#8-PHOTO #52 Ancestors Grosskopf or Grosskop

Grosskop, Grosskopf, Grosscup.  Many different variations of spelling.

While thinking of photos for this week's challenge, this one immediately came to mind.  It is one of the few pictures/memorabilia from this family line.  My husband’s grandmother was Maria Barbara (Mabel) Grosskop. It is a picture that invokes many questions.  

Grosskopf Family

Back row:  A cousin

Middle Row:  Maria Barbara (Mabel), Katherine with baby Katharine, Konrad,  and Konrad’s brother and his wife.

Front row:  Conrad, Carl (Shorty), Fred, John and the children of the brother-a boy, baby girl and girl.

The family were, Germans, living in Russia in the colony of Frank.  Frank was a Volga German colony founded 16 May 1767 by families from Mecklenburg, Pfalz, Saony and Dermstadt-Isenburg regions of president-day Germany.  The Russian name is Medvyeditskii Krestovyi Buyerak.

The information I have found on Ancestry passenger lists state that  Konrad and Katherine Grosskop, (which are my husband's great grandparents) and family left Liverpool, England on 5 April 1911 on the passenger ship “Friesland”.  They arrived in Philadelphia on 16 April 1911.  They had $120 when they arrived in the United States.  When they arrived in Philadelphia, the family included a toddler,  Alex, age 2..   Maria Barbara (Mabel), Leroy's grandmother, would have been 14.   They were going to a brother-in-law, Johann (John) Reinick in Lincoln, Nebraska.  The passenger list states that Katherine was pregnant.  Katherine had a baby boy, Jacob, on 9 September 1911 in Ballantine, Montana. 

I question if this picture was taken on the dock in Odessa.  Obviously Alex is not in the picture.  And Mabel doesn’t look 14.  Katherine was born in 1906 and in this picture appears to be less than a year old.  Estimating the picture from age of children, I think the picture is about 1907.  How did they get from Frank, Russia to Odessa, Ukraine/Russian on the Black Sea and then to Liverpool, England?  Maybe there is a passenger list, so far I haven’t found one.   

And how did Konrad have $120 when he arrived in Philadelphia?

Why did I use this picture in the challenge?  

I hope that someone can help in identifying and providing more information on this trip.  I wonder if this picture is the possession of other family members (other than the immediate family).  Does the brother’s family have the picture with more information? Can anyone identify the man in the back row?

And does anyone know of the travel or passenger lists from Odessa, Russia to Liverpool?

Maybe somehow, someday there will be answers to the questions! And a family story will be retold and mystery solved.

LOVE. #7 #52 Ancestors

#7 LOVE  #52 Ancestors

Contemplating the topic of LOVE and deciding what to write has been a challenge!

I don’t know of any outstanding love stories, although I know that many of the ancestors of both my husband and mine were married for 50 years, one for 57 years.   I haven’t found any steaming love letters either!

I do know that my ancestors LOVED family history; both maternal and paternal.  Through their collections I learned to love family history.  Was it love or genetics?  The collection includes family group sheets, pictures (before 1900), letters from 1820, funeral cards, and newspaper clippings.  At least 5 generations loved family history enough to keep the memorabilia.  

The other constant love through many generations of both my husband’s and mine has been land.   I have documented land ownership to the 1820’s.  Why did they own land? Was it a way to get ahead or survive?  Leaving land in Missouri and crossing to Oregon on the Oregon Trail in 1845 meant the availability of obtaining more land. Moving to Washington in 1859 meant owning their farmland.  Moving to Montana in 1916 to homestead meant free land to ranch.  

Why own the land?  I think it meant control of your life and income and subsistence from the crops you raised to feed your family.  There had to be love in order to continue to battle the harsh life of agriculture and deal with the issues of weather, price as well as the hard work.  

I am the 7^thgeneration to own land following the footsteps of my maternal ancestors.  We continue the love of agriculture raising crops and cattle.   My other family lines (including my husband’s) also owned land, but I have not documented them for as many generations.  

When does it become love or genetics?

#6 Surprise-DNA Match . #52Ancestors

#6 – Surprise   #52 Ancestors A DNA Match        

Surprise! Genealogy is always a surprise when you open up records and read the information!    DNA matches seem to bring the biggest surprises.

Who is that name listed as a first cousin to my husband’s DNA?  The name was totally unknown and since I research his family; I was familiar with names.  Surprise!

A contact was made with the administrator of the DNA.  The story unfolded that the DNA was from a woman who was adopted 71 years ago.  Surprise.  And she had information indicating who her mother was.  Surprise.  But the location of the birth was a surprise as it was not in the birth mother’s family’s location.  Obviously the mother had been sent away in 1947 to have a baby, but the location was odd.  And then a surprise clue from my mother-in-law led me to include more family on the Ancestry tree.  And sometimes those shaky leaves in Ancestry are helpful! Surprise!  Unbeknownst to many, there was a relative living in the birth location as the public records on Ancestry led to the residence of an uncle of the birth mother.  None of us knew that the birth mother had lived with her aunt and uncle. 

Since all the players are deceased in the story, it was difficult to learn or trace.  The mother has numerous siblings and surely one of them knew.  There are only a few left and all claimed not to know a thing.  One even denies that DNA works!  But surprise—I received a call to tell me that she was told by one of the birth mother’s siblings that she had given birth to a daughter. 

The biggest surprise was who the birth mother was.  I would never have considered her without the information from the adoptee.   I would have liked to connect the birth mother with her daughter.  I can’t help but think that the birth mother would have been overjoyed. 

 

I haven’t given names, as there are living people still involved.  Many of the family have yet to learn of the story.

I created a collage of family pictures, including the new cousin, and the family resemblance is remarkable.

It was a pleasure to confirm her birth mother and give her family history; something she has been seeking for 71 years. 

We plan to meet the “new 1^st cousin” in 2019.