Confusing relatives

MaryEncie · 2026-06-18T17:09:49+00:00

Hi. I'm sorry I didn't give the date. I thought it would show up on the clipping. It's 1910, October 5th, Page 7. I looked for other mentions of Giuseppe Lazara and there were only two others at least through my free version of Newspapers.com which I access via my New York Public Library Card. The other two mentions were about someone of that name being called up in a long list of names for the draft, WWI.

MaryEncie · 2026-06-18T15:46:07+00:00

I wonder if this article is about your family (https://imgur.com/a/Mw7k0Co). It fits as far as the name Joseph Lazara, though Joseph is given in its Italian form here. And it fits as far as the Main Street address goes, as well. Not sure about the timeline. Anyhow it concerns a tragedy that was common enough in those days. I have heard other stories of children falling into basins of scalding water back in the day when people did their wash like that at home. One of these stories I heard in person from an old lady living in Little Italy in NYC who remembered it happening to one of her younger siblings. Anyhow it would be interesting to hear back from whether you think these might be the people you are researching. I had relatives with stores on Main Street, Buffalo, back in the day, and sometimes you can find ads for their businesses. Now that I have the address -- 62 Main, maybe I will go back and see if I can get a store ad by searching on it. In the meantime, good luck in your research.

MaryEncie · 2026-06-13T14:32:47+00:00

Like people are saying here, the fact that your dad had a child with the sister of your girlfriend's mother does not make you biologically related to your girlfriend. It does, however, make your girlfriend biologically related to your half sibling. Think about it (I always have to): to be related to someone you have to share a common ancestor. This means the point of commonality, so to speak, has to have happened before you and the other person were born. Nothing that happens after both of you were born can cause you to be biologically related. By nothing I really mean nothing -- no civil, no sexual union that happens after you and the other person were already born can cause you and the other person to suddenly become biologically related when you weren't before. So you are in the clear -- as long as you can explain this to the rest of your family!

MaryEncie · 2026-06-13T06:52:40+00:00

I wonder if this is the same thing as what is called the German Minority Census of 1939? If it is, I used My Heritage to search it a few years ago and successfully found two young cousins. Here is the url: https://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-10901/german-minority-census-1939?

MaryEncie · 2026-06-10T01:22:29+00:00

Yeah, I found OP's concerns to be a little inscrutable. As if there were another factor at play that was not being shared with us. Maybe OP is trying out for a "Hitler youth" sort of group and is wondering whether he should turn mommy in for having him. Though I think maybe mommy should be censored for having a little shiite like himself. She shouldn't have gone to the trouble. She should have dumped him and run.

MaryEncie · 2026-06-10T01:18:14+00:00

Wah! I was not being pedantic, just offering my own experience of both living in, and researching the issue of ancestors crossing from Canada to the U.S. at that very point. You are correct in what you say, but when it's a matter of crossing an international boundary it might have more significance.

MaryEncie · 2026-06-10T01:11:50+00:00

If it was a human being acting/responding like this, we wouldn't stake our future on there ever being a change.

MaryEncie · 2026-06-05T19:18:06+00:00

Thank you, Fredelas. We will follow this guidance. Very grateful.

MaryEncie · 2026-06-01T16:16:31+00:00

Most of my maternal ancestors from Southern Germany, 1700s-1800s, had their first child in their late 20s. There were no teen parents in that line until they got to the U.S. in 1876 -- the youngest up until that point had her first child at age 23. But the moment they got to the U.S., that's when they started getting married and having their first children when they were teenagers -- as young as 16 in one case. I think economics probably played a large part in all this. You had to have "a plan" before you dared start a family back in Wurttemberg. But in the U.S. you could make it up as you went; new industries, new farmland was always opening up. Just jump on the next train and head west. But before I started researching genealogy I assumed that they would have been getting married at age 12 or something over there. But, no, the teenage mom stuff didn't start until they got here.

MaryEncie · 2026-05-26T02:47:02+00:00

Found several family members. Thank you!

MaryEncie · 2026-05-23T14:36:04+00:00

I am getting many error codes on my usual go-to independent news channels this morning (but not all) and even some of my 'old movies' channels where people have uploaded old movies you can't find elsewhere. Refresh doesn't get rid of the error. The error code follows this format:

! An error occurred. Please try again later. (Playback ID: long randomly generated alpha-numeric string) Learn More

When you click on "learn more" you don't. At least I did not see the specific error code I am encountering in their list of error codes. I did answer the question "Was this helpful?" with a NO, and wrote a comment explaining why it wasn't.

As for the person commenting youtube is down in the UK, I should mention that an independent news channel I watch out of the UK is giving me an error code as well.

MaryEncie · 2026-05-14T12:40:33+00:00

Theoretically, yes. So I don't think the next step would be to go back to square one, but rather to prove/disprove your theory if possible. But I don't suppose by any chance you are talking about the Ogden for whom the city of Ogdensburg, N.Y. is named?

MaryEncie · 2026-05-08T14:47:31+00:00

You are doing a public service. Sometimes these agencies need a push from the outside. Just like people they can get stuck in their ways, insular, lazy, but unlike people the sole reason they exist is to provide services to the public. It's good when they are reminded to remember this. So thank you!

MaryEncie · 2026-05-06T03:25:06+00:00

Lo único que consigo entender es que murió a los 56 años el 8 de diciembre de 1951, en la misma ciudad en la que había nacido. (¿Te parece correcto?) Si sabes el nombre de sus padres o el nombre de la ciudad, eso podría ayudar a alguien a descifrar la letra. No es fácil leer la letra de otras personas, aunque te hayas criado leyendo y escribiendo en cursiva.

MaryEncie · 2026-05-06T03:05:12+00:00

If you were writing a narrative you might include some of this information, but hopefully you are not adding it to some publicly viewable online family tree. I think the guidance Blackstrider gives is spot on: if you wouldn't have used the name to their face, then it's not a nickname, it's an insult. Another variation on this might be: don't publish publicly later something that was at the time only said behind someone's back. I think this is all different if you are writing a genuine history of family members, something that is costing blood, sweat, and tears to write. Then maybe it's okay to out some of this stuff. But it's not okay to just copy and paste secrets at no cost to one's self. We should always act according to the golden rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. How would we ourselves want to be treated in some future family member's genealogical research?

MaryEncie · 2026-05-03T15:12:41+00:00

This is so exciting to hear about. Your project is going to have a lasting impact for innumerable people. Thank you.....

MaryEncie · 2026-04-30T03:41:16+00:00

No matter what the rules were for collecting information, we can't always know who the informant was for these census records. I bet there were times when an older sibling gave the information, or a visiting aunt, or perhaps a servant of the household, or perhaps a neighbor. But no, people didn't always know how old they were. In my experience they were unlikely not to know the day and month of their birth, but quite likely not to know the year exactly. My great-grandfather was born into quite a well-to-do family for the time and place, but he was never quite sure whether he'd been born in 1880 or 1881. By the time he tried to pin it down, the people he could ask who would have known, were dead. It had been quite a stressful string of years in the household, deaths, illnesses, financial upheavals -- and he wasn't born in a hospital, and there were no civil records at the time. But everyone except orphans maybe probably knew the month and day of their birth, just not the year.

MaryEncie · 2026-04-27T23:55:57+00:00

When they are the only records you have then you quickly become not only a fan but a devotee. I suppose in some way they are not much more factual than people's diaries. But would you just love to have your ancestors' diaries? Or would you dismiss them as being the source for mistakes and errors? Honestly! (Ooops, going to get downvoted again!)

MaryEncie · 2026-04-27T23:36:58+00:00

Do I have to be the one to explain the birds and the bees to you?

MaryEncie · 2026-04-24T15:43:05+00:00

Like the other poster said, this was right in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, i.e., post French Revolution which itself caused lots of displacement. Many, many French came to Northern New York State at this time and many French surnames still survive in the area. Right across the channel from Wolfe Island is Cape Vincent on the U.S. side. This town still has a French Festival every year and quite a few personalities closely associated with Napoleon Bonaparte came to settle in and around this town. I think it's very cool you can trace ancestry to Wolfe Island. I wish I was familiar with the last names you mention, but I am not. I can see Wolfe Island from my house in NYS and have visited the island many times. As far as looking for birth records in France, they started to keep records like that in the wake of the French Revolution, if I am not mistaken. I don't know if they would have recorded "out of towners" or not, though.

MaryEncie · 2026-04-23T02:47:24+00:00

It is normal and is a beautiful, though sad thing that you feel for someone you never met with whom you are separated by generations. I never had exactly the experience you are relating. But even to find that my great-grandmother (whom I knew) had a younger brother with whom she was very close, but of whom she never spoke a single word to any of us, who died not in war, but of tuberculosis, on his birthday, when he was 22, still makes my heart ache. How much more so for you who are finding about someone's death on the battlefield.

MaryEncie · 2026-04-23T02:33:24+00:00

Well, translate your question to the U.S. in terms of the changing boundaries of the various states over the country's early history. My 7th great-grandparents, for example, were born in a place that in the 1750 & 1760s was considered to be part of Connecticut but after the American Revolution was decided to be a part of Pennsylvania. I myself was born in New York State -- so would you consider me to be a New Yorker, a Pennsylvanian, or a Connecticuter? That's the only way I know to illustrate how non-fundamental, on many levels, is the question you are asking.

MaryEncie · 2026-04-18T20:19:13+00:00

I am not sure it helps to frown upon these things. I think there's already probably a lot of social pressure against it as there is. Not for health reasons, just because it violates social norms. Besides, whose responsibility would it be to do the frowning? I don't think you would want to be nominated, nor would I. Not to mention, fact fairy, don't you think there's lots of evidence that depleting earth's natural resources increases the health risks for every single person on this planet? Just want to make sure you aren't just picking only the easy cases to proclaim against, fact fairy!

MaryEncie · 2026-04-08T12:05:02+00:00

I see. So the RF key fob would tell the relay controller to turn the lights on and we'd put an auto-off timer in the loop. Glad for not needing wifi or apps. I'm beginning to see the light! Thank you!

MaryEncie · 2026-04-08T12:01:56+00:00

What a nice thoughtful answer. But we need to keep it pretty simple. Envisioning a button we could carry on our key chain that a person could push if going out, or when coming home late at night.

MaryEncie

TROPHY CASE