I haven't posted one of these in I don't even know how long. The problem is, I've really not made any further movement back, no matter how hard I try, though I have managed to fill out some of the tree around the people I am looking for, mostly with children, but the occasional other ancestor thrown in for good measure.
The lines I want to focus on are still nearly the same ones I've been looking for since the very beginning:
Seneft (also Senft and Senefft) and Hillinger (also Hilinger)
Kresch and Reich
Park and Dunlop
Curran and Blair
Jones and Griffths
Roberts and either Griffiths or Pugh
Oline Hansen's line has gotten a little further, though I'd still love to get further back, but I think that one's less of a priority now. As is the Gabriel/Howells Line. While I'd love to trace the family back to our Huguenot ancestor, we've actually got quite a bit along this main line. Looking through the Brick Wall People posts I did, I actually went back far enough that I was having trouble figuring out who the people were initially, so I definitely don't need to trace some of those, either, though I do recommend it as a good exercise.
So with no further ado, my brick walls, all six of them:
The Seneft/Hillingers–
Leon and Mindel were my great-great grandparents. Their children were Isaac, Alex, Annie, Jack, and Jennie. Isaac is a new discovery from this past year. Before that, I knew he existed, but didn't know his name, nor the names of any of his children but one. They came from an Eastern European country called Galicia, then came to London to escape the danger and hardships there. Their descendants now live in the US, Israel, England and Canada.
While I have made a lot of discoveries in this family since my first Brick Wall post back in 2010, I've gotten no further back along this branch.
Looking back at previous posts, I now know exactly where Alex's family were from: Sedziszow, now known as Sędziszów Małopolski, now located in Southern Poland.
Leon I have found listed alternately as Lewis and Leib. His birthdate I still haven't managed to pin down exactly, but he was born somewhere between 1849 and 1854. He died almost ten years later than I'd had listed, in 1931. I have been told he was a Rabbi, and the Census record I found listed him as a greengrocer/hawker, meaning he had a cart he sold fruits and vegetables from. The same census also gives a general marriage year of 1871 between he and Mindel.
Mindel I have seen listed as Mena, Minnie and Millie (though the last could be a misunderstanding due to accent). I found a cemetery record for her that gave me a general birthdate of about 1851. According to the tombstone, she died in 1913. According to the 1911 census I found the information about Leon, by that point, she was blind. I'm not sure if this was a condition that came from before their arrival, or something that developed after, though I suspect it could be because of diabetes, which does run in the family.
The same census record also listed a nephew, though I'm unsure which side he comes from. His name was Lewis Greenbaum, and he was a tailor. If I could learn whose child he was, I might be able to get further back in this branch of my tree.
I've found a few more bits of information on my great grandfather, Alex, that help me pin down his timeline a little more. According to my grandfather's citizenship papers, his father served in the English military during the Boer war. I don't know that he served in the war itself, but he definitely served during that time. I also discovered that he visited the US before he brought his family in the thirties. I'm not sure when he came, but I believe it may have been between his expulsion from England, and his arrival in Frankfurt.
My questions now:
• Who Leon and Mindel's parents were.
• Who Lewis Greenbaum was in relation to Leon and Mindel.
• When the Seneft family came to England.
• Where Leon and Mindel were born.
The Kresches –
Benzion and Feige were my great-great grandparents. Their children were Mendel, Dora, Minna, Haim, Esther, and Aharon. I have learned nothing new about them this year, but I have firmed up some of the information I learned from my cousin in Israel a few years ago.
Looking back at my old entries, I see that I mentioned a cousin Selma. I learned after posting that she was from the South American branch, so she is likely related to the Kresches, as my great-grandmother's brother and his wife and daughter and her family escaped the war by immigrating there. I also now know that Dora and her siblings were born in a small village called Czudec in what is now Southern Poland.
While I have firmed up names and location, I still have very little else on this branch of the family.
My questions now:
• Who Benzion and Feige's parents were.
• Exactly how does cousin Selma connect to this family?
• Where were Benzion and Feige born?
• What happened to Haim, who vanished after World War I?
• When did Benzion die?
The Parks –
Robert James Park was born to John Park and a Miss Dunlop. I don't know her first name, though I suspect it may have been Mary, as that was the name of my great-grandmother, Robert's daughter. Robert is the only child I know of John and his wife, and I know nothing about them beyond their names.
I did find a record this year that listed his birthplace as Ballymena, which is definitely new information. It hasn't gotten me any further, though. And really, that's all I have. A short one, but there just isn't much on this part of the family tree.
My questions now:
• What is Miss Dunlop's first name?
• Where were she and John Park from?
• When were they born?
• Did Robert have any other siblings?
The Currans –
Thomas Curran and Jean (Jennie) Blair were my third-great grandparents. According to the records I found for them, they had eight children: Elizabeth, Anna, Sarah, John, Thomas, Sarah Jane, Joseph, and Rhoda. They lived in Antrim, Ireland, which is the county in Northern Ireland where Belfast is located. What I do know is that Thomas and Jennie were married in 1860. Thomas's father was Francis, and Jennie's father was John.
I haven't made any progress on this branch this year, though I have done a little looking for them. The problem is, Irish records are hard to find.
My questions now:
• Where exactly Thomas and Jennie were born.
• What their mothers' names were.
• Where their parents were born.
• How many siblings they had.
The Joneses –
Benjamin Jones and Hannah Griffiths are my great-great grandparents. According to my records, they had seven children: David, Joseph, John, Daniel, William, Mary, and Sarah. They lived in a town on the eastern border of Wales with England called Merthyr Tydfil. According to family stories, they ran the post office there, though I don't have any records to show it.
I have complete birth information for both of them, but no names to go with it. I don't know if they had siblings or not. Benjamin was born in 1837 in Caio, Wales, and Hannah was born in 1849 in Newcastle Emlyn, Wales. I'm not sure how they met, or how they ended up in Merthyr Tydfil. I do have one possible census record for Benjamin's family that lists a mother and brother for him, but I haven't been able to verify that information yet, so I can't be sure it's correct.
My questions now:
• Who were their parents?
• Where were their parents from?
• What was the name of their post office, and was it the only one?
The Robertses –
The final branch, and one I haven't talked about quite as much here.
Hugh and Ellen Roberts were my third-great grandparents. At this time, I only have two children listed for them: Selina and Elizabeth. Hugh was born about 1819 in Northern Wales, and Ellen was born about 1824 in the same area.
I was lucky enough to find a census record for them that listed the four of them in 1851. At the time, Selina was five, and Elizabeth just a year old. I've not been able to find more, so I don't know if there were further children. I do know that Hugh and Ellen got to meet my grandmother, as we have a picture of her with them sometime shortly after her birth.
Ellen is a bit of a mystery for me, though I think it's more to do with getting this information from my grandmother through word of mouth. When I first began to put together my family tree, I quizzed my family for as much info as I could get. Some branches were easy. There were family trees that already existed that I was able to pull from. But some branches, like the Roberts side, I had to put together by hand, hoping I got all the information correct. Ellen and Hugh's were one of these lines. My grandmother gave me her name as Ellen Griffiths. This was interesting, as another line had the same surname. But Griffiths is not at all uncommon in Wales, so it didn't raise a red flag. Not until I found their daughter Selina's death record did I realize that the name might not be right. According to that record, her mother's name was Ellen Pugh. Unfortunately, I've never found records with either name for my ancestor, so until I do, I'll just have to keep looking for both.
I really know little else about this branch.
My questions now:
• What is Ellen's true maiden name?
• How many children did they have?
• What were the names of Ellen and Hugh's parents?
And that's all I have for now. If you have anything on any of these people, I would love to talk to you. Especially if you have knowledge that would get me another generation back.
Previous Brick Wall Posts:
• Brick Wall Ancestors (March 2010)
• Brick Wall Update – the Seneft/Hillingers (May 2010)
• Brickwall Update #2 (September 2010)
• Brick Wall Update (September 2010)
• Brick Walls – A Different Listing (October 2010)
• Brick Wall Update (August 2011)
• Brick Wall Update 2012 (February 2012)
• Brick Wall People Posts (2013):
o Leon Seneft (Seneft/Hillinger branch, Jewish eastern European)
o Mindel Hilinger (Seneft/Hillinger branch, Jewish eastern European)
o Benzion Kresch (Seneft/Hillinger branch, Jewish eastern European)
o Feige Golda Reich (Seneft/Hillinger branch, Jewish eastern European)
o Benjamin Jones (Jones/Howells branch, South Wales)
o Hannah Griffiths (Jones/Howells branch, South Wales)
o Hans Nielsen (Oline Hansen branch, Sealand, Denmark)
o Maren Rasmussen (Oline Hansen branch, Sealand, Denmark)
o Ole Larsen (Oline Hansen branch, Sealand, Denmark)
o John Park (Park/Curran branch, Northern Ireland)
o Miss Dunlop (Park/Curran branch, Northern Ireland)
o Ellen Pugh (or possibly Griffiths) (Howells/Gabriel branch, Northern Wales)
o Hugh Roberts (Howells/Gabriel branch, Northern Wales)
o Lars Andersen (Hansen/Larsen family, Jutland, Denmark)
o Anne Sørensdatter (Oline Hansen branch, Sealand, Denmark)
o Francis Curran (Park/Curran branch, Northern Ireland)
o Hans Henrich Bordevick (Bordewich/Bordewick family, Norway & Germany)
o Kresten Christensen (Hansen/Larsen family, Jutland, Denmark)
o Else Katrine Ivarsdatter (Hansen/Larsen family, Jutland, Denmark)
o Henrich Christian Schrøder (Oline Hansen branch, Sealand, Denmark)
o Henrick Hansen (Bordewich/Bordewick family, Norway)
o Susanne Pedersdatter (Bordewich/Bordewick family, Norway)
o John Blair (Park/Curran branch, Northern Ireland)
Brick Wall Update 2018
Stats for 2017, Goals for 2018
I spent most of my genealogy time on Ancestry this year, and haven't quite merged the online tree with my Roots Magic tree properly yet. Which means my usual numbers may be a bit skewed, so I will have to work on that this year.
Overall Roots Magic Stats:
• People 5797 – this is an increase of 537 people. Not impossible, as I know that I've added a lot to the Hillinger branch of the tree, as well as a few other outer branches, but it seems a bit high to me. I did a lot of merging as I worked on the branches below, so it dropped by over 100 people, which means there are probably lots of others that need to be merged as well.
• Families 1862 – 120 new families, which definitely seems excessive, so it's probably off by a few.
• Events 11256 – 2257 new facts, which I can partially believe, as I found a lot of fascinating new documents this year. Some of these are definitely duplicate facts that need to be merged, though.
• Alternate Names 316 – 120 new alternate names, most of which are almost definitely duplicates.
• Places 2175 – 750 new places. There are definitely duplicates here.
• Sources 584 – 194 new sources. Another I am likely to believe, given all the new documents I've found this year.
• Citations 27555 – Wow. Over 4000 new Citations. Ancestry has definitely been a boon there.
I'd say it's a mixed bag, but I definitely know I've added quite a bit to my tree this year. My biggest growth has been on the Hillinger branches, I do believe, though I did a lot of research on all branches of my tree, and I have done more work on my brother-in-law's tree as well, so between the two, and the other additions throughout the rest of the tree.
Family Branch Stats:
Hillinger line –
• Still 5 generations, nothing new there
• 136 people – no difference, which is surprising, given all the work on this branch this year.
Hansen line –
• Still 21 generations, ending with Nana
• Still no good report for this. At least, nothing easily done. Probably hasn't changed much, though.
Bordewick line –
• Still 11 generations, ending with my mother
• Again, unable to find a way to count this.
Jones line –
• No changes in number here, either. Still 6 generations, ending with my grandmother
• 359, which is less, so I must have miscounted last time, though I found a lot of people I had to merge, so that might be it, too.
Then there are my brother-in-law's lines:
Nelson line –
• 4 generations still, ending with my brother-in-law's father.
• Currently seems to be at 24 people, so I lost two somewhere…
Bergstrahl line –
• 6 generations still, ending with my brother-in-law's grandmother on his father's side
• This line currently has 42 people, so I've lost some again.
Matlack line –
• 8 generations, ending with my brother-in-law's mother, so I got one more back. I think I just haven't finished pushing back in this line, though I haven't looked to check.
• This line currently has 110 people in my program, though if there is more to add, that will definitely change.
Holly line –
• 6 generations, ending with my brother-in-law's maternal grandmother.
• This one's the largest, with 173 people currently in the line and still lots more to add from Family Search.
Biggest changes:
I worked on the Hillinger branches the most, in hopes of getting back before my great-great grandparents. I didn't manage that, but I did get an email from a relation in England that helped me firm up a guess I'd made about the line there, so I now have all of my great-grandfathers' siblings' names, their spouses and children, which makes me much happier. No big movement on the Kresch line since the email from the Israeli cousin, but I now have names for all of my great-grandparents' siblings, and the places both great-grandparents were born, which were about 21 kilometers or 13 miles from each other. Though they did not meet until they ended up in Frankfurt after World War I.
And the whole family contributed to learning more about how the Hillingers came to America. Niece wanted to know the story for a class, so I helped her with that, then did some research on my own and we found out a lot of interesting things, though the one question we weren't able to find the answer on was what class they travelled when they came to America. Then dad's cousin emailed with a copy of the ticket. So now I know that Grumpy came to America on a boat called the SS Paris. They took 12 days to get here, and travelled third class, which was the lowest class they had on the boat.
I didn't make any other big progress in my lines, though I did work more in my brother-in-law's family tree. Not enough, but it's slowly beginning to grow. His Holly line in particular is one that has been here in the US for a very long time, so I anticipate working and growing that one for some time to come.
This year's plan:
My hopes for this year are to find the Hillinger and Kresch ancestors another generation back, to find Benjamin Jones and Hannah Griffiths' parents as well, and to firm up more of the Park, Curran, Howells and Roberts' lines. I still don't know where the Park family came from, or whether my great-great grandfather had any siblings, and I'd love to make that jump back to Scotland if I can—Park and Dunlop, how can they not be from there? And I'd love to learn more about the Curran and Blair family as well.
Goals this year are to write more and post more for people to see. I need to finish sharing all the documents on the Hillingers I found with my family, and I need to post to the family groups about whether there have been any major changes this year, so I can add them to the tree. I also plan to start up my Ancestry account again next week after Payday, and possibly get a full paid account at the Newspaper Archive, because I really want to access the newspapers about my great-uncle Ben.
I also plan to clean up the names, facts, and places in my database, so that all the best information is at my fingertips in my program. And maybe do a weekend trip somewhere to do some actual book research, though I'm not sure I'm there yet. Though I'd love to look at my great-grandparents' citizenship paperwork, as well as my uncle Jack's. I need to pin him down a bit more, and finding his legal name would go a long way towards doing that.
Wish me luck!
Immigrant Ancestor #2: May Park
I had three great-grandparents who were still alive when I was born: my paternal grandmother's dad, Grandpa Hansen; my maternal grandmother's mother, Nain; and my maternal grandfather's mother, Granny. I remember the latter two fairly well. Both died in the early 80s, so I had more than a decade to get to know them. I have fond memories of both. They came down to Washington from Vancouver BC to visit for holidays, and spent a great deal of time with us over the decade plus I knew them. I missed them both when they were gone, and I miss them even more now that I know their stories better because of my genealogical research.
Granny was born Mary Dunlop Park on January 8, 1891 to Robert and Elizabeth Park. She went by the name May. Her parents were Irish immigrants who had come to the US in 1883 and settled in Philadelphia, where there was a large Irish immigrant community. All nine of their children were born in Philadelphia, though the two eldest did not live past early childhood. May was their fifth born child, so they were well established in the country by the time she was born. Though the Irish community was large, it was looked down on by other locals. There was no distinction made between the Catholic and Protestant groups by outsiders. To those who wanted to abuse them, they were all Irish, and none of them deserved to be in their country.
When Robert and Elizabeth first came to Philadelphia, the worst nationalism had died down. Still, it was not easy to start over in a new country, but they did their best. Robert started practice as a carpenter and cabinet maker, and Lizzie set up a home for them, taking care of him and their children. By the time May was born, they were well established, and beginning to be comfortable in their new country. Then a new president was elected. In 1901, Teddy Roosevelt became the 26th President of the United States, and like Barak Obama, he was disliked by the majority in Congress. He became president when the twenty-fifth president, William McKinley, died, but had to fight hard to win his next term. He managed to win with just 56% of the popular vote. By the end of his second term, the country was not in a great place, and much of the backlash was against immigrants. By the mid 1900s. Robert had had enough and moved his family back to Ireland.
May found herself in a new country. I really don't know much about her time there, though I believe at least some of her aunts and uncles may still have lived there. I do know that by 1911, she was working as a shop girl in the city of Belfast, as the family was listed as living there at the time. They didn't stay long, though. It was probably the best choice, as things were already growing tense in Ireland, and it was this growing tension that led to the formation of Northern Ireland, which would eventually lead to the Troubles. Luckily one of May's sisters married and moved to Canada with her husband, and wrote back to her family telling them how wonderful the country was, and how different from the US. Enticed by her letters, the family moved again, settling in Vancouver, BC. I'm not entirely sure when they left, but we know they were living there by 1912, when May's elder brother George died.
At the time, Vancouver BC was a boom town, attracting people from all over the world. Three branches of my family came here and settled: my maternal great-grandmother and her family, who settled in Vancouver after moving from Winnipeg, and before that, Wales; my mother's father's family who travelled from Norway to Belgium to England before finally settling in Vancouver; and the Parks. May's sister was already married and settled in the area, but before the decade was out, three more of the six remaining children married and settled in the greater Vancouver area.
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| May and Bjarne (right) with their siblings Henry and Marge on their wedding day |
May met her husband some time before 1917. He was one of three boys who had come to Vancouver with their parents, Norwegian immigrants who had already become citizens while living in England. Bjarne and May were married June 14, 1917. They had two boys; George in 1918, and Henry (called Harry) in 1923. They stopped with those two, though after Harry's death at the beginning of World War II, May said she often wished she'd had more. She was used to having lots of family around her, but her youngest sister was the only other one of the Park siblings to have children, and that was about a decade after Harry was born. She and her family were also across the country from the rest of the family, so she was not able to visit with them often. As her siblings aged, her family grew smaller. Luckily the year Harry died, her first grandchild was born. And once her elder son returned from the war, he and his wife had three more.
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| Bjarne & May with their eledest son, George ca 1918 |
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| Their sons, George and Harry |
She lost her husband Bjarne in 1950 when he was crossing the street near their home and was hit by a car. After that, his brother took over as the patriarch of the family. May's sister moved into their home so that she was not alone. Most of my memories of Granny also include her sister Marge. She was the only one of the girls never to marry, so she and Granny spent much of their declining years together.
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| Granny holding me, her son George and sister Rhoda in the doorway |
One of my all-time favorite pictures of me is one of Granny holding me shortly after my birth. Not only did she have four grandchildren, but now here she was with her first great-grandchild. I'd seen the picture many times growing up, but it was only after I began to realize how much she'd lost by that point that I began to realize just how lovely the picture was. At that moment, she was seeing the future of her family, someone she thought she would never get to meet. The continuation of her line. It's one of my favorite shots.
Late in her life, my grandfather decided to move her down to Washington, so that she would be closer in case anything happened to her. He got a place for her at a Masonic nursing home through his connections as a Mason, and she was well cared for there. But she hated it. She hated living in the country that had treated her family so badly, and she hated that they called her Mary and not May. She did stay busy, though. I remember visiting her with my grandparents several times, and I received a patchwork blanket from her one Christmas that she had made with the help of several of the residents there.
May died June 17, 1982 at the age of 91. I only have fleeting memories of the service, but I do remember it was at her nursing home. It was a lovely service. I do feel like every time I look at her date of death, it's earlier than I remember it, for some reason. Not just because time keeps passing, either. Somehow it feels like I had her longer than I did. She was a wonderful woman who never stopped wanting the best for her family. I miss her a lot. At least I still have her in pictures.
Immigrant Ancestor #1: Alex Hillinger
There are some members of your family that you know from a young age. You know that they are gone, though you might not understand the full meaning for a long time. They're there in the background. In pictures. In stories. In the stories that aren't told, too. And as a genealogist, when you start your research, you come to know some of these people very well.
For me, my great grandfather Alex Hillinger was one of these people. Not only did I never meet him, but he was even gone before my father was born. My father was named for him, though. His name is a variation on Alex's birth name, Elias. So my father grew up knowing he was named for this grandfather, though never believing it, because his name was nothing like Alex. It is only recently since I have been digging deeper into Alex's past that we have learned that was his name, that he and I truly understood where his name truly came from.
My great grandfather was born Elias Seneft in 1883 in a small country in Eastern Europe known as Galicia. Galicia no longer exists, but at the time, it was part of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire. The country was located in what is now southern Poland and western Ukraine. The locals called the country "Naked and hungry land," which gives you an idea of what it was like to live there at the time. It was especially difficult to be Jewish there at the time. Many Jewish people had settled there over the centuries, and like everywhere else they lived in Europe, they were despised and reviled. And this anger led to pograms throughout the greater Eastern European area, anywhere Jews lived.
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| Alex's father, Leon Seneft |
The family's names are odd to me, as they are all such English names. However, now that I know Alex's true name was Elias, I have to believe that the childrens' names at the very least are anglicized versions of their birth names. I'm still unsure of Leon's name, but Mindel's is definitely a Hebrew name, at the very least. I have some suspicions on what the childrens' birth names might be, but no certainty at this time.
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| Photos of Alex Seneft at Camp Douglas |
Shortly after Mindel's death, World War I began, and Leon and Mindel's children began to leave England. Germans were not welcome in England once the war began, and my great grandfather was hit the hardest by this. Jack left and moved to America, soon followed by Annie, then Jennie. Alex and their other brother remained in England, and one or both of them were sent to a camp for enemy aliens, that is to say, Germans. My grandfather said that his father was sent to a place called Camp Douglas on the Isle of Man. It was a summer resort, so it was fairly well apportioned, though there was a separate area set aside from the camp for the Jews to stay in, as no one wanted to live with them nearby. We have a few photos of Alex's time in the camp, but no absolute dates for when he was there, as all English records for the camps were destroyed in World War II bombings. We do know that he was there until the end of the war, and that after the war, he was expelled from England because he was still considered an enemy alien. Because of this, Alex ended up making his way to Frankfurt.
This is where my knowledge of my family truly begins, and where my major records begin to appear. I have a few scattered records of Alex's family, but most of the records for this branch of my family came from the family book about Alex and his wife's family, and from the records of their journey to America and their time there. So for me, my family's story truly begins with my great grandparents coming to Frankfurt.
When Alex first arrived in the country, he was going by the name of Alex or Elias Seneft. However, shortly after his arrival, he was told by an official that it could not be his legal name, as his parents had married in a Jewish ceremony, not a civil one, and therefore they considered his parent's marriage invalid. This meant that his legal name by German standards was Elias Hilinger. After that time, Alex never used the surname Seneft again.
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| Dora Kresch and her sister Minna |
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| Alex and Dora's wedding invitation |
Alex and Dora ran a string of businesses, but growing tensions in Germany riled up by the Nazi party soon caused each of them to fail. By their youngest child's first birthday, Alex knew it was time to leave. When his final business failed, Alex arranged for his family to move to Paris so that he could try for a visa to the US, where his brother and at least one of his sisters still lived. They moved to Paris in 1933 and stayed there for about a year while Alex arranged for the family's passage. In August of 1934, they arrived at Ellis Island under the slight name change of Hillinger, which the family still uses today. There they proceeded to wait for a family member to come and vouch for them. He never did. Luckily, a neighbor from Frankfurt saw them and recognized them, vouching for them so that they were allowed to enter the country.
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| The Hilinger family in Germany ca 1932 |
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| Alex and Dora with their first grandchild |
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| Alex and Dora with her sister Minna at their daughter's wedding |
Genealogy Stats Update and More Resolutions for 2017
Time to update my stats again for the past year. I didn't really add a lot in my own family, but I did add my brother-in-law's family to my program, which definitely added a good deal to my numbers.
Overall Roots Magic Stats:
• People 5260 – an increase of 532 people, which is more than double from the increase between 2013 and 2016
• Families 1742 – an increase of 111 families, again, more than double from the previous change
• Events 8999 – An addition of 1574 facts throughout the file, which is five times the previous change
• Alternate Names 196 – 43 new alternate names, some of which may just be repeats. I'll have to look into these
• Places 1425 – 203 new places, though again, I may need to see how many are just repeats written out differently.
• Sources 390 – 109 new sources, which is definitely due to adding a new family to my tree
• Citations 23455 – 320 new citations of those sources, which suggests to me I haven't been sourcing the facts in the new tree nearly enough. I'll have to work on that, too.
As I said, most of the changes are due to my brother-in-law's family tree, which I have to clean up, but still looks like it added a great deal to my file this year. Still finding new connections in the Scandinavian branches, too, but nothing significant yet.
Family Branch Stats:
Hillinger line –
• Still 5 generations, nothing new there
• 136 people (this may just be from a different style of counting)
Hansen line –
• Still 21 generations, ending with Nana
• Still seems to be about 2000 people, according to what I managed with Family Tree Maker, though I may have mucked that up. There really doesn't seem to be a good report for this. At least, nothing easily done.
Bordewick line –
• Still 11 generations, ending with my mother
• Again, seems to be just over 1000 people, according to what I can work out in FTM
Jones line –
• No changes in number here, either. Still 6 generations, ending with my grandmother
• 397 people according to my program, which is over 100 new people, so either I miscounted, or I've added more people on this line than I realized.
Then there are my brother-in-law's lines:
Nelson line –
• 4 generations currently, ending with my brother-in-law's father
• Currently seems to be at 26 people.
Bergstrahl line –
• 6 generations, ending with my brother-in-law's grandmother on his father's side
• This line currently has 56 people
Matlack line –
• 7 generations, ending with my brother-in-law's mother
• This line currently has 74 people in my program, though I see lots more to add from Family Search
Holly line –
• 6 generations, ending with my brother-in-law's maternal grandmother.
• This one's the largest, with 134 people currently in the line, though like Matlack, I see lots more to add from Family Search.
As you can see, I added quite a few people with his lines, though that part is by no means finished. And I've got more work to do because of the resolutions I already stated earlier this week. But here are a few more goals:
• Clean up the names in the database, make sure no one has multiple names that are just repeats.
• Clean up the place database for the same reason
• Finish pulling everything up from Family Search for any family lines
• Add the Nelson, Bergstrahl, Matlack, and Holly lines to the Ancestry tree as well
• Finish adding Citations to any facts that don't have them yet
I think with the other resolutions, that's quite enough, don't you?
Happy Birthday, Grumpy
My grandfather would have been 95 today. Most of us called him Grumpy from about the time I was born. There are two stories about how he came to take the moniker. One says that his wife decided that "Grandma Hillinger" was too much of a mouthful for a kid, so she decided to go by Nana. After that, everyone wanted to know what my grandfather wanted to be called. He said "Grumpy." The other says that when I began to talk, I mangled the word Grandpa, or straight out called him Grumpy. Either way, it fit, so it stuck. From the time I was born, he was Grumpy. He was a good man, but not easy to talk to, and often a little hard on those around him. Still, he was our grandfather, and we loved him.
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| Sam and his sister Minna |
His birth name was Sammi Hilinger. He was the third child born to his parents, Alex and Dora. He had an elder brother, and an older twin sister, Minna, who is still alive today and living in Colorado. They were born in 1922 in Frankfurt am Main and grew up in a very vibrant Jewish community.
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| The Hillinger family ca 1932 |
Unfortunately, that was also a time of rising nationalism in Germany. By the mid twenties, the Nazis were in power, and as soon as they were, they began to make life difficult for Jews and other "outsiders" in their country. Sam's father had been born in Galicia, a place where it was very hard to be poor and Jewish. He had later been sent to an English camp for being of Germanic citizenship during World War I. Both experiences helped him to recognize the signs of what might be coming for their people. He decided it was time to get out of Germany, and even Europe entirely. In 1933, they moved their family of what was now eight to Paris, living there for about a year while Alex worked on getting them all passage to the US. My grandfather often mentioned being a paper seller on the streets of Paris to make a few coins while they were living there. Because of their time there, he picked up French, which later stood him in good stead with the Army when he served during World War II.
Still, I'm sure it wasn't easy, going from a tight-knit community where everyone was like them to being exiles. Having to leave so much behind that they simply couldn't afford to take with them. Living in a new country where the language was completely different. Never knowing what might happen next, and the underlying tensions in Europe that would be impossible to ignore, even as a child. Grumpy rarely spoke German while I was growing up. A few words or phrases here or there, but he spoke English nearly always, and so it was odd to hear it when he did speak it.
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| Sam's page from his senior year highschool yearbook |
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| Private Sam Hillinger |
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| Sam and Maggie at their Reception |
They were married in 1948 in the City Registrar's office, and held a reception for their friends the next day. By that time, Maggie had retired from the Army, though Sam still continued to work for them. The two stayed in Frankfurt for another year before returning home. Their first child, my father, was born right there on the Army base.
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| Sam and Dora with Sam's son |
Sam continued his career as an accountant, working in a string of businesses before finally starting his own business as a CPA. He found a partner to share a space with, and they bought a small house in Ballard, setting up their practice there. By that point, Sam and Maggie's children were all in school, so Maggie came to work for them as a receptionist and secretary. Sam did quite well, doing taxes for many of the businesses in the area, which gave the two enough money to travel during non-peak times of the year. They traveled to Europe quite often, visiting places they'd been to as well as those they had not, and visiting their extended family throughout Europe. He retired in the late 80s, giving them more time to ski and travel, going on cruises and with travel groups for elders, and generally enjoying their life together.
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| The Hillingers ca 1971 |
The family continued to grow. Their children married and had children of their own. Family gatherings grew larger and larger. Sam and Maggie enjoyed their time with their grandchildren, often taking them on trips as well, though more local ones. There were family Thanksgivings up in Whistler, trips to other ski areas, and trips down to California to spend time with Maggie's family down there. And through it all, there was plenty of skiing.
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| Sam and his sisters |
It was on a trip to Spain in 2000 that we lost Sam. They had just arrived in Madrid when Sam suffered a fatal heart attack. One of their daughters went to Spain to be with Maggie so that she would not have to deal with it all alone. A year later, we scattered his ashes at one of his favorite ski areas, Steven's Pass. Nana lived more than ten years after that. She got to meet her first two great-grandchildren before she passed.
On 9/11, Grumpy was one of the first people I thought of. How would he have reacted? What would he have done? And each time there is some new upheaval in this country, I think of him, of them. Especially this past election. I wonder what he and Nana would be doing now, and how they would react to all this. Right now, they're a touchstone for me. I hope they will guide me carefully through the next four years. Whatever else, I will keep them close to my heart.
Happy New Year!
So it's the New Year, and because of the election and its results, one of my resolutions for this year is to focus on the ancestors I think Trump would like the least. By this, I mean my Jewish Ancestors and my first-generation immigrant ancestors. On all sides of my family, that is quite recent.
Neither of my parents were born in this country. My mother was born in Canada, and immigrated down here with her parents when she was still young. Now granted, she's white (Norwegian/ German/ Irish/ Welsh), but it still counts, even if people like Trump are blind to it. My father was born on an American Army Base after the war, and his parents were both US citizens, so he is a US citizen though he wasn't born in the country.
My father's mother's parents were both Danish, and came here separately to make a better life for themselves. It is because they came here that they met at all. They met on a ship returning to Denmark to see their families. After they returned to the US, they ended up getting married and settled in Cleveland. There are still many houses in Cleveland today that my great-grandfather built. Even before my great-grandmother came here, her grandfather came with another wave of Danish immigrants who settled in Minnesota. We don't know exactly where, but I am hoping to learn more about him this year as well.
However, it is starting with his father where my true "dark" blood lies. My grandfather was Jewish. He was born in 1922 in Frankfurt, Germany. He lived there until 1933 when his father chose to take the family and leave the country before things got worse.
Then there is my mother's father's mother, who while white, was 100% Northern Irish. She was born in Philadelphia, but her parents were Irish immigrants. They came here to find a better life during a time when it was hard to make a living in Ireland. They lived here from about 1883 to sometime in the early 1900s. At that time the country began to lash out against immigrants, including the Irish. My great-great grandparents left with their children and returned home to Belfast, then moved on to Canada a few years later. My great grandmother lived there until the late seventies. Then my grandfather, her son, chose to move her to the US so she would be closer to where the family lived. Still, she always hated being here in the states because of how poorly her family had been treated.
We treat our immigrants as either invisible (usually because they're white Europeans), or as criminals and vagrants who are either here to steal our jobs (usually the jobs most Americans refuse to do because they don't pay enough or are otherwise menial and therefore beneath us), or to mooch off our social welfare programs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every group of people who come here give our country something more in the way of culture. Food, clothes, a new way to think of things. They enrich our lives and our country. And without them, the US would become stagnant. I would say "and decay," but by the looks of this current election, we are already doing that. We need to start taking care of our people, both those already here and those who want to be here and contribute. Each provides a vital need, and without either, we will be lost.
So I dedicate this year to my Immigrant Ancestors, and to everything they contributed to our country. I look forward to learning more about them, and what they contributed to our country, and why they came here in the first place. And I dedicate it to my grandfather's family; to my ancestors who have been chased from country to country throughout their lives, never finding a true home because they were unwanted. We have been here for three generations now. We are not going anywhere. Not one of us.