Back In the Saddle Again

The itch to write has been bugging me for too, too long. So here I am once again blogging about my family history research after a break of over 3 years.. Plus it's my 200th post, so why not? 

The biggest news recently is that my WikiTree profile of my great-grandfather William Frederick Ogden (mapapa) was awarded "Gold Standard: Genealogically Complete and Peer Reviewed." Yay for me! His profile was one that I did for the Profile Improvement Project in WikiTree. (A great and rewarding experience. Highly recommend.) I chose him for that project because I didn't feel I had enough info on him. Now I obviously have more than enough. 

I still have profiles for my paternal grandparents and my other 7 great-grandparents that are ready for Gold Standard review. I've gotten some feedback on a couple of them. It appears that the best thing for me to do is join the monthly "Go for Gold" challenge on WikiTree, submit one for the month, and see if I can get one profile accepted each month. 

Here the other family history projects I have on my plate right now:

• Application for Certificate of Canadian Citizenship. My great-grandfather William Ogden (see above) was born in Ontario. His parents were born in New Brunswick and Ontario. His paternal grandparents were born in New Brunswick. His other ancestors were born in Scotland or were Loyalists who moved to New Brunswick after the revolution. I think 5 ancestors born in Canada should be enough to qualify me.

•  Everard Huigen's (papapapa) military records. I recently discovered a Dutch military record for my 2xgreat-grandfather. I had no idea he had served. This opens up a whole new chapter in his life for me. I posted the record to the Dutch Genealogy Facebook Group and was rewarded with 2 more military records of his and some explanation of what they say in Dutch. He was drafted and served from 1846 to 1851 in the Artillery and Horse Artillery. I think I will need to hire someone to transcribe and translate the records for me. I also want to find out if there are more military records for him.
• Resolve duplicate WikiTree profiles. During the last WikiTree Connect-a-Thon, I came across duplicate profiles for a pair of my 3xgreat-grandparents in WikiTree: Johann Toemmes and Maria Schmitt (papapamapa and papapamama). I need to determine all the sources for these two from my records and from the duplicate profiles and merge them into a single, well sourced pair of profiles.
•  Photos. After my brother's death two years ago, I took possession of his photo collection and my parents' collection, which he had.There is a lot to do on thousands of these photos. Some are duplicates, triplicates, and beyond, Some I have already scanned and processed. Some have when, who, and where on them; others do not. It is very overwhelming and hard to figure out an efficient process for working through them.

If all that seems like a lot, I agree. Overwhelming at times.

I also have many stories to share about my ancestors and I created this blog for that purpose. Here are some of those that I'd like to get around to posting:

•  My great-grandfather who was hit over the head with a bottle at a 4th of July party
• The same great-grandfather whose house burnt down
• My Dutch 3xg-grandfather who served in  the French National Guard during the Napoleonic Wars
•  My 2xg-grandfather who fell to his death off of a bridge down to the river 30' below
• My 11xg-grandfather who lived in Haworth, Yorkshire, England 300 years before the Bronte family
•  The Orphan Train adoption of my dad's Uncle Charlie
• My parents' first date

Please let me know if any of those stories sound like something you'd like to know more about.  

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 8 "I Can Identify"

I have had my Ogden relations on my mind recently. First I wrote about Jonathan Ogden for Week 7. Next the Relative at Roots Tech site showed me 6099 people attending Roots Tech this week who were purportedly related to me. As I checked them out, I discovered that on the FamilySearch tree someone had made my colonial American ancestor John Ogden of Rye the son of John Ogden the Pilgrim. Now I know that in the past there had been speculation that they were cousins, but no one had ever suggested that they were father and son. <big eye roll>. I did not look closely, but I'm betting that the family tree extending far into the past for John the Pilgrim included the false information from the Wheeler book. (I wrote about that in Week 5.)

I give up on the FamilySearch Tree. It is too hard to fight off the false genealogies that show up there.

On the other hand, I decided to go look and see what was on WikiTree for my John Ogden. The global tree there is far more reliable. I knew that there had been further research on him published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record. It's been on my To Do List to get down to the Newberry Library and read the articles for quite a while. I was hoping that the WikiTree entry for John Ogden of Rye had been updated with the new information. AND IT HAD!!

John Ogden of Rye is now listed as the nephew of John Ogden the Pilgrim. My John Ogden's WikiTree biography now includes a great discussion and overview of all the research on him. He is the brother of NY colonial Richard Ogden. They are the sons of Richard Ogden, brother of The Pilgrim, and Ellen Lupton. Ellen is a brand new person on my tree and Lupton is a brand new surname. Welcome!

It is still an open question as to whether the elder Richard Ogden came to the colonies with his sons or stayed in England. There seems to be evidence of two Richard Ogden's, father and son, in the colonial NY records. You can read more about it in their WikiTree biographies.

Richard, Ellen, and their sons are from...wait for it...Yorkshire! West Yorkshire to be current and specific. Ellen is from Keighley and Richard from Bingley, as are John and Richard. Now I have a location in England for my Ogden line. Last summer my wife and I spent a week with my stepson and his children in York. I was only 32 miles from the places where my Ogden ancestors came from! Damn! If only I had known!

And it doesn't end there. The Ogden tree on WikiTree goes all the way back to my 11th great-grandfather John Ogden who was born about 1524 in Haworth, Yorkshire and died there in 1576. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Michael and All Angels. 

I can identify my Ogden ancestors back 500 years to an 11th great-grandfather. As far as I can tell that is now the farthest back I can trace any line on my tree.

A trivial aside: Haworth is where the Bronte sisters lived three hundred years after my ancestor. The church where he is buried is where their father was the parson. Possibly one of the sisters wandered through the churchyard and saw my ancestor's headstone. You never know.

I spent some time this week adding my 2nd great-grandfather, James Robert Ogden, to WikiTree and linking him to the existing profile for his father Robert Ogden. That takes my Ogden line on WikiTree across thirteen generations from my late mother to my 11th great-grandfather. I added my only living Ogden uncle to WikiTree in the hopes that I could add the Y-DNA test I had him take several years ago. However, WikiTree only lets you add DNA tests to your own profile. Still it is amazing that his Y-DNA and his son's and their sons and their sons (and the son of my mom's older brother who died many years ago) goes back 500 years to a man who lived in Yorkshire at the time of Shakespeare.

Bonus trivia: now that my tree is connected back to all the Ogden related lines, I can verify that I am a 9th cousin of Humphrey Bogart. The Budd sisters Jane and Judith of Sussex and colonial NY are our 7th great-grandmothers.