Surname Saturday – Albrecht

ALBRECHT

Eva Albrecht is my 6th great-grandmother. She was born about 1718 in Virginia and married Daniel Stover before 1740. The children born to this marriage were: Catherine, Samuel, Daniel, David (who I am descended from), and Magdalina.

(I do not have documentation to support this information – on my to do list!)

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Funeral Card Friday – Katie

Funeral Card Friday, as described at the Geneabloggers website, is to post a digital image of funeral “cards and stories about the person memorialized”.  To understand how these cards came about, please see About the History of Funeral Cards.

KATIE J BLAZER

Katie was my great-grandmother (Mother of my mom’s dad). I never met Katie – she died when my mom was 9.

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Follow Friday – New Geneablogger Changes, Source Lists, Unidentified Woman, and Sheri’s Trip

In the last few days, Thomas MacEntee of Geneabloggers made two announcements. The first was a brand new genealogy mailing list (and before you groan and think “not another one!” – just remember that this new one will be filled with “news not just for bloggers or ‘technies,’ but will include something for every member of the genealogy community.” UPDATE: The website is back up – so go to Geneabloggers and look on the right hand column.   The other piece of news from Thomas concerns the Geneabloggers website – you can read the article at Open Thread Thursday: How Do You Handle Change?.

If you want to create a report for your sources, Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings posted several articles this week: Creating a Specific Source List Report in RootsMagic 5, Creating a Specific Source List Report in Family Tree Maker 2012 (and the update to that post is found here and here, and Creating a Specific Source Usage Report in Legacy Family Tree 7.5. Thanks, Randy!

A news story from today concerns Forensic Genealogist, Melinde Byrne, and Police Chief, David C. Bailey, from a town in New England – Former Chief, Genealogist Continue Trying to Identify Body.

Sheri Fenley, of The Educated Genealogist posted about her recent trip to Rhode Island. If you plan to research there, please read her insightful article –  Office of the Town Clerk in Rhode Island, as well as this post – New England Hospitality – to see some great photos and read about Sheri’s time with other genealogists and friends!

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Fantasy Farm in the 1960s

As a young child in the 1960s, my parents made sure that I was never to be deprived of Amusement Parks. For several consecutive years, they took me to Fantasy Farm, located in Middletown, Ohio (that link will take you to a page filled with photos, videos, and all sorts of interesting information about this park).

The picture above shows me (not quite five years old) during the spring/summer of 1966 riding in “Santa” on one of the power rides.  The picture below shows me making friends with a sheep – I’m happy but the animal looks bored!

And here I am in a “blur” going around and around on another “power ride.”

And here I am again – I’m surprised the Three Bears allowed me to share their space after what that horribly behaved Goldilocks did to them!

(On a side note – I guess I wasn’t the only one who always seemed to get their thumb, fingers or hand in the camera lens while taking a picture. I have scanned several photos today with that familiar “shadow” or “blur” at the right side of the picture!)

From The History of Fantasy Farm the person instrumental in starting the amusement park for children was Edger Streifthau. The park was operational by 1963 and closed in 1991. To read all about the demise of this child-friendly place please click on the link at the beginning of this post.

As for me, even though I wasn’t very old, I do remember some of the times I had here and wish that more “child-friendly” places like this existed in the area I now call home.

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Wisdom Wednesday – Yoshie

Yoshie (hopefully I’m spelling that right!) – was my parents’ Japanese maid while they were living in Japan. I have heard a lot of stories about her. I do know that I heard everyone talk about her fondly. For many years, she and my parents exchanged Christmas cards and letters. I wonder what happened to her and her family.

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They Were Looking For – WHAT?

Every once in awhile I like to see what search terms are bringing people to my blog. Recent search terms include:

• “blazer” ohio family all my branches – this appears as if someone was trying to find my website and what information I have about the Blazer family in Ohio.
• scrapbook love story
• “blazer” ohio family history – again, this appears as if someone was looking for this website.
• autumn on my mind – reminds me of a song lyric!
• orphan train riders – I do have information about some of my distant Goul cousins who took in some brothers from the Orphan Train.
  
• where does my name rank – many people end up here based on that search term!
  
• chest treasure – not sure I want to know what they were really looking for!
• list of lindsay lohan’s body switching movies – seriously? Lindsay Lohan? I made a reference once to “Freaky Friday” but . . . you mean, she’s done more than one body switching movie? “Parent Trap” doesn’t count – she played twins – wow, let’s see how many more people end up on this blog because of this paragraph!
• you might be a genealogist if… – you enter those search terms and end up here!
• chase noonan – must be looking for him in particular
• martha clawson – and looking for her in particular!
• branches of disneyland – they must have been very confused when they landed on this blog!
• amore brittigan wertz – really? And they didn’t leave a comment or send me an email? Who was looking for these families? If it’s you – please contact me – at least let me know who you are!
• children dress-up as grandma national geographic – I don’t want to know

(Free Question Mark clip art image from clipartheaven.com)

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Travel Tuesday – Bremerhaven, Germany

WELCOME TO BREMERHAVEN

My grandfather, Glen R. Johnson, was transferred to Wiesbaden, Germany in 1950 (before the Army Air Corps became the Air Force). Upon arriving at the Port of Bremerhaven aboard the Gen. Patch on July 20, 1950, the U.S. Band greeted him and my grandmother, Vesta. Wikipedia says that Bremerhaven means “Bremen’s Harbor” in Bremen (which was in the free Federal Republic of Germany).

The ship – USNS General Alexander M. Patch (T-AP-122) (picture of it as it is berthed at Bremerhaven in 1950 can be found here – exciting to think that this might just be at the same time my grandparents had arrived!) was named after the General who took “command of the Allied Forces in New Caledonia” in 1942 (from NavSource Online: Service Ship Photo Archive; 2012; NavSource Naval History)

Luckily, while they were in Germany, they were able to take side trips to other places on the weekends. The picture above was taken on August 5, 1950, when they went with another lady, Mrs. Mulligan, along with a Bavarian guide to see the Nymphenburg Castle, Home of the Bavarian Kings.

Besides all of the photos, I also have several years’ worth of letters my grandparents wrote my parents. Those letters detail all the little trips around Europe they took as well as their day to day life in Wiesbaden.

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SNGF – Your Family and Genealogy

I’m a couple days late on responding to Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post at Genea-Musings. The questions posed were how the family reacts to genealogy interests; do they listen to stories; and funny stories to share about another family member’s interest in genealogy.

Amore: On the paternal side of my family, there have been several that have delved into genealogy including: my grandfather’s brother, Zade (Isaiah), and my great-uncle Rollo’s great-grandson, Rick. Two people who helped me quite a bit when I was starting out in 1999-2000 were my cousin, Bill Jr., and my cousin, Sharon Brittigan.

House: Along the maternal line of my dad’s family, besides my cousin, Bill Amore, Jr., (see above), a few of the House cousins were also compiling information and sharing it with me. My dad’s uncle, Alva Lester House, helped by sending a letter to my dad’s oldest sister with some family information.

Johnson: On the maternal side of my family, there have been a whole host of relatives and cousins who did quite a bit of research.  The closest to me was my grandfather, Glen R. Johnson, Sr. He sent letters and information to others in the family – who have in turn (many, many years later) shared it with me!  My distant Johnson cousins, Virginia, Ruth and Alice, and myself have formed a 4-person research “team” when it comes to the Johnson family.  Virginia has been the biggest researcher though!  I wouldn’t be very far with out her help!

Wilt: This is my maternal grandmother’s family line.  Several of her cousins had trod the genealogy path so as the information trickled down to their descendants, it was shared with me (and my research shared with them).

Goul/Blazer: My grandfather’s maternal lines – again my grandfather had some of the information written down in notes and letters.

Stern: Before I was very old, at least one Stern relative was already deep into research – Virginia (Stern) Ruark. Now, her daughter, Marvel, has taken up the mantle, and between she and several others, we do quite a bit of information sharing and assisting.

My husband’s side has been researched by his sister – with help from other cousins and relatives – long before Census records were digitized and put online!

Of my four children, only my son has taken on a position as a family history researcher. He has spent several years researching the paternal side of his family and connecting with family and other distant relatives.  When I need to share stories, I usually tell him because he seems to appreciate it more than the others (the rest just roll their eyes at me!).  However, if I want to share a scandal, everyone is all ears!

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Surname Saturday – Aeder

In deciding which Surname I would begin my “Surname Saturday” posts, the only logical thing to do was start at the beginning – alphabetically!

AEDER

Catherine AEDER is my 5th great-grandmother, born about 1750 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and died before March 31, 1835 in Carrollton, Carroll County, Ohio.  Her parents are UNKNOWN.  Catherine married John Peter STERN on July 30, 1771 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

It is reported that the couple had ten children: Barbara, Catherine, Christian (my direct ancestor), Elizabeth, John, Martha, Nancy, Polly, Sarah, and Susannah.

(Disclaimer: I do not have any solid documentation about Catherine Aeder. My information comes from the FamilySearch ancestry file. Do not take this information as gospel until documentation is found.)

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Follow Friday – Around the Web

Here is a list of what I’ve been reading “around the web” lately (in no particular order).
Review: Finding Family by Judy Russell on the Legal Genealogist Blog. Judy reviews a book about the journey of an adoptee.

There are many blog posts and articles about the closing of the Georgia archives. If you google “Georgia Archives” – you are sure to find one of the many articles. This is very sad for all those who rely on the Archives for historical, biographical, and genealogical information. Update: Click here to read an update about this – it looks like the Archives will remain open! 
My Heritage Automates Record-Matching as Genealogy Wars Heat Up (Europe) from Gigaom. Interesting article about what the top two (according to the article) genealogy companies (Ancestry and MyHeritage are doing to compete technologically.

There have been several reports of people adding QR codes to their loved ones headstones and this is one of those. What do you think? Will the QR code be outdated in the next big wave of technological advances?

I also want to call your attention to a brand new radio show by one of my genea-friends in New England, Marian Pierre-Louis. She is hosting Fieldstone Common at BlogTalk Radio every Thursday at 1 p.m. (EST). Be sure to tune in! She’ll be giving away books!  The description for this unique program is: “Fieldstone Common is a radio show streamed live on the internet via Blog Talk Radio. Host Marian Pierre-Louis will introduce you to authors and historians who bring history alive! Topics focus on history and genealogy in New England and the Northeast.”

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