I am off and running! It's my fingers and mind doing the running, however. Why? Let me explain.For a number of years, I have been researching my family history. I operate in the manner of the classic person with ADHD: work a little on this, then a little on that, changing direction on a whim. Every piece of historic evidence can lead me in a new direction, and while being distracted in most tasks can be disastrous, in genealogy it usually isn't, at least for me. I almost always learn something new. My goal in my latest chase is to stay on task as much as possible, however, because I just found a puzzle piece for which I've been searching for years. This one piece has allowed me to uncover a few more pieces. If I can stay on task, I might resolve some major pieces of my maternal grandfather's family history puzzle.
It all started innocently enough. Over the last few years, when I hit dead ends in searching, I have sent correspondence to parishes where I knew my ancestors were members. I have yet to get a response from any. I've been thinking a lot recently about how I have let this particular project lapse for too long. The guilt has been harboring for a while, so I wandered online in search of contact information for some of the parishes in Wisconsin and Illinois, ready to renew my search. Well, I found a gold nugget yesterday. I came across online historic records for the diocese of Belleville, Illinois.
According to most of my previous records and family lore, my great grandfather, John, was born in Wisconsin (Oct 1857), while his younger sister, Theresia, was born in Illinois (Bellville, Nov 1859). One family story states my great grandfather was born there, as well, but I have yet to find any documentation of that, plus, I have some reliable information from a Wisconsin historian that states great grandpa's oldest sister, Maria, died in Watertown, Wisconsin in February of 1859. Since I couldn't find any census records for 1860 for this family (I have searched hundreds thousands of 1860s census pages), I could never confirm the move in 1859 from Wisconsin to Illinois, although I knew they eventually moved there, as that is where my great-great grandfather enlisted in the Civil War.
After years of dead ends, I finally found the baptism record of his younger sister yesterday, proving the move, so I am pumped. I also found names of baptismal sponsors, with another possible familial connection I didn't know existed. This clue is starting to help me make sense of why this young family, in mourning, and expecting another child, may have moved from Wisconsin and the rest of their extended family to a place where there didn't previously appear to be a family connection.
It took me numerous reviews of that baptismal record to start pulling up clues. First, the priest's handwriting is not very legible, and there are some words written in German or Latin, so I had to look at the pattern of other baptism records. I think I will eventually take this over to my 3rd cousin, Bob, who is skilled in deciphering old handwriting, to be certain of the meaning of some words. Second, the priest hyphenated the baptismal sponsor's last name, and I didn't catch that until several reviews later, so I had been chasing down the wrong path for many, many hours yesterday and into today. After hitting dead end after dead end, I once again reviewed the clues, as well as other baptisms on a couple pages. I found that my ancestor’s baptismal sponsor also had a baby a few weeks later (possibly the day after the baptism of my great-great aunt), and here is where I found the possible connection, as this entry lists the sponsor’s maiden name, which appears to be the same as my great-great grandmother’s. There may be a letter that is different (nn vs hn), but this priest does not appear to have strengths in spelling or handwriting, so I am thinking that is the same name. If this is indeed a relation, it now makes sense why the baby (my great-great aunt) was named after her baptismal sponsor, although perhaps babies were named after unrelated sponsors, as well. What I don’t know is the nature of the relationship: sister, or perhaps cousin to my great-great grandmother? I will dig more.
I have now been able to come up with the list of passengers for the ship the sponsors sailed on, which arrived almost five months after my 2nd great & 3rd great grandparents (1855). Just a little off topic, if you pull up the ship record, you will note that a number of passengers died on the journey, with most of them being infants and young children. That must have been an extremely tough burden to bear. In addition to ship records, I also came across some census records for the sponsors, and death record for one. It looks as if I have plenty of material to dig through for awhile, though I am certain I will continue to chase the elusive clues (still looking for a match in the 1860s census) for some time. I have a few more family history sites to explore for continued clues and records. If there is one thing I have learned about genealogy, the clues can be few and far in between, but if you have the itch, you just can’t quit scratching. I hope to find enough information to confirm the connections between the parents and godparents of my great-great aunt. Perhaps I’ll find enough tidbits about their lives to write another chapter in the family history.
And so the chase continues! Gosh, I hope I don’t run into a dead end again.
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