5 Easy Ways to Remember and Relate to Family Past and Present

October is Family History Month. Newberry Library staff member, owner of Heartland Historical Research, and author Grace DuMelle offers the following “Top 5 Ways” to acknowledge the occasion:

• Take a tour of the places your ancestors lived, worked, played, and worshipped. Be sure to convert pre-1909 addresses for Chicago so you’re in the correct spot!

• Ask older relatives if they have any good stories about your ancestors. What stands out after all these years? Are there things you want to know more about? Write down the clues.

• Go through old photos. It can be a revelation to see an ancestor as a young man or woman. How have you inherited height, build, eye color, or nose?

• Get the context. What was it like to be a Pullman porter, fire fighter, school teacher or dressmaker? How was it to live through the Chicago Fire, World War II, or the civil rights era? It’s fun to learn more with a trip to the Chicago History Museum (1601 N. Clark St., Chicago), Newberry Library (60 W. Walton St., Chicago), or Fire Museum of Greater Chicago.

• Cook a special meal with food that’s been part of your family. Most ancestors came to Chicago from a different part of the U.S. or a different country. Toast the traditions they brought from home and passed down to you.

Grace DuMelle is the author of the Finding Your Chicago Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide to Family History in the City and Cook County (Lake Claremont Press, 2005), whose second printing with updated information was released in August 2007. The first edition was awarded prizes by: the National Federation of Press Women, Illinois Woman’s Press Association, and Midwest Independent Publisher’s Association. Visit https://www.lakeclaremont.com/events.php for a list of DuMelle’s fall “Genealogy 101” programs (free and open to the public).

Vote for Whiting for Pierogy Capital!

Lake Claremont Press ventures to Whiting, IN to participate in the city's annual Pierogi Fest each summer. It takes just one visit to Pierogi Fest to figure out that people in Whiting practically breathe pierogies. From our experience, no city is more deserving to be named Mrs. T's Capital of the Pierogy Pocket of America than Whiting, IN. They are in the final five of this nationwide competition and need online votes to grab the title. You can vote online (and often) by visiting: www.pierogypocket.com.

Here's the city's pierogified profile:

Whiting, Indiana is bursting at the seams with pierogy love! Each year, Whiting shares its passion with over 50,000 visitors at its annual Pierogi Fest. Featuring the Pierogettes (pierogy cheerleaders), a Pierogy Toss and a Pierogy Eating Contest, this year’s festival also boasted the world’s largest pierogy — weighing in at 78 pounds! In support of Whiting’s quest to make the city the Capital of the Pierogy Pocket, the mayor issued an official proclamation and over 2,000 area residents signed a petition supporting their city of 5,000 residents. Mr. Pierogi himself exclaimed, “Choose us and we will be ‘filled’ with pride…and potatoes!” If named Capital of the Pierogy Pocket, Whiting would use the prize money to help the Whiting Food Pantry and to start constructing a permanent city museum to chronicle its rich history and traditions.

You can also view video from Whiting, read about the geographic region known as the "pierogy pocket," and much more on www.pierogypocket.com.