Podcast: Excavating Grandma's Privy for Family History Data

Podcast: Excavating Grandma's Privy for Family History Data. This is a delightful interview with Craig Pfannkuche. Craig is an expert amateur archaeologist who describes why and how to excavate your ancestors' outhouses in order to find more about their lives.

You can listen to this 29-minute interview using any modern computer that has either speakers or headphones attached. This podcast can also be downloaded to an iPod or other portable music player. To listen to the interview, click on the "play" button located to the left of the long bar below. To download, click on the link for "MP3 File."




MP3 File

Born and raised in Chicago, Craig Pfannkuche received both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from Northern Illinois University. He taught high school American history and anthropology for thirty years.

In addition to teaching, from which he is now retired, Craig has held several leadership positions in area genealogical and historical organizations. He is currently the president of Memory Trail Research, Inc., on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Genealogical Society, he is the Genealogical Archivist for the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Historical Society, and he’s on the Board of Directors for the McHenry County (Illinois) Genealogical Society.

With whatever spare time he has, Craig is a frequent lecturer on a variety of genealogical topics. He has presented numerous workshops in history, historical and genealogical research, and archaeological techniques. He has also written several articles for historical journals and society newsletters.

His daughter also got the bug and is now a professional archaeologist.

Craig was the banquet speaker at the recent annual conference of the National Genealogical Society where he spoke on the same topic.

Craig Pfannkuche may be contacted at 8612 Memory Trail, Wonder Lake, IL 60097 or at
craig@pfannkuche.com.

Comments

[Randy Seaver]

Fascinating interview, Dick. I enjoyed listening to it. You are a good interviewer.

Hope you don't mind if I link to your post and the MP3 file.

Thanks -- Randy

[Jennifer]

Great podcast! I enjoyed Craig's stories.

[M. McMahon]

Hello,

I am unable to download your MP3 files from
your web page or in iTunes.

When I try on your web page I get a
"DNS lookup error".

[Dick Eastman]

That is strange. The hit counters indicate there have been hundreds of downloads of the podcasts here. I cannot see a "hit counter" on iTunes but several people have mentioned listening to those podcasts successfully on iTunes. Obviously, it does work for them. I also download each podcast online here immediately after uploading to verify operation. I also started listening to the “Excavating Grandma's Privy for Family History Data” podcast a minute ago and it seems to be working fine for me.

First question: Have you been able to download or listen to any other podcasts, either here or on other web sites or on iTunes?

Next, when you received the DNS error, was that immediately after clicking on PLAYBACK the icon on this site? Or was it after some other action?

I suspect this can be solved if we can obtain enough information about the error(s).

Thank you,
Dick Eastman

[Homer Thiel]

As a professional historical archaeologist, I'd like to inject a contrary opinion.

Yes, privy excavations have the potential to provide a great amount of information about our ancestor's lives. However, this information is lost forever if untrained individuals do the excavations. Trained archaeologists know how to record the soil layers, they screen the dirt to collect every artifact, and they know how to identify and interpret the artifacts. Perhaps most importantly, they publish reports that include all of this information. They take the artifacts to a museum to be stored. In the future, other people can read the report or go to the museum to see what was found. Amateur or unprofessional excavations do not result in published reports. I wonder how someone would feel if they went to their ancestor's house, only to find the privies excavated and the artifacts thrown out or lost.

As an example, I am currently conducting an excavation at a city block in Tucson, Arizona. In one area, the backyard of a grocery store owner's lot, all 10 outhouse or well pits had been dug through by bottle hunters in the 1970s. Nothing was left intact. It is impossible to determine what kinds of foods these people ate, what kinds of dishes they owned, whether they took medicines, etc.

A similar scenario would be if genealogists were to go to a courthouse only to discover that other researchers had torn out the pages of the record books.

My suggestion- join your local archaeological society. They usually have volunteer opportunities to go on excavations, including privy excavations.

The link I have provided is to a recent new story on my project that talks about the kinds of information privies provide.

[Jane McCombs Gillespie]

I can't get your podcasts to work anymore. When the Christine Rose podcast was first posted I listened to it (enjoyed it!!)But now I can't any of them to work anymore.

I added the address to my eTrust Firewall but still doesn't work. Any help/suggestions would be great. Thanks!!

[Dick Eastman]

First question: are you able to listen to podcasts on other sites? That will isolate the problem either as a problem on this site or a problem in your computer.

Thanks.

- Dick Eastman

[M. McMahon]

Hello,

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I regularly listen to
several podcasts on iTunes, and have listened to others on
their individual web pages.

I tried both manually subscribing using the "RSS Feed of Podcasts"
link on page: http://www.eogn.com/rss-newsfeeds.html
and subscribing through the iTunes Music Store
(http://dick_eastman.audioblog.com/rss/eogn.xml)

In both cases, I get a list of shows but am not able to download
any.

I agree that there is some incompatibility on my side, as many
others are listening. Do you have any further suggestions?

Thanks again for your time.

[Dick Eastman]

I am afraid that I am not an iTunes expert. I do use it myself but, so far, everything has worked perfectly on the first try. I haven't had a need to do any troubleshooting.

I am hoping that someone else can jump in here with a suggestion or two.

- DIck Eastman

[Janice C]

I have only been able to listen to your podcast by clicking on the MP3 File and listening on my compter. I do not seem to be able to save it so I can put it on my MP3 player ( a non ipod.) I use Juice to download. I have no problems with Genealogy Guys and Genealogy Tech Podcast.
Janice C

[M. McMahon]

Thanks, Janice. That describes me too - except I also listen
to DearMYRTLE via iTunes. Maybe there is a problem with the
syndication feed/fiel naming/RSS format?

[Anna Banach]

Mr. Pfannkuche was my history professor throughout high school, until he retired. He is by far the most memorable mentor I had. Whether the Brutus and Ceasar debates or lengthy lectures of Mezzo American spearheads he always had the most challenging and rewarding curriculum. This was a fantastic opportunity to listen to the voice from the past. Supremely interesting, just as the man himself! Thank you!