Unpleasant News

Unpleasant News

As I keep adding in profiles on the Geni.com site, I send invites to anyone whose email address I have.  I had contact with a gentleman named Fred from my Oldenburg side of the family.  When I uploaded his profile on Geni, I sent the invite and not long afterward I got a message that he had joined the tree. I was glad about that, because Fred had really seemed interested in the family tree.  I was hopeful he could update a lot of the profiles.

When I woke up today, I had an email from his account, except it was his wife writing letting me know he had passed away last October.  I have not spoken to Fred in a long while. 

Sometimes I feel bad because I am unable to keep in contact with everyone.  There is just not enough time in the day.

Dörrmoschel Book

I wonder about the people who immigrated to America sometimes.  What must that have been like?  Think about it, your family had lived in the same area for generations. Then you suddenly pack up and travel to a whole new world.

The general view is the trip was hard, but worth it.  How was it for the ones that were left behind?

In the marriage record that I transcribed yesterday, the groom had to explain about his parents. They had left for America twenty-two years before and nobody had heard from them since. I wonder if he ever found them.

Family Frère & Rosetta Hart

Adding In the Family Frère

I have been building my family tree on Geni.com since August.  I did this so that I could have family members update their own information.  My entire family tree is rather large, so I have been doing it by adding in one of my Pedigree line at a time, then adding in all their descendants.

Yesterday I added in Thomas Frère's line.  I had forgotten how many descendants he had until last night.  It took me hours.

It was just coincidence that my uncle wrote me the other day letting me know his book about Thomas is going to be released in paperback soon. 

You can click here to go to see the hardbound book on Amazon.

Rosetta Hart & Family Found!

This is one of the backdated finds that I mentioned I was going to post about.

I have researched the Hart family starting 1800 with Henry Hart (my g-g-g-grandfather). His wife was Rosetta Cardoza. Henry disappears after the 1851 English census.  Then the rest of the family disappears in after the 1861 English census.  For years I was trying to find what happened to Rosetta, her sister Abigail and the Hart daughters.  I had assumed Rosetta had passed away and the daughters had been married off.

Mid-December 2012, I suddenly got an idea.  How did I know the family stayed in England?  To make a long story short, I did a search in the US and found Rosetta, her sister and all three daughters living in New York City.

The killer was (and this is something everyone should remember), is she was living in the same building as Samuel Hart's family (my g-g-grandfather) in 1880.  I have had Samuel in the 1880 US census for years, I just never thought about looking on the next page where the rest of the family was.

I know to check the neighbors.  However this record I have had since I first started working on the family.  Plus Samuel Hart's family moved around a lot.  I never thought they would move right next door to his mother.

Lesson:  After you have been researching for awhile, your skills increase.  It pays to go back and look at old records.

Dörrmoschel Book

My wife and I finished up a transcription today for the marriage of Joseph Frank and Karolina Abraham. I normally transcribe the record in German first.  My wife (who is German) proofs it to see if she can correct any mistakes or help with anything that I cannot make out.  Then I translate the record into English.

Starting To Get It Down

About The Blog

I wanted to start putting my ideas down so that family could follow and I could get my thoughts straight.  I have been working on my family tree for a few years now.  Ideas have come and gone and I have come to conclusions and breakthroughs without putting most of it down.

I will be backing up a little and putting down a few things from the past.  These are things that I think are important.  Some of them I have shared with family members, but as I get into contact with new relatives, I want them to be able to follow what I have done.

I do not intend this to be a blow-blow log of what I am doing on my family tree, but I will add things that I feel are interesting and log important finds.

Other Projects

I am also working on creating source references for German researchers.  I plan on translating birth, death and marriage records from different towns and hope to start a series of books with these records.

While doing my own family research, I paid $50 just to have five records translated.  That was the cheapest I could find.  Once I got the translations back, I felt that I could have done a better job.  I began researching old German script and came upon the idea that I could translate many records cheaper than it cost me for just five records.

I have so far finished about 85% of the city of Dörrmoschel from 1870-1875 and hope to self publish the book soon.  I will be working mostly in the Pfalz area of Germany for now, but eventually I would like to do many different area of Germany.  Probably focusing on areas that were known for having large amounts of emigrates.

Wrap-Up

I hope that some individuals can find some interesting stuff here, though I will just be happy to have a way to keep the information and ideas straight.

Thanks for reading!

Paul