Hunting History - Finding Family

I wasn't even going to blog today.  I've been working on my German side of my tree (Heigert) for foreve, and I'd actually put it down recently to work on the other branches.  My cousin Ruth sent me a message last night saying she was making another trip to Germany, and will be spending three days in the town our side is from, Waldulm, and did I have any new tree information.  Well, I hadn't since I hadn't been working on it, but I have a week off of work and thought it wouldn't hurt to time suck at least one day and spend it updating our Heigert side.  So this morning I went to FamilySearch and typed in "Higert" and Waldulm, Germany.  That's it. So I got 20 pages of records, all pertaining to my family and their town of origin. I kept coming across records for children of  Cäzilia Higert and Benedikt Hausmann.  I don't have them in my tree, but those records kept coming up, so I started a new branch.  This actually works out perfect for last ...

For my third installment of 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks, we're looking at my second great grandmother, Christine Wilhelmine Aschebrok.  This week's prompt is "I'd like to meet."  I maybe should have saved Angela Nardin for this one, even without knowing the prompts ahead of time I knew eventually it would be coming, but I am almost equally enchanted with my Heigert/Brockman side, in fact I'm super proud of my German heritage.  Christine went through a lot (as you'll read) and I bet she was an amazing woman.  It takes a lot of strength to handle what she did in her lifetime and not be hardened by it.  Christine was born to Johann Heinrich Gerhard Aschebrok and Anna Christine Elizabeth Steingeweg Oct 12th, 1849 in Holne, Lengerich, Steinfurt, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, just over 100 miles from Hanover.  She was Christened in the Evangelical Church Oct 26th, 1849. At 22 Christine had a son, Ernst Gerhard Bernhard Aschebrok with an unknown father.  ...

This past week Ancestry has, quite controversially (at least in my Italian Genealogy Group) "updated" our DNA story.  I have previously done a blog entry about mine, but to compare here the old analysis: Great Britain: 69% Southern Europe: 10% Scandinavia: 7% Western England: 3% Caucasus: 1% Ireland >1% Russia >1% And the new analysis: England, Wales, Northern Europe: 77% Ireland/Scotland: 11% Sweden: 9% Germanic Europe 3% Now, at first glance this actually does seem to fit my own research better.  But there's something really important missing, and that's my Northern Italian DNA.  Before, it was in there, you just had to expand on the tabs a bit, but that 10% Southern Europe is my Northern Italian.  Now, it's gone.  Many in the group have said their previous Italian DNA matches have been replaced with French.  Now luckily I didn't have that happen, but just disappearing altogether isn't much of a consolation prize. If you're inte...

My maiden name is Heigert, (in English; Hi-gert, in German; Hee-kert) and on that side I am a third generation American.  I feel pretty strongly about immigrants, if we hadn't been allowed in I wouldn't be here, although both my Italian and German immigrant ancestors came here via Ellis Island.  I won't get into the political debate, that's not what this blog is about.  Instead, lets get into my immigrant's stories. My great grandfather, Roman Heigert was born 8th of August 1867 in Waldulm, Baden-Wurttemburg, Germany to 27 year old Benedict Heigert and 22 year old Paulina Schmelzle.  Benedict and Paulina had married the 29th of May 1865 in Waldulm, and had one child before Roman, brother Gottfried Frederick born in 1866.   Benedict & Pauina's Marriage Bann Roman's Birth Record I won't even pretend to know how someone from Alton Illinois got in touch with the Heigert's in Waldulm, but family record has it that the Springman Distri...

I'm going to start this one off a little different, because it's starts in the present, instead of the past.  Last week or so, in this very small world of ours, I, hailing from Central Illinois and only recently moving to Sarasota Florida, met a young woman about my age who's last name is Weller; my mom's maiden name and the most extensive branch on my family tree.  We got to talking, and her family is from Maryland, one of the first places 'we' settled.  Eventually she and I will connect not just with each other, but also the dots from her lineage to mine.  But that's later.  I said, "Did you know there's a Weller pottery? It was pretty famous." She replied with, "Did you know there's Weller whiskey?"  I did, in fact.  I also know it's founder is my second cousin six times removed (although I can't tell you what that means.)  I told my mom (the official Weller, haha) and she wanted a picture with said whiskey.  Picture,...