Today, I was introduced to the power of ChatGPT by my grandson who is an IT professional. He is convinced that it is an important demonstration of the power of artificial intelligence (AI). “ He signed into it on his iPhone and asked me to suggest a question to ask. I suggested: “What is Pymatuning
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World Pandemic Declared 1 Year Ago Today
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared that Covid-19 coronavirus had reached world pandemic levels. Soon every thing in the United States was shut down. Two days before that I drove out to Fairport Harbor in Lake County to give an in-person presentation entitled “Where’s Otto: How the Internet Helped Track Down 10
Read on »What Do Those Numbers Mean in Census Records?
One thing leads to another in genealogy. I was researching an uncle (by marriage), Waino Aleksanteri Seppelin, who came to this country from Finland in 1910 and very shortly got a job as a laborer in a steel mill in Warren, Trumbull, Ohio, USA. Waino eventually worked into the better-paying job of “heater.” His census
Read on »Did the Pandemic Kill Christmas Cards?
2020 probably was a terrible year for Christmas Card sales. At least my experience would indicate that is was. I received only 1 Christmas letter this year via the U.S. Postal Service. Ordinarily, I would receive a half dozen letters from family and friends. I received only two Christmas cards, and one was hand-delivered to
Read on »Connections to 2020 Cleveland Presidential Debate
Tomorrow night I will be watching the first Presidential debate leading up to the 2020 Presidential election on TV. For the record, I have some connections to the site of this debate in the Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion at the Health Education Campus at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic. For example,
Read on »She Rode to Work with Dad during WWII
At a meeting of the Finnish American Heritage Association (FAHA) at its museum in Ashtabula a couple of years ago, a friendly lady remarked to me that she rode to work with my father, Walfrid Herbert Huskonen, during World War II. They drove from my hometown, Andover, Ohio, about 12 miles south on Ohio Rt
Read on »Why We Need to Include a Country Name with Genealogical Locations
One of the effects of using online genealogical databases in our research is that we need to enter a country name to completely identify each family history location. Back in the day before online databases, American researchers just assumed that readers of their research reports about American ancestors would know that a location reference was
Read on »Uncle Walter’s Marriage Found Online
Today, I opened one of the hints on Ancestry.com and it led me to the marriage record of my great uncle Walter Chase Dingman. I had visited the Archives for Trumbull County, Ohio, in Warren, more than 15 years ago to obtain a paper copy of this marriage record. Now it is available online. If
Read on »Stumbling onto Route 66 TV series
Today I decided to do a Google search for Glauber Brass Manufacturing Co., a foundry in Kinsman, Ohio, specializing in plumbing fixtures. My father, Walfrid Herbert Huskonen, worked for Glauber Brass in the late 1930s and early 1940s (I don’t know the exact dates) as a patternmaker. I have heard that he commuted 12 miles daily
Read on »Who Was that Little Girl Buried Next to MJ’s Grandmother
In discussing our family history, my wife, Mary Jane (MJ for short), has mentioned many times that her paternal grandmother was named Mary Margaret Caroline Heinselman Butcher Van Court. She was somewhat unusual for having two middle names and three family names. Heinselman was her maiden name, and Butcher was the name she assumed when
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