As I did in 2014, I’d like to share my top 10 genealogy finds for 2016: Number 10: Finding myself in several newspaper articles as a young child was lots of fun! One article was about a city-wide contest where I won 3rd place in jumping rope. Another article was about a trip I took as a Campfire Girl where I fell off a statue and got a nasty bump on my forehead. (I think this picture is pretty pathetic, but it’s the only one I could find with this injury!) St. Joseph (German) Catholic Church, Detroit, Michigan (Wikipedia image) Number...
I believe that setting goals helps us to focus and achieve more. So, for 2017, I decided to set monthly goals. For January, my goals are in four categories: blogging, education, email, and volunteering. Blogging: Write & post at least 8 blog posts. Education: Watch at least 4 webinars and finish reading “Trace Your German Roots Online: A Complete Guide to German Genealogy Websites” by James M. Beidler. Volunteering: Index at least 100 records on FamilySearch, which is something I haven’t done in several years. Email: Catch up with email, a lot of which is genealogy related. Do you set genealogy goals? If...
Happy New Year! I’m just back from a New Year’s cruise I took with my daughter, mom, and niece. We sailed on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas from Port Canaveral, Florida to St. Kitts, St. Maarten, Haiti, and Puerto Rico and had a wonderful time. But, now it’s time to get back to every day life and the “work” we call genealogy! 2016/2017 Cruise – Oasis of the Seas As we start another new year, it’s also a great time to look back. What’s your genealogy timeline? If you share your genealogy timeline, please let me know! I’d love...
My last post was about Michael Kline of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, my 6th great grandfather, and a 1781 indenture which listed his 14 children. Finding estimated birth dates/years would be difficult since they were born in the mid-1700’s and census records would not be of much help. So, how did I estimate the birth years for Michael’s 14 children? How I estimated the birth years for the 14 children of Michael and Dorothea Kline: used the birth dates of the two children I knew: Frenia, who was born in 1748, and Michael, who was born in 1764 assumed Dorothea gave...
When I got home from Christmas yesterday, a package from the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society was waiting for me! Earlier this month, I posted about finding my Michael Kline family on an Ancestry.com database called “Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Mennonite Vital Records, 1750-2014.” Surprised to learn that I had Mennonite ancestors, I sent the society $70 for two hours of research. After opening the large envelope, I eagerly read the cover letter to see what records they found. The end of the letter, however, surprised me. It said: “We have many genealogical cards of persons who were not Mennonite. The book by...
Last year, right before Thanksgiving, I held a copy of “our book” in my hands for the first time. Although other authors/cousins had been working on the book since the previous year, I became a contributing author of The Holthoefer Family History in June of 2016. Between June and October, we spent countless hours researching, writing, rewriting, proofreading, and fact checking the pages of our book. Since we are spread across the country, we emailed sections of the book back and forth while we worked on them. Robert J. Yagley, H. Holt, M. Aragon, P. Holthoefer, D. Leeds, Holthoefer Family History:...
With a lot of help, I now know the German villages of six of my ancestral families. I “discovered” their origins in a variety of ways. Map showing the origins of six of my “German” families created by Jon R Stewart, Sr. In Order of Discovery: March 2014 Kaechle/Köchle family, maternal side, immigrated from Grißheim, Baden, July 1851 Germany, Select Marriages, 1558-1929 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014. Original data: Germany, Marriages, 1558-1929. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013. This breakthrough came with Ancestry.com’s “Germany, Select Marriages” index which showed that Thaddae Koechle married Katharina Kern on August...
I decided to see if I could trace another branch of my family back to Germany: the Werthers. They arrived in July of 1869 on the Carolina. Through Ancestry.com, I have both their New York and Hamburg passenger lists. As I found out while researching my Peters immigrant family, the Hamburg passenger list gives information about the previous residence. In this case, it appears the family came from Bergan or Bergau in Sondershausen. [See middle columns.] Unfortunately, when I go to Meyers Gazeteer, there is not a place called Bergan or Bergau in Sondershausen. “Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934,” database, Ancestry.com...
UPDATE: Records received from the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society show that my Kline family were NOT Mennonite after all. See “What Information…” post for more. Mennonites are pacifists opposed to war and violence. So, I was surprised to find my Kline ancestors in a Mennonite database on Ancestry.com. On the card for the Michael and Dorothea Kline family, their third child is listed as Frenia [seen as Frances on other records]. She and her husband, Michael Quiggell [seen in other records as Quigley or Quiggle], are my fifth great grandparents. He fought in the American Revolution. I wonder what his...
My last post was about “Uncle Ed & Uncle Charlie Coppenbarger” and their vehicles: a Model T & a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Newspaper stories tell us a little more about these two uncles. Uncle Charlie in the News Photo of “Uncle Charlie,” his wife, Agnes (Seanor) Coppenbarger, and two of their children: “Little Clay” and Orville. Photo used with permission from Teri Head. In November of 1912, just a couple of years before this photo was taken, Charlie’s youngest son died at the young age of 2. His name was Clay, but his headstone remembers him as “Little Clay.” The...
