Press Release
June 30, 2016

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National Archives Presents "Shared Legacies: Honoring the Black-Jewish Civil Rights Alliance" on July 21

Program features a reading by actor Louis Gossett, Jr.

Washington, DC…On Thursday, July 21, 2016, at 7 p.m., the National Archives will present a panel discussion of "Shared Legacies: Honoring the Black-Jewish Civil Rights Alliance," which will also feature a special reading by Academy Award®-winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr.

Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League, will moderate the panel, which will focus on the historic connection between African American and Jewish communities. Panelists include C.T. Vivian, Civil Rights icon and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom; Clarence B. Jones, an advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Rabbi Israel Dresner, the foremost rabbinic participant in the Civil Rights struggle of the 1960s; and Susannah Heschel,the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College. Following the discussion, there will be a short musical performance featuring Yvette Spears and the Robyn Helzner Trio.

The program is free and open to the public. You can reserve your seat online or visit National Archives YouTube channel to watch a live stream.

The program will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Museum in the National Archives Building, located at Constitution Ave. and 7th Street, NW, in Washington, DC. Metro accessible on the Yellow and Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station. Attendees should enter through the Special Events entrance.

The event is presented in partnership with the 2016 March on Washington Film Festival, a production of The Raben Group

National Archives Holds Free Records Programs in July and August

Press Release
June 29, 2016

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Washington, DC…This summer, the National Archives holds research and genealogy programs highlighting records from its holdings. These programs are free and open to the public, and will be held at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC, which is located on the National Mall and is fully accessible. For programs in the McGowan Theater, please use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street, NW. For programs in the Research Center, please use the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance, between 7th and 9th Streets, NW. The building is Metro accessible on the Yellow and Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter Station.

The August 11 program will be live streamed on the US National Archives Know Your Records playlist on YouTube. Presentation materials will be available online.

Black Sailors and Citizenship in the Era of the Gag Rule
Thursday, July 14, at noon, Room G-25, Research Center (Penn. Ave. Entrance)
Kate Masur, professor at Northwestern University, will discuss race, rights, and citizenship between the 1820s and the Civil War and her book project, "Police Powers, the Anti-Slavery Movement, and the Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment."

DC Emancipation Act
Thursday, August 11, at 2 p.m., William G. McGowan Theater & YouTube (Constitution Ave. entrance)
In 1862, the DC Emancipation Act freed enslaved persons in the District of Columbia. Damani Davis, archivist, discusses petitions filed by owners and slaves under the Act.

FREE RECORDS TALKS ON YOUTUBE 
Know Your Records has made available online extensive videos, handouts, and presentations from our live programs. Learn how to do research at the National Archives using Federal holdings including census, immigration, and military service, and pension records. See the Know Your Records playlist.

SAVE THE DATE - Virtual Genealogy Fair October 26 and 27, 2016 
Join us for the annual National Archives virtual Genealogy Fair via webcast on YouTube, October 26 and 27, 2016. Speakers include genealogy experts from National Archives locations across the nation. Revisit last year's popular event online. Video recordings and handouts for all ten sessions are available.

"A prudent man ... hides himself."

“A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, But the simple pass on and are punished.” —Prov. 22:3

This verse was part of my devotions this morning and brought a unique memory to mind.

Proverbs is a book intended to bring people out of folly to wise action. Many years ago we were seated with a small group in a Denny’s. Next to me was a man we had recently had the privilege of leading to the Lord from a life of folly. The conversation was light and enjoyable until something unexpected broke the mood. This new convert suddenly dived under the table! "What on earth are you doing?" I asked.

"Tell me when those guys that just came in are out of sight," he whispered.

I waited till the group was led to another part of the restaurant. Our new Christian cautiously peeked over the table top, then slowly raised himself back into position. We left soon after this.

This was one of the wisest acts I have ever seen from a baby Christian. "Those guys" were some of his old partners in sin. He wasn't ready to face them; he was afraid he would be drawn back into his old lifestyle. Some might say this was a lost opportunity, but the time would come when he could face them and share his testimony. This day wasn't it.

And the memory of a new believer diving under a table in a restaurant remains etched in my mind as the personification of Proverbs 22:3, “A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself."

Book Review: The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport by Christy K Robinson

A Delightful Companion to the Fiction Books

The Dyers of London, Boston, & Newport is the third in the compelling trilogy of Dyer books by author/editor Christy K Robinson. The first two are fiction. If you are a historian, you may at first think you want only the nonfiction book. That’s what I thought at first also. I love history and seldom read fiction, but I took the leap on these because I had learned in recent years that I am descended from William and Mary Dyer.  I thoroughly enjoyed the two fiction books. Based firmly on history, they will enrich your understanding of this important time period in American history.

With the nonfiction book, you get to know the Dyers … and their heritage. If you have found them in your family tree you will enjoy a veritable feast of information about your ancestors. And if you're not related to them, you will still be fascinated by this lively, entertaining, yet historically accurate book.

William and Mary Dyer were the Dyers of London. They were married at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Westminster, London, on October 27, 1633.

A well-to-do couple, they left England for the colonies, landing in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 in the midst of the Great Migration of Puritans fleeing religious persecution and corruption in their homeland. They both made amazing contributions to the New World, impacting the realms of religion and politics. They helped found Portsmouth and Newport, Rhode Island. And Mary has a prominent statue today at the Boston Statehouse.

William was the first Commander-in-Chief-Upon-the-Seas in the Colonies. And … well you just need to read the book. They were one of America’s first power couples.

The lynchpin of the Dyer history is Mary’s singular impact on the Colonies and on this nation’s freedoms … of speech and of religion. She paid the ultimate price, dying on the gallows at the hands of a bigoted and corrupt Puritan political hierarchy … and in her death, changed the world of then, and of today.

Written in numerous brief topical chapters, the book never bogs the reader down, providing instead a steady relevant variety told in crisp, entertaining prose. I have placed the book where few have the privilege of resting—on my regular reference shelf.

Go inside the world of William and Mary Dyer. Learn the big things, and a lot of the interesting small things, that made up their unique and colorful lives and times.

All three books are available on Amazon.

Red-tailed Hawk on a Hay Bale

A block away from our house.

Travesty of Galileo's Imprisonment

In 2007 I first saw Galieo's Asronomic Observatory at Padua (Padova) University in Italy. It was here in the early 17th century that he observed 4 moons revolving around Jupiter, using a super-powerful telescope that he had invented. The telescope also enabled him to make several other amazing discoveries. Far from impressed, the other professors refused to even look through it, since Galileo felt, by analogy, this confirmed Copernicus' teaching that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around as the Catholic church taught. (Ecclesiastes 1:5 says, "The sun riseth, and goeth down, and returneth to his place: and there rising again.") Though he moved to Florence to seek a freer intellectual climate, the "church" soon caught up with him and threatened to place him on trial for heresy. He stayed quiet for years, but when he published his book on astronomy, the Inquisition arrested and imprisoned him, threatening him with torture if he didn't recant his view about the sun. To save his life, he recanted, but was still branded a heretic and placed under house arrest ... for the rest of his life. The Catholic church's brutal repression of science and its use of torture in the Inquisition are two of many historical evidences showing what a wonderful thing it was that genuine Christianity had begun to find its own way in the Reformation of the previous century ... becoming Protestantism. Next year it will be 500 years since that momentous occurrence began in Wittenberg, Germany in October 1517.

[Photos by Ken Horn]

J. Roswell Flower: A Brief Biography by David Ringer (Wipf & Stock, 2016) Reviewed by Ken Horn

It has long been said that the Assemblies of God is unlike other religious movements in that it doesn’t have a single founder, one major personality with whom it is identified who exerted the most substantial influence at the birth of the movement and helped mold it into a form that would be enduring.

If we were to search for such an individual, J. Roswell Flower would clearly emerge as a strong candidate, all the more impressive because he exerted the influence without ever holding the Fellowship’s highest office. Beginning at the inaugural meeting in 1914, he served in national office multiple times, as district superintendent in the Eastern District, and many, many more. (Of course this reviewer is most impressed with the fact that he was founder, publisher, editor of the magazine that became the Pentecostal Evangel, the official publication of the Assemblies of God for a century.)

Although much has been written about Flower, David K. Ringer has provided the first biography of this giant of Pentecost. The book is signally important in at least two ways:

1.   It introduces Flower to a new generation. J. Roswell, his wife, Alice Reynolds Flower, and the Flower family have an enduring heritage in the Assemblies of God. Indeed, the archives of the Fellowship have been dubbed the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center. But young ministers, workers and attendees of AG churches need this introduction. At 128 pages, this brief biography is eminently readable. Churches would do well to encourage their people to read the book, and get copies for their church libraries. In a day when many Assemblies seem to be minimizing and, thus, forgetting our heritage, this book can provide a crucial connection to a past that can inspire the present.

2.   It is based on an unprecedented wealth of research. The book is based on Ringer’s 2014 D.Min. project for Assemblies of God Theological Seminary. That in turn is partially based on the Flower Family Papers, a collection for which Ringer, who married one of Flower’s granddaughters (Kathryn Flower Ringer), enjoyed unsurpassed access. His family connection also allowed him to undergird the book with unique personal insight.

Flower’s life and words call our movement to be faithful to the vision of our founders. "I have not forgotten the early days of our Pentecostal movement,” he is quoted in the book. “There was an earnest desire to separate from all the things of the world. There was no particular need to frown on worldliness in dress and deportment, for the very passion to please God was sufficient to bring separation from these things" (p. 89).

It is this reviewer’s hope that the book will enjoy a wide circulation, and that its contents will inform, but more importantly, spiritually inspire many a reader.

An Interesting Will in the Corey (Cory, Corrie) History in Portsmouth, Rhode Island

My eight-great-grandmother Mary Earle (1640-1718) lived her entire life in Portsmouth, Newport Co., Rhode Island. She had two husbands, the first being my ancestor William Corey (or Cory). They wed c. 1655 and William died in 1681. Mary's second marriage was c. 1683 to Joseph Timberlake. He passed in 1693. Just 53 when she was widowed the second time, she lived the last quarter century of her life as a widow.

Thus she died at an advanced age of about 78 years old, far beyond the life expectancy at the time. Her will dated Aug. 12, 1717, bequeaths portions of her estate to many children, in-laws and grandchildren. She had 11 children (10 Corey, 1 Timberlake), four of which predeceased her.

She gave significant (if modest) bequeaths to most of the family, but she gave an unusual (and humorous) gift to her son-in-law:

"I give and bequeath to my son in law Charles Gonzales Moreno the five cords of wood that he owes me."

That was it. That unpaid wood kept him from getting a larger share of the estate! Lesson: Don't get on the wrong side of your mother-in-law. (However, his wife received a good portion.)

There was another interesting bequeath. Mary had an Indian girl as an indentured servant. I have found no evidence that any of my ancestors owned a slave, and this is my first knowledge of a servant. They are, of course, much different things. This was bequeathed to her one Timberlake child. The will states:

"I give and bequeath unto my daughter Sarah Jeffries the term of years I have in my Indian girl Dina, she performing covenants according to Indenture."

Two interesting entries.

Miguel de Cervantes 400-Year Anniversary

Friday, the 22nd was the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, Spain's best known author. The country celebrated Cervantes today, the anniversary of his burial. While most of the world is recognizing the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death today, Spain and many Spanish-speaking countries are celebrating Cervantes, whose best known work is Don Quixote. We encountered this intricate statue of Cervantes in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2012. 

This Day in Horn Family History: "Old Raven" Dies

My seventh-great-grandfather Wilhelm Kraft Rabenold [alternate spellings Rabennalt, Rabenalt, etc.] died this day in about 1749 in Lowhill Township, Northampton Co, PA [1]. My No. 568 ancestor was born Dec. 15, 1698, in Ichstedt, Germany. [2]

He married Maria Magdalena Bauer on May 30, 1730, in St. George's Chapel, Lichtenburg, Germany. [3] They Immigrated to America on the ship Samuel, landing in Philadelphia on August 30, 1730.

Descent:

284 Johann(es) Peter Rabenold/t b. 1728, Lichtenberg, Germany; d. 1807, Northampton County, PA.

142 Peter Rabenold b. 1754; d. 1828, Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, PA.

71 Susanna Rabenold b. Oct. 28, 1782, ‪Lowhill Township, ‪Northampton County, ‪PA; d. January 20, 1853, South Whitehall Township, Lehigh County, PA.

35 Anna (or Hannah) Koch b. Mar. 14, 1815, Macungie, Lehigh Co., Pennsylvania (or Whitehall Township, Lehigh, PA); d. after 1838.

17 Mary Ann Meitzler b. Aug. 7, 1835, near Allentown, PA; d. 10/7/1910, Tiffin or “south of Tiffin,” Seneca Co., OH.

8 John Henry Franklin Horn b. Aug. 12, 1861, Allentown, Lehigh Co., PA; d. Sept. 30, 1953, Yuma Rural, Yuma Co., Arizona.

4 Frank Eugene Horn b. Nov. 9, 1882, Shenandoah, Fremont/Page Co., Iowa; d. July 8, 1960, Pleasant Hill, Contra Costa Co., California.

My dad: 2 Leroy Kenneth Earl Horn b. April 4, 1910, Douglas Co. near Girdner, Missouri; d. May 30, 1991, Richmond, Contra Costa Co., California.

[1]Book: The Descendants of Wilhelm Kraft Rabennalt & Maria Magdalena Bauer Rabennalt "Old Raven", 1698-1998 by Jessie D. & Benjamin J. Raubenolt, ‪New Image Graphics, 1998 - ‪270 pages.

[2] Transcript of German birth certificate.

[3] Book: The Descendants of Wilhelm Kraft Rabennalt & Maria Magdalena Bauer Rabennalt "Old Raven", 1698-1998 by Jessie D. & Benjamin J. Raubenolt, ‪New Image Graphics, 1998 - ‪270 pages.

Immigration: 30 Aug 1730, To Philadelphia on Ship Samuel. — Ancestors of Franklin Phillip Stahl354 — Jesse Dean Raubenolt, II, Research of Jesse Raubenolt,(E-mail dated May 5, 1999), "Electronic."