10 'Easy' Things About Genealogy

I am fortunate to have several like-minded genealogy friends and we get together regularly to share our successes and crowdsource ideas for working through brick walls. So this week's #52Ancestors prompt "Easy" got me to thinking. The suggestion was to write about an ancestral line that had been easier to research than others, but my mind went in a different direction. There are many mistakes my friends and I have discussed over the years that are all too easy to make when researching your family history, as well. Here are just a few that come to mind.

It is easy to:

1. Stick to the mainline and forget to research your FAN club (Friends, Acquaintances, and Neighbors.) Follow collateral lines, e.g. siblings, particularly for obituaries and death certificates. 
2. Romanticize your ancestor's motives or overlay current values onto the lives of our ancestors. Our ancestors were criminals, slaveholders, bigots, bigamists, and all manner of other things, which can be disturbing to learn. Gather your facts and read more about the viewpoints people held at that time to broaden your perspective of the influences that shaped their lives. 
3. Assume because you have a few facts you have the full story. Just because your ancestor is in the same location in 1900 and 1910 doesn't mean they stayed in the same place the entire decade. Back up your assumptions with facts. 
4. Get so caught up in researching you forget to document your findings. Have you ever had to retrace your steps in pursuit of a record you found previously and can't find again? Then you understand the importance of taking the time to document your sources. 
5. Limit your research to what is easily obtainable online. Ah, the allure of armchair genealogy! Yes, we all want to lounge around in our pajamas and gather as many records that way as we can. But, eventually, if you want to do a thorough search you have to venture beyond what is available online. 
6. Forget now fluid spelling can be. Search engines have gotten smarter and smarter at being able to make connections between similarly sounding names. You still have to do your homework, however, and come up with a list of alternative spellings as well as leverage other details to make locate records when the name is completely wrong or poorly transcribed. 
7. Assume that all of the children enumerated in the census have the same parents. 
8. Assume any of the details at all in the census are correct. They are a great guidepost, but can you corroborate each fact with other records? 
9. Assume any of the information found on an uncited online family tree is correct. Online trees can be incredibly useful, but undocumented research should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. 
10. But most of all, it is so, so easy to get so caught up in researching you find yourself tumbling down the proverbial "rabbit hole" staying up way past your bedtime, allowing dust bunnies to accumulate and ignoring other household chores! But, unlike the other things on this list, is that really such a bad thing?

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: Namesake

Depending on your perspective there either aren't many namesakes in my family tree or they are everywhere! "Huh?!" you may be thinking to yourself. Let me explain. My maternal ancestors were from Luxembourg, a small country located in Western Europe. If you're not quite sure where Luxembourg is located it is nestled between Germany, France, and Belgium. And, it is a separate county, not part of Germany as many assume!

The Protestant Reformation, beginning in 1519, largely passed Luxembourg by and as a result, the county remains largely Catholic to this day. Catholics practice infant baptism and one of the elements of the Rite is selecting godparents whose duty it was to ensure the child's religious upbringing in the event something happened to his or her parents. 

As part of the sacrament of baptism, naming patterns through the 19th century were very predictable. Infants were named for their same-sex godparent. So you could say that all of my Catholic ancestors are the namesake of their godparents. Since an infant's parents are never godparents for their own child if the child had a unique name a likely assumption would be an aunt or uncle, or other family member or neighbor, with that name was their godparent. The parish baptismal records generally include the names of the godparents and it is always important to research what the relationship was to the parents and baby.

As illustrated below, the godmother of the infant Caroline is named Caroline. In fact, her godmother was also her maternal aunt.

Understanding the naming patterns of our ancestors can provide important clues to relationships. By the beginning of the 20th century, Luxembourg immigrants to the United States and subsequent generations began moved away from this tradition. But even then there are still threads of the tradition to follow. For example, my grandfather, Eugene Pierre, received his middle name from his godfather — and grandfather — John Pierre. The only problem with this practice is generation-upon-generation of instances of Anna Maria, Catherine, Nicholas, and John!

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: At the Cemetery

Memorial Day dedication of Suresnes American Cemetery, 1919.

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day set aside to remember those who died while serving their country. It is especially fitting then that this week's #52Ancestors prompt is "At the Cemetery". Over the course of my research, I have had the wonderful good fortune to visit many of the cemeteries where my ancestors are buried. Equally moving – and meaningful – was the opportunity to visit several of America's overseas cemeteries last year as part of a World War I centennial tour of France. 

I had been researching students, alumni and staff from the University of Washington who died during World War I and I was looking forward to seeing the terrain where the final battles were fought and the final resting places for those who died there. It was a wonderful experience and it is well worth the side trip to visit any of the cemeteries administered by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Founded after World War I to manage the final burials of America's war dead, the Commission later because responsible for the cemeteries created World War II, as well.

Detail from the Chapel mosaic.

The first cemetery we visited on the tour was Suresnes American Cemetery. Located just outside Paris, it has a beautiful view of the city. The American military cemetery at Suresnes was established in 1917 by the Graves Registration Service of the Army Quartermaster Corps. A majority of those buried there died of wounds or sickness in hospitals located in Paris or at other places in the Services of Supply. Many were victims of the influenza epidemic of 1918–1919.

The cemetery was dedicated by President Woodrow Wilson during Memorial Day ceremonies of 1919. The above photo is an original press photo from that event, and the caption on the back states "One of the most moving scenes in American war history took place in 1919 on Memorial Day, when President Wilson visited Suresnes cemetery near Paris. Here is a portion of the crowd, gathered on that day, in the American section of the cemetery." Wilson opened his remarks  with the statement "No one with a heart in his breast, no American, no lover of humanity, can stand in the presence of these graves without the most profound emotion."

Anytime you have the opportunity to honor America's war dead, whether it is your local national cemetery, Arlington or one of American's overseas cemeteries, take some time to pay your respects "at the cemetery."

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: At Worship

Sister M. Salome (Caroline Rose) Ney
1879-1929

There was no doubt in my mind who I would write about when the #52Ancestors prompt "at worship" was announced. My great-great aunt, Caroline Rose Ney who entered a Dominican convent in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1904. 

Back in my earliest days of genealogy research, I asked my grandfather for some details about his aunts and uncles. Family folklore has it my great-grandfather had no interest in becoming a farmer in Wisconsin and, following his marriage, moved to Chicago where he worked for the Armour Grain Company and my grandfather was born. 

Like so many of that era, my great-grandmother developed tuberculosis and the prevailing wisdom of the era suggested the Western climate might help. All of these factors contributed to the fact I didn't have the highest expectations my grandfather would remember much as his contact with his extended family was limited to just a handful of visits.

I was soon proven wrong! My grandfather quickly rattled off the names of his three maternal aunts and uncle. His father was one of eleven children and Grandpa was able to recall all their names, in spite of the fact that he never really knew most of his aunts and uncles, except for one. One of his father’s sisters became a nun, he thought, Sister Salome might have been her name. “What was her name before?” I asked. “I don’t know if I ever heard it”, was his reply.

Family tradition also suggests Caroline's parents weren't thrilled to have their daughter enter the convent. If that is true their reasons are lost to time, but one factor certainly could have been the knowledge their daughter would be separated from them for the rest of her life. At the turn of the century, becoming a nun meant leaving your own family behind to become a part of a larger family of people dedicated to serving God in various ways. The Racine Dominicans, or the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Dominic to use their full name, were a teaching order of German origins. Many of the schools associated with Catholic parishes throughout Southeast Wisconsin, and beyond, were served by Racine Dominicans so they were certainly familiar to parochially-educated Caroline and her siblings growing up in Holy Cross, Wisconsin. 

Why Caroline felt called to a life of service has also been lost to time, but together with a cousin, Mary Mueller, entered the convent and both became teachers themselves in schools around Wisconsin and Michigan. Caroline died at the age of 49 following an operation. Her siblings were especially bitter because they had pooled funds for her to have the surgery in a hospital but the operation was supposedly arranged more economically with the extra funds going to the convent. No records exist which support this but Caroline was the first of her siblings to die and I'm sure her brothers and sisters were distraught at having already lost her, so to speak, to the convent and then to lose her completely. 

Port Washington Zeitung
Thursday, September 1, 1904, pg 4.

On Saturday [August 27], Miss Caroline Ney, a daughter of the
well-known  Mr. J. P. Ney von Town Belgium, was taken up
as a sister of the Notre-Dame Convent in Racine. 

When I first began researching Caroline I had no idea what order she belonged to and little to go on after she entered religious life. The nuns I knew growing up had long since abandoned their habits in favor of white blouses and serviceable skirts and sensible shoes. Little did I know the answer was staring me right in the face! I checked out a book from the library, Religious Orders of Women, which was like a catalog containing the mission, location, entrance requirements of each order to help girls in the 1960s considering religious life select an order they might be suited to. Sort of like a sorority rush! More importantly, it included many photos of sisters in their habits. This was before the sweeping reforms of Vatican II when many sisters adopted the more modern garb people associate them with today. A quick look at the book revealed very few orders had WHITE habits and those that did were all Dominicans. Huh, watching The Flying Nun hadn't adequately educated me for habit identification! 

Shortly after determining Caroline had been a Dominican I acquired a parish history which listed all of the people, including Caroline, who had entered religious life and provided the name of the specific convent. I don't know why she was given the name Mary Salome, but after entering the convent her family never referred to her as Caroline again, even in surviving correspondence between her two of brothers, Nick and Joe. 

There are many terminal branches on our family tree because the person died young, never married, or, as in the case of Sister Salome, entered into religious life. For me, their stories are no less interesting and as equally deserving of our attention and family members with dozens of descendants. Only when we look at the entire family can we fully appreciate the influences and nuances of their interconnectivity. The story of Sister Salome has always been one of those essential keys. No less critical for me than understanding the events which caused my branch of the family to move West. This is why I consider myself a family historian more than a genealogist. All the begats are very interesting, to be sure, but it's the stories that lead us to understand the context of each family's dynamic.

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Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: Out of Place

In 2014, I began researching each of the Gold Stars listed on the University of Washington's World War I memorial in anticipation of an exhibit about the war and its impact on the University, Seattle, and beyond. The exhibit was on display in the UW Libraries Special Collections in late 2016 and an online version can be found here.

Of the fifty-eight individuals identified as having either attended or graduated from the University of Washington who served during World War I, and made the ultimate sacrifice, only one remained completely elusive in verifying any details about his life story: F. E Bueler. Or maybe it was Buehler? His name was recorded in two different ways on the UW’s memorials. 

Aside from the two possible names, the only other scant information available came from the Sixteenth Biennial Report of the Board of Regents which lists him among the UW's casualties:

F. E. Bueler, lieutenant, 116th Infantry. 

Died at Lyons, France.

Initially, I focused my efforts on locating a roster of the 116th but that was unsuccessful. It seemed unlikely to me that an officer, a lieutenant, would leave so little trace! I tried every spelling variation of Bueler/Buehler I could think of to no avail. I suspected at least the last three letters were likely to be correct but searching *ler using left-hand truncation didn't yield any likely suspects either. 

Frank Ernest Bleuler (1890-1919)

By the time the exhibit rolled around, I was no closer to knowing anything concrete about this former UW student. I had to move on to other research and settle for using a placeholder image in the exhibit. Periodically over the years I would dust off Bueler and try again but still no luck! Until last week, that is! I wasn't even searching for Bueler, rather I was looking for some statistics relating to the 1918 influenza epidemic, but one of the search results linked to Gold Star Honor Roll: A record of Indiana men and women who died in the service of the United States and the allied nations in the world war, 1914-1918. I clicked on the link, not really expecting much when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the name Frank Ernest Bleuler! BLEULER! Even before I finished reading the brief entry I was sure this was the elusive F. E. Bueler I had been seeking. 

Suddenly the pieces began falling together. Turns out nothing in the Regent's Report was quite right. Of course, the most obvious thing is somewhere along the line a critical letter fell out of place which led to all the confusion. The practice of the time of using initials made matching up the details even more challenging. Also, Frank served in the 166th, not the 116th. Finally, although Frank died in France, as noted, he died in a hospital in Blois, miles from Lyon. An only child, Frank's parents Dr. Ernest Bleuler and his wife, the former Mary Helen Thompson, elected to have their son's remains returned to the U.S. and he is buried in South Bend, Indiana. 

Tenacity and serendipity both played a role in finally restoring Frank's story to the larger narrative of the University of Washington's Gold Stars. Although it took far longer to uncover the details of his life than it did for most of his fellow Gold Stars it is so gratifying that Lieutenant Frank Ernest Bleuler can now be remembered for his service and sacrifice. No longer out of place.

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: DNA

I've been hovering on the periphery of DNA research for several years now. I am grateful I was able to test my parents and siblings. Cousins, near and far, have also tested in recent years enabling me to confirm our connections and that my family tree is accurate, thus far.

I have cross-referenced my results between Ancestry, Family Tree DNA and MyHeritage and uploaded to GedMatch and... that's a far as my analysis has gone. Until now.

Last night I attended the first is a series of workshops about analyzing your DNA matches. I am excited by the prospect of better being able to refine my understanding of how I am connected to other individuals whose DNA matches mine. But, I'm not there yet. So, for the moment my DNA story is still a work in progress!

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: Brick Wall

Brick Wall! If ever there was a concept every genealogist could relate to this is it. Those dead ends in our family tree languishing without the essential clues necessary to enable us to answer those fundamental questions we're all searching for such as "Who are the parents?" and "How did they get here?"

One such brick wall in my own research was my third great grandmother, Katie Thomas. For years all I really knew about her was her name and that supposedly she was born in Germany. I knew her son, my great-great grandfather, John Hubert Younker, was born in Illinois and, from the census, I was able to theorize she had likely been married previously.

Eventually, I connected with a distant cousin descended from one of the children from her first marriage. He was able to provide important details about her life in the United States before she married my great-great-great grandfather, also named John Hubert, but he didn't know anything about her life before immigrating, either.

I located the marriage of Katie and John Hubert in 1870 in Logan County, Illinois, using old-fashioned footwork, scrolling through a microfilm page-by-page. John Younker is not an entirely unique name and tracking a single man with a dearth of other clues made researching him inconclusive.

Discovering John Hubert Sr. was a veteran of the Civil War, and the subsequent pension file I ordered from the National Archives and Records Administration, provided relatively scant information but I was able to glean one essential detail from a returned envelope for Katie's pension check. Her address was crossed out and "deceased" was scrawled across the envelope. The envelope was postmarked January of 1913, giving me an approximate window for when she died, information which had eluded me thus far. Her headstone frustratingly gives only her date of birth. 

Katie didn't have it easy after her second husband, John, died in 1886. His pension file revealed she made several attempts to receive a widow's pension. So marginal was her existence in the 1900 census, all that is recorded is her last name!

I knew from earlier records that Katie had a sister Gertrude close in age who also immigrated from Germany about the same time she did, and with whom she resided in 1900. There are so many spelling variations for Younker, that as more Illinois newspapers were digitized I also made sure to regularly search Gertrude's married name, Vef, as there were fewer spellings to consider. Remember your FAN Club! Especially when researching your female ancestors. All too often the detail that smashes the brick wall comes from broadening your search! Which is exactly what happened with Katie. 

I located a social item in a newspaper mentioning a man named E. H. Thomas had visited with his aunt Gertrude Vef. Thomas!? Did another sibling -- a brother, perhaps -- also immigrate? Sure enough, researching E. H. (Elmer Herman) led to his father, Conrad. Details I was able to uncover about Conrad Thomas led me to a family tree on MyHeritage submitted by a woman located in Germany. 

Finally, I had a family for Katie. Searching Archion, the German digital archives site, led to civil records for several generations of the Thomas family. Tenacity, leveraging all the information available to me, and the addition of new digital resources all contributed to my eventual success in determining who Katie's parents were. There are still unanswered questions, when she immigrated, for example, but her story has grown to far beyond a birthdate on a headstone.

Anna Gertrude Thomas Vef (l) and Anna Catharina Thomas Kible Younker, (r) circa 1900.
Marriage record of Mrs. Catharine Kaible and John H. Yunker, 8 September 1870.

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: In the News

Newspapers are such a wonderful source for details about the lives of our ancestors. Even when we don't find articles specifically about every individual in our family there are so many other insights to be gained about the times our ancestors lived in.

One such example is Hezzie Carter Purdom. Daughter of one of the first women practitioners of osteopathy, Hezzie also became a doctor, as well. Her husband, Frederic Everett Moore, a native of California, attended the same Kirksville, Missouri osteopathy school as Hezzie. They were married in Kansas City on June 1, 1903, and shortly thereafter set up a joint practice in LaGrande, Oregon. Eventually, they moved their practice to Portland. At some point, however, they became expatriates in France, where Hezzie apparently finally reached her limit with dear old Fred.*

They were divorced in Paris on June 15, 1927. Hezzie wasn't content with her newly-minted divorce decree, however. According to a wire story picked up by dozens of newspapers across the country, Hezzie further distanced herself from her former husband by having divorce announcements printed. Described as a tasteful lavender, the scented cards clarified she was now an independent woman, and that she had severed her relationship with Fred both personally and professionally.

Fred would die in France just two years later. His sister arranged for his remains to be returned to the United States, where he is buried at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hezzie died in San Bernardino, California, in 1941. She was buried alongside her family at Forest Hill Cemetery in Kansas City. A woman ahead of her times in so many ways!

* For the curious, dear old Fred is my first cousin, four times removed!

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: 12

The Future Genealogist

Twelve, twelve, twelve... what to write about? Since last week's #52Ancestors prompt was "large", I didn't necessarily want to write about another oversize family so soon. I'm not a huge Seattle Seahawks fan, so that particular 12 was out. I finally found my inspiration when I was reminiscing with a friend about elementary school and was reminded I was 12 years old when wrote my first genealogy query letter, and began to lay the foundation for my future passion for genealogy.

It was 1976, a heady time to be contemplating family history. Yep, I'm a Bicentennial baby, when it comes to genealogy research. Who remembers the Freedom Train which traversed the country with artifacts from America's first 200 years? I do! Not only was the United States celebrating its independence from England, but the publication of Alex Haley's Roots was also gripping readers for its depiction of the experiences of generations of an African-American family from slavery to freedom.

I have written about some elements of how I became interested in family history previously, but to recap I was interested in genealogy long before I understood there was a word for venerating your ancestors. In my case, it arrived in the form of photographs in an old suitcase at my grandmother's house which I regularly perused.

Eventually – fed up with my many questions most likely – my grandmother suggested I write to her brother Ralph and ask him for additional information. At first, I thought I was hearing things. Write to Uncle Ralph!? Are you kidding me? The same Uncle Ralph who was the childhood nemesis in many of my grandmother's stories? The brother closest in age to her, and therefore each other's biggest tormenter? That Uncle Ralph?

Once I realized she was serious, I did as she suggested and my great-uncle wrote back with many details, and more importantly, a pedigree chart he had hand-sketched that I would study over the coming the years with great intensity. As I was then in sixth grade, I didn't have many opportunities to pursue some of these details further until I was older but it was always there in the back of my mind. I listened intently for any new detail mentioned in the stories my grandparents, aunts, and uncles told. Like a squirrel hoarding its acorns, I filed away all these little nuggets of information until the time was right for me to pick up that pedigree chart again in earnest! Thank you, Uncle Ralph, for that wonderful start. Maybe brothers aren't always so bad, after all!

Inspired by those tantalizing details from my great uncle and wanting to know more, I remember reading my first genealogy how-to book, Jeane Eddy Westin's Finding Your Roots, published in 1977. I learned all kinds of new things like how some surnames were based in historical occupations and how to fill out a pedigree chart. I also learned about how different cultures have traditional naming patterns and starting with "attic archeology" to gather was information you already have.

I read about the mysterious Family History Library, in Salt Lake City, Utah, and their vast collection of microfilm. At the time I couldn't even fathom what that meant or how invaluable it would come to be to my research. By today's standards the book now seems both quaint and antiquated, but at the time it was my first glimpse into the world of genealogy. My 12-year-old self was poised with her nose pressed to the glass just burning with anticipation waiting for the virtual door to the past to open!

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References:

A later edition of Finding Your Roots is available from Internet Archive if you want to remind yourself – or learn! – what genealogy research was like before the World Wide Web and mass digitization!

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: Large

Cosmopolitan, January 1919

My maternal ancestors were Catholic so I have no shortage of large families in my family tree: 9, 11, 13, 15 children! But instead of focusing on one of them for this week's #52 Ancestors prompt, #Large, I am instead going to share the backstory behind a recent large family I happened to trip over.

By day I am a librarian and several years ago I became interested in the local history of World War I in my community. This led to curating an exhibit about wartime activities in my area, researching numerous young men and women who lost their lives in service to their county, and most recently teaching a seminar course about pop culture during the World War I-era. In other words, I have been living in the past lane – a century ago to be exact – for some time! As part of this ongoing passion, I regularly scour eBay and other online sites for postcards, and other ephemera, from the era. I recently purchased a magazine from January 1919, with an interesting inscription on the cover:

To Susan D. Lyman — mother of Grant H. Lyman — 

one of the 8,000 U.S. Marines 

He gave his life for that free-men may live — 

He is buried on the sacred soil of France.

Richard R. Lyman   Dec 28, 1918.

The issue of Cosmopolitan, with its cover illustration "An American Beauty" by well-known artist of the day, Harrison Fisher, was intriguing to me, in particular, because of the reference to Grant's burial in France. I was lucky enough to win the auction and when the magazine arrived I set out to find more about Grant, and his mother, Susan.

I went to the American Battle Monuments Commission to identify where exactly Grant was buried. His headstone indicated he served from Utah. That detail coupled with his surname, Lyman, made me think his family might possibly be Mormon (or, more properly, Latter Day Saints). My guess proved accurate and I learned Grant was the son of Francis Marion Lyman and his plural wife, Susan Delilah Callister. Both Francis and Susan were connected to many prominent early leaders of the LDS church. Grant was one of at least 22 children born to Francis by three wives. Grant's mother, Susan, was Francis' third wife and she was the mother of five other children. A half-brother of Grant's, Richard Roswell Lyman, was the signer of the magazine which was addressed to Grant's mother.

Grant Herbert Lyman was born on May 10, 1896, in Fillmore, Utah, the third child from his parents' marriage. He enlisted with the United States Marine Corps in Salt Lake City, Utah, on May 6, 1917. He arrived in France in February 1917, and died of wounds received in action near Chateau Thierry on June 17, 1918, just a month past his 22nd birthday. His mother, Susan, was on his mind at the end as a nurse wrote that Grant's final wish was "Will you please write a letter to my mother and tell her she is all the world to me." Susan would visit Grant's gravesite in July of 1930 with a government-sponsored Gold Star Mother Pilgrimage. A chance purchase on eBay led to the story of one young man, from a very large family, who gave all for his country.

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

Dreaded* Aunt Rose

This week's #52Ancestors prompt is Bachelor Uncle. However, given March is Women's History Month, as pointed about by another genealogy blogger, I am following her suggestion and writing about a bachelor or maiden AUNT. (And, if Maiden Aunt is a future prompt, I'll switch it back up!)

Margaret, Nick and Rose, circa 1910.

That said when you hear "maiden aunt" what image comes to your mind? Whatever it is, there is probably something about your vision that has a negative connotation. In my family, "that" aunt is my great-grandmother's sister, Rose. There were four sisters and one baby brother, John, in their family. Older sisters Barbara and Lillie formed a natural pair; and younger sisters Rose and Margaret did, as well.

Rose, the elder by sixteen months, and Margaret seem to have been joined at the hip throughout their childhood. I'm not sure my great-grandfather Nick realized he was getting a package deal when he married Margaret, but in many photos of the young couple taken early in their marriage... there's Rose! She seems to have been a naturally "take charge" sort of person, someone others might call bossy.

Margaret developed tuberculosis, like their father before her, and, in 1916, the decision was made to leave the Midwest's great metropolis, Chicago and move west. Idaho was their destination, where Aunt Lillie had moved years prior. Nick was able to secure a position as a court reporter in Boise, and the young couple and their two oldest children left their families, and all that was familiar behind, including Aunt Rose.

Sadly, Idaho's climate didn't provide a miracle cure for Margaret and in 1928, at the age of 41, she died of the white plague, the infectious scourge of the time. In the weeks following Margaret's death Rose came out from Chicago to help with Margaret's four children – two more added since the move to Idaho – ranging in age from 6 to 17. One would hope it was grief talking, but Aunt Rose made deeply hurtful comments to her youngest niece about how her birth contributed to her mother's death, words still fresh decades later. Horrible words, by any measure, to tell a motherless child. Aunt Rose's bossiness eventually got on the wrong side of her brother-in-law's nerves – who she had known from childhood – and Nick invited her to return to Chicago.

Aunt Rose supported herself as a cook for wealthy families in the Whitefish Bay neighborhood of Milwaukee. At the age of 46, she married gardener, Dave Lonski. So, technically, Aunt Rose wasn't even a bachelor aunt! Oh, well, so I didn't follow directions. She was still a corker! When she in Idaho one thing, in particular, her nieces and nephews remembered – and were annoyed by – was how she and their father would lapse into Luxembourgish when they wanted to talk about things they didn't want the children to hear.

Unlike her beloved sister, Aunt Rose enjoyed the gift of years living until the age of 86. Photographs of Rose show a woman looking directly into the camera with a determined gaze. There is a glimmer of mischief there, as well. She may have left her sister's children with indelible, and ambivalent,  memories, but there was never any doubt of her devotion to her little sister.

*Okay, true confessions, I'm the one who started calling her "dreaded," I don't think any of her nieces or nephews ever did... or if they did, not within her earshot!

#52Ancestors: In the Courthouse

The Nebraska State Journal (Lincoln, NE)
Thursday, 17 March 1892, pg. 1.

Back in the olden days, before the census was digitized and the snow was six feet deep, we were grateful for the Soundex system as a way to pinpoint the location of our ancestors. Developed as a way to identify people in an era before widespread civil registration, the Soundex enabled government officials to locate individuals as a form of proof of age when enrolling in Social Security.

The Soundex is a system for indexing surnames based on the phonetic spelling, or sound, of the name. The code consists of the first letter of the name, followed by 3 digits representing the first three phonetic sounds found in the name. As a result, similar sounding family names are grouped together with similar Soundex codes. It was invaluable for the years it was generated; 1880, 1900, 1920 and partially 1910.

Based on earlier census, I expected to find my great-great-great grandparents, Eliza (Kirkendall) and Cuyler Shultz somewhere in Hall County, Nebraska in 1900, likely near the village of Doniphan. Rather than scroll page by page, I elected to go first to the 1900 Soundex for Nebraska in the hopes of identifying an exact page. I found Cuyler readily enough, but the first thing I noticed his location was in Lincoln, Nebraska's capital. "That's weird" I remember thinking. The next thing I read really made my hair stand on end, Inmate at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Holy cow!! Scrolling on, I also found a card for his wife, Eliza, living in Doniphan, just as I expected. Well, there's definitely a story here, I thought!

The first order of business, however, was to look at the actual census. Armed with the exact enumeration district and page I was able to quickly locate Cuyler there amongst his fellow inmates. I wrote to the Nebraska State Historical Society which sent me copies of his prison record showing he was incarcerated for the crime of murder! Oh my goodness, this was getting crazy. Over time, I learned Cuyler shot his neighbor, Jamie Farr, as a result of his anger over a longstanding feud between the two, which worsened over time until the final confrontation. Numerous Nebraska newspapers have since been digitized which provide rich details of the trial. 

Grand Island Old Soldiers' and Sailors' Home postcard

Insanity was the plea and during the course of the trial evidence was introduced about Cuyler's erratic "irascible" behavior before the murder including sleeping with a gun under his pillow, randomly barking like a dog and hitting his wife with a bullwhip... but only when she deserved it. It was also revealed that Cuyler, a veteran of the Civil War, was still carrying lead bullets in his body. Although the link may not have been as well understood then, the notion that Cuyler had some level of lead poisoning certainly seems possible now. Family testimony also suggested he was a heavy drinker and not all that nice, to begin with.

Originally sentenced to hang, this was later reduced to twenty years in prison. Sixty-one at the time of the murder, Cuyler's sentence was eventually commuted in 1903 by the Governor of Nebraska Ezra Savage due to infirmities of old age. Cuyler lived out the final years of his life at the Old Soldier and Sailors Home in Grand Island, Nebraska, now known as the Nebraska Veterans Home. His obituary in 1917 mentioned nothing about his life of crime, rather focusing on his Civil War service. The closest it comes is to say he resided in Doniphan until the spring of 1892! Oh, o-kay! Wink, wink!

Curiously, Cuyler's daughter Belle—my great-great-grandmother—left this entire chapter in her family's history out of the 80-page manuscript of her life, as well! After the trial, many family members changed the spelling of their name from Shultz to Shults. I'm not exactly sure who they thought they were fooling by this change! But there is no denying that Cuyler, seemingly unconcerned about his fate according to newspaper accounts, spent some time #IntheCourthouse!

Copyright 2019 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

#52Ancestors: #FourGenerations Photo

I had an entirely different photo in mind for this week's #52Ancestors prompt but then I saw the sweetest meme video, captured by generations of families around the world, #FourGenerations. The name says it all, four generations gathered together culminating with the oldest generation. The years contained in those four generations is amazing to consider and their enthusiasm for being together is infectious. The meme began in China but has spread to all four corners of the globe. Watching their smiling, laughing faces it's easy to see "family is family" is a universal truth.

Slightly less enthusiastic is my own reaction to being part of a four-generation photograph when I was about four years old. I'm not sure what was happening that made me a good candidate for toddler anger management, but the photo below is of me, my mother, her mother, and her mother! An unbroken mitochondrial line! My great-grandmother traveled from Idaho to Washington for Christmas, I believe, several months after my parents returned from being posted overseas for three years. In the intervening period, they had acquired my brother and me. What the photo doesn't convey is that in her youth my great-grandmother had the same copper red hair as my mother did. My grandmother was a brunette, like her grandmother and as was I. I broke the chain, but if I'd had a daughter I always secretly hoped for another every-other-generation ginger!

What I love about multigenerational photos is the opportunity to really examine faces for similarities. Who has the same nose? Eyes? Smile? Oh, DNA results are great, and all, showing with scientific proof your connection to your parents, siblings and others, which satisfies our intellect. But it is the physical expression of those genes (phenotypes for science-types) that really speaks to our hearts in identifying the visible signs of that connectivity. 

Do you have four living generations in your family? Don't wait, join the wave and capture your #FourGenerations while you can. It will become a treasured memento for your family and future generations.

#52Ancestors: Love

I can't believe how much I have struggled with this week's Valentine's Day-themed prompt: LOVE. 

Well, you know what?

 I ❤ my ancestors!

I don't know why it took me so long to settle on that truth, but the fact is I have been fascinated with genealogy before I'd ever even heard the word. I was very blessed to have the opportunity to spend lots of time with both sets of my grandparents growing up as they lived in the same town. One of my favorite activities, whenever I visited my maternal grandmother, was to haul out an old suitcase she had in a closet full of old family photos. I loved looking through that suitcase! I asked, over and over, "Who's this?" "Who are these people?" "Where was this taken?" until I almost began to believe I had been there and knew them, too. My paternal grandmother's photos rested on a bookshelf up the steep set of stairs to the room my brothers and I stayed in when we visited. I snuck looks at those albums and tried to make sense of the old obituaries I found within their pages and how they were connected to the people pictured there. 

I had a rather nomadic childhood and, as I got older, I stumbled when people asked me where I was from or where was my hometown. Maybe this sense of rootlessness is one reason the ancestry bug infected me so early. But that isn't the whole story. In a recent New York Times article, Why You Should Dig Up Your Family’s History — and How to Do It by Jaya Saxena, the author writes "Whatever you do, be prepared to fall down a rabbit hole, Ms. Koch-Bostic said. “I think it appeals to people who love an intellectual pursuit, because that’s really what it is,” she said. “It’s solving a puzzle at the highest level, and the benefit is that you get to find out about your family.”

That intellectual, problem-solving element is certainly a big part of what keeps me interested... and challenged. I alternate between thinking my ancestors are leaving me a cosmic breadcrumb trail helping me find their stories and thinking they are playing a neverending game of hide-and-seek. I am constantly gleefully snickering "You can't hide from me!" and wailing "Where are you?" I am so glad that I am a mixture of heritages, all having immigrated during different time periods. I love that the stories of each of my ancestral lines is different from the others. I'm grateful for the experience I've gained researching my ancestors myself and not relying on others' {uncited!} trees. My Dad often lamented I was more interested in dead people than living ones but one of the greatest gifts genealogy has given me is the shared passion with my aunt. Who knew what wonderful adventures it would lead us on!

So, thanks, genealogy! I love you so!

#52 Ancestors: Surprise!

This week's #52Ancestors prompt encouraged us to delve into a surprise encounter in our genealogy research. I have had many surprises across the years I have been researching my family, some welcome and others not so much! I'm still reveling in one of the most recent discoveries.

Researching my maternal grandmother's ancestry was where I began my genealogy journey many years ago. One of the first dates I remember discovering on my very first trip to the Family History Library was a marriage date for my great-great-great grandparents, Abraham Greenwalt and Louisa Billig. Both natives of Pennsylvania, they met and married in Adams County, Illinois, on August 14, 1856.¹

From the federal census, I knew their oldest child was David Benton Greenwalt, born in adjacent Pike County, Illinois, in 1860, followed by my great-great-grandmother, Mary Rosalie Greenwalt in 1863. Abraham Greenwalt must have had a major case of wanderlust as the Greenwalt family moved from Illinois to Missouri to California, Oregon and finally Washington's Yakima Valley. Their next two children, Josiah Lincoln Green and Harriet "Hattie" Greenwalt were born in Andrews County, Missouri; son Walter was born near present-day Santa Clara, California, and daughter Zelma in Jackson County, Oregon.

For years I researched this family and its collateral lines. There are not any surviving bible records, but the timing of the Greenwalt children's births suggested there might have been other children who died young or other circumstances leading to gaps. I have always been fascinated by cemeteries and try to visit the final resting places of my ancestors as possible. Find a Grave has enabled me to do that virtually when the opportunity to visit in person has not yet presented itself.

In particular, I have enjoyed using the Find a Grave featuring allowing you to connect memorials and recreate families virtually for my ancestors. It's a great opportunity for me to work through my research and search for family members not buried near other family members. I was recently set about linking Abraham and Louisa's children to them when I was stunned to discover two children already linked to Abraham Greenwalt.

SURPRISE! 

It's a boy! It's a girl! 

WHAAAAT? My first thought someone had made a mistake, but as I looked further I was both excited and saddened to realize that their first two children had both died young.

In the 1860 federal census, Abraham and Louisa are childless.² It's not unheard of that a couple could be married four years and not have any children, but I guessed there had possibly been a miscarriage, or two. David wouldn't arrive until after the census has been enumerated in December of 1860. Now armed with more concrete evidence that a son and a daughter had both been born to the couple before 1860 I set about trying to learn more. According to his headstone, Stephen D. Greenwalt died on September 22, 1858, at the age of 1 year, 2 months and 16 days.³ Using a genealogy date calculator a birthdate of July 6, 1857, is likely.

Daughter Susan's headstone has been badly damaged over the years, but her death date of January 6, 1860, is still readable.⁴ With that date in mind, I turned my attention back to the 1860 census, this time to the mortality schedule. There was little "Susannah" listed as having died of "inflammation on lungs" at the age of two months in January of 1860, which she had been suffering from for seven days.⁵ I always advise people to take advantage of any surviving mortality schedules, but this time I failed to heed my own advice!

So, the moral of this story is to check the cemeteries in the community where your ancestors lived for not only the people you know of but also leave yourself open-minded enough for ancestral SURPRISES, as well!

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References

1. "Illinois, County Marriages, 1810-1940," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939Z-YTX7-K?cc=1803970&wc=326D-YWL%3A146384001 : 3 March 2016), 1870158 (004539871) > image 246 of 735; county offices, Illinois.
2. Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 04 February 2019), memorial page for Stephen D. Greenawalt (6 Jul 1857–22 Sep 1858), Find A Grave Memorial no. 46273259, citing Akers Chapel Cemetery, Hull, Pike County, Illinois, USA.
3. Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 9 February 2019), memorial page for Susan L. Greenawalt (Nov 1859–7 Jan 1860), Find A Grave Memorial no. 46273260, citing Akers Chapel Cemetery, Hull, Pike County, Illinois, USA.
4. "United States Census, 1860", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MXC7-5ND : 13 December 2017), Abram Greenwalt in entry for Henry Wedington, 1860.
5. "Illinois Mortality Schedules, 1850-1880," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QL91-D4WS : 16 March 2018), Susanah Grendott, death Jan 1860, Illinois, United States; citing Pub. T1133 Nonpopulation Census Schedules for Illinois, 1850-1880., Film 59, NARA microfilm publications T1133 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).; FamilySearch digital folder 007283673.

Murder Once Removed

It's not enough that I think about my family history all the live long day. I am equally enamored of books with genealogical themes. For years I have been a fan of the wonderful Torie O'Shea mystery series by Rett MacPherson. After eleven installments, however, the cozy mystery series went into hiatus in 2008. Fortunately, MacPherson brought plucky historian Torie back last year in a new ebook. Hopefully, there will be more adventures to come.

Beyond that good news, this is a fabulous time for cozy mysteries. There is a series available for every interest imaginable ranging from sudoku puzzles to yoga. What is a cozy mystery exactly, you ask? Cozy mysteries, or cozies for short, "are a subgenre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or treated humorously, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially intimate community."¹ Oh, and cats, dogs and ghosts also figure prominently!

Hillary Kelly describes just how popular this form of the mystery genre has become in her article Crime-Solving Cats And Cozy Mysteries Are A Publishing Juggernaut. For years, however, no genealogy-themed cozy series has been able to match the staying power the Torie O'Shea mysteries enjoyed a decade ago. I have missed this entertaining form of shaking the ancestral leaves. That's why I was delighted to discover a new series by S.C. Perkins will launch next month beginning with Murder Once Removed. Featuring amateur detective/genealogist Lucy Lancaster, the first installment of the Ancestry Detective series will introduce readers to her love of tacos and life in Austin, Texas, when it is released on March 19, 2019. I, for one, can't wait!

Interested in more family history-related reads? Check out my Pinterest boards: Family History Memoirs and Genealogy Can Be Murder!

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References

1. Wikipedia contributors, "Cozy mystery," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cozy_mystery&oldid=880224164 (accessed February 3, 2019).

#52Ancestors: At the library

“On February 9, 1849, I sailed on the ship Robert Bound bound for California, Captain Cameron, master. The ship was gotten up by Dr. Townsend, the Sarsaparilla man. We landed in San Francisco on August 28, 1849.”

I am a librarian so "at the library" is an everyday occurrence for me! That still doesn't stop me from making rookie mistakes on occasion. My great-great-great grandfather, John Daniel Brower, was a native of Paterson, New Jersey. In early 1849, the lure of California's gold fields led Daniel on an odyssey halfway around the world. We have a short account of his life which includes a few scant details of his trip to California. I was interested in learning more about what the voyage would have entailed and decided to check out a book in my library about the Argonauts, as those who embarked on this journey were called. I was disappointed, however, the book I was specifically in search of was not on the shelf when I went looking for it.

Frustrated the book I wanted wasn't there, I spent a few moments grumbling under my breath and then told myself to "Think!"

Books are arranged by subject in libraries, so it stands to reason that books with a similar call number would also be about the experiences of the '49ers. As they say... duh! So, having put on my thinking cap, I took another look at the shelf and the first book I happened to grab had the unassuming title California gold rush voyages, 1848-1849: three original narratives.¹ Okay, it's a start, I remember thinking. Little did I know!

As I glanced at the table of contents, the words "Robert Bowne" jumped off the page; specifically "Brief notes of John N. Stone of the voyage of the ship Robert Bowne." This sounded awfully similar to the "Robert Bound" of John Brower's recollections. This warranted further investigation!

I quickly turned to the pages where the diary of John N. Stone began, to discover a day-by-day account of Stone's trip beginning in February of 1849 in New York's harbor, south along the Atlantic coast around the horn of South America to San Francisco. At the end of his nearly daily notes about the voyage Stone included a list of all the passengers on board including one "Brower, J.D., carpenter." This was it! The exact voyage my ancestor sailed on. I could hardly believe it! I danced around in the stacks, hugging the book reveling in this wonderful discovery!

As a librarian the old adage "don't judge a book by its cover" is a common refrain to remind us to look beyond the surface. I'd almost made the same mistake. I had set out to find one particular book, based on the title alone, and nearly left in defeat when it wasn't on the shelf. Serendipity is a powerful thing, but we have to be receptive enough to allow our ancestors to guide us to these unexpected gifts giving us insight into their lives.

"You don't reach Serendip by plotting a course for it. 

You have to set out in good faith for elsewhere and
lose your bearings ... serendipitously." ²

Because I was able to heed the whisper of serendipity, much in the same way my ancestor was captivated by the siren call of gold, I was able to virtually experience his epic voyage, far exceeding what I had even dared to imagine when I stepped into the stacks that day.

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References

1. Pomfret, John E., editor. California gold rush voyages, 1848-1849: three original narratives. San Marino, Calif., Huntington Library, 1954.
2. Barth, John. The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor. New York, Little, Brown, 1990.