CLAIM YOUR FAMILY ROOTS

CLAIM YOUR FAMILY ROOTS

This week I had a few hours to visit with another family historian in my area. We have no known ancestors in common. My takeaway from the visit was simply to "claim your family roots".

Source: Bing clip art

 My roots are deep in Lancaster County, PA. I have at least two maternal lines that arrived in 1710/1711. In other words, years before Lancaster was even a "real" city which was generally felt to have been founded in 1729.

Growing up, I was that quiet child who observed everything and asked many questions. My elderly relatives humored me with answering questions, telling me family stories, and even bringing out old family photos with explanations of who was in the photos. What a treasure of info and memories.

Some relations took me along to clean family gravestones in various cemeteries in the county. Another opportunity to listen, watch, and learn. More notes into those notebooks that have become my go-to when I need to remember some small possible fact that I am looking for as I search for family information. 

Family reunions were another great occasion to listen, ask, and learn. More notes into notebooks. 

I grew up in the American West. However, my mom Pauline (GARNER) APPLEBACH/HAHN loved her heritage and was proud of her roots in Lancaster County. She spoke with the accent and vocabulary of Lancaster County until the day she died.

I also find myself using the vocabulary and sayings of Lancaster County. The Amish out here in Indiana hear me speaking while I am in their shops and have me pegged for a native from the Lancaster area. German and "Dutch" words pepper my daily speech too. 

 We went to Lancaster County at least once a year. Many years Pappy and Grandma GARNER (with assorted other relatives) visited us out West. 

Shoo-fly pie, apple dumplings, potato bread, sauerkraut, scrabble, Sturgis pretzels, and Lebanon bologna were normal foods for us. We ate these items with more "normal" western food. It did not seem odd to us at all. 

I love the skills of the Amish, and there is no way to pull me away from watching an Amish barn raising if I know of one, or randomly find one. 

I can and do make my own candles, bake bread, and cook from scratch as time allows. I can make my own clothes. When the kids were home, we played board games and read books I grew up on. My grandma introduced me to books illustrated and/or by Tasha TUDOR. I collect those books now. 

I want to continue to learn all I can about Lancaster County and how my family fit into the history of it. I have traveled and lived in Germany which gave me another opportunity to learn the history of my ancestors. Culture, language, and history can help so much when doing family history. Our ancestors were not just names, dates, and places. They lived, loved, and died in what we now consider "history" but to them was day to day life.

An elderly aunt recently asked me why I continue to work on my genealogy. My response was that it took all those people to make me. After visiting with the other family historian, it really dawned on me that I had "claimed my family roots" long, long ago. 

My advice to you readers is to learn all you can about the people in your ancestry - "Claim your family roots". If you take the time to get to know the history, culture, and basic words or language of your ancestors they will make so much more sense to you.

Source: Bing clip art

All writing and/or photos are mine unless otherwise stated.

JUST MARRIED - RALPH & REBA GARNER 1935

 JUST MARRIED - RALPH & REBA GARNER 1935

One of the things I found tucked away in my many notebooks of notes and interviews with family members was Grandma telling me about her wedding.

I obviously did not know all the questions to ask and so I am still left with some questions, but here is grandma's story:

Ralph GARNER was working on a farm in the Quarryville, PA area.  Reba RESSLER was living and working for a doctor in Quarryville. They met there in town (my notes are unclear whether at a restaurant, or the movie house) and dated once a week for at least a year. 

Working on the farm did not pay much, and they did not make any kind of wedding plans until Ralph got a better paying job at Moore's Dairy driving a milk truck. Grandma said she worked for that doctor for five years starting when she turned 16 or 17.

Ralph GARNER and Reba RESSLER went to the Lancaster County courthouse and picked up their marriage license on 26 March 1935. The license number is #17003.

Source: my collection

Ralph GARNER and Reba RESSLER wanted to be married by a preacher they both liked but had recently moved to Carlisle, PA.  

Two of grandma's siblings Anna and Clarence went along as witnesses.

 All four of them rode the train from Lancaster to Carlisle and were the marriage happened at the preacher's house.

My notes do not include how quickly they all came back from the wedding, but I believe from overheard comments at the 50th Anniversary that it was the same day because all four of them had to go back to work the next day. 

On the marriage license it looks like the preacher was C. C. SMITH.

On 03 April 1935 a small reception was done at the home of Harry & Mary (RESSLER) MILLER in Oxford by Reba's family.

Reba stated to me that the clothing in the photo was what they wore to be married in. 

 The below photo was on a dresser in their bedroom until grandma died and I received the papers and photo from grandma. Now it proudly is displayed in my living room.

Source: my collection

This photo is the Frank & Bertha (FINDLEY) RESSLER family and was also taken 03 April 1935. Anna is missing from photo (maybe she was taking the photos??)

Source: My collection

Just a side note:

For Ralph & Reba's 25th Anniversary they invited Pastor & Mrs. SMITH to the reception.  Here is a photo of the original wedding party.

Source: my collection

Here is at the 50th Anniversary celebrated 17 Feb. 1985.  The SMITH's are dead, but Ralph, Reba, Anna, and Clarence are still looking great.

Source: my collection

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

SLOWLY RESEARCHING, ORGANIZING, AND DOWNSIZING THE GENEALOGY MESS

SLOWLY RESEARCHING, ORGANIZING, AND DOWNSIZING THE GENEALOGY MESS

 Life has been more than a bit busy and crazy the last few months at my home.  I noticed today that I have not posted here for about two months. Shame on me!

However, I have been slowly researching, organizing and downsizing the genealogy mess of papers and photos in my genealogy world.

In a perfect world, I would work a few minutes on some part of genealogy every single day.  My world is far from perfect, and the last couple years I tend to work in blocks of time rather than a few minutes a day. 

Source: Bing clip art

However, since my last post:

• I have gone thru boxes of semi-organized boxes of photos, and pulled out many that had more to do with other family members than me.  Some I scanned into the computer and labeled right then.

• Many of the pulled out photos were sent to family members or their children for them to enjoy (or not).  I do not need every single photo that has been given to me over the years by other relatives. Or I have taken over the years. It is worth the postage to be able to downsize those boxes a little.

• Then there are the documents, and copies of those same documents.  Extra copies were bundled together by person into old recycled manila folders and two boxes of them were sent to the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, IN.  Why there?  It is closer to me than either Lancaster, PA or Salt Lake City, UT. Also, it is currently rated the second genealogy library in the USA after the LDS library in Salt Lake City.

• I have written a quarterly article for Mennonite Family History Magazine.

• The computer files are my current priority to organize.  I am finding the same documents and photos in several places on my computer.  I don't have a clear idea how this happened, except that at one time my hubby was trying to help and he scanned in tons of papers for me into one giant file. The same with photos. It was super sweet of him to do, but now I have to read each paper and put it in the correct file. Repeat with photos.

• I have not been working on my family tree that is on Family Search.  My frustration with it was over the top a couple years ago when someone added several totally wrong people to the tree, and it took me weeks to get them removed. I have been thinking about slowly deleting it just to avoid future frustration. Imagine my surprise when I got on there last month to see what kind of mess there was  and several other folks had actually added people that I had researched but not put on there.  Yippee!

• I have been able to attend several virtual genealogy classes over the past year, and most have been very helpful in my research or in the organizing side.  However, I do work full time and this very impolitely intrudes on my time for genealogy. I also have family, volunteer, and church commitments. I am a good time manager, but there are still only 24 hours in any given day.

• My goal for this summer is simply to get rid of the extras in my genealogy world so that I can concentrate on the lines that are actually mine.  I love family groups, but I do not have to research each line of those.  I seem to get distracted in cluster research and work far longer on those lines than needed.

Source: Pinterest

• As all of you family historians know, research and organization take time - lots of it.  

• As I said when I started this blog, I have lots and lots of stuff to go on here so please continue to be patient with me.  Blogging is a lot of work, and my goal is to share what I have with other people who are interested in any of these lines.

Source: Bing clip art

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

FRUSTRATION OVER LOST PHOTO

Source: Bing clip art

FRUSTRATION OVER LOST PHOTO

Many years ago, my grandma gave me an old newspaper article about great uncle John W. APPLEBACH. It was a neat article with a write up about his chair caning business, and his singing at church revivals in the area.  It also had a photo of him.

I have spent all week looking for this article.  I am sure it is here but where is the question of the week.  I have carefully checked all the APPLEBACH/AFFLERBACH paper files. I have been going through the computer files of documents and photos.  Nothing.

Today I finally just said enough - I will stumble on it unexpectedly down the road.  I wanted to add the photo of him to his memorial on Find A Grave, which is how the search started last week.

What I did discover is a computer file that my hubby spent a lot of time scanning in old photos.  Instead of a file name, there is only a date.  None of the scanned images have names or titles only the scanning number.  I am thrilled for his help and am not complaining.  But I am not thrilled to not have noticed this file before or changed all those scan numbers to real names.  Sheesh.....another project.

Note to self: follow your own advice. See this post on cleaning and organizing.

Source: Unknown relative

So, before I go any further into research I now need to go back to this file and get the scans named and organized by family and person. 

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

 

DEATH AFFIDAVITS INVOLVING JOHN W. APPLEBACH 1878-1943

DEATH AFFIDAVITS INVOLVING JOHN W. APPLEBACH 1878-1943

I was recently able to get the death affidavits for both of John APPLEBACH's two wives from the Lancaster County Archives. Death affidavits can give more information about the death of the named person, even if there is a regular death certificate. 

Since I personally do not have death certificates for either wife, getting these was helpful - even if only for the dates.

See this post for more info on the archives:  Lancaster County Family Ties : RESOURCES AT THE LANCASTER ARCHIVES . I would encourage anyone looking for info from Lancaster County, PA to view the indexes of documents available.  The archives have a treasure trove of stuff for family historians.

John was blind.  He supported himself as a chair caner. He also was well known in the Lancaster area for his singing at churches and revivals.

I do not know when he married his first wife Elizabeth, but she died in Jan. 3, 1926 and is buried at Millersville Mennonite Cemetery.  No children have ever been mentioned. Her death affidavit is below and John signed it with a mark.

John then married Katie FOX who was a widow since Oct. 1924.  She was the daughter of Conrad and Magdalena OLLENDORFER/OTTENDORFER. Their marriage license is #5079 and occurred in June 1926.

The bottom of my copy of the marriage license is cut off too - what you see is what I have.

Katie shows up the Lancaster City Directory after this listed as John's wife. They live at the same address. John's mom, Elizabeth APPLEBACH, apparently lived with them and shows up in the directories at the same address (647 High Street) until her death.

John died in 1943 and is buried at Millersville Mennonite Cemetery. Here is his obit and death cert.  

Katie APPLEBACH did not remarry after John's death. She made up a will in 1946 giving everything she owned to friend Catherine DANZ (married last name HERR). From this I would say there were no children from either of her marriages to leave anything to.

Here is the death affidavit of Katie APPLEBACH in 1948.

She is memorial #15467189 on Find A Grave.  She is buried in Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Lancaster. 

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.

TAKING TIME TO CLEAN UP MY DESK

 Taking Time to Clean up my Desk

Source: Bing clip art

 I doubt that I am the only family historian who has a file cabinet full of files all neatly labeled. Or filed neatly in alphabetical order in a drawer in a file cabinet.

I also have neatly labeled files on my computer for all those digital records that have been saved from email attachments, archive downloads, and great finds from Google searches.

So why is there a 15" deep pile of family documents on my desk?  They are not neat, not really organized (unless you count the ones with the same name that are paper clipped together). At this point I am really pretty disgusted and discouraged at having to clean up this mess.

I have been researching one family line on Ancestry, Find A Grave, and Family Search. 

Found all kinds of really cool stuff.  Got really excited about the chase. Kept collecting info.

Source: Bing clip art

Now I have a stack of stuff to file because I did not keep it up as I was working on it.  Plus, part of it is saved on the computer, and part is printed.

I get that it is my mess, and so it is my responsibility to clean it up. 

I took yesterday and today to organize the papers by name, put them in labeled files, and file them correctly.  

I know better.  If I file items (paper or digital) as I find them, I do not have to waste two days putting these items away where they belong and should have put them away in the first place.

If you have a pile (or piles) of papers on your desk (this includes messy digital files on your computer) please stop your research and clean up the mess before anything else genealogy related.  

I am setting the goal of having this mess completely cleaned up by Friday so that Saturday I can delve back into the world of Ancestry and Find A Grave to find more great family things.  

I need to do better about my filing as I go too.  I hate clutter (normally I am really good about keeping all things cleaned up and put where items belong), intensely dislike having a messy desk, and hate wasting paper by making more copies of documents than I need because I did not realize I had already made a copy of that article (3 times before!)

Happy searching and filing.

Source: A helpful relative

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.