Good timing - NOAA webinar

Was picking through bits of the NOAA.gov site when I came across info on a talk happening tomorrow on the Coast & geodetic Survey! Why is this good timing? Because I was just hunting down info about the two Great Uncles who worked for the GS.



Out of the Vault: Discover the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the U.S.'s first science agency
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2016 at 1pm-3pm ET; book and history talk (and webinar) 2PM-2:45PM ET
Out of the Vault flyer (PDF)
Out of the Vault poster (PDF)
Event/Reservation info: This event is free and open to the public. members of the public interested in attending the exhibit, and anyone wishing to tune into the webinar, should RSVP to Library Reference (Please use the subject line: "RSVP Out of the Vault"). A government-issued photo ID is required for those attending in person.
Speaker: Albert "Skip" Theberge, NOAA Central Library
Abstract: Discover the Coast and Geodetic Survey by viewing and examining rare and unique books and items that tell the story of the U.S.'s first science agency. Treasures on display will include: 17th century land surveying texts, early topographic maps, and treatises on nautical surveying.
Enjoy a book and history talk with Skip Theberge, 2pm-2:45pm in person (and via webinar) to learn more about the collection -- and come any other time from 1pm-3pm to browse the historic items.
About the Speaker: Skip Theberge, acting head of reference at the NOAA Central Library, retired from NOAA Corps in 1995 after 27 years of primarily hydrographic surveying and seafloor mapping. He headed the NOS Ocean Mapping Section in the late 1980s during the EEZ mapping program. Since retirement from NOAA Corps he has remained active in the ocean mapping community having served for 12 years on the Advisory Committee for Undersea Features of the United States Board on Geographic Names and for three years on its international counterpart. He was part of the NOAA science team that helped design the Sant Ocean Hall of the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History. He is the history editor of Hydro International magazine and the author of over 80 papers dealing with the history of hydrographic and geodetic surveying, seafloor mapping, and various aspects of oceanography.
For remote access: Audio: Dial toll-free US 866-833-7307, participant code is 8986360#. Webcast at www.mymeetings.com Under "Participant Join", click "Join an Event", then add conf no: 742656968. Passcode is brownbag. Be sure to install the correct plug-in (or run the plug-in as a temporary application) for WebEx before the seminar starts.

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I knew they had worked for the survey. I even had a photo of my Uncle Tab from the NOAA archives on the website. But I'd come to a confusion upon seeing my Uncle Harrold's occupation in the 1940 census as "Lightkeeper."  Shortly afterward he'd joined the USCG, so I immediately thought about a light house gig. But then I took a better look at the record and it said USC & GS - and I figured it out. And lightkeeper is one of the guys on the survey team.

Thanks the archives freely available on the NOAA website, I even found other references to projects they were on, and when they received recognition for 30 years of service.

The US Coast & geodetic survey is basically the first sceitifc agency the US created. It led in to what we now know as USGS and NOAA. Also, the surveying work they did is the basis for the current GPS system around the globe. My uncle Tab worked in states, as well as in Ethiopia. I hope I can dig up more about where they both worked. Before them, their father and grandfather were also surveyors in Kentucky. And even though my Gramps didn't work for the survey more than maybe a month, my dad ended up studying geology and meteorology. Some things just keep int he family, I guess!

Ethiopia, Circa 1960  (photo credit: NOAA.gov Photo Library)

Memories of the road traveled in family history

        Ok, so Muzings seems to be about genealogy now. Actually, I was thinking about a return to blogging about thoughts and such. I need some outlets and am tired of Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr as venues for it.

      So, today on Facebook a memory came up from six years ago - a photo of my Great-Grandfather, Henry Athing. When I'd posted it we had just figured out who it was of by comparing it to other records. I knew very little about him. In that six years I have learned SO MUCH about him, his family, and his life. I've even been able to meet cousins in that branch that I didn't know about and grow my family. More recently, records from Germany have become available online that have allowed me to push his history back to the old country and learn even more. I have also learned a lot about the process of genealogical research, continued to get better at it, and realized just how little I still know. But it's always about the journey, right? There is no being "done" with your family tree.

      Henry Athing was born Heinrich Karl August Athing in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, Germany November 30, 1880. His father, Friedrich, was a baker. In a few years his family would move to the United States and settle in Brooklyn, NY. They actually came over twice - in about 1887, then again in 1892. Not sure yet why they returned to Germany during that time.

The Athing family would become part of the social elite in Brooklyn, with Friedrich (now Fred) and wife Louise being a part of a Baker's Association as well as political associations. Their parties, weddings, and other events are well documented in the social columns of the Brooklyn newspapers of the time. Henry did not immediately follow in his father's footsteps of being a baker with his own business, and worked as a clerk as a young man. In abt 1900 he was arrested for collaborating with others to rob the insurance agency he worked for. He was sent to a juvenile detention center for three months in Elmira, NY. His case even made the NY TImes!

Eventually he would open his own cafe and saloon, though still not really being a baker, he was known as Bakes. The stories include that he and his wife continued to run their saloon through prohibition.

He married Theresa Fox in 1910. She was the daughter of Irish immigrants who grew up at the other end of the social spectrum in the Irish tenements. She was an orphan by the time she married Henry and she kept her siblings very close to her. Together with Henry, Theresa became a social and political force in Brooklyn, remaining as such until she died in 1964.

Henry died in 1945. He left his wife and two children - my grandmother, Doris, and a son Wilbert (he hated that name and went by Wilbur - who can blame him?). Theresa, l think, loved him very much, despite her hard outer persona. She would put 'In Memoirams' in the newspaper every year after he died. Doris named her eldest son after him.

I still don't know exactly why Henry's parents came to America. But they did, and now I'm here, so I'm glad of it. I do, however, feel really bad that I am so terrible at baking since it looks like my family has a long history of it. I have recently found that Henry's grandfather - Heinrich - was also a baker by trade. I have also added another sibling to the list I already knew, and older sister, and a number of siblings for his father. There are records of other Athings in Germany through the 1920s and 30s that I think are related to Friedrich through his siblings or aunts and uncles, and I hope to track that line down a little more.