Finding Family History Where It Happened: MINNESOTA

Finding Family History Where It Happened: MINNESOTA

By Genealogy Girl

From my diary: Vacation in 2004: On the Road Again
We traveled from California to Illinois, to Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Texas and Oklahoma doing research along the way.


...Today I stood in a Minnesota corn field owned by my great-grandfather, Karl Daniel Fermazin in 1895. Nearly 115 years ago. It is August and the corn is ready for harvest....


The field lies in Rost Township in Jackson County Minnesota.  

   Figure 1: Nancy by great-grandpa Charles Fermazin's land

My Charles was thirty-five when he arrived here in 1885 with Minnie, his wife, and four children. They came from Aurora, Illinois to farm in Minnesota. Charles was an immigrant from Schubin, Posen, Prussia who had experience farming in Prussia with his father. Minnie and Charles raised seven children in Lakeview, Rost Township, Jackson, Minnesota for 15 years 

  Figure 2:  Corn field on Great-Grandpa Karl Fermazin. Lakeview, Rost Township, Jackson, Minnesota

before they sold their land and moved back to Aurora Kane, Illinois. Three of the seven children were born on the farm in Lakefield, Minnesota: Lottie, Willie, and Harry.  


The family worshipped at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lakefield, Minnesota where the children were baptized. The children attended Public School, District No. 74 in Lakefield.

Figure 3:  Document depicting six of the Fermazin children who attended public school in Lakeview, Minnesota.

Below is  a photocopy of the auction sign that displayed the  farm equipment and livestock for sale at auction when they left the farm. The sale took place on the George R. Moore farm. George R. Moore was the banker in Jackson, Minnesota. 

Figure 4:  Auction of Livestock and farm equipment Charles Fermazin Farm, Lakefield, Jackson, Minnesota.

It was April 1907 when they moved by train back to Aurora, Illinois.

 Figure 5:  Charles and Minnie Fermazin House in Aurora, Illinois.  

I didn’t know what it was like to stand on soil that once belonged to him, filled with a jumble of thoughts about family, mortality, and the excruciating physical labor required to support a family of ten a century ago. I needed to walk the land, witness its expansive flatness, and observe the way the Des Moines River snaked through his landscape. Coming here, I feel better prepared to write about Charles Fermazin’s world than I was when I only knew facts.                                                     

I knew all that before coming to Minnesota in 2004. Libraries and Internet searches filled me with facts. I didn’t know what it was like to stand on soil that once belonged to him, filled with a jumble of thoughts about family, mortality, and the excruciating physical labor required to support a family of ten.  Coming here, I feel better prepared to write about Charles Fermazin’s world than I was when I only knew facts.

Of course, while I was there I combed the local libraries and archives, looking for “filler material” I couldn’t access from my home base. And I’ve found stuff—good stuff—that will help enrich my story.




© 2010, copyright  Nancy Fermazin