Month: September 2012

  • October Birthdays in My Family Tree

    Happy October birthday to the leaves on my family tree including my dad, who would have been 81 on October 25th; and to my grandson and my niece, my cousins Cynthia and Rosemary, and my grandaunt Lucy. Happy birthday to Anna, David and Frank – my first cousins once-removed, to James – my first…

  • Chicago Research – Home Again

    Husband and I just returned from a genealogical vacation in Chicagoland. We explored records at the Gustafson Research Center in Batavia Illinois and at the Chicago History Museum, Harold Washington Library and Newberry Library. We visited several cemeteries including West Batavia, Rosehill, Graceland, Jewish Graceland and Wunders. We spent a day…

  • September Anniversaries

    Ah, wedded bliss. Not always the case in my family tree: My great-grandmother divorced her first husband and gave away their three children. A few years later Esther Ingeborg CLARIN married Charles Fredrick OTTO in Chicago, Cook, Illinois. I located their 10 Sept 1918  marriage certificate on familysearch.org where Esther’s name…

  • Pieces of String

    “Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Families are webs. [It is] impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating, impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.”¹…

  • September Birthdays

    Happy September birthday to the leaves on my family tree including my eldest incredible grandson, my nephew Zach, my uncle Ernie, my grand-uncle Fran, my cousin Michael, and to Andrea – my first cousin once-removed, Branden and Tyler – my first cousins-twice removed, and Joseph – my 4th cousin once-removed.…