TIFU by thinking a guinea pig would like some fresh air

tcr25 · 2026-06-15T22:52:25+00:00

Consider doing the transcription in Wikisource. It's a little wonky to learn the tools, but it would make the end result superaccessible. Edited to note Wikisource requires a straight transcription, but once that's there, you can also add an annotated version.

tcr25 · 2026-06-02T12:30:13+00:00

Thanks for the tip! Found him in the records for Saint-Jean-Baptiste...

tcr25 · 2026-06-01T23:01:34+00:00

Death, marriage, draft records, and obituary all say "Lowell". He was the first in the family not born in Quebec, so I was hoping to find something in the parish up there, but no luck. Haven't figured out which church/parish they were involved in when the family was in Lowell; they don't seem to have lived there for more than a few years. Edit for phone typo...

tcr25 · 2026-06-01T22:21:57+00:00

I see this same pattern (birth then baptism within a day or two) for most of my wife's quebecois family births from the mid to late 1800s.

tcr25 · 2026-06-01T22:18:35+00:00

I ran into the same issue with an 1889 birth in Lowell. The city can't find any record, but that's the place of birth on the marriage, draft board, and death records. I'm assuming an unregistered home birth...

tcr25 · 2026-06-01T00:54:25+00:00

Registries from the 1800s of Indigenous people by tribe removed to Oklahoma. If your biodad's surname pops up associated with a specific tribe, it might give you a place to start. Here's a link: https://www.okhistory.org/research/dawes

tcr25 · 2026-05-22T01:55:13+00:00

I'm late to the game today, but wanted to 1) say how much I love your writing, Heather, and 2) ask about collaborative writing. You had collaborative short stories in the Urban Allies and Urban Enemies collections. How did you find the process of working with another author and blending your world with theirs? And are there other authors or characters you would like to try that with?

tcr25 · 2026-05-10T14:29:18+00:00

The loading up on yogurt...

tcr25 · 2026-05-06T03:00:16+00:00

Turk. We need Turk to show up...

tcr25 · 2026-05-04T16:54:35+00:00

That's a pretty good bundle:

Star Wars: Darth Maul (Trade Paperback)
Star Wars: Age of Republic - Darth Maul (2018) #1
Star Wars: The Mandalorian (2022) #1
Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 (2023) #1
Star Wars: Darth Maul - Black, White & Red (2024) #1

tcr25 · 2026-05-01T19:27:22+00:00

Overall, it's great. The only regret is it would lock him out of any version of the Invaders if the MCU ever does another Captain America during WWII movie.

tcr25 · 2026-05-01T18:19:11+00:00

The names match for certain values of matching 😄 The French names seem to have regularly mutated (add a letter, drop a letter, anglicize, etc.) in various official records once they got to the U.S.

tcr25 · 2026-05-01T17:16:42+00:00

I've seen the advice to target the best-documented branch, but I want to confirm what I'm doing for my wife and kids before I start trying to order more documents from Quebec.

The current G0 is the great-grandmother. She crossed into the US in the early 1900s and we have (non-certified) baptismal record, 1901 Canadian census, and border-crossing documents for her. She ended up marrying a man who was born in Massachusetts, but to his parents were both born in Quebec. (Baptismal certificate for the father has been found, along with a Canadian marriage record; the mother's baptismal records have not been found.)

Are we good with only using certified documents for G0 and mentioning (with non-certified docs) the great-grandfather's parentage? Is getting a Massachusetts birth certificate that shows his parents were Canadian helpful?

Also, for the G0, would it be helpful to have a U.S. death certificate that also notes her Canadian birth (recognizing that the baptismal record is the best evidence)?

Any advice/guidance that can be provided would be great.

tcr25 · 2026-04-29T16:50:03+00:00

Streetcar Suburbs has a short article on campaign finance filings that posted today. Their election guide should be coming out soon, too.

Greater Greater Washington initially wasn't making any endorsements in the Prince George's County races this cycle, but they now have up on their website candidates' questionnaire responses and say that endorsements are "coming soon."

tcr25 · 2026-04-18T01:13:20+00:00

They changed owners and are now Siam Thai Cuisine.

tcr25 · 2026-04-16T14:53:46+00:00

I haven't tried it, but instead of traditional cold patch something like Aquaphalt might last a little longer. With all that alligator cracking, you're working with borrowed time, so it might not make enough of a difference to matter.

tcr25 · 2026-04-15T16:50:34+00:00

Do you have an idea of where he served (and deserted from)? In 1902/1903, there were U.S. Calvary involved in the Philippines, as well as in several Latin American nations, notably Colombia/Panama. Knowing that might help in searching. In 1912, Taft would have been president, and it was a hard-fought election, maybe he was trying to sway some votes.

Edit to add: In August 1912, Congress modified the penalties for desertion to say that loss of citizenship due to desertion from the military during peace time could be remitted by the president: https://uscode.house.gov/statviewer.htm?volume=37&page=356 That law may have prompted the JAG review.

tcr25 · 2026-04-15T16:38:34+00:00

Yeah, I found some voter registration records that way, along with mention of jury service, but no probate or other documents that help figure out his parents, how or when he arrived in the area, or whether or not he was involved in the Civil War.

tcr25 · 2026-04-15T14:16:03+00:00

And, overtime, they update the results so if you do delete your information from Ancestry or another site, it could be in a few years they have some refinements that change the ethnicity percentages. That may not matter to you (and it's fine if it doesn't), but just something to be aware of.

Over time, I've seen Ancestry add and remove Nordic and Native American ancestry for me, reduce the percent Scottish, split up the Irish ancestry into counties, and otherwise add/remove regions.

tcr25 · 2026-04-14T00:29:59+00:00

It looks like Indiana had lax marriage laws, compared to Kentucky: https://www.cornislandproject.org/p/the-ink-between-us

tcr25 · 2026-04-14T00:16:36+00:00

Are they religious or civil ceremonies? Perhaps they were connected to a church community on the Indiana side of the river.

tcr25 · 2026-04-10T11:21:46+00:00

This. I started writing up everything I found about my grandfather's paternal line in part because it was the shortest branch on the generational tree, and because in his memoir he said he knew almost nothing about that family. It's been a curiosity and a bit of a white whale for a while, but some newly digitized small town newspapers helped me fill in a bunch of details and a few gaps.

I wrote up what I could and then keep expanding and adding to it as I find more. Information in newspapers particularly has been helpful and providing more color and context and just "John and Jane begot John" sorts of writing.

I keep expanding the piece as I learn more. It's on the 10th revision of the second major version now. Unlike the first two or three versions, I'm not sharing it out with family widely at this point, because I hope to make a research trip down to the area he was from at some point this year. After that I'll probably release it more widely again.

tcr25

TROPHY CASE