where2look4ancestors

Join me as I search for ancestors in England, Germany, France, Isle of Man, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA.

  • A Place for Everything

    A Place for Everything

    Over the next few months, I will drastically reduce my work-away-from-home hours. Knowing I’ll have more time to delve into family history research, sewing projects, and the next great novel, I started seeing my home office with new eyes. My family history research is in binders labeled with my ancestors’…

  • Happy New Year

    Happy New Year

    A new year. A chance to do more things. Do better things. Perhaps do more things in better ways. 2024 will be a year of change for me. My work-outside-the-home hours will be reduced by half. What shall I do with “extra” time? I started by asking myself what was…

  • One Swedish Ancestor at a Time

    One Swedish Ancestor at a Time

    Födelse- och dopböcker (birth and baptism) registers begin in 1869 in the Tånnö church archives at Riksarkivet. This can be a challenging area for research because of fires that destroyed a number of church records. However, it is possible to verify the 1863 birth date of Anders Gustaf Linnell, the…

  • The First Child of the First Child

    The First Child of the First Child

    My long-running daydream about a someday trip to Scandinavia has been updated to planning a trip that will take place within the next few months. Yippee (and eek)! This means my 2022 genealogy goal of finding all the living descendants of my Swedish and Norwegian 4th great-grandparents moved up to…

  • Infamous Neighbors

    How do people in a neighborhood react when they learn an alleged serial killer had been living among them? Herman Webster Mudgett (1861 – 1896), better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes, was an American con artist and alleged serial killer who lived at South Wallace…

  • Finding A Grave

    My French third great grandmother Marie Anne Schmitt (née Gury) died sometime between June 1860 and June 1870. According to the 1860 census, Marie Anne (called Mary here), her husband Nicolaus (recorded as Nick) and eight of their children lived in Cincinnati, presumably in the Over the Rhine neighborhood. Their…

  • How Far is Too Far Removed?

    I don’t recall how I stumbled upon the information that led me to Anna, but her married surname rang a bell. I’d seen it on a passenger list, connected to a man who was coming to America to see his sister. The passenger (Johan Gustaf ~ line 8 below), and…

  • There’s More to this Story

    My dad’s paternal grandparents married young. Very young actually, Gustav Robert Mangels was 18 when he and 16 year old Esther Ingeborg Clarin tied the knot. They were married in a Lutheran church which may explain the embellishment of their ages on their marriage certificate. Both Gustav and Esther had…

  • Twins from Tånnö

    Twin (tvilling) girls were born in the Ny family of Tånnö, Jönköping, Sweden on the 8th of January 1910; Anna Gunborg Kristina and Greta Tarborg Katrina. The girls were baptized January 27th. In addition to their births, the entries in Tånnö’s Births and Baptisms Book includes information about the girls’…

  • Swedish Research on Riksarkivet

    Carl Magnus Carlson was the second of four illegitimate children born to my 2nd great-grandmother Maja Stina Carlsdotter. The page on which Carl’s birth was recorded tells more than just that; Swedish records offer a wealth of related information. The pages shown here are among the thousands of records available…