Reflections From the Fence

Thursday, June 8, 2023

So Many Descendants, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Thanks to Amy Johnson Crow, who year after year posts "challenges" for her followers to share thoughts and/or photos in whatever manner suits each individual. Blogs, social media, or just in your personal memories. I have played before, and will play along a bit this year, God willing and the creek don't rise.

This week's challenge is "So Many Descendants." Sometimes when we're researching, we'll come across a set of ancestors who seem to have a gajillion descendants. Who is that in your family tree?

I took this challenge as an opportunity to learn more about the computer database I am currently using, Reunion. Let's face it, data bases have a lot of power tucked in under the hood and finding it all can be and is a challenge.

So, off I went diving into the innards and hidden goodies. I found something called "Summary". It gives some fun numbers, like number of spouses, number of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, gg, ggg, etc., to the point of the last generation you have searched and/or recorded. You can print reports or just study them in amazement.

I decided to look at 4 lines, 2 of mine and 2 of Man's. My parent's surnames and his parent's surnames. Follow each surname to the last person I have recorded, noting that a few of the ancestors, I have researched further back, but, for any number of reasons, may not actually added those ancestor's names to the data base. Some are so far back that I am not comfortable with the amount of sourcing available. Hey, back before 1700 it can get sketchy in many countries. Anywhooo - - - - - -

4 lines, how many descendants. Let's see - -

Richard Lashbrook, Man's ancestor via the Stevens/Lashbrook lineage: 1 spouse, 1679 descendants in 8 generations. 14 children (2 of whom we have nothing more than their given names, so, it could very well be 12 children, eh?)

Karl "Carl\Charles" Herman Gehrke, Man's ancestor via the Gehrke lineage: 1 spouse, 454 descendants in 6 generations. 10 children, 6 of whom survived to have families of their own.

Richard Bowen, my ancestor via the Bowen lineage, 2 spouses, 587 descendants in 13 generations. 7 children. Time to fess up, I have not chased 4 of his children. It is what it is. Wink, wink.

H. Jacob Trumbo, my ancestor via the Trumbo lineage, 1 spouse, 533 descendants in 10 generations. 7 children. More fess up time, his generation and his children, not as well researched as I would like them to be. Another, it is what it is. Wink, wink.

The Karl "Carl\Charles" Herman Gehrke line only goes back to mid 1800, where the records end, as best we have ever been able to determine, barring new discoveries. The Lashbrook, Bowen and Trumbo lineages all go back to around 1700.

Total descendants currently in my data base from these 4 ancestors = 3253. Most children in the first generation = 14. Most generations = 13.

* Clip art courtesy of Clip Art Library.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Brick Walls - As I Wrote This Post - The Wall Came Tumbling Down, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This week's challenge is: Brick Walls.

Originally I was going to whine, err, write about Valeria.

Valeria was the second wife, in a very short marriage, of Man's father.

You can see from this screen shot of her on my data base, with a time line to the right side, that from the time she is about 33 until her death, there is a HUGE bunch of missing info.

That said, on review and several hours of additional digging on the internet for new clues, I am ready to say, I have that first half of her life and her death reasonably researched and over all I am pleased with the results. EXCEPT for the little tidbit of a third marriage?? To one "Walley Vedro".

Despite a number of tries, I just cannot get a lead on Wally. No marriage record to Valeria (Valerie and other spellings accepted.). Said marriage, if there was one, would have happened after 1957 when her second hubby John Martin Scherer passed.

I have not been able to locate Wally on census enumerations, I am not sure what locality to search, in the U.S., or, maybe somewhere else.

I am currently searching for "alternate" given names to research, otherwise, he is truly a brick wall.

Oh, see the P. S. below that was written about 24 hours after what you have just read.

P. S. FOUND HIM!! He is Raymond Joseph Vedro. I'm still trying to figure it all out and do the input. Interesting little genie twist, there are two marriages (that I have found so far) between the Vedro and Butkus clans.

I found him by going to GenealogyBanks dot com (I pay full price for my subscription) and searched every Social Security Death Index entry for the surname Vedro. There were less than 50, so the search was not overwhelming. When I found Raymond I stopped short and took a nice long look, because his last benefit was forwarded to the same small community that Valeria's last benefit was forwarded to. With a name, and some dates, his wall came tumbling down.

Still no marriage index or record. Still no burial place for either. Still no obituary for him. That can all wait for another day, cause, frankly, I am kinda tired, I stayed up wayyyyy too late last night tossing around all those bricks.

And, I have no idea why he went by "Wally". But, we all know, there is no rhyme or reason to nicknames. And, we all know, nicknames were invented to drive the already partially crazy family researcher to the FULL ON WACKADOODLE crazy. We thank you.