I took advantage of an offering on ancestry.com and was able to do some free research on my father's side of the family. I really enjoyed investigating things. My father passed away in 2001 and it hurts to realize that there were so many things that we did not know about him and his family. We were told that his father was an orphan so it would be hard to find out things.
Well, I found that his father's parents came from Germany. My great grandfather Martin came alone, and his soon to be wife, Anna came with her father and 2 sisters, Marie and Martha. Martin and Anna married in New York on June 7, 1906 (need to confirm). They lived in Kings county NY accoding to the 1910 cencus and had 4 children Martin, Frederick, William, and Louise. Anna died July 22, 1918. Jumping ahead to the 1920 census, I can see that Martin, Frederick, and William were living in the New York Juvenile Asylum as "inmates" They were 12, 11, and 9 years old. I found their sister was adopted by a family in NJ which come to find out was Anna's sister, Marie's family. I am having a difficult time finding out what happend to their father, Martin, but I do have his World War I draft card which was filled out in 1918 and he listed Marie as his nearest relative. Later in 1930, I can see that the boys Martin, Frederick and William were living with Marie's family in NJ as well. At that time they were 23, 21, and 19 years old. William who was my grandfather married Virginia and they had 9 children. My father was the oldest of them. Virginia died May 18, 1965 and William died May 15, 1973. My father, William Jr. of course, married my mother and they had 6 children.
My research on the rest of the family is still ongoing. It is alot of fun learning about the family and trying to put all the pieces together. One family member who is, I believe, my genereation has listed herself as a contact in one of the ancestry databases. I am going to try and contact her to see if she has any more pieces of the the puzzle. I have learned alot and there is alot more I want to know.
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How exciting! It's great learning about family. Especially when family that has passed may have never had a chance to find this information out. I found out that if I ever get the paper work in order, I would qualify to be a member of DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) My mom's maiden name is Crum which is German for crooked. Apparently,our family didn't have a very good reputation in Germany! My father's side are a bunch of "Oakies" homesteaders and pioneers. That's most likely where my small percentage of Cherokee comes from....Trail of Tears. One of my husband's ancestors was the 2nd governor of Virginia and, signed the Declaration of Independance, Thomas Nelson Jr. As with most signers, he "loaned" most of his wealth away towards building this nation and died a very poor man.
Interesting info regarding your family. My family history does not go back that far in the United States. I have seen passenger list documents from when my great grandparents came to the US from Germany. Lots of fun to research!!
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