Genealogy and the Romani

By AdiJapan - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1253421 Flag of the Romani people

Possibly, one of the most persecuted minorities in the world are the Romani, also called gypsies or Roma. Rom is the Romani word for "man of the Roma ethnic group." The plural of the noun "Rom" is "Roma." The word "Romani" is the feminine adjective and the masculine form is "Romano." Here is a short description of the Romani from Wikipedia: Romani people.

The Romani (also spelled Romany /ˈroʊməni/, /ˈrɒ-/), colloquially known as Gypsies or Roma, are a traditionally itinerant ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas and originating from the northern Indian subcontinent, from the Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Sindh regions of modern-day India and Pakistan. 

Genetic findings appear to confirm the Romani "came from a single group that left northwestern India about 1,500 years ago." Genetic research published in the European Journal of Human Genetics "revealed that over 70% of males belong to a single lineage that appears unique to the Roma." The Romani are widely known among English-speaking people by the exonym Gypsies (or Gipsies), which some people consider pejorative due to its connotations of illegality and irregularity. They are a dispersed people, but their most concentrated populations are located in Europe, especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (including Turkey, Spain and Southern France). The Romani originated in northern India and arrived in Mid-West Asia and Europe around 1,000 years ago. They have been associated with another Indo-Aryan group, the Dom people: the two groups have been said to have separated from each other or, at least, to share a similar history. Specifically, the ancestors of both the Romani and the Dom left North India sometime between the 6th and 11th century.

Genealogy is of universal interest and it should not be surprising the Romani genealogy has some very active and even academic methodologies. Here is a list of websites dedicated to Romani genealogy. In some cases, you may need to be aware of the emphasis on copyright protection exhibited by some of the writers.

• Gypsy Genealogy
• RomanyGenes
• Romany and Traveler Family History Society
• History of the Romani people
• The Romani Genealogy and Family Tree Page
• Romany Gypsy look ups
• The British Romany Ancestry project
• The Romani
• Our Romani Heritage
• Romani Submitted Names
• Some names for the Roma
• Names of Roma
• American Roma Surnames
• Gypsy Surnames, Romani Surnames

Here are a very few books and articles on the subject:

Hayward, James. Gypsy jib: a Romany dictionary. Wenhaston: Holm Oak, 2003.

Michael L. Chohaney. “Hidden in Plain Sight: Mixed Methods and the Marble Orchards of the Vlach Rom (Gypsies) in Toledo, Ohio.” Journal of Cultural Geography 31, no. 1 (2014): 57–80.

“New Methodological Approaches in the Anthropological Demography of Romani Groups: An Example from the Study of the Evolution of the Infant and Child Mortality of the Gitanos or Calé of Spain (1871-2007).” Sociologia: Revista Da Faculdade de Letras Da Universidade Do Porto tematico (2014): 175–204.

“Romanies,” 2014, 213.

I have researched at least two of my lines back to individuals that have indications that they might be or have been Romani. So I do have a personal interest in the subject.

 

How to Start Learning History for Genealogists (and everyone else too)

If you obtained a college or university degree in history, where would you go to find a job in the United States? Clearly, many employers are simply looking for a "college degree" and don't really care about the subject matter studied, but if you wanted to pursue a career in history, what would you do? If you look at the list of suggested jobs for those with a history degree, most of them assume that you would seek additional training in some other pursuit or teach history in high school or become an elementary school teacher.

The reality of today's school systems is that history, as a subject, is not being taught at all. It has been replaced by "social studies" which consists mostly of propaganda about how minorities have been treated since the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620. Children all know about Martin Luther King, Jr. but have never heard of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. If you want an interesting experience, ask to see a middle school student's history book.

This is not a new situation. I did have an American History class in high school and some history in grade school, but my high school class never got past the end of the Civil War and most of the history I had in grade school was Arizona history because that is what we studied in Arizona. There is a distinct opposition in the American school systems to teaching world history at all and even if world history is taught, the emphasis is on Western Civilization, not the world.

Ask yourself, when was the last time you learned about the history of Africa or Southeast Asia? In my opinion, one of the reasons why the U.S. Government was able to fight a war in South Vietnam was the dismal lack of any knowledge among Americans about the history of that part of the world. How many people know or knew that the U.S. was supporting French foreign domination of the area and not the interests of those people living in Vietnam? You might want to read what happened at the 1954 Geneva Conference for a start.

How does this affect the pursuit of genealogy? Well, genealogy is history albeit a very specific version of history dealing with particular families. But these families lived and died and were part of the "history" of their country and the world. I find that most people cannot tell me even what religion their ancestors believed in or what political divisions were in force at the time they lived. Both of these "facts" are important in identifying and locating documents about ancestral families. Some of the most common "brick wall" issues in genealogical research are instigated as a result of unsupported assumptions about ancestral families that have no basis in history or geography.

I have commonly used the boat floating in a lake analogy for those who do not consider or even know about the background history and geography, including political geography, of the areas where their ancestors lived.

Genealogical research without a significant knowledge of the history and the geography of where events in your ancestors' lives occurred is like sitting in a boat on a lake with a rifle and shooting into the water hoping to hit a fish when you don't even know if there are any fish in the water.

Where do you start? Well, who are are interested in finding at the moment? Let's suppose that your ancestor came from Europe in the mid-1800s and appears in Maryland. You might think to begin research in the country of origin, but common genealogical methodology dictates that you begin research in the country of arrival. So what do you know about Maryland history? Wait a minute. Your records show that his descendants said he or she was from "Maryland." Where were they living? In one recent case I have been researching, the known family was living in Mississippi and had a "tradition" that the family came from Maryland. You need to start with research in the last verifiable place where an event occurred in that particular family line. Not back in the place where they may have come from. So what do you know about the history, geography, and political boundary changes in Mississippi? Where would you go to find that information?

What I do is start with examining the county boundary changes associated with the times when the events occurred. What do I mean by "events?" Births, deaths, land purchases, censuses, school records, etc. Interestingly, when I work through this with people I am helping, I sometimes have to start with them and their parents because none of the other information is sufficiently documented to be reliable.

To start, look at maps. Google Maps is a good place to begin. Also, look for the places in Wikipedia and read the available history on that website. From there, start doing research online search for "the history of..." and go from there to books and other records. If you are like me, you will probably find that there is a degree of confusion about the places, dates, and appropriate jurisdictions in what has already been recorded about your family. Don't be surprised.

Books, Ownership, and Copyright

Let's suppose you look online and see a newly published book. After reading a few reviews, you decide to buy the book and being a traditionalist, you order a hard-bound copy for your personal library. You pay for the book using your online account or with a credit card. Within one or two days, the book arrives at your door. It turns out to be a wonderful book and you enjoy reading it. Do you now "own" your book? Surprisingly, that is a serious and not a silly question. If you do not own the book outright, what are the limitations on your "ownership?" Do any of these limitations change if you had purchased an electronic version of the same book? If you own the hardback copy of "your" book, do you have to pay for an ebook copy of the same book?

The answers to all these questions are pertinent to the crisis in the free flow of information in our worldwide society. As genealogists, we bump into this problem on a regular basis whether we are aware of it or not. Here is an example from the FamilySearch.org Books section of the website.

I have used this notice as an example recently but I am returning to the subject of the previous post. What does this notice mean and why have the book listed online if it cannot be viewed? I view copyrighted books online all the time. I use a library app such as OverDrive.com or the OpenLibrary.org and read the entire book. What is the main difference between checking a physical book out of a library and reading a digital copy of the book from a library website? In both instances, I only have "possession" of the content of the book for a limited period of time, usually two weeks.

Back to the issue of owning a book. When you purchase a book that is subject to a claim of copyright, even though I have purchased a book, the content and use of the content is still not under my control. For example, I could not reproduce my "purchased" copy of the book and sell it. Technically, what you purchase when you purchase a book subject to copyright is a limited license. The terms of your license are contained in the provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act and all of the cases decided by all of the Federal Courts on copyright in the United States.

There are some real property analogies. Even if you "own" the largest interest in real property called a "fee simple" ownership, you are still subject to real estate taxes from various government agencies. If you fail to pay your taxes, you may ultimately lose your real property. You may disagree with the government's right to assess your property with taxes, but there is almost nothing you can do about it.

The main problem with the government limitations on books and other intellectual property is that the limitations that were originally designed to apply only for a limited period of time now extend for more than the lifetime of anyone now living. So, if you purchase a book published in 2018, you will die before the copyright expires. In fact, probably most of your children and even your grandchildren will still be subject to the copyright. The current copyright term is 70 years after the death of author. but if a work has corporate authorship, the term is 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first. If you have a particularly long-lived author, you might have a copyright that lasts for almost 150 years. What other parts of our government do you know that might last that long?

In reference to the notice above, I have no idea what it means or why it would even appear. Obviously, a copyright does not prevent a book from being viewed online. However, the paper copy of a book and the ebook copy of the same book can be separately copyright protected. In the case of most of the books pertinent to genealogy, there is very little benefit from copyright protection. If you publish a personal family history, for example, yes, you have a copyright. But why would you want to protect the contents from being copied? If you think you are going to write the great American novel, perhaps, but considering the literary value of most of the family histories I have looked at, I don't think commercial viability is an issue.

A New Look for FamilyHistoryExpos

https://familyhistoryexpos.com/

Family HistoryExpos has a new look that appears to be a lot more functional and informative. You should take some time to explore all the options of this updated format. For example, the link to Research Guides takes you this page.

https://familyhistoryexpos.com/shop/index/18

Perhaps you were unaware that all of these resources were available. In addition, there is a link to the upcoming virtual family history conference called "Pirates of the Pedigree." The conference link takes you to a page with all of the information about this Conference that will be held from October 15th to October 20th, 2018.

https://familyhistoryexpos.com/viewevent/index/190

You should also check out Holly Hansen's YouTube Channel. She is the President of Family History Expos and has over 50 videos available. I should also mention that I am also on the Board of Directors and have been an active contributor to Family History Expos for many years.

https://www.youtube.com/user/FamilyHistoryExpos

Check out both the website and the YouTube Channel, you might be surprised at what you will find.

BYU Family History Library YouTube Channel logs over 500,000 Views

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7hqNOQt-2AfeVEpDuc7sCA/featured

Having 500,000 views on YouTube.com may seem like small potatoes, but for the Brigham Young University Family History Library it is a milestone. There are now close to 400 videos with more being regularly added to the collection.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7hqNOQt-2AfeVEpDuc7sCA/videos

I have only been doing one webinar a month while here in Annapolis, Maryland working at the Maryland State Archives as a FamilySearch Document Preservation Specialist, but others at the BYU Family History Library have been regularly contributing. You can also see a list of the videos on the BYU Family History Library website. Many of these have been made available so they can be viewed in Chapels of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since YouTube.com is usually blocked in the Chapels.

If you have a suggested topic for a future video, you can leave me a comment or contact me on Facebook or email me and I will make sure the topic is considered.

Case Studies in Migration: Part Ten: The Interstate Highway System

By SPUI - National Atlas, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=945257

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act.  The Act originally authorized the spending of $25 billion for the construction of a 41,000-mile interstate highway system across the country. One of the original stated purposes was to provide access for the defense of the United States in the event of a land-based attack. The map above is from the National Atlas, now part of the National Map of the U.S. Geological Survey of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Stepping back a few years, one of the first transcontinental roads was the Lincoln Highway that was dedicated in 1913 and ran from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco and crossed 13 states. The original highway was 3,389 miles long. It was mostly replaced by the currently designated Interstate 80.

One use of a map of the Interstate Highway system for genealogists may not be very obvious. A map of the Interstate Highway system shows that the highways roughly follow the historic wagon roads and thereby indicate the overall migration patterns of the United States. This can be dramatically seen in the juxtaposition of the Beale Wagon road of 1857, Historic Route 66, the BNSF Railroad (formerly the Santa Fe Railroad), and Interstate 40:

The faint line in between Interstate 40 and Historic Route 66 is the old Beale Wagon Road and it is still visible as a wagon track across the desert. It is extremely important to understand how and why people moved from place to place in any country. Researching your ancestors and other relatives involves finding documents and the only way you can find documents is to know where to look. If you have a person who appears in the record in California, unless they spoke Spanish, they came from somewhere else. The essence of learning about and making progress in genealogical research is discovering where to look for records. Migration patterns are one consistently helpful clue in tracking down elusive ancestors.

Here are links to the previous Case Studies:

Case #1: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/08/case-studies-in-american-migration-part.html
Case #2: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/08/case-studies-in-american-migration-part_26.html
Case #3: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/08/case-studies-in-american-migration-part_30.html
Case #4: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/09/case-studies-in-american-migration-part.html
Case #5: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/09/case-studies-in-american-migration-part_12.html
Case #6: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/09/case-studies-in-american-migration-part_13.html
Case #7: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/09/case-studies-in-migration-westward.html
Case #8: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/09/case-studies-in-migration-second-great.html
Case #9: https://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2018/09/case-studies-in-migration-homestead-acts.html

Your Grandmother's Name is not Private nor Secure

Do the terms private and secure and personal have anything in common? Yes, they are all used to describe things that are not private, not secure and not personal. For example, one common "security question" used by financial institutions is "What is your grandmother's (or grandfather's) first name?"
Anyone with a modicum of genealogical research experience realizes that finding a person's grandparents in public, online records is relatively easy for almost anyone in a developed country.

What else? Is your social security number personal, private, or secure? Hardly. It is a government issued number used mainly for government purposes and co-opted by numerous other agencies and business for identification. It is by definition public information. It is an outstandingly poor method of identification and having such a limited and archaic method of personal identification makes obtaining someone's Social Security Number essentially trivial.  Notwithstanding this unfortunate consequence, Social Security Numbers are so frequently "stolen" that they have become essentially meaningless. For example, at one point, my own Social Security Number was used as my student number in school and my ID number in the military. How private is that?

If anyone, including the United States government, really cared about identity theft and personal security, they would use a "secure" method of identifying people that relied on encryption and/or biometrics. We are stuck with 17th Century security methods in the 21st Century.

What about credit cards? Is your credit card number private, personal, or secure? Again, hardly. When was the last time you used your credit card to make a purchase? What happened to the information on your credit card when you gave it to the clerk in the store or pushed your card into an electronic slot? Do you really know? Where did you get your credit card? In the mail? From a bank or other financial institution? Do they have a record of your credit card number? Once again, that number is plainly public.

Can you really be secure, private, or have personal information? Not when we have to provide much of that same information for routine business, social, and other transactions. How long did it take you to fill out the form presented to you at the time of your last doctor's visit? Did you pay for the doctor's services with your credit card?

Identity theft is a crime only because of the way we ignore technology when we transact business in our world today. Can identity theft be prevented? Not as long as we continue to use outmoded and primitive methods for our business transactions.

Here is an example of a secure transaction.

Let's suppose I wanted to buy gas at a local service station. Today, all I would have to do is drive in, put my card and a "pin" number in the machine, usually my zip code (a very public number) and fill my tank with gas. How could this be made more secure? Hmm. How about two part ID? When I insert my credit card into the machine, it sends me a long randomly encrypted code number that triggers an app on my smartphone that requires me to use my thumbprint to proceed with the transaction. My phone then has to send another randomly encrypted number to the machine that then proceeds with the sale. What if any other sale, online or in person, required the same procedure.

This method might take a few seconds longer than what we do now. It might not be 100% effective, but it might stop a high percentage of the use of unauthorized credit cards. We have the technology to be secure, personal, and to some extent, private. But we do not use these methods because they might add an additional few seconds to a transaction or a few cents to the cost of transactions.

Do we really want to be secure or private? Good questions to ask.