Geneaology

[Gordon Maney]

This is a fun thread.

[Bob Thompson]

This is a fun thread.

It most assuredly is a fun subject.
I particurly enjoy the detective work involved in ferreting out obscure or forgotten ancestors.
My mothers family includes such people as Increase Mather (think Salem witch trials) Sir Thomas Gresham and John Wesley Hardin. They've been around since the 1600's . On my Dad's side there is a peculiar habit of reemmigrating back to England to take over family holdings in Yorkshire. We've had family members on both sides of the Revolutionary, 1812 and Civil wars . It makes for interesting reading, and if you are inclined finding their names in various cemetaries can tell you something as well.
I mentioned Australia in an earlier post. It was fairly easy to get yourself "transported" all you had to do was run afoul of someone with power or own something they wanted. Conversely a fair number of soldiers were sent along with transportees to make sure they didn't get up to mischief. We have ancestors in both categories .
I have to give my sister and her husband most of the credit for tracing our illustrius lineage. Besides the LDS and DAR data bases she has a long list of alphabet soup that denotes the organizations that she subscribes to. It's rather daunting at times, the CIA and NSA can't match her.
I often wonder if people will still pursue this information a century from now.
Not that the retrieval would be difficult , but who would want to admit being related to some our politicians or celebrities?
Time will tell.

[Longhunter7]

Longhunter,
Welcome to the SAR!

Thank you for the welcome! I look forward to participating in the activities of the SAR.

[Frank Irons]

How did you do it?

Also, were the early Irons enthusiasts of cigars?

:-)

Nice photo Gordon it looks as though I should stop buying relaxed fit jeans though!

I had posted a query on a geneaology forum ten years ago asking for info on my great grandfather. I got a response last year from another Irons (not related) from New York. He had info on my family based on his research on his ancestors. I was able to go farther on in my search with his info.

So far I have gone back to the 1791 birth date of my great, great, great, grandfather in Providence, RI. Turns out all these Irons are buried in New London, IA. After this years Power Wagon Rally I stopped on my way back to WI and found their headstones in the cemetery, only 20 some miles from Fairfield. I have attended many rallies and never knew I had relatives buried near Fairfield! I do not know if any of ancestors smoked cigars though.

I did find out from the NY Irons guy that the first Irons in America was Matthew Irons in 1640. As others have posted, the internet makes this research a lot easier, I never would have acquired this information without it.

Frank

[Kevin Mienke]

This is a subject that I could talk about for hours. My cousin did an in-depth genealogical study that traced the Austrian roots of my Paternal Grandfather and the Irish roots of my Paternal Grandmother.

Most of the study was done with the help of the Iowa Genealogical Society. The Irish history alone is 114 pages dating to 1749. Irish Catholics had no shortage of offspring. Of particular interest is my Grandmother's first cousin, who was famed running back Terry Brennan of Notre Dame. He later became head coach there. My cousin attained a photograph of my grandma with Terry at a family reunion in his post Notre Dame years. My cousin also called me excited to find that one of our Irish ancestors had been a New York City firefighter. I love stuff like that.

Other points of interest for me included the fact that my Grandfather's Austrian name went through several changes in his lifetime. He began George Mehenke, later to become George Menke, and again later George Mienke. It is not clear whether these were American simplifications or just clerical errors. Either way, his brother Edward remained Mehenke for his entire life and his other brother was Henry Menke.

It is documented in a September, 1876, Fenton, Iowa newspaper that Karl Mehenke, my great-grandfather, traded horses with a group of eight men who were traveling north to Minnesota. It was described as a deal favorable to all parties. It is speculation that the horses the Younger-James gang were riding in the Northfield robbery were the same horses. Northfield is 150 miles Northeast of my great-grandfather's homestead. There were eight men in the Younger-James gang, and the robbery was Sept. 7, 1876. It is also documented that the exceptionally fine horses the Younger-James gang rode had brought enough attention to the gang that they had called off a robbery attempt shortly before in Mankato, Mn.

I have a huge fascination with this kind of thing.

[NNICKB]

My brother has done quite a bit of this work. We had an ancestor on our German side who came over in the 1850's, and changed his name. The spelling is unique, which means anyone in the world with the same last name is traceable to this one man.

We had an elderly uncle, a medical doctor, who had a pretty complete history dating back to this single ancestor, about 100 years worth. Shortly before he died, he sent the research to my brother, with the hope that he would be interested in it. He was. He was only 11 years old at the time. Over the next 10 years or so he updated the research and eventually published a very thick book, which has become quite popular today, as the family is quite large, and no one knows each other any more.

One interesting facet about geneology has to do with mathematics. Our German line had many very large families, some with multiple marriages after someone died young. One of my aunts who died last year had over 200 offspring alone, including grandchildren who were grandparents. (Her husband was a prosperous farmer who purchased a NEW Dodge Power Wagon back in the early '50s, as my cousins remind me.)

The upshot of this is that the earlier history (1850s-1960s) remains very well documented, but the recent history is not. There is simply no one keeping track of the three or so new family members who were born this past week. No one can.

The math also works in the reverse, though not to the same degree. You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great-greats, and so on. Go back 10 generations, and you are talking about 1000 people. In a small community like ours, that was practically the whole town. Today, chances are pretty much everyone in the area, with the exception of someone who immigrated recently, is someone you share at least one common ancestor with.

In my case, both my mother's parents and their parents came from large local families which made our pool even bigger, even as many of these families are otherwise not closely related. The joke was there were not too many girls in the county we could legally marry!

So far as I know, we didn't have too many scoundrels in the bunch, with the exception of one very rich one, who was the founder of Bethlehem Steel. Farming was the predominant occupation. Some went into politics, but they were farmers first, and politicians second, not like today. In the postwar era, lots of them went into manufacturing, and worked in steel mills or auto plants in Ohio and Michigan. They mostly drove Chevies, Buicks if they were rich, or, if they dared to be different, Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles. They weren't sure what to make of our branch, both automotively speaking and otherwise, but that is a story for another time...

[Bob Thompson]

In my case, both my mother's parents and their parents came from large local families which made our pool even bigger, even as many of these families are otherwise not closely related. The joke was there were not too many girls in the county we could legally marry!

...

There is an old song that deals with a similar problem.
It seems that every time this young lady gets engaged her father tells her she can't marry that fella' because he is her half brother.
The daughter complains to here mother about the situation and she gives the daughter some sage advise in the last verse.

" Daughter oh dear daughter, go on and make your vow. It ain't no sin, Cause you're no kin, to your Pappy anyhow". ;-)

Not for a moment suggesting that this applies to your own family.

[NNICKB]

No offense taken, Bob. That song is usually attributed to our good neighbors in West Virginia, who rightly or wrongly are the butt of many fine jokes.

Did you know that toothpaste was invented in West Virginia? Sure, because if it had been invented anywhere else, it would be called "teethpaste."

[Clint Dixon]

My Dad researched the Dixon family tree way back into the 1700's. He did all of this years ago before the benefits of the internet. One group that is very helpful are the Mormons. Apparently they kept detailed birth and death records on just about everyone whether they were Mormon or not.

The trouble he ran into was that that far back in time, there were many Dixons named "John". It is hard to determine if the record was talking about John the great-great grandfather, or John the great-great-great grandfather. This can be cross referenced with marriage licenses, but then you get into women with the same first name and records way back then typically did not list the woman's maiden name.

My mother's maiden name Vanatta was traced back by a descendent who was an airline pilot. He had a lot of contacts and eventually wrote a book on the Vanatta family.

What it boils down to is that I come from England, Whales, Belgium, and Sweden - at least.

[Bob Thompson]

Clint, Which ancestor arranged for your initials to appear on all that hardware?

[Clint Dixon]

Clint, Which ancestor arranged for your initials to appear on all that hardware?

That was a great-great grandmother who landed at Plymouth Rock and later settled in Dodge City and raised Rams. She was affectionately known as Mother MoPar. ;^)