Genea-Resolutions

(Those last few Advent Calendar posts just didn't happen.  Sometimes living life in the present just has to take precedence over recording memories, and I was too busy enjoying Christmas with family and friends.  I'll save those last few topics for next December!)

Now 2010 is almost upon us, and I'm thinking about resolutions.  I have a long list for life in general, but there are a few things I want to accomplish in my genealogy projects, too.

1. Get the Moody County, SD, GenWeb site up and running again.  A couple of months ago the whole system was attacked by a hacker, and everything was lost.  I had only just begun to redo the site, but it was discouraging to be back to square one.  I need to regroup and start again.
2. Uncover Peter Scriver's roots.  Peter was my great-great-grandfather, and another researcher has some great clues as to his origins.  I need to verify these and discover more.  This leads to...
3. Write a rough draft of the Scriver Family History, starting with a series of posts on this blog.  It's time to share something, at least with the few people in the family who seem interested.  The Scriver family is my #1 focus this year.
4. Learn more about my husband's Jones roots.  I'm intrigued by the information I've learned from one of his distant cousins.  She gave me a fantastic head start.  Now I want to learn more.  The Jones family is my #2 focus this year.
   
5. Get involved in the local genealogical society.  I want to start attending the monthly meetings and go to some regional events this year.

Advent Calendar: Religious Services

Did your family attend religious services during the Christmas season? What were the customs and traditions involved?

My parents haven't attended church regularly since my brother was born twenty-five years ago. They have their own reasons that I won't go into, but my husband and I belong to an ELCA Lutheran church and try to attend regularly--though we don't make it as often as we really should. In the last couple of months we've made the decision to change from one church to another, and we've felt so much more comfortable and welcome. I'm looking forward to attending a Christmas service there.

We usually go to church on Christmas Eve, on the way to my husband's parents' home. I especially love the Christmas carols and the candlelight. This year, however, my husband has to work a half day and we're hosting both sides of our family on Christmas Eve. I don't know that we'll be able to get away for church that day without abandoning my mom to all the cooking... ;-) ... Tempting as that is, we'll probably just go to church on Christmas morning instead.

Advent Calendar: Christmas Shopping

How did your family handle Christmas Shopping? Did anyone finish early or did anyone start on Christmas Eve?

Last year was the first time I went out shopping on Black Friday, but I wasn't very dedicated about it. I slept until a reasonable hour and then went out to see what was left in the stores. This year I was all-out crazy, standing in line at a Toys R Us at midnight and arriving at Target at 5:00 AM. I scored a few deals for my efforts--enough to make it worthwhile, I guess.

I do remember several Dec. 23 (and even a Dec. 24th?) shopping trip to the mall with my dad, who did not think to finish such things early and needed a daughter along to help with his selection.

I always try to get the Christmas shopping done early, but it never seems to work out that way. I admire those people who do it little by little, throughout the year, but I've never understood how that works. I have enough trouble figuring out what people might like and not already have in November and December, without forecasting those needs and wants months before! So it turns into a mad rush in the last couple of weeks before Christmas.

I'm happy to report that I'm ALL DONE for this year, aside from having a couple of photos printed and put into frames. I'm so glad for that, because I don't want to go anywhere near that traffic this weekend!

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Christmas Stockings

Did you have one? Where did you hang it? What did you get in it? Do you have any Christmas stockings used by your ancestors?

My husband thought I was a little silly, but when we were searching for a new house earlier this year, one of the items on my wish list was a fireplace with a mantle. It's not that I particularly wanted to be able to sit by the fire. Rather, I wanted to hang our Christmas stockings from the mantle.


Our red stockings came from a Walgreens after-Christmas clearance sale a couple of years ago, and I love them. My mother-in-law added our names.

This year we have two extra stockings, for my friend Jody and her friend Jess. Jody is from Australia, and she and I have been pen pals since I was 15. Now we mainly keep up with each other's lives on Facebook. Jody and her friend are traveling across the US for 5 weeks right now, and I invited them to make their stop at my house over Christmas. I'm looking forward to celebrating the holidays with friends. The more the merrier!

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Grab Bag

Author’s choice. Please post from a topic that helps you remember Christmases past!

I was sitting here at my computer, trying to think of a Christmas-related topic that hasn't already been covered, and I looked down at my feet. Voila!


I know, that's just what you wanted to see today, right? But corny Christmas socks are part of the holiday to me, ever since my mom would buy them for me as a kid. This particular pair cost me a whopping $1 at KMart. I also have some fun glittery, striped socks and a pair of red ones with Santa's face prominently displayed. I wear them proudly, even to work, because who cares what Stacy London thinks? If your feet are festive, the rest of you will follow!

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Christmas at School

What did you or your ancestors do to celebrate Christmas at school? Were you ever in a Christmas Pageant?

Yes, I'm old enough to remember Christmas at school. We made little reindeer ornaments in kindergarten and did a Christmas play in 5th grade (I played a grandmother, but all I can remember is that I wore makeup to simulate wrinkles and spent most of my time on stage rolling out fake cookies). We sang religious songs at our school concerts--and they were Christmas concerts, not "holiday" concerts.

I'm a little nostalgic about that, though I appreciate the separation of church and state too much to argue for its return (after all, I wouldn't want another religion foisted upon my kid at school). For now, though, my daughter attends a preschool located in a church, so she comes home with lots of Christmas decorations. Today's project was a glittery construction paper Christmas tree, which is now adorning our fridge.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: The Holiday Happenings!

Often times December to mid-January birthdays and anniversaries get over shadowed by the Christmas/Hanukkah/New Year holidays. So we're going to shine a spotlight on those family members and ancestors this time around. Select one or more December to mid-January birthdays and/or anniversaries on your family tree. Write a short tribute to or memory of those birthday guys and gals and write a toast to the anniversary couples.

The timing of this topic couldn't be better: my grandpa was born 94 years ago today. He died in 1983, when I was only 5 years old, but I remember him clearly and still miss him. I catch glimpses of him now in my dad, especially when I see him interact with my daughter. My little girl has a wonderful grandpa because I did, too.

Grandpa's name was Howard. Most people called him Shorty, though he was well over 6 feet tall. I've heard that he got the nickname in high school, before a late growth spurt. To me, he was Grandpa Shorty. He was soft spoken and gentle. He loved his kids and his grandchildren. He worked hard to take care of his family. He died too soon, and I wish I could have known him longer.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Fruitcake - Friend or Foe?

Did you like fruitcake? Did your family receive fruitcakes? Have you ever re-gifted fruitcake? Have you ever devised creative uses for fruitcake?

Foe! But is the fruitcake tradition for real? I've rarely seen one around here. I've never received one. The only time I've had was in Germany, where they make Stollen. I can't say I like Stollen, either.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Holiday Trips

Did you or your ancestors travel anywhere for Christmas? How did you travel and who traveled with you? Do you remember any special trips?

When I was in college, my mom decided that she wouldn't have many more chances for a family vacation before my brother and I were off on our own. She saved all year to take us to Disney World at Christmas. We drove several hours to my aunt's home in Minnesota on Christmas Eve, spent the night with them, and flew out of bitterly cold Minneapolis on Christmas Day. It was definitely a shock to the system to arrive in Florida, where people were complaining that it was "so cold," ha.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

My Tree and Me

I love, love, love the custom genealogy charts at My Tree and Me. I wish Santa Claus would bring me this one.

*Is this where I'm supposed to write a long and boring disclaimer letting you know that this site didn't give me any free money or any free stuff, and I don't own any part of it or work for them, and nobody in my family owns any part of it or works for them, and they did not coerce me to write about them, and I did not offer to write about them in exchange for cookies or liquor or dirty, dirty deeds, and on and on and on... ? ::sigh:: Nah. Hey you, Death of Common Sense, you're making blogs really boring.

Advent Calendar: Charitable/Volunteer Work

Did your family ever volunteer with a charity such as a soup kitchen, homeless or battered women’s shelter during the holidays? Or perhaps were your ancestors involved with church groups that assisted others during the holiday?

We give to charities throughout the year, but last year, my husband's family adopted another family for Christmas, through a local charity clearinghouse. It was a single mom and her three children, and some of the things they requested for Christmas were heartbreaking... laundry soap, blankets (because they only had 1 each), shampoo... We divided up the list and hit the Black Friday sales, accumulating a huge pile of gifts for this family, and it felt good. It was the most fun I ever had Christmas shopping, because I knew that someone was really going to appreciate the gift. We weren't able to do it this year, but I hope we will again soon--especially as the children become old enough to understand.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Other Traditions

Did your family or friends also celebrate other traditions during the holidays such as Hanukkah or Kwanzaa? Did your immigrant ancestors have holiday traditions from their native country which they retained or perhaps abandoned?

My family hasn't celebrated anything but Christmas this time of year, and I don't recall any stories about the holiday traditions of our ancestors. Nobody really talks about the ancestors, holidays or no.

But today's writing prompt reminded me of my Norwegian cousin Johnny's comment earlier this week. (Johnny is my 5th cousin once removed--and you geneablog readers are the only people who will read that sentence and think "Hmmm, yes, of course, your 5th cousin once removed, naturally!") I had posted pictures on Facebook of my husband and daughter decorating the Christmas tree, but Johnny teased me, saying that the tree shouldn't be decorated until "lillejulaften" (Little Christmas Eve, the 23rd of December). They leave the tree up until January 13, he says, while I almost always pack up our Christmas decorations on New Year's Eve. I wonder if my ancestors did the same.

As much as I love Norway, I'm all-American in this case. I like to have time to enjoy the Christmas tree before Christmas, because it puts me in the spirit!

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Christmas Gifts

What were your favorite gifts, both to receive and to give? Are there specific gift-giving traditions among your family or ancestors?

I love giving Christmas gifts when I know just what to get. Shopping for my daughter's gifts is fun, because I usually know just what she'd love. For our nieces and nephew, it's more difficult, because I don't know what they already have. For the adults, it's a chore.

And I love my family, but I hate the credit card statement in January. Every year we vow to spend less, but it never really works out... you can only cut back so much, when you're expected to buy gifts for so many people. I was thrilled when several of the adults in my husband's family agreed to opt out, but that still leaves me with a shopping list for 19 people, plus playing Santa. And really, what's the point? Does anyone remember many of the gifts they received last year or the year before?

My family doesn't have any particular gift-giving traditions, but in my husband's family, there are always envelopes with cash in the tree. I don't know where the tradition started, but it's continued because it was something that his paternal grandparents always did.

For my daughter, I make a point to always include one particular things among her Christmas gifts: new pajamas. The Tinker Bell PJ's she requested recently are waiting to be washed, wrapped, and worn to bed on Christmas Eve.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Grab Bag

Author’s choice. Please post from a topic that helps you remember Christmases past!

I'm cheating a bit here and recycling the Santa Claus theme, because my mom came across a photo of my very first visit to Santa and scanned it today. This is the lucky Santa on whom I peed thirty-two years ago.

He's an awfully grumpy looking Santa. I think he deserved it.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Christmas Cookies

Did your family or ancestors make Christmas Cookies? How did you help? Did you have a favorite cookie?

As I wrote in the post about holiday foods, the holidays always bring to mind Grandma's dog turd cookies. Classy, eh?

But my grandma has always made a lot of cookies, like any good Norwegian grandma. The Norwegian tradition is to make seven different kinds of cookies at Christmas, but the kinds made vary from one household to another. My grandma's repertoire always includes sandkaker (sand cookies), too, but she does icebox cookies, rather than making them in the traditional molds. Those were always my favorite, along with the good ol' chocolate chip cookies. Krumkake (literally, "bent cookie") is another favorite.

I'm not much of a cookie baker. I used to like to make them now and then when I was younger and lived with my parents, but I seem to have lost my touch. Now that my daughter is old enough to want to "help," I'll probably try my hand at some cookies for Santa this year.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Holiday Parties

Did your family throw a holiday party each year? Do you remember attending any holiday parties?

Well, I'm not sure what to do with this Advent Calendar prompt, because the short answer is no. And the long answer is pretty much... no. Ha. I haven't known my parents or grandparents to ever host a holiday party. For the most part, the Christmas season has always been reserved for family time. Martha Stewart makes it look fun, but there are just too many things going on to throw parties into the mix, too.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Santa Claus

Did you ever send a letter to Santa? Did you ever visit Santa and “make a list?” Do you still believe in Santa Claus?

My mom still likes to remind me that the first time I sat on Santa's lap, I peed on him. In my defense, I was 3 months old. ;-) I don't have any memories of visiting Santa Claus when I was a child, but I have seen a few photos.

This one just makes me laugh. Who does that Santa think he's fooling, anyway, with those dark eyebrows? I was onto him!

1978 or 1979?

I'm guessing this next one was 1979, because it appears to have been taken in the living room of the rental house where we lived when I was very small. I don't remember it, except from photos. Looks like I still wasn't ready to sit on Santa's lap.


When I was 3, my mom even paid a coworker to come over on Christmas Eve, dressed as Santa. I guess I didn't notice the dark eyebrows that year, because I bought it hook, line, and sinker.

1980

But I really hope I wasn't dumb enough to buy this one! (That's me in the corner, back in my naturally blond days.)


I do remember writing letters to Santa when I was a kid. One year it even appeared in the newspaper, because the local paper would collect letters addressed to Santa from specially assigned mailboxes.

Do I still believe in Santa Claus? Well, the official answer is yes, of course. I believe for my 2-year-old daughter Lily, who went to visit Santa yesterday.

Her first visit to Santa was in 2007, at a Breakfast with Santa event at the local zoo.


She was even less happy about this in 2008.


Yesterday she still wasn't so sure about this old guy, but she bravely ran up to him and sat on his lap. She didn't look him in the eye, but when he asked what she wanted for Christmas, my Little-Mermaid-obsessed girl said "Ariel." (Hmmm. I guess Santa needs to do some more shopping.)


I love the tradition and mystery of Santa Claus.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Genetic Genealogy on CNN

CNN recently did an story on just how mainstream genetic genealogy is becoming. Watch "One Man's Search for Answers" at CNN.com.

Advent Calendar: Outdoor Decorations

Did people in your neighborhood decorate with lights? Did some people really go “all out” when decorating? Any stories involving your ancestors and decorations?

My family never went "all out" with outdoor decorations; I can't remember ever having lights on the outside of our house. (Occasionally we strung them around the inside of the window, but that was it.) This was our first year for them, and my daughter and I had to sweet talk my husband a bit to get him out there to hang them one warm Sunday afternoon.


He looks rather perplexed here, doesn't he? I don't think he was enjoying the holiday festivity right at that moment.

Later our neighborhood went all Clark Griswold on us and completely outdid our little display of lights on the porch, but I don't think I'll be able to convince my husband to climb up on the roof. We don't have many lights yet, anyway. I think I'll be out buying some on clearance after Christmas, so we can do it bigger and better next year.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Christmas Cards

Did your family send cards? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards? Do you have any cards from your ancestors?

I LOVE photo cards at Christmas, especially now that I have a child to feature on them. ;-) I love finding just the right picture and just the right card, and I enjoy the ritual of writing out addresses and sticking on the return address labels.

The oldest Christmas card I have in my family collection is from ca. 1960 and features a picture of my mom and aunt with their Barbie dolls.
I keep all the Christmas cards I receive in a gold, star-shaped basket that I bought for this purpose. After Christmas, I toss most of the generic cards (or cut them up for my scrapbook), but I always keep the photo cards. They're saved in special pocket pages of my scrapbooks, and I like to look back at them.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Christmas Tree Ornaments

Did your family have heirloom or cherished ornaments? Did you ever string popcorn and cranberries? Did your family or ancestors make Christmas ornaments?

The ornaments from my childhood are a hodgepodge collection, including many that I made in elementary school. My favorite is perhaps the tiny scene I made in kindergarten--half a walnut shell with cotton ball snow and a very, very small plastic reindeer, with red yarn glued to the back. I don't know how it has survived this many Christmases. However, I don't remember ever stringing popcorn or cranberries or making ornaments outside of school. Maybe we're just not crafty that way.

During our first Christmas season together, my husband (then fiance) and I decided to start a tradition of buying one new ornament each year. The first one we bought, in 2004, was a Hallmark ornament with the words "Our First Christmas Together." In 2005, we didn't buy an ornament, but we received a small cross-stitch from a family friend. It was a wedding gift and includes our name and wedding date. It's really too big for the tree, but I hang it nearby. In 2006, we found an ornament to commemorate our first pregnancy; on it, a chicken sits on an egg, knitting, while the rooster sits nearby reading a book on parenting. Last year we bought a Snow White ornament at Disney World, to remember our daughter's first trip and the Snow White dress she wanted to wear every day for months.

But since our daughter was born in 2007, that year is represented by a "baby's first Christmas" ornament, and I think it will become more dear to me with each passing year.


I'm sure we'll be looking for a "new house" ornament this year, since we moved this summer to the house where we hope to stay until our children are grown. I'm looking forward to many family Christmas celebrations here, with many more ornaments on the tree.

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: Holiday Foods

Did your family or ancestors serve traditional dishes for the holidays? Was there one dish that was unusual?

For me, it's not Christmas without lefse! My Norwegian grandma makes it every year. I've made it once with her and once with my mother-in-law, but one of these years I'm going to get a lefse grill of my own and practice.


I also think of Grandma's variety of Christmas cookies. One of her specialties is a chocolate cookie that I've always known as "dog turds." That's what Grandma calls them, because that's what they look like!

Christmas dinner is pretty traditional Midwestern American fare, usually turkey or ham with potatoes, corn, sweet potatoes, and other sides. My grandma never mashed her potatoes when I was a kid, though--she riced them! Mmmm, I love riced potatoes.

We'll be hosting Christmas Eve for both sides of our family this year, which is a little intimidating. I'm just not a very practiced cook, and unlike most of our family, I'm a vegetarian. My mom has been delegated the task of making the turkey, my mother-in-law is bringing mashed potatoes, my husband's aunt is in charge of pies, my friend is making a Christmas pudding, and my sister-in-law is bringing the cookies. So hmmm, that means that with a quick stop at the deli, I should be done, right? (Ha ha.)

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

Advent Calendar: The Christmas Tree

Did you have a real tree or was it artificial? How big was the tree? Who decorated the tree? What types of Christmas trees did your ancestors have?

The earliest pictures of Christmas trees I have in my stash of family photos come from the 1950's. The common element seems to be a liberal use of tinsel. (I love tinsel, but we could never have it in my childhood home, because our cat, Joey, couldn't resist eating it. This is how he earned the nickname Tinsel Butt, and let's just say, it was quite literal. Ewww.)

1952

my mom's first Christmas

1958

my dad (age 11), his brother Criss, cousin Neil

1962

My eldest cousin was a Christmas baby, so that's actually a birthday cake in the photo.

While all of those trees look real, I grew up with fake trees. I remember having a heavily flocked tree in the 1980's, and for many years we had just a small tabletop tree on a plant stand, like this one from my parents' home in 2002:


I love the tradition of hanging Danish flags around the tree, in honor of our Danish heritage. (It's not something that was passed down in our family, but rather a tradition picked up from the Danish exchange student who lived with my family when I was in high school.)

The tree was always set up during the weekend after Thanksgiving, and my mom and I decorated it together.

But my mom's Christmas trees have become less festive since my parents became empty nesters. Case in point, Christmas 2006:


Really, Mom, tsk tsk. ;-)

My husband's parents have a fake tree, too. It lives most of the year, completely set up, in their basement storage, and comes out to the family room in December.


But his grandparents have a fake tree with a spinning base, so they can catch a glimpse of the ornaments on the back side, too. It barely fits in its spot behind the dining table and always seems to be getting caught on something.


For our first few years together, my husband and I had a tall fake tree that I had inherited from my parents. As a gift for our first Christmas together, my parents gave us the star for the top of the tree.


This was our daughter's first Christmas tree in 2007. Here she is "helping" Papa put the star on the tree.

But still, I'd never had a real tree. Last year I used this sob story ;-) to convince my husband that we ought to have a real tree, so we ventured out to the Christmas tree farm. It was a lot of fun and a tradition that I hope to carry on.




I loved the look and smell of a real tree, and it quickly turned me into a Christmas tree snob. =) No more fake trees for me!

Find more Advent Calendar posts at Geneabloggers!

I'm still here!

My posting has slowed down lately, but I'm still here. I've taken a little break from my genealogy projects so that I could spend some time finishing up some other things around the house, but I'm gearing up now for the Advent Calendar of Memories!

I also owe a big thank you to the three kind souls who gave me Kreativ Blogger awards recently! Thanks, ladies! It's much appreciated, and I'll be passing it along soon.

Visit with Grandma

I saw my grandma tonight. I am fortunate, both in general and as an amateur genealogist, to have two of my four biological grandparents still living; by the time most people become interested in their family history, their grandparents are long gone.

But my grandmother is, at 89, not altogether here, either. She lives in the same town as I do now, but I haven't seen her for several months--not because I wouldn't like to, but because I don't think she'd know me if I stopped by her place alone. She doesn't always know my dad these days. Usually she thinks he's her brother.

My parents had stopped by this evening. They were dropping off their dog, because he'll be staying with us while they're out of town for Thanksgiving. Dad said that he was going to see Grandma, so I decided to tag along. She seemed to know Dad today, at least intermittently, and she recognized that I am family.

Though she's well cared for in an assisted living facility now, Grandma's conversation always returns to how she hates the place (and then back again to how much she loves it) and how unhappy she is. To distract her from the negative thinking, my dad started asking her about her uncles and aunts. We found then that she actually enjoyed talking about people she hadn't thought of in years. She even said it was "fun."

Bits & pieces I want to remember:

Dad asked her the names of all her uncles, and she remembered her father's brothers, Carl and Otto (and, with some prompting, older brother Hans), and her mother's brothers, Harry, Chris, and Charley. He asked her who her favorite uncle was, and she quickly said it was Carl, because he loved children. Otto, she said, was very intelligent and liked kids well enough, but he probably didn't know all the children's names. Carl loved to play with all the kids when they would visit, especially Grandma and her sister Dolly.

Of her aunts, she said that the ones who never married were the most fun, because the others "didn't get so attached." Her father's sisters Maggie and Daisy and her mother's sister Annie were all sure to spoil the children. They saw the aunts when they would make trips to Turner County once each summer, but Maggie and Daisy would sometimes visit their farm, too. Aunt Mary, who lived nearer to her, was "no fun," and Emma, though "nice," got after the kids a lot to behave.

She remembered her maternal grandfather, Thomas Thomsen, as very quiet and nice, and she thought he was probably quite good looking when he was young. He was, as she said, "a dark man" (and photographs would suggest that he was dark-skinned, for a Dane). He liked to drink, though it was something of a ritual to him and he didn't overdo it. He made his own liquor in the basement, and everyone in the family would sample it. He would refer to it as "a bit of schnapps."

Clearly she was very fond of her mother, Martha. She spoke of how her mother cooked so much--big meals of meat and potatoes, all her own bread, and caramel rolls. Then it would be time to go out to the barn (which was "half a block long") and milk the cows. Grandma and her siblings would argue about who would milk which cows, because they knew that some gave much more milk than others and were therefore much more work, and by the time they'd finished arguing about it, her mother would have milked them all. They'd skim off the cream to sell (sometimes they had to bring it to town, but sometimes it was picked up by the dairy man) and feed the milk to the pigs. They had a lot of grocery money, she said, and never wanted for food.

Grandma loved cats when she was a girl. They always had a lot of cats on the farm. They had a dog named Buddy who herded the cattle.

Her stories are a little hard to follow, because she forgets who she's talking about and drifts into stories of another family member, but when she tells them, I can see the memories are as clear to her as though they were yesterday.

At one point, I filled in name that she couldn't recall, and Dad reminded Grandma that I "know all about the ancestors." Grandma looked right at me and asked "How do you know all that crap?" (Ha!)

I should go to see Grandma more often... Next time, I want to bring some old photos to see if they unlock more stories.

Grandma & Dad

Tombstone Tuesday: Gurine Nordtvedt Nordseth

grave of
Gurine Randine (Nordtvedt) Nordseth (1867 - 1945)
Canton Lutheran Cemetery
rural Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota
photo: May 2007

Gurine was my great-great-grandmother and the wife of Jens Peter Nordseth. She was also the great-granddaughter of my "black sheep" ancestor, Søren Johnsen Nordtvedt, though the family seems to have been well established as successful carpenters and ship builders by the time she was born in 1867.

Gurine was born in Trondheim, Norway, as the third child of Søren Gerhard and Elen Marie (Solberg) Nordtvedt. When my mother and I traveled to Norway in 2003, I even got to see the house where Gurine was probably born. Her childhood has always seemed sad to me--her mother died when she was around 5 months old, and all family stories indicate that her stepmother was not very fond of her stepchildren. When the family immigrated to the US, 13-year-old Gurine began working as a servant on a farm. She eventually became the teenage bride of a handsome older man and raised a family of 8 children.

She is one of the long-gone ancestors I can most easily imagine as a "real" person, perhaps because my grandfather remembers her. He lived with her for a while, so he could go to high school in town. Years ago I also met a distant cousin, who told me more of the Nordtvedts' story, along with bits and pieces, like the fact that Gurine had red hair.

I wish she had kept a diary. I would have liked to know Gurine.

Tombstone Tuesday: Jens Peter Nordseth

grave of
Jens Peter Nordseth (1849 - 1922)
Canton Lutheran Cemetery
rural Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota
photo: May 2007

Jens was my great-great-grandfather. He was born in Klæbu parish, near Trondheim, Sør-Trondelag, Norway, and emigrated to Canton, Lincoln County, South Dakota. There he married a girl from Trondheim and raised a family of eight children. One was Eline Marie, featured in a previous Tombstone Tuesday.

Jens was one of my first genealogical focuses and will probably always be near and dear to me.

Witches in the Tree?

Was your ancestor a witch?

Rebecca Nurse is possibly a director ancestor of my husband. His 5x great-grandmother Mary "Polly" Spencer, wife if Jesse Spencer of Connectictut (born about 1786) is thought by some to be the daughter of Lemuel Southwick. If she is, that makes Rebecca my husband's 10x great-grandmother. I hope I'll find out someday if it's true.

Coincidentally, I'm fairly certain that she is the 10x great-grandmother of my first cousins, on their father's side of the family.

Like Sherry, I've always found Rebecca's story quite tragic.

TV for Genealogists: The Locator

Every once in a while I come across a TV show or book that speaks to the genealogist in me, and then I wonder "Why haven't I heard of this before?" Usually it's not the most highly rated program or a bestselling book, so I thought I'd pass along my recommendations now and then. As a true couch potato, I'll start with one of my new favorite television shows.

I have a new TV obsession: "The Locator." It's on WE on Saturday evenings, but a recent Locator marathon left my DVR full of re-runs. I didn't know about it until its star, Troy Dunn, was featured on a recent episode of Oprah, and now I'm hooked.

The premise is pretty simple, and it's a perfect formula to hook an amateur genealogist. Troy is a private investigator who helps people find other people... sometimes old friends, sometimes an organ donor, but usually a family member. Often it's a father or sibling. One week each month, he and his team take on what they call an "Angel Case," like pro bono work. They're the cases that move them the most.

It's not just the reunions that hook me, but the research. When Troy and his team discuss the clues they have, I find myself thinking about how *I* would go about finding the person. I think that we genealogists have a lot of crossover skills here.

What's your favorite TV for Genealogists?

Tombstone Tuesday: Kvam Kirke

old tombstones, resting against the graveyard's stone fence
Kvam Kirke
Kvam, Nord-Fron, Norway
photo: 2003

Tombstone Tuesday: Artur Salveljew

grave of
Artur Salveljew
Friedhof am Poseckschen Garten (Historischer Friedhof)
Weimar, Germany
photo: May, 2002

It's an odd feeling, coming upon a monument to a soldier who fought against one's country and might well have fought against one's ancestors. It's a good reminder, though, that the soldiers on the other side are people, too... sons, fathers, brothers (and daughters, mothers, wives). I wonder what Artur's story is.

I liked this headstone, too, for its photograph.

Surname Saturday: Scriver

Surname Saturday seems to have taken off as a popular meme. Apparently to really participate, one is supposed to tweet. Frankly, I loathe Twitter. I've never understood the value of it. I guess I'm only partially participating in the meme then, but that's OK. I'm going to throw some surnames out there, anyway.

Today's surname is my maiden name, SCRIVER, which I introduced in a previous post about my immigrant great-great-grandfather, Peter Scriver. As I wrote then, I don't know that the name goes back any farther than Peter. In 1871, he registered his intention to emigrate and signed his name Peter Christensen Skriver, and that's the first instance I've seen of its use. Where did it come from?

Skriver means clerk or scribe, which would suggest that Peter (or an earlier ancestor) worked in this occupation. However, he was known to be a farmer for most of his life, except for the five years in Michigan, when he worked in the copper mines.

He didn't even use this name consistently in his younger days. For many years in the US, he was known as Peter Christensen. Family lore says that he quit using this name at some point after settling in Lynn Township, Moody County, Dakota Territory, because there were so many other people in the area named Christensen or Christiansen (which is actually a completely different name, not a spelling variation). Census records from the area suggest this might be true, as there were many people with similar names and even another Peter Christensen in the county.

The other Scrivers I've come across online are all of English ancestry. We're often confused with families named Shriver or Schreiber, and we all learn to answer to that. In my hometown, there were also people named Scriven, so I got that one, too.

According to Dynastree's surname maps, there are approximately 536 people in the US and 603 in Canada with the surname Scriver.

Elsie Hecht & George Conybear

Still in search of the rightful owners of the Hecht family Bible, I found a marriage license for Elsie H. Hecht and George Conybear at FamilySearch. You may remember from my previous post that Elsie was a granddaughter of the Bible's original owner. Elsie's middle initial here is a little more assurance that I'm on the trail of the correct Elsie Hecht, as she's called Elsie Hazel Hecht in the Bible.


They were married on 18 February 1919, in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. It's a pretty certificate, isn't it?

Wordless Wednesday: Grandpa in Japan

my grandpa, on the right
serving in Japan

Last week, he traveled to Washington, DC,
with Honor Flight South Dakota.

Tombstone Tuesday: Familie Hoffmann

(click on the image to enlarge)

Hoffmann Family
Friedhof am Poseckschen Garten (Historischer Friedhof)
Weimar, Germany
photo: May, 2002

There are a number of unusual and beautiful headstones in Weimar's Historic Cemetery, and this is one of my favorites. I love how the stone incorporates each person's signature, a small reminder that this is a monument to people, not fictional characters.

Wordless Wednesday: Carrie Anderson

Carrie Anderson (1839 - 1916)
my great-great-great-grandmother

This photo always reminds me of Whistler's Mother.

Tombstone Tuesday: Eline Marie Nordseth

grave of
Eline Marie Nordseth (1892 - 1897)
Canton Lutheran Cemetery
rural Lincoln County, South Dakota

Marie was the 4th of 8 children born to my great-great-grandparents, Jens and Gurine Nordseth of Canton, South Dakota. She was only 4 years old when she passed away.

Michelle Obama's Ancestors

I missed it on The Today Show, but I came across this clip about a study on Michelle Obama's ancestry via MSN.com.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It really is amazing.

There hasn't been any research (or any other hobby, for that matter) going on this week, as my daughter and I have both been struck by a nasty virus. I've already had enough of this part of winter!

Wordless Wednesday: Dad's Grandpa & Grandma Hansen

my great-grandparents,
Nels & Martha (Thomsen) Hansen,
with their grandchildren, ca. 1955
My dad is on the far right, in a striped shirt,
and looks just like childhood pictures of my brother. ;-)

Tombstone Tuesday: Historischer Friedhof Weimar

my favorite cemetery picture
Friedhof am Poseckschen Garten (Historischer Friedhof)
Weimar, Germany
photo: May, 2002

I wonder whom she was visiting.

Found Heirloom: Hecht Family Bible

This is a LOOOOOONG post, I know, but it has helped me to summarize my findings as I gather them. For those who use Ancestry.com, you can also view the family here.

Sometime in the late 1980's or early 1990's, my mother and I went to a garage sale on West 6th Street in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I remember the day perhaps only because I later lived just around the corner from that house. It sits at an odd angle, unlike any of the other houses on the block, and I can still picture the sale there.

That's where my mother found this old German Bible. As I remember, the woman of the house had been recently divorced, and the Bible had been passed down in her ex-husband's family. My mother paid $10 and took it home, though we had no connection to it, because we couldn't stand the thought of it being thrown out with the trash. It's not in good shape now, but it once meant something to someone.

We hoped to find someone in the family who would want it. That person must be out there, somewhere. I'm getting closer to finding him or her, because thanks to the Internet, I know more about the family named inside.


Inside the front cover, in aged ink, the lady of the family is named:

Louise Schmitt
[illegible]
Confirmations Tag -
den 5ten May 1867.
L. Austermann
Pastor

L. Austermann, it turns out, was the pastor of Zion United Church of Christ in Peru, Illinois.

On March 15, 1866, Rev. L. Austmann became Pastor. It was while he was the Pastor that the Church was built. At a special Congregational Meeting on June 4, 1871, they decided to build a tower onto the church. In the summer of 1872 two church bells were installed into the tower, and for the first time in the history of Peru the people were called to worship by means of the clear ringing bells that were imported from Germany. Rev. Austermann served the congregation until 1874.
source: http://www.zionperu.org/history.htm

I've figured out that Louise was the daughter of Philip and Margaret Schmitt, of Peru, La Salle County, Illinois. They were both born in Hessen (Germany) and came to the US around 1855 or 1856. After a short stay in Pennsylvania, they moved on to Illinois. They had a large family:

Henry Schmitt, b. abt 1853 in Hessen (Germany)
William Schmitt, b. abt 1855 in Hessen (Germany)
Louis Schmitt, b. abt 1856 in Pennsylvania
Louisa Schmitt, b. abt 1858 in Illinois
Frank Schmitt, b. abt 1861 in Illinois
John Schmitt, b. abt 1864 in Illinois
Mary Schmitt, b. abt 1867 in Illinois
Ella Schmitt, b. abt 1869 in Illinois

Louisa married a man named Jacob Hecht. My first search was at Ancestry.com, where I put in the name "Jacob Hecht" and his birth year as stated in the Bible. I was immediately led to the family in Peoria, Illinois, from 1870 (when Jacob was single and working as a butcher) through 1920. From 1880 to 1920 they are shown at the same address at 2109 Adams Street.

1870

1880

(The Hechts' son Gerson seems to have been nicknamed "Cassie," which I've never heard given to a male. Given the name, though, it's not surprising that the cenus taker enumerated "Hecht, Casse" as a girl.) The 1890 Peoria directory offers some explanation: a son named Casper is listed as living at the same address as Jacob, working as a clerk for Jacob Hecht. Perhaps his full name was Gerson Casper Hecht?

1900

1910

1920

Another Google search led me to a biographical paragraph about Jacob in the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, 1902:

HECHT, JACOB; Merchant; Peoria; born in Giershofen, Prussia, February 20, 1848: son of Gerson and Dorothea (Baer) Hecht, the former of Giershofen and the latter of Puderbach, Prussia. Mr. Jacob Hecht learned his trade while working with his father who was a butcher and dealer in cattle. In 1867 he came to Illinois, stopping for a time at Springfield and La Salle, and in the fall of 1868 located in Peoria. For two years he worked for wages, and in 1871 engaged in business for himself. In 1885 he and his brother Solomon engaged in the clothing business, under the firm name of Hecht Brothers, which has proved very successful. Mr. Hecht owns the buildings at Nos. 2109 and 2111 South Adams Street, where he conducts his business: he also owns other valuable property in Peoria. In politics Mr. Hecht is a Republican. In 1891-2 he was fruit inspector, and in 1895 he was elected Alderman of the Seventh Ward and re-elected in 1898; he was a prominent member of the Seventh Ward Republican Club, of which he was President in 1899. He is a Mason; a member of the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America; he is a member of the Swedzeit Turnverein, of which he has been the presiding officer. Mr. Hecht was married to Louisa Schmidt in Peoria, August 22, 1871. They have four children living; Gerson, Jacob, Bertha and Louisa. In 1883 Mr. Hecht visited his parents and traveled through various parts of Germany, France and England. Mr. Hecht is one of the substantial and influential men of the Seventh Ward.

source: http://www.peoriacountyillinois.info/bios/1902bios_h.html#hechtjacob

I was intrigued. Giershofen and Puderbach are not terribly far (by American standards, anyway) from the places where I once lived in Germany. It's like Jacob and Louise's Bible was meant to find me.

The 1883-1884 city directory, posted online here, confirms that Jacob Hecht was a butcher, working at 2109 S. Adams Street.


On 13 Oct 1915, the Edwardsville (IL) Intelligencer carried the story of Jacob's attempt to gain citizenship. He was denied by the judge because he had previously voted--illegally, as he was an alien.


Jacob must have sold his store in 1919, because the Chicago Heights Star of 18 Sep 1919 carried an advertisement from a local department store, Lassers & Company, announcing that it had bought out the inventory of Jacob Hecht, Peoria, Ill.


You know, Jacob was probably not my kind of guy... He was, after all, a butcher, and I'm a vegetarian. I won't even go into the fact that he was a Republican, and I am... not. (OK, OK, it wasn't quite the same in those days, ha.) Nonetheless, I'm starting to feel like I know him. I even found his picture, originally printed in the Standard Atlas of Peoria City & County, Illinois and posted online here. I have to admit, I felt a little bad for him. The guy was a mover and a shaker in Peoria, and then within a few years, he was publicly embarrassed by this citizenship fiasco and, for some reason, had to sell off his store inventory at a cut rate.


But he still had friends. When Col. John Warner, who had been elected mayor of Peoria eight times, died in 1920, Jacob was named an honorary pallbearer.

Back to the Bible... Here's the page of family records--some in ink, some in pencil.


From the Bible and these three census records, I know that the Jacob and Louise had the following children:

Gerson "Cassie" Hecht, b. 2 May 1872 - a butcher in 1900
Jacob "Jackie" Hecht, b. 8 Sept. 1873 - a city inspector in 1900
Harry Edward Hecht, b. 2 Oct 1879, d. 19 Feb 1881
Emma Bertha Hecht, b. 11 Aug 1881
Louisa Hecht, b. 26 Oct 1886

and then there's...
Elsie Hazel Hecht, b. 6 Dec 1893

But what's the deal with this Elsie?

Elsie, I think, may have been Jacob and Louisa's granddaughter, the daughter of Jacob Hecht, Jr. Unfortunately, Jacob Jr. is confusing in his own right. He appears in the 1900 census, living with his parents.. but there's also another Jacob Hecht in Peoria, married to Rose, with daughter Elsie, who appears to be a match. Was he enumerated in two places? Why?

I would discount the second Jacob Hecht if not for the fact that there's no other explanation for the existence of Elsie. If she is the same one I find in the census, she moved with her parents to Chicago (where my supposed Jacob Jr. is a butcher--another hint that he may be a match), married George Conybear, and had a daughter named Dorothy Conybear around 1923.

I haven't yet found any information on the Hecht/Conybear line, except that according to the Database of Illinois Death Certificates, 1916 - 1950, a Jacob Hecht died on 19 May 1938 and a George Conybear died on 4 May 1948, both in Chicago. My next step may be ordering their death certificate and searching for obituaries, in the hopes that it names family members.

Meanwhile Jacob and Louise's daughter Emma Bertha--who went by her middle name, it seems--married a widower named Edmund Schnur around 1903. Edmund was a cigar maker in Peoria, according to the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses. His first wife, Anna, had a daughter named Martha (later Mrs. William Luna of Des Moines, Iowa), but Anna died around 1901.

Bertha and Edmund had at least two children, Edna (born about 1904) and Bernard (born about 1907). They are both named in the Bible.

Schnur 1910

Schnur 1920

The same death records index linked above lists a Bertha Schnur who died on 3 May 1941, in Chicago, as well as an Emma Schnur who died on 11 March 1930, in Berwyn, Cook County, Illinois. The Social Security Death Index lists someone named B. E. Schnur (maybe Bernard?), born in December 1906, who died in 2000, in Johnson County, Illinois.

With all this, I'm still stuck. I wasn't able to trace the Schmitts or Hechts any further into the future (at least from the comfort of my computer chair). I decided to turn to Jacob's brother, Solomon, mentioned in the short biography.

I found him in Peoria in 1900, single and rooming with the Fredrick Ernst family at 101 Louisa Street, not far from his brother Jacob's home:

Solomon worked as a merchants in the dry goods business. He said he had come to the US in 1884, which was around the time that he and brother Jacob started their clothing business.

In the 1890 Peoria directory, online at Ancestry.com, Solomon is found with two attached addresses, 2109 and 2027 S. Adams.

Solomon Hecht 1900

But seeing that Solomon was still unmarried at the age of 38 made me think that I was unlikely to find many descendants, anyway. However, if I could find his obituary, it might name nieces and nephews.

So for the moment I'm at a dead end. I think to get any further, I'm going to have to pull out my wallet and start ordering some death certificates and obituaries. My first priority would be those of Louise Schmitt Hecht herself, and the Illinois Statewide Death Index includes two Louise Hechts who died in the 1930's, one in Chicago.

I'm OK with putting more effort into the search, as I'm fond of this Bible and would like to send it "home." As with most family history projects, it's just going to take some time. I just hope that, somewhere out there, there's somebody who wants to take care of Louise's Bible at least as well as I would.