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Staryn Wagner Home Movies

This is a 15-minute compilation of some of the home movies of Staryn Wagner taken by his dad Will Wagner. I've pieced together multiple clips and stills. It's so wonderful that he took and kept these videos. I couldn't include all the footage (then again, how many minutes of crawling do you need to see?), but this gives a nice sampling. I did no color correction. They are as they were transferred. Warning: Will appears…
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No Relation

KGU Pearl Harbor Broadcast

Three hours into the Pearl Harbor attack, a KGU reporter climbed to the roof of the Advertiser building with a microphone in one hand and telephone in the other to broadcast a transoceanic telephone call to NBC radio headquarters in New York City. Chuck Moudy may have been on that very roof at the time of the broadcast. "Reporter: Hello, NBC. Hello, NBC. This is KGU in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am speaking from the roof…
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No Relation

Richardson Pan-American Highway Expedition 1940-1941

Check out this fun film of the Richardson Expedition from 1941 that gives a good sense of the magnitude of Chuck Moudy’s journey into Costa Rica. It is more likely he did not drive all the way in, and instead caught a boat up the coast. Watch the first part, and then skip to 29:40 for southern Costa Rica, which was impassible by car just two years earlier in 1941. Footage of the Panama Canal…
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Bill Russell

Bill Russell and Noel Rockmore

Bill Russell was one of Rockmore's favorite subjects from the early 60s until Bill's death in 1992. He was also a friend, mentor, musical companion and fellow documenter of the French Quarter. Bill Russell was always game for an adventure and this time it is with his friend Noel Rockmore to The Melrose Plantation. Rockmore, who was not always up for an adventure outside the French Quarter, would do several sketches at Melrose Plantation. He puts…
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music

Generations [song]

By ©Diana Thornton I was a regular at O'Flaherty's, Danny O'Flaherty's pub in the French Quarter of New Orleans. O'Flaherty's was as close as one can come to a real Irish pub here in the states. Danny and his brother Patrick both spoke Gaelic and may of the people who worked and frequented were Irish, Scottish, Welsh, etc. My great grandmother was a Graham. The DNA says I'm 24% Irish or Scottish. In 1993, Danny…
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GENEALOGY HOW-TO

[TIP] Transcribing old documents

Do you have lots of old scribbled letters and other documents that need to be transcribed? Not a great typer? Use your phone! There are several free dictation phone apps that allow you to read aloud and it will transcribe. They're amazingly accurate. I recently tried "Dictate" (free version has ads, but they're not too distracting and the premium version might be worth it if you're using it a lot). Dragon Dictation is another one.…
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Behringer

Christina Behringer Strebe

In 1891 my great grandfather William Weiler came to America from Germany at the age of 14. He went directly to Lafayette, Indiana to stay with his aunt Christina. This is excerpted from Reverend William Weiler's autobiography   Photos found on Ancestry - originally shared by Jodi Austin Christina (maiden name Behringer) was William’s mother’s next older sister who had come to the United States in 1873 at the age of 26. Her husband, Heinrich…
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