Genealogy and History: The Military Convoy comes to Wheaton

Hi all! I promised a genealogy entry and I found the perfect topic.

To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Transcontinental Motor Convoy, a reenactment took place. One of the stops on the tour was practically on my doorstop, at the First Division Museum at Cantigny Park.

Different from the first and second tour, the convoy had vehicles from many wars, all the way up to Desert Storm.



What's that? You never heard of the first Transcontinental Motor Convoy from 1919 or the second in 1920?

Do you have any idea what they accomplished? Well, I didn't either. So I had grabbed a knowledgeable comrade (who's intending to get a Masters in military history), and started some research.


A photo from the original convoy. Source: http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/arch_results_detail.jsp?&pg=27&si=0&st=b&rp=digital&nh=27

The first one was done to raise awareness of the state of the Lincoln Highway. The road was in such horrendous shape that they found bridges collapsing under the weight of the 81 military vehicles, and they barely got 60 miles per day!



At each stop, the convoy was greeted with barbecues, dances and very well received.

Most people agree the first convoy was a success in that they got a world record for the longest distance traveled by a motor convoy, public support for the military and repairing roads was higher than when they left.

The second convoy, done in 1920, was done to raise public support for a national highway system. It was a bit smaller, about 50 vehicles, and found issues with the Mississippi flooding, and impassable desert sands in the Southwest.



Its debated the effect the second one had - while the crew was again greeted with parties and press, they failed to garner support for a national highway bill (though a bill passed in 1921).

Longterm, these convoys did have an effect on the future of America. President Eisenhower, a rider on the first convoy, supported the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 (which created many of the highways we know and love today), partly because of his experiences with the first ride and even told some stories about it in his book, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967).



This new convoy, as we were told, has more than a single purpose -

1. To celebrate the anniversary of the 1st convoy
2. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of President Lincoln
3. To celebrate the fine work of the US military.

In all, I think that it succeeded. They visited Cantigny on the same weekend as the Fine Art Fair, and seemed to have quite a few visitors. Many were little kids who hadn't seen anything like that before.



Anyway, getting back to the genealogy of the convoy...

1. Learn more about it. NARA has a section on their website under "America on the Move".

2. Search the newspapers for the local community. ALL of them would have covered this, as it was a big deal when the convoy came to town.

For example, the Fort Wayne Gazette from Fort Wayne, Indiana on July 19, 1919 discussed the aspect of H. S. Firestone donating vehicles, and the Reno Evening Gazette from Reno, Nevada on September 6, 1919 discussed statements by Lieutenant Colonel C.W. McClure, the leader of the convoy, and the efforts of Captain J.H. Murphy, who was in charge of recruiting.

An article from the conclusion of the trip on September 7, 1919 in the Oakland Tribune, gives a list of official observers from the trip. You never know what you might find!

I suggest if you try Ancestry.com, to search 1919 for keywords "Transcontinental Motor Convoy" and see what happens.

3. The Eisenhower Library has quite a few records about his time in the convoy.

4. Check out more about the new convoy at the MVPA website.


This video was taken by the MVPA as the convoy was going through Iowa.

Sources:
Ancestry.com - Copies of the Reno Evening Gazette, Oakland Tribune, and Fort Wayne Gazette.
MVPA.org
AmericasLibrary.gov
Eisenhower.archives.gov
History.sandiego.edu

New Pattern from Berrocco - HOT! I love it!

I know I've been hard on Berroco before on my blog. They have created new yarns for the fall and reawoken my interest in them.

Cirilia Rose sent out an awesome KnitBits this week getting us excited for Sundae yarn!

It looks gorgeous. But that's not really why I'm posting :-)

Check this out: Bolt Legwarmers

Aren't those incredible? They look like they might be one of the few and proud legwarmer patterns that STAY UP of their own accord and HUG, not slouch.

And the cables make me think they'd be a sexy knit, rather than a poke-your-eyes out stockinette field like so many other legwarmer patterns.

More news to come later this weekend!

Poor missing Bear!

Things are quiet in Yoohooville...

...I haven't being doing much crafting lately. Too much working!

I am designing a new blanket that I hope to be done with after my summer vacations. A couple good trips and I'll have all the crochet I need LOL.

I also officially started my etsy store, though nothing is listed in it yet.




I'm also working on these, to help raise money for my knitting guild. The pattern is Dainty Earrings.

Please sign this petition regarding gardening at the White House

Subject: Tell Pesticide Peddlers: We support Michelle Obama's organic garden.

Dear Friend,

The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) has a bone to pick with Michelle Obama. MACA represents chemical companies that produce pesticides, and they are angry that - wait for it - Michelle Obama isn't using chemicals in her organic garden at the White House.

I am not making this up.

In an email they forwarded to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote, "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder." MACA went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals -- or what they call "crop protection products" -- in her garden.

Michelle Obama and has done America a great service by publicizing the importance of nutritious food for kids (she's growing the garden in partnership with a local elementary school class) as well as locally grown produce as an important, environmentally sustainable food source.

I just signed a petition telling MACA's board members to stop using Michelle Obama's garden to spread propaganda about produce needing to be sprayed with chemicals. I hope you will, too.

Please have a look and take action.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/wh_garden/?r_by=-1982793-oaoVC5x&rc=paste

Thanks!

Construction Marketing

Those of you who know me well know how much I enjoy working in the A/E/C industry. One of my favorite sources for outside-the-normal RFPs/RFQs is the RFP Database. This is one of their press releases for the week, and I think such cross marketing is awesome!

Its nice to see an RFP database that isn't a front for another website, charges you a reasonable cost and has an astonishingly high quality community. If you haven't joined, I encourage you to do so.

---

Wanna Get Dirty? The RFP Database is Proud to be Featured on MikeRoweWorks.com to put America Back to Work

Northampton, MA (PRWEB) April 1, 2009 -- The Request For Proposals Database is proud to be working with Mike Rowe of Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs" to put America back to work! In honor of Mike's site going live last month, the RFPdb Team scoured the web to add more than 100 new construction RFPs. Visit http://www.mikeroweWORKS.com and go to the "Job Site" portion of his site for the RSS feed of all our construction projects on his site and a link to the "RFP Database".

"We share Mike's values and celebrate the businesses that land the dirty jobs that build our country," said David Kutcher, president of , the creator of RFPdb.com. "Our goal is to enable businesses to find work and help their employees, as Mike says, 'go to work clean and come home dirty.' That's what RFPdb.com is all about."

The demand for skilled workers to rebuild our country's infrastructure has never been greater. Areas of opportunity listed on RFPdb.com include construction, engineering, architecture, advertising, marketing, web design, computing, management, manufacturing, and other fields - basically any work brought to RFPdb.com by its members. The RFPs range from small projects in the thousands of dollars to large projects running into the millions. Project solicitations are issued by municipalities, state and federal agencies, major corporations, small businesses, non-profit organizations and others.

Membership on RFPdb.com is free. Got time on your hands before your next project? RFP Database wants your labor, and we'll compensate you for it! If you help the rest of us by uploading projects you aren't bidding on, we'll stock your account with credits that enable you to download your next RFPs for free. Need more incentive? There are no registration fees, no subscription fees, and no commissions. If you'd rather purchase the project leads without uploading projects they cost a mere $2.

For contracting officers looking to attract competitive bids on their projects, RFPdb.com offers an easy-to-use and active marketplace to list your project with over 38,000 registered users from small, mid-sized, and large businesses. The listing cost per project? Free.

Join us and discover for yourself why thousands of people, representing diverse businesses and organizations, are registering each month.

RFPdb.com offers:
An exceptionally affordable and high-return resource for businesses seeking new work.
No fee for joining -- you get the first 2 projects free, and you can be selective in the projects you choose to bid on.
No registration fees, subscription fees or commissions
$2 per project lead -- free if you help by uploading projects
Free sign-up to daily or weekly customized alerts of new projects
200+ new projects uploaded every week
A community of more than 38,000 registered users
A LinkedIn group for members to learn, collaborate and discuss

About the RFP Database (RFPdb):
The Request for Proposal Database (http://www.RFPdb.com) was created to facilitate the submission and sharing of RFPs between organizations and contracting firms/independent contractors. This goal of the RFPdb is to provide a public site for organizations to post their Requests for Proposals (RFP) to a centralized location that will garner them the most responses and a destination for companies seeking projects to bid.

About Confluent Forms LLC:
Confluent Forms LLC (http://www.confluentforms.com) is a boutique branding, graphic design, web design and custom software development firm based in Northampton, MA. Incorporated in January of 2002, Confluent Forms has provided technology consulting, branding, graphic design, web design, PHP and MySQL development, Web 2.0 software development, application development and hosting services to customers from the Fortune 100 to local non-profit organizations, startup businesses and academic institutions.

For More Information:
David Kutcher
President
Confluent Forms LLC
+1-413-303-9612
http://www.confluentforms.com

Genealogy and Sources

Earlier this morning, I read a blog entry entitled "5 Bad Genealogy Sources".

I know there is a war between the "new" generation of genealogists that use Internet sources and the "old" generations of genealogists who supposedly only use non-Internet sources.

This seems to be on the "old" generation side. My problem with it is thus:

"Where is the idea of critical thinking in this entry?"

Genealogy is all about critical thinking. New people will take sources and use them blindly without thinking of the following factors:

-Where did it come from?
-When did it come from?
-Who did it come from?
-What is the evidence?
-How many degrees is it removed from the primary source?

And it is up to us more experienced genealogists to teach them this. NOT to tell them to blindly take sources off the list - because for every "bad" source, I can think of an exception.

1. Wiki Sites - Wikipedia is obviously not a great source of information but there are many focused, centered Wikis created by people with a knowledge of the field. I consider http://medievalgenealogy.org.uk/index.html to be a "wiki" of sorts considering its format - and its got more sources than any other website I know.

2. Personal websites - again - you have to READ what the site says. My site contains hundreds of sources and when possible, links or images of original documents. There's a good list of a hundred associated with my family that I can come up with that I know are well sourced as well. I can come up with, sadly, dozens of sources that aren't good sites. But you have to READ and make that decision for yourself.

3. Blogs - I think most of these are about techniques in genealogy. I rarely see any regarding information. I can only think of one site where sources are posted and she's affiliated with USGenWeb. If I saw more personal blogs with sourcing I might think otherwise about them.

4. and 5. Well -- I'm with you on that one. Movies and Stories are great inspirational tales but aren't necessarily accurate. There are a few storytellers that take great pains to do research and be accurate for their stories, though. Alison Weir, for example.

In the end, please apply the critical though process to the use of any source. And keep track of the unsourced ones as well, but don't build your portfolio around them. Many "stories" of my family that were unsourced turned out to be 100% accurate.

-Where did it come from?
-When did it come from?
-Who did it come from?
-What is the evidence?
-How many degrees is it removed from the primary source?

If you think about that each time you read a new website, blog, Wiki, book, newspaper, microfilm, database, etc. - your genealogical project will be something to be proud of!

an Institution is ending in Chicago ...

...

For Immediate Release 25 Mar 2009

For confirmation contact Mary Beth Sheehan (773-393-8687)

RE: SOUTH SIDE IRISH ST. PATRICK’S DAY PARADE PLANS FOR 2010

Let this release serve as notice that the South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee is not planning to stage a parade in its present form in March of 2010.

This decision was not arrived at lightly. For 31 years, this parade was a staple of the Beverly/Morgan Park and Mt. Greenwood communities – a celebration of faith, family and heritage that was cherished by thousands. Founded in 1979 by the Hendry and Coakley families, it was intended to instill in this community an appreciation for the Irish heritage that so many of its residents share.

This parade was an eagerly anticipated annual event which celebrated families, many of whom have created decades long traditions that we hope will endure. But what began as a neighborhood parade is now an event of international proportions. More than 300,000 people typically flock to the Beverly area each year, and the sheer volume has become more than the neighborhood can reasonably accommodate. With these numbers comes a collection of issues that strain both the host community and those individuals charged with effectively managing the crowds. Additionally, the amount of resources required to launch the event has become overwhelming to the community.

The Committee would like to thank the tens of thousands of parade faithful who supported this event for more than 30 years. The multigenerational families who turned out along Western Avenue each year, along with the fine organizations featured in the Line of March, were the essence of what made this parade so special. We would also like to thank the Chicago Police Department for the effort they put into managing the ever-growing crowd while working to maintain the dignity of the event.

While we regret the need to alter such a fine tradition, the Committee feels that suspending the South Side Irish Parade in its present form is the just and responsible thing to do. It is our hope, however, that this will not mean an end to the neighborhood’s annual celebration. The Committee will work to create a series of alternate events that will return us to what the parade’s founders had in mind – a neighborhood-friendly celebration of Irish heritage. Please look for news of our plans later this year.

Thank you for your support,

The South Side Irish St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee

Happy St. Patricks' Day! New Alltop Feed

(This adorable photo is by dalcrose at Flickr under a Creative Commons license)

I have but a wee bit of unproven Irish ancestry in me. My grandmother's family always carried the story that their ancestor Robert Perry was Irish. So far I've got the tree back to 1700s Virginia and hit a dead end. He may have been Irish, English, or possibly Welsh.

So I'm not sure. If it was true, my share of the Irish bloodline wouldn't be large, but enough to celebrate today! :-)

One of my favorite sites to use for mass amounts of news - Alltop - released customized URLs and personal sites. Hurray! If you would like to learn more about what I like to read, feel free to check out the

Crafting in Yoohooville Alltop

Essentially, its a hybrid list of many of the blogs I read that's kind of like looking through a magazine rack, only its online stuff (though a couple blogs are missing, namely Bargain Babe and Retire at 40).

Please check it out and enjoy! And feel free to create your own Alltop and let me know where it is so I can check you out too!

Help BlueAvocado Get 1 Billion Plastic Bags Off the Street!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MbTVC1BWaY



Change the way you shop - for good. Watch this video and make the pledge to use fewer plastic bags. Together we can keep one billion plastic bags from polluting our streets this year.