“Scat Thomas!” Appalachian Sayings and Family History

Many relatives on my maternal side were (and many still are) firmly entrenched in Appalachia. I once heard someone (I don't recall who) explain how to pronounce it as "apple-at-cha"—because if you say it wrong, they'll throw an apple at ya. 

According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Appalachian region includes parts of 12 states and all of West Virginia:
Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and all of West Virginia

Those of us who grew up with Appalachian/southern relatives know the dialect and sayings can be...well...unusual, at best. One of my cherished recollections is of my grandmother, Grace Alice (Robertson) LeRoy (1909-1989), who always—and I mean always—said "scat Thomas!" instead of "bless you" when someone sneezed. It appears this may be a version of "scat there, Tom - your tail’s in the gravy". I actually wasn't able to find any reference to the specific shortened version of "scat Thomas". While there's little to no actual evidence for how or where this colloquialism started, it seems quite a lot of Appalachian families had a version of this saying. At A Way With Words, one podcast delves into the theory it may be a reference to expelling evil spirits from the body when a sneeze happens. Or possibly it's just a joke about a sneeze caused by cat allergies. In any case, as I get older, I find myself saying it about 1/2 the time now. Perhaps my "nanny" (the word I always used to refer to both of my grandmas) is sitting on my shoulder or I'm channeling my inner hillbilly!

While I didn't find any reference to the exact phrase "scat Thomas", I did find some fun Appalachian resources. Do you need these resources? Not likely, unless you're trying to read a diary or journal (most likely from the south), or you need to converse with a southern relative and need a little "translation". And yet, these sites hold some neat insights and actual useful information—like traditions, sayings, recipes and folklore. 

• Hillbilly Slang - "describes the vocabulary, linguistics, food, culture, and ways of life found throughout Appalachia and the American South." I particularly like the recipe section because there's nothing quite like southern home cooking! The rest of the site, curated by The Hillbilly Dude, is amusing and quite entertaining, featuring folklore, proverbs, sayings and stories.
• Blind Pig & the Acorn - shares a journey "to preserve and celebrate Appalachia". Appalachian dialect and food feature prominently.
• Southern Home & Hospitality - Although highly geared toward decorating and entertaining, they do have a list of 120 Best Southern Sayings That’ll Charm Your Britches Off. As you read through the list, you may find yourself nodding and thinking "I've heard this one before!"

Only one of these sites receives a place in my Genealogy Toolbox. Hillbilly Slang has been saved in a newly added section called "Regional/Geographic Resources". It really didn't fit elsewhere, but due to the sheer volume of easily searchable region-specific information, it could be useful for those looking to learn more about the areas their ancestors hail from. Another site worth knowing about (and saved in my Genealogy Toolbox) is the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). This is a vast collection of "American regional words, phrases, and pronunciations." Some university and public libraries provide free access to the DARE database online (with an institutional subscription), or may have print copies available. DARE also offers an individual subscription for $49 per year (though this is a somewhat specialized collection and you'd likely be better off checking for free library/university access).

As a final note on regional dialect, while those of us in the United States may be familiar with and easily understand regional slang without giving it much thought, for those whose first language isn’t English or who live in countries with different regional dialects, it could be far more challenging to understand. AI may be wonderful for helping folks transcribe what's been written, but unless you're aware there's slang being used, it may not clarify actual meaning.

Image by DW Davis from Pixabay
Note: Prices referenced in this post were current at the time of original publication of this post.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with a title and search description, and to review this post for clarity, punctuation and grammar. Unless otherwise indicated, the content and all opinions are my own. 

Not So Wordless Wednesday: A Family Math Book and a Note from 1917

This math book, Arithmetical Solutions and Mensuration by L. M. Sniff, A.M., fifth edition, with copyright dates of 1879 and 1887, belonged to my great-grandfather, Francis Asbury James (1875-1950). According to the inscription, it was given to him by Henry Jacot. His son, Virgil Ray James (1901-1979), used the same book in high school (per my father's recollection to me), and he wrote a note in 1917, when he was 15, and placed it inside the front cover, where it still remains. The book was passed to my father and now belongs to my son.

I was able to identify a Henry Robert Jacot (1867-1962) who lived in Wayne County, Ohio. I don't know who he was to my great-grandfather, but if I've located the correct person, the 1910 census lists him as a probate judge (District 0187, Wooster, Wayne County, Ohio).

This historical math textbook was published in the late 19th century. It was written by Littleton Moore "L. M." Sniff, a well-known educator and long-time president of Tri-State Normal College (now known as Trine University) in Angola, Indiana.

I had not known the bit about L.M. Sniff until I was writing this post. Both my father and my brother attended, and graduated from, Tri-State University (now Trine University). It makes the history of the book even more interesting!

While my grandfather's penmanship was pretty good for a 15-year-old, I did need a bit of transcription help from ChatGPT. I believe this is a relatively accurate transcription:

Notice

This was written shortly
after my graduation from the
Geitgey school. May, 2, 3, 1917.

In the eighth grade at the—
time there were three pupils!

Names
Mary Shreve
Harold Geitgey
Virgil James.

I went to this school the
years of one thousand nine hundred
seventeen and sixteen

Wooster. Ohio.
R.F.D. #4.
Virgil James, Age. 15.
May, 21, 1917.

I was completely unfamiliar with the school name he mentioned. It took a little searching to properly identify it. Once I had the spelling correct, it revealed a bit more about the one-room schoolhouse located on the border of Wooster and Franklin Townships in Wayne County, Ohio. It was located on the Geitgey property—and I suspect Harold Geitgey was a member of that family.

The Geitgey family were early settlers of Franklin and Wooster Townships in Wayne County, dating back to the early 19th century.

The book is hardcover, but quite compact—measuring only 5" x 7" x 1/2" thick. While the book has little monetary value, at almost 140 years old, it's a priceless piece of family history.

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with transcription of the handwritten notice, a title and search description, and to review this post for clarity, punctuation and grammar. Except where otherwise indicated, the content is my own.

Can You Change an Accepted Ancestry Hint? What I Found

Have you ever accepted a hint on Ancestry, only to realize as you're filling in the information—the hint actually doesn't match up? It happens! Probably to all of us at some point. For ages, once you accepted an incorrect hint, the only thing you could do was delete any incorrect facts, sources and potential images, and then make a note the hint was subsequently removed. Frustratingly, the hint itself stubbornly remained as Accepted. I never understood why this wasn't addressed. I’ve wondered whether this could affect future hints for the person.

Before I explain my latest discovery, I want to be clear—I have no clue if this is an oversight on the part of Ancestry's programmers, or if it's an intended new (as of yet undisclosed) feature. I haven't seen any official mention of this. While I've tested it on a couple of different occasions, and it seems to work, I cannot conclusively say it will work for every situation. And I can't promise it will remain available. With caveats in place...here's the big reveal!

So, you've just realized you accepted a hint in error? First, go back to the hints page for the person. I did test this from the person profile, by viewing the source and choosing View Record, but it does not work from the person profile:

Don't try this from the person profile

You want to go to the person's Hints page, scroll to the bottom where you can see Undecided, Ignored and Accepted hints. Expand the Accepted section and find the hint you want to change. Right-click to reopen the hint in a new browser tab. (Note: I did try single click to open the slider and while some hints worked, others did not show all the options to reselect. Opening in a new tab seems to behave consistently.)

Access accepted hints from the person's hint page

This will open the hint again. You'll notice from the highlight below, it clearly shows as attached to a person in the tree. But you also have the ability to choose again: Yes, No or Maybe. On the Hints page, those choices appear under Accepted, Ignored and Undecided, respectively.

Reselect the appropriate choice

Before I change this hint (as it is actually correct and I will accept it again when I’m done), I want to show you how many hints showed as accepted before I do this:

Before the change

After I go back and click "No", now look at the results:

After the change

For this test, I did not delete anything on the person's profile before making this change. I wanted to be sure of what happens when this is done. I want to emphasize—my test shows the hint moved out of Accepted while the attached source and facts stayed on the profile. Ancestry does not make any changes to the person profile. If you want to remove the incorrect Source and any associated facts, you still need to do this yourself manually. This is exactly as it should be. Ancestry does not make changes to people in your tree - you do!

My workflow for these cases is as follows:

• Remove facts first. 
• Then remove the source. Note: Any time you remove a source, it also removes any corresponding image from the Source tab in the gallery (such as census or death certificate images). This is not new and is exactly as I would expect it to be since the source image is part of the Ancestry source.
• If you checked a box to use the image as the profile picture (such as a yearbook photo) and it was saved in the Gallery separately from the source image, you may still need to remove it manually.
• Then I go back to the Accepted hint and reselect either No or Maybe.

So, for my like-minded OCD fellow family historians, it certainly seems you can now "clean up" when you make a bit of a mistake. As far as I know, there has been no change to how you remove a photo you've saved. You've always been able to delete those directly in the Gallery. We've also been able to move between Ignored and Undecided for ages, but Accepted was completely different. Now it seems, at least for the moment, we have an option to correct these little Oopsies! 

Once again, no promises this will remain available. I can also only say it seems to work on the US site. If you use one of the international domains and try this out, please comment and let me know if it also works for you.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay  

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist with a title and search description, and to review this post for clarity, punctuation and grammar. Unless otherwise indicated, the content and all opinions are my own.