SAR President General Talks Revolution

By Ryan Bennett
Extreme Genes
30 July 2017

Host: Scott Fisher with guest David Allen Lambert

Host Scott Fisher opens the show with David Allen3Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org. Fisher and David talk about the new World War II thriller “Dunkirk,” which Fisher has seen and David has not. From talking to friends who also saw the flick, Fisher has one observation for couples to consider. Hear what that is. David then congratulates AJ Jacobs on his soon-to-be released book which is coming out in November. Get the gist of what it’s all about, and why these guys are particularly interested. David then reveals an interesting recent discovery about how Americans spoke prior to the Revolution. It might surprise you! David then spotlights blogger Kate Porter (genijourney.com) and her recent post on the “Great Grandfather Who Never Was.”

Next, Fisher visits with Larry Guzy, recently installed President General of the Sons of the American Revolution. President Guzy talks about how he got involved, who his Patriot ancestor was, and his goals for the Sons heading toward 2026 and the 250th anniversary of our independence.

Then it’s a fascinating breakthrough story. Carolyn Tolman of LegacyTree.com talks about her recent discovery on behalf of a client. The ancestor had crossed the ocean from an unknown place, likely in Italy, changed his name, used different birth dates and places, and yet, Carolyn still discovered his origins! Hear how she did it and how you might do the same.

Finally, it’s Tom Perry, the Preservation Authority from TMCPlace.com, calling in from Tucson, Arizona on his summer scanning party road trip. Tom talks about his itinerary for meeting you and scanning your materials. He also talks “tagging” (NOT what we used to call graffiti!) and recommends some great software to use to accomplish it.

Transcript

Segment 1 Episode 201

Fisher: And welcome to America’s Family History Show. It’s Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com. It is Fisher here your Radio Roots Sleuth on the program where we shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall out. And this segment is brought to you by MyHeritage.com and as always… great guests today. We’re going to start out with the President General of the Sons of the American Revolution, Larry Guzy. You know, I always had this idea in my mind that people who were in the SAR or the Daughters of the American Revolution that had this lengthy Revolutionary ancestry. Not the case for the President General of the SAR. We’ll have him talk about that a little later on, find out what they’re up to, how you might belong to it, how you might join. That’s going to be fun. And after that, later on in the show Carolyn Tolman is back from LegacyTree.com talking about a recent victory she had on behalf of a client. I mean it involves a name change, differing birth dates and places, maybe a place in Italy where this person was born. And somehow out of all that they found the needle in the haystack and found this person overseas. They jumped the pond. It’s going to be a great segment later in the show. By the way before we get going, don’t forget to go to ExtremeGenes.com and get signed up for our Weekly Genie newsletter. It is absolutely free. We’ve got a column in there every week, links to great stories and information that will inspire and, I hope, entertain you as well. But right now let’s head out to Boston and talk to my good friend David Allen Lambert. He is the Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncetors.org.

Fisher: Hello David.

David: Hello Fish. How are you doing?

Fisher: Awesome! Have you seen, by the way, Dunkirk yet?

David: Not yet. I’m hoping to see it this weekend.

Fisher: Oh good. You’ve got to see this. Don’t bring your wife though.

David: Okay.

Fisher: [Laughs] And I will tell you that the way it worked out I went into this theater and I actually ran into two other couples that we knew. And everybody came out and talked about it. The women did not like it, too intense, too loud. The guys thought it was the greatest movie they had ever seen in their lives. [Laughs]

David: Well, I tell you we should try to find the living survivors. So if anyone who’s a listener knows a survivor of Dunkirk let us know.

Fisher: Yeah it will be fun to hear what their take is on it, but it was absolutely brilliantly put together. Guys you’ll probably like it, ladies might not.

David: Well you know, I want to give a shout out to a good friend of ours, A.J Jacobs whose new book It’s all “Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree” is out [in November]. And I’m really excited. By the way he mentions both of us in the book.

Fisher: I know he does. I don’t know why but I mean A.J doesn’t need any help from us. He’s one of the most brilliant authors in America. And it’s fascinating to know there’s a book at Barnes and Noble that mentions you and me.

David: [Laughs] I know. And I tell you, I did read his book “The Year of Living Biblically” and that’s fascinating and I’m sure this one will be too, even if we weren’t in it. I’m looking forward to seeing him again at the next Global Family Reunion. Hopefully, there’s one that will be a tie in to the book so good luck with that, A.J., and best wishes. This sounds like a great new book to have on the shelf for genealogists.

Fisher: Absolutely.

David: Well you know, speaking of things back to here in Beantown, there’s a very historic letter written to “Mrs. Bixby” in Boston, Massachusetts after she had lost five sons in the Civil War. This letter was written in 1864 supposedly by President Abraham Lincoln, but it may not be the case now.

Fisher: Now what have they discovered on this?

David: They’ve used a technology called N-Gram. Basically, what they’ve done is they’ve taken 500 texts written by Lincoln and scanned them to know how he formed his letters etcetera, how he wrote and they’ve compared it and it doesn’t seem like it was written by Lincoln, but more likely by his secretary John Hay.

Fisher: Right. And they’re saying like it’s almost certain, like a 90% certainty on this. And now they’re turning their sights on using this method to identify Jack the Ripper.

David: That will be a fascinating discovery. Wonder if the member of the Royal Family really did do all of that?

Fisher: That’s it.

David: Interesting theory that’s been out there for a while. When you watch old movies and TV shows about Revolutionary America or the Colonists, they really didn’t have as much of a Brit accent so I’m sorry to all those British actors from now on who will not be hired by Hollywood to portray our ancestors because it seems now our ancestors probably had lost the English dialect generations before, maybe into the 17th century. When you mix together different accents and dialects from the different parts of England it formed its own baby if you will.

Fisher: Sure.

David: It’s the American language.

Fisher: Well, it’s because they say people couldn’t understand each other so they had to kind find a way in between all these dialects and that’s how it worked. And what’s interesting David is a few weeks ago you may recall we had Heather Lind on the show and she plays Anna Strong on the AMC Revolutionary series Turn: Washington Spies. And we did a whole conversation about how they pick their accents and it was really quite amusing. And I actually went and forwarded this article on to her to tell her they may not have had it right. [Laughs]

David: Maybe, perhaps the people from Boston and the people from New York got together and created the accent which is in Connecticut. [Laughs]

Fisher: Right. Yeah you might be right. And I am from Connecticut and I don’t sound like you and I certainly don’t sound like my friends in New York.

David: But you can understand both of us, so you are the translator for us in Boston now. [Laughs]

Fisher: You may be right, yes.

David: Serendipity in genealogy, I was informed by a good friend in the genealogy community about Geni Journey, GeniJourney.com and this is my Blogger Spotlight for the week. This is a blog by Kate Porter. Both Kate and her daughter Adria are listeners of Extreme Genes!

Fisher: Awesome!

David: And you know I read some comments from her and I’m really excited about her posts are, The Great Grandfather That Never Was. She’s tracked down what happened to her runaway great grandfather. The story is really engaging. In fact, it might be something that we should have as a story with her on Extreme Genes. Take a read and take a peek and see what you think of it.

Fisher: I will do that!

David: And a shout out to our good friend Tom Perry because Tom Perry the Preservation Authority will be the keynote speaker at the Preservation Road Show in Worcester, Massachusetts on August 19th at the DCU Center. To attend this all day conference at $65 per person, you get to meet Tom and hear him speak and of course if you’re a listener and you’re out this way, what a great way to introduce yourself to American Ancestors and what we have to offer and we’re delighted to have Tom as our speaker. Well, that’s all I have from Beantown this week my friend. I’ll catch you next week and I’ll tell you about my blog post I’m going to write this weekend.

Fisher: All right, take care, David. Thanks so much. And coming up next in three minutes we’re going to talk to President General of the Sons of the American Revolution. What are they doing? What can they do for you? Why would you want to join? How would you do it? You’re going to find out coming up next on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 2 Episode 201

Fisher: And welcome back to America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com. It is Fisher here, your Radio Roots Sleuth and this segment is brought to you by LegacyTree.com. And, it was a few years ago when I finally made the decision, it was time for me to join the Sons of the American Revolution. And it’s not necessarily because I wanted to attend a lot of meetings or hang out with a lot of people, but in my case it was because I wanted an independent set of eyes to look over my research back to one of my Revolutionary ancestors, and to prove those links so that my kids, my grandkids, and all those down the line would have the opportunity to know that it’s been legitimized, it’s been authenticated, it’s all good. And if they would like to join these organizations, the DAR, or the SAR, they can do it through this particular line. And I’m honored to have on the line with me right now the President General of the Sons of the American Revolution, the SAR Larry Guzy. He’s a St. Louis native, lives in Marietta Georgia. You’re on the road. Actually in my wife’s hometown in Crawfordsville, Indiana right now. How you doing Larry?

Larry: I’m doing perfect.

Fisher: [Laughs] You sound perfect. What are you doing? What’s the road trip about?

Larry: Family. We’re going to visit family in Chicago and Milwaukee. We’re stopping in your wife’s hometown of Crawfordsville to visit a friend of my wife’s who she hasn’t seen since she was twelve years old.

Fisher: How fun is that. That’s awesome. How did you get started in SAR?

Larry: It’s all about the “Why” my genealogy was never really proven. I didn’t know anything about the family, and I found that my nephew who is my brother’s son, was going to be raised away from the family for the rest of his life because my brother died in the Navy, and I wanted to preserve the information for him not knowing that I had any Revolutionary genealogy. It was just a matter of doing my own genealogy work.

Fisher: And so you got going in that and off you went and you went down this one line and there’s this guy. Tell us about your Revolutionary person.

Larry: I found this private from the 2nd Virginia Regiment. Basically it’s a regular army type guy as opposed to militia. And he was simply that, a private who was fighting with various groups. I don’t know that much about him because there wasn’t a lot of records, but I did find that his father assisted George Washington before George Washington was ever well known when he was doing surveying back in the 1750s. So they apparently knew the area and that’s pretty much all I know.

Fisher: Um hmm. Well, with privates there isn’t usually a lot. You can obviously find out a little more maybe about their units and what battles they fought in. Once you found that out, what made you decide you wanted to join the Sons of the American Revolution?

Larry: I wanted to just simply preserve that information for posterity. No other reason. I didn’t know anything more about the SAR except for the fact that I could preserve this record. So I decided to join.

Fisher: You know that’s really interesting to me because I think when most people think about the Sons of the American Revolution, the Daughters of the American Revolution, SAR, DAR, they think of people with this long pedigree of deep American roots. Like my wife, she has fourteen revolutionaries including patriots and soldiers and we’ll get into the difference of those a little bit later on. But you just had one and now you’re the President General of the SAR. How did that happen?

Larry: [Laughs] Determination I suppose!

Fisher: Yes! [Laughs]

Larry: I never really thought that it was something that I wanted to do, but whenever I get involved in anything I realize that it’s something that I need to devote all my time to. So I don’t choose to participate in too many organizations but the SAR I found they were doing things that truly indicated it was worthwhile investing my time in.

Fisher: Because of the impact it can have on the country I assume?

Larry: Yes. Really, I view the American Revolution as the only shared heritage that we have for everybody in the country.

Fisher: That’s right.

Larry: We can all trace back to the current things that are happening in the world and the United States to the Revolution.

Fisher: That’s right.

Larry: That is one of the most important aspects that I view of the SAR being able to do.

Fisher: And so, if you had to encourage somebody to join, because I know you’ve got a big initiative coming for the two… I can’t believe I’m saying this… the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence! It’s coming up in just nine years.

Larry: Right. It’s exciting. Last time we had a 250th anniversary of this import was the 200th anniversary.

Fisher: Yep.

Larry: And that was 1976.

Fisher: Yes. [Laughs]

Larry: All will remember being there. And it’s just exciting to be able to do that. I’ve made a proposal to our Congress and challenged everybody to reach 64.000 members by the 250th anniversary of the Declaration.

Fisher: Wow! And how many do you have now?

Larry: About 34/35 thousand.

Fisher: Okay. So you’re looking to double basically in the next nine years?

Larry: Basically we’re looking to double, yes.

Fisher: Okay. And so what is the strategy to accomplish that and what’s the bait really? What would people get out of that?

Larry: They would get the satisfaction of being involved with people who, of like mind, they would be involved in disseminating patriotism, teaching people what it’s all about. The 4th of July is, everybody jumps on the bandwagon that this is fabulous! What is this? It’s great. And the 250th anniversary is going to be the biggest we have in the last fifty years.

Fisher: Yeah, that’s right.

Larry: So, it’s an exciting time to be involved.

Fisher: I was pretty young when the 200th came around but I remember it well. It was a big deal and this was, oh, I’d say a decade’s worth of 4th of Julys on steroids till we get to the 250th. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Well, let’s talk about ancestors that can qualify somebody for getting into the SAR or the DAR. It is a process obviously for anybody of the lineage societies. I’m also a member of the Mayflower Descendents Association. And in each case now, I think the standards for getting in are a lot higher because they want to make sure that the lines are correct. And now I think the organizations are taking them much more seriously than they did, say, back in the 1920s or the 1930s when a lot of bad information got out.

Larry: That’s very true. The information that we try and preserve is documented information. So, if you’re trying to provide the heritage line, you need your birth certificates and marriage records of you and your parents and your grandparents. But it’s a single line.

Fisher: Right.

Larry: You really only need to provide the documentation for that one single line. That’s not really that hard.

Fisher: No. Because it’s only about a 6, 7, 8 generations depending on where you are in your life.

Larry: Right. Probably for most of us it would be 7 or 8 because we’re getting into the next generation. It might be 9, but still…

Fisher: Sure.

Larry: You’re getting back to the 1750s and that’s fairly easy.

Fisher: Yeah, you get back to that point absolutely. The hardest part is before the 1850 census I would think for a lot of people.

Larry: There is so much documentation that is out there from the time that I and probably you started your genealogy, that it’s a whole lot easier.

Fisher: Yeah.

Larry: When I started doing it in the 80s it was all by microfilm and going to family history centers and ordering microfilm and looking at them, all that.

Fisher: Yes. [Laughs] It seems like ancient times now as you back on it. You know, thinking about these ancestors, the qualifiers, the ones who can get you into these two organizations DAR and SAR, there are really a couple of categories, right? There’s the soldiers and sailors, and then there are the patriots, and this is kind of what separates you, say, from the Sons of the Revolution which is a different group and that’s strictly about military right?

Larry: That’s correct.

Fisher: Okay. So, talk about the difference between a patriot and a soldier/sailor.

Larry: A lot of people didn’t fight. They supported the American Revolution by swearing allegiance saying that, “I do believe, I would like to be a Patriot, I want to support this but I don’t have time, whatever, and, I do have some supplies that I want to give to you, here is some cattle.” And maybe sometimes they were actually confiscated if you will. But if you can prove that the cattle and the supplies that were provided to the American Revolution were to the Patriots, that qualifies you.

Fisher: Right.

Larry: So that’s just another line.

Fisher: Yeah. My wife has one who gave bacon to the Revolutionary army and he’s qualified as one of those ancestors now. And I think a lot of it had to do with the age of the people, right? I mean, they were too old to fight or they were women.

Larry: That’s absolutely true.

Fisher: And we should mention that there are women ancestors who will qualify you for either organization.

Larry: Sure. Think about Abigail Adams.

Fisher: Yeah. [Laughs]

Larry: If she’s not a Patriot, there isn’t anybody!

Fisher: There isn’t anybody. That’s absolutely right. No here’s the other thing too, if you happen to have had a family member who wound up in the DAR or the SAR, you can use their lineage to qualify yourself. All you have to do is link into their line. So if you’re a guy and you want to get into SAR, you can use a DAR line to plug into and that will qualify you.

Larry: Yes. There are a few qualifiers on those because some of the older applications were as not well documented as they should be. Sometimes they said well, my ancestor served and therefore it’s okay. And they would accept that. But today you really have to have the proof. So there are some of those that have to be qualified with other documentation. But indeed, the more recent applications are generally accepted.

Fisher: I was looking at one that I thought was interesting. Some time back I had an ancestor join the SAR in the 20s and he linked back to an ancestor and he claimed he was a soldier in the Revolution, and really the soldier of that name was this guy’s nephew. Okay?

Larry: Right.

Fisher: And I thought, “Oh I hate that.” Because then I had a cousin who actually went into DAR through that application. Well, then I found out that he had actually signed what they called The Revolutionary Pledge in upstate New York in 1775. So that alone would qualify him… not as a soldier but as a Patriot.

Larry: Absolutely.

Fisher: But it’s difficult to change the documentation after that’s all been done, right?

Larry: Right. We have lots of new research being produced, developed and it makes it a whole lot easier to find that information. And qualifying those lists to make sure that they are approved lists are one of the things that our Genealogists General and our Genealogy Committee do. They look at all these lists and say, is this really good? If it is they publish it and say here, use this.

Fisher: Use this, absolutely. All right Larry, if somebody wants to join the SAR tell them how to do it.

Larry: Easiest way is to go to our website SAR.org. We have an online application system. And a way to make contact and say I’m interested and they’ll plug you into a local state society or a chapter and they’ll help you get going.

Fisher: All right. Thanks so Larry Guzy. He is the President General of the Sons of the American Revolution on the line from Crawfordsville, Indiana on the road for a family reunion. Hey Larry, have safe travels and a great trip and thank you so much for coming on to Extreme Genes.

Larry: Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Fisher: And coming up next, it was a needle in a haystack, a name change, across the pond, different birth dates and places, how did Carolyn Tolman solve the problem? You’ll find out coming up in five minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 3 Episode 201

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Carolyn Tolman

Fisher: And welcome back to America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com. It is Fisher here, your Radio Roots Sleuth, and this segment is brought to you by FamilySearch.org, and always excited to have my friend Carolyn Tolman back in studio with me from LegacyTree.com. Hi Carolyn!

Carolyn: Hello, Scott. How are you?

Fisher: Good. Good to see you again. And, we’re talking about Italian research here. You did a little work on a client of yours.

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: And really hit some pay dirt. And I think these things are always fun, especially when there’s a tale or two to be told in the midst of it.

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: So let’s talk about this. Is there DNA involved?

Carolyn: There is.

Fisher: Is there a name change involved?

Carolyn: There is.

Fisher: There’s always that, and that’s when it gets really interesting.

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: So let’s talk about this. You had a client come to you to try and track down their ancestor, and I’m assuming it’s that leap across the pond and the name change that’s so difficult, and it happens all the time.

Carolyn: It does. It’s so common. In this case, it was a great grandfather. The family story said that he had changed his name to James Raymond as soon as he immigrated.

Fisher: Raymond. “Raymondo” maybe?

Carolyn: Maybe.

Fisher: Or “Ramono?”

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: Something like that.

Carolyn: Uh huh, but you can’t be sure. So the key is to check the US records, all the records that were made about him here in the US.

Fisher: Sure.

Carolyn: Try to find the clues. So, we did that, we gathered his records and they were very conflicting. We had different birth dates.

Fisher: Yeah.

Carolyn: We had most of his life reporting a birth in New York, but a couple of records reported a birth in Italy, and just one, his World War I draft registration card, which is the earliest record we have of him, reported his birth in a little town in Italy which he named as Solomon. And we later figured out was Sulmona, L’Aquila, Italy.

Fisher: Wow. You’re fluent, aren’t you?

Carolyn: No, not at all.

Fisher: Well you sure sound it. You fake it really well.

Carolyn: [Laughs] Well thank you.

Fisher: [Laughs] So you were looking for this place, and I’ve seen this, this doesn’t just apply to Italy, this can apply to all kinds of countries. Eastern Europe, Germany.

Carolyn: Absolutely.

Fisher: I had that happen with a third great grandfather of mine, where he left a note saying, “I was born in Sovernhiem, Germany.” And I go, “What is that?” And “Oh, it was ‘Sobernheim!'”

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: And it was completely different, and since he left his birth date, I was able to figure out his name change from Anspach to Anspake, when he came to America.

Carolyn: Yeah. You just have to take those clues and you try to fit them in right. But, because there was only one record that named that town, we weren’t even entirely sure that was his record.

Fisher: Sure, right. It could be something else similar, right, in another part of Italy?

Carolyn: Yes. And, later we found his World War II registration card, which mentioned he was missing an eye. We went back to his World War I card, and he was missing an eye. And that’s when we realized it really was his record. We still were a little nervous about jumping back to Italy without a full birth date that we could count on. So the next project we did DNA, but there were no clear answers. He didn’t have enough matches that were close enough.

Fisher: Now, do you find that a lot of people lied about being born in America versus being born overseas? Because I’ve sure run into that a lot.

Carolyn: Definitely. It was very common, I think, for being able to fit in to society, he married an American woman and she would have lost her citizenship if they reported his birth in Italy.

Fisher: Right.

Carolyn: Because she was married to him. Those are some of the reasons we think that he didn’t want to report his Italian birth.

Fisher: And there were social stigmas for some too, I think. Being born overseas.

Carolyn: Yeah. I think they were just eager to shed that past and be an American and move forward.

Fisher: I’ve seen it many times. So you have the name, what was the name, he was known as Raymond here?

Carolyn: Yes. James Raymond.

Fisher: So how did you make the leap?

Carolyn: Well, this time around, this was very recent we just finished the project last week. We contacted a researcher near Sulmona and told her the different birth dates that he had reported, and this little town, and we said, “Can you just search in that time frame?” Because it was 1892 or 1889.

Fisher: Sure.

Carolyn: Somewhere in there, for a man who could have become James Raymond.

Fisher: Right.

Carolyn: And she was eager. She went right to Sulmona, and lo and behold, she found a Vincenzo Ramunno!

Fisher: [Laughs] Ramunno.

Carolyn: Yeah, Ramunno. With two Ns, who was born on an entirely different date than he had ever reported.

Fisher: Could it be he didn’t know his own birthday?

Carolyn: I believe that is the case, yeah. I later with that information found his immigration record, and he was only 14 when he immigrated, by himself, but he reported an age of 22.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Carolyn: So he must have looked older to get away with that.

Fisher: Right, shaving at 14, absolutely. That’s incredible. Well, your clients must have been thrilled about this.

Carolyn: He’s absolutely thrilled. As a matter of fact, before we even had the report written up, he planned a trip to Sulmona and he is there right now. He has met up with our researcher there, and they’ve let him into the church archives, and he is doing some more research on his family.

Fisher: So he’s going back many more generations as a result.

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: How long has he been looking?

Carolyn: Decades. Since the mid-1900s, I believe, his family has not ever had that information.

Fisher: So this is the big break. That’s exciting news.

Carolyn: Very exciting.

Fisher: Now you mentioned to me off air that there was another great grandfather around this line that you were working on. What’s the situation with him?

Carolyn: Well, the story is he came from Poland and changed his name to Dobbs. We’ve tried DNA on that, and similarly there’s not enough clear matches or information to really, You know, there’s a town in Poland that several matches it goes to, but we’re not ready to cross the pond just yet.

Fisher: That area of Eastern Europe, though, is very difficult because of all those border changes, of course, over the years.

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: How do you navigate that?

Carolyn: We have to use the US records to try to find that town.

Fisher: And figure out where it is now, what country it’s part of.

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: What country it was back then.

Carolyn: Hm hmm. Yeah. There are several websites that will trace the names of the towns as they’ve gone from Poland, to Russia, to Germany, and it takes a lot of triangulating of information.

Fisher: Sure.

Carolyn: Yeah.

Fisher: But ultimately you can do it, but it’s really time consuming.

Carolyn: It is. It takes time. This project has spanned four different projects to get to this point.

Fisher: Well, tell us about James Raymond now. We know he was Vincenzo Romunno. And he came to the United States. What year do you figure he came over?

Carolyn: The immigration record was 1904.

Fisher: Okay.

Carolyn: And he listed a sister. This was one of the reasons we knew it was him. One of the birth places he reported later in his life was Smith’s Basin, New York, which is now Fort Ann.

Fisher: Okay.

Carolyn: A very small place. And, in the immigration list, he said he was headed to Smith’s Basin to visit his sister Maria. So, we know that was his initial draw, and as soon as we found that, well, we had our researcher in Italy find the birth record of that sister, and she was 13-14 years older than he was.

Fisher: Okay.

Carolyn: She married and immigrated within a month and left, and so, that confirmed that we’re dealing with the right family.

Fisher: The name Maria. Even though it’s very common, I think the bottom line is, the absence of the name Maria on the family record back in Italy that would have been a problem.

Carolyn: Yes. If she wasn’t there, then it would have thrown in the question that immigration record, for sure.

Fisher: But the fact that it is there is helpful. The only issue is it’s so common. Still, it helps you to confirm.

Carolyn: It does. The man she married, the last name was Miccolo, which we haven’t had a lot of time to really pursue that, but I think in the future project we’ll really focus on the first names and records that were close to the time of their immigration.

Fisher: Sure. So, talk about James Raymond now, the Italian. What became of him? He came over at 14, he signed up obviously for the draft registration as virtually all the men did in America in 1917 and ‘18.

Carolyn: Yes.

Fisher: Did he wind up serving in World War I?

Carolyn: Not that we know of. The early records that we have of him was that he was an engineer, he was in construction, and he moved all over the place. Every record we have of him, he’s in a different town, from the border with Canada to the border with Vermont, to western New York, until he got married and settled down in Syracuse.

Fisher: Great stuff. She’s Carolyn Tolman from LegacyTree.com. Thanks for sharing this. Congrats on the breakthrough and to the family you’re working with.

Carolyn: Thank you. We’re so excited, and so is our client. And I would appreciate him giving me permission to share this story. He’s I’m sure having a wonderful experience.

Fisher: [Laughs] I bet he is. I’d like to be with him myself.

Carolyn: Me too.

Fisher: Thanks for coming, Carolyn.

Carolyn: Thank you.

Fisher: And, coming up for you next we talk preservation with the Preservation Authority, Tom Perry. He’s on a road trip right now somewhere in the southwest. We’ll find out where and what he’s up to, coming up in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 4 Episode 201

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: And we are back! It’s time to talk preservation at Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. My name is Fisher, the Radio Roots Sleuth. And Tom Perry, our Preservation Authority is in Tucson, Arizona, on the road and had a little breakdown, I understand.

Tom: Oh yeah, talk about preservation!

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: I mean, we were just outside of Flagstaff at about midnight and our fuel pump went out, so we pulled over to the side of the road. We were on US 89. And I just hope all of our listeners pay really close attention to this. When you see somebody broken down, especially if there’s a tow truck hooked up to them, give them room. One time the tow truck driver had to dive away from the side of our car he was hooking up, because nobody would give him any room, and there was like no traffic in the other lane! And it’s so scary. So, I mean, preservation is real. We might not have made it if that semi would have hit us.

Fisher: [Laughs] Wow! So you’re on tour right now, Tom. And you’re in Tucson for what event?

Tom: Okay. We’re in Tucson for the Home Video Studio Expo. And they’re also having flight school down here, which we’ll get into a little bit later. And then after this, we’re going on to, as you mentioned last week, we’re doing a New England Historic Genealogical Society at the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is going to be awesome! They’re on August 25th through the 26th. We’re looking at Louisville, Kentucky August 30th through September 2nd in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And then September is kind of a weird month, it’s going to be bouncing all over the state of Utah. They have the state fair from September 7th to the 17th where we’ll have scanning parties, where you can bring your photos in and we can scan them for you for free. And then we have, during the fair, we’re going to be in Ogden, Utah, Weber State University, doing a family history expo there. And then we’re heading down to the southern corner of Utah, September 14th through the 16th to St. George for the Roots Family History Expo, which is huge! They have classes, they have exhibitors, they have all kinds of booths, they have entertainment, it’s going to be incredible! They have some Native American people that are coming in to put in really cool shows, and it’s going to be absolutely awesome!

Fisher: [Laughs] Well, of course Utah is kind of the Mecca of the world of genealogy. I want to hear more about this flight school thing now. Are we talking about hopping in airplanes?

Tom: [Laughs]

Fisher: What is that about?

Tom: No, this is about drones. Drones have just become so inexpensive, so popular, I mean, even for a couple of hundred bucks, you can get a decent drone with a camera built into it. So people are doing crazy things with them. The FAA really jumped down their throats. There’s been situations where they had to ground airplanes. They were putting out fires. Because people were flying their drones near the fire, if one of those got sucked into one of those jet engines, you could take down the plane. So the FAA has come out said, basically, you can only fly a drone on your property, one at a time and you cannot go higher than your roof and you cannot go outside the boarders of your property.

Fisher: So, that’s quite a crackdown from what it used to be where you could go anywhere, any height. You could even go hover in somebody’s back yard and spy on them.

Tom: [Laughs] Right. Like we were saying off the air, it’s almost like people when they do fireworks, they don’t pay attention to what the rules are. But they’re going to really start cracking down on this, because it’s a danger. Like with those people that are dropping the stuff on the parks to put them out, they grounded them, and so, people’s home burn, more acres burn, because people are messing around with their drones. So people that are wedding videographers or construction videographers or real estate people that want to do pictures of the homes and different things like this, they have to actually get a pilot’s license for their drone now. And so, here, they’re doing flight school. They go and teach you how to fly them properly, if you get into windy situations, what to do. And it’s a four day course here. And then once you pass it, then you can get certified by the FAA and then you can do weddings, events, whatever you want, because you learned basically the ground rule. And people just say, “Well, I know how to drive a drone! It’s not that hard of a deal.” Well, there’s still protocol. Just like you have to get a driver’s license, even though maybe you’ve been driving a tractor around your farm for ten years which started out when you were like twelve or something.

Fisher: Well, it’s the challenge of any new technology, don’t you think? I mean, this had been debated now for several years ever since they became such hot items.

Tom: Oh, absolutely.

Fisher: All right. We want to hear more about this when we return in three minutes. What are we going to talk about, Tom?

Tom: We’re going to talk a little bit more about photo tagging. We’ve had such a response a response from our last episode.

Fisher: All right, coming up on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show. This segment’s been brought to you by 23andMe.com DNA.

Segment 5 Episode 201

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: And we’re back! It’s our final segment for this week on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. You know, every week we devote a lot of time to preservation, because that’s such an important aspect to what we do to preserve your memories, things we already have in our homes that we want to make sure lasts for generations. And that’s why Tom Perry, our Preservation Authority is with us each week. And, Tom, we were just talking off air about tagging. And this is something I don’t think we’ve ever gotten into in over 200 episodes!

Tom: Right. And this does not mean painting the train that’s parked by your house on the railway track.

Fisher: Right. [Laughs]

Tom: This is a different kind of tagging.

Fisher: Different type of tagging, yes.

Tom: Right. So you have photos, like we talked about a few weeks ago about this lady that had this photo with hundreds of people in it and of course she knew who a couple of them were, but luckily she found a key for it, and so she knows who everybody is. So there’s some software which you can find a link on TransferDuplication.com. It’s called Heritage Collectors. And what you do is, you go in and make a little box or an oval over the person, and then whenever you run the mouse over it, their name will pop up. And so, what I’m going to do is, we’ve had so much interest in this is, I’m going to put a Twitter link where you can go to a YouTube video and watch exactly how it done, because it’s really, really simple and it’s fun to do. And it just makes it so cool. We’ve had so much interest in it. In fact, down here in Tucson, I’ve been showing it off to some of the other people that have the transfer and duplication centers across the country and they are excited about it, because this is something people have always asked for at their studios and now they’re going to be able to do it. Because even though you may know all the people in this photo your great grandkids are probably going to have no idea. But then when they can go over and say, “Oh, that’s my great Grandma there,” or “‘This is Aunt Sophie,” or whoever it happens to be. It makes a photo so much more interesting.

Fisher: And you know, this is something we were first introduced to, what, three or four years ago with the man we call, “The Mad Scientist,” Marlo, who puts together this Heritage Collector software. And it’s absolutely unbelievable stuff.

Tom: And the thing that’s neat about Marlo’s program is, he has different modules, so you don’t have to buy everything. You can buy just different pieces for just the things you want. You can do different things in Photoshop, but they’re not dynamic. And what’s so neat about that dynamic type of title is, it’s not taking up part of their clothing or their face. This lady that found this large picture, she wants to put it up on the internet and hope people come in, they do Google searches and type in their name and here comes this great, big picture, and oh, hey, you know, there’s her grandfather or their aunt or whatever when they were really, really young, and so, then other people are going to be able to download it. Whereas if she put names on all the pictures you wouldn’t be able to really see them clearly because they’re so small, but this way, with tagging, you move the mouse around to see who the people are or go look at the key, like you did with that fireman photo you found.

Fisher: Yes.

Tom: That says, “Hey, person one is this, this, this and this.”

Fisher: Right. It’s really a modern way to do a key. In the old days, a key was a strip of maybe cardstock that would be in a large group photo that’s framed and it would list numbers. And you would look at the number that might have been written in white ink or something on somebody’s shoulder, and that would tell you the name of the individual. This is a 21st century version of that and its much cleaner.

Tom: Oh, absolutely. You move the mouse and the people’s names just pop up.

Fisher: You know what Tom, let’s give away one of these Heritage Collector software kits to one of our subscribers for the Weekly Genie newsletter.

Tom: That would be awesome!

Fisher: All right, so by the end of August, if you are a subscriber to our Weekly Genie newsletter, it’s absolutely free, just go to ExtremeGenes.com or go to our Facebook page and you can sign up there. And if you’re one of our subscribers, at the end of the month, we will give away in a drawing, one of these Heritage Collector software kits, because I think the tagging thing would be so much fun.

Tom: You can do calendars, you can do books, you can do so many different things, it’s just great. The only disadvantage to Marlo’s software is, its Windows only. He doesn’t have a Mac version yet.

Fisher: All right, Tom. Take it easy on the road. Make sure that vehicle keeps on rolling, because you’ve got a lot of places to go!

Tom: We sure do! And the weather’s been beautiful in Tucson!

Fisher: Take care. Have a great time. And we’ll talk to you again next week.

Tom: My pleasure.

Fisher: Wow, we covered a lot of ground this week! Thanks joining us. If you missed any of the show, make sure you catch the podcast at ExtremeGenes.com, iTunes, iHeart Radio, TuneIn Radio. Yeah, we make it easy for you. And by the way, we do have a free Extreme Genes app you can download from your phone’s store. And don’t forget to sign up for our Weekly Genie newsletter it’s absolutely free. Sign up at ExtremeGenes.com and our Facebook page. Talk to you again next week. Thanks for joining us. And remember, as far as everyone knows, we’re a nice, normal family!