Family History and Murder, A Match Made In Heaven: The Jefferson Tayte Mysteries

Jefferson Tayte, the creation of author Steve Robinson, is a mild-mannered professional genealogist. As his clients can afford to to pay him to fly to the United Kingdom to conduct research in person, he must be very good and his clients must be very rich. Unfortunately, Jefferson Tayte also has bad luck. Every time he travels to England for a client, people end up dead. Lots of people. Jefferson's life is threatened and in order to solve the murders he must also solve a genealogical puzzle.

Genealogists always warned about skeleton's in the closets and unhappy family secrets. But apparently the skeletons in the closets of Jefferson Tayte's clients comes with unhappy descendants who hire assassins. It makes for a gripping yarn, but luckily real-world genealogy usually comes without assassins. Personally, I think the plots in all the books a little "gothic" and far-fetched in their conception and way too many people die. But they are imaginative and it's fun to see genealogists save the day.

In the Blood was the first book in the series (first edition, new edition). Jefferson Tayte "competes" against a younger genealogist to find information required by a client. For those of you familiar with movers in shakers in the American genealogical world, I couldn't help but picture Jefferson Tayte as J. Mark Lowe and the younger genealogist as Josh Taylor. The family skeleton in question in this book springs from an early 19th century murder.

The second book, To The Grave, (first edition, new edition) features a skeleton which has it's origins in the Second World War. I thought the ending of this one particularly sad.

The skeleton in The Last Queen of England (first edition, new edition) has it's roots in the Jacobite movement during the reign of Queen Anne. A group of history doctoral students tell Jefferson that they prefer to investigate the past on their own and form their own opinions, as if that's not what historians actually do in the first place. One of them even says "history books can't be challenged." Well, of course they can. Needless to say, I found this entire exchange irritating, but since the students help solve the mystery, I tried not to fret too much.

The books, first issued in the UK several years ago, have been quite successful and will be reissued on 18 March 2014 in new Kindle Editions, in addition to paperback and audio versions. The first editions are still available for purchase and are currently available to borrow in the Kindle Owner's Library. I do not know what will happen to them after 18 March.

Monuments Men: Opening Day Roundup

Two years ago I learned about the Monuments Men when it was announced that George Clooney had optioned Robert Edsel's book. In the ensuing months, I read all I could about the Monuments Men and art looting by the Nazis and blogged about it here, here, here, here, here, and here. 

In November of last year, I heard Robert Edsel speak about the Monuments Men at the Cleveland Museum of Art where I purchased an autographed copy of his newest book, Saving Italy. Edsel will be speaking at the National Archives on 19 February, details here.  If you can't make it to DC, you can watch him discuss his book on BookTV. He will appear live on BookTV on 22 February at 11 am ET. There is a profile of him in the Washington Post here and an interview with the Holocaust Memorial Museum here.

With the opening of the movie today, there is news about the Monuments Men (and women) everywhere. 

Reviews: Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, and Variety. The general consensus of the reviews is probably not what Mr. Clooney hoped for. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Getty, and the Huntington Library have posted articles about their connections to the Monuments Men.

There have been countless articles related to the history and mission of the Monuments Men: NBC Nightly News, the National Archives Prologue, the BBC, the Smithsonian, National Archives The Text Message, New York Times, the Huffington Post, the U.S. Army, Artlog, the Des Moines Register, and the National WWII Museum. 

Behind-the-Scenes/Making of articles are here, here, and here.

Read about the larger message of the film, the problem of looted art and heritage, in the Jewish Daily Forward. 

Robert Edsel and George Clooney were both scheduled to appear on the Charles Rose show this week.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for a genealogy blog, Ancestry.com reports that Clooney is distantly related to George Stout, the leader of the Monuments Men.

Need Pound Cake? Family Recipe Copied 18 Years Ago to the Rescue!

Old Fashioned Pound Cake

My mother called from the store and said, "I think your father wants pound cake. Would you make your father some pound cake?" Or if those weren't the words, that was the meaning.  I said  "yes' and then immediately thought to myself, "why don't you make the pound cake?"

I procrastinated all afternoon, until finally, at about 5 pm, I looked at the recipe my mother wanted me to use. First, it didn't call for butter. My mother had gotten butter at the store - all pound cake calls for butter, right? Not this recipe, it called for Crisco. Luckily, I had purchased some a couple of months ago. Then I read the rest of the recipe and the notes my mother had included with it.

My mother had gotten the recipe in 1996 when she and her oldest granddaughter visited Charlene Epperson Morris, a distant relative of my father's. Mrs. Morris, who died shortly after the visit, said it was a family recipe and favorite of her Papa's. The cake was so good that said granddaughter, a notorious picky eater, ate an entire slice.

Upon returning home, my mother dutifully entered the recipe in document full of family and favorite recipes (not always the same thing) she had created when my sister married in 1991. Here the recipe languished until January 2014, when I, under great duress, made the cake for my father. As the recipe had an excellent story attached for it and because the cake was easy to make and quite tasty, I quickly became un-irritated with my mother.

Here, just in case your father needs pound cake and you have no butter, is Charlene Epperson Morris' recipe:

1 cup Crisco
1 3/4 cup sugar
5 whole eggs  - at room temperature

Beat all together until creamy.

ADD:
2 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons vanilla

Beat 2 minutes.     Bake in greased & floured tube pan(s)     1 hour  @  325° (degrees)

Happy Baking!

Museum Box Is a Great Way for Students to Create Virtual Artifact Displays

Museum Box Is a Great Way for Students to Create Virtual Artifact Displays

This posts is from the Free Technology for Teachers. I've not tried it (and two of the commentors on the post tried it and found it lacking). It occurred to me that if students could make a museum about a topic they were researching, so could anybody else.  Museum Box might be worth checking out, but caveat emptor.