Years ago, when I joined a genealogy society, there was an older gentleman who was just putting his family history into the computer. Well, sort of. You see, he was only putting the male lines in or just half of his family. I asked him if he had children and he told me proudly, that he did. I asked him what they would think of all his hard work when he passed on only half of it. He thought about it a few minutes and conceded that I was right.
The few times I saw him after that, he was working on putting in the female side of all his lines. I don't know if he ever completed the project, because he died shortly after, but I always think of him when someone tells me the maternal line isn't important. Then I want to hit the speaker with a mallet!
Over at Apple's Tree on Saturday, Apple traced her matrilineal line in a meme. I thought it would be interesting if I did mine. It's pretty short.
1. My mom, Catherine Zimmeth. Born and died in Michigan.
2. Luetta Meyer, born in Minster, Ohio in 1894. Died in Michigan in 1931.
3. Emilie Catherine Marie (Amelia) Knost. Born in New Bremen, Ohio in 1867 and died in Michigan in 1943.
4. Anna-Maria Wilhelmina Charlotte Kettler. Born in Germany in 1831, died in Ohio in 1911.
5. Anna-Maria Charlotte Henrietta Kreinbrok. Born in Germany in 1804 and died in Ohio in 1888.
That's it. I'm actually very happy to have gotten that far back to my great-great-great grandmother.
Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes
Monday, May 10, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Still Looking for Herbert
Every so often, I will check the "web" for Dr. Herbert D. Percival. He was my great-grandfather's older brother. Herbert went to the University of Cincinnati and graduated with an M.D. He lived with his Uncle Jabez Percival and Aunt Catherine Bush Percival in Covington, Kentucky, but I get the feeling he lived in the shadow of his cousin, Dr. William Bush Percival. William graduated with honors, his parents were wealthy and Herbert scrimped, saved and borrowed money from his younger brother, who had a job. I don't think Herbert and his brother John "Henry" Percival were very close, only one letter to Henry exists, and that is from the time that Herbert was a railroad Doctor in Devil's Lake, Dakota Territory in the mid 1880's.
Herbert married Catherine Gray "Kate" and they had one child who died in his first year. After Devil's Lake, Kate and Herbert made their way to California and eventually joined Jabez and his family which included sons William and John Philip and daughters Ellen "Nellie" and Olive. Herbert practiced his medical profession, again in the shadow of his cousin, William.
The family story, passed on to our side of the family from my dad's cousin, says that Herbert about 1895,went out to collect fees from some of his patients and was never seen again. Foul play was suspected, but as far as I can tell, no sign of him was ever found. In 1897, Herbert's widow Kate, married his cousin William. I have never been sure whether it was from expediency or what. William's first wife, Susie, died in 1884 and for the next 13 years William raised his children alone, or possibly with the help of his Mother.
I've always thought it would have been very simple for Herbert to disappear, and lacking a death certificate, obituary or any news article to the contrary, it does make one wonder.
Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes
Herbert married Catherine Gray "Kate" and they had one child who died in his first year. After Devil's Lake, Kate and Herbert made their way to California and eventually joined Jabez and his family which included sons William and John Philip and daughters Ellen "Nellie" and Olive. Herbert practiced his medical profession, again in the shadow of his cousin, William.
The family story, passed on to our side of the family from my dad's cousin, says that Herbert about 1895,went out to collect fees from some of his patients and was never seen again. Foul play was suspected, but as far as I can tell, no sign of him was ever found. In 1897, Herbert's widow Kate, married his cousin William. I have never been sure whether it was from expediency or what. William's first wife, Susie, died in 1884 and for the next 13 years William raised his children alone, or possibly with the help of his Mother.
I've always thought it would have been very simple for Herbert to disappear, and lacking a death certificate, obituary or any news article to the contrary, it does make one wonder.
Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes
Friday, May 7, 2010
Those Were The Days My Friend ...
I had a comment on yesterday's blog from Tracy about how she was grateful to get any research done, being a working mom with kids 6 and 2. It took me back ...
When my kids were ages 6 and 4 way back in 1986, we had a Tandy 1000 desktop computer with an "A" drive. That's right, no internal hard drive, that was added later to the tune of $400+ for a 20 mg (yes, that's megabytes) hard drive. I think at that time we also added another floppy drive, which may have been a 3.5 inch to complement the 5.25 inch floppy drive.
I had always been interested in family history and at our Tandy Users Group, one of the members who was into his family research told us about a little Basic program called "Genealogy On Display." Remember, this was before Windows. It wasn't a bad program, but rather cumbersome, so when I found out about a new program, called Brother's Keeper, I switched to that. I used that program for several years and even made the transition to Windows with it. At the time I switched from G-O-D to BK, there was no GEDCOM that was compatible with Genealogy on Display. So I simply printed out each record from G-O-D and reentered all 308 records into Brother's Keeper. All this happened before I found about Personal Ancestral File or PAF. I did try that, but found the sourcing a pain, after all I could never get those tags straight.
I had to go look on Wikipedia to see when GEDCOM was released, which was 1984. It was released for PAF 2.0 in 1985. The wider availability of it made switching from BK to Family Origins for Windows a breeze. It was in this time frame of BK5 and Family Origins 3 that programs began to allow you to add an image to someone's record. Now of course, you can add documents, sound files, and photos, as many as you want to each person. I used Family Origins until version 10 came out and then progressed with that to RootsMagic 4.0.x.
I can't believe how much genealogy programs have progressed. From the very basic up to the extremely complicated programs that we have today that will not only track your family, but also your families' DNA.
I installed our first modem, a 14.4 kps model for our dial-up connection. And does anyone else have these weird memories of trying to dial-up and the weird noises that would ensue while your modem attempted to connect to your Internet Service Provider?
I am grateful that for those formative years of my daughters' lives, I was able to be a stay-at-home-mom and able to spend a day at the local Family History Center, first as a patron and later as a volunteer. I learned so much there and did a lot of research. And through it all, there has been a genealogy program there to help me keep everything straight.
Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes
When my kids were ages 6 and 4 way back in 1986, we had a Tandy 1000 desktop computer with an "A" drive. That's right, no internal hard drive, that was added later to the tune of $400+ for a 20 mg (yes, that's megabytes) hard drive. I think at that time we also added another floppy drive, which may have been a 3.5 inch to complement the 5.25 inch floppy drive.
I had always been interested in family history and at our Tandy Users Group, one of the members who was into his family research told us about a little Basic program called "Genealogy On Display." Remember, this was before Windows. It wasn't a bad program, but rather cumbersome, so when I found out about a new program, called Brother's Keeper, I switched to that. I used that program for several years and even made the transition to Windows with it. At the time I switched from G-O-D to BK, there was no GEDCOM that was compatible with Genealogy on Display. So I simply printed out each record from G-O-D and reentered all 308 records into Brother's Keeper. All this happened before I found about Personal Ancestral File or PAF. I did try that, but found the sourcing a pain, after all I could never get those tags straight.
I had to go look on Wikipedia to see when GEDCOM was released, which was 1984. It was released for PAF 2.0 in 1985. The wider availability of it made switching from BK to Family Origins for Windows a breeze. It was in this time frame of BK5 and Family Origins 3 that programs began to allow you to add an image to someone's record. Now of course, you can add documents, sound files, and photos, as many as you want to each person. I used Family Origins until version 10 came out and then progressed with that to RootsMagic 4.0.x.
I can't believe how much genealogy programs have progressed. From the very basic up to the extremely complicated programs that we have today that will not only track your family, but also your families' DNA.
I installed our first modem, a 14.4 kps model for our dial-up connection. And does anyone else have these weird memories of trying to dial-up and the weird noises that would ensue while your modem attempted to connect to your Internet Service Provider?
I am grateful that for those formative years of my daughters' lives, I was able to be a stay-at-home-mom and able to spend a day at the local Family History Center, first as a patron and later as a volunteer. I learned so much there and did a lot of research. And through it all, there has been a genealogy program there to help me keep everything straight.
Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes
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