Lost and Found

In Relief Society a few weeks ago they passed around a paper asking if we could trace our family lines back four generations. I honestly couldn't, so I marked no. And I felt really bad about it, especially when my roommate got her mission call and one of the things she's supposed to bring is her four-generational pedigree and family stories. I knew someone in the family must have that knowledge, but I didn't, and after all the talks on doing temple work and redeeming our own family's dead, I thought I should hop to it, lazy daisy!

I began by pushing my tree as far back as I could. This took me two days, and most of my ancestors (our ancestors, I should say, since only Rachel and Liz ever read this) can be traced as far as the 1600s, some even earlier. Did you know we have a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother named Tame Doe? She was Cherokee, or at least grew up among them.

Then I went back and started to fill in the holes, especially focusing on the ancestors who don't go that far back. For instance, Alpheus Bulen didn't appear to have a wife. I found a record of Eliza Jane, who he listed as his wife and beneficiary if he died in action. (Good thing, too--he kicked the bucket in Arkansas in 1865 during the Civil War. I think it must be his poster-thing hanging in Grandma Trudy's living room.) Then I went on and found the action record of his marriage:

Bonus points! It lists Isaac Brown and Sally (other census records indicate she might have been called Salina or Selira, but handwriting wasn't so good back then) as Eliza Jane's parents. Now, because the marriage was in 1848, Eliza just missed the boat on the 1850 US Federal Census, but it's okay, because all of Isaac and Sally's other children made it. For these records, I searched for Wisconsin as their residency and was quickly armed with their birthplaces as New York (Isaac) and New Jersey (Sally), in addition to their respective birth years. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people named Isaac and Sally in those places at that time, so I haven't been able to trace them back further--yet.

So I began to explore Isaac and Sally's other children, like John Brown, and I found a lot of names. I added Americus (what a name!) and his children, and then I added Byron's family and turned to Jay's.

To find someone's family, I start by looking up their name, birth year, and place of birth so I can find them in at least one of US Federal Census. I try to give a few years in the birth range, like 1886-1889, since they were often estimates and fluctuated. Jay appears to be born in 1887 or 1888, depending on the record, and of course was born in Wisconsin. Here are some of the results I got for Jay Brown:

You'll notice in his first record (1900 census), Jay has the middle initial "S."

In the 1910 census record, he is Jay L Brown. I chose to go with this variation because it was more recent and because he is referred to as Jay L in a later record (keep reading and you'll see what I mean).

By 1920, Jay appears to be married and has joined her family. I am really excited by records like this because it lists not only Jay and his spouse, but also his spouse's family so I know her maiden name. Two questions: Where's Pomerania? Where's Hesse? Keep reading!

Here's Jay L Brown in the 1930 census. For a moment I had doubts, but there's someone (a possible relative?) rooming with them who has the last name Gaske. And Helen is a far cry from Herma, but then again, it's basically impossible to read the record that supposedly says Herma (trust me, I looked at it closely), so I think it's a win-win. And if you had any doubts...

Here's the 1940 census, and Christine Garski is listed as mother-in-law (1920 was Christina Garske, so I think we have a fit). It also appears Pomerania is Germany. There's a little bit of a discrepancy in age, but that happens. And the children's names match the 1930 census. I think we've found a family that was previously lost.

So now I search for census, birth, and marriage records for the Garske/Garski family to try to add Jay's wife Herma/Helen/Helene and all of her family as accurately as possible. And Jay and Helen's children, Leslie and Virginia, will be added soon, too.

Isn't this fun?

And look, I found Helena Albertin Garske's birth record. And it even has her mother's maiden name: Seipp. Isn't this fun!

As it turns out, there's already a match for her in the system! I added Helena Albertin Garske, and it turns out her baptism, confirmation and initiatory were done in the Nuku'alofa Tonga Temple in 2003 and 2004. However, her parents' work has not been done, and she still needs her work finished, and maybe soon she can be sealed to her parents, siblings, husband and children.