2014: Year of the Crumbling Family Mysteries? + My Brick Walls (v. long post ahead)

It's been a while since I've written but I'm just now getting some time to write about my recent discoveries. I have had some luck lately when it comes to some of the mysteries that exist in my family.

Georg Brandmueller
The first was that of Georg Brandmueller. Born in Steudach, Bavaria, Georg emigrated to Baltimore in 1847 and a year later married Johanna Hoeninger. They raised a family in Baltimore, amid some issues due to apparent mental instability of Johanna. She died in 1865 and in 1870, Georg shows up in Springfield, Dane Co., Wisconsin living near his half sister, Anna Margaretha Brandmueller Weller. Living with him is his son John, but it is uncertain where his daughter Margaretha is at this time.

After 1870 I had been unable to find Georg in any records. Shortly after this, the Wellers moved to Waseca, MN, and he is not living with his daughter Margaretha in 1880. He is also not living with his son John Martin. The church in Springfield had no record of Georg dying or otherwise being present. I had thought that perhaps Georg moved to Milwaukee, where his son ended up, but could find no evidence of this.

This past December, I discovered the bounty that is Probate records. I had never had the chance to delve into Dane County probate records before, but on this trip I looked in the index and found a few interesting names. On a whim, I decided to look at the index to see if there was a listing for Georg, even though I had found no evidence that he died in Dane County... to my amazement, there he was. The Archives room was silent and I had to try pretty hard to contain my excitement. I ordered the file and waited patiently.. Inside I found some interesting documents.

The very first page included a handwritten notice, stating that Georg Brandmueller had died 26 June 1874 (AHA!), leaving no will. It further states that he died "without leaving a widow or children of legal age to administer his Estate." (This is curious because his daughter Margaret was 24 at this time, so I'm not sure what the legal age was back then) A man named John Schurz was submitting this document to appeal for role of administrator of the estate, as he was already Georg Brandmueller's creditor.

John Schurz was approved as the administrator, and interestingly, the men who helped him appraise the estate included George Weller, Georg's brother-in-law. Georg left very few possessions, most of them relating to his business of shoemaking and repair.

My next step was- well, where was he buried? I still haven't answered that. I thought that perhaps there might be an obituary in a local paper, although I wasn't sure because obits were not very common in the 1870s. I checked the German language paper for Madison (the Wisconsin Botschafter- which is indexed under Monroe, WI, instead of Madison for some reason). I did find a very short notice, and what it said in the 2-3 sentences was very shocking. It mentioned that a shoemaker by the name Brandmueller had killed himself by cutting his wrists, and that there had been similar previous issues with his wife. It also stated that he left behind two children.

In that time period, the Catholic church very strongly frowned upon those who killed themselves, so much so that they were not permitted to be buried on consecrated ground. No wonder there was no record of his burial at the church, because there was no way he would have been buried there. Because of how little money he had, I doubt that where ever he was buried, was marked. So it seems that I may never find his final resting place. There are many small cemeteries in the area of Springfield/Corners and Martinsville, and  I tried looking through most of them at one point several years ago, not having any success. This may just be the final mystery of Georg, figuring out where he was buried, and unfortunately no one living may have the answer to that.

Everett Elisha Reynolds
The next mystery was that of my ancestor Everett Elisha Reynolds, another shoemaker, who appears to have been quite a colorful character. Everett was born in 1847 in North Bridgewater, MA, and moved with his family at a young age to Caribou, Aroostook Co., ME. He married in 1869, had several children. His wife died 7 years later, and most of the children died young (only one lived to adulthood). A few years after the death of his wife, Everett appears in Wisconsin, marries Catherine McConnell, and has three children (including my ancestor Alex Reynolds).

Around the time of the birth of the third child, Everett disappears from Wisconsin, leaving behind his family. There is an article written about 25 years later stating that he traveled to California, Scotland and several other places, and then appears in Massachusetts where he finds an old plow and tows it all the way home to his folks' place in Caribou, ME. The article mentions that much of the information they have is from a diary which belonged to Everett. Everett next appears in census records in Hartford and Canton, Maine, but is not present on the 1930 census.

After this time I was unable to determine where or when Everett lived and died. He had a gravestone next to his first wife in Green Ridge Cemetery, but there was no death date on the stone, indicating he may not be buried there. The gravestone did have an I.O.O.F symbol on it, so I decided to contact the Maine organization to see if they had any records of former members. I had tried this several years ago and gotten no response, but this year I received a response almost immediately, that they would look into it and let me know. They determined that there was an Everett Reynolds who died in Canton around that time, but the information from their records didn't list an exact death date.

I contacted the Town of Canton office to see if they could help. A couple of weeks later, I received a certified copy in the mail: They found that Everett had actually died 7 April 1937 (in Canton), making him almost 90 years old! The death record did list his parents so I could make sure it was actually him, and lucky for me it listed his burial location. I couldn't be more happy to have solved yet another mystery!

Remaining Mystery
Despite having finally determined where and when Everett Elisha Reynolds died, there are still a lot of questions- why did he leave Wisconsin? Why didn't he come back to his family? Or did he? I haven't found him in the 1900 census yet. The biggest question I have, and which I think could answer a lot more questions, is where on earth is that diary of his? Does it still exist, and does it include information on why he left his Wisconsin family behind?

I have sent many queries over the years to various historical societies, hoping to locate the diary (or at least, if it doesn't exist anymore, to gain that knowledge). The new death information caused me to revisit everything I knew about Everett. As such an elusive and colorful ancestor, I have spent a lot of time tracking as much information down about him as I can. I had found a newspaper article from 1926 which was written by O.B. Griffin, which details Everett's biography and the story of bringing the plow back to Caribou. It [in]conveniently mentions nothing about his connections to Wisconsin.

The plow had been donated to the Caribou Historical Society eventually. I had contacted them and they had sent me photocopies of various articles and other things which related to the plow or the Reynolds family, and one of them was a typescript copy from the 1980s which was written by a Stacy Griffin and mentioned that he was transcribing directly from the diary. So, it seems that the diary was still around in the mid-1980s... but what about now? I kept looking at this photocopies and then tried to determine what the relationship is between O.B. Griffin, author of the original story, and Stacy Griffin, author of a later typescript. It turns out they were father and son.

All of a sudden wheels started turning-- if O.B. was writing a detailed account of information from this diary in 1926 and 60 years later, his son was transcribing information from the same diary... could it be possible that the Griffin family has this diary, or knows where it may be? I rushed to contact my acquaintance, Jim, who lives in the Caribou area, as it is a lowly populated area and I figured he might know of Stacy Griffin or other Griffin relatives. He did know of a nephew of Stacy, who I called about two weeks ago. He did not personally know anything about the diary, but he stated that he knew of two people who may have some idea of it. I am waiting now to hear back from him, but am very excited to perhaps being close to solving yet another mystery. Even if it turns out that the diary was destroyed and no longer exists, at least I will have that peace of mind. I do hope that the diary, or perhaps a full transcription, may reside within the Griffin family, and am looking forward to trying to find out for sure.


My Other Brick Walls & Mysteries
(In alphabetical order)

Johann Diebold:
Where was Johann/John Diebold born, and who were his parents? His death record states that the names of his parents were Joseph and Margaret Diebold, with no maiden name listed for his mother. There is no town of birth listed. Various census records indicate he was born in the Alsace region of France/Germany. His death notice written by his wife Adelheid, states only that he was born in "Elsass-Zabern," or Alsace-Saverne, on the 18th of July, 1828. A recently discovered 1860 census for him in New York states that he was born in "Strasburg" or Strasbourg as it is written today.

The nice thing about this region of the cities of Strasbourg and Saverne is that the records appear to all be online (http://www.archivosgenbriand.com/index_english.html). The bad thing is, Johann does not appear to have been born in either of those cities directly, but perhaps in a local village or neighboring town. I have spent a long time looking through towns from the Bas-Rhin region on that site, finding various scatterings of Diebolds in the records- but no Johann so far. What to do? Look through records for every village, town and city in the Bas-Rhin region and hope I find him??


Wilhelmine Hammel:
According to her death record, Wilhelmine Hammel Liebenow was born 30 January 1830 in Germany. There was no place name listed. Her parents were listed as Gottfried and Louisa Hammel. What seems apparent is that she and Christian Liebenow were married in Germany, as their son Ferdinand Liebenow was born in Blumberg, Brandenburg, Germany. Christian was born in Passow, which is relatively close to Blumberg, and my guess would therefore be that Wilhelmine was born in Blumberg and that they were married in Blumberg as well. This is based on the tradition of the man marrying the woman at her home church, and then staying in her home town to raise their children. Because this is just speculation, I will need to prove this. I have not been sure where to begin looking and will need to research specific Archives in the area which may hold the answer I'm looking for.


Louis Hess:
Louis Hess was born October 8th, 1851- but where? And who are his parents? All records indicate that he was born in Alsace-Lorraine. His death record lists a father, Killian Hess, born in France. Other than that, neither his naturalization record nor immigration record list a town of birth, making it pretty near impossible to determine where to look for a birth record and further search on his ancestry. Unless I look through every town in the Alsace region (http://www.archivosgenbriand.com/index_english.html) for a birth record for Louis. That would take a very long time to do.


James Hurst:
Where was he born? And, really, when? His death record states he was born 1 Sept 1832 in County Mayo, Ireland, but no town name is given. Every single census record has a different approximate birth year, including- 1833, 1834, 1836, and 1840. The 1900 census even states he was born in May of 1837- so which is it? I haven't begun to look in Ireland for records, as I haven't determined where to even start. The nice thing is, his death record lists his parents as Michael Hurst and Catherine O'Neill, if we can trust that in the light of all of the mixed up potential years and dates of birth.


John Mayville:
We have DNA evidence which links me and my Mayville line to the immigrant ancestor, Pierre Miville, who was born in Switzerland in the early 17th century. Based on various DNA evidence, we have been linked to Pierre's son Jacques and his wife, Marie Catharine De Baillon (a Filles du Roi). The problem is we have never found definitive evidence of who the parents of John Mayville (b. ca. 1790-1792 according to census records) are. My fellow Miville descendant, Carroll, has spent a long time researching the French Canadians and concluded that based his information, our John Mayville is likely the son of Jean Minville and Marie-Veronique Richard.

Since that original DNA test several years ago, DNA testing has gotten more advanced. Through Ancestry DNA, my grandfather Mayville has taken the test and his DNA has matched closely with others who appear to be descended from Marie-Veronique's parents and grandparents, as well as several who are descended from Jean Minville's mother (Marie-Jeanne Fache)'s parents. Is this definitive proof? Not for me. Anyone can have anything in their family tree, and with how much intermarrying occurred in French Canada, it is sure possible that regardless of my actual lineage, we would match closely with some of these same individuals based on that fact alone. The DNA testing has given me good hope that our belief in John Mayville's parentage is correct, however, I still need hard evidence.

The issue here is I still have not been able to determine when or where John Mayville died. It is believed he died in the DePere or Wrightstown area where he had a farm, but I've found no death record, no death date, and nothing to go off of. The last record I have of him is on 23 Dec 1867 when he and his wife Susan deed land to their daughter Rebecca and her husband George Bowers. John Mayville does not appear on the 1870 census, as far as I have been able to find, making it likely that he died shortly after ridding himself of the land in December of 1867.

Going back further, we have not yet found records (church or otherwise) for the marriage of John Mayville and Susan Reynolds, nor for the births of their children, in Vermont. John was certainly born in Canada, and he first appears on tax rolls in Swanton, Vermont, from 1819 to 1823. Susan's father, Silas, also appears in tax rolls around the same time period, making it likely that they were married in Swanton. However, I still need to find record of that. In 1836 John is given land in Highgate, Vermont. Both of these towns are relatively close to the border with Canada, and the family appears to have moved back and forth between the two towns rather fluidly.

So, I still need to find record of both John Mayville's marriage and death, and I would like to find birth records for their children, if possible.


Alex McConnell:
According to his death record, Alexander McConnell, a prominent businessman in the Jefferson (WI) area, was born on June 8th in 1824, in Perry County, Pennsylvania. There are no parents' names listed. The problem is I cannot find a birth record, and the only Historical Society in the area of Perry County requires $50 for a short search of their records. So far I haven't determined that to be an amount of money I can afford for what would be a search with possibly no results. I would like to track down local churches in the area and see if there is more information there, but have so far been unsuccessful as I do not know where to look for that information.

In Jefferson, it seems that Alex was a member of the Evangelical church, and I would like to look for records there which might hold more clues to Alex's ancestry, but I don't know if this church still exists, and where any possible records may be from this time period.


Mary Ann McGee:
According to her death record from Fond du Lac county, Wisconsin, Mary Ann McGee was born February 27, 1827 in Pompton Township, Passaic County, New Jersey. Her parents' names are not listed, but census records state that both her mother and father were born in New York. As has been so often the case on this list, I have not been able to find a birth record for Mary Ann in New Jersey, as I have not known what church to target to look for, and I am unfamiliar with research in New Jersey.


Ernestine Schassow? Or Ulrith?:
This seems to be the woman of a thousand names. The death record of her daughter, Augusta Koch Liebenow, states her name as Ernestine Schassow. On census records in Pennsylvania, however, her name appears to actually be Christina, and this is confirmed by her death record in Carrick, Allegheny Co., PA. This death record states she was born 25 August 1832.

A man who is related to me through her husband's family (the Koch family) was able to look at the records in Germany for the Koch family, and also sent me information on their marriage, which took place in Bagemuehl, a small town pretty close to Penkun, which is where her husband, Ernest Koch was born. This marriage record indicated that she was born in Bagemuehl.

From other information, I knew that the family belonged to Smithfield E.E. Lutheran church in the Pittsburgh area, and a man there sent me his transcription of her death record, which stated that in fact her maiden name was actually Ulrith, and that she was born in "Strsethof," Pomerania as he wrote it, although he noted that it was quite difficult to read. There is a town in West Pomerania that today is in Poland and is Strzeszów (Stresow in German), but this place is relatively far from Bagemuehl where she was supposedly married to Ernest Koch. Because I couldn't see the record with my own eyes, I have to doubt this church record, or at least hold it to a different light, than the other evidence available.

The next step is to try to locate a birth/baptismal record for her in Germany (or Poland, as the case may be), but it is complicated by the fact that there are two possible maiden names for her (or perhaps one of them was another married name?). I have sent for the death records of her two sons to see if they may shed light on what her name really was.


Peter Tice:
Peter Tice has also been elusive. I have yet to prove who his parents were, as well as when and where he and his wife Elizabeth Romaine died. There is no definitive proof of his parentage. The only true record I have of him is of his marriage to Elizabeth Romaine on 28 Jan 1819. This marriage record does not list his parents. I have also not been able to determine when he died. There are several dates speculated, including that he died in Michigan in 1855, but the obituary for that person does not clearly match what is known about our Peter Tice. That, and he seems to be in Pompton, Passaic Co., NJ, still on the 1860 census. I have not found evidence that he followed his son Ralph to Wisconsin, so it seems likely that he may have died in New Jersey.

Another source has speculated that he died in 1863, however this will does not mention either of his first three known children, John, Letitia and Ralph Tice, only those who appear on later census records. This in itself raises suspicion of whether we have the right Peter Tice on those later census records, but again, it has been difficult to find records which support either an earlier or later death date.

An interesting factor is the recent DNA testing my grandmother underwent (her mother was Blanche Tice). She matched closely (supposedly in the range of 4th cousins), with a woman who descends from Anna Tice b. ca. 1763 and married a Ferris Doty. In the Tice Families in America book, the authors speculated, but could not prove, that Anna's parents were Hendrick Tysse and Fytje Vreeland. Also speculated was that she had a brother named Peter Tice, by the same parents. There is a record of a Peter Tice being born on 30 Jul 1796. There is no record of Anna Tice being born to Hendrick and Fytje, in fact, if she was born in 1763, that would be a whole 12 years before record of their first known child being born, in 1775. However, in that same church, there is a record for an Antje (Anna) Tysse being born 31 Jul 1766 to a Johannes and Maria Tysse. In speculation, this Johannes Tysse may have been a brother to Hendrick Tysse, making Anna b. 1766 the first cousin of Peter b. 1796- and if this indeed was able to be proven as my Peter Tice, then it would indeed fit with how closely my grandmother and this other woman have matched on the DNA site (4th cousin with 96% confidence).

Is there a record somewhere of Peter's death (and Elizabeth Romaine Tice's, too, for that matter)? Can that lead us to the names of his parents? At this point I'm running out of places to look, but also am unfamiliar with most resources in the New Jersey area.


John & Bridget Walsh:
I know virtually nothing about these two. They are the parents of my ancestor, Mary Ann Walsh Hurst. She was supposedly born in Galway, Ireland, but it is unclear if this was County Galway or the city of Galway. Making it more difficult is how ridiculously common her name is, coupled with the ridiculously commonplace names of her parents. The obvious starting point is locating her birth record in Ireland, but I do not know where or how to begin, so there isn't much to go from as far as determining more about John and Bridget Walsh. I have obtained death records for both of their other daughters who lived to adulthood, Anna Walsh Ryan and Bridget Walsh Busby, and they list their parents as unknown or as how I have written them- nobody seems to have known mother Bridget's maiden name.

Amazingly, there is a picture of Bridget from the early 1890s shortly before she died. But we know almost nothing about her. She died 12 April 1895 in Waunakee, and the death record indicates she was born in February of 1809 in Ireland, but no further information about where she was born nor who her parents were.

John is even less well known. The only information on him comes from his gravestone in St. Mary of the Lake cemetery, which stated that he was born in 1811 and died in 1878 (not lucky enough that the stone listed exact dates). I have tried contacting the church for information, as they should certainly have at least a burial date for him if not a more complete record, but so far they have been unwilling or unable to provide information on him. So, John Walsh, one of thousands with that same name, remains a complete mystery.


Simon Walter / Walther:
Where was Simon Walter born, and who were his parents? For a long time I knew virtually nothing about Simon other than his name (which seems to vary sometimes as Simeon (death record @ his German Ev. Lutheran church), Seaman (1860 census), and Samuel (1880 census)). I accidentally came across a findagrave record for him, stating he was buried in St. John's Lutheran Church's cemetery in Oak Creek, and soon contacted the church inquiring about records. I'm sure I've written about this in the past, but they allowed me to come in person to take a look at the church registers, and view Simon's death/burial record. This record provided a birth date of April 10, 1810, and stated that he was born in "Neubeuren bf. Wiesenfeld."

So what's the problem? Well... from every single person I've ever asked, German native or not, there doesn't seem to be a place called Neubeuren that exists near a place called Wiesenfeld. Scattered throughout Germany are a variety of towns called either Neubeuren, Wiesenfeld, or some variation of either name, but never are they near one another.

Further complicating this: I don't know what German state to even start looking in. Each census listed a different birth location for Simon. The 1860 census stated he was from Hanover, the 1870 census stated he was from Prussia, and the 1880 census stated he was from Bayern (Bavaria). I tried looking at old maps to see if any point any of these places really overlapped and I could find nothing (although I am certainly not an expert on mid-19th century Germany localities.

I could start asking Archives located near ever possible town named Neubeuren or Wiesenfeld, but most of them charge a fortune (thanks, dollar, for being worth so much less than the euro), so it isn't financially plausible to do that and hope I hit the right place. So if anyone has any suggestions on where this place could be, that would be very helpful.

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.

----------------------------

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.

-----


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.

-----


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.

----

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.

----

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.

----

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.

----

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.

----

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!!

New Year update

Hey sorry for the long absence here, I was very busy with my semester and hardly had any time to update.

I have been contacted by a number of interesting individuals over the past few months. One of them was a Brandmueller. Not sure if there is a direct connection from his line to mine, but I would not be surprised, as they were from the same area and it is not a common name. I am hoping we can find out more information about these lines but the Brandmuellers have to this point remained quite elusive.

My uncle Bob Mayville has submitted a DNA sample to the ancestry.com labs. This could help put rest to one of the many mysteries surrounding the Mayville line, and we'll see if my theories are upheld. We will be able to determine whether there is any Native American blood and hopefully see if there are any roots in France.

I'm excited to hear back but at the same time I am leery of things like this. Submit a swab to some big company somewhere? I would prefer it if it was possible to make sure there weren't any screw-ups- mixing up DNA from other people or something, for instance. Who knows. I mean, I'm sure its legit or Ancestry.com would be ostracized forever... at the same time, you never know when the next scam is going to come along.

Anyway, since winter break began I have been sending off letters again. One I believe was inquiring about the McConnells again, and a couple to various places in Maine to check on more things with the Reynoldses. Honest to god they are hard to track down. I wrote to the town clerk of Jay, ME where the records for Canton, ME are supposed to be. They didn't have any death record for Everett Reynolds and gave me a new number to call. Not sure that will yield anything.

I wrote also to the Caribou, ME Historical Society. A town so small does indeed have its own Historical Society and I was able to obtain their address with the help of a couple more contacts I have made from around that town. I was lucky to find these people because otherwise I would be in the dark. Its unfortunate that everywhere I check seems to have no further information for me, as I heard back from the Caribou HS.

The man who wrote back said that there wasn't anything about the Reynoldses there, which is interesting because they were purported by several other people to have been integral to the beginnings of that town. They do, however, have pictures of the Green Ridge Grange which was mentioned in the newspaper article I have, and they also have the plow that Everett Reynolds brought to Maine from Massachusetts. He is sending me photos of that, too. I'm pretty excited just to see that. I wish we could somehow find out more, though. Its very unfortunate.

I have another thing on my bucket list and that is to finally call Mr. Hitchcock of Caribou. I have been waiting until I have time to come up with specific questions to ask him, as he is the town historian and from what I have been told, knew some members of the Reynolds family.

I'm also buckling down to get some work done on my family photo project. I'm trying to remember, really, where I left off as it was a few months ago. I have most pictures uploaded so I believe I will be getting them onto the website soon. Hopefully.

There should be some new updates at some point. Happy New Year!

Reynolds in Maine!

I am exceedingly excited at present because a guy in Maine went to the Green Ridge cemetery for me near Caribou, ME to check out what Reynoldses might be there. He reported that the cemetery might as well be called "Reynolds Cemetery" for the amount of people there with that name. Unfortunately his camera had a serious malfunction so he had to return again at a later time.

Anyway, he was just able to send me the pictures and they are very great indeed. Included in the cemetery are my ancestors Elisha T. Reynolds and wife Adeliza Fuller. Included are most of Elisha's siblings and I think an obelisk for his parents.

But most interestingly enough are three particular stones.

The first says "Everett E. Reynolds" and the symbol of rings "F L T" with the birthdate of 3 Aug 1847 but no death date...

The next stone over is Everett's first wife Grace Melissa Harris Reynolds, saying "Mother" with the dates "1851-1876"

The next stone is their son, Herbert Ellery Reynolds with dates 1870-1886.

Now, this is interesting for many reasons. First, there were no other Reynoldeses in the Caribou/Green Ridge area except my family, so the Everett E. Reynolds in the article my grandma gave me almost certainly must be the same man who is my ancestor. But his stone in this cemetery has no death date-- did someone just not have money for the date, or was he buried elsewhere---- or did he truly disappear completely? The stone of his first wife, though, is part of the evidence I was looking for.

Also interesting is the death year for his son Herbert-- I have in my notes from a Reynolds family book that he died in 1880, but just a week or so ago I had been fiddling with censuses and I found an 1880 census with a boy of that age living with, I think, Everett's parents. No evidence of Verna Luella though (try as I might), who was the only child of Everett's first marriage to make it to adulthood.

Anyways, back from my tangent--- if Herbert was still alive until 1886, why did Everett not take him with when-if he went to Wisconsin? And about Everett's second marriage---- His third child in that marriage, Grace V., was born in 1886. After this time Everett disappears from Wisconsin and might or might not be the man of the newspaper article I have.

I need to find someone in Caribou, Maine who knows about this family, or at the very least about what Green Ridge was, and also if anyone has records for that cemetery. I need to find out if Everett was ever buried there or if he was buried someplace else.

I'm excited because this opens the door to new knowledge while also seeming to prove a couple of theories I had going based on information but I have to be careful to not be too hasty. I only hope that I can somehow find out more information.

Also, I've been working again on the McConnell front since the other day Bob Speckman sent me a link to a site which listed some Jefferson area newspapers in which a "Mrs. McConnel" was listed as dying sometime in November, 1892. I'm on the hunt for this article and it seems there might be someone who may finally be able to tell me definitively about some records for the Hake Cemetery in Jefferson. I'm hoping very much that that pans out since every source I get sends me in a circle back on info I already have and I really just need to find new information!!

Additionally, I spent the past few days up north in Shawano because the lady who currently owns a house my ancestor Collin Mayville lived in with his family, invited me to come help them restore the house. We spent the past couple days pulling old, old wood siding off of the house complete with old square peg handmade nails. That was really neat but also quite a lot of work and quite a lot remains to be done.

In addition, I have been curious about the "F L T" which was on Everett E. Reynolds's grave as well as, I noticed today, on the Mayville family stone up north in Shawano. I just googled to see if I could finally find it (because I think I have some sort of pendant or something that was said to be Collin's which has the F L T on it also) and I found this site: http://www.graveaddiction.com/symbol.html

It explains that F L T is: "A symbol of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. Stands for Friendship, Love, and Truth."


Another interesting tidbit about Everett E. Reynolds. If he was a member of this society...... ???

Vital Recs visit (Hurley, Christofferson) and McConnell letters

I meant to write since Thursday when I took a tirp to the Vital Recs office but I've been a bit busy, Thursday afterwards being spent with plugging new names into the genealogy and working over all of my usual sources to see if I could find new information.

I didn't research any of my ancestors this time but instead those of my cousin Steph and my uncle Eric. Since Eric's is shorter and disappointing I will tell what I found (or didn't find) on his family-

I looked up Eva Latus/Latue Skolaski to see what I could find of her parents, etc. It provided a father's name of John Latus but no mother. Eva died in 1932 of diabetes.

Next, I finally found George Young's death record. I had started at the beginning of the years and gone through each one to try to find the right George Young, which was challenging because it is English and a common name. In either event, I finally found that he died 22 Mar 1960 of prostrate cancer. In a turn of bad luck, it did not list his parents' names for some reason. I just thought of that I ought to look for an obituary in the Wisconsin State Journal sinc ehe died in the 60s and in Madison he should have an obit... although, probably, if the informant for the death record didn't have his parents' names, the person who put in the obit might not know also. I will have to check.

Another spot of unfortunate luck came when I located August V. Skolaski Sr.'s death record. He died in 1936 and I had been hoping to find the names of his parents. I was unlucky on that respect.

Lastly on Eric's side I looked up Herman Christofferson because I still hadn't found much on that line (isn't it funny on the most important names- the male line dominated lines in my families, its harder to find info? the Mayvilles, Diebolds, everybody-- doesn't go as far as the other more obscure and hidden names). From Herman's death record I found that his parents were Carl Christofferson and Tena Hanson. I tried locating more information about them but was generally unable to. It might take a thorough search of the vital recs office, again, to find anything on these two.


So, now I move on to my cousin Steph's genealogy, of which I found quite a bit to confirm what I had tried to find prior to my visits, and also enough to jog Steph's memory on her family since she remembered very little.

I looked at a bunch of the Hurley family first, starting with Steph's great-grandparents John S. Hurley and Katherine Byrnes. She had provided years of birth and death for them so I was able to find exact dates now. I confirmed a slight guess I'd had that John's parents were Thomas Hurley and Isabel Dockery. In the next week or so I will go to the historical society and check out that couple's death records which I found in the pre-1907 index. This will hopefully provide me more to look for when I try checking into Irish records-- and will hopefully be easier since its not such a common name as my Irish folks (Walsh, Hurst).

I of course found most of these Hurleys then in Wisconsin census and filled out the siblings of Steph's ancestors.

On Katherine Byrnes's death rec I found her parents to be Patrick Byrnes and Bridgett Keenan. Wasn't able to find much of them in the census mostly because of the amount of name variations on Byrnes/Byrns/Burns, but I will keep looking.

Next I checked out Steph's ancestor Paul T. Drescher. It didn't have his wife's name listed to that didn't help much in the way of trying to locate her but apparently she had pre-deceased him. Either way I found his parents to be Gottlieb Drescher and Minnie Kuhnau (although the record was hard to read that last name).

I looked at Steph's grandpa William Ignatius Hurley just to confirm his parents and dates I had. He is buried at Roselawn in Monona.

Lastly I found LaVetta A. Drescher Hurley's death record and found her mother's maiden name to be Marie Brilliott (father Paul Drescher, aforementioned). This is a really pretty surname (Brilliott) of French origin although the family came from Switzerland directly. I'm sure it will trace back to more direct French origins. Because of this unique surname, I found that they were the only family in the United States with that name at all in the census years currently available. They all lived in Sauk Co. Marie's parents were John Brilliott and Caroline Kaufmann. John's parents were the Swiss immigrants, Russ and Mary Agnes Brilliott. I have charted out most of their children as available from census and then online pre-1907 index. Caroline Kaufmann's parents were John and Josephine Kaufmann and I haven't found so very much about them. There are several people researching various Brilliotts (or at least, having one or two familiar characters in their genealogies, so I have been looking into that.



Finally, yesterday I received a letter from somewhere in Perry County, Pennsylvania regarding a letter I had sent quite over a month ago regarding records on Alexander McConnell being born there, in the hopes of tracking down his parents' names.

Well, as I should know by now it is impossible to find anything on this family, and this instance is not any different. The researcher was unable to find his family but there is a family record in their files from when Donald Schwennesen tried to reach them. I hadn't known they had tried to do any research, but it included Donald's letter which had in it much of the information I have already been able to confirm about the family. Unfortunately his letter was from 1979 and he died five years ago. I don't know his children's names or whereabouts otherwise I would write them regarding his researches... although I can't imagine they would be much more fruitful than my own.

In any event the researcher also included a chunk of photocopies out of the "History of York County Pennsylvania," which details the origins of the Hoeck/Hake family-- From their arrival in about 1748/9 to various endeavors throughout the country including, and it mentions this specifically- the group that came to Jefferson Co., WI. The document is rather dense and so will take a couple lookings-at to see if any of the information is viable for further pursuance.

Small update

I've been doing a lot of random little things lately jsut finding out some info from my grandma to put in about the Walsh side of the family and the Ryan connection, trying to track down more relatives on that branch to get a more complete picture and hopefully find out a little more about the ones we don't know much about.

Yesterday I spent some time looking up churches online.. the Ryans belonged to a St. Patrick's in Lodi and I emailed them to try to find out more info about Mary Ann Walsh's sister Ann Nancy Walsh who married Thomas Ryan. I found her death date from an online cemetery record but I was hoping that they might have more info. I also emailed St. Mary of the Lake which is where the Walshes belonged in Westport, and where John and Bridget Walsh are buried, in the hopes that they might have more detailed records,especially pertaining to John Walsh. There is another church, St. Martin's, which is where Mary Ann Walsh and James Hurst were supposedly married, I am going to send them a letter asking them if they have any records, either.

In other parts of the family I received some info from, apparently, someone at the Dodge/Jefferson Counties Genealogical Society.. She emailed me rather out of the blue saying she was responding to my query (and I'm not sure which one?) about the McConnells and Reynoldses in Rock River Cemetery. Either way she had told me she had obits for people I was looking for as well as proof that the McConnells were buried at Hake cemetery, and that she would mail this info to me.

This sounded slightly too good to be true so I guess I wasn't surprised by what exactly I received. I got some transcripts of the cemetery, not records pertaining to who is buried there, and miscellaneous obits for people named McConnell who have no apparent relation. The one gem, I think, it Everett Garfield Reynolds's obituary which I didn't know existed and it provides some interesting info. Here's a transcript:

"Everett Garfield Reynolds was born may 22, 1882, and passed away July 5, 1949 at London Wis. He was the son of Everett Sr. and his wife, Kate (McConnel) Reynolds.
"He attended the London school and as a young man he was employed as a farm hand, but worked the greater part of his life as a painter. Many residents of London and surrounding territory came to know him as their house painter and home decorator.
"As a citizen and neighbor he was always accommodating, pleasant, honest, and gentle. Very quietly he lived a peaceful life, minding his own addairs. He was never married.
"Genereally speaking, his health was always fair, until Monday, June 17, when he suffered a troke. Dr. K. K. Amundson, who attended him, advised removal to a hospital and this was done at once. However, in spite of excellent care, there was no hope of his recovery. He passed away on Friday, July 5th.
"Preceeded in death by his parents and one brother, there are still suviving him two sisters and one brother, who are Mrs. Lu Noel of Yonkers, New York, Mrs. Otto Schwennesen, Chicago, and Alexander of Madison, Wis. There are also three nieces and four nephews.
"The departed attained the age of 58 years, one month, and 13 days. He had been a member of the Moravian church and the funeral services were conducted by the Rev. D. C. Heinrich on July 7 grom the Prescott funeral home at Cambridge. Internment was in Rock river cemetery."

Cemetery Visits; new censuses available; Everett Reynolds' disappearing act; photo project

Hold tight for a long entry!

The weekend before this past one I went to several cemeteries. The first, St. James, held great promise as I had no idea who I would actually find there but had read online that my ancestor Peter Steffen had donated the land for the cemetery and the church. I went there first because I was excited that he might be there since I don't know much about him or his family.

I found that I am probably related to almost everyone in the cemetery there. The cemetery is full of Hagemanns and Fischers which was pretty intersting. My greatest find, though, was Peter Steffen's moument which had his daughter Franziska Steffen Starck's information on it. Franziska was married to Peter Starck, and their daughter Helen Stark is my great-great grandmother. Franziska had died young but I hadn't been able to find records for her birth nor death. The stone however had both dates in full, and this is very exciting. There were other Steffens throughout the cemetery as well as other families married in to the ones mentioned before. Some of the Steffens were ones I did not have in my records and I have yet to figure out who exactly they are. Other names in the cemetery such as Puetz and Peshon are related to us through the surnames already mentioned, also.

An interesting find towards the back of the cemetery was a stone which had some young Starck people on it but I only know who one of them was.. there was a Mathias, Margaretha and Gertud and I was only able to find the Mathias in the records I have as being a brother of Peter Starck. I do not know who the others are but all are early births and deaths.

After this cemetery I went down the road a ways to St. Martin of Tours cemetery. I searched the entire cemetery, puzzled that I hadn't found Peter Stark even though his death record had said this was where he was buried. As I was walking back to the car I saw the name Stark on the back of a stone which I had searched the front of earlier. I got closer and found that indeed Peter's name, and that of his second wife Margaret Logic, was carved on the back of his daughter Mary Stark's stone with her husband George Acker.

Next I made a return to St. Louis Cemetery in Caledonia because I had found out that the family of Franziska Steffen's mother, Elizabetha Rauguth, had lived in Caledonia and belonged to the St. Louis parish. This is quite the coincidence that the ancestors/families of my grandpa Schmitt's father and mother lived near and knew each other long before Catherine Emerich and Lester Walter were even born. I'm not sure if this was a conscious connection or not but I will try to find out.

Finally, this past weekend I went back to Hake (Rock River) Cemetery in Jefferson to try to look for the McConnells that I could not find on my previous visit. Alex McConnell's death record said that he was buried there but I have still been unable to find his gravestone or that of his wife, Elizabeth Hake McConnell. I did some poking around but all I found really was a gopher which came lunging at me across the cemetery. I also noted that Alex's business partner W. H. Hake was buried a row down the hill from where the McConnell children are (and where I believe Alex and Elizabeth to be as well).

I have also been puzzling over the problem of Everett Elisha Reynolds. I do not know for sure if he simply disappeared or died while the family was living in Deerfield. I found on familysearch.org's new pilot site that they have Wisconsin censuses from, 1855, 75, 85, 95 and 05, most I've never seen before much less knew existed. Through these I looked up several families I am interested in, including finding John Mayville in DePere in 1855.

But back to the Deerfield question. When my grandmother first told me about these families as I was starting research on that side of the family, she told me a story about how "Garfield Reynolds" had gone west to California during the gold rush, and that he had written some letters back at first but then the family had never heard from him again.

The only Garfield I have found in my records was the son of Everett Elisha Reynolds and Kate McConnell, and he was born in 1882, quite long after the California gold rush (1849) and seems to have lived in Jefferson Co most of his life as a painter, usually his residence was with his widowed(?) mother, Kate. He died there in 1940 and is buried at Hake Cemetery with his mother but no Everett anywhere to be found. I had narrowed down that Everett had died or disappeared by 1900 but with the 1895 census available I was able to narrow down his timeframe to disappearing between 1886 (the year his last child was born) and 1895. I find that he could not have gone west for the gold rush in CA (he was born in 1847) and that his father (Elisha Tilton) would not have done so either, because he seems to have lived out his life in its entirety in northern Maine.

So the dilemma is, who is this my grandmother was referring to? His name can't have been Garfield, but was it Everett Elisha? The story must be true to some respect- someone had disappeared- but who was it? Kate was listed as a widow in 1895 and 1900-- did Everett simply die in Deerfield, or did he go west for some unknown reason and not turn back?

I already have one instance of him leaving his life to go somewhere new. Everett had a wife, Melissa Harris, in his native Maine. All but one of the children from that marriage died young, the last of those in 1880 when presumably he picked up and left for Wisconsin--- not sure if he brought his one daughter, Verna Luella, with him but he married Kate McConnell in 1881 and had three children, then within 5 years had disappeared again. So, that is something I have been puzzling about, as well as who took care of Verna for all this time and how she ended up marrying a man from Ohio.

Something else going on is that I have started a new project, because I just didn't have enough to do before :P I have started scanning all of my Mayville grandparents' photos in the hope of eventually getting them on a website (http://jadesgenes.250x.com/) eventually... although it is going to take quite some while as I haven't even gotten to the beginning of the scanning, and once I do that I have to resize images and upload them, and then code it all on... in general its a huge project.

I have made an appointment for the Vital Recs office on Wednesday. the day was completely open so the lady offered me two slots in a row, so I will have over 4 hours to search the records. Woohoo.

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.

Rauguth/Steffen & McConnell/Hake

Just a little tidbit so you know I haven't forgotten about this thing.. I think that I have found miscellaneous scraps of info that I haven't put here in the past month, because I've been pretty busy with school.. however, I figure this is a pretty big update even for it being rather small.

I went to the historical society quick because I found a record for the death of an Anna E. Steffen, who I thought may be the same who was married to John Peter Steffen (their daughter Franciska married Peter Stark, whose daughter Helen married into the Walter family). Turns out that this was indeed the person I was looking for. I confirmed her maiden name of Anna Elizabeth Rauguth, and also found out her birth date. Additionally, the death record stated that she is buried at St. Jacob's, which I haven't yet determined the location of. They lived around Oak Creek, however, so I would assume it is in that area.

Another good find was Alex McConnell's death record. He is not in the Wisconsin Historical Society's index of pre-1907 Birth, Marriage and Death records, so I was not able to find him in that way. Instead, knowing his date of death, I looked for someone who had died the same day and in the same county as Alex, and looked that person up. I then looked near that person's record and happened to find Alex's death record. It proved very useful.

Firstly, It told me that his birthday was 8 Jun 1824 and that he was born in Perry Co., Pennsylvania. From census records, it was impossible to tell where he was born because in some places it stated he was born in Pennsylvania and in others, it said Ohio. Therefore, this will help in the search for his parents, because I now have a county to start with in PA. It is possible that Alex's father's name was either Samuel or John, as these were two heads of household living in Perry Co. in both 1820 and 1830.

Additionally, the record provided that he was buried in Hake Cemetery, and his wife was Elizabeth Hake. This is extraordinary, because it only serves to further the connection with the Hakes which most certainly exists, even though I and my Hake contacts have been unable to ascertain who Elizabeth's parents were for sure (we still think her father was John Philip).

If you remember, I took a trip to that cemetery (now Rock River) a few months ago, and clearly Alex & Elizabeth's stones were no longer visible. I am hoping once it is warm enough, to be able to visit the cemetery and poke around a bit to figure out where the stones might be. I would be inclined to believe that they are in the somewhat vacant space near Kate McConnell & Garfield Reynolds, as well as the other children of Alex & Elizabeth. Hopefully I can turn something up. I also want to try to find out who in particular is in charge of that cemetery so I might find interment records which could indicate further useful information.

I've let my Hake contacts know about the information I got today... Vital Records were apparently not required until the early 20th century for Pennsylvania, so I am not sure how much I will be able to find; however, I plan on writing to a genealogical society in that area, if possible.

Trip to the WI Vital Records Office

Today I got two hours to find as much information as I could. I found some pretty good stuff, and I am pretty happy about it.

I finally found Theresa Kaiser Hess's death record. She died in 1939. This provided me with her full birth date, which I didn't have before, as well as her death date (of course) and the name of her father- Bernard. Her mother's name wasn't listed for some reason.

I also tried to find Ruth Dimmys Tarbell Greeley's death record- couldn't find it.

Additionally, I got pretty lucky when looking for Sarah Elizabeth Mayville Beaulieu's death record--- it was in the first book I picked up. She died in Long Lake, WI, in 1925, about a week after her brother Collin died. She was the last to die of Ephraim's children with Hannah Nora Preston.

I also messed around with the Walter family. Lester Walter's father was Fred. I confirmed his parents' names, that he married Helen Stark, as well as got exact birth/death dates for him. Also found Helen Stark's birth and death dates, neither of which I had previously, as well as confirmed her father was Peter Stark.

Also, I looked up Fred's father Fred Sr. I found when he died and was able to find his birth date, too. I tried to find his wife, Elizabeth Hauch Walter but while searching I came across the death record of Fred's SISTER Elizabeth Walter, who died a few years after him as a result of slipping on ice. I was able to confirm this was his sister because both of their records listed father Simon Walter and Margaret Strasser. I hadn't known their parents' names previously.

The biggest thing I found, so far, is Katherine McConnell Reynolds's mother's name. Well, I also found Katherine's exact birth and death dates, but I found that her mother was Elizabeth Hake (her father was Alexander McConnell). For some reason I recognized the name Hake...

A few months ago I found out that Katherine was buried at Rock River Cemetery in Jefferson, WI., so I went to look at the stones for myself and found that the cemetery was full of people named Hake, and in particular Kate and her siblings and son were surrounded by Hakes. I thought it odd but of course didn't think too much of it.

So I looked up these Hakes on findagrave.com first, then looked a couple up on rootsweb. They are all intermingled. A guy named Bob Speckman had added pictures and info to some of the gravelistings on findagrave, and the site had his email address. I contacted him about the Hakes and asked him if he knew of an Elizabeth Hake. From what I found on Rootsweb, and then what he told me, it seems there was an Elizabeth Hake born in 1819 to John Phillip Hake (the man who donated the land for the cemetery), but Bob hadn't been able to track her down--- everyone but her, he knew more info about.

So it seems that I might have his missing Elizabeth, but we can't quite prove it yet... we just know that Elizabeth it related to the bunch somehow. A Reverend Emanuel Hake, also buried in that cemetery, and born around the same time as Elizabeth, married a Jane Elizabeth McConnell, who I can only assume is closely related to my Alex McConnell (if not his sister or something). I'm pretty excited about this discovery. the Hakes trace back pretty well... but the McConnell's are still a mystery.

I almost forgot--- Bob seems to be the leading Hake researcher, so it was lucky that I contacted him-- he knows a lot and has a lot of good resources. He had, offchance, in a pile of newspaper copies he got just recently from the Jefferson Historical Society, the obituary for Alex McConnell, which confirmed all of the moving I had found in the censuses, and also provided the date of his death, and the fact that he married Elizabeth Hake and they lived in the "Hake Neighborhood." This is also really exciting, because I had had no solid dates yet for Alex and still don't for Elizabeth-- unless we prove she's the daughter of John Phillp Hake.