Early Bird Registration Ends Today for California Family History Expo

A reminder that early bird registration ends today for the California Family History Expo in Pleasanton on October 8-9, 2010. 

I'll be presenting two sessions. The first is “Organizing Your Genealogical Research.”

Are you lost in a sea of paper and digital files? Can’t find the records you know you have? Or are you searching for a better way to organize your research? This session by a professional archivist will help you apply simple and effective archival management principles to organize your digital files and paper records, so you can find what you need, avoid duplicating research, and finally tame your information overload. 

The second session is “Think Like an Archivist: Finding Hidden Genealogical Materials in Libraries and Archives.”

Learn about locating genealogical materials held in manuscript and photographic collections in libraries and archives worldwide, using online archival portals and digital finding aids. Discover where family records are located in digital finding aids; effective search terms and strategies; specific URLs for institutional, regional, and worldwide archival portals and gateways; and how to search once across multiple institutions to locate family history records.

For more information:

Phone: 801-829-3295


E-mail: info@fhexpos.com
Web: http://fhexpos.com/expos/

I hope to see you there!

Surname Saturday: Schumann

Today's Surname Saturday post is about my Schumann line. I'll admit that when I was planning this research trip, I was fixated on finding more about the Mysterious Austrian, Gottfried Hann, and the research possibilities in Michigan.

But in the true course of all things genealogical, I happened on some great research luck at the Minnesota Historical Society Library and suddenly I have more Schumanns that I can record.

Most of this I consider background research for my eventual leap back to Germany to look for Schumanns and I think I know where in Germany to look for my great-grandmother, Anna Schumann Kirschstein Kahns (1861-1934). The Schumanns emigrated in the mid-1880s from Germany to Chicago. Since it never hurts to research those siblings, I set aside some time for research in St. Paul. I posted a few days ago when I found her sister, Mary Schumann Gross, and her marriage license and gravesite, in St. Paul.

Anna and Mary's younger brother, Fred, remained rather elusive. He seemed to vaporize after the 1905 Minnesota state census. His wife was listed as the ever helpful Mrs. Hisfirstname Surname. And then I discovered a marriage record for their daughter in Canada. Bingo! The whole family emigrated from Minnesota to Alberta and then to British Columbia and that's why I'd lost track of them. It seems pretty obvious when you look at it geographically. I think I've got a death record, too, but it looks like a second wife, so I'll post that after I'd done more to confirm or deny. 

In the meantime:

1 Frederick August William SCHUMANN
--------------------------------------------------
Birth:    May 1873, Germany
Occupation:    Painter; farm laborer; farmer
Father:    Fred SCHUMANN  (1834-1908)
Mother:    Auguste (1834-1886)

1895: Murdock, Swift, Minnesota

1900: Murdock, Swift, Minnesota

1905: Murdock, Swift, Minnesota 

1911: Sedgewick, Strathcona, Alberta, Canada
1916: Wheatland, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

Spouse:    Ida SCHLEICHER

Marriage: 3 Jul 1902, St. Croix, Hudson, Wisconsin
Birth:    Dec 1884, Germany
Father:    John SCHLEICHER  (1849-)
Mother:    Caroline (GROSS?) (1846-)

Children:    Herbert R. (1903-)
    Mable Augusta (1904-)
    Walter (1907-)
    Frederick (1908-)
    Edith (1910-)

1.1 Herbert R. SCHUMANN
--------------------------------------------------
Birth:    6 Feb 1903, Swift Co., Minnesota

1.2 Mable Augusta SCHUMANN
--------------------------------------------------
Birth:    21 Oct 1904, Murdock, Swift, Minnesota

1911: Sedgewick, Strathcona, Alberta, Canada
1916: Wheatland. Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Spouse:    Wilburn Melville MATTICE
Birth:    1902, Carberry, Manitoba, Canada
Marriage:    26 Dec 1928, Keremeos, British Columbia, Canada

1.3 Walter SCHUMANN
--------------------------------------------------
Birth:    Nov 1907, Alberta, Canada
1911: Sedgewick, Strathcona, Alberta, Canada
1916: Wheatland. Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

1.4 Frederick SCHUMANN
--------------------------------------------------
Birth:    May 1908, Alberta, Canada

1911: Sedgewick, Strathcona, Alberta, Canada
1916: Wheatland. Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

1.5 Edith SCHUMANN
--------------------------------------------------
Birth:    Jul 1910, Alberta, Canada

1911: Sedgewick, Strathcona, Alberta, Canada
1916: Wheatland. Red Deer, Alberta, Canada

Spouse:    George RICHES
Birth:    1904, England
Marriage:    15 Apr 1930, Penticton, British Columbia, Canada

Still more to do on this line, but at least I know where to look now!

Follow Friday: Minnesota Official Marriage System

Today's Follow Friday is a new (to me) database: the Minnesota Official Marriage System or MOMS. This is a nice complement to the Minnesota Birth Certificates Index and the Minnesota Death Certificates Index maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society and the databases at FamilySearch.

It's only been up since March of 2010 and not all records for every county are available, but it looks good, particularly for 20th century records. I don't have many relatives in Minnesota, but this is good to have in my back pocket. 

But my mainstay still is the Minnesota Marriages db at FamilySearch. I found a Minnesota marriage that was right under my nose there: Mary Schumann and Christian Gross are married on 28 Feb 1893 at St Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota. Yay!

Treasure Chest Thursday: Loe-Moe Marriage

Marriage license, Hans C. Loe and Anna Moe, April 1883, Chicago, Cook, Illinois.

Today’s Treasure Chest Thursday is going to be quick but meaningful. (Also, I’m tired of Hitler having the lead (lede?) on my blog.)

The marriage license above is made out to Hans C. Loe and Anna Moe, my Norwegian great-grandparents. I vividly recall the day years ago that I found it online and was (a) instantly appalled on behalf of poor Anna Moe-Loe and (b) confused because I was told her name was Annie Anderson. Who was this Anna Moe-Loe? A first wife? Second? Not my great-grandmother at all?

Although I did not realize it at the time, ahead of me lay a great adventure into Norwegian records, and ultimately, solving the origins of both the Loe and the Moe names. But that’s a more complicated story than today’s Treasure Chest post.

So for now I will just say that this simple marriage license is a treasure to me because of the genealogical research skills it unlocked.

And the short answer was that my great-grandfather, Hans Christensen, was born on 1 Aug 1854 on the family farm Loesmoen (Loe’s heath or meadow), Eiker, Buskerud, Norge. 

And his future wife, my great-grandmother, Ahne Andersdatter, was born on 10 Feb 1856 on the family farm Flatemoen (flat heath or meadow), Ringebu, Gudbrandsdalen, Oppland, Norge. 

And I'm very glad they each decided to emigrate to Chicago, so they could meet, fall in love, get married, and have six boys, one of whom became my grandfather.

Well done, Hans Loe and Anna Moe!

Hitler's Haplogroup and Some Unsurprising News

Berlin, Germany (AHN) - German dictator and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler would certainly turn in his grave if he was told that his ancestors were actually Jewish and African. That is what new DNA tests are reported to reveal.

The tests were conducted on saliva samples taken from 39 of Hitler's relatives. The samples were gathered by a Belgian journalist, Jean-Paul Mulders, and a historian, Marc Vermeeren, who tracked down the relatives.

The revelation of these DNA tests is that the protagonist of the "Pure Blood-driven Aryan theory," Hitler, actually belongs to the same groups he had pledged to exterminate. 

Read more: http://peek.snipurl.com/10sg3k [www_allheadlinenews_com] 

Hitler's haplopgroup is E1b1b – rare in Germany and Western Europe, according to a variety of wire stories.

Tombstone Tuesday: Mary Schumann Gross

Mary Schumann Gross (1863-1947)

Today's Tombstone Tuesday may not feature a fancy stone or monument, but it's wonderful to me because I found it just days ago and it resolves many questions about my great-great aunt.

Today's subject is Mary SCHUMANN GROSS. Born on 21 May 1863 in Germany, Mary died in St. Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, on 30 May 1947. She was buried on 2 Jun 1947 in Calvary Cemetery, St. Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota. (And a shout-out to Linda in the cemetery office - very patient and helpful.)

Mary's sister, Anna, is my great-grandmother. It's still a mystery how Mary came to be in Minnesota, when the family emigrated to Chicago in the mid-1880s. I do know on 28 Feb 1893, when Mary was 29, she married Christian J. GROSS in St. Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota. They had two girls, Erna and Martha.

All of this is just part of my due diligence as I work toward the German records that should shed more light on Mary and Anna's parents, Fred and Auguste. But a bonus is that I've now found Mary's brother, Fred, his wife, Ida, and his family.

Gravestones that crumble brick walls are great!

California Family History Expo Schedule Available

Only one week left for early bird registration for the California Family History Expo in Pleasanton on Oct. 8-9. Click to download the schedule of sessions.

I'll be presenting twice:


Think Like an Archivist: Finding Hidden Genealogical Materials in Libraries and Archives (Advanced)
This session teaches you to locate genealogical materials held in manuscript collections in libraries and archives worldwide, using online archival portals and digital finding aids. You will learn how archival materials are prepared for public use, including where family records are located in digital finding aids; effective search terms and strategies; specific URLs for institutional, regional, and worldwide archival portals and gateways; and how to search across multiple institutions to locate family history records.


Organize Your Genealogical Research (All Levels)
This session teaches you to how to arrange and organize your genealogical research so that you can find what you need when you need it. Professional archivists manage both vast paper files and digital masters and surrogates. In addition to preserving archival documents, archivists create intellectual access to these collections, making their standards and practices useful to consider when organizing your research.

I'll be there both days and looking forward to meeting you.

Sentimental Sunday: Anna Lovisa Larsdotter Hann

Ernest, Louise, Frieda and Anna Hann, Chicago, c. 1912.

Today is my first Sentimental Sunday post and I’m writing about Anna Lovisa LARSDOTTER, my great-grandmother. She was born on 17 May 1863 on the family farm at Bjorklund, Torphytton, Lindesberg, Örebro Län, Sweden. The eldest of five siblings, she emigrated from Göteborg to Ishpeming, Michigan, on 18 Oct 1888. She never again saw her parents or her brother, Per Israel, who remained in Sweden.

She eventually had the company of her brothers, Carl Anders and Lars Erik, and her sister, Hedda Karolina, who joined her in Michigan.

On 27 Apr 1891, when Anna Lovisa was 27, she married Gottfried Ernst HANN in Champion, Marquette, Michigan.

I think the predominant sentiment that I have about her is admiration. Widowed at the age of 33, with three children under the age of 3, including a newborn, Anna Larsdotter Hann went to work, taking in laundry, doing piecework needlework, scrubbing floors. She never remarried, but raised her three children in Chicago with the help of her sister Hedda. She lived to see her children married and started successfully on their own lives and families.

I also have to confess that I have great affection for Anna because she was the first emigrant ancestor I'd successfully traced. Swedish records are wonderful to work with and I’m happy to say that I’ve found five more generations of her family back to the mid-seventeenth century on just one trip to the Family History Library. Now I just need more of that elusive commodity, time, to find other generations I know are there.

Anna Hann died at my grandmother’s house in Chicago on 4 Feb 1925 at the age of 61. She’s buried in Montrose Cemetery in Chicago, near sister Hedda, her son, daughter-in-law, and her granddaughter, June Jeanette Hahn.

I wish I'd been able to know her and I hope I'm even half as strong as she was.

Wisdom Wednesday: Inherent Vice

Time to get back to some archival tips that can help you care for your family papers. Today’s Wisdom Wednesday is the archival concept of “inherent vice.” (No, probably not what you're thinking, but interesting just the same, I hope.)

Damage caused by iron gall ink (pre-treatment) at the Maryland State Archives (http://mdarchives.us/msa/stagser/s1259/103/website/ink.html)

The Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology, published by the Society of American Archivists, defines inherent vice as “the tendency of material to deteriorate due to the essential instability of the components or interaction among components.”

The glossary continues: “Nitrate film and highly acidic paper suffer inherent vice because they are chemically unstable. An object made of metal and leather suffers inherent vice because the leather causes the metal to corrode.”

One example of inherent vice you have all seen in your family papers are the yellowing and brittleness of newspaper clippings. This is due in part to chemicals that are added to newsprint (highly acidic paper) to speed its production. Those chemicals (the inherent vice) in turn cause deterioration.

You may also have noticed nineteenth-century letters, diaries, or other written documents in which the ink has stained the surrounding paper and, in severe cases, eaten through the paper itself.

This would be an excellent example of inherent vice in action. Iron gall ink was the standard writing ink from the 12th through the 20th century, made from varied formulas that included iron salts, tannin (galls), gum Arabic, and water. The high iron content in the ink (the inherent vice) stains and eventually corrodes the underlying paper.

Only a trained professional conservator can help documents with iron gall ink damage. But you can make sure that these documents in your collections are stored in cool, dry locations and use buffered acid-free interleaving paper to keep those pages separate from other documents.

Tombstone Tuesday: New York City Cemeteries Face Gridlock

Washington Cemetery, the largest Jewish graveyard in Brooklyn, has no land left for new burial plots. Other cemeteries in the city are in similar straits.

The New York Times reports that some New York cemeteries are running out of room, and with plots becoming scarce, their prices are on the rise. As as genealogist, I am wondering if the record-keeping can keep up with the situation.

I've noticed when I'm researching my Chicago relatives' plots, the cemeteries are usually very eager to point out which ones still have room. Now I know why!

On 24 Aug 1907, my Norwegian great-grandmother bought a very large plot (148 sf) in Chicago's Mt. Olive Cemetery for $65. The cemetery guy kept telling me how incredibly cheap that was, but I know that $65 to my hard-working immigrant family was a fantastic sum of money.

Sassy Jane Presenting @ the California Family History Expo in October

I'm going to be presenting two sessions at the upcoming California Family History Expo in Pleasanton on October 8-9, 2010.

The first session is “Organizing Your Genealogical Research.”

Are you lost in a sea of paper and digital files? Can’t find the records you know you have? Or are you searching for a better way to organize your research? This session by a professional archivist will help you apply simple and effective archival management principles to organize your digital files and paper records, so you can find what you need, avoid duplicating research, and finally tame your information overload. 

The second session is “Think Like an Archivist: Finding Hidden Genealogical Materials in Libraries and Archives.”

Learn about locating genealogical materials held in manuscript and photographic collections in libraries and archives worldwide, using online archival portals and digital finding aids. Discover where family records are located in digital finding aids; effective search terms and strategies; specific URLs for institutional, regional, and worldwide archival portals and gateways; and how to search once across multiple institutions to locate family history records.

Early bird registration is $55 through August 31.
 

For more information:

Phone: 801-829-3295


E-mail: info@fhexpos.com
Web: http://fhexpos.com/expos/

I hope to see you there!

Surname Saturday: Hann

For today’s Surname Saturday post I’m choosing the HANN line of my family. I posted a bit the other day about my mysterious great-grandfather, Gottfried Ernst Hann, who died two months before my grandmother was born and who remains maddeningly elusive, despite a lot of searching.

I know he was born in Austria, probably in the Tyrolean region, in 1861. I know a Catholic priest married Gottfried and my great-grandmother, Anna Lovisa Larsdotter, on 27 Apr 1891, in Champion, Marquette, Michigan. At the time of the wedding, Gottfried was working as a teamster at an iron-ore mine.

They had three children:

Ernest Max (1893-1942)

Louise Marie (1895-1977)

Frieda Caroline (1896-1979)

Sometime after April of 1893, the Hann family moves from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Chicago. Gottfried appears in the city directory three times:

1894: 33 Burling, Chicago, Cook, Illinois; laborer

1895: 166 Dayton, Chicago, Cook, Illinois; porter

1896: 18 Fremont, Chicago, Cook, Illinois; laborer

On 17 Oct 1896, Gottfried dies in Chicago at the age of 35. He is buried the following day at St. Boniface Catholic Cemetery in a term (rented) grave. When the family didn’t have the money to purchase the plot at the end of the rental period, the church buried his body deeper and resold the plot.

On 30 Dec 1896, my grandmother was born, leaving my great-grandmother with three children under the age of three to raise on her own.

The parish records had no entry for a funeral. There is one possible immigration record for a Gottfried Haan. He doesn’t appear in any census because he probably arrived in 1885 and died in 1896. No naturalization papers or voter registration exist. No obituary in the Chicago papers, but I've hired a researcher to check the German-language Chicago papers.

So my search for a hometown or birthplace in Austria for Gottfried continues. I've got plans for the Catholic Church in Champion, the local historical society, and the public library while I'm there. Any suggestions for climbing this brick wall greatly appreciated.

Follow Friday – CONTENTdm®

The site for today’s Follow Friday is CONTENTdm.org, the creator of the leading digital collection management software used by libraries and archives to deliver digital collections to users like you.

While it isn't necessary to know (or care) what digital collection software is being used when you view a digitized document online, some background information can help you stay abreast of what's happening online. Lots of attention in the genealogical research world goes to commercial (for-profit) digital collection sites like Ancestry or Footnote. But there are many many many (non-profit) libraries and archives that are working hard to digitize and deliver their collections directly to users. And while most institutions are using CONTENTdm^® software for photograph collections, there are increasing examples of genealogically rich material like yearbooks and oral history transcripts being added all over the country.

How can you find and use these digital collections?

One simple way is through the CONTENTdm^®  home page, which features collections that use their software.

They also host a Collection of Collections site that aggregates collections from a host of libraries and archives. Let’s take a look at their user interface. This is the main page of the Collection of Collections site, where you can browse or search by keyword:

Here’s a page of results for searches on “yearbooks” – notice the navigation on the left that gives you an overview of your search results by country, format, organization, or city:

You can create a user account at CONTENTdm® and then set preferences by a host of categories:

When you click through on one of the search results, you get a splash page that gives you a bibliographic entry about the collection: collection name, organization that owns the collection, location, language:

Most institutions are using OCR (optical character recognition) to make sure that you can search within a digital asset and not just on the name of the digital file. Here’s an example of a yearbook title page:

And searching on “McClellan” gives us six hits for Jennie McClellan, a member of the 1927 graduating class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, including her senior picture. Note the left navigation that highlights other pages where Jennie McClellan appears:

Much more satisfying than writing or emailing and asking for a search, isn't it?

Try searching Google using institution name +  archives + yearbooks. Clicking through should tell you pretty quickly whether your particular college of interest has digitized their yearbooks. The same search can work for postcards or local history photographs of specific locations.

So that’s a little tour behind the scenes of what your library and archives plus CONTENTdm® is doing for your research.

Happy searching!

Family Finder Test @ Family Tree DNA

When I was at Jamboree in June, I decided to order a Family Finder upgrade from Family Tree DNA on my paternal uncle's DNA. He's the last male on my late father's side of the family and rather frail, so even doing the test was very generous of him (and my cousins). And his results have been so interesting and helpful – it seems that our distant Viking ancestors pillaged Scotland before they pillaged Scandinavia. :D

So I was disappointed to learn a few days ago that they didn't have enough DNA in the sample to upgrade to Family Finder, which, as I understand it, uses more of the sample than other genetic genealogy tests. 

And then yesterday, the president and CEO of Family Tree DNA, Bennett Greenspan, called me personally to apologize for a mix-up. Isn't that great? Now that's customer service!

And even better, the Family Finder tests for my uncle can go forward.

(P.S. - if you get a chance to hear Mr. Greenspan, take it. Last March, the Northern San Diego County Genealogical Society sponsored a day-long workshop taught by Mr. Greenspan, and it was great. That's where he first announced the Family Finder test was available. I ordered my own that day and the results are now starting to come in.)

Wisdom Wednesday: Planning a Genealogical Research Trip

In a few weeks, I’ll be heading to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for some genealogical research. As I’ve been preparing, I realized I’ve never consciously thought about the process of planning an effective trip. Here are some tips from a librarian's perspective:

☞ Decide which lines you can work on in the area you’re visiting.
Be realistic, especially if your ancestors lived for a long time in the area or there are multiple lines that intermarry.

☞ Make a to-do list with specific research goals, collections to access, and questions you have.
You may need to revisit your earlier research to insure that you’ve done as much as you can before you leave.

☞ Start assembling the master file you plan to take with you. Copy fragile documents and/or print out important records and research notes you'll need if there's no Web access. 

For short trips, conferences, and local research, I love the Translucent File Tote from The Container Store. It's sturdy enough to hold a laptop and a water bottle in addition to your notes. For long road trips with research on multiple lines, I like The Container Store's Cascading Letter File Tote. It has convenient compartments that can be used for surnames, destinations, etc. Both were recommended by my good friend and professional organizer Carol Jones.

☞ Search online to determine what places are available for research.
Dig deeper at each institution to determine rules for access, collections held (processed and unprocessed), rules for reproduction/copying, fees, etc. Inquire if genealogy volunteers work certain days/hours.

•    Courthouse – vital and property record indexes that aren’t online may be available in person
•    Public Library – look especially for runs of local newspapers and indexes that may have been created for BMD notices, published county histories
•    Historical Society/Local History Museum – photograph collections, published county histories
•    Genealogical Society Library – cemetery transcriptions, local histories
•    University Library – check the Special Collections and/or University Archives for manuscript collections and organizational or business records of interest
•    Church – check if records are kept locally or centralized at a larger church/diocese/ward, determine span dates, index availability
•    Cemetery Office – interment records, undertaker reports, maps/locations of graves/tombs (N.B. – not all graves in a plot have markers, so copies of the cemetery records are very desirable)
•    Local Phone Books – are relatives still living in the area?

☞ Call ahead to the places you plan to visit.
This helps the staff at the library, archives, museum or historical society help you. You may be asked to book a research appointment. Records that are stored remotely can be pulled and waiting for you. It also helps avoid the disappointment of arriving to find that budget cuts or furloughs have changed hours of operation or that the facilities are closed for renovation or records are unavailable because of digitizing projects or preservation. Supply that list of research objectives you compiled to the staff in advance.

☞ Prioritize your research visits in a spreadsheet.
Add addresses, phone numbers, email, hours to the spreadsheet for each place you plan to visit.

☞ Update your family file on your laptop, iPhone or other mobile device.
May I just say how wonderful it is to open Reunion and have my whole tree, with sources and photographs, available on my iPhone? No lugging the laptop, finding power sources, booting. Bliss!

☞ Pack the digital camera for those headstone photos and a small stash of pencils, paper, Post-Its, and paper clips.
Be prepared to be relieved of all of your items except a pencil, paper, and perhaps your laptop if you visit archives and manuscript collections. I also bought a Canon LiDE200 Color Image Scanner – small, light, flatbed and it does a great job – invaluable when visiting relatives.

☞ Remember to stop occasionally to feed the non-genealogist partner/spouse to insure continued cooperation and goodwill. Try not to fib too much when asked how much longer.

What steps do you take to prepare for a research trip? And most of all, what have I forgotten?

Follow Friday – Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers at the Library of Congress

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers is the subject of today’s Follow Friday post. 

The project is a partnership between the Library of Congress and NEH with two objectives:

• to provide access to a Newspaper Directory covering U.S. papers published between 1690 – present, and

• to make selected U.S. newspapers from 1860-1922 available in full-text, searchable digital surrogates.

Chronicling America features free access to newspapers from 1860 to 1922 from the following states: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Washington.

I can’t imagine the level of professional know-how and just plain hard work it takes to digitize 2.3 million newspaper pages and create intellectual access to them either by browsing or searching. And for free! I've worked on some digitizing projects in archives, but nothing on this epic scale.

See all available digitized newspapers here.

Search the Newspaper Directory for all known titles, span dates, and repositories here.

The search interfaces are flexible and well designed. (Footnote.com should take some lessons here.) In fact, the whole project is really well done.

And for software developers or researchers who want to create new ways of accessing the digital files, LC also provides API (application programming interface) capability here. 

For more information about the technical underpinnings of the Chronicling America program, see www.loc.gov/ndnp/.

I was searching last night, looking to see if Gottfried Hann had an obituary in a Chicago paper (a very long shot and the answer was no) when I found this:

Chicago Eagle. (Chicago, Ill.) October 17, 1896, Image 2

If you have Chicago ancestors who made their "fortune from pork sausage,” you’d better check some of those family heirlooms!

Treasure Chest Thursday: Gottfried Hann's 1891 Marriage License

Today’s Treasure Chest Thursday is the marriage license for Gottfried Hann and Anna Larsdotter, my great-grandparents. And the reason why it’s in my Treasure Chest is that this document and his death certificate are the only documents that prove Gottfried Hann ever existed.

Gottfried Hann is my brickiest of brick walls. I know he’s from Austria, probably from the Tirolean region, and that he was born in 1861. And that’s it – the sum total of family knowledge. His daughter, my grandmother, was born in December of 1896, two months after her father died at the age of 35 in Chicago.

My mother recently unearthed this Marquette County, Michigan, marriage license and I almost wept to see that he actually existed in a real tangible record. 

 

At FamilyLabs,* I found an online database of Michigan Marriages, 1868-1925, and Godfrey Haun and Annie Larson's record is there (#101), but it has a line drawn through their names. 

Most puzzling in light of the counter-signed, sealed, and embossed marriage license at top. So I wrote to Marquette County, Michigan, and they had no record of the marriage, even though I had a numbered license.

(*BTW, Randy's 2 Aug 2010 post at Genea-musings shines a light on the various (and varied) on varying search results at the FamilySearch beta sites - worthwhile reading.) 

My ongoing hunt from the mysterious Mr. Hann? To be continued this Surname Saturday right here at Sassy Jane Genealogy. See you then!

Tombstone Tuesday: John Mackie (1826-1899) and Janet Mackie (1828-1903)

Gravestone for John and Janet Mackie, Parker Cemetery, Knox Co., Illinois. The inscription reads:  

But seek ye first the kingdom of

God, and his righteousness

and all these things

shall be added unto you.

 

Today's Tombstone Tuesday comes from my husband's side of the family. On our big road trip this spring, we detoured to go through Galesburg, Illinois, because I was looking for the grave of his great-great-grandmother, Mary Kinsley Curtis. We found her in the wonderful little Parker family cemetery along the banks of the Spoon River.

We also found my husband’s other great-great grandparents, John and Janet Mackie, in the same small cemetery.

John MACKIE Sr.

--------------------------------------------------

Birth:     27 Aug 1826, Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, Scotland

Death:     3 Dec 1899, Cumming, Warren, Iowa

Burial:     6 Dec 1899, Parker Cemetery, Truro Twp., Knox, Illinois

Father:     Matthew MacKIE  (1792-1867)

Mother:     Jean ANDERSON (1791-1836)

The History of Knox County, Illinois; Together With Sketches Of The Cities, Villages And Townships; Record Of Its Volunteers In The Late War; Educational, Religious, Civil And Political History; Portraits Of Prominent Persons And Biographical Sketches, published in 1878, has an entry for:

Mackie, John, farmer, born in Scotland, March, 1824. His parents, Mathew and Jane, were natives of the lowlands of Scotland; was sent to private school in his native country, and while yet quite young began work in the mines; was married April 17, 1846, to Miss Janett McFadyen, who bore him 9 children, 4 boys and 5 girls; came to America in 1848 and settled in Knox Co., and has lived here since; has held the office of School Director and Road Commissioner in Truro township; early in life united with the Presbyterian Church, but later joined the Christian Church, which he has served as Deacon. Independent. P.O. Truro.

Janet McFADYEN

--------------------------------------------------

Birth:     5 Feb 1828, Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, Scotland

Death:     23 Aug 1903, Williamsfield, Knox, Illinois

Burial:     25 Aug 1903, Parker Cemetery, Truro Twp., Knox, Illinois

Marriage:     17 Apr 1846, Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, Scotland

I’ve posted on Surname Saturday about searching for Janet’s birth record with mixed success, but their marriage record and John’s baptism record were easy to find.

After the cemetery, we headed to the Knox County courthouse. While we were waiting for some records, I spied a county map on the wall and lo and behold the land around the family cemetery was still owned by Mackies!

When I got home, I wrote and received a lot of excellent information in reply from Mrs. Helen Mackie. She enclosed a family cookbook and John and Janet Mackie are on the cover.

Isn't that great? I wish all my cemetery trips paid off so handsomely.

Cook County Illinois Naturalization Index Online

I don't know how I missed this before, but the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County Archives is producing an online index to 500,000 naturalization petitions covering the years 1871 to 1929, presumably for the Midwest. 

When I visited the Clerk of the Circuit Court office in person in the summer of 2008, I was told that the Declarations of Intention (aka, "first papers," the initial step in the process and usually the one with the most information) had been destroyed years ago and all that was left were the final petitions. The final petitions for my ancestors merely stated the country of origin and not the town or province.

So this is great news. Of the 500,000 records currently being indexed, more than 400,000 of these records are Declarations of Intention from 1906-1929. Wow!

The project started in 2006 using grant funds from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), a division of the National Archives. If you've never heard of it, the NHPRC is the red-headed stepchild of bigger, better-funded siblings NEA and NEH. I know they are constantly in danger of being zero-funded for the tiny amount of money they do get for grants.

Search the Naturalization Declarations of Intention here and go here if you'd like to volunteer since the work is still in progress.

The Trenklers of Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

1 Daniel Gottlieb TRENKLER 

Birth:     17 Feb 1763, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Death:    18 Oct 1842

Father:   Samuel TRENKLER  (1727-)

Mother: Johanna Susanna Theodora GUERTLER (1740-1798)

Spouse:  Beata Elisabeth BREDTSCHNEIDER

Birth:      Jan 1774, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Father:   Benjamin BREDTSCHNEIDER

Mother:  Anna Theodora BRAND (1735-)

Marriage: 17 May 1791, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Children:         Johanna Juliana (1792-)

                          Christiana Beata (1797-)

                          Carolina (1798-1799)

                          Henriette Carolina (1815-1816)

1.1 Johanna Juliana TRENKLER

--------------------------------------------------

Birth:         Feb 1792, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Spouse:         Carl Samuel Heinrich BRAUN

Marriage:      10 Nov 1812, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Children:         Willhelmine Heinriette Juliana (1813-1822)

                          Florentine Mathilde (1814-1891)

1.2 Christiana Beata TRENKLER

--------------------------------------------------

Birth:         May 1797, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

1.3 Carolina TRENKLER

--------------------------------------------------

Birth:         Dec 1798, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Death:         22 Jul 1799, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Never married

No Children

1.4 Henriette Carolina TRENKLER

--------------------------------------------------

Birth:         Jun 1815, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Death:         24 Apr 1816, Rawitsch, Posen, Prussia

Never married

No Children