Most Popular Date: November 20

Nancy over at My Ancestors and Me posted today about a popular date in her database, which just so happened to be today's date, October 9. She had 5 relatives who were either born, married, or died on this date. She asked her readers if they had a popular date as well. I had no idea, so I decided to do a little research.

First, I ran the Birthday and Anniversary List in RootsMagic. I saved it as a text file and then opened it in Excel. To separate the day/month from the year, I did some text-to-column work. Then I did a Pivot Table to see how many names showed up for each date. Of course, this did not have the death information included, so I created a custom report for the death dates of individuals in RootsMagic and then opened that in Excel as well. Creating the report was a little tricky because I had to figure out a way to tell the program to only include people with a full death date (i.e. not just a year). In the Search for Information box, I chose Death value is greater than or equal to 01 Jan. This seemed to do the trick.

My database has 4,149 people in it. The most popular date was....November 20! There were 19 birth, marriage, and death events that occurred on November 20. The second most popular date was March 5, with 14 birth and marriage events.

George HARGRAVE and Anastasie Aspasie TRAHAN were married 20 Nov 1829.
Edmond TRAHAN was born 20 Nov 1832.
Ursin Theomile PREJEAN and Adenysa LEGER were married 20 Nov 1854.
Wesley FINKLE died 20 Nov 1887.
Jules DOMINGUE and Adolphine BEGNAUD were married 20 Nov 1890.
Charles H. CHATTERSON was born 20 Nov 1891.
Lloyd Jay BASNEY was born 20 Nov 1892.
William J. CHATTERSON and Euphemia T. SPABEN were married 20 Nov 1900.
Felix TRAHAN was born 20 Nov 1901.
Jesse WARD and Rosanna Alphonsine PLONKEY were married 20 Nov 1909.
Leon A. CHATTERSON and Alma Albertine PLONKEY were married 20 Nov 1909.
Lillia TRAHAN was born 20 Nov 1912.
Eunice E. PEMBERTON was born 20 Nov 1919.
R.H.G. (living) was born 20 Nov 1945.
Cheryl Lee BERGERON was born 20 Nov 1947.
Chester Franklin FINK and Patricia U. KELLEY were married 20 Nov 1965.
G.A.P. and B.J.A. (living) were married 20 Nov 1971.
G.E.H. (living) was born 20 Nov 1978.
A.J.P. (living) was born 20 Nov 2007.

I will post more on each of these people, at least the non-living ones, at a later date. It will probably be several posts over a period of time. Thanks again, Nancy, for the idea!

Semi-Random Birthday Research

I decided to do some quick random research today by looking for everyone in my database who was born on today's date, October 2, and list all the facts I have so far about them. I found two people. The first was Ruth CARNAHAN. The other was a living person, so I will not post anything about him here.

So, what do I know about Ruth?

1) She was the sister of my great-grandfather's brother-in-law. Ruth's older brother, Leo Clayton CARNAHAN, married Madeline Marion PEMBERTON, the younger sister of my great-grandfather, John Vital PEMBERTON. Ruth and Leo were the children of Joseph Lee CARNAHAN and Anna L. SCHEFFLER.

2) Ruth E. CARNAHAN was listed in the 1930 census in the home of her parents, Lee and Anna L. CARNAHAN, at 1518 Miller St. in Port Huron, St. Clair, Michigan. Ruth's age was given as 1y 5m in 1930. This would put her birth date roughly around Oct 1928. She was the youngest child of Lee and Anna. Her birthplace was given as Michigan. Her father was a truck driver for an oil refinery. 

3) Her brother Leo's obituary from 1984 lists her as Ruth GARDNER. Her residence was given as Port Huron.

2) I found a Ruth Y. GARDNER in the SSDI who was born 2 Oct 1928 and died 2 Sep 2010. Her last residence was given as Port Huron.

As I wrote this, I decided to see if I could find an obituary for the Ruth in the SSDI to see if she was in fact the same Ruth as the sister of Leo CARNAHAN. Sure enough, I was able to verify this at Legacy.com. Her obituary was published in the Times Herald in Port Huron from 3 Sep 2010 to 5 Sep 2010. If you would like to see Ruth's obituary, along with a picture, click here.

If you want further info about Ruth or her siblings, my cousin Steve CARNAHAN, son of Leo and Madeleine, has more info in his online family tree at Ancestry.com. Happy Hunting!

Happy Blogoversary to Me!

Well, I started this blog four years ago today. Wow! Time flies. I wrote a lot at first, but then over the last three years, I kind of slacked off, only writing about once a month or so. I am trying very hard this year to get back on the wagon and post twice weekly. So far, so good! Thanks to all my readers for your support over the years!

Another exciting thing is that I now share my blogoversary with my cousin Brynnlee's birthday! She is two years old today. Happy Birthday, Brynnlee!

Photo courtesy of Cousin Paige

Happy Blogoversary to Me! (And Happy Birthday to Lee-Lee Too!)

My blog is three years old today! Wow! How time flies. I'm not really sure why I started blogging. It was sort of an impulsive decision. It wasn't something I thought about for a long time. I don't even remember how I came to know that genealogy blogs existed. I think I was searching for something on Google and up popped a blog result. Within 24 hours, I decided to start my own blog too. I think what I was most excited about was that this blog I found was written by someone who was under 40. Until this time, I thought I was the only person under 40 who was interested in genealogy (now that I'm 30, 40 is not looking so old anymore). In fact, I thought I was the only person interested in genealogy (other than my little cousin, Paige, and my older cousin, Stacy). My family members and friends were not always as excited as I was, so I immediately felt right at home in the geneablogging community, where people were excited about my finds.

Now some of you may be wondering who Lee-Lee is. I didn't realize it at the time, but my little cousin Brynnlee (aka Lee-Lee), was born on my blogoversary last year! Happy First Birthday, Lee-Lee!

Photo courtesy of Lee-Lee's mom, Cousin Paige mentioned above

I fully admit that I stole this pic from Paige's Facebook page. I was too lazy to go get my camera out of my husband's backpack with the pictures we took of Lee-Lee at Christmas.

Happy Birthday, Hope!

First Birthday, 1987

Happy Birthday, Taylor!

May you always dance like no one is watching. Can't believe you are already 16!

SNGF: The Night You Were Born

It's time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun again. Our mission from Randy at GeneaMusings is as follows:

1) What day of the week were you born? Tell us how you found out.

I was born on a Saturday. I found this out when I was a kid because my mom had a poster that she had ordered telling me about the day I was born and all the events that had happened on that day in the past, as well as famous people who shared my birthday.

2) What has happened in recorded history on your birth date (day and month)? Tell us how you found out, and list five events (I'm going to list more).

I was born 25 Apr 1981.

a) On the day I was born, President Reagan's daughter, Maureen, married her third husband, Dennis Revell. He was only 28, but she was 40 years old.

b) Ironically, Boris Yeltsin was elected on my birthday in 1993, and later had his funeral on my birthday in 2007.

c) In 1979, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt went into effect, and in 1982, Israel completed it's Sinai withdrawal according to Camp David Accords.

d) In 1976, there were elections in Vietnam for a National Assembly to reunite the country. Also in 1976, Portugal adopted its constitution and still celebrates April 25 as Freedom Day.

e) The Guillotine was first used on my birthday in 1792. Yikes!

f) The St. Lawrence Seaway opened linking the Atlantic and the Great Lakes in 1959.

g) In 1898, the Spanish-American War was declared over Cuba.

h) In 1944, the United Negro College Fund was incorporated.

i) In 1933, the U.S. and Canada dropped the Gold Standard.

j) In 1956, Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" hit #1.

I found all of this out from a combination of brainyhistory.com and Wikipedia.

3) What famous people have been born on your birth date? Tell us how you found out, and list five of them.

a) Renee Zellwegger b. 25 Apr 1969 in Katy, TX

b) Jason Lee (Earl from My Name Is Earl TV series) b. 25 Apr 1970 in Orange, CA

c) Hank Azaria (voice of Moe on The Simpsons) b. 25 Apr 1964 in Forest Hills, NY

d) Ella Fitzgerald b. 25 Apr 1917 in Newport News, VA

e) Al Pacino b. 25 Apr 1940 in East Harlem, NY

I also found out about these from Wikipedia and brainyhistory.com.

Happy Birthday, Pip!

Clifford Robert Drouillard

(My maternal grandfather)

January 10, 1932 - September 7, 2009

Pip on the shores of Lake Huron

Me and Pip, c. 1981

Pip reading to Taylor, c. 1997

Pip and Paige, c. 1991

Hope and Pip, Dec 2008, just after Mim's funeral

SNGF: Birthdays

Randy over at GeneaMusings has challenged us to more Saturday Night Genealogy Fun (SNGF):

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Is there a person in your genealogy database that has the same birth date that you do? If so, tell us about him or her - what do you know, and how is s/he related to you?

2) For bonus points, how did you determine this? What feature or process did you use in your software to work this problem out? I think the Calendar feature probably does it, but perhaps you have a trick to make this work outside of the calendar function.

My birthday is April 25. The first person I can think of right offhand that shares my birthday is my 1st cousin once removed, Dee. Her mom and my maternal grandfather are siblings.

After a search of my RootsMagic database, I found two more people.

The first person is my great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Lesperance. He was born 25 Apr 1840, according to an online transcription of baptisms from St. Anne's Catholic Church in Detroit. I still need to verify that this is my Charles. Charles is the great-great-grandfather of my cousin, Dee, mentioned above.

The next person is on my dad's side of the family and is my second cousin three times removed, Helena Trahan. She was born 25 Apr 1910. She was the daughter of Jean Trahan and Bernadine Bernard. Jean was the son of Pierre Marie Trahan and Cidalise Julienne Robinson. Pierre was the son of Delphin Stainville Trahan, my fourth great-grandfather, and a slave named Fanny Becker.

To find these people, I went to Search>Person List>Find>Birth date contains April and Birth date contains 25. Of course, I found instances of people born April 1925 and such, but this was the best way I could figure to do the search.

In my old Family Tree Maker database, I found some more people:

1) Rosalie Hidalgo, b. 25 Apr 1850, my fourth-great-grandaunt (younger sister of my fourth-great-grandmother, Marie Calice Hidalgo)

2) Jean Clete Marcelin Domingue, b. 25 Apr 1828, my fifth-great-granduncle (younger brother of my fifth-great-grandmother, Maria Domingue)

3/4) Thomas Webb, b. 25 Apr 1795, and John Webb, b. 25 Apr 1804, my fourth-great-granduncles (brothers of my fourth-great-grandmother, Sarah Webb)

5) Joseph Thibodeau, b. 25 Apr 1739, my 7th-great-granduncle (older brother of my 7th-great-grandfather, Paul Thibodeau)

6) Anne Savoie, b. 25 Apr 1734, 7th-great-grandaunt (sister of my 7th-great-grandfather, Francois Savoie, and my 7th great-grandmother, Marguerite Savoie)

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Michael David Trahan, c. 1956

You still look the same!

Pemberton Twins Turn 50 on June 12

Happy Birthday, Mom and Uncle Mark!

Happy Birthday - Feb 13

Happy birthday to Melvin Edward DISTELRATH. Melvin was the younger brother of the second husband of my great-grandaunt, Alvina Florence PEMBERTON. Melvin was born on 13 Feb 1925 in St. Clair, St. Clair, Michigan. Sadly, he died when struck by lightning at the age of 14. He died on his father's farm on Trumble Road in St. Clair on 27 May 1939. He had been working on an old automobile when it started raining. He ran into the woods and was found 18 hours later by his father and his older brother, Arnold, my great-grandaunt's husband. He attended school at St. Mary's in St. Clair and was an altar boy and member of the choir there. He is buried at St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in St. Clair. See his obituary here.

Happy Birthday - Feb 12

I know this is a day late, but better late than never!


Happy Birthday to my first cousin Stacy! She is the oldest grandchild of John Peter Pemberton, Clifford Robert Drouillard, and Violet Mae Currie. She takes care of the family scrapbooking, and I take care of the genealogy. And she helps me take care of the genealogy too sometimes. And by the way, Stacy is fourth cousins with Madonna through her dad's side of the family! Stacy's paternal grandmother and Madonna's maternal grandmother had the same great-grandparents, Eustache Demers and Zoe Vezina.


Happy Birthday to Uncle Dennis! Gotta love this pic!

Another happy birthday shoutout goes to Ralph Allen HARTMAN. He is the great-grandfather of my sister's new husband. Ralph was born on 12 Feb 1890 in Eureka, Greenwood, Kansas, to Cyrus Thompson HARTMAN and Lola NICHOLS. He married Inez SEE, daughter of George Robert SEE and Frances Angeline ROSS, on 20 Apr 1914 in Shannon, Montier, Missouri. They had four children, including my brother-in-law's paternal grandmother, who is still alive today at age 91. Ralph died 6 Sep 1930 in Monroe County, Illinois. He is buried in Rolla, Phelps, Missouri in Rolla Cemetery.