Genealogy Society of North Orange County California Meeting January 20, 2010

Our presentation was given by  Colonel Ed Mann speaking on:

       The American Civil War


   How did our Civil War affect your ancestors? To give us a new perspective and to encourage our search to better understand the war's impact on our families, a Confederate Officer explains why he fights, why secession is a legal right for the Southern states and why the North is using unconstitutional force to maintain a union.
Interested in history--especially military history--since childhood, Ed Mann has been a Civil War
 re-enactor for 20 years. He is the Confederate commander and re-enactor coordinator at the largest annual reenactment west of the Mississippi, and holds similar positions at other reenactments in Southern California. Ed's unit is the Richmond Howitzer Battalion,1st Virginia, Regiment, Co H. This unit was founded in 1859 by the grandson of Thomas Jefferson.
   Ed Mann gave us an enlightening history from the South's perception. He presented his talk in the first person from 1863 Confederacy.  He talked about the US constitution, secession, Articles of Confederation, War of 1812, Massachusetts as the first state to think of secession, occupations, industrialization of the North, agriculture of the South, enlistments and many other aspects of the War Between the States. I highly recommend Ed as a speaker to your Genealogy Society.
This was an excellent presentation and enlightened many of us and made us more knowledgeable of the Civil War.

Read about Ed's Re Enactment encampment at:
 http://www.howitzers.com

Learning to Write from the Expert

I attended the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy from January 11-15, 2010.  My track was Dr. John Colletta's course:  “ Producing a Quality Family History.” I enjoyed his course. He is charming and the course was wonderful. In the past, I have taken his classes at local all day Genealogy Seminars in Southern California and enjoyed his presentations immensely. I was thrilled to have the pleasure to take a class from him for a whole week. Dr. Colletta did not present his class last year so I jumped at the chance of being able to enroll this year and it met all of my expectations and then some.

  His style of teaching is unique. He has you write your story from a historical context. Colletta used excerpts from his book,  Only a Few Bones to demonstrate techniques for putting the story in the historical context.  Colletta recommends using the five senses: touch, taste, sight, hearing, and smell into your story and “hooking” the reader with a catchy title and gripping opening sentence.  His principles of good story writing include: "Using strong verbs, effective adjectives, keeping the ancestor at ‘center stage’,  and using vivid descriptions to conjure images in the reader’s mind".  One example he used was writing a story from a two sentence marriage announcement in a Vicksburg  newspaper from the 1860. He turned those lines into a complete true, historical context by using maps, weather, addresses, and names.

A sample newspaper article below depicting local events 

 For example, I’ve found my Aurora, Illinois Nancy Hansen mentioned in the Aurora Beacon News and also found my Linden Family in the Luxembourger Gazette.  These were people who were living lives that were not particularly noteworthy.

     In another class, Colletta discussed the importance of finding a theme in the events of our ancestors’ lives and shaping our narrative around this theme. We discussed typical story themes: "ambition, hardship, nonconformity, migration, sacrifice" and examined potential themes in the lives of Colletta’s ancestors.  Venues and suggestions were given for presenting family history stories: vignettes, mini narratives, the “big” family history book, as booklets for Christmas to our relatives.

    We were assigned a four paragraph in-class writing assignment.  It was a priviledge to complete the story on my ancestor, Reinhardt Fermazin and an honor to have John Colletta critique my story.

    This was truly a wonderful week long seminar and a priviledge learn from such an esteemed person as John Colletta PhD. I would highly recommend this week long seminar to all family history historians. I only  hope I can become a better writer/blogger.

  I plan to post my story, Wanderlust, in a few days on my blog. 

   

WANDERLUST

                                                               

   AWOL! Adventurer. Good Character. Handsome. Naturalized Citizen. Homesteader. Industrious. Motorman. These attributes describe my great-great-uncle Reinhart Fermazin.

   Reinhart was born on January 28, 1875 in Godziwy, Schubin, Posen, Prussia. He immigrated to America as an infant with his mother Carolina Hartwig and his sister Bertha. 

   Reinhart’s life was adventuresome as an adult. In 1898, Reinhart enlisted in the Spanish American War in Evanston, Wyoming. His military service occurred in Fort San Felipe, Manila, Philippine Islands.  During his time in Manila, he served three times in the brig with ten days of hard labor and court martialed. On July 28, 1899 he was discharged.  After his court martials and infractions, he mustered out at the Presidio in San Francisco with “service honorable and faithful, character good.”

   

   In 1903, he married his first wife, Sharlot Wittelsbach, who died of consumption a year later. Two years after her death, Reinhart married Lillian Ryland. In 1908, Reinhart obtained a 160-acre homestead in Lemon, Perkin County, South Dakota where he built a 12 x 16 foot sod house with a lumber floor and roof, three windows, one door and a cellar 5 ft by 6 ft under the house. He drilled a 27 foot deep well on the property and built a chicken coop and a sod barn with a pole roof. He planted 70 trees. During the first year, he planted corn and potatoes, harvesting 15 bushels of corn and 25 bushels of potatoes. 

  

  By 1920, he moved back to Chicago where he obtained work as a motorman for the Chicago Surface Railway Company. In 1931at the age of 56, after Lillian’s death and 24 years of marriage, Reinhart married a young single woman, 21 years old, named Anna. They lived in Chicago for the remainder of his life.

He did indeed live an adventuresome life, AWOL in the armed services, suspected AWOL on his homestead and skirting the law on a few occasions. He was a fascinating guy! You can only help but love him.

     

Genealogy/Family History Goals: 2010

Genealogy/Family History Goals for 2010

1.    1.   I would like to blog more: Goal is one blog per week on one topic of Genealogybloggers.

2.    2.   Participate in one article for the  Carnival of Genealogy.

3.    3.   Participate in one article for Smile for the Camera.

4.     4.  Spend 1 hour a week on researching my Ames and Palen families.  I have a block wall for my Ames and Palen lines. Oh how I wish I was related to Sarah Palin’s husband… as I might find my Palin’s.

5.   5.    Attend the Lifestyle Writing Class at Santiago College taught by Dawn Thurston and complete two stories.

6.    6.  Be an excellent Program Director for GSNOCC.

7.     7.  Clean up the clutter or the “genealogy cave” as blogger Randy Seaver of Gena-Musings put it.

8.     8.  Participate actively in the SLIG in Salt Lake City. That means write a story using the guidelines taught in my track. 

© 2009, copyright Nancy Peralta

MERRY CHRISTMAS to ALL

Merry Christmas!

WHAT DOES CHRISTMAS MEAN TO ME?

Family, friends, church, good company, food, Prime Rib, Presents!

What's In A Name (Isaiah 9:2-7)

"his name will be Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace"

CHRISTMAS

What's in the name?

Christ part of Christmas is the Christ who came to save the world

The "M" is Man. He was Christ the man among us. He came as a man

The "A" is Among us. He lived among us

The "S" is Savior of the world

The "mas" is Mass or Mass of people coming together to worship.

thus CHRISTMAS

Advent Calendar - Day 22

Advent Calendar Day 22 Christmas and Deceased Relatives


Did your family visit the cemetery at Christmas?

Yes we visited the Cemetery in December. It usually started out  every September where we put a Fall grave blanket on Grandma and Grandpa Fermazin’s graves in Lincoln Memorial Park,  Aurora, Illinois.  Every Fall my parents and my dad’s sister Lola bought a grave cover to be placed over the graves. In December a wreath was ordered and placed on the headstones. Even after we moved to California, my parents always ordered the grave blankets and wreaths.
Nowadays, my cousin, Karen and I carry on the tradition. I send the money to her in Illinois and she buys the grave blankets for our grandparents and has them placed on the graves.  We still do a wreath in December to carry on the tradition.
Now we just have more to remember.  Our grandparents and our parents.  I carry on the tradition in California, by placing a wreath on the headstones of my parents who are buried in California.

What are grave blankets?

Grave blankets are headstone coverings that are placed on the graves during cold weather winter months. You order them at the cemetery and they will usually place them. We always got a Fall theme and at Christmas we put a wreath on the headstone.


How did your family honor deceased family members at Christmas?

We sit around the Christmas Dinner table talking about oma and opa and recalling family memories of mom and dad and Christmas’ past.

* This post is part of the Advent Calendar of Christmas memories carnival by Thomas MacEntee at http://www.geneabloggers.com/preview-advent-calendar-christmas-memories/

You can go to geneabloggers.com to read the suggestions for each days Advent Calendar





Catherina POTT and Mathias LINDEN

>
GREAT GRANDPARENTS
LUXEMBOURGERS
Catherina (Katie) POTT was born on 2 March 1853 in Lipperscheid, Luxembourg. She was the daughter of Jean POTT and Susanne BIEVER of Michelau, Luxembourg. Katie and her brother, Nicholas POTT immigrated to the United States. We have not found the ship or immigration records at Castle Gardens or in Filby’s Germans to America. We think they arrived about 1871. They settled in Aurora, Illinois a Luxembourger community. Nicholas POTT was born 30 AUG 1857 in Flebour, Michelau, Luxemburg. He was married to Annie (Klein) WILLIAMSON b: 1862 in Aurora, Kane, Illinois on 11 April 1883. Nicholas POTT and his family later moved to Iowa.

Mathias LINDEN was born 27 March 1854 in Waldbillig, Luxembourg, the youngest child of Maria Margaretha WAGENER and Theodor Dietrich LINDEN. He immigrated to the United States in 1871 at the age of 14 with his father, Theodor Dietrich LINDEN and his brother, Pierre Peter LINDEN on the ship R.M.S. Abyssinia which left Liverpool July 17th . The ship manifest shows their departure as Denmark. They left Luxembourg to Liverpool and then on to the US.
Immigration of Mathias, Theodor Dietrich, and Pierre Peter Linden.
Source Citation: Year: 1871; Arrival: New York , United States; Microfilm serial: M237; Microfilm roll: M237_345; Line: 12; List number: 682.
Source Information: Ancestry.com. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Original data:
Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897; (National Archives Microfilm Publication M237, 675 rolls); Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36; National Archives, Washington, D.C.
Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957; (National Archives Microfilm Publication T715, 8892 rolls); Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Description:
 This database is an index to the passenger lists of ships arriving from foreign ports at the port of New York from 1820-1957. In addition, the names found in the index are linked to actual images of the passenger lists. Information contained in the index includes given name, surname, age, gender, arrival date, port of arrival, port of departure and ship name.
New York Passenger Lists Record
Theodor LINDEN
Name: Theodor LINDEN
Arrival Date: 17 Jul 1871
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1812
Age: 59
Gender: Male
Port of Departure: Liverpool, England and Queenstown, Ireland
Destination: United States of America
Place of Origin: Denmark
Ship Name: Abyssinia
Port of Arrival: New York
Line: 12
Microfilm Serial: M237
Microfilm Roll: 345
List Number: 682
Port Arrival State: New York
Port Arrival Country: United States


Mathias LINDEN and Catherina POTT

Mathias LINDEN and Katie POTT were married at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Aurora Illinois on 4 January 1882. Witnesses were Henry LINDEN and Margarete BIEVER

Matt LINDEN became a naturalized citizen in 1880 in the Circuit Court of Kane County, Illinois.
Source: Name: Mathius (alternate spelling) LINDEN
Year: 1880
Place: Illinois
Source Publication Code: 3703.1
Primary Immigrant: LINDEN, Mathius (alternate spelling)
Annotation: Date and place of declaration of intent or final papers. Extracted from records of the Elgin and Aurora City Courts and the Kane County Court/Circuit Court housed at the Circuit Court office in Geneva, the county seat. Copies of the original documents can be obtained from the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Kane County, Illinois, Box 112, Geneva, IL 60134.
Source Bibliography: KANE COUNTY, ILLINOIS NATURALIZATION RECORDS,1857-1906. Geneva, IL: Kane County Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 504, Geneva, IL 60134, 1988. 162p.
Page: 86
(Source: Ancestry.com)

Mathias LINDEN died very suddenly at his home 114 Forrest Ave, Aurora, Kane, Illinois, Sunday afternoon at 3 PM on 3 January 1909. Mr. LINDEN who was 54 years old suffered a stroke of apoplexy and despite the fact that Dr. Pulfer was summoned soon after he was stricken he passed away after an illness of a few hours. He leaves his widow, six children, Nicholas, Peter, Bernard, John, Mary, and Lena LINDEN all of Aurora.
(Source: Aurora Beacon News, January 4, 1909.)

The funeral was held at St. Joseph's Church. Interment at St. Joseph's Cemetery.


“The POTTs (originally wroted in 1730 Poott) came from Roth. Must be important people because one is titled Synodalis.Normally the = Second citizan after the major. But Roth was very larger as today . To Roth in the 17 an 18 century = belong also the Downtown of Vianden. Vianden was a majestic Castle and =
forteress. With big walls around . People living intra muros are baptisized in = Vianden. People outside the walls baptisized in Roth.”

(Source: Rob Deltgen [mailto:rdeltgen@pt.lu]=20
Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2004 1:52 AM)