Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com has a free 14-day trial so I'm doing some deep dives.

Just found out my Great Uncle Norman (mom's dad's brother) received the Purple Heart after being killed aboard Intrepid on 11/25/44. He was 23.








It's been fun to understand some of the backstories which I know/knew little of. I was born and raised in L.A. but my roots go back to Indiana and Missouri and Cleveland. And then there's the weird New Castle thing. Norman Breskin above was born in New Castle Indiana, and my dad's dad was born in New Castle Pa.

Connecting the dots of grandmothers and grandfathers has been quite illuminating.

Anyway, has anyone here dove into Ancestry? It's addicting. I have 12 more days of free tree building but I know it will be hard to give it all up and I might splurge for a year's subscription.

 

My holiday gift to myself was a membership. I had one years ago but didn’t have the time to really dive in. One of the fun things I found was that both of my grandfathers registered for the WWI draft on the same day in different boroughs of NYC 45 years or so before my parents met. It’s completely random and doesn’t solve any mysteries, but I thought it was a fun coincidence.

 

Do NOT do the DNA thing.

You might get falsely accused of something someday. Fuck that.

 

Looks like Norman lived very close to my dad. He grew up near Angel's Flight and where the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was eventually built. We drove past Echo Park on the way to Dodger Stadium one time and his eyes lit up. He admitted to going skinny dipping in Echo Park Lake one night. He went to L.A. Poly High (Tom Bradley and Jane Wyman were classmates), which became L.A. Trade Tech after it moved to the Valley.

 

One of the Breskin families came from Russia in 1905 and '06 and settled on Stanton Aveue in Pittsburgh.

Which now gives me birthright to go off on the Pirates and Steelers with oopian-like psychosis.

 

Great-Great-Something Bere had to take the family and get the fuck away from Nicholas II, emperor of all the Russias.

 

One of my best buds from undergrad asked me if I wanted to take part in a study that tracks the presence of Neanderthal DNA in people with certain markers. I asked her if this would get me automatic membership in the Doom Patrol.

 

For a long time, I was told that the famous Record Rendezvous in Cleveland began with my great-grandfather or one of his kids.

What actually happened -- it appears for now -- is that my great-grandfather's first wife married another man and one of their kids was Leo Minsk. I think.

If this is the case, then this ...

Leo M. Mintz
Born 10 October 1911
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Died 4 November 1976 (aged 65)
Cleveland, Ohio, US
Nationality American
Occupation record store owner, music promoter
Known for Key role in naming and marketing early rock and roll

Leo M. Mintz (10 October 1911 – 4 November 1976) was a record store owner in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, who was instrumental in the early establishment, marketing and promotion of rock and roll music.

He was born in Cleveland.[1] In 1938, while working as assistant manager at an army surplus store, he decided to set up a record shop, Record Rendezvous, on Prospect Avenue in Cleveland, on the edge of the city's black community.[2][3] Initially, this sold used jukebox records, which Mintz purchased through regular visits to a warehouse in Columbus. At the store, he was among the first to put records in boxes which customers could browse through, rather than having to ask for songs by name. He also provided listening booths so that customers could hear the records before purchasing them, and encouraged in-store promotional appearances by recording artists. The store became known as the "'Vous".[4]

By about 1950, Mintz noticed an increase in the number of white teenagers sifting through his boxes, listening and dancing to rhythm and blues records, such as those by Ruth Brown, Wynonie Harris and Fats Domino, which had been marketed to African Americans.[2] However, they rarely purchased them because of the stigma attached by some to "race records".[5] He persuaded radio presenter Alan Freed to play the records, initially as novelties on WAKR-AM in Akron, and then in 1951 on a new radio show which Mintz helped him to secure at WJW-AM in Cleveland.

Mintz sponsored Freed's radio programme, The Moondog Show, and supplied many of the records played. Several sources claim that Mintz, rather than Freed as is usually suggested, was the first to use the term "rock and roll" - a phrase quite commonly used in the records - to describe the music and, in particular, to promote it to white audiences.[3][4] According to one source, one night while he was on air, Freed turned to Mintz and said, "Leo, this music is so exciting, we’ve got to call it something." Mintz replied, "Alan, you are rolling tonight...you're rocking and rolling...call it 'rock and roll.'"[4] Mintz also sponsored Freed's Moondog Coronation Ball in March 1952, often regarded as the first rock'n'roll concert.[3]
Freed left Cleveland for New York in 1954. Mintz expanded the chain of Record Rendezvous stores to five by the 1960s,[2] and continued to operate them until a few months before his death in 1976.

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But I'm still going to dig to see if I'm blood relations to the Minsks just to be able to say my family coined the term rock and roll.

 

So Leo is in the family. He's not blood but he married one of my great-grandfather's daughters (sister of my dad's father).

 

What I find also interesting here, is that the default clergy is "Reverend". It took 5 keystrokes to correct the pre-formatted 6 keystrokes. What a timesaver.

 

The 1940 census is interesting because my father is still listed as living in his grandparents' home in Berkley, Mich., instead of the house his parents eventually rented from the Wilbert Vault Co. The Berkley house was torn down for the "new" Berkley High School. The house on Woodingham Drive off Eight Mile still exists in Google Maps street view.

As far as DNA testing, my adopted sister was contacted last year by someone who was a possible match. With some hesitation, Lisa reached out and found out the details: Her father was attending the University of Florida (!) and her mother was a Clearwater High School senior who came up to a party for the weekend when they, um, exchanged information. I think she has chatted with her birth mom and some half-siblings, although my mom doesn't really feel comfortable talking about it.

Lisa was more interested in knowing medical histories than anything, but if it was me, I don't know whether I'd like to know the facts or not. She's my sister for 52 years, not my "adopted" sister.

 

I know my Pappy is not really related as he's my grandmother's second husband. My Dad's real father once threw my grandma down the stairs. And disowned my Dad. But he's the only Pappy I know. I do know his real first name was Adolph, and when he started in the railroad here, he told everyone "Just call me Al". So people assumed Albert. I have found proof of through ancestry. Amazing how back then what you were called, just became your name.