Santa's WWII Draft Registration

GENEALOGY FUN STUFF

Santa Claus did exist!  And he registered for the draft during WWII.

He must have been living in his summer home, in Saline, Mo, of all places.

The following record was featured in a daily email by Michael John Neill and posted to his Genealogy Tip of the Day blog.

It was found at Ancestry's U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 database (Subscription probably required for access).

Actually, his surname may have been Clause, but his parents must have had a sense of humor (possibly weird?) when they named their little elf.

Other records at Ancestry document that this Santa (1888-1957) was a lifelong resident of Saline County, Missouri, the son of William (1856-1917) and Henrietta S. Clause (1861-1915), that he was married to a gal named Minnie Mabel Hill (1894-1944) in 1912 and had a large brood of children beginning with William Owen (1915-1994) just a few years later.

This Santa died in 1957, which begs the question, just who is it that has been appearing on NORAD radars all these years?  ;-)  Another genealogy problem for the ages!

Kentucky Rebel Town, a new book by William A. Penn

YOU NEED TO ADD THIS TO YOUR LIBRARY

If you somehow missed the news, William A. (aka Bill) Penn, editor of the Harrison Heritage News, with a little help from the University of Kentucky Press, has published a fine history of Civil War times in Harrison County.  It is entitled Kentucky Rebel Town - The Civil War Battles of Cynthiana & Harrison County.

One might call it a revision of the author's earlier Civil War history, Rattling Spurs and Broad-Brimmed Hats: The Civil War and Harrison County, Kentucky (Battle Grove Press, 1995).  Yet, it really is a body of work that stands on its own when one considers how much more work has been done in recovering the details of lost history using research techniques and records not readily available in what might be considered the pre-internet era of the 1980s and '90s.

The volume should fill all your desires to know what is knowable about Cynthiana and Harrison County in the 1850s, '60s, and postbellum era..  There are 278 pages of great reading for the history buff with about an additional hundred pages of citations, including the index. Copies are available directly from Bill (who is also proprietor of the Midway Museum Store in Midway, Ky.), from the University of Kentucky Press, and if you are in or can make it to Cynthiana, they have been offered recently at the Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum for $47.70, of which $10 will be donated to the museum.

Bill's book should be of interest to genealogists as well. Did you know the difference between how a regular person reads a book and how a genealogist reads a book?  Your average bookworm will start at page one, while the genealogist will go to the back of the book first ... not to find out how the story ends, but to see if his relations ever got listed in the index before even bothering to read the text!

So, for a genealogist, quite a few books end up being pretty short reads, but Kentucky Rebel Town has just over twenty pages of index, with lots of names for genealogists to search for.

Rebel General John Hunt Morgan thought that Cynthiana was worth coming back to for a second "visit," and, luckily for us, Bill came back, too, to put his pen to work in giving old history a new look.

Philip

They Did Not Pass - The Battle Of Verdun Ends I THE GREAT WAR Week 126

100 YEARS AGO

The centennial of America's involvement in the war won't begin until next year. At least if one accepts that our involvement didn't officially begin until war was declared by Congress on April 6, 1917.

In Europe the centennial commemorations began in 2014 and this series is of interest to anyone interested in World War I, or the Great War, as it was once known.

It is especially interesting in that the video series is updated weekly, allowing one to learn more in smaller increments ... something in the manner that the people of Harrison County would have learned about it by reading the Log Cabin or the Democrat.

THE GREAT WAR ON PBS

The "war to end all wars" begins again as a 3-part series on PBS, part of the American Experience series.  To find more about it visit WGBH American Experience: The Great War

I, for one, am going to watch.

Watch for books and DVDs to start hitting the shelves in bookstores, both virtual and brick & mortar.


LOOK FOR WAR REPORTING IN FUTURE ISSUES OF THE HERITAGE HARRISON NEWS

Beginning in the March or April issues of the Harrison Heritage News next year, I will begin a series of my own, to be published in the, in the special supplement to the HHN "The Genealogy Box."

My articles may appear as feature items in the newsletter, or perhaps under a different title under the umbrella of "The Genealogy Box."

Be sure to look for it!

Philip

Merry Cemetery | 100 Wonders | Atlas Obscura

What's New at Ancestry: December 2016 Edition

I am learning a little about Blogger and blogging.

Today I learned how to embed a YouTube video in a blog posting.

I thought I would give my new knowledge a test run, and so here is a YouTube video brought to you via "The County Line."

It is entitled "What's New at Ancestry: December 2016 Edition."

Watch, listen, learn, and enjoy!

Philip

The Harrison Heritage News for December (Vol. 17, No. 12) is on its way!

BREAKING OLD NEWS!

I just received my copy of the next and last issue of the Harrison Heritage News for 2016.  Yours should be arriving in your real and virtual mailboxes pretty soon.

This month's issue features a vintage Christmas postcard on the cover, with news of the society, a note from society president Don Wagoner, a list of upcoming events and presentations at future meetings thru June, 2017, details of a new addition to the Harrison County Historical Society's archive of past newsletters, and a genealogy query about McCarthys and Prices.

A fun presentation written by Mary Grable about a Star Trek exhibit at the Cynthiana-Harrison County Museum, as well as photos of exhibits brought in for evaluations at the Harrison County Historical Society's Antiques Road Show last month fill a couple more pages.

This month's newsletter also includes the by-laws of the historical society and it is requested that you vote your approval or disapproval of them.  Read carefully ... and VOTE!  We all know how important it is to VOTE ... because sometimes dreams come true when you VOTE!  Sometimes they don't!  So VOTE!

Your December newsletter will look something like the following image ... only a lot bigger ... and, if delivered via USPS, in an envelope!  ;-)

JOIN OR RENEW ... OR GIFT ... A SOCIETY MEMBERSHIP

So ends another interesting year at the Harrison County Historical Society.  Next year who knows what will happen?

Well, it will be easy for you to find out. Lastly, but not leastly, this month's issue of the Harrison Heritage News includes the annual membership application form.  Dues are very reasonable and it is recommended that you send them in NOW so that you don't miss a single issue.  The average Harrison Heritage News consists of eight-to-ten pages of REALLY GOOD STUFF about the history of Cynthiana and all that ever occurred ... well, maybe not EVERYTHING, but A WHOLE LOT about which people ever talked or wrote about ... and which is still FIT TO PRINT.

If you become a member of the Harrison County Historical Society for only a nominal fee ($10 annually for a PDF in your emailbox, $12 annually for one delivered by the United States Postal Service) you will find out about what has already happened in the county ... and about what happening at historical society meetings and events.

And with each issue running and average of eight-to-ten pages of original texts (which is all that can be stuffed into an envelope and mailed for the price of a Forever stamp), by the end of the next year you will have the almost the equivalent of a book to place on your shelves.  What other local historical society offers a virtual book's worth of value for the price of a membership alone? (A rhetorical question, to be sure, but if you know of one, let us know at the society; it will be sure to make us jealous ... and we work even harder to make our little newsletter better.  ;-)

If you don't believe me, just check out the archive of past newsletters which has been available at www.HarrisonCountyKy.US for some time now.

When you are ready, hopefully sooner than later, get a copy of the membership application, print it out, fill it in and send it along with a check or money order to ...

Harrison County Historical Society
P.O. Box 411
Cynthiana, KY 41031

... and the future will be all history!

That's all for this year!  Take care of yourselves.  Have a Merry Christmas and may good fortune and blessings follow you into the New Year!

Philip Naff

The Online Archive of Harrison Heritage News Newsletters Has Doubled!

That's right.  Doubled!

And now almost all of them are in PDF format, or soon will be.

An index of all issues up to the end of 2014 is provided in the opening window.  Just look up the subject matter in which you are interested, find the corresponding issue number, and then click on that number in the table to the left of the index.

And Voila!  Your issue will appear.

Sorry, but we can't take you to the exact page where your desired subject appears in print, but each issue is short enough that a quick skim should be enough for you to be able to find what you are looking for.

To begin a new search, just hit the "back" button on your keyboard or click on the link to the index which appears at the bottom of every screen while you are looking at issues of the Harrison Heritage News.

While reading through the archive of past issues, we at the Harrison County Historical Society hope that you may find it worth your while (and a few bucks, too) to sign up and become a member of the society.  You can get current issues in the mail or online (A link will be emailed to you each month).

To begin your journey through history as a member of the society, just click on the link (Join Today!), print the form and fill it out, and then mail it to the address at the bottom of the application.

And after that, the rest will just be history!

Full-Page Images of the 1896 Cynthiana Democrat and 1905 Log Cabin Added.

If you haven't seen them before in their full glory, now you can.  The purchase of a bigger scanner means bigger things can be added to the website.  One can now view a total of 66 full-page images of both the 1896 Special Edition of the Cynthiana Democrat and the 1905 Souvenir Supplement of the Log Cabin combined at www.HarrisonCountyKy.US.  Just go to the home page and click on the links to see what people once read over a hundred years ago and which you can still read today.

What Kept People Busy in 1850?

In the effort to fill in the blanks of a genealogy, one part of the record is largely overlooked, the documentation of what kept people busy from day to day. What did people do? How did they make a living? Where or to whom did one go to get a horse shod or a cabinet made?  The answers to those questions with regard to the 1850s have been around for a while, thanks to the efforts of two men named Thomson and Bassett.  Read the article, "What Kept People Busy in 1850?"

Harrison Heritage News (April 2014)

The latest edition of the Harrison Heritage News was mailed a couple of weeks ago.  What, you don't have one?  Well, you've got to be a member of the Harrison County Historical Society to get one!  It is too late to have joined yesterday, but today and tomorrow are viable options, which brings me to the subject of the feature article for this month's issue, the title of which, "Before It is Too Late Too Soon", is very apropos to the message expressed so far.

The article is about Berry, Kentucky in the 1910s, a time before World Wars and Depressions when Harrison County's second largest community (after Cynthiana) basked in what seemed to be an aura of boundless energy and enthusiasm.  Work could be hard, but people still had time to have fun, and if you grew up there in the early decades of the 20th century, you might not want to trade that time of your life for anything else or any other place in the world.

A budding interest in genealogy combined with the opportunity to travel in the 1990s allowed me to capture such sentiments as expressed by my great-aunt, Martha Elizabeth (Elmore) Byerley (1906-1998) nearly eight decades later.  She spent her preteen years living life, having fun, and, yes, going to school at Berry.  The stories she told are short and entertaining and . . . maybe best of all . . . she took albums full of pictures to illustrate the "good ol' days," some which have been reproduced on the front page of this issue of the Harrison Heritage News.

So, don't you wait to until it is too late too soon to get your copy of the April 2014 issue of the Harrison Heritage News today!  Visit www.HarrisonCountyKy.US/Historical-Society for membership information.

~

     “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”—Dr. Seuss