I've had a great genealogy-filled summer this year. Well, at least as "genealogy-filled" as I'm going to get as long as I have children living at home. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that I learned a lot of facts about my family history. To be honest, I didn't learn a whole lot. It's been more about the experiences.
This summer I've met distant relatives, expanded DNA research, gone to conferences, and visited cemeteries. In the process, I had one heck of a road trip.
Join me below the fold for tales of my summer and some smokin' hot genealogy P 0 r N (that's right, grave pics!).
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To start the summer off, I attended a 2-day conference held by Concordia University's Center for Volga German Studies here in Portland. The conference was a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the first Volga German colony, Dobrinka. It happens that my grandmother's ancestors were settlers of Dobrinka in the 1760's.
I've been active in Volga German research these past few years, so I wasn't expecting to learn a whole lot. It was more about being a part of the anniversary. However, through all the presentations I did manage to pick up a number of hints for future research. I also learned some interesting history that I hadn't known before about the early clergy of the Volga-German villages being members of the Moravian Brotherhood.
I also happened to get into a conversation with a nice lady who had ancestors from Dobrinka. She's a member of the Oregon Chapter of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, so I've seen her several times. This was the first time I sat and talked to her. She mentioned one of her family branches was the Rau family. Turns out my grandmother's paternal ancestor Johannes Bischoff married Anna Katharina Rau on the journey from Germany to Russia around 1767. That would make her roughly a 6th cousin (give or take a "removed" or two) to my Dad (she would have been descended from a sibling of Anna's).
What had me most intrigued, however, was that she also was related to the Graf family from Dobrinka. Now, I know for certain that my great-grandfather John Henry Bischoff had a sister who married a Graf. But, their mother died when the children were young and nobody knows who their mother was (the father remarried and had more children). I've suspected that there might be more of a Graf connection, so I asked her to do a DNA test with 23andMe.com to compare against my Dad's test. Their analysis did find a DNA match on 2 segments of DNA with Dad and predicted a 3rd to 6th cousin connection. So it's likely that our only common ancestor is Anna Rau's parents, but there's also a possibility that there is another connection mixed in as well. In other words, the DNA didn't say anything conclusive other than they do share at least one ancestor.
Next up was a genealogy FAIL! due to my introverted nature. We went on a camping trip to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in July. I had found out that I have a 2nd cousin who lives there and was totally going to call him and ask to meet him. Of course, I never got around to making the call. I spent 5 days there and came back home. Gah!
A couple weeks later, I was on the other end of the situation. Through ancestry.com's DNA test, I found a rather close match with my dad. Turns out it was another 2nd cousin (of mine) who lives in the Rexburg, ID area (where Dad was born). We corresponded by email and she said that since she and her husband retired, they enjoy taking trips whenever they can. They decided to drive out to the Oregon coast and spend a couple days in Portland. So of course they stopped by for a short visit. It was great visiting with her. She was even able to identify a photo that my Dad had of one of his cousins but he didn't remember exactly which one it was (his Uncle Henry had like 12 kids).
Finally, the Center for Volga German Studies was hosting another conference in Lindsborg, KS - this one supposedly focusing on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the village Galka. This is where my grandfather and all of his ancestors were from.
This was just a one day conference and most of the presentations were going to be ones that I had already been to in Portland. But... I had a few other incentives for going:
- The only grandson of the man I suspect of being my grandfather's half-brother lives in Missouri.
- My great-grandfather John Henry Bischoff was buried in 1907 in Deerfield, KS in an unmarked grave which I wanted to find and visit.
- My grandmother's brother, Jagor Bischoff, died in 1906 in Sugar City, CO just months after they arrived from Russia. I wanted to see if I could find his grave.
Okay, so THREE other connections to the area gave me the incentive to sign up for the conference and plan the road trip from hell.
In preparation for the trip, I decided to finally read The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan about the families and communities who survived the Dust Bowl. It is a fantastic read and really gave me a perspective I wouldn't otherwise have had as I toured this part of the country. Also, Land of Enchantment had suggested I buy a detailed DeLorme map book for my trip. So, I drove out to Powell's and bought one of Colorado since I didn't know exactly what I would be looking for there.
This time, I wasn't letting my introversion get the better of me. I called up the guy in Missouri to tell him I was going to be in the area and asked if he'd welcome a visit. He was very friendly and more than happy to have me over. He was also willing to give a couple DNA samples: one for 23andMe (an autosomal test) and a Y-DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA to confirm the paternal match with my dad.
So here's what my roadtrip looked like for the first 2 days of my trip:
That's flying into "A" Kansas City around 1 p.m. on Thursday, driving to "B" Wheatland, MO (2 1/2 hours plus about an hour for a lunch stop). Then visiting for what turned out to be several hours. Then a LONG drive back (through Kansas City again) and out to my hotel in "F" Salina, KS (5 hours). I made it to my hotel after midnight.
Now, I knew I had a long day ahead of me so I had to get up early Friday morning to start the drive. But I also was chugging Mountain Dew on the drive from Missouri to keep me awake. So I was WIDE awake when I got to the hotel. It took me a couple hours to fall asleep, only to wake up 3-4 hours later.
Friday's drive started from the hotel in Salina "F"; to Deerfield, KS "D" (3 1/2 hours); on to Sugar City, CO "E" (3 hours); and back to Salina "F" (5 1/2 hours).
Needless to say, I was not in any shape to actually go to the conference on Saturday. But, damn it, I did it anyway!
Okay, on to the pictures!
Visiting the relative in Missouri. This is his grandfather, Gottfried Holstein. Like I said, I have suspected that he is my grandfather's (also named Gottfried) half-brother. So if I'm correct, his (this Gottfried's) father would be the guy in my avatar. Can't say I see a lot of resemblance, but maybe he got his looks from his mother?
Gottfried Holstein (grandpa's half-brother?)
This picture is the guy's father, Friedrich, who would be my dad's cousin (half-cousin?) if I'm correct in my assumptions.
Friedrich Holstein (son of Gottfried above)
I guess since we are all into family history (right!?), I can bore you with some details. I have this Gottfried's baptismal record. He was born in 1873 (since he moved to America and lived here I have his exact birth date from several records which match this baptismal record from Russia). His father was a Friedrich Holstein. The 1857 census has also been preserved in Russia and it shows only two Holstein's named Friedrich: a 16 year old and a 38 year old already married with 5 children. Now, I suppose it's possible that the 38 year old's wife died shortly after 1857 and he married a much younger woman and continued to have several more children through 1878 (the last baptismal record found for Gottfried's parents). But, I would be more likely to accept that his father is the 16 year old (in 1857).
So then, my dad has been adamant that his father told him that his father (Dad's grandfather) died sometime around WWI and would have been about 75 at the time (oh and that his name is Friedrich of course). This would put his birth in the early 1840's, exactly when the 16 year old on the 1857 census was born. So that's it, that's all I have to go on. This is why I wanted the DNA tests! The tests are at the labs and in process now.
Of course, now that I think about it... my grandfather was born in 1890 which would have made his father 49 when he was born. And I'm basing my assumption on thinking that the 1841 Friedrich's first wife (1873 Gottfried's mother) died before 1890 and he remarried and had at least 2 kids into his 50's. So I guess it's not out of the question that the 38 year old (in 1857) Friedrich could be 1873 Gottfried's father. Yeesh! I need death and marriage records from Russia to know for sure! Damn the Bolshevik Revolution!
I already know that the DNA tests are not going to "prove" anything because I know that my grandfather's mother was also a Holstein and her mother was a Holstein. So the Holstein DNA did not get diluted very much - my dad will have a lot higher percentage which will probably overstate the relative closeness to this guy in Missouri.
Anyway... we had a nice visit. His wife showed me a picture of their son who she thought looked a little like me (I could see a bit of a resemblance). Unfortunately, this guy's father (Friedrich) died fairly young when his son was only 15. He never learned very much about his family history and didn't seem to be interested. These seemed to be the only pictures he had of his father and grandfather. After the visit I was on my way to the hotel in Kansas.
My first destination on Friday was the cemetery in Deerfield, KS where Dad's maternal grandfather, John Henry Bischoff was buried in 1907 in an unmarked grave. By shear coincidence, my cousin and his wife had driven through the area earlier this year and managed to find the location of the gravesite by getting the caretaker to pull out ancient maps of the plots. He then took it upon himself to finally give our great-grandfather a headstone after 107 years of being lost. Remarkably, it had been installed earlier that week! I took some flowers with me to lay by the grave.
Great-Grandfather John Henry Bischoff's headstone placed 107 years after his death
Next stop was Colorado. My grandmother's family moved to Sugar City, CO upon arriving in America. It was here that her little brother Jagor died shortly thereafter (probably in 1906). As far as I know, no one knows for sure where he was buried. Being a new immigrant family, they surely didn't have any money for a headstone. I stopped in La Junta (the county seat for the county that Sugar City was in in 1907) to visit the county courthouse and see if they had any records of the death. Unfortunately, they couldn't find anything.
Empty handed, I drove into Sugar City. Oh, I guess this is a good time to note another FAIL!. About an hour into my drive that morning it struck me that I had left my DeLorme map at the bottom of my suitcase back at the hotel. 'doh! Thanks anyway LoE!
Sugar City, Colorado
This is where my reading of the Dust Bowl really paid off. This area is dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Dead. They must have had some rain recently because the area was pretty green. But, on closer inspection I noticed the green wasn't crops, it was all weeds. The dirt under the weeds looked worthless.
Sugar City has a town hall and a post office. That's it. Not even a gas station.
Below is St. Paul's Lutheran Church. It was at St. Paul's that my grandmother's youngest brother (the only one born in America) was baptized. He was born within a month of arriving in Sugar City. Now, he wasn't baptized in this building. Apparently there was another smaller church that was torn down several years after my grandmother's family left for Kansas to make way for this "larger" building that the congregation required at the time.
St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Sugar City, Colorado
With no information on my grandmother's brother's burial, I just wandered around the Sugar City cemetery. I was really taken by many of the graves. The cemetery itself seems fairly run-down even though they are still burying people there.
You can see how most of the cemetery is taken over by weeds.
Sugar City, Colorado Cemetery
I found it interesting that there were so many Latino graves from the 30's - 60's and most of them had hand-chiseled lettering in the headstone.
There were several that are nothing more than a wooden cross. You can see next to this one (to the right) another wooden cross that had fallen over.
Two-parter: this one had crosses all around the boarder listing children and grandchildren.
I like the "Future GrandChildren" cross. Too bad they never added any.
I found this one interesting. I wonder what used to be attached to it?
These next two really struck me. Babies who died 90 and 110 years ago with stones that look fairly recent. Someone must have tracked down an old relative and bought a decent stone for them long after they died. It's what I wanted to do for my grandmother's brother.
Another hand-chiseled stone.
Oh yeah! That's the stuff! Can you imagine the delight in a descendant finding this? They put the Swedish birth place on the grave. I'm not even related and I want to kiss the person who did this.
Not much left of this homemade cross.
Another homemade marker. This one pretty well preserved.
Oh, this one just killed me! Jacob would have been 10 when his baby brother dies at just 7 months of age. 83 years later, he is buried with this baby he hardly knew. What I wouldn't give to hear the story of this family.
Brothers
Another broken cross.
This one somebody at least attemped something of a repair.
A family plot with obviously family still in the area who comes and weeds regularly.
This last one is in German. Most likely a Volga German. This girl would have been born around the time my grandmother's brother died, but she died a year later. Since I couldn't find the grave I was looking for, I ended up leaving the rest of the flowers with her.
A German grave for another baby.
Matthew 9:24
Das Mägdlein ist nicht tot
sondern es schläft
The girl is not dead
but sleepeth
One point of interest. In all these pictures, the weed there is obviously the tumbleweed: aka Russian Thistle which was brought to the mid-west by Volga-Germans. As Timothy Egan wrote in The Worst Hard Time, the russian thistle seeds inadvertently hitched a ride on immigrants' clothes and proliferated all over the plains. Makes me wonder if my grandmother's family brought any seeds that ended up blanketing Sugar City.
Well, that was the end of the road trip. I drove straight back to Salina. The conference the next day was okay, but the one person I was looking most forward to seeing bailed out at the last minute because the conference wasn't big enough to be worth his time. That left mostly only presentations that had already been part of the Portland conference that I had already been to. Oh well, it was just the excuse to go - not the real reason I wanted to go.
On Sunday, I drove back to Kansas City to head back to Portland. On the way I stopped at a restaurant called Runza in Lawrence, KS. This is a fast food chain in Kansas and Nebraska started by a Volga German family. The runza is a Volga-German food: a bread roll filled with meat and cabbage. There are several names for essentially the same thing. My grandmother called them bierocks which is what my dad taught me to make. I couldn't leave Kansas without stopping in at one for a taste. Ummm, let's just say I was not impressed (blech!). I'm sure my grandmother's was much better. Hell, MINE are better! Oh well, at least I know what I'm missing (and am fine with it).