Category: GeneaBloggers Topics

Tech Tuesday: Kodak All-in-One

Posted on by Kathleen

Note: I have no affiliation with Kodak. I am not being compensated for this post. I’m just a Kodak user, who enjoys my Kodak products.

If you spend any amount of time with my family, you’ll realize we’re gadget people. It’s so very obvious. I’m not talking about my siblings. I’m talking about my extended family too. On my Dad’s side, our family reunions are littered with gadget talk.

When I started to think about what I would write about for Tech Tuesday, the first thing that come to mind is my printer/scanner combo. It’s not the fanciest or most advanced piece of technology I own, but it’s the most used by far.

Don’t let the clutter on top fool you, I use this printer/scanner combo on a daily basis when I’m busy. I only clutter it because I like the tiger and it makes me smile when lines of code make my eyes cross.

What a difference flash makes in a picture, huh? Anyway, here’s the scanner opened up to show you the top. I can easily fit 5 or 6 of my more historical pictures onto this scanner. The Kodak scanner software even picks up the different pictures when it scans. It doesn’t always pick them up, but a quick ‘Fix Scan’ action allows me to delineate where each picture is.

One of the other things that sold me on the printer is the memory card reader. My computer doesn’t have one and I can’t find one that will fit in my computer. So this helps me so much. In fact, ALL my digital camera pictures are transferred to my hard drive through this printer. It’s as simple as putting the card in and selecting the AutoPlay prompt that allows me to Import Pictures through Windows. I set my settings to always transfer to my second hard drive in the Camera Pictures folder into another folder that displays the date of transfer. Organization of my pictures keeps me sane.

Here’s a picture to show where the paper feeds in from. When I’m not printing, I like to keep the tray up to save space. It doesn’t seem like a lot of space but I don’t like a lot of stuff near my arms when I’m coding websites. It’s just one of my things. Also, on the bottom right is a USB slot. I can hook my camera directly into that spot if I need to. I don’t use that slot for the most part. I really only use it when I forget to put my memory card back into my camera and I need pictures off the camera memory.

Here are the controls on the top of the printer.

They have a red blinking light for when you’re low on ink (which I am, but I caught it on an off blink!) and another light for a paper jam (which I don’t have). The Scan button is just what it says. My favorite part of this printer is the Copy button. My mom is a school bus driver and every year she has to make a seating chart. It’s never a quick process. So I usually take her seating chart blank form and I change quantity to 10 or 15 and hit Copy. The printer makes 10 copies using the scanner portion to copy the form. As you can see, you can also switch between black/color and 100% scale or Fit to Page. When I’m copying a form, I don’t worry about the scale. If I were copying a picture though, I might hit fit to page so that I could have a full size picture.

I wouldn’t change much about my printer/scanner combo. In fact, the only thing I’d change today would be to ugrade to the newer wireless model. The picture above is the newer model and it’s about the same price that I paid for mine. So that’s really the only thing I’d change about this. I’m not sure what quirks of fate would come with a wireless setup though, so do that at your own risk.

So that’s my Tech Tuesday pick. I find this a very efficient and useful product. Ink refills only cost $20 for both color and black. The ink does run down a little fast compared to some of my older printers but the quality is also better.

Note Again: I have no affiliation with Kodak. I am not being compensated for this post. I’m just a Kodak user, who enjoys my Kodak products.

Surname Saturday: Parkin

Posted on by Kathleen

This is the last surname I’m highlighting on my Dad’s side for the blog! I didn’t mean to take so long in getting this written up but I had an early wake-up today and decided to get it done.

Where does the Parkin name originate from?

This surname has been a source of frustration for me for a long time. First we thought it was Perkins, then Parkins, and finally Parkin. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was completely wrong at this point and I ended up with the surname of Parker. My Parkin family originates in England. The father of my “first family” came to America through Castle Garden in October of 1874 and his family followed in July of 1875.  According to the Public Profiler Surname Distribution Map, in 1881 the Parkin surname was most concentrated around the midlands of England. That would make sense because my Parkin family departed England by way of Liverpool.

Did the Parkins stay in New Jersey?

Yes. I haven’t found all the girls after they married yet, but it looks like the Parkin family was a small but close one.

Overview of the Parkin Family

Father: William R Parkin (about 1842 – 02 Aug 1881[1. Records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths of New Jersey, 1848-1900, v10])

Mother: Ann ? (Sep 1839 – ?)

Children

  1. John Walter Parkin (Dec 1863 – before 1910) My 2nd great grandfather
  2. Mary Ann Parkin (Apr 1870 – ?) married Edward E Spencer, had 2 daughters
  3. William Matthew Parkin (Sep 1871  – ?) married Ida ?, had 1 daughter
  4. Joseph B Parkin (Dec 1874 – ?)

The men in the Parkin family seem to live short lives from what I can tell. Both John and William’s children were living with their mother in 1910. The grandchildren bounced between the families a lot. This fits well with what my Aunts tell me about the Jane Parkin (John’s daughter). They told me that they had the impression she lived a very hard life. To be frank, her parents were dead by the time she was 14. That can’t be easy in any respect. Then to add that they were bounced around between family members. Joseph seems to be the exception to the early death rule in the Parkin family. I have him all the way through 1930 on the census records.

Records to get for the Parkins

  • I need to get birth and death records for my great grandmother Jane. I have her marriage record already.
  • I need to find a marriage record for Jane’s parents John Parkin and Jennie Featherson. FamilySearch gives their marriage date as 17 Jun 1890. Hopefully this helps me find the New Jersey record easier.
  • I really am curious to get the death records for both John and Jennie. If they were both dead by the 1910 census, I want to see what would take them from their children. I feel like there’s a story there in my gut.

Parkin Links

Sources

Sentimental Sunday: Ellis Island

Posted on by Kathleen

Every genealogy researcher eventually comes across Ellis Island. For me, my first experience was when my mother started to get me into genealogy. She was researching the Thorward Family. There was a ship manifest from Ellis Island that listed George Thorward. I’m sorry, he was listed as Georg Thorward. To be perfectly honest, there were two manifests. There you’ve dragged it all out of me. One manifest was from 1898 and the other from 1901. Funny enough, both trips were made aboard the ship Southwark. In both trips, his departure city is listed as Antwerp, Belgium. That’s a good clue to keep in handy when I finally start trying to track him in Germany.

He most likely was making trips back to his homeland for some reason or another. That or he was going there on business. I wasn’t even a twinkle in the universe yet, so I can’t tell you exactly. I can theorize though, which is one of my favorite things to do by the way. Ask me next week and I’ll spin you a yarn about his trip home for a cousin’s wedding, or maybe how he was going home for his granny’s funeral. It’s just how I get kicks. As long as I’m not passing these stories down to my currently non-existent grand kids, I figure it’s harmless fun. You should see what I do when there are traffic jams, boy can I spin some yarns with that!

So there’s some sentimental reasons I feel a kinship with Ellis Island. Technically, I haven’t found a single relative that actually immigrated through Ellis Island. All my relatives came before it opened in 1892. In fact, besides George’s trips I don’t think I’ve found more than two other relatives passing through on trips abroad.

Ellis Island Recreation

You probably can imagine my surprise when I found the building you see above. My mother has a little bit of a Christmas Village obsession. Every now and again, Cecil’s Country Store will have a blowout sale. They sell all kinds of buildings for Christmas villages. It’s an awesome place to go and look through. It’s actually an old post office and store from 1906. While Mom was salivating over houses, castles, and other buildings for her village, I ran across one box that said Ellis Island. Then I looked closer and the price tag said $5! Well, I got in the spirit of the moment and just went for it! Sure it’s only a small part of the actual building. Could you imagine fitting a reproduction of the whole thing somewhere? Where would you even put that?

I know it’s not exactly the most meaningful purchase I’ll ever make but it was one of the more sentimental. In the few hours I’ve had it setup on my desk (what a great way to avoid clutter!), I’ve already looked at it and smiled more times than I can count.