u/UnpoeticAccount

There are some great reviews of different types of sandals on this sub (I will link to one of them in comments) but I’m wondering if someone has tried both the Flamingo-808N and any of the premium TPU sandals.

I wear a 9 in the jelly (808N), which fit great, but recently got a pair of the regular clear 808s. Maybe my feet are on the narrow side but I actually find the 808s to have too much space in the sandal part. I think if I sized down the shoe would be too short and my toes would be hanging off. I’ve ordered some insoles and I’m hoping those will help, but if they still feel loose I’m going to just sell them as gently used.

I have been researching a white, middle-class family that lived in Georgetown, SC between 1843-1869. According to newspapers and church records, they took part in regular middle-class life. In 1862, the husband (George Hopkins) died. In 1867, his widow Mary signed a legal document with a new last name (Parsons).

Mary had known ties to alleged “Unionists;’ her sister and brother-in-law were run out of town for being Union sympathizers. Mary’s daughter Elizabeth would marry one of the Union soldiers who occupied Georgetown at the end of the war. By 1870, Mary and her children moved to New York State with that Union soldier. Mary started using the name Hopkins again.

The only single, male Parsons I have found in the surrounding area was a farmer who was listed as “mulatto” on censuses before and after the Civil War. He lived into the 1890s. Would a brief marriage and subsequent separation between Mary and a mixed race man even be possible? Were there explicit legal bans on interracial marriage before 1867?

I became obsessed with the least-documented part of my family and have become pretty well acquainted with records associated with coastal SC, particularly Georgetown to Charleston.

Georgetown was not burned during the Civil War, but its municipal records were taken inland in anticipation of naval attack. The Union Navy sort of figured “yeah we could burn the whole town down but what would be the point?” Meanwhile the city records got torched anyway when General Sherman marched through the interior of the state. So I have become pretty acquainted with what does exist, particularly from about 1820-Civil War. An odd niche but really interesting.

All this being said, my ancestors were white and in a notable profession so they were probably more well documented than most working or middle class people at the time.

What about you?

I have an ancestor (or really a 3x great aunt) who died in the Utica State Hospital in 1929. I’m trying to find out more about why she was committed there. I have her husband’s Civil War pension files which just declare her as “incompetent.” She was in her 80s so I suspect she had dementia.

New York state records office (blanking on the name of the office) suggested I write to the Office of Mental Health to ask if her records could be released. OMH just wrote me back to say they don’t release records for genealogical purposes. There was a list of conditions under which records could be released (permission from executor etc).

I understand the importance of medical privacy, but this person has no direct descendants and died almost 100 years ago. Her guardian and executor died decades ago. Do I need to abandon this or is there anything else I can do to request these files?

It just makes me sad because no one is alive who remembers this woman as far as I know. She met a Union soldier who was one of the occupying her small southern town and moved hundreds of miles away with him. I think that must have taken a lot of courage.