you can only hold a smile for so long

At first glance, this seems to be a skull with two terrifying rows of teeth.  Actually, it's a child's skull with the adult teeth, ready to move down. Talk about a face-full of teeth! I find it fascinating, since I'm all about stones and bones. My daughter had an adult tooth that did not move down to force out the childhood tooth.  Surgery, odd rubber bands, and braces pulled it from deep in her face down into the appropriate spot.  It's amazing what modern orthodontics can do.

Image by Stefan Schäfer, taken at the Hunterian Museum in London.

You can only hold a smile for so long, 

after that it's just teeth.

Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

Speaking of holding a smile for so long, did you know the reason people are not smiling in vintage photographs is because the shutter speed was much slower then?  It was easier to hold a non-smiling face completely still.

my great-great-great-grandfather
Joseph Lorenzo Dow Hanna
self-portrait, tintype, circa 1860s

the number of dead people is increasing

Isn’t it so weird how the number of dead people is increasing even though the earth stays the same size, so that one day there isn’t going to be room to bury anyone anymore? For my ninth birthday last year, Grandma gave me a subscription to National Geographic, which she calls “the National Geographic”. She also gave me a white blazer, because I only wear white clothes, and it’s too big to wear so it will last me a long time. She also gave me Grandpa’s camera, which I loved for two reasons. I asked why he didn’t take it with him when he left her. 

my paternal great-grandfather, Glenn Hanna
with his portable bellows camera, circa 1910

She said, “Maybe he wanted you to have it.” 

I said, “But I was negative-thirty years old.” 

She said, “Still.” 


Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls. 

― Jonathan Safran Foer

Speaking of dead people, photography runs rampant in my DNA. All my paternal grandfathers were photographers, starting with Joseph Lorenzo Dow Hanna in the 1850s, when photography was a new fangled art. Friday, on my routine Goodwill stop, I spotted this lovely old Kodak accordion camera, a smaller version of the one my great-grandfather Glenn Hanna used, back in 1910. It stirred that crazy photographic gene and I had to bring it home with me. All the grandpas nodded in approval.

image:  Kodak folding accordion camera, my latest Gee-Dub find

The Genealogy Bug

As I mentioned recently, I've been bitten by the genealogy bug and have spent the last five or six years researching and logging over 6000 of ancestors and their statistics into my family file. Several of you asked for tips on how to get started. There is such a wealth of information available online today, formerly only accessible from county courthouses and libraries.

If I could choose just one site, it would have to be Ancestry. Thousands of searchable databases are readily available; census, old newspapers, social security death records, state records and thousands of personal family genealogical files, just to name a few. It is a little pricey, but compared to traveling to specific locations to research, it is a great deal. You can purchase an annual subscription, which is the most economical, or you can pay for access for just three months. Some other great sites are Find a Grave, Rootsweb, (Ancestry's free site) and the Bureau of Land Management. Also, many states now have searchable archive databases online.

Don't be afraid to get into Rootsweb and some of the other sites and leave stats for the ancestors you are searching for on their bulletin boards. Many times other distant cousins are looking for the same family. I connected with several unknown cousins this way and plugged into a wealth of family info and the priceless pleasure of their friendship.

Another valuable and worthwhile avenue is The National Archives. Military service records and pension files are available to purchase. I paid around $40 for WT's great-great grandfather's complete Civil War file. I was absolutely thrilled when they mailed a packet of photo copies of over 80 pages; a treasure trove of info

and well worth the investment.

WT has participated in his family surname DNA project, through Family Tree DNA. After requesting a packet, swab the inside of your cheek and mail it in. When the testing is complete, you are

linked with others with matching DNA . It's another wonderful way to trace your lineage and connect with other descendants.

I use Family Tree Maker genealogy software available to purchase from Ancestry. It has lots of great features, simple to install and very user friendly. So, hey hey, there you have it, my bloggy friends. Hope this gives you a little helpful info if you're interested in researching and documenting your roots. Let me warn you, it's very addictive, but persistence does pay off. Happy hunting!

By the way, the above photo is the oldest in my personal family collection. It is a tin type, self portrait of my great-great-great grandfather Joseph Lorenzo Dow Hanna, county surveyor for Howard County, Indiana in the 1860's. On the back of the tin type, is written in pencil, "executed by J. Hanna, artist". I come from a long line of photographers, so it's definitely in my blood. My camera is broken and I'm about to jump out of my skin without it!