Hunting History - Finding Family

 When my husband's daughter was young, she did a family history project at school.  She came home and proudly told us "I'm descended from an Indian princess!" To which we scoffed, because literally everyone born and raised in America is fed that tail. Well, yesterday I was following my husbands line up from his mother, a Woolsey, to the Hendersons, and started working on the Reno side. 'That's interesting,' I thought, as I followed the trail, 'they're French.'  Then, when I got to my husband's 9th great grandfather, things got REALLY interesting.  He was a man named Martin Chartier, and I was not prepared for what I found! Martin Chartier was born June 1, 1650 in Poitiers (St-Jean-de-Montierneuf), Poitou, France to Rene' Chartier and Madeleine Rangier. from France to Quebec in 1667 when he was 17, joining his paternal grandfather and uncle in Canada, but he wouldn't stay there long.  At age 22, in 1672 Martin and his brother Pierre ...

 Today I was watching Monty Python's Search for the Holy Grail (as one does) and it got me wondering what notable Knights I may have had in my tree! While I can't exactly search and verify the Knights of the Round Table, we absolutely know and can follow the Knights Templar!  To be honest I was surprised to see just how many direct line ancestors I had that were Knights! All of them are from the same line, which doesn't really shock me because I am sure these families of Knights were all intermarrying and funneling down to the same line, which in my case all of them run through the Sutton/Dudley's (the same ancestors that give me Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV) to my Wheeler/Weller line on my mom's side.  Knight's Templar: William de Ferrers - 23rd Great Grandfather William Marshal - 23rd Great Grandfather Fulk D'Anjou - 25th Great Grandfather Robert de Sable' - 26th Great Grandfather Robert de Craon - 27th Great Grandfather And just for shits and gig...

 Cornelis Barentsz Sleght was born in 1616 in Woerden, Reeuwijk, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands to Barent Cornelis Sleght and Jaquemine Pietrtgen. In Woerden he was listed as a distiller and a brandy wine maker after taking over his fathers lands in 1640.  In 1645, he expanded his lands u 'One Morgan and 47 Rods" (or about 2 1/2 acres.)  Around 1635 Cornelis married Trijntgen "Tryntje" Bosch (Boz) but we do not have a clear record of this.  They had at least five children together - Heydnerick, Jan, Jaquemijne, Annetgen, Petronella, and Mattijs.  The last mention of Cornelis and Tryntie in Woerden was in March 17, 1653, where he gave power of attorney to Jan Corsz Rietvelt, where they sold what possetions they had and those left over of her parents' estate.  They were clearly planning to Emigrate. The family arrived in New York, then being called new Amsterdam, where Cornelis was named as the brewer.  The family lived in Esopus, later named Kingst...

My favorite monthly email is the ancestor connector from WikiTree - it selects a theme and then shows you how many steps away you are from a particular notable person or group of historical people. Last month was War of the Roses, and while I can't say that subject has ever been anything I've ever been particularly interested in, this email changed that! I really went down the connection rabbit hole with this one, and I'm still finding notable people on this line. WikiTree told me I was 20 degrees from Henry VII, but it wasn't a direct line (my main focus) or even close to it, my line only connects to Henry through his brother's, wife's, sister.  Now, typically that isn't even a line I would follow, but I did, and the son of that brother's wife's sister was Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, son of John Grey and Elizabeth Woodville.  John and Elizabeth are my 15th Great Grandparents. John Grey of Groby was born in 1432, in Groby, Leicestershire, En...

Last week I touched on the Italian side of my family, The Barra's from Brossasco and the Nardin's from Asiago for "So Far Away."  This week's prompt is "Same Name" and I'm going back to Asiago, to talk about the same family, only this time it's because of a mystery; because I have no idea how my Great Aunt ended up with the name she did - the name of a major battle ground in the Italo-Turkish War. Rena Paganin Giustina Maria Ain Zara "Rena" Paganin was born February 26th, 1912 in Asiago, Italy to Catterina Angela Nardin and Valentino Paganin.  Eleven months after Rena was born, her father would be dead, and less than two years after that she would be on the Duca D'Aosta steam ship with her mother and grandmother Mary Strazzabosco headed to Ellis Island.  But this time we're not talking abut what happened during or even after Rena's life, we're going to talk about what happened before.   December 4th, 2011...

Week four of the #52in52Ancestors prompt has been a difficult one for me.  Everyone is doing how far away their ancestors came from, and they all did; if you're American chances are your ancestors came from somewhere else, far across the ocean.  I thought about spinning a tale of that crossing, which I still may do one day, but not today.  While browsing some new features on my Ancestry app last night, I found this really cool section where it plots out where each of your ancestors were born and significant things in their lives happened.   It's super interesting to see it all out on that map, little dots spread out (in my case) all over Germany, England, and Scotland.  And then, all the way down in the bottom, are two little dots, far away from each other, in Italy.  One high in the Alps by Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia, and one far over towards France.  I actually never realized just how far away those two very important places were, until ...

With almost 2000 images in my Ancestry gallery, and another large personal family album full of old photos I'd inherited and scanned when my Nona passed, you'd think that the challenge of "Favorite Photo" would be a difficult one, but it wasn't.  As soon as I heard it, I knew exactly which photo I'd use.  So this will be a much shorter post, as these are people I've certainly blogged about many times before, and I'm going to focus a little more on them and a little less on the genealogy this time. Mary & Frank on their wedding day - 7/7/43 Hands down, this is my favorite photo ever.  There are so many things I love about it; including the people.  This is my Grandma Mary "Nona" Barra on the day she married Grandpa Frank Anthony Heigert, July 7th 1943 in Staunton IL.  This was taken at the farmhouse where Frank grew up, a big old home that's still there, unfortunately not still in the family, it was donated before I came along...

"The first Weller to immigrate to America came from Germany, and the first Weller to live in South Palmyra township was Thomas Jefferson Weller.  Born May 1, 1808 in Kentucky, he married Eliza Ann Conlee October 13, 1831.  Family history states  the young couple walked into S Palmyra township with packs on their backs and proceeded to hew a home out of the wilderness.  The story is told that they built a log cabin on the South side of the road somewhere between present-day Concord Church and the East corner of it.  Their thirteenth child was also named Thomas Jefferson, and (I am) his direct descendant.  He lived his entire life less than a mile from his birthplace, and the home he built is now occupied by his great-grandson (my grandfather) Lawrence." -A Brief History of the Ancestors of Ralph Weller Almost all the way up until my grandparent's children, most of my Weller family has been on the same adjoining plots of land since it was purchased ...

I'm going to try and do a better job with the #52in52 this year, I think I wrote maybe a dozen last year, but we had some good ones, and hey, quality over quantity, right? Anywho, this year's first theme is "Fresh Start."  I actually wasn't sure who I was going to write about this week, until I opened ancestry just a little bit ago, followed a few leaves, and opened my 1st cousin 2x removed, Hilda Ida Berkel.  I actually thought the record hints I was viewing were incorrect at first, but after a few verification checks, I saw what an amazing life Hilda eventually lived.  Not only that, but she absolutely fits the Fresh Start theme for this week: Born to first generation German American parents (and a bit of a scandalous father) Hilda moved from poor rural Midwest to New York, only to marry very rich and live out the rest of her days in luxury.  A fresh start, indeed. My second great-grandparents, Benedict and Pauline Heigert, emigrated from Waldulm, Baden-Wurt...

Last week I started researching my Aunt Carolyn's side of the family. I've pretty well brick-walled myself on all the line's I'm actively researching, including my husbands side.  Occasionally I like to start a new line just to break away from the same names I'm so used to seeing.  Carolyn's maiden name is Chilovich, and it was really straightforward to find her parents and grandparents. Unfortunately, that's where it quit getting easy.  Good thing I love a challenge. Nicholas Chilovich was born 12 September 1875 in Yugoslavia, Austria, or Croatia, depending on the year you were asking him (census records.) This miffed me a little at first, but apparently during this time the borders kept changing, and without knowing the EXACT town he was from I'm not sure how accurate any of these places are, but he speaks Croatian as his first language, which he indicated on all censuses, and that helps.  He married Anna Pintar, also from Yugoslavia, sometime before...

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 ...

So for this weeks 52 in 52 I'm not following the challenge prompt, which is "Surprise."  I have blogged many surprising facts and discoveries and it would probably take me all week to find one I haven't blogged about.  Not just that, but there's a fun little thing making it's rounds on the genealogy groups and I liked it so much I wanted to blog it instead.  Basically people are saying who was alive when they were born vs who isn't now, extending to parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.  I thought this was a neat little bit on information and thought I could expand on it for a full post. When I was born in 1983 I had: -Two Parents --14 Aunts & Uncles (including spouses) ---Three grandparents ----13 Great Aunts & Uncles (not counting spouses) -----Two great grandparents Now, in 2019 I have: -Two Parents --14 Aunts & Uncles (including spouses) ---no grandparents ----2 Great Aunts & Uncles (not including spouses) -----n...