I received this image last week and since it was a little too large to put in the newsletter, I thought I’d post it here. Thanks to Jennifer for sharing this really neat piece of her family history–and of U.S. history! Click on the image to enlarge it.

Rellie James Hearn, II USMC in WWII was wounded on Viru Island in the Solomon Islands in June 1943. Subsequently, he needed transfusions. As you can see from the ad, (at the time) fifteen! (What they didn’t say was that he needed fifteen because originally they gave him the wrong blood-type–LOL.) However, I think this is a great piece of memorabilia of WWII, and it’s time of need for blood drives, AND, of course, my grandfather - the HERO!

Jennifer Johnson, Lake Forest, California

Ancestry.com is announcing it has launched the largest collection of U.S. military records available and searchable online, featuring more than 90 million names that span more than four centuries of American history from the 1600s through Vietnam.

This U.S. Military Collection includes exclusive record sets such as the only complete collection of WWI draft registration cards and commemorative military yearbooks and newspapers. Combined, the records bring to life the stories and sacrifices of the millions of brave men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Inside the U.S. Military Collection
Ancestry.com’s U.S. Military Collection captures all major wars and conflicts from American history, including the Revolutionary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts as well as the Spanish-American War and the War of 1812. (more…)

Once again, as I was working on next week’s The Year Was . . ., I ran across a neat site to share. Maritime History of the Great Lakes (www.halinet.on.ca/GreatLakes/HomePort.asp) includes images, newspaper transciptions, ships lists, shipwrecks, historical documents, and articles, as well as a great collection of links to other related sites.

Be sure to check out the What’s New section that contains links to online versions of a number of historical books. One that caught my eye was an online version of History of the Great Lakes, Volume I, by J. B. Mansfield, ed. (J. H. Beers & Co., 1899). Topics covered include “Beginnings of Lake Commerce,” “War of 1812,” “Lake Canals,” “Harbors,” “Lighthouses,” and chapters of the traffic of lumber, grain, coal, iron ore and industries. It also includes a decade by decade chronology covering the years 1821-98 that feature wrecks, storms, explosions, and other events, as well as a list of lake vessels. It can be found online at:
www.halinet.on.ca/GreatLakes/Documents/HGL/default.asp

For those with links to, or any interest in the Great Lakes, this site contains a wealth of information.

Juliana

Below is a press release from the home offices that contains some interesting stats from the 1880 Census:

PROVO, Utah, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ — To mark the nation’s 124th Labor Day, Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online resource for family history records, is releasing an interesting glimpse of the most popular and most unusual occupations in 1880.

With Labor Day’s roots dating back to 1882, Ancestry.com, the only online source for the complete digitized U.S. Federal Census from 1790 to 1930, is sharing the labor landscape from the 1880 U.S. Census, including the following fascinating discoveries:

• More than 20 percent of the population listed their occupations as some form of laborer with the top three occupations listed as employed on a farm, laborer or servant. 
• Additional occupations among the top 10 include carpenter, dressmaker/tailor, clerk, school teacher, blacksmith, miner and cotton mill worker.  (more…)

While hanging out along the Nile River with Cleopatra, Julius Caesar may have picked up the idea of using the sun to calculate the length of the calendar year from Egyptian astronomers. The roughly 355 day Roman calendar was an irksome mess that needed regular tinkering to align it with the seasons.  Days or months were inserted or taken away every now and then.  This was understandably annoying to the populace.

When Caesar returned triumphantly to Rome in 47 B.C., he decided to launch a new calendar similar to the Egyptian model.  The new solar calendar had a 365 day and 6 hour year with an extra day thrown in every four years to account for the extra hours. After a vexing year of calendar adjustments making 46 B.C last 455 days, the new calendar, known as the Julian calendar, commenced on January 1, 45 B.C.  The Julian calendar would reign for centuries to come. (more…)

The following is from a USA Today article:

Some stories hard to get in history books
By Kasie Hunt, USA TODAY (04/05/2006)
Most high school students in the USA probably don’t know that tens of thousands of Mexican-Americans — many of them legal residents or even U.S. citizens — were forcibly sent to Mexico during the depths of the Depression. That’s because few history books even mention it.

The rest of this article is online at USA Today. I also found more information on this topic on the following sites:

Immigration: Mexican-Depression and the Struggle for Survival
(Library of Congress)

The Hispanic Experience: Perspective on the Frontier
(Houston Institute for Culture)