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GeneaNet : Community : Genealogy Blog Saturday Nov 21, 2009

Genealogy Blog 


20 November 2009

Lincoln's Letter To Boy On Sale

A letter written by former US President Abraham Lincoln to a schoolboy nearly 150 years ago is to go on sale for $60,000 (£36,000) in Philadelphia.

George Patten was with his journalist father when both met the commander-in-chief.

The 16th US president wrote in 1861 after the eight-year-old was mocked by his disbelieving classmates. The handwritten, signed note confirms the pair met and was sent two weeks after the Lincoln's inauguration.

The letter reads: "Whom it may concern, I did see and talk with master George Evans Patten, last May, at Springfield, Illinois. Respectfully, A Lincoln."

Source & Full Story

19 November 2009

Trove Of Papers Donated To Holocaust Memorial Center

A photo of the infamous lamp shade thought to have been made from human skin, photos of the bodies of Nazi concentration camp victims and hundreds of pages of documents from the World War II War Crimes Tribunal have a new home, thanks to a Waterford man who donated them to the Holocaust Memorial Center.

The center received the trove of artifacts from the Dachau War Crimes Tribunal from Andy Woodiwiss, a grandson of a U.S. Army major who oversaw the World War II war crimes trials. Woodiwiss discovered the artifacts in 1997 while he was cleaning out his grandparents' Lewiston home.

Several years ago, he was offered seven figures for the collection but turned down the money from an eBay buyer when he discovered the winning bid was from a neo-Nazi group.

Source & Full Story

17 November 2009

Red Cross Sells Pieces Of History To Cut Deficit

Rose Percy has a long history with the American Red Cross. Complete with an extensive wardrobe and her own Tiffany jewelry, this 23-inch wax doll was first sold for $1,200 back in 1864 to benefit the U.S. Sanitary Commission — the precursor to one of best-known U.S. charities.

Now, Rose Percy, is on the auction block again.

On Tuesday, Percy will be sold in one of the first rounds of an extensive sale of treasures the American Red Cross has amassed over the decades. The current bid online: $5,000. The Red Cross also is selling a rare four-faced Cartier clock lamp, nurse uniforms from World War I and what could be the last Civil War-era flag of the forerunner U.S. Sanitary Commission.

Source & Full Story

11 November 2009

Catholic Documents In Oldest US City Preserved

Sister Catherine Bitzer slowly opened a file box and carefully removed a brittle page, scarred by years of neglectful storage, mold and insects. At 415 years old, the marriage record written by a Roman Catholic priest is still readable and is one of the oldest known European records from the United States.

It's among thousands of artifacts detailing the lives of the Spanish soldiers, missionaries and merchants who settled St. Augustine, the nation's oldest permanent city. The church kept the only official records, a role that today is filled by government.

Dated Jan. 24, 1594, and handwritten by Father Diego Escobar de Sambrana, the record held by Bitzer details the marriage of soldier Gabriel Hernandez to Catalina de Valdes in St. Augustine, some 26 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

Source & Full Story

30 October 2009

Today’s Technology Preserves Ramona’s Past (California)

Using a high-end scanner, David Hunsberger is digitizing about 2,500 photos from the 1800s and early 1900s of families that lived in the Ramona- to- Santa Ysabel area and in the Santa Maria Valley (California). The photos will be saved on a hard drive and can then be transferred to DVDs where they will be more easily accessible, and there will be no worry of deterioration, Hunsberger said.

The project was initiated by Ken Woodward, director of the Guy B. Woodward Museum. Woodward’s father, Guy, founded the museum and was instrumental in collecting many historical photos and documents.

Woodward wanted to make sure the collection would never be lost and would be available for others to view. He was aware that many major museums had been using computer technology to preserve their historical documents and photos.

Source & Full Story

29 October 2009

Gates Foundation Donates $10M to Smithsonian’s African American History Museum

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently contributed $10 million to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, expected to open in late 2015 on the National Mall in Washington. The purpose of the grant is to support the capital campaign of the new museum, which is raising funds for the design and construction of its building.

The facility is to be built on a five-acre tract adjacent to the Washington Monument. The design, construction and exhibition installations are expected to cost about $500 million, half provided by congressional funding and the remainder raised by the museum. Groundbreaking for the 300,000-square-foot building is expected occur in 2012.

Source & Full Story

16 October 2009

Glasgow Building Where Canada's First Prime Minister John A. Macdonald Grew Up To Be Demolished

In a grimy lane in central Glasgow stand an abandoned brothel and a boarded-up saloon. Partners in hopelessness, they face the dismal thoroughfare. The building that houses them, like all its neighbours, is slated for demolition, and standing there you think: the sooner the better.

Yet from this doomed street in 1820, a failed businessman began a journey that ended in the creation of a country. He left his place of work in Brunswick Lane for the last time. A ship was waiting in the River Clyde, and he boarded with his family. Among them was his eldest surviving son, a 5-year-old.

The boy was John A. Macdonald.

Source & Full Story

15 October 2009

Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Launches Facebook Profile

The museum of the World War II-era Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp has launched its profile, "Auschwitz Memorial", on the Facebook social networking website, a museum spokesman said Thursday.

"If, in keeping with our mission, we want to educate youngsters, to teach them to be responsible for the world they live in, we must use the modes of communication young people themselves use," Auschwitz-Birkenau museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki told AFP.

"Our Facebook profile is addressed to those across the globe who want to learn the history of the camp and the actual situation of the museum, to discuss it or to pay homage to the victims of Auschwitz-Birkenau," he added.

Source & Full Story

12 October 2009

17th Century Aberdeenshire Castle In The Pink After Facelift

A two-year £500,000 facelift to return a 17th Century Aberdeenshire castle to its original look has been completed.

The National Trust for Scotland's Craigievar Castle, near Alford, now has a traditional lime-based alternative to concrete-based harling.

Experts believe it has returned the castle to what would have been its original shade of pink.

Project manager Ian Davidson said: "It would be fair to say that visitors to the castle will notice a change."

Source & Full Story

8 October 2009

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List:Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church (Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom)

On the edge of inner-city Belfast, Carlisle Memorial Methodist Church serves as a sober reminder of the city’s architectural legacy and its troubled past. Designed in the Gothic Revival style by noted architect W. H. Lynn and completed in 1875, the church was home to one of the largest Methodist congregations in Belfast. The sandstone and limestone exterior of the building was renovated in 1966, but the church ceased to be used as a place of worship by 1982, a consequence of the declining congregation and its location at a major interface between Catholic and Protestant populations. Previous plans to convert the church to public housing did not come to fruition. Now derelict for close to 20 years, Carlisle Memorial has suffered extensive physical degradation, and the need for action is at hand.

Despite its religious associations, the building is now perceived as neutral territory in a deeply polarized area and holds symbolic potential for North Belfast in particular and the city as a whole. This public perception and the church’s interface location lend credence to renewed proposals for the adaptive reuse of this shared heritage resource. Such a project would foster significant civic engagement with stakeholder communities and deepen the successes of the Northern Irish peace process.

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List:Edimburgh Historic Graveyards (Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom)

In Edinburgh, Scotland, five historical burial grounds are scattered around the city’s center, calm amid the surrounding urban storm. Greyfriars Kirkyard, Canongate Kirkyard, St. Cuthberts Kirkyard, Old Calton Burial Ground, and New Calton Burial Ground form a collection of graveyards that provide a window into the history, culture, and society of Scotland from the early 17th to late 19th century. Among the weathered, decaying headstones of lawyers, poets, smiths, tailors, philosophers, and others that formed the fabric of Edinburgh’s society, histories and legacies weave stories of the transition of Edinburgh from medieval town to Enlightenment city to the “second city of the Empire.” Economist Adam Smith, poet Robert Fergusson, inventor Robert Stevenson, and philosopher David Hume rest among the city’s departed, testament to Edinburgh’s cultural and academic transformations.

Years of exposure to the elements, vandalism, and neglect have led to deterioration throughout the five graveyards. Headstones that have been removed or become dislodged from the ground lie flat, decaying and eroding with each passing year. Paths have become overgrown, dissuading visitors from entering the grounds that evoke such significant memories of the history and importance of Edinburgh in the development of the country and Europe as a whole.

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List:Hôtel de Monnaies (Villemagne L’Argentière, France)

Hôtel de Monnaies, an abandoned merchants’ building, is tucked away in the narrow streets of Villemagne L’Argentière in the renowned Languedoc region. The medieval building’s façade and exceptional portal sculptures welcomed Catholic pilgrims and visitors for workshops, storage of goods, and accommodations during the economic prosperity of this region in the 13th century. The area flourished from visiting pilgrims and the exploitation of local mines. A recent technical study uncovered unique wall paintings under layers of more recent paint, providing additional clues to the history of the building and its decoration. The town was attacked during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, and then again during the French Revolution, at the end of the 18th century, when the monks in Villemagne L’Argentière were expelled.

The city of Villemagne L’Argentieè took possession of the Hôtel de Monnaies in 1996, and stabilization work was completed to avoid any further damage or collapse. In 2005, a proposed plan of for protecting, preserving, and reusing the building was drawn up. There are hopes to restore the building for use as the Mayor’s office, post office, library, and tourist office, and to reinstate cultural activities at the Hôtel de Monnaies.

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List: St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 (New Orleans, Louisiana, United States)

Opened in 1823, St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 is located in the Faubourg Tremé, a neighborhood developed in the early 19th century by and for the city’s “free people of color.” Preceded by the smaller St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, built in 1789, the second is the largest early Creole cemetery in New Orleans. Above-ground tombs dot the urban setting following European Enlightenment ideals and architecture prominent in both France and Spain. St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 is one of the finest collections of antebellum mortuary art arranged in an orthogonal grid. Tomb design, carved sculpture, and the ironwork surrounding the tombs and cemetery offer a glimpse into the artistic and cultural hybrids of the Creole community. Notable architects such as James Gallier and J. N. B. de Pouilly designed some of the grave sites, and those interred include significant jazz musicians and local war heroes.

Vandalism and natural elements have critically damaged many of the tombs throughout the cemetery. Water lines linger, reminders of the destruction and flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 is a vital symbol of Creole history and community, and requires open and thorough dialogue regarding its preservation in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

World Monuments Fund 2010 Watch List

7 October 2009

Is France Doing Enough to Save Its Historic Buildings?

Voltaire once called it a home fit for a king. And for a few hundred years, it was. Since the Hotel Lambert was built in 1639 on Paris's Ile Saint Louis by architect Louis Le Vau, who also designed the Chateau de Versailles, the mansion has played host to French nobility, exiled Polish princes and members of the Rothschild family. But for Qatari Prince Hamad bin Abdullah al-Thani, who bought the property from the Rothschilds in 2007 for $88 million, the welcome has been far from regal.

The Prince's plan to restore the mansion to its 17th century glory while also adding elevators, air-conditioning and an underground parking lot has run into opposition from historical preservationists, who say the $60 million renovations would be "disastrous." But critics are even angrier that the French Ministry of Culture approved the plan in the first place, the latest example of what preservationists say is the government's disregard for the protection of France's architectural treasures.

Source & Full Story

1 September 2009

Cash Grant Saves English Medieval Chapel

A medieval chapel next to a moated manor house in Essex has been preserved after receiving a £138,000 grant from English Heritage.

St Mary's Church in Mundon, which has an unusual early 16th Century timber-framed belfry, needed the funds to carry out urgent repairs.

The instability of the clay under the church led to fears the east end wall might collapse.

The church also has Georgian wall paintings which were under threat.

Source & Full Story

15 August 2009

Vandals Strike At Historic Priory In Scotland

Historic Scotland suspects a gravestone at Beauly Priory in the Highlands was broken in a "mindless act" of vandalism.

Masonry experts from the organisation's technical conservation group will assess the damage to the stone in the grounds of the ruined church.

The priory was built for Valliscaulian monks - an order of the Catholic church - at Beauly, near Inverness, in 1230.

Part of the building was later rebuilt in the 1530s.

Source & Full Story

31 July 2009

Magna Carta And Anne Frank Diaries Among Items Joining UNESCO Register

The diaries of Holocaust victim Anne Frank, the Magna Carta and the royal archives of Madagascar and Thailand are among 35 items of documentary heritage that are being added to a United Nations register designed to preserve them for future generations.

Koïchiro Matsuura, the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, announced today that these items will be inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register after they were recommended by a panel of international experts who have gathered in Barbados this week.

There are now 193 inscriptions on the register, which began in 1997 and aims to preserve and promote documentary heritage that is considered to be of global significance and often endangered.

Source & Full Story

16 June 2009

Holocaust Survivor Donates Personal Items from Auschwitz to Yad Vashem

An Holocaust survivor from the US donated Monday personal items of victims of Auschwitz to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Institute in Jerusalem.

95-year-old Meyer Hack came especially from Massachusetts for the occasion.

Born in Ciechanow, Poland, Hack was deported in 1942 together with his mother, brother and two sisters, to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. His mother and sisters were murdered on arrival and his brother was murdered later on.

Meyer was sent to forced labor hauling carts of personal effects and clothing between Birkenau and Auschwitz before their eventual transfer to Germany.

Source & Full Story

15 June 2009

Indiana Soldier to Auction Rare Piece of History

A rare leather-bound book that played an influential role in America's early history could bring a windfall for a soldier training for his second tour in Iraq.

Indiana National Guard Capt. Nathan Harlan was a high school junior when he paid $7 for a 1788 first edition of volume one of "The Federalist" — a two-volume book of essays calling for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Harlan, a 35-year-old from Granger, Ind., said he always thought his find might be worth about $500, not the thousands it could fetch when it's sold online Tuesday by Heritage Auction Galleries of Dallas.

"I'm really hoping it goes for $100,000, but I'm not holding my breath," he said, chuckling.

Source & Full Story

29 April 2009

America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places

This year marks the 22nd annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has used this list as a powerful alarm to raise awareness of the serious threats facing the nation’s greatest treasures. It has become one of the most effective tools in the fight to save the country’s irreplaceable architectural, cultural and natural heritage.

The list, which has identified 211 sites through 2009, has been so successful in galvanizing preservation efforts across the country and rallying resources to save one-of-a-kind landmarks that, in over two decades, only six sites have been lost. Dozens of sites have been saved through the tireless work of the National Trust, our regional offices, statewide and local partners, and preservation organizations across the country. Many more sites are considered “favorable” and are on the path to a positive solution. Still others remain threatened and the National Trust and its partners continue in their efforts to protect these important endangered places.

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