ManyRoads (part of eirenicon llc) is excited to announce our personalized, professional genealogical research services. Our areas of focus historically have been on those areas were we have researched for our own family genealogy and family history including: East & West Prussia (pre-1947; we have special expertise in the area formerly known as Kreis Elbing and Freie Stadt Danzig) the Lost German Eastern Provinces (regions) Shoah – Holocaust Research Quebec (especially in the areas of Quebec City and Montreal down to Vermont/ New York) New York State (especially in the Champlain Valley to Canada) Iowa (especially in Henry, Des Moines and Washington Counties) If you are desirous of a more…

The Senger Family appears to have had a long term link to the lands around Zeyer (see below). I guess it is no wonder that my mother is still so ‘mentally’ attached to this land and region (Es war einmal…). Thank you to Rainer Mueller-Glodde for this note & excerpt: Two years ago (2008) a Dr. Glodde from Berlin, […] tried to find out the meaning of “Glodde”, [and] sent me a shot he made of a document from about 1805 [located] in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz. The subject is the estimation of the size of the Grosse Jacob Glode Buden Kampe [in the area of Zeyer, Westpreußen]. Zum…

Find your friends.  If you run a family history/ genealogy website, building associations and affiliations can be a useful and valuable adjunct to your genealogical efforts. Some of the most interesting and potentially useful affiliations (links) are with are sites and organizations belonging to other family members or family associations.  These family members/ associations need not be particularly close, from a genealogical relationship perspective, but rather simply represent individuals or groups searching for, or providing, information on branches, limbs of your family tree.  It is additionally helpful if their family name obviously links or relates to those most frequently mentioned on your site.  Obvious name linkages make it easier for…

We’ve had some interesting discussions […] lately but I feel that for most of us Elbing and it’s history is far, far away. The people who actually lived there before 1945 are fast becoming a dying breed. In addition, while there is much Information available in German sources, little information can be found in English. Let me store some of my thoughts and a brief historical background on these pages. I was born in Elbing in Dec 1937. My earliest memories are rather vague. See My Story Point is we left under duress with the full expectation to be back in at most 2 weeks. That was the propaganda line.…

Ah, the advantages of hindsight.  Looking back in time and regretting the decisions that were made, the options that were chosen, and the events that occurred is very easy trap to fall in.  Fruitless, but easy.  In fact, spending a lot of time trying to rewrite the past, excuse events or bemoaning their occurrence is, from a family history and genealogical perspective, often counter-productive. The past is gone and not likely to be wished away. The past impacts our current actions, options and choices.  If past actions are not well understood they risk being repeated, and often are. Rather, it is my opinion that the following is much more productive:…

All of us have DNA. Even if we do not know the names of our ancestors, we have DNA. Our family has decided to gather and analyze its DNA materials (matrilineal and patrilineal lines) and see what these DNA lines have to say. We have elected to do this through the genographic project, a partnership between the University of Arizona Research Labs Family Tree DNA association, National Geographic Society and IBM rather than to switch to the program offered by Ancestry.com.  Our reasoning is fairly simple; my father-in-law’s DNA is with NatGeo.  Also, the Genographic program is older and more established; and, this seems like the lowest risk approach. Information…

Acknowledge your sources! Today I received a note from a very important genealogy friend. She asked me if I hadn’t perhaps confused two family members who had similar names thereby giving erroneous credit to the ‘wrong’ person rather than the ‘right’ one. A very important question. It is absolutely essential to provide good and clear attribution to those from whom we source our data. It is important to be as correct as possible in any quotations, images, bibliographies and links. Accuracy requires proofing by your readership (proof-readers, if you are lucky enough to have them) and modification by the family genealogist to reflect appropriate corrections, etc. It is also, unfortunately,…

Over the past few days my email has been clogged with questions about whether or not anyone- everyone was related to royalty.   Well being the geek that I am, I decided to a quick bit of research and here’s what I found out  (these are excerpted for the articles noted at the end of this posting… feel free to read them in their entirety). [A] mathematical study of genealogy indicates that everyone in the world is descended from Nefertiti and Confucius, and everyone of European ancestry is descended from Muhammad and Charlemagne.- Dick Eastman …everyone of European descent has royal ancestry. – Steve Olsen The mathematics of our ancestry is…

PART I JOSEPH YON (JOSEPH DEYO) 1805-1880-PLUS INTRODUCTION Joseph Yon was born around the year 1805. His parents, Ignace Yon (Guyon) and Marie Suzanne Gervais were of the Parish of St. Marc sur Richelieu. It is believed Joseph lived in the area of St. Marc until his marriage at about the age of twenty three. He was a furniture maker of legal age when he married Julienne Denys, daughter of Ignace Denys and Julie Fall. The marriage took place on June 22, 1828 in the parish of St. Cyprien of Napierville, Quebec, Canada. With all the information available it would appear that Joseph and Julienne (Denys) Yon/Deyo had a total…

The [following] was [written] by the author Rita Campbell. We share common ancestors, Moise Dupuis and Ann Christiansen. The story is based on the few facts known about Moise and Ann and general knowledge of the area and times in which they lived. Attempting to tread the paths of a man who passed this way almost 300 years ago is both thrilling and nostalgic; when this man is an ancestor of your family, the task becomes a labor of affection and personal satisfaction. The life of Moise Dupuis is filled with adventure, danger, human frailty and tragedy, but in his own humble way he contributed to the history of his…

Norway offers exceptional internet research facilities for genealogy. Although we have not been working in the Sivertsen family line very long we have uncovered some very helpful web-tools. Thus far we have unearthed several excellent, dare I say indispensable,  tools: Norwegian Historical Data Centre (a wonderful repository) – The Norwegian Historical Data Centre (NHDC) is a national institution under the Faculty of Social Science at the University of Tromsø (UiTø). Our main aim is to computerize the Norwegian censuses 1865 onwards together with the parish registers and other sources from the 18th and 19th centuries. National Archives of Norway – Digitalarkivet (Digital Archives) is the Norwegian National Archives’ channel for…

I have begun in earnest working on Becky’s side of the family.  This means research in both Norway and Sweden has started for me.  As one might expect the available references and information are a ‘tad’ difficult for non-native language speakers; and my German is not really very close to either Norwegian or Swedish! Having said that I must say that the available resources are quite exceptional. I find those from Norway to be a bit more advanced and easier to use (not to mention free!).  Sweden’s are less complete, more awkward technologically and they cost money; unless you go to your local LDS Family History Center for free access.…

Yesterday was a wonderful research day for me. I began seriously researching materials and information to support the work my father-in-law (Robert Henss) had done on the Johansson family line (Becky’, my wife’s, matrilineal line).  With a photocopy of his work in hand, I bravely proceeded into uncharted territory (for me). To assign quanta to my success, I found 17 original source documents.  I’ll post images of them on ManyRoads for me to admire quite soon. In all honesty, I must admit that the bulk of the 17 source documents were actually from the Norwegian side of the family (Sivertsens); there were but a handful from the Swedish (Johansson) side. …