It Runs In The Family...

Marian Pierre-Louis of Marian's Roots and Rambles once posted an interesting exercise.  As genealogists, we sometimes find traits or skills that seem to crop up along family lines, things we pass along from generation to generation.   Her exercise was to leave a note to her descendants describing her traits, so that they might know which, if any, traits they got from her.

As we are researching our ancestors it's fun to make a discovery that one of them may have had similar interests or avocations that we have. Maybe you're an artist and you discover that your ancestor was too. Or maybe you have a long line of teachers in your family. Certain traits and passions seem to carry through the generations.

If you could leave a note for your descendants, which traits would you tell them about yourself? Leave a comment below or write a post on your own blog.

Here's mine:

I'm a photographer.  No, not professionally, although I did spend six years in the US Navy as a Photographer's Mate, essentially a professional military photographer.

I started borrowing my parents' cameras as a kid.  Just the usual happy snapshots with no skill or knowledge of how to take better pictures.  In high school, I took a couple of photography classes that were offered, learning the basic camera skills and even how to process my own black & white film and prints, back before the days of digital cameras.  In college, I took some more classes, including an art class where I was looking to learn the more creative side of photography, not just the technical skills.  Alas, things changed, and I got realistic about my abilities and skills, and my career choice went off to computers instead of cameras.  But I still have a DSLR camera with extra lenses, I still go out and shoot from time to time.

So how does that fit with the exercise mentioned above?  Well, my father enjoyed photography.  He had a number of different film cameras over the years, and even an 8mm movie camera.   But even more, his mother, my maternal grandmother, Alta May Day, was an avid photographer.  She took many hundreds of photos, back when each frame was costly in terms of film and processing, and never knowing until you got that done whether the image turned out or not.  I have albums full of her photos, which she helpfully put in order and labeled with names, places and dates.  What's more, I have the actual negatives for many of these, going back to 1910 or so.

Since my grandmother was born in 1910, that means someone earlier had to have started that photo collection.  Her father, my great-grandfather Clyde Day, was also into photography.  As he lived out on the South Dakota prairie, that was not an easy hobby to have!  He learned how, and got the equipment needed, to process his own film and prints back when photography was still rather young.

Prior to that, I don't have any evidence of anyone in the family doing photography, but they were interested in pictures, as there are portraits and family photos of the Day line that go back to the Civil War and before.

So if you're my descendant and reading this, are you photographically inclined?  What equipment are you using?  How has photography changed?


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

Treasurechest Thursday

My father and I recently traveled to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to visit his sister. He hadn't seen her since their mother's death in 1992, and I hadn't seen her since their father's death in 1982.  She's getting older, and doesn't travel much.  We didn't travel much either.  Seeing as it's a 15-hour drive, it's understandable we don't get together often.

Her adopted son, my cousin, had a baby girl back in 2000 with his then partner.  Four years later, my cousin died, leaving that little girl to live with my aunt, her grandmother.  It was suggested, and I agreed, that I should bring my grandmother's photo albums along, to help her connect to family she has never met.  We spent hours looking through those old pictures, stretching back to the 1880's, hindered only by the attention span of an 11-year-old girl.  Many of the photos I've posted came from those albums.  I'd always regretted that the negatives for those had been lost, as I knew my grandmother had them for at least most of the photos.

I mentioned this to my aunt.  She said, "Wait a minute, I think I have those."  After a brief search of a closet, she produced a shoebox full of envelopes marked "Negatives 1916 - 1975".  Lo and behold, all these years I had thought them lost, they were sitting in a closet in Wyoming!  I have negatives in my possession dating back to 1910!  My aunt was happy to turn them over to me, as she had no idea what to do with them, and they were just taking up space in her closet.  Also, she wanted them to be passed along to someone who cared about them.

There were a few other goodies, but that will be the subject of a future installment...


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Hobbies

Week #38 – Hobbies

Week 38: Hobbies. Did you have any hobbies as a child? Which ones?

This challenge runs from Saturday, September 17, 2011 through Friday, September 23, 2011.

I had several hobbies when I was a kid.  I messed with electronics and chemistry sets.  I tinkered with small engines.  I liked model rockets and airplanes.  I build a number of plastic model kits.  I disassembled a number of things to see how they worked.  Always old, unneeded things, like old TVs or lawn mowers.

I liked to read a lot.  I read science books when I was younger, then in about 7th grade discovered science fiction and fantasy.

I did some photography, when I could wheedle the cost of film and processing out of my folks, or during summer school when it was part of the class I took.  I even did some cinematography with 8mm and Super 8mm cameras, and some TV studio work (also through summer school).

Out of all of that and other things I've no doubt forgotten, I still read a lot, and I still do photography, though all digital still photographs now.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

Thankful Thursday - Alta May (Day) Dillman

Alta May (Day) Dillman (1910-1982)

This Thursday (as most days) I am thankful for my paternal grandmother, Alta May Day.  Without her, it is unlikely you would be reading this; Grandma was the one most responsible for feeding and encouraging my interest in family history as I grew up.  Born 12 Feb 1910 in Sheffield, Beadle County, South Dakota, she grew up on a farm with long days of hard work.  But along with the hard work, she and her father liked to play with cameras.  She became quite a shutterbug, which has had much influence on me in more than one way.  I seem to have inherited the photography gene from her, and spent almost 6 years in the US Navy as a Photographer's Mate.

Grandma got me started in family history, as I mentioned.  I don't remember the circumstances of it, perhaps it was a simple inquiry, perhaps it was for a school assignment.  In any case, Grandma Dillman was the one who had the family history information.  Her Day family is large and well documented, and she was in possession of a book by George Day detailing the lineage back to the first Day immigrants in 1634.  I'm sure reading this book had contributed to her interest in family history.  In any case, as I grew up and became more interested, she shared her information with me, and we discussed what she had done to look for more data.  This was in pre-internet days, of course, so most research was time-consuming and expensive.  Her information and insight gave me a solid foundation on which to further research the lines.

Another, more subtle influence is that she saved all of her pictures and put them in albums.  Late in her life, she used those albums to reminisce and write her memoirs which consist of about a thousand hand-written pages.  I have yet to transcribe all of that!  They make fascinating reading, describing her life and surroundings from a very early age on the farm, to marrying my grandfather and having kids, to fashions and events of the day.  One of my earlier posts was taken from those memoirs.  And yet another benefit - her albums were passed to me when she died.  The image above is just one.  While grandma didn't take the picture, she did hand color it, another photographic hobby she enjoyed.  I have many hundreds of photos of family and friends dating back to the 1880's.  You will doubtless be seeing more of her photos in weeks and months to come.  Come to think of it, this post might better have been made a Treasure Chest Thursday entry instead!  Thanks, grandma!