Friday Update

So I've been doing my best to catch up on my tree now that November's over.

And I've also been posting an Advent Calendar this year for my ancestors, and I've done the first three posts, all on my dad's father's side of the family so far, but I've got a plan for how to space them out. I've had fun with them so far, and I'm learning more about what's missing from each as I write them up, and they're getting a bit longer with each person I write up. I am pleased to discover that, despite the fact that I'm starting with my great-great grandparents, I believe I have photos of all of the people I'm writing up, but three of them.

Follow Friday:
Just one post today.

Randy Seaver of Genea-musings discusses Standardizing Place Names in genealogy. Definitely a difficult subject, given that everyone has at least one ancestor who can trace their line back to an area that no longer exists or no longer has the same name as when our ancestor came from that location.

Tapestry.com
I have also been playing with a new toy today. I'm not sure what I think of it, yet, but if there was a software program that used the information taken from the questions at the site, I would definitely consider buying it. The site is called Tpstry.com aka Tapestry.com, and it is not your usual online genealogy site.

You create a (currently free) account, and fill in your name, then it begins to ask you questions. You can have several family groups on the site, and can invite friends and family to answer the questions as well. Some of the questions are a bit silly or otherwise jarring, like "what sex is this person" and "is this person still alive," but you can also make up your own questions, and therefore can configure it to what you need to learn about your family members.

From these questions, you create timelines and interrelationships between the people listed, not to mention a basic family tree, though the family tree part of the site isn't particularly great yet.

I've run across a few minor flaws in the programming, but the site is still very new, and I'm hoping that it will only improve from here on.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun:
Randy Seaver's blog had a good fun post this past Saturday, and I can't resist it.

1) Think about the games that your whole family would play when you were a child.

2) Tell us about one (or more) of them - what was it called, what were the rules (as you remember them), who played the game, where did you play the game, who usually won?

3) Write your own blog post, or write a comment on this post, or write a Facebook comment or note.

There are six years between myself and my sister, so I spent a lot of time when she was young making up ways to distract and to entertain her. Quite a number of games come to mind, really.

When she was very small, we used to play hide and seek, but she was too young to understand that she had to wait, and she was definitely to young to count yet, so I would tell her to wait where she was, then run ahead an try to find a place to hid before she could run after me. We actually had quite a lot of fun with the game, and played it quite often.

We also inherited a number of games, most of which were missing pieces in varying amounts, meaning we often had to loot other games to play anything. Which led to the idea of combining them.

Our favorite, which we played a number of times, was Payday, which I got from someone for a Christmas or Birthday present one year, but was rather dull on its own, so we would combine it with the game of Life, and occasionally with the game Careers. We'd play a month of Payday, then start the game of Life using the money we'd gained in that first round rather than what we were supposed to start with according to Life. When we got to the choice of career path, we would use Careers if we chose to go onto the university track to determine our career, and only play a month of payday if we landed on a Payday to determine how much we got. It made for exceptionally long games, but it also gave variation to games that I think we would otherwise have grown bored of.

So many more games I could mention, though. Monopoly, which my sister says she got good at defensively because she was so much younger than I. Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, and Scattegories, all of which we played at family gatherings for several years in a row. My sister and I are extremely scary when it comes to Pictionary--there have been times when one or the other of us have drawn a single line--and the other guessed it. There was also Take Off, gotten to improve my sister's geography, and Mille Bornes, which had their day...

Really, we played a lot of games as kids. It's one thing I miss quite a bit, really.

Family Tree Calendar:
Just one event for this week.
Hans Knudsen and Christine Jensdatter married on December 2, 1854 in Vejle, Denmark.

Friday Genealogy update

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was very nice. Got to see my Uncle's remodeled place. Very roomy, and a lovely warm gas fireplace.

Have a lot of Genealogy stuff to catch up on, and I need to make a to-do list, really, because this month has left me quite behind. Got a bunch of information from my aunt, and I need to add that to the information I already have. At least now I have the family trees in some form for all sides of the family. I also plan on taking a trip to Office Max and getting fresh supplies so that I can keep track of things better. The current system I have really isn't working.

Forgot to post last week, so I'll do two weeks of calendar here today, though it's only adding one more event to an already short list:
November 18, 1757, Ana Maria Andersdatter Brunn was born in Bergen, Norway.
November 19, 1863, Jorgen Larsen and Ivare Christensen were married in Vejle, Denmark.
November 23, 1754, Anna Margretha Sorensen was born in Gelting, Germany.

Friday Genealogy update

So, I know I didn't do one of these last week, but I was a little Genealogied-out from spending the weekend with my sister and working on a lot of Genealogy stuff while I was there. It was great, though.

We discovered that we have not one, but two pictures of my great-grandmother Dora with her sister Minna. Seems I'd seen the shot a number of times, but it was only scanning in the shot of the two of them as young women that made me realize I'd seen her face before. So that was fun. A lot of other minor discoveries as well, including a shot of Dora's eldest, Ben, who died in the mid eighties. I remembered him, but it had been so long since I'd seen his face that I'd forgotten what he'd looked like until I saw the shot. He and Grumpy were so much alike, they should have been the twins. ;)

Made a post about my great-grandfather Holger today over at Oh, Spusch. His is the best-researched line in my tree, mostly because my grandmother and her sister were so desperate to find information about their mother. I'm glad they were. I love having so much detail, though I'm coming to find that there are gaps in that, as well.

My main focus since Monday, however, has been NaNoWriMo. I've done it every year but one since 2006. For those who don't know (and/or don't want to follow the link), NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a 50k word novel in the month of November. It's great fun, with lots of support from the site and the forums at the site, though it's not for those who aren't used to writing every day, or who can't write enough per day (about 1700 words per day). I've enjoyed it every time I've done it. And won each time, too. This year I'm doing something that most would consider breaking the rules--I'm playing in someone else's universe. Now I just have to hope I have enough story to make it through 50k. I've managed 10k already, so I'm doing pretty good.

Nothing for Follow Friday today, since I've been so out of it the past two weeks.

Really need to update this calendar, as I know I have some new dates to add, but here's the stuff from the past two weeks:
10/25/1846 - Leonharde Marine Linkhausen died in the Lofoten Islands in Norway from complications of childbirth.
10/27/1765 - Maren Mathiasdatter died in Vejle, Denmark at the age of 84.
11/02/1822 - Jens Pedersen and Mette Matisdatter were married in Vejle, Denmark.
11/07/1826 - Abalone Mortensdatter died in Vejle, Denmark at the age of 82.

ETA: Just went through my program, and it turns out there are a whole ton more dates than I had before, and there's one that I just have to share, because I'm so very glad I have it now -
10/30/1919 - Alex Hillinger and Dora Kresch were married in Frankfurt, Germany.


And I've an idea for this December for Oh, Spusch that I hope people will enjoy--I'm going to do an advent calendar of three generations of my family--my grandparents through great-great grandparents. Wish me luck!

Friday Genealogy update

Had a friend abscond with me for a few hours today, so not much on the genealogy front, but I did make my post at Oh, Spusch this week. The final bit of the Visual Family tree I have posting there--the Jones Family.

I also had one possible revelation this week. My great-grandfather, Holger Hansen, has a brick wall on his maternal grandfather's side. I've always had his grandfather's parents listed as Lars Christensen and Oertha, and was never even sure whether that was a first or last name, as the tree had had been handed to me from my grandmother.

In entering everything into The Master Genealogist, I discovered that the name was never Oertha, but Bertha, with no given surname. Unfortunately, that made all three names horribly common, so, despairing, I asked one of my online Danish friends how the best way would be to find a marriage record for them.

He proceeded to check the record books of the town where their son was born, and found one record for the right name and date I had. But the names of the parents were off: Lars Andersen and Birreth Marie Sorensdatter. So...if I can figure out where we got the names we have (Birreth comes off sounding very much like Bertha in English), I may have found my great-great-great grandfather's parents. And jumped yet another wall on that side of the family. :)

Follow Friday:
Just a couple things today.

Two pieces on Scots-Irish; one from Carolyn L Barkley at GenealogyAndFamilyHistory.com, and one from Virginia Fox at The Faerie Folk Hid My Ancestors.

The other is a fun game about what you might want to get about/from your ancestors if you had a time machine from Lorine McGinnis Schulze at Olive Tree Genealogy.

From my Family Tree Calendar:
10/20/1845 - Rasmus Hansen was born in Knudstrup, Denmark
10/24/1865 - Else Katrine Larsen was born in Ringive, Denmark

Friday Genealogy update

September went so fast... And now it's October, and I've at least a half-dozen more things planned this coming month, when I usually tend to have one or two things planned in a month max. Oh, well, at least they're fun things.

This past week I spent a day with my sister and niece, and yesterday with a family friend down from Vancouver, and come Monday, mom, sis, niece and I will be heading up to my aunt's cabin to have a "Bordewick girls get together," never mind that none of us actually use the surname. ;) I've been trying to decide what paperwork to bring with me...hopefully I won't forget anything.

I made two posts on Oh, Spusch this week, not including the Surname post I'll be putting up tomorrow. The first was an experiment in birth order position in one line of my tree (the longest I could find). It was interesting. The second was a piece about all the names for "grandmother" my family has used, complete with photos.

So much going on that I didn't do a whole lot of actual Genealogy work on the tree itself today, but I did find an interesting article for Follow Friday about keeping track of name variations.

Three events in my Family Tree Calendar this week, all weddings:
Johan Bordewick married Henrikke Roness in Nordland, Norway 0n September 27, 1860 (his second marriage, and third woman to bear his children)
Jens Hansen married Else Larsen in Vejle, Denmark on October 1, 1885
and Mathias Frandsen married Kristen Poulsdatter in Ringkobing, Denmark on October 2, 1796.

And I had a rant on American Genealogists and Heraldry, but I'll save that for a week when I can think.

Friday Genealogy Report

I spent a good portion of the day with my mother today, mostly going through old photos, and trying to "name" more of the older generation (her grandparents' siblings, mostly). It was nice to be able to spend time with her, and show her some of what I've discovered online--including the census form from 1900 that lists the Park family in Philadelphia, PA.

I also got to visit with dad, which was nice, because I found myself drawn into that side of the family tree yesterday--or rather, his dad's side. It's always been the side I've known the least about.

My grandfather was never a talkative man, specifically when it came to his childhood. And with the history his family has, I can't say I blame him. He and all his siblings were born in Frankfurt, Germany the 20's (except one), and they were Jewish. We're lucky. His dad got out and took the family with him in the early thirties, but it left a mark.

I've always known it was there, but the more I uncover in my research, the more I realize just how deep that mark goes.
* Sam, my grandfather, was only about ten or eleven when they left for France, but he remembers better than his (younger) sisters. Even his twin, Minna, says that he recalled more than she did. Likely a good thing, given the fact that the atmosphere against Jews at the time was already quite dark.
* Alex, their father, was born in what I now know was the state of Galicia. I've always known the family was from "Prussia" or thereabouts, but not much beyond that. Dora was born there, too. I'm still in the process of tracking down the names of the actual towns they were presumably from. In researching Galicia yesterday, I learned just how bad it must have been for them. The Polish nickname for the area was "Naked- and Hunger-land." Though I did learn that the Jewish towns were known for their increasing learning.
* Alex was in England during WWI, and was caught up in the anti-German movement of the time, and sent to a camp known as Camp Douglas, which was a place Germans and Prussians and other enemy aliens were kept. I had heard his family went together, but I'm not sure if that is true or not, as I have since found a picture of him alone at that camp, but addressed to his brother Jack.

I used to watch Fiddler on the Roof and think to myself, "Oh, but my Jewish family lived differently than that." After my research this week, I have to admit to being wrong all those times. The Galician Jews had a great deal of connection to their Ukraine neighbors. To the point where the Jews of both countries were probably closer to each other than their gentile neighbors. While my great-grandparents might not have been born in "Anatevka," it sounds as though their towns were probably not too far different.

It does make me sad that what they did to my family destroyed that religious conviction in my grandfather. Because of it, I lost things I know I can't even begin to understand. In going through my blogs this week, I learned something I never knew before. That yarmulke are actually labeled to record the gathering they were made for. It just makes me wonder how much else I don't know.

Just one more link for Follow Friday on somewhat the same note. The Accidental Anarchist wrote about Prejudice in his blog this week. How little we've changed...even if the names and locations have. Makes me wonder if we ever will.

Just one event in my Genealogical Calendar this week. This September 14th would have been my Hansen great-grandparents' 92nd wedding anniversary.

Friday Genealogy round-up

Distracted last night, so I never got around to this. It's been an odd week, starting with brother-in-law's wedding, which was nice enough. The new couple seems very happy.

Not a whole lot accomplished on my Family Tree this week. I transcribed a series of notes from the visit my grandmother and her brother and sister took to see their mother's brother before his death in 1987 and posted that to Oh Spusch. As I say at the bottom of the piece, I actually have four great-great uncle Hanses, of which this Hans is one.

I may have found another connection to the Bordewick side in the Bordewich branch in this tree. Harald Bordewich is listed as Johan Petter's grandson in my tree, though the father listed doesn't match, and there is no grandfather on the tree, so I'm not sure where the differences came in. But having Bordewich as a last name is already unusual--having Tiller as a middle name kind of seals it for me, because that's Johan's mother's maiden name. I've sent off an email to the creator of the tree. Here's hoping he'll email back.

I also discovered that one of my distant cousins is a historian and published writer: Fergus M Bordewich. Saw his name a number of times, so I looked him up on Amazon. His story about his mother sounds fascinating, if horrifying. I may have to buy a copy and pass it around the family. He's also written several historical texts about American history. Definitely take a glance.

No new follows this week. Been too distracted to do more than glance at other blogs, though I did read a bit.

Family Calender for the week has one event:
9/12/1834 - Christine Jensdatter born in Vejle, Denmark.

And a more present-day set of birthdays--this weekend my husband celebrates his 42nd birthday, and mine follows the day after. I'll be 41.

Genealogy Day

Well, it has been an interesting week, and an eventful day for me.

Started today by posting about an ancestor I knew little about, Gabriel Howells, over at Oh, Spusch. This is my mother's mother's mother's father, and all of the Welsh side is still more untidy than not. I've learned a few things in typing it up--mostly that it is very hard to resist the impulse to correct bad or boring writing. most of the paragraphs are two or three times longer than I would have otherwise done myself without major reason.

This part of the tree is all from Northern Wales, as far as I am aware. And the other two major things I learned about this branch are that apparently one of my Ancestors (Lewis or Lewys Edwart) was a Quaker, which I had not heard before, and that there are no women recorded in this family line before my great-great-great grandmother, Catherine Jones, Gabriel's mother.

So I set out today to try to remedy this in some way. And I may have succeeded. In looking for more information on Gabriel, I found information on his grandfather, Gabriel Hywel, and two possible children and a wife. The Family Search.org Beta site pulled up two separate records for two births to a Gabriel Howell and his wife Gwen, alternately Gwen, Gwen Howell, and Gwen Evan. All likely to be the same woman, and just variations of her name, as I have seen the same variation in things I have been sure of. The first was to an Evan Howel, and the second to a Howel Howel, who must be my g-g-g-g grandfather, because the date and location matches too well for it not to be. I need to look into it further, but I have no reason to believe the record wrong, given the date and location.

The other discovery this week is that I did more research on the paperwork I got from my dad's sister about their grandparents on their dad's side. This has always been the shortest part of my family tree because of the difficulty my grandfather had talking about his past, and the fact that none of the fathers in that line were particularly talkative about their pasts.

The paperwork is all in German (aside from the letters my grandfather wrote to get them), but they do include not only his own birth record, but also that of all his siblings, and their parents' marriage record, their birth dates and locations (I'm fairly certain of this now), and their parents (or at least three of them) names.

However, each time I glance through the papers, I can't resist, so when my friend was down on Wednesday, we decided to guess at what the name of the location was under my great-grandparents. We guessed at Galizien, which led me to this site about Galicia, an old Prussian state that covered some of the area to the East of Germany, south of Poland, and north of Austria. As I had heard through family lore that they were born in Prussia near or around where Poland is now, I'm pretty sure this is it. I'm still trying to figure out the names of the towns, though.
From what I can read on the sheets, the names look like Szdziszow or Rzdziszow; though the first letter doesn't look like the other capital Rs in the hand-written parts of the document; and Czuder or Czudei or something like that. I'm not sure that that one is a C, either, but It doesn't look like the G below it in Galizien.
So I'm one and a half steps closer to where they were born, at least. It's a big deal. Because it means I can actually possibly find them at JewishGen, because you have to have locations to look there.

No new follows for the day, but a few interesting links:
* An article on Surnames, focusing specifically on the development of English Surnames.
* Family Search.org has a site with area-specific genealogies in them called Community Trees, if you're focused on a specific area of research.
* And Genealogy's Star wrote a two part article on how proof gets incorporated into family trees which is a fascinating read, especially to someone who's trying to be more conscientious about those things these days. Part One - Part Two

And in my family tree this week:
8/23/1796 - Hans Heinrich Bordvick and Anna Magdallena Tiller were married in Norway
8/23/1919 - Margaret Hansen was born in Cleveland, Illinois
8/26/1818 - Christine Jensdatter died in Vejle, Denmark
8/27/1849 - Gabriel Howells was born in Towyn, Monmothshire, Wales (and I didn't even realize that when I typed it up, despite typing it up only yesterday, when the date should have meant something. ETA: Ah, apparently the manuscript had the wrong birth date on it, as the record I have from his death states his birth as 8/27, while the manuscript says 8/1.)

And I think I've rambled on enough, so I'll leave my recipe plans for another post.

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.

Genealogy Day

Didn't follow any new blogs today. Nothing particularly caught my eye that I wasn't already following.

Wrote today in Oh, Spusch about some new discoveries I made last on the Hansen side. Might lead to some interesting finds down the road.
Tried to do some more research on my Jewish family. Think the best bet I have right now is trying to get Dora Hillinger nee Kresch's citizenship papers or her Social Security application. So I guess that's my next step. And possibly picking my dad's head and seeing if he has anything else hidden away that I don't know about.

Looked into Drop Box, but it doesn't look like you can make the folders private, so I don't think that will be a solution for me, even though it looked like it might be.

Put together a Calendar of all the full dates I have in my family tree--not much yet, as most of what I have are either uncertain dates or only years. So I thought I'd do a little week-to-week calendar each Friday.
This week in my family tree:
August 1 -
Johan Petter Bordevick in Sor-Trondelag, Norway in 1802
August 3 -
Jorgen Larsen born in Vejle, Denmark in 1837
Bjarne Bordewick born in the Lofoten Islands, Norway in 1888
August 5 -
Mette Matiasdatter born in Vejle, Denmark in 1804

Follow Friday and more

I- Follow Friday

For Follow Friday today I've only added one more blog, Olive Tree Genealogy. It's a lovely blog that I'm very much enjoying so far.

II- Genealogy

Oh, Spuch post for the week is the second part of my Visual Family Tree, this time focusing on the Hansen side of the family tree. Includes 4 generations of Hansens, reaching back before 1900.

Comparing the photos of my great-grandparents' siblings was rather interesting. One of my Danish friends mentioned that my great-grandfather's family looked rather well-off, given how they're dressed, though that could have more to do with the fact that Holger's family were near a city, while Oline's family was in the country. Something to look into, at least.

It was also mentioned that the naming in my great-grandfather's family was a bit odd. Holger had two brothers named Hans--Hans Jorgen and Hans Knudsen. Jorgen is less unusual, but Knudsen is distinctly a surname, in this case being used as a middle name. In looking into it further, it seems that one brother was named for one grandfather (Hans Knudsen, hence the Hansen name for the entire family), and one for the other (Jorgen Larsen). Definitely made me think I've a lot of interesting things when it comes to surnames used in odd ways in my family--I'll definitely have to work on a blog-post about that.

A few weeks back I made myself a research log using Excel and making tabs for each of my four major families to keep them separate for now, and so that I don't duplicate too much research. Then, in an effort to focus on the people I need the most information about, I went through my direct ancestors and made a new list of people who fit that bill. So now I have five tabs, and I'm considering making a sixth, just focusing on the dead-end brides in my tree.

No other discoveries today, big or small, though I did learn that ukendt kvinde means "unknown woman" in Danish... :)

III- Cooking

Cooked my chicken today. It's okay, but I don't think I'll be making it again. The sweet and earthy didn't quite mix right for my taste buds.

I'm thinking I'll make something with paprika, yogurt, and lemon juice next time. Now I just have to find a recipe that works.

Did make myself some garlic bread with the sourdough round. That was nice, though I don't think I cooked it quite long enough. The garlic was a bit sweet.