Planning a family reunion

The time has come to move from casual conversations about getting the family together for a reunion, to a focus on the logistics that will make it happen. The first step is to gather contact addresses for the far-flung members of the family, so a letter can go out to gauge the real interest for the project.

Another part of the first stage is to put together a planning committee, so I'm calling on the family members that have offered to help and taking them up on their offer. I put together a website where the planning committee can meet virtually. These websites are free from wetpaint - http://www.wetpaint.com/ - for anyone who would like to do something similar.

I'll keep track on the blog of the Reunion planning progress.

How Many Have Your Name?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 9 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Honoring Irish Ancestors

My Irish born ancestors were part of the "famine immigrants", and I'm just beginning to delve into their histories. So far I've identified James Langan, (born abt 1805), whose daughter Catherine married my ggGrandfather Frederick Berge and Lawrence McNally (born abt 1828) and Bridget Heron (born abt 1830), whose daughter Mary Teresa married my great grandfather Charles D. Sanders.

Catherine Langan is listed on the 1850 federal census as a 6 year old, born in Pennsylvania and living with her father James, a coal miner, 14 year sister Mary, born in Ireland, 11 year old Thomas, 10 year old Bridget, 7 year old James and 5 year old Ann, all listed as born in Pennsylvania. I have not yet identified James' wife and the mother of the children.

If the census records are accurate, then Mary was born in Ireland in 1836, and Thomas born in Pennsylvania in 1838, that narrows the year of arrival. If all children had the same mother, she was alive in 1845 when Ann was born, but not listed on the 1850 census. Did she die in that five year period, if not, where might she have been?

The Langan family was living in Luzerne County, PA in 1850-1860, so my next search will be for the baptismal records for the children, in an attempt to determine the name of the mother of this family. Hopefully this additional information will assist me in determining the exact date of immigration and ultimately the area of origin in Ireland.

My other Irish immigrant also lived in Luzerne County, PA and spent his life working there as a coal miner. I have a bit more clues about Lawrence McNally to help me in my search for more details about he and his family. I believe Bridget Heron was the mother not only of my ancestor Mary, but also, Sarah, Ann, Thomas, Patrick, William, John and Charles. Bridget, born in Ireland shows up as a widow, living with her middle-aged children Ann and William in the 1900 and 1910 census records. Lots of clues here to keep me busy researching for the foreseeable future.

I hope to make a trip to Ireland some day and knowing the specific areas that these ancestors walked will make the trip especially meaningful.

Playing with family photos

Civil War ancestors

Frederick William Berge

My great great grandfather, Frederick Berge was born in Hesse-Kassel in 1838; at 17 years old, he immigrated to the United States, settling in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

When Fort Sumpter was shelled by Confederate forces, and fell in early April, 1861, the new president Abraham Lincoln asked the states to call up volunteers for 90 days. On the 27th of April, Frederick Berge, not yet a citizen, enlisted as a musician in Company C, 15th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. On August 7, 1861 on expiration of his term, he was honorably discharged.

Less, than a week later, he reenlisted in Company M. 4th Regiment Penna. Volunteer Cavalry to serve for 3 years as Bugler under Captain A. Dart and Cols. J. H. Childs and G. H. Covode. The regiment was on provost duty in Washington, D.C. until May of 1862, when they were assigned to the Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac. They fought in Virginia for almost a year, then returned to Pennsylvania to participate in the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3. 1863. After being honorably discharged Jan. 4. 1864, he reenlisted as a veteran for 3 years more or the duration of the war in same Company and Regiment.

The regiment was at Appomattox to witness Lee's Surrender on April 9, 1865. After the surrender, they were sent on an expedition after "Extra Billy Smith" the oldest Confederate General and Governor of Virginia. Finally after four years of war, Frederick Berge was honorably discharged July 1, 1865 at Lynchburg Va.

Charles Sanders

My great grandfather, Charles D. Sanders, lived in Pleasant Valley (later named Avoca), Pennsylvania at the beginning of the Civil War. He enlisted on August 20, 1862, as a Private in Company M, Pennsylvania Volunteers, Heavy Artillery. During the war, he served as division wagon master. In the spring of 1864, his regiment participated in the Wilderness campaign, fighting at Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor.

The 2nd battalion shared in the charge at Petersburg, VA. on June 18, by which ground was gained that became the front line of the army. In Jan., 1865 the regiment joined in last charges upon the enemy's works, afterward entering the city.

Charles Sanders was discharged on 20 January, 1865.

A Fulmer Civil War ancestor?

I found this photo last month and like so many others, it was not identified. It was with other photographs that belonged to my father, so I suspect it is a member of the Fulmer family.

Another genealogy puzzle that hopefully will be solved someday.

Finding Family Photos

I've been taking a short break from winter in Anchorage with a visit to family in Pennsylvania. This past Saturday I spent time with an aunt and uncle in New Jersey and enjoyed hearing stories of their memories of WWII. My aunt spent some of the war in Hawaii with her parents and sister, when her father worked at Pearl Harbor. She related the story of traveling there with a destroyer escort. My uncle, as a marine spent the war in the Pacific as well; a few years after the war they met when he took a job in her home town of York, PA.

Sunday, while having brunch with cousins, the idea of a family reunion was floated and more family stories were related. After I returned to PA, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a group of photos that my cousin scanned and emailed to me. (Thanks again Jane!) The photo above is of Anna (Kirkhuff) Berge, Florence Ann Berge, and William Henry Berge. Flossie, born October 30, 1890, was my mother's mother.

Carnival of Genealogy - technology?

March's Carnival of Genealogy wonders what technology we rely on most to assist with genealogy and family history research.

• one piece of hardware (besides your computer)
• one piece of software (besides your internet browser),
  
• one web site/blog
  

Since I won't be able to wax poetic about my new MacBook (it is the center, after all, of my tech universe), I think the scanner would be my pick for the piece of hardware I depend on the most. It allows me to digitize borrowed family photos and to make copies of relevant printed materials such as journal articles, pages from books, newspaper clippings and correspondence. (postcard from Lake Wallenpaupack above)

Software is an even harder question to answer, but since I can pick only one, it will have to be the 9th upgrade of Reunion. I've been using this program since it's inception and every upgrade has brought something new and useful. My favorite features in the latest upgrade are "tree tops", which show from each family card, the names of the earliest ancestors and "pod cards" which export the family cards you choose to your ipod for perusal anywhere.

My web site pick on the other hand is easy - ancestry.com First, I was pleasantly surprised to find all the census information available there. On snowy days over this winter, I was able from home, to find, view and download census records for numerous ancestry lines. In addition, I found marriage, birth and death records and digitized copies of county and family histories that proved useful. So far I've been kept busy using US ancestry, and will be renewing for another three months. Perhaps at the end of the next three months, I will be ready to try the World version and begin learning how to read both British, Irish and German records!

I've had fun and found satisfaction doing genealogy research since I first began over 30 years ago, but I have to say that the ever increasing range and reach of technology has helped to make it ever more gratifying.

Taking a break.....

Taking a break from family research this afternoon to walk down the block and see the dogs run by.

What can I learn about Charles D Sanders?

My interest in researching family history started when my mother's sister Clare returned from a trip to the National Archives with copies of the civil war records of two of our ancestors. One of those ancestors was Charles D. Sanders and today I looked again at the census forms that I've collected for his family.

In 1850, ten year old Charles was living in Pittston, PA with his parents Jesse and Nancy (Knapp) Sanders along with 13 year old Emaline, 12 year old William, 5 year old Franklin, 3 year old Harriet and 2 year old Phebe. The census tells me that like almost 85% of the US population, Jesse's occupation was "farmer" and that Charles, Emaline and William all attended school within the year.

The next census shows Emaline (23) helping her mother keep house; William (22), Charles (19), and Franklin (15) are listed as laborers, Charles, Franklin and Phebe now 11 years old all attended school within the year. I wonder what happened to Harriet; did she perish from illness or accident before she reached age 13?

Two years after the 1860 census, my great grandfather Charles and his old brother William enlisted with the 112th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers and spent the next 3 years involved in the Civil War. Both were mustered out at the end of the war and Charles married my grandmother Mary McNally 18 month later.

With each further piece of information that is uncovered, more of the puzzle is completed while the overall picture expands as more questions are raised.

Where were you during the census?

Gen Lady poises the question-where were you during the US census? It's an interesting one and I wonder how many are like my family and were in different locales during each 10 year enumeration?

I was born in 1944 in Miami Beach, Florida. By the time the 1950 census was taken, my folks had returned to their home state of Pennsylvania and we were living in Sunbury, Northumberland county. In 1956, my dad's job took our family to St. Louis, Missouri, where we remained until he retired in 1964, so we would have been in Missouri during the 1960 count. My parents and sisters were back in Pennsylvania for the 1970 census, and I had moved to the west coast and was living in San Francisco, California. During the 1980 census I lived in Alaska, and in 1990 I lived in San Diego, CA. The 2000 census found me back in Pennsylvania. Who knows were I'll be in 2010!

One of my favorite pictures

Taken, probably in 1938, in New Cumberland, PA. This photo shows my grandparents Bill & Flossie Sanders, surrounded by their off-spring: Jane, Marjorie (my mom), Clare, Marie, Bob and Jane's twin Jean. I liked it so much I had it made into a poster so I could see it every day.

100 year timeline.....

Just a few major events in the lives of some of my direct ancestors:

1840----Charles D Sanders (great grandfather)---born---Broome Co, NJ
1840----Catherine Langan(g-great grandmother)---born---Ireland
1840----Margaret Hunter(g-great grandmother)---born---NY
1845----US-Mexico War
1848----California Gold Rush
1849----Mary T McNally(great grandmother)---born---Carbondale, PA
1850----Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
1851----Herman Melville’s Moby Dick
1852----Margaret Knapp (Dikkenson)(gg-great grandmother)---died
1852----Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
1854----Henry David Thoreau’s Walden
1855----Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
1860----Christopher Kirkhuff(ggg-great grandfather)---died---Monroe Co. PA
1861----US Civil War begins
1863----Charles Kirkhuff(gg-great grandfather)---died---Falls, PA
1863----Emancipation of Slaves
1865----Jesse Saunders(g great grandfather)---died
1865----Lincoln assasinated
1867----Charles D Sanders/Mary McNally---marriage---Marcy, PA
1867----Alaska purchased from Russia
1868----Anna E Kirkhuff(great grandmother)---born---Falls, PA
1868----William H Berge(great grandfather)---born---Scranton, PA
1876----Battle of Little Big Horn
1882----James Hunter(gg great grandfather)---died---PA
1884----Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn
1888----William H Berge/Anna Kirkhuff ---marriage
1890----Florence Ann Berge(grandmother)---born---Scranton, PA
1890----William Lawrence Sanders(grandfather)---born---Avoca, PA
1890----Massacre at Wounded Knee
1893----William H Berge---graduated---College of Physicians & Surgeons--Baltimore, MD
1895---- Eliza Kirkhuff (Weller)(gg great grandmother)---died---Falls, PA
1895----Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage
1896----Catherine Berge (Langan)(g great grandmother)---died---Scranton, PA
1899----William Allen Fulmer(father)---born---Philadelphia, PA
1901----McKinley assassinated
1902----Reuben Kirkhuff(great grandfather)---died---Retreat, PA
1903----Jack London’s Call of the Wild
1903----“The Great Train Robbery”-1st film to tell a story
1912----William L Sanders/Florence Sanders---marriage---Avoca, PA
1913----Marjorie Rose Sanders(mother)---born---Scranton, PA
1914----Charles D Sanders(great grandfather)---died---Avoca, PA
1917----US declares war on Germany
1920----Prohibition begins
1925----F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
1926----Mary T Sanders (McNally)(great grandmother)---died---Avoca, PA
1927----“The Jazz Singer”-first talkie
1929----Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms
1929----Great Depression
1933----Roosevelt’s New Deal
1933----Prohibition ends
1939----John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath
1940----William H Berge(great grandfather)---died---Scranton, PA

Tag Cloud

A look at a glance at what I've been talking about lately : )

ago agostini ancestors anchorage away berge bit blog brings butternut car change coglievina comments consorti cover door driver enough events family five fulmer fun gamez gardens genealogy going history kirkhuff knapp labels laundromat laundry librarything life light lines living locks marj44 mary mcnally mexico morning national nicoletta open pennsylvania pm posted program research sage sanders search seems site snow soup squash started time-line timeline today used villarreal warm web william window winter working year-old years

created at TagCrowd.com

Where were they in 1908?

Recently I came across a blog post that raised the question "Where was your family in 1908?" I find this question intriguing for the very reason that draws me to genealogy. I enjoy genealogy not simply as an exercise in collecting as many generations as possible, but even more because it provides a way to know history by imagining my family in a particular time and place. Investigating the historical events and forces that impacted their lives is the real joy.

I began my genealogy research over 30 years ago with my immediate ancestral lines, but soon branched out to in-laws' lines as well. Now I can add Gamez and Villarreal, Consorti and Coglievina to Sanders, Fulmer, Kirkhuff, McNally, Knapp and others, taking me to new corners of the globe for fascinating research.

100 years ago...

• Juan and Enriqueta Villarreal de Gamez were living with their two young sons in the small village of Santa Fe, Villaldama, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. The revolution in Mexico, that would drive them north was just two short years away.
• 8 year-old William Allen Fulmer was living in Philadelphia with his parents, William and Hannah, never dreaming that in eight more years he would enlist in the Pennsylvania National Guard and be sent into Mexico in a futile attempt to capture the revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa.
• William Sanders is shown on the 1910 census, living with his parents, Charles (a civil war vet), and Mary (McNally) in Avoca, Pennsylvania and working as an electrician. In 1908, he probably would have just finished school. His future bride, Florence was going to school in nearby Scranton and living with her father William Berge, MD and her mother Anna (Kirkhuff).
• Guido Consorti was an 11 year-old in Ascoli Piceno, Italy. Did he know in 7 more years he would be boarding a ship to immigrate to the United States? His bride to be Domenica Agostini was living in Venarotta, 8 km away.
• 25 year old Pietro Coglievina had just left his wife Nicoletta (Ceglian) and baby daughter behind in Cherso when he left that tumultuous region to seek a better life in the US. Nicoletta and young Mary would wait a decade before enough funds were saved to send for them.
  

LibraryThing

Having a bit of fun today with a tool suggested by the folks at LibraryThing.

LibraryThing is an online book cataloging site that I started using a year or so ago. One of the users created a photomosaic of himself using all the covers of books in his library - "you are what you read".

I used a free photomosaic creation program, MacOSaiX for the Mac (a free PC program AndreaMosaic is also available) to quickly put together these pictures. I think I could have some fun doing some on cards for family members- pictures of the house, kids, pets etc.

Sage Gardens and snow

Shoveled another 6 inches or so of new snow this morning- no plans to go out until tomorrow, but the mailman will be happier.

The rest of the time this morning, I worked a bit on the next stage of my web site design. I've played around with a new background, while trying to determine the scope of the content.

Family History Timeline

Burr... -3 degrees for the high in Anchorage today. Sounded cold to me until the high for Fairbanks was announced at -30. I'll be happy to spend the morning inside "doing genealogy".

I'm working up time-lines for some of my family groups. After locating ancestors on federal censuses and then pulling together, birth-marriage-death records, I've found that a good way to help put their lives into perspective is to work out a time-line of events that would have influenced their existence.

I'm starting with 20th century ancestors and notating everything from international, national and local events to music, entertainment, fashion, food, etc. It's pretty mind-blowing to realize that my Dad's life spanned the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt to Ronald Regan, as well as the Wright brother's first flight to man's landing on the moon!

Butternut Squash Soup

Beautiful sunny morning in Anchorage. The trade-off for sun is the temperature drop. The high today is expected to be about 8 degrees. But the sun shinning always makes me happy, so on with the long underwear and let's make some soup.

I picked up the ingredients for "golden winter soup", featured on the cover of the latest issue of Cooking Light. It uses butternut squash, potatoes and leeks, cooked in chicken broth. Yum!

I'm working on the re-launch of my web site while I let the soup simmer on the stove. I hope to finish it (the website, not the soup) and get it online before I head back east for a few weeks in March . I've neglected sagegardens, since I've spent so much time this winter on family history research. The deadline I gave myself back in June to get the site revised by early 2008, seemed like plenty of time then, now that Jan is half over - not so much.

I look forward to doing some on-site genealogy work in Harrisburg and Philadelphia in March to gather some source materials, so I'll have to get all the research organized before I leave.

Lots to do in the next six weeks!

January brings snow

View out the kitchen window....
Five more inches of snow yesterday and we're finally catching up to the normal snowfall amount for the winter.

Laundry day in Anchorage

I set out this morning just after 7am (my preferred time to go to the laudromat). The sky was as dark as midnight, and with temperatures overnight in the single digits, it was COLD.

I got the laundry bag into the car on the passenger side, but when I went around to the driver's side to start the car and let it warm while I scraped the ice-covered windshields, the door lock wouldn't open. I wasn't quite ready to let this development frustrate my intentions, so I returned to the passenger side and crawled across.

The car started easily enough, but as I attempted to open the driver's door from the inside (I still need to scrape the windows), all the automatic locks froze in the locked position.

Now I AM beginning to get annoyed... The whole point of going to the laundromat this early is to find three unused washers, (preferably in a row). So now I'm wondering how long it will take the car to warm up enough to allow the locks to function again? or what if they won't open? I check the window, and thankfully discover that it will open- though the prospect of having to scramble out that way is not one I relish.

Patience is rewarded though, and in another 10 minutes the ice on the front and back windows has melted, and the door locks will now open. It's been 40 minutes (seems longer) but I'm off to get my clothes cleaned. Luckily the laundromat is just five blocks away, so maybe I'll still get there in time to snag 3 washers! I pull up to the laundromat at 7:54am, only to find the doors locked and the lights off. Since it's almost an hour past the scheduled opening, it doesn't seem as though today is going to be wash day after all.

winds of change...

Just finished watching Barack Obama's speech after his caucus win in Iowa. What a historic and hopeful event! Barack's win and record numbers of caucus participants speaks to a real desire for major change in the country. I'm anxious to participate in Alaska's caucus in just about a month.