Ice Cream

In my family, ice cream is king. My dad had to have a dish of ice cream before bed each night. He inherited this from his mother. A weakness for ice cream is a sure sign that you are descended from them.

I was looking for some information on my grandmother's uncles who all settled for a time in and around LeMars, Plymouth County, IA. Her uncle Richard "RH" Kain served three terms as mayor of LeMars.

Imagine my surprise when I came across the following here:

Le Mars is recognized as "The Ice Cream Capital of the World" because more ice cream is made here by a single company (Wells' Dairy, makers of Blue Bunny) than in any other city in the world -- more than 100 million gallons. Enjoy the annual Ice Cream Days festival each June, and the popular Plymouth County Fair, Iowa's second largest.

Well that sure explains  a lot! My great-great-uncle was mayor of "The Ice Cream Capital of the World." I think I'll go have a dish of vanilla to celebrate.

Tombstone Tuesday: Helena Fitzler

This is the grave marker for my great-great-grandmother, Anna Helena (Schmitt) Fitzler.

I have not yet been able to locate her husband's grave. That would be my great-great-grandfather John Wymer Fitzler. I'm pretty sure he died in Marshall Co., IL. Thanks to a recently found obituary for Helena that I wrote about here, I've managed to narrow down the date of his death to around 1892. I'll find him eventually.

Getting organized

I have been working on getting my paper files organized. I started by following "Dear Myrtle's" system of Surname Notebooks. It looks like she moved the web pages describing her method, but Randy Seaver has a good overview here. I especially liked the idea of using the Surname Notebooks as coffee table books that people could browse through.

Then I read all about Barry J. Ewell's color-coded folder system. I liked that way of organizing paper records, too. Oh, who am I kidding, I'm a sucker for any thing organizational. I could spend a ton of money at the Container Store.

While Barry's method seemed straight-forward and well thought out, I didn't want to abandon my Surname Notebooks. So I started creating a hybrid system.

I have a notebook for each surname. They are labeled with the surname and numbered by the ahnentafel number of the female ancestor who introduced that name into my tree. So I have 1-Huigens (which is actually two notebooks, one for just for me, my wife and my offspring), 3-Ogden, 5-Kain, 7-Johnson, etc.

I have divided each notebook by family as Barry suggests with his folders. I put a family group sheet for each family in a clear plastic protective sheet. Then I used 2" clear, self-adhesive index tabs to turn each family group sheet into a divider sheet. For the main family lines, I put the tabs near the top of the page and labeled each with the husband and wife for that family. I put the oldest families first, so that the notebooks are chronological from front to back.

For all the other family sheets, I created an insert with just the relative's name, put the tab in the middle along the edge and arranged the children in birth order behind their parents' sheet. Information about the direct ancestors, starting with a marriage record, goes in protective sheets in chronological order after the main family tab; information about the children and their families goes in protective sheets behind each child's tab. For my direct ancestors, I put the tab on a sheet holding their birth certificate, if I had it. Otherwise, I just used a duplicate family group sheet until I can find a document relating to their birth or baptism. I also used a yellow highlighter on the tab insert with their name on it to make it easier to identify my ancestors.

So this is where I'll put all my hard copy records and documents. I also bought some protective sheets for holding 4x6 photos that will make the notebooks more interesting for people to peruse. It turns out that page after page of records is none too exciting to those not bitten by the genealogy bug.

So far the system is working out well. I've set up the two Huigens notebooks. A grand total of four families in the second of them: my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents and my great-great-grandparents. That's it until I can take my Dutch line back across the Atlantic. I've also just finished my Ogden notebook. My mom's paternal line goes back to John Ogden and Judith Budd in colonial New York. I think I had to make tabs for eight or nine different families and some of them had up to fourteen children. Needless to say, it took a while to get that book set up. Next up will be the Kains, which is only two families. The Strayer notebook will be another one with a lot of families going back to my German ancestors in colonial Pennsylvania.

The only issue that I'm struggling with is what to do with my grandmothers who had prior or subsequent marriages. One of my options is to put them in the surname book of their husband who is my ancestor, but why would Catherine Toemmes marriage to Nicholas Wend after my g-g-grandfather died belong in the Huigens notebook? Who would think to look for it there? I could put it back in the Toemmes notebook, but that seems unsatisfactory, too. I may just create a separate notebook and file those families in alphabetical order by the husband's surname or my grandmother's maiden name. That just leaves me with finding a way to let someone looking at a surname notebook know that a prior or subsequent family for the mother exists with information on half-brothers and sisters filed somewhere else. I'd appreciate any suggestions on dealing with this.

Surname Saturday: 75 - Jacobs

Another German surname. There's a few more of them on the way.

1. Kevin Joseph HUIGENS

2. Joseph Anthony HUIGENS
3. Shirley Ann OGDEN

4. Joseph Andrew HUIGENS (b. 9 Mar 1891 near Creighton, Knox Co., NE, m. 18 Feb 1914 at St. Ludgers Catholic Church in Creighton, Knox Co., NE, d. 8 Nov 1957 in Rushville, Sheridan Co., NE)
5. Mary Julia KAIN (b. 19 May 1896 in Knox Co., NE, d. 29 Apr 1979 in Rushville, Sheridan Co., NE)

8. John Edward HUIGENS (b. 15 Jun 1862 near Henry, Marshall Co., m. 28 Jan 1884 at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Henry, Marshall Co., IL, d. 12 Apr 1949 in Creighton, Knox Co., NE)
9. Mary FITZLER (b. 22 Feb 1866 in Marshall Co., IL, d. 6 Feb 1949 in Creighton, Knox Co., NE)

18. Johan Wimer "Wymer" FITZLER (b. 23 Jul 1832 in Wolperath, Rhein Province, Prussia, m. at St. Patrick Catholic Church, LaSalle, LaSalle Co., IL, d. abt 1888 in Marshall Co., IL)
19. Anna Helene SCHMITT (b. 17 Aug 1833 in Eischeid, Rhein Province, Prussia, d. 20 May 1904 in Creighton, Knox Co., NE)

36. Wimar FITZLER (b. 29 Dec 1774 in Wolperath, Palatinate, HRE, m. 25 Aug 1820 in Neunkirchen, Juelich-Cleves-Berg Province, Prussia, d. after 1834 in Prussia)
37. Anna Margaretha FELDER (b. 9 Apr 1798 in Wiescheid, Palatinate, HRE, d. after 1834 in Prussia)

74. Heinrich FELDER (b. Niederhorbach, Germany)
75. Anna Christina JACOBS

That's it. That's all I have on my Jacobs line. Just a name for a great-great-great-great-grandmother from some time around the beginning of the 19th century.

Abundant Genealogy: Weeks 15 and 16

I've fallen behind on this, so it's time to catch up

Week 15: Volunteers: Tell us about a volunteer you appreciate. What does this person do for the genealogical community? How has he or she touched your heart?
This is your chance to show some love for those who selflessly give their time to family history.

This was a tough one. My choice is only marginally genealogy related but I have to say I am truly grateful to Tom Bogner and his work on preserving the cemetery near Henry, IL that sits in the middle of a cornfield. My great-great-grandfather Evert Huigens/Eberhard Heigens and his mother-in-law, my great-great-great-grandmother Maria (Schmitt) Toemmes are buried there. Without Tom's efforts to protect the cemetery from the encroachment of the farmer who owns the land surrounding it, I don't think the remains of two of my ancestors would have a chance of remaining undisturbed.

Week 16: Tech Toys: Genealogists love their technology toys! Which tech gadget do you appreciate the most? How has this tool enhanced your family history experience? Would you recommend it to others?

I don't have nearly enough tech toys. My most useful one is a digital camera. It's come in handy at cemeteries and family gatherings. I hope to be able to use it when I make my first trip to a court house and come across documents that cannot be photocopied. Maybe I'll give it a trial run at a library, where I have the backup option of photocopying.