Monster winter break update

Hey all!

Well over break I have been basically pounding through as much genealogy as I can get done in such a short time. I've been trekking all over the internet in search of new little pieces to add to my family tree.

I did some work on my family photo album back in December. Another project has been putting together an application to the Daughters of the American Revolution. This was a rather spur of the moment decision, and as it turns out it is relatively costly to join. I figure I should join at some point, though, because of all of my ancestors who were in the Revolution. I am using Joseph Reynolds (1751-1831, great-grandfather of Everett Elisha Reynolds) as my main ancestor. Later on I can add on and link all of my other ancestors, too.

As part of that experience I asked my paternal grandparents what sort of records they have from that side of the family as far as birth and marriage records. I received not only records but some copies of letters to my great-grandmother Geraldine Reynolds, which contained some new family info.

One letter is signed what looks like "Don"; I don't know who else this may be except for Donald Schwennesen. This letter contains references to some letters my Geraldine had at some point from Harrison McConnell in California. This could be where the whole gold mining story came from. I don't know where these letters are, however. But it did confirm some flimsy census work I had had on Harrison McConnell, as well as his relationship to my family. He included in his letter a skeleton family tree he had been working on.

Other letters were from Randy Gjertson a relative on the Liebenow side. I have since tried contacting him but haven't heard back yet.

I also received a copy of a newspaper clipping that shows Geraldine Reynolds with a doll in the 1920s. I had no clue about this, and apparently my grandmother still has the doll in the picture.

As I said I have been traipsing every which way. I finally found the phone number for Leona Mayville Buttweiler. She is Dewey's daughter, is 85 she said, and as I had read in some old letters, had done quite a bit of genealogy. Well, she is a treasure! All I had to do was mention the family and she just went on about the family and random tidbits I had and hadn't known before, while reiterating several times that she has "lots of stuff on the Mayvilles and Reynoldses."

She gave me her address and I wrote her a letter as she said that when I did that it would make it easier for her to send her some copies of what she has. From what she said, she has a lot of records that don't seem to be in the public records, marriage records and so forth from the mid 19th century. I am extremely excited to see what she may have, and it is amazing to think that she knew all of these people that I only know through records. The closest I have to her is my grandmother Mary Diebold Mayville, who tells me stories about all the relatives on her side. I look forward to hopefully talking to Leona more and seeing what she has. If she had photos, that would be amazing!

I also looked a little more in-depth at the records familysearch.org has been getting transcribed. That has quickly become a treasure trove for me. Their pilot records are located here.

They have Ohio state death records there which enabled me to track down more of, and flesh out, the Noell family. I was able to find out where Julius Noell's parents were buried as well as more definite dates for a lot of his family. I still can't find out where he and Verna Luella Reynolds, along with their children, ended up. I am going to try calling some New York cemeteries to try to figure it out.

familysearch also has cook county, illinois birth and marriage records online which helped me find out a bit more about the Schwennesen family. I found out where Grace Reynolds and her husband Otto Schwennesen is buried as well as their son Donald O. Schwennesen who I mentioned earlier. Donald's find-a-grave page included a full obituary which has a lot of information about his descendents.

Another bit I found on familysearch just tonight was that there were some Washington State death records indexed. I searched "Gloria Mayville" (daughter of Nina Morris and Edmund Mayville) because I still have not been able to find what happened to her. What popped up was fantastic. I still have to confirm this, but if it's the true connection, it makes me extremely happy.

A death record popped up for a Patricia Lynn Barkley who died in 1951 with parents listed as James H. Barkley and GLORIA V. MAYVILLE. the Gloria I'm looking for has a middle name of Velma which meshes NICELY with this. So, next I checked the SSDI for a "Gloria Barkley" it came up with Gloria V. Barkley b. Jan 11, 1924 d. Feb 19 1995. The only thing I have for dates for my Gloria is that she was born Feb 11, 1924, but this date is only from Clorie Greeley Mayville's birthday book - so being off by a month would not be unusual (I have found a couple other such discrepancies in her birthday book).

I am attempting to find an obituary for this Gloria Barkley who died in Vancouver, WA, to confirm the connection but things are looking good. Vancouver WA is just across the river from Clackamas valley, where Gloria Mayville's sister Gertrude Mayville Schultz lived and died.

I'm excited to possibly finally have some information about this line. I hope that Gloria had more children and maybe I can contact them for information on their line. That would be very exciting. The last little bit I found was a transcription of James H. Barkley's grave in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in Vancouver, which says :

"James H. Barkley oct 12, 1919 - jun 15, 1978, us army. wife: Gloria Barkley, vancouver, MGM, 19 jun 1978"

I am going to try contacting this cemetery, also to see if they can provide any more information to me.

Well this post has gotten quite long!! I'll hopefully have more information soon.

Reynolds & Liebenow updates

Woo, it seems today I have made some small leaps in a couple of what seem to have been brick walls..

I talked to Gilbert H. from Caribou, ME, on the phone today. He is a local historian there, having lived in the area his whole life (73 years I believe). He told me about a pamphlet he had found which was from the Reynolds Family Association and had a section about our family, particularly about Everett Elisha Reynolds. This pamphlet was published in 1931 and apparently Everett was still alive then.

I found there to be some very interesting information in what he read aloud to me from this book: it states that Everett "is a shoemaker of Canton, ME", "Lived in Brockton; Wisconsin for seven years; California two years; Caribou, Hartford, Ft. Fairfield, ME. In 1888 went to Glasgow, Scotland for short time."

He went to SCOTLAND?! He was busy in 1888. This is the year he left his Wisconsin family; the year he supposedly went to California (according to my grandmother her story had been he went to Cali for a gold rush? [gold rush part ruled implausible because of the year] and wrote to the family a few times but then was never heard from again); the year he found the plow and brought it to Green Ridge Grange starting on August 3rd 1888 and taking 37 days to reach Green Ridge, ME.; and NOW he also went to Scotland in 1888. Now isn't that something???

This basically has connected almost everything I have found out so far, from his first wife Melissa Harris (and children, including another daughter that I hadn't known about yet), to his time in Wisconsin and his marriage to Kate McConnell (which this book acknowledges that at the time- 1931- she and the three children were living in Chicago... I'm not sure about that I need to try to see if my grandma knows why she would have been in Chicago at all).

It connects all of the scattered people and places who I have been trying to prove are all tied to a single entity, Everett Elisha Reynolds, rather than perhaps chasing two different people who lived parts of each of these lives but aren't the same person and one isn't my ancestor. No, I can now almost definitively (and only "almost" because nothing is EVER definitive in genealogy or anything else for that matter) say, that Everett Elisha Reynolds, the man I have traced in all of these unlikely, varied places, with varied little notes attached, is indeed one person who did all of these things and is indeed my ancestor without a doubt.

I think most intriguingly is that he sent in this information himself, because he was a member of the Reynolds Family Association (RFA) and I believe that they probably required then, as they do now, all applying members to submit their direct Reynolds lineage and any pertinent information to each person.

I think the last two bits of information I really want are to know if Everett's journal is still around, and also to try to find out when Everett died. I tried looking through RFA obituaries today at the Historical Society, because their yearly newletter/pamphlet contains a section for obituaries of Reynolds descendants, but in years 1931-36 I could not find him. I suppose it wouldn't shock me that he lived to be 100, but who on earth knows. I just need to find out somehow.

Gilbert didn't know anything of a Reynolds diary when I mentioned it, but he said he would inquire around town. He also said his wife's second cousin is a Dr. Jay Reynolds who lives in, I think, Ft. Fairfield, and whom Jim Ashby suggested I write asking if there was such a diary still around. I haven't heard from the Dr. Reynolds but I hope someone will find something out there in Maine.


Also, I have been working on my photo project... It's nearing "final" stages- won't ever be done, really, hopefully, I keep adding new pictures- but one of the last stages is digging through all of my family emails for pictures people have sent me over the years to include in the family photos I have just from my family. The site is http://jadesgenes.250x.com

In any event, I was just rummaging through the Liebenow family folder in my email and I found the email where someone transcribed the marriage record from a Pittsburgh church for Ferdinand Liebenow and Augusta Koch. It says witnesses were Ferdinand Koch and Albertina Koch. I decided to search the 1900 census for a Ferdinand Koch living in PA, but assuming I had already done this when I first got the email, I didn't expect to find anything. Well, I found one about 40 some years old in 1900, living in Pittsburgh. He has a huge household, and I look at the bottom and see that his PARENTS are living with him.

Well, I see that this could very likely be the brother of my August Koch, because her death record has the father's name as Earnest Koch and mother as Earnestine Schoso (b. ca. 1832 and living in 1905 with Ferdinand and Augusta in Wisconsin). So, the parents names are Ernest and Christiana. Ernest is b. Jan 1834 and the wife is Aug 1832. Their immigration year is given as 1882, which is [admittedly a sort of long shot] the same year as Augusta Koch immigrated (I don't think I have found their names in any passenger lists yet but I need to try harder to now, to confirm this census-made connection).

So, I am pretty excited about these new openings and will hopefully keep updating this about them

Liebenow, McConnell, misc.

Haven't had a lot of time but I figured I ought to update this quick before I head into the last big stretch of the school year- oh how I want it to be over with.

In any event... Some little things that have occurred offhand include:

I received a document from the Dodge/Jefferson Co. Genealogical Society which told me that in 1877 and 1879, my ancestor Alex McConnell was in a partnership with an unnamed Hake, and they ran a dry goods store together. In 1881 the partnership dissolved with Alex taking full ownership. This is important because it connect further Alex with his wife Elizabeth Hake (although still haven't determined her parents), and it also confirms what my grandma Alice Annen Schmitt told me regarding Alex, that he had a dry goods store. So thats very well, hopefully more information will surface about this.

I've also been exchanging letters with Roland Liebenow. He is a cousin of mine through Ferdinand and August (Koch) Liebenow. Anyways we have been discussing place of origin of the Liebenow family, and that Christian's father's name was William. Also, there were other Liebenows who came who were Christian's siblings I believe.

Thats about all I can remember for right now. If I think of anything, I'll be sure to post it.

Emmerich line back from Franciscus

Albert Emmerich, my contact in Germany, just sent me what he has found so far in the Emmerich line, past Franciscus Emmerich. I now know that line back to the beginning of the early 17th century, which is very good as far as finding records in Germany goes since a lot of them were destroyed as a result of the World Wars.

Additionally, Albert has begun helping me track down any Liebenow researchers who may be in or around Germany. This is very helpful and will hopefully lead to further information on that line.