3/12/19 Report - Internet Tool For Identifying Civil War Soldiers From Old Photos. Genealogical Research. Slightly Increasing Surf.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

 Source:  PopularMechanics link shown below.

A computer science professor has built a tool that could allow people to identify Civil War veterans in their families with the help of artificial intelligence.

Kurt Luther, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech, developed a platform called Photo Sleuth after he discovered a picture of a distant relative who had fought in the Civil War...


The Civil War Photo Sleuth project launched in August 2018 as a web-based platform at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Users can upload photos, tag them with visual clues – such as the color of a coat, shoulder straps, collar insignia, or inscriptions – and connect them to profiles of Civil War soldiers with more detailed records of military service...

Here is the link for that article sent to me by William K.  Thanks William!

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/ai-could-help-identify-civil-war-veterans-in-your-family

A Popular Mechanics article on the subject describes how it works.

The Photo Sleuth works like this. First, a user signs up for free. Then they upload Civil War-era photos, front and back to discourage the use of mere printouts. Then they tag the photo with visual cues: What is their collar insignia? How many chevrons does their uniform have? And, perhaps the most important, North or South?

Here is that link.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a26625006/civil-war-photo-sleuth-search/

In the past I've encouraged you to research your own family history, and when possible visit the locations that were occupied by you or your ancestors in the past and dig up some pieces that you or your family lost.  I was able to dig up some of my toys from the 1950s, for example, and a few rings and other things belonging to me and my family.

I've also been able to detect the house where a couple generations of my wife's family lived and found some nice old things.

It is now possible to learn a lot about your family and your ancestors by using tools that are freely available on the internet.

My wife has become skilled at genealogical research.  Her family goes back to Europe and she is now in communication of extended family overseas.  She has discovered some very interesting stories too, involving wars and family members who died in Nazi concentration camps.

When my grandmother got the documentation she needed to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, she was able to document one ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War.  Since my wife has been doing genealogical research on the internet, she has run across about a half dozen of my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War.  Some were more direct lines than the one my grandmother was able to find.

The same tools that can be used for genealogical research can also be used to find clues to good metal detecting sites.  I've heard some say how difficult it is to get permission to detect on land sites.  When you have a family connection, that might be a bit easier.  I know when I visited the place that I grew up after it was sold, the new owner knowing that I grew up there was very hospitable.

My wife highly recommends the following internet sites.

The best one is www.familysearch.org.  It is run by the Later Day Saints and is free.  You will have to create an account.  And of course, like anything, you might have to spend a little time learning to use it.

Another one she uses a lot is www.findagrave.com.  It is also free.  When you look up grave, you will also find helpful additional information about the person.

Ancestry.com is not free, but they do permit a free preview period.  If you know what you are after you can sign up for the preview period and do your research, and then continue with a paid subscription if you like.  You can save the family trees and stuff that you develop during the free preview.

While I have a lot of old photos, I do not have showing Civil War soldiers.  Too bad.  I know some of my ancestors were in the Civil War and one was injured at Gettysburg.

Very often you'll be able to find the pension applications filed by the widow.

Here is an old photo that shows my grandfather (middle) and his sister and brother.  That was when taking a photo was a big deal.

No particular reason other than I think it is very cute.

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Anyone want to send me a personal story or comments on the recently completed TCAS hunt?  I'd like to hear from you.

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So now the FBI now saving us from college admissions cheating.  Now I feel safe and am so relieved that that the college admissions process is totally fair for the first time in the last hundred years. No more legacy admissions, preferences for wealthy donors, college prep schools or SAT prep programs.

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We are expecting a three to five foot surf on the Treasure Coast.  Also moderate tides.  The wind is now coming from the north and some cooler air is moving in.

I don't expect to be able to take a look for a couple of days.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

8/8/14 Report - Unusually Patinated Dug 1927 Quarter. Beach Coal. British Loyalist Wrecks. Genealogical Research Again.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.BlogSpot.com.




1927 Quarter With Unusual Gold Color Patina.

In my opinion this is the most attractive natural dug patina that I have seen on a coin. 

The gold color patina has a shine to it.  It is much more attractive in person.

I have no idea how the patina was created, but it is the way it was dug.

It has a melt value of about $3.60, but is rare enough that in poor condition should sell for around $9.00.  In excellent condition, it would go for around $250.  If it had an S mint mark, in excellent condition it would be more like $6000.



This one is poor condition, but the beautiful toning might raise the price a little.  I should check that out.

Other Side Same Coin Showing Same Gold Patina.

We often talk about the famed 1715 Fleet, but there are plenty of other wrecks along the Treasure Coast.  The Roberts and Spring of Whitby are two that are well known. 

St. Augustine was a Spanish settlement first, but after that it was British.  Artifacts from a British fleet are now being studied by the St. Augustine LAMP Program.  Here are a few sentences from a recent article about that.

On New Year’s Eve, 1782, sixteen British Loyalist ships carrying evacuees from Charleston, S.C., ran aground while trying to enter the St. Augustine Inlet. More than 200 years later, archaeologists from the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum are carefully conserving artifacts recovered from one of those sixteen ships in hopes that they will reveal clues about these ill-fated vessels.
“Based on the artifacts we’ve recovered so far, we know this ship was part of a huge fleet that evacuated British Loyalists from the colonies near the end of the American Revolution,” said Chuck Meide, Director of the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP). “Our ship sailed from Charleston and was probably carrying both civilians and soldiers who were seeking refuge in St. Augustine. At that time in history, Florida was the closest British-held colony where evacuees could take shelter and try to start their lives again.”

Here is the link for the rest of the article.

http://historiccity.com/2014/staugustine/news/florida/lighthouse-hope-1782-cannon-yields-new-clues-46571

In Florida it is easy to focus on the Spanish history and forget some of our other history.  Don't forget the other shipwrecks that are out there.  And don't forget about later eras.

I was reminded that some wrecks are from later times when I found a few lumps of coal on a beach. 

 ... in 1911 coal was still the primary source of power for naval vessels. The Royal Navy had adopted oil for submarines and destroyers, and in most ships it was sprayed on coal to increase its combustion. But coal remained the principal fuel, especially for larger vessels like battleships. It was widely available, especially in Britain, where Cardiff coal mined in Wales was preferred by navies worldwide.

Here is the link for more about that.

http://www.epmag.com/archives/digitalOilField/5911.htm

But, of course, it wasn't necessarily from a coal powered ship.  The coal could have also been cargo.

Anyhow, there are wrecks besides the 1715 wrecks along our beaches, and reminders of those wrecks can pop up at different times.

The more you know, the more complicated things become.

I've mentioned before how much I've enjoyed and benefited from genealogical research.   I just read about some of my ancestors that departed Rotterdam for Philadelphia in August 1733.  That was the month after the Atocha sank.   It is interesting to make the connections.   While my ancestors were crossing the ocean, the Keys were a bee hive of salvage activity.

Those ancestors sailed on a ship named Elizabeth.  One died two days out.  After landing in Philadelphia, two boys were sold as indentured servants to pay for passage. 

From Wikipedia: Indentured Servitude in Pennsylvania.

As for indentured colonists, the reasons for entering into such an arrangement varied. Colonists might indenture themselves or their relations in response to economic circumstances. For example, parents unable to financially support their children might place them under indenture, since the terms of the agreement usually specified the provisioning of "meat, drink, lodging and washing."
Colonists also became indentured servants as punishment for some form of transgression or debt. In the case of the latter, individuals could present a "petition" to the courts, whereby they would "admit" to the debt and agree to fulfill their obligations by indenturing themselves. The indenture could be granted to the creditor or another party who paid the servant's debt.  Overall, however, only a small portion of the indentured servants in Pennsylvania derived from colony's residents.

Those of the "criminal" or "meaner" sort comprised another form of indentured servitude. For these individuals, indentured servitude provided a "conditional" alternative to judicially prescribed punishments. By serving a certain number of years under indenture, such persons would legally absolve themselves of their crimes. However, if these servants reneged on their contracts and returned to the home country, they would be subject to the penalty of death.

I was lucky to find a lot written about some of my ancestors.  It really makes history come alive, and it can provide many clues to good detecting sites.   I keep learning more and more.  You might enjoy researching your own family.



Occasionally we have some immigrants that come ashore on the Treasure Coast.  That happened recently.

http://www.wpbf.com/news/south-florida/treasure-coast-news/10-believed-to-be-illegal-immigrants-found-on-Hutchinson-Island/13478092#!bx8hMo

We have South winds and one foot seas for days to come.   I don't know a time when I've seen the water so smooth for so long.

I have some new modern jewelry finds to show.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@Comcast.net

6/29/14 Report - National Archives For Research, Detecting Military Shells With a 2-Box Detector, Getting To More Remote Beaches, & US Religious Shrine

Written by the treasureguide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Fellow Using Two-Box Detector To
Locate Buried Shells From WW I On His Farm
Source: video link below.

I've learned a lot through genealogical research.  I mention that again because once again I was amazed by what I found. 

My father was on a minesweeper during WW II.  He never talked much, hardly anything, about his experiences during the war.  We have, however, found where his ship was everyday during the war.  Palermo, Genoa, Sardinia, and Malta are some of the places where they cleared mines before his ship came back to New York and Miami before going through the Panama Canal to the Pacific.

I tell you this because the National Archives has tons of information that you can search.  Not only can you research individuals, but you can also find detailed records on ships and battles.  And not only do they have information on WW II, but also information going back to the Revolutionary War and more.

I was able to find a daily longitude and latitude for my dad's ship, which was one of the smaller ships in the Navy.  You might find it easy to find even more information about larger ships.

If you want to find information about a family member or track down a ship that sank while carrying gold bullion, the National Archives and Navy have tons of records that can be accessed.  You can receive some information free, but there may be a price charged to cover the cost of copies of other records.

Oh, by the way, you can also get medals and things posthumously, as well as a flag

You can apply for the flag by completing VA Form 2008, Application for United States Flag for Burial Purposes.

Here are a couple of websites that can help you get started with research on a veteran or a ship.

http://militaryrecordsusa.com/

http://www.ancestry.com/nara_new

Collection of Militaria From NY Times Video Clip
Source: link below.

Here is a video about a fellow (See picture above.) that uses a two-box detector to locate shells and other old military items on his farm. He has accumulated a huge collection.  

The story is a good reminder that there still may also be dangerous things in the ground and on the beaches around the Treasure Coast, which was once a military training center.  

It is said that 20 million shells were fired during the Battle of Verdun, of which about 20 percent did not explode.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000002957552/the-bomb-collector-of-ypres.html?playlistId=1194811622205
 

Thanks to teklord for sending me that link!

Remember to be careful when digging where there could possibly be old shells or bombs.  That includes the Treasure Coast.


Spain recently returned a bunch of stolen artifacts to Columbia.  

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/06/24/us-spain-colombia-archaeology-idINKBN0EZ1YW20140624


You might remember the case from back in 2012 in which Odyssy Marine had to turn over tons of coins from the Nuestra Senora de Mercedes that it recovered off of Portugal.  

http://tbo.com/news/business/spain-sends-military-to-retrieve-treasure-from-odyssey-marine-360822

I'm not sure why Peru didn't prevail in their claim for the same coins.


A Mexican helicopter fired shots at a US border patrol.  They claim it was by accident, of course.  I would not be surprised by anything down there these days.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mexican-helicopter-crosses-u-s-border-fires-border-patrol-n142966


There are religious shrines around the world that are visited by millions of people, but you might not know that there are religious shrines in the US as well.  I thought this one was especially interesting.

National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, Fonda, NY: Having lost her parents at an early age, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680) was raised among the Mohawks in the home of an uncle. There she first encountered Christian missionaries, and was baptized on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1676 in Fonda, NY near the Jesiut mission in Auriesville. Because of her baptism, her exemplary life, and her desire to remain a virgin, Kateri suffered great persecution. She died at age twenty-four known as the “Lily of the Mowhawks,” since she had given herself over entirely to care for the sick and long hours of prayer and penance. She was beatified in 1980 by Pope John Paul II. Her body is buried in the church of the Native American  reserve of Kahnawake, Quebec.

Source:  http://www.ssvmusa.org/Events/CatholicCulture/PilgrimageSites.shtm



It sometimes seems that the obvious beaches are over hunted.  I suppose they are.  There must be more detectorists today than back a few decades.  Yet that is easy to over estimate, as I've said before.  The detecting community is so much more visible today than in the past, due to the internet. 

The most over-hunted beaches are those that are obvious and easy.   Most of those "obvious" beaches have parking lots and beach walk-overs.

There are however long stretches of beach along the Treasure Coast that are seldom hunted because they are not as easy to get to.  Those beaches are not as heavily hunted, but they are also generally not as busy and so produce fewer modern targets.  That doesn't mean they will never produce shipwreck items though, and they may produce a few good modern targets even if they aren't real plentiful.

One way to make it easier to hunt those out-of-the-way beaches is to get someone to drop you off and pick you up again later.  That can keep you from having to walk a few miles with your detector, scoop, water, etc.

If there are two or more of you, you might consider dropping a couple of the more energetic people off at an out-of-the-way location while the others go ahead to a parking lot.   If the one group detecting the more distant location only has to walk to the parking lot, that means the walk has been cut in half.   If you park at a parking lot then walk to a remote site and then have to return to the parking lot, that doubles the distance you have to walk.


On the Treasure Coast we are stuck in the same old weather pattern with a one to two foot surf.  As is typical of this kind of weather, a few shards have recently been found up in the Corrigans area.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

5/2/14 Report - Sedwick Auction Results, 5000 Years of California Violence, Digging Up Your Personal Past and My Most Valuable Find

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesrport.blogspot.com.

There was one standout among the gold cobs auctioned off by Sedwick yesterday.  It brought in over $76,000.  The next highest price for a gold cob was around 23,000.  A common price range for gold cobs was one to two thousand, with just a handful bringing in less than one thousand.

Here is the lot description for the big winner.

Lima, Peru, cob 8 escudos, 1701H, Philip V, extremely rare, from the 1715 Fleet. S-L25a; KM-38.1. 26.95 grams. Almost round, evenly struck and perfectly centered, this would be an exceptional specimen for any date, let alone one that is missing in Calico and the State of Florida collection (theirs is Charles II). In fact we can trace only one other example for Philip V, an AU 55 of demonstrably inferior strike but with perhaps slightly more evidence of the coins' having been created from a modified 1700 die. The present coin is at least AU 58 but bears areas of red staining and gray coral that preclude professional encapsulation. What is more important is that the strike is nearly perfect--well centered and even--and the effect in hand is sheer beauty. From the 1715 Fleet.

The two standouts among the world gold coins were two had final prices of nearly $5000. 

Both of those were Brazil (Rio mint) reis.  Each of those sold for just under five thousand dollars.  A good number of lots in this category did not sell.  An the expected standout in this category did not sell.

There was a clear standout in the US gold coins.  It was the USA (Philadelphia mint), $10 capped-bust Liberty, 1801, encapsulated NGC UNC details / improperly cleaned. KM-30. Lustrous and attractive, with minor marks only, the surfaces very faintly hairlined from cleaning, popular early gold with high catalog value.

It sold for just over $15,000.

The auction continues today.


Two more days remaining to respond to the blog poll.  It is proceeding very nicely.  I'll get more out of the results than might be immediately apparent.


On the Treasure Coast the wind is out of the South right now.   The higher surf will be this morning, then decreasing through the day and for a few more days.


It seems to me that we get a very sanitized, or should I say "politically correct" version of history, so much so that I was really surprised when I learned just how dangerous life was on the US frontier in the 1700s.  I did some research and read about some of my ancestors, including one thirteen-year-old boy, who, with his mother and brother were captured by the Indians, took a bullet in the leg but managed to heal during captivity, later escaping to freedom by swimming across the Monongahela River in an area that I personally know to be about a hundred yards across. 

I guess I actually bought into the sanitized view of history that I received.  However a new study shows that California, the land of Flower Power and Peace, has a long history of violence that goes way back before the white man arrived.

Here are some excerpts taken from an article describing an archaeological study that examined 16,820 burials from over 5000 years of history in Central California.

From shooting their enemies with darts and arrows to crushing their skulls and even harvesting body parts as trophies, the ancient foragers of central California engaged in sporadic, and sometimes severe, violence, according to a new archaeological study spanning 5,000 years.

The article goes on to say, Chronicling 16,820 burials from 329 sites among 13 different ethnographic groups, the data reveal that the most common type of violence over the millennia was so-called sharp-force trauma, caused by projectiles like arrows or atlatl darts, which appeared in 7.2% of the burials studied.

Another 4.3% of the hunter-gatherers suffered apparent blunt-force trauma to the head, while just under 1% showed evidence of dismemberment, with limbs, scalps, or heads having been removed after death.

Interesting article! 

Here is the link if you want to read more about that study.

http://westerndigs.org/from-stone-darts-to-dismembered-bodies-new-study-reveals-5000-years-of-violence-in-central-california/


I'm going to recommend genealogical research to you once again.  I know I've done it before, but I am continually amazed by what all can be found on the computer these days.  It has been very productive for me and in ways that I never would have imagined.  Not only have I learned a lot about my ancestors, but I've discovered tons of good detecting leads in the process.

I've mentioned this before, but you can join Ancestry.com for a free trial period.  That will give you a access to a lot of very good resources.

Yesterday I showed an example of a land use map from 1870 that I found on the web site.  That was only one example of the many types of excellent research resources you will find there.

Of course you can compare those old maps to more current maps if you need to.   I was using maps of land that I was very familiar with, so I didn't have to do that.

One thing I learned is that reading history is one thing, but finding your personal connection makes it really come alive.  There is another step beyond that though.  You can visit the places where your roots were formed and actually touch the past.

One thing I learned in a new way is that history can be very personal.  If you make the connections,  you can learn a lot about out how your family ended up where it is today and how it connected to what was going on in the world.

I have learned a lot about my father's family that I am sure he never knew.  He was too young to know some of the whys and hows of his early life, yet through all of the digitized records I've been able to piece much of it together. 

I've communicated with cousins this year on both coasts that I never knew I had until I did this research and learned that they were also researching the family.  That is how I was able to make contact with them and learned from them what they had discovered through their research.  We exchanged both information and pictures.
  . 
Besides discovering relatives that you never knew about, and you might even learn what happened to crazy so and so.  After going through the process myself, I'd be surprised if you don't discover a lot you never knew about your family.  I benefited greatly from the time my wife put into the process.  It is much like detecting, the more time you put into it, the more you benefit.  Things come together more quickly when you have already collected some of the pieces.

Every day history is being made.  Every day information about you and I is being accumulated online.   More of it is going online than I ever suspected.   It is really surprising how much can be found.

History is going into the ground every day too -  much more than could ever be excavated or studied.

My now deceased father nearly a half century ago told me that his father or grandfather had tools stamped with a swastika.   I don't know why he told me that or why it is something that I remembered, but I guess it made an impression.  Not only did I remember that one statement, but now I have a pair of those pliers and found the swastika, which proves what he said.  It seems unlikely that one casual comment made about fifty years ago would result in an item of personal history being resurrected from the earth. 

I thoroughly enjoyed digging up some of my personal history, including some of my old toys from the small home where I was raised.  When I visited that home, I was able to walk directly to the exact area where there was a slight depression just to one side of an old Pussy Willow tree that created a nice shady spot to play in the cool dirt in the summer.  I made roads in the dirt with my toy tractors and trucks there, and sadly, that is also where my yellow baby duck that I had just won at the county fair by throwing coins into cups ate a toadstool and died. 

I could not see it any more clearly than if I were there today, and I guess in a way I am.

Nobody else in the world knew that spot like I did.  Nobody else knew how I played there, what toys I used and how special that one small area was to one young boy.  Talk about an advantage for a detectorist!  I can actually see the past, and in more ways than one.  

Nobody knew that one small spot like I did and never will.  I walked right to it, and quickly dug up a part of my personal history.  No find has ever been more valuable to me than that.



I think I'll leave it there for today.



Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net

4/29/14 Report - Gold Religious Medallion, Early Gulf Coast Settlement, and Genealogical Research

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.

Gold Religious Medallion Find

This medallion is larger than most and is intricate.  You can see the remains of a black encrustation that has been partly removed. 



When I first posted yesterday's post there were a lot of problems with it.  Fortunately I went back later and fixed some of the problems.

One big thing was that I originally left out of the post was a link to a great article on the earliest European Gulf Coast settlement.  I put it in later, but in case you missed it, here it is.

http://archeologyink.com/LaRuaBluff.pdf

Below is an excerpt from that article.

Fig. 16: During the 1940s several young boys were roaming along the shoreline
of a peninsula jutting into Pensacola Bay . They had learned how to find
artifacts. The railroad crews would come down the line on occasion and dig
out the banks to protect the tracks. When it rained the kids would scour the
exposed banks for artifacts. On one day, they found a coin which dated to the
time of the Tristan de Luna colony. One the kids, Harry Bonifay, found it.
The coin and the area are figured in the next few pages. Sixty something
years later marine archeologists found two shipwrecks of the period just
offshore from the same bayshore.

It says the kids checked newly disturbed soil.  I've recommended checking any disturbed soil many times in this blog.  

The kids also knew to check after rain.  That is another strategy that I've mentioned before.  Those are two good reminders.

Curren, as contrasted with the quotes I gave a couple of days ago from the shipwreck articles reveals a much more constructive style and approach.  He gives even children recognition for their finds and treats the public as a part of the process.  That is exactly the approach that will promote and advance the field of study.

Below is another good tip found in the same article

Fig. 18: ...  The coin was found in a dredge spoil pile near the mouth of Bayou

Texar.

Most often you'll find junk, such as mangled aluminum cans in dredged material, however there are times when more interesting things are found in dredged material.  There have been times when interesting old materials have been found in dredged material in Southeast Florida and the Treasure Coast. 

Thanks to Caleb Curren, author of archaeologink.com and that particular article. 


I would encourage you once again to do some genealogical research.  I've learned a lot of history through research into my own ancestors.   One line goes back to the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony in the 1640s.  Of course that was after the Mayflower.  One thing I found particularly interesting is that John Greenleaf Whittier actually wrote a ballad about one of my ancestors.  She was said to be the first white woman sold into slavery in America.  Her crime was not exactly, but basically being too friendly to the Quakers.  The sea captains refused to take to Virginia or Barbados to be sold though.  It might have had something to do with the fact that her father was a boat carpenter.  She did spend time in leg stocks.  Anyhow, the ballad is Cassandra, which is actually her mother's name.

Along another ancestral line was a Ranger in the Revolutionary War that fought Indians in the Ohio Valley.  He was captured, escaped, swam the river, etc. etc.  It was a violet time on both sides, and both sides actually collected scalps.  With all the political correctness these days, I was surprised to learn how violent and brutal it actually was. 

It can be really interesting when you put enough time into the research to locate ancestors which were written about in detail like that. 

Those are only two of the things that I found most interesting.  I was lucky to be able to locate so much material.  I'm sure you can find some interesting things about your ancestry too.  The most interesting thing would be to go to some of those areas and do a detector search where your ancestors lived.  It really makes the history come alive.


On the Treasure Coast the wind picked up around noon and white caps formed on the river. 

We are still having high high tides, but the surf is still small.

A 3 - 5 foot surf is predicted for Wednesday.  That is a little increase.

Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net