The "Bob WeHadABabyItsABoy" Method for Family History

This family history stuff is going to send me to the poorhouse.

Remember "Person-to-Person" phone calls?  For you youngsters who never had to pay for long distance calling, this was an operator-assisted call placed from you directly to a specific person rather than a general phone number.  If they weren't available, you did not have to pay for the call.  If they were home and came to the phone, it was even more expensive than long distance.

You may have seen the Geico commercial on TV employing that strategy.  They just had a baby, but don't want to pay for a call, so he places a person-to-person call to Bob WeHadABabyItsABoy, and the guy on the other end of the line tells his wife "They had a baby, it's a boy."  We used to do the same thing when my husband traveled - when he got to his destination, he'd place a person-to-person call to himself at our number, and then I'd know he made it okay.  We didn't get to talk, but he got his message across.  I decided to employ that same technique to answer a burning family history question without having to empty my wallet on yet another newspaper subscription.

I already have two similar subscriptions, and through them I learned that my great-grandfather, P. C. Christensen, opened Bell Bakery in Huron, South Dakota sometime between October of 1908 and March of 1909.  I was hoping to learn more about exactly when the bakery opened, and how he came to be associated with his partner, Clarence Bell, both of them moving to Huron to open that bakery.  But neither newspaper website covered that crucial time in between those dates.  Newspaper Site #3 does.

Voila!  I decided to try the Bob WeHadABabyItsABoy technique, and did a search for Bell Bakery between October 1, 1908 and March 31, 1909.  I got numerous hits, with previews, for October of 1908.  Great news!  The bad news is that the previews aren't telling me a lot.  Some look like advertisements, but others are so vague... it does, however, narrow down the dates considerably.

However, my brilliant strategy is still going to end up costing me money.  There is an advertisement for Bell Bakery in the October 17, 1908 issue of the paper, and perhaps an article, I can't tell.  I have an article from one of the paid sites from October 29, stating that "City Bakery" had a fire, but it was minor and they intended to repair and continue.  The interesting thing is that both Bell Bakery and City Bakery were located at 340 Dakota Ave.  Did Bell Bakery purchase the City Bakery location after the fire?  If so, why is there overlap in the time frame?  Was Bell Bakery initially located somewhere else before purchasing the 340 Dakota site?

I might as well get off my wallet and subscribe to newspaper site #3.  Can't take it with you, right?

Reading Glued-in Postcards

It's always a thrill to discover a new photograph, such as the one of this lovely large home, printed as a postcard.   But how frustrating to turn it over and find writing - but due to paper glued on the back, it's impossible to read it. 

 

I could not even make out the postmark, which was especially frustrating.   My husband had a fantastic idea, which ended up solving the mystery.  All we needed was a bright, LED flashlight - 

The  card was postmarked Melrose, Minn., Oct. 1914, and was addressed to Casper J. Kluthe of Howell, South Dakota, and was from Henry Eikmeier, his brother-in-law.  It reads, "Melrose Oct 30 1914    Will be at Orient next Wednesday Nov 4th   Hope you will meet us

Yours

Henry Eikmeier"

Being able to put a date to this card also helped to date photographs from visits of the Eikmeier family to the Kluthe family; prior to being able to read this postcard, I was only able to guesstimate the dates within a few years.  In addition, I can add another date/place to the Eikmeier timeline.

I have a number of old photos and postcards that have been glued into albums, and the unfortunate part is that most of those albums had black paper rather than white, so this tip won't work for every situation.  But in this case, it saved the day.

Preserving old cassette tape recordings

Recently while cleaning my office (an adventure that deserves its own post) I ran across a tub of old cassette tapes that my mom gave me.  Most of them had belonged to my grandmother.   What a variety of tapes there were - my favorites were of my then three-year-old son singing nursery rhymes and telling stories, and another of my older son, who used to babble into a tape recorder instead of cleaning his room - he hated to write letters, and this is how he communicated with his great-grandparents.  There were also our kids' band concerts, a tape my grandmother made of children's songs in which she played on the piano and sang, as well as her funeral service and a recording she'd made of my husband's band from 30+ years ago, among others.  These cassettes are so old, and anyone who has ever dealt with this sight knows why I've been so uneasy about them.

My promise to myself when cleaning the office was that I'd start at the door and work my way around the mess - one item at a time, skipping nothing.  Many things were piled up in the office because I didn't know what to do with them, or I knew what I wanted to do but didn't know how to go about it.  I was about halfway through the room when I came upon the box of cassettes, which fell into the latter category.  I decided it was time for a learning experience.

It actually went easier and faster than I expected.  Typically, the motto "Anything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong" applies to me!  But it was an impressively smooth process.

First, I needed software.  I downloaded the free Audacity program (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) and installed it.  There were a couple of settings I needed to tweak for recording - first, I needed to set a Recording Device - I clicked the drop down arrow and chose "Line In."

Second, I selected a Recording Level.  I used the slider to set the level at about 75% first - and adjusted after doing a test recording.  I found mine worked best at 100%.

 

Next, I got my hardware ready - a computer, a Walkman, and a plug.   The whole setup, unimpressive as it is, looks like this:

I used a stereo plug (3.5mm) with two male ends.  I plugged one end into the headphone jack of the Walkman, and the other end into the computer, using the Line-In port with the "sound waves" icon - caution!  Do NOT use the headphone or microphone jack for this - I understand you can damage your computer by doing so.  Because this was new to me, I decided to use my old Vista computer rather than my newer one with all my genealogy files on it.

Next, I selected a cassette tape and put it in the Walkman.  On the Audacity screen, I hit the "record" button, and pushed "play" on the Walkman.  I recorded about 10-15 seconds, then hit "stop" on Audacity and on the Walkman, and played back the digitized file by hitting "Play" on Audacity.   My initial recording was hard to hear, so I adjusted the Recording Level on Audacity, and turned up the volume on the Walkman as well, and made a few more test recordings until I was pleased with the results.

Record/Stop/Play buttons on Audacity

When I was ready to being recording in earnest, I created a new file by going to File --> New in Audacity.  I got a new window.  I noted whether or not the cassette was a 60 minute or 90 minute, and planned to be sitting there when the tape stopped so I could stop Audacity as well - it will keep right on going if you don't, resulting in file sizes way bigger than you might want.  I hit "play" on the Walkman and "Record" in Audacity.  

When the file was done recording and I had hit "stop" in Audacity, I saved the digitized file by going to File-->Export Audio.  Using "Save Project" results in saving as an Audacity format rather than a sound file, which is great if you need to further tweak your results before exporting as a sound file.  But if you want just the sound file, go with Export Audio.

A dialog box comes up which allows adding additional information such as artist and track, which is optional.  Then "Ok."  The file then saves the recording as a .WAV sound file with whatever name you give it, and in the directory of the user's choice.

Audacity does a lot more than this - I found several tutorials on YouTube that showed what could be done with the program.  Someday I'll learn more, but for now, this does just what I need it to do to preserve those old cassettes in a better format.

Public domain photo of tape courtesy of www.sourcepics.com
Disclaimer:  This is what worked for me - but I'm no expert.  You are encouraged to read some of the many tutorials on the web to educate yourself on the process.  I have no affiliation with either Sony nor Audacity.  :)