Outlander and the Development of Surnames

For the record, I have never read the Outlander book series, but I have watched the TV show, and as a genealogist, there was one scene in particular about surnames that struck me as hugely unrealistic. It was the suggestion that a somewhat abandoned child never had a surname. There's a few reasons why this seems rather ridiculous to me.

This isn't really a spoiler, because it's not really a scene that's crucial to the plot, though I guess it's relevant to character development, I still don't consider it very important but other's might, so you've been warned, read at your own risk.

In the TV show, our male lead character, Jamie, comes across a young pickpocket, Claudel, while in Paris, who never knew who his parents were (his father was unknown, and his mother was probably one of the prostitutes at the brothel where he lives, but he's never been told which one). They have a conversation in which they both agree Claudel isn't a very good name, suggesting that it isn't a very strong or masculine name. Jamie recommends the name Fergus instead, and Claudel, now Fergus, agrees, and they return to Scotland with Fergus as Jamie's foster child. Fast forward to when Fergus is all grown up, now a young man marrying his sweetheart (who happens to be Jamie's step-daughter - it's best not to examine that too closely), and the officiant asks what his last name is. Everyone pauses as they remember he doesn't have a last name, before Jamie graciously steps in and gives Fergus his own surname, Fraser. It was a touching acknowledgement of their father/son relationship. While it's maybe understandable Fergus may not have been given a surname at birth (though even this is a stretch, more on that later), it doesn't make much sense that by this point in his life, he would not have developed an informal surname that he likely would have used on a marriage record.

Fergus gets married with Jamie's surname

Remember, at this point in history, there were no birth certificates and forms of identification. There were parish records, so there would have been a baptism record, but people didn't keep or travel with copies of their baptism record for identification. Names were more fluid and the concept of an official or legal name hadn't really developed yet. So even though no one gave him a surname at birth doesn't mean one wouldn't have developed over time. Claudel was probably a fairly common name in France at the time, and Paris was a big city, so there were likely other young boys named Claudel, and people would have needed a way to identify or distinguish them. If one of them didn't have a last name, they would have used a description, which would have then naturally been shortened overtime into a surname. Especially as Claudel/Fergus was a bit of a troublemaker, certainly, people would have been talking about him periodically, and needed a way to identify him.

The same would have happened in Scotland, if it never had a chance to happen in Paris, or if the names didn't follow him from France. There was likely more than one Fergus in the area of Scotland they lived in, so people would have identified him in the most obvious ways, probably either something like, "Jamie's ward", "Jamie's foster child", or "the French boy." Overtime, they likely would have gotten shortened to just "Ward", "Foster", or "French," and all three of them could have even been in use at the same time. Therefore, when asked what his surname was, he probably would have picked whichever one of the three he liked better, or was more common. When you think about it, these three names are all very real surnames in use today, and they sometimes come from situations exactly like this one. 

But that fact doesn't have to have ruined the moment. A name like "Ward" or "Foster" kind of identifies one's undesirable origins (and a name like French among a bunch of Scots kind of does too), so it could have been a source of pain or embarrassment for Fergus, and Jamie still could have stepped in and said, "No, it's not Ward, it's Fraser."

Also, let's not forget how easy it was to change or make up a new name. Again, there were no birth certificates and remember how Claudel simply changed his name to Fergus just by deciding that's what he wanted to be called now? So, if he's able to just make up a new first name, there's no reason he couldn't have just made up a surname at the same time. I'm not saying he definitely would have done that, just that if his lack of a surname was a source of embarrassment for him, he could have just given himself a surname, and picked whatever he wanted. This idea that he could change his first name on a whim, but oh no, he's stuck without a surname his whole life until Jamie steps in to save the day, is a little bit silly. 

And I'll even go so far as to say the fact that he didn't have a surname at birth was silly to begin with. Children born out of wedlock were typically given their mother's surname. Fergus didn't know who his mother was, which is weird to begin with, because she's supposedly the reason he was living at the brothel (so was he even actually "abandoned" to begin with if he was living with his mother?). I've been told that he had no surname because "nobody cared enough about him to give him a surname". But what about the fact that someone cared enough about him to let him live at the brothel that his mother worked at? Someone cared enough about him to feed and clothe him, a financial burden to them, when they didn't have to, when they could have dropped him off at an orphanage or foundling hospital (the first of which opened in Paris in 1670), which would have taken him in, and given him a surname. Foundlings were a common part of history, and they were given surnames by this point in time because by the 18th century, surnames had long been in full use in France and Western Europe. But that's not what happened. He was kept at the brothel, supposedly because someone wanted him there, probably his mother, so why would she not identify herself and give him her surname? Even if she died when he was an infant, someone else at the brothel must have cared enough to keep him there even when they didn't have to, and that person surely would have known who his mother was and told him, and therefore he would have used her name. 

So it just doesn't make any sense that even an abandoned child in 18th century Western Europe would not have a surname to begin with, and that even if for some reason he didn't, that one wouldn't have developed out of a nickname over the course of his young life. 

Augusta's Confederate Monument and My Family History

Sometimes, genealogy and modern politics have some overlap. 

In Augusta, Georgia, a giant, imposing obelisk stands as a memorial to Confederate soldiers. In particular, it hosts four life-sized statues of infamous Confederate military leaders, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, William H.T. Walker, and Thomas R.R. Cobb (shown left), the latter of which is my 2nd cousin 6 times removed. It's a distant relation, for sure, but a significant one, given why this monument was erected in 1878 by the Ladies Memorial Association of Augusta.

Let's be clear about one thing - statues, monuments, and memorials are built in honor, respect, and celebration of the people, places, or events they represent. Monuments like this one are made in memory and respect of men whose only or primary contribution to history was to lead armies in the name of slavery. And when monuments like this are inscribed with quotes like the following, that fact becomes impossible to deny:

"No nation rose so white and fair 

None fell so pure of crime."

I'm not sure how anyone could say this is anything but blatantly racist, and this is the inscription found emblazoned under the feet of my cousin. That makes this a little bit personal for me - southerners like to shout about how this is their history, and their heritage. But for me, it literally is. 

And I say, tear it down.

The removal of statues like this isn't the removal of history. History belongs in museums and history books, which there is no lack of. There are plenty of Civil War and Confederate artifacts and memorials to be found in museums, where people can study and learn from them, and this monument could be one of them instead of being revered in the middle of town. When a memorial is erected in honor and celebration of Confederate leaders, it's honoring and celebrating slavery and racism. By not only leaving such a monument standing, but actively refusing to remove it, the government is not-so-subtly condoning a symbol of racism. We would never tolerate a statue of Hitler standing proudly in the middle of a city, paying homage and reverence to him, so why do we allow it for Confederate leaders?

Even if we remove all the slavery and racism from such symbolism (which isn't really possible, but just for the sake of argument), you're still left with a monument honoring men who tried to tear our nation apart with war and violence. Are we now going to see statues of the leading faces among the rioters who broke into the Capitol Building? Because they too are talking about civil war, they too are waving the Confederate flag, and they too believe their violence to be "fair" and "pure of crime". In reality, they are traitors, and so were Confederate leaders. And actually, many (if not all) of the rioters are also proud racists, just like Confederate leaders, as proven by the presence of white supremacy groups and Neo Nazi symbolism during the Capitol riot. Confederate leaders were also unabashed racists. This direct quote from my own cousin, Thomas R.R. Cobb, a Confederate General, proves it:

"This inquiry into the physical, mental, and moral development of the negro [sic] race seems to point them clearly, as peculiarly fitted for a laborious class. The physical frame is capable of great and long-continued exertion. Their mental capacity renders them incapable of successful self-development, and yet adapts them for the direction of the wiser race. Their moral character renders them happy, peaceful, contented and cheerful in a status that would break the spirit and destroy the energies of the Caucasian or the native American."

None of this means that every statue of every historical figure who ever did anything unethical should be removed. Yes, I am aware of the fact that most of our founding fathers were slaveholders, and that's certainly something I don't think we should hide from - we should talk about it, and we should teach it in schools. Our founding fathers were flawed, and that's something we have to accept. But the difference is, statues of founding fathers were not constructed in honor of them being slaveholders, they were erected in honor of all their positive achievements. Statues of Confederate leaders are produced in honor of their fight for slavery, and supporting that in the name of "history" or "heritage" is, frankly, bullshit. It's not in the name of history, it's in the name of racism and hatred. 

And if your heritage is racist, it's not something you should celebrate. Read about it in a history book, or visit a museum, or find something else about your heritage to celebrate that's not based on slavery, but do not protect a symbol of hate standing proudly in the middle of a city. 

Shame on the Augusta, Georgia government, and shame on everyone who enables them.

Shotgun Weddings

Ever pay attention to the dates a couple married followed by the birth date of their first born child? It's not always possible because we sometimes don't have exact dates for either the wedding or the child's birth, and I think because of that, I don't always pay close attention to them when I do have them. But at one point, I made an effort to go through my tree and identify all known "shotgun weddings" - that is, weddings that took place less than 9 months before the birth of their first child. *Nudge, nudge, wink, wink*

Above: Oh dear, there's no hiding this! Anna gave birth less than 2 months after her wedding, so she was likely about 7 months pregnant when they married and probably very visibly pregnant.

Granted, some of them could just be premature births. But in other cases, the length of time between the wedding and the birth is too short to have just been premature, especially in a time before modern medicine could help preemies survive, such as the example above.

Thanks to Ancestry.com's custom tagging option, I now have all potential shotgun weddings labelled as such, and it's kind of amusing how many there were. 15 couples in my ancestry have been identified so far as having a child less than 9 months after their wedding. And again, that's not including the couples who I haven't yet found a marriage record for, and/or don't have an exact date for the first child's birth. There could be even more among those if I could just find the right dates. It's also not including those who simply had children out of wedlock. That's a whole different tag, and there's at least 6 cases of those. 

In this case, my ancestors Agostino and Rosaria had a child out of wedlock, then waited more than three years before getting married, which was then a shotgun wedding! Rosaria was about 3 months pregnant when they married.

It kind of makes you wonder how many of our ancestors actually waited until they were married to have sex, like they were "supposed to", or like the stereotype that is always taught to us about sex and marriage in history. Because there must have been even more ancestors who lost their virginity before getting married, but it didn't result in a pregnancy, so there was no evidence of it. In one case, I have love letters between ancestors which seem to suggest they may have been intimate before marriage, even though they did not have a shotgun wedding.

When you consider all those factors, it really seems plausible that just as many people didn't wait until marriage to have sex as those who did. Maybe even more. 

Is it Okay to Feel Ashamed of Our Ancestors?

This is a topic that comes up a lot in genealogy, so I'm going to say my peace about it here. I'm probably going to say some things that will make some people uncomfortable (because when I say them in social media, there are always people who get very angry), so if exploring our feelings about immoral things our ancestors did, like for example, owning slaves, or accusing someone of witchcraft, makes you uncomfortable, I suggest you stop reading now.

Above: A photo of my once-slave owning relatives alongside their black servants who were probably once slaves if they were old enough - this photo is from the 1890s. I also have ancestors who were slave holders but no photos of them alongside former slaves. Is it okay to feel ashamed of this photo and the relatives in it?

I'm not going to beat around the bush, I'm just going to say it: don't let people tell you your feelings are wrong if you feel ashamed of something an ancestor did that was really heinous. 

I know what people will argue. "But it's not your fault! You had nothing to do with it! You're not responsible for your ancestors actions!"

And yeah, that's all true. But feeling ashamed of what someone else did doesn't mean you're responsible for it or had anything to do with it. Those things are not mutually inclusive. Feeling ashamed of an ancestor doesn't mean feeling ashamed of yourself.

Because let's flip things for a moment. Have you never once felt pride in something great, something positive that an ancestor did or accomplished? I'm pretty sure we all have - it's a large part of genealogy. We all feel some kind of ties or connections to our family history and our ancestors, because why else would we do this? Genealogy sort of loses all meaning if we don't feel some kind of connection to our ancestors. And if it's okay to feel pride in our ancestors through these ties we feel to them, why would we not also be allowed to feel ashamed of them when appropriate? Isn't it a little bit hypocritical to feel pride in our ancestors when they do something wonderful, but shrug it off with "nothing to do with me" when they do something terrible? Isn't it just a little too convenient to have the luxury to only claim a connection to the good stuff? And again, to be clear, that connection doesn't make you responsible.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to shame people. I'm not saying anyone should feel ashamed - certainly not of themselves. I just think people who do feel ashamed of an ancestor or relative shouldn't be insulted, mocked, told they are wrong, or given a hard time for it in any way, and yet this something I see a lot whenever the topic comes up. On the contrary, I think people who are able to explore those feelings, and understand they can feel ashamed of an ancestor without being personally responsible for their actions, are very emotionally mature and intelligent. It seems to me that people who can't accept that dual reality are uncomfortable with something their ancestors did and instead of processing that emotion, they just shut it down. The fact that other people are able to process it makes them doubly uncomfortable, and so they lash out. And if what I have to say about that makes some people angry, that kind of just proves my point. 

Just let people feel whatever they feel. It doesn't mean they're consumed with guilt, it doesn't mean they can't still enjoy genealogy. Ultimately, it's not anyone's place to tell anyone else how they should or shouldn't feel. 

So yes, it is okay to feel ashamed of something an ancestor did, just like it's okay to feel proud of something an ancestor did. It can even be the same ancestor you can feel both ashamed and proud of at the same time. Human beings have the emotional complexity for both those feelings to exist at the same time. That doesn't mean you should or have to feel ashamed of an ancestor, but it does mean when you come across someone who does, just respect their feelings because they're not wrong to feel that way.

Giving Birth on the Atlantic Ocean

I have two documented cases in my tree of ancestors giving birth on board the ship taking them from Europe to America, one during colonial times, and the other from the late 19th century. It always makes me wonder why a woman would ever travel like this while pregnant, especially during the last trimester. It's not as though travel by ship, even in history, took nine months and she couldn't have known, but in both cases in my tree, it was a matter of the journey taking longer than expected. Not nine months long, but long enough that she could have reasonably expected to have arrived at the destination long before the birth, and maybe even before the last trimester. Maybe it was even a combination of a longer than expected journey and a premature birth. In the second case, I think that may have been likely, because the baby sadly did not survive.

The first case is of a well documented ancestor, Rachel de Forest, the daughter of noteworthy Jesse de Forest, and wife of equally well known Jean/Johannes de la Montagne. While perhaps not exactly famous in mainstream history, Montagne actually has a Society of Descendants, and was a notable figure in colonial New Amsterdam, serving on the New Netherland Council and as First Councillor to both Director Willem Kieft and Director-General Peter Stuyvesant. Jean and his wife Rachel left Holland (Netherlands) for New Amsterdam on 25 Sep 1636 on board the Rensselaerswyck, obviously while Rachel was pregnant. Exactly how far along she was, we can't say for sure, but she gave birth 25 Jan 1637 while at sea, and the reason is probably because the journey wound up taking a surprising 23 weeks, not arriving until 5 March 1637. Normally, at this time in history, the journey across the Atlantic took about 6-12 weeks. It was common for the ship to make several stops in Europe before making the crossing, but this usually only tacked on a few weeks, not the 14 weeks it wound up adding to the trip. If they left in September and the journey was only supposed to take 3 months at most, Rachel might have reasonably assumed they would be in New Amsterdam by or around Christmas, and if she wasn't due until late January, she would have no reason to think she might give birth on board the ship. What went wrong? Why did the journey take so long? 

First, immediately after leaving Holland, the ship hit heavy storms in the English Channel that left them at the mercy of the battering winds and sea swells for a brutal six weeks. During this time, another woman on board actually gave birth as well, though I am not related to her. Anna Van Rotmers had a son she appropriately named "Storm". Though the boy's father's surname was Bradt, Storm later adopted the surname "Vanderzee" which literally means "from the sea". Seems he was quite proud of being born at sea during a brutal storm.

The ship made attempts to dock at either Falmouth or Plymouth in England, and although they got close, the storm ultimately made it impossible to dock. The ship's sails were all badly damaged and it wasn't until November 16th that it finally limped into the harbor of Ilfracombe, in Devonshire, England. 

This wasn't the end of their troubles. Not only did the bad weather continue, making it difficult for the ship to set off again once repaired, but while they waited out the storms in Ilfracombe, the blacksmith (who was being sent to the colony by the Dutch West India Company) argued with his assistant, which resulted in the assistant killing the blacksmith! The ship's officers immediately turned the murderer into the authorities at Ilfracombe, but to be sure they wouldn't leave during the investigation, the authorities moored their ship and removed the rudder. Between this and the weather, they were delayed another eight weeks. 

They finally left England (presumably with no blacksmith or assistant) on 9 Jan 1637 and the crossing of the Atlantic took a mere two months, as expected, but by now, Rachel was much further along than she had originally planned and wound up having her 5th child, Maria, on 25 Jan 1637 while still on board the Rensselaerswyck. Fortunately, both Rachel and Maria survived the ordeal, and Maria went on to marry my 9th great grandfather, Jacob Kip (a clerk for the council Jean served on). By the time they left England though, Rachel must have known that she was nearing her due date, and I wondered why she didn't choose to stay in England for the birth, and catch another ship to New Amsterdam afterwards. Maybe they didn't have the money - they had, after all, already paid for their trip on the Rensselaerswyck and staying in England would mean paying for room and board somewhere, plus the cost of another ship later on, all presumably without income while they waited. Additionally, waiting for the next ship may have meant waiting for months after the birth, not just a few weeks. However terrifying the thought of giving birth on board a ship must have been, it's likely that Rachel didn't have a choice at that point. Fortunately though, her own husband was a physician, so at least he was there by her side to help her through it.

The second case in my tree took place much later in history, in 1880. My 3rd great grandfather, Giovantomaso Scioli, was a poor Italian farmer, who was apparently intent on making sure his first child was born in America, because he and his wife would leave for the US just weeks before she was due to give birth. A risky choice, if you ask me.

After marrying my 3rd great grandmother Lorenza Palladino on 27 Feb 1879 in Monteroduni, Italy, they left a year later for the US on board the SS Australia (shown above, from NorwayHeritage.com) from London, England on 14 Feb 1880, while Lorenza was, of course, heavily pregnant. I do not know when or how they got from Italy to England, but the journey from England to the US should have taken about 1-2 weeks, yet the steamer did not arrive in New York City until 10 Mar 1880, about 3 and a half weeks from when it departed. We know why the ship was delayed, because it was documented in the newspaper as having had engine problems while at sea. Described only as a "disabled engine", it must have been running at only about half the speed it was normally capable of.

In addition, I believe Lorenza may have also given birth prematurely. On 28 Feb 1880, she gave birth to a little girl named after the steamship she was born on, Australia Domenica Scioli, who sadly died a mere 2 days later. In history, infant deaths were not uncommon, even if they weren't premature, but it could help explain how Lorenza wound up giving birth at sea. Let's say she wasn't due for another 5-6 weeks when they left, so a journey that should have only take a week or two, or maybe even three at the most like it did, should have still meant she would safely be in NYC weeks before her due date. Only if the baby was a week or two early would it have been a problem, and unfortunately that's exactly what may have happened. Of course, it's also important to remember that due dates in history weren't as exact as they are today and Lorenza could have thought her due date was later than it actually was.

The idea of giving birth in history seems daunting enough to begin with. Before modern medicine, the leading cause of death among women of child bearing age was child birth. Add to that having to do it on board a ship (pre-stabilizers, which help reduce the motion of the ship), in some cases probably without a doctor or even a midwife present, sounds terrifying. Unless you were lucky enough to marry a doctor like Rachel, the most you could hope for was another woman on board who had experience either giving birth and/or assisting in a delivery to help you through such an uncertain event. When you consider all this, it's a miracle both Rachel and Maria survived in the first case, even with her doctor husband, and that Lorenza survived in the second case, even if Australia Domenica didn't.

Sources:

• Liner Transatlantic Crossing Times, 1833 – 1952 (in days), The Geography of Transport Systems
• A Walloon family in America; Lockwood de Forest and his forbears 1500-1848 Vol 1, Westward Again, Pages 75-80.
• Birth of Australia Dominica Scioli, 28 Feb 1880, Register of births at sea of British nationals, 1875-1891, FHL Film Number 1483321, Page 78
• Death of Australia Domenica Scioli, 02 Mar 1880, Register of deaths at sea of British nationals, 1875-1888, FHL Film Number 1483315, Page 92.
• New-York tribune. (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, March 11, 1880, Page 8, Image 8. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

MyHeritage's Photo Enhancements

Previously, I did an analysis of MyHeritage's photo colorizing tool. Since then, they have also added an enhancement tool, which identifies faces in photos and "enhances" them by making them sharper and clearer with more details. They also appear to have improved the colorizing. I noticed how the same photo I had colorized before, which left some areas like a hand here or there uncolored, are now magically colored (see bottom of article for example). It's still not perfect, but it's improving.

Normally, both tools are limited to 10 photos with a free account, so you have to subscribe with the Complete Plan (the most expensive one) to use unlimited photos with these tools. But right now, MyHeritage are trying to entice people to subscribe by making the tools unlimited for free for one month. They are obviously hoping people will be so impressed with the tools and get used to using them on unlimited photos that when the month is up, some will subscribe to continue having access to them. But personally, I'm not about to spend another $300 a year just for access to these fun little tools so I'm making the most of the free access while I can.

Much like the colorizing tool, the enhancement works best on images that don't have too much degradation or blurring. If you click the above photo of my Nan to enlarge it and see details, you'll see it had only some minimal blurring and the enhancement tool made it very sharp and clear, a much better picture of my Nan. You'll note that it does not remove scratches, spots, or other surface damage to the photo though, even when they appear on the face. And yes, you can enhance it and colorize it at the same time (see examples below), I just chose not to on this one of my Nan to show you the enhancement alone.

It also works best on faces that are closer to the camera - the smaller/further away the faces are, the less effective the enhancement is, and sometimes it's not effective at all. A few photos I've tested so far (see below), the faces were so far away and so blurry that the tool didn't even attempt to enhance it (though it did seem to identify it as a face since it colorized it correctly as skin colored). The ones that were enhanced were minimally done. 

The enhancement tool only worked on 3 out of 5 faces here, because they
were too small and blurry. The 3 enhancements were minimal too (see below).

A close up comparison of one of the small faces in the above photo with the minimal enhancements

Additionally, sometimes the enhancement leaves the face looking a little plastic and weird, like the person is wearing a mask (see below). This is more likely to happen the more blurring there is to the photo and faces, partly because it's difficult to enhance something so small and so unclear, but also because the tool only enhances faces and nothing else. A sharp, clear face next to blurry hair and clothing just looks weird. But in some cases, it's better than nothing, and it does give us somewhat of a better idea of what someone looked like.

Note how the one on the left looks fairly normal but the other two appear mask-like

Keep in mind though, that this tool is attempting to create data where it doesn't exist, so there comes a point on a heavily doctored photo where it may not be an accurate representation of someone's face. It's fun to explore, but for example, I would avoid using it while comparing people in two different photos to determine if they are the same person, or related. While it's tempting to use enhancements to do such comparisons because they seem clearer and sharper, making it easier to compare, it could actually be wrongly altering someone's appearance and leading you to the wrong conclusion about their identity.

So just like with the colorizing tool, the effectiveness of the enhancement tool can be a little hit and miss. It handles some images better than others, and there does come a point where certain photos and faces are too far gone to recover. Have fun with it, but don't expect too much from it with all your photos.

A comparison of the initial coloring of a photo (left) with the updated coloring of it (right), note
some of the hands that were previously uncolored are now a correct skin tone. There's also some
minor difference in the the darker skirts. Click to enlarge.

Best Friends Forever? Not Quite. The Original Bride Wars.

The best of friends, for a time: May Ellis (left)
and Emma Fallows (right) sitting on the back
patio of Emma's parents house

In the early 20th century, two young ladies, Emma Sarah Fallows and May Melson Ellis, were the best of friends. They met at teaching school, attended as many social events together as possible, taught at the same elementary school, and even lived together during that time. They were inseparable. But in 1913, something suddenly happened to cause a split between them, and their friendship never recovered. What was it?

My great grandmother, Emma Sarah Godshall (nee Fallows), left a wealth of information and photos of herself behind. Her family was somewhat wealthy and could therefore easily afford what was probably a Kodak Brownie, which they used to take dozens of candid photos of their family and friends that survive today. They were also frequently mentioned in the society section of their local newspaper, the Ambler Gazette in Pennsylvania, for some of the most mundane sounding notices sometimes. I can't imagine who at the time would have been interested in knowing about every vacation they took, for example, but I'm glad they reported it because these are the little snippets of information that give me insight into my ancestor's lives in ways most people don't get. And it's these mentions that could explain why Emma and her best friend parted ways so abruptly.

In September of 1904, sixteen year old Emma and seventeen year old May arrived at Millersville Normal School in Pennsylvania, what was then a teaching school. Today, it's called Millersville University and offers degrees in many subjects. May being a year older than Emma may have been a second year student, but for Emma it would be her first time living apart from her parents in a place were she scarcely knew a soul. It must have been daunting, but Emma was an outgoing girl by all accounts, and probably made friends quickly. Although we don't know exactly when Emma and May met, we know they were good friends by the time Emma graduated in June of 1907. After this point, Emma is mentioned in the paper as spending time with May almost every month, and I suspect the lack of reports of Emma's friends before this only had to do with the graduation milestone (there are always fewer social reports of children with less details).

May Ellis (left) and Emma Fallows (right) sitting on front
porch of Emma's parent's house

Emma (left) and May (right) at the beach in Ocean City, MD

The girls quickly became practically inseparable. May was from Delmar, Delaware, and Emma was from Wyndmoor, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, but that didn't stop them from regularly visiting each other and taking trips to the beach together. By 1910, they were living together with Emma's parents and working at the same elementary school in Wyndmoor. 

In December of 1911, Emma became engaged to Chester Harold Godshall, better known as Harold, or just C.H. They had been dating since 1908, when the first mention of them spending time together at a card game Emma hosted can be found in March, and when Harold began showing up in photos with Emma (clearly as a couple) sometime in spring or summer (they were on the beach at Ocean City, Maryland). Also featured in many of these photos are May and her beau, Boyd Morse Frymire. The four of them were tight, frequently taking trips together to places like Valley Forge and Ocean City, Maryland, and taking pictures of their memories along the way. Emma described them as "The Bunch" at one point. Boyd and Harold were both Civil Engineers and graduates of Bucknell University, so it's likely they were friends before meeting the girls. Maybe Emma and Harold introduced May to Boyd, or the other way around.

"The Bunch" at the beach in Ocean City, Maryland, 1908. Top photo: Emma (left), Boyd, and May (right). Bottom photo: Emma (left), Harold, and May (right).

On May 31, 1913, Emma took a break from planning her wedding, scheduled for November 11 of that year, to visit her best friend in Delmar for a house party May was hosting for several of her friends. She must have been excited to tell her friend all about her wedding plans, but Emma was about to receive a shock. Something changed in their friendship right around this time, and I believe it happened at this house party, because this is the last ever mention of the girls spending time together. They did not even attend each other's weddings, let alone stand by as each other's maid/matron of honor.

Coincidentally, only a few short days after the house party, May's parents announced her engagement to Boyd at a dinner party on June 3, probably attended by May's parent's friends this time. The next day, the announcement appeared in a Wilmington, Delaware newspaper. It seems likely that the house party May hosted for her friends was to announce to them her engagement to Boyd, and it seems significant that it coincided with the termination of her friendship with Emma.

Emma and May (with friends) "At Fretz's" place (Florence Fretz, Emma's Maid of Honor). Top: May (far left), Emma (second from left). Bottom: Emma (far left), and May (middle). Florence may be the other woman in the photos, or may be taking the photo.

But why would May announcing her engagement to Boyd cause the end of her friendship with Emma? It's unlikely Emma didn't approve of May's choice in Boyd because there are many photos of them all together looking happy and having a good time. And after all, Emma may have been the one to introduce May to Boyd. Could it be that Emma, after being engaged and planning a wedding for a lengthy two years, was offended that May would not only get engaged just a few months before her wedding, but also plan to marry before Emma? May and Boyd quickly married on September 17, 1913, less than four months after their announcement, and a mere two months before Emma was married to Harold on November 11. If you're thinking that May and Boyd married so quickly because maybe she was pregnant, there's no evidence of that. Their first recorded child wasn't born until August 3, 1914, nearly 11 months after their wedding night. Although it's possible May had a miscarriage not long after the wedding, and then quickly conceived again in what would have to be November, we can't assume that's what happened.

Whatever the reason for May fast-tracking her wedding, Emma absolutely might have felt that May was stealing her limelight by marrying so soon before her own wedding. Even today, there are women who would be upset about that, but particularly during a time of such formality and propriety, it could have been viewed as May upstaging her friend. There were social rules to be followed and this was definitely a bit of a slap in the face of etiquette. 

"The Bunch" - Emma taking a photo of Harold (second from
left), May, and Boyd (right) with unknown man (far left)

Emma's name is notably absent from May's wedding announcement in September. Although it doesn't mention the wedding party by name, it does name some of the guests who attended, and Emma is not among them. A week before Emma's wedding, she spent the weekend at the house of Florence Fretz in Bucks County, another long-time friend who also happened to be Harold's cousin. I imagine this was likely Emma's bridal shower since Florence was the one to serve as Emma's Maid of Honor. By the time Emma's wedding is announced in the paper, there is no mention of May among any of the guests or bridal party.

To my knowledge, the two never reconciled. May would go on to have two children with Boyd and moved all around Pennsylvania over the years. Emma and Harold also had two children and stayed in the Philadelphia suburbs. Maybe starting their own families and living in different places, they might have gradually drifted apart anyway, but it seems like such a shame that they never even kept in touch by letter, or introduced their children. While I can understand Emma feeling upstaged by her friend, it feels like a forgivable offense to me, and I would never begrudge a friend the happiness of her wedding, whatever the timing.

Emma (third from left) with friends during one of her visits
to May's home in Delmar, DE. May is probably taking
the picture.

Emma (left) and May (second from right) with friends
(looks like Boyd is on the far right)

Emma quit teaching full time after her marriage, as was typical of the times, but she did periodically substitute, and was active in her community and even politics. In 1938, she was the Secretary of Springfield-Whitemarsh League of Women Voters, and throughout the 1940s, she was first the Corresponding Secretary and eventually President of Eastern Montgomery County Council of Republican Women, as well as a representative of Wyndmoor Service Organization (a group that supported their local soldiers in the WWII armed forces, such as by sending care packages). She died December 18, 1954.

May's married life is less detailed, and it's unclear how her split with Emma effected their husbands, who were equally good friends with each other. Did they keep in touch, or did they side with their wives and never speak to each other again? The glimpses we get of our ancestor's lives are never enough, and always leave me with more questions that will probably never be answered.

"The Bunch" goofing off at an unknown location. Top photo, from left to right: Boyd, May, Emma, Harold. Bottom photo, from left to right: Emma, Harold, May, Boyd.

9 Reasons Indentured Servitude Was NOT "White Slavery"

Now and again I see people who bring up "white slavery" in US history when what they really mean is indentured servitude. Indentured servants were mostly uneducated Europeans who were contracted into the sometimes lengthy and harsh service of an American employer to pay off the debt of their ship passage to the US. It's true they were frequently taken advantage of, had few rights, and often treated poorly, but there were fundamental legal differences between indentured servitude and chattel slavery in the US. A lot of racists and white supremacists have put out propaganda memes about "white slavery" or "Irish slavery" (see example left) in attempts to undermine the fact that slavery in the US was race based. There's other good articles on this topic from The New York Times, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and History.com but I want to detail point by point how legally, indentured servitude was not the same thing as chattel slavery in the US.

1. Most indentured servants went willingly. While the terms of their service were often misrepresented, these were primarily people who wanted to immigrate but couldn't afford the ship passage, so they agreed to let an American employer pay their passage fee in return for their service to pay off the debt. Granted, some of them only wanted to go to America because it was the only way to escape religious persecution in Europe. Others were criminals who were sent to indentured servitude in the colonies instead of being sent to jail. There have also been some recorded cases of Europeans being kidnapped and involuntarily indentured to the Americas, but that was rare and more importantly, illegal.[2] Most indentured servants chose the path they did, even if that path was misrepresented or their alternate choices were worse, it is not the same thing as being physically forced or born into legal slavery on a mass scale.

2. The duration of their service was finite and once complete, they were even given a payment of "freedom dues" to start them off in their new, free life. This may have been cash, new clothing, or even a parcel of land, and therefore some historians argue that at this point, these servants would have been better off than those who came to America on their own dime. It's true that many indentured servants had years tacked onto their contract if they tried to escape or otherwise broke their contract, and others were so maltreated that they did not survive to the end of their contract. But many also not only lived out their contract, but prospered afterwards because of it. The typical length of indentured servitude was 4-7 years, which is nothing like a lifetime of slavery.[1][3]

3. Indentured servitude could not be inherited like hereditary slavery. An indentured servant's child was not automatically indentured too. In fact, indentured servants were not allowed to marry without their employer's permission[2], which was typically not granted[8] (because this would mean more expense for the employer, without an extra laborer) so most of them did not even have children until released from their service. An employer could tack more time onto the service of a female servant if she became pregnant (usually extended by 18-24 months)[8], but her child could not be indentured to the employer.[1][3] Theoretically, a cruel employer could have raped a female indenture and then used her pregnancy to extend her contract so he could continue raping her. But the child was still free and more importantly, this was an illegal abuse of the system, compared to the hereditary slavery that blacks endured, generation after generation, on top of the legally sanctioned and encouraged "breeding" they were forced into to perpetuate their hereditary slavery.

4. There were several acts passed by the British and US government which deterred and reduced indentured servitude and had no impact on slavery. These included the Passenger Vessels Act 1803 and the abolition of Debtor's Prison in 1833.[2] If indentured servitude and chattel slavery were the same thing, why would laws influence one but not the other?

5. While the rights of indentured servants were limited (they could not vote, for example), they did have certain rights that slaves did not. Indentures had the right to medical care (and the time of service lost to illness or injury could not be held against them)[8], food, shelter, and clothing, as well as the right to take abusive employers to court, and they could not be cheated out of their freedom dues[8], none of which were rights afforded to slaves.[3][4][7] Of course, these rights may not have always been well met, and suing an employer was not always realistic since indentures may not have had the money to hire a lawyer or file a law suit, but there were cases that did occasionally appear in court.[8] And the legal distinction is still important in terms of how the law viewed indentured servants versus slaves. Slaves did not have the legal right to sue anyone, and slave owners had the legal right to treat their slaves however they wished, including abuse. If a slave owner wanted to starve a slave to death, he had the legal right to do that, whereas this would have been consider murder if done to an indentured servant. Legally, indentured servants were given a status similar to children, not slaves.[8]

6. As African slavery grew in the US, indentured servitude declined and their work load became different from those of slaves; they were given lighter and more skilled work. This meant the working conditions of indentures improved and they may have even gained skills they could use to prosper once their contract was finished. The very reason slavery grew and indenturing declined was because slavery was absolute in its lack of freedom, whereas indenturing was not, meaning plantation owners got perpetual free labor out of slavery, whereas they didn't with indentured servants, once again highlighting the difference between them.[1][5] In 1756, a Philadelphia merchant said “All importations of white Servants is ruined … and we must make more general use of Slaves.”[5] This shows how they were considered different, and as servitude declined, slavery increased.

7. The first Africans brought to America were actually indentured servants, not slaves. Before 1641, there were no slave laws in the US, so when Africans were first brought her in 1619, they were indentured servants with the same contracts and rights as white indentured servants. That obviously changed and they or their descendants were eventually sold into the slavery system that developed later.[1] But it illustrates a distinction.

8. An indentured servant's contract could be sold to a new employer, but the servant themselves could not be sold or owned as property as slaves were.[5] This may have only been a legal distinction which made no difference to the servant in reality, but it shows how the law viewed indentured servants as human beings, but slaves as property.

9. Indentured servants were recorded as free on the US census. On the early US censuses, "free white" people were grouped by gender and age, then there was a category for slaves, and then one for "all other free persons". The enumerator's instructions were to record indentured servants as free: "free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, from all others".[6] So, white indentured servants were recorded as "free whites" and indentured servants of other races would be classed under "all other free persons" (or "free colored persons" depending on the census year). The very definition of slavery is not having the legal status of freedom, so the fact that indentured servants were considered free by law makes it impossible to call them slaves.

I am not saying indentured servants weren't exploited or didn't suffer at the hands of their employers, many of them did and that was a great injustice. But for the poor, life was always hard, and many people suffered at the hands of their employers even if they weren't indentured. Before labor laws and unions protected the rights of employees, even paid servants (not indentured) were often exploited, beaten, received wages too low to feed them, suffered long, grueling hours of hard labor, were sexually assaulted by their employers, etc. It didn't make them slaves. What made someone a slave was not the conditions they lived or worked in, but their legal status, and I hope I've illustrated how the legal status of slaves (ie, not free) in the US was very different from those of indentured servants (ie, free) and therefore they should not be lumped together. 

And of course, throughout all of history, people of all kinds were enslaved at some point. I am not saying no white person was ever enslaved in history - the Romans, for example, enslaved lots of white people. But the topic of "white slavery" is normally brought up in relation to US history and it's hereditary, chattel slavery as though they were the same thing when clearly, they were not.

So the next time someone tries to tell you about "white slavery" or "Irish slaves" when they actually mean indentured servitude, remember these facts and take whatever agenda they may have with a grain of salt.

Sources:

1. Indentured Servants In The U.S. - PBS
2. Indentured Servitude - Wikipedia
3. Indentured Servants 
4. Race and Ethnicity in America: From Pre-contact to the Present [4 volumes] by Russell M. Lawson (Editor), Benjamin A. Lawson (Editor)
5. Slavery and Servitude - Confronting History at Cliveden
6. 1790 US Census Enumeration Instructions, Page 101
7. Suspect Relations: Sex, Race, and Resistance in Colonial North Carolina Paperback by Kirsten Fischer, Page 102
8. Family Life in 17th- and 18th-Century America by by James M. Volo and Dorothy Volo 

More Colorizing

After trying MyHeritage's new colorizing tool and then giving colorizing myself a whirl in Photoshop, I finally managed to test out another automatic colorizing tool at ColouriseSG. At first, it didn't work, or maybe I just didn't wait long enough, but today it worked!

I used the same first image I did at MyHeritage, the one I then colored myself too. My first impression with just this one photo is that it's better than the one at MyHeritage, but the human touch is still best.

Although it still looks a little like they just added a sepia tone to it, I felt like the colors were a bit more realistic than MyHeritage's, and the eyes appeared less brown. They could arguably be gray.

They also made attempt to add a touch of redness to the lips, but I'm not sure I love the effect, they look a little purplish.

Overall, the colorizing is better than MyHeritage, but I was very disappointed by the fact that ColouriseSG made the photo I uploaded smaller and therefore lesser quality. So if you use this tool, be prepared to sacrifice quality for coloring! For this reason, I decided to not even bother testing it with other images.

As always, if you want something done right, do it yourself.

Happy Valentine's Day!

On this Valentine's Day, I'd like to point you in the direction of a previous blog post where I detailed the highly romantic love letters between my 3rd great grandparents, Robert Hawkins Smith and Octavia M Wood in 1837 Kentucky!

I once allowed MyHeritage to include them in a Valentine's Day promo and the staff member I spoke to thought they might have been the oldest surviving love letters in Kentucky. I thought maybe she was right, but that's a fairly specific location and a very specific topic too, so not a very difficult feat.

MyHeritage's New Colorizing Photos Tool

Ever wanted to have your old black and white family photos colorized, but don't know how to do it yourself, and don't want to pay a professional an arm and a leg for it? Well, MyHeritage just launched a new free feature from DeOldify that will instantly colorize black and white photos. But how well does it work? I was a little skeptical and couldn't wait to test it out.

The photo I tested was just a simple portrait from about the 1880s. I was surprised how quickly it colorized, and I was pleased with how nice it looked but I realized that it actually just looked like a sepia tone had been added to it. I don't think that was the intention, and the skin tones did have a more fleshy color, but everything else looked like it'd just been sepia toned. A little disappointing.



Additionally, you may not be able to see it very well but this man's eyes were clearly light colored - blue, grey, hazel, etc. Something like that. But zooming in on his eyes shows the sepia/fleshy colors of the skin seems to have just been overlaid on his eyes, making them look brown, as if there was no attempt whatsoever to even color the eyes at all.

And while we're on the subject, they are beautiful eyes, aren't they? I've always thought this guy looks a bit like Leonardi DiCaprio.

To show you the difference between what a computer can do and what a human can do, here is my colorization of the same photo (including spot cleaning/restoration):

Back to MyHeritage. I then tried it with a group photo, thinking the multiple faces, garments, etc would add some variation to the possible colors. This was much more impressive:

Not bad for an automated system! Granted, the photo's highlights are a little blown out in places and some of the faces are blurred from too much movement, but colorizing system handled it pretty well in spite of that.

What's even better is that this is a high resolution image I used. I was a little worried that such an advanced tool available for free would only accept low resolution images (maybe charging for high resolution), but this was a fairly high resolution image and it not only accepted it, it still only took a few seconds to generate a color version. Unfortunately, although it will accept high resolution images, there is a limit to how many photos you can colorize if you have a free account. They don't tell you this anywhere but choose your photos carefully because you only get 10 of them, and deleting previous ones doesn't allow you anymore.

And the colorization still isn't perfect.

You may notice how it doesn't exactly take much risk or leaps with the colors it chooses. The men are in black suits, the women all seem to be in black and dark navy dresses, and the kids are all in white or neutral colors. You can probably understand why - I suppose they don't want a man's suit turning up bright red or something equally unrealistic for the era and gender. That's the downside to using a computer instead of a human who can distinguish these things and safely choose a greater variety of colors to apply.

Additionally, when I zoom in, there are areas that look like something almost resembling purple fringing except not along high contrast edges. You can see these sort of random purple splotches in the zoom-in below, particularly in her hair (pretty sure purple wasn't a trending hair color in 1880 Wisconsin), and sleeves. This is just a small area of the photo but these purple spots turn up everywhere if you look closely enough.

There's also some areas of the image that the computer seems to have some difficulty coloring. You'll note above how her one shoulder does not appear colored, or at least seems to be a different color from the rest of her dress - more of a sepia tone again. You see it most prominently in the skirt behind this child below:

At first, I thought maybe it was due to a shading variation in the original that may have fooled the system into thinking the difference in the shading meant a difference in color, but that is not the case. You can see in the original, there is no shading variation.

I guess the tool just sometimes has difficulty identifying edges and items so when it's unsure, it seems to do this. It's understandable, I suppose - after all, what is required to accomplish this in mere seconds must be an incredibly complex algorithm and coding, and it's provided for free, so I can forgive it for not being perfect.

Lastly, you may have noticed MyHeritage put their logo in the bottom right corner of the colorized image, and a little paint palette icon in the lower left. To avoid these, I'd recommend adding a superficial border to your image where the logo and icon will show up, which you can then crop off later.

I decided to try another photo (above), this time with more elements in it - horses, a house, etc to see if the same problems occurred, and they did. Once again, you can see all the clothing colors are very neutral. And again, you can see some weird rainbow-like discoloration at the top of the house.

And again, there were obviously some spots where the computer had difficulty colorizing or distinguishing between items - as you can see below, the hand on the shoulder looks like it either hadn't been colorized at all or it's blending in with the color of the other boy's jacket. Conveniently for the computer, it chose to "color" this boy's jacket grey!

So if you don't want any creepy dead hands like this, or your ancestors had blue eyes instead of brown, it's best to hire someone to do this for you instead of relying on an automated system. There are also Facebook groups with generous people who will colorize your photos for free, but be aware that Facebook doesn't easily support high resolution images like this does. This option from MyHeritage is still pretty impressive for what it is though, and if you're not bothered by the small problems that you might not even see very well when zoomed out, this will be amazing tool for many people. At the very least, I enjoyed seeing some color in the faces of my ancestors and relatives, as it seems to make them come alive a little more.

I haven't checked it out yet but there's an alternate colorizing option found at ColouriseSG. It appears to be free.