Estimated reading time: 15 minutes
The Sift is a periodic omnibus of significant, but smaller, snippets of history, genealogy, and news, received behind the scenes & sifted daily at Stray Leaves.
- Adina Brown Speaks of Diversity & Belonging
- Lawsuit has Implications for Con Artists & Identity Thieves Engaging in Historical Photo Fraud
- Happy 100th Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
- Stray Leaves Contributes to Pocahontas Descendants Initiative
- Do You Qualify for Chickasaw Citizenship?
- Who Says Nonsense Like This?
- More Jesse James Kinship Than Anyone
- Graves Family Reunion – 2019
- Confederate Statues Removed
- Losing a Parent Changes Us Forever
- Second-born Children Are More Likely to Make Trouble
- Old Jesse James Con Artists Never Die. They Just Propagate the Next Generation.
Adina Brown Speaks of Diversity & Belonging
Adina Brown is a James descendant. Her mother and grandfather are Elizabeth Lee “Libby” James and the late Sgt. Robert Lee James of Midland, Texas. See “Our American-Aboriginal Family – The Love Story of Robert Lee James & Susan Ann Syron.”
On the side of her father Craig Onan Brown, Adina descends from the original Aboriginal people of Australia. Both sides of this family treasure education.
At present, Adina is attending the University of Canberra. From UC, Adina talks about discovering diversity and what it means for her.
“Belonging means feeling comfortable to be yourself in the environment or group around you. It is to feel welcomed and feel as if any of your differences as a person are overlooked or accepted and appreciated. I call Western Sydney home and I was born and raised in Penrith. My siblings and parents still live there so it’s a massive change moving away, but a big reason why I feel like I belong to UC is the diversity of the students and community. Everyone appreciates you for you and is so welcoming and kind. As I got accepted, I found out that my Uncle was the first Aboriginal to graduate UC, so it made me feel as if I was meant to be at UC and be a part of the community. I feel like I can be myself a UC because of how supportive everyone is around, most first year students are in the same shoes with beginning university and living away from home. Staff are very helpful, they not only point you in the right direction for services but are happy to give advice and listen to any you may have.”
– Adina Brown
Lawsuit has Implications for Con Artists & Identity Thieves Engaging in Historical Photo Fraud
We’ll be monitoring this lawsuit most intently. Its outcome could put an end to the proliferation of fake photos of Frank and Jesse James. The lawsuit also could end the identity theft of the Jesse James family.
Tamara Lanier is suing Harvard University for wrongful expropriation of historic images she says depicts two of her ancestors. Her lawsuit petitions for Harvard to turn over the subject photos, to acknowledge her ancestry, and payment to Lanier of an unspecified amount of damages.
While Lanier’s ancestry is not stated, Stray Leaves suspects she may be related to the Jesse James family. Many of the Lanier family share kinship with the James, including music legend Quincy Jones and famed American playwright Tennessee Williams, aka Thomas Lanier Williams III. Thomas Stratton Lanier and spouse Margaret Sallee turned out to be the original owners and builders of a 1903 Victorian home in Danville, Kentucky, once owned by Stray Leaves’ publisher Eric F. James.
If Lanier wins her suit, Harvard’s images must be returned to Lanier as property due to heirs. This outcome would have an enormous impact on the number of fraudulent photos now in circulation that are claimed to be Frank or Jesse James. If Lanier is successful in her lawsuit, the James family could accept the false claims of hoaxers, con artists, and profiteers of historical images as true. The James then could lay claim and collect the images as being property due to heirs. In the end result, the James could take the fake images out of circulation.
Happy 100th Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
On today, March 24, 2019, I make an exception to my policy of not celebrating birthdays. A 100th birthday is a milestone of passage in eternity’s time frame. Few people achieve it. Even less reach the marker while still being an influence in so many lives.
When Ferlinghetti’s second centenary arrives, you and I will be gone and forgotten. But Ferlinghetti still will be here and relevant. This was perceived decades ago by Charles Michael James of our James family. C.M. was among the first to publish Ferlinghetti’s work at his Fantome Press. The archives of Fantome Press can be found at the University of Ohio. You can find Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his bookstore.
Stray Leaves Contributes to Pocahontas Descendants Initiative
Recently Stray Leaves made its own contribution to the Pocahontas Descendants Initiative sponsored by the Community Engagement Dept. of Gloucester County, Virginia. The program is described in this article.
The report which Stray Leaves provided identifies over 3,000 known descendants, some of whom are James relatives with Pocahontas ancestry.
If you have Pocahontas ancestry, we urge you to submit your own contribution.
Do You Qualify for Chickasaw Citizenship?
With the recent discovery of the James ancestry of Susannah James and her lines of Chickasaw descendants, we now learn that today’s living descendants in those lines – if there are any – may be eligible for Chickasaw citizenship.
If anyone pursues this, please inform the rest of your family at Stray Leaves.