Tips for the Beginner Genealogist

I've recently spoken with several "newbies" to genealogy who have expressed in one way or another, that they just don't know how or where to start. I've also seen on sites such as Ancestry.com the explosion of new trees that can pop up almost over night from new genealogists eager to create a genealogy from the millions of records available to them on the internet, and in their haste, create mucked up genealogies that, when examined closely, don't seem to make too much sense. This is caused not by any ill will on their part, but rather lack of experience and an overwhelming amount of options available to them.

I am not an expert, but I have been doing this for about half of my short 24 years. But twelve years in genealogy has been long enough for me to pick up a few tricks and learn from my mistakes. Here is a synopsis of what I think is most important for a new genealogist to know. This is geared mostly towards online research but also includes some helpful "in person" research tips.

I. Start with what you know

• Start with you, your parents, your siblings, your children, your grandparents. 

• Interview other family members such as aunts and uncles, grandparents, etc. 
• Grandma may not always have the name or date exactly right, but she definitely has the right idea and can provide insight into a time period you didn't live through.

• Record as many names, dates, and places as you can find out.
• Let this info guide your research 

• Start out by confirming these names and dates in the places known. 
• Seek out vital records offices or other repositories for birth, marriage and death records, in the area you are researching (i.e. Stuttgart, Germany or Dane County, Wisconsin)
• Finding a birth or death record for great-grandpa can give you his wife's maiden name, his parents, his birth place, or much more information depending on the location and year of the event. Vital records can be the key to proving a specific relationship that you only suspected from viewing a census record online.

II. Be very cautious about what you find

• Use sources you can trust. 
• That genealogy you just found online has a GGG(great-great-great) grandfather listed that you didn't know anything about! Before you rush off to add the information to your genealogy, SLOW DOWN. Ask yourself if it makes sense - your GG grandfather was born in 1854, but the supposed GGG grandfather wasn't born until 1845? Was he really 9 years old when he had a child? Use what you know about this person to decide if the new information you have found is legitimate and belongs in your family tree.

• How do I find trustworthy sources?
• Look to any local repositories of vital records. In Madison, WI, we have the Vital Records office, the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the Dane County Court House 
• Find out what historical societies exist for the area you are researching. Most counties in the U.S. will have a genealogical/historical society dedicated to maintaining records and information for that particular area, and sometimes even surrounding areas. These can be invaluable to your search.
• Searching online? Use established websites that have primary sources (records such as birth, marriage, death, census, etc.) that you know weren't invented or mis-typed by someone. Sites that have scanned millions of newspapers, such as newspaperarchive.com

• Don't be fooled by that top 1860 census search result for "John Smith" in Boston 
• All too often, new researchers will plug a name into the ancestry.com or familysearch.org search feature and click on the first link the comes up for the name "John Smith." Sometimes it is the right person, but sometimes it ISN'T. Again, use what you know. If John Smith's wife's name was Helen, but the census says it is Kate - is that right? Do the names of children match up with any children you know of? Double check everything with other sources before assuming it is correct and adding it to your tree. 
• This is particularly true when you're looking for someone with a common name like "John Smith." A less common name, take "Liebenow" for instance, won't score as many search results, and also is far more likely to be the person you are looking for. 

III. Write everything down (and date it!)

• Sometimes Grandma says something that doesn't quite fit with what you know about your great-aunt Sarah. Write it down. Sometimes you come across a short notation in an online forum that references someone you think may be related to you, but can't quite prove it right now. You never know when that little tidbit will become relevant and help to unlock a mystery months or years down the road.
• Really. You'll thank me later when you can't remember that random date Grandma mentioned ten years ago, and she's passed away.

• Dating your notes helps you track when you made certain progress in your research, or the last time you visited your local archive. It helps you keep track of where you've been and where you're going with your research.

• Keeping track of resources you have checked for a particular record can help you avoid running in circles. Say you have an elusive ancestor, "Simon Walter." You've checked the vital records index of Wisconsin, you've checked the newspapers for the area, you've checked the court house, you've checked a certain online resource, etc.: Document this so that two years later when you try again to search for Simon Walter, you know what you've tried already. It saves time and effort. 

IV. Save everything.

• Ok. Not EVERYTHING. But this goes along with item III above. Save the notes you take and the random bits you write down on napkins, scraps of paper, post-it notes. Save the documents you make copies of at the library. Save that copy of a birth record for someone you thought was related, but never found that connection.
• It often helps to combine those scraps of paper or random notes into one place. Re-write them all in a notebook or other trusted location. 
• For example, Google Drive allows account users to create and store a variety of documents, such as word files and spreadsheets. This is currently a free service, and requires no downloads, etc. Just create a file and type in the information you'd like to save. 
• Even if it doesn't seem relevant now, save that document or note you made. Many times have I come back to old notes and realized I now know where that person fits in! The more research you do, the more opportunity to make connections where you did not realize they could be made before. 

V. Organize everything.

• Find an effective method for saving and storing your notes, documents, and other things you acquire during your research. 
• Some people find it helpful to have file folders in boxes, and label a folder for each topic, surname, or person - depending on the amount of information you have. Sometimes this isn't feasible, as there is an overlap between two families, a second cousin married his second cousin, etc. 
• There really is no perfect system, (or space conserving one!) but make sure to find a system that works for you and helps keep you (at least somewhat) organized. Organized notes and papers help you more easily find specific documents you may need to look back on later. 

VI. Save & cite references for specific information.

• Saving and citing your references is important for many reasons:
• Avoids COPYRIGHT ISSUES. Books, newspapers, reference books, online webpages, personal genealogies you find online/elsewhere are all copyrighted or protected in some way.
• Taking information from one place and putting it in your tree without any reference to who or where you got it from is a form of copyright infringement. You are taking someone else's research or published work and claiming it as your own, which is illegal.

• Provides proof or evidence of where you received information in your tree/research, thus legitimizing your research and your information
• You don't want someone thinking you made all that up about great-great uncle Joe who was in the first modern Olympics, right? Save that source. Show it off. You know you have the right info, prove it!

• Helps YOU later down the road. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at some of my early research and wondered, "where DID I get that birth date from?"
• This wastes your time as you search again through everything you already dug through to find out where exactly you found it
• Yes, it is a pain to constantly stop and note where you're finding each bit of information. You're rushing through a family line, finding more and more information online and you're EXCITED! But trust me, you will want to know later where you found that obscure marriage date.

How do I reference what I find?

• References are most commonly classified as follows:
• Primary Sources: Original, firsthand record of an event, created at the time of the event. 
• Examples: Birth, Marriage, Death records. Other governmental records. A firsthand account written by your ancestor about his life.
• e.g. "My name is Jade Schmitt. Today I am departing my home town of Madison to move to Germany."
• Scientifically the most trustworthy documentation for your research.

• Secondary Sources: Secondary evidence, such as a story passed down, an overview of an event, etc. Created after the time of the event in question.
• Examples: History books, reference books, articles that summarize a person's life, often written after the person is deceased.
• e.g. "Joe McDonald was born in 1826 in Ireland. He was married to a woman by the name of Lynch, and together they left the Emerald Isle for America in 1852. They settled on a farm near Blanchardville, Wisconsin, and raised a family. 
• Typically less trustworthy than primary sources because of the lack of first-hand knowledge.
• However: Many (in my experience) old books or newspaper articles were based on information provided by the family
• Example, the "History of Dane County, Wisconsin" will often contain biographical sketches of people that the author for some reason deemed prolific or important to the history of that area. The author often sought out the individual themself, or relative (if subject was deceased) and retrieved their information directly from them. This can change the validity of the information, especially if your ancestor's son had some faulty memory on dad's birth date.

• Tertiary Sources: a condensed format such as an index or almanac, combining Primary and Secondary sources.

• Write down the website, website link, name & date of publication, authors, and any page or volume numbers. Write down all relevant details if you are searching microfilm reels of birth records, for instance. 
• For more on how to cite your sources, see sites like this: 
• http://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/index.html
• http://genealogy.about.com/od/citing/a/sources.htm
• http://www.genealogy.com/19_wylie.html
• PRINTING online sources is especially useful. Some websites or family trees eventually break or go offline for some reason - and you lose that source forever. Unless you've saved and documented what and where it was.

VII. Realize that you will NOT find everything online

• There will come a time where you will realize that a lot of research can be done online now-a-days - but not everything.
• To make progress on your research you will have to tap into local, regional, or national resources. You'll have to visit the local court house, historical society, cemetery, etc., in order to find that piece of information that you need.

VIII. Vital records were NOT required in most U.S. states until the 20th century!

• This means the court house or vital records office in your locality might not have a governmentally recognized document proving a birth, marriage, death, divorce, etc. has taken place. They were not always recorded at the civil level before they were legally mandated state-by-state.
•  For Wisconsin, for example, it was not required to report and record vital records until the fall of 1907. Prior to that, you just may not find a record for someone you KNOW, from every other source you can find, was born in Wisconsin

• What can you do? Seek out churches. Churches are often FANTASTIC sources for vital records.
• The downside is that it is often difficult to determine denomination of your ancestors, and from there, what church they may have belonged to. The best you can do is go based on what you or grandma- or whatever family member- may know about the religion of a certain family. From there you can do research or ask historical societies in the area for information regarding churches in the area, if they still exist, if the records themselves still exist for the period you are interested in, and where the records are if the church no longer exists.
• Different denominations have different policies, and often the policies are different between different churches. For instance, the Diocese of Green Bay allows you to search sacremental records in person and the Diocese of Milwaukee are willing to perform record searches for you; but the Diocese of Madison is completely opposed to in-person searches or genealogical requests submitted to the Diocese.
•  Church and civil records in certain regions of France are all online and available for perusal (http://www.archivosgenbriand.com/index_english.html), but other countries such as Germany are not as far along in digitization projects.

• Newspapers are also valuable sources
• They often can provide names, dates, and other details that may not be readily available in birth, marriage or death records.
• Finding an obituary can be extremely useful when you cannot find a death record for an ancestor. 
• http://www.newspaperarchive.com is a great searchable database of newspapers, but does have a fee unless your local library has an agreement set up. For example, I have a library card in Madison. Through the South Central Library System, which Madison Public Libraries are a part of, there are a variety of genealogical resources available for no fee, including Heritage Quest and NewspaperArchive (See http://psw.scls.lib.wi.us/resources/ if you live in the area)

IX. Genealogy can be Expensive, but it doesn't have to break your budget!

• Doing genealogical research, or at least doing it "right," can lead to many expenses. Paying for copies at the Historical Society, for 25 cents? Driving to an old cemetery two hours from your home in the middle of nowhere? Requesting research from a personal researcher in Germany? Paying for an "Ancestry.com" subscription to do more research?
• These are some examples of expenses incurred during research, and they can really add up. In many cases there are cheaper alternatives. Some ideas:

               1. Instead of paying for copies, hand write everything, including notations if you aren't sure what a particular segment of the record says. Hand write source information, etc. 

               2. Instead of driving far from home when you don't have the resources, use sites such as http://www.findagrave.com to locate volunteers who live closer and are able to visit a cemetery and take photos/find information for you.

               3. Make connections online in forums and on other websites with researchers who share common families with you. This can help when you decided that research in the "old country" is necessary to progress your research. These other researchers may be willing to split costs with you.
               4. Don't feel like you ever NEED to purchase a subscription to some fancy website that claims to have every record you'll ever need to find your ancestors. There are many free and valuable resources out there, whether online or otherwise. An example is http://www.familysearch.org which provides millions of records at no charge. Simply perform a "Google" search for free resources and you will find many available.



I may not have included everything that I know (in fact, I know I haven't). I will continue to update and edit this as need arises. Please let me know if there is a topic you'd like addressed.

Useful Resource - North Dakota Records

I thought I'd write quick about a resource I just discovered, one that could be useful for any others doing any research in North Dakota.

I've been searching for more information on my Irish families, because so far they've been a pretty solid brick wall. I've been tracking down the siblings of my ancestor, Mary Ann Walsh Hurst, in hopes of finding more back from them all as far as parents' names, etc. Mary Ann's sister Anna married Thomas F. Ryan. They lived in the Arlington/Lodi area of Wisconsin but their son Vincent Ryan became a Bishop out in North Dakota. I had located the burial location of Anna and Thomas as well as there daughters, but did not have an exact birth or death date for Anna. This could help me confirm her parents' names, particularly the maiden name of her (and Mary Ann's) mother.

Recently I made a trip to St. Patrick's Cemetery where the Ryans are buried. Sadly their gravestones provided no more insight into Anna's dates. I called the church today and the secretary I reached was extremely helpful and willing to look through the old books. She found Anna's funeral information from the church. This gave me an exact death date, and helped me understand why I couldn't find Anna's death record in Wisconsin: She had died in Fargo, North Dakota.

I set to google searching for ways to find a death record from North Dakota, as I'd never really tried to in that state before. This is the resource I found and would like to share with you.

The North Dakota State University Libraries Archives:
http://library.ndsu.edu/archives/biography-genealogy

They appear to have, or link to, a variety of useful online databases for anyone you might be looking for in North Dakota. Most valuable to me, they link to an online searchable Public Death Index. The search function is relatively user-friendly, and it also goes back pretty far. Most exciting for me was that it provided me an exact date of birth for Anna. I plugged her death information in and she came up right away, with an exact birth date and everything.

From there, like most Dept Vital Rec indexes, it provided a link to order your own copy of the death record.  Figuring it would be expensive, I clicked the link just for kicks, to see how expensive it would be. Wisconsin is $25 and most states are around that if not more expensive. To my shock the price to order a copy of a death record from North Dakota was only $5! I thought it might be a trick. No. This is extremely valuable and affordable if you're looking for records in North Dakota.

Just thought I would share. Enjoy!

Brandmueller / Brandmiller Update

I've been doing a great deal of work on the Brandmueller / Brandmiller family the past few weeks. Towards the end of October I received the research I had paid for in Germany regarding the Brandmueller, Hoenninger, Neidhardt Petsch/Rudelts, and others. You can see this data here: http://jadina.tribalpages.com/family-tree/jadina/5932/2484/Georg-Brandmueller-Family

 This provided me with a great deal of useful information, extending my Brandmueller line back through the 1700s. I received slightly more expanded information about the Neidhardt family, and the other related families back through the 1700s as well. It is apparent that there is much more work that can be done with these families. Hopefully I can afford that someday!

Closer to home I decided to start digging more into the Brandmueller / Brandmiller relatives I knew had immigrated from Germany. I knew the names and birth years of the children of my ancestor's (Georg Brandmueller) brother Michael, but had not really gone into much detail to find anything out about their lives, much less what Michael's wife's maiden name even was.

To begin this process, I went back to basics. I started exploring the Maryland State Archives website and re-found out that there are various parish records scanned and placed online. I believe I had found this site before but hadn't been able to figure out the username and password to access the data. WELL. This was extremely good for me (although time-consuming).

This is possibly the best resource available for the Baltimore area, since vital records weren't required by the city or state itself until much later than the time period I am interested in. Parish records, however, recorded nearly everyone. I had previously paid for death record information on the Brandmueller family from St. Mary's Seminary who holds parish records for St. Alphonsus, the church the family belonged to.

Well, the State Archives have the marriage books scanned in for St. Alphonsus. The lady who had done the research for me at the Seminary Archives had told me she had not found a marriage record for my ancestors, Georg Brandmueller and Johanna Hoenninger. This hadn't made too much sense, as they had arrived on the same ship but under their own last names (not married yet) but by a year and a half later they had had their first child. But I figured, eh, Baltimore was a big city, lots of different churches, maybe they got married at a different church I wasn't able to track down yet.

Looking through the St. Alphonsus marriages I discovered that the Archivist hadn't looked very carefully. I found their marriage, and that of Georg's brother Michael to his wife Katherine MARTIN. I spent a great deal of time scouring these records for any mention of any other Brandmueller or Hoenninger families. Through this, I was able to find a sister of Georg and Michael's. Her name was Margaretha and she married Martin Meckel. This was exciting. How many Brandmueller descendants were there??

The marriage records were extensive so I was able to look through for the marriages of some of the children of those mentioned above. I mostly only found information on Michael and Katherine's children, since obviously Georg's line moved to Wisconsin before getting married.

Anyway, from other information I started looking into other churches in the vicinity that may provide more information for me. Various other churches have had their Baptismal, Confirmation, Marriage, Death, and Interment records scanned and placed online. Not as many as I would like, but enough to fill in Some of the gaps in my information.

One of the most exciting gaps was that I found one more child who was born to Georg and Johanna Brandmueller, who I had not known about, because she was NOT in the records from St. Alphonsus, and thus hadn't been found when I paid the Seminary Archives. I stumbled across the Baptismal records for Holy Cross church in Baltimore. In it I found reference of a baptism for a Justine Brandmueller, born to Georg Brandmueller and Johanna Hoenninger, in September of 1864.

This led to some questions, as I had received death records from St. Alphonsus for Georg's mother, and his wife, Johanna. Johanna was supposed to have died 3 Feb 1864, several months before Justine was born.

 But everything on this document that I was seeing with my own eyes matched up. The parents names, the birthplaces, everything. So, I went back to Johanna's death record. I realized that they had cropped down to just the line which contained information on my ancestor, and that virtually all information on the actual date of death was handwritten by the archivist. Thus, I figured the error must have been a case of the lady writing down the wrong year. I wrote them a letter and she confirmed that yes, actually, she had died 3 Feb  1865, it was an error because the page was split between two years, the end of 1864 and the beginning of 1865. I was glad to find an easy solution to what could have been a complicated problem, but I was also reminded of why it is so important to me to do my own research in person whenever possible...

In any event I spent hours and hours scouring records. I'm sure I missed some things but I came across a great deal of other things allowing me to flesh out the families of Michael Brandmueller and Margaretha Meckel. I found that the Brandmuellers that remained in Baltimore strictly used Brandmiller in records. I also began digging to find obituaries so that I might determine where these families were buried. By finding that the Brandmiller family was buried in New Cathedral cemetery, I was able to contact the cemetery directly to find out information on the plots they are buried in.

Interestingly, it appears that they transferred Michael's remains to this cemetery from their original location. He died in 1879 and was buried in what was then St. Alphonsus cemetery. However, at some point that cemetery needed to be removed so they transferred most remains to Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery. I had figured that his remains were transferred along with Anne Neidhardt Brandmueller (his mother) and his sister-in-law Johanna Brandmueller. Now I wonder - were they transferred to Most Holy Redeemer? To another cemetery? Did they remain and get bulldozed? I tend to think they were namelessly transferred or left to be bulldozed, because direct family wasn't necessarily there to take care of them.

So, overall, I've found out all death dates for the children of Katherine and Michael Brandmiller. I was hoping by expanding this information I would find more on my direct ancestors, but that search continues. I hope someday I can figure out where Georg Brandmueller disappeared between 1870 and 1880.

A little bit of everything - One BIG update

I apologize for the long time since writing. I've had a lot going on in my personal life, such as graduating from UW-Madison and beginning graduate studies at the University of Georgia. Between my time at school I had the entire spring and summer off. I used that time for a great deal of genealogical research.

I have put a lot of effort into fleshing out many of my family lines. Many of them were skeletons and some on my dad's side didn't have much detail. I've spent quite a deal of time finding out more info on each of these.

 In particular I took the large and ever growing Stark family by the horns. You my remember that on my grandpa's side, I had two different Stark lines, one on his mother's side and one on his father's side. I had long suspected that the two giant lines were related, given that they were from the same area around Oak Creek, etc. I just had lacked an ability to connect them.

Then I heard from a researcher who had been investigating the families for quite some time. He was able to help me connect the two lines. My furthest back ancestor in one line, Mathias (b. 1826) shared the same father as my ancestor in the other line, John (b. 1810), Peter Stark (1785-1835).John was the son of Peter and his first wife, Elizabeth Thiel. She died in 1813. Mathias was the son of Peter and his second wife Anna Muellen (yes, as far as can be told on records it is MuelleN not MuelleR).

It was extremely exciting to make that breakthrough. I additionally found out more information on Johann's son John Henry Stark. My initial research hadn't turned up much info because he disappeared from the Milwaukee area and I wasn't able to distinctly link him in other areas. Also with the help of PJ Starck I was able to find out that he in fact moved to the Madison area. While I was still living in Madison, I was able to locate his and his wives' graves as well as some of his children. Interestingly his daughter Helena married William Schulkamp, brother of Gerhard Schulkamp who was married to a Diebold on my mother's side. It is funny to see these connections that exist now years after the fact.

During our annual cemetery trip up north during April/May of this year, we stopped at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Appleton. Digging more into the Mathias Stark family I had discovered that there were more Starks and other related families buried there than I had initially thought. We did a somewhat thorough once-over of the main older sections of the cemetery and found quite a few Starks and related names.

This helped illuminate the differences in Nickolas Stark (son of Johann b. 1810) and his line, from the descendants of Mathias Stark (b. 1826) who also moved to the Appleton area at the same time. It also brought to light a list of "unknowns;" people who were buried in Stark plots that I wasn't able to identify initially, and people who have the surname Stark and don't seem to fit into the known lines that I have researched. So, over the past few months I have been slowly working on this list as well.

Even MORE on the Starks (is you head spinning yet?) : I recently was contacted by a woman who received an OLD photo album from a descendant of Appalonia Starck Hauerwas (through Elizabeth Hauerwas Dreger), daughter of Johann Stark (b. 1810) and Helena Mick. The descendant wanted to see if anyone could help identify the people in them. I don't know much about the family so not much progress has been made yet. If anyone reading this is interested in seeing the photos, please do contact me and I would be happy to show you some of what I have received thus far.

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As for other work....

I was contacted earlier this year by a descendant of Lula Sarah Beaulieu, daughter of Sarah E. Mayville and Martin Luther Beaulieu. This was extremely awesome. I have spent so much time trying to track down all of their kids, and it has been nearly impossible due to the amount of variance of the spelling of "Beaulieu." Well, did Abby have a story for me. In the 1910 census for Sarah and Luther, included with their children is listed a "daughter" named Hilda who was born around 1906.

I'd never thought anything of it, really, but Abby informed me that Hilda was not actually their daughter, but their granddaughter. It turns out Lula Sarah Beaulieu had eloped with the son of a wealthy family in the Wrightstown area (they were involved in the steel industry or some other similar trade). This family was one whom Sarah Mayville Beaulieu worked for in their house. The families discovered this and forbade the marriage, essentially forcing them to annul it. However, it was a little too late - Lula was pregnant with a daughter, Hilda.

The name of Lula's lover is not known because the family had his name stricken from any known family documents and from Hilda's birth record. Her family never told her who her father was. Lula went on to marry two other men and have a couple more daughters. Now Abby is facing the task of tracking down who this man was. It will take a lot of work but I believe it is possible if we can find out where they eloped to and all that jazz. It seems unlikely that annulment papers would have the names erased of the individuals involved, so that may be a good place to start as well. It'll be interesting to see how this develops. I am hoping that by finding out more about this line I can find out more about Sarah Mayville. I would like to finally find her and Martin's final resting place.

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I made a breakthrough in one of my many mysteries involving the McConnell family. The 1870 census for Alexander McConnell living in Jefferson, WI, had a mystery little girl listed after other family, "Flora Bourne" but there was no detail on who she was or what her relationship to Alex was. In the 1880 census for Alex's household, again in Jefferson, she was listed simply as Flora McConnell. Ever since first seeing those census records I had wondered who this Flora Bourne was and why she was living with the family.

Then I stumbled on something while searching for one of the McConnells. A family tree I ran across stated that Alex's daughter Margaret had been married. Something I never knew before. When I looked through Rock River Cemetery several years ago I had found a stone for Margaret, just stating her name as Margaret McConnell, and having died 7 Oct 1866. What the tree I found suggested was that she had married Chardon Bourne on 5 Aug 1865 while she and her family were living in the vicinity of Winona, Minnesota, during the mid-1860's. Further, the couple had a daughter, Flora Bourne, who was born 14 Jul 1866, several months before Margaret died.

This was exciting. But I had to make sure this was correct, first. Was it plausible that the Margaret McConnell married to Chardon was the Margaret McConnell of my family? In the 1865 Minnesota State Census, the Bournes and McConnells are practically neighbors. That is a plus sign. Looking into more documents and records (a newspaper article from 1908 states "Chardon Bourne, who has lived here in Witoka for over fifty years, writes a Witoka resident, is going to Merrill, Wis., to visit a daughter or as he puts it, 'to see his baby whom he has not seen since she was five months old, and who is now the mother of ten children.'"

This seems to add up with the time period here. If Flora was born in July and Margaret died in October, with her parents soon after taking over raising the child back in Jefferson, WI, then the time period would mesh as about 3-5 months of age of his daughter when he had last seen her.

Other records, such as Flora's marriage record and children's birth records seem to add up. I'd like to get ahold of Flora's death record to make 100% sure, so I probably will check it next time I'm back home in Madison. Amazing what mysteries can be solved after a few years of persistence.

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I have been spending increasing amounts of time on findagrave.com Most recently I completed a photo/transcription of St Mary of the Lake cemetery out in Westport, WI (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GRid=23506620&CRid=2144268&). I have quite a few relatives buried there and found a few more through the process of the transcription. It is always nice to have a little more info that might help in making a breakthrough. This Irish line is going to be a tough one to break.

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I've also spent a lot of time working on finding the burial location of Corbet Tarbell as well as his wives and all of his children. I made a lot of progress with the help of several researchers in the Londonderry and Chester, VT areas. Corbet and his second wife Nancy are buried in Riverside Cemetery in Londonderry, but I have been unable to find the burial location of his first wife, my ancestor, Amy Thompson Tarbell. I am still searching and hoping to find more information. I've also had trouble finding the burial locations of the three known children Corbet had with Nancy.

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Similarly I made a goal of finding the burial places of all of Betsey Davis and Hiram Greeley 's known children. I finally did succeed in that, and through this research I have been able to flesh out my family lines a little further. Also with the Greeleys I spoke to a descendant of Leah Greeley Mills, which was really nice. She had kept in contact with my great-grandparents for her life, despite living out west, so it was nice to reconnect to that line after all these years.

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I recently paid a researcher in Germany to hopefully provide more information on the Brandmueller, Hoeninger, and related families in Bavaria. I am looking forward to seeing what will turn up on this second round.

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I have also renewed efforts to locate the birth record of Simon Walter. Church records in Wisconsin indicate he was born in Neubeuren by Weisenbach. So far the Archivs I have spoken to have not been able to locate such a place. I have been referred from place to place and hope to soon find someone who can help me figure out this mystery.

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Back in June I made contact with an Annen descendant who sent me a few pictures. One of them is believed to contain Peter Annen, my immigrant ancestor in that line, who I had never seen a picture of before! This was great!


Well, I think my work has been pretty well updated now. I have of course been doing many other, smaller things on the side, as well as started a project involving Resurrection Cemetery in Madison. I'll leave it at this, for now, though!!

Strasser Mystery solved; more German info

My last post, quite some time ago, concluded with my about to embark on searching German church records by hand. That search only opened up new mysteries to me. The records were difficult to read at times, and all in German. The German was relatively straightforward to understand, however, so I did not have trouble. They also had a booklet that a few church ladies had put together translating some of the records.

These records were, however, fantastic in that they provided birth places in Germany for my ancestors. Simon Walter was listed as being born in Neubeuren bei Wiesenfeld. His wife, Margaretha, was a different story. She was listed intermittently as either a Strasser or Kuernlein // Kaemmlein by birth. The church records shed no light on these because they ALSO alternated between listing two two names. Sometimes her children's records said one thing, and then her own death record said another. Was Simon married to two women named Margaretha? In the cemetery records there was also a listing of an Eva Elisabetha Strasser, whose maiden name was Kuernlein, born 14 Sept 1805 in Weisenbach. She had a husband listed as Johann Michael Strasser, only his birth year was 1822 and he had been born someplace called Schnelldorf. Margaretha herself was born 2 Jan 1827, also in Weisenbach.

How were these three related?? The church records were infuriating. I had them all laid out in front of me in the basement of the church and they just kept leading me in circles without providing information on how exactly these three were related. They had to be. They were from the same tiny town in Germany. They had the same names. They had similar generations (1822/1827, and then the older generation line at 1805). Were johann and Margaretha siblings? What was going on?

I photographed every record and came home, still studying the same information and still baffled. I searched the internet for the town name "Weisenbach by Wuerttemburg" as it had been listed on the records. I determined that the town I was looking for was in Schwaebisch Hall region of Stuttgart, Wurttemburg state. There was even a road between Weisenbach and Schnelldorf, explaining how the Strasser and Kaemmlein families had met.

Because I was now armed with the proper locales and exact birth dates (thank you, St Johns in Oak Creek!) I could now attempt to find records in Germany. Luckily records existed. They let me know that Margaretha, wife of Simon Walter was a Kaemmlein by birth. Her mother was, Eva Elisabetha Kaemmlein, who had Margaretha illegitimately and therefore Margaretha had her mother's maiden name. The father may be listed on the record but it is incredibly hard to read on the scan they sent me in the mail.

Apparently, Eva Kaemmlein married Johann Michael Kaemmlein, only 5 years older than her illegitimate daughter, and came to America with him in 1852. I do not know more about the marriage of Eva and Johann Michael, but at least I do know the proper relationships between these three.

From this info I was able to find more info on the Kaemmlein family. Eva's parents were Johann George Kaemmlein and Anna Barbara Ballbach.

I can't afford to find more information at this time but I'm satisfied with having learned what I did so far.


More family research in German records:

I also acquired the birthdates of George Brandmueller and Johanna Hoeninger. Georg was born 12 Aug 1824 in Steudach, Erlangen-Büchenbach, Mittelfranken, Bavaria. His parents were Adam Brandmueller and Anna Neidhardt. I have found the Brandmueller line back to the mid 1700s now! Can you believe it?

Johanna Hoeninger was born 16 Sep 1824 in Buechenbach to Johann Michael Hoeninger (I had wondered as her sons had this name) and Barbara Rudelt. Barbara was an illegitimate child of Conrad Petsch and Catharina Rudelt. She is alternately listed by either surname in various records.


I have slowly been acquiring more info on the Grass families also. More to come when I can afford the research!!

German update; new Christofferson info, much more.

Quite a lot of time has passed since I last took the time to write here, but I have been still working on a variety of things.

I recently undertook the monumental task of trying to track down records in Germany for all of my German ancestors. This hasn't been easy, because for many of my ancestors I still do not know a town name of origination. That means finding records is next to impossible. For others, I have pretty good information so I have been able to make some contacts and find out a little more information.

One such is the family of Lawrence Grass. I knew his daughter Adelheid Grass Diebold had been born in "Kerpen bei Koeln" i.e. the town of Kerpen near Cologne. Kerpen has an archive located in their town and a very helpful archivist there has been able to help me find the birth records of Adelheid and Lorenz, as well as the marriage record of Lorenz Grass to Anna Maria Lapper. From these documents I found a new generation: Lorenz Grass's parents were Aegidius Grass (! what a name) and Maria Catherina Ahrens. Anna Maria Lapper's mother was listed on the marriage record as "Maria Anna Lapper" and no father was listed.

They were also able to find a registry for the marriage of Maria Ahrens and Aegidius Grass, as well as a listing of all of their children baptized.

I also contacted a variety of places in central Bavaria, to try to track down exactly where the Brandmueller and Hoenninger/Hönninger/Heninger families were from. I had received information from Baltimore church records that the Brandmueller family came from Steudach, Bavaria, while the Hönningers came from Buechenbach. An archive in Bamberg was able to locate Hönninger records for me, in Mittelfranken, but the unfortunate part of the story is that it costs 60 euro per HOUR for research to be conducted at the archives. That has put my search there on hold as I cannot afford that at all.

I am still hoping to track down more German records as time and money allows.

Closer to home, I have been able to figure out a couple of mysteries lately and I am really quite pleased if these fully pan out as I hope they will. The first was that of the Christoffersons, my uncle's family. For a while I have been stuck on Carl Christofferson's parents. He was born at an awkward time just before the 1880 census, but then was old enough that by the 1900 census he was living on his own and therefore not connected to any parents. I could not for the life of me figure out where he was on the 1880 census although I knew it had to be in Blooming Grove. Multiple records indicated he was born in Blooming Grove, and he was born, as I said, not long before the 1880 census.

Well I decided to plug in the information I knew into ancestry.com again (thanks to my cousin who shares her account with me from time to time!!), because I'm a sucker for staring at the same information over and over that doesn't belong to my family. Haha. Kidding. This time I did a specific search for 1880 in Blooming Grove (instead of Wisconsin as a whole) and came up with a Charles Christofferson b. ca. 1875, living with parents Hans Peter Christofferson and Kari Endresdatter. Of course, Carl and Charles are pretty damn similar, and this is THE only Christofferson family I could find in Blooming Grove in 1880.

This family also listed an Andrew Christofferson as this Charles's brother. Mattie Hanson, sister of Tena Hanson (who married Carl Christofferson) had married an Andrew Christofferson. I thought this was a little too much of a coincidence.

I then looked at the public family trees on ancestry, which I don't think I had done for this family, and all of the trees confirmed what that census told me, with exact dates for the siblings. One tree even had a picture of all five siblings and I'm fairly certain the man labeled Carl in the photo resembles my uncle and his relatives. This was extremely pleasing because I was able to find Hans and Kari's death certificates and marriage records which indicated birth and death dates of course as well as parents' names. Hans Christofferson is the son of Christian Amundson and Barbara Hansdatter. Kari Andresdatter is the daughter of Andrew (Endre) Knudson and Barbra Halversdatter. I'm pretty excited because this just gave me a big step forward by finding the immigrant ancestors for my uncle Eric!

My next mystery solved was Simon Walter, my own immigrant ancestor on my grandpa's biological father's side. I had been able to find him in the census from 1855 to 1880 in Wisconsin but had not found him after that, nor in any immigration records. From all I could find, he was born around 1806-1810 and I didn't know when he died. One unique finding was the 1880 census had a column where the enumerator could list diseases or illnesses the person was suffering. I've never seen anything listed there before. But for Simon Walter, it said he was suffering from "Bilious Fever." I don't know much of what that means in today's terms but I assumed it was relatively serious, especially for a man around 70 years old.

The other day I was scanning find-a-grave to see if I could find anything new on a variety of lines. I searched for the surname "Walter" in Milwaukee County. The first hit that caught my eye was a memorial for a John Walter, b. Sep 28 1853. This was very interesting to me as this was the son of Simon Walter, and the brother of my ancestor Fred Walter. Then I looked at who else was in the cemetery, the "Independent Cemetery" in Oak Creek: a Katherina Walter and a SIMON WALTER. Almost lost my mind with excitement. Checked into it a little more, the dates for Katherine also fit with what I had for John's first wife (Katherina Baum). And, the Simon Walter was listed as born 12 Apr 1810 and died 7 Nov 1880. Death in 1880, not long after that 1880 census that stated he was ill with something that sounded nasty? Hmm.

My next step was figuring out what this whole "Independent Cemetery" business was about - it didn't seem to have anything online about it or any religious affiliations. So I asked someone (Nancy Honadel) at the Oak Creek Historical Society that I had gotten help from previously on some Catholic ancestors in the area who was able to help me track down that this was a combination of a cemetery for something called the Independent Cemetery, and then for St. John's Lutheran Church. She had a list of burials for St. John's which included not only John, Katherine, and Simon, but also a "Lena" died 1878 and a Margaretha died 1892.

I'm VERY interested in these as Simon had at least one wife named Magdalena/Margaretha. All of the children's birth records submitted in the 1860s state that their mother was a Margaretha Kuernlein (never really figured out how to read that name). However, half of the death recs I have found have listed their mother as a M. Strasser. Kind of very different from Kuernlein or any variation of THAT name. My latest idea on that front is that there were two different women that Simon married, and one may be responsible for some of children, and the other the rest. Needless to say I am chomping at the bit to solve that mystery.

Lucky me, I got in touch with a Pastor at this church, still standing, next door to the cemetery, and he is allowing me to come search the church documents in person this Friday. Am I excited? Yes. The only qualms I have were he mentioned sticking me in the basement with all the records. Sounds quite daunting. So we'll see what comes of that. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity to look into these records firsthand.

I'll try to update this a little more frequently!

Brandmuller, Stark and Koch update!

Yet another delayed post. I have done a lot in the span of time since I wrote last.

One of the biggest areas of new information is in the Brandmueller region. I was able to discover at long last what parish the family belonged to in Baltimore. They belonged to St. Alphonsus which was near their home. The St. Mary's Archives contain the church records for this parish, and thus I was able to receive copies of baptismal registries for all of the siblings of my ancestor Margaret Brandmueller as well as their birthdates. These records are exceptional in that they allowed my to confirm Johanna's maiden name as Heninger, and also provided me with the area in Bavaria where both George Brandmueller and Johanna Heninger immigrated from. I now know that Johanna was from Buchenbach and Georg was from Staudach. I have yet to try to locate any information in these places. As far as I can tell it will be quite difficult.

Additionally I received death records for Michael Brandmueller (George's brother), Anna Brandmueller (George's mother) and JOHANNA HERSELF! I was extremely pleased when I received the latter two records. I had no idea that George's mother had come to America at all; I assumed that the children struck out on their own. The record gives Anna's maiden name but it is difficult to discern. It is something like "Neidhardt."

Johanna Heninger Brandmueller died 3 Feb 1864 of consumption.

I still wonder what happened to George, however, and have been trying to find this out. The last record I have of him is 1870 in Springfield, Dane Co., with the son Michael. I haven't been able to figuer out where Margaretha was because she hadn't married Peter Annen yet. I am trying to look into census records to determine if she was working as a domestic for someone in the area. I went to the church where they were married in an attempt to find records or graves for George Brandmueller. I found a great deal of Annen relatives there which helps support how Margaretha Brandmueller met Peter Annen. I didn't find anyone at the church when I visited so I am hoping to contact someone soon.

Another piece of this is that I found a family by the name of Weller who immigrated from Bavaria to...town of Springfield, Dane Co., and are living in the same area as George Brandmueller...the mother in this family is named Margaretha BRANDMUELLER, and came from Staudach. I am hoping to ascertain more of this relationship but it seems very likely that this lady is the sister of George!

I am excited that I have finally made a little progress on that line, however!

Another interesting line I've recently received new information is the Johanna Stark line of the Rinke family. This is, I think, unrelated to the Stark/Steffen line but I have long thought there might be a connection between the two lines because of the closeness of quarters of the two families. New information is starting to support this.

I recently undertook to do a full transcription of St. James Cemetery in Franklin, Wis., since I had already done most of the stones on my first trip there upon discovering that most of them were related to me. On the second trip I discovered some more Starck stones I hadn't seen on my first trip, thanks mostly to the fact that the shrubbery hadn't grown in yet (it was early April when I made the trip, and during summertime some stones are obscured by great big bushes and hostas).

In any event this new discovery of a Johann and Helena Starck was extremely puzzling to me as they didn't seem to fit in with the Starcks who had married into the Steffen family buried in that cemetery. There was a small group of other Starcks in the back of the cemetery which similarly did not fit into the first family. As the semester got a little hotter I put the Star[c]k problem on the backburner.

I received an email last week from Yon Hafer, who has proven to be a valuable resource. He has photos of a family I've never seen before, because my grandfather was adopted. He has photos of the Rinke family, and most notably of Johanna Stark Rinke, who was my ancestor and died young. Yon gave me information about Johanna's parents - that their names were Johann and Helena (Mick) Starck and that they had died in a cholera outbreak in Oct 1866..... This rang a bell. I checked my transcription - Johanna at St. James had died in Oct 1866 and so had Helena. I couldn't even BELIEVE this! I'm pretty excited to see what else I might learn on this line.

Another line I've found out more about is Ernest Koch and his wife Christina Schoso. I found the death record for Ernest - he died 24 Apr 1901. It gave me parents names (Ludwig and Albertina) as well as his date of birth. I similarly found Christina's death rec which didn't have parents' names, unfortunately. From these records, though, I was able to find out where they were buried in Pittsburgh.

I have been doing quite a bit else, too, and will try to update this a bit more frequently now that it is summer.