Howells Placeline

So I think this is the last post of this series, because as you can see, these are getting fainter in knowledge as I go back in time. I have thoughts as to what I might do next, but for now I think I'll go back to one post a week for a bit until I work up some new posts. I hope everyone's enjoyed these, even if just a little.

The Howells line, as I said a few weeks ago, is one I believe is of Huguenot origin, but as of yet, the Howells and Gabriels online have not yet managed to get far enough back to prove or disprove this link.

As always, Bold are Birth, Marriage, and Death locations, and Italics are other locations.

1. Eliza Anne aka Bessie Howells

A. New Westminster, BC, Canada. New Westminster is basically a suburb of Vancouver, and it was here where Bessie lived until her death at the age of 94. I'm so lucky I got to know her for as long as I got--ten years. I still miss my Nain.

B. Vancouver, BC, Canada. I'm not sure exactly when she moved to Vancouver, but it was here she met her husband, and here she made her life with him. All four of their children were born in Vancouver, and she lived here for more than half of her life.

C. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. When the Howell family first came to Canada, they lived for a time with Bessie's uncle Louis, who had a farm in Saskatchewan, but soon moved to Winnipeg, where they lived for several years until the family slowly migrated one by one east because of the milder winters available in Vancouver.

D. Pontypridd, Wales. Pronounced Pant-ee-prith. This is where the family lived before Bessie's father finally decided it would be better for the family to move to Canada. Bessie's two younger siblings were born here.

E. Penrhiwceiber, Wales. Pronounced Pen-ruh-ky-ber. This is a small mining town in southern Wales where the family was living when Bessie was born.

2. Gabriel Howells

A. Vancouver, BC, Canada. In his later years, Gabriel and his wife Selina moved to Vancouver to be close to their children. They celebrated their 50th anniversary here, and lived here together until her death in 1933, and his in 1934, ten years after that anniversary.

B. Winnipeg, Manitoba, BC. After a short time in Canada, remembering why he didn't like farming, Gabriel moved the family to Winnipeg, where Gabriel was able to use his masonry skills to make a good living.

C. Pontypridd, Wales. Gabriel was working with the mines here, using his masonry to help shore up the mines before he realized that not actively doing the mining was no less unhealthy, and thus he decided it was time to find a less unhealthy job. He soon decided that it would be better to move to Canada and start a whole new life.

D. Penrhiwceiber, Wales. This is where the family moved to for a time before moving to Pontypridd, working with the mines to help with masonry there.

E. Dolgelly, Wales. Pronounced Dol-geh-lay. Also spelled Dolgellu, depending on when and where the record is written up. This is where the family lived while Gabriel was young, and it was here he met and married his wife, Selina. They started their family here, losing two children in an influenza epidemic and having four more children before moving south so that Gabriel could make money with his masonry skills, leaving the family farm to his younger brother to run.

F. Tywyn, Wales. This is the place I have always had as my great-great grandfather's birthplace. It is very close to Dolgelly, so it's possible he never lived here, but was just born her for some reason, as the ancestors I have listed for him only have Dolgelly as their place of residence from birth to death.

3. Howell Gabriel

A. Dolgelly, Wales.  This is the only location I have for Howell or the ancestors I have for him, I believe they lived and died here for many generations.

4. Gabriel Howel

A. Dolgelly, Wales. See Howel above. 

5. Howell Gabral

A. Dolgelly, Wales. See Howel above. 

6. Howel Gabriel

A. Dolgelly, Wales. See Howel above. If I am right, I believe this is the place my Huguenot ancestor settled after leaving France, but as of yet, I have no proof of that.

* 

And that's all the locations for this branch of the family, which gives me another 7 locations.

It's been very interesting looking into where my family lived, and I highly recommend going through your family's locations from time to time. It definitely helps you find things you may have missed before, or correct issues in your tree.

Hansen (part 2) Placeline

Here's my second Hansen line. Which always confuses every genealogy program I have, because Oline Hansen married Holger Hansen, so she never had to change her maiden name, and the programs all assume I entered it wrong because I didn't change it. But while Holger was from Jutland (the part that connects to the continent of Europe), Oline was born nearly in the center of the large island that makes up much of the rest of Denmark, known as Sealand.

As always, Bold is places where the major events happened--birth, marriage, and death, and italics are other locations lived in for at least a year.

1. Oline Hansen

A. Cleveland, Ohio. After meeting Holger, Oline and he moved to Cleveland, married and settled there together. All three of their children were born there before her death in 1929. They lived in a Danish community, and her brother Hans Christian and several of Holger's brothers (and possibly cousins) also came to visit them or settled there. My grandmother told me they had a very good life there.

B. Chicago, Illinois. We believe that Oline came to Chicago immediately upon landing in the US. We don't know this for certain, but she did list her home as Chicago in an Ellis Island arrival record in 1917, so we know she lived there for a time. She may have started elsewhere, but as of right now, I have no absolute proof of any other locations in the US for her.

C. Copenhagen, Denmark. According to the few records I've found, and the family information, it appears that Oline moved with the family she worked for to the Copenhagen area, living in Frederiksberg (a neighborhood of Copenhagen) with them until she left to emigrate to America.

D. Fjenneslev, Denmark. This is where Oline was born. Her father had a farm inherited from his parents, where she and all her siblings were born. It's an interesting area, because there's a very famous church here, and stories about that church and the man who built it. However, they weren't well to do enough to go to that church, so they were baptised and confirmed in the Alsted church. 

One note here for the rest of this: Fjenneslev, Alsted, and Knudstrup are all small towns that my family lived right on the edge of, so while some of my records say one town or the other, I know that the family really didn't move from this area well back in time. For the rest of this record, all I can say for certain is that it looks as though the family really hadn't moved from this location in many generations.

2. Rasmus Hansen

A. Knudstrup, Denmark. Rasmus is listed as being born in Knudstrup, but I know his family farm was the same as the one he later inherited, so I'm leaving his birth and death location as Knudstrup, but I know he lived in Fjenneslev, just like his daughter. He lived on his family farm his whole life, married in the area twice, and all his children were born on that farm. And he died there as well.

3. Hans Nielsen

A. Knudstrup, Denmark. Like his son, Hans doesn't appear to have moved from the area from birth to death. I do have one census record that shows Hans and his wife with their son with him being the new farmer, and them being the retired farmers, so I know he inherited his father's farm, but I don't know exactly where they died, but I believe it was in this same general area.

4. Niels Andersen

We're now in the murkiest part of my family tree, and these are as likely to be wrong as right, though at this time, I'm inclined to feel these seem to be correct based on location and names.

A. Alsted, Denmark. Nearly all the locations I have for Niels are Alsted, with a few slight variations, so I presume he lived and died in the area. I do not know if he owned the farm that Hans Nielsen owned, though that is a strong possibility until I've managed to dig deeper.

5. Anders Hansen

A. Alsted, Denmark. Unlike the following generations until Oline, Anders is actually listed with different birth and death locations. While that means something or not, I felt it was worth marking. His marriage and death are marked as Alsted.

B. Fjenneslev, Denmark. Like my great-grandmother, he's marked as having been born at Fjenneslev. All the rest of his event locations are marked as Alsted.

6. Hans Nielsen

A. Alsted, Denmark. At this time, Alsted is the only location I have for him, so he probably lived and died in the area as well.

*

And that's everything for Oline's father's line. Fluffled out a little with the Knudstrup/Alsted/Fjenneslev issue, but otherwise it's quite small. Six places all together, and three of them are practically the same place.

I will say, if you know this line, I'd love to talk to you about what you know, particularly about the specifics of the farm, and each of these generations and where they lived.

Kresch Placeline

If you thought the previous one too short, this one is even shorter, at least in number of generations. Though there are more places in it. If only because my great grandmother moved around a lot once she left her home in Galicia. 

There are two major groups in the US who have problems tracking their ancestors. The first is African Americans, who for some reason can't track their ancestry easily before the mid 1800s. </sarcasm> The other is those of Jewish ancestry. Our reasons are different, and yet in some ways, far too similar to African American issues. People would rather hate and destroy us than acknowledge what has been done to us. Because of this, I don't know any generations before my great-great grandparents on either side of my grandfather's line. And I have little hope I will find more. But I keep looking. Just in case.

As always, bold is places with major events (Birth, Marriage, and Death), and italics is other locations where they lived for at least a year.

1. Dobra aka Dora Kresch Hillinger

A. Chicago, Illinois. This is where the Hillinger clan finally settled in the US, after nearly a decade of moving around the South. While her husband was not in Chicago when he passed, Dora lived here with most of her children until her death in 1969.

B. Little Rock, Arkansas. After a few years in Memphis, the Hillingers moved to Little Rock, where Dora worked at either a hospital or a school, or possibly both, as a cook in their kitchens. I'm not sure what prompted the move, but I do know they stayed here through my grandfather's time in high school before moving once more.

C. Memphis, Tennessee. After the Hillingers arrived in the US, they settled in Memphis, near where Dora's sister in law and her husband lived. They lived there for at least four years before moving on to another location in the American South.

D. Paris, France. The Hillinger family settled in Paris while Alex worked to get the money together to get the whole family to the US. They traveled from Le Havre to Ellis Island, where they landed, and the family remained in the US to this day.

E. Frankfurt, Germany. After World War I, Dora and at least one of her sisters moved to Frankfurt together. I have record of another of her sisters and also one of her brothers moving there as well, and that their mother moved there and was living there when she died. I don't know much about her pre-marriage life here, but I do know that at this time, there was a rising community of Jews in Frankfurt, and one of the last Mayors of Frankfurt before the rise of the Nazi party was also Jewish. It was a good place to be Jewish in Germany between the wars. 

So it was here she met my great grandfather, and here that they married. All six of their children were born in Frankfurt, and the older ones went to school here. Dora and Alex ran several businesses here, and her focus was on a cafe they owned. But with the rise of Nazi power, things became difficult for the Jews in Germany, and after the last of their businesses failed, her husband decided it would be safer if their family left the country. They had two options for family to go be near at the time. Since he had been kicked out of England, he went for the other option--the US, where three of his four siblings lived. So the family moved to Paris to be safe until such time as they could get a visa to the US, and could afford passage across the sea.

F. Czudek, Galicia (now Poland). This is where my great-grandmother was born. A small village in a country that no longer exists. Galicia was a country that was part of the Austrio Hungarian empire, and by the mid nineteenth century, it was a very poor country. Many Jewish communities had been settled there, and it was an area rife with pograms, as was true of most Jewish areas of Eastern Europe. It is a short way away from Rzeszow, which was a center of Jewish learning in the 19th and early 20th centuries. After the first World War, it was absorbed into Poland and the Ukrane, depending on the part of Galicia. Cuzdek itself is now part of southern Poland.

I know very little about Dora's family's life there, but I can imagine what it was like, having grown up watching Fiddler on the Roof, because that's pretty much what it was like in most of Eastern Europe. What I know for certain is this. Shortly after the end of the first world war, there was a pogram here. I don't know for certain how Dora's family was affected, though I have a guess. And it was shortly after that, in 1919, that Dora and her sister left for Frankfurt.

2. Benzion Kresch

I really know very little about my great great grandfather. Just that he lived in and probably died in the village his children were born in. I'm not even sure he (or his wife) were born there.

A. Czudek, Galicia. This is the only location I am certain of for Benzion. I believe that all his children were born here, and my speculation is that the pogram I mentioned above either affected him so that he died, or that he was literally killed in the pogram. I have no proof. Just the mention that several Jews died in the attack, and that he was gone by the time my great-grandmother left Czudek. The only other thing I want to note here is that the cemetery he was likely laid to rest in was later plowed over by the gentiles in the area and used as pastureland. Upon reading that, never had I better understood African American anger. I could say a lot of angry things here, but I won't. I'll just let you imagine them.

*

That's it. That's all I have. Six locations. In fact, until a couple years ago, I didn't even know my great-grandmother's siblings' names. Now I have names, and even a couple of photos. I still know very little about this branch of my family, but I hope someday to know more.

Jones Placeline

Like the Hansens, I do have a handful of Jones lines, so I will clarify that this is my grandmother's father's line. Unfortunately, it doesn't go back far because it is not as well traced as the Howells line is, and tracing Jones family is like looking for a needle in the famed haystack. I will say here that I am amused that both of my grandfathers had super uncommon surnames, and both of my grandmothers have two of the most common European surnames. It's almost like someone did that on purpose...

As usual, Bold is Birth, Marriage, and Death locations, and italicized is any other locations they lived in for around a year or more.

1. Merle Tydfil Jones

A. Bellevue, Washington. My mother's family moved down to the Seattle area in 1960, and my grandmother lived in the Bellevue area until her death in 2012. So much of our family history was in the house they moved into shortly after moving to the area, including my parent's wedding party, my great-grandmother living with them for a time, and so much of my mom and her younger brother's childhood, as well as mine and my sister's.

B. Vancouver, BC. After Grandpa went to war, Grandma returned to Vancouver and lived with her parents there while he served. My uncle was born here. They moved to a suburb of Vancouver after grandpa returned to Vancouver, and all three of their other children were born there. They lived there until they moved to the US in 1960.

C. Truro, Nova Scotia. For a time, Grandma lived with Grandpa here while he trained to go overseas for the war. I am not sure how long they were here together, but I feel the need to include it because it was the beginning of their marriage to each other.

D. Vancouver, BC. Grandma and her three siblings were all born here, and lived here their whole childhood and young adult lives. None of them moved away from the area until after they were married, but they generally stayed near the Vancouver area even after they moved.

2. Daniel Thomas Jones

A. Vancouver, BC. I don't know exactly when Daniel arrived in Vancouver, but shortly after, he met my great-grandmother, Bessie. They married in 1911, and so he never went back home to Wales except to visit. They raised all four of their children here in the city. They celebrated their 50th anniversary with three of their four children and all their grandchildren in 1961, just three years before his death in 1964. 

B. Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Daniel was born here in 1882, the fourth of eight children. His parents ran the local post office, and he stayed here with his family until he and his friends decided to take a working trip to Canada, where they worked at farms to make money to travel across the country. When he reached Vancouver, he met and fell in love with Bessie, my great-grandmother.

3. Benjamin Jones

Here's where my knowledge fades. I have a picture of Benjamin and his wife with their daughters, but until I found some census records, I didn't even have all their childrens' names. I do have one story about one of their sons dying from pneumonia, but otherwise, my information is very minimal.

A. Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. Benjamin lived here with his wife and children until his death sometime between 1901, where I have him in the census and before 1920, which is when my grandmother and her family came to visit the family. I have all their children having been born here, including my great-grandfather, and I believe I have a census record showing him with his mother and a brother, but I have almost nothing else about how he came here, or who he came with.

B. Caio, Wales. This is the place I have recorded as Benjamin's birthplace. I looked it up, and it appears to be a mining area as well, so it's possible the family moved to Merthyr Tydfil because they were already part of the mining life. But I don't know why they moved, or when. Or even if his father came with them. All I know is that this is where he was born.

I do have a father for Benjamin, but at this time, I have nothing more than a name, David, and that not proven, so he will have to wait until I can prove more. So just five places for this one. Hopefully someday I'll be able to learn more about Benjamin's early life and his parents. 

If you have any more information about this family, I would love to know more about them. Feel free to leave a message, or even email me at elfflame at hotmail dot com.

Hansen Placeline

I actually have several Hansen branches in my family tree, so I will clarify here that this is my grandmother's father's line, who lived in Jutland, Denmark for most of the time I have info on them. This line starts with my dad's mother, Margaret Hansen Hillinger, who was the first generation of her line to be born in the US.

As before, Bold is the location major life events such as birth, marriage, and death, and Italics is any other locations where they lived for at least a year.

1. Margaret Hansen Hillinger

A. Issaquah, Washington. When my grandmother needed more help in her daily life, she moved to a place close to both my aunts, settling in Issaquah. She passed at my aunts' home at the age of 90.

B. Seattle, Washington. She and my grandfather moved to Seattle with their young son (my father) after he finished his schooling at Ohio State because they heard it was close to skiiing, which tipped their decision of where to move in Seattle's favor. They raised all four of their children here, and all of their children still live in Washington today.

C. Columbus, Ohio. Nana lived here with dad and her husband while he attended Ohio state to become an accountant.

D. Frankfurt, Germany. Nana applied to help out cleaning up the war front after the war was over, and was stationed in Weisbaden, Germany, which is a suburb of Frankfurt. While here, she met and married my grandfather, and their first child, my dad was born. 

E. War years. Nana had several posts throughout the war, including: Fort Hays, Ohio, where she was first inducted into the US Army; Daytona Beach, Florida; DesMoines, Iowa, where she trained for Officer Candidate School; Fort Oglethorp, Georgia; and finally a position in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she was when the war ended. After that, she transferred to the European front to help in the cleanup after the war.

F. Cleveland, Ohio. After finishing her schooling, she moved back in with her father full time, and worked in town as a secretary until she signed up for the war.

G. Willoughby, Ohio. Nana got the chance to attend Andrews, a boarding school for girls in a town near Cleveland, and graduated from there with a sense of purpose, wanting to make her way in the world. The school still exists today, now called Andrews Osbourne Acadamy, which is now co-ed.

H. Cleveland, Ohio. Nana was born in a growing community of Danes in Cleveland. Her father ran a business building houses, and the family moved often from one house to a new one as he finished houses. She and her sister and brother had a good life with their parents until their mother passed in 1929. After her death, their father remarried, and Nana struggled until she got the opportunity to go to boarding school, despite the fact that the whole country was in a depression.

2. Holger Skov Hansen

A. Cleveland, Ohio. After meeting his future wife, Oline, Holger moved to Cleveland, where they married in 1918. They had three children together before her death in 1929. He married again soon after to a woman named Rose, and the two raised their five children together in a difficult time. He continued his house building business until it became too difficult to do so, and she spent her time selling houses, so they worked well in tandem. She died in 1972, and he died five years later in 1977.

B. New York, New York. When Holger first came to the US, he landed in New York. I don't know a great deal about this time of his life. I haven't even been able to pin down when he first came. His paperwork says he was going to Long Island, where I think his aunt and uncle lived, so he may have lived with them full time, or may have lived on his own, but either way, he did bricklaying in the area to make a living until he met his first wife, and they moved together to Cleveland to marry.

C. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. Holger was born in a small town called Hinskov in the Thyregod area of Vejle, Denmark. His family had lived there for several generations, and he was only able to move to the US when the national train service chose to put a station near their home. He and his father worked on the project (which still stands today), and that was how Holger made the money he used to come to the US.

3. Jens Christian Hansen

A. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. Jens and his family lived and died in this area for two generations. His children scattered out across the country and the world as they married. One son to England, several more across the sea to the US, but he and his wife lived and farmed here until they passed.

4. Hans Knudsen

We're now in the murky area of this part of my family tree. What I have here is what I have found on Ancestry in large part, and therefore there may be incorrect. 

A. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. Like his son, Hans lived and died here, never moving from the place his father had found to farm.

5. Knud Knudsen

A. Thyregod, Vejle, Denmark. By the time Knud married, he was in the Vejle area. I'm not sure how he met his wife, or why he moved there (possibly because of the marriage, but perhaps not), but all of his children were born there, and he died there in 1866 at the age of 71.

B. Hammer, Skanderborg, Denmark. According to the records I currently have, this is where Knud was born. I have no idea when he left the area and came to Vejle.

6. Knud Madsen

A. Hammer, Skanderborg, Denmark. I have even less information on Knud Madsen than I have on his son. I don't have a birth location beyond Denmark for him, but his marriage record locates him in Hammer, and I know his son was born there as well. I presume he likely lived in the area until he died, though I don't have more than Denmark as his death location as well. 

I have a seventh generation back, but as of yet, I can't be certain I have the right names, as I have an alternate as well, so I won't put him here for now. As you can see, this gets sketchier as I go back in time, but I keep working to find more information on this line, so hopefully someday soon, I will find more.

Nine locations for this one. Less than the previous two, but still a good number. I'm finding it fascinating that even back in the "old world," my family moved around a lot more than we think they did. 

Bordewick Placeline

 Here's the second part of my family placeline, this time starting with my mom and working back from her. Her paternal line is Norwegian/Germanic, but the family as a whole has hit a block with my five times great grandfather, Hans Henrik, who came to Norway from Germany. Bardoweick, or so the family story says. But as of yet, no one in the great extended family has been able to find his family back in Germany.

Same note as before here: Bolded locations are ones where a major life event happened, either Birth, Marriage, or Death. Italicized locations are places where the family lived, but there were no big events in that person's life at that location.

1. My Mom: Ruth Anne Hillinger nee Bordewick

My mom's story is similar to my dad's. She was born outside the US, and came here with her parents. Unlike him, her parents weren't already citizens when she came here, but because she did come with her family, she met my dad, and the rest, as they say, is history.

A. Seattle, Washington. The place my mom lived for most of my life until she passed.

B. Port Orchard, Washington. Where mom and dad lived for a few years after my sister and I moved out before coming back to live in Seattle.

C. Bellevue, Washington. When my mom's family came to the US in 1960, they settled in Bellevue, where mom attended high school, and where she eventually married my dad.

D. Vancouver, BC. Where mom's family lived when she and her siblings were all born. Her family lived there until her father went looking for a better job, which lead them to moving to the US in 1960.

2. My Grandfather, George Robert Bordewick

My grandfather was the first generation on both sides of his family born in Canada, and all his children were born there as well. If he had not chosen to leave the country to find a better living, our family likely would have stayed there for at least another generation, if not more. But we did, so here we are.

A. Bellevue, Washington. Where my grandparents lived together through the remainder of their children's childhood, three marriages, and right until his death.

B. While serving in the war, Grandpa stayed mostly in the south west of England, and even went north to visit his in-laws' families when he had leave time. 

D. Truro, Nova Scotia. His training before he was sent overseas was here, and grandmum came to live here while he was here.

C. Vancouver, BC. Grandpa is another one of my family who really didn't move around much. He ws born in Vancouver and lived there with his parents until he married, went off to war, then settled down with his bride and their growing family after the war was over. I don't have strong details about grandpa's time in the army, but I may add more if I am able to find it.

3. Bjarne Bordewick, born Bordewich

A. Vancouver, BC. Where Bjarne finally settled with his parents after travelling halfway around the world from their home in Norway. Another of his mother's siblings lived here in Vancouver with her husband and their family. Here he met my great-grandmother, Mary. They married here and had two boys, George and Henry (aka Harry), and lived here until he died in a car accident near their new home in 1950.

B. Cleethorps, England. When things went bad in Belgium, the family moved here to be close to Bjarne's mom's younger brother, who I believe lived in Hull. Bjarne spent several years here, and was even starting his testing to go to Cambridge when his family moved again, this time to Canada. I believe he came separate from his family, but the records are a little scattered. It's possible I have records wrong, and he came with his family, but at this time, I do not have a record of all five family members together on a boat.

C. Antwerp, Belgium. When fishing in the Lofoten Islands became difficult, Bjarne's dad and his uncle Eivind tried to set up a fishing venture, sending their fish to markets where they could charge more for them. Unfortunately, Bordewich in Norway became Bordewick in Belgium, and the Belgians heard it as an English name. This was around the time of the Boer War, and feelings about English were at an all time low. The family still tells stories about the family being spit upon on the street. We don't think they even lasted a year here before they moved again.

D: Henningsvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Bjarne was born in a small town south of the town his grandfather ran. He lived here until the family moved when he was young.

4. Henrik Bergithon Bordewick, aka Henry Bordewick, born Bordewich

A. Vancouver, BC. Where Henry lived with his wife and sons until his death in 1930, having moved from England in 1910.

B. Cleethorps, England. He lived here for several years with his family, becoming a UK citizen in 1910 before moving to Canada shortly after.

C. Antwerp, Belgium. Where he'd hoped to start a new business, which failed badly (see above for more details), causing the family to move again.

D. Henningsvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Where he had his own small farm, and his three sons were born before fishing (which he and his brother used to supplement their family larder) became difficult, and he and his brother Eivind came up with an idea for how to make money from the fish they were able to catch.

E. Lingvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Where he was born, and where his father was born before him. A small town his grandfather ran, first as the man in charge of the town trading post, but later also as mayor for a time.

5. Hans Henrik Bordewich

A. Henningsvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway. When Hans's father Johan remarried, he decided to leave, since his father showed no signs of stepping aside so that his sons could take over his business. He and his wife moved to Henningsvaer, where his grandson was born, and where he passed away at the age of 59. 

B. Lingvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway. I believe Hans Henrik lived his most of his life in the town he was born in. If not, he was one of the few of Johan's children not to be born there, but at the moment, my records are not concise enough for me to be certain.

6. Johan Petter Bordewich

A. Lingvaer, Lofoten Islands, Norway. Shortly after his first marriage, he moved to Lingvaer, and all of his sixteen children were born in Lingvaer, if what I believe is correct. He helped run a trading post there, and when his boss needed to leave (quite abruptly, from the family lore), he took over the post and ran it quite well for many years. He even became mayor of the town for a time. After his first wife's death, and a subsequent child by one of his family staff, he eventually married again, having four more children with his second wife. He died here at the age of 76, quite a good age for someone living back in 1879.

B. Trondheim, Norway. Johan was born here to a captain and his wife, and lived there until he was old enough to work. According to the family lore, he eventually began working in the Lofoten Islands for a man who ran a trading post there.

7. Hans Henrik Bordwig (or Bordvik, or many other variations)

A. Trondheim, Norway. Hans Henrik came to Norway and met and married his wife, Anna here. They had three sons, and he started up a shipping concern. He was captain of his own boat, and helped ship goods to many places in Europe before his ship ran aground on an island on the edge of the Lofoten Islands. It was winter, and while the men made it to shore, they all froze before they were found. 

B. Bardoweik, Germany. This is where we have been told that Hans was born, though as of yet, no one in the extended family has been able to find a record that precisely matches his information, so we have been unable to trace back further in his family line.

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So there are all the locations for my Bordewick/Bordewich/Bordewig line. 11 locations. A very descent amount. The ones coming up next won't be quite as long, though they still extend back quite a ways, so we shall see.

Hillinger Placeline

So I have written here many times about how many places our family is from, and that most are recent places in our family history, so I thought it would be interesting to track each family name through the places we've lived over the history I have gathered. I will be starting with the most recent person in that family line and working back in time to the earliest time I have recorded for that line. So without further ado, here is the story of the places the Hillinger line has lived.

One note here: Bolded locations are ones where a major life event happened, either Birth, Marriage, or Death. Italicized locations are places where the family lived, but there were no big events in that person's life at that location.

1. Me

I'm not a person who has wanted to live anywhere other than where I currently live. Because of that, there are going to be only two locations in this part:

A. Seattle, Washington. I've lived here in Seattle from day one, and even had my wedding here in Seattle. I can't imagine living anywhere else.

B. Bellevue, Washington. My birth location was only a technicality, as my mother's doctor practiced in so that's where I was born, but that's the only other place I've lived, even if for just a short time after my birth, so I figured I'd include it here.

2. My Dad

My father's story is a little more complicated than mine, though he really hasn't moved from our city since the family moved here when he was quite young. 

A. Seattle, Washington. This is where my father lives as well, and has for most of his life, as I said above. 

B. Port Orchard, Washington, on the other side of the sound from Seattle. He and my mother did live here for a time in before coming back to Seattle again. 

C. Columbus, Ohio. Before Dad and his parents moved here, they lived for two years in Columbus while his father attended Ohio State. 

D. Frankfurt, Germany. Dad was born here. His parents had been serving there in the armed forces before my father was born, so that my father spent the first few months of his life there.

3. Sam Hillinger, my Grumpy

Grumpy is where my family journey starts to get interesting. While he and my Nana lived here in Seattle for more than half their lives, and nearly all of their married lives together, Grumpy lived many places in his time between his birth in Europe and settling here in Seattle.

A. Barcelona, Spain. Though Grumpy never actually lived here, it was the place he and Nana were visiting when he died. The only other location I will be including where we didn't truly live for at least a year, and only because a major life event happened there.

B. Seattle, Washington. As I said, Grumpy lived here most of his adult life, though he and Nana traveled a great deal in their lives together, including the place they had just arrived when he died. 

C. Columbus, Ohio. As I said above, he attended college at Ohio State here for two years. 

D. Frankfurt, Germany. Grumpy served in Europe during and after the war, and this is where he and Nana married. It is also where they started a family with my father. 

E: During the war, Grumpy was stationed a few places, starting at Camp Crowder, Missouri, and spending at least some time in Weissbauden, Germany. I'm not sure how long he spent in either place, though dad says he mentioned Weisbauden a lot, so it's possible that one deserves its own entry.

F. Chicago, Illinois. This is where Grumpy's family finally settled in the US after several moves around the Southern US. Grumpy lived there with them before he was finally able to enlist to join the Army during World War II. 

G. Before they settled there, Grumpy lived in several places between 1941 to 1942 in Arkansas and even Louisiana, doing odd jobs and attempting to join the war draft. 

H. Eldorado, Arkansas. Grumpy lived at he lived here for about a year. I believe this was either for a job of his own, or for his mother's job as a cook at various locations.

I. Hot Springs, Arkansas. The family lived here for two years while Dora worked as a cook in either a hospital or a school, though I'm not sure which. This is where Grumpy finished his schooling. 

J. Memphis, Tennessee. This is the first place the family lived in the US, where his Grumpy's aunt Anne and her husband lived. 

K. Paris, France. Grumpy and his family spent about a year in Paris while his father gathered the money needed to get them to the US. 

L. Frankfurt, Germany. This is not only where Grumpy got married, but also where his story began. He and all his siblings were born and lived there, attending school and enjoying the community of Jews that gathered there after World War I. They lived there until their father realized that they needed to get out of Germany while they could. So even though Grumpy and dad were both born in the same city in Europe, it was separated by a long period of movement for Grumpy, and a world war.

4. Alex aka Elias Hillinger, born Elias Seneft

Alex's journey from Birth to America is even more extreme than his son's. 

A. Chicago, Illinois. This is where the family had just settled when Alex passed. In fact, much of his paperwork still lists the family's location as Hot Springs for his death location, so obviously they were still settling at the time.

B. Hot Springs, Arkansas. Where the family lived for several years between Chicago and Memphis. 

C. Memphis, Tennessee. Where the family first settled near his sister and her husband after they arrived in the US.

D. Paris, France. Where the family lived between Germany and the US while he worked to secure visas for his family to go to the US.

E. Frankfurt, Germany. This is where Alex's story becomes different from his son's. He traveled there after the first World War because he had been expelled from England where he had been living with his family until the war. Despite being forced into a country that later tried to kill him and all his family, it did give him one bright spot. It was there he met and married my great-grandmother Dora, and all their children were born in the city before he felt they had to flee the country.

F. Camp Douglas, Isle of Man, UK. During the war, England imprisoned him in a place called Camp Douglas for people they considered enemy aliens. Since he was of Germanic descent, he was forced to go there. After the war, England forced him to leave the country. Because of this expulsion, our family name changed from Seneft, his father's name, to Hilinger (which became Hillinger in America), his mother's, because the German government did not recognize his parents' marriage as a legal one, because it was a Jewish ceremony. 

G. London, England. Before the war, Alex lived with his family in London for many years. They emmigrated there when he was young.

H. Shendishov, Galicia, also known as Sedziszow Makopolski. This is where Alex and his siblings were all born before the family left Galicia to find a better life in England.

5. Mendel Hilinger

I know very little about my great great grandmother. In fact, I might not know anything about her were it not for the fact that my great grandfather was forced to take on her surname as his own. But because we have a name for her, I was able to find a record that showed her gravestone in London in 1913. 

A. London, England. I know that she died in London, and that she and her family lived there for at least 14 years before that, as I have a record of her son being in the UK military in 1899, at the very least. As I said in Alex's part, I don't know when they arrived, but hopefully their life improved for her before she passed in 1913.

B. Shendishov, Galicia. Before England, I know she lived in Shendeshov with her husband and children, but I do not know if she was born there or not. So I currently only have those two locations for her. All I can hope is that someday I will find something more about her.

*

And that is all of the locations my Hillinger line has lived, from Galicia to Seattle, Washington. 14 locations total in this line. Quite impressive.

Intro to new posts: Family Placelines

It's been so nice, getting back into the swing of things here that things have been percolating in my brain. Because of that, I have decided to do another set of posts. Back when I first started writing here, I did a series called Surname Saturday, where I made a post about the facts I had on my surnames. I took it a bit farther than I really had information on at the time, but I still learned a great deal about my family tree in doing them. I did revisit them a few years ago after doing family books about our family, and found even more things as I worked on them. So I figure it's time to do it again.

This time, I'm combining them with another set of posts I did, called Where We're From, where I looked into the locations my family were from. I focused generally birth, marriage, and death locations. It was a lot of fun, and very interesting to see locations in comparison to each other. 

This time, I decided I would start with the most person in that particular family line in direct relation to me (ancestors only), and work my way back in time from where they live now (or where they died if they are no longer living), and all the locations they lived in more than momentarily (about a year at least), all the way back to the place they were born to the best of my ability. I've already worked up a few of the more recent family lines, and it's been quite interesting to see how it stacks up. 

I'm very much looking forward to seeing how these turn out, and I hope others will enjoy them as well.