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Joe Goodbody Introduces a Book About a Barracuda: Con-Man Named Parker Hardin French (1826-1878)

admin America, antebellum, author, Barracuda, barracuda--con, based, biography, book, catch, Catch Me If You Can, century, charismatic, charming, civil, Con-man, crafty, crook, cunning, delightful, featuring, french, hardin, Historical, history, Hustler, infamous, intriguing, Kentucky, machiavellian, man, mid-19th, news release, notorious, parker, Parker French, pathologically, press release, profile, quirky, rascal, Research, reveals, rogue, scoundrel, subtitled, Swindler, t, WAR, webwire, well-documented 0 Comments March 17, 2023

, 2023-03-17 18:12:03,

NC, USA – WEBWIRE – Friday, March 17, 2023

Kentucky Barracuda: Parker Hardin French Subtitled: The Notorious Scoundrel and Delightful Rogue of Antebellum and Civil War America. The book is a Catch Me If You Can historical biography of an infamous rascal of the mid-19^th Century, a quirky history featuring a crafty, charismatic, cunning, and charming Machiavellian. It is also a pathologically intriguing profile of a barracuda–con man, crook, hustler, and swindler.

Based on well-documented research the author reveals that: Parker Hardin French (1826-1878) was infamous in his time and well-known to political leaders, the press, and casual newspaper readers alike. Nonetheless, he was almost lost to history and relegated to a minor footnote. But through the 1850s, the Civil War, and into the 1870s he contributed far more to period history than previously documented. Parker H. French was certainly an adventurer and entrepreneur who engaged in elaborate, bold, and ambitious exploits but he was also a magnificent con-man. Those who followed his exploits were variously exasperated, captivated by his audacity and nervy cheek, or humored by his latest escapade. He was judged an incorrigible scoundrel, labeled a chronic megalomaniac, or peddled as a misunderstood victim of his enemies. Many believed him a hero; many just thought him insane.

While working on his genealogy, Joe found that his great-grandfather had been scammed as a member of…

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What’s Happening at the Libraries? | Community

admin author, bereavement book club, book club, care hospice, cedaredge craft group, cedaredge library, christmas, christmas eve, college exam proctoring, colorado, community, crawford library, daytime book club, delta county, delta county libraries, delta library, delta library book club, evening book club, fiber friends knitting group, genealogy group, hotchkiss library, internet access, internet hotspots, lego club, librarian, library, library board, library board of trustees, local author, memorial hall, online library, paonia library, roots genealogy group, surface creek trail, teen book club, youth coordinator 0 Comments December 18, 2022

, 2022-12-12 15:56:00,

Delta County, Colorado, December 2022: Delta County Libraries offers many informative, educational, and entertaining programs for you and your family to enjoy. For more information, visit the events calendar at www.deltalibraries.org.

Delta County Libraries Closed for Christmas Eve:

The libraries will be closed Saturday, December 24 in observance of Christmas Eve. Please visit our website for downloadable books, audiobooks, music, magazines, movies and more!

Delta County Libraries Closing Early for New Year’s Eve:

The libraries will be closing at 3:00pm on Saturday, December 31 in observance of New Year’s Eve.

Settle in for Some…

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Genealogy

Genealogy tourists and the digital community history archive | Select

admin accessory, adaptability, adaptation, adult, advisory service, age group, alexander hamilton, andy carpenter, Architecture, archive, art, audio book, author, award, baby boomer, bag, bestseller, book club, book review, booklet, Brain, building industry, bundle, call number, catalog, character, cinema, colleen hoover, comic book, comics, commerce, community, computer science, confidence, connection, current events, danielle steel, database, detective, digital library, dvd, e-book, economics, education, educator, emily style, empathy, Events, experience, expert, favorite, fiction, film, Finance, forest, genealogy, generation, good, grace lin, graphic novel, haiku, hall, hardcover, Health, historical document, home page, information, infrastructure, interlibrary loan, Internet, james patterson, keith richards, kind, law, learner, lending library, librarian, librarianship, libraries, library, library card, library program, lin brummels, linda kass, linguistics, list, literacy, literature, little fires everywhere, longer, loved one, marple, material, medicine, meeting room, memory, metrics, mirror, money, motivation, movie, Music, nets, no. 3, norfolk daily, norfolk public library, norfolk public library website, novel, nursery rhyme, objective, opportunity, paperback, parallel, patron, play, poem, poetry, prediction, print job, program, psychology, public library, publishing, publishing house, read, reader, reading, researcher, return on investment, rule, september, series, show, skill, slang, smartphone, sociology, Software, sonnet, Sport, staff, story, story line, struggle, student, Technology, Test, the milestone, theatre, thriller, TOUR, tourism, transports, vacation, valerie tripp, value, visitor, weather, website, window, winter, work, World 0 Comments September 13, 2022

, 2022-09-13 08:00:00,

Vacation can take people to all kinds of new and interesting places.

Some people have a goal of visiting all 50 states and try to visit a new one each year or two. Some people have a bucket list of baseball stadiums they want to see or national parks they want to visit. I even know someone who loves to visit historic libraries that were built by Andrew Carnegie, and he goes to see them all across the country.

Some people are “genealogy tourists,” and they visit locations where they can conduct family research. They may visit cemeteries of their ancestors and make rubbings of headstones. They may drive hundreds of miles to scroll through microfilm at a small-town newspaper. They may also visit a library to pore over city directories, yearbooks and other archives.

The Norfolk Public Library often welcomes these traveling family researchers. Genealogists from as far away as Washington and Arizona have looked through the library’s materials, scouring for birth announcements, addresses and obituaries to complete their family trees.

Several years ago, the library worked with the Norfolk Daily News to get all the newspaper’s archives into a digital format that was easily searchable. The new digital archive was available in the library and greatly reduced searching time. Instead of scrolling through rolls of microfilm, the researcher simply had to type…

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JIM GIFFORD — Raft Tide and Railroad: How We Lived and Died | Opinion

admin author, donald johnson, edwina pendarvis, genealogy, james gifford, jesse stuart foundation, jet johnson, journalism, Kentucky, literature, publishing 0 Comments May 27, 2022

, 2022-05-26 23:37:00,

In this family history, “Raft Tide and Railroad: How We Lived and Died — Collected Memories and Stories of an Appalachian Family and Its Seventh Son,” Appalachian author, poet, and editor Dr. Edwina Pendarvis, was guided by sage advice from a grandmother, Jet Johnson, known only to her through family stories and photographs.

Not long before Johnson was murdered, she asked one of her sons to note the strength of a bundle of twigs — as opposed to an individual twig — and see it as a metaphor for family strength — a metaphor originated by an earlier Appalachian — the warrior Tecumseh. In “Raft Tide and Railroad,” the author has preserved her family’s history and recognized its strength through accounts that span seven generations of experiences in Virginia, Kentucky, and West Virginia from the early 1800s to the present.

Pendarvis, a key member of the Jesse Stuart Foundation editorial team, also tells a larger, communal story of those who settled the Appalachian region. It is one of homesteading an untamed wilderness, timbering the virgin forests, and moving the logs downstream on swollen rivers. She recounts life on the farms, in the small towns created by the coming of the railroads, and in the coal camps. As the title promises, the memoir focuses on the life of one “special” uncle, the seventh son of a seventh son and youngest child of Jet Johnson. His story is a rags-to-riches account of a self-proclaimed “hillbilly” who built a horse-breeding empire after selling a successful mining company. Sports Illustrated said of Donald Johnson: “Far from being a member of the horsey…

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Book review: Author takes a deep dive into a fascinating family tree in ‘Ancestor Trouble’ | Entertainment

admin ancestor, author, bread, cheese, crime, family tree, genealogy, genetics, maud newton, mom, parents, Research, toast 0 Comments April 9, 2022

By Penny A Parrish
The Free Lance–Star

My Mom’s ancestors, way back, were supposedly Dutch pirates. A cousin did some genealogy research that puts relatives in the New Amsterdam area (now New York), but there’s nothing about pillaging on the high seas. That is the only interesting rumor I’ve heard about my family.

Maud Newton, on the other hand, has many stories to tell. She is estranged from her father, an aerospace engineer turned lawyer who she describes as a racist with a vile temper. Her mom is more of a free spirit who pastored a church in their living room and rescued cats. When her parents divorced, Maud was relieved.

Then there is her grandfather, who supposedly was married 13 times (she finds records of most of these unions). And a great-grandfather who killed a man with a hay hook. And going back even further, a woman in Massachusetts who was accused of being a witch. Photos of many relatives help make her descriptions more vivid.

“Ancestor Trouble” is more than a search for those who came before, however. Newton shares research and analysis into ancestry.com and 23andMe, detailing how genome information is constantly changing on those sites. She talks to experts about the use of those data banks and DNA to solve crimes or find birth parents. As the technology changes and expands, the ethics may become even more murky.

Newton always was a person searching for answers. She is the child of two parents who married only because they thought they would have smart children. Love never entered the picture. So Newton also looks at eugenics, religion, nature vs. nurture and ancestor worship. She not only wants to know who her ancestors were, she wants to know how who they were affects her. Many suffered from mental illness or were alcoholics—will those traits transfer to her down the road?

I found parts of this book rather technical, but overall, I found her journey to discover who she is and where she came from fascinating. Her writing can be vivid, as in this childhood scene about breakfast with her father: “Many mornings, he’d start making cheese toast for my sister and me, and as the heat clicked on, we’d hear the roaches scrabbling. He’d remove the bread and cheese, douse the toaster oven with Raid, wait a minute or so, and put the toast back in to cook. Sometimes bugs staggered out.”

Thankfully very different from my family tree.

Penny A Parrish is a freelance writer in Stafford County.

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author

Joe Goodbody Introduces a Book About a Barracuda: Con-Man Named Parker Hardin French (1826-1878)

What’s Happening at the Libraries? | Community

Genealogy tourists and the digital community history archive | Select

JIM GIFFORD — Raft Tide and Railroad: How We Lived and Died | Opinion

Book review: Author takes a deep dive into a fascinating family tree in ‘Ancestor Trouble’ | Entertainment

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