I have always been a user of Ancestry.com. Its been useful and limiting at the same time. But through my membership its enabled me to use one of their other sites Newspapers.com.
I had never been able to find much information about Derdghayan's that lived in Lansing especially in the early 20th century. By accident I realised the Lansing Journal had been added right back to the 1910's so all of a sudden I was able to find all this information I had never been able to access.
Over the years I had always heard stories about certain people....my view has been stories are never really true but are always embellished to make someone look better. So through some research I was able to debunk one of these tales.
Without naming the family I had heard that SR came back to Lebanon because he had killed a man during a poker game and maybe that's the story he told everyone to make himself look better. I came across a newspaper article about how he was fighting deportation back to Lebanon.
From the story it names his crime as theft. Over a period of 3-4 months he had stolen money from the shop next to his place of employment totaling about $400 in 1927. I'd hate to think how much money that would be in today's terms.
Other stories I had heard about Derdghayan's was that they loved to drink and gamble so I wasn't surprised when stories coming up about Derdghayan's being arrested for gambling, drunkenness, assault and the supply of Syrian spirits (I assume they are talking about homemade Arak).
Also found announcements about births, engagements, marriages, divorces and deaths. These were all very helpful.
Moral of the story is don't always believe what you hear but get out there and find the truth...
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Thursday, April 14, 2016
The Adventure Continues...
Over the years I have come to the conclusion that some parts of the family tree may never be found, but I always remain optimistic.
Above my fathers house is a ruin that has been there for as long as people can remember in the village....the elders like my dad and other say it has been empty since their childhoods and before. The house would have been beautiful in its day....
I knew who the owners of this house were but there had been no sign of them in any paperwork I had seen or found online. For a while I was hampered by the fact that I only knew a nickname not a family name. Later I learned they were a Rizk family. I have been told that they may have originally come to Derdghaya by way of Tibneen. Makes sense as many men and women from our village had married into Tibneen families.
A few years ago I had obtained a book about Derdghaya that had been put together to raise money for St. George Church. It was created by expat Derdghayan's in Michigan and from one of the memorial pages in it I was able to use the names to link back to this Rizk house....took a bit of work scouring records online but in the end I was able to make the connection. This was one daughter down.
Months later while just looking through some records. Not looking for anything in particular, I came across a name in some naturalisation records that was similar to Rizk. This peeked my interest and on further investigation the woman was from Tyre and her husband was from Derdghaya....bingo
People sometimes ask why I spend so much time researching Derdghaya's family tree, but its finding these gems that that get me all excited. From just looking at an old ruined house that had seen its hey day that stood there with no one to tell its story I was able piece together its family again....
The adventure continues.....
Above my fathers house is a ruin that has been there for as long as people can remember in the village....the elders like my dad and other say it has been empty since their childhoods and before. The house would have been beautiful in its day....
I knew who the owners of this house were but there had been no sign of them in any paperwork I had seen or found online. For a while I was hampered by the fact that I only knew a nickname not a family name. Later I learned they were a Rizk family. I have been told that they may have originally come to Derdghaya by way of Tibneen. Makes sense as many men and women from our village had married into Tibneen families.
A few years ago I had obtained a book about Derdghaya that had been put together to raise money for St. George Church. It was created by expat Derdghayan's in Michigan and from one of the memorial pages in it I was able to use the names to link back to this Rizk house....took a bit of work scouring records online but in the end I was able to make the connection. This was one daughter down.
Months later while just looking through some records. Not looking for anything in particular, I came across a name in some naturalisation records that was similar to Rizk. This peeked my interest and on further investigation the woman was from Tyre and her husband was from Derdghaya....bingo
People sometimes ask why I spend so much time researching Derdghaya's family tree, but its finding these gems that that get me all excited. From just looking at an old ruined house that had seen its hey day that stood there with no one to tell its story I was able piece together its family again....
The adventure continues.....
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