#9. #52 Ancestors--Courthouse

The challenge for #9 was Courthouse.  

Genealogy records are found in a courthouse; records like birth, death, marriage, and probate and land ownership records.  Any trip to a courthouse can be interesting or challenging.  The most helpful people to genealogists are those behind the counter of a county office.  They deserve kudos to the assistance they give to genealogists.  Often time’s genealogists don’t know the dates necessary for a record search and are grateful for the guidance and assistance of clerk.  But searching and asking for records takes some finesse and talents so I volunteered to drive 2 genealogists (who shall remain nameless) to a courthouse in Montana so I could learn from the best.  And what an experience I had!

Driving 100 miles to the courthouse was a piece of cake.  The rest of the day got much more interesting!  I am not sure the clerks were ready that morning for 2 knowledgeable genealogists who “knew the ropes”.  Armed with candy to sweeten the clerks, the search began.  With so many requests for different types of records, the clerk gave up and ushered us into the vault and turned us loose.  Those ladies had a list of what they wanted! Since I was the “go-fer”, I was delegated to go to another floor for marriage records.  The list overwhelmed the clerk and she was more concerned who was going to pay the $1.00 for each record.  I assured her; you pull them; they will pay! Back down the stairs I went and informed them of the cost.  As I recall, it may have been $10.00 for the marriage certificates found.

Meanwhile the ladies had discovered the ledger books.  I don’t recall what was in the books but they were huge.  By then the clerks realized these people know what they are doing so we were allowed to use the copy machine and copy the needed pages from the ledge books.  Sounds simple, right?  The books were huge and heavy.  It took the 3 of us to manhandle those books on the copy machine!

And as we were walking out the courthouse, the Superintendent of Schools office was discovered.  I may have been tired, but not those 2!  Sprinting into the office, they inquired of school records.  We were told to go to the basement!  And there in the dusty basement on shelves were disorganized school attendance books. 

My only find that day were school attendance records for my husband’s ancestors!  

I finally looked at my watch and panicked.  It was after 5 P.M.  I had visions of being locked in the courthouse for the night.  

#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. 

#5-#52 Ancestors--Looking for Peter Paul Deewall at the Library

On last day of a weeklong class in Salt Lake City where I am discouraged at the Family History Library. I have searched all week and found no new information on any line.

It was my first time at the library and I thought I was prepared.  I had every family line in a 3-ring notebook; I had my genealogy program up to date with all the family information.  I inherited files and memorabilia, which provided the information in the software. But I really had no idea how to “research”!

I finally decided to look for the friend’s name given in a family narrative of my 2^ndgreat grandfather.  I had looked for Peter Paul Deewall in passenger lists for years with no luck.    The narrative never said where he came from but it was assumed Germany.  I had searched many times for his friend and the friend’s mother; Ludwig and Mary Odom.

All of a sudden, Ludwig Odom’s baptism record was returned in a search at the FHL.  I knew it was “my” Ludwig Odom.  How did I know that?  Because the Angels tapped my shoulder and my psychic abilities told me so. The leader of the weeklong seminar assured me that I could not assume that!  What…. when angels and psychic knowledge know more???

Obviously I had to find proof, I know that; but I knew it was definitely a clue.  

For the next couple of weeks I considered my case and reread the narrative and thought of all the different ways to search Ludwig, Odom and Deewall.  When I returned to the computer, I began search for Ludwig, Louis and variations of the names.  BINGO…. I found Louis Odom’s passenger record.  Not under Ludwig, but Lewis Otton.  And would you believe, right below Louis’s name was Peter Paul DUVAL! And with Lewis’s mother…Mary Otton. I could never find Mary because she was indexed wrong; as Mary Otton Widow!  Widow was listed on the passenger list after after Otton.  I would never have looked for the name WIDOW!

And would you believe that Peter Paul Duval’s baptism record was in the same church as Ludwig Odom?  My psychic abilities were right!  Both were at the Evangelisch, in Ludweiler, Rheinland, Prussia.  And Peter had same birth date that was in family records!  Through the Family History Library, I was able to order a film that gave the genealogy or pedigree of everyone in the Evangelisch church Ludweiler, Germany.  The amazing Stammlisten gave the birth date of Peter Paul and his parents, his father’s death date and his mother’s remarriage with additional children.   Even more amazing was the fact that the Odom’s had left for Amerika in 1842.  Which matched the passenger list of arrival on 23 May 1842.  But Peter Paul Duval was not listed as going to Amerika in 1842.   The family story is that he did not get along with his stepfather and left as the driver of the wagon for the Odom’s in the middle of the night.  Fact or Fiction??

Where is Ludweiler?  It is in Saarland, Germany near Saarbrücken.    And I was lucky enough to visit Ludweiler and the church in 2014.  What a thrill to see the 150-year-old organ.  The visit with complete with a tour of the archives by a lady at the church.  No I couldn’t touch anything in the archives and most of the records that I wanted had been removed.  Unfortunately she wasn’t sure where they had been moved.  And our time to visit Ludweiler was short.  

In the 1850 Census of Limestone Township in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, Peter Paul Deewall and his wife Catherine and baby Maretta, were living as neighbors to Mary Oto and her son Lewis!  

Lois Jasper Lloyd--#4 Ancestor-#52week Challenge

Lois Jasper Lloyd-The person I would like to meet.

Thinking about the person I would like to meet has been easy, but difficult.  Which one do I write about as there are several I would love to have sitting around my table for visit.   How do I choose just one???

The woman whose life has intrigued me the most is Lois H. Jasper Lloyd, my great great-grandmother. I would first thank her for saving the family history memorabilia that has been passed through generations in the Lloyd family.  And then the interview or questions would begin!

Lois was born in Lexington, Kentucky on 10 December 1841.  One of the first questions I would ask her is what is your middle name?  What does the “H” stand for?  Family information has it as Hammond or Heath.  I suspect Hammond is her real middle name, but I have not yet found documentation to support that suspicion.  If it is Hammond, where did that name come from?  Is it a family name, farm name or locality name?  Heath is her mother’s maiden name so chances are good that is her middle name.   Please tell me Lois.

Lois moved to Missouri when she was a baby. Her family lived near St. Joseph, Missouri and her father died on 9 August 1845. I would hope Lois could tell me how & where he died, where he is buried and any Jasper family stories she could remember.  I do know that administrator for his will was appointed 24 October 1845 in Andrew County, Missouri.

In 1854, Lois went west on an Oregon Wagon train.  Lois was 13 years old.  Her older brother, who had gone to Oregon in 1851, came back and took his widowed mother, her old maid sister and 5 siblings west.  I would like to ask her about the trip, did she walk most of the way?  What did they cook?  Did they run out of provisions?  Was anyone sick?  Did the Indians attack?  Is your sister Gilla’s report of the Indians correct?  How did you carry water?  And what were your thoughts as you trudged across the prairies with the Rocky Mountains in the horizon?

Lois’s mother settled in Benton County, Oregon.  Her mother, Mary, ran a boarding house.  In Lois’s memoirs, she recalls the hard days of soap making and horrible washing arrangements.

When Lois was 16 years old, she married Albert Gallatin Lloyd on 20 May 1858.  Since Albert had fought in the Indian Wars, he remembered the beautiful countryside and potential for farming near Walla Walla, Washington.  Lois and Albert had a son, John Calvin, born 25 May 1859 in Oregon, but then they headed north.  Lois moved to a cabin near Waitsburg, Washington with a 2-month-old baby.  reaching their new home in July.  She brought along garden seeds but it was too late to dig a garden plot, so she planted her seeds in the dirt from gopher holes, saving seeds for next year’s crop.    I would love hear the story of the trip from Oregon to Washington, which they traveled by horse, buggy and boat.  

Lois was the mother of 11 children, with twins dying shortly after birth. 

While Albert filed for a homestead in 1859, Lois was busy with her garden selling produce to the miners and packers traveling through, darning socks for miners who stayed the night, and molding candles for the flour mill and increasing the funds in her sugar bowl.  Lois saved her money and bought 120 acres in 1865.  She even sold one of her young mares to buy another 40 acres in 1866. And by 1866 she had 4 children.  

Another story is that she raised sheep, making the candles from the tallow, making flour bags sewn by hand.  She even washed clothes for some men to get money to pay for her homestead.

Lois and Albert celebrated their 50^thwedding anniversary in 1908.  Albert died in 1915, but Lois continued to live alone. She made quilts (but never signed them). I would like for her to show me the quilts that she made!  Yes, our family has several quilts that have been handed down through generations.

Lois died in 1930. She had summed up her life:

“My life has been like the Old Oaken Bucket.  I hung on a long time before the iron bound bucket arose from the well.”

Now who wouldn’t want to sit and visit with Lois?

Unusual Name-Gabel family-#3-#52Ancestors in 52 week

Unusual Name in the Gabel or Gable family

An unusual name; I pondered the choice and couldn’t think of any.  Seems the ancestors used fairly common names.  If not once, but the same name in several generations.  

But then I remembered a name change! 

In my previous blog I referred to the census of 1910, which recorded the Philip Gabel family (this family included my husband’s grandfather, Henry) living in Rock Creek Precinct in Jefferson County, Nebraska.  There were twins listed by the names of Ferdinand and Adolph.  The information fit the family, ages and other names.   But the twins in later years were known as Tom and Otto.  Quite a bit of difference.  This information was found in my early years of genealogy and I really don’t have any idea how to prove names were different.

One day while trolling the old newspaper sites, I was searching for information on the Gabel family in Montana.   Knowing that occasionally it helps to search other members of the family as a way to find information, I entered Tom Gabel.   Imagine my surprise when “hits” appeared with the stories of Tom Gable (he spelled his last name different) testifying and turning state witness in a cattle rustling trial in Forsyth, Montana in February of 1928!  Not just one article, but the trial was covered daily by the Billings Gazette.   It was quite a sensational trial.

Tom testified for the state about the altering of brands and moving the cattle.   Under cross-examination he declared “western stuff” is “hard work”. He admitted that he was christened Ferdinand but nicknamed for Tom Mix when in early youth he expressed admiration for the star of western movies.   Oh yes, I let out a scream…”I am right, I have the right family!”

When Tom married for the first time, he used Ferdinand Gabel for his name.  When he married for a second time, his name was Tom H and third marriage he used Tom Henry Gable.