Branching Out - Searching Stepfather's Mueller Lines

     I'm a little swamped in genealogy at the moment. I've got some juicy bits and pieces from each of my lines that have popped up that I'm chomping at the bit to get to (and some interesting new info on Sune Bergman....)  I've got my husband's maternal line, and working on getting that verified so I can add it to the tree finally. And my step-dad has asked me if I'd look into his family's history and put something together for an upcoming family reunion. Of course I said yes!! :)

      I am finding I enjoy looking for other peoples' family members. And this in particular is good for me, because it's allowing me to research a new place... My home state of Wisconsin..... which I haven't been able to do yet, believe it or not. My mom came to Racine from Upper Michigan  in the late 60's-ear;y 70's I believe. My dad came to Racine from Illinois in the early 1960's.  Both of their fathers had come for work. Which is very ironic, considering these days Racine is #1 for unemployment in the state. Ah, how times change, right?

     So searching for my step-dad is allowing me to research close to home, which may give me the opportunity to try some day trips (which isn't always easy with 3 kids 5 years and under tagging along), and do some in person record searching, which I haven't been able to do yet. It's an experience I need, but have not had the chance to learn.

     His Mueller family are Washington County Germans, and even though half of my dad's family is German, this will broaden my research and experience with Germany/German culture/history, as the Mueller's are from a different area. They are also Roman Catholic Germans, which I had not encountered yet. You don't really find many Roman Catholic German churches where my German family settled. Everyone and their mother was Lutheran. So this is also something new to me.

    One thing I appreciate about genealogy is not only the fact that I get to learn about my family history, but I also learn about culture, customs, and history of different groups of people around the world. I love history, so this is a great bonus. It brings you beyond just dates and names. It helps you understand the roots of your ancestors, and see the bigger picture. The lives of our German farmers were completely different from those of our Lapland Swedish fisherman, which were different from those of our medieval English families. And their cultures and customs and national histories play a gigantic role in who they were and why they made the choices they did. So even though I may feel a little overwhelmed by adding a whole new family into my researching at the moment, I look forward to the experience it's going to give me and the things I will learn from it.

I'm a nerd.

Smith&Smith

                                                               My Great Great Granny

 

   Ida Harriet Smith - b. 5 Sep 1856 d. 5 Aug 1936

I reached a little confusion a while back when I had a lot of documents on my Mother's Maternal Great grandparents, but for the life of me, I could not come up with a maiden name for my mom's great grandma.
    We knew my grandma's father was A.J Smith. We also knew his father was Adoniram Judson Smith. In fact, I had so much on the Smith's I was back to the 1700's. But I could not figure out what Adoniram Judson's wife Ida's maiden name was. Be it Marriage return records, Death returns, cemetery records.... All I got was Smith. It wasn't until a death record when the thought occurred to me.... Is her maiden name also Smith? In Hiawatha, Michigan? This tiny tiny place? I admit it; Thoughts of first cousins marrying each other immediately popped into my brain. (For the record, I always tend to think the worst.....) but, Eww. I was hoping I was wrong.
   Whew! I was.
 I was able to get in touch with a half 3rd cousin who had an article that had been printed in the local newspaper up there about the Smith's. Ahem, excuse me, the "Extraordinary Smiths." (Hey, I'm not bragging, it's what the article said!)  :)  And it was confirmed then by the descendants... they were absolutely positively from separate Smith lines. Well Thank God!!!    ...and then I was embarrassed it didn't dawn on me earlier that her maiden name was probably Smith. Duh. But I digress....

     So here I am now, with my lovely great great grandmother, Ida Harriet Smith, b. 1856. I have found that her parents are Charles Smith, and Mary Reynolds. Charles' parents are Charles Smith and Laura G.(I assume it's a G, the handwriting was unclear) King. And there I stop. I can find nothing on Laura or Charles so far.

      I've reached out and got a response from ANOTHER distant cousin (The genealogy community is wonderful, have I mentioned that?) who happened to be a professional genealogist and is having a tricky time sorting out Ida's Smith line....uh oh. I'm no where near a professional.... how on earth am I going to get anywhere on this? But this cousin informed me they've had a lot of luck finding these Smith's in Google Books. (and have I mentioned yet how much I love Google Books and the gems of info I've found with it? I have to do a separate blog post on that....) I've tried looking for her Smith's with GB, but came back with nothing. I think I'll try some different combinations of info for the searches and see what I get. At least it's confirmed that it's out there.... I just have to dig it up. Wish me luck!!



The picture of Ida above was given to me for my records by a half 3rd cousin I've found in my Smith searchings. He's been a wonderful help when it came to exchanging information and pictures of the Smith family. Thanks Paul!

68 Days until the 1940 Census!

   I saw this little reminder when I signed into Ancestry. 68 Days until the 1940 Census is released.

       This is something I have been waiting for for quite a while. Basically ever since I realized not all old census records are available. It happened after digging and digging for my Swedish Immigrant great grandparents. They came after the 1920 Census, so they appeared in the 1930 Census. I was ecstatic to finally find some new info. I got frustrated when I began to look for them in a 1940 census. That's because there was no 1940 census. Yet.

        That's when I learned that to be available to the public, a census had to reach it's 72nd birthday. 72nd? Seriously? That 2 after the 7 really messed with me as time passed. 2010 rolled around and I got excited when I remembered the 1940 census. I started searching for it until I remembered that 2. I had two more years to wait. I was getting impatient. And what's up with that 2? Annoying for a person who enjoys stalking the dead.

       It turns out, the 72-year rule is not law, but a rule posed by Roy V. Peel, Census Bureau Director, in a letter to Wayne C. Grover, Archivist, on August 26, 1952. (See info here). I read the letter Mr. Peel sent, and it never gives any reason for the arbitrary number 72.
        BUT.... In 1952, life expectancy for any given person was 68.6 years. So with that in mind, if you tack on 4 years, based on life expectancy, everyone who had given their personal information would most likely be dead, and there'd be no danger or threat to privacy in releasing the information.

        Makes sense. I guess.

   So anyways, there's your bit of babble for today. 68 days!  68 days until I find out where my Jonsson grandparents were, what they were doing, and more personal information! ......like I said..... I stalk dead people.......It's fun.

 

Helge Sigurd Jonsson & Esther Eugenia Stenman

I also cannot fail to mention the hope I have in finding my great grandfather AJ Smith in this census. It will be his last, as he died 5 years later. He left his first wife and married my great grandmother, Joanne Olsen. But I can't find any marriage records for them, and I can't locate him in the 1930 Census. So I am really looking forward to finding him in the 1940 census. It's been easy to locate him when he's married to his first wife. But married to my great grandma? Not so much. He's proved to be pretty elusive after the depression. 

*Once the government hands off the papers, ancestry.com will be working around the clock to scan and enter the data. the way I read it, they would keep everyone updated on where they were in the process through the night/day until it's all in. So get ready! It's almost here!