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Build Your Own LibraryBY JANET BERNICE JEYS
WHAT IS THE SECRET to a happy life? According to
Elmer Spears, it's doing what you love, especially if ithelps other people.
And Elmer and his genealogy library do just that."It all started with a paper I had to write as a junior
in high school for Prof Kohler;' Elmer says. "He wanted us to write about our families, to write stories about
them. All my grandparents were still alive so I had
great resources. [The assignment] piqued my curiosityso much that I never lost interest in finding out aboutmy beginnings:'
Eventually Elmer turned in the assignment and
socked the paper away. He graduated from high school,built a business, and started a family. Twenty years later, the paper resurfaced. An old flame rekindled.
Elmer joined the Ohio Genealogy Society because
his family lived there. He signed on with a society inFlorida as well, became their newsletter editor, and
started purchasing genealogy books to help fill those
46 WWW.ANCESTRYMAGAZINE.COM
newsletters. Over time, Elmer would purchase morethan 18,000 books.
The rest, as they say, is history - in this case, familyhistory.
Today, those 18,000 books and a few thousand more
fill Elmer's Genealogy Library, which also offers microfiche and microfilm records, one-on-one help, andresearching resources. And it's not a one-man show.
Elmer's Genealogy Library is run by a board of genealogy enthusiasts, each of whom support the nonprofitorganization's mission: "To provide a safe depositoryfor individuals who wish to share documented fam-
ily histories and records for present and future gener2.tions:'
It even has more than one branch: the physiC2l on~which you can visit next time you're in \fadison • .F:,oc
ida, and the virtual branch, open 24 hours a cia~-~<www.elmerslibrary.com>.
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Do you know someone with a
approach to family history? Drop us a
line at [email protected]
and tell us all about him or her.
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The Things They Do For...Finding CluesBY JANET BERNICE JEYS
STILL LOOKING FOR ANCESTRAL TREASURES in a closet or attic? Familyhistorian Craig pfannkuche, president of Memory Trail Research, Inc.,would tell you to dig deeper-into the outhouse. Outhouses, sayspfannkuche, can provide amazing information that you just wont findanywhere else. "There is a connective feeling with your ancestors that
you cant get over a marriage license when you find bits and pieces oftheir lives in the privy;' pfannkuche says.
A mustache cup can hint at a family member's appearance. Bottles,lamps, belts, suspenders, corsets, plates, eyeglasses, and shoes do as well.
"It's all organized in chronological order, too;' pfannkuche says. "The further down one digs in an older privy, the older the items found:'
pfannkuche became interested in his down-and-dirty digging as a student at Northern Illinois University. "I got to do field work at Fort Zarah
on the Santa Fe Trail near Great Bend, Kansas, and I've been researchingever since. Everything is interesting. Every little thing that comes out of a
privy is a key to the folks that lived there:'Most old outhouses have long been abandoned and their contents
broken down into rich, black loam. To find the whereabouts of one for
your own excavation project, look first for lilac bushes. "They are naturesair freshener and very hardy;' pfannkuche says. "Lots of folks grew
them around their outhouses not just because they have such a strongfragrance but also because the bushes provided a very ample screenof privacY:'
Aleutians. To drum up interest, she posted a message on an Aleutians Internet bulletin board ask-ing for help in identifying the mystery people. Oneof the site's visitors, Ed Sidorski, who was previouslyunknown to the family, sent some of his own photosto be posted as well. When Kim looked at them, she
saw something completely unexpected."The third one I opened showed two men clown
ing in a camp kitchen. Though ,the picture was out offocus, I immediately recognized' my father as one ofthe two men;' says Kim. "It is not an exaggeration tosay that my heart started pounding. I was even shaking a little from the shock:'
Sometimes pictures include the names of all knownindividuals. But most of the time, the photos posted
contain at least a few people whom the photo's owners just don't know. That's the story behind the photo
below. It's a snapshot of sisters Kim and Becky andtheir brother at Knott's Berry Farm. But who is the
mystery boy at the edge of the photo? That's whatthey want to know.
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Picture PerfectBYJANETBERNICEJEYS
KIM FOREMANAND HER SISTERBECKYvisited
Disneyland and saw photos being taken everywhere,of and by families, friends, or sweethearts on their
honeymoon. As those pictures were being snapped,unknown people wandered in and out of the
background, inadvertently captured in someone else'skeepsake.
"How many people all over the world are in otherpeople's pictures?" Kim wondered. And with that,
AreYouInMyPhoto.com, a photo-sharing site in whichmost uploaded photos feature a mystery person, wasborn.
Visitors can upload photos to the site to try to discover who's in their snapshots or peruse other photos to look for their own missing relatives. The site
also helps people reconnect with family and friendsthey've lost contact with over the years.
Kim's family has had its own success with the project. Shortly after starting the website, Kim posted
some of her father's photos from his army days in the
<www.areyouinmyphoto.com.
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WHO'S THAT BOY? Kim Foreman (on bench, left) and her sister Becky (right, with
brother, center) have started a website to identify mystery people in old photos. They've
even included some photos of their own, like this one with a unknown onlooker (far left).
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Engaging HistoryBYJANETBERNICEJEYS
, 16
GRANT BACIOCCOWASABOUTTO get engaged whenhe decided that a handed-down family ring wasn'tenough.
"My mother gave me this ring, and I knew it had ahistory, but I wasn't familiar with the owner's name or
anything else about it;' says Grant. So what did he do?"I turned to Ancestry.com:'
Grant learned about the original owner of the ring,
Marshall Holt, a famous chemist who taught on theIsland of Java, ran cattle ranches in New Mexico andColorado, and lived in Holtwood mansion in San Rafael, California.
Sure, it's an interesting personal story, but is itenough to build a marriage and a radio drama around?
For Grant, one of the brains-and talents-behind
The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd, the Internet's lon
gest-running podcast, you'd better believe it.The show, which takes inspiration from old radio
adventures, history, and the 1960s cartoons that creators Grant and Doug Price grew up with, revolvesaround time travel as the evil Dr. Steve and his assis
tant, Fidgert, run through the centuries stealing precious artifacts to sell on eBay. Dr. Floyd and his
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protege, Dr. Grant (yes, Baciocco), do what they can tostop the bad guys, and in the process listeners get tolearn about historic events and famous people, including George Washington, Meriwether Lewis, Cleopatra,and even Marshall Holt.
To build an episode around the family ring, Grantand Doug sent Dr. Steve back in time to 1909.to stealthe ring. But, by the end of the episode, Dr. Grant had
proposed marriage using the real family heirloom andfeaturing girlfriend Suzie Chiasson's response on air.
"Learning about history and teaching it to kidshas been so much fun;' says Grant, "but this episode was obviously very special:' You can hear it inits entirety at <www.doctorfloyd.com/category/timemachine/ 1900s/ 1909-marshall- holt>.
And for listeners, the series is special, too. Kids learn
about history by experiencing entertainment like theirgrandparents and great-grandparents might havethrough stories and words. All in all, it's an engagingtake on family and history. And it's fun for everyone.SEND IT IN
Do you know someone with a unique
approach to family history? Drop us a
line at [email protected]
and tell us all about it.
Communicating with FamilyBYJANETBERNICEJEYS
LAINE CROSBYIS A MOM. She goes to swim meets, attends church with her
family, volunteers at the elementary school, and regularly burns pizza. Shelives a completely ordinary life, except for one little thing: as an investigative
medium, Laine does her family history research for folks who contact her fromthe other side.
Though her roots lie in Atlanta, these days Laine, husband Chris, and theirtwins live in Maryland on property where a plantation from the 1700s oncestood. One afternoon Laine saw several men in the field with straw hats, white
shirts, and suspenders. Later that day, in the midst of a fitful nap, Laine heard a
sweet, soft voice say, "I had a son the same age as yours:'"He is my son alld not yours;' Crosby answered, realizing she sounded a bit
unbalanced.
"I know he is your son;' the woman said.Now fully awake, Laine saw an image of a beautiful, dark-skinned woman.
She was peaceful, composed, and her name was Jannette. Crosby's search ofrecords eventually revealed that Jannette was a slave of plantation owner Wil
liam George Robertson. A nanny to his 11 children, she died giving birth toRobertson's twins.
This was only the beginning.Living only an hour from the Gettysburg battlefield, Crosby has visited with
both Union and Confederate soldiers, men who don't want to be forgotten orwho have no sense that they have died. "No one is unimportant;' Crosby says."Love binds us to the next world. God is right there and answers prayers of allpeople, living or dead. Prayer is more important than most of us realize:'
Crosby now works on missing persons cases with police and families. She
also helps authors, historians, and archaeologists uncover what happened longago in specific locations. She and her business partner appeared on the "Ghostsof Gettysburg" episode of the Travel Channel's Mysterious Journeys. They alsohost an Internet talk show, Ghost Talkers.
But ask Laine and she'll say that she mostly takes orders from the "other"side. She describes herself as little more than a mouthpiece, not much differ-ent from a television or radio. Says Laine, "As I experience information, I do thebest I can to make sense of it, define it, and pass it on:'
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BREAKING AND
ENTERING OR
SAVING HISTORY?
Christine Zywocki
(above) took matters
into her own hands
when she learned
that a monument
company's very
detailed records were
about to meet their
own demise.
"IT ALL STARTED BECAUSE one
Saturday I wanted to see howthe demolition was going atthe old Lloyd Brothers WalkerMonument CompanY:'
So says Christine Zywocki,the woman who sat across thestreet in her lawn chair withher lunch and her binocu
lars, keeping an eye on the oldbuilding near Toledo, Ohio.
"It's a run-down area, so looters had been in and out and
some doors were left wide open when the garage was demolished;' Christine says. "1 figured if they could go in, so could 1:'Christine walked downstairs, where she found a foot of standingwater and "records, all stacked in file cabinets, rows and rows of
them, most of them not opened for 34 years. When I came backthe next day, two of the bigger cabinets were already gone. So 1hired some looters of my own-two big, strong guys who hauledaround boxes of meat down at the grocer's. We got two loads ofboxed stuff out before the code inspector busted me:'
Eventually, Zywocki generated enough media attention to getthe files rescued-records dating back to 1846, with birth anddeath dates, burial locations, stone rubbings, photographs ofgrave markers long since eroded, and letters from customers.
Would she do it again? "Of course;' Zywocki says. "My mother did genealogy when I was a kid, and I guess it's in my cells.Besides, someday someone will come looking for their ancestor who was buried in Wales and had a stone carved by Lloyd
Brothers. And I'll be here with the information they need:'
