WANDERINGS FROM YOUR PRESIDENT
BY GAYLE STUART
I used to have a life, and then I started doing genealogy.
How many of you have all photos, documents, stories and whatever else you have collected over the years in notebooks or file folders so you know where everything is? Do you have all information put together in order so a story can be written? This is not something I have done myself. It is an ongoing project.
We all probably think what more could I possibly find. I know that each time we make the trip to Minnesota to see my family, we come back with something more. This time it was more pictures of my Dad’s side of the family. I had a cousin who had to move and in going through her things; they found more pictures.
When we were in Minnesota, we also went to the cemetery and I had Leo witch a lot to see how many gravesites were empty for sure. We found an unmarked grave of a male. Who is this?
Also, this summer we went to a Norwegian research center in Wisconsin, hoping to find some things on the Norwegian side of my family. For years a cousin and I have been looking for a GG Grandfather, Ole Nilsen. We knew that he left Norway and was going to the community of Spring Prairie, Wisconsin. We have been unable to find anything on him there. The rest of the family were in the church records for confirmation and communion and it was recorded when they left that parish, but not Ole. I thought maybe he died at sea and we have not found a ship record either. When at this research center, a notebook of recently found records from the Spring Prairie church was given to me to look at. I found a document that listed Ole, his wife and 3 sons as transferring membership from Norway to Spring Prairie. Where did Ole go after this? There is no record of his death in the church books and we have walked the cemetery around the church – nothing. The thinking is that he may have died that 1st year. If so, what did his wife do to support herself and 3 sons?
I have spent some time going through the 1855 Wisconsin Census records, again nothing. The 1860 census brought up a couple possibilities, but the children were not with her. The oldest boy could have been only 10 – 11 years old at that time. The church records listed her as leaving Spring Prairie in 1869 and she is in the 1870 Census in Worth County, Iowa.
I am having a person in Denmark try to find an answer to a couple questions I have on the Danish side of my family. It turned up a couple more questions. So you can see one problem solved creates 2 more unanswered questions in its place.
This time I talked about what is going on in my family and, as you can see, it is going to take some time for me to find answers. It is my hope that you all have some problems that need solving so you can keep enjoying your research.
GbS