Almost Time to Packemup - - Rolling, Rolling, Keep Them Wheels a Rolling - Winter 2015-2016

Copyright 2015, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

I have no idea where this summer flew to.  Seems we barely have arrived here at the stickbuilt and it is time to roll on again.

We attended horse camp with the grandtwins, the wedding of the daughter of a dear friend, the Montana fall rally, and visited way too many doctors and dentists.  SIGH. Fighting the ravages of older age takes time and effort.  And, some times a few steps backward, or sideways ??  This summer the Demon battle took a long step backwards, as a medication I was started on created much havoc.  Recently, I was put on insulin, those new little pens are interesting.

We lost our beloved little Cappy and I lost a dear friend, all too soon.  Somehow the summer slipped by and the yard work here at the stick built never was finished, heavens, it was barely begun.

Tana had a bit of a do over this summer.  She has reached the ripe age of 12.5 years.  I now consider her to be the “Heritage RV”.  I have continued to raid the house (and purchased a few little decorations) to add to the “heritage” theme.

Below are "hot pads", hand stitched, believed to be done and owned by Man's mother.

It took me a few weeks to find these crocheted doileys, as I had them stashed away for safe keeping.  They are part of a tea set my great-grandmother Lorena made for her daughter, Rena (whom for some reason, I always called Susie).  Lorena mailed them to Susie in the early 1940s when Susie was living in Alameda California.

Here is a close up, I folded each doily in half and pinned to the back of the window valances.

Here is a view of the entire window.  I did 4 windows this way, the ones in the living room slide.  There is a matching small runner that I can use on top of the new cabinet.  The pictures are ok, but, I think it looks much better in person.

Man and I have decided to start this winter’s getaway on the east coast, hoping to make stops in North Carolina and points down into Florida.  He has never been to Key West and so, we have booked 4 nights there and 3 more in Key Largo.  The Christmas holiday will be spend in Fort Lauderdale.  After that, well, we have NO clue.

Hopefully the winter will be just a little less stressful than this summer has been.  If you live in North Carolina or states south we would love to hear from you, maybe we can stop along the way and have a visit, a cocktail or a quick cup of coffee and a hug.



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One Memory, My Best Genealogy Day, Correct That to Read, Man’s Best

Copyright 2015, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

One of Man’s lineages has an extremely interesting pattern of immigration. The Gehrke clan, left “Germany” and landed in Lihue Hawaii. Years later they moved to Alameda County California and then moved once again to Michigan. This clan was the subject of my first family history book.

For our 25th wedding anniversary Man and I saved for a few years and booked a trip to Hawaii. About six months before departure, Inki hit the island of Kauai and pretty much damaged every building on the island. We were very disappointed as we wanted to visit there, some of his cousins still lived there, one daughter of the immigrant family lived all of her life on the island.  She died there and is buried on Kauai.

Just a few weeks before we departed on our trip, Kauai was re-opened for tourists. We changed our plans, added a week to the vacation. We were thrilled to meet up with a cousin, who has now departed this earth.

But, the magic of this trip was in the 1.5 hours I managed to find to research in Honolulu at the Hawaii State Archives, in the Kekauluohi Building, Iolani Palace Grounds, 364 S. King Street, Honolulu, Hawaii.

At that time many of the finding aids in the research center were of the 3 X 5 card catalog type. The staff pointed out the most likely document sets to search. Man and I both searched, and in short order we had found at least one document that needed to be brought up from the storage area. So, we waited.  The wait was worth it, isn't th is a fun document??

Man was getting antsy, research is not his forte, even tho he is very good at indexes and city directories. He started wandering around. In this research center, there was a long wall of books. A very long wall. I am guessing it was 100 feet, more or less. I remember it being quite tall too, maybe to the ceiling, 8 feet? Many books stored there.

Man wandered over to the books. I have no idea why, but, he did. He studied some titles, just looking. And, at some point, magic and serendipity took over. He reached up, pulled one, just ONE, book down, brought it over to me, asking, “Do you think this would help?”

Seriously, a non-researcher picking one book out of hundreds, and he wants to know if it would help in the study of his great-grandparents? It is almost laughable.

Except - -

It was the one book in all of the world that would solve the question, where in Germany?

See, there was this little issue. We had the name of the town Man’s grandfather was born in, Hammerstein. There was another little issue. There used to be FIVE Hammersteins in Germany. And, we had not one clue which one was the birthplace.

The book was a master’s thesis by one Bernhard Hormann, “The Germans in Hawaii”. With the clues there, the Lutheran Church records from Lihue, Hawaii, family tradition and a bit more research we had our answer. The Hammerstein was now Czarne Poland.

Once again, miracles, magic and serendipity mixed with many (MANY) hours of hard core research and the answer has been found.

All due to Man’s restlessness and one small master’s thesis stored on a very huge wall of books. And to think we only had 1.5 hours to research. Really, a miracle.




* Another fun document we have on Carl Gehrke during the years he lived and worked in Lihue Hawaii, is this November 1891 Pay Roll sheet.

** Note:  Both the Pay Roll sheet and the Certificate of Special Rights of Citizenship were originally published in a "little" (sarcasm intended) work on the Gehrke family.  The notes trimmed in black were done by hand.  Printed information, trimmed by craft scissors, double sided sticky taped to the black construction paper, also trimmed by craft scissors, again double sided sticky taped to a photo copy of the record.  Scanned by the printer into the book.  

***The Pay Roll page has been digitally edited for this format, in the book, the entire page was shown.

**** Certificate of Special Rights of Citizenship, courtesy  of the Hawaiian Archives.

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One Memory, My Best Genealogy Day, Well, One of the Best

Copyright 2015, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

DearMyrt and Randy Seaver are teaming up on me.  LOL  DearMYRTLE asked/begged us yesterday to write something on these blogs at least once a week.  And, last night, Randy, in his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge asked for Your Best Genealogy Day Ever.  OK, you two, I'll give it a shot.  Life has been crazy crazy, so, this surely will not be considered stellar blogging.  We can all live with that. 

Now, I have had a few great genealogy days, like the day that Man and I walked into two of the churches in Devonshire where his Lashbrook ancestors, married and baptized their babies.  Outstanding day.

Research trips where I break through a brick wall, everyone of those days were great.

However, I have decided to share this little story for one of my best genealogy days.

This was back in the dark ages of genealogy, when we actually did the majority of our research IN libraries and archives.  When we spun microfilm to find our ancestors in the census.

So, one day in the dark ages, research friends gathered at the Library of Michigan.  This day, I was on the hunt for one of Man's lines that originated in Canada.  In a previous research day, at the Westland FHC, someone handed me some film from York County, Ontario, Canada, and suggested I scroll/roll through it.  In an act of pure unexpected wonderfulness, I found the marriage record of Charles Clifford and Plutheria (or Phoebe with many spellings) Clifford.  Yes, Clifford to Clifford.  (And, yes, that day is also one of my best genealogical days, a record literally falling off the pages of the microfilm.)

So, at the Library of Michigan, I was going to attempt to find Mr. and Mrs. Clifford on the 1851 census.  When I looked up Whitby in a finding source, I found it is in the Durham area.  I believe what I did was pull the census for that district.  I scrolled and scrolled and found nothing.

At some point, as I was restless, and feeling cold in my research heart (I cannot explain this, it just happens sometimes, you just KNOW you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and you will not find your ancestors), I went back to some finding aids. I bounced around the library, gazetteers and the wonderful huge plat books from early Canada that show households, churches, just fun and wonderful things.  At some point, I realized that Whitby may actually be found in early Ontario County, Ontario, Canada.  You know, the town stays in one place, but the official civil hierarchy changes.

So, back to the plat books.  I literally sat on the floor in front of about 20 or more of these huge plat books.  I started pulling them off the shelves.  Nope, need Ontario County. I pulled several from the pile, not in order, say from left to right, just helter skelter.  When I finally found Ontario County, I started flipping through the book helter skelter, no plan, just this page and that.  But, in fairly quick order the book just literally fell open to the town of Whitby.  My helter skelter research just became a good approach.  It isn't always.  As we all know.  Better to have a plan.  This was no plan, it was just research angels leading me on.

OK now, lets get back to that census, but, let's pull Ontario County.  Back at the film reader, with the Ontario County film loaded I start spinning.  My heart started beating hard, I was getting physically quite warm.  I spun, my heart beat faster.  I spun more, I was starting to literally sweat.  I spun more and told my research friends, if I don't find them soon I may have a heart attack.

Spun 3 more pages.

BINGO! 

There they are.  Mr. and Mrs. Charles and  Phebe L. Clifford. And, a Joseph Clifford, age 55, too.  I still all these years later have not figured out who Joseph is.  SIGH.  (Please note this image digitally edited for limited space.  It is not the full page.)

In the 1861 census, they are still living in Ontario County, I recorded in my data base the following:

1861 census for Oshawa, Ontario County, Ontario, Canada shows Charles Clifford (bottom of page 28), finisher, born UC (Upper Canada), Christian, age 32, living in a frame home.  On page 29, at the top, is the rest of his family: Phebe, born US, age 30, Christian; Ada, born US, age 6; Charles born UC, age 4; Letta, born UC, age 2; and Flora, born UC, age 1.

(That little girl Letta, would grow up some day to be Mans' great grandmother.)

After the 1861 census life for the Clifford clan would become confusing.  Those stories for another day.

Yes, that day in the Library of Michigan and the cold and hot feelings and the serendipity of opening books to the right page in a non-logical manner.  One of my best genealogical days.

* You can read a short history of Whitby, here, in Wikipedia.

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