Charting the Skies and the Past...

I’ve decided to switch around the arrangement of the blog sections. Usually I start off with Genealogy and end with Clay Aiken, but today, and probably from now on, I’m going to start with Clay and end with Genealogy.

I was going to do this blog on Clay’s Jeanealogy but I am going to wait until next time because I’m thrilled to introduce Skybar22 as a contributor to the blog. She has studied Astrology for over 30 years, and has been watching Clay’s astrological chart since he completed his stint on American Idol. I’ve read several of her pieces and I am certainly impressed not only with her incredible knowledge, but with the interpretations she has shared. She has graciously agreed to periodically talk with us about what she sees happening “in the stars” for Clay. After this first piece, she hopes to be able to update us monthly around the time of the new moon and talk about what the month holds astrologically.

Man of Fire
By Skybar22

I'll never forget Randy Jackson's words when Clay first appeared on American Idol season 2.He asked "Where is that voice coming from?" Where indeed! As the season progressed I became more and more curious about where all that talent was coming from so I drew up Clay's birth chart. I’ve been studying astrology for 30 years so it was a natural thing for me to do.

A birth chart is a map of the solar system drawn up for a person’s date, time and place of birth.

Discovering Clay through astrology has been an interest of mine for the past 3 years. Who is this man of fire as I call him? Back in August of 2003 I wrote an article about Clay’s chart for Beaver’s On Idol. Since that time, so much has happened and though what I said then is still valid, it might be fun to take a look at what astrology has to say about Clay now and in the near future. Please note that this is for fun and entertainment. Astrology is, for me, a serious study and a tool that I use in my work counseling others. However, I do not have Clay’s permission to discuss his life on a personal level and therefore will only discuss what I believe is apparent through his appearances and interviews. I'm going to share the lighter side of this multi-leveled tool.

Sagittarius is a fire sign. Leo and Aries make up the trinity of fire in astrology. When Clay was born, the Sun, Moon, Neptune, Mercury and Mars were making what is known as a conjunction in the sign of Sagittarius. Sagittarian energy grows, expands, integrates, adapts and grows some more especially if Jupiter, its "ruler", is directly involved and Clay was born with Jupiter in Leo making a trine (120 degree angle) to his Sun, Moon and therefore all those Sagittarian planets. Trines are gifts from above, inherent abilities that are effortless. There is amazing potential here for creativity and continual expansion.

In addition to looking at the birth chart, astrologers look at the current movement of the planets (the transits) as they revolve around the sun. These transits are plotted around a birth chart to give a picture of how current energy impacts the natal chart (birth chart).

What is it that Clay presented to us on AI5? He was looking very different from what most people remember and he even surprised and shocked some of his loyal fans who have seen him in concert multiple times.

Well, the operative energy stimulating all of Clay’s planets in Sagittarius is the planet Uranus. Uranus is an outer planet, invisible to the naked eye. In astrological parlance, Uranus is the awakener. Uranus awakens the soul to it's need for change and to let go of what is no longer needed for growth.

Let me explain.

As I stated above, Clay was born when the Sun, Moon, Neptune, Mercury and Mars were in the zodiacal fire sign of Sagittarius. Add the fact that Jupiter, the planet that “rules” Sagittarius was in Leo, another fire sign and we have a man who exudes the energy of intense inspiration, creativity and heat. He has kept that energy under wraps for the most part until recently although his tremendous vocal talent has been a major outlet for this. Anyone who has been to his concerts over the last 3 years knows how he has evolved from his days on American Idol. We all saw the fire pour forth at the Juke Box Tour. He was sizzling! What now and why now? Well, Uranus is moving through the sign of Pisces and it is making a 90 degree angle or square to his Sun and Moon. Clay is breaking out of the old patterns and is ready to show us something new and different. It will be surprising and it will appear sudden but it has been developing for a while now. So watch it unfold with the next phase of his career. We are talking hot, Hot, HOT! Uranus brings change and transforms that which it contacts by transits. We saw the beginnings of it. Oh yes, Clay Aiken is evolving, changing and transforming before our eyes and it will be thrilling to those who have been following him. I’m a fan and I am excited with the anticipation of what is to come. Clay's on his incredible journey and if you allow it, you can go with him to experience some of what he is all about. I doubt he knows the full extent of his abilities but he is discovering them and so are we.

Expect the unexpected! Many of us have been hearing this for a while and that is what Uranus tells us as well. Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!

Skybar22

And speaking of Hot Hot HOT, I've got a Hot video for you. According to Skybar22, Sagittarius is ruler of the THIGHS (I kid you not. She told me that!) and that is certainly evident in the video clip I've uploaded of Clay singing Living LaVida Loca during the Juke Box Tour in 2005 at Interlochen Michigan. Those thighs are quivering quivering quivering. I managed to get a close up.

Geez. Now how did that happen?

(Apologies for the washouts on Clay's face. The lighting there that night was very harsh and the camera couldn't adjust very well. But who's watching his face?)

Following the Trail

As our ancestors lived their lives, they created a paper trail of births, marriages, divorces, deaths, court records, etc., and if we are lucky, pieces of that trail still exist today. Each record provides another glimpse back into their lives, shedding light on who they were and what their lives were like.

But records alone do not provide the entire story. In order to get a true picture of what your ancestors’ lives were like, you also have to understand the political and socio-economic climates of their era. My Jewish maternal grandmother and her family emigrated here from Galicia (now part of Romania) because of the Jewish persecution they faced. My paternal grandparents emigrated from Ireland because there was more economic opportunity here, where even living in slum tenements filled with immigrants and working 12 hours days in sweat shop factories was far better than the conditions back on their native soil. And my husband’s ancestors moved from Ohio to Missouri after the Civil War because they could get land cheap if they withstood the hardships of the migration and settling wilderness land.

It certainly has given me a new appreciation for history. If I had developed my interest in genealogy when I was in high school, I would have gotten far better grades in crazy Miss Stanton’s American History class.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, there are many different kinds of records that can be used to uncover some of the details of our ancestors’ lives. I’ll spend a little time talking about census records this time around.

Most countries around the world take some type of accounting of its inhabitants on a regular basis. Many of those records can be accessed online, or queries can be sent by mail to the census authority. If you are looking for census records in another country, there are a number of places to look. Start by googling the name of the country with the term census records. Use online sites like Cyndi’s List (www.cyndislist.com) which has a huge list of genealogy sites on the Internet. The World GenWeb Project (www.worldgenweb.org) is a volunteer project to provide historical and genealogical records worldwide.

Here in the United States the single best source of information on US Census records comes from the US National Archives and Record Administration. Their website, www.archives.gov provides details on what information was collected for each of the publicly available censuses, i.e., census records from the 1790 to 1930 censuses. The National Archives does not provide online access to the actual census records themselves. Details for the censuses not yet public, 1940 – 2000, can be found at the US Census Bureau, www.census.gov

Most of the United States censuses from 1790 to 1930 are online, although mainly by subscription. Ancestry.com hosts one of the largest census records depositories online, and although it charges subscription fees for the access, it provides an every name index and images for all of the census records. Other sites besides Ancestry may provide the records by subscription, and some, usually those dedicated to a particular state or county may offer free fragments of a census related to that area.

Some information that can be gleaned from census records (it varies by census) follows:

• name
• age
• number of years in the U.S.
• marital status
• number of years married
• whether a convict
• birthplace of father and mother
• number of children born
• whether a citizen, alien, or naturalized
• relationship of members of household to head

Here is a copy of a census record for one of my husband’s ancestors for the 1920 census. (Click to enlarge to a readable image.)

Besides the marital status, the age, and the names of the people living in the household, some other important information that I was able to obtain from this record was the year of immigration to the United States, and the year of naturalization. That helped my in my search for other records.

Because the census taker went house by house, and neighborhood by neighborhood, you can often find your ancestor living near other relatives. Especially in the years prior to the 20^th century, people tended to stay close to relatives, and if they traveled or emigrated, they tended to do it in groups. Travel in the early days was difficult at best and often hazardous, so going it alone was usually not prudent. And considering that most transportation was by horseback, train, or boat, it was not easy to move about from place to place.

Immigrants tended to stay with and around relatives or friends from the “old country”, at least until they became familiar with this country or economically independent enough to move away.

When my paternal grandparents emigrated here from Ireland, they moved into a tenement house occupied by two other relatives – my grandmother’s sister, and my grandmother’s brother. I didn’t know that though when I first looked at a 1910 census record. I had no idea these people existed. However, in viewing the record, I looked at the other families living in proximity to my grandparents, and I recognized the surname of my grandmother’s brother – I knew her maiden name before she married my grandfather, and I saw that this man living in the house had the same surname. That set me on a quest to find some other records (death, cemetery, etc.) and I discovered that the two other families occupying the house were indeed her brother and her married sister.

As I’ve mentioned before, census records can provide a lot of valuable information, but sometimes you have to take it with a bit of skepticism. The veracity of the information along with the completeness often depended on who was home when the census taker arrived, and what they knew about the people in the household. Some of my ancestors gave complete and entirely factual information, because it is consistent with other records. Other ancestors, however, must have had a deep distrust of government workers, because their information varies from one census to another. My Irish grandparents never gave the same information to census takers twice. My grandfather kept getting younger and younger as the years went by, and there is about a seven year discrepancy in his dates of birth. So it’s a good idea to remember that sometimes the information given was just not accurate, especially if it conflicts with other information you have. Over time you’ll build a body of information that will bring you closer to the truth.

MommaJudy

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