Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: September 19, 2009

1) How old is your father now, or how old would he be if he had lived? Divide this number by 4 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your "roulette number."

2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ahnentafel. Who is that person?

3) Tell us three facts about that person with the "roulette number."

4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook note or comment, or as a comment on this blog post.

5) If you do not have a person's name for your "roulette number" then spin the wheel again - pick your mother, or yourself, a favorite aunt or cousin, or even your children!

1) My dad is 62. OK, this part is easy enough... Divided by 4, that's 15.5. Round up to 16.

2) That's my great-great-grandfather, Peter Christensen Scriver.

3) Here goes...

#1. According to a relative of Peter's daughter-in-law, who has done more research on him than I have yet, Peter was born in Torslev sogn (parish), Dronninglund, Hjørring amt, Denmark, on 26 December 1844. He was the son of cooper (barrel maker) Christen Pallesen and his wife, Anne Marie Christensdatter, and he had two sisters and one brother.  [This was found to be the wrong Peter, but we've caught the right one since then!]

#2. He came to the US in 1871, with his fiancee, Anne Johansen Visby. They were married on 4 September 1871, in Red Jacket (now Calumet), Houghton County, Michigan. They stayed in the area for about five years. Three of Anne's brothers also came from Denmark to Houghton County, and the men worked in the copper mines in that area. During this time, Peter and Anne's first two children, James and John (my great-grandfather), were born. Later they all homesteaded in Lynn Township, Moody County, South Dakota.

#3. Peter used the name Christensen for some time and is enumerated in the 1880 census as Peter "Christianson." Family lore says that he eventually began to go by "Scriver" because there were already so many families in the area called Christensen, and he didn't want to be confused with them. I'm quite sure that Peter didn't pick "Scriver" out of thin air, as he registered as Peter Christensen Skriver when he emigrated from Denmark, but I don't know at one point he began to use the name, or why. "Skriver" is a Danish word that means "notary" or "secretary," and it's also a family name. There's no indication that Peter's father used the name. Did it come from someplace farther back in the family tree? I hope to find out.

I could write much more about Peter and his family--and I hope to do so soon. The Scriver family is my current research focus, and I hope to put together some sort of family history book in the next couple of years.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: August 29, 2009

1) Write down which of your ancestors that you have met in person (yes, even if you were too young to remember them).

2) Tell us their names, where they lived, and their relationship to you in a blog post, or in comments to this post, or in comments on Facebook.

There isn't so much to tell on my list, because fortunately four of these people are still living.

* my dad, living

* my mom, living

* my paternal grandfather, Howard Benjamin Scriver (1915 - 1983), lived in South Shore, SD

* my paternal grandmother, living

* my maternal grandfather, living

* my great-grandmother (mother's mother's mother), Marie Mathilda Brandon Peterson (1903 - 1990), lived in Irene, SD

There's also my maternal grandfather's second wife, who has always been Grandma to me, and his stepmother, Helen Alida Miller Nordseth (1903 - 1989), who raised him and was Great-Grandma to me.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: August 22, 2009

Every Saturday, Randy Seaver at Genea Musings writes a prompt or challenge known as "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun." This week's challenge:

1) Is there someone on your list of 16-great-great-grandparents that you don't have a census record for, and for which one should be available? If you have all of your great-great-grands (or they are not on the census records), what about your great-grands, your grands, or your parents? What about siblings of your great-grands? What about your spouse's family lines? Go find at least one!

2) Tell us about it in your blog, comments to this post, or comments in Facebook. While you're at it, give us a source citation for your census finding too (you do make source citations, don't you?).

Choosing somewhat at random, I decided to search for one of my husband's gg-grandmother's siblings, Ward JAMES. From earlier censuses, I knew that he was born around 1895, in Illinois, and I knew that by 1930, most of his family was in Brown County, South Dakota.

Using Footnote's limited time free access to the 1930 census, I quickly found Ward and his family living in Lansing Township, Brown County, South Dakota.


* Ward R. James - head, renter, owns a radio, lives on a farm, male, white, 35, married, first married at 28, did not attend school this year, can read and write, born Illinois, father born Illinois, mother born Illinois, able to speak and write English, Farmer, farm

* Ines E. James - wife, female, white, 25, married, first married at 18, did not attend school this year, can read and write, born Wisconsin, father born Wisconsin, mother born Wisconsin, occupation none

* Ivan W. James - son, male, white, 2, single, did not attend school this year, can not read and write, born South Dakota, father born Illinois, mother born Wisconsin, occupation none

1930 U.S. Federal Census, Lansing Township, Brown County, South Dakota, ED 7-37, Sheet 1a, Family 6, Ward R. James household, jpeg image, [Digital scan of original records in the National Archives, Washington, DC], subscription database, accessed August 2009.

I'd previously known nothing about Ward James as an adult, so I added his wife and child to my file today.

This was also a chance to check out the census on Footnote, and I was impressed. The search function seemed to work well, and I was glad to be able to lighten or darken the image myself.

I did a little more digging online and easily found when Ward, Inez, and Ivan passed away, as well as the name of Ivan's wife. It appears that she is likely still living.