A Genealogy Adventure
Frank Gingg and Anges Mattson are my husband’s paternal great-grandparents. This photo hangs on the wall in Grandpa John’s house The notation on the back reads “Frank and Agnes Sept 1925.”
Frank and Agnes were married on September 5, 1925 so this may be their wedding photo. If you think Agnes looks young, it is because she is. She lied on her marriage certificate stating that she was 18 when her real age was 16. Frank was just one month shy of his 20th birthday at the time of their wedding.
I have recently posted about Frederick Hudson and his wife Sarah Morris. The blog posts were transcriptions of the obituaries I found for them on my recent trip to Kansas. You can read them here: Frederick and Sarah. Both of the obituaries are the old school articles full of details and descriptive drama.
I was able to locate these obituaries on my trip because of the research I did before visiting the Kansas State Archives. My process was to first look at my family tree to see who lived in Kansas and what information I have for them. Next I checked online databases and family trees to see if there was any additional information (or hints) available about these people. Once that was completed, I spent hours combing through the online catalog for the archives to make a list of microfilm to pull.
I enjoyed the pre-research research. Not only did I identify holes in my research, I met a new cousin. When searching for Frederick Hudson on www.ancestry.com, I found an online family tree that included a photo of the entire family!!
I quickly emailed the owner of the tree. We have confirmed that we are third cousins with Frederick Hudson as our common ancestor. I asked and Carol gave me permission to download a copy of the family photo and use it on this website.
My direct line ancestors are Clemie Lou Hudson and her parents, Frederick Hudson and Sarah Jane Morris.
The first copy is one I have altered to identify each family member.
This copy is unaltered. The back of the photo reads:
Back Row L to R, Berry Hudson, George Hudson, Ralph Hudson.
Next row L to R, Sytha Lester Hudson Moore, Minnie Hudson Hetzer,
Frederic Hudson, Clemie Lou Hudson Lawbaugh, Sarah Morris Hudson,
Mary Belle Hudson Goodman Howard.
“This picture given to me (Edna Lucille Moore Conner), daughter of Sytha Lester Hudson Moore, by Frances Hudson, wife of Virgil Hudson after his death Jan 2, 1968. His father was Berry Hudson (Uncle Berry was buried in Northwest corner Elmwood cemetery K.C. Mo. 12th & Elmwood, 12th Street side of Elmwood Cemetery. Virgil Hudson buried in La Cygne cemetery. George & Ralph Hudson buried in LaCygne. Sytha Lester Hudson Moore buried in Mt. Moriah cemetery (block 10) K.C. Mo. Minnie Hudson Hetzer buried in La Cygne cemetery – so is Frederic & Sarah Hudson also Aunt Belle Hudson Howard.”
If you read this blog regularly, you know that this past summer my family went on a trip that included Budapest. I was hoping to visit the small town of Jablonca, Slovakia. This town is where my husband’s maternal gateway ancestors came from. Unfortunately, the town is located three hours to the northeast and we were traveling west.
Finding the town where my husband’s maternal Hungarian ancestors immigrated from has been a difficult ride. They were not one for leaving a lot of records in the United States that included juicy details.
This week I noticed a blog post about new indexed records on Familysearch that included some from Hungary. After seeing what was posted, I decided to search the catalog for Jablonca, Hungary. I know that there is a microfilm of the church records for the town and was thinking about ordering it. You will understand why I am ordering the microfilm now after my latest find.
To my surprise there is now red lettering on the description page for the microfilm that says: “Slovakia, Church and Synagogue Books are available online, click here.”
Of course, I immediately clicked through and searched for my husband’s great-grandmother, Mary Nagy. And I found her!! Not only did I find her baptism record, I found her father’s and his father’s. In a matter of an hour, I traced the Nagy family back another 2 generations! I have been doing the happy dance for days.
I feel so blessed to a genealogist during the digital age. Don’t get me wrong, I love going to libraries and the smell of a courthouse makes me smile. This discovery might be one that I would not have made anytime soon if it was not available in a digital form. It also has my mother-in-law interested in her family history.
I can’t wait to see what I find in the Slovakia 1869 Census records! Time for some record browsing online! I also cannot wait to tie it all together with a pretty bow when I get to scroll the marriage and death records on the microfilm I have ordered!
While at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Oskaloosa, Kansas I found several years of the School Children’s census. I have found school census enumerations before in other places, but those have always just included numbers. These notebooks were a great find because they include the names of the children enrolled in school.
Obviously my ancestors did not attend the modern school in the photo above. I do wonder if the school was located in the same place in Valley Falls in the 1880s. By comparing an 1899 map of the area to Google maps today, I can tell that my ancestors lived just outside of the town limits on the land. Did the kids walk into town each day?
Note the bricks in the road in the photo.. A lot of the small towns I have visited in Kansas still have brick roads. My mom tells me that every town had brick streets as she grew up in Kansas.
I found my relatives in several years of the Jefferson County School Census. I have pulled their information from the list. There are other Mitchells listed in the same school but I have not done any research yet to confirm if these are cousins.
I find it fascinating that my ancestors attended school through their teen years. It must have been a struggle to have their children in school and not farming their land. I know the family was slowly having a more difficult time with farming and finances. Moses and Mary Mitchell would sell their land in April 1889 and move to the Arkansas City area. Education must have been a priority in the family.
The notebooks I found were titled:
Jefferson County Kansas School Children’s Census
Extracted from original records at Register of Deeds Office and typed by Joy (Ward) Hill, alphabetically sorted and printed by Richard Wellman.
1883 Valley Falls School, District 016
*I am not sure why Henry Mitchell is not listed. He was 4 years older than the twins and three years younger than Laura.
1884 Valley Falls School, District 16
1886 Valley Falls School, District 16
1887 Valley Falls School, District 16
1888 Valley Falls School, District 16
*Henry finally appears.
1889 Valley Falls School, District 16
Sarah Morris is my 3rd great-grandmother.
She is another ancestor that I really do not know much about. I found her obituary at the Kansas State Archives on my trip to Kansas last month. I feel really lucky to have another great obituary in the paper to learn more about my ancestor. Along with a lot of personal information about Sarah, the obituary has great descriptions of the grief of the family.
Mrs. Sarah J Hudson
Another of La Cygne’s good mothers has passed from this world to her home in heaven. A family that she has tenderly cared for and nursed to manhood and womanhood is now deep in grief. The old home that has been one continued pleasure for more than a quarter of a century with a good mother presiding over it is now stilled in the sadness that death brings.
Last Monday afternoon the spirit of Sarah J. wife of Frederick Hudson, departed this life and went to claim the reward in heaven that is promised to all good women. Mrs. Hudson had been in poor health for some time and while it really could be no surprise that the silver cord of life should sever at the ripe old age the deceased had attained, yet even with that possibility the friends and relatives were unprepared to meet the crisis. To take from the home the mother who has been its guardian for so many years is something that is hard to temper the heart to forego.
Sarah J. Morris was born in Pike county, Illinois, August 6, 1835; she was married to Frederick Hudson December 30, 1855 and they removed to Kansas the winter of 1880 where they have resided ever since. In the sixteenth year of her life the deceased joined the Christian church and has been a worker for the Lord ever since. She leaves a husband, and seven children who are W.B. Hudson of Kansas City, Mrs. W.H. Lawbaugh of Wellington, Kansas, Mrs. F.H. Howard, Mrs. Chas. Moore, Mrs. L. H. Hetzer, and Ralph and George Hudson all of this place to mourn her death. Two brothers, Samuel Morris of Dallas, Texas and Geo. Morris of Pittsburgh, Kansas also survive.
Funeral services were held at the family home in the south part of town on Wednesday morning at 10 o’clock by Elder R.A. Odenweller of Pleasanton. His remarks were very beautiful and he pictured the kind and loving woman who had fought life’s battles to the end and through it all maintained a sweet friendship for all. After the ceremony at the home the large concourse of grief stricken friends interred the body of the departed on in the Oak Lawn cemetery.
The La Cygne Weekly Journal, La Cygne, Kansas, 8 April 1904, Page 1, Column 3
Abraham Strickler and Effie Flock are my 2nd great grandparents. 
My records have for years just estimated Abraham and Effie’s marriage date by using the US Federal Census. Although I have seen the exact marriage date listed on several online trees, I just recently found the documentation I needed for my records. This was my first find of the day at the Kansas State Archives last month.
The first microfilm I pulled was the Republic County Marriage Licenses 1868-1990. I found Abraham and Effie’s marriage license in ledger C, page 57. They were married 1 February 1888. Abraham is listed as age 34 from Narka, Kansas. Effie’s age is not listed but she is from Haddam, Kansas. My records show that Effie would have married only a couple of days after her 22nd birthday.
After analyzing this document, I see an interesting pattern. Effie and Abraham had an age difference of 12 years between them. When their daughter, Opal, married Dudley Moses Mitchell, there was a 15 year age difference. Opal’s sisters did not keep with the older man when they married their first husbands.
I am so excited! Why? You say? I get to spend hours in a library this weekend! Watch out – the genealogy dork in me is in full effect today.
My Mom and I are flying to Kansas Thursday morning for a weekend of family fun. We will be visiting with the Lawbaugh branch, partying at the Mitchell family reunion, and spending quality research time at the Kansas State Historical Society. There might even be a cemetery or two if I am lucky.
I have been diligently preparing by scouring the online catalog of the Kansas State Historical Society. I have a very detailed plan of what to look for in the county records on microfilm, maps I want to see, and obituaries to read in the microfilmed newspapers. I have many branches that all crossed paths in Kansas. My main focus will be on my Mitchell and Hudson lines. I will also be looking for addtional information about my Strickler, Flock, Lawbaugh, and Bradley lines. I am hoping to get a lot of check marks on my task list without getting sidetracked.
This morning I finished printing my plans and copies of family group sheets. I started gathering all of the electronics (Ipad, FlipPal, and camera) along with the necessary charging cords. Quarters are in a plastic bag for the lockers at the library.
Even though I have been to this library before, I re-read the research room guide to make sure that I am current with their policies. The Kansas State Historical Society library is wonderful. It has lots of space, natural daylight, lots of microfilm readers, and great staff. I can’t wait to get there!
I just have to pack some clothes and I am off on another genealogy adventure. I hope to have lots of goodies to share when I get back!
I was blessed to receive a book about Cossano Canavese, Italy from a genealogy friend who visited Cossano last year. My Dad’s paternal line is from this small town outside of Torino. I have had the book for six months but really have not spent much time looking at it yet. The reason why is the book is in Italian and I speak English.
I have focused this weekend on using free online translation services to translate sections I know apply to my family. (Really the whole book applies since this is a very small town and everyone is most likely related at some point)
The section I concentrated on was several pages before a photo of my great-great-grandfather, Giuseppe Siletto. The translation roughly spelled out the creation of the post office in Cossano. Before 1856, the town was dependent on the nearby town of Caravino for its mail. In 1858, a letter was sent to all mayors in the province letting them know that they needed to assign someone the job of postman and decide how often that person would go to Caravino to pick up the mail each day. The new postmen would receive 50 lire a year for their work. The Mayor of Cossano named a certain man named Siletto for the job and it started 1 January 1859. In 1912 Cossano became its own post office and was no longer dependant on the town of Caravino.
In the page before the photo of my g-g-grandfather is a stamped certificate to record a deposit of 200 lire in September 1893 by Giuseppe Siletto to carry out the functions of postal carrier.
So it turns out that my ancestors owned and operated the post office in Cossano for a very long time. From 1859-1893 a man by the same surname ran the post office. My g-g-grandfather, Giuseppe Siletto, owned and operated it from 1893-1912. His daughter, my great-grandmother Adele Siletto, was the owner from 1912 til her death in 1919. Giuseppe’s second wife, Lucia Brunero, was the postman from 1915-1925. And Lucia’s son from her first marriage, Giovanni Antonio Brunero, was the postman from 1925-1966.
As a genealogist you can find small tidbits about family almost anytime of the year. If you are lucky there will be a huge break through every year or two. I have hit the big time twice in the last two months. The genealogy gods have been showering me with kindness this year! My first great find about finding the signature for my 6th great-grandfather can be found here.
I have been trying to identify a hometown in Hungary for over a year now for my mother-in-laws paternal line. We are planning a family trip to Hungary this summer so there has been a lot of work done to identify the family and where they came from. So far my mother-in-law’s paternal grandfather is a concrete wall reinforced with rebar.
I have been working her maternal great-grandparents line as my last hope for finding a place to visit in the homeland. They are John Nagy and Elizabeth Varro from Hungary. On Ancestry.com, I found an entry in the Naturalization Indexes for several men named John Nagy. I was pretty sure I found “my” John since he lived at the same address as my John Nagy did in Whiting, Indiana.
Back in early December 2012 I sent a request to the Indiana State Archives for the naturalization paperwork. Thankfully, when I sent the request I noted it in my research log.
Fast forward to April 2013. As I am getting ready to visit my parents in Virginia and do some research at the Daughters of the American Revolution library, I notice on my research log that I still have not received a reply from Indiana regarding John Nagy. I sent them a follow-up email to check where in the queue I was since our trip to Hungary in August is fast approaching. I received a reply that they had misplaced my original request and would look at mine quickly. I then received another email a week later informing me that the only courthouse in Lake County, Indiana they do not have in the Indiana State Archives is the one I need.(Of Course!!) I was so grateful because the email included information about who I needed to contact to get the records I was looking for.
My next step was to contact the Northwest Indiana Genealogical Society with my request for John Nagy’s naturalization paperwork. Sure enough within 2 weeks a self-addressed envelope was delivered to my mailbox. Genealogy Jackpot #2!
The Declaration of Intention lists his town of birth and his signature!!
Even better, his Petition of Naturalization is a goldmine of information. John Nagy was born in Jablonca, Hungary 15 February 1862. He met a woman named Elizabeth who came from the town of Tenestene, Hungary. They were settled in Jablonca when they had their first child, Mary (my husband’s great-grandmother) in March 1890. In late July 1890, just four months after Mary’s birth, the family boarded the Red Star Line in Antwerp, Germany. They arrived in New York City, New York the 8th of August. The family continued their travels to outside Chicago and settled in Whiting, Indiana. They had five more children between 1896-1905.
Holy Moly! We have a town to visit on our trip this summer. Jablonca now resides on the Slovakia side of the Hungary/Slovakia border. It is about a three-hour drive outside of Budapest to the northeast. I am so excited!! My kids, my husband, and my mother-in-law will all get to visit a town of their direct line in Hungary/Slovakia.
In the middle of April I traveled to Northern Virginia to visit with my parents. While there, I made a deal that I would help my mom with some computer issues and in return she would watch my kids for a day so I could visit the Daughters of the American Revolution Library.
For me, the day spent in the library was like riding a rainbow and finding the jackpot of genealogy gold at the other end. I arrived with a four page list of books I wanted to look at. All day I was making finds and shoring up research I have already completed. I would have been happy with the information I found in the first five hours of the day. I had no idea the day was going to get even better.
I wanted to end the day with further research on my Lawbaugh line. As part of my research I have already checked online trees to get clues where I needed to look. I had a feeling that I could connect my Lawbaughs via Kansas, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania to Johannes Laubach. Even with the online information, I want to conduct my own research for originals to prove my hypothesis. I currently have research completed for my line up to William Lawbaugh (1823-1896) m. Lydia Ummel. I have collected death certificates, obituaries, and cemetery information for the family. My research log has finding marriage and birth information for both of them next on the list.
The jackpot moment at DAR came just after 3pm. I made my way over to the Seimes Technology Center to look up a book called “An Ancestor To Remember: Johannes Laubach (Labach-Lawbaugh 1728-1808) of Chester County, Penna.” by Mrs. William T. Alston. I had found the book in the online catalog during my pre-visit research. The librarian in the room helped me to find the scanned book in the digital collection. She was concerned because I had under an hour left in the day to get through an 170 page book. I was almost immediately excited because the index listed names in order of descendent and the page numbers they would be found on. I quickly found my William Lawbaugh and realized I only needed to get through the first 55 pages of the book. I started hitting the print button on each page in case I ran out of time. I plan on going back and looking at the rest of the book on another visit.
I had a couple of moments where I had to shut my mouth to not scream in delight. Instead I was punching my fists into the air like a boxer with a punching bag! Not only did this book list my William Lawbaugh and his direct line to Johannes Laubach, it also included his descendants including my mother! There are lots of photos of important cemetery markers and photocopies of church records. The most important is the author included her sources. I have a road map to follow on my own research!
It still gets even better. The reference librarian was scanning the pages I was printing and mentioned to me that I should run back over to the Library room to pull a book by Stassburger/Hinke. The book was listed as one of the author’s sources for date of arrival in Pennsylvania. With just 15 minutes before closing, I rushed back over and went straight to the reference librarian to get assistance to find the book. As I quickly flipped to the pages for my ancestor Johannes Laubach, I realized that this book contained signatures of people who arrived in the British Colonies from Germany. Upon arriving in the British Colonies, passengers were required to sign an oath to England and an oath of abjuration for Germany.
I have the signature of my ancestor who was born in 1728 and arrived in Pennsylvania on the Two Brothers on September 15, 1748!!! Holy Genealogy Jackpot!! Even now, a month later, I am giddy with excitement about this find. I have to give a huge shout out to the librarians at the DAR Library. I would have missed this jackpot if they were not so knowledgeable about the library collections. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
