Saturday night genealogy fun!

John and Alma Guinee

ca. 1952

Weeee, I am home on a Saturday night and I am actually working on my genealogy! Thought I would see what Randy Seaver suggested for our Saturday night genealogy fun! I believe I can do this too!

Name one set of your great grandparents, list their descendants by generation, list how many are still living, and how many I have met. Here I go...

****I have chosen my great grandparents John Guinee (1888-1972) and Alma (Ball) Guinee (1886-1963). I may have met both of them, but if I did I was very young and gosh darn it, have no recollection of them personally.

****I used my Family Tree Maker program to create a descendant chart!

****John and Alma had:

1st generation: four children.

2nd generation: nine grandchildren, four are still living

3rd generation: forty-three great grandchildren,, I believe all are still living

4th generation: seventy-three great great grandchildren, I know one is deceased

5th generation: nine great, great, great grandchildren

***** How many have I met?

Well, I only know five of their grandchildren, although I am still trying to find two more that I believe are still alive.

I know/met via the internet twenty five of their great grandchildren

I know forty-four of their great great grandchildren.

I do not know any of the great, great, grandchildren, although perhaps some day I will!

I really only know my Grandfather's descendants the best. I have emailed several other cousins quite often, especially during the holidays. I continue to send out "are we related" letters each month and once in a blue moon actually get a response. I am currently waiting to see if I hear anything from three such letters!

These little exercise was fun and got me thinking of a few other areas I should explore to fill in some missing relatives!

My Ancestors from: Neckargemund, Germany

Neckargemund, Germany

Home of my Sommer/Rusch ancestors

I have recently been working with a wonderful woman, Nancy Grossman, who I learned about from the Newberry Library here in Chicago. Nancy does genealogy and history research and she specializes in German genealogy both here and abroad. LUCKY ME!!

I contacted Nancy and via email sent her four of my many, many, many German documents. These four I believed were birth and death Church records of my Sommer relatives from Neckargemund, Germany. Being that I am always on a budget regarding my genealogy quests I was thrilled that Nancy's fee for translating all four documents was minimal. Better yet, I had the translations in less than two days!

So, I thought I would share two of those documents. This translation is my GG grandmother Katharina Juliana Sommer's birth certificate. It reads as follows:

1849

In the year of 1849 on the 18th of January at two o'clock in the morning, a girl was born. She was baptised on the 24th of January and named Katharina Juliana. The parents are: Gottlieb SOMMER, local citizen and flour dealer and his wife Elisabetha nee RUSCH. Witnesses and Godparents are: 1) Friederich RUSCH, baker from here and brother (of Elisabetha), 2) Jacob KNORR, local citizen and baker.

***Notes: from Nancy Grossman

Flour dealers go hand in hand with the baking industry! (Thank you for this note Nancy!)

Now, Katharina immigrated here to the Chicago area in the early 1880's with her widowed mother Elisabetha and her sister Juliana. Here is Juliana's birth certificate translation.

It reads as follows:

1851

In the year 1851, here in Neckargemund on the 8th of January at eight o'clock in the morning, a baby girl was born. She was baptised on the 3rd of February at two o'clock in the afternoon, and named Katharina Juliana. The parents are: Gottlieb SOMMER, local citizen and flour dealer and his wife Elisabetha nee RUSCH. The witnesses and Godparents are: 1) Jacob KNORR, local citizen and master baker 2) his wife Katharina, 3) Friederich RUSCH, the unmarried brother of the mother of the child, a baker from here (Neckargemund).

Neckargemund, the 3rd of February, 1851

***Notes: from Nancy Grossman

Another relative...Friederich RUSCH, Elisabetha's brother! Jacob KNORR may have been a relative as well, possibly an in-law on the mother of the father's side.

***Additional Notes: from Nancy Grossman

I wouldn't say it was common for siblings to have the same name, but it was not unusual. The sisters had the same Godparents too. This may have something to do with it. For example, both were probably namesakes of their Godparent Katharina KNORR, Jacob's wife. Re. the name Juliana, I can't say yet. The sisters may have been named after the same person, or two different people with the same name.

When I find siblings with the same name, it is customary like in your family, for each sibling to take a different part of the name as their dominant one;i.e. one became Katharina and the other, as Julia.

Again, much thanks to Nancy.

So, did I learn anything NEW?? Yes, I did! I now have the names of Godparents, the exact dates of birth, father's occupation, and yet another family connection with Friederich! I could not be happier!

I also can't wait to scan more documents to Nancy for translation! YIPPEE!!

How many ancestors have you met?

Thanks to Randy Seaver for this Saturday night's blog idea.
How many ancestors have I met? Well, let's see...

1) Arlene Guinee Wozniak Turnbull, my beloved mother whom I have written about many times on this blog, lived most of her life here in the Chicago land area until she retired. She then traveled the country and spent her winters as a "snowbird" in Arizona!
2) Norbert Wozniak, father, lived in the Chicago land area until he retired then he moved to Shelbyville, IL. He died shortly after he retired.
3) Lucille Hanaway Guinee, my grandmother, born in Indiana, lived in the Chicago land area after her marriage to Bert Guinee, and later lived in Arkansas until her death in 1998.
4) Bert Guinee, grandfather. Unfortunately, I only knew who my grandfather was, I did not have any kind of relationship with him. I have heard many wonderful stories from my cousins!
5) Stephen Wozniak, grandfather. Lived in the Chicago land area. Died in 1959 in Oak Lawn, IL. I have one precious picture of my grandfather that I cherish!
6) Cecelia Sawicki Wozniak, grandmother. Lived in the Chicago land area for many years.
7) John Guinee, great grandfather, died in 1972 when I was a teenager.
8) Alma Ball Guinee, great grandmother, died in 1963 when I was only eight years old.

My mother had one sister and two brothers, one of whom is still very much alive. I have a lot of first cousins and many of us still live close to each other and still get together. My other cousins and I still keep in touch.
I have been lucky to know all of my grandmother Lucy Guinee's siblings, and there were eight of them! My great Aunt Berniece is still alive and wonderful! I have tons of cousins from the Hanaway family tree!
I also knew my father's sister and brother. My aunt is still alive. I still occasionally hear from her and her family which is terrific!

So, I consider myself pretty lucky to have known these ancestors. Sure wish I had known more of my great grandparents but times were very hard in the mid 20th century. I have a couple of pictures and hope to discover more!

Please Forward:

My sister Carole and her husband just celebrated their twentieth wedding anniversary. Whee, that was a really quick twenty years! They have moved at least nine times during their marriage, not because one of them is in the military or they changed jobs, they just move from house to house. My brother-in-law is extremely handy and can do almost anything around the house. I know because he has helped me many times with projects around my house. When they move they usually don't move far. They are only about 48 miles from my home, so we get together very often. They have lived in their current house not quite three years. This house is beautiful and continues to get better and better. I have kidded the both of them many times about moving and when are they moving next? Both say this is it, they are staying put. I have heard that before!

That got me thinking about how many times I have moved in my lifetime. I started from the time of my birth. It couldn't really be that many times. In my childhood we moved from our home in Chicago Ridge to California. In California we stayed with relatives for a short time and then we moved to San Jose. (Yes, I really do know that way to San Jose!). Living in California didn't work out very well so we came back home to the south side of Chicago. We lived with my grandmother for about one year until we could move back into our house (my mother rented our house instead of selling it---good thinking!) Anyway, I stayed put with Mom until college and then decided to work full time which of course meant moving out of Mom's house and getting my own "place." In a span of ten years, 1975-1985, I moved eight times. WOW! Since 1985 I have moved only three times and in fact have lived in my current home for almost sixteen years. Since my birth I have moved eighteen times! When I asked a friend to figure out how many times she has moved, she came up with thirteen times. Our generation really moves around a lot!

With the help of the federal census records it is pretty easy for me to track my Great grandparents Bert and Eva Hanaway. They pretty much stayed in the same area of Indiana and on the same farm most of their married life. One hundred years ago, you could have simply addressed a letter to them with the Route number and DeMotte, Indiana and they would have gotten it. Pretty simple really. That certainly wouldn't be the case today!

My mother moved twice from the time she was born until she married in 1954. In 1975 she married my stepfather Jim and they traveled a lot. She eventually sold the family home in Illinois and moved to Arizona where she spent the winters. Apache Junction, AZ was really her home base. In the summers she traveled all over the United States and worked in National Parks. If you wrote to her, the letters usually stayed in her mailbox in Arizona until she got back there in the late fall! Once in a while she would leave a forwarding address if her she had long term plans to stay put in one spot for a few months. She will not be easy to find on any census record from 1980 forward that is for sure!

My Great Great grandmother Katharine Sommer Ball moved frequently from the time of her marriage in 1885 until her death in 1923. With the help of Chicago city directories, I found her living at sixteen different addresses in those thirty eight years. She usually only lived at one address one or two years and then moved. Many years she was not listed in the city directory. So, in actuality she had more than those 16 different addresses. Plus, I have yet to find Katharine or my Great Great grandfather Charles Ball on any census record.

So, I ask "How many times have you moved?" How easy do you think our ancestors will be able to find us on a census record? Well, I'm going to give mine a little help and document all the places I've lived. I might be able to save them a little time looking for me!

Taking some time for research...ahhhhhh

Recently I have had not one but two different opportunities to do some research on my Sommer family history. Last Thursday I was lucky enough to find some time to visit the Chicago Heights, IL, Family History Center. I had previously ordered some microfilm on Neckargemund, Germany church records. Thanks to one of my new found Sommer relatives I had a couple of names to work with and got busy. The first major obstacle I faced was the fact that the microfilm was in German, and I do not read or speak German. However, that did not prevent me from continuing my research. I brought with me a German-English and English-German dictionary and went to work. After about an hour I decided to simply look for the Sommer or Rusch names and would copy the page and have it translated later. Thanks to a couple of words I could translate, I believe I found the marriage record of Daniel Sommer and Christina Wittman from 1873. I was lucky enough to also find four of their children's baptismal/birth records from 1873 through 1880. The Rusch name was listed in several places so I copied those records as well, although I do not know if they are relevant to my family. After four hours I decided to call it quits. The film will remain at the Family History Center until the middle of August unless I extend it indefinitely, which most likely I will do. That way I can look at the film many more times. It was a great afternoon for sure.
Saturday, I went with the Friends of the Governors State Library Historical Society to the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL. I had been to the library before but was unable to do any personal research. This time was different! After another tour of the library, I went directly to the second floor where the genealogy research area is located. I went through almost twenty years of Chicago City Directories which were on microfilm. Once again, I met with some success. There are years when my Great Great Grandparents Charles and Katharine Ball were simply not listed anywhere. When they were listed their occupation was always listed as a "nurse." Confirmation of what I believed to be true! What I also discovered was that Charles and Katharine moved almost every year to a new home/apartment. Gosh, would I hate to move that often. Why did they move so often anyway? My next visit to the Newberry Library will be to research maps and attempt to plot the neighborhoods where they lived!
I've updated my family tree with my new found information and have given my German records to a friend to translate---at his convenience of course. So, as so often is the case, I have met with some genealogy success but once again, boy do I have more questions! The search continues......