Hello, hello Me and Thomas are here to talk about our week with the wiki tree chat challenge and of course we did Jennifer Lopez We did J Lo for the week So just kind of kind of do just a really informal chat and you know It gives people that weren't able to participate in the week a chance to kind of see what we did and you know This will stay on YouTube so they can watch it later if they need to So Thomas, how do you think the week went? Well all things considered given that I think the majority of our Members did not have very much experience with Puerto Rican research with a couple notable exceptions I think it went fairly well You know, obviously we didn't make that ideal connection through Jennifer's direct lines to the tree that we were hoping for but you know We did a lot of expansion and we ended up building on a lot of areas that I was not expecting us to so But the most part is pretty successful week Yeah, I think it was too and of course we found out that all of us but one were related to Ben Affleck We're all connected to J Lo through her current spouse I think Gio was the only one that was just a connection connected by marriage not connected by blood so But yeah, it was really it was really unusual for me to go through the week and not have those connections You know and and I mean we do have Puerto Rican profiles on a wiki tree But not enough in the location that her family stayed and they all pretty much seem to stay in ponds Don't you agree? I mean that's yeah, no just only a few exceptions to that rule Immigrant lines and then one line that end up in my ag is which we didn't get very far with Yeah, oh and then on the maternal side. There was a couple lines that went elsewhere But I did not work on those lines. So I'm not all together familiar with Yeah, and we did have you know, luckily we're going out to the seventh degree now We aren't just doing direct ancestors Which as genealogists were used to going out in that direct line But this really opened up a lot of avenues for us and of course, you know we had the four spouses of J Lo and so that really helped a lot as far as giving us stuff to work on and making connections in other places and You know, it just didn't let me see let me go ahead and click on her family tree Though I think we still did pretty give her the direct ancestors though because we really filled this out You know at least minimally to the second great-grandparents at most of the lines go beyond that. Yeah Absolutely, and a few lines went a couple generations or more back We were just remarking before the show that we like right at the end of the challenge We managed to pull up a couple records pertaining to the line that most recently came over from Spain Lopez the paternal line and all of that and going through and continuing to find more records for siblings of the family that list potential Great-great-great-great-grandparents and perhaps even further. So it's a there's always more work to be done, of course but I'm really hoping this serves enough interest that other people that are interested in the Puerto Rican ancestry You know We'll add to these to see if it'll wind up matching with one of their branches You know because I mean it may not really be that far that they have to go To find a cousin match Yeah, absolutely. I'm I'm hopeful for that as well and also Especially with Spain. I think it was it wasn't all that long ago only a couple months or something But Salvador Dali had one of the largest Unconnected branches on wiki tree there were like some five six hundred profiles connected to his tree and none of them connected to the main tree because Spanish research is very underrepresented on wiki tree Hopefully that'll improve right, you know, and I've had people they comment this every so often But I had somebody comment again a couple of days ago about how wiki tree is so Americanized and we're very ethnocentric and you know it kind of appears that way But you really have to stop and look at the evolution of wiki tree It was started by Chris and he is a United States citizen And so, you know, that's what he started with him and his friends and his family And they built what there was in the US and then they started bringing in members and bringing in more people And so, you know because he's based in the US That's where a lot of our membership expanded at and now, you know I love seeing the projects that are growing and we get people from Netherlands and Germany and other places come in and I said well, you know This just means that we need more people to give a shout out. It was Argentina I said, you know talk to all your friends and family get them to come to wiki tree And then we'll have like this huge section of Argentine ancestors that would be great, but you know, it's not like we are not Expanding those it's just that we haven't found a way to bring those people to wiki tree yet And I mean, I would love to see these projects just explode And I think that's you know, personally one of the main reasons why I use wiki tree so much is specifically because we keep, you know, putting in work to make it more accessible I think that really is one of the best things about our community here and all that and so looking at We're gonna focus on this week of the challenge But as you know, I'm very excited about next week and I know all the work That's being done on the European Jewish lines So what do you think personally was like the biggest detractor? I mean language obviously for the people that didn't speak Spanish, but you know, we had enough people that we could You know, they could just put it in discord and we could give them that missing bit of information That wasn't indexed, you know what the cause of death was or you know, those names are just grandparent or godparents You don't need to worry about them You know, we could supply them with that but beyond that, what do you think was like the hardest hurdle? well, you know There's the problem always with the naming customs being different from our own how You know, you get these you get individuals who all end up having the same name Like we had a lot of repeated paternal and maternal surnames where you get just looking at the name line here Juan Rodriguez Rodriguez or something like that and there are Probably at least 15 of those just in the little area that he was living in You know and that works with all areas of research, but in particular when we're relying on Being able to identify those surnames as a way of finding more records that Right and staying within that tiny little area. So, you know, it's not like some of them grew up After they name their kids Rodriguez and then they moved away, you know, they all just stayed there and pints pretty much Yeah, exactly. Now, I I agree. I don't think the language barrier was as difficult as it could have been I don't think it was as difficult as we were expecting it to be Right. So for the most part, I think a lot of it had to do with Access to records and how how good the indexes were in many cases because you know there are Relatively good indexes, but there were a lot of Incorrect transcriptions of names and then of course that was completely inconsistent in some of the records and things like that You know that again, it's stuff that pops up all over the place But when combined with the language barrier it caused more of a problem, right? And you know and even though Puerto Rico is part of the United States Their records are fashioned after the you know, like the Spain records or the Latin American records So, yes, you do have the naming conventions where they use their fathers and their mother's surname and you do have the records in Spanish and you do have pretty much the format of the Roman Catholic Church and so, you know, because of that It's not the same as people that are Experienced in the mainland United States records. It's not the same there, you know And I noticed like with the indexes they weren't really great at putting relationships So there would be like these fabulous clues and unfortunately on some of them I didn't catch it until the week was like ending or over like quick somebody go out parents You know and they didn't realize that it was showing the paternal grandparents the maternal grandparents and then the godparents You know and they just thought those were people that were there at the baptism and You know, so there were probably a number of grandparents that could have been added using that information But I was an index that way, you know, they didn't say oh, these are the godparents And so if you didn't know that that's how the record was set up, you know, you were kind of at a disadvantage Yeah, absolutely and just remarking on you know, how they were changing the format and all that That was one thing that surprised me right at the beginning of the week was I'd never seen it before I was looking at the standard US Census schedule form, but everything's written in Spanish It wasn't I wasn't so much of a surprise, but even still it was completely new to me. So yeah It was unusual you're used to seeing a US census that yes, it's filled out in English So you're like, oh, okay, wait a minute Yeah, looking at all the relationship markers and everything and having to reinterpret them Yeah, I I did the same thing don't feel bad. I was like, okay, let me make sure I'm checking the right column here Yeah, but you know, I think as far as the availability the records, you know, except for the fact that We we couldn't access all of the ponds Images, you know, some of it was just those indexes. I think availability of records was pretty good You know, you did find census records You did find the the index baptisms and so it really helped a lot with, you know finding finding who we were looking for And it varied I that was something I meant to look into but I didn't really get around to was Researching exactly when they started taking the records that were Accessible because you know, there were some lines where it kind of just died out somewhere in the mid to late 19th century and it's hardly like were there records before that probably were they destroyed are they just not accessible like And then we managed to build past a few generations anyway Just because all the baptismal records thankfully give us the grandparents. I know thank goodness And I did notice though that for the ones I looked at anyways the families I looked at it was more of the civil records as opposed to I'm used to seeing the church records, you know for the baptisms and so sometimes just a little bit different how they set it up and just a little bit of difference in the terminology But you know, the nice thing was that a lot of we had a lot of forms. So there was type stuff for You have to worry quite as much about reading somebody's Horrible records, but you know, like I was looking helping somebody and The person they were working on had five children and they did really good with a father's name But the mother's surname was spelled different in all five of the records. So Okay, so what do I think is the closest to what she actually was? Was that a loyal or was that another one? No, it was it was on the Lopez line She they had her a Santi which I at first I looked at and thought maybe Santiago. Oh, yeah But if you look at it, it's all just a version of like Santi or Santi, whatever it was Waiting yeah, I have it on the list for Kathy God lover for a lover for all the record She looks up for us But even though the week's over I want to see the actual baptisms and just see if that was a poor Interpretation when they transcribe it I want to see those as well. That was the big thing was on that Lopez line when you get back to Spain suddenly There aren't any digitized scans to find it. Yeah It's a little bit annoying And then we did have I'm going to go ahead and pop my screen up here again We did have some interesting finds this week just not as many of them, you know, which once again anytime we have the The ancestors where they're all foreign locations, you know, we don't we don't get as many The interesting finds just because we don't have newspapers necessarily available that the researchers can read And so, you know, if you don't read Spanish It really doesn't do you any good to go look at a newspaper because that's definitely not going to be indexed And so, you know for the first find we had and once again our connections that are by blood are all Blood related to Ben and but they are it because of that. They're indirectly connected to J. Lo And we had his great-grandparents Alan buyers and Dorothy Elizabeth McGuire buyers Took a trip on a ship the Western Prince from Santos, Brazil to New York in 1931 The trip took about two weeks. Thank you for finding that Nancy and it just makes you wonder, you know Or they just doing kind of a fun cruise or what was it that they were doing? And then, you know, she has information on I mean if you look at what their life was pretty quiet living in Ohio Some of the kids were born in New Jersey So that, you know, would be a real step outside of their realm of existence what they were used to that's kind of cool that they took that trip and Then we had Ben Affleck's great-grandmother had two sisters. So we had Margaret McGuire and then Louise McGuire Renfrew who married two brothers. So the two McGuire sisters married the two Renfrew brothers Reno and Charles and you know, you do see that from time to time. It's really not that uncommon But it's definitely interesting and you know to look at the family dynamics of that and you know one of the things that I saw too that Somebody had had mentioned in discord that I hadn't really thought about as much, you know But we always look at consanguinity or pedigree to collapse where you know you wind up with two sets of great-grandparents in the same tree and You know But just on different branches if you do have wind up having people married and they married later on and You know, they were saying that they actually put that as a section on the profile and I thought hmm, you know I I'm really huge on putting research notes and what I found and everything But it's never dawned on me to put that as a really obvious Statement because when you are looking and you're not looking at like the whole fan chart You're just kind of flipping through a line. It's not going to be obvious Immediately on a lot of those that you do have those Duplicate sets of great-grandparents or grandparents And so that was kind of smart that they did that and I'm going to try to remember to do that now Especially when you've got these really common names like Rivera and things like that where there's no Guarantee that they're going to be related just because they have the same name I know says Mindy Silva because that is That is like Smith but in Portugal. So yeah top use surname But yeah, just because the surname matches does not mean they are related So it is a good idea, you know And if you don't want to put it in its own section Do put it down on the research notes and mark it on the profile because you know, you're saving somebody else sometimes so they're not You know having to discover the same thing and then the third one and this was added by Kathy And this was about Jennifer. So we have Jennifer Garner who of course was Ben's ex-spouse and his ex-wife and her maternal great-an Antonia Rivera Rivera is listed as being 104 years old now of course. She was only 97 because we're genealogists and we just don't accept when they say somebody was this age You know, we want to go look at but the baptism actually showed that she was Born in 1887 and so she definitely was 97 years old and not 104 but But that's still really cool and here see she did the same thing put it in the research notes So that if you don't notice it right away when you go to her profile, you know that that birth date and that age was Incorrectly reported, you know, and it's not necessarily that anybody lied but you have to look at who the informant was on the death certificate and You know, it may be like a son-in-law or somebody like that that doesn't know the age for real and they're like I think it's this, you know It's not necessarily that the person went around saying that they were a different age Yeah, and Wasn't that also on Jennifer Lopez's line not Garner's? Yes. Yeah, I Was just glancing at Jennifer Garner's streak is I did not look at it at all We had several people that worked on those lines now the The maternal yeah, that was her maternal great-aunt. So on the mother's side I was thinking it was on Jennifer's father's side But it was on the mother's side and then this one if you want to go ahead and tell us about this Yeah, and I actually just edited it to add a couple other ones because we so we found a couple records for Jennifer Lopez's fourth great-grandfather who I believe was Juan Garcia Garcia and they It's all the records where it's just mentioning him as the grandfather of a child who was baptized But they explicitly described him as being from Canarias, which was the Canary Islands territory of Spain time and We we went looking to see if we could find any records from the Canary Islands to help Identify him or Rose ancestors were from or anything like that Unfortunately to no avail, but we did find a few lines on the tree that ended up leading us away from Puerto Rico And so this was one of them and I just added the note of course the Lopez line we managed to identify from Lugo in believe What area of Spain was it? Andalusia right Lugo no Galicia. Oh, okay. Yeah, and oh The other one which I don't think we actually marked on the proper profile But Guillaume found a tie between the Guinorio line and Corsican France which he was talking about in our chat which seemed very interesting No, I wish we had it typed up somewhere. I might yeah That didn't make it to our our interesting fine section. Unfortunately. Yeah, but it's Anyway, so it's interesting to be able to find those lines of immigration which we weren't fully expecting to as we were going into it Especially on the Lopez line to be able to trace it a few generations further beforehand It was a that was a welcome surprise. Yeah And here we had another one on Jennifer's side and this is a grand uncle and Felix and his wife Cecilia had two sets of twins who did not survive. So You know, I just can't imagine that kind of tragedy. It always makes me sad when you see these families that You know, they they lose a number of their children Yeah, you know get so much more common the further back you get and really I know and you know in 1933 you're already getting to the age of where you know, we have better medical care And so I think it's a little more surprising to see it. But yeah back in the 19th century. It was really common You know, you didn't really expect all of your children to live to adulthood because They didn't have the vaccinations and they didn't have all the medications that they have now a days And you know, it was just more of a common thing But I think in the 1930s not as common, although twins are always in more of a danger Yeah, and a single birth And then here we went over to back to Ben side and this was his great-grandmother's sister Rachel Perkins cone out and this one says she did live to be a hundred and So this is actually not a profile that was created during the challenge And you know, it's one of the things we do like is when we find these branches and we can connect to them And then of course everything somebody's added after them adds this big number You know, we're now you have all these people connected to cousins that they weren't connected to before but this profile was created in 2016 and This lady lived to be exactly a hundred years old in Rhode Island and so that I thought that was really cool. Yeah, absolutely That was a nice thing seeing all those connections that were being made on the other Spouses lines and all that you know, especially we started off the week having absolutely nothing on Ben Affleck's mother's family And so we glad we got some people to go in and work on Yeah, and we wound up with what like eight hundred and thirty eight connections or something So I mean, we only had 50 direct ancestors to J. Lo so if we would have only been doing her side You know, we still would have wound up with a hundred or hundred plus people But yeah to push it up over 800 because we were able to explore these other Relationships and spouses really helped us a lot Now we have Ben Affleck's grandfather William O'Brien bull and he was an anti nuclear weapons activist He spent six months in a work camp in 1941 for being a conscientious Objector and so, you know, there's articles and what not on him About his beliefs and his time spent in jail He did marry Elizabeth Neely Robert Shaw and it looks like we only have two children I'm not sure if he that's because he only had two children or if we just didn't find enough records To add the rest we kind of you know, it kind of hurts us when we get out to the era Where we're worried that the children might still be living and so, you know, if they might be living We don't add them on a wiki tree to protect their privacy But you know, he did a lot of stuff I mean here we're talking about occupations and of course he served in the army He was editor for regional plan association of New York He was an analyst on the staff of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and a freelance writer a lecturer He just did all of these great things, you know But of course what you do that is that one negative item that people don't agree with is what's gonna get you in the papers You know, not the 10 or 15 really great things that you did that helped your community Yeah, and that was on that line. I know we mentioned it a couple times on calls This was not really expanded upon within the tree, which is kind of a shame I think because we were focusing so much on Jennifer's side of the family. We didn't get any Germany project members to come in and work on the bolt line, which could have been a big help But I know that there's a story that was Circulated a few years back that we did not touch upon about his grandfather Heinrich Bolt Who apparently at the age of 12 happened upon a big Archaeological find that no one had seen before it was this ancient disc that dated back to I believe Time of Harold Bluetooth or one of the major Nordic Kings and all that and had an inscription On it from there. And so there was some interesting story connected to that Yeah, and one thing oh about us just working on the seven degrees of connection and all that as well as you know We we have so much more room and so there's so much more that also doesn't get much to I know and you know and the week just goes so fast for us I mean, you know, we start more like oh I've got all the time in the world to find these people and Adam and connect and You know Thursday morning comes up and you've only got a few more hours left and you're like where'd the week go? It's really hard to get everything done and make all the connections. But yeah, I think it would have been fun If we would have had some people come in and try and expand those German lines so that we would Could see definitely where they came from and Elaine was pointing out some information and Definitely a notable living descendant just not enough to meet the wiki tree standards but you know make sure you take a look at William Bolts profile and See what kind of interesting information is on there because they're you know, there is a lot He was a very very interesting person. Yeah And then the final one this was on Jennifer's side also and a cousin so Dolores Robles And her brother Domingo got married on the very same day and it kind of makes you wonder if You know, they were just trying to do that for financial reasons because those ceremonies are very expensive And you know putting everything together for the families and whatnot and you know, or if it was I don't know they just were really close and thought oh, it'll it's be really fun to share the Share our marriage day, but you know, the great thing is you'd never forget their anniversary. So yeah, absolutely Elaine also mentions that the living descendant should get more famous. Maybe in a few years we can make invisible on the site I know that would be great. We'll root for it. Elaine will root for it Yeah, no, they really were expensive at that time especially because you know You had to pay a rather large sum just to get the marriage certificate from the church usually and so it It gets all the more complicated and everything so with all the expenditures and probably was the main reason but yeah And you know, and I don't know about the culture there, but I know and other Cultures in like if you look at the Portuguese culture, there is a very definite specific expectations list for say a baptism and I had somebody mention they commented on that the other day about how the Parents were married after the first child was born But you know, the United States is one that we find that still, you know Not as shocking as it used to be but it used to be considered just shocking that your children were born out of marriage But in other countries it isn't I mean some countries they just don't expect it at all You know, you may marry you may not marry It's not a requirement, you know And we saw that with the wiki tree challenge last year in searching other other countries where it wasn't required, you know but in places Like Portugal and you know, maybe they they did wind up with the wife getting Pregnant or they just really were ready for children, you know, they had to decide. Well, do I want, you know This baptism is going to be really expensive or do we want the marriage that's going to be really expensive And they go, you know, what let's do the baptism first and we'll save money for the marriage But it wasn't it was culturally acceptable to do that. It wasn't a big huge deal So where, you know, we have a tendency to look at it and go, oh my gosh They had, you know, two children before they actually got married And I and I find I know in the portuguese research. I've done it. It's usually only one But it but it happens a lot. It's it's not a shocking thing It's just that, you know, you kind of have to look at your priorities and and which one you want to handle financially Yes No, it is a really interesting, you know set of variations between different nations and all of that. I know I was fascinated when I first got started working on Dutch research that you find records that explicitly refer to Like a person who's getting married, but it mentions their birth status as having been Legitimized by the parents marrying after the birth In some countries that was an option in other countries. They would be listed as illegitimate regardless of whether the parents are already married Right. It's interesting seeing how each region has its own variation in that And, you know, once again, though, I mean on wiki tree, this is what's great about it Because, um, you know, you're not going to go to one of the other sides. I'm not going to name them Um, you're not going to go to them and learn about somebody else's culture or record keeping, you know I can add all of the Spanish people I want to my ancestors branches on this other site and nobody's going to come in and go Oh, hey, Mindy. Have you tried this resource or you know, you might want to look at the naming conventions before you, you know And go back and fix that profile But on wiki tree you have those opportunities everywhere, you know to where you can talk to other people that are really familiar with it And, you know, and you can learn from it and stuff outside your comfort zone and especially within the challenge. We definitely do that Yes And I do want to give a quick, um, kudos because we didn't have as many brick walls again solve but once again, um You know, there was so much work that was also done on the other lines and so on ben's lines and Jennifer's lines and there weren't as many people that were expanding jailos But, um, I do want to say that two of the the brick walls that were broken and that got bounty points were not even participants Uh, so that was exciting, you know, because we say you can register or not If you forgot to register or you didn't have time to register or you found out about the week too late And they've already started and you want to jump in and help we encourage you jump in and help You know, and if you don't know a lot about the records, there's people that can help you with them or You know, you can go through and just add categories or add stickers or you know, just cheer people on a discord Hey way to go great fine. You know, there's there's plenty that people can do Um, you know, and we do have some amount of people that just aren't as big at and as signing up or Maybe just don't like their badges that much most of us like our badges, but not everybody does But yeah, they're definitely, um Can't come in and help at any time But I did think it was interesting that you know by Thursday morning, uh, and I was checking bounty points There were three brick walls down at that point And two of them were for non challenge participants So it only showed up as 10 points on the score sheet, but really there should have been more Yeah, no, I I always forget to sign my name on the registration page and all that and so I think I think some of the time you've just carried my name over from the previous week I'm not sure if that's the way we set it up this year, you know because we did it last year and of course we did a challenge almost every single week last year and um We were doing registration for every week Or every month and so like when august came in you needed to be badged for that month And you know, it just became a thing of creating way too many badges You know in that little tiny portion of the server Where if you're somebody that can award badges, you've already got this massive list to pick from You know, it was just creating big batches of badges and it was also causing problems So if somebody thought they signed up, but they put the comment somewhere else, you know, maybe they said in discord Oh, I'm joining in, you know, and I didn't think to look them up. I went. Oh cool. You're joining us I'm happy about it And then they weren't signed up for the week so they didn't show up on the the page or you know, maybe the the Pulling the record hadn't updated yet that day and so people were not understanding why their name was on And the way we did it this year is once you've signed up you're signed up You'll get your points once you've signed up for the challenge once The difference it makes is the people that get the email so if you want the email updates saying, okay, we picked the brick walls or You know, I need somebody to work on this or hey great job If you want to get those emails, you do need to go onto that post and say, you know, hey, I I'm ready. Yeah That's on me. I just haven't been checking on it all the time, but that's yeah, I think yeah, you are I think we're uh, I think we're doing a very good job of keeping things running this year though I think your workload is probably much improved now that we've switched to this system and so yeah Yeah Able to have a good organizational structure, which I think is beneficial to everyone involved Yeah, you know and and I mean the challenge went really well last year. Um, you know, it was incredible I never stopped being amazed at how well everybody did every week You know, and it didn't seem to matter what we threw at the wiki traders You know new countries this that um different naming conventions They just would just dive in there and get these amazing results anyways But we did take a hard look at the things that were creating more work that weren't really necessary for the challenge And we did stream line a lot of that So it definitely evolved this year and it made me happy because some of it was just really repetitive, you know to get work Yeah Just a brief side note to want to say hello to john tiner who just joined us I think he was at his nieces sending away party earlier today. So I hope that went well We're on the morning live chat earlier. Yes Yeah This is going to be interesting seeing what else we can come up with in the Next few weeks. I know we are having our last actual live guest this next week, which I know and I do his interview monday. So, you know, not only are we doing the last one that's going to be a live guest But um he wanted it done really super close to the start of the week So when I was doing live guests before I liked them to give me a couple of weeks so that I could you know get everything together And put the interview information where people could find it and kind of keep that organized and tracked but um He really needed it close So I won't have any information from him from the interview Until after you know until monday later in the day monday, but I will put that on the space page for you guys You know that are looking forward to starting this week And I am excited that we're doing, you know another live person. This will be fun But definitely, um, you know, I had to do some specific recruiting For the russian jewish records and I tried to steal you of course for the whole week, but you could take the week off so Have you managed to find someone yet? Yeah, we actually have like 28 people signed up now. Oh, I mean specifically to captain the week Oh to captain the week now Um, no, I do have one captain that you know is being really gracious and said, um, you know If somebody else doesn't really want to do the week Um, she'll do it But I just kind of feel bad because I've already asked her for so much recently and so I'd really like to hit somebody else So if you're watching and you want to captain the week You don't have to know about the russian records because we have a lot of people that have come in after the recruiting was done And you know, some of them will research, but some of them. Oh, that is a good idea Lewis kessler I didn't think to get ahold of him But some of them are just going to come in like on a consulting basis So, you know, if you need a record translated you just go to them and they'll translate it And you know, so we should have actually quite a bit of help This'll be our first russian jewish Ancestral ancestral line. So yeah, that's right. I think I think there was only one person with jewish heritage We worked on over the last two years and it was all dutch, wasn't it? No, we had um, we had oh we had lewis as well Yeah, and we had we had aj jake ups who had jewish lines and then There was another one But yeah, we did have several that had the jewish lines And so, you know, that was like our first and some of them were fairly close together So that was some of our first um experiences for some of us And you know the jri poland site, which is a godsend And then learning to look around on a few of the other sites that were available for jewish records You know, I couldn't read the The actual documents or the tombstones or anything But I could look and see if it looked like it was the right child with the right parents And then you know have somebody look at the image and tell me if I was correct or not So that was really super helpful. Yeah, melanie mccomb also had jewish lines We had several right in a row that um that did but they weren't like all jewish All right, you know and here with scott it's going to be a hundred percent russian jewish lines. Yeah, it is Speaking of I so i'm coming to y'all from the library right now That's right by me and I went through and decided to check out a couple books in preparation for the week I managed to find a book that is a set of memoirs by a woman who grew up in one of the towns we've identified uh part of scott's family is coming from it's called but bruisk in belarus And so i'm going to read this over the next few days and just for fun I'm not expecting to find any genealogically relevant information, but I think that's still really cool though You know and still though, that's nice if you can find historical information that relates to the lifespan of one of the You know one of the uh ancestors Because those are things, you know, whatever she's experiencing chances are a lot of them would be things that other people in her community were as well So really really fascinating. Yeah, and that was the other thing that uh, we're going to mention it during the kickoff I don't want to go too in deep into all of these things But one of the most wonderful resources I know of when looking up that sort of contextual information for george ancestry is that For many towns throughout europe there are these things called yizkor books or memorial books Which were written by survivors of the holocaust from those towns about the history and like folklore of the area and many of those have all been Translated at least in parts on jewish gen and are easily accessible So any town that we identify we should look for those and there's another site. Um, I can't maybe you'll know what it is I can't remember what it was, but we looked I know Um when we did a few of those those jewish lines And it was the interviews with the people that survived the camps and you could go there and same thing You could um, you could do a search for them and pull up their interview And see what kind of questions they asked them about, you know The people that live the people that didn't live stuff like that Some of them actually had the text interviews Where they talked about what happened and you know, of course that stuff was all heartbreaking and just You could only do so much at one time and you kind of had to step away and you know Go to your happy place for a little bit And you know and then go back to it I think that was probably through Yad Vashem That's the main resource for those sorts of materials, although there aren't a few But you know, yeah, and you know and that's another thing is people with resources at once again We all learn from each other and you know what we know benefits everyone Or it should and so if you have any particular Resources that might help people during the week definitely do put it on scott's space page And you know once the week starts I will link that and the g2g post right now It's just a recruiting post But once the week starts I will link that there in a course that'll be linked in discord To get to the space page and that way if you know, there's a resource that somebody it might help somebody else find Find their answers also Yeah, absolutely Hello, Eric Eric made it. Oh, hello, Eric A little Nordic project member uh Need to do some Nordic research at some point soon. It's been a while Anyway Yeah, that's uh, it's going to be an interesting week. I'm very happy to know that we have So the week starts next thursday, right? Yeah So we'll have our usual chats at noon and eight o'clock Yeah, sorry getting used to a new time zone. Yeah And you know and have people like thomas there that can explain a little bit about You know about any naming conventions or anything Oh and one thing I did want to bring up and this will get brought up when we start his week and we do the zoom kickoffs But um, you know there we were talking a little bit behind the scenes about The language that the naming fields are in and you know on wiki tree We want it to be the language they spoke at that time that that actual person spoke But you know, we know that people that are english-speaking only or any other language that isn't russian speaking You know, you aren't going to necessarily know how to do that But so, you know, what really what I'd like everybody to do is put the english name in there if that's what you're comfortable using And that's what you're you know experiences And then we'll have some people that are experienced into translating that information into russian But when that does get translated it will be still noted in the biography section Yeah In english so that you can still go to it and go oh that is so in cells profile You know, we don't want to make the profile so inaccessible that we go and we don't know whose profile it is But that will be one of the things that we'll be addressing and um, yeah That's good. Yeah, I've been So I think of course always having a profile Is better than having none at all. So really having profiles in english is always perfectly fine even if we're trying to make a move toward making that switch I will probably spending a lot of my time going through and adding Yiddish translations and things like that because I that is Some area of mild expertise for myself, but we'll we'll see what it looks like But um, what I've been doing with a lot of the profiles is Continuing to add the english as like other last name in that field because I know that at least with the wiki tree b Extension you can search by the other last name field as well And so that will still come up for wiki tree users who use that and so You know anything to make it more accessible, but as long as the english text is somewhere Yeah, work just fine. Yeah And yeah, and I'm just really excited You know that we're going into this this new location And I can't wait to see what everybody finds. Yeah the same here I'm hoping that we can identify some more specific locations because I know For three of scott's grandparents. We have Like the minsk or the key governor it which are gigantic regions that family could have been from anywhere That doesn't really help us identify anything else So I'm hoping we'll get a little bit more specific, but I'm glad that we found One line with the the epshtians where we have a specific town of the groysk And hopefully we'll find more That's it's one thing that's that'll be a little bit of a Roadblock is accessing illinois records because uh illinois is uh One of the worst places to request records from yeah, not everything is digitized. Yeah, unfortunately That's always so frustrated.  I want to look at the record books Yeah, and so that's I I know a bunch of scott's family is all buried in the exact same Cemetery which is in forest park. I believe outside of chicago and the valhine cemetery but And a lot of those records there do have photos attached to them most of the ones in his family don't which is Not helpful because jewish gravestones are an incredible resource, but thankfully we do have it for those paternal grandparents. So Yeah Do you happen to have a one handy that you can pull up and show? Yeah, I think I do give me one I really do love the amount of information on them Yeah, it really isn't but here we go this I believe this is grandmother um It's not the lengthiest inscription, but I will pull it up. Let me see I'm thinking about it Well, can you see that? There we go. Yeah, so here. This is a gravestone for scott's grandmother, uh, fanny tedovetski Um, we see all the english inscription and all that as we scroll down to the bottom so one of the big things on Hebrew or yiddish inscriptions on gravestones is there are a lot of abbreviations that are used So broadly speaking at the top it says here lies is that first line and that's actually abbreviated for and then it gives her name as fanny Which is probably not her original name. I know you and I were discussing this a couple days ago Fanny it is very common among jewish immigrants to the u.s. It almost always is an anglicization of either faga or fagel Um, we don't know for certain which one it is. So for the moment, she's listed as fanny on her Line, but it says fanny at reb david and that just means fanny daughter of Mr. David essentially That's what that actually touches upon one big misconception that a lot of people have about graves I think I even saw this once expressed on finding your roots that This letter in the center here the re the It's the symbol for r it has what looks like an apostrophe after it and remember it's read from right to left It's short for reb a lot of people think that means rabbi It does not it is just a simplistic honorific and that is Something that I see published in a lot of places by people who have not done their research um, so that and then below that it says The date which is in the jewish calendar, which means that it's Not direct Conversion so you have to go through and identify each of the numbers And so that's a little bit complicated. I will admit jewish dates are not my expertise whatsoever But thankfully jewish gen has a whole resource page that lets you interpret So that is not too difficult and then the very last line. It's another abbreviation It's for a longer phrase that translates to may their soul be bound up in the bond to be eternal life I believe which is a prayer that is Right and another thing we talked about was one and you know and and this is um Understandable. It's not like we're saying anybody's done anything wrong But you know, there was a name that came up and on other sites it listed the father As having also having the name david and you know some of that comes from them saying You know this person ishmael son of david On the tombstone around records and not understanding that that part is son of david and they're like Oh, he has david in his name. Okay. And so they put that in there as like a middle name And um, you know once again, it's understandable if they aren't used to researching in that area But definitely you want to make sure that you know, somebody's helping you with that translation so that you're only pulling their actual name out of the results Yeah, no, I think I think things will go fairly smoothly for the most part We're going to go over a lot of this information at the kickoff of course, right as we've said But you know, it is it is a different format. It is a different system um, we're going to try To use yiddish as much as possible because that was the language spoken by these people You know, it depends on region. Most people were bilingual in yiddish and russian, but you know yiddish really is Um, and so it's it's going to be a different system. We are going to use for the most part Russian naming conventions for wiki tree Which means that we're going to be listing the patronym as a middle name Which is not always what every project wants you to do Like for instance when you get to the nordic countries and all that we explicitly tell people don't do that Um, but in this case it is it does make the most sense and then there's a whole history of how Ashkenazi jews ended up with surnames in the first place, which We could talk for hours. I for hours about that at least i've done a lot of research into it Well, so everybody watch for the zoom meeting to come out at our usual times on thursday at noon and at 8 p.m Eastern so that we can talk a little bit more and focus on what these different things are that we need to know To start our week out and be successful And you know, I want to thank everybody for working so hard on jayla's week It was um, just really amazing to have everybody there And you know, I hope you can join in too even if you decide that you're not going to be doing any research For scott's week, you know jumping to discord, you know, how nice it is to You know just have people around that are talking to you and appreciating that you're getting something done So I think we'll go ahead and wrap this up for now, but um, really really super great week with jaylo and Oh wait, I can't end it thomas. Oh, we didn't do the cousins We got so busy talking about everything I know i'm terrible. I'm like, well everybody i'm gonna go home now for today. We're done Okay, bad mendy So easy to get distracted. You can all give me a hard time about this later. We did we got so caught up in talking about scott stuff I forgot that we were gonna look at this, but we really wanted to and once again You know for jaylo is going to be all connections by marriage And we love that feature where you can go into the categories and say how am I related Or you can put somebody else's wiki id in and go. Okay. How is jaylo related? You know and hers are going to be by marriage because we have not yet connected her By blood to the global tree, but there were some fun ones. So several of the This family actually made it But you know, we have summer phoenix who is an actress and a musician She runs a vintage clothing boutique and she's married to the actor kasey afleck. Yeah And summer is only three degrees away from jaylo And I think I got a couple points because I was working on her great grandparents who were jewish in preparation for the next week So that's one of the one again seven degrees of connection works well Yeah, adding ahead of time and then we have rain bottom And you know, that's rain bottom phoenix also a child of johnnie lee bottom and heart dunettes phoenix And this one is an american actress musician and singer So, you know a lot of talent out in those branches And for that connection, it's only one step further. So that would be rain phoenix is four degrees from jaylo And it shows you the path where it's swapped over by marriage Another interesting one here is a del maria elster litz And she was born in 1896 and she's actually the sister of fred astaire And so she is notable in her own right And does have her own wikipedia page But also, you know another one where there's a lot of talent in that family sister fred astaire He was crazy talented and for this one it's 15 degrees from jennifer lopez Which is closer than what I am at my 22 degrees. So yeah, exactly. Oh, it's interesting And then another one, uh, you know, of course, most of us recognize the name for is johnnie cash and more in 1932 And definitely, um, you know known as the man in black He was a veteran, but of course, uh, you know known for his stage name As johnnie cash instead of john And for the connection that one is 20 degrees from jennifer lopez. I'm still further.  I had to look at this one because you know as wiki traders We love seeing our connections And so this one is to tomas jefferson who of course Was the president of the united state. He was our third president. He has a really wonderful profile And she is 14 degrees from thomas jefferson Following along four different branches, you know, of course where it goes from yellow to green or green to yellow It means there was a switch due to marriage But that was kind of interesting, you know that we couldn't get her connected Directly globally yet, but through these matches, um, you know, she is connected by marriage And then of course Humphrey bogart is another one that most people recognize the name Even if they weren't somebody that watched his movies and whatnot And you know, there's some really great information and images on his profile costa blanca. That's one of the classics And for that one jaylo is 16 degrees So um here, you know, it was on eight branches, which means it definitely hot by marriage a lot And what this person and then the spouse and then maybe the sister, um, you know, that one moved around a lot and for the final one Fred Astaire, yeah, you have to have good old fred here You know, this was really fun. And I think most of us know it looks like his biography needs a little bit of work though But amazing picture and fred astaire. I'm gonna do relationship to me none I was related to most of the rest of them. Oh 19 degrees So we're related by marriage, but um, we are not related by blood And then for jaylo to fred astaire course was 16 degrees On a number of different branches, but it was just really fun You know to look at the cousin connections and see thomas Who's your favorite person that you're connected to or do you have a favorite unwicked tree? Oh It's always a difficult question. Um, no, I mean I I'm very fond of my own family, uh, but yeah, it's There's connections all over the place So I my I have an aunt who's from Algeria who I've been working on trying to connect all of her branches to the tree and so there are lines that end up in spain and france and within arabia and all that and so I I'm really I tend to be more interested in studying all of the uh, you know, the less notable people You know the folklore aspects of genealogy more than the big celebrities, but yeah It's it's always fun finding those stories And I know that there's going to be a good bit of The sort of thing as well with all the cousin connections when we work on scott's lines as well Because that is a humongous thing in jewish research You know, you get really anywhere in the u.s outside of new york and big cities like that and every single person in an Individual in an individual jewish community is going to be related to everyone else through marriage in some way or another And so, you know, it's it's a small world sometimes. So it's gonna be a success And I know we already oh yeah go ahead Oh, I was just gonna say I know that we already identified he has an uncle who was married to Famous psychologist and so hopefully we can work on her lines as well And that might have a higher chance of being able to connect to the trait. We'll see It's gonna be a lot of fun So this time we'll wrap it up for real I thank you for coming and joining me and thomas for our hour Of um chatter and thanks again everybody for working on the wiki tree challenge


In August of 2016, an ancient footprint of gigantic proportions was discovered by a group of photographers. It was found within a place known as Pinyin Village in Guizhou, a southwestern province of China. Ever since the discovery, numerous expeditions have been made to the footprint, and also, predictably, the many mainstream denials of its possibility of being a real footprint began and have since continued, simply dismissed as a coincidental depression in the stone made by erosion. It must be noted, however, that this argument could indeed be more warmly welcomed if it weren't for the multiple other what could be seen as collection of prints that have now been found and documented around Earth, many of which we have indeed shared in the past. The footprint is said to be 57 cm long and 20 cm wide at its widest point, with a maximum depth of 3 cm. Found indeed within fossilized rock, it is, however, lacking in accurate carbon dating, but most certainly originates from the prehistoric era. At 57 cm long, it is nearly 3 times the size of the normal modern man's foot, giving its owner an estimated height of 18 feet tall. According to some of the original reports, a supposed article regarding the footprint gave a bare bones description of the discovery. However, according to snoops.com, and indeed logic, this account can be proven false, as the prints' existence would have almost certainly been exposed by the photographers themselves. It is something which we find highly compelling. Takeshi Onamata, an archaeologist for the National Institute of Statistics and Geography within Mexico, recently made an astonishing discovery in a most unlikely of ways. Before modern technologies, the only real way to investigate an ancient site was to visit the area and either excavate specific places of interest or simply observing said sites from the ground level. However, thanks to modern radar and lidar systems, the sites can now be scanned and then observed in depth from afar. However, to implement such technologies on a certain site of interest is incredibly expensive, something Takeshi knows all too well. After investing $62,000 on a lidar scan of an area a mere 35 miles in size, he unfortunately returned no new discoveries in the area. This initially disappointed Takeshi, but a few months later, after researching previous investigations in the area, he was incredibly excited when he came across a previous lidar scan, one originally made by Mexican official studies of the area. He found a treasure trove available for free online. Just in 2011, it covered an astonishing 4,440-mile square and covered the areas of Tabasco and Chiapas, in which Takeshi has since discovered an additional set of 27 ancient ruins, all previously hidden within this public access map. This not only expands our understanding of these claimed Mayan ruins, but also expands the breadth of this astonishing now lost civilization's reach, and indeed, the original size of their mega metropolis, which covers many hundreds of miles square, and is now estimated to have once been inhabited by at least 10 million individuals. Takeshi learned about the map via Rodrigo Leendo, an archaeologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The ruins stood out to Inomata immediately, and now, thanks to his work, we have a number of once lost but now found ruins, all of which demand further exploration if we are ever to unravel the mysteries of our past. We can see a much better picture of the entire society, Takeshi told the media. The stuff he is finding is crucial for our understanding of how Mayan civilizations developed, added Arlen Chase, an archaeologist at Pomona College. We will keep you posted on any further developments regarding these new discoveries, especially any future excavations. It is a find, a lost civilization, and indeed, an area of archaeological interest and intrigue, which we find highly compelling. The legend of an underworld or the inner earth have abound historical literature and ancient belief systems, with some more serious believers in this theory who, although with nefarious intention, spent considerable funds in the pursuit of the gateway to this realm. Archaeological documentation of its existence is found throughout the ages, seemingly adding validity, no matter how hard to believe, it persuaded said group's greatest minds into the pursuit of its existence. Within antiquity, specifically Greek, ancient Egyptian belief systems, a gateway to an underworld, was at the time commonly associated with a passageway into hell, and the passage through. The narrative of these acts include Hades, Osiris, Anubis, etc., with the Greeks even creating necropolises, claiming gateways were often located at the meeting of three rivers. Journey Through the Underworld With the Egyptian scripture, we feel not only being the most elaborately constructed, but by that measure the most intriguing to explore. Throughout the underworld journey, the traveler contended with strange beings and gatekeepers, with Osiris found within the Hall of Final Judgment, here the plea of case for entry into the afterlife. The final judgment involved a two-part process, standing before the 42 divine judges. Here they stood before 42 divine judges and pleaded their innocence of any wrongdoing during their lifetime. The Weighing of the Heart Ceremony The heart, which contained a record of all the deceased's actions in life, was weighed against the feather of the goddess Ma'at. This feather was the symbol for truth and justice, and helped determine whether the deceased person had indeed been virtuous. The Afterlife Known as Life in the Field of Roshes, a reflection of the real world perfected. Blue skies, rivers, and boats for travel, gods and goddesses to worship, and fields and crops to be plowed and harvested. The dead were granted a plot of land in the field of rushes, and were expected to maintain it. However, other theories arose over the years, these far more commonly connected to the posit of inner-earth theory, with portal into the center of our planet, one in which advanced beings dwell. Probably the most famous of ventures and eventual retreats who attempted to find this portal within Antarctica. Curiously, now not only believed by the Americans, but also the Nazis as the location of the portal, reportedly encountered craft of incredibly advanced capabilities. But there were also other attempts, more covert, only partly declassified over the years, showing an intense interest in this same area by the Third Reich, who, while in power during the Second World War, initiating a number of expeditions whose results still remain closely guarded secrets. Many have died or mysteriously vanished without a trace, looking for this elusive portal's Now believed to be positioned in one of the most inhospitable geographical locations on Earth, yet its belief throughout history is undeniable, and as such, is a theory which we find highly compelling. There are many ancient stories derived from religious text, which, when taken literally, are simply illogical, easily disproven as that of a symbolic nature, rather than literal documentation of true events. However, there are a rare few contested as literal truth, and a handful of these for good reason. The conviction is that these events left such a lasting impression on the creators of these texts and ancient scrolls that they included them within their writings. One of these being that of the so-called legend of the Tower of Babel. Once declared as a symbol of oppression, it is now argued by many as simply being merely another symbolic myth, such as many other stories found within religious writings. However, there are numerous details which cannot escape the microscope of some investigators. And now that a brick has been found, legitimately dated to this time, and commissioned by the same claimed king, the argument for the actual past existence of this incredible structure has gained traction within even the most skeptical academic mind. A brick, stamped with the seal of the ancient Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, biblically stated as the man who commissioned the construction of the tower itself has been discovered. Dr. Irving Finkel of the British Museum said, quote, When you look at the early chapters of the Bible, it is clear that some of it is drawn from the Judeans' own records. It incorporates narratives which they must have encountered for the first time in Babylon, some so powerful and striking, that the authors, who worked on the Hebrew texts, incorporated them to tell their own story. He continued, In the book of Genesis, what we have here is a brick which fits exactly into that specific context. There can be no doubt that the stimulus for the story and the narrative must have taken shape during the Babylonian exile. The evidence could help to prove the existence of the Tower of Babel, its story written by a desperate population in exile held captive by a ruthless king, end quote. Yet as always, regardless of the corroborating evidence, it will, like the many other details and aspects of the claimed tower, continue to encounter dismissal by many. With even those who are convinced of its past existence, in disagreement over its original location, logic would suggest that if built, it was within ancient Babylonia, some 500 miles from Jerusalem. Yet some argue it was actually built somewhere else, within the Middle East. Regardless of these disagreements, we find the brick, it's still intact mortar, Dr. Finkels quotations, and indeed, its intriguing seal, highly compelling.


What is up guys and welcome back to the JohnnyQ channel. Thanks so much for watching. Just got done with an epic workout. Okay, today's video is all about collabing. My good friend, Goose Gussmer. We are doing a challenge, a seven day vlogging challenge starting tomorrow, which is Sunday, September 8th. We're announcing it today and he called me pretty much saying dude, let's do a seven day challenge of vlogging. Let's collab, let's do it, let's just go hard. So, here's that combo. Hope you like it and daily vlogs coming. JohnnyQ, Goose Gussmer. Peace. All right. Should I go get donuts? Go get donuts. So, Goose, why don't you tell us what, tell the people of YouTube what we're gonna be doing for seven days. So, I, was it last night? Literally last night. Literally last night had the idea. The idea wasn't from last night but I reached out to Johnny last night of like, dude, I've been wanting to do this for a long time and literally just commit harder and have accountability to making daily videos for a period of time. I've tried it before and it's drained me and burned me out really bad and it's super hard to do but I think with someone like holding me accountable and someone also going through that with me that's like close to me. I think it's gonna be a really good experience and I think it's something that like, I just wanna tap into my full potential. So, it's a step there. Tapping into the full potential and just going for it, right? Like we've talked about YouTube and video creation and how like, we both can just do so much more. A lot of people can do so much more and so why not take that into effect ourselves and actually just do it, right? Is there a talk for that? 100%. What can we do like realistically and tangibly for seven days? He's gonna hold me accountable. I'm gonna hold him accountable and for seven days straight we're gonna vlog. Our videos are like totally unrelated but. I know. It's so amazing. It's like it shouldn't matter. The amount of content and the quality of content should still be there. So like I think this goes for almost any YouTuber. I think seven days is just a start. Like I have a feeling we're gonna want to keep pushing each other and I'm even down to use competition to push us. Oh man. Further for all. Dude I'm still down for that. Eight or nine days and then you push it to 12 and then we just do 30 anyway and then it ended up being a whole year. Totally and that's what we're pacing ourselves, right? And that's why we have, you know why we're doing this together. And so I love the fact that our channels are so different. Like vastly different. Yep. Like mine's on like photography and video and like vlogging and yours is on like purely drumming and just being like a musician. Totally. And so that goes to show that all creators have like the same goal. Create more content and that brings value, right? And PS, I apologize. I'm not sitting on a drum throne and do you hear this? This like. It's so nice. Yep, yep I do. But anyways, I props to you. I literally thought of you right away when I thought of this challenge and like I'm in the back of my mind.  And I have a major like respect for you for putting yourself out there. It's super vulnerable, especially to people you know and around your friend group, like people who like literally judge you and I've seen it. But to keep pushing and like keep working hard and you're now like known as that guy in my mind and now I'm thinking of you to do this along sideways. That's awesome. Yeah, I hope we can like benefit each other somehow through this and maybe keep going eventually. Yeah, collaborating in any way we can. Thank you, I do. And if it's in just accountability, that's great too. Love it dude, that's awesome. I'm pumped to just see what we both can do with each other and kind of like how we can benefit and how we can both learn. So. Totally. I'm pumped. I hope you guys are pumped too because it's gonna be awesome, dude. Well, let's do it and we'll keep in communication. I'll text you later tonight. Perfect, sounds good dude. Peace. All right. Peace. So there it is guys, we are starting the seven day vlogging challenge daily video for seven days. It's upload no matter what I'm doing with Goose, the drummer, Goose customer. His actual name is Matt, I forgot what it's like but it's a Matt customer. Link down below to his channel. Check it out guys. Which is like seven or eight years now. He's gone like super ham in. And at one point that was playing bass, at one point that was photography. Then it turned into vlogging and like videography. And then it went into like drone photography recently and the dude is just, and it's been into marketing and then social media managing. The dude just goes like so ham. And because he's gone so hard in all these areas, he's like a super well-rounded like amazing media guys. So I'm super stoked for him to really hold me accountable to this. If you haven't subscribed to him, subscribe to Johnny Q. There'll be a link down in the description. And now you have to put a link down there. I'm ducking to myself and Johnny Q for our video. Okay, anyways. Yeah, stoked about this. This can be good. Honk, honk.