GeneaGator: April 2019

Friday, April 19, 2019

#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.

#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!

Monday, April 8, 2019

#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.

Thursday, April 4, 2019

#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!

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