Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

My paternal great grandfather John C. Eggenberger may have been brought up hearing both French and German in his Wayne County, Ohio home in the 1870s, considering his parents were both immigrants from Switzerland; his mother from the French-speaking region of Eschert in Canton Bern and his father from the German-speaking region of Grabs, St. Gallen. But John's first official language was almost certainly (American) English, as was every other one of my great grandparents. However, there was one set of my maternal great grandparents who were saddled with the question of whether English was the most appropriate language for rearing two of their children. Chester Dean and his wife Beatrice were married in 1917 in Braxton, West Virginia. While their heritage could be traced back to many worldly places, the two were natural born citizens of the United States just like their parents before them. Chester only had an 8th grade education, and Beatrice only surpassed him by a few years, stay...

During my grandfather's lifetime, in 1936, social security numbers were invented by the government in order to keep track of employment wages and histories of United States workers in an effort to determine their entitlement to benefits out of the social security fund. Harry Foltz, Portland, Oregon, 1930. This new line of bureaucratic red tape may have been the reason my grandfather and his mother went on the hunt for a record of his birth. The same issue appeared to crop up when it was time to apply for a passport as well. Although they were both certain he was born 3 February 1910 on their homestead in Fort Rock, Oregon, there was no extant documentation claiming so.  Oregon State Board of Health, "Birth Record Application," 8 Mar 1958. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, copy of 1920 U.S. federal census enumeration details for Foltz, Harry A., 27 Aug 1942. His mother had to write up a deposition testifying to the details of his and his siblings' births in...

Westward migration along the Oregon Trail was booming throughout the mid 1800s. The initial footpath had been carved and planned out by fur traders and trappers, but was eventually widened to accommodate wagons, in which families, settlers, miners, and all sorts of wanderers could traverse with all their belongings in tow across nearly 2,000 miles of land, creeks, and mountain terrain. Stretching from Independence, Missouri all the way to Olympia, Washington, the trail and its many offshoots became the thoroughfare to the west coast, and even today, is utilized by car on major interstate highways built right through some of the same towns. "Line Of Original Emigration To The Pacific Northwest Commonly Known As The Old Oregon Trail," map, 1907; Ezra Meeker, The Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail 1852-1906 (1907); database with images, Wikimedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org : accessed 10 Feb 2024); courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austi...

There is still plenty I have yet to learn about my paternal third great grandmother's life before she married Charles Miller in Lisbon, St. Lawrence County, New York in 1842. The Geddes family bible gives both her given name and nickname: Ageness (Nancy) Geddes, as well as mentioning she was a native of Belfast, Ireland and was born in 1815. "Agnes Nancy Geddes," photo, undated; database with images, Family Search (https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/171969200?p=52592885&returnLabel=Agnes%20%22Nancy%22%20Geddes%20(L69W-35P)&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.familysearch.org%2Ftree%2Fperson%2Fmemories%2FL69W-35P : accessed 10 Feb 2024); user-submitted photo by robertwaynerace1, 8 Apr 2023. I found it curious to see her formal name spelled in that way, rather than the modern take of Agnes (which was embossed on her cemetery marker); though the bible was not the only place in which I've seen that spelling for an Irish woman carrying that name. And in one of ...

Born in Londonderry, Ireland about 1844, my third great grandfather, James Boyce, was brought over to America as an infant. Starting around the age of 16, I can place him in Wheeling, Ohio County, Virginia, when he enlisted in the Union Army at the start of the U.S. Civil War. Military pension records describe him as being of light complexion with grey eyes and brown hair and standing at 5 feet 5 inches high.  Arthur Lumley, artist, and William Waud, "The old Harrison mansion--Harrison's landing James River," United States Virginia Harrison's Landing, 3 Jul-16 Aug, 1862; photograph, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/2004661302/ : accessed 10 Feb 2024). James Boyce was mustered at this general hospital on 18 August 1862, just two days after this sketch was estimated to be drawn, meaning he very well could have been one of the soldiers featured as its subjects. In March 1864 he deserted the army. Later that year he signed up to be a Landsman in the U.S. Nav...

Before the phrase, "But first, let me take a selfie!" reigned supreme in the late 2010s, my 2nd great grandparents, Nathan & Lizzie (Rockwell) Dixon, were already masters of photog culture. Their heyday was in the first half of the 20th century. Photography had only been invented a couple decades before they were born and had only gone mainstream when they were still in their youth. But it must have been an absolute hobby of theirs (or at least Lizzie's), because my family picture collection is filled with snaps of her and her husband. The two of them can certainly hold the title of first-ever influencers in our family tree. Here is just a selection of their photos over the years (and I'm positive I have several more hidden amongst my photo albums):

In the early morning hours of January 17th, 1994, a 6.7 magnitude earthquake rumbled through Southern California. The epicenter was in the city of Reseda, a neighborhood nestled within the San Fernando Valley, just south of Northridge which received superior damage. The initial thrust struck at 4:31 AM and lasted between 10-20 seconds. Map of southern California cities impacted by 17 Jan 1994 Northridge earthquake; USGS/ESRI. I was 8 years old at the time, living in Gardena, 30 miles south of its origin. My bedroom was in the northwest corner of our 2-story house, facing the street.  I was woken up in bed by a severe jolt followed by several more of them (there was no rolling or wave-like sensation with this earthquake). The house shook back and forth a bit, and then the transformer on the utility pole up the street blew up, and sparks were flying everywhere (which I could see from my bedroom window). My sister's bedroom was down the hall from mine (the northeast corner of the fron...