Friday Genealogy Update

It has been a crazy week, starting on Saturday with family photos with hubby's family, then a memorial for my Nana Sunday up on Mount Rainier. Yesterday sis and niece and I went to my Aunt's house to go through all of Nana's papers and things. It was a great visit, and I have a lot to think about. Even added a few notations to the family tree, and I now have a possible birthplace for my grandfather's parents--if I'm right. The paperwork's in German, and partially hand-written, not to mention the print being in a gothic font. All of which will make it especially interesting to translate. I might run it through hubby's scanner, see if that makes it any easier.

Highlights of my discoveries:
1- I've always heard about Nana's Tante Margrethe. I'm now certain I have her marked in the tree (I've heard of her several times in the past, but failed to figure out which Margrethe she was). When Nana's mother died when she and her siblings were still young, Tante Margrethe came to help out for a while. Apparently she was Holger's mother's sister, but was living in New York, so she was close by to help out until he moved himself and the kids in with one of his brothers who lived in Cleveland as well. The family lived there until he married his second wife Rose, I believe, or shortly before.
2- From the German paperwork, I've been able to understand a few things at least. Leon is listed nowhere in the papers (that I can see). This may be because Seneft (as the paperwork lists the name) was no longer recognized as Alex's surname because his parents were married only in a religious ceremony. His mother's name is listed in the paperwork, however. As Hilinger. One L, not two as we spell it now. I believe the double-L began to be used when they moved to the states, but I don't yet have a perfect grasp on that, so I could be wrong.
3-I also found the surname of a Hillinger cousin I did have, but had no surname listed. I'll have to sit my dad and his siblings down at some point and comb through that part of the tree with them, because I'm sure there's more I should know that I've just not connected correctly.

I now have a bag of paperwork and letters to go through. I can tell this is going to be a long process...but I think it will be worth it. So much to learn.

Once I got some of the paperwork sorted from yesterday, I put the more difficult bits aside. I figure I'll transcribe a few a week to get them out of the way. But for today, I focused on something I should have been doing from the start: I made a contact list. We've got a large family, but I've never been good about letters or phone calls, and only a bit more so about emails. But with all of Nana's old phone books, I decided it would be the perfect time to sort one out. I know I'm still missing a ton of people, but it's a good start. I even wrote down spouses (and whether they were dead or divorced, so that I didn't make *that* sort of boo boo), any kids (even if grown), and what side of the family tree they'd be most interested in. It's a pretty long list, but I know I've got a very long way to go--there are a bunch of second and possibly even third cousins I might be able to get in touch with through Facebook, or through first or second cousins. But I definitely need to do so NOW, before it's too late.

I've slowly been writing up research sheets (found here, with another interesting one here that I might need to play with) on each of my great and great-great grandparents with as much as I have on them. Some are a bit sparse (the Jewish line in particular), but I've tried to come up with as many questions as I could for each of them. Next step is to do the grandparents, but I think I might work differently with those, given that I knew them all personally. Might try to write out a timeline of their lives before writing up questions on what I still need.

And I've got a ton of posts I want to do, not even including the papers I want to transcribe:
* The Bordewick Visual Family Tree
* The Jones Visual Family Tree
* Brick Wall Update on the Seneft/Hilingers
* New Brick Wall post about the Welsh side of the family
* Software Comparison (IE, "Why Not to buy Family Tree Maker any more")
* New link list (with a possible focus on location)
* A Genealogist's Dictionary Pt 1 (something I have no doubt I'll be adding to quite a bit over the years)

And a few last bits:
I've added two more blogs to follow today - Greta's Genealogy Blog, a nice blog which I have been following for some time now, and Tracing the Tribe, which is specifically focused on Jewish Genealogy.