Month: May 2018

In the Same Hand?

Working only with transcriptions can sometimes be a hindrance. Handwriting sometimes itself is a clue. The original wills of Antje Fecht and Mimke Habben appear to be written by the same person. They were written approximately thirteen years apart. There is no direct statement as to who wrote the wills. This is typical for the […]

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Was Granddad in the CCC in the 1930s?

Family tradition has it that my maternal grandfather, John H. Ufkes (1917-2003), served in the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. Traditions can often be wrong, so it’s possible that there are no such records. I’ve made a request for the records and will have an update when the records have arrived or I […]

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DNA Suggests Short-Term Relationship–and the Potential for Reactions

I’m working on analyzing DNA test results for an individual whose mother was likely the result of a “short-term” relationship his grandmother had late in 1912 while she was married to someone else. Without going into details, the DNA matches (shared and, more importantly unshared) confirm this suspicion. While “short-term relationship” is a nicely worded […]

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ELCA Records on Ancestry.com–Avoiding Confusion

Ancestry.com has two seemingly similar record sets: “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA] Church Records, 1826-1945” “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America[ELCA], Swedish American Church Records, 1800-1946.” Researchers can potentially get them confused. “U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America [ELCA] Church Records, 1826-1945” does not contain records of every ELCA congregation. The digital images that Ancestry.com […]

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Farm Bureau: Farmers Helping Farmers

If one is not careful, one’s bookshelf can grow at an exponential rate. Mine increased by one with the purchase of Farmers Helping Farmers: The Rise of the Farm and Home Bureaus, 1914-1935 by Nancy K. Berlage. According to family lore, my great-grandfather Habben had no use for the Farm Bureau. The reasons have been lost […]

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Where Did They Get Hitched?

I’m not much on writing prompts, but since I just located the “missing” marriage information on my last set of great-great-grandparents, I thought I’d look at the locations of where my parents through my great-great-grandparents were married, just to see what patterns and trends there were. My parents: Carthage, Hancock County, Illinois My grandparents Keithsburg, […]

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