ExtremeGenes.com

Family History Radio

Home / Archives for revolution

Episode 149 – Photo Detective Maureen Taylor On IDing Unmarked Pictures / Just Who Was Molly Pitcher?

by

Molly Pitcher

Fisher opens the show welcoming two new radio affiliates in Maui, Hawaii, bring the total to 42! He also announces the introduction of the official Extreme Genes newsletter, “The Weekly Genie.” David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org, then joins the segment. David shares a terrific announcement about MyHeritage.com. Hear about what they’ve done now to make your research journey easier. Next, David notes the upcoming service effort, “Finding the Fallen,” from BillionGraves and the Boy Scouts. Listen to the podcast to find out how to be a part of it. Fisher and David then talk about the odd story of Mick Jagger’s upcoming fatherhood… two years after he became a great grandfather! (And he’s not the only Rolling Stone to be having children these days!) David then shares the name of the newest holder of the title “Oldest Person in America.” Who is she and how old is she? Find out on the podcast. David also will tell you about an upcoming display of the hair of several of our nation’s forefathers, along with another Tech Tip and NEHGS free user database.

In segment two (starts at 11:08), Fisher visits with “The Photo Detective,” Maureen Taylor. Maureen has made a career (and quite a name for herself) out of identifying unmarked photographs. How can you do the same? Maureen shares some of her secrets. Maureen has also opened a site for posting unknown photos and categorizing them. Catch how you can benefit from Maureen’s efforts, and how you can help identify photos that others cannot.

Next (starts at 24:45) Fisher talks with NEHGS Senior Researcher, Andrew Krea, about the incredible legend of “Molly Pitcher,” known for bringing water to the soldiers of the Battle of Monmouth in the Revolution, as well as manning the cannons! Was she real, a composite figure, or a just a myth? Andrew has done some research into that and reveals his opinion as to who the real “Molly Pitcher” likely was. Wait until you hear her story!

Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com then returns to talk preservation. When it comes to protecting original materials or digitized copies, Tom shows week after week that there’s a lot to know.

That’s all this week on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show!

Transcript for Episode 149

Host: Scott Fisher with guest David Allen Lambert

Segment 1 Episode 149 (00:30)

Fisher: This show just keeps spreading out! Hey, it’s Fisher here, on the program where we shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall out. It’s Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show. And, very excited to now be heard in Maui, Hawaii, on KAOI AM and FM. Got to give a little shout out to John Detz and his team there. So proud to be part of their great weekend lineup in Maui! A lot of great family history of course, in Hawaii. Well, welcome to the show! We’ve got a lot of great things going on today. Maureen Taylor is going to be here a little bit later on, in about eight minutes. She is the Photo Detective. She can take your unmarked photos, somebody you don’t even know who it belongs to, right?  And just by looking at a hat or maybe a hemline, or something about the photograph  itself, she can help you figure out who that is a picture of. It’s going to be a great interview coming up later on in the show.  And then, after that, we’re going to talk to Andrew Krea, he’s a Senior Researcher at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. And, with all the recognition of the Revolutionary War going on this month, we thought we’d talk to him about the legendary Molly Pitcher. Real person? A conglomeration of several? Of course, the story revolves around a woman who helped the troops in the Battle of Monmouth, June 28th, 1778, bringing pitchers of water, and also firing cannons at the enemy. He’s done a little research to kind of figure out who this person might have actually been. We’ll have that for you later on in the show. But right now, let’s check in with Boston and my good friend the Chief Genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org, it’s David Allen Lambert. Hello, David.

David: Greetings from Beantown Fish, how you’re doing this week?

Fisher: Awesome! Very excited by the way to have started our Weekly Genie newsletter. And this is a way for people to get to know us, the personalities on the show a little bit more. Learn a few more things about doing your family history research, and also link to some great interviews of the past and the present week that you might not have heard before.

David: Great! Well, I hope I can put in some surprises in the newsletter too, and keep the readers informed.

Fisher: Well looking forward to having you be a part of it.

David: Well, you know as Chief Genealogist there are a couple of other people with that title, and one is my good friend Daniel Horowitz, who is with MyHeritage.com, who gave me some exciting new news. If you’re a MyHeritage user you may know about “Super Search.” Well, a new function is called “Super Search Alerts.” So when you originally did your input and you got your matches, you didn’t get anything? Well now your information is already there, Super Search Alerts will alert you when a match comes up. So this is a great new advantage for MyHeritage users. One of the most interesting things in recent years are apps that are made for your smartphone, and of course, for genealogists, there are plenty of them. One of them that I like is the Billion Graves app that allows you to go take a photograph of a gravestone, have it uploaded. The GPS is fabulous! So if you’re a user of that I would say, “Why don’t you volunteer this weekend?” In conjunction with the Boy Scouts of America, they are starting a project on July 30th all day called “Finding the Fallen.” They want you to go to your local and national cemeteries using the BillionGraves app. And you can go out and capture the images and locations of gravestones of America’s veterans. So I think this is a wonderful way of spending time with your family. Get out there with the app and capture some history.

Fisher: Yes. Boy, that sounds like a great service project!

David: Hey, I want to give an early birthday wish to Mick Jagger from the Rolling Stones who’ll be having a birthday coming up this week. I don’t know if you know this, but two years ago he became a great grandfather.

Fisher: Yeah, 2014. He’s 73 years young this week, and he’s got more news.

David: Oh that he does. Sometime next year that great grandchild will have a new great uncle or great aunt because Mick’s girlfriend is expecting a baby in 2017!

Fisher: Yeah. She’s 29, and so Mick’s going to be a dad again, two years after having a great grandkid. This is unbelievable, has this ever happened before?

David: Probably in some of the ceded houses of Europe in the Middle Ages.

Fisher: [Laughs] It’s almost Biblical, don’t you think!

David: I definitely think so, and this kind of leads me to my next news story.

Fisher: Oh no, wait a minute, before you leave the Stones.

David: Yup, okay.

Fisher: Ronnie Wood, two months ago had twins.

David: Ah!

Fisher: So it’s like the Stones are starting all over again.

David: Oh my goodness! A rolling stone gathers no moss, I guess! [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: So in other news… Recently in Worcester, Massachusetts, Goldie Michelson was the oldest American. Now the title goes to Adele Dunlap, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, who is now the oldest person in America. Born on December 12th, 1902. She likes to lie about her age so when they asked her how it feels to be a 113, she replied, “No, I’m 104!”

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: Maybe she could say she’s some fraction of 29.

Fisher: Yeah, right.

David: Well it makes sense to go from Goldie to locks.

Fisher: Yeah. [Laughs]

David: And if you ever wondered who had the best hair back in the colonial period, George Washington, John Adams? Now you can find out, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University is putting on display the hair of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson and their museum, presidential archives, letters, hair, and fossils exhibit. That’s in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and you can see it through July 29th.

Fisher: Sounds like fun!

David: Now my next Tech Tip kind of ties into social media, but it’s also an old fashioned low tech tip if you will.

Fisher: Hmm.

David: I use genealogical programs, and one of the ones I use is Roots Magic. And I found that as I update the family genealogy this summer, I’ve been adding in contact information. I add an email address and the social media link to their Facebook page, their old fashioned mailing address.

Fisher: What?!

David: Yeah! Can you believe, snail mail is something that I would want to collect. But think about it, it’s a genealogical step, where were they living? It’s a residence, we don’t have phone books anymore, the censuses are done every ten years. Why not ask people where they’re living? And then of course if you mail them a copy, it’s also a nice way to keep in touch, especially during the holidays. I mean the old fashioned traditional holiday cards.

Fisher: You mean through the mail?!

David: The mail, yeah. Remember you lick the envelope and put a stamp on it, there’s a little blue box.

Fisher: Right, yes. I recall that.

David: The NEHGS free guest user database this week are three towns in Vermont from the 18th and 19th century, the towns of Dover, Fairfax, and Hardwick. As always, you can get a free user database account by just going to AmericanAncestors.org. Well, that’s about all I have for this week, Fish, I’ll talk to you next week. And enjoy your summer.

Fisher: All right. Thanks so much David, always great talking to you! And coming up next, we’re going to talk to Maureen Taylor, she is the Photo Detective. How do you tell what era a photo was from or maybe who it was? She’s going to give you a few tips on that, coming up in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show. This segment has been brought to you by 23andMe.com DNA.

Segment 2 Episode 149 (11:10)

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Maureen Taylor

Fisher: Hey welcome back to Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. It is Fisher here, your Radio Roots Sleuth. This segment is brought to you by LegacyTree.com. You know over my three-plus decades of researching my family, one of the joys of becoming the point person for pretty much every branch of the family not only on my side but on my wife’s, is that periodically people send me stuff. Photographs, old photographs of all types, CDVs, the cabinet cards, ambrotypes.  I mean you go through the entire list. But often these things are not identified. And that’s where my next guest comes in. She is the Photo Detective. She is Maureen Taylor, very well known within the industry. Maureen welcome to Extreme Genes. This is long overdue. How are you?

Maureen: I’m good. How are you? Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Fisher: I am just delighted to have you. And you know, I was looking at your website and how you go about things and obviously everything about genealogy is detective work. And really to me that is the fun and the joy and the excitement because anything that you actually find, you really get to keep forever. But often times we come across these photographs with no names on them and no way of identifying who they might be and this is what you’ve been doing now for some time. Give us a little idea about how you got started in this.

Maureen: Oh gee! [Laughs] Ancient history. But really I credit my mother because she always showed us the family photos. And I don’t have a lot of old family photos, that’s my big secret. I have a lot of early 20th century pictures but not many before that. But she used to drag out the boxes and keep us entertained and tell us stories about these people. And you know I didn’t think anything of it, and I became interested in genealogy as a young kid. And then I got out of college and realized that “Hey, you can actually put the two things together!”

Fisher: Um hmm.

Maureen: That family history and photography go together quite well. And no one was really doing that when I started the photography detective business. Now there’s an awful lot of people who understand the importance of that picture and the power of it to change your family history direction. It’s a fascinating thing. So someone sends me a photo and they find out from one of my consoles they’re 15 minutes in length and I joke “Give me 15 minutes and I’ll change the direction of your research.” And we look at those family photographs and I ask them a series of questions and the questions are things like, “What do you remember about the picture?” And there’s always something that pops into someone’s head that they haven’t remembered until just that moment.

Fisher: Hmm.

Maureen: Which makes it really exciting because they say, “Well, in fact, the first time I saw that picture it was at so and so’s house. And we were doing this. And they told me that.” Or, “Oh wait a minute, I think I have that piece of jewelry in my jewelry box.” We talk about it and we talk about their family history and nine times out of ten it fits together quite nicely.

Fisher: Quickly.

Maureen: Then a list of people these pictures can be, this is when they were taken, based on what people are wearing, the family history, the details in the picture, and what other research turns up in the process. So in photographs, it’s so important for genealogy as we all know. I was working on a case just last week and I was double checking the person’s research because that’s part of the service, and I was looking at their research and I said “Ha! Let me just hack around online and see if I can find any new information,” because there’s new documents all the time.  And what do you know? I broke a thirty year brick wall.

Fisher: Ooh! [Laughs] You were probably as excited as she was.

Maureen: I called her up immediately and I said, “You have to check my work.” Because I can’t imagine, this is a very accomplished genealogist. She’s done this for a very long time. I said, “How could I have broken this case when you’ve worked on it for years and years?” And that’s what genealogy is all about. That is a pay it forward moment.

Fisher: Don’t you think sometimes we put blinders on ourselves, though? We start making assumptions in the past that, “Oh I can’t find it.” And then we’re just not looking, in the same way, as we would as if it were a fresh case.

Maureen: Oh exactly. I do it myself.

Fisher: Sure.

Maureen: We’ve all done it. You get a mindset that it isn’t out there, you can’t find it, you’ve looked and looked and looked, it might not be there, and then a fresh set of eyes says, “Did you notice that?”

Fisher: Yeah, right! [Laughs] Well let’s talk about some of the old 19th century photographs and some of the things that you’re able to do with those because I think that’s really quite fascinating to people. Styles changed even in that era much as they do today for both women and for men, and I know that’s an important part of how you identify unmarked photos.

Maureen: That’s right. You can’t overlook the fashion clues and there are details in every decade, sometimes within a specific year. You know if you think about what the fashion trends are right now today, they might not be the same fashion trend next year.

Fisher: Remember Nehru Jackets? I think they were “in” for like a week in 1967, right?

Maureen: [Laughs] I do, unfortunately. So this kind of thing, it changes quite a bit for men and for women. Now there are people who dress conservatively and so they may hold on to their favorite style clothing a little bit longer. And there are people who change their – young women particularly-  who change their fashion style to keep up with the times. So in terms of let’s say, 1890s, you can tell a lot about when a person, a women particularly, had her picture taken in the 1890s by the shape of her sleeve.

Fisher: Really?

Maureen: The size of it, the direction of it, because it’s always a puff.

Fisher: Well recently there was a story in the Smithsonian talking about how tuberculosis affected fashion back in the day, did you see that article?

Maureen: I did see it.

Fisher: And it just blew my mind because I guess the effects of tuberculoses actually affected a woman in a way that was deemed to be beautiful at that time. Pale, really skinny and wasting away [laughs] and so they built fashion also around it to keep the dresses off the floor so it wouldn’t pick up all the germs and then that affected the shoes and the style of shoes going into the early 20th century. Amazing!

Maureen: Exactly. Fashion doesn’t just pop out of nowhere. It’s an influence from whatever else is happening in society.

Fisher: And so do you have a list of things from each year that was unique to that particular time period? I’m sure the Civil War had special styles that were quite different from the 1870s even though as we might look back on it, it seems much the same period.

Maureen: I do. I have been working on photographs for a long time now so I have a lot of this information in my head. But I also have a pretty good library here in my office of all kinds of little bits and bobs about the history of photography and when photographers were in business, and fashion of course. I have many, many fashion encyclopedias in my office. There’s always something that I see in a picture that I may never have seen before.

Fisher: Sure. Well, we were talking off air before we came on about people who throw away old photographs because they can’t identify them, and what a physical sickness that brings on you when you just think about that. You are doing something about that with the Photo Detective Lost and Found. Tell us about that, and what people should be doing with their unidentified photos.

Maureen: Okay. So first off, three times in the last month three different individuals told me that they had either seen somebody throwing out their family photographs or after they met me they looked and they said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t realize that you found the clues in the pictures.”

Fisher: [Laughs]

Maureen: And they had tossed them as well. So I’m on this mission to bring photographs back into families. Especially if people aren’t interested in keeping them, please don’t throw them out. Please contact me before you do so and we’ll brainstorm some ideas on what you can do. So on Instagram, I have a new Instagram account or fairly new Instagram account, where I’m posting photographs from my own collection but I could easily post other people’s as well. And I may extend this into Facebook as well where I’m posting images that I have found that have a name on them. And there’s a lot of people that do this, it’s called an “Orphan Photo Movement.” But I’m using the hashtags in Instagram as a sort of index point, you know if you think about an old card catalog subject headings?

Fisher: Sure.

Maureen: So somebody could go in and search the hashtags for a particular surname and come up with a list of them that I’ve posted on Instagram. And then I’m dating all the photographs which is something that doesn’t always occur on some other websites. So I’m using my Photo Detective skills to also then reach out to those descendants of those individuals. So if you get an email from me that says, “By the way, I have a picture of your great grandparents.” It’s not a scam! [Laughs].

Fisher: How cool is that? So we go to the Photo Detective Instagram account?

Maureen: We go to Photo Detective Instagram, and I post I think three times week at this point, and all of those will eventually be featured on my website blog on MaureenTaylor.com.

Fisher: Okay.

Maureen: And they also go over to Pinterest Photo Detective and find some things.

Fisher: How about Flickr?

Maureen: I am not in Flickr.

Fisher: Okay, so Instagram and Pinterest?

Maureen: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Fisher: All right. She’s the Photo Detective, she’s Maureen Taylor. You can find out about her at MaureenTaylor.com. Once again, you’ve got the Photo Detective Lost and Found for your unmarked photos. You want to get them through to the Instagram account or through Pinterest or through Facebook. You’re all over the place.

Maureen: I am all over the place.

Fisher: [Laughs].

Maureen: Can I take one last pitch before we end?

Fisher: Please, yes.

Maureen: So on my blog on my website, which if you go to MaureenTaylor.com there’s a click where you can click on my blog, I have been working on some really complicated photo mysteries, and everybody out there, many of your listeners, may have a piece of information to help me solve this photo mystery. I now know that these women who were in the military or in the military in U.S. Army Air Corps, they were in Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery Alabama, but I do not know their names and I find it hard to believe that someone out there doesn’t recognize one of the women in those photographs. So please take a look, let me know if you recognize any of those faces.

Fisher: All right. Thanks so much Maureen. Hopefully, you’re going to get that solved and we can help a lot of other people solve their mysteries with their photographs at home. Great having you on!

Maureen: Thank you!

Fisher: And coming up next, of course, every family has a family legend that needs a little exploration. We have kind of a national family legend that we’re going to get into with Andrew Krea from NEHGS, the legend of Molly Pitcher, in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 3 Episode 149 (24:50)

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Andrew Krea

Fisher: You know, just a few weeks ago, it was the 238th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth in the Revolutionary War, June 28th 1778. Hi, it’s Fisher, and one of my ancestors, Samuel Pease who lived in nearby Freehold, New Jersey was a part of that. And as a result of looking into the Battle of Monmouth in my own studies, I ran across this incredible article in a blog, the Vita Brevis blog with the New England Historic Genealogical Society, from my next guest, Andrew Krea who is a Senior Researcher there. Andrew, how are you? Nice to have you on the show!

Andrew: Hi Fisher. Thanks so much. I’m very happy to be here.

Fisher: So you’ve been researching into one of the great sub stories of the Battle of Monmouth. And the Battle of Monmouth by the way was one of the final battles of the Revolution. It kind of put an end to British hopes of winning the war. And in the middle of all this was supposedly, theoretically, historically a woman. And she was nicknamed “Molly Pitcher.” Now Molly of course is a nickname for the given name of Mary, especially back in those times. So a lot of people think that her name may have actually been Mary something. And you decided to dig into this and see if you could actually put a name on this mythical person or this actual person who was out giving water to the soldiers and helping fire the cannons, supposedly dressed in men’s clothing. She was quite a woman. What can you add, by the way, to my description here, Andrew?

Andrew: I can add some things like, she smoked and chewed tobacco and swore like the best of them! [Laughs]

Fisher: Aha! Okay. [Laughs] So Molly Pitcher became really quite the legend and we still hear about her to his day. There are all kinds of illustrations of her, especially through the late 18th and into the 19th century. And I guess it’s been some kind of, shall we call it a mystery or debate as to her actual identity or is it simply a matter of she’s a conglomeration of several people who participated in the Battle of Monmouth that day?

Andrew: Yes, that is definitely the question. There’s many theories out there. I believe it’s just a conglomerate of various women. When I started looking into this, I found it fascinating that there are some actual women on file who were paid pensions by the local state and federal government.

Fisher: Wow!

Andrew: For service in the Revolutionary War. And I had no idea about that.

Fisher: I didn’t either. I’ve never run in anything like that.

Andrew: Yeah, it’s very few. I believe, in the sources I checked. Most people find maybe three to five women in the general New Jersey area that I happened to be researching, throughout the entire war that actually received pensions. But still, I didn’t even know two or three women. I didn’t even know about that at the time.

Fisher: Right. So you started digging into this to see if you could put a name on this individual. And what did you learn?

Andrew: I learned from, first of all, I want to say that I learned from an article written in 1999 by Emily J. Teipe. She has an article titled “Will the Real Molly Pitcher Please Stand Up” in Prologue magazine which is online at the National Archives website. And while reading her article, I learned that most researchers can boil it down to perhaps three different women that may have been Molly Pitcher, or, as we mentioned, it might be a conglomerate of all of them. The first is a woman named Mary Ludwig Hays. And the first name, Mary, as you mentioned earlier, Fisher, Molly is the nickname for that, so that lends credence to the fact that this could be the actual Molly Pitcher.

Fisher: Sure.

Andrew: She was the daughter of German immigrants and her husband was a captain in Francis Proctor’s company in the Pennsylvania artillery. Her husband was John Hays. So, because her husband was a captain and they didn’t have children at the time, she fought alongside her husband. And she has an official Revolutionary War record. She certainly participated in the Battle of Monmouth. She supplied soldiers with drinking water as you mentioned earlier. I believe that’s how she earned the nickname “Molly Pitcher” bringing pitchers of water to people.

Fisher: Sure.

Andrew: And supposedly there are reports that she may have received thanks directly from General George Washington. But that’s sort of more of a family lore type of situation.

Fisher: She was actually at Valley Forge too, right? She was camp follower there.

Andrew: Yes, good point. She collected an annual pension of forty dollars from the State of Pennsylvania. So this is a likely candidate. And also in my research when I wrote this blog post, some people commented on my blog post and happened to mention that there is a memorial right next to Mary Ludwig Hays’ gravestone. There’s a memorial to her remarking that she is Molly Pitcher.

Fisher: Fascinating.

Andrew: Anyone can put a memorial anywhere.

Fisher: Right. Sure.

Andrew: But it’s very interesting that all those facts just come together. So the second woman who Molly Pitcher may be was a woman named Margaret Cochran Corbin. She was the daughter of Robert Cochran and she was the wife of John Corbin. John Corbin enlisted in the same company, Captain Francis Proctor’s company in the Pennsylvania artillery. So her situation, the reason that she’s another good candidate is, her situation mirrors and follows Mary Ludwig Hays’ very similarly. They were in the same company and their husbands were in the military and they followed their husbands into battle basically. And Margaret Corbin also received disability pay for her services.

Fisher: So she’s another one who got the pay and she was also in the Battle of Monmouth. This is crazy!

Andrew: Yes.

Fisher: Because it certainly breaks the stereotype, right, that it was all men? These were very active women in this battle.

Andrew: Yes, exactly. And the descriptions of them are fantastic! I mentioned earlier, but I’ll reiterate. Mary Ludwig Hays was described as, and I quote, “A rough, tough woman who reportedly smoked and chewed tobacco and swore like a trooper.” [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs] Okay.

Andrew: That description alone is worth, you know, I can picture her in my mind. [Laughs]

Fisher: Yeah. And then these are tough women. You wouldn’t want to run into them in a back alley.

Andrew: Especially with a cannon. No, definitely not!

Fisher: No! Right, and they had cannons. They had guns and things!

Andrew: Yes, I know, I know. So the main reason I mentioned both Mary Ludwig Hays and Margaret Corbin is because I believe that their situations were mirrored and so similar that they’re both excellent candidates to be the real Molly Pitcher.

Fisher: Except that Margaret is really not a name from which Molly would come.

Andrew: Exactly. That’s a good point.

Fisher: Yep.

Andrew: Now the third, in my opinion, least likely candidate, and her first name is Deborah, so that’s even less to the nickname of Molly than Margaret.

Fisher: Yeah. [Laughs] Okay.

Andrew: At least Margaret begins with an M. But the third candidate that myself and most of the other researchers have found in the past, was a woman named Deborah Sampson. She is reported to have actually disguised herself as a man, cut her hair really short and dressed up as a man to sign up, basically out of patriotism. And she thought it was her duty. I mean, she signed up with the 4th Massachusetts regiment where she was nicknamed, again supposedly nicknamed “Molly,” because of her high voice and her girlish complexion.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Andrew: Compared to the other men fighting along next to her who must have had beards and you know beards and so forth. So, she received a federal pension for her service also. And eventually, she settled in Massachusetts, had three children and so forth. But I mean, she seems, very possibly, a viable candidate as well.

Fisher: But the least likely of the three. Who do you think it is?

Andrew: In my humble opinion, I think it’s Mary Ludwig Hays, because of the name Molly. And because her family, the generations that followed her are adamant about her service and the plaques along the side of her gravestone and things like that, just a sort of a gut feeling on my side. There’s no true evidence that she was actually Molly Pitcher.

Fisher: Well you know, it’s a lot of fun too, you can apply all that you’re doing to any one of our family history stories, right? There are legends in everybody’s family.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Fisher: And it takes this kind of effort to kind of get a handle on what’s real, what’s not and what might have been. And I certainly think that’s the case here, because it could have easily been a conglomeration of all these three women and maybe some others we don’t even know about.

Andrew: That’s the thing. I agree 100%. It’s probably even many, many more women that we don’t know about. Because as I found all this information, I mentioned three that were actually paid by the governments, so I was shocked. But you know, there’s so many women out there that may have participated in the battles.

Fisher: He’s Andrew Krea. He’s the Senior Researcher for the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Thanks for coming on and talking about this, Andrew. Enjoyed it!

Andrew: Oh Fisher, my pleasure!

Fisher: And this segment of Extreme Genes has been brought to you by FamilySearch.org. And coming up in three minutes, we’ll talk to our Preservation Authority, Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com, about your questions about preserving your precious heirlooms and documents. That’s in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

 

Segment 4 Episode 149 (37:10)

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: It is Preservation Time on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show, and this segment is brought to you by Forever.com. Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com is here. How are you, Tommy?

Tom: Super duper.

Fisher: Got a great email here from Ryan McMichael and I love this. He says: “My mom came across a single 25ft roll of old 8mm film.” He does “old” all in caps, and he says, “The catch… I’m not sure it was ever processed and I’m a little nervous about checking because I don’t want to expose it to light. If it hasn’t been processed, is there any hope at all of anything useful coming of it, if the process before date is February 1957?”

Tom: [Laughs]

Fisher: He says: “Are you done laughing yet?” [Laughs]

Tom: I just got started.

Fisher: Oh my goodness! Well, where do we go with this one, Tom?

Tom: Alright. That’s a really good question. We’ll talk about a couple different ways to do this.

Fisher: Sounds like nothing to lose.

Tom: Oh no. Yeah, you have nothing to lose but a few bucks. Yeah, he actually, which is smart, when you write to me with weird stuff, take a photo of it with your phone and attach it, because I would have to question him. But he actually sent a picture of the box. He also sent a picture of the can inside. This is definitely Regular 8, and in the old days, you had this little can that was 16mm wide. You’d put it in your Regular 8 camera and you’d shoot it until you got to the end of the roll, then you’d pop out the reel, pop it back in the opposite way and then run it again. And then what you’re supposed to do is send it into Kodak, have them develop it. Once they developed it, they split it into two 8mm reels so then you can watch the 10 that you’ve just recorded. But in his case, he shows a picture of the can with the black tape still on it. If the tape looks like it’s never ever come off of it, chances are it’s never been shot. However, to me, it’s worth the money to take the chance. We don’t physically do it in our store because Kodak doesn’t even make the chemistry anymore.

Fisher: [Laughs] Right.

Tom: But there is a place that’s called “Film Rescue.” Just go and Google the word “Film Rescue.” They’re actually in Canada, but they also have a shop in the U.S, I believe it’s in Michigan. And you can send the stuff to them. They take it across the borders, you don’t have to worry about customs or anything. And they only do it a couple of times a year because they have to make their own chemistry. So what I would do is do exactly what this gentleman did. Send them a copy of the box, or it will say Chemistry C41, or whatever. See, I’ve got one reel of this. They will give you quarter of what it would cost to develop it, when you want to get it in, so you can make sure you make one of their deadlines.

Fisher: Is it pricey?

Tom: It generally runs… I’ve seen it go as high as $50 a reel, depending on how many it is. But if you have like 10 reels it’s not going to cost you $50 for each reel.

Fisher: Right.

Tom: So go in there, find out. Some of the chemistries are less expensive to make, some of them are very expensive. But find out. I mean, he’s had it for longer than I’ve been alive.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: So I mean, if he has to wait another 6 months or even a year, it’s probably not going to be a situation.

Fisher: This goes back to the Eisenhower Administration.

Tom: It does.

Fisher: I guess the question would be, Tom, how old is the oldest bit of film that you’ve actually developed? I mean, as far as how far back it went.

Tom: I would actually have to look at our stuff. We’ve got stuff from, you know, the Candy Bomber from World War II, we did all of his films for him. We’ve got some video that I’ve watched like a 1920 Model A Ford driving by so you know it’s got to be older than that.

Fisher: Right. But you did film?

Tom: Oh yeah.

Fisher: You actually processed film that hadn’t been processed before?

Tom: Oh, absolutely. Back in the day, you know… In fact, it’s funny about, you said our 3rd-anniversary last week, it was out 43rd anniversary for us last month. And so we’ve been doing this forever. And in the old days these guys at Film Rescue they used to do film for us once a month.

Fisher: Wow!

Tom: We would get it a lot in. We would get it, send it back to them, they would develop it for us, send it to us. And also if you have the newer kind that’s in a little hard plastic things, and you can actually see a little bit of the film hanging in the cassette, we have people bringing those in today too. And on those kind of films, in the little plastic black cartridges, you’ll see a little bit of film and if it has white words “exposed” on it.

Fisher: Yes.

Tom: The whole roll’s been exposed. If it doesn’t say exposed, you really don’t know if it’s the beginning of the roll or the end of the roll. And so after the break, I’ll come back and tell you some little ways you can find out if it has been exposed or if it hasn’t been exposed.

Fisher: All right. Really interesting stuff, great question too! We’ll be back in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

 

Segment 5 Episode 149 (44:20)

Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: And we are back, final segment of Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. I am Fisher, your Radio Roots Sleuth with Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com, the Preservation Authority. Tom, some exciting events coming up, I know you’re going to be at some of these if people would like to visit you personally.

Tom: It’s awesome because a lot of times you can come up with your questions, bring things and show them to me because it’s a lot easier sometimes to see something when somebody’s describing it to you. And I can give you some tips and tricks to transfer it yourself or give you some leads to where you can go.

Fisher: All right. We’ve got the Scandinavian and German Research Expo at the Nebraska Prairie Museum, that’s in Holdrege, Nebraska, coming up August 25th through 27th. I know you’re still making plans on that one to see if you can be there.

Tom: Correct.

Fisher: There is Salt Lake City Family History Library Research week in Salt Lake City, Utah, October 10th through 14th. And then there’s also one in Midway Utah. And I know you’re going to be a part of that one. What’s the story on that one, Tom?

Tom:  This is one of my favorite ones to do because it’s a little bit smaller. It’s kind of like a mini Roots Tech. So you have chances to go and talk to the exhibitors. You have a chance to go and talk to the presenters. So it’s an awesome opportunity. You can go to FamilyHistoryExpos.com. It’s at the Homestead in Midway, Utah which is absolutely picturesque. It’s one of the most beautiful places in Utah. It’s wonderful. It’s November 11th and 12th. Hope to see you there.

Fisher: All right. Getting back to Ryan’s question here that we were getting into the last segment, and I love this, about processing old home movies from 1957. It was never processed and he wants to find out more about this, and you had some other direction you wanted to take this?

Tom: Exactly. So we’ve covered his, which is the old 16mm which they split into two 8s. If you have the cartridges, little black cartridges that just go right into the Super 8 cameras generally, if you see it and it doesn’t say “exposed” and you’re not sure… do I want to send this and develop it… one thing you can do is go into a dark room and make a little mark on it with like a grease pencil and go into a dark room, and get like a screwdriver and kind of turn the crank and see how far it goes. If it goes for a long, long ways, then it’s probably never been exposed. If it goes a short time and, “Hmm, It’s not moving anymore” and you can see the word “exposed” then it’s at the end of the reel. Then you know it’s almost done.

Fisher: And so the flashlight though wouldn’t cause any damage because you’re at the end of the reel, right?

Tom: Right. Exactly, and the thing is even if you turn it on at some other time, all you’re going to lose is like a one inch section which is like a fraction of a second.

Fisher: Right.

Tom: So if you want to put a mark on it, in fact, if you have a red light it won’t even expose the film at all. And then you can actually see it moving and see how long it takes to move. If you’re really tight on dollars or you found a whole draw of these, if the box itself is sealed from the factory, I guarantee nobody’s ever done anything with it. So it’s not even worth using. You know I would always take the gamble and develop it just to see, because you never know what’s going to be on it. It’s not that big of an expense but it makes it kind of cool. If you’re really tight financially and you found a lot of these, this is just a simple trick to go and find out “Hey, how close am I to the end?” Because in the old days, just like today, people sometimes would keep one reel when, for Christmas, they’ll keep another one of birthdays, another one for their vacations, and when they’re done with that they take the cartridge out, put in another cartridge. And then when it goes to Christmas again they put in the Christmas cartridge until the whole thing is shot. And so quite a number of times you’ll find one that never ever got to the end so it says “exposed.” So this is just a cheap trick to kind of find out how close it is to the end.

Fisher: Boy, I had no idea there was so much to this. And you’re right. I actually found in an old family Bible once a negative of a photograph.

Tom: Oh yeah.

Fisher: And I was able to take that and put it on a scanner, scan it and then reverse it because of course, it was a negative. Made it into a positive and I was able to see the photograph from it. But these things are out there.

Tom: Oh absolutely. And another thing that you’re bringing up that is really wonderful is you can get color negatives and scan them. And if your scanning them at home or don’t have the right kind of a scanner, there’s software and apps you can go out and turn it into a regular positive.

Fisher: Great stuff. Thanks so much, Tom. Talk to you again next week.

Tom: Great to be here.

Fisher: Hey, that wraps up our show for this week. This segment has been brought to you by MyHeritage.com, and our friends at RootsMagic.com. And by the way, if you get on our Facebook page or ExtremeGenes.com, you can now sign up for out new weekly newsletter, The Weekly Genie. No, we will not be spamming you! Just giving you great information to help you with your family research. Thanks so much for joining us. Take care. We’ll talk to you again next week. And remember, as far as everyone knows, we’re a nice, normal family!

Episode 136 – Sam Roukin, “Simcoe” of TURN: Washington’s Spies Talks Revolutionary War and Playing A Historic Figure

by

Simcoe Sam Roukin PR pic

Click Here to Listen to this Episode!

Fisher opens the show with Family Histoire News talking about the upcoming season of Genealogy Roadshow. He discloses which cities the Roadshow team will visit this year. He then talks about the amazing discovery of the remains of a Roman villa underneath a barn in England. Hear how it was discovered and what is happening to the site now. Fisher then shares the sad tale of the 1838 sale of over 230 African slaves by Jesuit priests in Washington DC. Here why they were sold, and which well known university exists today because its debts were paid by the sale. Also hear about why major efforts are being made to find their descendants.

In segment two (11:09), Fisher visits with actor Sam Roukin who plays Captain John Graves Simcoe in the AMC series “TURN: Washington’s Spies” talks about his development of this despicable character, based on a real historic figure. Sam also talks about his immersion in the history of the Revolution.

In segment three (24:47), Fisher continues his conversation with Sam Roukin. Sam talks about what responsibility he feels to the real man and how he squares the character he portrays with the man who did some very good things after the Revolution. Sam also reveals that, despite being very British and portraying a brutal British officer in the Revolution, he is likely to do something in the not so distant future that will please many Americans.

Tom Perry then returns, the Preservation Authority, to talk about some special programs he is analyzing for personal use in editing video and digitized home movies. Some of the things these programs can do could only have been done in Hollywood just a few years ago!

That’s all this week on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show!

TRANSCRIPT of Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Radio Show

Host Scott Fisher

Segment 1 Episode 136

Fisher: Hey, welcome to America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com. I am your congenial host, your Radio Roots Sleuth, Fisher, on the program where we shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall out. Do you have an interest in the American Revolution? Do you have ancestors who fought against or maybe on behalf of the King? Well, this week, Season 3 of AMC’s ‘Turn: Washington’s Spies’, about the Culper Spy Ring begins. The first episode is Monday night at ten o clock Eastern Time.  This season takes us to the key moment of the Revolution, ‘The Betrayal of Benedict Arnold” and I’ve identified five ancestors who were actively involved in the Revolution in the northeast, and thirteen on my wife’s side, all from the south, mostly Virginia. Well, the guy who plays the very warped, the very evil, Captain John Graves Simcoe, an actor named Samuel Roukin, is going to join us in the show later today and we’re going to talk to him for two segments about what he’s learned about the history of the Revolution. The character that he plays, who was an actual person, in fact, he became the Lieutenant Governor of a province in Canada and freed slaves in 1791. So I’m very excited for you to meet Sam Roukin who plays John Graves Simcoe, on Turn, a little bit later on on the show. And of course Tom Perry is going to tell you about video editing and a video editing program that you can use for your old home movies and videos. It’s cheap, like free, and you’d be able to do things at home that only Hollywood people could do just a few years ago. That’s later in the show. Well, as you know, David Allen Lambert, the chief genealogist, for the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org usually joins us on the show. He’s in London these days. We had him on via Skype the last couple of weeks. Well, this week he went to an area where we found out the wifi was just a little bit weak and so it just isn’t going to happen today, so I’m going to have to carry the whole thing myself. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. So we start our Family Histoire News with this:

Genealogy Road Show is returning to PBS, with its premiere for this season happening on Tuesday, May 17th, and the cities they’re going to be visiting this year include: Albuquerque, Miami, Houston, Boston, Providence and Los Angeles.  They kind of picked these places because they feel its representative of the cultural crossroads for diversity and industry and history.  Deep pools of riveting stories, so it’s going to be interesting to see what Kenyatta Berry, Josh Taylor and Mary Tedesco come up with this season. Remember again, PBS, May 17th.  Well, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if David Lambert wasn’t aware of this, there’s a rug designer over in England in Wiltshire named Luke Erwin, and he and his family wanted to convert a barn on their new property that they just bought.  They wanted to convert it into a ping pong room. So they brought in the electricians to do this underground cable and put the barn in lights. Well, when the workmen began drilling into the ground, they hit this layer of mosaic tile, yeah, intricate red, white and blue.  Well, this guy Erwin he knew the significance of this. He said that no one since the Romans had laid mosaics in Britain to use as house floors. So they were able to actually put an end to the work of the workmen before they actually started busting it up.  Erwin called in archaeologists and they ran tests, and they found that this mosaic went back from sometime between 175 and 220 AD, and it was remodeled over several times since.  But they determined it’s a Roman Villa courtyard!  So there’s an actual artist rendition now to see what this thing looked like 1800 years ago. It’s from Smithsonian Magazine. You can see the link at ExtremeGenes.com.  Well, here’s a story that’s been making a lot of news this week:

Georgetown University was founded centuries ago by Jesuit Catholic priests. Well, it turns out that in 1838 the university which was then a college, got into some financial problems. Well, they owned slaves, a lot of them, over 230 of them, and they decided the only way that they were going to get out of debt was to sell the slaves to the market in New Orleans.  This is all very well documented and found within the archives of what is currently George Town University. Well the story is beginning to gain lots more traction as people have come to understand who these people were.  There were families, there were babies, women, men, old, young, the ship’s manifest as they were sent off to New Orleans, really tell a story of great hardship. There’s one account from a Jesuit priest associated with this school, who didn’t approve of all this, as saying, that one woman was actually on the dock begging and wondering and asking what she had done to deserve this.  Well, the university had obtained a lot of money as the result and wound up paying off their debts. Today, Georgetown University still exists because of the money they raised by selling their slaves down to New Orleans.  Now the Catholic overseers of the school in Rome at the time disapproved of this move. It was made contrary to their orders.  So now an effort is underway to identify the descendants of these 230 some odd slaves that were sold by Georgetown University and try to determine is there some way to make reparations for what was done to their people, and next week we’re going to talk to one of those descendants about this experience.  She happens to be the president of a genealogical society in Washington. It’s going to be fascinating to hear what she has to say about her viewpoint on this incredible story from the 19th century. You can read about it in the New York Times and find the link at ExtremeGenes.com.  Well, good news from AmericanAncestors.org and the New England Historic Genealogical Society, their long running published quarterly The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, with over four hundred million searchable names, is now complete and in digital format in their databases.  So you can log in now with your NEHGS membership or guest account and check out all this incredible information that’s waiting for you now.  And just a reminder, all of our shows are now entirely searchable. Yeah, we transcribe them. So if you want to remember some of the things we talk about or find something further about it once you’ve heard it, just go to ExtremeGenes.com go to our podcast section and search the transcripts. And coming up next! We’re going to talk to the man who plays the very evil Captain John Graves Simcoe, on the AMC series ‘Turn: Washington Spies.’ The series is coming back for their third season starting Monday night at ten o clock Eastern. Samuel Roukin joins the show, coming up in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com.

Segment 2 Episode 136

Host Scott fisher with guest Samuel Roukin

Samuel Roukin: My name is Captain John Graves Simcoe, and I’m your new commander, by orders of Major John Andre.

Fisher: And that is the voice of Sam Roukin, he plays Captain John Graves Simcoe on the AMC revolutionary series ‘Turn: Washington’s Spies’ the Culper Spy Ring.  Hi, it is Fisher, and you’re with Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show, and if you have followed our program for any time at all you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of this program and for some time now I’ve been working to get one of my favorite characters from the show on this show and Sam is on the line with us now.  How are you Sam? Welcome to Extreme Genes!

Sam: Thank you! It’s good to be with you.

Fisher: I’m just absolutely astonished by your character, and has it changed your life a little bit? I’m sure you get an awful lot of comments because let’s face it, as you portray John Graves Simcoe, he’s bloodthirsty, he’s twisted, he’s ruthless, he has enemies on both sides, he’s fiercely loyal to the king, but he also needs love.

Sam: Yeah. He’s a complicated guy, and yeah it’s had a huge effect in my life, you know it really put me on the map here, and he’s such a divisive character and you know people have a really strong opinion about him.  On the whole people are very nice. Usually the comment is that they just love to hate me, so I’m all right with that.

Fisher: [Laughs] But hey as an actor as long as they love you for anything that’s not a bad thing!

Sam: That’s true!

Fisher: And you were in ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ as well. You were a snatcher in that, so obviously they have a tendency to bring you in for some, shall we say, ‘dark characters.’

Sam: Yeah. I’m going to start taking this personally. I don’t know what the problem is.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Sam: Yeah, I mean at the end of the day from my perspective as long as the characters have some depth and richness to them, then I get excited about it and as far as it goes with the more nasty characters, generally they are a little more complex and usually get written in that way. So I’m cool with it really.  I enjoy digging into these guys psyches and obviously I’m developing a bit of a knack for different types of characters.

Fisher: And speaking to you I’m sure a lot of listeners who are familiar with the show are noticing the same thing that I am, that you don’t speak like your character, you’re from a different part of England obviously, than Simcoe is. How do you work those accent differences?

Sam: Well you know, I mean, all of that stuff is so important like the costume and the hair and everything else. It’s the first thing we see and when he speaks it’s the first thing we hear. So I take those things really seriously. Because I think they’re a window into who the guy actually is or whoever you’re playing. So obviously basics are you know, ‘where’s this guy from? Where do we locate him in the world?’ and that’s one part of it, and then obviously my voice naturally is much deeper registered than his.

Fisher: Yeah.

Sam: And that only just came from discussions with Craig Silverstein, the show producer and when we originated the pilot, Rupert Wyatt, who directed it.  We were talking about the kind of guy that this is, and I thought it would be kind of obvious to have this kind of brute which could easily have come out as, you know… they were obviously writing a villain in this character, and it would have been very easy to sort of just make him like a typically nasty piece of work.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Sam: And I didn’t want to be typical with him because I thought there was something a little more interesting in there. So really it came about wanting him to have this kind of delicate touch and the question I asked myself was, ‘what would happen if this guy was really nice to everybody?’ So that it becomes about, you know, and then that sort of came out he had a lightness of touch in the way he spoke. So I thought it would be much more impactful if this guy is nasty because of the things he does rather than your initial impression of him, and that’s sort of how it started developing and then it just sort of took on a life of its own.

Fisher: Well let me ask you about this. One of the things I noticed in one of the early episodes is your over-pronunciation of names.

Sam: [Laughs]

Fisher: You talked about ‘Tall-madge’ and ‘Brew-ster.’ Where did that come from?

Sam: The good one is ‘Wood-hull.’

Fisher: Yes! [Laughs]

Sam: He has a love for language you know. John Simcoe, you know a lot of this is not just me having fun with it, there is some substance to it. You know John Graves Simcoe was a poet and in fact has the first recorded Valentine’s poem.

Fisher: Yes.

Sam: I was interested in his love for language. It wasn’t something I actually consciously did it just started happening you know.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Sam: I realized that I wasn’t saying these names like everybody else and then it just kind of stuck. But you know I read ‘Wood-hull’ I didn’t read ‘Woodull’ or something, I was just saying what I saw really as a character and that’s how it came out.  But yeah it does give him an individuality that hadn’t been planned for but obviously contributes to the whole thing you know, so, yeah, good observation!

Fisher: Oh, I loved it. I loved it when you came with ‘Tall-madge’ [Laughs] I thought it was great.

Sam: Yeah, ‘Tallmadge’ is a good one as well.

Fisher: Yes.

Sam: I just have to tell you, I really just was saying what I saw. I guess I was inside the guy you know and that’s how it came out.

Fisher: Well now that’s the question. Now this show is about family history and people who listen to it are also into history and my fascination with the program is the representation of how my ancestors may have lived under British occupation at that time.

Sam: Yeah.

Fisher: So there’s a tremendous realism, I mean you see the tavern wench emptying the chamber pot right outside the door of the place and then going in and serving food. [Laughs] I think, wow!

Sam: Yes. There was no health and safety department in Setauket. You know the great thing about it though is you know lots of great historical television and films that have come out, the reason why we care is because we realize, apart from knowing what our heritage is and learning how we came to be now and what came before us.

It’s also that you know, they were just like us you know, it’s a mind trick that we put the people in the past as almost like a different species and I think one of the beautiful things about portraying it in drama is that we have the opportunity to humanize history.

I think that’s a really key element to why we’re interested in it you know and when those human moments come out it’s really satisfying.

Fisher: Well I think you really hit it on the head. The fascinating thing is watching the challenges. I mean we’ve always thought in this country, of course, the Patriots are the good guys and you guys are the bad guys! And we’re seeing Abe Woodhull changing now, he’s becoming very much as blood thirsty as anybody else in this series. The evolution as he has to go through to fight to survive.

Sam: Yeah, that’s very true, and I think it’s really an indication of how war is a unique experience now and then and has a very unique effect on the people involved in it. And I think the optics in war are very different you know, and I think it has to change you, doesn’t it?  You know if you’re being occupied, if you’re compelled to do something about that. I think people do things during war time that they would never have imagined doing in another environment.

So yeah it’s a really good observation and I think particularly in someone like Abe who was just a normal regular farmer doing his thing and getting on with his life to suddenly be put into this extraordinary situation and we see his change before our eyes.

I mean, I think that’s a very compelling thing. But you know equally I think all the characters go through that. You know even someone like Washington or Benedict Arnold, or any of these guys who you know, John Andre, everybody really could change.

That’s one of the great things about season three, I think, is that we’re really seeing the effects of the war on these people and how it’s changing them and changing how they go about their lives. It’s fascinating.

Fisher: We’re talking to Sam Roukin, he plays Captain John Graves Simcoe, on the AMC Revolutionary series ‘Turn: Washington’s Spies’ and Sam, I actually have an ancestor who is buried in the same church yard with Caleb Brewster, in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Sam: Wow.

Fisher: Have you had the chance to go to some of these places that you’re portraying, have you been to Setauket yet?

Sam: I haven’t been to Setauket, no. I did actually… I lived in New Jersey for a while. Everywhere I would go you know I would see plaques and I started to become you know, a plaque hunter.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Sam: And where we shoot the show in Virginia, there’s also some really key Revolutionary sites around here as well. In fact we keep coming across places where Simcoe and his troops were stationed at one point. They moved around so much, especially the Rangers. Just by accident in fact I’ve come across a lot of places. But yeah I do try to go to as many relevant sites as I can. You know I recently went to Washington’s headquarters in New Jersey, and where one of his camps was. It’s cool to kind of be standing where they stood. So yeah I have been to some. I actually haven’t been to Setauket. But funny enough we do have fans who are in Setauket, we often get messages from those guys and they’re really happy that their town is being celebrated, you know.

Fisher: Well you know the whole story was fascinating. In fact I read a book about this and then a week later I learned that your show was coming on, and I just couldn’t wait and it was very exciting.  Hey, we’re going to take a break, and when we return we’re going to talk more with Sam Roukin, Captain John Graves Simcoe, from the AMC revolutionary series ‘Turn: Washington’s Spies.’  We’re going to talk about some of the real people Sam, and how those folks have affected your character and some of the other characters you work with, all right?

Sam: Sounds good, I’m looking forward to it.

Fisher: All right and before we take that break I should mention that ‘Turn Washington’s Spies’ returns for Season Three this coming Monday, April 25th. It’s a new time slot, new day for Turn, and this season we’re going to see the actual evolution as we start moving towards Benedict Arnold’s betrayal, and it’s going to be a great season coming up on AMC 10 o clock Eastern, 9 o clock Central.  Figure it out where you are. We’ll be back with our next segment with Sam Roukin from ‘Turn: Washington’s Spies’ in five minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 3 Episode 136

Host Scott Fisher with guest Sam Roukin

Fisher: And we are back, America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com.  It is Fisher here, the Radio Roots Sleuth, talking to Sam Roukin. He is Captain John Graves Simcoe on the AMC Revolutionary series, ‘Turn: Washington’s Spies.’  And Sam, I’ve got to tell you right now, my wife is totally creeped out by your character, and she says, “Why do you have to talk to the bad guy?” I said, “Well, because, I think they’re more interesting.” Because you try to figure out just what is it that makes these people tick.  And I’m sure, as an actor, you have to kind of think that way yourself, don’t you?

Sam: I do. Your wife is a very smart lady!

Fisher: [Laughs]

Sam: [Laughs] I’m fascinated by human beings. I think most actors are, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re compelled to do it, you know?  We’re very curious about the way people think and why people do what they do and the way that they do them.  And so, it turns out that when you are dealing with, for example, sociopaths, we’re not like that in our normal lives, thankfully, so to make that journey and to go on that voyage of discovery, it’s kind of a really joyous thing for an actor.  So, what, you know, we’re as compelled to access the brains of these people as the audience is hopefully to watch them, you know?

Fisher: Well, and so that brings us to the question, how much of the real John Graves Simcoe, who went on to become what, lieutenant governor, up in Canada? He was the guy who signed off on the first anti-slavery bill in 1791.  I mean, he did a lot of really good things. Do you feel any obligation to him, [laughs] as you portray him?

Sam: Yeah, I think so. You know, it touches on what we talked about in the first segment when we were discussing this, which is, during war time I think people are changed, and I think they act in a way that they might not otherwise.  And so, for me, you know, first of all, you know, the only evidence we have of what the man was like, his own memoires, which necessarily are favorable towards himself.

Fisher: Right.

Sam: And what he did, and the listed historical events and achievements that he was involved in. We have some, you know, we have his delicate, more literary side to go on, you know, his poetry and then we have the things he did after the war. So, that fact, you know, we have not met the man and we don’t know what he’s like, we just know the things he did in his life, which vary massively. And there’s no question that the Rangers during the war were a ruthless and very precise operation. You know, really the way to think of them is they’re like, the Special Forces…

Fisher: Yeah…

Sam:  … of the army, you know? And they’re sent on very specific stealth missions and then carried them out really well and with great effect, and so, the answer to your question in a more concise way is that people are different during the war to afterwards.

Fisher: Um-hum.

Sam: As for me, you know, I can square away his behavior on the show with what he did afterwards, because I think, the more ruthless, more deadly you were during the war, the more you would want to appease that in your life afterwards.  And I don’t think that we have portrayed what we do… portray a guy that is ruthless, does make impulsive, deadly decisions and that are not necessarily on the moral compass of everybody else in the world.

[Laughs] At the same time there is a soul there, you know? And there is some tenderness, and we see it comes out in various different ways and, you know, I think there is some compassion there too. It’s just, he’s a guy you don’t want to cross, because it will end very badly.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Sam: But after the war, you know, I think it’s a different world and I think people adapt, and I think they vary experiences too and who’s to say that you couldn’t behave in an egregious manner during the war and then try to do better. Try to compensate for that.  Even if he wasn’t quite as nasty as he comes across, sometimes on Turn, it’s fair to say that he didn’t do the things he did during the war after the war. We know that and so, that’s really how I personally square away with what we do on the show, you know?

Fisher: Yeah. That’s makes perfect sense and it’s interesting too, because when the show started, I was immediately going to the internet to go, ‘Okay, how much is this true? Did this happen? Did that happen?’ And I found the timelines were different.  Abe Woodhull’s father was a patriot, not a loyalist, but obviously they were portraying this to show how families were divided and then, I was accepting of that. Yes, this is a historical novel brought to television. And it’s interesting to know that John Graves Simcoe actually brought the Queen’s Rangers in and beat up Abe’s dad to send Abe a message. In real life, that’s what really happened, because they had received word that Abe was a spy. A completely different scenario though.

Sam: Yeah, I’m really glad you brought that up, because that’s exactly the point I was making. So, you know, there is enough evidence to suggest that he did a few things that most people would say are egregious, and those are the things we know about. And you know, I also picked up on just a couple of, you know, a few things I’ve read in memoires, and I’ve read the diaries about the rangers and what have you, and a couple of things. There was a pattern that was developing, particularly in the third person with memoirs of Simcoe, which, they would arrive in a place and then they would stay in this house here and this house here.

Fisher: Right. They’d occupy.

Sam: Well, how did you get that house? Who was in it before you? And what happened to the people that were in it when you arrived? I’m sure you didn’t just say, ‘Would you mind if we stayed at home instead of you?’

Fisher: [Laughs] Right.

Sam: And so, things like that crop up, and I’m like, ‘Well, there has to be a story there that is just not being told.” And I feel like that gray area of history books is really interesting, and I think, allows for a little bit of poetic license. It doesn’t necessarily feel too farfetched, you know?  So, we never know for sure, really, just what gets written down, you know? The truth changes a little bit as soon as it’s written down. So, yeah, I think there’s some leeway in that.

Fisher: And it’s written by the winners.

Sam: That’s right.

Fisher: Yeah. So, one last thing, because we’re running out of time here, Sam, but it’s interesting because… you cannot be killed! I mean, I’ve seen you get stabbed, I’ve seen you get shot, I’ve seen you get knocked out, you know, you are not allowed to die. But in the pilot of this show, you were killed, and then brought back to life. [Laughs] Talk a little about that.

Sam: Well, it was extraordinary, really. Yes, originally I auditioned for John Andre’s character and got so far down that road, and then obviously, J.J. Feild was offered the role and played it exceptionally well.

Fisher: Yes, he’s fabulous.

Sam: I’ve got so much respect for him, and so, I thought, ‘Well, okay, that job’s not happening’ and then they said, ‘We’d love you to do Simcoe. He’s kind of just in the pilot, but it’s a great part.’ And so I said yes, obviously, and then we did it and yeah, he died. He got shot as he came out in the wash, Caleb kicks him in the face, and then he goes, you know, then they torture him for a bit in their cell. But in the original pilot he shot him in the face, and that was the end of that. But AMC found the character compelling.

Fisher: Right.

Sam: And I think, you know, he also serves a really important function dramatically on the show, you know. We needed like a regular antagonist and so, Simcoe provided that quality and it was a real constant to what I brought to the character.  I don’t think they quite saw it there originally, but I just kind of gave everything and you are supposed to be for longer then you’re not, but this was around… is kind of an extraordinary [Laughs] which I’m so very grateful for, you know.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Sam: It’s a great write.

Fisher: Well, I don’t think we’d be in the third season of Turn if you were not in that role. No doubt about it.

Sam: Thank you! That’s a very nice compliment.

Fisher: Well, Sam Roukin, thank you so much for your time, and thank you for all you put into this character and bringing the Revolution to life for those of us who love it.

Let me ask you this, you said you lived in New Jersey. You’ve obviously been here for a little bit. Are you looking for dual citizenship?

Sam: Well, my wife is American, so I’m currently a permanent resident. I have a ten year green card. I’m very much, I think, I’m just about allowed to become a citizen, and I think I probably will, yes.  I mean, I love America. This is my home now, so my family is here, and so, who knows? We’ll see.

Fisher: Awesome! Thank you so much. Sam Roukin from ‘Turn: Washington’s Spies’ on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

 

Segment 4 Episode 136

Host Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: And welcome back to America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com

It is preservation time with my good friend, Tom Perry, from TMCPlace.com, the Preservation Authority. How are you, Tom?

Tom: Super duper, thanks.

Fisher: I was thinking about how, over the last several months we’ve been talking periodically about a software called Cinematize that you recommend very highly, and it’s gone the way of the dinosaurs to some extent and if you can find it, great! Buy it!

It’s probably on the cheap. But now you’ve been looking for something to replace that, some new kind of software and what have you come up with?

Tom: Well, we’re working with some kind of software that we’re actually testing right now in our studio, and so far, it’s very, very promising.  I don’t want to get into a lot about it until we actually get some of the bugs out of the way. But next week, we’ll be able to probably have some good information about it.  We’ve been using it so far, it’s been flawless, but there’s a couple of other things I want to check.   I want to check internet compatibility that will make it so you can share it with friends, it’s easy to use and if this software works out like we think, it is almost going to be the motherload of software. It’s very inexpensive. It’s under fifty dollars.

Fisher: Wow!

Tom: There’s some certain software requirements, and if you have anything older than Snow Leopard, it won’t work with it. But it is amazing software; in fact, it will actually let you deal with MP3s, MP4s, outside of the Apple format.

Fisher: Wait! Wait! You are taunting us here! You’re telling us all the great things it does.

Tom: [Laughs]

Fisher: And you’re not going to tell us the name for another week or so?

Tom: Nope! It’s like the cliffhanger. At least it’s going to be this season.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: You don’t have to wait till the start of next season.

Fisher: All right. Can you tells us about another one you may have found that would be of use that you could tell us right now?

Tom: Absolutely! This is a great software, it’s called DaVinci Resolve 12, just like the famous inventor.

Fisher: Yeah, that guy, right. [Laughs]

Tom: Inventor, him and this is awesome software. I followed these guys from when they had DaVinci number 1.

Fisher: Wow!

Tom: And it’s great. It’s got editing capabilities. It’s got color correction. It’s just absolutely incredible, and the neat thing about this is, they have a version right now that you can download for free. No charge.

Fisher: Hello!

Tom: Oh, it’s great! It’s just really amazing. So, people that want to kind of delve in to color correction, this is a good option to go and get, because you can play around with it. It’s non destructible.

Fisher: And we’re talking about moving pictures or we’re talking about stills or both?

Tom: This is for movies, I’m sorry. This is movie type stuff. In fact, they use this software in Hollywood for your big blockbusters, like Avatar and shows like that.  So, it’s incredible software. This software’s so smart, people think, “Oh yeah, this is a high end software. I’m not into that kind of stuff. I don’t shoot in 4k.”  Well, what’s neat about this software,  you can set it up for different formats, whether you’re using standard definition from your old VHS tapes, whether you have one of those really cool 4k cameras, just about anything that you have, you can use it on this.

Fisher: Wow! So, this is exciting stuff.

Tom: Oh, it is. It’s great. You can do stuff, you can sync stuff. So, if you have some old movies that somebody shot in the old days, sometimes you’re shooting your 8mm camera and you have a side recorder. It’s not recording the sound on the tape, and they get out of sync.

People that do music videos, whether they’re for the family or whatever, that’s one of the biggest problems. And this has some sync capabilities that’s absolutely incredible. In the days when I used to do music videos, you had to do everything vocally.

Fisher: Right.

Tom: And you couldn’t see the vocal part. You can see picture and try to line align them up, but it’s really hard.

Fisher: The audio was a problem.

Tom: Exactly! Trying to get them to line up was really, really tough. With this, they’ve got this way you can put the time code on the clips, then you can put it together.  So, like if you’re using something from an old concert or wedding, if you have two camera interviews and you want to cut from person to person. For instance, say you’re interviewing grandma and grandpa, and you want to have a separate camera on each one of them, you can do this.

And this DaVinci software will allow you to go in and sync the two together. So, you can say, ‘Okay, here’s grandma talking, I want to use this part. Here’s grandpa talking, I want to use this part. I want to dissolve from here to here.’

Fisher: Wow!

Tom: So, you’re not sitting there doing one and then going back and figure out, ‘I need to do this.’ It makes it really nice.

Fisher: All right. And this is very good, by the way, for getting younger people involved with your projects if you get a little nervous about working with software like this.

Tom: That’s what’s neat about getting the kids involved with grandma and grandpa, you can do stuff as a family

Fisher: All right. What are we going to talk about next, Tom?

Tom: Let’s talk about some color correction.

Fisher: All right, getting to it in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

Segment 5 Episode 136

Host Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: Hey, it is the final segment of our show for this week, Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show, and we’re talking preservation with Tom Perry, from TMCPlace.com

By the way, if you have questions for Tom, you can always send him an email at AskTom@TMCPlace.com

And Tom, we were just talking about this great new software that you’ve discovered, that you recommended moments ago, the DaVinci 12, very exciting stuff and another one you’re working on.  But you were mentioning color correction and, you know, this is starting to get, I think, above a lot of people’s pay scales. [Laughs] Just to think about some of this software.

Tom: And that is so true. I mean, we can just talk about five years ago. What has happened in the last five years is incredible.  Color correction in fact, even a year ago, talking to, you know, consumers who walk in our door or send us letters or send us stuff from across the country, color correction wasn’t even an option for people to do.

Fisher: Right.

Tom: It was like, “No, if you want it color corrected, we need to do it for you. It’s not very expensive; however, we need to do it.” Now with this DaVinci 12 software, the color correction option it has is absolutely incredible.

It has a dynamic track. So, when you’re actually looking at it on your computer terminal on your monitor, you can actually, physically see the sound. It’s like 3D.

Fisher: Wow!

Tom: So, you can see, “Oh, this is when, you know, the refrigerator kicks in, and I need to cut it off.” So, you go in and edit that out.

Fisher: You can edit that out. [Laughs] Wow!

Tom: Exactly! And when you’re doing the color correction, it’s the same thing. Everything is in 3D. It’s non destructible, so it’s not hurting your original files. You’re actually making a new copy of it.  So, it allows you to go in and do VHS tapes, do your film, your movies, just anything that you have.  Whereas in the old days, if you wanted a VHS tape color corrected, you were looking at a lot of money and it wouldn’t be worth it.

Fisher: Now, speaking of home movies, those would have to be digitized first, obviously before you could use it in this way.

Tom: Exactly! Everything has to be digitized as you mentioned, whether it’s your VHS tapes, your video H, your mini DVs, your super 8, regular 8, all of these have to be digitized first, into, we used to always go to hard drives, but now, we’re using MP4s a lot, because they’re convenient. We can get it to the customer faster.

Whether you’re in Dothan, Alabama or, you know, down the street from us, as soon as we’re done with the project, we don’t have to go and convert it to DVDs or Blue rays or AVIs or MOVs.

It’s really fast and easy to make it as an MP4, and then once it’s in MP4, we can drop it in a cloud. Whether it’s our cloud or Drop box or LightJar, whatever cloud you’re using, Google drive, any of those.

You can have it instantly, which saves you a couple of days and saves you a trip back to us and it doesn’t matter where you are.

And with this color correction, being able to go to the old VHS movies is so totally cool. Because a lot of time, when you have your old wedding movies, you might not have the first generation, and they’re kind of starting to look really, really bad.

Well, up till now what we had to do is, run it through kind of like a Procam and some different kinds of equipment, that basically, we could either correct all your stuff to make it lighter and add some certain colors in or make it darker, whatever your problem was.

However, it had to be consistent through the whole tape. So, we’d look at the first five minutes, set it up, and then run your tape.

But now, if you have dark areas, light areas, some places the color is correct, some places the color is not correct, you can go in with this Resolve 12 software and you can do it frame by frame, by section, whatever you want to do.

If you go and get fancy in it, start building certain kinds of filters that you can do and say, “Oh wow! This looks really cool here!”  And run it. And then, fifteen minutes later in the tape, you’ve got the same problem again or on another tape, you’ve already made up those filters and so, you’ve got kind of these different things in your quiver, and then you just go apply them to whatever you’re working on.

Fisher: You can AskTom@TMCPlace.com  Send him an email, and maybe you’ll hear your question answered on the show. Thanks for coming in, Tom.

Tom: Good to be here.

Fisher: Hey, that’s our show for this week. Thanks once again to Sam Roukin, the man who plays Captain John Graves Simcoe on “Turn: Washington’s Spies.” on AMC.

They’re returning for their third season, starting Monday night, April 25th at 10 o’clock Eastern time.  One of my favorite shows, because it really portrays what life was like for our ancestors during the British occupation during the Revolutionary War.  If you missed any of it, catch the podcast on iTunes, iHeartRadio’s talk channel and at ExtremeGenes.com, and of course, now we transcribe every show, so it’s entirely searchable. So, if you want to find a specific segment, go to ExtremeGenes.com, under podcasts.  Take care, talk to you next week, and remember, as far as everyone knows, we’re a nice, normal family!

Click Here to Listen to this Episode!

Episode 121 – A Visit With Karen Batchelor, The First African-American Woman to Join the DAR!

by

Rev soldiers 5

Click Here to Listen to this Episode!

Fisher opens the first new show of the new year with David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org.  They exchange unique family history resolutions.  Fisher then reveals his first research adventure of the new year… his childhood home is on the market in Connecticut, and photos of the exterior and interior are shown with the listing.  Fisher talks of the fun of finding decades old photos to show side-by-side with how those areas of the home look today. David then tells of a centuries old find beneath a Scottish school yard playground.  You won’t believe what has been dug up!  Likewise, in Virginia, a foundation hole for a new hotel was being built when something awesome was found.  You’ll enjoy this one too.  David also reveals the release of new World War I records from the British Archives that might include information on your American “Dough Boy” ancestor.  He also has the first new free database of NEHGS for guest users.

(Starting at 11:39) Then, Fisher spends two segments with Karen Batchelor, the first African-American woman to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.  Karen says she didn’t think that would be such a big deal in 1977… but in fact it was!  Hear her story.  She’ll also talk about some of the incredible discoveries she’s made in her 40 years of research covering slaves, slave owners, Puritans, and pioneers.  As she says… “I want them ALL!”  She’s a guest you won’t want to miss.

Then Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com shares his “Five Steps for Scanning and Storing.”  As always, it’s great advice from the “Preservation Authority!”

It’s all this week on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show

Transcript of Episode 121

Host Scott Fisher with guest David Allen Lambert

Segment 1 Episode 121

Fisher: And Welcome back to America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com

It is Fisher here, your Radio Roots Sleuth, on the program where we shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall out, and it is so exciting to be into a brand new year. David Allen Lambert is on the line with me from Boston, from the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org.  He is the Chief Genealogist there. David, have you got any resolutions for this year?

David: Well, first off I want to wish you a Happy New Year from Beantown, and of course I do! One I keep on stopping and starting over my 40 plus years in this planet is to keep a journal. So I think I want to combine my Tech Tip with this journal and my new year’s resolution because I don’t care if you talk into a commercial program like ‘Dragon Speak’ and record your journal, or you tape record it or you write it with crayon on the back of a piece of paper.

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: These are helping for future generations.

Fisher: That’s right.

David: I embrace technology like everybody else does but I’m still trying to find a place to read those five and a quarter floppy disks, or better yet the old ones back in my early school days, those 8 inch disks.

Fisher: Oh boy!

David: Anything you put on those, if you don’t move the media to something else, you lose it. So hopefully this written journal when I record what I had for lunch, my great, great, great grandchildren will look at it and think my dietary needs were suitable. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs] Well, yes, that’s assuming they can read handwriting at that time right?

David: I hope so. That’s a conversation for another day in its own right.

Fisher: [Laughs] Well you might want to do it in block letters.

David: Exactly.

Fisher: Just think about that.

David: I’ll type it and glue it in. So what’s your resolution for this year?

Fisher: I’m going to put the finishing touches on my mother’s biography this year. I was working on it all last year, didn’t quite get it done, holidays caught up with me, and so I’m excited to get that done. And speaking of which, I’ve got some new pictures that I’m going to be able to include in that.  My childhood home went up on the market here just recently. My parents built it back in 1958. We were in it for twenty years and then the next people were in it for 33, and these folks were in for 3.

I don’t know if he got transferred out or whatever but he’s selling the place. So as a result, the real estate agents have gone through the house and taken photos of every room plus the exterior, and they are all online.

So I’m able to take a virtual tour of my childhood home that my parents built and I’ve actually gone through and found some pictures from back in the day and put them side by side with pictures of the rooms of how they look today, some of them are very different and some of them are very much the same. It’s very cool.

David: Oh that’s excellent! It’s a shame you can’t get there with a camcorder and do a virtual tour for us of the whole thing while it’s still on the market.

Fisher: That’s a good point. I’d like to be able to do that. But you know, time and distance.

David: Oh that’s for sure. Well you know taking distance into consideration, for our family histoire news, I’m going to dig into a Scottish story. Underneath a school playground they have found the remains of a pirate.

Fisher: Woah!

David: Yeah the forensic analysis of these bones, radiocarbon dates back to the 16th or 17th century New Haven, which is now part of Edinburgh, Scotland, which was a fishing village. They found the remains of a gentleman that would perhaps have been a pirate or some scoundrel because it’s near where they used to gibbet pirates and other criminals.

Fisher: [Laughs]

David: So, the bones are arranged in such a way that it wasn’t a burial like in a cemetery but sort of just discarded into a shallow grave. So the kids are very excited about this.

Fisher: Oh I would be too! To know I had a hung pirate underneath my playground, how cool would that be?! Of course you’d be seeing ghost for years right?

David: Exactly. But think of all the great stories the kids are having now.

Fisher: Yes.

David: And everybody this Halloween will probably no doubt dress up as a pirate.

Fisher: Yes, the pirate.

David: Well you know going to the other side of the pond back to America, in Alexandria, Virginia, they’ve been recently digging the foundation for a new hotel and they found one third of an 18th century vessel under the ground that no one knew was there.

Fisher: Wow!

David: The speculation is that this was actually laid down to extend the waterfront in Alexandria, Virginia into the Potomac River, and they found all sorts of bottles and other paraphernalia of the shipping era with it. So, the archaeologists are going to take all the beams up, preserve them and probably put them on exhibit some place.

Fisher: That’s fun and you know they had that same kind of thing going on at the Southern tip of Manhattan Island, also old ships down there.

David: It’s amazing to think how much stuff lies under our old waterfronts. For sure archeologists keep busy for years.

Fisher: Right.

David: Obviously 1916, years ago, was in the midst of World War I and the first World War I hospital diaries from the national archives in London, England are now online. Now over 247 First World War hospital camp, hospital ships, common list hospital, all these interesting diaries about the lives of patients which may be your ancestor if you have somebody that was over there associated because the Americans were over there helping the Brits early on.

Fisher: That’s right. From late 1917 and 1918, unless they actually signed up and fought as British military people right?

David: Exactly. A lot of the airmen back in the day signed up to fly in both the Canadian and British air force back in the day. Well, I guess that brings us to NEHGS’s New Year’s resolution and that is to help people with their genealogy like we’ve been doing for over a 170 years.

So for the entire month of January if you sign up as a guest user on AmericanAncestors.org, besides just one database that we give every week anyways, we have some extra special ones including the Massachusetts, vital records from 1841 to 1910.

New Hampshire, births, marriages and deaths; births till 1901, deaths and marriages to 1937, and lastly a great database of Vermont, birth, marriages and deaths from the 18th century all the way to 2008. Brought to you by AmericanAncestors.org, just signup as a guest user and try it out and every weekend as you know, I mentioned a free guest database that our listeners can try.

Fisher: Very cool David and you know we’re into the countdown now for Roots Tech, and you’re going to be in Salt Lake City, Utah, I’m going to be in Salt Lake City, Utah, and so many genies from around the world are going to be there.

So we just want to remind everybody. Come on by and see us! You’re going to be at the New England Historic Genealogical Society booth, I’ll be at the Extreme Genes booth, hopefully in the same vicinity, and it’s going to be a lot of fun!

David: It’s great! I hope that maybe we can get some interviews while we’re out there with some of our interesting genealogical listeners. Bring your stories! We’re always hoping to hear about your interesting family members.

Fisher: And coming up next David, I’m very excited about this, our first guest of the New Year, Karen Batchelor; she is the first African American woman to join the ‘Daughters of the American Revolution’ back in 1977.  She’s going to talk about the experience and all of her 40 years of research, some of her favorite stories. It’s good stuff, coming up on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

 

Segment 2 Episode 121

Host Scott Fisher with guest Karen Batchelor

Fisher: And welcome back to America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com.   I am Fisher, your Radio Roots Sleuth, and Happy New Year to you! And Happy New Year to my guest, Karen Batchelor!  Karen, where are you? You’re in Detroit, is that right?

Karen: I am, Scott. I’m in Detroit, Michigan. I’m native Detroiter, but I will tell you that being here in the cold midwest doesn’t prevent me from reaching out and doing a whole lot of genealogy.

Fisher: [Laughs] Absolutely! And it’s a New Year and I bet you you’ve already found something.

Karen: I have! Actually, I’ve had three major discoveries and it’s only the 5th day of January.

Fisher: Wow! You know, it’s interesting, because I know your background a little bit and I know you’ve been at it for decades. You started before I did, and I started thirty five years ago. And for you to find somebody as recent as a third great, that’s a tremendous find at this stage of the game.

Karen: Yeah, yeah. Well, I started…I started doing family history, it was in 1976, it was my New Year’s resolution that year, so that’s exactly forty years ago, and my son who is now forty, was only a little, you know, a baby, and I wanted to be able to share more about the family with him, and I realized there’s just a lot I didn’t know.

Fisher: So, off you went on your adventure. And how quickly did you start finding things?

Karen: Well, so this is where you’ve got to set this straight that this is before the internet.

Fisher: Right.

Karen: Before Ancestry.com or anything like that.

Fisher: [Laughs] Yes, we’re talking about self address stamped envelopes, telephone calls, visits to libraries.

Karen: Carry files, notebooks, and within ten months, I had found a Revolutionary War ancestor.

Fisher: Yes.

Karen: Which was a shock, because not only was I not looking for anything along those lines, but, also as an African American, I just really wasn’t looking for anything.

Fisher: Right! Who would have expected that? Now, was it an African American participant in the war?

Karen: No. No. No, I actually have found eight patriots. Of course, I have to do all those supplemental, but none of my ancestors who fought were African, of African descent.   My great grandmother was Caucasian, and she was from Pennsylvania, that…and Scots Irish… as far as I knew and her line was the line where I had my oldest relative, my great aunt Clara. And so, she started feeding me information, and I started searching on that line and I’ve gone back now to migration ancestors in 1630, Puritans in this country.

Fisher: So, you descend from both Puritans and the slaves?

Karen: Yes! Puritans, patriots, slaves, slave owners and a New England Colonial witch or two.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Karen: [Laughs]

Fisher: Wow! Well, no wonder you never stop. I mean, because the stories are endless. I hope you’ve written your own family history for yourself and your son.

Karen: Well, actually that is what I’m doing. That is this year. I’ve committed to myself to get this down, because I’ve spent what I call, a lot of time in base camp with the facts and the data.

Fisher: [Laughs] Yes.

Karen: And so, if you look at our family history as a mountain, which I do, I call it, ‘Story Mountain.’ When you start to climb up to the summit, that’s when you get into the stories and you start blending in the facts, the myths, the data and the, you know, cultural and historical timeline.  And so, that’s what I do now as business, but I also do it for myself. So, my commitment to myself is forty stories this year on my family.

Fisher: Wow! That’s a great goal! Well, let’s go back to this a little bit, back to your beginning, because in 1976, you find a revolutionary soldier in your background; you suddenly start to understand your own multi cultural background. You made a decision at that time, which kind of changed things, at least in one major organization.

Karen: Yeah. I decided to apply to Daughters of the American Revolution, and I found some resistance and, I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t think it was such a big thing, but from what I learned during that time, there had been no other African American women who had actually applied for membership and been admitted.  There maybe was one or maybe two who had African ancestry who came in many years ago. I heard there’s one who was of Indian, Native American, Caucasian and African ancestry, but she was the first daughter.

Fisher: Uh huh.

Karen: So, she was the daughter of the patriot. And she came in, in like the 1890s when she was ninety some years old, so, she didn’t have to apply. So, this was kind of the big deal, at least to some people out there and I put together my application.

For every fact that I cited in my application, I had at least three pieces of proof. I was pretty meticulous about my research, and I applied and became a member in October of 1977.

Fisher: Unbelievable! And you were the first African American woman to join D.A.R. as a result. And you mentioned you had some resistance. Now what did that entail?

Karen: Well, I only knew of a couple Chapters in Michigan close to me, relatively close, and I approached both of those Chapters which… who will remain nameless… and they were not interested. You had to be invited to be a member.

Fisher: Right.

Karen: No one was interested in inviting me to the party.

Fisher: Nobody would sponsor you!? I can even imagine that! You’re such a charmer! My goodness! So, how did this get resolved when you had two Chapters say, “No! We don’t want you joining us, Karen Batchelor!” What did you do? Where’d you go?

Karen: Well, I actually had a great friend and mentor, a genealogy mentor at the time, his name was James Dent Walker, and he was head of Genealogical Services at the National Archives in D.C. And he kind of took me under his wing.  He talked to some people at D.A.R. and the next thing I knew, in the middle of 1977, I got a letter from the Royal Oak chapter of D.A.R, which is the Ezra Parker Chapter, and they invited me to be a member and asked if they could sponsor me. And that was really great and I’m still a member of that Chapter to this day.

Fisher: That’s awesome! Now, since then of course, that kind of made you a person of some notoriety, I would imagine, within the Daughters of the American Revolution. Have you given a lot of speeches? Have you talked about this a lot or are you just involved in work on remembering the revolutionary ancestors and getting those records together and bringing in other members?

Karen: Well, probably all of the above. When I first became a member, you know, I mentioned it to a few friends, of course I told my parents, but I didn’t think it was, I really still didn’t think it was that big a deal. And that December, I was approached by a reporter from the New York Times and he wanted to do a story which appeared on the front page of The New York Times. Then, the next day, I got a call from Good Morning America. [Laughs]

Fisher: Wow!

Karen: They wanted me to come in for an interview, which I did. And it was in newspapers all over the country and around the world, but of course you won’t see those online so much, because the internet wasn’t around, but if you go into a site like Newspapers.com, there’s hit after hit after hit.

Fisher: Sure.

Karen: And so, even as recently as a couple of years ago, I was a Final Jeopardy question. [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs] Really?

Karen: Yeah. [Laughs]

Fisher: It doesn’t get much better than that!

Karen: I know, but I guess learning about genealogy the way that I did and it becoming my passion, as you know, that tends to happen to some of us.

Fisher: Yeah. [Laughs] Yes, it does.

Karen: I love to spread the word, so I have over the years given a lot of presentations. I’ve taught people about genealogy, because it’s really about wanting to know more about who you are, and your ancestors are just part of that bigger story.

Fisher: That’s absolutely true. Let me ask you this; did you get some negative feedback from the African American community that you are now part of what was predominantly a white organization?

Karen: Yes. There have been people who have asked me, “Why would you even want to be a member of that organization? They’re racist.” Yes, they did have a very negative reputation for years because of the Marian Anderson incident and my mom was actually in D.C. in college when that happened.

Fisher: Ah!

Karen: But, I guess, I have never been one to listen to everything that others say, and I chart my own course and I like to think that that’s my legacy from my, you know, many generations of pioneer ancestors. So, I just keep on trudging along.

Fisher: Yes, you do. You basically just take people one at a time for whoever they are, not in groups.

Karen: That’s correct. I mean, I have ancestors who were slave owners, and you know, the reality is, I think you have to take your ancestor as they come, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly and I do that, because they’re mine.

Fisher: That’s right.

Karen: I want them all! I’m sorry, I just want every last one of them that I can find.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Karen: [Laughs]

Fisher: I’m talking to Karen Batchelor. She was the first African American woman to join the D.A.R. back in 1977 and attracted a lot of attention for it at the time and as you can tell, she’s still quite the passionate genie that so many of us are, and we’re going to continue this conversation if that’s all right, Karen, because you have so much to talk about, I know, in your forty years of research that you might want to share with people.

Karen: Yeah, you might have to pull the plug! [Laughs]

Fisher: [Laughs] I don’t know about that! We will continue with more, coming up in five minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

 

Segment 3 Episode 121

Host Scott Fisher with guest Karen Batchlor

Fisher: And we are back! America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com

 

My name is Fisher; I’m the Radio Roots Sleuth, and I’m talking to Karen Batchelor, better known as the first African American woman to join the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) .

 

We spoke quite a bit about that in our first segment, but Karen I want to talk about all the different stories you have found on all your different branches through all your different cultural backgrounds that you’ve discovered.

 

During the break you were telling me you descend from the witches, you descend from the early Native Americans, talk about some of the different people that you’ve run across that mean a lot to you.

 

Karen: Well, there are a couple. One is my great-great grandmother, Charity Anne, who was a slave. She was in Georgia, and the slave of her son, who was white, was my second great grandfather, and that couple had sixteen children together, all of whom survived slavery.

The youngest was my great grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Parker, and while I don’t agree obviously with the notion of slavery and the stories of what it did to our collective culture, all very sad.

Fisher: Right.

Karen: But I do have a copy of the Bill of Sale, where my great, great grandfather bought my great, great grandmother from his father’s estate when the father died right before the Civil War. So I thought they were a pretty interesting couple. He never married anyone else. They lived together as man and wife, and I thought they had a lot of courage.

Fisher: Yeah [laughs] I would say that‘s an understatement. Where did they live?

Karen: They were in Harris County, Georgia, which are the very rural areas outside of Columbus.

Fisher: Right.

Karen: And that’s where both of my dad’s parents came from there, and they came up to Detroit when Henry Ford put up those flyers that said ‘Work in the auto factory for five dollars a day’ and they came up here then in 1917.

Fisher: Wow! A lot of folks left the South during that era, didn’t they?

Karen: Yeah, they did. But also on the other side, I have some really very interesting Puritan ancestors. I have done a lot of reading, I’m not just a genealogist, I’m also a history nerd.

Fisher: But you can’t do one without the other because there is no context otherwise.

Karen: Exactly! I’m all about the context, so if I’m researching Puritan lines, then I immerse myself in learning about Puritan society, culture, and I even did historical presenting here at Greenfield Village and Dearborn, Michigan, and I worked at a colonial farm so I dressed in colonial garb.

I learned how to cook over the harth and all that, but it was a harsh time. So it makes me, as I read and learn more about my Puritan ancestors, like, what they went through to be here was amazing.  So, long story, I know that I come from very strong stuff. No matter what line you go on, I came from the survivors, and that gives me a lot of strength as I go through life.

Fisher: Boy, I bet that’s true. So let’s talk about the person that you had that escaped from captivity, amongst your Puritan ancestors back in the day.

Karen: Well, her name was Hannah Dustin, and she was from New Hampshire. She had just had a baby, and maybe the next day or two their farm was attacked by the Native American tribe in the area and of course remember that Puritans were always land grabbing from the Native Americans, so I guess at times I can hardly blame them for wanting to lash out and grab their land back.  But Hannah was captured with her infant and with a servant, her husband. And I think she had like seven kids at the time, they escaped. She was taken on this track, and at some point, more than a hundred miles away from her home, she hatched a plan with another captive and in the night they killed all their captors.

Fisher: Whoa!

Karen: And then because there was a bounty on her scalp, she went back and scalped all her captors, and went back to civilization as a heroine. The thing about ancestors, you take the good, the bad and the ugly, so she’s a survivor, but I don’t like her message.  But that was Hannah Dustin [Laughs].

Fisher: Wow! And this is all stuff you found over the last forty years?

Karen: Yeah. But what’s interesting when you talk about Native American and growing up and the African American community, I always heard that we had a lot of Native American ancestry and I was always pretty proud of that. Well, when I finally got around to doing a DNA test, and I’ve got a couple now and they’re both consistent, I have 2% Native American heritage.

Fisher: Just 2%?

Karen: Just 2%. I have 54% West African; well of course, most of the slave trade came from West Africa. It was the closest to the ocean, and then I have 42% or so northern European.

Fisher: You are very much split.

Karen: Yep, yeah.

Fisher: So that also suggests to me that you also have more European ancestry in some of your other ancestors other than your great grandmother who you knew about.

Karen: That’s correct. Well, my grandfather, my maternal grandfather was from Bermuda and he was a staunch British citizen.  So I know that his heritage was mixed. And my slave side, they were all mixed. They all show up as Mulatto and the ones I knew, talked about the older ones. You know they were kind of like “Yeah, they were all very light.”  So yeah, there’s a lot of mixed, but I’m an American, and I like to think at this point that I’m more American than apple pie.

Fisher: [Laughs] I can’t argue that with you at all, Karen! Did you find some stories back there that have caused you some pain?

Karen: Well, you know the whole thing about the witches, the witch hunt thing that has caused me some. I spend a lot of time researching, not so bound by the time, and the notion of how someone could be accused of witchcraft and this was very early on. They were like the second, third, fourth, people to be executed in this country.

Fisher: That’s right.

Karen: So how did this happen? How do you have a society where someone can point a finger at you and then all of a sudden you lose your life? So that has troubled me a lot and I actually would love to one day veer off my genealogical path and write kind of a historical fiction novel about this phenomenon and this couple.

Fisher: I have no doubt that you can do it. How have your children and grandchildren taken to this?

Karen: [Laughs] Well, my son is forty now, and he’s interested, but he has young kids and both of my grandchildren are of mixed race. So I hope these stories that I put together and share with them, because I think kids and adults learn better through stories so I’m not going to bore them with showing them the family tree that makes my son’s eyes roll back in his head.

Fisher: [Laughs] Yes.

Karen: But I want to share the stories that make them proud to be all of the things that they are, because I am.

Fisher: Karen Batchelor, thank you so much for your time and coming on Extreme Genes. It’s been a delight, and I hope you’ll come on again sometime as you make some more discoveries.

Karen: I would love to, Scott, and thanks for all of the stories that you share. They keep all of us genies out here motivated to continue to stay hot on the trail.

Fisher: You know I think that’s the thing, the stories give us the bigger picture and it’s a lot easier than just instructing on every facet of how you go about doing the research, don’t you think?

Karen: I think you are right.

Fisher: Coming up next; Tom Perry our Preservation Authority. He’s going to talk about things you need to do this year whether or not you planning to digitize your old family films, your photographs, whatever it is, he’s got some important stuff to share with you next in three minutes, on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

 

 

 

 

Segment 4 Episode 121

Host Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: It is preservation time at Extreme Genes, America’s Family’s History Show and ExtremeGenes.com

It is Fisher here, your Radio Roots Sleuth, with Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com. He is our Preservation Authority, and Tom this week, ‘Tom’s 5 steps for scanning and storing.’ That’s a lot of S’s

Tom: It is. It is.

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: We have been getting so many emails asking questions about these. It’s really simple whether you’re scanning or storing you basically have the same steps. Some people think “Hey, I’m not ready to transfer my items yet or I’m going to do it later so I don’t need to worry about it, let me leave it in the box where it is right now.”

Well, that’s not a good idea because it could be getting more contaminated. So whether you’re going to transfer right now, you’re done transferring it, or you’re going to transfer it in a while, you really need to do these steps.

First off, you’ve got them in the box where they are right now whether it’s the attic, the garage, underneath your bed wherever it is.

Fisher: And you’re talking photographs or videos?

Tom: Yes!

Fisher: [Laughs]

Tom: We’re talking everything.

Fisher: Everything, all right.

Tom: Heirlooms anything that you have, you want to take these steps. Even if it’s something that’s never going to be scanned, just things that you’re storing like dad’s old pocket watch or something.  The first thing is, I can almost guarantee you whatever box it’s being stored in is not a good box. Sometimes you open these things and you find that there has been rats or mice that have gotten into them.

Fisher: Hmm.

Tom: And hopefully they haven’t damaged anything which is another whole segment which we’ll do on a future day. So what you need to do is, you need to take this original box and pretty much you’re probably going to throw it away because it’s probably dirty. If it’s an heirloom box, a wooden box that you can clean it out and reuse it.

You need basic five storage boxes, okay? So you want to go through these things so that you don’t have some items that are in pristine condition and then have other items that are really dusty and can contaminate your pristine stuff.

Fisher: Right.

Tom: So what you want to do;

  1. You have your original box where everything is in it.
  2. Then you want to have what we call a sorted box.
  3. Then you have a cleaned box.
  4. You have a scanned box.
  5. And a storage box.

And you want these in different parts of the house if you can so you don’t contaminate your items. So first thing you want to do is open up funky boxes that are dirty, they probably haven’t been stored right.

You want to take those and get all your items sorted, put your film together, your video tapes together, your photos all in separate boxes so that they’re not all mixed up because there’s going to be different ways to transfer them, different mediums, different ways that you want to store them.

Fisher: Right.

Tom: Okay so first you do that. Now, that you’ve got them all sorted take one item at a time whether it’s your video tapes or your photos or your slides. Take one box and take it into a different area and clean it. There’s all kind of tips on the internet how you can clean things.

Fisher: Now, you’re talking about dirt or mouse turds or what?

Tom: Everything. Everything. Now some things you can do yourself. You know DIY projects, some things you don’t want to touch. For instance if you have something that has spilled onto one of your negatives, those things you’re not going to want to clean off yourself because there are too many ways to damage them.  Some people don’t understand the emulsion side from the non emulsion side. You never want to clean the emulsion side. People are going, “Well which way is this?” and it’s sometimes hard to explain.

Fisher: Sure.

Tom: So the best thing to do, take it to a professional whether you want to send it to us or find somebody in your area that is professional. Not somebody working out of their house but somebody that has this as a business, they know what they’re doing.  It’s not like your brother “Oh I’m sure I can clean that up.” And they could ruin your images. So things like this you’re going to want to set in a separate box. As far as just getting dust off, you can use those air dusters but be very, very careful.

When you’re dusting with an air duster you want to make sure you’re holding the can still, preferably on a counter and you’re moving the item in front of it. You’re not moving the can, because what happens, the compression type of chemicals they have in these can become very, very cold, and if you ever aired something you see the white stuff start coming off, that’s freezing now and that could permanently damage your negatives, your film, your video, anything.  So hold the can still. So you want to hold the can still and move the item in front of that so you’re not moving the can around and don’t shake it. If it starts turning white, stop immediately because that can actually freeze your emulsion and cause all kinds of problems.

Fisher: Wow.

Tom: So the best thing I usually use is ‘Camel hair brushes’ because they won’t hold the dust and they’re really good at cleaning and they’re really, really soft and any good art store will have them for you and you can also get them on Amazon or eBay.

Fisher: That’s right.

Tom: So right after the break we’ll come back and give you some more ideas of what we’re going to do.

Fisher: All right. That’s just step one.

Tom: Exactly.

Fisher: More to come in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show.

 

Segment 5 Episode 121

Host Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry

Fisher: And we are back on America’s Family History Show, Extreme Genes and ExtremeGenes.com

It is Fisher here with Tom Perry, the Preservation Authority from TMCPlace.com, and we’re talking about Tom’s five steps of scanning and storing and we’ve been going through them.

I don’t know what step we’re on here, Tom, but we’ve talked about organizing and separating things into boxes. I guess we’re up to the cleaning area now, right?  Which is number three?

Tom: Exactly. So, basically you’ve taken your things, you’re cleaning them. We’ve given you some tips on cleaning before the break. Now, some other things you want to be careful with too is, if you have old VHS tapes or Video 8 tapes, any kind of video tapes that something spilled into, that’s something you want to leave to a professional.  We have too many clients that bring us items that they’ve opened up the case and the springs have gone crazy and they’ve damaged the tape by closing it together, and the only thing worse than doing that is, not telling your transfer person you’re giving it to that you’ve done that.

Fisher: Really?

Tom: Oh yeah! Sometimes, if you put the case back together very well, they’re not going to catch it. They’re going to stick it in, and if you’ve got a spring that’s loose in there, it could tear your tape. So, don’t think, ‘Oh, if I don’t tell them, everything will be fine.’ Whoever you’re taking it to to transfer, even if you’re doing it yourself, you don’t want to do anything that’s been opened. Take it to professional, have them put it back together properly or the best thing to do is just don’t open it.  If you already opened it, bring it in to us, bring it in to somebody that knows what they’re doing and have them get a new case or whatever it needs to make it right.  Now, if you have dust and dirt and you’re scared of doing something, that’s fine. Just take it in to a professional, say, “Hey! This has been in storage. It’s dirty.” You don’t want to put it with your good tapes, and one thing that’s really bad which we’ve talked about before, is mold.

Fisher: Oh yes!

Tom: Especially if you’re in the southeast.

Fisher: Or the northeast.

Tom: Exactly! Because mold is really, really bad because you can contaminate everything from one bad tape, so don’t put it in your VCR and say, ‘Oh well, I just want to find out if this is something I want to transfer, because now, all that mold is on your heads. The next tapes you’re going to put in, it’s going to go on there. You’re not going to see it when you first do it, because they’re mold spores and they will grow, and they’re really, really bad.

Fisher: So, you can actually contaminate your machine with this.

Tom: Oh yeah! It’s just like chicken pox.

Fisher: Sure. Yeah.

Tom: You know, anybody else gets near you they’re going to get the chicken pox also. So, what we do, we have a professional machine that we can put it in that cleans those.

What we have done in the past is, we’ve gone and got a VCR which are hard sometimes to find, but they are still out there. There might even be a combo unit. But all your memories are worth more than a hundred dollars it’s going to cost to buy one of these machines.

So, what we’ve done for clients, they’ve either brought them in to us or we found them for them. We transfer all the tapes in that machine. So, everything’s done now and then we throw the machine away.

Fisher: Oh, good idea!

Tom: So, you don’t want to give it to Goodwill or any place like that, because you’re giving somebody a time bomb basically that they might think, “Oh, here’s a VCR! I want to watch my tapes.” And you’re just giving them all chicken pox, so to speak.  Okay, now you’ve got everything separated, everything cleaned. Now’s the step where you go and you can get it transferred. Now, if you say “Hey, I really want to do this, but I just can’t afford it right now. I need to save up some money.” Well, that’s fine. Still go though all these other steps to get your stuff ready now, so it doesn’t deteriorate any more than it already has. Especially slides, negatives and film.

Fisher: And it gets it in your mind too, that, “I’ve got to get this taken care of” because everything is in a constant state of deterioration.

Tom: Oh, absolutely! So, even though you might not be able to afford this for a year, you’ve got to save up some money to do it, at least you’ve slowed down the progression of the deterioration. So, just skip the scan step and go to a storage place, and make sure now that you’ve done all these steps, you store it right.

I like storing stuff in Ziploc bags and if I have old things from like, electronics you’ve bought that says, ‘Do not eat this’, the little silica gels. The reason those are in there, they absorb moisture when the items are coming across the sea in the big cargo ships, so they’re great.

If you don’t have those, you can make your own. You need some cheesecloth, you need some string and you need some uncooked rice. I put things in Ziploc bags, I put them in the box and that will keep a lot of the moisture out. If you don’t know how to make these rice bags with cheese cloth, write me and I’ll send you some tips on that as well.

Fisher: All right. Good stuff, Tom! Thanks so much!

Tom: You bet! Thank you.

Fisher: That wraps up our show this week. Thanks once again to Karen Batchelor of Detroit, Michigan, for coming on and talking about her forty years of experience in researching, and the experience of becoming the first African American woman to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

If you missed any of our segments with her today, be sure to catch the podcast on iTunes, iHeart Radio, ExtremeGenes.com, wherever you are.

Thanks for joining us! And remember, as far as everyone knows, we’re a nice, normal family!

Click Here to Listen to this Episode!