Comments for sursumcorda.salemsattic.com/post/calvary-catholic-cemetery-st.-louis

Comment #4614

2016-08-12T01:34:43Z

Jerri - many, many thanks for your comment. I'm so sorry to be slow in responding; I was out of town and out of pocket as far as genealogy was concerned. I've now responded in more detail privately, by e-mail.

Please note that I've made a correction above, showing the north side of the Donohue monument instead of two copies of the transcription, an error I hadn't noticed until you and your sister caused me to look over this post again. Thanks!

Comment #4613

2016-06-08T17:52:41Z

I thoroughly enjoyed your page about Calvary cemetery. I am a descendant of Michael and Maria Donohue. Some of your information here fills in some blanks for me. I have other information including obituaries that may be helpful to you. My sister and I went to St. Louis a few years back and went to the archdiocesan offices. We were able to find a marriage certificate with the next generation back. I don't have it at my finger tips but could share that with you also. She went to Ireland the next year and did a little research there but was unable to find any conclusive information. I think she may have contacted you also. Her name is Jamie Ishmael. By the way, our line is still Catholic!

Jerri Decker

Comment #4612

2015-10-10T19:58:00Z

Thank you. I suppose I was not really considering the privacy angle because I assumed that much of this information was easily available, as you note.

Comment #4611

2015-10-10T01:45:55Z

I don't know all the ins and outs of the conventions, but here are my thoughts.

Back in the day when people writing genealogy books gathered much of their information by contacting as many relevant individuals as possible and asking them to send in their own data, it was clear that if someone returned the form, he didn't mind being included in the book. In any case, genealogical books had a very limited audience and an even more limited distribution.

Now, interest in family trees has exploded, and personal genealogical information, accurate and inaccurate, is easy to find. The more elusive privacy becomes, the more some people freak out when they find their information where they don't expect to see it. I completely sympathize with that point of view, though I also realize that the kind of information genealogists are likely to publish (names, and birth/marriage/death dates and places) are already a lot more readily available online than people like to think. It used to be only famous people who had to consider their lives an open book; with the Internet, everyone is famous.

Fear of identity theft is already shutting down traditional sources of information for genealogists, as access to official vital record information, even of dead people, becomes more restrictive. Already access to medical information has become almost impossible.

It's probably 80% courtesy and 20% fear of being sued that undergirds the convention for genealogists. Plus, this profession/hobby, more than most, relies on cooperation and sharing of data. You don't want to get people angry with you when they might have information you need.

Comment #4610

2015-10-10T00:37:43Z

"…it is considered bad form to use the names of living people in online genealogical work…"

This seems unusual to me. As I have no experience with genealogical work, online or otherwise, could you please elaborate on this protocol? Specifically, why is it considered bad form and does it also apply to offline work? Thanks!

Comment #4609

2015-10-05T20:42:05Z

I knew I could count on you, Stephan, to think about the numbers. Indeed, that was an error on my part, which I've now corrected. The census taker had the date as "Dec 1891," which is strange enough considering he did have her age in 1900 as 38. However, it may not be the census taker himself who was smoking the strong tobacco: a census-taker's notes were transferred into the record by someone even more anonymous, and probably just in an "in the eye, out the hand without passing through the brain" kind of way. Certainly in this case it was. Just one more reason why census data, while it can be extremely useful, can't always be counted on. I almost said, "depended on," but where would be the fun in that?

Comment #4608

2015-10-05T20:12:59Z

That 1900 census taker must either have had some strong tobacco in his pipe or have made the acquaintance of Emmett "Doc" Brown. Born 1991, aged 38?