Category: family history research
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The House that Tønnes Built
One of many treasured memories from last year’s trip to Scandinavia was an overnight visit to Sogndalstrand. A Norwegian newspaper article from 1987 told of a house built there by my 3rd great-grandfather Tønnes Christiansen. It is still standing. Across the street from Tønnes’ house is the lovely Sogndalstrand Kulturhotell…
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Monumental Perspective
My 2nd great-grandmother Elisabeth Schmitt had 13 known siblings. One of her younger brothers, Emile, married the daughter of a beer baron in Cincinnati and played an instrumental role in the John Kauffman Brewing Company in the late 19th century. Although I am not related to John Kauffman, I have…
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A Week of Ancestors
April 14-20 BIRTHS: 200 years ago this week, my 3rd great grandfather Johan Peter Landström was born in Göteryd parish in Kronoberg, Sweden. He was the sixth-born child of a master blacksmith (mäster smed) and as a young man became a blacksmith himself. Johan raised six sons, most of whom…
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In the Old Genealogy Days
Today’s three-ring binder re-do project (sorting, scanning, printing, recycling, future research planning) is focused on a binder labelled “Peder Mysse Tønnesson aka Peter Thompson 03 Jun 1857 – 10 Apr 1938”. Peter is my 2nd great-grandfather. I’ve been piecing his life story together for decades,. While going through the papers…
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A Week of Ancestors
April 7 to 13 My mother called her grandpa ‘Boppa’. Harry Wilhelm Tolf was my mother’s maternal grandfather born April 7, 1884, in Batavia, Kane, Illinois. Harry’s parents were Swedish immigrants who raised their three children in the far west suburb of Chicago. The family was tightly knit; when Harry’s…
