Genealogy Huntress

I consider myself a genealogist, amateur, but I'm pretty good at being patient when hunting and searching the internet for anything and everything I might get my hands on for my family history.  

But what happens after that?

I'm still trying to come up with something that will work for all of my data, my documentation, and mostly for the stories that I do have, few that they are.  

I don't want them getting lost in a shuffle of papers after I'm gone.  So I guess going digital is the best way to handle it.  I have been putting my stories into one little blog blurb after another.  My sister was getting an email every time I posted, and she told me I needed to put these on Facebook.  Well, I spent all last summer posting a photo every day, putting what little I knew about each photo, or persons, in some kind of story.  But the family?  eh.  They looked but barely acknowledged the efforts.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing this for some kind of kudos or a thumbs up "like" from folks.  I just think it's information that needs to be recorded, to be shared.  Because I honestly believe that it's hard to know where you're going if you don't know where you come from.  

Or maybe I'm just some kind of "not your ordinary" person who thinks all of this is important.  Does it matter where the family came from?  Or who did what and when?  Maybe not.  But I'm very interested in trying to locate our history.  Maybe it became ... ok, I'll admit it ... an obsession when none of my grandparents were willing to discuss anything of the past.  At all.  Grandma Myrtle would always tell me "just let sleeping dogs lie".  Grandpa Pape, he never even got the name of this father's sister correct.  We always thought it was Anna.  Turns out it was Emma!   Or that they traveled here with their Uncle when then emigrated.  What's the big deal? And Great Grandpa's wife, no one truly knew her maiden name, and there wasn't any discussion as to why she was committed into Fergus Falls State Hospital -- back then it was because you weren't .... stable enough to live a complete life?

All these little oddities that come up -- I have always looked for answers.  Haven't gotten many, and some of the research has been difficult, because in many cases, farming families were too poor to even have a burial or a headstone, so that data just disappears as well.  

It always makes me wonder if somewhere down the line, some great grandchild of mine will inherit my genealogy bug.

I hope so.

Genealogy!

I'm addicted.  I go through starts and stops, looking for data and photos.   My project over the summer has been to put stories and descriptions to the photos of us growing up.  Because a photo has little meaning if you don't give it some perspective, something people can relate to!  This is a photo of  Emma Pape Beckman.

And with all the technology these days, all the things being digitized, you just never know what you're going to find when you search out something.

My latest?  My great grandfather traveled to America in 1882 with his sister.  I was always told her name was Anna.  Turns out, it's Emma!  And after some trial and error and hours of research, I finally found that she decided she was going to be a part of this great nation.  She got herself a claim of land in "Dutch Point"  North Dakota.  (Later to be Nelson County, then Tolna).  She married the man who's land bordered hers.  But I also found a description of life on that prairie!

Emma Pape came to America and to Grand Forks with her uncle, Fred Forrester, in 1882. There her uncle started the first meat market in that new town with a Mr. Dobmeyer.   With uncounted acres of "free land" on every side the young woman, Emma Pape, soon staked out a claim on what was known as "Dutch Point".   She met the conditions of a strange land and reacted as did all the pioneers who stuck to their land.  In the following year, 1885, Emma was married to Charles Beckman whose homestead joined hers.

Their honeymoon was a train trip from Grand Forks to Michigan, from which point Charles walked to his pre-emption, returning the next day with a yoke of oxen and a new wagon to take his bride to their prairie home.   They were destined to live their for four decades.   Their house was a 10 by 10 shack.   They proved 320 acres of land on the spot where the present farmstead now is located.

After a few months in the tiny shack, the Beckman's built a 12 by 18 home on the line between their two claims.   This seemed luxurious after living in the small quarters where bedding and other things had to be put outside each day to make room for the daily activities.   The furniture in the first home consisted of one wooden bedstead, a second hand dresser, cook stove, and two chairs.   The carpenter who built the 12 by 18 house also built a table and some shelves, and also a bench.

Now... can you imagine?  Living in a 10x10 shack?  The two of you. Yikes!  And even their home being 12x18, and raising five kids in there.  Granted, it doesn't say but after a convo with my mom, I'm betting this new home had a sleeping loft for the kids!  Spring, Summer, Fall, you can spend a lot of time outdoors, but winter in North Dakota!??  Brrrrr!!!!   All 7 people holed up .... Yep, I'd have me a bad case of cabin fever in just a few days!

Summer Project

Every year during our "winter time" here in the desert -- yes, to the rest of the world that means summer.  But here, today, at 108 degrees, being outside doesn't happen if I don't have to.  So every year, I fiddle around with a project.  Last year it was home improvement DIY projects with Brian's room.  This year .... I need something that doesn't cost money now that I'm making car payments again.  ugh.

So I decided that I'm going to try and chronicle my growing up years.  I'll select a few photos and write about what was going on at the time.  I've been doing the same in my photo albums, 2 or 3 pages a day.  Because what good is a photo if you don't know anything else about it ??  

I'll admit, sometimes it's difficult to write something about a photo -- your child age 2 wearing someone's sunglasses ... not much needs to be said, I'm thinking!   It's just cute :)  But ... I do make sure there's a name and date on the photo ... because future generations might want to know!   And because my daughter and my granddaughter look like twins born 20 years apart!   :)

I'll be posting these stories in a different blog..  Not sure why I started it elsewhere, but at one point .... well,  that's water under the bridge.

It's danipape.blogspot.com - Where Family Memories Live On  if you want to follow along

My parents moved to California in 1962, Mom's pregnant with my sister, and they decided to make a move, follow a dream if you will.  My life sure would have been different if they hadn't!  

Here's our first apartment.  We lived downstairs, my mom's sister and her family lived upstairs.

And the adventure begins!

Great Grandmother Anna

My latest passion has been genealogy - researching and trying to find family links that I know are there, but have been wanting to find details of them.

This one is of my great grandmother Anna Kringsberg (as she was known in the US) before she married Gr. Grandpa Charley.  But like a lot of other Swedish immigrants, her name was derived as so many of them were in the patronymic --  or Anna Henricksdotter -- but I learned that:

• "Many emigrants changed their surnames on emigration. This was usually not to make it easier to pronounce the name in the new country. Instead many emigrants regarded emigration much as they would a move to town – which “entitled” them to exchange their patronymic for a town name. 
• 
  
• Another reason for changing surname was that patronymics were not understood in America: if you filled out a form where you had to state your father’s name, it would appear that you were illegitimate (a grave social handicap, also in America) since you did not share a family name."

How exciting it was for me to find her in this Swedish household journal!  The information is contains reads as follows:  

Henriksdotter Henriksson, Anna
Hemmadotter (unmarried woman)

b. 4/26/1883 in Södra Finnskoga, Värmlands län (Värmland)

Emigrated 8/1/1886
from Kringsberget, Södra Finnskoga, Värmlands län (Värmland)
to Nordamerika


She was 3 years old when she came to America with her family.  The story goes that they traveled to Warren, MN by train.  Her mother jumped off the train to get some milk for the baby.  It was 1988, and Anna's brother Carl was born in 1887.  Something happened, and she injured her leg badly, and died as a result of this.  (She died Oct 1888).   Anna went to live with Liden and Lundell families.  It wasn't uncommon back in those days for many families to be sharing households as they started their new lives.   (I'll be trying to locate this by following US Census records - I believe it was Peter Liden although it was transcribed as Siden on one occasion).

How exciting it was to finally find facts!
Thanks to "martin48115" who posted the information, Greatly appreciated!

*hApPy DaNcE*

Family Tree

I have the strangest family history.  For years, I took my relative's word about who and where they come from.  And now with the internet so easy to navigate and look things up, I'm finding out things that don't add up in the family tree!

My great Grandfather, William, said he immigrated to the US from Germany with his sister.  While that may be the case, I've now figured out that his sister married a different William, and her mother, Minnie, lived with them, along with another sister.  The US Census from each different decade lists odd little facts, and sometimes you have to piece things together:  ie, a child is no longer listed means they might have moved out? been sent to other relatives? or perhaps died?  There's another rabbit hole to fall down. haha   That's on my mother's side of the family.

On my father's side, I found my grandfather listed as a nephew to Pete -- so I am assuming that is my great grandmother's brother.  Are you following all this??   *laughs*  Yeah, I couldn't either.  Where was my great grandmother? why was my grandfather living with an uncle at age 9?

These are the sort of puzzles I'm trying to figure out -- and piecing together a family history when it seems like EVERYONE back then had the same last names......  maybe we're all more closely related than we assumed!  *smh*

The men, of course, are easier to follow because they don't change their names.  And when a family gives a child an unusual name, that is certainly a good lead to follow as well; much easier to find an "Albin" than it is "John Smith".   *grin*

Have I come up with very much concrete?  Nope, not yet, but each little trail I pick has interesting tidbits along the way and I was able to add 4 people to my family tree, which is now up to nearly 600 names.  Pretty cool, in it's own way.

Anyone else out there into genealogy?
Are you related to anyone famous?