Wordless Wednesday - Franz Family Fun

Photo's recently shared with us from a thoughtful cousin.

Ancestor Approved

I would like to think that all of our ancestors look kindly upon us as we remember them in our research and share their history on our blogs.

A special thank you to Leah of The Internet Genealogist and Cheryl of Heritage Happens for sharing this recognition with Tangled Trees. 

Now I am to list 10 things that have surprised, humbled or enlightened me and then pass the award on to 10 other genealogy bloggers who I feel are doing their ancestors proud.

1. How many children can one woman bear?  Sometimes I am quite amazed.

2.  That French-Canadians are so prolific and luckily have some of the best records to research. 

3. How quickly ancestor trees can grow once you make the right connections. The internet certainly helps with plenty of leads but everything must be followed up with valid research.

4. Connecting with 'cousins' as a result of blog postings.

5.  The kindness of strangers  - a gift I am always grateful for

6. How generation after generation of some families lived in the same small village before one ancestor finally decides to venture away

7. That we finally found an Irish ancestor - and she came from our French-Canadian line!

8. The amount of 'cousins' involved in WWI & WWII

9. Reading military records of relatives and ancestors always inspires me.

10.  I am most amazed at how addicting this whole genealogy thing is - after nearly 20 years of researching my drive hasn't waned!

Ten Geneablogs (of many) that do their ancestors proud:

Life from the Roots

Before My Time

We Tree

Al's Polish-American Genealogy Research

Dr. Bill Tells Ancestor Stories

Begin With 'Craft'

Girl of the Random Leaf

Nutfield Genealogy

TJLGenes

Zalewski Family Genealogy

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Easter Greetings from Tangled Trees

Wishing you a bright & joyful Easter.

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Follow Friday - Great assistance to Polish researchers

On this Follow Friday I wanted to share a resource, actually a person, that is always very helpful with questions regarding Polish genealogy research:  Al Wierzba of Al's Polish-American Genealogy Research

Most recently he shared a link that I found very helpful :

A Guide for Locating Military Records for the various Regions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Thank you Al!

The Will of Edmund Casteel III

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(click image to enlarge)

Towns of our Ancestors: New Bedford, Massachusetts

(click to enlarge)

Madness Monday - Mary Robillard St. Jean of New Bedford afflicted by involutional melancholia

involutional melancholia:  a form of depression that occurs in late middle age, sometimes accompanied by paranoia; a former term for a state of depression that occurs during the climacteric (menopause of women); agitated depression occurring at about the time of menopause  It is now treated as a major depressive episode.

In the case of Mary Robillard St.Jean - she spent the last 6 weeks of her life in the Taunton Massachusetts State Hospital. Information for her certificate of death was taken from hospital records. It appears her parents took responsibilty for her and her husband's name is marked as unknown (although I imagine the parents knew quite well who the spouse was). She is buried at Sacred Heart Cemetery in New Bedford, MA - the same cemetery as her parents. Her death certificate, located using pilot.familysearch.org in the Massachusetts Death Records collection, allowed me to learn her mother's maiden name of Ducharme.

Occupation: Victualler

A victualler is traditionally person who sells food or other provisions; a purveyor of spirits; innkeeper. A licensed victualler refers to a the landlord of a public house or similar licensed establishment.

Chiefly in British reference as shown below for our English ancestor William Dean: an innkeeper

Conveyance (lease and release) for £100 -  10 and 11 Mar 1775:
Richard Sharpe of Stone in Oxney Kent yeoman (only son of TS in AMS5834/10-12) to William Dean of Appledore Kent victualler as AMS5834/8 now in 2 dwellings, late occupied by William Noakes, now William Collins and John Kesford Bounds as AMS5834/8 except E: John Smith; S: James Lamb; dower of Ann Richard Dean widow of TS, now wife of WD excepted
W: H Waterman, John Woollett

Genealogical Acts of Kindness - Church Marriage Record Shared

In hopes of discovery more about the origins of our Kolbusz ancestors, I sent a query via email to St. Stephen's Church - below is the scanned record I just recieved:

Translation provided by the Parish Secretery: 

Wojciech Kolbusz (33 years old) & Apolonia Gobur (25years old).

They were married on February 6, 1893, and were eleventh couple to be married at St. Stephen’s.

He was born in Losnica – Galicja and she was born in Luknorowo – Galicja (her parents: Piotr Gobur and Anna Zradzionka.

 I am always so grateful for Acts of Genealogical Kindness! 

Towns of our Ancestors: Fribourg, Suisse

Freiburg, Switzerland    (Fribourg, Suisse)

Founded in 1157, Freiburg is located on the river Sarine on the Swiss plateau.

Its Old City with its medieval architecture, sits on a small rocky hill above the valley of the Sarine.

This was the hometown of our ancestor, Pierre Miville, born c.1602.  

Pierre married Charlotte Mauger (Maugis) and together with their 6 children settled in Quebec, New France abt 1649.

Madness Monday - Pierre Robillard: Parents Unknown

Using the relatively new FamilySearch.org pilot site, I was finally able to locate a death record for our ancestor Peter (Pierre) Robillard.

We now have a date and cause of death, but, much to our dismay, his parents are listed as unknown! He married Philomena Ducharme c. 1856 and had several children - one of which was his oldest son, Charles, the informant on the death record.  Apparently Peter did not speak much about his family since Charles did not know his grandparents names.
What we did get from the record is a date of birth  - but even this cannot be taken as absolute fact, since the date of birth conflicts with ages sited in census records...a fairly common problem for researchers.  But at least it is another point of reference when researching baptism records.  In any case I am still on the hunt for his parentage.

Follow Friday: automatism

The Place Where I Go

when I have too much clutter in my brain and want to relax:

http://lorilangille.blogspot.com/
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