Category: Fun stuff

Ancestral Birthplace Chart A Little Saturday Night Fun

Kris Hocker on 26 Mar 2016

Cropped 5 gen chart

So, Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night fun challenge was to create a color-coded ancestral birthplace chart. This chart has been popping up all over the genea-blogosphere in recent days and it seemed like a fun idea. I decided to play along, too.

5 generation birth location chart

The majority of my ancestors were born and lived in Pennsylvania from their arrival in the 18th century. So my five generation ancestral chart is not very colorful. With the exception of my birthplace and of a couple of latecomers from Scotland and Germany, it’s all the same color.

Extending the chart to six generations makes it a little more colorful, but not that much.

6 gen birthplace chart

Elizabeth (Buchanan) Bonnington’s birthplace is either Scotland or Ireland. Benjamin Houdeshell was born in West Virginia when it was still part of Virginia. And Reverend Frederic Waage was born in what is now part of Denmark, but was part of Germany at the time of his birth.

If I extended the chart to the immigrants for all those green boxes, the chart would still be nearly monochromatic. Most of those ancestors were born in Germany (or German-controlled locations such as Alsace-Lorraine), though some had ancestors born in Switzerland.

My Smith/Bonnington, Mulholland and Jones ancestors would add color as I would be able to add more Scotland and Ireland, as well as England and Wales to the palette. But here in the U.S. my ancestors were almost universally born in Pennsylvania, except for one line with connections to New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Saturday Night Fun: Two Degrees of Separation

Kris Hocker on 23 Jan 2016

Every Saturday, Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings posts a fun idea for a genealogy game. This week’s is two degrees of separation: How far back in time can you get through an ancestor you knew through someone they knew?

Clyde Hoover and great-grandaughter Kris Hocker

Clyde Hoover and great-granddaughter Kris Hocker

Paternal Line

As a child in 1969, I met my paternal great grandfather Clyde Hoover. He was born 30 October 1886 and died 13 May 1972 in Pine Glen, Burnside Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania. He knew his maternal grandparents—Jacob C. Walker (3 November 1833—24 July 1915) and Mary M. Eckley (8 July 1836—18 July 1911). He may have also known his maternal great grandfather John D. Eckley (ca 1814—23 November 1890).

Maternal Line

4 generations Waage-Wieder-Greulich-Hocker

Mae (Waage) Wieder and great-granddaughter Kris Hocker

I met my great grandmather Mary Catharine (Waage) Wieder as an infant, too. She was born 27 October 1877 to Dr. Charles T. Waage (22 October 1827—6 March 1921) and his second wife Lydia S. Eschbach (3 October 1845—7 May 1910) and died 28 November 1970. She was baptized by her grandfather, Rev. Frederic Waage on 29 November 1877. Rev. Waage was born 17 August 1797 in Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and died 23 August 1884 in Pennsburg, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

With only two degrees of separation, I can connect with a 4x great grandfather, born about 1814, in my paternal line and a 3x great grandfather, born in 1797, on my maternal line. So, I can connect with an ancestor born 171 years before me.

2015: The Year In Review

Kris Hocker on 31 Dec 2015

Happy New Year's

At this time of year, it’s become a tradition to look back at the highlights from the previous year. You see this a lot with television news programs… and online with blogs. So, here goes.

Looking Back

This year has not been a terribly prolific year for blog posts. I’ve done a fair amount of writing. It just hasn’t been for the blog. I wrote a total of 17 posts, as follows:

  • January: 2 posts
  • May: 3 posts
  • August: 3 posts
  • September: 2 posts
  • October: 3 posts
  • November: 2 posts
  • December: 2 posts (including this one)

Rather pathetic actually.

Perhaps that’s why the top ten viewed pages were all written in prior years and most have appeared on previous years’ top ten lists.1

  1. Jacob Hoover (ca 1746-1800) (#5 in 2014)
  2. Making a Deed Map from Old Metes and Bounds
  3. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (#9 in 2014)
  4. 5,000 Acres—Where Did It All Go?
  5. Andreas Huber Origins: Trippstadt, Ellerstadt, or Ittlingen? (#8 in 2014)
  6. Lancaster County Deed Books Online (#4 in 2014)
  7. Huber Immigrants (#6 in 2014)
  8. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (#7 in 2014)
  9. How to Use the Online Land Records at the PA State Archives (#3 in 2014)
  10. Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map (#2 in 2014)

Although I didn’t write much this year, I did improve over last year on the number of views and unique visitors—24,000+ and 11,000+, respectively. I hope that’s because more people are finding the information I’ve posted useful and relevant.

Looking Forward

However, I would like my total number of posts to go up in 2016!

Since I tend to write when I’ve research to report—or to organize said research into coherent conclusions—I’ve either not been terribly successful, or perhaps not so active with my family research.

I know I’ve been actively researching. But I’m the first to admit it’s been all over the place—work on my family lines, work for several writing projects, and just data collection for specific surnames. None of it significant enough to compile into a compelling article.

So, to accomplish my first goal of writing more, I’ve got to set another goal. To be more organized and targeted in my research.

This one I find difficult to do. Online access to records has spoiled me. I love that feeling of success when you find what you’re looking for. And the online data is so easily accessible it’s easy to get distracted as new questions come up—whether they pertain to the original research question or not.

But once you’ve tapped all the available online sources, it’s all too easy to get distracted or simply turn to another research question and start the process all over—never fully finishing the research on the first topic because you haven’t completed a “reasonably exhaustive” search by including offline records. Oy!

So, my goals for 2016—in order for everything else to fall in line—must be as follows:

  1. Focus – Pick a project, topic, or family line and focus on it.
  2. Plan – Decide on a research plan and stick to it. Plan out posts on the calendar; don’t wait for inspiration to strike.
  3. Write – Compile and organize the research results, then write them up. Write up what I already know for the people/topics in the calendar; feed this into the research plan to fill in the gaps.
  4. Share – And lastly, share what I’ve written. Maybe a reader will have more information or suggestions on where to look next.

Now to sit down and decide where I’m going to focus for 2016 and start planning.

How was your 2015?

Changes Coming Soon

Kris Hocker on 27 Aug 2015

There’s things afoot behind the scenes here. I’ve been working on a new design for sometime and finally got the time to work on coding it. That’s finally done. I’ve been putting the theme through it’s paces, testing it, and I’m happy to say it’s nearly finished.

So, keep an eye out. This site is going to have a new look—and maybe a new name—very soon!

2014 in Review

Kris Hocker on 31 Dec 2014

Top 10

On this last day of 2014, it’s time to take a look back. I don’t have specific goals for this website—other than to provide access to my family research. So, how did I do?

In 2014, I wrote 63 new posts with most posts being written in January—April and July—September. May, June and December were my worst months. Here is how the year stacked up:

  • January — 10 posts
  • February — 7 posts
  • March — 4 posts
  • April — 4 posts
  • May — 1 post
  • June — 2 posts
  • July — 13 posts
  • August — 9 posts
  • September —6 posts
  • October — 2 posts
  • November — 3 posts
  • December — 2 posts (including this one)

My longest writing streak? 2 days in a row.

I started the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge at the beginning of last year. The goal was to write a post about an ancestor each week. Although I started off well, my participation was rather hit or miss. I posted my last contribution at the beginning of September.

All told, I only wrote 22 posts for the challenge, less than 50% of the goal. Because I preferred to write about something new that I’d learned about each ancestor, it wound up being too time consuming. If I had just written about what I already knew, maybe I would have been more consistent. Sigh. I much prefer the hunt for new information and the reward of finding it over documenting it.

Although I didn’t write very often. I did receive more than 19,000 page views. All things considered that’s not too shabby for this little blog. Here are the ten most viewed pages of 2014:

  1. Andreas Huber (1723—1784) (#8 in 2013)
  2. Pennsylvania Warrant Township Maps (#9 in 2013)
  3. Andreas Huber Origins: Trippstadt, Ellerstadt, or Ittlingen? (#5 in 2013)
  4. Friday Finds: Trinity Lutheran Birth and Baptismal Records Online (#4 in 2013)
  5. Huber Immigrants (#7 in 2013)
  6. Jacob Hoover (ca 1746—1800) (#6 in 2014)
  7. Lancaster County Deed Books Online
  8. How to Use Online Land Records at the PA State Archives (#3 in 2013)
  9. Pennsylvania Genealogical County Map (#2 in 2013)
  10. Home Page/Archives (#1 in 2013)

Once again, most of these pages made the list in 2012 and 2013. It’s not surprising that the general information posts were popular. Nor is it a shock that the Huber family posts made this list—since the Hoover surname is one of my most researched!

I believe that more of those visitors who viewed the Andreas and Jacob Huber posts were more than likely looking for information on the ancestor of President Herbert Hoover. However, they do provide valuable information for the descendants of Andrew Hoover of Fayette County, Pennsylvania—who is frequently confused with the president’s immigrant ancestor. Although I’ve determined that I’m not a descendant, I’m glad I did the research and shared the results.

So, that’s a look at my blogging for 2014. What did your year look like?

Ahnentafel Roulette—#24 Karl Phillipp Greulich

Kris Hocker on 26 Jul 2014

Ahnentafel Roulette

Randy Seaver at Geneamusings posts a genealogy fun challenge every Saturday. Today is ahnentafel roulette. The rules are:

1) What year was one of your great-grandfathers born?  Divide this number by 80 and round the number off to a whole number. This is your “roulette number.”
2) Use your pedigree charts or your family tree genealogy software program to find the person with that number in your ancestral name list (some people call it an “ahnentafel” – your software will create this – use the “Ahnentafel List” option, or similar). Who is that person, and what are his/her vital information?
3) Tell us three facts about that person in your ancestral name list with the “roulette number.”
4) Write about it in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook status or a Google Stream post, or as a comment on this blog post.
5) NOTE:  If you do not have a person’s name for your “roulette number” then “spin” the wheel again – pick a great-grandmother, a grandfather, a parent, a favorite aunt or cousin, yourself, or even your children!  Or pick an ancestor!

So, I chose a great grandfather (in fact, I tried this will all four of them!), got his birth year (1880), and divided by 80. The number, rounded to a whole number, was 24 (all four times!).

Number 24 in my ahnentafel report was Karl “Charles” Phillipp Greulich.

Three facts about my great great grandfather are:

  1. Charles was born 13 September 1838 in Haag, Mosbach, Baden-Wurtemberg (now Germany) to Georg Phillipp Greulich and Anna Margaretha Wurzel.
  2. In 1755, when Charles was 17, his father died and his property went to his eldest (adopted) son Phillipp Peter, son of Georg’s first wife, Maria Katharina Lindenbach. Charles, his sister Eva, and their half-brother Georg Phillipp Jakob emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York on 28 January 1856.
  3. Charles was a shoemaker in East Greenville, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, who had fourteen children with his two wives—one with his first wife Susanna Krauss Wolf, and thirteen with his second wife, Susanna’s sister, Caroline Krauss Wolf. They were daughters of Joel and Elizabeth (Krauss) Wolf.

featured image photo credit: Håkan Dahlström via photopin cc