Happy New Year!

Loyal and Constant Readers (both of you) recall that last year I said I don’t really make “resolutions” for a New Year, but I will set goals and plans. So here are the 2007 goals and plans:

1. Plan a Spring Research Trip. Last year, you recall, we went to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. It was a great trip and we came back with lots of information and lots of tips and hints about how to make such a trip productive. In 2007, I’m thinking we’ll go to an actual ancestral homeland to seek primary source material. Clay County, Missouri, right now is my first choice; Milam County, Texas, is a possibility too.

2. Make contact with more cousins to hear their stories. In 2006, for the first time, I “cold-called” a cousin in Texas. That turned out to be a great experience that continues to yield good information as well as being fun to have made that connection. So in 2007, I plan to make contact with other cousins around the country and make their acquaintances. In fact, I have a package I’m preparing to send to one of my Long-surnamed cousins in Minnesota. We’re off to a good start on this one!

3. Read more history of localities. This is important to understanding the context of our ancestors’ lives. One way I want to proceed with this is to find historical documents that are somewhat contemporaneous with the lives of certain ancestors.

4. Bring genealogy to more young people. I want to get teenagers, and perhaps even younger kids, interested in genealogy and their family histories. I’m working on an idea to work with some private and public schools in the area. While not completely formed yet, this may involve some on-time guest speaker appearances as well as some ongoing activities over the course of the spring semester. I’ll let you know how this works out.

5. Support genealogical and historical non-profit organizations. I have several favorite societies, friends’ groups, etc., and I want to make support for them a higher priority in 2007. They have been indispensable to my research; they’re part of the family in a sense!

6. Be available for mutual assistance, lookups, and acts of genealogical kindness. I’ve always endeavored to help out others without access to the resources I can easily reach–but it’s important to restate this as an ongoing commitment.

7. Insure that there’s something valuable in this space at least three times a week. 2006 was a year of adjustment–new job, different schedule, etc., and sometimes it was not easy to keep up with this space. In line with our motto, “Learn, Share, Enjoy, Appreciate,” I’ll try to keep the blog current, useful, and interesting.

8. Knock down at least two longstanding brick walls. This may be a tall order, but that’s what keeps it interesting! For 2006, I had several specific research goals, none of which we really got done. But we did discover other things along the way that were just as valuable. For 2007, I want to knock down at least two brick walls. Likely candidates include finding the parentage of Richard William Gines (1860-?) or Sarah Gilbert (1849-1920?) or linking the Brayboy and LeJay families in Louisiana to their ancestors in South Carolina.

9. Advocate for the free flow of genealogical information. By “free” I don’t mean necessarily “without cost.” Rather, I mean the ability to access public information unfettered by ill-conceived, unnecessary, and often counterproductive laws enacted by well-meaning, though misinformed, legislative bodies. One topic you’ll see more of in this space will concern legislative activity that may hinder genealogical and historical research. I also intend to be an active advocate before various legislative bodies to help them understand the need for open public records.

10. Always Learn from others, Share with everyone, Enjoy this endeavor, and Appreciate the efforts of those who also Learn, Share, and Enjoy! ‘Nuff said!

I might add another, which is related in a way to Number 7: as often as possible, have something to contribute to the Carnival of Genealogy!

Welcome, 2007!

Much to be done as we get ready for the calendar to change! The Bloggcast Center has been renovated with all new equipment that Santa brought and we’ve been setting it up and configuring it.

There are blog posts in the pipeline, including The Genealogy of Language. Most importantly, the Carnival of Genealogy, hosted by Jasia at Creative Gene is just days away. So stay tuned!

I’ve just noticed that the Missouri Secretary of State’s Death Certificate project has now put online images of certificates from 1950-1955! The remaining gap in the images is now just 1930-1949. This exciting development is due to the diligent work of the Secretary of State’s staff, the Friends of the Missouri State Archives, and hundreds of other volunteers. Congratulations and THANK YOU to all involved!

Search Missouri Death Certificates here.

Here it is December 22 already and I’m just realizing that we haven’t spent any time talking about Christmas! Well, there are the usual excuses. We finished the fall semester at Pacific McGeorge School of Law and I’ve just concluded grading forty administrative law exams (three questions X forty students=grading marathon). The first wave of visitors arrived yesterday in the person of my youngest (48 year old) brother. The second and third waves come today and tomorrow. And Santa, wearing a brown UPS shirt, is due here tonight with high tech presents to completely re-model the Bloggcast Center. So this is a busy season for many reasons.

At this time of the year, I always think about Christmases past. Christmas for me as a child was, of course, the greatest holiday of the year. Everything about it was exciting. My devoutly Catholic parents kept us grounded in the “reason for the season,” while at same time making the holiday a child’s dream.

When I was very young, we lived in Germany. I attended a German kindergarten and learned to sing Heilige Nacht before I knew it as Silent Night. Being in a foreign country added to the mystique of the holiday. There were Advent calendars, special chocolates, nuts, and fruits, and Sankt Nikolaus Tag.

We moved from Germany to Albuquerque, New Mexico when I was in second grade and the mystique continued. I learned the Los Posadas traditions and hand-made luminarios adorned the yards in our neighborhood.

From Albuquerque we came to California, where I had to wrap my mind around the idea of going to the beach on Christmas!

Since then, I’ve been all around the country and the world at Christmas time and I’ve met people of all kinds at Christmas. Which was my favorite? 1974, Monterey, California, and a great party at a friend’s house? 1977, Rapid City, South Dakota, a white Christmas for real? 1982, Tucson, Arizona, sipping margaritas in the desert? 1985, London, England, (’nuff said), 1990, Kaiserlautern, Germany? 1998, Carmichael, California? 2002, Washington, DC, attending the National Tree Lighting ceremony next to the White House? or 2006, back home in Carmichael?

Well, my favorite Christmas has always been the one I’m then celebrating! Happy Christmas–froehlich Weinachten–feliz Navidad!

A partial bibliography–all are available “full view” at Google Books

R. I. Brigham, Negro Education in Ante Bellum Missouri, The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Oct., 1945), pp. 405-420

Benjamin Franklin French, Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida, Including Translations of Original Manuscripts (1869)

Louis Houck, A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the State to the Union (1908)

Katharine Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West: How We Won the Land Beyond the Mississippi (1912)

The following material was found at the Mardos Memorial Library (an upcoming post deals with this unique resource):

George Washington Smith, A History of Southern Illinois: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its People, and Its Principal Interests (1912)

In several recent posts, we have explored a bit of the history of the French Negroes of Illinois. Well educated and devoutly Catholic, these families thrived in several Southern Illinois communities for a number of years. But as the 20th century began, the young people in these communities had few prospects even with their relatively strong educations. The French Negro families gradually moved across the river to St. Louis or upstate to Chicago. Few remained in the small communities of Southern Illinois where they descended from the slaves of the Philip Renault.

Emblematic of the French Negro families of Southern Illinois is the Micheau family. As we noted in a previous post early ancestors of this family are found in St. Genevieve, Missouri, in the late 18th century. We also told the story of George Micheau born into slavery in 1852 in Washington County, Missouri. George Micheau was one of five sons of a man also named George Micheau born in about 1815.

The younger George Micheau’s children eventually moved to St. Louis, where a number of his descendants live today.

At various times, George Micheau spelled his name different ways. Sometimes he spelled it “Mischeaux” and sometimes “Micheau.” (In the 1870 census, the enumerator spelled the name as “Misho”). Sometimes the two different spellings could be found in the same document. The spelling variation eventually lead to a split in the family tree. The “Mischeaux” branches headed for Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, while the “Micheaus” tended to venture just to St Louis. (Of course, these are generalizations. Many of the “Mischeaux” can be found in St Louis and many of the “Micheau” branch likewise went upstate or to California.

(Warning: Controversial remarks ahead. The meek are advised to bury their heads in the sand now).

It may be that the spelling difference served to cover something else that may have represented a split in the family tree.

Just as the spelling of George Micheau’s name varied, so did the description of his race in census records. At some points, he’s “black” or “colored”; elsewhere he’s “mulatto.” His “Mischeaux” cousins also are described by differing labels. For example, Joseph F. Mischeaux is “mulatto” in the 1920 census, but “Negro” in the 1930 census. According to other government documents, many of the “Mischeaux” whose grandparents were “Negroes” in 1930, were “white” by the 1960′s. (I’ve been deliberately vague about specifying which government documents in order to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. The documents are publicly available online). Some lived in upscale communities where blacks were mostly servants or not permitted at all forty or fifty years ago.

The issue of race is always a touchy one. From my point of view, the best use of race in genealogy is simply to identify people. But, of course, it’s not that simple from a historic, cultural, and sociological point of view. And the Micheau/Mischeaux family illustrates that very clearly. It is a remarkable fact, and a uniquely American phenomenon that today some descendants of the French Negro families in southern Illinois identify themselves as Caucasian. This circumstance reinforces the unsurprising fact we all have what I have irreverently called “a checkered past.” And if you think about what has to happen to create that checkerboard, it should give you comfort in the basic goodness of humankind.

Let me be clear about this: I have no personal issues one way or the other about this. It is to me simply an interesting historical and sociological phenomenon. But I recognize that others will not feel this way and the very discussion of the issue is controversial among many people, black and white.

In an earlier post on this topic, we asserted that the French Negroes in America had come from heat he during the time of the French Revolution. That was true around the USA, but the French Negroes in southern Illinois had arrived much earlier.

In 1719, Philip François Renault had been appointed director of mines in the French colonies. In that year, he set out from France for the Illinois country. Renault, a metallurgist, had come to believe that there were precious metals to be found in the Illinois country. Renault sailed aboard a ship called the Maria with a company of some 200 miners, technicians, and laborers. At Santo Domingo, Renault bought 500 slaves to work the mines.

Renault had been engaged by a company chartered by the king of France called the Company of the West Indies. He formed a subsidiary called the Company of St. Philippe. Renault was granted several tracts of land, some of which were on the west side of the Mississippi River in what are now Ste. Genevieve County, and Washington County, Missouri. On the land in Illinois Renault built a town that he called St. Philippe. This town no longer exist today; however it was located not far from the present-day location of Prairie du Rocher.

For more than 20 years, Renault sought silver and gold on the banks of the Mississippi. He found were trace amounts of silver and gold and some copper. He also found some lead in a commercially viable amount, and which continued to be mined into the late 20th century day. But his failure to find silver and gold in sufficient quantities discouraged Renault. Finances in France were in turmoil and he could no longer count on support from France. So in the early 1740s, Renault decided to return to France. He sold the slaves to the other French settlers in the area. It is said that the black people who lived in Randolph County, Illinois, and Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, over the next 150 years were descendents of these slaves.

Writing in the local diocesan publication The Messenger in 1984, Father Theodore Siekmann, former pastor of St. Joseph parish at Prairie du Rocher, observed:

Philip Renault and other French Catholics of his day aimed to be humane. They did provide for the basic needs of these people. They respected their dignity as children of God, endowed with immortal souls, and deserving of spiritual care and attention.

Although marriage was for been between blacks and whites, the black slaves were to receive instruction in the Catholic religion and to be given ample opportunity to practice the Catholic faith.

Notable was the humane concern not to break up leave families, and there was an honest endeavor to foster wholesome family life among the blacks this was a sharp contrast to the practice and some other parts of the world.

The black community thrived in Prairie du Rocher for a number of years. The blacks were overwhelmingly Catholic, of course. Father Siekmann writes, “the black Catholics in Prairie du Rocher had always attended Mass and received the sacraments along with the white people on an amicable basis. Indeed two of the black girls became Religious sisters, and were a credit to their religious institutes.” The speaking of were Emma Micheau who became Sister Mary Celestine and her niece, Addie Micheau, who became Sister Philomena.

The blacks in Prairie du Rocher received an exceptional education for the times thanks to the religious teachers (the Adorers) and, later, lay teachers like Edna Lewis (Sister Philomena’s aunt). But there were few prospects in southern Illinois for even well educated black youth. Sister Philomena writes in her 1981 letter:

With no future except to continue as domestic servants to the more fortunate… the Black teenager usually bade farewell to home and family in pursuit of educational equality, suitable employment, improved living conditions, seeking for the privileges and rights enjoyed by other Americans.

The “French Negro” families of Prairie du Rocher gradually headed off across the Mississippi River to the city of St. Louis. Thus, by the 1960s, in Prairie du Rocher, “only one the aged and level with a black man remained,” according to Father Siekmann. Sister Philomena identifies the last black person in Prairie du Rocher as Felix Marshall Pascal. He was born in September 1877 in Prairie du Rocher and died there in April 1963.

A few weeks ago, we began the story of the “French Negroes of Illinois.” We interrupted that story because we received from “an important and credible source” further information pertaining to the topic. I can tell you now that our source was the religious order the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, in the person of their communications director, Mr. David Braun. You may recall that the Adorers were mentioned in our earlier posts. They were a group of religious women who had established themselves at Redbud, Randolph County, Illinois. They had also founded the first school for colored children in Prairie du Rocher.

We had come across a letter written in 1981 by Sister Mary Philomena, nee Adelaide Francis Micheau, of the Oblate Sisters of Providence, to Sister Mary Joan Weissler, ASC. Sister Philomena’s letter was an apparent response to an inquiry from Sister Mary Joan, who was then writing a history of the Adorers in Illinois.

We learned from Mr. Braun that there was indeed such a history written. He was kind enough to provide some relevant materials from that history and from other documents in the archives of the Adorers. Space with this new material we are able to provide a much more accurate description of the French Negroes of Illinois. So stay tuned as we continue next the history of the French Negroes of Illinois.

This has been out for a few days, but somehow escaped my attention until now.

Archaeologists working for the Vatican have unearthed a sarcophagus containing what they believe are the remains of St Paul the Apostle.

The tomb dates back to at least AD390 and was found in a crypt under a basilica in Rome. It has long been thought that the crypt contained the tomb of St Paul but the altar had hidden it. St Paul was an influential early Christian who travelled widely in the Mediterranean area in the 1st Century.

Read the rest on the BBC’s site.