SGS2026: Tragedy

Christina Younker, Mother's Day, 1966
Redondo Beach, California

As we dive deeper into genealogy research, we are likely to encounter many tragedies, this month's SGS Write All About It! prompt. From mothers who died in childbirth, infant mortality, communicable diseases, accidents, and more, our ancestors were faced with the possibility of death daily. It was well understood by previous generations how perilous life is, and their approach to death was often marked by acceptance and stoicism.

My great-great-grandmother, Christina Shultz Younker, routinely and proudly stated she was the mother of ten children. However, I was only able to account for eight, including my great-grandfather, Willie, her oldest son. For many years, the details for one of those two missing children remained a mystery. 

After connecting with an older cousin, I learned that Christina, or Belle as she was more commonly known, had written a memoir, over eighty pages of rich details about her life, including the story of her young daughter, Opal Alberta, who died in a fire. In her memoir, Belle describes a bright, sunny girl with black curly hair. The details were unclear, but she somehow set herself on fire at about the age of two. The memoir noted Opal was born in April 1907 and died in August 1909.

At the time, the Younker family was living in Nebraska. Civil registration in Nebraska was enacted in 1904, but there was not statewide compliance until 1920. I was unable to locate either a birth or a death record for Opal. Eventually, as more small-town newspapers were digitized, I found a brief article referencing the tragedy the Younker family had experienced:

Mr. and Mrs. John Younker, whose little daughter recently died
 from the effects of an accidental burn, at their home southwest of Naper,
seem to be having more than their share of affliction.

Butte Gazette, (Butte, Nebraska), December 31, 1909, pg. 5.

The Frontier (O'Neill, Nebraska), November 18, 1909, pg. 5. 

Finally, some indirect corroboration of Belle's memoir. But, still very scant on details. As time went by, I kept checking for additional details until, just a month ago, a newspaper account appeared that furthered my understanding of what happened. Although Belle doesn't mention Opal having access to matches in her account, the two stories are similar in that both describe the little girl slipping away from her family and being engulfed in flames when she was discovered. An August death date doesn't align with the November newspaper date, which seems more likely. Opal was also said to be three years old, which would make a birth year of 1906 more likely. In addition to the lack of vital records, I have also been unsuccessful in finding a burial location for Opal. 

Records for Knoll Crest Cemetery in Naper indicate a plot was purchased by "H. Yonker," but no burials were recorded.  The Younker family's financial circumstances were frequently precarious, and they may not have been able to afford a headstone for their young child, but she may have been buried there. Several years after Opal's death, the family moved 20 miles to the north, to Herrick, South Dakota, to land that had been part of the Rosebud Indian Reservation, but had been opened for white settlement.

There is a large gap of six years, from 1896-1902, between Belle's third and fourth children, which may have been a stillborn or some other early death, but no additional information has been found to account for the missing tenth child. And, Belle herself, makes no mention of it in her memoir. Regardless, it was clearly important to her to remember those two lost children and when declaring herself to be the mother of ten children: Myrtle, Willie, Mildred, Eugene, Delbert, Opal, Ruel, Donald, and Erma. 

Copyright 2026 by Lisa A. Oberg, GeneaGator: Vignettes of Yesteryear. All Rights Reserved.

SGS2026: Immigrant

Everyone has probably heard the saying "revenge is a dish best served cold." Well, there is a genealogical corollary: occasionally, we need to revisit our research "cold," and instead of revenge, we'll find ourselves rewarded.

For years, all I knew about my great-great-great grandfather was his name, John H. Younker (1820-1886), and that he had been born in Germany. Later, as my research into this branch expanded, I learned his middle name was Hubert or Hubertus, and that he had served in the Civil War. 

John married relatively late in life, in 1870 at the age of 49, to Anna Catherina Thomas. Katie, as she was more commonly known, was fourteen years younger and a German immigrant, as well. She was the widow of John Kible and the mother of six children. She and John Younker would have two sons together, John Hubert (1871-1948) and John Henry (1873-1950).

As I dug deeper into John's Civil War service, I learned he had served as a blacksmith with the 5th Illinois Cavalry, Company B. Available records helped piece together John's life after his marriage, but his early life remained a mystery. 

I had already reviewed John's disappointingly thin Civil War pension file while on a research trip to the National Archives in Washington, DC. With a little extra time available, I decided to request his service record file. I had never looked at one before and expected it would add a bit more detail about his Civil War service, but not much else. 

As I reviewed the monthly muster cards, I learned about lost blankets John was charged for, sick days, and then one detail leaped off one of the cards. Although they tracked similar details from month to month, there are many versions of the cards, and one card included the question of birthplace. Aachen. Initially, I didn't even comprehend the information, but then the fireworks started going off in my head... Aachen, that's in Germany!

That stirred a memory from my first-ever research trip to the FamilyHistory Library in Salt Lake City. After spending the majority of my time pursuing U.S. records, on the last day, I ventured to the basement and the International floor. I had absolutely NO IDEA what I was looking for. 

The volunteer on duty listened to my vague details about John Younker (even more vague at that point) and directed me to one of the computers with a variety of CD-ROM databases, including Regierung Aachen—Aachen Government. I did know that in Germany, "Younker" was typically "Junker" or a similar spelling. I found one entry that seemed to match. I quickly made a copy and made a hasty retreat, having realized I didn't have enough information to do successful international research at that point.

Now, with a birth location, there was suddenly additional context for the long-ago record I copied. Although I now had a starting point, it wasn't until another research visit to the FamilySearch Library that I was able to connect John with his German roots in the village of Linnich in the modern state of North Rhine-Westphalia, using civil registration records. The Aachen record also indicated that Johann Junker was a hufschmeid, or blacksmith, which corresponds to his later occupation.

I am still working on locating a ship's passenger list and learning whether John immigrated on his own or as part of chain migration, but this success story was my first discovery of a German ancestral village. Linnich, located on the Rur River, dates back to the 9th century and was part of the historical Duchy of Jülich. The area has been shaped by various rulers, Celts, and abbeys throughout its long history and was heavily bombed during World War II. 

Willkommen zu Hause! Welcome home, John! 

Copyright 2026 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.

Hidden Mothers and Hellion Fathers

Scene from Meeting of Minds (1977-1982), 
with Jayne Meadows, as Catherine The Great.

If you're of a certain age you might remember a TV-series which aired on PBS from 1977-1982, hosted by Steve Allen, called Meeting of Minds. In it, actors played characters in history brought together for a conversation about a variety of topics. This week's prompt, "Invite to Dinner" for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is the ancestral version!

Of course, when given the opportunity to question a long-gone ancestor, most of us immediately think of those people who are the brick walls in our family tree. With that in mind, I made a list of several people I would love to have the opportunity to ask a few questions of.

Hidden Mothers

Tracing our female ancestors can be such a challenge before civil registration was required. Women were all-too-often invisible. Here are a couple such women I would like to have a sit-down chat with:

1. Mariam Williams Kirkendall (ca. 1822- ??)
   Married at 16 to Robert Kirkendall in Wisconsin in 1838, Mariam disappears following their divorce in 1849. Their divorce records are the stuff of headline news today, both sides alleging infidelity, drunkenness and more. Indicative of the time, custody of their children was awarded to their father. Curiously, she is mentioned as Robert's first wife in his obituary but her fate after 1850 remains a mystery.
2. Mary Grainger Keely Johns (1834-1871)
   For many years Mary was one of those dead-end branches of my family tree. Family stories suggested that she was married before she married my ancestor, Daniel Teats Johns. No one knew, however, if Keely was her maiden name or that of her first husband. Turns out it was the name of her former husband, but many other questions about her life still remain.
3. Catherine Thomas Younker (1834-1912)

   

   Wikipedia: Hidden mother photograph

   
   When did Catherine arrive in the United States? Born in Gilsa, Germany, Catherine and her siblings were orphaned at an early age. How and why did she make her way to Illinois after her arrival? So many questions, so few answers.

Hellion Fathers

1. Cuyler Shults (1831–1917)
   By far the most irascible of my ancestors, Cuyler murdered his neighbor and was sentenced to hang. His sentence was eventually commuted by the governor of Nebraska due to his advanced age. The trial transcripts suggest a tense relationship with his neighbor, Jamie Farr, but is that the whole story? Inquiring minds what to know!
2. Willie Henry Younker (1894-1929)
   Family tradition has it Willie telegrammed his then-wife Meda with the news he wanted a divorce while she away was visiting her family. He neglected to mention another woman was expecting his child. He died just days after his 34th birthday, so the opportunity to get any answers from him directly was lost when his children were still quite young.  
3. Owen Flynn (ca. 1795-ca. 1864)
   Okay, truth be told, I don't know for certain Owen was a bad guy. But he is the only one of my immigrant ancestors who decided to forego the opportunities of the New World and return to his homeland. Wouldn't you love to know what it was about America he didn't like enough to make returning to Ireland seem like the better idea? 

Curiously, every one of these ancestors is on my father's side of the family. He didn't find it all that amusing when I told him there was a murderer in the family, however. In typical dry, droll Dad fashion, his response was "Why don't you find people like this on your mother's side of the family?" Good question, Dad! I would love for the opportunity to find out the answer, if only I could sit down to dinner with one, or all, of these ancestors!

Determining the Dash

Gertrude Vef (l) and Catharine Younker (r), circa 1900.

Living the dash, the idea that the most important details of the story of someone's life are encompassed in the dash between their birth and death dates, e.g. 1850-1936, is an important part of what motivates family historians. (Read Linda Ellis' The Dash, if you're not familiar with it!)

But sometimes determining those anchoring dates for our ancestors can be challenging! Catharine "Katie" Thomas Kibel Younker's headstone includes her date of birth, 18 September 1834, but no death date and trying to narrow it down to a range of years was a project that took years!¹

At the turn of the 20th century, twice-widowed Katie can be found living with her younger sister, Gertrude, also widowed, in Logan County, Illinois, where Catharine moved with her first husband, John Kibel, about 1864.² Kibel died in 1868 and two years later she married my great-great-great grandfather John Hubertus Younker in Logan County on September 8, 1870 and they were enumerated there in the 1880 census.³

Atlanta Argus (Atlanta, Illinois), 
31 May 1912, pg. 1.

Katie and John moved to Nebraska in the mid-1880's and John died there in 1886.⁴ Eventually Katie moved back to Illinois but the loss of the 1890 census makes determining exactly when difficult. John Younker was a veteran of the Civil War (Co. B, 5th Illinois Cavalry), but Katie does not appear in Nebraska's veterans census and the corresponding Illinois schedule was lost. As mentioned, by 1900 Katie is living in Illinois again with her younger sister Gertrude. A decade later 75-year-old Katie is living with a married daughter in Oklahoma.⁵ The discovery of "deceased" written on a returned pension check postmarked in 1912 in Katie's widow's pension file finally helped pinpoint an approximate date of death since pension checks were mailed quarterly.⁶

A distant cousin posted a transcription of Katie's obituary which appeared in an Illinois newspaper but it didn't include a date or the name of the newspaper. On a hunch, I borrowed the Atlanta Argus through interlibrary loan and began a page-by-page search beginning in January of 1912. Finally an obituary exactly matching the transcript was located at the end of May.

Despite several requests, an Oklahoma death certificate has not been located nor has searching available Oklahoma newspapers added any clues. But after years of not knowing when Katie died finally knowing mid-May 1912, feels like a major accomplishment!

                                                     

1. Catharine Thomas Kibel Younker. Find A Grave Memorial 7525363.
2. Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900. Eminence, Logan, Illinois; NARA T623- 311; Enumeration District: 32, Page: 2A, Line: 10; ---- Junker, sister.
3. Tenth Census of the United States, 1880. Eminence, Logan, Illinois; NARA T9- 227; Enumeration District: 48, Page: 240C, Line: 35; John H. Yonker.
4. John Hubertus Younker. Find A Grave Memorial 40315565.
5. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910. Earlsboro, Pottawatomie, Oklahoma; NARA T624-1271; Enumeration District: 209, Page: 10A, Line: 20; Catharine Junker, mother-in-law.
6. Catharine Younker, widow's pension application no. 468,000; service of John H. Younker (Blacksmith., Co. B, 5th Illinois Cavalry, Civil War); Civil War Widows and Other Dependents Pension Files, 1861-1934. Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15; National Archives, Washington D.C.

Giddy for Gilsa

Gilsa Mittelhof. Wikimedia Commons.¹

An obituary from 1922 for Gertrude Thomas Vef  included a reference to her birthplace as "Gilsa, Kurhessen, Germany".² Now part of the village of Neuental, Gilsa (51° 1' 0" North, 9° 11' 0" East) is also the long-sought after birthplace for my great-great-great grandmother, Catharine Thomas Kibel Younker.³

Catharine has been one of my most stubborn brick walls through the years. Catharine was born on 18 September 1834 in Germany and according to census records immigrated in 1851.

She married was married first to John Kibel (also Kible and Kaebel) and following his death to John Hubertus Younker (various spellings include Junker and Yonker). Distant cousins descended from her Kibel children had some clues, but Gertrude's obituary provided not only a place but names for their parents, Conrad and Catharine Thomas. Small crumbs, given their common names, but a starting place nevertheless.

An search of a online newspaper site yielded an article about a nephew visiting Gertrude Vef ⁴, which led to the discovery a brother, Conrad, had also immigrated.⁵ Now I had three siblings but few options because there aren't many records online for the area in Germany they were from. The recent discovery of a Thomas family researcher based in Germany on Geneanet finally broke down that brick wall when she was able to locate Catharine's parents in Gilsa's civil records and several additional generations.⁶

                                                     

1. Mittelhof Gilsa in Neuental-Gilsa, Hessen, Regierungsbezirk Kassel, Schwalm-Eder-Kreis, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mittelhof_Gilsa.jpg.
2. Gertrude Thomas Vef.  Find A Grave Memorial 53429686.
3. Catharine Thomas Kibel Younker. Find A Grave Memorial 7525363.
4. The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois), Friday, June 20, 1919, pg 14. www.newspapers.com/image/?spot=3859217
5. Conrad Thomas. Find A Grave Memorial 33037411.
6. Family tree for Conrad Thomas (1808-1848) and Catharina Jünger (1808-1850). Geneanet, accessed 3 Jan 2016.