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We will be posting some photos in this and upcoming posts of some unknown family. These unlabeled images have been passed down in the Helbling line, and we hope someone out there also has one of these photos, and may be able to identify the people in it.

Here is a little background:

The current owner of these pictures, which were found loose, is a descendant of Laurelda Collette (Helbling) Geier, who lived in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania area. Laurelda was born in 1888, and married Bernard Adam Geier (1887-1961) on 23 Nov 1910; they both died in 1961, only 22 days apart.

Laurelda was a first cousin to Gerard William “G. W.” Helbling (1882-1971), husband to Anna May (Beerbower) Helbling (1881-1954), our direct ancestor. We have pictures of G.W.’s son, Edgar B. Helbling (1908-1994), with Laurelda’s son, Robert “Bob” A. Geier (1912-1990); they were second cousins.

G.W.’s father was Francis X. Helbling (1840-1919) and Laurelda’s was William Helbling (1841-1896), both children of Franz Xavier Helbling (1800-1876) and Mary Theresa (Knipshield) Helbling (1810-1891). F.X. (Sr.) and Mary were our German immigrants to the US, probably about 1835.

On to the pictures:

The first picture in this article is not labeled with names of the woman or child. We do know that the photo directly above is a portrait of Laurelda’s sister, Flora Agnes (Helbling) Hyle (1867-1920), her husband Lawrence M. Hyle (1864-1921), plus other family members. (The Hyle name has also been spelled “Heyl.”) Although this is not a great image, it could be two or three sisters, their husbands and children, and an older woman who could possibly be their mother. The family thinks that the woman on the far right of the photo looks like the woman in the picture above, and may be one of the women in the following picture:

Could the above picture possibly be 4 generations of the family?

If this portrait was taken in 1897, as the cutout from what was probably the original photo card suggests, the little girl in the lower left could possibly be Laurelda Collette Helbling, who would have been 9 years old that year.

This picture appears to be the same little girl:

Here is another adorable little girl- could this be the same person, just younger?

It is always good to compare unknown pictures with those that are labeled, so here is a picture that includes Laurelda:

What do you think? Could these unknown pictures be of Laurelda Collette (Helbling) Geier?

The fact that so many pictures of the same people were lovingly saved over almost 120 years (or more!) suggests that these ‘unknowns’ are truly family members, in the direct line of the person who now holds the images. Not having their names on the picture was logical at the time- their contemporaries all knew who was who.

Please use our contact form to let us know if you have these same photos- even without names, knowing the chain of persons they have been passed down through may help to eliminate or even to identify persons.

With names, of course, would be even better…

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. See “Mystery Monday: Who is Visiting with the Helblings?” for more info about Bob Geier
   http://heritageramblings.net/2018/03/26/mystery-monday-who-is-visiting-with-the-helblings/
2. Histed Studio- there is an 1897 image from a studio by this name but at a different address in Pittsburgh: https://historicpittsburgh.org/islandora/search/catch_all_fields_mt%3A%28histed%29?f%5B0%5D=RELS_EXT_isMemberOfCollection_uri_ms%3A%22info%5C%3Afedora%5C/pitt%3Acollection.236%22&islandora_solr_search_navigation=0
3. A special thanks to cousin Mary Lou who has done phenomenal research on the Helbling family- in the days before the internet!- and who has been a wonderful steward of these family treasures.

Click to enlarge any image. Please contact us if you would like an image in higher resolution.

Original content copyright 2013-2019 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Labor Day officially became a federal holiday in the United States in 1894. “The Gilded Age” included the rise of big business, like the railroads and oil companies, but laborers fought- sometimes literally- for their rights in the workplace. Grover Cleveland signed the law to honor the work and contributions, both economic and for society, of the American laborer. Celebrated on the first Monday in September, ironically the holiday was a concession to appease the American worker after the government tried to break up a railroad strike but failed.

The Labor Day weekend is a good time to think about our ancestors and the work they did to help move our country and their own family forward.

Jefferson Springsteen was a mail carrier through the wilds of early Indiana, traveling for miles on horseback through spring freshets (full or flooding streams from snow melt), forest, and Indian villages. Samuel T. Beerbower, who would be a some-number-great uncle depending on your generation, was the Postmaster in Marion, Ohio, for many years. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

Bad weather, gloom of night, ocean crossings in the mid 1800s, and the threat of disease or injury did not stay our minister, deacon, and missionary ancestors from their appointed rounds either- especially since the felt they were appointed by a higher power. We have quite a number of very spiritual men in the family. Henry Horn became a Methodist circuit rider after coming to America as a Hessian soldier, being captured by George Washington’s troops in Trenton, NJ, then taking an Oath of Allegiance to the United States, and serving in the Revolutionary Army. The family migrated from Virginia to the wilds of western Pennsylvania sometime between 1782 and 1786. A story is told of how he was riding home from a church meeting in the snow. The drifts piled up to the body of the horse, and they could barely proceed on, but Henry did, and was able to preach another day. He founded a church Pleasantville, Bedford Co., Pennsylvania that still stands, and has a congregation, even today. Edward B. Payne and his father, Joseph H. Payne, Kingsley A. Burnell and his brother Thomas Scott Burnell were all ministers, some with formal schooling, some without. Edward B. Payne gave up a lucrative pastorate because he thought the church members were wealthy and educated enough that they did not need him. He moved to a poor church in an industrial town, where he was needed much more, however, he may have acquired his tuberculosis there. He also risked his life, and that of his family, by sheltering a woman from the domestic violence of her husband, and he testified on her behalf.

Abraham Green was one of the best tailors in St. Louis, Missouri in the early 1900s, and many in the Broida family, such as John Broida and his son Phillip Broida, plus Phillip’s daughter Gertrude Broida Cooper, worked in the fine clothing industry.

Edgar Springsteen worked for the railroad, and was often gone from the family. Eleazer John “E.J.” Beerbower worked for the railroads making upholstered cars- he had been a buggy finisher previously, both highly skilled jobs.

The theater called a number of our collateral kin (not direct lines, but siblings to one of our ancestors): Max Broida was in vaudeville, and known in films as “Buster Brodie.” Elsie Janis, born Elsie Beerbower, was a comedienne, singer, child star in vaudeville, “Sweetheart of the A.E.F” as she entertained the troops overseas in World War I, and then she went on to write for films. Max Broida also did a stint in the circus, as did Jefferson Springsteen, who ran away from home as “a very small boy” to join the circus (per his obituary).

Collateral Lee family from Irthlingborough, England, included shoemakers, as that was the specialty of the town. They brought those skills to Illinois, and some of those tools have been handed down in the family- strange, unknown tools in an inherited tool chest turned out to be over 100 years old!

Will McMurray and his wife Lynette Payne McMurray owned a grocery store in Newton, Iowa. Ella V. Daniels Roberts sold eggs from her chickens, the butter she made from the cows she milked, and her delicious pies at the McMurray store. Franz Xavier Helbling and some of his brothers and sons were butchers in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, and had their own stores.

Some of our ancestors kept hotels or taverns. Joseph Parsons (a Burnell ancestor) was issued a license to operate an ‘ordinary’ or “house of entertainment” in 1661 in Massachusetts, and Samuel Lenton Lee was listed as “Keeps hotel” and later as a saloon keeper in US Federal censuses. Jefferson Springsteen had a restaurant at the famous Fulton Market in Brooklyn, NY in the late 1840s.

Many of our family had multiple jobs. William Gerard Helbling (AKA Gerard William Helbling or “G.W.”) listed himself as working for a theater company, was an artist, then an undertaker, and finally a sign painter. George H. Alexander was artistic as well- he created paintings but also worked as a lighting designer to pay the bills.

Sometimes health problems forced a job change. Edward B. Payne was a Union soldier, librarian, and then a pastor until he was about 44 when his respiratory problems from tuberculosis forced him to resign the pulpit. For the rest of his life he did a little preaching, lecturing, and writing. He also became an editor for a number of publications including, “The Overland Monthly,” where he handed money over from his own pocket (per family story) to pay the young writer Jack London for his first published story. Edward B. Payne even founded a Utopian colony called Altruria in California! He and his second wife, Ninetta Wiley Eames Payne, later owned and conducted adult ‘summer camps’ that were intellectual as well as healthy physically while camping in the wild and wonderful northern California outdoors.

Other times, health problems- those of other people- are what gave our ancestors jobs:  Edward A. McMurray and his brother Herbert C. McMurray were both physicians, as was John H. O’Brien (a Helbling ancestor), who graduated from medical school in Dublin, Ireland, and came to America in 1832. He settled in western Pennsylvania, still wild and in the midst of a cholera epidemic that was also sweeping the nation; he had his work cut out for him. (It appears he did not get the same respect as other doctors because he was Irish, and this was pre-potato famine.) Lloyd Eugene “Gene” Lee and his father Samuel J. Lee owned a drugstore in St. Louis, as did Gene’s brother-in-law, Claude Aiken. Edith Roberts McMurray Luck worked as a nurse since she received a degree in biology in 1923.

We have had many soldiers who have helped protect our freedom, and we will honor some of those persons on Veterans Day.

We cannot forget the farmers, but they are too numerous to name them all! Even an urban family often had a large garden to supplement purchased groceries, but those who farmed on a larger scale included George Anthony Roberts, Robert Woodson Daniel, David Huston Hemphill, Amos Thomas, etc., etc. We even have a pecan farmer in the Lee family- William Hanford Aiken, in Waltham County, Mississippi, in the 1930s-40s.

We must also, “Remember the ladies” as Abigail Adams entreated her husband John Adams as he helped form our new nation. He/they did not, so 51% of the population-women- were not considered citizens except through their fathers or husbands. Many of these women, such as Lynette Payne McMurray, labored to get women the right to vote, equal pay, etc. (Lynette ‘walked the talk’ too- she was the first woman to ride a bicycle in Newton, Iowa! Not so easy when one thinks about the clothing involved.) Some men, like her father, Edward B. Payne, put their energy into the women’s suffrage movement as well. Many of our ancestors worked for the abolition movement too, including the Payne and Burnell families.

A woman worked beside her husband in many families, although she would get little credit for it. Who cooked the meals and cleaned the rooms for the Lee and Parsons innkeepers? Likely their wives, who also had to keep their own home clean, laundry washed, manage a garden and often livestock- many families kept chickens even if they didn’t have a farm. They raised and educated their many children too, sometimes 13 or more. Oh yes, let’s not forget that women truly ‘labored’ to bring all those children into the world that they had made from scratch. (Building a human from just two cells makes building a barn seem somewhat less impressive, doesn’t it?) Some of them even died from that labor.

Working alongside one’s husband could be frightening due to the dangers of the job. A noise in the Aiken family drugstore in St. Louis, Missouri in 1936 awoke Claude and Mildred Aiken since they lived in the back of the store. Claude look a gun and went into the store while Mildred called the police. Claude fired the gun high to frighten the intruder- Mildred must have been very scared if she was in the back, wondering who had fired the shot and if her husband was still alive. Thankfully he was, and the police were able to arrest the thief, who wanted to steal money to pay a lawyer to defend him in his three previous arrests for armed burglary and assault.

We applaud all of our ancestors who worked hard to support their family. Their work helped to make the US the largest economic power in the world, and a place immigrants would come to achieve their ‘American dream.’ We hope our generation, and the next, can labor to keep our country prosperous and strong.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. There are too many folks listed here to add references, but using the search box on the blog page can get you to any of the stories that have been posted about many of these persons. Of course, there is always more to come, so stay tuned!

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Helbling Family (Click for Family Tree)

Last Monday our Mystery Monday: Emelia and Aunt Lizzie post included the above image in hope of someone seeing it and being able to help us solve the mystery of Emelie and Aunt Lizzie and how they fit into the family. We now think we have a solution, although we do not know for sure who each of the persons are in the photograph- yet.

Trolling through my Ancestry.com family tree to try and find an “Emelie” was fruitless, but “Lizzie” was a hit: Elizabeth “Lizzy” Barbara Helbling surfaced after I had entered some data from old notes, specifically some from cousin Mary Lou, who did so much great Helbling research back in the days before the internet, and was so generous in sharing it.

Lizzy was born 25 Feb 1839 in Lawrenceville, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, to Franz Xavier Helbling and Mary Theresa Knipshield. Lizzy was therefore the sister of Franz X. Helbling, Jr., thus the aunt of ‘our’ Gerard William “G.W.” Helbling, son of Franz. The photo album belonged to G.W. and his wife, Anna May Beerbower Helbling, so she would have been “Aunt Lizzy” to May who was putting the captions in the album.

I thought the image was probably taken in the 1930s, but Aunt Lizzy died 25 Dec 1928, so it would have to be sometime in the 20s. She is likely the very elderly woman on the right in the photo, since she was listed as age 81 in the 1920 US Federal Census, and died at age 89.

If this was taken in Peoria, she was a pretty spry lady- she was living in Pittsburgh, PA in 1920 so would have probably taken the train to Peoria in her 80s. Spry also with sitting on the ground for the picture and possibly a picnic- getting up might have been hard!

So who then is Emelie? Emelie is the daughter-in-law of Lizzy, as Emelie married, probably in 1892, Frederick A. J. Spahn, the son of Lizzy and John Spahn. Emelia/Amelia was listed as a Practical Nurse in the 1920 US Federal Census, so she may have traveled with her mother-in-law as Emelia and Frederick were living in Lizzy’s household in 1920 in Pittsburgh. (How convenient to have a nurse around for someone 80 years old!) Emelie L. Heidemann was the daughter of Hermann and Louise Heidemann, born about 1840 and 1843, respectively, in Germany.

Researching Emelie in the census was challenging at first, since her given name was spelled so many ways, and I did not have a maiden name. Thankfully an Ancestry.com tree did have a maiden name, so searching using that last name as a clue, I was able to find her family. Her death certificate confirmed her maiden name, as it listed Hermann Heideman as her father, and that she was the widow of Fred J. Spahn.

Emelie was born in 1870, so would have been 50 in 1920. She might be the woman on the right in the dark dress, or the upper left with glasses. Fred is not listed in the caption in the photo album, so he may not have come on the trip- or could have been the photographer! (He died in 1837.) We will need to find a photo of both of them, and one of Lizzie, to try to match up images and identify these folks. Hopefully someone else out there has this same photo with identification. Please let us know if you are a Spahn or Helbling relative!

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Emelie Heidemann in the 1880 US Federal Census- Year: 1880; Census Place: Saint Louis, St Louis (Independent City), Missouri; Roll: 722; Family History Film: 1254722; Page: 655D; Enumeration District: 100; Image: 0738; via Ancestry.com.

2) 1920 US Federal Census for Elizabeth “Lizzie” Barbara Helbling Spahn Bushman- Year: 1920; Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 26, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1526; Page: 19B; Enumeration District: 739; Image: 1122; via Ancestry.com.

3) Family photo album.

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Helbling Family

Are you a Helbling descendant who is good with knives? Can you deftly carve a large turkey at Thanksgiving, debone a chicken breast in just a couple quick strokes, or gently filet a fish? Then you may have have some of the butchering talent passed down through the Helbling DNA.

Franz Xavier Helbling (1800-1876) and his brother Jacob (1813-1872) were butchers, and Jacob is credited with being one of the first butchers to have a stand at the Pittsburg market. (Yes, that is how they spelled Pittsburgh back in the day.) With both brothers being butchers, it is highly likely that their father, Franz Xavier Helbling, (1773-?), was also a butcher. Franz  had a son who became a butcher, but the family trade ended there.

I have found 4 IRS Tax Lists for 1862-3 for this family, and they show that there were more Helbling butchers than just these two in Lawrenceville, a suburb of Pittsburgh.

(Tax rates are 30 cents per head of cattle, 5 cents for a calf, 10 cents for a hog, and 5 cents for sheep.)

#1- September 1862

Francis Helbling- 6 cattle + 1 calf + 1 hog= $1.95 in taxes.

Jacob Helbling- 6 cattle + 1 calf + 1 hog= $1.95 in taxes.

Jacob Helbling- 4 head of cattle= $1.20.

#2- October 1862

Francis Helbling- 6 head of cattle + 2 calves for a total of $1.90.

Jacob Helbling- 6 head of cattle + 1 calf = $1.85 in taxes

Francis Helbling- 10 head of cattle +2 calves + 3 hogs + 4 sheep= $3.60 in taxes.

John Knipschield- 12 cattle + 1 calf= $3.65 in taxes.

(We do not know Mary Theresa Knipschield’s siblings nor parents- maybe this is her brother and why she came to America?)

#3- November 1862

Francis Helbling- 3 head of cattle for a total of $0.90 in taxes.

Jacob Helbling- 5 head of cattle + 2 calves = $1.60 in taxes

Francis Helbling- 9 head of cattle + 5 calves + 1 hog for a total of $3.05.

Jacob Helbling- 6 head of cattle + 2 calves = $1.90 in taxes

#4- October 1863

Francis Helbling- 7 head of cattle + 1 calf for a total of $1.45.

Jacob Helbling- 6 head of cattle + 3 calves = $1.35 in taxes

John Knipschield- 13 cattle + 6 calf + 4 hogs= $3.14 in taxes.

Robert Helbling- 4 head of cattle= $0.80

(Not sure who Robert Helbling is…more research needed.)

 Being a butcher in the 1800s was a lot different than today- no tractor trailer driving to the grocery store loading dock with cuts of meat that only need a little trimming for the expensive meat case. As can be seen from the tax lists, our ancestors had to grow their own meat, kill the animal, butcher the carcass, utilize and dispose of the offal (undesirable parts), and package it when the customer chose the perfect steak. Cattle back then were a bit smaller than today, about 1,100 pounds vs today’s 1,500 pound cattle; an animal that size was a lot to manage. A lot to feed, too, to get to that weight- they would have had to purchase hay and corn to grow those calves, or grow their own.

After dressing the animal, i.e. cutting off all the undesirable parts, the remaining meat cuts would be about half the weight of the live animal. Of course, back then they also ate parts we are not always inclined to eat, such as tripe, tongue, heart, etc. Being German, they probably made some amazing sausage out of the leftover parts, and head cheese too, so their yield would probably have been higher than today’s. (Of course, our industrialized livestock farming of today uses all those undesirable parts- they just don’t tell us what it is in. Often it is fed back to animals, one way mad-cow disease is spread.)

Our ancestors who farmed, which was a majority of those in the 1800s, had to do this too, but on a much smaller scale.

So, the next time you are wrestling a 24-kb Thanksgiving turkey as the whole table of guests watch, remember that culinary knife skills  may be in your DNA, and you can do it!

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Obituary for Rosina Wiesert Helbling, wife of Jacob Helbling.

The Pittsburgh Press, Nov. 30, 1907, page three http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nhobAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CEkEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4329,6709035 &dq=helbling+death&hl=en

2) September 1862 Tax List: U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-1918AuthorAncestry.comPublisherAncestry.com Operations IncPublisher Date2008Publisher LocationProvo, UT, USA

October 1862 Tax List: U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862-1918AuthorAncestry.com. Online publication – Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.Original data – National Archives (NARA) microfilm series: M603, M754-M771, M773-M777, M779-M780, M782, M784, M787-M789, M791-M793, M795, M1631, M1775-M1776, T227, T1208-T1209

[Ancestry.com is in the midst of switching viewer styles and I cannot get to all of the sources for each of the IRS records. Please let me know if you need more information.]

3) A Century of Georgia Agriculture, 1850-1950 by Willard Range, 1954.  https://books.google.com/books?id=s_GPG0k7XwUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Willard+Range%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JusAVeOtHYuZNt3rg9AL&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images- it may also make them sharper.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

As a family historian and history buff, sitting down to write a list of things I am thankful for is daunting, even when I limit it to genealogy- there are so very many.

1. Of course, I would need to start with the family that was close, and who shared their stories with me from the time I was a young child. I always wanted to hear more of the good stories, and had a thirst for digging deeper into them. The budding journalist even back then always asked the 5 W’s and How: Who was it? What did they do for a living? Where did they live/move? When was it exactly? Why would they do ___? and How do you know that? How did they accomplish that? Questions, questions, questions… (Sorry, Mom, Dad, grandparents, etc.)

Family stories integrate history and help children better understand context, timelines, and their place in them. A fifth grader I knew had trouble understanding which persons he was studying in social studies were still alive- he couldn’t remember if Ben Franklin or George Washington were still living. This was a child who sadly did not have family stories…

David Allen Lambert recently wrote a good post discussing this on the blog Vita Brevis entitled “The gift of family history.” As I read it, I remembered how the Civil War came alive to me in my classes only because I knew I had a great-great Uncle who was “the youngest drummer boy in the Civil War” per family stories. My mother would bring out his picture occasionally, and he looked so young and vulnerable in his new Union uniform and cap. As we learned about boring battles, I could imagine dear little Abram Springsteen marching off, beating his drum with head held high, with his mother and sisters shedding briny tears, and his father proudly knowing that he would come back a man, even though he was only 12 years old as he left. I was proud that my family fulfilled patriotic duties, and relieved to know that Abram survived. The story of him stealing eggs and putting them in his drum to take back to camp for a delicious repast for his comrades in arms turned out to be true; as a child, it made me realize that I too could do things that mattered and that helped adults. Part of his legacy was thus given to me- a gift of family history passed down through the years.

Studies show that children who know the family stories have a better sense of who they are, where they came from, more confidence, etc. The best part is that they can pass on those stories to their children and grandchildren too. A person’s history is usually lost within three generations, since the fourth most probably will never have met the eldest. Using images and the wealth of the family stories and current availability of genealogical data, we can keep that from happening.

Grandma Edie (above) always told us, “You come from strong pioneer stock- you can do anything you set your mind to.” That sentence has kept me going through adversity from the we-thought-it-was-the-end-of-the-world silly junior high sort to much bigger, scarier, life altering things. I think I finally truly believe it.

2. Back in the days before computers, genealogical research was a slow task with so many dead ends, and it depended on strangers being interested enough to answer your query if you could not travel to every needed repository. I cannot imagine the reams of paper and piles of envelopes I mailed out  after reading a query in a genealogy magazine, enclosing my SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope, so the person did not have to use their own stamp to reply- quaint, isn’t it in these days of instant emails and messaging?), or writing to a local courthouse or historical society. Often, by the time one got a reply months later, one had almost forgotten the details of why they wrote. Despite all that, the kindness of strangers and very distant family was often overwhelming, and helped advance my research one family at a time.

3. I have been researching since a teen, and thirty years of personal visits to families and repositories plus SASE were totally eclipsed once I found Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, and the myriad other online databases now available. In just a few months my family tree doubled in size, reaching many generations higher. Of course, it would not have been an accurate tree without all the information I had so painstakingly gathered in all those previous years. Indexers have made this material accessible, and I hope to be able to do more indexing in the future myself. Online databases are the gift that keeps on giving- more comes online daily and I just love the newspapers now online-  they give such interesting details about daily life, something dry vital records cannot do.

4. Being able to write about my research and findings has been the culmination of all my research- what good is all that paperwork/pixels if it doesn’t tell a story to someone? Writing it down has helped me to realize where there are holes, and then I research some more- it’s a wonder that I ever get a blog post finished. (I think my fastest was only 8 revisions and I know there are still typos and awkward sentences here and there- sorry.) Writing out the stories is also a way of analyzing what one knows, and sometimes new connections are evident. I am still challenged by some of the technicalities of using a blog, and it isn’t the pretty blog I visualized because I don’t have the skills to make it so, but overall it makes me happy to share these stories of family.

5. Having people who actually read the blog is so wonderful. Writing a blog IS a lot of work (thank you, dear husband, for your patience when I am writing), and it saddens me that there are not very many readers out there. It is a niche blog though, written for family, so I really don’t expect large numbers. (It would be nice though to get as many real people comments as spam comments.) We have found some cousins through the blog (one of the reasons we started this), and I am sure there are others reading but not commenting, subscribing, or sharing. Oh well, I do hope that they will one day, but in the meantime, I have been charged with telling these stories for current and future generations, and that is what I will do. Thank you to Uncle Jim who pushed me to get this thing started. To the family and friends who read the blog, I say a heartfelt thank you- you keep me inspired to keep telling the stories.

My genealogical journey has been a part of me for a very long time and I am grateful to be able to share it with family.  I am so thankful for all the assistance along the way, from the kind humanity of researchers and government employees to the non-human databases that contain so many tidbits of clues and information. I am grateful to all the wonderful ancestors who came before to make me who I am and keep me busy at the computer and off the streets because I am so deep into research I cannot stop to eat or sleep or get in trouble.

In the end, though, the thing to be most thankful for, this day and every day, is… family.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) Family photo archives.

2) 1920 US Federal Census for Elsie Janis: Source Citation: Year: 1920; Census Place: North Tarrytown, Westchester, New York; Roll: T625_1276; Page: 16A; Enumeration District: 68; Image: 599. Ancestry.com. Accessed 11-19-14.

3) Vita Brevis, a blog of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS)- http://vita-brevis.org/2014/11/gift-family-history/#more-2593

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Copyright 2013-2014 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.