist. “There was a Jewish hawker who used to come round the islands, and he would take photos with a camera he had,”he explains. German prisoner records were destroyed by Allied bombing in the second world war. In the upheaval of a twice-defeated and then divided nation, there is no trace of the prisoners’ side of the story. The obelisk war memorial in Inverarish, meanwhile, is witness to the 22 men from the island who died in the first world war. Two out of three who volunteered never returned. It was an enormous loss for a small island. Given Raasay’s Free Presbyterian leanings, there is not usually an Armistice ceremony at the memorial. But the islanders will remember their dead, and some will still spare a moment for the Germans whose names are carved on the boulder high on the hill, the enemies who became their wartime friends. The Raasay Iron Mine by Laurence and Pamela Draper is available from Raasay Stores, Isle of Raasay. Today: Pat Barker discusses her first world war trilogy, Regeneration, on Radio 4’s Bookclub. Thursday, Armistice Day: Eorpa goes in search of Raasay’s German POWs, BBC2 at 7.30pm; The Nation Remembers: The Queen At The Field Of Remembrance, BBC1 at 10.45am; BBC2 and Radio 4 mark a two-minute silence at 11am. 07 November 2004 Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com “We have not inherited the world from our forefathers, we have borrowed it from our children.” … Kashmiri Proverb List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

GenDocs Genealogical Research in England and Wales GENEALOGICAL ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS http://www.gendocs.demon.co.uk/abbr.html Examples: s. - [1] solidus, a shilling (English money); [2] second(s); [3] singular; [4] son. S. - [1] South(ern); [2] Saint; [3] Society. S. by E. - South by East. S. by W. - South by West. S. Yorks - South Yorkshire. Sally Rolls Pavia sallypavia2001@yahoo.com “We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds." List Owner: GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES-L-request@rootsweb.com Archives: http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/index/GENEALOGYBITSANDPIECES "All incoming and outgoing email checked by Norton Anti-Virus"

I have updated the genealogy web search at http://expertgenealogy.com/websearch to include the use of Microsoft's new beta search engine. When you enter names into my system, it feeds those names in various ways to Google, MSN, and Yahoo searches. It is interesting to compare the results of these three and the new beta MSN search. In my testing, I have seen the new MSN search return more than twice as many results as Google! The news article below says that Google will soon be improving their searches as well. News article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6447048. Regards, Terry Young www.eXpertGenealogy.com/websearch