Tonight I was watching "Beach Party" (American International – 1963) in which Annette Funicello sang "Treat Him Nicely". I thought this song sounded familiar and I then I recalled this song sounded very much like a song by The Duprees, "Have You Heard", which was recorded the same year. Two different songs recorded in the same year that have the same melody – wonder what the story is. Listen and judge for yourself….
The Duprees–Have You Heard – 1963
Annette Funicello–Treat Him Nicely – 1963
Right after Google Earth was released in 2005, I thought that it would be interesting to see if I could locate all of the places that I lived over the past 50 years (1955-2005). I collected snapshots of satellite pictures of the places that I resided and schools that I attended as kid. Six years later I finally got around to putting it all together in a presentation that documents these shots. In each of the shots the pictures are oriented facing the front of the structure. On most of the pictures there is compass rose showing the orientation of the map. If you hover your mouse over some of the maps you will see tips regarding some of the features.
http://gatheringleaves.org/gldata-o/mlasfo.htm
A few years ago a correspondent in Belgium sent me an image of a map of Ronse, Belgium made in the mid-18th century. He wrote that the structure depicted in the lower center of the map was of a windmill owned by my ancestor (ggggg-grandfather) Judocus (Joos) De Backer (1723 – 1797) and that the windmill stood in what is now a city park in Ronse known as the Bruul (see here for that image). Last night I came across a very detailed map of Belgium made by the Austrian cartographer, Joseph Jean François, count de Ferrari, in the 1770’s. The Ferrari Cabinet map, made between 1771 and 1778, was commissioned by the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and her son Emp. Joseph II to detail their Austrian Netherlands, as Belgium was known in those years. A page of that map shows the city of Ronse (Renaix) in the 1770’s and upon close inspection one can see that two windmills are depicted in this sector. In the second image below the windmill in the lower left corner corresponds to the windmill drawn in the earlier map from the early 18th century.
The Ferrari map can be seen in detail by going to Ferraris Cabinet KBR Map Viewer.
In 1744, César-François Cassini de Thury (also known as Cassini III), began the construction of a great topographical map of France, one of the landmarks in the history of cartography. The map that eventually took 70 years to complete has been digitized and is available for viewing on at least two sites that I have found – the first site being the better of the two: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection and Des Villages de Cassini. I was able to find the sections of the map that shows the region of eastern France where my Franc-Comtois ancestors lived. The first image below is centered on the town of Montecheroux from where my ggg-grandfather, Jean Baptiste Francois Xavier Jeanin-Gaume, emigrated in the 1830’s.
The second image shows the larger area that my Franc-Comtois ancestors hailed from. Click the image to view the detail. In the lower left is Montecheroux which was then in the principality of Montebeliard and is now in France. In the upper right is Chevenez and Porrentruy which was then in the Bishopric of Basel and is now in Switzerland.
