Michael John Neill's Genealogy Website
The German researcher was able to locate six children of Johann Georg and Sophia Elisabetha (Derle) Trautvetter in the kirchenbuch from Wohlmuthausen, Germany: Anna Elisabetha born 19 June 1833 Elisabetha born 4 May 1835 boy–stillborn on 23 January 1838 Johann Michael born on 22 June 1839 George Adolph born 16 August 1842 Christian Friedrich Theodor […]
Yesterday’s Genealogy Tip of the Day, “Take the 1890 Census You May Learn Something,” got me to thinking more about the general concept of problem-solving by “creating records” on a person of interest. The point of the 1890 census tip was for people to think about what their relative’s 1890 census enumeration would have looked like […]
My knowledge of early twentieth century “movements” and causes is not what it should be. Consequently I’m not exactly certain what the “Men’s Forward Movement” actually was. But they were meeting in the Hall of the Evangelical Church on 7 January 1912 at 2:30 in the afternoon in Warsaw, Hancock County, Illinois and they were […]
There are quite a few lessons (or reminders) one can get from the 1905 passport application of John Goldenstein. United States passport applications are available at FamilySearch, and at Ancestry.com. Both sites have indexes to the passports that are for the passport applicant only. Other names that may be listed on the passport are not indexed. The number of […]
I recently posted “Complete 1890 Census Released!” as a page on this blog. While I am no fan of “click bait” or “fake news,” I posted it to make a point. Stories, genealogical and otherwise, get shared, forwarded, reposted, and rebroadcast in other ways without being completely read or viewed. Headlines are written by some […]
John Goldenstein applied for a passport in Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory, in 1905. The native of Wrisse, Germany, was intending to be in Germany for approximately three months. The reason for his trip is not stated on his passport application. One of the most interesting parts of his application is the chronology of where he […]
My grandmother Ufkes (Dorothy Alice [Habben] Ufkes [1924-2008]), always told me that her grandfather Goldenstein made several return trips to Germany. According to family tradition he took barbed wire back on one return trip because his relatives could not purchase it in Ostfriesland where he was from. But the barbed wire didn’t work because it […]
3 November 1873 the steamship Weser arrived in New York City. Focke Goldenstein was on board. As we saw in an earlier blog post, Focke’s father had written a letter in support of his immigration in September of 1873. In that post, I indicated that Focke probably never saw his parents (Johann Lucken and Tjode […]
One always has to be thinking and paying attention when searching. It also helps to never assume anything. Searches on FamilySearch with the “exact box” unchecked give the searcher a broad set of results, more results than if an exact search was conducted. The results from an “unexact” search are based upon variants of the name. […]
It’s difficult to imagine sending your sixteen year old child to a foreign land knowing that you’ll probably never see them again. But that’s exactly what the Goldenstein family in Wrisse, Ostfriesland, Germany was preparing to do in the fall of 1873. On 23 September 1873, Johann Goldenstein wrote a letter about his teenaged son, […]
