My Snyder Family

I have a Snyder branch in my family tree. My paternal grandfather was Robert James Kidd (1928-1967). His father was Harold Glen Kidd (1905-1986), and his father, Lawrence Elsworth Kidd (1877-1956) was married to Ethel Rhoda Myers (1881-1918). Ethel's parents were Charles Wesley Myers (1842-1919) and Jemima Snyder (1846-1915), which makes Jemima my 3rd great-grandmother.

Last week on Ancestry.com i stumbled upon a typewritten, 40-page "Snyder Family History" written by a distant cousin in 1960. It goes back a few generations before Jemima and has a lot of great details and personal family stories about Jemima's father (my 4x great-grandfather) John Ernest Snyder. There are a lot of details and some amazing Civil War stories about Jemima's older brother Franklin.

While the bulk of the focus goes down another side branch from mine, this is one of my favorite family history resources I've ever come across. I am very grateful to Dan Swanjord and this labor of love that he never could have imagined would be found by somebody like me in a giant electronic cloud 55 years later.

For the benefit of search engines and any other Snyder descendants out there, I have a link to a pdf of the document below and am pasting my research notes with data on my line that I pulled and will use to update my tree.

If you found this post, I hope you enjoy as much as I did!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B55QLnu5UTRlWGN4dzBoODhtOTA

Swanjord, Dan, The Snyder Family History, 1960

• 1 John Rollin Pollock
  • B 1797 in PA or OH or IN
  • D 1890 in Bloom, Richland, Wisconsin
  • M Catherine Walters before 1819 (when first child was born, presumably)
  • Parents' name was Pollock (Irish spelling)
  • Parents came to Monroeville, Allen, Indiana (not sure when) where John was raised (until 1835, this was Randolph County)
  • Moved to Richand County, Wisconsin in 1856 with John Ernest Snyder and James Polk where he bought a farm 2 miles West of John
  • After Catherine died in 1866, he wanted "his favorite grandson" Franklin to live with him, but he could not because he had his own family
  • Gave his farm to John and Sally Householder after Catherine died in 1866 and continued to live there with them
  • Was a "favorite of his great-grandchildren"
  • Children:
    • 1.1 Mary Ann, b 1819
    • 1.2 Catherine, b abt 1821
    • 1.3 Jemima, b abt 1823
    • 1.4 James, b abt 1825
• 2 Catherine Walters (Polk)
  • B abt 1797 (Assuming same age as John Polk)
  • D abt 1866 in Bloom, Richland, Wisconsin of cancer
  • M John Polk before 1819 (when first child was born, presumably)
• 1.1 Mary Ann Polk (Snyder)
  • B 1819 in Monroeville, Allen, Indiana
  • D 
  • M 3.1 John Ernest Snyder abt 1840 in Allen County IN
  • Moved to Bloom, Richland, Wisconsin with John in 1856
  • In 1858, 6 weeks after Emma was born, Mary Ann died when she couldn't breathe due to a goiter
• 1.2 Catherine Polk (Browning)
  • B abt 1821 in Monroeville, IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M ? Bowning abt 1841 (assuming 20 when married)
  • Lived in Richland County, WIsconsin
• 1.3 Jemima "Mima" Polk (Peckham)
  • B abt 1823 in Monroeville, IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M ? Peckham abt 1843 (assuming 20 when married)
  • Lived in Richland County, WIsconsin
• 1.4 James "Jimmy" Polk
  • B abt 1825 in Monroeville, IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • Lived in Richland County, WIsconsin - moved there in 1856 with John Ernest Snyder
• 3 ? Snyder
  • B abt 1796 in PA (Assuming 20 years-old when John was born; assuming PA)
  • D 
  • Children (birth order after John is assumed, except that we know Susan was younger than Catherine)
    • 3.1 John Ernest b 1816
    • 3.2 Catherine b abt 1818
    • 3.3 Andrew b abt 1820
    • 3.4 Elizabeth b abt 1822
    • 3.5 Susan b abt 1824
    • 3.6 George b abt 1826
    • 3.7 ? b abt 1828
  • Moved to Allen County, IN before 1840
  • "Pennsylvania Dutch"
• 4 ? ?
  • B abt 1796 in PA (Assuming 20 years-old when John was born; assuming PA)
  • M ? Snyder
• 3.1 John Ernest Snyder
  • B 16 Mar 1816 in Cumberland County, PA (Assuming same age as Mary Ann Polk)
  • D Jul 1905
  • M 1.1 Mary Ann Polk about 1840 in Indiana
  • M Jane Zimmerlee abt 1860 in Bloom, Richland, Wisconsin
    • Was one of John's housekeepers
    • Was a widow
    • Had 3 children: Calvin, James, and Elizabeth
    • Calvin's daughter Orabelle married3.1.1.6 Grant Snyder
  • Supposedly named for an ancestor, Mr. Arnst, a shipbuilder from Amsterdam, whose daughter came to "one of the first Dutch colonies" and married a Mr. Bender
  • Farmer
  • Probably lived in Madison Twp, Indiana
  • Moved to Iowa in a covered wagon abt 1845 ("with the two small boys, his wife, and 18-year-old brother, George")
  • Moved back to Marshall County, Indiana before 1846 (confirm with census & Jemima's birth record) after trouble with Indians and disease (probably malaria) in Iowa
  • Moved to Richland County, Wisconsin in 1856 and bought a farm 1 mile W of Bloom City (called West Branch at the time)
  • "Was an intelligent man, yet of moderate education"
  • "Uncle Johnny" Was doctor, veterinarian, and "Mr. Fix-it" of the community
  • 1878 went to Richland Center to get small pox vaccine and administer the Bloom community
  • Children (birth order of Sarah to Mary Ellen is assumed)
    • 3.1.1 Franklin b 1842
    • 3.1.2 Finley b abt 1844
    • 3.1.3 Sarah b abt 1845
    • 3.1.4 Jemima b abt 1846 (confirmed 5 Jan 1846)
    • 3.1.5 Mathilda b abt 1848
    • 3.1.6 Harriet b abt 1850
    • 3.1.7 Andrew b abt 1852
    • 3.1.8 Mary Ellen b abt 1854
    • 3.1.9 John b abt 1856
    • 3.1.10 Emma b in 1858
    • WITH JANE ZIMMERLEE
    • 3.1.11 Enos b abt 1862
    • 3.1.12 George b abt 1864
    • 3.1.13 William b abt 1866
    • 3.1.14 Charles b abt 1868
    • 3.1.15 Flora b abt 1870
• 3.2 Catherine "Katie" Snyder (Fisher)
  • B abt 1818 in PA, OH, or IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D
  • M ? Fisher, abt 1838 probably in IN (assuming 20 when married)
  • Lived in Michigan
  • "Quite a bit older than Susan"
  • Died before her husband and before Susan
  • "A fine lady, with such perfect manners, and very nice"
• 3.3 Andrew "Andy" Snyder
  • B abt 1820 in PA, OH, or IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D abt 1902 (lived past 80) from pneumonia 
  • M Lucy before 1858
  • M Margaret "Maggie" Bonham after Lucy died
    • She had 5 small children, and Andy was like a father to them
  • Was living in Woodstock, Wisconsin in 1858
  • Raised niece 3.1.10 Emma after Mary Ann Snyder (Polk) died in 1858
  • Attended the first recruiters' meeting in Bloom for the Civil War on 12 Sep 1861 and enlisted in Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers with nephew 3.1.1 Franklin Snyder
  • Went to Camp Randall, Madison in late Sep 1861
  • Assigned to 11th Wisconsin Regiment, Company D on 18 Oct 1861
  • (Copy more details about service with Franklin Snyder as a story)
  • Discharged from the Army 25 Sep 1862 due to chest wounds received in battle
  • Moved back to Woodstock after the war
  • Carried 3 bullets in his lungs the rest of his life
• 3.4 Elizabeth "Lib" Snyder (Bogar)
  • B abt 1822 in PA, OH, or IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M ? Bogar abt 1842 probably in IN (assuming 20 when married)
  • Lived in Chicago
• 3.5 Susan Snyder (Epley)
  • B abt 1824 in PA, OH, or IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M ? Epley abt 1844 probably in IN (assuming 20 when married)
  • Lived in Michigan
  • "Quite a bit younger than Katie" and lived with her and cared for her after ? Epley died
  • M ? Fisher after Katie died probably in Michigan
  • "A fine lady, with such perfect manners, and very nice"
• 3.6 George Snyder
  • B abt 1827 in PA, OH, or IN (was 18 when he went to Iowa with John and Mary Annin abt 1845)
  • D abt 1846 near Council Bluffs, Iowa; disappeared while hunting /scouting and presumed killed by Native Americans
  • According to another story, he may have had children? See appx. 2
• 3.7 ? Snyder (Wynkoop)
  • B abt 1828 in PA, OH, or IN (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M ? Wynkoop abt 1848 (assuming 20 when married)
  • (low confidence in date of birth or marriage or birth order)
  • Lived in Ohio
• 3.1.1 Franklin Snyder
  • B 8 Jan 1842 in Madison Twp, Allen, Indiana ("Flatrock")
  • D 24 Jun 1912 due to complications after a stroke
  • M 4 Jul 1866 in Rockbridge, Richland, Wisconsin to Maria Mosher (b abt 1848)
  • Brown eyes and coal-black hair
  • Attended the first recruiters' meeting in Bloom for the Civil War on 12 Sep 1861 and enlisted in Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers with Uncle 3.3 Andy Snyder
  • Went to Camp Randall, Madison in late Sep 1861
  • Assigned to 11th Wisconsin Regiment, Company D on 18 Oct 1861
  • (Copy more details about service as a story)
  • 13 Feb 1864 Discharged from the Army, but immediately re-enlisted
  • 18 Sep 1865 Returned from the war in Madison with a rank of corporal with 12 men under his command
  • 11 Oct 1865 Discharged from the Army
  • 1865 received a 160-acre farm 1/4 mile west and 3/4 mile south of John Snyder's farm
    • John had invested the money sent home by Franklin during the war to buy the farm for him
    • Good timber land
    • Raised wheat, oats, barley, and corn
    • Had ducks, geese, chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep
    • Had a large garden
  • Was Postmaster of Bloom (probably abt 1889-93 during the Harrison administration)
  • 1890-1895 Had a general store with the post office
  • Left the farm to Ernest and Grant to tend when he was older
  • Lived with 3.1 John (and Jane) Snyder with Maria until 1867 when the moved into a log cabin on Franklin's property
  • 1871 moved into a frame house they built
  • Abt 1882 began suffering from locomotor ataxia, which made it more and more difficult for him to walk throughout his life, eventually he was wheelchair-bound
  • 1890 "retired" to a house in Richland Center, Wisconsin
  • "Not financially rich but happy"
  • Member of the Grand Army of the Republic "G.A.R."
  • Children
    • 3.1.1.1 Mary Jane b 19 Dec 1868
    • 3.1.1.2 Lillian Florence b 7 Jul 1870
    • 3.1.1.3 Emma Albertie b 11 Aug 1872
    • 3.1.1.4 Lora Adell b 29 Jul 1874
    • 3.1.1.5 Ernest Albert b 6 Jan 1877
    • 3.1.1.6 Ulysses Grant b 21 Jul 1879 (went by Grant; M Orabelle Zimmerlee)
    • 3.1.1.7 Charles D Edward b 9 Nov 1880
    • 3.1.1.8 Daniel Webster 13 Dec 1883
    • 3.1.1.9 Grace 15 Nov 1886 died shortly after birth
    • 3.1.1.10 Leila Bessie Hope 29 Jul 1889
• 3.1.2 Finley Snyder
  • B abt 1844 probably in Madison Twp, Allen, Indiana ("Flatrock")
  • D 12 May 1864 in Baltomore, Maryland of measles
  • M 
  • 30 Mar 1864 in Hartford, Wisconsin, enlisted in the Army, Company D, 38th Wisconsin Regiment (was 20 years old); was made Corporal before he died a few weeks later
  • Was very tall (there is a picture of Finley and Franklin in uniform taken in Apr 1864, which was in the possession of "Aunt Lillian" in 1860)
• 3.1.3 Sarah "Sally" Snyder (Householder)
  • B abt 1845 in Marshall County, Indiana (date based on assumed return from Iowa and before Jemima who was born in 1846)
  • D
  • M John Householder abt 1869 (assuming 20 when married)
  • John and Sally were given the John Polk farm in Bloom after Catherine died in 1866 where John Polk continued to live
  • Also lived in Mauston and Woodstock, Wisconsin
  • Children:
    • Harry
    • Ross
    • Mary
    • Park
• 3.1.4 Jemima "Mima" Snyder (Myers)
  • B 5 Jan 1846 in Marshall County, Indiana
  • D 
  • M "Uncle Wesley" Myers
  • Lived on a farm near Bloom, Wisconsin
  • Children:
    • Mary Ann
    • Mahala
    • Finley
    • Delbert
    • Minta
    • Ethel
    • Sadie
• 3.1.5 Mathilda "Tillie" Snyder (McCann)
  • B Abt 1848 in Marshall County, Indiana (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M John McCann
  • Lived near Richland Center, and later Kansas and Washington
  • Children:
    • Ida
    • Susan
    • Grant
    • Pete
    • Wesley
• 3.1.6 Harriet "Hat" Snyder (Copenhefer)
  • B Abt 1850 in Marshall County, Indiana (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M John Copenhefer (who drowned 27 Feb 1907 at Wood Gulch, near Roosevelt, Washington when a bridge washed out)
  • Lived in Dot, Washington
  • Moved to Portland, Oregon after John died
  • Children:
    • Alan
    • Harriet (died when she was small)
• 3.1.7 Andrew Snyder
  • B Abt 1852 in Marshall County, Indiana (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D 
  • M Nellie ? in Minnesota
  • Lived in Elmore, Minnesota
  • Was named after uncle 3.3 Andrew Snyder
  • Children:
    • Myrtle
    • Edith
    • Grace
• 3.1.8 Mary Ellen "Nell" Snyder (Hadley / Peterson)
  • B Abt 1854 & before 1856 in Marshall County, Indiana (assumed based on birth order given and 2 years between)
  • D abt 1920
  • M ? Hadley who died of TB shortly after their marriage
  • M Peter Peterson in Washington
  • Had no children
• 3.1.9 John Snyder
  • B 1856 in Bloom, Richland, Wisconsin
  • D 
  • M Amarilla "Ama" Van Fleet
  • Lived on a farm in Bloom, Wisconsin until they retired to Richland abt 1900 and lived near Franklin
  • Children:
    • Perlite
    • Sadie
    • Ross
• 3.1.10 Emma Snyder (McClure / Harris)
  • B 1858 in Bloom, Richland, Wisconsin 
  • D 1908 while at Aunt Hat's house "out West" (Oregon or Washington)
  • M Will McClure of Woodstock, Wisconsin
  • M Seymour Harris
  • Was raised by 3.3 Andrew Snyder and Lucy after Mary Ann died when Emma was 6 weeks old
  • Children with Will McClure
    • Laura
    • Lou
    • Will
  • Children with Seymour Harris
    • Fern
    • Ross
• 3.1.11 Enos Snyder
  • B abt 1862 in Bloom, Richland (mother: Jane Zimmerlee; assumed based on birth order and 2 years in between)
  • D 
  • M 
  • Grew to become a "highly respected citizen of Wisconsin, and Richland County"
• 3.1.12 George Snyder
• B abt 1864 in Bloom, Richland (mother: Jane Zimmerlee; assumed based on birth order and 2 years in between)
• D 
• M 
• Grew to become a "highly respected citizen of Wisconsin, and Richland County"
• 3.1.13 William Snyder
  • B abt 1866 in Bloom, Richland (mother: Jane Zimmerlee; assumed based on birth order and 2 years in between)
  • D 
  • M 
  • Grew to become a "highly respected citizen of Wisconsin, and Richland County"
• 3.1.14 Charles Snyder
  • B abt 1868 in Bloom, Richland (mother: Jane Zimmerlee; assumed based on birth order and 2 years in between)
  • D 
  • M 
  • Grew to become a "highly respected citizen of Wisconsin, and Richland County"
• 3.1.15 Flora Snyder
  • B abt 1870 in Bloom, Richland (mother: Jane Zimmerlee; assumed based on birth order and 2 years in between)
  • D abt 1881 in Bloom, Richland, Wisconsin of measles at age 11

Grandparents' Yearbooks

Last night I stumbled upon Ancestry's yearbook collection. It's not very easy to search through - or browse for that matter - but after some pretty broad parameters and hunting and pecking I found a few gems of 2 of my grandparents.

These 2 are my grandfather, Richard Gruenewald, who was born in 1933 and was a Junior at Shorewood High School (Milwaukee) in 1949. I knew he played baseball all his life and it's cool to see him back in the day.

 

These next pages are for my grandmother, Elaine Thielke (Buswell) from Kiel, Wisconsin. She was on many other pages for German club, drama, choir, and a few other random extracurriculars, but seeing your Grandma as a high school cheerleader really takes the cake. Her family were dairy farmers, and her classmates pegged her as a future "dairy maid" but they got that one wrong - she got married and moved out of the countryside and spent her working life as a nurse. I know I'm grateful she chose that path or I suppose I wouldn't exist. :-)

  

Genealogy Toolkit: Custom Image Collections

In a recent bit of research I did on my 3rd great grandfather's Civil War records, I ended up adding a nice new tool to my genealogy toolkit.

I was trolling through an image collection of scanned documents for a Civil War widow's pension application and only a scattered handful had anything to do with my ancestor. (He only appeared in testimonies to the claims of another veteran. You can see the whole story in a separate post.) As I was digging around on Fold3, I saved down 9 different jpg images documents that seemed useful as sources. After I had these images, I was struck by the fact that the images themselves don't really tell the story (though they provide some evidence.) I was sitting with 9 separate "sources" for my family tree, each of which in isolation has limited value, and several of which don't even mention my own ancestors but are there for context. The prospect of adding, citing, and referencing them independently seemed rather futile, and in some cases didn't even seem to make sense. I thought it would be very handy to combine them into a single, multi-page document - a custom collection if you will. Then I could keep them together conveniently, attach them as a single media item to my tree, and not have a splatter of seemingly random images cluttering my media files. The finished product is here: Myers_Charles_b1842_18800000_Document_Military_BlakelyPensionClaim.pdf, and here's how I did it...

First, I downloaded all of the original images from Fold3 and saved them locally. My file naming convention is a modified version of Calvin Knight's and even though some of these images don't even refer to my ancestor Charles Wesley Myers, I decided to tie them to him to keep them organized. The only reason I am doing this is because he is my ancestor and they are pertinent to this story, so it made sense to me. In the file description, I was sure put the page (image) numbers in the collection at Fold3 as a reference.

Then I went to IrfanView, a lightweight but powerful image viewer. It is completely free and if you don't have it installed on your PC yet, I suggest you go get it. You should also get the plugins which you install by simply unzipping the files into the program's Plugins subfolder. The plugin iv_formats.zip has what you need for the next step. Once you've installed IrfanView and the plugins, go to Options > Multipage images > Create Multipage PDF select your images and click the button. After some processing, you will have in the destination folder a pdf file made up of the images you selected in order, and in their original quality. Piece of cake.

To cite the final product, I referenced the Fold3 catalog from which the images came, included the page numbers of the images in the pdf, and the URL for one of them (the most relevant of the bunch with my ancestor's own testimony.)

Case Files of Approved Pension Applications of Widows and Other Dependents of Civil War Veterans, ca. 1861- ca. 1934 (http://www.fold3.com/page/3496_civil_war_widows_pension_applications/, Fold3, 2008), www.fold3.com, Pension claim for Walter Blakely in record collection for William F Hoyt (application # WC14930). Images 121, 126, 127, 131, 137, 154, 162, 163, and 164. http://www.fold3.com/image/1/232077405/.

I would love to hear from others! Has anyone else done anything like this, or are you going to give it a try? How are you citing a custom image collection like this?

Charles Wesley Myers, Civil War Stevedore

My 3rd great grandfather was Charles Wesley Myers, born in Allen County Indiana on 27 Feb 1842. He moved with his family to Richland County Wisconsin when he was a boy and spent the rest of his life there. The comprehensive History of Richland County Wisconsin by Judge James H. Miner (1906) gives a nice biography of Charles and his life, which can be seen online in a scan of the book here, and in a full text transcription here. Side note: if you have any ancestors who were in that area in the later half of the 19th century, that book is a must-read!

In Miner's biography, it says that he served in the Civil War in 1865 in Alabama and Louisiana. I thought I would dig deeper on Fold3 during their free access to Civil War records, and aside from the typical Service Index records that don't give much more than a name, I came across Charles as a witness in a pension claim of another soldier. It took me a good while to piece together what was going on as Charles's name appeared on images numbered around 150 out of 253 in this collection and the claim was for a different soldier than the one where Charles appears. After reading through the documents imaged, I finally put the pieces together and figured out the story, and got a nice primary resource about Charles's service...

The documents in this image collection on Fold3 are actually for a Sgt. William F Hoyt who was killed by a gunshot wound in the Second Battle of Fredricksburg on 3 May 1863. His widow, Jane (nee Householder) filed an application for a widow's pension in 1869. Many documents in this collection pertain to Jane's request for her widow's pension, but in the middle there are documents requesting compensation for a Walter Blakely who was injured while unloading a ship in Mobile Harbor (Alabama). Walter was Jane's third husband and it was while they were married that these documents were filed - that is why they are grouped together with papers from Hoyt, who was Jane's first husband.

The first papers with Walter's requests were filed on 2 Sep 1881 and state that he was injured in May 1865. He suffered then a "rupture in right groin caused by lifting and shouldering a heavy sack of feed." While he never did anything about it at the time, in 1881 now he claims "the disability has increased to such an extent as to render me unable to perform my usual business," which is farming. For good measure, he adds after this, "How I am going to make a living now, I don't know." So he's clearly in a bad way and looking for support from the government.

For his claim, Walter has included testimonies by a number of other citizens he knows. Some of these are people he served with in the war, some are people who live in his community, and some are both. One such man is Charles Wesley Myers. In 1885, Charles states in his Comrade's Testimony that he knew Walter and served with him in Mobile in May 1865 helping him unload the boat when he hurt himself. There is also a follow up letter in 1888 with further testimony from Charles saying that while he didn't see Blakely's injury at the time, he had been told afterward and has no doubt that that is when the injury occurred. It seems that Blakely was having a was being challenged to prove that he was injured in the service. In the end, Walter's claim was honored and he was paid a pension of $8 per month, that seems to have been effective starting in 1881. In 2015 dollars, this works out to about $200. Not enough to replace a regular income, but hopefully some help for a man who suffered for most of his life for serving our country.

If you want to look at a selection of documents I pulled out of the image collection that are relevant to Charles's involvement, have a look at this document.

Well, this was a lot of work to sort through and understand, and while I am glad to see some letters in my 3rd great grandfather's own hand and have a primary resource for his Civil War service, I have to admit it's a bit anti-climactic. For one, most of the story behind all this and most of the facts I uncovered are about Jane Householder and her husbands. Plus, I found out that while it was noble of Charles to volunteer in the Civil War, he only got into it after the fighting was pretty much over and the only service records I uncovered here is that he was unloading bags of corn in Alabama. :-/ Lot's of time and energy for a finding like that. I don't want to belittle the sacrifices he made and the risk he took by enlisting, but it's a pretty mundane story. It was a good research exercise digging through the papers to uncover the story though, underwhelming as it may have been in the end. Plus I got a nice additional tool (creating a pdf document from multiple images) in my genealogy toolkit I have described in a separate post.

Oh - one more thing. Jane's original pension application was filed with the help of a local attorney. His name was James H. Miner, who later went on to write the history of Richland County referenced above. A nice little bow for this package. :-)

Don't trust the census-taker... Or the transcriber... Or other people who touched the census

As amazing as it is to have access to all of the census records online and the great transcriptions and search tools out there, you can't always trust what you see. I was dealing with an entry this morning that was all kinds or wrong. Over the span of 115 years 3 different entities have messed up this record...

This image is from the 1900 census entry for my 2x great grandfather John Louis Schoonover. The first person to blow it was the enumerator. He correctly put down John as the head of the household and listed him as a widow. Then he put down his son Bert as "Pert" - really? Whose name is "Pert"? Even 100 years ago that was not a name. That's strike 1. Strike 2 is listing Bert's wife, Mary L (Turner) as "Wife" making it look like she was John's wife and Bert's mother. Then continuing on this flawed line of thinking, Bert and Mary's son Ansel is listed as "Son." Strike 3. Census enumerator out.

Second person messing up this record was whoever at the census department (probably mid-1900s?) who decided to write some kind of coding into the same space where John's name is written. I don't know what these numbers mean, but there's a lot of other blank space on this page to put it. Thanks to them, "John" is practically unintelligible. Sloppy sloppy.

And finally, Ancestry's transcription robots have read this written-over record as "Jason" Schoonover. Not helpful. Especially in these lazy days of genealogy where people blindly copy hints into their trees as gospel. I wonder how many Jason Schoonovers born in Virginia in 1827 are lurking about in Ancestry member trees thanks to the census clerk who scribbled on this important document.

So be careful! Check your facts. And don't trust anyone on the Internet... Or the census bureau.

Buswell Pilgrimage Part 1: Records

In the middle of a 2 week trip to London for work a while back, I spent the better part of Saturday in the car driving north to the Midlands to visit the ancestral home of the first Buswells to come to America. I had 2 stops: first to the county records office for Leicestershire, and then to the tiny village of Husbands Bosworth.

At the Records Office

After leaving London just before 7 on a Saturday (yes - that is how I chose to spend a free Saturday in London... I am hopeless) I got to the records office just before they opened at 9:15. They are only open for 3 hours on Saturdays so I wanted to make the most of it. I had done some research and planning ahead of time so I'd be well prepared. After some emails back and forth with them I had learned the following:

• Like I said, the hours are very limited on Saturday (and they're closed entirely on Sunday & Friday.) Their hours, address, and other info can be found on their website.
• They are located on Long Street in Wigston, which is essentially a southern suburb of Leicester. They're in an unassuming brick building behind the bus stop. You can spy on them on Google Street View.
• It is free to go in and view the records but to get a ticket you must have an ID with your home address. (WARNING to foreigners - don't just come with your passport or you will leave empty handed!)
• You can take photos of you pay a 5 pound fee and fill out a little form indicating what you took pictures of.
• They have many original records for the area there, but most of them are on microfilm. If records are on microfilm, they are reluctant to grant access to originals in the interest of keeping them protected.
• If you do get access to originals, they actually prefer if you don't use gloves - they believe they do more harm than good.

There were a handful of other researchers waiting to get in when they opened and for the 3 hours I was there probably about 30 others were in and out. They had a room with microfiche and microfilm readers with bookshelves all around and several files containing fiche and film. On the other side of that was a room with several long tables and more books covering the walls. This is the room where they will bring original documents out for you to view.

I asked one of the staff there about viewing the original parish register for Husbands Bosworth. I explained that I had viewed the microfilm for these records at the Family History Centre and that the quality was poor so I wanted to see the originals. He said, "show me." So I found the records there on microfiche and pulled the pages I was interested in and only after I could show him several examples of where there was text or dates I couldn't read in the images did I concede to go get the originals. As annoyed as the greedy genealogist in me was, the historian in me was pleased that they take their role as stewards of these documents very seriously. I was still thrilled with the prospect of getting to see the actual, original, 400-year old documents with my ancestors names handwritten in them.

The book that came out to me a few moments later was long, thin, browned, and worn by the passing of time. It was also surprisingly stiff. They have clearly applied a preservative coating to the pages, but it is really in great shape considering the documented records begin in 1567. I was thrilled to be interacting so directly with history. With the clock ticking, I set to work to capture as many high quality images as I could.

I'm not a professional (or even an amateur!) photographer, but I had come armed with my sister's high-end digital SLR camera and a rudimentary understanding of what all the settings were for. I had plenty of trouble keeping the book open and flat for photographing, and the lighting was pretty poor for what I was trying to do. It was a struggle to hold the book, hold the camera still, and get everything at the right angle so there wasn't a glare or shadow on the pages. Someday, I'm sure Google will have a device that can do this all very efficiently and they'll have a small army of volunteers digitizing records like this all over the planet... Until then, despite my troubles, I am very pleased with the results - they are significantly better than the microfilm images - and I attempted to capture every page for the period I was researching so I could make all of them available for other researchers. I am still going through them all and cropping / cleaning up for public consumption. Watch for a future post with links to all of the original images. Here's a preview of the difference in quality from the microfilm image vs the real thing...

Baptism for Samuel Buswell - from microfilm

Baptism for Samuel Buswell - original document

After 2-plus hours of shooting baptism, marriage, and death records from this book, I spent my last hour looking through wills and probate records for Buswells. I found a few records that I photographed, but unfortunately (or fortunately depending on whether I am the genealogist or historian!) I was relegated to looking at microfiche. I tried to take some photos of these, but they didn't come out very well. Better than nothing though, I think. Most notably, I found the will of my 12th great-grandfather, Roger Buswell (father of Isaac and grandfather of Samuel) who stayed in England and died there. There were a few others too that I still need to process.

That's the end of part 1 of this post. In part 2, I'll share some stories, info, and photos from the town and church where these ancestors of mine lived all those years ago. I hope some other Buswell and/or Husbands Bosworth researchers stumble upon this and find it interesting!

Cheers!!

Buswells in the UK...

Last November I was in London for work and had to stay over a weekend. On the Saturday I was there, I thought I'd visit the National Archives where the London Family History Centre is currently making their home. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed on the whole - let down by my own lack of knowledge and proper preparation, really. In the end, all the records I saw were also accessible in the US via a microfilm loan to my local Family History Center, and all I could do to capture them was take snapshots on my phone camera off very dusty and grainy microfilm display. I expected there would be more access to local English records there in the UK, and that there would be better tools at the library for capturing the record images.

I really shouldn't complain though - it was VERY COOL to see the images of the original records of some of my immigrant ancestors. Here is the baptism record for Samuel Buswell, son of Isaac, who was born in 1628 (you can see him there toward the bottom):

Isaac came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, along with Samuel and a few others, in 1638, and 300-some years later, my mother, Beth Buswell was born in a small Wisconsin town.

I am returning to the UK for work this weekend and will be there again for 2 weeks on the weekend in between, I will be taking things one step further. Saturday morning I will get up and make a 2 hour drive to Leicester to visit the Leicestershire Records Office where they store the original copies of these records from Husbands Bosworth - the town where my Buswell ancestors were born. They told me they usually don't allow access to original records, but I have made my case that the microfilm images are quite poor (the one above is the best quality by far) and hope I get the chance to see them. I'm excited about the chance to touch a bit of history, and get some much better images in the process. The woman there also told me to search their online catalogue to identify other records I might want to see so I can make good use of my time there. A simple search for "Buswell" shows a number of other records that may turn up some clues. Here's hoping...

After my visit to the records office, I will head on over to Husbands Bosworth itself, just to see the place my family lived so many years ago. I don't expect I will find many traces of them there - even the churchyard Find-a-Grave claims has Buswell graves is supposedly devoid of all of these markers. A local contact told me they moved many graves years ago to make room for the road and the markers have been lost or destroyed, which is a real tragedy! :-(

Rest assured, I will be re-posting in a few weeks with the results of my little Midlands adventure. Stay tuned!

Buswells in New Hampsachusetts!

Thanks to Vita Brevis, I have a new place to scope for leads on the early Buswells who settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts. Apparently when the county lines were first drawn for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Norfolk County spilled into what is now New Hampshire and there are county records for Norfolk that may include info on people in Essex County MA.

Thanks for the scoop, Nancy!

Records of Old Norfolk County

Newspaper Archives

I love searching through old newspapers for stories about my ancestors. As The Ancestor Hunt blog posted yesterday though, there are disappointingly few available electronically - they estimate something like 10%. The rest need too be manually scoured at libraries across the country.

Thankfully the excellent Chronicling America site from the Library of Congress has a database of libraries with holdings of ALL of the old newspapers out there. I'm going to make a point to start tracking which libraries and historical societies have relevant newspapers for my ancestry so I can be ready to plan trips to dig deep into the past.

http://www.theancestorhunt.com/blog/the-best-way-to-find-every-historic-newspaper-in-america

The Entire US Census - Free on the Internet!

Did you know you can browse the entire US census for free on archive.org?

https://archive.org/details/us_census

You will find there a listing of every US census since the first one in 1790 (well, every surviving one anyway). They are scans from the Allen County Public Library's microfilm, organized by year, state, and microfilm roll. If you have a quality source citation or know the state and county, it's pretty easy to find the page you're looking for and then just save off a jpg of the page. Or if you really want you can grab a PDF of the whole thing. No subscription required.

This is also an easy way to browse the pages before and after the page where your ancestors appear to dig for more clues about their lives and the communities where they lived.

While you're on archive.org (one of my favorite websites) you should also check out their Genealogy collection. There are hundreds of great resources you can check out without having to leave home!

Time for a proper research log

I have decided that I am far to scatter-brained to be an efficient genealogist. I chase too many leads and move to fast. I've been inspired recently by Thomas MacEntee's Genealogy Do-Over in the last few weeks and especially his post on slowing down. A post just now from the Genealogy Tip of the Day blog pushed me over the edge. I've been stupid for not just keeping a diary of research notes - jotting down what I did on a particular day. Time to start. I'm going to create a 'Genealogy Research Journal' notebook in Evernote with a note for each month where I'll just track what I'm doing. So from now on when I think, "what was that thing I saw that one time and didn't think was worthwhile at the time," I'll have a place to go and find it besides my very spotty memory.

My Genealogy Strategy

My #1 goal in my new hobby is telling stories. At first genealogy was cool because of all the new data, but after you dig and document long enough it starts to lose meaning. My wife starting poking around on Ancestry.com around the same time as me but burned out after only a few weeks, saying, "After my great-grandparents, it's meaningless - it's just names and dates of people I've never heard of." Rather than feeling the same way and losing steam, this idea just got me more interested in going beyond the facts and finding these people's stories. I love to research the history of what was going on in an area when my ancestors were there, trying to understand what motivated them, how they were molded by the happenings of the day, or how they molded history themselves. That is why I can't quit genealogy. It's just an endless string of stories waiting to be discovered.

So what is important to me as an amateur genealogist? As I have researched my own family history and researched genealogy as a discipline over the past few years, I have developed some strategies I use as I go about building my tree.

• Look for reliable sources and document them. This is something that has become very important to me. The Internet and companies like Ancestry.com have done wonders for genealogy by making so much information readily available to so many, but it has a downside... There is a lot of dubious information out there that has been accepted as fact although there is no real supporting evidence for it. As much as I like Ancestry, they are a chief enabler of this problem with their feature allowing you to cite someone else's tree as a source. This has lead to a rapid proliferation of theories, hunches, and just plain bad data as fact. I love using other people's research for leads and clues, but I insist on getting a reliable source before I put something permanently into my tree. I don't have my own copy of Evidence Explained yet, but I am following its principles for citing sources as much as possible. I also love seeing original documents. Where I can, I will seek out original copies rather than transcriptions. Seeing the real thing makes a connection that brings you that much closer to the people involved and helps me to know their stories. UPDATE: Thomas MacEntee' Genealogy Do-Over blog just had a great post about evaluating evidence and citing sources. On his corresponding Facebook page he posted a handy reference document of source citation templates. I have shared a copy here in my Google Drive.
• Look for context. The people you find when researching your family tree become so much more interesting when you can relate to them. The way we can relate to our ancestors is by knowing the history of the time and place where they lived. Through genealogy I've unexpectedly become a bit of a history buff and will dig through the Internet and my local library to find out as much as I can about the history that surrounded my ancestors' lives. Historical context is an important ingredient to really knowing their stories. This also means that when I'm looking at something like a census record, I'm not just looking at the entries for the people in my tree. I'm looking around them on the same page and on nearby pages to understand what the neighborhood was like. What kind of jobs did people have? Where were they born? How big we're the families? Were kids nearby in schools or working? This kind of poking around on records can also give you some surprising clues with your own family research.
• Look for patterns. As I do my research, I am always on the lookout for patterns. Most frequently, it's migration patterns I'm watching for, as these often help fill in details in the family story. For example, I had a number of Dutch ancestors in New Netherlands leave the area around Albany and start a settlement at what is now Kingston, New York. A few generations later, their descendants can be found near Port Jervis, NY along with descendents of many others who interacted with my family near Kingston. A few generations later, the same can be found in Virginia... What was it that caused these people to move together? What other clues can I uncover by digging into what is driving these patterns? I've got a lot of digging left to do on this, but these kinds of patterns are very interesting to me.
• Look for direct ancestors first. This is really more of an approach than a principle - I am focusing first on following my direct ancestors back the original immigrants to the United States. My goal is first to get back to the ends of those direct branches, then I will focus going further back with international records, and going sideways to fill in more aunts, uncles, and cousins. I will pursue some of these "sideways" branches from time to time, especially when I hit a wall, because those paths can help you find more detail on common ancestors, but it's not my priority for now.

Who am I?

When I stumbled into the Ancestry.com app nearly 2 years ago (thanks to my wife, who probably regrets showing it to me now) I knew a few things about my family tree, but it didn't go very deep.

I knew I had a lot of German blood. My mom's parents were born in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, a part of the country thick with German immigrants in the late 1800s. The towns where these people lived even mirrored northern Germany. Just like in the homeland, the city of Kiel Wisconsin sits right on the border of New Holstein and Schleswig townships where many of my maternal ancestors were prominent citizens.

My maternal grandmother's name was Elaine Thielke and my mom's paternal grandmother was Thekla Mueller, and I knew they came from this area. I had also heard stories about how my grandma had family who spoke German at home and she called her Aunt Bertha "Tante Betty." My mother's maiden name is Buswell though, which we suspected was English somehow, but I had never heard of any Buswells going back beyond my great-grandpa Walter, who was born and raised near Kiel and married the aforementioned Thekla.

Elsewhere in Wisconsin, I knew I had paternal German and Dutch roots in Oshkosh from my Dad's mother. Her father was Dirk Loots (pronounced like "Loats") and her mother was Hedwig Iwer. I knew that Dirk himself was born in Holland, and with a name like Hedwig, Grandma Hattie had to be German too. Since my paternal grandfather died when my dad was 12 and was estranged from my grandma long before that, I never knew any of my Kidd relatives. They just weren't part of our family, and I didn't know anything about them.

So with the surface only scratched with my own knowledge, it didn't take long for Ancestry.com to blow the doors off of my family tree. After a few hours following census hints, I was overwhelmed with ancestors I had never heard of and wanting to know more about them and their stories.

I found that the Buswell (my mother's paternal) line stretches back to New England, and goes all the way back to an immigrant who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1640's. They came to Wisconsin in the late 1800's and eventually found themselves in the German towns east of Lake Winnebago and married in to make my mother a little over half German, and the rest a big mix of nationalities from the long string of descendants of Isaac Buswell, our immigrant ancestor.

On the previously unknown Kidd side, I found that we are all similarly descended from Thomas Kidd, an Englishman who came to the Virginia Colony in the 1640's. And then that my dad's maternal grandmother, Hazel Schoonover is descended from Dutch immigrants to New Netherlands in the 1640's.

So of my 8 great grandparents, I have 3 who are descended from immigrants to 3 of the most important European settlements when America was just beginning to form nearly 400 years ago, 1 who was born in the Netherlands, and 4 who were descended from late 19th century German immigrants.

And that's me. I am made up of all that mess of American stuff, formed by many significant historic events and migrations. A mixed breed. - A true American Mutt. I hope to use this blog to tell stories about my ancestors and the history that shaped their lives, because let's face it - all the dates and facts and citations can get old. To me that's just the supporting detail to the stories of their lives, which is what really interests me. I'll also share some of my genealogical journeys - the tools I like (and don't like), the thrill of my discoveries, and hopefully some resources and tips that will help others who may end up stumbling across some of my posts.

Wish me luck.

OK. So now I have a blog...

I've been researching my family history for about 2 years now, and I've been waiting for the initial excitement to wear off. I guess since I'm now getting genealogy gifts for Christmas and abandoning my family to visit cemeteries and libraries, it's official. I am officially a genealogy addict hobbyist.

Every so often in my research I have come across tidbits that seemed worth sharing, but the odd emails to my parents and correspondence with an Aunt of mine who has blazed a genealogy trail ahead of me just don't seem like they're enough. I want something a little more permanent that I can refer back to, and share more easily with others who may be interested. I am not good at keeping up with journaling and it's hard enough trying to find time for genealogy research that I'm skeptical of my ability to maintain this. However, it seems like I have more and more I want to share, and feel like I may be able to help someone else with a useful Google hit if we're doing any common research. So now I have a blog.

Let's see what happens next...