St. Louis County Watchman-Advocate

The Special Collections Department of the St. Louis County Library (1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard) has begun indexing the St. Louis County Watchman-Advocate newspaper.

[genealogy, newspaper]

Thanksgiving

As a joke, my sister bought a Jones Soda Holiday Pack. One by one, each soda -- Brussels Sprout with Prosciutto, Cranberry Sauce, Turkey & Gravy, Wild Herb Stuffing, and Pumpkin Pie -- was passed around the table so that everyone could pour themselves a small sample. This turned into an event that will not be forgotten, both for the distinct tastes and amusement of seeing everyone's reactions.

The cranberry and pumpkin pie sodas were declared the least offensive to our taste buds. Others claimed that the herb stuffing soda was pretty bad, but I thought it hardly had any flavor -- a good thing in this situation. The brussel sprout soda tasted as bad as it look and was, I believe, voted the worst of the lot.

Jones also sells another holiday pack. Broccoli casserole -- could it possibly be any worse than the brussel sprout soda?

Site update. For real this time.

I jumped the gun a bit on the 12th regarding site maintenance and it didn't help that the FTP connection to RootsWeb stopped working. All of the pages are up now. There are a few remaining images to upload, but I'll take care of them this weekend. After that, I'll start getting the overall image situation back on track (more frequent additions).

I will also be making some additional changes to the CSS to accomodate different screen sizes. That was the primary reason for altering the layout a bit. And then I'll try to come up with a new blog template. Nothing spectacular. Just something instead of a stock option.

Those using Internet Explorer to view the site may see some problems with the layout, namely some borders not aligning properly. I just noticed this issue. When I make pages and CSS files I always test them locally with Firefox and IE, and I did not notice this border malfunction. I'll try to take care of it this weekend.

[genealogy]

Holtermann and Lodenkamper from Wiedenbrück?

After viewing the January 2, 1839 passenger list of the ship George Washington (Bremen to New Orleans), I am now even more convinced that the area around Wiedenbrück and Wadersloh (Westfalen) was home to our HOLTERMANN and LODENKAMPER ancestors as had once been suggested by a German researcher. The problem was, and still is, that the available church records do not show a match, per the IGI. Although excited to have found this passenger list, I'm still lacking enough clues to start ordering films blindly.

The key detail from the passenger list is that Bernhard HOLTERMANN, age 25, was heading to St. Louis from Wiedenbrück. As I've mentioned before, I've suspected a connection between Bernhard and our Wilhelm Ludwig HOLTERMANN. That Wiedenbrück, rather than something more vague such as "Germany" or "Prussia," was specifically listed is great, but where is the corresponding IGI entry? Were those records not fully indexed or were the HOLTERMANNs in fact from a nearby village? I tend to believe the nearby village angle at the moment.

The family of Ferdinand HOLTERMANN was also on the George Washington in 1839. Their origin was listed as Wadersloh, just south of Wiedenbrück. There is nothing to suggest Ferdinand was related to Wilhelm or Bernhard, but Wilhelm's second son was named Franz Ferdinand and it wouldn't hurt to keep Ferdinand in mind for the future.

Finally, Peter LODENKAMPER and his family, listed as natives of Wiedenbrück heading to Ohio, were on the George Washington as well. There really isn't anything to connect this family to ours in St. Louis, but this is the first LODENKAMPER on a passenger list I've found that mentioned a town name. And my gut feeling has been that Wilhelm HOLTERMANN and Dorothea LODENKAMPER were probably from the same area before immigrating.

[genealogy, Holtermann, Lodenkamper]

Files and Photos

Kimberly Powell has written a good article about organizing files, something I've spent too much time on this year. It's neccessary, but not exactly something I look forward to because of my past bad habits when creating and saving files. It's getting better now that I sort of have a system (aided immensely with Picasa for scans).

Since making some progress on photos, I'm looking forward to actually using Passage Express to create a distributable project rather than playing around with it. Who am I kidding? I know it will be sometime next year when that happens.

And among today's RSS headlines was an article from MSNBC.com about making a digital photo album. Very cool.

[genealogy]

Website maintenance

Hopefully, everything will be up and running by this evening.

Your Ancestors' Money

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has an interesting website, including the Showcase of Bills which depicts how American paper money has evolved over time.

[genealogy]

Genealogy Audio Programs

I've mentioned Irene Johnson's Relatively Speaking genealogy radio show before. I enjoy it, but I often forget that it's on. When I do remember about the show on a late Sunday afternoon/early evening, I usually have to open up Audacity, hit record and walk away. I'll come back later, save the file (MP3) and then listen later in the week. This is why I like downloadable audio content (podcasts) and RSS. There's no need to be around at a set time or remember anything, except to run iPodder at some point to grab the latest files. What I'm getting at is that I wish Relatively Speaking was a podcast or at least had an online archive. Not only for my benefit, but for everyone. The show is that informative and enjoyable.

While on the subject, I also think The Genealogue should have a podcast, sort of a cross between The Daily Show and Diggnation.

[genealogy]

Names

If you want to see how names of the past have fallen from favor, or how some names have become trendy, check out The Baby Name Wizard: NameVoyager.

[genealogy]

Billy the Kid investigation resurrected

MSNBC: Billy the Kid investigation resurrected.

[genealogy, DNA]

Google Print

The concept of Google Print is great, but their choice to employ opt-out is pretty disturbing.

Washington Times: Reining in Google.

BBC News: Google posts first books online.

[genealogy]

Jack the Ripper

The Daily Telegraph: Australia may solve Ripper mystery.

[genealogy, DNA]

Copernicus

MSNBC.com: Archaeologists identify Copernicus’ skull.

"The grave was in bad condition and not all remains were found, Gassowski said, adding that his team will try to find relatives of Copernicus to do more accurate DNA identification."

[genealogy, DNA]

Holtermann, Lodenkamper

I'm going to assume that Ancestry either added new data or corrected some names in the index, because I don't know how references to a passenger list with both HOLTERMANNs and LODENKAMPERs got by me before. But there it was today when I checked — out of desperation and wishful thinking — using the local library's subscription to ALE.

Although the given names don't match up at the moment, I find the reference to Bernard HOLTERMANN worth checking out. A man by that name applied for citizenship with Wilhelm HOLTERMANN on the same day in 1848 in St. Louis, and it appears that both men lived in the same general area and attended the same Catholic church. That LODENKAMPERs, possibly related to Wilhelm's first wife Dorothea LODENKAMPER, also immigrated on the same ship with Bernard HOLTERMANN makes me want to see this passenger list even more.

I haven't seen the microfilm yet because it's at another library, but this is the best lead on these families in a long, long time. These two families are among the few who have eluded me while searching immigration records and for whom I have almost no idea of their hometown in Germany.

[genealogy, Holtermann, Lodenkamper]

Elephants Show Special Interest in Their Dead

National Geographic News: Elephants Show Special Interest in Their Dead.

[genealogy]